All sorts of tubs, buckets, kegs, and open casks, including the scuttle butt, were ranged along the spar-deck, below the break of the poop, to catch the welcome shower, tarpaulins being spread over the open hatchways, where exposed, to prevent the flood from going below: while the ends of the after awning were tied up in a sort of huge bag for the rain to drain off into it, so that none of it might be wasted--the canvas being let down, when the receptacle was pretty full, to empty the contents into the water-puncheons--for the pure liquid was a precious godsend, being an agreeable relief to the brackish supply which the ship carried in her tanks.
As might have been imagined, Master Negus and Miss Florry watched all these operations with the greatest interest, for they would have been only too glad if their respective guardians had allowed them to take a more active part in the watery campaign than that of merely looking on.
Mr Zachariah Lathrope, however, was his own master, and he made himself very busy amongst the dripping sailors, who were hopping about on the wet decks as if enjoying their ducking, much amusement being caused when Mr McCarthy, for a joke, let the leach of the awning once go by the run, when, the American passenger being off his guard, some hundred gallons of water came down on him, giving the worthy gentleman an impromptu shower-bath.
It was grand fun while the rain lasted, all the men folk paddling about in it to their hearts' content and ducking each other when they had the chance; while the ladies observed the sports from the shelter of the poop, seeming to take equally as much pleasure in the skylarking. It was amazing, too, to notice the amount of dirt and rubbish which the downpour washed away into the scuppers. What with the continual swilling and scrubbing and swabbing that the decks underwent every morning, it ought to have been an impossibility for any dust or debris to exist; but, there it was, to prove the contrary--the rain "exposing the weakness of the land," and making a clean sweep of everything that was dirty which lay about in the odd corners fore and aft the ship.
The day after the rain, just when all on board--sick of the calm, the listless monotonous roll of the ship, the flapping of the idle sails against the masts, and the sight of the same cloudless sky and endless expanse of tumid sea, with surface unbroken by the tiniest ripple, save when a dolphin leaped out of the water or a fairy nautilus glided by in his frail shell craft--were longing for the advent of the north-east trades, which Captain Dinks had expected them to "run into" ever since they lost their first favourable wind, there came a visitor to the _Nancy Bell_, the most dreaded of all the perils of the deep--Fire!
Eight bells had just been struck in the morning watch; and the passengers were just preparing for breakfast--that is, such as were late risers, like Mrs Major Negus and Mr Lathrope, neither of whom turned out earlier than was necessary. Those who knew what was the healthiest plan, like Mr Meldrum and his daughters, had been up and out more than an hour before, walking up and down the poop and getting up a vigorous appetite for the first meal of the day.
The captain had not long come up the companion; and, after looking aloft and to the northward, scanning the horizon around, had stepped up to the binnacle, where he stood contemplating the compass hopelessly, as if he had given up all idea of the wind coming, while the hands of the watch on duty were listlessly idling about the waist of the ship, dead weary of having nothing to do.
The cook, apparently, was the only really busy person on board at the time, for he could be seen popping in and out of his galley forwards, handing dishes to Llewellyn, the steward, to bring aft for the cuddy table. The darkey seemed bathed in perspiration, and looked as if he found cooking hot work in latitudes under the constellation of the Crab, whither the vessel had drifted.
All at once, however, a change came over the scene.
As the steward was passing the main hatch in his second journey aft to the saloon, he noticed a thin column of smoke ascending from the main hold, where the principal portion of the cargo was stowed. Like a fool, although it might have been pleaded for him that he was constitutionally nervous, he let fall the dishes he was carrying on a tray, in his fright at the sight of this evidence of a conflagration below, instead of going quietly up to the captain and telling him what he had seen; and, to make matters worse, he called out at the same time in terrified accents, as loud as he could bawl--"Fire! fire! the ship's on fire!"
Had a thunderbolt burst on board, or had the vessel struck on a rock in the middle of the ocean, the alarm that was instantly spread on board could not have been greater; and where all had been listless inactivity but a moment before, was now all life, motion, and excitement.
"A fire! whar?" exclaimed Mr Zachariah Lathrope poking his head out of the companion-way, judiciously concealing the remainder of his lanky person, as he had not yet quite finished his toilet. "Snakes and alligators, Cap'en, but I'm terrible skeart at fires! I hope it ain't up to much chucks?"
"Oh, no!" said Captain Dinks, reassuringly, expressing what he wished more than what he felt. He had remained aft in order to somewhat allay the alarm which the outcry of the steward had excited; but he was itching to get to the scene of action himself, although he had sent Mr McCarthy there already, besides ordering the crew to their respective stations, and having the hose-pump manned.--"Oh, no, nothing at all, only one of that ass, Llewellyn's, happy discoveries, another sort of ghost in the cabin! Here, Harness," he added aside to Frank, who had just come up from below, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Just stop on the poop a minute, and keep these people quiet. I must go down to the hold myself to look after matters; don't say anything more than you can help."
So saying, the captain scuttled down the poop ladder on to the spar-deck in a jiffey, and in another second he was descending the main hatch, whence the smoke could be now clearly seen, coming up in clouds.
Mrs Major Negus's voice was also heard at this juncture. The good lady had ascended the companion behind the American, who still remained at the spot where he had first made his appearance, and was just then adjusting his braces; and almost at the same instant that her dulcet accents reached the ears of those on deck she burst upon them, as it were by storm, carrying Mr Lathrope along with her, still _en deshabille_, it is true, as regarded his coat and waistcoat, but fortunately now with his trousers, or as he called them "pants,"
properly arranged.
"Goodness gracious, man!" she exclaimed frantically--"do get out of the way. Lord a mercy! where's the fire? Oh dear, oh my! We shall all be burnt alive? Maurice, my darling boy! come to your mother's arms and let us die together. Maurice! Where's my boy?"
"You'd better stop that screechin' and say your prayers, marm," said Mr Zachariah Lathrope, sententiously. "The b'y is all right below, sleepin' in the corner of the sofy, and I'd advise you to go and rouse him up, instead of rushing up har like a mad bull in fly time, a knocking folks down and hollerin'."
Mrs Major Negus took his advice; for, without withering up the American with her scorn, as she would probably have done another time, she at once rushed back below to the cuddy as quickly as she had come up, to wake up Maurice; while Kate Meldrum, seizing the opportunity which the diversion afforded, sidled up to Frank Harness unperceived.
"Is there any danger really?" she asked the young sailor in a low tone, so that no one else could hear; and her face was pale, but composed and resolute, as she looked into his.
"Could you bear to be told the truth?" said he hesitatingly.
"I could," she replied; and he saw that she meant it.
"Well, there certainly is danger, although it is best not to alarm everybody, for when people get frightened they interfere and hinder what is being done to save them. I wouldn't like to tell the crew, Miss Meldrum, what I tell you; but I know you are brave, and see that you can bear to be told the truth. A lot of woollen goods are on fire in the main hold, and must, from the extent of the area already consumed, have been smouldering for days. We are doing all that men can do to quench it, and we may succeed, as there is no wind and nothing to fan the flames; but the only thing that hinders us is our being unable to get to the seat of the mischief, which is in the very centre of the cargo.
However, the men are now breaking in the deck above, and as soon as we are able to get the end of the hose down and pass buckets, all may be well. Keep a good heart, Miss Meldrum, there's no absolute danger yet; when there is I will tell you. So, please, prevent that 'Mrs Major'
from going into hysterics!"
"I will, for I trust you," said Kate with a somewhat sad smile on her pale face. "Here, Florry, come below away from the smoke and sparks; Mr Harness says the fire will soon be out and that there is no danger, and I don't want you to spoil your new frock!"
So courageously speaking, the brave girl then went below with her sister; and by her presence and example assuaged "the Major's" fears, thus preventing that lady from going back on deck and spreading consternation amongst the crew by her cries, as would otherwise have been the case. Mr Zachariah Lathrope, too, came down to the cuddy, attracted by the smell of breakfast, which the captain had directed the steward to go on getting as if nothing had happened--thus to punish the poltroon in a sort of way for his cowardly alarm; hence, the coast was left clear for the officers and men to put out the fire without being flurried by the fears and importunities of the passengers.
Meanwhile, Captain Dinks with Mr Meldrum, who was the first to volunteer--their efforts well supported by the exertions of McCarthy and the second mate and Frank Harness--were working like Britons in the _Nancy Bell's_ hold.
The fire had broken out, as Frank had stated, almost in the centre of the ship; for two bulkheads had to be battered down and the main deck cut through, before the source of it could be reached. However, by dint of arduously plying the axe and crowbar, an opening was at length made whence the fire could be got at. Flames immediately burst forth the moment air was admitted into the hold, but these were pressed down with wet blankets, and, the fire-hose being carried down and the pumps manned by the watch on deck, a copious stream of water was directed throughout that portion of the ship where all the light woollen and textile goods were stowed. The hose, too, was supplemented by a continuous relay of buckets full of water passed rapidly along the lower deck and down the hatchway by the starboard watch--whose turn it was below, but whom the alarm of fire had caused to rouse out again to duty--so that in half an hour from the discovery of the outbreak all danger was over and the last spark quenched.
"Thank God!" said Kate Meldrum, with heart-felt earnestness, her lovely eyes full of tears as she looked up into Frank's face when he came to tell her the news. "I thought all hope was gone, you were so long in coming!"
"But were you not certain I would come?" asked Frank anxiously.
"Yes, I had confidence in your promise."
"Thank you," was all he replied; but his look spoke volumes.
At the same time another mutual "confidence game" was being played in a different part of the ship; but in this the understanding was between Mr Meldrum and Ben Boltrope, the ship's carpenter and ex-man-o'-war's- man.
"Aye, aye, sir," said the latter when the two were parting on the main deck after the termination of their labours in the lower hold. "I recognised your honour the moment you came on deck that morning of the storm in the Bay of Biscay. I couldn't mistake the cut of your honour's jib, sir, begging your pardon."
"Well, I'm sure I did not recognise you, or you may be sure I would have spoken to you. Still, you need not blurt out my identity to everybody, you know."
"Sartinly not, your honour. I'll keep mum, sir, never you fear, though I don't forget the old--"
"Stop," said Mr Meldrum, changing the subject. "I've no doubt all hands are pretty dry after all the heat we've been in down below, so, with the captain's permission, I'll send something forward for them to splice the main brace with."
"Aye, aye, your honour," replied Ben; "a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse."
And the two parted, the one going forward to the forecastle and the other aft into the saloon.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
AN OCEAN WAIF.
"Wa-al, Cap," said Mr Lathrope after dinner that day, when he was sipping his coffee on top of the skylight, which he had selected for his favourite seat when on the poop, the "location," as he expressed it, having the advantage of possessing plenty of "stowage room" for his long legs--"I guess we've had a long spell o' calms, and a tarnation slitheration of a del-uge, 'sides being now a'most chawed up by a fire; so I kalkerlate its 'bout time we hed sunthen' of a breeze. Thunder, mister, it's kinder gettin' played out, I reckon, knocking about in these air latitoods, without nary going ahead even once in a blue moon!"
"Oh, the wind isn't far off now," replied Captain Dinks, "you see those porpoises there, passing us now and playing astern? Well, they are a certain sign of a breeze soon coming from the quarter towards which they're swimming."
"Wa-al, I dew hope so," drawled the American, with a sigh and a yawn of weariness, "guess I shall snooze till it comes;" and he proceeded to carry his thought into execution.
Captain Dinks turned out a true prophet.
A little later on in the day a breeze sprang up, that subsequently developed into the long-wished-for south-east trade-wind, thus enabling the good ship to bid adieu to the Doldrums and cross the equator, which feat she accomplished two days after the fire.
From the line--which Master Negus was able to see distinctly with the aid of one of Mr McCarthy's fine red hairs neatly adjusted across the object-glass of his telescope--the ship had a splendid run over to the South American coast, following the usual western course adopted by vessels going round the Cape of Good Hope, in order to have the advantage afterwards of the westerly winds and get well to the south; and, when she had reached the thirty-fourth parallel of longitude and latitude 18 degrees 22 minutes south--that is, about midway between Bahia and Rio Janeiro, her head was turned to the south-east with light winds from the northward and eastward, and she began to make way towards the "Cape of Storms," after getting to the southward of which she would have a straight run due east to New Zealand.
The _Nancy Bell's_ bows, however, were not long pointed in the direction of the rising sun, when another incident occurred to vary the monotony of the voyage--although, fortunately, this time not a second fire, nor any peril from the sea to those on board.
It was the second day of her south-easterly course; and from the wind blowing fresh from the north-east, right on her port quarter, with fine bright weather, the ship was running pretty free, all sail being set, at the rate of over twelve knots an hour, leaving a wake behind her like a mill-race.
"Arrah, sure, and I call, that goin'!" exclaimed the first mate exultantly, as he walked up and down the poop quickly--just as if his doing so helped the vessel along, in the same way as one sees the coxswain of a boat bending backwards and forwards to keep time with the rowers!