[LONGITUDE TEN DEGREES]
By ROBERT LEIGHTON
I
"'T is our best chance," Ben said, as he dipped the quill into the captain's silver ink-pot. "Nay, 'tis our only chance."
The brig was labouring heavily on the sweeping swell of the North Atlantic. From where he sat, facing the square stern windows that looked out upon the helpless vessel's wake, Ben could see the dark, pursuing rollers as they loomed up against the lighter rack of leaden clouds. All was silent, terribly silent, on board. There was no sound now of busy seamen's voices, no measured tread of patrolling feet upon the decks; nothing but the slow, monotonous creaking of the ship's oaken timbers as she lazily slid into the furrow and buoyantly rose to mount the glassy slope of the next on-coming wave.
"Yes, 'tis our only chance," the boy repeated, as he drew towards him the blank leaf of paper that he had torn from the log-book. "God grant that it may be of some avail!"
The plaintive cry of a distant gull startled him in his loneliness. It was like the cry of one of his dead shipmates calling upon him from another world. He glanced nervously through the open door of the captain's room, where the captain lay silent in his last sleep. Again he dipped the quill into the ink, and began to write the words that he had already prepared in his mind—
"God send speedie help to his Majesties brig Aurora, homeward bound fr. S. John's to Plimouthe and in dyer distresse. N. Lat. 58°, W. Long. 10° as nere as can be made out. Benjamin Clews 27 July 1746."
This was the message upon which he rested his firmest hopes. And when it was written and the ink was dry, he folded up the paper, wrapped it in a piece of oilskin, and inclosed the packet in a little box-like boat which he had fashioned for the purpose. On the tightly fitting lid of the box he had carved the words "Pleas open," so that no one finding it should doubt there was something precious within.