Turned Adrift

The _Zenobia_--A1 at Lloyd's--was a beautiful little clipper barque of 376 tons register, and so exquisitely fine were her lines that her cargo-carrying capacity amounted to but a few tons more than her register tonnage; in fact, the naval architect who designed her had been instructed to ignore altogether the question of cargo capacity, and to give his whole attention to the matter of speed, and most faithfully had he carried out his instructions.

For the Zenobia had been designed and built to the order of the firm which owned the famous "Queen" line of sailing clippers trading between London and Natal; and the aim of the Company was to drive off all competitors and secure the monopoly of the passenger trade between London and the Garden Colony. And there was only one way in which that aim could be accomplished, namely, by carrying passengers to and fro in less time and greater comfort than any of the competing lines. The question of cargo did not matter so very much, for at that time--that is to say, about the year 1860--the steam service to South Africa was very different from what it is to-day. The steamers were small, slow, and infrequent; Natal was just then attracting a big influx of well-to-do people from England; passenger rates were high--as also, for that matter, was the freight on such special merchandise as was at that time being carried out to the colony--and those who took credit to themselves for their foresight believed that there was big money to be made in the sailing passenger trade. Needless to say, the competition between the different lines was exceedingly keen: but the owners of the "Queen" line were a very rich corporation; they were prepared to sink money in the effort to secure a monopoly; and the Zenobia was the latest outcome of their rather speculative policy.

At the moment when this story opens--namely, about two bells of the middle watch, on the night of 24 January, 1862--or rather in the early morning of 25 January, to be exact--the barque was somewhere about latitude 25 degrees south, and longitude 27 degrees west. I have not the precise figures by me, nor do they very greatly matter. The night was fine, clear, and starlit, with the moon, well advanced in her fourth quarter, hanging a few degrees above the eastern horizon, and shedding just enough light to touch the wave crests immediately beneath her with soft flashes of ruddy golden light. The wind was piping up fresh from the south-east, and the little clipper was roaring through it under all plain sail to her royals, with the yeast slopping in over her starboard rail at every lee roll and her lee scuppers all afloat; for quick passages were the order of the day, quick passages meant "carrying on", and Mr Stephen Bligh, the chief mate and officer of the watch, was living fully up to the traditions of the service. This was the Zenobia's second outward voyage. Her first trip had been accomplished in the unprecedentedly brief period of forty-six days; and it was now the ambition of her skipper and his two mates to beat even that brilliant record. And at the moment there seemed an excellent prospect that this laudable ambition might be achieved, for the morrow would only be our twenty-fourth day out. We had been extraordinarily lucky in the matter of crossing the line, having slid across it with a good breeze, which had run us into the south-east Trades without the loss of a moment; and those same south-east Trades--or something remarkably like them--were still piping up fresh, although we were by this time well beyond their ordinary southern limits.

Our ship's company amounted to twenty-four all told, namely, Captain John Roberts, our skipper; Mr Stephen Bligh, our chief mate; Mr Peter Johnson, our second mate; Dr John Morrison, our surgeon--ours being one of the few ships in the trade which at that time carried a doctor--the boatswain, carpenter, sailmaker, cook, two stewards, twelve men--of whom eight were A.B.'s and four only O.S.--and last, but not least--in our own estimation--two apprentices, Tom Bainbridge, in his fifth year of apprenticeship, being one, while I, Mark Temple, just turned seventeen years of age, and in the third year of my apprenticeship, was the other. There was not much love lost between Bainbridge and myself, by the way, for he was of a sullen, sulky temper, and had tried hard to bully me when I first made his acquaintance in the old Boadicea before joining the Zenobia. But our mutual ill feeling did not greatly matter, for he was in the port watch and I in the starboard, so we very rarely met except when it was a case of "all hands"; consequently we had not very much opportunity to quarrel. And in addition to the above we carried twenty cuddy passengers, of whom six were men, while the remainder consisted of nine ladies and five children. I am afraid the above details are not very interesting, but it is necessary to give them in order that the reader may fully understand what is to follow.

As I have already mentioned, this story may be said to have had its beginning about two bells in the middle watch--or about one o'clock in the morning--on a certain specified date; for until then there had been nothing out of the ordinary to distinguish the voyage from any other. But some five minutes after I had struck two bells, in accordance with the chief mate's instructions, and the lookout on the topgallant forecastle had responded with the usual cry of "All's well!" one of the forecastle hands came slouching along aft, and, ascending the poop ladder with a certain suggestion of haste and trepidation, approached the mate.

"Will ye mind steppin' for'ard a minute, sir?" he enquired. "There's a strong smell o' burnin' down in the fo'c'sle, and--"

"A strong smell of burning?" interrupted Mr Bligh. "The dickens there is! Yes, of course I'll go. Temple," turning to me, "just keep a lookout for a minute or two while I'm gone, will ye?"

"Ay, ay, sir," I replied; and the mate dashed down the poop ladder and went scurrying away forward, regardless of the drenching showers of spray that came flying in over the weather cathead with every mad plunge of the overdriven ship.

For the next five minutes I paced anxiously to and fro along the weather side of the poop, with my ears wide open for any sudden outcry that might confirm the awful suspicion of fire having broken out below; but I heard nothing save the continuous hiss and roar of the sea under the lee bow and along the bends, the heavy slop of water in over the rail with every lee roll of the ship, and the thunder and piping of the wind aloft, and I was beginning to hope that it was no worse than a false alarm, when the man who a few minutes previously had come aft to summon the mate came running--yes, positively running--along the deck again. He stumbled up the poop ladder and came to me, puffing and panting, with every sign of the most extreme agitation, and delivered his message.

"Mr Temple!" he gasped--the skipper always insisted upon the "midshipmen" apprentices being "Mistered" by the foremast hands, upon the ground that we were officers, if only in embryo--"Mr Temple, the mate says will ye please slip below and quietly call Cap'n Roberts without disturbin' the passengers. Ye are to tell him that the ship's afire in the forehold, and that Mr Bligh will be much obliged if he'll come for'ard to the fo'c'sle at once. And when ye've done that, ye're to continue your lookout on the poop until ye're relieved."

"Ay, ay, Mason, I'll do that," I answered. Then, as we turned together to leave the poop, I asked: "Is the matter serious, Mason? Has Mr Bligh actually found the seat of the fire; and is there a chance of our being able to master it?"

"Can't say, as yet," answered the man. "We ain't actually found the fire; but it's there all right."

I shivered involuntarily, although the night was warm, for I happened to know that a good deal of the cargo which we were carrying was of a highly combustible character, such as furniture, pianos, Manchester goods, and the like, to say nothing of several cases of sporting ammunition. I knew that if once the fire happened to get a good hold upon such material as that the chances were all against our being able to master it, especially in such a strong breeze as was then blowing.

And if we should be compelled to leave the ship--!

I thought of those poor helpless women and children peacefully sleeping down below, and of what their plight might be if we were driven to take to the boats out there in the heart of the South Atlantic, hundreds of miles from the nearest land.

Tiptoeing my way to the skipper's cabin, I rapped gently with my knuckles on the panel of the door, and bent my head to listen for a reply. I knew that Captain Roberts was a light sleeper, and judged that it would not take much to awake him. Nor was I mistaken, for immediately following upon my low knock came the quiet reply:

"Hillo! who is there, and what is it?"

"It is I--Temple--sir," I replied. "May I enter?"

For answer I heard the light thud of bare feet inside the cabin as the skipper sprang from his bunk; and the next instant the door quietly opened and Captain Roberts stood before me.

"What is it, Temple?" he demanded. "Anything wrong?"

"Yes, sir, I'm afraid there is," I replied in low tones. "Mr Bligh is down in the forecastle, and he has just sent a message aft to me directing me to call you and say that he is afraid fire has broken out in the fore hold, and that he will be much obliged if you will kindly go to him at once."

"Fire!" ejaculated the skipper. "In the fore hold, you say? Humph! I don't notice any smell of it here," and he started sniffing violently as he stooped for his slippers and put them on. "Who gave the alarm?"

"Mason, sir," I replied. "He came aft, just after two bells, and reported a strong smell of burning down in the forecastle. Mr Bligh went for'ard at once, leaving me to keep a lookout on the poop; and he had been gone about five minutes when Mason again came aft with a message directing me to call you."

"I see," answered the skipper. "Very well," as he emerged from his cabin and quietly closed the door behind him, "you go back to the poop and keep an eye upon the ship. I shall not be long." And with one bound, as it seemed to me, he was out on deck and running forward. As for me, I returned to my station on the poop, which I anxiously paced backward and forward in momentary expectation of hearing the call for "All hands!"

But when I came to look more closely it appeared that any such formal call would be quite superfluous, for presently a light flashed out from the windows of the small house just abaft the foremast, in which the boatswain, carpenter, sailmaker, cook, and the two stewards were berthed, and by its rather feeble beams I perceived that the fore deck was full of men crouching under the shelter of the topgallant forecastle; I presumed, therefore, that upon the first alarm of fire they had turned out and dressed, and had been sent on deck by the mate to be out of the way while the investigation below was being made. It was about this time that I noticed, with keen satisfaction, the fact that the wind was not blowing quite as strongly as it had been during the earlier part of the watch.