CHAPTER XXXVI
THE CASTAWAYS ON THE BRIG SUCCESS
TO Milly and Brandon on board the water logged brig, it seemed as though the long night would never end. They crouched together over the body of poor Swivel, until his clasp relaxed from their hands and he sank into a deep sleep.
Brandon did not believe that the injured boy would ever awake from that unconsciousness; nevertheless, he made his way below to the cabin again and brought up an armful of blankets to add to his comfort.
He wrapped one about Milly, and she made him share it with her, when Swivel was more comfortable.
Thus sitting close together on the cold, wet deck, they conversed in whispers till dawn; Milly, at Don’s earnest solicitation, relating all that had occurred since the night he had escaped from the Success at Savannah.
It was rather a disconnected story, for the poor girl often broke into weeping at the memory of her father’s violent death. She had sincerely loved him, although he was a stern, rather morose man.
It seemed that Leroyd had learned that the plans of himself and his friends to delay the departure of the whaleback from New York had failed, and that the steamer had touched at Savannah and departed the very night the Success got in.
Finding that Sneaky Al had already arrived by steamship from New York, he promised Captain Frank an extra hundred dollars if he would land only a portion of his goods and set sail for the Bermudas again.
The brig’s commander could not resist this temptation, and therefore the Success lay at Savannah but a day and two nights. Then, with Messrs. Weeks and Leroyd aboard, she had sailed directly for that part of the ocean in which the whaleback had run across her during the gale.
Brandon also elicited the information that the brig had not been successful in her search—had not seen a derelict, in fact, since leaving Savannah—and that Leroyd was in a fiendish temper before the gale came up.
When that began, he and his friend, Weeks, turned to with the brig’s crew and did all they could to keep her afloat. Captain Frank, however, was crushed under a falling spar and instantly killed when the gale first started in, and the first officer was washed overboard.
When the brig became unmanageable and the crew rushed for the boats, nobody thought, or at least nobody stopped, for the bereaved girl in the cabin. She discovered that the crew had gone and left her only by coming on deck after the water had begun to fill the cabin.
Brandon and the captain’s daughter had ample time, before the sun appeared, to get very well acquainted with each other.
Don told her all about himself, about the object of the voyage of the whaleback, and of the plot concocted by his uncle Arad and Messrs. Leroyd and Weeks to find the Silver Swan and obtain the treasure aboard her themselves.
As soon as it did grow light, Brandon made his way below again and after a great deal of trouble lit an oil lamp and heated a little water over its blaze. He was then able to make some warm drink for Swivel and Milly, denying himself until she had swallowed some, and between them they had forced a little of the mixture between the injured boy’s lips.
After this Swivel brightened up a bit, and, as he did not try to talk, the hemorrhage did not return. But he was very weak.
Milly and Brandon ate a little solid food too, but their companion was unable to do that.
Now that it was light enough for them to see over the expanse of waters, they found as they had feared, that the whaleback had left them behind during the night.
Not a sign of her presence nor of the presence of any vessel which might come to their assistance, appeared.
The condition of the Success worried them a great deal—or worried Don and Milly at least—for she was gradually sinking at the stern, and the water was gaining more rapidly than they liked in the cabin. Whereas it had only been to Brandon’s knees when he had first gone below, it was now up to his waist.
During one of these trips of his to the flooded interior of the brig, he heard Milly’s voice excitedly calling to him to come on deck.
“What is it?” he asked, hastily making his appearance.
“Look! look, Brandon!” cried the girl.
She was standing up in the stern and looking over the starboard side.
Brandon hurried toward her and followed the direction of her hand with his eyes.
Far across the tossing sea a dark object rose and fell upon the surface. It was not far above the level of the water, and therefore, though hardly three miles away, had until now remained unseen by the voyagers of the Success.
“Is it a wreck like this?” she inquired eagerly.
“It must be,” said Brandon, after a careful examination.
“Bring poor papa’s long glass up from his stateroom,” cried Milly. “You can see it then more plainly.”
The boy hurried to obey this suggestion and quickly brought the instrument from the dead captain’s cabin.
By the aid of the glass the shipwrecked boy and girl could quite plainly view the second wreck, for wreck it was. There was no room for doubt of that.
“It’s the hull of a vessel like this,” Brandon declared, “though it’s not sunken at the stern, and it rides the waves easier.
“There isn’t a sign of a spar upon it—it’s swept as clean as this,” he continued. “There must have been many vessels treated that way in the storm. Derelicts will be plentiful enough.”
He stopped with a startled exclamation, and stared at his companion in perplexity.
“What is it, Brandon?” Milly asked, noting his change of manner.
“I was thinking,” he said slowly, “that if the Silver Swan—my father’s old brig, you know—kept afloat through this last hurricane, she would likely be in just such shape as yonder hulk.”
“Oh, it couldn’t be possible, could it?” gasped the girl. “That would be too wonderful a coincidence.”
“Not as wonderful as you might think,” Brandon returned decisively, gaining confidence in the idea now that some one opposed him. “We are in the very part of the ocean—or at least, I have reason to think we are—in which the Silver Swan was last reported. I tell you, Milly, it may be she!”
“If you could only get to her and see,” cried the young girl anxiously.
“I—I will get to her!” declared Brandon, and then he handed the glass to her and went back to sit by poor Swivel and think it over.
Milly, however, remained to watch the distant wreck through the instrument.
By all appearances it was much more buoyant than the Success. Whereas the latter staggered up the long swells and labored through the trough of the sea, the strange derelict rode the waves like a duck, and, propelled by some current, moved a good deal faster, though in the same general direction as themselves.
Brandon, meanwhile, sitting beside the injured boy, who was now sleeping deeply, was turning over in his mind the project he had suggested.
He knew, even better than Milly, that the Success was sinking deeper and deeper every hour, and that before evening the water might begin to wash in over the stern.
The ocean was rapidly becoming smooth. Together they would be able to launch a small raft—a hatch covering, perhaps—place Swivel thereon, and by using oars, or perhaps a small sail, might reach the distant derelict quite easily.
Whether it was the Silver Swan he had sighted, or not, it certainly rode the swells better and seemed to be far more seaworthy than the Success.
Finally, when Milly came up from the stern, he broached his plan to her.
“I don’t want to force you into this, Milly,” he said. “You shall have the deciding vote. Perhaps I am influenced by the hope that yonder vessel is the Silver Swan, and maybe this is a dreadfully foolish plan for us to try. I think, though, that it is the best and wisest thing we can do.”
“What can we use for a raft?” the girl asked slowly.
“One of the hatch covers. I have found a tool chest below—I can get at it yet—and there are spars and pieces of canvas for a sail in the same place. I saw them only this morning.”
“Can we launch a raft?” asked the practical Milly.
“I believe we can. It is growing calmer all the time, now, and the rail is so low at the stern that we can push a well balanced raft into the sea and load it afterward.”
“And Swivel?”
“I’m afraid,” said Brandon, looking down at the injured boy sadly, “that whatever we do cannot affect Swivel. We can make him as comfortable on the raft as elsewhere.”
“Then let us do it,” agreed Milly energetically. “I have been watching the other wreck and it seems to sail much better than the Success. The old brig may go down now at any time.”
And so they set to work at once at the task of building a raft.