Adrift on the Pacific: A Boys [sic] Story of the Sea and its Perils

CHAPTER I
CAPTAIN STRATHMORE’S PASSENGER

A few hours before the sailing of the steamer Polynesia, from San Francisco to Japan, and while Captain Strathmore stood on deck watching the bustle and hurry, he was approached by a nervous, well-dressed gentleman, who was leading a little girl by the hand.

“I wish you to take a passenger to Tokio for me, Captain Strathmore,” said the stranger.

The honest, bluff old captain, although tender of the feelings of others, never forgot the dignity and respect due to his position, and, looking sternly at the stranger, said:

“You should know, sir, that it is the purser and not the captain whom you should see.”

“I have seen him, and cannot make a satisfactory arrangement.”

“And that is no reason, sir, why you should approach me.”

The captain was about moving away, when the stranger placed his hand on his arm, and said, in a hurried, anxious voice:

“It is not I who wish to go–it is this little girl. It is a case of life and death; she must go! You, as captain, can take her in your own cabin, and no one will be inconvenienced.”

For the first time Captain Strathmore looked down at the little girl, who was staring around her with the wondering curiosity of childhood.

She was apparently about six years of age, and the picture of infantile innocence and loveliness. She was dressed with good taste, her little feet being incased in Cinderella-like slippers, while the pretty stockings and dress set off the figure to perfection. She wore a fashionable straw hat, with a gay ribbon, and indeed looked like a child of wealthy parents, who had let her out for a little jaunt along some shady avenue.

When Captain Strathmore looked down upon this sweet child, a great pang went through his heart, for she was the picture of the little girl that once called him father.

Her mother died while little Inez was an infant, and, as soon as the cherished one could dispense with the care of a nurse, she joined her father, the captain, and henceforth was not separated from him. She was always on ship or steamer, sharing his room and becoming the pet of every one who met her, no less from her loveliness than from her childish, winning ways.

But there came one awful dark day, away out in the Pacific, when the sweet voice was hushed forever, and the rugged old captain was bowed by a grief such as that which smites the mountain-oak to the earth.

The little girl who now looked up in the face of Captain Strathmore was the image of Inez, who years before had sunk to the bottom of the sea, carrying with her all the sunshine, music and loveliness that cheered her father’s heart. With an impulse he could not resist, the captain reached out his arms and the little stranger instantly ran into them. Then she was lifted up, and the captain kissed her, saying:

“You look so much like the little girl I buried at sea that I could not help kissing you.”

The child was not afraid of him, for her fairy-like fingers began playing with the grizzled whiskers, while the honest blue eyes of the old sailor grew dim and misty for the moment.

The gentleman who had brought the child to the steamer saw that this was a favorable time for him to urge his plea.

“That is the little girl whom I wished to send to Tokio by you.”

“Have you no friend or acquaintance on board in whose care you can place her?”

“I do not know a soul.”

“Is she any relative of yours?”

“She is my niece. Her father and mother are missionaries in Japan, and have been notified of her coming on this steamer.”

“If that were so, why then were not preparations made for sending her in the care of some one, instead of waiting until the last minute, and then rushing down here and making application in such an irregular manner?”

“Her uncle, the brother of my wife, expected to make the voyage with her, and came to San Francisco for that purpose. He was taken dangerously ill at the hotel, and when I reached there, a few hours ago, he was dead, and my niece was in the care of the landlord’s family. My wife, who is out yonder in a carriage, had prepared to accompany me East to-morrow. Her brother had made no arrangements for taking the little one on the steamer, so I was forced into this unusual application.”

While the gentleman was making this explanation, the captain was holding the child in his arms, and admiring the beautiful countenance and loveliness of face and manner.

“She does look exactly like my poor little Inez,” was his thought, as he gently placed her on her feet again.

“If we take her to Japan, what then?”

“Her parents will be in Tokio, waiting for her. You, as captain, have the right, which no one would dare question, of taking her into your cabin with you, and I will compensate you in any manner you may wish.”

“What is her name?” asked Captain Strathmore.

“Inez.”

“She shall go,” said the sailor, in a husky voice.

CHAPTER II
THE CAPTAIN AND INEZ

The steamer Polynesia was steaming swiftly across the Pacific, in the direction of Japan–bravely plunging out into the mightiest expanse of water which spans the globe, and heading for the port that loomed up from the ocean almost ten thousand miles away.

Although but a few days out, little Inez had become the pet of the whole ship. She was full of high spirits, bounding health–a laughing, merry sprite, who made every portion of the steamer her home, and who was welcome wherever she went.

To the bronzed and rugged Captain Strathmore she was such a reminder of his own lost Inez that she became a second daughter to him, and something like a pang stirred his heart when he reflected upon his arrival at his destination and his parting from the little one.

Inez, as nearly as the captain could gather, had been living for several years with her uncle and aunt in San Francisco, from which port her parents had sailed a considerable time before. The stranger gave a very common name as his own–George Smith–and said he would await the return of the Polynesia with great anxiety, in order to learn the particulars of the arrival of his niece in Japan.

However, the captain did not allow his mind to be annoyed by any speculations as to the past of the little girl; but he could not avoid a strong yearning which was growing in his heart that something would turn up–something possibly in the shape of a social revolution or earthquake–that would place the little girl in his possession again.

And yet he trembled as he muttered the wish.

“How long would I keep her? I had such a girl once–her very counterpart–the sweet Inez, my own; and yet she is gone, and who shall say how long this one shall be mine?”

The weather remained all that could be wished for a number of days after steaming out of the Golden Gate. It was in the month of September, when a mild, dreamy languor seemed to rest upon everything, and the passage across the Pacific was like one long-continued dream of the Orient–excepting, perhaps, when the cyclone or hurricane, roused from its sleep, swept over the deep with a fury such as strews the shores with wrecks and the bottom with multitudes of bodies.

What more beautiful than a moonlight night on the Pacific?

The Polynesia was plowing the vast waste of waters which separates the two worlds, bearing upon her decks and in her cabins passengers from the four quarters of the globe.

They came from, and were going to, every portion of the wide world. Some were speeding toward their homes in Asia or Africa or the islands of the sea; and others living in Europe or America, or the remote corners of the earth, would finally return, after wandering over strange places, seeing singular sights, and treading in the footsteps of the armies who had gone before them in the dim ages of the past.

Now and then the great ship rose from some mighty swell, and then, settling down, drove ahead, cleaving the calm water and leaving a wide wake of foam behind. The black smoke poured out of the broad funnels, and sifted upward through the scant rigging, and was dissipated in the clear air above. The throbbing of the engine made its pulsations felt through the ponderous craft from stem to stern, as a giant breathes more powerfully when gathering his energy for the final effort of the race. A few drifting clouds moved along the sky, while, now and then, a starlike point of light, far away against the horizon, showed where some other caravansary of the sea was moving toward its destination, thousands of leagues away.

Although Captain Strathmore was on duty, and it was against the rules for any passenger to approach or address him, yet there was one who was unrestrained by rules or regulations, no matter how sternly they were enforced in other cases.

The captain was standing on the bridge, when he felt some one tugging at his coat, and he looked down.

There was Inez demanding his attention.

“Take me up, pop,” said she.

“Bless your heart!” laughed the captain as he obeyed the little empress; “you would ruin the discipline of a man-of-war in a month.”

While speaking, he perched her on his shoulder, as was a favorite custom with him.

The day had been unusually warm, and the night was so mild that the steady breeze made by the motion of the steamer was scarcely sufficient to keep one cool. Little Inez had thrown aside her hat with the setting of the sun, and now her wealth of golden hair streamed and fluttered in fleecy masses about her shoulders.

The steamer was plowing straight to the westward, cutting the waves so keenly that a thin parabola of water continually curved over in front of her from the knife-like prow.

Perched aloft on the shoulder of the captain, Inez naturally gazed ahead, and the figure was a striking one of innocence and infancy peering forward through the mists and clouds toward the unknown future. But Inez was too young to have any such poetical thoughts, and the captain was too practical to be troubled by “æsthetic meditations.”

He chatted with her about their arrival in Japan, saying that she would be glad to see no more of him, when she replied:

“If you talk that way, I’ll cry. You must go home and live with us. Uncle Con says papa has a big dog, and if we haven’t room in the house, you can sleep with him, and I’ll feed you each morning–oh, look!”

CHAPTER III
AN ACCIDENT

That which arrested the attention of the little girl in the arms of Captain Strathmore, was a sight–unique, rare and impressively beautiful.

All around the steamer stretched the vast Pacific, melting away into darkness, with here and there a star-like twinkle, showing where some ship was moving over the waste of waters. Overhead, the sky was clear, with a few stars faintly gleaming, while the round, full moon, for whose rising so many on the steamer had been watching, had just come up, its disk looking unusually large, as it always does when so close to the horizon.

Just when the moon was half above the ocean, and when the narrowing path of the illumination stretched from the ship to the outer edge of the world, a vessel under full sail slowly passed over the face of the moon.

The partial eclipse was so singular that it arrested the attention of Inez, who uttered the exclamation we have recorded. It was seen by nearly all the passengers, too, most of whom were looking toward the horizon for the rising of the orb, and expressions of delight were heard from every quarter, for such a sight, we say, is rare.

When observed by the passengers on board the Polynesia, the moon had barely cleared the horizon, as we have stated, and the top of the mainmast just reached the uppermost portion of the periphery, while spars, rigging and hull were marked against the yellow disk as distinctly as if painted in India ink.

Such an obscuration, like a total one of the sun, could last but a few seconds, for the Polynesia and the other ship were moving in opposite directions, while the moon itself was creeping upward toward the zenith. Slowly the black ship glided toward its destination–hull, masts and rigging gradually mingled with the gloom beyond, until the moon, as if shaking off the eclipse, mounted upward with its face unmarred, excepting by the peculiar figures stamped there when it was first launched into space.

When the wonderful exhibition was over there were murmurs of admiration from the passengers, who, grouped here and there, or promenading back and forth, had stood spellbound, as may be said, while it was in progress.

Captain Strathmore and two of his officers had seen the same thing once or twice before, but they had been favored in this respect above others, and could hardly expect anything of the kind again.

The captain now prepared for an interesting and novel ceremony, which he had announced would take place that evening by moonlight.

Descending to the deck, and approaching the stern, where the expectant passengers had gathered together, the group were silent a minute, while he stood among them holding little Inez by the hand. A few minutes later the purser came aft, carrying a parcel in his hand, which he carefully placed upon the taffrail. Then he spoke in a sepulchral voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we all have lost minutes and hours, but it is seldom that we deliberately throw away a day. But we are to do so now. We are about to bury a day. To-day is the Twentieth, to-morrow will be the Twenty-second, and where, then, is the Twenty-first? There it lies” (pointing to the parcel on the taffrail). “Life is short enough, without deliberately casting an entire day into the sea; but there is the consolation of knowing, on your return, that it shall be restored to you, and thus beautifully does nature preserve the equilibrium throughout the world. What more fitting than that the day should be buried by the hands of one whose life is as spotless as the snow upon the peaks of the Sierras we have left behind us?”

All now uncovered their heads–that is, the gentlemen did–and the captain advanced, leading Inez Hawthorne by the hand. Holding her up a short distance from the deck, she called out:

“Good-by, Twenty-first of September!”

She repeated the words correctly, for the captain whispered them in her ear, and as she spoke she gave the parcel a slight shove, and overboard it went, striking the water with a splash, and instantly sinking out of sight. The package was nothing but some old iron, wrapped about with coarse brown paper.

The ceremony of burying a day, as the reader knows, is a common, and it may be said, a necessary, one with vessels sailing westward over the Pacific, as the picking up of a day is necessary on the return. At first sight it seems incongruous, but it is in fact the only way in which the reckoning of time can be kept correctly.

The little ceremony naturally caused the matter itself to become one of discussion, and probably a goodly number of young ladies and gentlemen picked up more knowledge of the matter than they had ever dreamed of before.

Two curious things happened within a half hour of this novel ceremony.

The Polynesia was driving along with that steady motion in which the throbbing of the vessel can only be detected by carefully standing still and watching for it, when every passenger, and especially the captain and his officers, suddenly felt an alarming jar, which shook the steamer from stem to stern. It was noticed that the engine instantly stopped and the enormous ship gradually came to rest upon the long, heaving swell of the Pacific.

In a few minutes it was ascertained that the steamer had broken the shaft of her propeller, thus rendering the all-important screw useless. This necessitated the hoisting of her sails, and a monotonous voyage to her destination, a return to San Francisco, or a long deviation to Honolulu for repairs.

While the necessary investigation was going on, a sail had been sighted bearing down upon them, and in half an hour it came-to, a short distance off, in the hope of being able to afford some assistance–as the sight of a steamer lying motionless on the water meant that something was amiss.

This new craft was the schooner Coral, a stanchly-built, sharp-bowed little vessel of forty tons burden, built for the Honolulu trade. She was about seven years old, very fast, and constructed as strongly as iron and wood could make her. The forecastle, cook’s quarters and cabin were all under deck, so that in heavy weather there was no danger of being washed from one’s bunk whenever a big sea came thundering over the rail.

The skipper or captain of this trim little craft was Jack Bergen, of Boston, and he with his mate, Abram Storms, had made the trip across the continent by rail to San Francisco–thus saving the long, dangerous and expensive voyage around Cape Horn.

In the Golden Gate City they–for the mate and captain were joint partners–bought the Coral at auction, paying just two-thirds the sum they expected to give for the vessel they needed. However, when she was fitted up and provisioned, they found very little of their funds left, and they could but feel some anxiety as to the result of the extraordinary enterprise upon which they were engaged. The crew of the little schooner consisted of the two sailors, Hyde Brazzier, Alfredo Redvignez, and a huge African, Pomp Cooper, who shipped as cook and steward, with the liability of being called upon to do duty in an emergency.

But of these, more hereafter.

Captain Bergen, after his craft came-to, was rowed across the short, intervening distance with his mate, and they were assisted upon deck, where they were received most courteously.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” he asked after he and his brother officer were received by Captain Strathmore.

“I’m obliged to you, but I’m afraid not,” was the courteous response. “You know, there’s no way of telling when a piece of iron is going to fracture, and so there is no way of providing against such an accident.”

“Is the shaft broke?”

“Yes; broken clean off.”

“Where?”

The captain of the steamer smiled, for he saw no need of such a question, since he considered the damage irremediable.

“Quite a distance from the screw, and it’s a curious fracture. Would you like to look at it?”

“I would, indeed. You see, we have got considerable out of our course–being too far west–and we shall make a pretty sharp turn to the south, toward Honolulu.”

“I am debating whether to go there, turn back to San Francisco, or keep on under sail to Tokio.”

“This is my mate, Abram Storms, from Enfield, Connecticut,” said Captain Bergen, introducing the two. “I bring him along because he is the most ingenious man ever turned out by that home of ingenuity; and when I saw that something was the matter with you, I came alongside, more because I believed he could help you, than in the expectation that I could be of any service.”

“Captain Bergen does me too much honor,” protested the stoop-shouldered New Englander, who, had there been more of daylight, would have been seen to blush under the compliment.

“I have no doubt he speaks the truth,” replied Captain Strathmore, leading the way below to where the broken shaft rested motionless; “but this trouble is too much like a broken neck for any surgery to help.”

A minute later, a group of half a dozen stood about and stooped over the broken shaft, and examined it by the aid of lanterns, the chief engineer showing a more courteous spirit than is usual under such circumstances.

As one looked at the huge cylinder of solid iron, gleaming with a silvery whiteness all over the jagged face where it had been twisted off, the wonder was how it could be possible for any force to be tremendous enough to do such damage. The peculiarity about the breakage, however, was that, instead of snapping nearly squarely off, the fracture extended longitudinally for fully eighteen inches, so that the face of each part was a great deal broader and longer than is generally the case in such accidents.

The group surveyed it a minute or two in silence, stooping down and feeling of the innumerable jagged protuberances, the indentations, and the exceedingly rough surface, the minute particles gleaming in the lamp-light like a mass of silver ore split apart.

The first remark came from the New Englander, Abe Storms.

“That is curious, for there are no signs of crystallization, nor can I detect a flaw.”

“Nevertheless, it must be there, for perfect iron would not have broken in that manner,” said the chief engineer.

“I beg your pardon,” said the mate, courteously, “but it frequently happens. There has been some peculiar combination of the movement of the steamer on the swell of the sea, with the position of the screw at that moment–a convergence of a hundred conditions–some almost infinitesimal, but necessary, and which convergence is not likely to take place in a million revolutions of the screw–that has brought an irresistible strain upon the shaft–one that would have wrenched it off, had the diameter been twice what it is.”

The group looked wonderingly at the speaker, for every intelligent man felt that the theory of the New Englander had a stratum of truth beneath it. It was hard to make clear what the mate meant, but all to a certain extent understood, and no one ventured to gainsay it.

“However,” added Abe Storms, “there’s one good thing about this; it will be easy to mend it.”

Captain Bergen smiled, for he expected something of the kind, and he knew that that wonderful Yankee mate of his never boasted, and would demonstrate every assertion he made. But the others stared at the speaker with something like consternation, and seemed to be debating whether he was crazy or a natural born idiot.