A Marriage at Sea Part 11

The blessed daylight came at last. I spied the weak wet grey of it in a corner of the skylight that had been left uncovered by the tarpaulin which was spread over the gla.s.s. I looked closely at Grace and found her asleep. I could not be sure at first, so motionless had she been lying, but when I put my ear close to her mouth, the regularity of her respiration convinced me that she was slumbering.

That she should be able to s.n.a.t.c.h even ten minutes of sleep cheered me.

Yet my spirits were very heavy, every bone in me ached with a pain as of rheumatism; though I did not feel sick, my brain seemed to reel, and the sensation of giddiness was hardly less miserable and depressing than nausea itself. I stood up, and with great difficulty caught the brandy as it flew from side to side on the swinging tray, and took a dram, and then clawed my way as before to the companion steps, and opening the cover, got into the hatch and stood looking at the picture of my yacht and the sea.

There was no one at the helm; the tiller was lashed to leeward. The shock I received on observing no one aft, finding the helm abandoned, as it seemed to me, I shall never forget. The tiller was the first object I saw as I rose through the hatch, and my instant belief was that all my people had been swept overboard. On looking forward, however, I spied Caudel and the others of the men at work about the mast. I am no sailor and cannot tell you what they were doing, beyond saying that they were securing the mast by affixing tackles and so forth to it. But I had no eyes for them or their work; I could only gaze at my ruined yacht, which at every heave appeared to be pulling herself together, as it were, for the final plunge. A ma.s.s of cordage littered the deck; the head of the mast showed in splinters, whilst the spar itself looked withered, naked, blasted, as though struck by lightning. The decks were full of water, which was flashed above the rail, where it was instantly swept away by the gale in a smoke of crystals. The black gear wriggled and rose to the wash of the water over the planks like a huddle of eels. A large s.p.a.ce of the bulwarks on the port side abreast of the mast was smashed level with the deck.

The grey sky seemed to hover within musket shot of us, and it went down the sea in a slate-coloured weeping body of thickness to within a couple of hundred fathoms, and the dark green surges, as they came rolling in foam from out of the windward wall of blankness, looked enormous.

In sober truth a very great sea was running indeed; the oldest sailor then afloat must have thought so. The Channel was widening into the ocean, with depth enough for seas of oceanic volume, and it was still, as it had been for some hours, blowing a whole gale of wind. I had often read of what is called a storm at sea, but had never encountered one, and now I was viewing the real thing from the deck of a little vessel that was practically dismasted in the heart of a thickness that shrouded us from all observation, whilst every minute we were being settled farther and farther away from the English coast towards the great Atlantic by the hurling scend of the surges, and by the driving fury of the blast.

Caudel on seeing me came scrambling to the companion. The salt of the flying wet had dried in the hollows of his eyes and lay in a sort of white powder there, insomuch that he was scarcely recognisable. It was impossible to hear him amidst that roaring commotion, and I descended the ladder by a step or two to enable him to put his head into the hatch. He tried to look cheerful, but there was a curl in the set of his mouth that neutralised the efforts of his eye.

"Ye see how it is, Mr. Barclay?"

"Nothing could be worse."

"Dorn't say that, sir, dorn't say that. The yacht lives, and is making brave weather o't."

"She cannot go on living."

"She'll outlast this weather, sir, I'll lay."

"What are you doing?"

He entered into a nautical explanation, the terms of which I forget.

It was of the first consequence, however, that the mast should be preserved, and this the men were attempting at the risk of their lives.

As the mast stood there was nothing to support it, and if it went (he explained) the _Spitfire_ would become a sheer hulk and then our situation would be desperate indeed; but if the men succeeded in preserving the mast, they could easily make sail upon the yacht when the weather moderated, "and the land ain't very fur off yet, sir," he added.

"But we are widening our distance rapidly."

He shook his head somewhat dolefully, saying, "Yes, that was so."

"I am thinking of the hull, Caudel. Surely this wild tossing must be straining the vessel frightfully. Does she continue to take in water?"

"I must not deceive you, sir," he answered; "she _do_. But a short spell at the pump sarves to chuck it all out again, and so there's no call for your honour to be oneasy."

He returned to the others, whilst I, heart-sickened by the intelligence that the _Spitfire_ had sprung a leak--for _that_, I felt, must be the plain English of Caudel's a.s.surance--continued standing a few moments longer in the hatch looking round. Ugly rings of vapour, patches and fragments of dirty yellow scud flew past, loose and low under the near grey wet stoop of the sky; they made the only break in that firmament of storm. The smother of the weather was thickened yet by the clouds of driving spray which rose like bursts of steam from the sides and heads of the seas, making one think of the fierce gusts and guns of the gale as of wolves tearing mouthfuls with sharp teeth from the flanks and backs of the rushing and roaring chase they pursued.

How the seamen maintained their footing I could not imagine. In order to climb the naked spar they had driven short nails at wide intervals up it; and one of them--Foster--as I watched, crawled up the mast with a big block on his back.

It seemed to me as though the men were working for life or death. The yacht rode buoyant to her lashed helm under a fragment of mizzen if I remember right, and very little water came aboard, though great fountains of spray would occasionally soar off the bow, and blow in a snowstorm fathoms away into the sea on the opposite side. But the motions of that naked height of splintered mast were like a baton in the hands of an excited orchestra conductor, and though I believe I was not more wanting in nerves in my time than most others, my eyes reeled in my head at sight of the plucky fellow, doggedly rising nail by nail, till he had reached the point of elevation where the block was to be secured.

My anxieties, however, were below, on the locker where I had left my sweetheart sleeping, and I was about to descend, when my sight was taken by a shadow in the grey thickness to windward. It was a mere oozing of darkness, so to speak for a moment or two; then as though to the touch of the wand of an enchanter, it leapt upon the eye in the full and majestic proportions of a great, black-hulled ship, "flying light," as the term is. She came rushing down upon us under two lower topsails, and a reefed foresail, pitching to her hawse-pipes as she came, then lifting a broad surface of greenish sheathing out of the acre of yeast that the blow of her cut.w.a.ter had set boiling. She rushed by close astern of us, and the thunder of the gale in her rigging and the hissing sounds of the seas as she burst into them rose high above the universal humming and seething of the storm. Two figures alone were visible; one in a sea helmet and oilskins at the wheel; a second in a long coat and fur cap, holding by a backstay. She vanished with the velocity with which she had emerged; but I could not have conjectured her nearness till I reflected how plainly I had seen the two men--all features of their clothing--their very faces, indeed!

Shall we be run down, sent helplessly to the bottom before this weather has done its work for us? thought I, and shuddering to the fancy of a blow from such a stem as that which had just swept past us, I descended the cabin steps. Grace was awake, sitting upright, but in a listless, lolling, helpless posture. I was thankful, however, to find her capable of the exertion even of sitting erect. I crept to her side, and held her to me to cherish and comfort her.

"Oh, this weary, weary motion!" she cried, pressing her hand upon her temples.

"It cannot last much longer, my darling," I said; "the gale is fast blowing itself out, and then we shall have blue skies and smooth water again."

"Can we not land, Herbert?" she asked feebly in my ear, with her cheek upon my shoulder.

"Would to Heaven that were possible within the next five minutes!" I answered.

"Whereabouts are we?"

"I cannot tell exactly; but when this weather breaks we shall find the English coast within easy reach."

"Oh, do not let us wait until we get to Mount's Bay!" she cried.

"My pet, the nearest port will be our port _now_, depend upon it."

This sort of talk making me feel most wretchedly and miserably hopeless, I got away from the subject by asking her how she felt, and by rea.s.suring her as to the buoyancy of the yacht, and I then coaxed her into taking a little weak brandy and water, which, as a tonic under the circ.u.mstances, was the best medicine I could have given her. I afterwards made her lie down again, and procured Eau de Cologne and another pillow, and such matters, but at a heavy cost to my bones; for had I been imprisoned in a cask, and sent in that posture on a tour down a mountain's side, I could not have been more abominably thumped and belaboured. It was one wild scramble and flounder from beginning to end, blows on the head, blows on the shins, complete capsisals that left me sitting and dazed; and when my business of attending upon her was at an end, I felt that this little pa.s.sage of my elopement had qualified me for nothing so much as for a hospital.

The day pa.s.sed; a day of ceaseless storm, and of such tossing as only a smacksman, who has fished in the North Sea in winter, could know anything about. The spells at the pump grew frequent as the hours progressed, and the wearisome beat of the plied break affected my imagination as though it were the tolling of our funeral bell. I hardly required Caudel to tell me the condition of the yacht when, sometime between eight and nine o'clock that night, he put his head into the hatch and motioned me to ascend.

"It's my duty to tell ye, Mr. Barclay," he exclaimed, whispering hoa.r.s.ely into my ear, in the comparative shelter of the companion cover, that Grace might not overhear him, "that the leak's againing upon us."

I had guessed as much; yet this confirmation of my conjecture affected me as violently as though I had had no previous suspicion of the state of the yacht. I was thunderstruck, I felt the blood forsake my cheeks, and for some moments I could not find my voice.

"You do not mean to tell me, Caudel, that the yacht is actually _sinking_?"

"No, sir. But the pump'll have to be kept continually going if she's to remain afloat. I'm afeer'd when the mast went over the side that a blow from it started a b.u.t.t, and the leak's growing worse and worse, consequence of the working of the craft."

"Is it still thick?"

"As mud, sir."

"Why not fire the gun at intervals?" said I, referring to the little bra.s.s cannon that stood mounted upon the quarter-deck.

"I'm afeered--" he paused with a melancholy shake of his head. "Of course, Mr. Barclay," he went on, "if it's your wish, sir--but it'll do no more, I allow, than frighten the young lady. 'Tis but a peashooter, sir, and the gale's like thunder."

"We are in your hands, Caudel," said I, with a feeling of despair ice-cold at my heart, as I reflected upon the size of our little craft, her crippled and sinking condition, our distance from land--as I felt the terrible might and powers of the seas which were tossing us--and as I thought of my sweetheart!

"Mr. Barclay," he answered, "if the weather do but moderate, I shall have no fear. Our case ain't hopeless yet by a long way, sir. The water's to be kept under by continuous pumping, and there are hands enough and to spare for that job. We're not in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but in the mouth of the English Channel, with plenty of shipping knocking about. But the weather's got to moderate. Firing that there gun 'ud only terrify the young lady, and do no good. If a ship came along no boat could live in this sea. In this here blackness she couldn't kept us company, and our rockets wouldn't be visible half a mile off. No, sir, we've got to stick to the pump, and pray for daylight and fine weather," and, having no more to say to me, or a sudden emotion checking his utterance, he pulled his head out and disappeared in the obscurity.

Grace asked me what Caudel had been talking about, and I answered with the utmost composure I could master that he had come to tell me the yacht was making a n.o.ble fight of it and that there was nothing to cause us alarm. I had not the heart to respond otherwise, nor could the bare truth, as I understood it, have served any other end than to deprive her of her senses. Even now, I seemed to find an expression of wildness in her beautiful eyes, as though the tension of her nerves, along with the weary endless hours of delirious pitching and tossing, was beginning to tell upon her brain. I sought to comfort her, I caressed her, I strained her to my heart, whilst I exerted my whole soul to look cheerfully and to speak cheerfully, and, thank G.o.d! the influence of my true, deep love prevailed; she spoke tranquilly; the brilliant staring look of her eyes was softened; occasionally she would smile as she lay in my arms, whilst I rattled on, struggling, with a resolution that now seems preternatural when I look back, to distract her attention from our situation.

At one o'clock in the morning she fell asleep, and I knelt by her sleeping form, and prayed for mercy and protection.

It was much about this hour that Caudel's face again showed in the hatch. I crawled along the deck and up the steps to him, and he immediately said to me in a voice that trembled with agitation:

"Mr. Barclay, good noose, sir. The gale's ataking off."

I clasped my hands, and could have hugged the dripping figure of the man to my breast.

"Yes, sir," he continued, "the breeze is slackening. There's no mistake about it. The horizon's opening too."

"Heaven be praised. And what of the leak, Caudel?"