Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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crew consisted of the mate, six sailors, a cook, and a boy, Moko, the young negro of twelve, whose family had been in the service of a well-known colonist for many years. And we ought to mention Fan, a dog of American extraction, which belonged to Gordon, and never left her master.
The day of departure had been fixed for the 15th of February. The yacht lay moored at the end of Commercial Pier. The crew was not on board when on the evening of the 14th, the young passengers embarked. Captain Garnett was not expected till the last moment, and the mate and the boy received Gordon and his companions, the men having gone ashore to take a parting glass. When the yacht had been cleared of visitors, and the boys had all gone to bed, so as to be ready early in the morning for the start, it occurred to the mate that he would go up into the town and look for his men, leaving Moko in charge. And Moko was too tired to keep awake.
What happened immediately the mate left was a mystery, but, accidentally or purposely, the moorings of the yacht got cast off without any one on board being the wiser.
It was a dark night. The land-breeze was strong, and the tide running out, and away went the schooner to sea.
When Moko awoke he found the yacht adrift!
His shouts brought up Gordon, Briant, Donagan, and a few of the others from below, but nothing could they do. They called help in vain. None of the harbour lights were visible. The yacht was right out in the gulf three miles from land.
At the suggestion of Briant and Moko, the boys tried to get sail on the yacht so as to beat back into the harbour. But the sail was too heavy for them to set properly, and the result was that the yacht, instead of keeping her head up, dropped dead away to leeward. Cape Colville was doubled, and the strait between Great Barrier Island and the mainland run through, and soon the schooner was off to the eastward, many miles from New Zealand.
It was a serious position. There could be no help from the land. If a vessel were to come in search, several hours must elapse before she could catch them, even supposing that she could find them in the darkness. And even when day came, how could she descry so small a craft on the high sea ? If the wind did not change, all hope of returning to land must be given up. There remained only the chance of being spoken by some vessel on her way to a New Zealand port. And to meet this, Moko hastened to hoist a lantern at the foremast head. And then all that could be done was to wait for daylight.
Many of the smaller boys were still asleep, and it was thought best not to wake them.
Several attempts were made to bring the schooner up in the wind, but all were useless. Her head fell off immediately, and away she went drifting to the eastward.
Suddenly a light was sighted two or three miles off. It was a white masthead light, showing a steamer under way. Soon the side-lights, red and green, rose above the water, and the fact of their being seen together showed that the steamer was steering straight for the yacht.
The boys shouted in vain. The wash of the waves, the roar of the steam blowing off, and the moan of the rising wind united to drown their voices. But if they could not hear the cries, the look-outs might see the light at the schooner's foremast ? It was a last chance, and unfortunately in one of the yacht's jerky pitches, the halliard broke and the lantern fell into the sea, and there was nothing to show the presence of the schooner, which the steamer was steering straight down upon at the rate of twelve knots an hour.
In a few seconds she had struck the yacht, and would have sunk her, had she not taken her on the slant close to the stern ; as it was she carried away only a bit of the name board.
The shock had been so feeble that the steamer kept on, leaving the schooner to the mercy of the approaching storm. It is often the case, unfortunately, that captains do not trouble about stopping to help a vessel they have run into. But in this case some excuse could be made, for those on board the steamer felt nothing of the collision, and saw nothing of the yacht in the darkness.
Drifting before the wind, the boys might well think they were lost. When day came the wide horizon was deserted. In the Pacific, ships bound from Australia to America, or from America to Australia, take a more northerly or more southerly route than that taken by the yacht. Not one was sighted, and although the wind moderated occasionally, yet it never ceased blowing from the westward.
How long this drifting was to last, neither Briant nor his comrades knew. In vain they tried to get the schooner back into New Zealand waters. It was under these conditions that Briant, displaying energy superior to his age, began to exercise an influence over his companions, to which even Donagan submitted. Although with Moko's help he could not succeed in getting the yacht to the westward, he could, and did, manage to keep her navigable. He did not spare himself.
He watched night and day. He swept the horizon for any chance of safety. And he threw overboard several bottles containing an account of what had happened to the schooner; it was a slender chance, but he did not care to neglect it.
A few hours after the yacht left Hauraki Gulf, the storm arose, and for two weeks it raged with unusual impetuosity. Assaulted by enormous waves, and escaping a hundred times from being overwhelmed by the mountains of water, the yacht had gone ashore on an unknown land in the Pacific.
What was to be the fate of these shipwrecked schoolboys ? From what side was help to come to them if they could not help themselves ?
Their families had only too good reason to suppose that they had been swallowed up. When it was found that the yacht had disappeared the alarm was given. We need not dwell on the consternation produced by the news.
Without losing an instant, the harbour-master sent out two small steamers in search, with orders to explore the gulf and some miles beyond it. All that night, though the sea grew rough, the little steamers sought in vain; and when day came and they returned to Auckland, it was to deprive the unfortunate relatives of every hope. They had not found the schooner, but they had found the wreckage knocked away in collision by the Quito —a collision of which those on board the Quito knew nothing.
And in this wreckage were three or four letters of the schooner's name.
It seemed certain that the yacht had met with disaster, and gone down with all on board within a dozen miles of New Zealand.
CHAPTER III.
The First Day Ashore
The shore was deserted, as Briant had discovered when he was on the foremast crosstrees. For an hour the schooner lay on her bed of sand, and no native was seen. There was no sign of house or hut either under the trees, in front of the cliff, or on the banks of the rivulet, now full with the waters of the rising tide. There was not even the print of a human foot on the beach, which the tide had bordered with a long line of seaweed. At the mouth of the river there was no fishing-boat to be seen, and no smoke arose in the air along the whole curve of the bay between the northern and southern capes.
The first idea that occurred to Briant and Gordon was to get through the trees and ascend the cliffs behind.
" We are on land, that is something! " said Gordon; " but what is this land which seems uninhabited ? "
" The important thing is that it is not uninhabitable !" answered Briant. " We have food and ammunition for some time. We want a shelter of some sort, and we must find one—at least for the youngsters."
" Yes. Right you are ! "
"As to finding out where we are," said Briant, "there will be time enough for that when we have nothing else to do. If it is a continent, we may perhaps be rescued. If it is an island ! an uninhabited island— well we shall see ! Come Gordon, let us be off on our voyage of discovery."
They soon reached the edge of the trees, which ran off on the slant from the cliff to the right bank of the stream, three or four hundred yards above its mouth.
In the wood there was no sign of the passage of man, not a track, not a footpath. Old trunks, fallen through old