Under the Waves: Diving in Deep Waters. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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it as the scene of the wreck of all their earthly hopes—for the Seagull had been a passenger-ship, and in that quiet bay God in His providence had dealt some of the most awful blows that human beings are capable of bearing.
Close to a bald cliff on the northern shore the foretopmast of the wreck rose a few feet above the calm water. In a cove of the cliff the remains of a mast or yard lay parallel with a deep and thick mass of wreckage, which had surged out and into that cove on the fatal night with such violence that it now lay in small pieces, like giant matchwood. On a patch of gravel not far from that cliff a husband and father had wandered for many days, after being saved—he knew not how—gazing wistfully, hopelessly at the sea which had swallowed up wife and children and fortune. He had been a “successful” gold-digger! On that patch of gravel scenes of terrible suspense had been enacted. Expectant ones had come to inquire whether those whom they sought had really embarked in that vessel, while grave and sympathetic but worn-out or weary men of the Coast-guard, stood ready to give information or to defend the wreck.
In the church on the hill there were dreadful marks on the floor, where the recovered bodies had lain for a time, while frantic relations came and went day by day to search for and claim their dead. Ah, reader, we are not mocking you with fiction. What we refer to is fact. We saw it with our eyes. Peaceful though that spot looked—and often looks—it was once the scene of the wildest of storms, the most terrible of mercantile disasters, and the deepest of human woe.
But we are mingling thoughts with memories. The wreck which has crept into our mind is that of the Royal Charter. The Seagull, although a passenger-ship, and wrecked near the same region, does not resemble that!
At the time of which we write, Joe Baldwin and his men had already saved a considerable portion of the cargo, but during his submarine explorations and meditations Joe had conceived the idea that there was some possibility of saving the vessel itself, for, having recoiled from its first shock and sunk in deep water, the hull was comparatively uninjured.
But Joe, although a good diver, was not a practical engineer. He knew himself to be not a very good judge of such matters, and was too modest to suggest anything to competent submarine engineers. He could not, however, help casting the thing about in his mind for some time. At last, one evening while reading a newspaper that had been got from a passing boat, he observed the return of the ship in which his young friend Edgar Berrington had gone to India. At once he wrote the following letter:—
“My dear Mister Edgar,—I’m in a fix here. It’s my opinion there’s a chance of savin’ a wreck if only good brains was set to work to do it. It would pay if we was to succeed. If you happen to be on the loose just now, as is likely, run over an’ see what you think of it.—Yours to command,
“J.B.”
Our hero received the letter, at once acted on it, and in a few days was on the spot.
“What a change there is in you, my dear sir!” said Joe, looking with admiration at the browned, stalwart youth before him; “why, you’ve grown moustaches!”
“I couldn’t help it, Joe,” replied Edgar; “they would come, and I had no time to shave on board.—But now, tell me about this wreck.”
When Edgar heard that the vessel belonged to Mr Hazlit his first impulse was to have nothing to do with it. He felt that any interference in regard to it would seem like a desire to thrust himself before the merchant’s notice—and that, too, in a needy manner, as if he sought employment at his hands; but on consideration he came to the conclusion that he might act as a wire-puller, give Baldwin the benefit of his knowledge, and allow him to reap the credit and the emoluments. But for a long time the honest diver would not listen to such a suggestion, and was only constrained to give in at last when Edgar threatened to leave him altogether.
“By the way, have you seen Miss Aileen since you came home?” asked Baldwin, while the two friends were seated in the cabin of the diver’s vessel poring, pencil in hand, over several sheets of paper on which were sundry mysterious designs.
“No; I was on the point of paying a visit to my good aunt Miss Pritty, with ulterior ends in view, when your letter reached me and brought me here. To say truth, your note arrived very opportunely, for I was engaged at the time in rather a hard struggle between inclination and duty—not feeling quite sure whether it was right or wise to throw myself in her way just now, for, as you may easily believe, I have not, during my comparatively short absence, made a fortune that is at all likely to satisfy the requirements of her father.”
“I suppose not,” returned the diver. “No doubt, at gold-diggin’s an’ diamond-fields an’ such-like one does hear of a man makin’ a find that enables him to set up his carriage an’ four, and ride, mayhap at a tremendous pace, straight on to ruin by means of it, but as a rule people don’t pick up sovereigns like stones either at home or abroad. It’s the experience of most men, that steady perseverance leads by the shortest road to competence, if not to wealth.—But that’s beside the question. I think you did right, Mister Eddy—excuse an old servant, sir, if it’s taking too much liberty to use the old familiar name,—you did right in coming here instead of going there.”
“So thought I, Baldy—you see that I too can take liberties,—else I should not have come. Your letter solved the difficulty, for, when I was at the very height of the struggle before mentioned—at equipoise so to speak,—and knew not whether to go to the right or to the left, that decided me. I regarded it as a leading of Providence.”
Baldwin turned a rather sudden look of surprise on his young companion.
“A leading of Providence, Mr Eddy! I never heard you use such an expression before.”
“True, but I have learned to use it since I went to sea,” replied our hero quietly.
“That’s strange,” rejoined the diver in a low voice, as if he feared to scare the young man from a subject that was very near his own heart, “very strange, for goin’ to sea has not often the effect of makin’ careless young fellows serious—though it sometimes has, no doubt. How was it, if I—”
“Yes, Baldy,” interrupted Edgar, with a pleasant smile, laying his hand on the diver’s huge shoulder, “I don’t mind making a confidant of you in this as in other matters. I’ll tell you,—the story is short enough. When I parted from Aileen, she made me a present of a New Testament from a pile that she happened to have by her to give to the poor people. To be more particular, I asked for one, and she consented to let me have it. You see I wanted a keepsake! Well, when at sea, I read the Testament regularly, night and morning, for Aileen’s sake, but God in His great love led me at last to read it for the sake of Him whose blessed life and death it records.”
“Then you’ve fairly hauled down the enemy’s colours and hoisted those of the Lord?” asked Baldwin.
“I have been led to do so,” replied the youth modestly but firmly.
“Bless the Lord!” said the diver in a low tone as he grasped Edgar’s hand, while he bowed his head for a moment.
Presently he looked up, and seemed about to resume the subject of conversation when Edgar interrupted him—
“Have you seen or heard anything of Aileen since I left?”
“Nothing, except that she’s been somewhat out of sorts, and her father has sent her up to London for a change.”
“Has he gone to London with her?”
“No, I believe not; he’s taken up a good deal wi’ the cargo o’ this ship, and comes down to see us now and then, but for the most part he remains at home attendin’ to business.”
“Have you spoken to him about raising the hull of the ship?”
“Not yet. He evidently thinks the thing impossible—besides, I wanted to hear your opinion on the matter before sayin’ anything about it.”
“Well, come, let us go into it at once,” said the youth, turning to the sheets of paper before him and taking up a pencil. “You see, Baldwin, this trip of mine as second engineer has been of good service to me in