As already stated, there are four of them. Three are strangely alike—at least, in the particulars of size, shape, and costume. In age, too, there is no great difference. All three are boys: the oldest not over eighteen, the youngest certainly not a year his junior.
In the physiognomy of the three there is similitude enough to declare them of one nation—though dissimilarity sufficient to prove a distinct provinciality both in countenance and character. Their dresses of dark blue cloth, cut pea-jacket shape, and besprinkled with buttons of burnished yellow—their cloth caps, of like color, encircled by bands of gold lace—their collars, embroidered with the crown and anchor, declare them, all three, to be officers in the service of that great maritime government that has so long held undisputed possession of the sea—midshipmen of the British navy. Rather should we say, had been. They have lost this proud position, along with the frigate to which they had been attached; and they now only share authority upon a dismasted spar, over which they are exerting some control, since, with their bodies bent downwards, and their hands beating the water, they are propelling it in the direction of the sand-spit.
In the countenances of the three castaways thus introduced, I have admitted a dissimilitude something more than casual—something more, even, than what might be termed provincial. Each presented a type that could have been referred to that wider distinction known as a nationality.
The three "middies" astride of that topsail-yard were of course castaways from the same ship, in the service of the same government, though each was of a different nationality from the other two. They were the respective representatives of Jack, Paddy, and Sandy—or, to speak more poetically, of the Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle—and had the three kingdoms from which they came been searched throughout their whole extent, there could scarcely have been discovered purer representative types of each, than the three reefers on that spar, drifting towards the sand-spit between Bojador and Blanco.
Their names were Harry Blount, Terence O'Connor, and Colin Macpherson.
The fourth individual—who shared with them their frail embarkation—differed from all three in almost every respect, but more especially in years. The ages of all three united would not have numbered his: and their wrinkles, if collected together, would scarce have made so many as could have been counted in the crowsfeet indelibly imprinted in the corners of his eyes.
It would have required a very learned ethnologist to have told to which of his three companions he was compatriot; though there could be no doubt about his being either English, Irish, or Scotch.
Strange to say, his tongue did not aid in the identification of his nationality. It was not often heard; but even when it was, its utterance would have defied the most accomplished linguistic ear; and neither from that, nor other circumstance known to them, could any one of his three companions lay claim to him as a countryman. When he spoke—a rare occurrence already hinted—it was with a liberal misplacement of "h's" that should have proclaimed him an Englishman of purest Cockney type. At the same time his language was freely interspersed with Irish "ochs" and "shures"; while the "wees" and "bonnys," oft recurring in his speech, should have proved him a sworn Scotchman. From his countenance you might have drawn your own inference, and believed him any of the three; but not from his tongue. Neither in his accent, nor the words that fell from him, could you have told which of the three kingdoms had the honor of giving him birth.
Whichever it was, it had supplied to the Service a true British tar: for although you might mistake the man in other respects, his appearance forbade all equivocation upon this point.
His costume was that of a common sailor, and, as a matter of course, his name was "Bill." But as he had only been one among many "Bills" rated on the man-o'-war's books—now gone to the bottom of the sea—he carried a distinctive appellation, no doubt earned by his greater age. Aboard the frigate he had been known as "Old Bill"; and the soubriquet still attached to him upon the spar.
CHAPTER III.
THE SERPENT'S TONGUE.
The presence of a ship's topsail-yard thus bestridden plainly proclaimed that a ship had been wrecked, although no other evidence of the wreck was within sight. Not a speck was visible upon the sea to the utmost verge of the horizon: and if a ship had foundered within that field of view, her boats and every vestige of the wreck must either have gone to the bottom, or in some other direction than that taken by the topsail-yard, which supported the three midshipmen and the sailor Bill.
A ship had gone to the bottom—a British man-of-war—a corvette on her way to her cruising ground on the Guinea coast. Beguiled by the dangerous current that sets towards the seaboard of the Saära, in a dark stormy night she had struck upon a sand-bank, got bilged, and sunk almost instantly among the breakers. Boats had been got out, and men had been seen crowding hurriedly into them; others had taken to such rafts or spars as could be detached from the sinking vessel: but whether any of these, or the overladen boats, had succeeded in reaching the shore, was a question which none of the four astride the topsail-yard were able to answer.
They only knew that the corvette had gone to the bottom—they saw her go down, shortly after drifting away from her side, but saw nothing more until morning, when they perceived themselves alone upon the ocean. They had been drifting throughout the remainder of that long, dark night—often entirely under water, when the sea swelled over them—and one and all of them many times on the point of being washed from their frail embarkation.
By daybreak the storm had ceased, and was succeeded by a clear, calm day; but it was not until a late hour that the swell had subsided sufficiently to enable them to take any measures for propelling the strange craft that carried them. Then using their hands as oars or paddles, they commenced making some way through the water.
There was nothing in sight—neither land nor any other object—save the sea, the sky, and the sun. It was the east which guided them as to direction. But for it there could have been no object in making way through the water; but with the sun now sinking in the west, they could tell the east, and they knew that in that point alone land might be expected.
After the sun had gone down the stars became their compass, and throughout all the second night of their shipwreck they had continued to paddle the spar in an easterly direction.
Day again dawned upon them, but without gratifying their eyes by the sight of land, or any other object to inspire them with a hope.
Famished with hunger, tortured with thirst, and wearied with their continued exertions, they were about to surrender to despair; when, as the sun once more mounted up to the sky, and his bright beams pierced the crystal water upon which they were floating, they saw beneath them the sheen of white sand. It was the bottom of the sea, and at no great depth—not more than a few fathoms below their feet.
Such shallow water could not be far from the shore. Reassured and encouraged by the thought, they once more renewed their exertions, and continued to paddle the spar, taking only short intervals of rest throughout the whole of the morning.
Long before noon they were compelled to desist. They were close to the tropic of Cancer, almost under its line. It was the season of midsummer, and of course at meridian hour the sun was right over their heads. Even their bodies cast no shadow, except upon the white sand directly underneath them, at the bottom of the sea.
The sun could no longer guide them; and as they had no other index, they were compelled to remain stationary, or drift in whatever direction the breeze or the currents might carry them.