The Jolly Roger Tales: 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventures. Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

with the sea. In the light air the sluggish ship moved ever so slowly, with canvas spread on the fore and mizzen masts. Spirits revived and life tasted passing sweet. To drift in the open sea upon wave-washed rafts was an expedient which all mariners shuddered to contemplate. It was with feelings far different that they now assembled spars and planks and lashed and spiked them together on the chance of needing rafts to ferry them ashore from a stranded ship.

      Well into the bright afternoon the Plymouth Adventure was wafted nearer and nearer the sandy coast. Within a half mile of it a line of breakers frothed and tumbled on a shoal beyond which the water deepened again. The ship could not be steered to avoid this barrier. Her main deck was almost level with the sea which lapped her gently and sobbed through the broken bulwarks. With a slight shock she struck the shoal and rested there just before she was ready to founder.

      With disciplined haste, the jolly-boat was launched and filled with its human freightage. The boatswain went in charge and four seamen tugged at the sweeps. There were trees and clumps of bushes among the hillocks of sand and a tiny bight for a landing place. The bulwark was then chopped away so that the largest raft could be shoved into the water by means of tackles, rollers and handspikes. It floated buoyantly and supported as many as fifteen men, who did not mind in the least getting their feet wet. Upon a raised platform in the centre of the raft were fastened barrels of beef and bread and casks of fresh water.

      The jolly-boat could hope to make other trips between the ship and the shore but the prudent skipper took no chances with the weather. A sudden gale might pluck the Plymouth Adventure from the shoal or tear her to fragments where she lay. Therefore most of the men, including passengers, were embarked on the raft. Captain Wellsby remained aboard with a few of his sailors and our two lads, Joe and Jack, who had not attempted to thrust themselves upon the crowded raft.

      The pirates were making a commotion in the forecastle, yammering to be freed, but the skipper had no intention of loosing them until all his people had safely abandoned ship. The jolly-boat made a landing without mishap and returned to the wreck as the sun went down. More stores were dumped into it, sacks of potatoes and onions which had been overlooked, bedding for the women, powder and ball for the muskets, and other things which it was necessary to keep dry.

      Captain Wellsby got rid of the rest of his men on this trip, excepting the gunner and carpenter, and these lingered with him as a kind of body-guard pending the ticklish business of releasing the imprisoned pirates and forsaking them to their own devices. The jolly-boat was laden to the gunwales and Jack Cockrell held back, saying to Joe Hawkridge:

      "Why trouble the captain to set us ashore? Let us make a raft of our own. The breeze holds fair to the beach and it will be a lark."

      "It suits me well," grinned Joe. "If we wait to go off with the master, and those sinful pirates see me aboard, I'll need wings to escape 'em. They saw me serve the gun that was filled with spikes to the muzzle. Aye, Jack, I will feel happier to be elsewhere when Cap'n Wellsby unbars the fo'castle and holds 'em back with his pistols till he can cast off in the jolly-boat."

      "Yes, the sight of you is apt to put them in a vile temper," laughingly agreed Jack, "and 'tis awkward for the master to bother with us. Now about a little raft——"

      "Two short spars are enough. There they lie. And the cabin hatch will do for a deck. Spikes for thole-pins, and oars from the pinnace. Unlace the bonnet of the jib for a sail."

      "You are a proper sailorman, Joe. A voyage by starlight to an unknown coast. 'Tis highly romantic."

      They set to work without delay. Captain Wellsby had occupations of his own and no more than glanced at them in passing. Jack insisted on carrying a water breaker and rations, he being hungry and too busy to pause for supper. They would make a picnic cruise of the adventure. Handily Joe reeved a purchase and they hauled away until their raft slid off the sloping deck to leeward. With a gay hurrah to Captain Wellsby, they paddled around the stern of the ship and through the ruffle of surf that marked the shoal.

      In the soft twilight they trimmed the sail and swung at the clumsy oars, while a fire blazing on the beach was a beacon to guide their course. After a time they rested and wiped the sweat from their faces. The progress of the raft was like that of a lazy snail. In the luminous darkness they pulled with all their strength. The wind had died to a calm. The sail hung idle from its yard. They heard, faint and afar, the deep voices of the sailors in the jolly-boat as they returned to take the skipper and his two companions from the ship on which a light burned.

      The lads shouted but there came no answering hail from the unseen boat. They were perplexed to understand how their courses could be so far apart. Presently the night breeze drew off the land, bringing with it the scent of green things growing. Joe Hawkridge stared at the fire on the beach and then turned to look at the spark of light on the ship. The raft had drifted considerably to the southward. Anxiously Joe said to his shipmate:

      "The flood o' the tide must be setting us down the coast, in some crazy current or other. Mayhap it runs strong through this race betwixt the shoal and the beach with a slant that's bad for us."

      "I noted it," glumly agreed Jack. "The jolly-boat passed too far away to please me. And this landward breeze is driving us to sea."

      "No sense in breaking our backs at these oars," grumbled Joe. "We go ahead like a crab, with a sternboard. Think ye we can swing the raft to fetch the ship?"

      "After Captain Wellsby turns the pirates loose and quits her?" scoffed Jack.

      "I am a plaguey fool," cheerfully admitted Joe Hawkridge. "'Twould be out of the frying-pan into the fire, with a vengeance."

      "And no way to signal our friends," sadly exclaimed Jack. "We forgot flint and steel. It looks much like another voyage."

      "Straight for the open sea, my bully boy," agreed Joe. "And I'd as soon chance it on a hen-coop."

      Chapter VI.

       The Voyage of the Little Raft

       Table of Contents

      These sturdy youngsters were not easily frightened, and Jack Cockrell, the landsman, was confident that wind and tide would change to send the little raft shoreward. So tranquil was the sea that they rode secure and dry upon the cabin hatch which was buoyed by the two short spars. Joe Hawkridge was silent with foreboding of a fate more bitter than the perils which they had escaped. He had seen a lone survivor of a crew of pirates picked off a raft in the Caribbean, a grisly phantom raving mad who had gnawed the flesh of his dead comrades.

      They drifted quietly before the land breeze, beneath a sky all jeweled with bright stars. The fire on the beach dimmed to a red spark and then vanished from their wistful ken. They could no longer see the light on the wreck of the Plymouth Adventure. Now and then the boys struggled with the heavy oars and rowed until exhausted but they knew they could be making no headway against the current which had gripped the derelict raft. They ate sparingly of flinty biscuit and leathery beef pickled in brine and stinted themselves to a few swallows of water from the wooden breaker or tiny cask.

      "Hunger and thirst are strange to ye, Jack," said young Hawkridge as they lay stretched side by side. "Hanged if I ever did get enough to eat till I boarded the Plymouth Adventure. Skin and bone I am. I'll not call this a bad cruise unless we have to chew our boot-tops. A pesky diet is leather. I've tried it."

      "Truly, Joe?" cried Jack in lugubrious accents. "We may have more heart when morning comes. A piping easterly breeze, such as is wont to come up with the sun in Charles Town, and we can steer for the coast all taut and cheery."

      "I dread the sun, Jack. For men adrift the blaze of it fries them like fish on a grid. A pint of water a day, no more, is the allowance. 'Twill torture you, but castaways can live on it. They have done it for weeks on end. Here's two musket balls in my pocket. I can whittle a balance from a bit of pine and we must weigh the bread and meat."

      "Two musket balls' weight of food for a meal?" protested Jack.

      "Not