Facing the World

“Who will stay?”

The decision was a momentous one.  It might be death to remain on the ship, but to a landsman it seemed still more perilous to embark on an angry sea in a frail boat.

The passengers looked at each other in doubt and perplexity.

They had but fifteen minutes in which to make up their minds.

The mate stood by, his face and manner serious and thoughtful.

“Mr. Holdfast,” said Mr. Stubbs, “do you agree with the captain that it is our best course to take to the boats?”

“I should prefer to try the ship a little longer.  I say so with diffidence, since the captain has a longer experience than I.”

“I don’t think much of your judgment, Mr. Holdfast,” said Captain Hill, in a tone of contempt.

The mate’s face flushed—­not so much at the words as the tone.

“Nevertheless Captain Hill,” he said, “I stand by what I have said.”

“Mr. Holdfast,” said Mr. Stubbs, who seemed to speak for the passengers, “if some of us decide to remain on the ship, will you remain with us?”

“I will!” answered the mate, promptly.

“Then set me down as the first to remain,” said Stubbs.

Somehow this man, rough and abrupt as he was, had impressed Harry as a man in whom confidence might be reposed.  He felt safe in following where he led.

“I am but a boy,” he said, “but I have to decide for my life.  I shall remain with the mate and Mr. Stubbs.”

Quietly Stubbs shook hands with Harry.

“I am glad to have you with us,” he said earnestly.  “We will die or live together.”

Next came Professor Hemenway.

“Put me down as the third,” he said.  “Harry, we sailed together, and we will remain together to the end.”

“I go in the boat,” said John Appleton.  “I have a great respect for Mr. Holdfast, but I defer to the captain’s judgment as superior.”

He went over and ranged himself beside the captain.

“You are a sensible man, sir,” said Captain Hill, with a scornful glance at the mate and the passengers who sided with him.  “Mr. Holdfast can go down with the ship, if he desires.  I prefer to cut loose from a doomed vessel.”

Marmaduke Timmins, the invalid, looked more sallow and nervous than ever.  He had swallowed a pill while the others were speaking, to give himself confidence.

“I will go with the captain,” he said.  “My life is likely to be short, for my diseases are many, but I owe it to myself to do my best to save it.”

“In deciding to go with me, you are doing your best, sir,” said Captain Hill.

He had not hitherto paid much attention to Mr. Timmins, whom he looked upon as a crank on the subject of health, but he was disposed to look upon him now with more favor.

At this moment Montgomery Clinton appeared at the head of the stairs.  The poor fellow was pale, and disheveled, and tottered from weakness.

“What’s going on?” he asked, feebly.  Harry took it upon himself to explain, using as few words as possible.

“Will you go with the captain, or stay on the Nantucket?” asked Harry.

“Really, I couldn’t stand sailing in a little boat, you know.”

“That’s settled, then!” said the captain.  “Into the boats with you!”

The sailors and two passengers lowered themselves into the long boat, which was large enough to receive them all, till only Jack Pendleton and the captain remained.

“Get in, boy!” said the captain, harshly.

Jack stepped back, and said, manfully:  “I will remain on board the ship, sir.”

While this discussion had been going on, the boat was being stored with kegs of water and provisions, and soon after the sailors began to ply the oars.

The little band that remained looked silently and solemnly, as they saw their late companions borne farther and farther away from them on the crested waves.

“It’s a question which will last longer, the ship or the boat,” said Mr. Holdfast.

“We must work—­I know that,” said Mr. Stubbs.  “Captain Holdfast, I salute you as my commander.  Give us your orders.”

“Are you all agreed, gentlemen?” asked Holdfast.

“We are,” answered all except Montgomery Clinton, who was clinging to the side with a greenish pallor on his face.

“Then I shall set you to work at the pumps.  Jack I assign you and the professor to duty first.  You will work an hour; then Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Vane will relieve you.  I will look out for the vessel’s course.”

“I am afraid I couldn’t pump,” said Montgomery Clinton.  “I feel so awfully weak, you know, I think I’m going to die!”

Harry looked out to sea and saw the little boat containing the remnant of their company growing smaller and smaller.  A sudden feeling of loneliness overcame him, and he asked himself, seriously:  “Is death, then, so near?”

The sea was still rough, but the violence of the storm was past.  In a few hours the surface of the sea was much less agitated.  The spirits of the passengers rose, especially after learning from the mate that he had been able to stop the leak, through the experience which he acquired in his younger days as assistant to a ship carpenter.

“Then the old ship is likely to float a while longer?” said Mr. Stubbs, cheerfully.

“Not a short time, either, if the weather continues favorable.”

“Captain Hill was in too much of a hurry to leave the vessel,” remarked Harry.

“Yes,” answered Holdfast.  “Such was my opinion when I thought the Nantucket in much worse condition than at present.  If the captain and sailors had remained on board, we could have continued our voyage to Melbourne without difficulty.

“And now?” said Mr. Stubbs, interrogatively.

“Now we have no force to man her.  Little Jack and myself are the only sailors on board.”

“But not the only men.”

“That is true.  I think, however, that you or the professor would find it rather hard to spread or take in sail.”

Mr. Stubbs looked up into the rigging and shrugged his shoulders.

The next day Mr. Clinton appeared on deck.  He looked faded and played out, but he was no longer the woebegone creature of a day or two previous.  Even he turned out to be of use, for he knew something about cooking, and volunteered to assist in preparing the meals, the ship’s cook having left the ship with the captain.  Accordingly, he rose in the estimation of the passengers—­having proved that he was not wholly a drone.

Jack and Harry grew still more intimate.  The young sailor was under no restraint now that the captain was not on board, for with the mate he had always been a favorite.

All efforts were made to keep the ship on her course.  They could not put up all the sails, however, and made but slow progress.  They did little but drift.  Nor did they encounter any other vessel for several days, so that there was no chance of obtaining the desired assistance.

“I wonder where it will all end, Jack?” said Harry, one evening.

“I don’t trouble myself much about that, Harry,” said the young sailor.  “I am content as I am.”

“Don’t you look ahead, then?”

“I am happy with you and the few we have on board.  They are kind to me; what more do I need?”

“I can’t be contented so easily, Jack.  I hope there is a long life before us.  Here we are, making no progress.  We are doing nothing to advance ourselves.”

But this did not make much impression on Jack.  He did not look beyond the present, and so that this was comfortable, he left the future to look out for itself.

“What do you think has become of Captain Hill and his companions, Mr. Holdfast?” asked Mr. Stubbs, on the third evening after the separation.

“He is probably still afloat, unless he has been fortunate enough to be picked up by some vessel.”

“There is no hope of reaching land in the Nantucket is there,” continued Mr. Stubbs.

“There is considerable fear of it,” said the mate.

“Why do you use the word fear?” asked Stubbs, puzzled.

“What I mean is, that we are likely to run aground upon some unknown island.  If the shore is rocky, it may break us to pieces, and that, of course, will be attended with danger to life or limb.”

Stubbs looked thoughtful.

“I should like to see land,” he said, “but I wouldn’t like to land in that way.  It reminds me of an old lady who, traveling by cars for the first time, was upset in a collision.  As she crawled out of the window, she asked, innocently:  ‘Do you always stop this way?’”

“There are dangers on land as well as on the sea,” said the mate, “as your story proves; though one is not so likely to realize them.  In our present circumstances, there is one thing I earnestly hope for.”

“What is that?”

“That we may not have another storm.  I fear, in her dismantled condition, the Nantucket would have a poor chance of outliving it, particularly as we have no one but Jack and myself to do seamen’s work.”

Mr. Stubbs walked thoughtfully away.

Harry, who had seen him talking with the mate, asked him what the nature of the conversation was.

Mr. Stubbs told him.

“The fact is, Harry,” he said, “we are in a critical condition.  Whether we are ever to see old terry firmy again”—­Mr. Stubbs was not a classical scholar—­“seems a matter of doubt.”

“And the worst of it is,” said Harry, “there seems to be nothing you or I can do to increase our chances of safety.”

“No, unless we could manage to see a ship which the chief officer had overlooked.  That, I take it, is not very likely.”

It was toward morning of the fifth night after the captain had left the ship that all on board were startled by a mighty thumping, accompanied by a shock that threw the sleepers out of bed.

Harry ran hastily on deck.  The mate was there already.

“What’s happened, Mr. Holdfast?” asked the boy, anxiously.

“The ship has struck on a rocky ledge!”

“Are we in danger?”

“In great danger.  Call all the passengers.  We must take to the boat, for the Nantucket is doomed!”