Raftsman

“ Moore, and since it's got to be, the sooner the suspense is over, the better I'll like it;" and with a great sigh, the raftsman kissed the forehead of his child and put her hand in that of Philip. With that act he had given away to another the most cherished of his possessions. But children never realize the pang which rends the parent heart, when they leave the parent nest and fly to new bowers. "All I shall be good for now, will be to keep you in spending-money, I s'pose. You're going to marry a fashionable young man, you know, cubbie, and he'll want you tricked out in the last style. ”

“ The main part of the steering is done at the bow, with a pole; the 3-log breadth there furnishes room for only the steersman, for these little logs are not larger around than an average young lady's waist. The connections of the several sections of the raft are slack and pliant, so that the raft may be readily bent into any sort of curve required by the shape of the river.
The Neckar is in many places so narrow that a person can throw a dog across it, if he has one; when it is also sharply curved in such places, the raftsman has to do some pretty nice snug piloting to make the turns. ”

“ It held two persons—David Wilde, the owner and captain of the raft of which Ben had spoken, a rough, striking-looking man of middle age, attired in a pink calico shirt and brown linen jacket and trowsers, who sat at the tiller smoking his pipe; and a young man of four and twenty, extremely good-looking and fashionably-dressed. ”

“ To all seeming now, they heard me, for I saw the curtain of the awning suddenly move, and a boatman's red cap peer from beneath it. I screamed and shouted with all my might, and called out “The raft—the raft!” till my throat felt bursting. For some seconds the progress of the great mass seemed delayed, probably by having become entangled with the trees along the shore; but now, borne along by its immense weight, it swung round the angle of the bank, and came majestically on, a long, white wave marking its course as it breasted the water.
They see it! they see it! Oh! good heavens! ”

“ The progress upon a raft is necessarily much slower than that of simply relying upon one’s muscular power and skill in the water; and so, with a terrible misgiving, he saw the two sweep on down the coast, without, so far as he was able to judge, coming any nearer.
It was plain that the exertions of the noble-hearted girl were intended mainly to benefit her parent. If she should fling herself loose from the float, and strike out for the shore, she could reach it as certainly as did Captain Cole, and the seamen of her own vessel. ”

“ We might well guess that a raft would but prolong our lives in the midst of so wide a sea, by a few days, and perhaps by a few hours only, after subjecting us to every agony of despair and of expectation, and torturing us with God alone would know what privations.
We thoroughly overhauled the forecastle of the vessel, but found nothing of interest. There were a few seamen's chests, some odds and ends of wearing apparel, and here and there a blanket in a bunk; but the crew in clearing out appeared to have carried off most of their effects with them. ”

“ We spent all the afternoon, waist-deep in the river, lashing logs together with strips of raw hide cut from the congoni skins. When the raft was finished, just before sundown, it looked very clumsy and unserviceable, and we had very grave doubts of its utility, as the volume of water in the river was very great, and the pressure on such an unwieldy structure was bound to be enormous—much more than any rope of ours would stand. However, that was a question that the morrow would decide; so we moored the raft to an island a few yards from the bank, and went back to camp for dinner. ”

“ And as with dread I glimpsed ahead the death that waited there,
My only thought was of the girl, the little Julie Claire;
And so, like demon mad with fear, I panted at the oar,
And foot by foot, and inch by inch, we worked the raft ashore.
The bank was staked with grinding ice, and as we scraped and crashed,
I only knew one thing to do, and through my mind it flashed:
Yet while I groped to find the rope, I heard Bill’s savage cry:
“That’s my job, lad! It’s me that jumps. I’ll snub this raft or die!” ”

“ By this time another man came down and offer'd to adventure, so getting upon the Raft I launch'd 'em off, they desiring us to go to Prayers, also to watch what became of them; I did so, and by Sunset judg'd them half way to the Main, and that they might reach the shoar by 2 in the morning; but I suppose they fell in with some breakers, or the violence of the sea overset them and they perish'd; for two Days after, the Raft was found on shoar, and one man dead about a Mile from it, with a Paddle fastened to his wrist; but the Sweed who was so very forward to adventure, was never heard of more. ”

“ They can remain on the level of the water indefinitely, with no other support than their skiff, can rest in unsubmersible flotillas and can even shift their place by working the rudder.
To what do they owe this privilege? Are we to look upon the bundle of sticks as a sort of raft whose density is less than that of the water? Can the shells, which are always empty and able to contain a few bubbles of air in their spiral, he floats? Can the big joists, which break in so ugly a fashion the none too great regularity of the work, serve to buoy up the over-heavy raft? ”

“ Raft, who had been round the world a dozen times and more, knew less of the world than a modern child. Fights and roaring drunks and the smoke haze of bar rooms, wharf Messalinas and sailors’ lodging houses had212 done him no harm at all. His innocence was vast and indestructible as his ignorance.
Bompard and La Touche were old men of the world compared to Raft; they were of different stuff, and being yachtsmen they had been long rubbed against the ways of high civilization. ”

“ Captain Blyth listened most attentively to everything the engineer told him—the raft meanwhile being worked to windward toward the harbour’s mouth—and when he had heard everything he remarked:
“Well, so far you have done admirably; I do not believe matters could have been managed better had I been here myself. And as to this raft of yours—if raft you call her—she is simply a wonder; why she turns to windward like a racing cutter. I am sure I should never have dreamed of scheming out anything half so handy. ”

“ The occupants of the raft were, indeed, a melancholy group. They were seven in number. Of these, two were common seamen; a third looked like a ship's officer, and wore the uniform of a second lieutenant; the fourth was a gentleman, who seemed about forty years of age. These four were standing, and as the boat approached them they gave utterance to every possible cry of joy and gratitude. But it was the other three occupants of the raft that most excited the attention of Claude and Zac.
An old man was seated there, with thin, emaciated frame, and snow-white hair. ”

“ After two or three hours passed in dreadful suspense, though it appeared as if the whole night must have elapsed, the ship became more steady, and the sea broke over her less violently. “We must get a raft made,” exclaimed Cousin Silas. The men seemed to look instinctively to him for orders, and willingly obeyed him. All hands set to work, some to collect the spars which had not been washed overboard, others to cut away the bulwarks and to get off the hatches—indeed, to bring together everything that would serve to form a raft. ”

“ I had been contriving how to put out striker lines in a deep loch near my father’s house, and, not having a boat, I substituted a stable door, taken from its hinges, as a raft for my purpose. I had read of rafts on the Rhine with whole families on them—with a cabin and cow-house and pig-sty; and why should not my miniature raft support my weight? I floated the door—balanced myself nicely upon it—put out for the middle of the loch, gently paddling it with a pole, and fearful of the slightest change of my position, which would have destroyed the horizontal equilibrium of my feeble raft. ”

“ At his feet, lying among the creases of the canvas, are a handspike, a pair of boat oars, and an axe. Nothing more is perceptible of the raft, even to the keen eye of the albatross.
The bird continues its flight towards the west. Ten miles farther on it once more poises itself on soaring wing, and directs its glance downward.
Another raft is seen motionless upon the calm surface of the sea, but differing from the former in almost everything but the name. It is nearly ten times as large; constructed out of the masts, yards, hatches, portions of the bulwarks, and other timbers of a ship ”

“ Adair, with outstretched hand, was ready to help him on to the raft as he felt the big ship sinking under his feet.
“Shove off, shove off, my lads!” sang out their commander. With spars and oars, the seamen forced the raft away from the foundering hull. Then, as the eddy formed by the huge mass going downwards through the water caught it, the helpless raft was whirled round and round, and then horrible seemed the fate in store for them. One side dipped into the sea, and all believed that it was going to be drawn down amid the vortex. The people held on tightly for their lives. ”

“ The strain increased. It seemed that the rope must snap; that the old man’s iron grip must yield. Should the raft reach the glacier it would be lost forever. The muscles in the man’s arms played like bands of steel. Blood vessels stood out on his temples like whipcords, yet he held his ground.
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Ten seconds passed, twenty, thirty, then with a whirl like some wild animal yielding to its captor, the raft swung about and shot away down stream.
Plunging forward, leaping rocks, gliding over glassy surfaces of snow, puffing, perspiring, the old man followed. ”

“ I felt there was going to be a disaster of some sort—it was almost like a warning.”222
“Well, there’s no saying,” said Raft. “I’ve known a chap warned he was going to be drowned, and drowned he was sure enough. I was down below asleep and shot out of my bunk by the smash; then I was on the main deck, the chaps all round shouting for boats, and if you ask me how I got off I couldn’t tell you. One minute a big light was blazing, then it was black as thunder. My mind seemed to go when the black came on, I’d no more thought than a blind puppy. Something saved me. That’s all I know.” ”

“ An hour later Forbes held up a warning finger. An ominous sound was heard far below that increased in volume with every second.
"Cling to the raft for your lives," shouted Chutney.
The first words were audible; the last were drowned in the mighty roar of the water, so sudden was its approach. By the torchlight they saw for an instant the billows of tossing spray. Then the raft plunged madly like a thing of life, a great wave broke over it with stunning force, and all was darkness. ”

“ But we fought on, and the longer we fought the more intelligent our efforts became.
There was a trick to this work, a trick entirely different from navigating a light, amenable, birchen canoe. Our raft had a will of its own, and a certain sense of decency. Handled as it desired to be, it would even accomplish a measure of our desires, and gradually we came to learn its ways. This aided us in winning ground—or, I should say, water; but nothing could aid us in conflicting the capricious moods of wind and current. Sometimes we had both behind us, and then we were driven rapidly downstream. ”

“ Perkins, and we rowed over to the raft. All about the frail contrivance the water was beautiful with the colors and movements of innumerable fish. As we approached we were greeted by an evil smell. The raft seemed to have been afloat for a considerable period; its submerged portion was green with marine adhesions or growths. The fellow in the bows of the boat, manoeuvring with the boat-hook, cleverly snicked the parcel from the jury-mast and put it beside him without opening it, for that was to be the captain's privilege. ”

“ The rafts in the meantime to keep the middle of the stream. The man to be put ashore, and not to swim ashore, as the first thing could be more quickly done than the second. The raft conveying him, to get back into mid-stream, and to hold on along with the other, as well as it could, until signalled by the man. In case of danger, the man to shift for himself until it should be safe to take him aboard again, I volunteered to be the man.
We knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against the stream; and our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under which bank they would come. ”

“ Potto Jumbo and Roger Trew rushed into the water, and cutting—the cable, towed it ashore. The provisions meantime were carried from the house where they had been stored, and those we had brought with us were put on board. We all now hastened on to the raft. The masts, and spars, and oars, and all the other things which had been prepared were also placed on it. “Now, shove off!” cried my uncle, “and Heaven protect us! Mr Thudicumb, we beg you to take charge of the raft. My duty is over.” Merlin was the last of our party who leaped on board. ”

“ Puzzled and a little sulky, I pushed open the door of the deserted nursery, where the raft that had rocked beneath so many hopes and fears still occupied the ocean-floor. To the dull eye, [126] that merely tarries upon the outsides of things, it might have appeared unromantic and even unraftlike, consisting only as it did of a round sponge-bath on a bald deal towel-horse placed flat on the floor. Even to myself much of the recent raft-glamour seemed to have departed as I half-mechanically stepped inside and curled myself up in it for a solitary voyage. ”