Tom Fairfield at Sea: or, The Wreck of the Silver Star

“If this kept up we’d get somewhere,” observed Tom, as he relieved Abe at the helm.

“Yes, but we’ll make twice the speed in our boat,” said the old sailor proudly.

The wreck was rising and falling on the swell, the big oily waves seeming to curl after her as though in time they would reach up and pull her down into their depths. There were no white-caps yet – they would come later.

“We are going to have a storm, aren’t we; a violent storm soon?” demanded Mr. Skeel, when it was almost dark, and the wind was sighing more mournfully than before.

“I reckon so,” answered Abe calmly.

“Then can’t we do something more to make ourselves secure?”

“Nary a thing more,” spoke the old sailor. “We’ve done all we can.”

The face of the former professor was white, and he paced up and down that portion of the deck less exposed to the waves. He was a coward and he showed it.

The derelict dipped her half-buried bow farther under a wave. It broke, running well up on the deck, and breaking against the lashed lifeboat, sent a shower of spray aft.

“Oh, it’s raining! It’s raining!” cried Jackie. “If we only had umbrellas now, Tom.”

“We’ll need more than umbrellas before morning, I’m thinking,” murmured Joe.

All that could be done had been, and when the last remnant of daylight faded, earlier than usual because of the clouds, Tom took his little charge inside the shelter. They stretched out on the canvas bed, and Tom joined silently with the child, who said aloud his simple prayers, asking that they might all be looked after by the All-seeing Providence.

The derelict forged ahead through the waves, blown by the ever increasing wind. She rose sluggishly on the swell – all too sluggishly – for she was not buoyant enough to escape the breaking swells. But still, aft, it was comparatively dry.

“It’s going to be a bad night – a bad night,” murmured Joe, who had the first trick at the helm.

Tom managed to get some sleep, holding Jackie’s hand, but about midnight he was awakened by being fairly rolled out of the shelter.

“What – what’s the matter?” he cried.

“It’s the storm!” cried Abe, springing up. “It’s broke for fair, I guess!”

Tom sprang to his feet and looked out. He could dimly see the big waves all around them, and he felt the derelict pitching and tossing in a swirl of water. It was at the mercy of the storm.

Then came a fiercer burst of the elements, a dash of rain, and a tearing howl of the wind. The derelict heeled over, while a flood of water washed over the bow and came curling aft.

“Look out!” yelled Abe, as he saw Tom roll forward, and he grabbed our hero in time to save him from once more pitching overboard.

CHAPTER XVII

A HAND IN THE NIGHT

“Thanks, Abe,” gasped Tom, when he could speak, for the fright and fear of again being flung into the ocean had taken his breath.

“That’s nothing, lad,” came the calm answer. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. But this is a terrible storm, isn’t it?”

“It might be worse. It was worse when the Silver Star foundered. We’ll weather it, I hope.”

A cry came from the interior of the shelter. It was Jackie.

“Tom! Tom! Where are you?” he called.

“Coming!” answered Tom, and he staggered into the place where his little charge was lying.

Tom, groping about in the dark, found Jackie. The little fellow had rolled from the hollow in the pile of sail cloth that made his bed.

“All right, Jackie, it’s all right,” spoke Tom soothingly. “We’re riding on top of the waves like a merry-go-’round. Go to sleep now.”

And, so tired was the little fellow, and such was his confidence in Tom, that he did slumber again.

The storm grew worse, and at times the spray from the big waves flew over the top of the wooden shelter, and dripped down inside. The wind blew aside the canvas that closed the front and threatened to lift, bodily, the structure itself.

But the sailors had done their work well. The rope lashings held, though they were strained to their limit. The lifeboat, moored as it was to the deck, tried in vain to break loose to join with the waves in their revelry of the storm. Joe and Abe looked to it, testing every knot, however, and their seamanship told. For the present they could defy the storm.

Mr. Skeel fairly whimpered when he saw the big seas all about them, but no one paid any attention to him and he had to make out as best he could. He tried to shirk his trick at the helm, but Abe, taking hold of his arm, marched him to the rude steering apparatus, and bade him hold to it for his life.

“But I – I may be washed overboard,” objected the former professor.

“You’re in less danger here than any of us,” declared the sailor. “You stay here until your time is up,” and Mr. Skeel dared not disobey. His spirit had been broken when Tom, and his chums of Elmwood Hall, had successfully gone on their strike.

How they got through that night the castaways hardly knew afterward. Several times it seemed as if the wind would carry away either the structure they had built on deck, or the lifeboat that had been reconstructed with such labor. But the two sailors, with Tom to help them, made lashing after lashing, as one or another tore away and so they held to that which they needed most.

Little Jackie proved himself a hero, for when Tom had explained that he must stay alone part of the time, the little fellow obeyed, though he had hard work to choke back the sobs when his companion was out on deck, doing what he could to keep the boat from being carried away.

When the storm had been raging for an hour or more there was a sudden tilt to the derelict, and a grinding crashing sound somewhere in her depths.

“What’s that?” cried Tom in alarm.

“Her cargo is shifting!” shouted Abe, above the roar of the storm. “I hope it doesn’t shift too much.”

Almost immediately afterward there seemed to be less spray coming aft.

“She’s risen by the head!” cried Joe, who managed to make an observation at great risk to himself. “The lumber below decks has shifted aft and her bow is higher out of water. That makes it good for us. We’ll be drier now.”

And this was so. With the bow higher out of the water the craft presented a better front to the breaking seas, and what at first seemed a calamity turned out to be a great blessing.

The remainder of the night, though the storm did not abate, was not such a source of worry to the refugees. True, the wind was as violent, and it even shifted their shelter from where it was lashed on deck, but the waves did not bring so much discomfort, for the higher bow sent them hissing away on either side.

Somehow morning broke, and in the gray dawn they looked about on a storm-tossed waste of waters. Now they would be down in a hollow of the waves, and again high on some crest, at which latter time they looked anxiously for a sail. But they saw none.

It was just a little after day had broken that the improvised mast gave way with a snap, and would have gone overboard with their precious sail, had not Abe and Joe made a hasty grab, saving it.

“We need that in our boat – if it ever gets calm enough to calk it,” declared Abe.

“What about breakfast?” asked Tom a little later. “I guess we can all eat.”

“Right you are, my hearty!” cried Joe. Even the terrible storm could not dampen the spirits of the sailors. Little Jackie was happier too, now that daylight had come, and only Mr. Skeel seemed moody and depressed. He looked at his companions without speaking.

The storm seemed to have spent its fury in the night, for, as the day grew, the wind lessened and the waves went down. The mast was mended and set up again, but a reefed sail had to be used, for the gale was too strong to risk another accident with the frail gear they had.

“It may blow us to some island, and then we won’t have to use the boat,” said Joe.

“Oh, don’t talk that way,” begged Abe.

“Why not? Don’t you want to be rescued?”

“Yes, but I’d like a chance to use the boat I’ve made,” was the rejoinder. “Come on, now, we’ll try and calk it.”

They started this work after a meager breakfast, during which Mr. Skeel looked hungrily at the rations passed around. Even less was given than before, for the provisions were getting alarmingly low, though there was still plenty of water, for which they were thankful.

It was no easy task to calk the boat, with such tools and material as Abe and Joe had, but it was a credit to their seamanship that they made a good job of it. They tested it by pouring water into the craft as it was lashed to the deck.

“She doesn’t leak much!” exclaimed Abe in delight as he watched a few drops trickle out. “When she swells up she’ll be all right, and we can bail if we have to. Now for a sail.”

He and his companion rigged up a mast, and the sail was taken down from the derelict and fitted to it. This took another day, during which the storm’s traces vanished, and the weather became once more calm.

“We’ll launch her to-morrow,” decided Abe that night. “I guess she’s all right.”

“Will it be hard to put her into the sea?” asked Tom.

“Easy enough, the way the derelict is listed now,” was the answer. “All we’ll have to do will be to get into her, cut the retaining rope, and let her slide. Then we’ll be off.”

Tom heard some one behind him as the sailor told him this, and he turned to see Mr. Skeel regarding him curiously. There was a strange look on the former professor’s face.

They went to rest that night filled with thoughts of the prospects before them on the morrow. It seemed, after all, as if they might be saved, for both Joe and Abe declared that they must be near some island, and a day’s sail would bring them to it, if they could sail fast enough.

Tom stretched out beside little Jackie that night with a thankful heart.

“I’ll find dad and mother yet!” he whispered to himself.

Mr. Skeel was slumbering on the other side of the shelter, at least if heavy breathing went for anything he was. Abe and Joe were out on deck, putting the spare provisions and water into the lifeboat, for they had decided to leave as soon as possible in the morning.

Tom fell into a doze. How long he slept he hardly knew, but he was suddenly awakened by feeling a hand cautiously moving over his body. It was on his chest first, and then it went lower until the fingers touched the money belt he had worn since the loss of the Silver Star.

“Who’s that? Is that you, Jackie?” asked Tom, and his hand went quickly over to the head of his little charge. Jackie was sleeping quietly.

“Who was that?” asked Tom.

There was no answer. It was too dark to see, and he could strike no light. Someone moved across the floor of the shelter.

“Abe! Joe!” called Tom cautiously. Then he added: “Mr. Skeel!”

A snore answered him from the former professor’s sleeping place. Tom stole cautiously to the opening of the shelter. He could hear the two sailors talking together at the helm.

CHAPTER XVIII

TREACHERY

For a moment Tom did not know what to do, or what to think. He was convinced that an attempt had been made to rob him in the darkness of the night, and he wanted to know who was responsible. Yet he did not want to accuse or even think of any one as guilty, unless he had good proof.

“It couldn’t have been Abe or Joe,” he reasoned. “I could have heard them if they had left the shelter after I called out. It must have been Mr. Skeel. And yet – ”

He paused, and listened once more to the steady breathing of the man who had once been, and who doubtless still was, his enemy.

“Could it have been he?” thought Tom. “It was certainly some one here in the shelter with me, and there aren’t many to pick from.”

He reflected that it might have been possible for little Jackie, moving in his sleep, to have tossed toward him, and gotten his hand near the money belt. And yet the hand had felt heavier than that of the child.

“Well,” mused Tom, “it won’t do to make a mistake. I’ve got to keep quiet and see what turns up. Only I know one thing – I’m not going to sleep much the rest of the night.”

He paused in the doorway, and was about to turn back to lie down beside Jackie, when Abe, who was talking with Joe near the helm, spied our hero.

“Hello, Tom,” the sailor called in a low voice. “Anything the matter the reason you’re up? Is Jackie sick?”

“No, he’s all right,” replied Tom in a low voice, but loud enough so that Professor Skeel, if he was awake, could hear it; “Jackie is all right. I thought one of you came in the shelter to see me.”

“One of us!” exclaimed Abe.

“Yes,” answered Tom.

“We weren’t there,” went on Abe. “We’ve been standing here for the last half hour, talking about what we might do to-morrow – after we get the boat launched. We weren’t near you.”

“Guess you must have dreamed it, Tom,” suggested Joe.

“Perhaps,” admitted Tom, and yet he knew that it was no dream. “I’ll go back to bed,” he called.

The derelict drifted on, and Tom was not again disturbed that night. Jackie slept well, and so too did Professor Skeel – to judge by his snores.

“Well, now for a launching!” exclaimed Joe as the dawning light filtered through the early morning clouds. “We’ll see what luck we have.”

There was not much to do in the way of preparation, for the two sailors had very nearly finished the work on the previous day. The food and water – all that could be spared from the needs of the few remaining meals they expected to take aboard the hulk – had been put into the reconstructed lifeboat. An early and small breakfast was served, and then the work of sliding the craft off the derelict was undertaken.

As the sailor had said, this was not difficult. The deck of the lumber ship, on which the lifeboat rested, had such a slope that all that was necessary to do was to cut loose a retaining rope, and the craft would slide down on improvised rollers that had been made. This could be done when they were all aboard. It was like the launching of a small ship.

“But I think I’ll give her a trial first,” decided Abe, when all was in readiness for the launching. “I don’t want her to turn turtle, or anything like that, when we’re all aboard. Though she can’t sink, with the watertight compartments.”

“What’s your game?” asked Joe.

“Why, I think I’ll take a trip in her myself just around the hulk, so to speak, and see how she behaves. She may need trimming, or lightening, or, maybe we haven’t got the sail just right. I’ll make a trial in her.”

The others decided that this might be wise, and accordingly, when Abe had taken his place in the craft, the rope was slacked off, and the lifeboat slid into the sea.

“Hurray!” cried Tom, as the craft took the waves. “She’s a success all right.”

“Not so fast! Hold on a bit!” cried Abe. “She’s leaking like a sieve in one place!”

“Leaking!” cried his shipmate.

“Yes. One place where I must have forgotten to do the calking good enough. Haul me back, and we’ll get her out of water again, and patch her up.”

Under Abe’s directions Tom, Joe and Professor Skeel pulled on the rope that was still fastened to the craft and she was worked back on the deck of the derelict. Then Abe, making a careful examination, began the work of calking up the cracks where the water had poured in.

The work took him longer than he had supposed it would, for he found out that he had to change his ideas when it came to making a reconstructed boat water-tight. He was most of the day at the task, and when he had finished he thought of something else.

“We need oars,” he said. “We can’t always depend on the wind, and if we get becalmed out on the ocean, with no shelter, such as we have here, we’ll be in a bad way if we can’t make some headway. So I will just make a pair of sweeps.”

Which he did out of some of the lighter planks that formed part of the cargo of the derelict. Thole pins were cut out to serve as oarlocks, for there were none on the made-over boat, and thus equipped the lifeboat could be rowed, though not very fast.

“Now I reckon she’s likely to be of more use,” declared Abe, when he had finished his task.

“But it’s too late to start to-day,” declared Joe.

“Yes, we’ll wait until to-morrow,” was the other’s decision. The boat was left in the same position it had been in before, and they settled down to pass another night on the derelict, waiting anxiously for the morning.

It was just getting dusk, and they were thinking of turning in, when Jackie, who had crawled upon the roof of the wooden shelter, called out:

“Oh, Tom! Look! See the smoke! Somebody must be starting a fire to cook supper!”

He pointed almost dead ahead, and, at the sight of a line of smoke on the horizon Joe cried:

“It’s a ship! A steamer! The first one we’ve seen! Oh, if we could only make her hear or see us!”

It was utterly out of the question to make themselves heard by shouting, but Tom, who was at the helm, swung it around until the derelict was headed as nearly as possible toward the telltale vapor.

“Wave something!” cried Abe. “Get up on the top of the shelter and wave something! They may have a man stationed up in the crow’s-nest on the lookout, and he might see us. Wave something!”

Mr. Skeel caught up a piece of the sailcloth, and, scrambling to the peak of the shelter waved the signal frantically. He kept this up for an hour, in which time the smoke gradually got below the horizon, showing that the steamer was moving away from the shipwrecked ones.

“No use,” said Tom sadly. “We’ve got to depend on ourselves.”

“And maybe it’s better so,” agreed Abe. “That steamer might be going to some place we wouldn’t want to touch at all.”

“Any place would be acceptable,” spoke Mr. Skeel, bitterly. “Oh! when will we be rescued? When will I ever get a good meal again?”

“No telling,” answered Abe grimly. “But if we have luck we ought to fetch some place by to-morrow. That steamer shows that we’re near the lines of travel, and we’ll hit on an island soon.”

Disappointed, but not discouraged over their failure to attract attention, the refugees prepared to spend another night aboard the derelict. Little Jackie was quite fussy, calling for his father several times, and it was all Tom could do to pacify him and keep him interested in “make-believe” plays.

Tom was a bit nervous about going to sleep, for he feared another attempt might be made to rob him. He had narrowly watched the two sailors and Mr. Skeel during the day, and he had decided that neither Abe nor Joe was guilty of the attempt to get the money belt.

“It must have been Skeel,” decided Tom, “though what he was going to do with it after he got it is more than I can say. He couldn’t have gone far with it, and I’d have missed it as soon as I awakened.”

He took a position this time so that any one coming toward him in the night would have to step or crawl over Jackie first, and thus, in a measure, the small boy would be an alarm clock.

“But I don’t believe anyone will dare try it again to-night,” mused Tom. He had narrowly watched his companions during the day, and he mentally decided that Mr. Skeel had a guilty air, though, for that matter, he seldom looked Tom, or anyone else squarely in the face.

Again it was near midnight when Tom awakened. And this time it was not because of anyone trying to rob him. He heard some one moving about on deck, and, cautiously peering out of the opening of the shelter, he saw a sight that startled him.

It was just light enough, because of the stars, to make out objects, and Tom beheld the form of Mr. Skeel at the lifeboat.

The former professor was fumbling with the retaining ropes, as if he intended to let the craft slide into the water. But Tom noticed that the man was in such a position that he could leap aboard the lifeboat as it slid away from the derelict.

“He’s trying to escape!” thought Tom. “He’s going to take our boat and leave us behind on the wreck. There’s treachery here! He’s trying to get away while we’re asleep – during his trick at the helm. Well here’s where I spoil his plans!”

CHAPTER XIX

OFF IN THE BOAT

Determined to foil the scheme of the unprincipled man, Tom stole softly forward, himself unobserved. He thought over several plans in his mind, and decided that he must catch Mr. Skeel red-handed.

“I’ll wait until he actually begins to move the boat,” murmured our hero, “and then I’ll call a halt. Besides I want to be sure that this is actually his game. If I jump out too soon he may say that he was only tightening the ropes, or that the lifeboat started to slip, and that he stopped it. He’s foxy, and I must be the same.”

So Tom watched, and the more he saw of the former professor’s actions the more he became convinced that treachery was intended.

“He tried to rob me, and get the money in my belt,” thought Tom, “and he was intending to escape then. That’s why he wanted the funds. Now he’s going without them – that is if I let him – which I won’t.”

The man was working swiftly and silently, pausing now and then to look over toward the shelter where he supposed all his companions were asleep. He had deserted the helm to carry out his treacherous design. Not that leaving the rude steering apparatus meant much, for there was very little wind just then, and the derelict was merely drifting.

Tom had crouched down so that he could not be seen, the lifeboat on the sloping deck of the wreck being between him and the professor. The latter was working away at the ropes. One after another he cast off. There was a slight movement to the lifeboat. It seemed about to slip into the sea.

“It’s time to act!” thought Tom.

He straightened up, took a step forward and fairly confronted the man, standing up to face him across the lifeboat.

“That’ll do, Mr. Skeel,” said Tom quietly. “I wouldn’t take that boat if I were you.”

There was a gasp of surprise from the man – the same sort of a gasp as when Tom had shown him his forged note at Elmwood Hall.

“Wha – what’s that?” stammered Mr. Skeel.

“I said, leave the boat alone!” said Tom sharply.

“I – I was just fixing it!” went on the man.

“Yes, fixing it to get away in it,” answered our hero bitterly. “I saw you.”

“It was – was slipping, and I – I – ” spoke Mr. Skeel hesitatingly.

“That’s enough!” cried Tom sternly. “I saw you loosen several of the holding ropes. You wouldn’t have done that if you wanted to make the boat more secure. I believe you intended to desert us. And I believe you tried to take my money belt away from me the other night.”

“Don’t you dare say such things to me!” stormed the former Latin instructor, as though Tom were in his classroom. But the flash of the old-time spirit was only momentary.

“I dare say them because they’re true,” said Tom quietly. “Get away from that boat! Don’t you dare touch another rope.”

“Oh, I – I don’t know what I’m doing!” exclaimed the unhappy man. “I – I believe I’m going out of my mind. Don’t – don’t tell on me, Tom.”

“I must,” spoke the lad gently, and with a feeling of pity rather than anger. “Our lives depend on that boat, and if you are not to be trusted Abe and Joe must know it. I shall have to tell them. They can’t depend on you any more, and they must arrange the watch differently.”

“Oh, Tom, don’t tell!” Mr. Skeel was fairly whining now, and his underlying cowardice showed.

“Abe! Joe!” called Tom sharply.

“Aye, aye! What is it?” asked Abe, appearing at the doorway of the shelter.

“Have you sighted land – a sail?” asked Joe.

Then both sailors saw the dangling ropes that held the boat from slipping – they saw Tom standing in a menacing attitude, and Mr. Skeel shrinking away.

“The boat – it’s almost overboard!” cried Joe.

“Did some accident happen, Tom?” asked Abe.

“No – not an accident. I’m sorry to have to say it, but he – this man – was about to cut it loose, and, I think, sail off in it,” replied our hero.

For a moment there was silence, and then Abe exclaimed with a deep breath:

“The scoundrel!”

“By Davy Jones!” cried Joe. “We ought to throw him overboard! Get forward!” he cried, holding back his anger as best he could. “You’ll berth forward after this, and we’ll not trust you any more. Get forward!”

Without a word Mr. Skeel obeyed, and then Joe and Abe, with the help of Tom, made the boat secure again. Little Jackie had not awakened.