"Well, we'll have to try and baulk the current, then," said Mr Meldrum.
"We must keep a good look-out on the ship; and, as soon as we see that the stern has broken up, the jolly-boat will have to be manned and cruise about to pick up and tow ashore whatever timber and stray planks may be seen."
"Right you are, sorr," replied Mr McCarthy. "I'll say to that!"
"Say, mister," interposed the American, who had remained silent during the deliberations of the other two, although he was supposed to be present at the council and a deliberative member. "How'll the grub last all that air time! Twenty-seven folks all told, as I've kalkerlated 'em, take a powerful lot of feedin' in four months!"
"Ah!" said Mr Meldrum, "that's a serious consideration. However, with that lot of penguins there,"--and he pointed to the little colony of the quaint birds, which were still croaking and grumbling at them, not having yet become accustomed to their strange visitors,--"I don't think we'll starve! Besides these gentry, too, there will be lots more sea- fowl, and perhaps some land ones as well. Still, it will be advisable, Mr Lathrope, as you have introduced the subject, to take stock of all the stores we have, and Master Snowball must be instructed to be not quite so lavish in his display at dinner-time as he was yesterday."
"Sorry I spoke," said Mr Lathrope, rather chop-fallen at the way in which his suggestion had been taken. "I didn't want you to cut short the vittles, but only to kinder kalkerlate!"
"I'm just doing that," replied the other, "and we'll see what we've got to depend upon at once."
As the American had remarked, they were just twenty-seven souls in all: _Imprimis_, Captain Dinks--whose wound evidently was progressing favourably, for he had lost all those feverish symptoms that were apparent the day previous and was now in a sound sleep, after eating some thin soup which Snowball had concocted for him by Mr Meldrum's direction--Mr McCarthy, Adams, Frank Harness, Ben Boltrope the carpenter, and Karl Ericksen the rescued Norwegian sailor, besides Snowball and thirteen others of the crew of the _Nancy Bell_, making twenty of those belonging to the ship; while, of the passengers, there were six--Mr Meldrum, Kate, Florry, Mrs Major Negus and her son and only hope Maurice, and lastly, though by no means least, Mr Lathrope-- the grand total, with the stewardess, who must not be forgotten, coming exactly to seven-and-twenty.
Now, to feed all this large family, they had brought ashore on the raft three barrels of salt beef and four of pork, six hams uncooked, besides the one which Frank had removed from the steward's pantry along with the round of spiced beef on his visit to the ship in search of the cat; some four dozen eight-pound tins of preserved meats and vegetables; about a couple of hundredweight of flour; five bags of biscuit; a few bottles of spirits; and sundry minor articles, such as pickles and salt, and one or two pots of preserves--not a very considerable amount of provender, considering the number of souls to be supplied, and the length of time Mr Meldrum thought it wise to estimate that the provisions would have to last.
Just as they were rolling back the casks under the shelter of the tent, Maurice Negus rushed up to Mr Meldrum in company with Florry, both of the children being intensely excited evidently about something they had seen or heard.
"Oh crickey!" cried out the former before he had quite got up to the party, so as to have the first voice in the matter,--"Do come! There's an awful long thing just crawled out of the sea, and it is creeping up to the tent as fast as it can!"
"Yes," chorussed Florry, "and it's like the seals we saw in the Zoological Gardens; only it's twice as big and has a long trunk like an elephant!"
"Jeehosophat!" exclaimed Mr Lathrope, feeling for his revolver. "It must be a rum outlandish animile, if it's like that!"
"Zee-oliphant," said Karl Ericksen, the Norwegian sailor, in his broken English. "He is not harmful:-- he good for man eat."
"Snakes and alligators! that's prime anyhow, I reckon," put in Mr Lathrope. "I guess this air animile'll save your old stores, mister, hey?"
"I hope so," answered Mr Meldrum. "Although I've never tasted seal beef myself, I have heard it's very fair when you can't get the genuine article; the whalers generally use it, at all events, some of them even thinking it a dainty. But, let us go and see this sea-elephant that the children have discovered!"
They did not have to go far; for, the queer-looking amphibious creature had by this time crawled up on to the rocks close outside the tent, and was quite near to where they were standing--the Norwegian sailor having already seen and recognised its species before he spoke.
The animal was a gigantic sort of seal, some twenty-five feet in length and quite five high. If big, it was certainly also most unwieldy, for it appeared to waddle up from the shore with the greatest difficulty.
Its body was covered with a short brown fur, with lighter hair of a dun colour under the throat; and, what gave it the singular appearance whence its name of "sea-elephant" was probably more derived than from its size, was the pendulous nostrils, which hung down over its mouth, just like the proboscis or long trunk of the children's old friend, "Jumbo."
Karl Ericksen had managed to rummage out a harpoon one day amongst the odds and ends in the forecastle of the _Nancy Bell_, and the sailor having been familiar with its use from long whaling experience, had not forgotten to bring it ashore when they abandoned the wreck--looking upon the weapon with almost as much veneration as Mr Lathrope regarded the rifle he had inherited from the celebrated Colonel Crockett.
This harpoon Karl now brought forth, approaching the seal with the obvious intention of despatching it summarily; when another evidence of its elephantine character was displayed, well justifying its title.
As the sailor came up to it and raised the harpoon to strike, the animal raised itself on its fore-flappers, snarling and emitting a hollow roar which startled everybody near, causing them to jump away, and give it a wide berth; while at the same time it erected its nose so that it stood out quite stiff, more than a foot long, and, opening its mouth, it exposed the bright scarlet palate and gullet, from the bottom of which its hoarse bellow proceeded. Karl, however, was not frightened by the sea-elephant's rage, but with a single swinging blow from his harpoon on the snout stretched it lifeless on the ground, when all were better able to appreciate its enormous size. Its girth alone exceeded sixteen feet, and the animal appeared all the more imposing when dead than alive.
The Norwegian sailor cut out the tongue, telling Mr Meldrum that this portion of the sea-elephant and the snout were considered great delicacies by the whalers; but none of the party relished either, although Snowball served up both at dinner in his most recherche fashion. The flesh of the body, too, was of a blackish hue, and had an oily taste about it, which made the sailors turn up their noses at it and wish to fling it away; but this Mr Meldrum would not allow.
"We will probably be glad enough to get it bye and bye," he said; and he then caused the despised seal "beef" to be cut up in pieces and salted down in one of their spare casks in case of future need.
During the time Mr Meldrum had been taking stock of their stores, before the coming of the sea-elephant--"to pay them an afternoon call,"
as Florry said--the carpenter, with a number of the hands working under him, had been proceeding with the house-building operations; but he had to stop at last, more from want of the proper timber wherewith to complete the job than through the darkening of the afternoon on account of the approach of night.
"I can't get along nohow," Ben explained to Mr Meldrum, who was now regarded as the head of the party, and the one to look to in every difficulty. "I'm at a standstill for planking, sir. I can manage the roof part pretty well, by breaking up those old puncheons we brought under the raft and using the staves for shingles; but the joists and rafters bother me, sir."
"Well, we must hope to get some more to-morrow from the wreck," said Mr Meldrum. "The ship cannot last much longer; but, recollect, we can't get any ashore till she breaks up."
"Aye, aye, sir, I knows that," replied Ben. "Still, I hopes it won't all drift away to sea when she do go to pieces."
"We'll try to prevent that, Boltrope," said the other. "Mind, Mr McCarthy, and have a look-out stationed in the morning to keep an eye on the ship, with a man to relieve him watch and watch, the same as on board! She's all firm now, for I saw the flag still waving when I looked before the light began to fail; but if the wind and sea get up again, as they very likely will towards midnight, tomorrow will tell a very different tale!"
"I'll have a look-out, never fear, sorr."
"And, McCarthy--"
"Yes, sorr!"
"See that the jolly-boat is ready and a crew picked for it to put off the moment any wreckage is observed floating inshore. We must not neglect any chance of securing all the timber we can for fuel, putting the house out of the reckoning entirely!"
"Indade I will, sorr," answered the mate cheerily; and then, all struck work for the day and retired into the tent, not sorry to have another easy night's rest. Every one was anxious to turn in, for really there was nothing else to be done.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
BREAKING UP OF THE VESSEL.
They did not sleep so soundly, however, on this occasion as they had done the first night of their landing on the island; for, soon after dark, the wind rose into a tempestuous gale, making the tent flap about in such a way that it seemed as if it were about to be carried off bodily!
As it was, indeed--through the blowing in of the sides, and the jumping up and down of the tarpaulin on the roof every now and then as the boisterous gusts got under it--a lot of snow, which had begun to fall before they retired to rest and was now coming down in a regular storm, as fast and furious as the flakes could succeed each other, managed to find its way inside, not contributing much to their comfort; and this, combined with the roar of the breakers against the base of the cliffs, which seemed louder than ever now that the men were lying down with their ears to the ground, tended to keep the majority of the castaways awake and made them long for the morning to come again.
At last, the day broke; and, as the faint light gleamed through the chinks in the tent, telling all that the dreary night was past, they quickly bestirred themselves--Snowball being one of the first to turn out, and at once hastening to kindle up the fire, which he had left carefully banked up the previous evening, besides wisely hedging it in with heavy pieces of stone so that the wind should not scatter it away, as would otherwise probably have been the case.
"Soon get drop hot coffee, massa," said he to Mr Meldrum, who was an early riser too and not far behind the darkey; "Um berry good for de tomack fust thing in mornin'!"
But the other was too much concerned about the fate of the ship to think of coffee then; and, long before Snowball had finished his remark, he was actively ascending the highest rock near to get a good view out to seaward. Here he was shortly joined by Mr McCarthy and Ben Boltrope, who were also equally anxious in the matter; although the others, not having been called, did not hurry themselves to leave the warm atmosphere of the tent for the cold and raw air without.
The lookers-out, however, could not see much as yet; for the usual surface fog--which in these regions generally creeps up in the evening and hangs over the sea till broad daylight--had not yet completely cleared away; and so, a curtain of haze shut out the offing from their gaze. Still, as far as the eye could reach, the sea was very rough, with heavy rollers rolling in landward. The gale of the night had not abated much, albeit the wind was not so gusty as it had been, while its force seemed to be lessening as the morning drew on.
"I'm afraid," said Mr Meldrum, after vainly trying for a long time to peer through the impenetrable veil of mist which hid the reef from sight, "that this last blow has settled the old ship."
"Faix, and I'm thinking just that very same," responded the first mate.
"It blowed tremenjus towards four bells, sorr, an' the poor crathur must be clane smashed up by now!"
"It's very unfortunate if that has happened," replied the other. "The sea is running too high for us to launch the jolly-boat, and so we'll lose all chance of saving the wreckage."
"True for you, sorr, save and onless it drifts ashore."
"There's not the slightest hope of that," replied Mr Meldrum. "Nothing has come up on the beach here yet, that I've been able to perceive!"
"But, sure an' the wind's bin blowing on to the land, sorr, all night.
P'r'aps that might make a difference!"
"Perhaps it might," said the other; "but I very much doubt it."