CHAPTER XX.

THE ADMIRAL’S YARN.

“I guess that’s right, captain,” was Admiral Eccles’ quiet comment when Dartmoor had finished his yarn. “You always were able to do your share of eating, even on ordinary occasions.”

There was silence for a while, then Nick, who knew that Admiral Eccles was a storehouse of good stories, ventured to say:

“Won’t you tell us one, admiral?”

“Yes; give us a yarn,” urged the other lads.

For a moment the old sailor did not answer, but at length, cocking an eye upward, he began:

“And so, lads, you would like to have a yarn from me. Well, I’ll tell you the story of what I am a little too fond, it may be, of calling ‘My Strange Christmas Day on an Iceberg.’

“Aye, strange enough I did think it at the time, too. As you must know, my boys, it was only my second voyage, and I wasn’t very much bigger than Master Nick here, then. Very likely, if the truth was all told, I was a bit awkward and wild, as lads are apt to be still, I fear. But, bless you, that voyage, or, rather, its ending, was enough to sober anybody. I’ve never forgotten it, and if the rest of my mates are still alive, I don’t expect any one of them has, either.

“When I was sixteen years old the time came for me to leave school, and my parents--who were comparatively well to do--wished to put me into a wholesale grocery house, where I should have had a very good chance, indeed, of rising.

“I rebelled. My mind was set on going to sea. My bookcase was cram full of Marryat’s novels, naval wars, maps, compasses, and a big treatise on navigation that I had picked up at a bookstall, and could no more comprehend than Joanna, the cook. I pleaded with all the hot, eloquent force of boyhood in favor of the ocean life of my fancy.

“My father called me a fool, and bade me at once make my mind up for business.

“‘For into business you go, my lad,’ he said.

“I wasn’t quite so sure, for if neither argument, nor passion, nor tears were of any avail, there was still an alternative, and I meant to take it.

“I did. I ran away to sea.

“When I came back from that first voyage, after an absence of nearly eight months, I was still in love with the briny, and still resolute in my determination to be a sailor.

“I had undergone not a little hardship of one kind or another, but it had not altered me. My relatives--with whom, despite my evil conduct, I had corresponded as often as circumstances would allow--placed, this time, no obstacles in the way of my ambition. On the contrary, they did their best to give me a good start on my second trip--a kindness which you must grant, my boys, I had not deserved at their hands.

“Thus it came about that I sailed again on board the _Vanthy_, a merchantman, bound for the cod fisheries of Newfoundland.

“As we neared the Newfoundland Banks, heavy fogs again and again overtook us, and the morning of the twenty-fourth of December found the _Vanthy_ enveloped in one, if possible, denser and thicker than before.

“The very masts, a few feet above our heads, became as though they were not, in the thick, yellowy vapor. And with the fog a strange, ominous stillness had crept over the deep. Once or twice since then I have noted that peculiar, inexplicable silence--like the hush before the storm--and always peril has been born of it.

“It was a stillness broken only by two sounds: the voices of captain and sailors issuing and answering orders, and the constant, regular wash, wash of the somber-colored waves against our vessel’s sides.

“A great quantity of watching and working had fallen to my share during the small hours of the night that was past, and so I seized the first chance I could get to slip below and take a brief spell of rest.

“It was not to be.

“Hardly had I tossed myself into my hammock when a terrific shock dashed me out again with much violence upon the boards beneath.

“My experience was limited, and the first thing that struck my mind was that we had run on shore.

“Hastily I scrambled to my feet and up on deck, to see there, looming weirdly up in the fog that, now the mischief was done, was beginning slowly to evaporate, the awe-inspiring form of a gigantic iceberg, a sight that would have appalled, nay, had appalled, stouter hearts than mine.

“Upon that iceberg it seemed we had struck with irretrievable damage to the _Vanthy_, stout and thoroughly seaworthy though the good ship was--no mere cockleshell or refurbished coffin ship, I can tell you.

“The captain’s voice broke through the tumult. Curiously calm it seemed to me, for I barely gave it a thought that at such a crisis a single moment’s indecision or want of self-control on the part of authority may mean the loss of many a valuable life, let alone a vessel’s cargo.

“‘Order, my men,’ he said. ‘This will never do. We have, as you know, been rammed by this iceberg. The ship has sprung leaks which no carpenter can repair. The collision has stove in our boats. Our only hope is to take refuge on the ice floe; the part nearest looks too steep, but I think it may be done farther round. What do you say? Shall we try? Luckily the sea is calm, or even that may be impossible,’ he added, in an undertone, and to himself alone; yet, standing as I did at the instant close to the speaker, I caught it, and in some small degree it served to reassure me.

“If Captain Beach did not despair, why need I?

“‘Aye, aye! Try, sir,’ gruffly responded the men.

“They were willing, and more than willing, eager, as the captain well knew, to embrace this chance of at least temporary safety.

“So we set to work as men only can work when life or death is the issue.

“Some, by plugs, did what was possible in the way of stopping the leaks. Some, in gangs, kept the pumps going; the remainder, under the carpenter’s directions, toiled at the making of the raft which was to carry us across.

“It was a great pity, the disaster to our boats, for if they had been spared us we might have got away to shore without difficulty.

“They were gone, however, and it was of no use crying over spilt milk; we worked instead.

“A light skiff packed away below--a whim of the chief mate’s, it was said to be--was fished up and sent off with the one occupant it alone had room for, on a trip of discovery around the berg.

“The man returned with the welcome news that the captain’s surmise was right. On the opposite side, he said, there was both space for a landing--on ice--and accommodation within reach for us all. Once thereon, we might easily contrive to rig some sort of a shelter.

“Well, we were not long, I need scarcely say, when the raft was once made, in setting about our departure from the doomed _Vanthy_. And not a moment too soon, either, for that vessel was now settling lower and lower into the placid bosom of the ocean. We took across, as best we could, food, water, blankets, wraps, canvas, rope, and whatever of a portable nature we were likely to urgently require. If some of us looked out for what few valuables we had it’s not to be wondered at--they were not many.

“Then began the task of filing off the crew.

“We were obliged to divide our company into three sections to get them over in anything like safety, for both the raft and the space of time in which to use it were narrow--the latter much more narrow than anybody thought, and it was, doubtless, owing to this unfortunate miscalculation that the disaster which followed came.

“Two of the parties had been conveyed across in safety, myself in the second batch; the raft had been piloted back for the last time, and the men were seen climbing down the ship’s side onto it, when--as we watched from that corner of the floe from which we could get a distant side view--the battered _Vanthy_ was seen to be going down, dragging with her into the vortex our raft, and the poor fellows who were already on it. So we were compelled to witness, in dire agony of soul and utter impotence for aid, the sinking into a watery grave of those who for long months had been our companions and friends. It was an awful spectacle; one that even now, boys, almost overwhelms me. One man, and one only, of all those left behind for that fatal third trip managed to swim close enough to be picked up and rescued--thus far--by the skiff.

“The one proved to be the captain.

“When I parted with him in port many days afterward, he seemed, I declare, fully ten years older than when we first sailed together; and not much wonder, eh, lads?

“The rest of that memorable day we occupied in making ourselves as comfortable as was possible in our cold quarters, sheltering as best we might under the overhanging brows of ice.

“Night came slowly on. The cold was simply intense.

“One by one the pale, glittering stars of the northern constellation broke in upon our loneliness, and the clear, calm moon drifted pitiless up into the sky.

“We needed no telling that if one of our number should fall asleep there, unnoticed, and hence unmolested by his comrades, it was more than probable that he would wake no more in the land of the living, rescue or no rescue.

“We talked, we told stories--grim ones they were--we even tried to sing; and thus the long, dreary hours of the night paced on.

“Morning dawned, gray and misty again--the blessed Christmas morn! Rations were served out in the usual order, and a sharp lookout was kept--I’ll warrant you, by all without exception--for some passing vessel that might be to us an angel of rescue. None came, nor sign of any, and that ‘strange,’ as I truly called it, Christmas day left us as it found us--cold, miserable, and tormented with a sleepiness we dared not indulge.

“Not many miles away--for we could not be far from land now--happy households were keeping the festive season in merry, orthodox fashion; we thus; doubting much whether there would ever again be any chance of our joining in the like.

“In what direction the iceberg was drifting, or if, indeed, it moved at all, was very hard to say.

“We waited, and well-nigh despaired.

“However, the next morning, as we were trying to gulp down the sorrowful meal that did duty for breakfast, a joyful shout rang from the man on the chief watch:

“‘A sail! a sail!’

“How those brief syllables nerved anew every heart in our little group. What wild pulsations of joy and reviving hope they kindled in our veins! With eager, straining eyes we gazed out over the boundless water waste to the distant southern horizon. There a large vessel was slowly looming into view. We stayed our breath in very dread, lest at any instant she should prove to be that horrible _Flying Dutchman_, a messenger of death, and not of life.

“But, no; she approached nearer and yet nearer.

“Would those on board note the tragedy that lay before them? That was for us now the all-important question.

“For some time the ship kept right on in her straight-ahead course, apparently bearing right down upon us. But at length we grew conscious of an alarming change of tactics. As might have been expected, the vessel’s course was being altered, with the intention of giving the floe in front as wide a berth as was practicable. For her crew, it was just an ordinary measure of precaution, nothing more and nothing less; but to us it meant very probably sheer destruction, and that by one of the most awful of all lingering deaths. Ah, the agonized despair of that moment, lads, stamped, as it is, indelibly upon my memory!

“Hurriedly, one of our party--it chanced to be myself--climbed with numbed limbs, and hands, and feet, that soon became torn and bleeding against the rough, jagged edges of ice, to the highest attainable peak overhead, and hung out thereupon a signal of distress--a patched blue jacket stripped from one of the shivering wretches below. Anything to attract attention to our forlorn and desperate condition.

“Then, with parched lips but still lusty voices, we shouted together. Once; no answer. Again; and every instant now those on deck of this passing ship were becoming less and less likely to have their notice drawn by any means to us. Again, and with redoubled force in the extremity of our woe, we shouted. And again no answer. Again and yet again we cried aloud with all the concentrated energy of our sailor lungs, and the fourth time several of our fellows fancied that a faint answering shout broke the harassing stillness that succeeded our efforts. Once more we halloed together, and launched the skiff as well.

“But this time there could not longer be any doubt of the joyful fact that we were heard. A half shifting of the vessel’s course, a louder, more distinct cheer, followed by the booming of a gun, proclaimed it; and very soon a boat was seen putting off from the ship’s side and coming toward us.

“It was, however, but too clear that their boat could not be safely brought near enough to the ice mass for us to have merely to step down into it as we had previously stepped up from our raft. We were, therefore, under the necessity of going to the ledge of ice nearest our deliverers, and from thence leaping into the sea and swimming to them.

“But what cared we for that?

“Life was in the deed, and one by one we accomplished it; those who could barely swim a yard--not so uncommon a thing among sailors as you might think--being very unceremoniously hauled into the boat by their comrades. Four of our wrecked crew, even then, were obliged to stay on their disagreeable refuge a bit longer, to prevent the risk of overcrowding. It was not a great while, though, and we were soon together again--a nice little bundle of castaways. Once privileged to find our tired feet again on wooden boards instead of cold, glittering ice, more than one or two of our poor fellows pretty nearly ‘knocked under,’ as the saying goes. What with the intense cold, the want of rest, the awful danger they had fronted, the alternate despair and rapture of the rescue, I don’t think that that is at all a matter for surprise.

“A short period of quietude, and the kindly attentions of the ship’s doctor and his medicine chest, soon, however, brought them around. As for myself, I was well again in much less time than any one would have imagined, considering my youth and the tender sort of bringing up I had had.

“The vessel that had effected so opportune a rescue was the _General Washington_--her destination New York, at which port she did not take long in arriving.

“Many and many a voyage I’ve taken since then, as you well know, my boys, to all parts of the globe almost, and not few are the ‘hairbreadth escapes’--as folks call them--through which I’ve been; but, somehow, whether because of my comparative inexperience at the time, I cannot say, not one has impressed me so much as My Strange Christmas Day on an Iceberg.”

After this yarn the boys turned in for the night, and had a good sound sleep.

At noon of the next day the watch aloft called out:

“Bear south by west!”

“Helm true! What is it?”

“A sail!”

The admiral paced the deck in a fever of excitement. Nick’s heart beat faster.

The man aloft kept his eye glued to the glass. A few minutes more and he called out again:

“Double-rigged--a schooner!”

A flutter went the rounds of the crew. The admiral uttered an exclamation of delight. Nick could not repress a hearty “Hooray!”

Fifteen minutes passed. The men on the deck could now see a dim speck on the horizon. All were excited, for success meant a prize award to all of them.

“Two pennants flying!” came the next report from the forearm.

“Can you make them out?” shouted the captain.

“Ay, sir.”

“What are they?”

“The red, white, and blue of America!”

A cheer interrupted him.

“And a heart and--it looks like a wreath!”

A wild yell of delight rent the air.

“The _Regent_!” cried Admiral Semmes and Nick Collins as they clasped hands in their outburst of joy.