Tom Fairfield at Sea: or, The Wreck of the Silver Star

CHAPTER XXIV
THE CASTAWAYS

Quite a new experience it was for Tom to be in command of a steamer, even though it was a comparatively small craft. And he was in actual command, for, though Captain Mosher was the navigator, and had all the powers captains usually have on the high seas, still Tom was the master, and his orders would be obeyed.

“If only dad and mother were here with me, or if I knew they were safe, and I had a crowd of fellows from Elmwood Hall here,” Tom reflected, “this would be sport. But as it is there’s too much worry in it to suit me.”

Not that he shirked his duty in the least, but it was a big responsibility for a youth, and none knew it better than Captain Mosher.

“That boy has grit!” the commander exclaimed to his mate. “There ain’t many lads like him who would start off as he did on such a slim chance to find his parents. And, after being shipwrecked, he starts off again.”

“Oh, ’e’s H’American!” exclaimed the mate, who was quite a Cockney in his way. “’E’s H’American, and H’Americans will do hanythink, so I’ve ’eard, sir.”

“Maybe they will. The more credit to ’em.”

“But H’I say, Captain, sir, ’ave you told ’im?”

“Told him what?”

“About them cannibals an’ other unpleasant creatures that may be on the h’islands where we’re goin’?”

“No, I haven’t told him, but I’m going to. It’s only fair that he should know about ’em. I think he’s got grit enough to take it.”

And so, after the vessel was well under way, and the captain had leisure, he sent for Tom, who was in the stateroom that had been assigned to him, next to the captain’s own quarters.

“Tom, my boy!” exclaimed Mr. Mosher, after a few generalities, “it’s only fair to tell you that we may have a hard task ahead of us.”

“How so, captain?”

“Well, some of the islands around Tongatabu are inhabited by natives that are not always friendly.”

“You mean – ” and our hero paused apprehensively.

“I mean that – well, at worst, I think, they can but hold your folks captive, in case the survivors from the shipwreck landed on one of the unfriendly islands.”

“Hold them captives?”

“Yes. You see these natives are peculiar. They get streaks, I might say. If a large enough party of whites landed they would be friendly, and would treat them well. But if only a few were cast on their shores they might be ugly, and make them prisoners for the sake of what few possessions they might save from the wreck.”

“And you think my parents may have landed on such an island?”

“It’s possible. I only tell you to prepare you for the worst.”

Tom was silent a moment, and then he said quietly:

“We brought arms along, didn’t we, captain?”

“Yes, Tom, but – ”

“Then we’ll use ’em – if we have to!” exclaimed the lad, with an energy that caused the captain to like him the more. “If any cannibals or other natives are holding my folks captive we’ll go to the rescue.”

“And I’m with you!” cried the commander, holding out his hand, which Tom took in a firm grip.

The Sea Queen was a fast little steamer and, favored by good weather, she made excellent time. In due course the island of Tongatabu was sighted and one night the vessel Tom had chartered to search for his parents lay at anchor in the harbor. There was not much of a settlement on the island in those days, but such as it was there was news to be had, of a sort, though not the kind Tom wanted.

For he could learn nothing of his parents. There were rumors of wrecks, and of castaways coming ashore, but none from the Kangaroo.

In fact a crew from another wrecked sailing ship had come ashore to Tongatabu, but they knew nothing of the casting away of the ship on which Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield had sailed.

“You might do one thing,” said a friendly Englishman who had some business interests on the island. “I understand there are some natives here from surrounding islands. You might ask them if they have heard of any white castaways coming ashore at any of the places where they live.”

Tom and Captain Mosher welcomed the suggestion and followed it. They found the natives – rather a shiftless lot – and questioned them through an interpreter. But to no purpose.

The simple black men told stories of wrecks that had happened ten years back, and related how the castaways from them had come ashore, either to remain there in an idle existence, or to take the first steamer back for civilization. There were more rumors, but nothing definite.

“The only thing to do,” decided Captain Mosher, “is to visit all the islands in the immediate vicinity of Tongatabu. In that way we’ll get first hand information.”

“And we may find them!” cried Tom eagerly. “Let’s start off again!”

This was about the third day of their stay at Tongatabu and that night they hoisted anchor, and steamed out of the harbor.

Then began a wearying search. No spot of land was too small to deter Tom, and at every large island he spent some days, hiring natives to make a circuit of it, and interviewing, through interpreters, the chief men.

But all to no purpose. There had been no wrecks in some time, and no castaways had come ashore. Tom was beginning to get discouraged.

“Oh, there are lots more islands,” Captain Mosher assured him. “We’ll find ’em yet!”

“H’if the bloody cannibals ain’t het ’em!” said the mate.

“Keep still!” commanded the captain, emphasizing his words with a dig in the ribs that made his chief officer grunt.

They came one night to the small island of Tahatoo, hardly more than a dot in the big ocean. But there was a good harbor, in a coral lagoon, and, as there were signs of a storm, Captain Mosher decided to lay to there over night.

“And while we’re here we may as well go ashore and see if there is any news,” spoke Tom. His voice was despondent, for the search had been wearying and disappointing.

“White mans? No hab white mans and womans here,” said the head native in his broken English, when Tom and the captain put the question to him. “No hab wrecks here. If had, Walla he be kind to um. Kind to white mans and womans. Me is Walla. Walla bery kind. When you sail away, captain?”

“Why do you want to know?” inquired the commander of the Sea Queen, suspiciously, for usually the natives were only too glad to have a steamer spend some days at one of their islands.

“Oh, me just ask for friendly like. When you go?”

“In the morning, if the weather’s good,” was the answer.

“Walla t’ink wedder good,” said the native grinning. “You go mornin’.”

“Tom, there’s something wrong here!” said the commander a little later, as he and our hero walked down toward the beach. “That native is altogether too anxious to get rid of us.”

“Why – do you think – ” began Tom, his heart beating fast.

“I don’t know what to think, my boy, but – ”

“Do you imagine dad and mother – may have been here?”

“I don’t know, but I think that Walla knows something. I think we’ll just stroll around a bit, and we don’t leave to-morrow, no matter what the weather is.”

Their minds filled with strange thoughts, the two strolled back toward the native village. The hut where Walla, the head man lived, was easily distinguished by its size. Around it were other places where the poorer natives stayed.

As Tom and Captain Mosher tried to pass through an alley that led past Walla’s hut, a big black man stopped them with a gesture.

“No can go,” he said, grinning.

“Why not?” asked Tom.

“No can go. Walla he say so. No can go. After a bit maybe can go.”

“We’re going now!” cried Captain Mosher with sudden energy. “Tom, my boy, there’s something on foot here. Draw your revolver and follow me. We’ll see what’s up.”

“No can go!” insisted the native guard.

“We’re going!” cried the captain. “Come on, Tom!”

Tom sprang to the commander’s side. In the gathering dusk they could observe signs of activity about a hut that adjoined Walla’s. A number of native men and women were moving about it.

Suddenly a shout was heard. A voice was raised in angry protest. And the words were English.

“I’ll not go! I’ll not submit to this any longer! Where is your head man? What does he mean by taking us away from where we were fairly comfortable, and sending us somewhere else? What does it mean?”

For a moment Tom and the captain stood as if paralyzed. Then a woman’s sob was heard.

“White men! White men, by Jove!” cried the captain.

“My father!” shouted Tom. “That’s my father’s voice! I’d know it anywhere! He’s here! I’ve found him! Dad! Mother! I’ve come to rescue you! I’m here! We’re coming!”

Tom sprang toward the knot of natives, Captain Mosher at his side. For a moment the blacks resisted. Tom fired into the air, and the captain did likewise. With yells of fear the natives fled, and there, in the fast-gathering dusk, in front of the hut next to that of Walla, stood a little group of white castaways – Tom’s father and mother among them!

CHAPTER XXV
HOMEWARD BOUND – CONCLUSION

For a moment Tom hardly knew what to think. He had heard the voice of white persons, he had seen them when the natives fled at the shots, and yet he could not believe that at last he had found his parents.

Yet there could be no doubt of it. As he stood there, amid the awed natives, and looked forward, he saw the beloved faces – faces he had feared he would never see again.

“Father! Mother!” he cried, and then he ran forward.

From the little knot of castaways two figures detached themselves – a man and a woman. Wonderingly they looked toward Tom. Then the man cried:

“It’s Tom! It’s our son! Oh, how did he ever get here?”

The woman answered:

“It can’t be possible! You’re dreaming, Brokaw! Tom could never be here. Our minds must be wandering!”

“And I say it’s Tom!” declared the man. “Tom! Tom!” he called. “Is it really you?”

“It is, father! Oh, are you all right? Have the natives hurt you? I’ve come to rescue you!”

“Thank the dear Lord!” ejaculated Mr. Fairfield. His wife said nothing. She was crying on his shoulder.

A moment later Tom had sprung to their side and was wildly hugging them, while the other white castaways, including several sailors, looked on wonderingly and sympathetically. Captain Mosher, with tears of joy in his eyes, stood as a sort of guard, with drawn revolver, but there was no need to use it, for the natives had nearly all vanished, save a small wondering ring of them that stood some distance off.

“I rather guess, Tom, my boy,” spoke the commander, “that our voyage is at an end.”

“It surely is!” cried Tom, as he introduced his parents. “I’ve found them at last!”

“H’I always said them H’Americans was great for doin’ things,” commented the mate, who had followed at a distance.

“Father! Mother!” cried Tom. “Tell me all about it.”

“Oh, dear boy, you tell us!” half sobbed his mother. “However did you find us?”

And there, as night fell, on that half-savage island, in the midst of the hut-village of Walla, the head man, Tom told his story. Its details are already familiar to our readers, so I need not go over it.

“And you kept on after us, in spite of all,” commented Mr. Fairfield, when Tom had finished telling of his days aboard the derelict, and in the open boat, followed by the search in the steamer.

“Of course I did!” exclaimed Tom. “I wanted to find you.”

“And you did, dear boy!” cried his mother. “You found us, and we have you again! Oh, I never thought to see you any more.”

“Tell me all about it,” suggested Tom. And they did.

With the foundering of the Kangaroo all hands had taken the small boats. There was much wind and they were separated. The one containing Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield had drifted from the others, and had finally landed at the island of Tahatoo. There the natives proved to be rather unfriendly.

True, they did not maltreat the castaways, but they stripped them of everything of value, confiscated their boat and stores and then, afraid of the possible vengeance of the whites who might start out to rescue the shipwrecked ones, Walla and his men made the castaways captives.

Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield, two men passengers, and a few sailors were in the small boat that had landed at Tahatoo. Their clothes were taken from them, and they were given a few rags to wear. They were not ill treated, as native treatment goes, but they were held prisoners.

This lasted for some time and numerous attempts to escape were frustrated. The castaways gave way to despair. Then came the arrival of Tom’s steamer. Walla at once feared vengeance, and endeavored to hold the attention of Captain Mosher and the others until he could hide his captives in the interior. But his plans miscarried.

Mr. Fairfield, suspecting that something was up, had objected to being taken away with his wife. The commotion had attracted the attention of Tom and Captain Mosher, and the rest is known to the reader.

“Oh, dad! It seems too good to be true!” cried Tom, when their stories had been told. “But your troubles are over. You’ll soon be back to civilization. I’ve got a steamer waiting for you.”

“That’s what!” exclaimed Captain Mosher. “And I don’t believe anybody but Tom Fairfield could have gone to sea and rescued you in the way he did.”

“Oh, of course they could,” declared Tom, blushing, for he disliked praise.

“Oh, I’m sure they couldn’t!” declared his mother, hugging him to her.

“Well, I’d like a few minutes private conversation with that scoundrel, Walla,” said Captain Mosher grimly. “Where is Walla?” he asked of one of the head man’s guards.

“Walla him gone ’way,” was the answer. “Him gone far ’way. Him say him got very bad pain, no come back long time.”

“Pain!” cried the captain. “I’d give him a worse one, if I had the scoundrel!”

A little later Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield, and all the castaways were aboard the Sea Queen, where they were made comfortable, and given decent clothes in exchange for the rags the natives had forced them to wear. Then, as the storm broke, Captain Mosher rode it out in the coral-locked harbor.

“And now for Melbourne, and then for home!” cried Tom, a few days later, when calm weather prevailed. “Oh, it will seem good to get back to the United States again.”

“But it’s too bad so many were lost from the Silver Star,” spoke Mr. Fairfield. “Tom, you proved yourself a man! Oh, what a time you must have had!”

“It wasn’t so easy,” confessed our hero, as he thought of the days aboard the derelict and in the open boat.

The voyage to Melbourne was uneventful, and to Tom’s delight, when he reached there, he learned that little Jackie’s father had reached home. He and a number of others had been picked up in one of the lifeboats, taken to a distant port, and had only just reached Australia.

News was also had of the others of the ill-fated ship that had struck the derelict. Nearly all of them, including the captain, were saved, but chief of all Tom rejoiced in that Jackie’s father was safe.

Little remains to tell. Shortly after their arrival in Australia with their son, Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield were entertained by Mr. Case, and Jackie renewed his friendship with Tom, whom he thought the greatest young man in all the world.

“He found my daddy,” declared Jackie, and no one tried to make him believe otherwise.

Then, having completed all his business plans, a re-arrangement of which was made necessary because of the wreck, Mr. Fairfield, with his wife and Tom, started for home.

Their voyage to San Francisco was uneventful. They called at Honolulu on their way, and learned that Mr. Skeel had started in business, but had failed, because of unfair dealings, and had disappeared.

“Oh, Tom, I hope you never meet that man again!” said our hero’s mother.

“Well, I think Tom took pretty good care of himself,” spoke Mr. Fairfield a bit proudly.

But whether or not Tom met Professor Skeel again, and what were the next adventures that befell our hero, may be learned by reading the next volume of this series, to be entitled, “Tom Fairfield in Camp; Or, The Secret of the Old Mill.”

“Well, Tom, do you want to go back to Elmwood Hall?” asked Mr. Fairfield of his son a few weeks later, when they were once more back in their home at Briartown, having had a safe trip from San Francisco.

“I guess I do, dad. Adventures at sea are all right in their way, but they’re too exciting for a steady diet. I think I can get back in time to pass with the Freshman class.”

And Tom did, and a glorious time he had. For many a night there were secret gatherings in the room of himself and Jack Fitch, while the lads listened breathlessly to the tale of our hero’s adventures.

And now, for a time, we will take leave of Tom Fairfield, to meet him again in new activities.

THE END