CHAPTER IX.

ON BLUE WATER.

It was very easy to see how the mistake about the buried treasure had been made. Certain Spanish priests, escaping from the Indians, had buried the skull of some Saint which they prized above everything else, and had written down a description of the place where they had buried their “treasure,” so that it might be found again. This writing had fallen into the hands of a pirate chief, who had probably captured and murdered the poor priests, and who of course supposed that if anybody buried a treasure it must consist of gold or precious stones.

I will confess that I was greatly disappointed, for it would have been very pleasant to have become suddenly rich, but I was very young and I did not begin to care so much about it as Bill did; as for Tom, he seemed to think it was a good joke to run so many risks merely to dig up an old skull, and he apparently did not care in the least about losing the fortune that Bill had promised us.

In the morning Bill aroused us early, and said that we must try to launch the boat before the sun should be too hot; so we set to work with a will. We let the medicine man help us, for it was a terrible task to drag the heavy boat through the deep sand. We loosened the rope around his feet, and made him push the boat, which he could do perfectly well with his wrists tied together. But we could never have got the boat through the sand had we not taken out the bottom boards and laid them down for a track over which the keel could slide.

Two hours of hard work were needed before we got the boat to the water’s edge; then we had a breakfast of turtles’ eggs, and put a lot more of them into the boat. We filled the breaker with fresh water, and were then ready to start.

The Indian was much surprised when we took off his lashings and told him, by signs, that he was free. I was astonished to see Bill present him with the chest and the skull, for he had seemed very bitter against the medicine man. But we did not care to take the skull with us, and if the Indian wanted it he was perfectly welcome to it as far as I was concerned. The last we saw of him he was walking up the beach with the chest under his arm.

“That skull will bring that chap the worst luck he ever had. Two priests and four men have been killed already on account of it, and we come mighty near being burnt alive. I’ve served that medicine man out now for spitting in my face, and he’ll wish he had never been born before that skull gets through with him.”

This is all Bill ever said about his great disappointment, and all the time that he was with us he never once mentioned the buried treasure again.

The wind was blowing off shore and there was very little surf; so we launched the boat without any accident. Although we had no compass, the weather was fine, and we had no fear of losing our reckoning so long as we could see the stars at night. Bill advised that we should stand out to sea far enough to be sure that we could not be seen from the shore; for of course we could see the land from a distance when our boat could not be seen by any one standing on the beach.

As Bill was the best sailor of the three he naturally took charge of the boat, though he always treated me as if I was his captain. We ran out to sea under sail for a long distance. When the coast began to look rather dim we hauled up to the northward and started on our voyage to Charleston.

After we had eaten our dinner, Bill said that he felt very tired and sleepy, and that if I would take the steering oar he would lie down. He stretched himself in the bottom of the boat and fell asleep. I think his disappointment, together with the hot sun on the beach, must have had a bad effect on him, for he did not seem at all like himself.

A boy may learn to handle a boat as well as the most skillful seaman, but to read the signs of the weather can only be learned by years of experience. I could handle the boat, but when a low black cloud gathered in the west, I thought it only meant that we should have a shower, and I paid very little attention to it. Tom had followed Bill’s example and was sleeping in the stern sheets, and I was half nodding myself when I heard a strange noise, and, looking to windward, saw an awful sight.

A white wall of water was coming down upon us with a roar that every moment grew louder. One of those terrible tempests which spring up so suddenly in these southern seas was close at hand. It did not seem possible that the boat could live a moment after the gale should strike us. I called loudly to Bill and Tom, and threw the boat’s head up to meet the coming squall; but the wind had shifted a little, and the change in the boat’s course took the breeze out of the sail and left it flapping.

Bill sprang up and saw at once what was the matter. He lowered the sail and unstepped the mast in a moment, calling to Tom and me at the same moment to get out the oars. Then he took the steering oar himself, and heading the boat directly toward the roaring, advancing wall of water, told us to row for our lives.

Tom forgot all about his wounded arm, and we both put our backs into the work till our oars bent. Old Bill stood crouched over the steering oar, and watched the great white roaring swell which was close upon us. “Now give way,” he cried, “and never mind how much water comes aboard. Don’t lose your stroke, if you ever want to see land again.”

In another moment the gale was upon us. The boat dashed partly over and partly through the sea, but although it filled us half-full of water it did not swamp us; the worst of the danger was over almost in an instant. “Keep her head to it,” called out Bill, at the top of his voice, for the wind almost carried his words away from us, “while I bail.” So saying, he seized Tom’s hat and bailed out the water faster than I had ever seen it done before.

It was a long job to get the boat free of water, but Bill did not stop till it was done. There was as yet but little sea on, with the exception of the one great wave which we had passed, for the wind blew so hard that it kept the sea down. However, we knew that before very long there would be a very ugly sea, and we noticed that although we were rowing hard directly in the teeth of the wind we were making stern way all the time. I was not surprised, therefore, when Bill said that we must put the boat before the wind while the sea was yet smooth enough to permit us to do so.

The boat’s sail was a good-sized lug, but there had been no provision made for reefing it. As, however, we had plenty of small cordage of one sort and another in the boat, including fishing lines, Bill soon made shift to reduce the sail to a mere handkerchief, by cutting away more than half of it, and by partly rolling up and lashing the rest of it; so that when it was set there was no danger but that the boat could carry it before the wind, no matter if it were to blow a hurricane. Then we put her directly before the wind, and taking in the oars Tom and I sat up almost on the gunwale—one on either side of the boat—to keep her from rolling, while Bill steered her.

She started like a racer; she fairly flew before the wind. Tom and I were excited by the rapid rate at which we were sailing and had gotten over our fright, but Bill looked anxious.

“We’re all right now, are we not?” I asked him.

“We’ve got a good boat under us, and if we handle her careful she’ll carry us to England or anywhere else, but it’s goin’ to blow harder than it blows now, and you can see for yourself it’s blowin’ us off the coast.”

I had not thought of that, but already the land was out of sight, for the air was thick with fine spray, and I saw that we were in danger of being blown hundreds of miles out to sea, with a short supply of food and water and no compass.

“Just take a look at the water breaker, will you,” said Bill, “and see if it is tight.”

I went forward to where the breaker was stowed and found that it was all right; but when I looked at the bag of sea biscuit, I found it soaked with water, while all but seven of the turtles’ eggs were broken, probably because Bill had stepped on them while working with the mast and sail.

“Seven eggs,” said Bill thoughtfully; “if we serve out half an egg a day to each man, that’ll be about four days’ provisions. It’s a good job the water’s all right, for if we’ve got water we can live four or five days without food. So cheer up, my lads; we’ll weather this gale and fetch Charleston yet.”

Tom groaned at the prospect of only half a turtle’s egg a day, for he was rather fond of eating, but there was no help for it, and I knew that he would not grumble when it came to real starving.

The wind blew harder and harder, and by degrees the sea got up until there was great danger that a following sea would come aboard and swamp us. Bill took a strip of canvas that had been cut from the sail, and telling Tom and me to sit one on each side of him, he passed the canvas behind our backs, bringing the ends in front of us, and so made a sort of breakwater that partly kept out the seas. Still every now and then a sea would strike us on the back and nearly knock the breath out of us, and of course more or less of it would get into the boat. After a while Bill gave me the steering oar while he bailed, and after that he and Tom and I took turns in steering and bailing—two of us being always in the stern sheets to break the force of the seas.

The sun was hidden by clouds and mist, and although we knew that the wind had come from the west we could not tell if it still blew from the same direction, and in consequence we could not feel sure to what quarter of the compass we were drifting. Still Bill was cheerful and said that we might be in a far worse condition than that in which we found ourselves. He had once been in a boat with sixteen men and not a drop of water, he said, and assured us that we should certainly be picked up in the course of a few days.

I will not dwell long on the story of our wild run before the gale. That we were in great danger all that day and the next night I knew very well, but we were mercifully preserved. Tom and I always felt that we owed a great deal to Bill’s skillful seamanship.

The next morning the wind died away almost as suddenly as it had sprung up, and in an hour or two the sea had gone down so that it was no longer dangerous. We were in hopes that we would be able to lay a course for the American coast again, but when the wind came up it came from the northwest, and we knew that it would be useless to try to work the boat to windward.

Bill took advantage of the calm to repair the sail, sewing the part that he had cut off to the rest of the sail with fishing-line, and making holes in the canvas with the point of his knife instead of using a needle. When he had finished his work he set the sail and turned the boat’s head to the south.

“We can’t work to wind’ard in this boat and get anywhere while our food and water hold out,” said he, “so the best thing we can do is to run to the south’ard and find some island where we can revictual. There’s the Bermudas and the Bahamas and the West Indies. They’re all somewhere to the south’ard of us, and all we have to do is to stand to the south’ard till we find them; and I don’t believe it will be very long before we find them, ’specially if we get a fresh northerly breeze.”

The northwest wind sprang up very gently at first, but it soon freshened and the boat slipped on before it at a rate of at least six knots an hour. It was a good steady breeze, and we were able to take turns in sleeping, leaving only one of us to manage the boat.

We saw no land that day, but early the next morning we sighted an island directly ahead of us. We were so hungry that Tom and I suggested that as we were so certain to be on shore in a few hours, we could, without danger, eat all the turtles’ eggs. Bill, however, would not listen to this.

“Sightin’ land is one thing,” said he, “but makin’ it’s another. We may be blown off again before we can make a landin’, or we may land and find nothin’ to eat. Only half an egg apiece for us to-day, young masters, unless we get ashore and find plenty of provisions.”

We saw that the old man was right and agreed to follow his advice, although we felt as if we were starving.

But we reached the island before noon and landed on a little beach where trees grew almost down to the water. Tom and I were overjoyed at being ashore once more, but Bill was not so well satisfied. He cautioned us not to make much noise, for pirates often landed on uninhabited islands, and we might find that we had sailed into a nest of pirates.

“We’ll all explore the island together,” said Bill, “but we’ll do it as quietly as we can till we find out if we are alone here. We’ve got to find a spring of water here, and I hope we’ll find somethin’ to eat, but so far I don’t see anythin’.”

We hauled the boat up on the sand, and taking our guns we entered the woods. The trees and underbrush were so thick that it was plain that nobody had passed through the woods in a long time, and this gave us reason to hope that there were no pirates on the island. But after reaching the top of a steep hill that we had seen from the beach, Bill suddenly stopped and whispered, “I see the spars of a vessel.”

He was a little in advance of me, and I cautiously made my way to him. We were just at the top of the little hill and could see below us, in what appeared to be a land-locked cove, the spars of a vessel that I instantly knew to be our old brig the Swansea.