Newton Forster

As there was no time to be lost, and the only chance of escape remained with the boat, Newton commenced his arrangements. The mast and sails were found, and the latter bent;—a keg was filled with water,—a compass taken out of the binnacle,—a few pieces of beef, and some bread, collected in a bag and thrown in. He also procured some bottles of wine and cider from the cabin: these he stowed away carefully in the little locker, which was fitted under the stern-sheets of the boat. In an hour everything was ready; and throwing into her some pieces of spare rope, and a small grapnel to anchor with, there being still sufficient water alongside to float her, Newton gradually lowered one tackle and then another, until the boat was safe in the water. He then hauled her up alongside, made her fast by the painter, and stepped her mast.

All was now ready—but to leave Jackson to be washed away by the returning tide, when the brig would unquestionably go to pieces!—Newton could not do it. True, he had sought his life, and still displayed the most inveterate rancour towards him; and Newton felt convinced that no future opportunity would occur that his enemy would not profit by, to insure his destruction. Yet to leave him—a murderer!—with all his sins upon his soul, to be launched so unprepared into the presence of an offended Creator!—it was impossible—it was contrary to his nature and to the religion which he professed. How could he hope for the Divine assistance in his perilous undertaking, when he embarked on it, regardless of the precept to forgive his enemy?

Newton ascended to that part of the deck where Jackson lay, and roused him. Jackson awoke, as if from a deep sleep, and then stared at Newton, who, as a precaution, held the handspike in his hand.

"Mr Jackson," said Newton, "I have roused you to let you know that the boat is now ready, and that I am going to shove off."

Jackson, who recollected the scene of the previous night, and perceived Newton standing over him with the hand-spike, appeared wholly unnerved. In point of muscular power Newton was his superior, independent of the weapon in his possession.

"Not without me!—not without me!" cried Jackson, raising himself upon his knees. "For mercy's sake, Mr Newton, do not leave me to this horrid death!"

"You would have left me to one even more dreadful," replied Newton.

"I beg your pardon!—Pardon me, Mr Newton, I was drunk at the time—indeed I was. I don't know what I do when I'm in liquor.—Don't leave me!—I'll obey your orders, and do anything you wish!—I'll wait upon you as your servant!—I will, indeed, Mr Newton!"

"I neither ask that you will obey my orders, nor wait upon me," replied Newton. "All I request is, that you will lay aside your wanton animosity, and exert yourself to save your life. For what you have already attempted against me, may God forgive you, as I do! For what you may hereafter attempt, you will find me prepared. Now follow me into the boat."

Without further exchange of words Newton, followed by Jackson, went into the boat, and shoved off. The weather was moderate and the wind light. There were two islets which Newton had marked, which apparently were not covered at high water, one about ten miles distant in the supposed direction of the land, for Newton had shrewdly guessed the locality of the reef; and the other about two miles from the first, further out, with trees growing to the water's edge. To this latter Newton proposed pulling, and waiting there until the next morning. When they were both in the boat, Newton finding that the wind was contrary, unshipped the mast, and taking the foremost oar, that Jackson might not sit behind him, desired him to take the other. The tide, which was now flood, and swept out to the southward, obliged them to pull at an angle to reach their intended destination. It was not until sunset that, with great exertion, they fetched the island nearest to the land, not the one that was covered with trees, as they had intended. As soon as the boat was secured, exhausted with fatigue, they both threw themselves down on the sand, where they remained for some time. Having recovered a little, Newton procured from the boat some of the supplies which they required, and after satisfying their hunger in silence, they both lay down to repose. Newton, who was still afraid of Jackson's diabolical enmity, which his silence implied to be again at work, closed his eyes, and pretended for some time to be asleep. As soon as it was dark, he rose, and first listening to the breathing of his comrade, who appeared to be in a sound slumber, he walked away from him about one hundred yards, so that it would be difficult to find him; he placed the handspike under his head for a pillow, and worn out with mental and bodily fatigue, was soon in a state of oblivion.

His sleep, although profound for three or four hours, was subsequently restless. The mind, when agitated, watches for the body, and wakes it at the time when it should be on the alert. Newton woke up: it was not yet daylight, and all was hushed. He turned round, intending to get up immediately; yet, yielding to the impulse of wearied nature, he again slumbered. Once he thought that he heard a footstep, roused himself, and listened; but all was quiet and still, except the light wave rippling on the sand. Again he was roused by a sort of grating noise; he listened, and all was quiet. A third time he was roused by a sound like the flapping of a sail: he listened—he was sure of it, and he sprang upon his feet. It was dawn of day, and as he turned his eyes towards the beach, he perceived to his horror that the boat was indeed under sail, Jackson, who was in it, then just hauling aft the main-sheet, and steering away from the island. Newton ran to the beach, plunged into the sea, and attempted to regain the boat; but he was soon out of his depth, and the boat running away fast through the water. He shouted to Jackson as a last attempt. The scoundrel waved his hand in ironical adieu, and continued his course.

"Treacherous villain!" mentally exclaimed Newton, as his eyes followed the boat. "Was it for this that I preserved your life, in return for your attempts on mine? Here, then, must I die of starvation!—God's will be done!" exclaimed he aloud, as he sat down on the beach, and covered his face with his hands.

Chapter XVIII

          "For now I stand as one upon a rock,  Environed with a wilderness of sea,  Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,  Expecting ever when some envious surge  Will in his brinish bowels swallow him."SHAKESPEARE.

The tide was on the ebb when Newton was left in this desolate situation. After some minutes passed in bitterness of spirit, his natural courage returned; and, although the chance of preservation was next to hopeless, Newton rose up, resolved that he would use his best efforts, and trust to Providence for their success. His first idea was to examine the beach, and see if Jackson had left him any portion of the provisions which he had put into the boat; but there was nothing. He then walked along the beach, following the receding tide, with the hope of collecting any shell-fish which might be left upon the sands; but here again he was disappointed. It was evident, therefore, that to stay on this islet was to starve; his only chance appeared to remain in his capability of reaching the islet next to it, which, as we have before mentioned, was covered with trees. There, at least, he might find some means of sustenance, and be able with the wood to make a raft, if nothing better should turn up in his favour.

The tide swept down towards the islet, but it ran so strong that there was a chance of his being carried past it; he therefore determined to wait for an hour or two, until the strength of the current was diminished, and then make the attempt. This interval was passed in strengthening his mind against the horror of the almost positive death which stared him in the face.

It was about an hour before low water that Newton walked into the sea, and, commending himself to Providence, struck out for the islet, keeping his course well to windward, to allow for the tide sweeping him down. To use a nautical phrase, he "held his own" extremely well, until he reached the centre of the channel, where the water ran with great velocity, and bore him down rapidly with the stream. Newton struggled hard; for he was aware that the strength of the current once passed, his labour would be comparatively easy; and so it proved: as he neared the shore of the islet, he made good way; but he had been carried down so far when in the centre of the stream that it became a nice point, even to the calculation of hope, whether he would fetch the extreme point of the islet. Newton redoubled his exertions, when, within thirty yards of the shore, an eddy assisted him, and he made sure of success; but when within ten yards, a counter current again caught him, and swept him down. He was now abreast of the very extreme point of the islet; a bush that hung over the water was his only hope; with three or four desperate strokes he exhausted his remaining strength, at the same time that he seized hold of a small bough. It was decayed—snapped asunder, and Newton was whirled away by the current into the broad ocean.

How constantly do we find people running into real danger to avoid imaginary evil! A mother will not permit her child to go to sea, lest it should be drowned, and a few days afterwards it is kicked to death by a horse. Had the child been permitted to go afloat, he might have lived and run through the usual term of existence. Wherever we are, or wherever we may go, there is death awaiting us in some shape or another, sooner or later; and there is as much danger in walking through the streets of London as in ploughing the foaming ocean. Every tile over our heads contains a death within it as certain, if it were to fall upon us, as that occasioned by the angry surge which swallows us up in its wrath. I believe, after all, that as many sailors, in proportion, run out their allotted span as the rest of the world that are engaged in other apparently less dangerous professions; although it must be acknowledged that occasionally we do become food for fishes. "There is a tide in the affairs of men," says Shakespeare; but, certainly, of all the tides that ever interfered in a man's prospects, that which swept away Newton Forster appeared to be the least likely to "lead to fortune." Such, however, was the case. Had Newton gained the islet which he coveted, he would have perished miserably; whereas it will soon appear that, although his sufferings are not yet ended, his being carried away was the most fortunate circumstance which could have occurred, and proved the means of his ultimate preservation.

Newton had resigned himself to his fate. He ceased from further exertion, except such as was necessary to keep him above water a little longer. Throwing himself on his back, he appealed to Heaven for pardon, as he floated away with the stream. That Newton had as few errors and follies to answer for as most people, is most certain; yet even the most perfect soon run up a long account. During our lives our sins are forgotten, as is the time at which they were committed; but when death is certain, or appears to be so, it is then that the memory becomes most horribly perfect, and each item of our monstrous bill requires but a few seconds to be read, and to be acknowledged as too correct. This is the horror of death; this it is which makes the body struggle to retain the soul, already pluming herself and rustling her wings, impatient for her flight. This it is which constitutes the pang of separation, as the enfeebled body gradually relaxes its hold, and—all is over, at least on this side of the grave.

Newton's strength was exhausted; his eyes were fixed on the clear blue sky, as if to bid it farewell; and, resigned to his fate, he was about to give over the last few painful efforts which he was aware could only prolong, not save his life, when he received a blow on his shoulders under the water. Imagining that it proceeded from the tail of a shark, or of some other of the ravenous monsters of the deep, which abound among these islands, and that the next moment his body would be severed in half, he uttered a faint cry at the accumulated horror of his death; but the next moment his legs were swung round by the current, and he perceived, to his astonishment, that he was aground upon one of the sand-banks which abounded on the reef, and over which the tide was running with the velocity of a sluice. He floundered, then rose, and found himself in about one foot of water. The ebb-tide was nearly finished; and this was one of the banks which never showed itself above water, except during the full and change of the moon. It was now about nine o'clock in the morning, and the sun shone with great power. Newton, faint from want of sustenance, hardly knew whether to consider this temporary respite as an advantage. He knew that the tide would soon flow again, and he felt that his strength was too much spent to enable him to swim back to the islet which he had missed when he had attempted to reach it, and which was more than two miles from the bank upon which he then stood. What chance had he, then, but to be swept away by the return of the tide? He almost regretted that it had not been a shark instead of the sand-bank which had struck him; he would then have been spared a few hours of protracted misery.

As Newton had foreseen, the ebb-tide was soon over; a short pause of "slack water" ensued, and there was an evident and rapid increase of the water around him: the wind, too, freshened, and the surface of the ocean was in strong ripples. As the water deepened, so did the waves increase in size: every moment added to his despair. He had now remained about four hours on the bank! the water had risen to underneath his arms, the waves nearly lifted him off his feet, and it was with difficulty that he could retain his position. Hope deserted him, and his senses became confused. He thought that he saw green fields, and cities, and inhabitants. His reason was departing; he saw his father coming down to him with the tide, and called to him for help, when the actual sight of something recalled him from his temporary aberration. There was a dark object upon the water, evidently approaching. His respiration was almost suspended as he watched its coming. At last he distinguished that it must either be a whale asleep, or a boat bottom up. Fortunately for Newton, it proved to be the latter. At last it was brought down by the tide to within a few yards of him, and appeared to be checked. Newton dashed out towards the boat, and in a minute was safely astride upon it. As soon as he had recovered a little from his agitation, he perceived that it was the very boat belonging to the brig, in which Jackson had so treacherously deserted and left him on the island!

At three o'clock it was high water, and at five the water had again retreated, so that Newton could quit his station on the bottom of the boat, and walk round her. He then righted her, and discovered that the mast had been carried away close to the step, but, with the sail, still remained fast to the boat by the main-sheet, which had jammed on the belaying pin, so that it still was serviceable. Everything else had been lost out of the boat, except the grapnel, which had been bent, and which hanging down in the water, from the boat being capsized, had brought it up when it was floated on the sand-bank. Newton, who had neither eaten nor drunk since the night before, was again in despair, tormented as he was by insufferable thirst: when he observed that the locker under the stern-sheets was closed. He hastened to pull it open, and found that the bottles of wine and cider which he had deposited there were remaining. A bottle of the latter was soon poured down his throat, and Newton felt as if restored to his former vigour.

At seven o'clock in the evening the boat was nearly high and dry. Newton baled her out, and, fixing the grapnel firmly in the sand, lay down to sleep in the stern-sheets, covered over with the sail. His sleep was so sound that he did not wake until six o'clock the next morning; when the boat was again aground. He refreshed himself with some wine, and meditated upon his prospect. Thanking Heaven for a renewed chance of escape, and lamenting over the fate of the unprepared Jackson, who had evidently been upset, from the main-sheet having been jammed, Newton resolved to make for one of the English isles, which he knew to be about two hundred miles distant.

The oars had been lost, but the rudder of the boat was fortunately made fast by a pennant. In the afternoon he drew up his grapnel, and made sail in the direction, as well as he could judge from the position of the sun, to the English isles. As the night closed in, he watched the stars, and steered his course by them.

The next day came, and, although the boat sailed well, and went fast before a free wind, no land was in sight. Newton had again recourse to the cider and the wine.

The second night he could hardly keep his eyes open; yet, wearied as he was, he still continued his course, and never quitted his helm. The day again dawned, and Newton's strength was gone, from constant watching; still he bore up against it, until the sun had set.

No land was yet to be seen, and sleep overpowered him. He took a hitch of the main-sheet round his finger, that, should the breeze freshen, he might be roused, in case he should go to sleep; and, having taken this precaution, in a few minutes the boat was steering herself.

Chapter XIX

   "But man, proud man,    Dress'd in a little brief authority,    Most ignorant of what he's most assured,    His glassy essence, like an angry ape,    Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven."SHAKESPEARE.

The reef upon which the brig had been wrecked was one of those extending along the southward of the Virgin Isles. Newton had intended to steer well to the eastward, with the view of reaching one of the northernmost English colonies; but not having a compass, he naturally was not very equal in his course. The fact was that he steered well to the southward of it; and after he fell asleep, the boat ran away still further off her course, for she was on the larboard tack, and having no weight in her except Newton, who was aft in the stern-sheets, she did not feel inclined to keep her wind. Newton's sleep was so profound, that neither the pulling of the main-sheet, which he held with a round turn round his hand, nor the dancing of the boat, which during the night had run fast before an increasing breeze, roused him from his lethargy. On sailed the boat, left to the steerage of Providence; on slept Newton, as if putting firm reliance in the same. It was not until the break of day that his repose was very abruptly broken by a shock, which threw him from the stern-sheets of the boat, right over the aftermost thwart. Newton recovered his legs, and his senses, and found himself alongside of a vessel. He had run stem on to a small schooner, which was lying at anchor. As the boat was drifting fast by, Newton made a spring, and gained the deck of the vessel.

"Ah! mon Dieu!—les Anglais—les Anglais—nous sommes prisonniers!" cried out the only man on deck, jumping on his feet, and making a precipitate dive below.

The vessel, of which Newton had thus taken possession, was one employed in carrying the sugars from the plantations round to Basse Terre, the port of Guadaloupe, there to be shipped for Europe,—Newton's boat having run away so far to the southward, as to make this island. She was lying at anchor off the mouth of a small river, waiting for a cargo.

It happened that the crew of the schooner, who were all slaves, were exactly in the same situation as Newton, when their vessels came in contact—viz., fast asleep. The shock had awakened them; but they were all below except the one who had kept such a remarkably good watch.

Exhausted as Newton was, he could not but smile at his uninterrupted possession of the vessel's decks. Anxious to have communication with the people on board, he sat down, awaiting their coming up from below. In a minute or two, a black head was seen to rise slowly and fearfully out of the fore-scuttle; then it disappeared. Another rose up and went down again as before; and thus it went on until Newton reckoned ten different faces. Having individually ascertained that there was but one man, and that one not provided with any weapons, the negroes assumed a degree of courage. The first head that had made its appearance, the woolly hair of which was of a grizzly gray from age, was again popped up the fore-scuttle, with an interrogatory to Newton, in French, who he was, and what he wanted? Newton, who did not understand a word of the language, shook his head, and, opening his hands and extending his arms, to show that he had no means of defence, he beckoned to them to come up. The man's head had again disappeared, and, after a little demur, nine or ten negroes crawled up out of the fore-scuttle, one after another, each with some weapon or another by way of security. They remained on the forecastle of the vessel until the last was up; and then at a nod given by their grizzle-headed leader, they advanced aft in a body towards Newton. Newton rose and pointed to the boat, which had now drifted about a quarter of a mile astern. He then made signs to give them to understand that he had been wrecked.

"Apparemment c'est un pauvre misérable, qui a fait naufrage," observed the old negro, who appeared to have the charge of the vessel; "Gustave Adolphe, tu parles bien l'Anglais; demandez-lui les nouvelles," continued the old man, folding his arms across, and looking very big indeed, as he reclined against the mainmast of the vessel.

Gustave Adolphe stood forward from the rest of the negroes. He was a short, fat, shiny-faced fellow, with his hair platted into about fifty little tails. He first bowed to his old commander, then placing his arms akimbo, walked up to Newton, and looking him full in the face, commenced his duty of interpreter, as follows:—

"I say—God dam—"

Newton smiled.

"Oui, monsieur, c'est un Anglais."

"Continuez, Gustave Adolphe," replied the old negro, with a majestic air.

Gustave Adolphe, with another bow, resumed:

"I say—where com?"

"Barbadoes," replied Newton.

"Monsieur, il vient de Barbadoes."

"Continuez, Gustave Adolphe," replied his superior, with a wave of his hand.

"I say—where go?"

"Where go?" replied Newton, "go to the bottom."

"Monsieur, il allait au port de Bo—tom."

"Bo—tom," repeated the old negro. "Où diable est ça?"

Here a general consultation was held, by which it appeared that such a port had never been heard of in the West Indies.

"Gustave Adolphe, demandez-lui si c'est un port Anglais."

"I say—Bo—tom—English port?"

"No," replied Newton, amused with the mistake; "I should rather call it neutral."

"C'est un port neutral, monsieur."

"Gustave Adolphe, demandez-lui de quelle île."

"I say, what isle—Bo—tom?"

Newton, who was faint with hunger and thirst, was not inclined at the moment to continue the conversation, which otherwise would have been a source of amusement. He replied by making signs that he wished to eat and drink.

"Monsieur," said Gustave Adolphe to the old negro, "le prisonnier refuse de faire réponse, et demande à manger et à boire."

"Va l'en chercher, Gustave Adolphe," replied the old man. "Allons, messieurs," continued he, addressing the other negroes. "Il faut lever l'ancre de suite, et amener notre prisonnier aux autorités; Charles Philippe, va chercher mon porte-voix."

The negro captain walked up and down the deck of the schooner, a vessel about thirty feet long, until Charles Philippe made his appearance with the speaking-trumpet. He then proceeded to get the vessel under weigh, with more noise and fuss than is to be heard when the proudest three-decker in the English navy expands her lofty canvas to the gale.

Gustave Adolphe, in obedience to the commands he had received, brought up to Newton a bunch of bananas, a large piece of salt fish, and a calabash of water. The latter was immediately applied to his lips, and never removed while a drop remained, much to the astonishment of the negro, who again sported his English.

"I say—very good—ab more?"

"If you please," replied Newton.

"Monsieur," said Gustave Adolphe to his commander, "le prisonnier a soif, et demande encore de l'eau."