The Battle and the Breeze | Page 4

to the fore-part of the ship they found the cook, a negro,
whose right arm supported the insensible form of a woman--the only
woman on board that ship. She was the wife of the carpenter. Her
husband had been among the first of those who were swept overboard
and drowned.
"Hold on to her, massa," exclaimed the cook; "my arm a'most brok."
The mate, to whom he appealed, at once grasped the woman, and was
about to attempt to drag her under the lee of the caboose, when the
vessel slipped off the rocks into the sea, parted amidships, and was
instantly overwhelmed.
For some minutes Bill Bowls struggled powerfully to gain the shore,
but the force of the boiling water was such that he was as helpless as if
he had been a mere infant; his strength, great though it was, began to
fail; several severe blows that he received from portions of the wreck
nearly stunned him, and he felt the stupor that preceded death
overpowering him, when he was providentially cast upon a ledge of
rock. Against the same ledge most of his shipmates were dashed by the
waves and killed, but he was thrown upon it softly. Retaining sufficient
reason to realise his position, he clambered further up the rocks, and
uttered an earnest "Thank God!" as he fell down exhausted beyond the
reach of the angry waves.
Soon, however, his energies began to revive, and his first impulse,
when thought and strength returned, was to rise and stagger down to
the rocks, to assist if possible, any of his shipmates who might have
been cast ashore. He found only one, who was lying in a state of
insensibility on a little strip of sand. The waves had just cast him there,
and another towering billow approached, which would infallibly have
washed him away, had not Bill rushed forward and dragged him out of

danger.
It proved to be his friend Tom Riggles. Finding that he was not quite
dead, Bill set to work with all his energy to revive him, and was so
successful that in half-an-hour the sturdy seaman was enabled to sit up
and gaze round him with the stupid expression of a tipsy man.
"Come, cheer up," said Bill, clapping him on the back; "you'll be all
right in a short while."
"Wot's to do?" said Tom, staring at his rescuer.
"You're all right," repeated Bill. "One good turn deserves another, Tom.
You saved my life a few minutes ago, and now I've hauled you out o'
the water, old boy."
The sailor's faculties seemed to return quickly on hearing this. He
endeavoured to rise, exclaiming--
"Any more saved?"
"I fear not," answered Bill sadly, shaking his head.
"Let's go see," cried Tom, staggering along the beach in search of his
shipmates; but none were found; all had perished, and their bodies were
swept away far from the spot where the ship had met her doom.
At daybreak it was discovered that the ship had struck on a low rocky
islet on which there was little or no vegetation. Here for three weeks
the two shipwrecked sailors lived in great privation, exposed to the
inclemency of the weather, and subsisting chiefly on shell-fish. They
had almost given way to despair, when a passing vessel observed them,
took them off, and conveyed them in safety to their native land.
Such was one of the incidents in our hero's career.
CHAPTER TWO.

COMMENCES THE STORY.
About the beginning of the present century, during the height of the
war with France, the little fishing village of Fairway was thrown into a
state of considerable alarm by the appearance of a ship of war off the
coast, and the landing therefrom of a body of blue-jackets. At that time
it was the barbarous custom to impress men, willing or not willing, into
the Royal Navy. The more effective, and at the same time just, method
of enrolling men in a naval reserve force had not occurred to our rulers,
and, as a natural consequence, the inhabitants of sea-port towns and
fishing villages were on the constant look-out for the press-gang.
At the time when the man-of-war's boat rowed alongside of the little
jetty of Fairway, an interesting couple chanced to be seated in a bower
at the back of a very small but particularly neat cottage near the shore.
The bower was in keeping with its surroundings, being the half of an
old boat set up on end. Roses and honeysuckle were trained up the
sides of it, and these, mingling their fragrance with the smell of tar,
diffused an agreeable odour around. The couple referred to sat very
close to each other, and appeared to be engaged in conversation of a
confidential nature. One was a fair