"Oh, no, never mind," replied Mr Meldrum. "There's not the slightest necessity for it, for I believe we brought away all the provisions that were left in her, and we'd find little enough now! I only thought we might secure some more of the timber work, as there doesn't seem to be a particle of wood on the island."
"We'd better wait till she breaks up, sorr," said Mr McCarthy; "sure and it'll float in thin to us, widout the throuble of fetching it."
"All right!" answered the other. So the contemplated last trip to the stranded vessel would have been abandoned, had not Florry at that moment rushed up to her father.
"Oh, poor puss!" she exclaimed, half-crying and almost breathless with excitement as she clung to his arm and looked up into his face entreatingly.
"Puss!" repeated Mr Meldrum in astonishment; "what puss?"
"The--the--poor pussy cat we used to play with in the cabin," sobbed Florry. "It was shut up by the stewardess, and has been left behind in the ship!"
"Yes, sir," said Mary Llewellyn, who with Kate had followed Florry. "I clean forgot the creature in the flurry of coming away. I locked it in the pantry, as it seemed frightened and was scurrying about the cuddy; and when we went on deck, I didn't think to take it out, so there it'll be starved to death, or drownded!"
"It was my fault as well," interposed Kate, looking quite as unhappy as her sister and the stewardess. "I told Mary to lock it up."
"Be jabers!" ejaculated the first mate, "it'll never do to lave it there. Sure and we'd be onlucky altogether if a cat came to harm in the old ship! I didn't know it was aboord at all, at all. Sure an' there's no knowing but what all our misfortunes have been brought about by the same baste, bad cess to it?"
"Oh, Mr McCarthy!" exclaimed Kate, "how can you believe that?"
"Sure, and I mane it," answered the Irishman promptly, as if he put the greatest faith in the superstition.
"Well," said Mr Meldrum, "I'm sorry for the poor animal; but it will have to stop there now! The sea is very rough, and I would hardly like to risk men's lives to save a cat!"
"I'll go back for it, sir," volunteered Frank Harness with a look at Kate, which said as plainly as looks could speak that he was ready to do a good deal more than that to please her. "You were speaking just now of sending off the jolly-boat to fetch what we could from the wreck; so we can bring the poor cat on shore at the same time."
"Yes, I certainly did suggest that just now," said Mr Meldrum; "but, as Mr McCarthy pointed out, there is a good deal of sea on, and--"
"Sure, but I said, sorr, I'd go if you liked," interrupted the first mate eagerly, not wishing to be behindhand when Frank had offered; "and, faix, I'm ready at once."
"Let the durned animile slide," put in Mr Lathrope. "It ain't worth a cent, much less such a tall price as yar life."
"No, we won't," said Mr McCarthy, all anxiety now to start. "Who'll volunteer to go back to the wreck and save the cat!" he called out aloud.
"I will," and "I," and "I," cried out several of the seamen, laughing and passing all sorts of chaff about the expedition; and soon there were more than enough offers to man the jolly-boat twice over if all had been taken who offered.
Ben Boltrope was one of the first to stand out; but Mr Meldrum at once motioned him back.
"You must not go," said he. "I shall want your carpentering aid very soon, and can't spare you." It was the same with some others amongst the hands, Mr Meldrum picking them out as they stepped forwards.
Before long, however, a crew was selected; when, the jolly-boat being run down into the water by the aid of a dozen other willing hands, besides her own special crew, she was soon on her way back to the scene of the wreck of the _Nancy Bell_--McCarthy steering her, and Frank Harness, who would not relinquish his privilege of going in her after having been the first to volunteer, pulling the stroke-oar, no idlers being wanted on board. Kate looked at him and waved her hand in adieu as the boat topped the heavy rolling waves and got well out into the offing; and, after that, Frank did not mind what exertion he had to go through.
It was a long pull and an arduous one, although, in spite of Mr McCarthy's warning to the contrary, there was nothing dangerous in the accomplishment of the feat. The first mate had probably felt a little lazy when he endeavoured to set Mr Meldrum at first against the expedition, for after a couple of hours' hard work, having the tide to contend with most of the way, they easily managed to approach the reef and bring up the boat under the vessel's stern, where the side ropes and slung chair, which they had omitted to remove on board the raft remained just as they had left them, swinging about to and fro as the wind brushed by, causing them to oscillate with its breath.
On climbing up to the deck, they found the poop pretty much the same, but the forward portion of the ship had all broken to pieces, hardly a timber being left, save part of the forefoot or cut-water, which had got jammed in between the rocks along with the anchor-stock, the heavy mass of iron belonging to which must have fallen down below the surface when the topgallant forecastle was washed away.
Going down into the cuddy, Frank could hardly at first believe that its former tenants had quitted it for good and all, for the cabin doors were thrown wide open, and dresses and other articles of feminine attire scattered about--one special shawl of Kate's, which he readily recognised as the one she had on her shoulders the night they had watched the stars together in the South Atlantic, being placed over the back of the captain's chair at the head of the table, as if the owner had just put it down for a minute and was coming back to fetch it. He at once took charge of this, besides collecting sundry other little articles which he thought Kate might want; but he was soon interrupted in his quest of feminine treasure-hunting by a mewing and scratching at the door of the steward's pantry, which made him recollect all at once what had been the ostensible object of his mission on board the vessel.
"Gracious goodness!" he exclaimed, speaking to himself, for Mr McCarthy was busy raking amongst his clothes in his own cabin, also oblivious to the fate of the poor feline for whom they had come aboard the ship. "I almost forgot the cat after all. Puss, Pussy, poor Puss!" and he wrenched open the pantry door, setting the animal free.
If ever mortal cat purred in its life, or endeavoured to express its pleasure and satisfaction by walking round and rubbing itself against a person, raising and putting down its fore-feet alternately, with the toes extended, as if practising the goose step or working on some feline treadmill, why that cat did then. The poor animal could not speak, of course, but it really seemed to utter some inarticulate sounds that must have been in cat language a paean of joy and praise and thanks at its deliverance; and, finally, in a paroxysm of affection and endearment, it turned itself head over heels on the cabin floor in front of Frank.
"Poor Puss; poor little thing!" said the young sailor, taking it up in his arms. "I believe I would have come back for you even if it hadn't been to oblige Kate--my darling!" and he kissed the fur of the animal as he held it in his arms, as if he considered it for the time being her deputy.
Judging by several well-picked bones that could be noticed lying on the deck of the pantry, Frank assured himself that Puss had not been starved since she had been locked up; and, indeed, she could not have been in any serious want, as there was a freshly-cut ham on one of the shelves and a round of spiced beef, which she had not touched, both of which Frank took the liberty of appropriating for the benefit of those on shore.
Then, still in company with Puss, who would not leave his side, he imitated the example of the first mate, and selected a coat or two and a change of clothes from out of his own sea-chest. He did not forget the others either, but gathered together various garments which he saw lying about in the captain's cabin and that of Mr Meldrum, thinking that both might perhaps be glad of them bye and bye.
Beyond what Frank had found in the pantry, however, neither he nor Mr McCarthy could discover any provisions, or other things that might be useful on shore, save the unbroken half of the cuddy skylight. This they carefully lowered down into the jolly-boat, for the glass framing would come in handy for the windows of any house they built--Mr Meldrum having hinted on the previous evening of some more substantial structure being necessary than the tent, which had been only put up for temporary accommodation on their first landing on the island.
The several articles that had been collected being now put on board the jolly-boat, in addition to the accommodation chair, which was cut from the slings, at McCarthy's especial request, and lowered down on board--"jest to plaze the meejor," as he said, alluding to Mrs Negus's weakness for sitting in high places during the voyage. Frank then descended with the cat in his arms and took a seat in the stern-sheets, the first mate very good-naturedly pulling the stroke-oar on the return journey in his place; and, all these little matters being thus arranged, Pussy's rescuers started again for the shore. The tide, luckily, was with them all the way; so they accomplished the distance back to the beach inside the fiord in very nearly half the time they had taken in rowing out to the ship--getting everything ashore and the jolly-boat hauled up safely beyond high-water mark with none of the trouble they had anticipated on setting out, the wind and sea having both calmed down in the interim.
Kate's thanks to Frank need not be alluded to:-- they were simply inexpressible; but, if Puss is described to have been pleased when she was first released from captivity and an untimely end on board the shipwrecked vessel, what can be said for her raptures now that she was landed on _terra firma_--which she probably had never expected to see again--especially when she recognised the bevy of old friends amongst whom she found herself alive once more.
"I guess," said Mr Lathrope, as he watched her affectionate antics, "the stoopid old cuss will purr herself to potato parings, and rub all her darned fur inter a door-mat with joy!"
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
AN AFTERNOON CALL.
"I'm glad you brought the skylight," said Mr Meldrum to the first mate when the excitement attending the return of the boat's crew with Miss Pussy had somewhat calmed down. "Its the very thing we'll want presently!" He then proceeded to show Mr McCarthy what he and those who had remained ashore had done during the absence of the others.
Adjoining the site of the tent, and under the lee of a sort of gable-end of the cliffs, a piece of ground had been cleared of the snow close to a freshwater tarn some little distance above the sea-shore, where it was not affected by the tide; and here the land had been levelled in the form of a parallelogram, some thirty feet long by twenty wide, round which a trench had been dug about a foot deep.
At the four corners of this, stout posts, selected from some of the deck-beams of the _Nancy Bell_ that had been secured for the under- structure of the raft, were set up in holes excavated of such a depth that they would firmly resist any lateral pressure brought to bear against them by the wind; and, round the top of these uprights, a scantling of deal had been nailed on, thus making the framework of a good-sized cottage.
Mr McCarthy was quite surprised at the progress made.
"You've been pretty busy, sorr," he said. "Be jabers, you'll have a cabin built in no time!"
"Yes," replied Mr Meldrum, "we have got along; but you must remember we've had fourteen hands at work besides the carpenter, including Mr Lathrope and myself; and such a number of men, when their labour has been systematically divided, can accomplish a good deal in a short time.
I wish we had some more timber, though! We've got the roof yet to make, and a partition or two in the inside for the proper division of the building. I have planned out a separate room for the ladies, and one for us men; in addition to a general sort of apartment, where we can all have our meals together, and which will serve as a store-room as well."
"Sure an' you don't think, sorr, we'll have to live here long!" said the first mate, a little alarmed at the magnitude of the other's plans.
"Indeed I do," answered Mr Meldrum. "It is now only the beginning of August, which is the worst season here, as I mentioned to poor Captain Dinks; and the winter will probably last from four to five months; during which time, according to all accounts that I've read of the place, we may expect to experience the most bitter weather, and have to depend entirely on our own resources; for, none of the whaling schooners that go seal-hunting in these parts ever visit the island, as far as I know, before November or December--and even then they go generally to the eastern side and do not come here! Before that time, however, that is as soon as the snow melts and the spring sets in, we'll have to try and cross over the land to one of the harbours which the whalers frequent, and which I've got marked on the chart. Until that period, Mr McCarthy, as you must perceive, we will have to remain here; so it is best for us to try and be as comfortable as we can under the circumstances. Last night, as you know, it was cold enough in all conscience; but that will be nothing to what we may expect later on when the regular gales and sea-fogs and snowstorms set in, and they continue for weeks, I believe!"
"Begorrah, it's a bad look-out!" said the mate,--"a bad look-out, anyway!"
"It is; there's no good of our blinking the fact," replied the other,--"but, still, other shipwrecked crews have borne worse hardships than we'll have to contend with, and, you know, what men have done men may do! I wish we had some more of the poor old ship's planks, however.
Besides their being necessary for completing our house properly, we shall want a large supply of them for fuel during the next four months."
"Sure and they'll float ashore," said the mate.
"I don't know about that," responded Mr Meldrum. "You said just now, when you returned in the jolly-boat, that all the bows and forward parts of the vessel had been washed to pieces; and yet, of all that wreckage not a single scrap came ashore here to tell the tale before you brought the news:-- what do you think of that, eh!"
"Be jabers, it's all that blissid current that takes it back agin! Sure an' I've sane it floating in foreninst the land myself."