Chapter 100 - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Mayne Reid
The End of the “Yarn”
Ocean Waifs no longer, the crew of the Catamaran became embodied with that of the ship, and her little passenger found kindness and protection in the cabin of the whaler.
The Catamaran herself was not “cut loose” in the nautical sense of the term, and abandoned, but she was cut loose in a literal sense, and in pieces hoisted aboard the ship to be employed for various purposes,—her ropes, spars, and sail to be used at some time as they had been originally intended—her other timbers to go to the stock of the carpenter, and her casks to the cooper, to be eventually filled with the precious sperm-oil which the ship’s crew were engaged in trying out.
The old whalesman was not long aboard before getting confirmed in his conjecture that the ship was the same whose boats had harpooned and “drogued” the cachalot, the carcass of which had been encountered by the Catamaran. It was one of a large “pod” of whales, of which the boats had been in pursuit, and these, along with the ship, having followed its companions to a great distance, and killed several of them in the chase, had lost all bearings of the one first struck.
It had been their intention to go in search of it, as soon as they should try out the others that had been captured; and the information now given by Ben Brace to the captain of the whaler would enable the latter the more easily to discover the lost prize, which he estimated at the value of seventy or eighty barrels of oil, and therefore well worth the trouble of going back for. On the day after the castaways had been taken aboard, the whale-ship, having extinguished the fires of her try-works, started in search of the drogued whale.
The ex-crew of the Catamaran had by this time given a full account of their adventures to the whalesmen; at the same time expressing their belief that the ruffians on the big raft would be found by the carcass they were in search of. The prospect of such an encounter could not fail to interest the crew of the whaler; and as they advanced in the direction in which they expected to find the drogued cachalot, all eyes were bent searchingly upon the sea.
So far as the dead whale was concerned, they were successful in their search. Just as the sun was going down, they came in sight of it; and before the twilight had passed they “hove to” along side of it. The vast flock of sea birds perched upon the floating mass, and that rose into the air as the ship approached them, proclaimed the absence of human beings. The great raft was not there, nor were there any indications that it had revisited the carcass. On the contrary, that curious structure, the crane, which the Catamarans had erected on the summit of the floating mass, was still standing just as they had left it; only that the flakes of shark’s flesh were scorched to the hue and texture of a cinder, and the fire that had burnt them was no longer blazing beneath.
The fate of the slaver’s castaway crew did not long remain a mystery. Three days after, when the carcass of the cachalot had been “flensed” and tried out, and the whaler had once more proceeded upon her cruise, she chanced upon a spot where the sea was strewn with a variety of objects, among which were two or three spars of a ship, and several empty water-casks. In these objects there was no difficulty in recognising the wreck of the Pandora’s raft, which was drifting at no great distance from the place where they had been cutting up the cachalot.
The conclusion was easily arrived at. The gale, which had been successfully weathered by the carefully constructed Catamaran, had proved too violent for the larger embarkation, loosely lashed together, and negligently navigated as it was. As a consequence it had gone to pieces; while the wretches who had occupied it, not having the strength to cling either to cask or spar, had indubitably gone to the bottom. As little William afterwards related—
“So perished the slaver’s crew. Not one of them,—either those in the gig or on the raft, ever again saw the shore. They perished upon the face of the wide ocean—miserably perished, without hand to help or eye to weep over them!”
In truth did it seem as if their destruction had been an act of the Omnipotent Himself, to avenge the sable-skinned victims of their atrocious cruelty!
Were it our province to write the after history of the Catamarans, we could promise ourselves a pleasant task, perhaps pleasanter than recording the cruise of that illustrious craft.
We have space only to epitomise. The day after setting foot upon the deck of the whale-ship, Snowball was appointed chef de caboose, in which distinguished office he continued for several years; and only resigned it to accept of a similar situation on board a fine bark, commanded by Captain Benjamin Brace, engaged in the African trade. But not that African trade carried on by such ships as the Pandora. No; the merchandise transported in Captain Brace’s bark was not black men, but white ivory, yellow gold-dust, palm-oil, and ostrich-plumes; and it was said, that, after each “trip” to the African coast, the master, as well as owner, of this richly laden bark, was accustomed to make a trip to the Bank of England, and there deposit a considerable sum of money.
After many years spent thus professionally, and with continued success, the ci-devant whalesman, man-o’-war’s-man, ex-captain of the Catamaran, and master of the African trader, retired from active life; and, anchored in a snug craft in the shape of a Hampstead Heath villa, is now enjoying his pipe, his glass of grog, and his otium cum dignitate.
As for “Little William,” he in turn ceased to be known by this designation. It was no longer appropriate when he became the captain of a first-class clipper-ship in the East Indian trade,—standing upon his own quarter-deck full six feet in his shoes, and finely proportioned at that,—so well as to both face and figure, that he had no difficulty in getting “spliced” to a wife that dearly loved him.
She was a very beautiful woman, with a noble round eye, jet black waving hair, and a deep brunette complexion. Many of his acquaintances were under the impression that she had Oriental blood in her veins, and that he had brought her home from India on one of his return voyages from that country. Those more intimate with him could give a different account,—one received from himself; and which told them that his wife was a native of Africa, of Portuguese extraction, and that her name was Lalee.
They had heard, moreover, that his first acquaintance with her had commenced on board a slave bark; and that their friendship as children,—afterwards ripening into love,—had been cemented while both were castaways upon a raft—Ocean Waifs in the middle of the Atlantic.