The Adventures of Billy Topsail

"It's thick," Robinson remarked to the skipper.

"'Tis thick."

Billy Topsail, now grown old enough for the adventurous voyage to the Labrador coast, was aboard; and he listened to this exchange with a deal of interest. It was his first fishing voyage; he had been north in the Rescue, to be sure, but that was no more than a cruise, undertaken to relieve the starving fishermen of the upper harbours. At last, he was fishing in earnest – really aboard the Fish Killer, bound north, there to fish the summer through, in all sorts of weather, with a share in the catch at the end of it! He was vastly delighted by this: for 'twas a man's work he was about, and 'twas a man's work he was wanting to do.

"Thick as mud," said Robinson, with a little shiver.

"'S mud," the skipper responded, in laconic agreement.

And it was thick! The fog had settled at mid-day. A fearsome array of icebergs had then been in sight, and the low coast, with the snow still upon it, had to leeward shone in the brilliant sunlight. But now, with the afternoon not yet on the wane, the day had turned murky and damp. A bank of black fog had drifted in from the open sea. Ice and shore had disappeared. The limit of vision approached, possibly, but did not attain, twenty-five yards. The weather was thick, indeed; the schooner seemed to be winging along through a boundless cloud; and there was a smart breeze blowing, and the circle of sea, in the exact centre of which the schooner floated, was choppy and black.

"Thick enough," Skipper Libe echoed, thoughtfully. "But," he added, "you wouldn't advise heavin' to, would you?"

"No, no!" Robinson exclaimed. "I'm too anxious to get to Indian Harbour."

"And I," muttered the skipper, with an anxious look ahead, "to make the Thigh Bone grounds. But – "

"Give her all the wind she'll carry," said Robinson. "It won't bother me."

"I thinks," the skipper continued, ignoring the interruption, "that I'll shorten sail. For," said he, "I'm thinkin' the old girl might bleed at the nose if she happened t' bump a berg."

While the crew reduced the canvas, Robinson went below. He was the Hudson's Bay Company's agent at Dog Arm of the Labrador, which is close to Indian Harbour. In January, with his invalid daughter in a dog-sled, he had journeyed from that far place to Desolate Bay of Newfoundland, and thence by train to St. John's. It had been a toilsome, dangerous, incredibly bitter experience. But he had forgotten that, nor had he ever complained of it; his happiness was that his child had survived the surgeons' operation, had profited in ease and hope, had already been restored near to her old sunny health. Early in the spring, word of the proposed sailing of the Fish Killer from Ruddy Cove had come to him at St. John's; and he had taken passage with Skipper Libe, no more, it must be said, because he wished Mary's mother to know the good news (she had had no word since his departure) than because he was breathlessly impatient once more to be serving the company's interests at Dog Arm.

To Mary and her father Skipper Libe had with seamanlike courtesy abandoned the tiny cabin. The child was lying in the skipper's own berth – warmly covered, comfortably tucked in, provided with a book to read by the light of the swinging lamp.

"Are you happy, dear?" her father asked.

"Oh, yes!"

The man took the child's hand. "I'm sometimes sorry," he said, "that we didn't wait for the mail-boat. The Fish Killer is a pretty tough craft for a little girl to be aboard."

"Sorry?" was the instant response, made with a little smile. "I'm not. I'm glad. Isn't Cape Grief close to leeward? Well, then, father, we're half way home. Think of it! We're – half – way – home!"

The father laughed.

"And we might have been waiting at St. John's," the child continued, her blue eyes shining. "Oh, father, I'd rather be aboard the Fish Killer off Grief Head than in the very best room of the Crosbie Hotel. Half way home!" she repeated. "Half way home!"

"Half way is a long way."

"But it's half way!"

"On this coast," the father sighed, "no man is home until he gets there."

"It's a fair wind."

"And the fog as thick as mud."

"But they've reefed the mains'l; they've stowed the stays'l; they've got the tops'l down. Haven't you heard them? I've been listening – "

"What's that!" Robinson cried.

It was a mere ejaculation of terror. He had no need to ask the question. Even Mary knew well enough what had happened. The Fish Killer had struck an iceberg bow on. The shock; the crash forward; the clatter of a falling topmast; the cries on deck: these things were alive with the fearful information.

CHAPTER XXII

The Crew of the Fish Killer Finds Refuge on an Iceberg, and Discovers Greater Safety Elsewhere, after Which the Cook is Mistaken for a Fool, but puts the Crew to Shame

ROBINSON caught the child from the berth. He paused – it was an instinct born of Labrador experience – to wrap a blanket about her, though she was clothed for the day. She reminded him quietly that she would catch cold without her cap; and this he snatched in passing. Then he was on deck – in the midst of a litter from aloft and of a vast confusion of terrified cries.

Before she struck, the Fish Killer had ascended a gently shelving beach of ice, washed smooth by the sea. There she hung precariously. Her stem was low, so low that the choppy sea came aboard and swamped the cabin; and the bow was high on the ice. Her bowsprit was in splinters, her topmast on deck, her spliced mainmast tottering; she was the bedraggled wreck of a craft.

Beyond, the berg towered into the fog, stretched into the fog; only a broken wall of blue-white ice was visible. The butt of the bowsprit overhung a wide ledge. To scramble to the shattered extremity, to hang by the hands, to drop to safe foothold: this would all have been easy for children. The impulse was to seek the solid berg in haste before the schooner had time to fall away and sink.

Robinson ran forward.

"Got that kid?" Skipper Libe demanded. "Ah, you has! Billy Topsail!" he roared.

Billy answered.

"Get ashore on that ice!" the skipper ordered.

Billy ran out on the broken bowsprit and dropped to the berg. He looked back expectantly.

"Take the kid!"

A push sent Robinson on the same road. He dropped Mary into Billy's waiting arms. Then he, too, looked back for orders.

"Ashore with you!"

Robinson swung by the hands and dropped. Before he let go his hands he had felt the vessel quiver and begin to recede from her position.

"Now, men," said the skipper, "grub! She'll be off in a minute."

Every man of them leaped willingly to the imperative duty. The food was in the forecastle and hold; they disappeared. Skipper Libe kept watch on deck. With the waves restless beneath her stern, the schooner was perilously insecure. She was gradually working her way back to the sea. The briefest glance below had already assured Skipper Libe that her timbers were hopelessly sprung.

She was old – rotten with age and hard service. The water was pouring in forward and amidships; it ran aft in a flood, contributing its weight to the vessel's inclination to slip away from the berg. It was slow in the beginning, this retreat; but through every moment the movement was accelerated. Five minutes – four – three: in a space too brief to be counted upon she would be wallowing in the sea.

"Haste!" the skipper screamed.

Waiting was out of the question. The Fish Killer was about to drop into the sea. Though the men had but tumbled into the forecastle – though as yet they had had no time to seize the food of which to-morrow would find them in desperate need – the skipper roared the order to return.

"Ashore! Ashore!" he shouted.

They came back more willingly, more expeditiously, than they had gone; and they came back empty-handed. Not a man among them had so much as a single biscuit.

"Jim!" said the skipper.

With that, Jim Tall, the cook, clambered out on the bowsprit. The others of the crew waited, each with an anxious eye upon the skipper.

"Bill!"

No sooner was Jim Tall at the end of the bowsprit than Bill was underway. The skipper grimly watched his terrified progress.

"Jack!"

In turn, Jack Sop scrambled out and dropped to the berg. The schooner was fast receding from the ledge. Alexander Budge, John Swan, Archibald Mann, completing the fishing crew, with the exception of Tom Watt, the first hand, and the skipper, won the ice.

"Now, Tom!" said the skipper.

"You, sir!"

"Tom!" Skipper Libe roared; and you may be sure that Tom Watt waited no longer.

Only the skipper was left. The change from his passive attitude – from his unbending, reposeful attitude, with a hand carelessly laid on the windlass – was so sudden and unequivocal that Jim Tall, the cook, who was ever the wag of the crew, startled even himself with laughter. It was instant. Skipper Libe in a flash turned from a petrified man into a terrified and marvellously agile monkey. He bounded for the bowsprit, nimbly ran the broken length of it, and there stood swaying. The vessel was now so far from the ledge, and so fast receding, that he paused. Delay had but one issue. This was so apparent that horror tied the tongues of the crew. Not a cry of warning was uttered. The situation was too intense, too brief, for utterance.

"Tom," said the skipper to the first hand, "catch!"

He leaped.

"Skipper," said Tom Watt, in the uttermost confusion, an instant later, "glad t' see you! Come in! You isn't a minute too early."

In this way, proceeding with admirable self-possession, the souls aboard the Fish Killer jumped from the frying-pan. Whether or not it was into the fire was not for a moment in doubt. When the schooner had once fairly reached the sea, which immediately happened, she sank. They saw her waver, slowly settle, disappear; when her topmast went tottering under water the end had come.

Whatever may be said of a frying-pan, nobody can accuse the crew of the Fish Killer of having come within reach of a fire. Aboard the berg it was cold – awfully cold. Icebergs carry an atmosphere of that sort even into the Gulf Stream; they radiate cold so effectively that the captains of steamers take warning and evade them. It was cold – very, very cold. There was nothing to temper the numbing bitterness of the situation. And what the night might bring could only be surmised.

Though they were born to lives of hardship and peril, though they had long been used to the chances of the sea, not one of the castaways had ever before fallen into a predicament so barren of hope. Flung on an iceberg, adrift on the wild North Atlantic, derelict where no ships passed, at the mercy of the capricious winds, without food or fire: there seemed to be no possibility of escape. But for a time they did not despair; and, moreover, for a time each felt it a high duty to make light of the situation, to joke of cold-storage and polar bears, that the spirits of the others might be encouraged. As dusk approached, however, the ghastly humour failed. Ruin, agony, grief, imminent death; in the moody silence, they dwelt, rather, upon these things.

It was not yet dark when a faint shock, a hardly perceptible shiver, a crash from aloft, a subsiding rumble, apprised the castaways of a portentous change of condition.

"What's that, now?" growled the cook.

It was a cruelly anxious moment. Only the event itself would determine whether or not the berg was to turn turtle. They waited.

"She's grounded, I 'low!" exclaimed the skipper.

There was no further disturbance. Whatever had happened, the equilibrium of the berg had been maintained.

"I'm thinkin'," said the skipper, "that I'll take a little look about."

The skipper's "little look about" developed what appeared to be a saving opportunity. The berg had grounded; it had also jammed a wandering pack of drift-ice against the land. What that shore was, whether mainland or island, the skipper did not wait to ascertain; it was sufficient for him to know that the survivors of the Fish Killer might escape from a disintegrating berg to solid ground.

He returned, breathless, with the enlivening news; and in lively fashion, which almost approached a panic, the castaways abandoned the berg. It was a hard, painful, dangerous scramble, made in the failing light, and the cook had an unwelcome bath in the icy water between two pans; but it had a successful issue. Before dark, they were all ashore – more hopeful, now, than they had been, but still staring death in the face.

So curious was Skipper Libe that, taking advantage of the last of the light, he set out to discover the character of the refuge. He returned discouraged.

"'Tis but a rock," said he. "'Tis no more than a speck o' land."

Then night fell. Robinson's little daughter was by this time on the point of succumbing to the exposure. Cold, hunger and despair had reduced her to a pitiable silence. She was in the extremity of physical exhaustion. They made a deep hollow in the snow in the shelter of a declivity of rock; and there they bestowed her, gladly yielding their jackets to provide her with such comfort as they could. But this was small mitigation of the hardship. The child was still hopeless and cold. It was sadly apparent that she could not survive the night. And Robinson knew that to-morrow and to-morrow – a long stretch of days – lay before them all. There was no hope for a frail body; weakness was death. In his heart he frankly admitted that he was about to lose his child.

He lay down beside her. "Mary, dear," he pleaded, "don't give up!"

She pressed his hand.

"Don't give up!" he repeated.

A wan smile came and went. "I can't help it," she whispered.

Skipper Libe and his men withdrew. It was now near midnight. The fog was lifting. Stars twinkled in patches of black sky. Low towards the seaward horizon the moon was breaking through the clouds.

Suddenly the cook sat bolt upright. "Skipper," he demanded, "where is we?"

"On the Devil's Teeth."

"An' what rock's this?"

"This?"

"Ay —this!"

"I'd not be s'prised," the skipper answered, "if 'tis what they calls the Cocked Hat."

"Feather's Folly!" roared the cook.

"Which?" said the skipper, suspiciously.

The cook was on his feet – dancing in glad excitement. "Feather's Folly!" he shouted "Feather's Folly!"

"Catch un!" said the skipper, quietly. "He've gone mad."

They set upon the poor cook. Before he could escape they had him fast. He was tripped, thrown, sat upon.

"Don't let him up," the skipper warned. "He'll do hisself hurt. Poor man!" he sighed. "He've lost his senses."

"Mad!" screamed the cook. "You're mad. Feather's Folly! We're saved!"

"Hold un tight," said the skipper.

But the cook was not to be held. He wriggled free and bolted. Billy Topsail and all took after him, the skipper in the lead; and by the dim, changing light of that night he led them a mad chase over rock and through drifted snow. They pursued, they headed him off, they laid hold of his flying coat-tail; but he eluded them, dodged, sped, doubled. If he were mad, there was method in his madness. He was searching every square yard of that acre of uneven rock. At last, panting and perspiring, he came to a full stop and turned triumphantly upon his pursuers. He had found what he sought.

"Mad!" he laughed. "Who's mad, now? Eh? Who's crazy?"

The crew stared.

"Who's crazy?" the cook roared. "Look at that! What d'ye make o' that?"

"It looks," the skipper admitted, "like salvation!"

Old man Feather had indeed "seen that it wouldn't happen again." He had provided for castaways on the Cocked Hat. There was a tight little hut in the lee of the Bishop's Nose; within, there were provisions and blankets and fire-wood and candles. Moreover, in the sprawling, misspelled welcome, tacked to the wall, there was even the heartening information that "seegars is in the kityun tabl." The passengers and crew of the Fish Killer were soon warm and satisfied. They spent a happy night – a night so changed, so cozy, so bountiful, that they blessed old man Feather until their tongues were tired. And old man Feather, himself, who kept watch on the Cocked Hat with a spy-glass, took them off to Hulk's Harbour in the clear weather of the next day.

"An' did you find the cigars, skipper?" he whispered, with a wide, proud grin.

"Us did."

"An' was they good? Hist! now," the old fellow repeated, with a wink of mystery, "wasn't they good?"

"Well," the skipper drawled, not ungraciously, you may be sure, "the cook made bad weather of it. But he double-reefed hisself an' lived through. 'Twas the finest an' the first cigar he ever seed."

The old man chuckled delightedly.

CHAPTER XXIII

In Which the Clerk of the Trader Tax Yarns of a Madman in the Cabin

THE trading-schooner Tax of Ruddy Cove had come down from the Labrador. She was riding at anchor in the home harbour, with her hold full of salt fish and the goods in her cabin run sadly low. Billy Topsail, safely back from Feather's Folly, and doomed by the wreck of the Fish Killer to spend the summer in the quieter pursuits of Ruddy Cove, had gone aboard to greet the crew. There was hot tea on the forecastle table, and the crew was yarning to a jolly, brown grinning lot of Ruddy folk, who had come aboard. It was Cook, the clerk, a merry, blue-eyed little man, who told the story of the madman in the cabin.

"We were lying in Shelter Harbour," said he, "waiting for a fair wind to Point-o'-Bay. It was coming close to night when they saw him leaping along shore and kicking a tin kettle as though 'twas a football. I was in the cabin, putting the stock to rights after the day's trade. I heard the hail and the skipper's answering, 'Ay ay! This is the trader Tax from Ruddy Cove.' Then the skipper sung out to know if I wanted a customer. Customer? To be sure I wanted one!

"'If he has a gallon of oil or a pound of fish,' said I, 'fetch him aboard.'

"'He looks queer,' said the skipper.

"'Queer he may look,' said I, 'and queer he may be, but his fish will be first cousins to the ones in the hold, and I'll barter for them.'

"With that the skipper put off in the punt to fetch the customer; but when he drew near shore he lay on his oars, something puzzled, I'm thinking, for the customer was dancing a hornpipe on a flat rock at the water's edge, by the first light of the moon.

"'Have you got a fish t' trade?' said the skipper.

"'Good-evenin', skipper, sir,' said the queer customer, after a last kick and flourish. 'I've a quintal or two an' a cask o' oil that I'm wantin' bad t' trade away.'

"He was rational as you please; so the skipper was thrown off his guard, took him aboard, and pulled out.

"'You're quite a dancer,' said he.

"'Hut!' said the man. 'That's nothin' at all. When the moon's full an' high, sir, I dances over the waves; an' when they's a gale blowin' I goes aloft t' the clouds an' shakes a foot up there.'

"'Do you, now?' said the skipper, not knowing whether to take this in joke or earnest.

"'Believe me, sir,' said the man, with the gravest of faces, 'I'm a wonderful dancer.'

"I was on deck when they came aboard. It was then dusk. I noticed nothing out of the ordinary in my customer's appearance. He was a large, big-boned man, well supplied with fat and muscle, and capable, as I thought at the moment, of enduring all the toil and hardship to which the men of that coast are exposed. The skipper handed him over to me without a word of warning, and went below to the forecastle, for the wind was blowing cold and misty."

"Oh, well," the skipper broke in from his place in a bunk, "how could I tell that he was mad?"

"Whatever, Skipper Job," the clerk resumed, with a twinkle in his eye, "I took him into the cabin, and the crew and you were snug enough in the forecastle, where no hail of mine could reach you. It was not until then," he resumed, "when the light of the cabin lamp fell full upon him, that I had a proper appreciation of my customer's size and strength – not until then that I marked the deathly pallour of his face and the strange light in his eyes. He was frowsy, dirty, dressed in ragged moleskin cloth; and he had a habit of looking to right and left and aloft – anywhere, it appeared, but straight in my face – so that I caught no more than a red flash from his eyes from time to time. I felt uneasy, without being able to account to myself for the feeling; so, anxious to be well rid of him, I asked, abruptly, in what I could serve him.

"'I'm thinkin' you'll not be havin' the thing I wants,' said he.

"That touched me on a tender spot. 'I'm thinking,' said I, 'that we've a little of all that you ever thought of.'

"'I don't think you has,' said he, 'but 'twould be best for you if you had.'

"There was a hidden meaning in that. Why should it be best for me?

"'And what is it?' said I.

"''Tis a spool o' silk thread,' said he, soberly, 't' bind the fairies with – the wicked fairies that tells me t' do the things I don't want t'. If you've any o' that, sir, I'll take all you got aboard, for I wants it bad.'

"'Come, now, my man,' said I sharply, 'stop your joking. I'm tired, and in no humour for it. What is it you want?'

"'I'm not jokin', sir,' said he. 'I wants a spool o' green silk thread t' lash the wicked fairies t' the spruce trees.'

"I could not doubt him longer; there was too much longing, too much hopelessness, in his voice for that. He was demented; but there are many men of that coast whom lonely toil has driven mad, but yet who live their lives through to the natural end, peaceable folk and good fishermen, and I thought that this poor fellow had as good a right to trade with me as the sanest man in Shelter Harbour.

"'We've no green silk thread, sir,' said I, 'that will securely lash fairies to spruce trees. But if you want anything else, and have fish to trade, I'll take them.'

"'I wisht you had the thread,' said he.

"'Why?' said I.

"''Twould be best for you,' said he with a sigh. 'If I could tie the wicked fairies up, I wouldn't have t' – have t' – do it. But,' he went on, 'as you haven't any thread, I'll take some calico t' make a new dress for my brother's little maid.'

"A certain look of cunning, which overspread his face at that moment, alarmed me. I thought I had better find out what the wicked fairies had to do with me.

"'Did you meet the fairies to-night?' said I.

"'Ay,' said he. 'I met the crew o' wicked ones on my way through the bush.'

"'And what did they tell you?' said I.

"He signed to me to be silent; then he closed the cabin door and came close to the counter, behind which I stood, with no way of escape open.

"'Has you got a loaded gun?' he whispered hoarsely.

"His face was close to mine. In his eyes, which were now steady, two live, red coals were glowing. I fell back from him, frightened; for I now knew what work the wicked fairies had assigned to him for that night. Poor fellow! Frightened though I was, I pitied him. I saw his distress, and pitied him! He was fighting manfully against the impulse; but it mastered him, at last, and I realized that my life was in grave danger. I was penned in, you know, and – they call me 'little Cook' – I was no match for him.

"'No,' said I. 'I've no gun.'

"'Has you got a knife?' said he.

"'Sorry,' said I; 'but I'm sold out of knives.'

"'Has you got a razor?' said he.

"It was high time to mislead him. I saw an opportunity to escape.

"'Is it razors you want?' I cried. 'Sure, I've some grand ones – big ones, boy, sharp ones, bright ones. I keep them in the forecastle where 'tis dry. So I'll just run up to fetch the lot to show you.'

"His eyes glistened when I spoke of the brightness and sharpness of those razors. With a show of confidence, I jumped on the counter and swung my legs over. But he pushed me back – so angrily, indeed, that I feared to precipitate the encounter if I persisted.

"'Don't trouble, sir,' said he. 'I'll find something that'll answer. Ha!' said he, taking an axe from the rack and 'hefting' it. 'This will do.'