CHAPTER XXXV
SHOWING HOW CALEB APPEARED ON THE SCENE JUST TOO LATE
THE anxiety of Caleb Wetherbee for Brandon’s safety was really pitiful to behold. When the cable parted which attached the wrecked brig to the steamer, the captain at once realized that his ward and his two companions were in a very serious predicament.
There was absolutely nothing that those aboard the whaleback could do in that howling gale to assist in the rescue of the castaways.
Occasionally Caleb had a rocket fired to show the unfortunate trio that he was remaining near them; but, as we know, that was very sorry comfort to Brandon and his two companions. It simply served to convince them how rapidly Number Three was leaving them astern.
On one point Caleb’s calculations were very much amiss. He was running the whaleback as slowly as practicable, keeping just enough headway on to keep her from broaching to; but he failed to realize that even at that speed he was sailing two miles or more to the brig’s one.
Of course, when once the night had shut down it was impossible for anybody aboard the steamer to see the outlines of the wreck, and therefore this fact escaped their attention. The water logged Success moved at a snail’s pace, and all night long the steamer drew away from her, so that, after the storm had cleared away and the sun rose, not a sign of the brig appeared.
“Has she sunk?” queried Caleb in distress, as, in company with his two remaining officers, he swept the horizon with his glass.
“Rather, we have left her behind,” declared Mr. Coffin, making a shrewd guess as to the real facts in the case. “The brig must have sailed slower than we supposed.”
“Then we must turn about at once and run back,” Caleb declared, and the necessary orders were given.
The day following the cessation of the gale was most beautiful, but Caleb cared nothing for that. He neither ate nor slept, but remained on deck nearly all the time, scanning the wide stretch of sea visible from the top of the after cabin.
The day passed and night came on, however, without a sign of the wreck appearing.
During this time the steamer had been running in a direction generally south; while the gale was on she had run northeast. The whole day being spent in fruitless search in this direction, however, Caleb commanded the steamer to be put about again at evening.
All that second night she ran slowly to the eastward, thus allowing for the supposed drift of the Success, but they saw no signs of the derelict, although the night was clear and the moon bright.
The day following they spoke several partially dismantled vessels whose crews were beating into the Bermudas for repairs. None of these, however, had sighted the wreck of the Success.
“They’ve gone to the bottom,” groaned poor Caleb that afternoon, as he sat on the edge of the berth in his stateroom.
He could not sleep, but had taken Mr. Coffin’s advice and tried to.
“All gone—Brandon, whose dead father I promised I’d look out for him, an’ that other poor lad, an’ the little girl. God help me! how can I go back and tell Adoniram about this?
“An’ then, we’ve not found the Silver Swan yet—nor air we likely to after this gale. She’s gone to the bottom, too, mayhap, and Brandon’s fortune along with her. Well——”
Just here he was interrupted in his soliloquy by the hurried entrance of Mr. Bolin.
“Will you please come on deck, sir?” said the third officer, evidently somewhat excited. “We have sighted what appears to be a steamer and a dismantled vessel with her. Mr. Coffin wishes you to come up and see if you can make her out.”
But Caleb was out of the cabin before Mr. Bolin had finished speaking, glass in hand.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Right ahead, captain,” replied Mr. Coffin. “There! you can see the black smoke rising from the steamship’s funnels now. The wreck, if it is a wreck, is between her and us.”
Caleb got the range of the two vessels almost immediately, and it did not take a very long look to assure him that his mate was right.
“That’s a wreck, sure enough,” he declared, paying but very little attention to the steamship. “Order the engineer to go ahead at full speed.”
Fifteen minutes later they were near enough to see the wreck quite plainly. The steam vessel seemed to be lying quietly upon the sea now, and as they looked a boat was lowered and pulled toward the dismantled hulk.
They were still several miles away, however, and could not see whether the wreck was boarded by those in the small boat or not.
“It strikes me,” began Mr. Coffin after a prolonged gazing through his glass at the wreck, “that that doesn’t have the same appearance as that vessel the boys are on. What do you think, Mr. Wetherbee?”
Caleb had doubts in that direction himself.
“I tell ye what it is,” he said: “the Success had a mast for’ard. This one hain’t.”
“It’s my opinion that’s the hull of a brig, just the same,” Mr. Coffin declared.
Suddenly Caleb uttered an exclamation.
“That’s no steamship,” he declared. “See her colors and open ports. Why, it’s a man o’ war!”
“Right you are,” returned the mate.
“It’s the Kearsarge,” added Mr. Bolin. “She was to come down this way, you know. Going to the West Indies.”
“One of her duties was to blow up derelicts—the Silver Swan among them. Suppose this hull is the Swan!” cried Mr. Coffin.
Caleb had fairly grown white in spite of his tan.
“Great Peter!” he ejaculated. “Look-er-there!”
The small boat had left the side of the wreck, and was now some distance away from her.
The whaleback was near enough to see that the officer commanding the cutter had ordered the men to cease rowing and was standing up in the bow of the boat.
“They’re going to blow her up!” shouted Caleb. “Crowd on every ounce of steam she’ll hold. We must stop it! Suppose that it is the Silver Swan!”
He fairly groaned aloud, and in his excitement allowed the costly glass to fall upon the deck, which treatment did not materially benefit it.
Mr. Bolin darted away to the engine room, and in another moment the funnels of the whaleback began to pour forth the blackest kind of smoke, and the water beneath her stern was churned to foam by the rapid beats of the propeller.
They were all of a mile away from the wreck yet, and every instant was precious. Caleb stumped up and down the deck, fairly wild with apprehension, his eyes fixed on the cruiser’s cutter, in the bow of which the officer seemed to be adjusting something.
If the whaleback had been armed Caleb would have fired a shot to attract the attention of the cruiser’s people, but there wasn’t a weapon larger than Brandon’s rifle on the steamer.
Mr. Coffin looked at his commander anxiously. He did not fully understand why the captain wished to reach the Silver Swan and save it, if this was the Silver Swan; but he did not believe that they could accomplish it. And he was right.
The whaleback was still half a mile away from the scene of operations when suddenly the officer in the cutter sat down, and the instant following there was a loud explosion.
A column of smoke and flame shot into the air, and when the smoke cloud rose, only a few harmless splinters on the surface of the sea remained to show the former position of the wreck!
And then, when it was too late, the officer in the small boat discovered the approach of the whaleback.
Number Three was still driving ahead at full speed, and when her steam was shut off she had such headway that she nearly passed the cruiser’s cutter.
Caleb, his voice trembling with apprehension, leaned over the rail and shouted his question to the officer who had just “touched off” the charge that had blown the derelict into atoms.
“What craft is that you blew up?” he asked.
“That was a derelict,” responded the officer, who was an ensign, in surprise.
“What was her name, d’ye know?”
“She was sunken so low at the stern that we couldn’t read her name.”
“But can’t you guess?” cried Caleb, in great exasperation.
“Oh, there’s not much doubt in our minds as to who she was. She was one we were ordered to destroy. The name on her bow was badly battered, but we could make out part of it.”
“Well, for heavens’ sake, what was it?” burst forth the wooden legged captain wildly. “Don’t beat ’round the bush any longer.”
The ensign began to grow as red as a peony. The old man’s manner of questioning ruffled his dignity sorely.
“To the best of my belief it was the brig Silver Swan, of Boston, U. S. A.,” he declared stiffly.