THE long-boat was, at this moment, a hundred miles to windward of the cutter.
The fact is that Wylie, the evening before, had been secretly perplexed as to the best course. He had decided to run for the island; but he was not easy under his own decision; and, at night, he got more and more discontented with it. Finally, at nine o'clock P.M., he suddenly gave the order to luff, and tack; and by daybreak he was very near the place where the _Proserpine_ went down, whereas the cutter, having run before the wind all night, was, at least, a hundred miles to leeward of him.
Not to deceive the reader, or let him, for a moment, think we do business in monsters, we will weigh this act of Wylie's justly.
It was just a piece of iron egotism. He preferred, for himself, the chance of being picked up by a vessel. He thought it was about a hair's breadth better than running for an island, as to whose bearing he was not very clear, after all.
But he was not sure he was taking the best or safest course. The cutter might be saved, after all, and the long-boat lost.
Meantime he was not sorry of an excuse to shake off the cutter. She contained one man at least who knew he had scuttled the _Proserpine;_ and therefore it was all-important to him to get to London before her and receive the three thousand pounds which was to be his reward for that abominable act.
But the way to get to London before Mr. Hazel, or else to the bottom of the Pacific before him, was to get back into the searoad at all hazards.
He was not aware that the cutter's water and biscuit were on board his boat; nor did he discover this till noon next day. And, on making this fearful discovery, he showed himself human. He cried out, with an oath, "What have I done? I have damned myself to all eternity!"
He then ordered the boat to be put before the wind again; but the men scowled, and not one stirred a finger; and he saw the futility of this, and did not persist, but groaned aloud, and then sat staring wildly.
Finally, like a true sailor, he got to the rum, and stupefied his agitated conscience for a time.
While he lay drunk at the bottom of the boat his sailors carried out his last instructions, beating southward right in the wind's eye.
Five days they beat to windward, and never saw a sail. Then it fell dead calm; and so remained for three days more.
The men began to suffer greatly from cramps, owing to their number and confined position. During the calm they rowed all day, and with this and a light westerly breeze that sprung up, they got into the sea-road again.
But, having now sailed three hundred and fifty miles to the southward, they found a great change in the temperature. The nights were so cold that they were fain to huddle together, to keep a little warmth in their bodies.
On the fifteenth day of their voyage it began to rain and blow, and then they were never a whole minute out of peril. Hand forever on the sheet, eye on the waves, to ease her at the right moment; and with all this care the spray eternally flying half way over her mast, and often a body of water making a clean breach over her, and the men bailing night and day with their very hats, or she could not have lived an hour.
At last, when they were almost dead with wet, cold, fatigue and danger, a vessel came in sight and crept slowly up, about two miles to windward of the distressed boat. With the heave of the waters they could see little more than her sails; but they ran up a bright bandanna handkerchief to their masthead; and the ship made them out. She hoisted Dutch colors, and--continued her course.
Then the poor abandoned creatures wept and raved, and cursed in their frenzy, glaring after that cruel, shameless man who could do such an act, yet hoist a color, and show of what nation he was the native--and the disgrace.
But one of them said not a word. This was Wylie. He sat shivering, and remembered how he had abandoned the cutter, and all on board. Loud sighs broke from his laboring breast; but not a word. Yet one word was ever present to his mind; and seemed written in fire on the night of clouds, and howled in his ears by the wind--Retribution!
And now came a dirty night--to men on ships; a fearful night to men in boats. The sky black, the sea on fire with crested billows, that broke over them every minute; their light was washed out; their provisions drenched and spoiled; bail as they would, the boat was always filling. Up to their knees in water; cold as ice, blinded with spray, deafened with roaring billows, they tossed and tumbled in a fiery foaming hell of waters, and still, though despairing, clung to their lives, and bailed with their hats unceasingly.
Day broke, and the first sight it revealed to them was a brig to windward staggering along, and pitching under close-reefed topsails.
