FICTION IN BRIEF.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2401, 20 September 1892, Page 4

FICTION IN BRIEF.

THE ADVENTURES OF THREE SAILORS. BY W. CLARK RUSSELL . Author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor,” "A Sea Queen," "The Golden Hope," Ac., &c.

[All Rights Reserved.] OtJR vessel was a little brig, named the Hindoo Merchant, and we sailed on a day of March in the year of onr Lord 1857, from Trincomalle bound to Calcutta. The

captain, myself and three' sailors were Europeans ; the rest of the ship’s company natives. Though we were " flying light” as the term is—that is to say, though there was little more in the ship’s hold than ballast, and though she had tolerably nimble heels, for what one might term a country-wallah—-yet the little ship was so bothered with head winds and light airs, and long days of stagnation, that we had been several weeks afloat before we managed to crawl to the Norrard of the Andaman parallels, which yet left a long stretch of waters before us. If this remainder of the ocean was not to be traversed more fleetly than the space we had already measured, then, it was certain we should be running short of water many a long while before the Sandheads came within the compass of our horizon, and to provide against the most horrible situation that the crew of a ship can find themselves placed in. we kept a bright lookout for vessels, and within four days managed to speak two; but they had no water to spare, and we pushed on. But within three days of our speaking the second of the two vessels we sighted a third ; a large barque, who at once backed her topsail to our signals, and hailed us to know what we wanted. My captain, Mr. Roger Blow, stood up in the mizzen-rigging and asked for water. They asked how much we needed ; Captain Blow responded whatever they could spare would be a God-send. On this they sung out, " Send a boat with a cask, and you shall have what we can afford to part with.” Captain Blow then told me to put an eighteen-gallon cask, in the portquarter boat, and go away to the barque with it. " They’ll not till it,” said he," but a half’ll be better than a quarter, and a quarter’ll be good enough ; for we stand to pick up more as we go along.” I had called to two of the English sailors, named Mike Jackson and Thomas Fallows, to get into the boat, when the cask had been placed in her ; and when I had entered her the darkeys lowered us ; we unhooked and shoved off. There was a pleasant breeze ot ■wind blowing ; it blew hot, as though it came straight from the inside of an oven, the door of which had been suddenly opened; the sky had the sort of glazed dimness of the human eye in fever; but right overhead it was of a copperish dazzle where the roasting orb of the sun was. I could not see a speck of cloud anywhere, which rendered what followed the more amazing to my mind for the suddenness of it. The two vessels at the first of their speaking had been tolerably close together, but some time had been spent in routing up the caskand getting it into the boat, and setting ourselves afloat, so that at the moment of our shoving off —spite of the topsail of each vessel being to the mast —the space had widened between them, till I daresay it covered pretty nearly a mile. The wind was at west-nor’west, and the barque bore on the lee-quarter of the Hindoo Merchant. The great heat put a languor into the arms of our two seamen, and the oars rose and fell slowly and weakly. Jackson said to me: I hope,” he says, " they’ll be able to spare ns a bite of ship’s bread. Ours is no better than sawdust, and if it wasn’t for the worms in it,” said he, “ blast me if there’d be any nutriment in it at all. Them Cingalese ought to ha’ moored their island off the Chinee coast. They’d have grown rich with teaching the Johnnies more tricks than they’re master of. at plundering sailors." "The Hindoo Merchant’s bread isn’t up to much, Fallows,” said I; " but this is no atmosphere to talk of bread in, What’s aboard’ll carry us to the Hooghley. It is water we have to fix our minds on.” We drew alongside of the tall barque, and the master after looking over the rail, asked me to step aboard and drink a glass with him in his cabin, " for" says he, " this is no part of the ocean to be thirsty in," and he then gave directions for the cask to be got out of the boat, sncl a drink of rum and water to be handed down to the two seamen. I stepped into the cabin, and the captain put a bottle of brandy and some cold water on the table. He asked me several questions about the brig, and how long we were out, and where vve were from and the like, and one thing leading to another, he happened to mention the town he was born in , which was by native place too— Ashford, in the county of Kent—and here was now a topic to set us yarning, for I knew some ofhis friends, and he knew some of mine; and the talk jseemed to do him so much good, whilst it was m agreeable to me, that neither of us seemed in a hurry to end it. This is the only excuse I can offer for lingering on the barque longer than, as proved, I ought to have done. ‘ • ■ At last I got up and said I must be off, and I thanked him most kindly for his obliging reception of me, and for his goodness in supplying the brig with water, and I gave him Captain Blow’s compliments, and desired to know if we could accommodate him in any way in return. He answered nothing, nothing,” stepping through the hatch as he said it, and an instant after he set up his throat in a cry. "You’ll have to bear a hand aboard," says he with a face of astonishment; " look J'onder! Tis rolling down upon your brig ike smoke." He pointed to the vessel, and a little way past her I spied a long line of white vapour no higher than Dover cliff as it looked, butas dense as those rocks of chalk too. The sun made steam of it, but already jt was putting a likeness of its own blankness into the sky over it, which seemed to be dying oat, as the vapour came along, as the light perishes in a looking-glass upon which you breathe. I ran to the side and saw my boat under the gangway and the two men in her. The cask was in the stern of the boat. The master of the barque cried out to me; “ Will you not stay till that smother clears ? You may loose your brig in it.” I replied: •* No sir, thank you, I will take my chance. It is more likely I should lose her by remaining here,” and with a flourish of the hand I dropped over the side and entered the boat. "Now,’’ cried I, "pull like the devil, men.” They threw their oars over and fell to rowing fiercely; but the barque was not five cables length astern of us when the first of the white cliff of vapour smote the Hindoo Merchant, and she vanished in it like a stay in a cloud. There was a fresh breeze of wind behind that line of sweeping thickness, md in places, at the base of the mass of blankness, it would dart our in swift racings Df shadow that made one think of the feelers of some gigantic marine spider, probing under its cobweb as though feeling its way along. In a few minutes the cloud drove flown over us with a loud whistling of wind, and the water close to the boat’s side ran in , small seas, every head of it hissing; but if jyfltfcin the range of a bisauit toss all was iybtg. glistening obscurity, with occasional onrste of denser thicknesses which almost nid one end of the boat from the other. It #vas about six o’clock in the after-aopn, and (lo he continued,)