"Why?" inquired Bob.

"Why?" repeated I, astonished at the question. "Simply because we should never get across the Bay of Biscay in her, to say nothing of the remainder of the voyage."

"Why not?" demanded Bob, rather pugnaciously.

"Do you mean to say," I retorted, "that you can sit there and propose in cold blood such a hair-brained scheme as that we two should undertake a voyage to the Pacific in a mere _boat_?"

"I do," replied Bob emphatically. "That's a simple way out of all your difficulties. The craft will be your own; there will be no risk of the crew rising upon us for the sake of our cargo; and n.o.body to say 'What are we doing here?' or 'What do you want there?' Why, it will be a mere pleasure trip from end to end, all play and no work, leastways none to speak on!"

"But, my dear fellow, _do_ be serious," protested I. "You know, as well as I do, that we should be swamped the first time we fell in with a capful of wind."

"Maybe we should, if we went to work like a couple of know-nothing land- lubbers," retorted Bob; "but if we went to work like seamen, as we are, I should like to know what's to purvent our sailing round the world if we like! Answer me that."

"Come, Bob, old man, let us hear the full extent of your proposition,"

said I. "I know that, whatever it may be, it will be the proposal of a thorough seaman, for if any one could carry out the wild scheme you have suggested, you are the man."

"'Tain't such a very wild scheme neither," replied Bob. "Answer me this. How many people was saved from the _London_ when she foundered in the Bay of Biscay?"

"Nineteen, if I remember rightly," replied I.

"Very well; now if a small boat of about twenty-five feet long or thereabouts, _open_, mind you, from stem to starn, could live twenty hours with nineteen people in her, as the _London's_ pinnace did, in weather that the old ship herself couldn't stand up agin, how long will a full-decked boat of, say, thirty to thirty-five feet long, carefully constructed, and in good trim, live with only two men in her? And warn't I," continued he, "nineteen days _alone_ in an open boat in the South Atlantic; and didn't I make a v'y'ge of a thousand miles in her afore I struck soundings at Saint Helena?"

This last question referred to an adventure which had befallen Bob in his younger days, on an occasion when he had been cruelly deserted in a sinking ship by the rest of the crew, and had made his escape, as described by himself, after enduring unheard-of suffering.

"Then," questioned I, "you seriously entertain the belief that the scheme you have suggested is practicable?"

"With ease and comfort," replied Bob. "Now look here, Harry. You can afford to build a craft such as I have described, and fit her out for the v'y'ge, and still leave money enough at home to keep sauce-box here," (indicating Ada, who was to him as the apple of his eye) "comfortable and happy like till we come back. You've a rare eye for a sea-boat, and mine ain't bad, for that matter; let's draught her out ourselves, since it's our own lives as we are going to trust in her; and if we don't turn out, between us, as pretty a sea-boat as ever floated, why, turn to and lay me up in ordinary for the rest of my days for a useless old hulk, that's all. A boat thirty feet long, decked all over, and carefully designed, _can't_ sink, boy, because we can easily arrange matters so as to keep her dry inside; she'll ride as light as a gull and as dry as a bone when big ships is making bad weather of it, and as for the matter of capsizing, bein' run down, or cast away, why they're dangers as we are liable to in any ship, and must be guarded against in every craft, large or small; and our little barkie would carry comfortable all we should want for the v'y'ge, for we could touch here and there out and home to make good deficiencies, and we two are men enough to handle her in all weathers. Rig her as a cutter, boy. I was once't aboard a cutter yacht in a trip up the Mediterranean, and you've no idea what a handy rig it is, once you're used to it. And the way them cutters 'll hug the wind--why 't would make a difference of nigh on a couple of thousand miles, out and home, in the length of the pa.s.sage."

I began to be infected with Bob's enthusiasm. The scheme, which had at first appeared to me as the very acme of fool-hardiness, now, under the influence of Bob's eloquence, gradually a.s.sumed an appearance of reasonableness, and a promising prospect of success, which was very fascinating. Nevertheless, I could not but remember that the proposed voyage would take us into lat.i.tudes subject to the most frightful and sudden tempests, and I could not help thinking (as I pointed out to Bob) that our c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l would stand but a poor chance in a cyclone or a black squall.

"Look here, Harry, my boy," remarked Bob gravely, "as I propose to ship on this here v'y'ge as chief-mate, I ain't likely to forget that there's such dangers as them you've just mentioned; But suppose you was to cork up a bottle, or clap the lid on an empty biscuit-tin, and heave 'em overboard, do you think they'd live through one or t'other? In course they would, because salt water can't get inside of 'em, and as long as they keep dry holds they'll float, let the weather be what it will, and so 'll our craft, for the same reason. And when the weather's too bad to sail the barkie, we can heave her to, and when it's too bad for that we can _anchor_ her, my boy, go below, slide on the top of the companion, and turn in until the weather clears."

"But," said I, "we cannot anchor in the middle of the Atlantic. Suppose we should be caught in a cyclone there, for instance?"

"We _can_ anchor _there_, lad, with a _floating_ anchor, which will keep her head to wind; and with everything snug aloft and on deck, and a floating-anchor ahead with about sixty fathoms of cable veered out, she would ride out _in safety_ any gale that ever blew out of the heavens."

This last remark closed the case, and secured a verdict for the defendant. I _knew_ that every word Bob spoke was literally true, and the audacity of the enterprise so fascinated me that I resolved on the spot to undertake it, if it should be found, on going into details, that a craft, capable of being handled by our two selves, could stow away, without being overloaded, such provisions; etcetera, as we should need for the voyage.

The following morning, immediately after breakfast, I got out my drawing board, strained a sheet of paper upon it, and, with Bob at my side to give me the benefit of his opinion upon every line I traced upon the paper, set to in earnest to design the little craft in which we proposed to embark on our adventurous voyage.

Before putting a line upon paper, however, we settled the plan of her internal arrangements. It was our intention to make her lines as fine as her respective dimensions would permit; she was to be, in fact, a small _yacht_. We knew that every vessel with sharp lines must necessarily be wet, unless the weights she would have to carry were all concentrated about her midship section, or broadest part, so we decided that as far as was practicable such should be the arrangement with us; and we knew that, if we could succeed in this, our barkie might be as sharp as we could make her, and still be dry and comfortable. We accordingly prepared a list of our requirements, as far as we could think of them, calculated the s.p.a.ce they and the ballast would occupy, and then roughly sketched out the proposed lines. These were altered, rearranged, and improved upon time after time, until at length we felt we had got them as near perfection as the dimensions of the boat and our own knowledge would carry us. And I may as well say at once that throughout the entire voyage we never had the slightest reason to think our little vessel could be in any way improved upon by alteration.

It is not probable that so long a voyage as ours will be often undertaken again in such a very small craft as we accomplished it in; but there are many men, I have no doubt, who would gladly receive a hint as to the most advantageous form for a small boat in which they might safely adventure, alone, or with a friend, a cruise, say round the British Isles, or across the Channel and along the French coast; and therefore, as this story is written for the amus.e.m.e.nt only of such people as love boats, I think I may venture to trespa.s.s so far on my readers' patience as to give such a hint in the shape of a brief description of the _Water Lily_, as Ada christened her.

She was, then, thirty-six feet long, and twelve feet beam on the water- line; but, in designing her midship section, we caused her sides to swell out boldly _above_ water, so that her greatest beam was fourteen feet, at a point one foot six inches above the water-line. At this point her side _tumbled home_ two inches as it was carried upwards to her deck, and from the same point the side curved quickly inwards and downwards until it met the water-line, when it swept under water with an almost imperceptible curve for some distance, and then took a moderately quick bend downwards to meet her keel. This gave us a vessel in shape very much like the centre-board model of boat, but with a deep keel, and consequently great lateral resistance, and s.p.a.ce low down in the hull for the stowage of ballast. We thus secured a _very_ small displacement, a light buoyant hull, extraordinary stability, and a fair amount of _power_.

The hull was divided into three compartments by bulkheads with wide doors which, if necessary, we could close _water-tight_. In the _fore_ compartment we decided to place _nothing_ except the smallest and lightest cooking-stove we could find. In the midship compartment it was intended to stow our ballast, water-tank, provisions, the chain-cables, and in fact everything which we could possibly place there, leaving only a narrow pa.s.sage amidships to pa.s.s to and fro. The after compartment we intended to make our cabin, and there we arranged also to sling our hammocks. It will easily be understood that there was not an inch of spare room anywhere; but as our lives would be spent almost entirely on deck, we did not mind that very much.

Having designed our craft, the next question was, who should build her?

Bob was strongly in favour of having her built in the town, so that we might oversee the laying of every plank, and the driving of every nail; but I knew there were firms who could safely be trusted to honestly put the best of work and material into the little vessel without being watched; and I determined to put her into the hands of a very celebrated firm of London boat builders.

Accordingly, Bob and I ran up to town, taking my sister with us for a holiday, and on the morning after our arrival, having seen Ada safely disposed of for the day with some friends of ours, we two men set out for the building-yard.

I placed our design in the hands of the princ.i.p.al, telling him at the same time that we wanted a boat of those dimensions, and, if possible, built on those lines, and that she was intended to keep at sea in _all_ weathers.

He looked rather surprised at the last stipulation; but after carefully examining the drawing, and asking us our reasons for certain little peculiarities of shape, he confessed that, as far as his experience went, he could frankly say he had never seen a model better adapted for the purpose.

"And yet, gentlemen," said he, "she will be wonderfully fast, for, in the first place, her _hull_ is of such a shape that it will offer but a trifling resistance to forward motion; and, in the next place, these overhanging top-sides will, give her such extraordinary stability, as soon as she begins to heel over, that you will be able to carry enormous sails."

We were very glad to hear our own judgment thus confirmed by a man, part of whose business it was to form a correct opinion with respect to the points upon which he had touched, and we said as much.

He took a great deal of interest in what must, after all, have been a very trifling matter to him; and both Bob and I had reason often afterwards to congratulate ourselves that we had confided the building of our boat to such good hands.

He proposed that she should be _composite_ built; that is, that for the sake of lightness and strength combined, her frame should be of steel, with an inner skin of thin steel plate, and an outer planking of two thicknesses of mahogany. The ribs were to be arranged _diagonally_ crossing the keel at an angle of forty-five degrees, and intersecting each other at right angles, thus converting her entire frame into a sort of lattice-work girder.

It was arranged that all the fastenings of the inner thickness of planking should be of iron, whilst the outside planks should be secured with copper fastenings. The utmost care was exercised (and, as experience proved, with complete success) to prevent the slightest approach to galvanic action, and one of the precautions taken was, I remember well, the painting of the inner planking with melted india- rubber, which was laid on coat after coat until there was about one- sixteenth of an inch of the rubber between the outer and inner planks.

As we did not intend to sail until the following rummer, the builder had about eight months in which to put our little ship together, a circ.u.mstance at which he expressed great satisfaction, as he said it would enable him to pick and choose his materials, and put careful work into her.

We arranged, at the same time, for the construction of a boat to take with us, as we felt that in the event of any untoward accident happening, we ought to have something to take to for the saving of our lives, and we knew also that there would be many occasions when we should require something to answer the purposes which a boat answers with regard to a ship.

The designing of this boat was beset by difficulties, all originating in one, viz., want of s.p.a.ce in which to stow her. To think of carrying her on deck was out of the question, as the deck was not s.p.a.cious enough, in the first place, to receive such a boat as we wanted; and even had it been, there was no chance of its remaining there; it would have been carried away by the first sea which swept over us. We required something large enough to carry us both, and a stock of provisions in addition, so that should it be necessary to abandon the _Water Lily_, we might hope to reach land, or fall in with a ship. We also wanted something that should be essentially a _life-boat_, whilst she should also be very fast. How to obtain all these desiderata, and at the same time overcome the difficulty in respect to room, we knew not. But, resolved not to be baffled, we set our wits to work, and at length schemed out a design of an exceedingly novel character, which proved in all respects a most brilliant success.

Two hollow steel cylinders, of very thin metal, twenty-six feet long and one foot diameter in the centre, tapering gradually away to nothing at each end, were constructed in thirteen lengths of two feet each. These lengths, being of different diameters, stowed one within the other, thus taking up very little room indeed. In either end of each length was inserted a narrow band of metal thick enough to allow of a worm and screw, so that all the lengths of each cylinder could be screwed together perfectly water-tight. A light steel framework of simple arrangement connected the two cylinders together, at a distance of six feet apart, with their centre lines parallel, and supported, at a height of two feet above the top of the cylinders, a light stage ten feet long and six feet wide. On the top of the stage, and connected with the framework, was a step for a mast, and a gammon-iron for a bowsprit, and underneath the stage was a centre-board which we could lower or raise at pleasure. A broad rudder, fixed to the after-part of the stage, completed the design.

We spent a fortnight in London, and, having witnessed the laying of the _Water Lily's_ keel, and inspected some of the timber which the builder proposed to use in her construction, I saw Ada safe home again, leaving Bob in London to look out for a ship, which, when I rejoined him a couple of days afterwards, he had found.

We shipped in her for a voyage to Constantinople and Trebizond, which occupied us for eight months, and when we returned to London, on the termination of this voyage, we found the _Water Lily_ completed, with the exception of a few finishing touches, which the workmen were then giving her.

CHAPTER FOUR.

OUR TRIAL TRIP.

Mr Wood, the shipbuilder, took us into his office, and there laid before us a sail draught, which he had carefully prepared for the guidance of the sailmaker, in making the _Water Lily's_ sails.

"You have never told me, gentlemen," said he, "_why_ you are having this little craft built; but the great pains which you have taken in the preparation of her design, and the whole tenour of your remarks when giving us the order to build her, impressed me at the time with a conviction that her destiny is to be something beyond that of most vessels of her size. As we proceeded with our work, I could not fail to be struck (as you will perhaps remember I was at my first glance at your drawing) with the fact, that whilst she is eminently calculated to prove a wonderfully fine little sea-boat, she is equally certain to develop most extraordinary sailing powers; and so great is the interest I take in her, that I could not be satisfied with intrusting the preparation of her sail draught to any other than myself; for I foresee that she will, in all probability, become a 'public character,' so to speak, and in that capacity she will undoubtedly reflect great credit on her builders.

I have therefore calculated, with the utmost nicety, the proportion of her various sails, so that they may take effect to the greatest advantage; and this is the result of my labours," producing at the same time the drawing to which I have referred.

I must confess that, for my own part, I was staggered at the enormous spread of canvas Mr Wood proposed to pile upon our little boat; but he declared that she would carry it with the greatest ease. "In fact,"

said he, "I have kept rather _within_ the limit of her powers, bearing in mind a remark you made to the effect that she would have to keep to sea _in all weathers_; and so confident am I that she is not over- sailed, that if you find I am wrong, I undertake to bear all the expense of a new outfit of sails, and the necessary reduction of spars. With regard to your 'boat' (though to my mind she looks much more like an ingeniously designed _raft_), the idea is so new that I cannot take it upon myself to utter an opinion about her, though I can see no reason why she should not be as fast as she undoubtedly is safe."

We sent off the sail-drawing to Lapthorn of Gosport (determined to have the best made suit of sails it was possible to procure), with instructions to prepare them without delay, and then started off, by the first train, to Weymouth.

I found my dear sister safe and well, and more lovely than ever; but her spirits were subdued by contemplation of the dangers attending the voyage upon which we were now so soon to embark. The poor girl had been thinking of little else, it seemed, during our absence, until the liveliest alarm had taken the place of that confidence with which she had viewed the expedition when it was first broached.

But Bob and I had talked matters over together in many a quiet night- watch, canva.s.sing the various emergencies which might arise, and the best mode of meeting them; and we were now confident that, with only the ordinary perils of the ocean to contend with, our adventure was not only feasible, but that it would certainly be crowned with success. And so we were well prepared to do battle with Ada's apprehensions, which we did so vigorously that we at length succeeded in restoring, in a great measure, the confidence she had lost.