A Marriage at Sea Part 12

"'Taint worse than it was, sir, though it's bad enough."

"If the weather should moderate--"

"Well then, if the leak don't gain, we may manage to carry her home.

That'll have to be found out, sir. But seeing the yacht's condition, I shall be for trans-shipping you and the lady to anything inwards bound, that may come along. Us men'll take the yacht to port, providing she'll let us." He paused, and then said: "There might be no harm now, perhaps, in firing off that there gun. If a smack 'ud show herself, she'd be willing to stand by for the sake of the salvage. We'll also send up a few rockets, sir. But how about the young lady, Mr. Barclay?"

"Everything must be done," I replied, "that is likely to preserve our lives."

There was some gunpowder aboard, but where Caudel had stowed it I did not know. However, five minutes after he had left me, and whilst I was sitting by the side of my sweetheart, who still slept, the gun was discharged. It sent a small shock through the little fabric, as though she had gently touched ground, or run into some floating object, but the report, blending with the commotion of the seas and bell-like ringing, and wolfish howlings of the wind, penetrated the deck in a note so dull that Grace never stirred. Ten or twelve times was this little cannon discharged at intervals of five and ten minutes, and I could hear the occasional rush of a rocket, like a giant hissing in wrath, sounding through the stormy uproar.

Tragical noises to harken to, believe me! communicating a significance dark as death, to the now ceaseless pulsing of the pump, to the blows of the sea against the yacht's bow, and to every giddy rise and fall of the labouring little structure amid the hills and valleys of that savage Channel sea.

CHAPTER VII

THE CARTHUSIAN

From time to time, I would creep up into the companion, always in the hopes of finding the lights of a ship close to, but nothing came of our rockets, whilst I doubt if the little blast the quarter-deck pop-gun delivered was audible half a mile away to windward. But though the night remained a horrible black shadow--the blacker for the phantasmal sheets of foam which defined, without illuminating it, the wind about this time--somewhere between four and five o'clock--had greatly moderated. Yet at dawn it was blowing hard still, with an iron-grey, freckled sea rolling hollow and confusedly, and a near horizon thick with mist.

There was nothing in sight. The yacht looked deplorably sodden and wrecked as she pitched and wallowed in the cold, desolate, ashen atmosphere of that daybreak. The men, too, wore the air of castaway mariners, f.a.gged, salt-whitened, pinched; and their faces, even the boy's, looked aged with anxiety.

I called to Caudel. He approached me slowly, as a man might walk after a swim that has nearly spent him.

"Here is another day, Caudel. What is to be done?"

"What can be done, sir?" answered the poor fellow, with the irritation of exhaustion and of anxiety but little removed from despair. "We must go on pumping for our lives, and pray to the Lord that we may be picked up."

"Why not get sail upon the yacht, put her before the wind, and run for the French coast?"

"If you like sir," he answered languidly, "but it's a long stretch to the French coast, and if the wind should shift--" he paused, and looked as though worry had weakened his mind a little and rendered him incapable of deciding swiftly and for the best.

The boy Bobby was pumping, and I took notice of the gla.s.s-like clearness of the water as it gushed out to the strokes of the little brake. The others of my small crew were crouching under the lee of the weather bulwark. I looked at them, and then said to Caudel:

"Shall we call a council? Something must be done. Those men have lives to save, and I should like to have their opinion."

He at once halloaed to them, and they grouped themselves about me as I stood in the companion way. Every man's voice was hoa.r.s.e with fatigue, and the skin of the poor fellows' faces had a puffed, pale appearance that made one think of drowned bodies.

I asked them what they thought of my proposal of running for the French sh.o.r.e under all the sail we could spread; but after some discussion they were unanimous in opposing the scheme.

"Who's to tell," said Crew, "how fur off the French coast is? And what port are we agoing to make? We're nearer the English coast now than we are to France, and if there should come a shift," he added, casting his moist, blood-shot eyes at the sky, and then fixing them upon the pump, "we might be able to stagger into Plymouth or some port near it."

"This yacht," exclaimed Foster, "isn't agoing to keep afloat long, sir.

If then it's to come to that there boat," indicating with a jerk of his chin the little boat that we carried, "we'd better launch her here than furder out."

"Depend upon it, Mr. Barclay," exclaimed Caudel, "there's nothen for it but to keep all on as we are, and wait for the weather to improve.

There are plenty of ships knocking about. Let it come clear enough for us to be seen and we shall be picked up."

In this way ran the little debate we held, but as I am not a sailor I am unable to repeat more of it than I have set down.

Before returning to Grace I looked at our little boat--she was just a yacht's dinghy--and thought of the chance the tiny ark would provide us with of saving our lives--seven souls in a boat fit to hold five, and then only in smooth water! And yet she was the only boat we had, and there was absolutely nothing else by which we might preserve ourselves--scarce any materials that I could think of or see, out of which the rudest craft could be manufactured, though the mere thought of it coming to a raft turned me sick and faint, when I glanced at the green slopes of the hurling hills of water, and marked the frothing of their heads and the fathom-thick surface of yeast they shot from their surcharged summits.

Grace was awake when I had gone on deck at daybreak, though she had slept for two or three hours very soundly, never once moving when the cannon was discharged, frequent as the report of it had been. On my descending she begged me to take her on deck.

"I shall be able to stand if I hold your arm," she said, "and the air will do me good."

But I had not the heart to let her view the sea nor the wet, broken, shipwrecked figure the yacht made with water flying over the bow, and water gushing from the pump, and the foam flashing amongst the rigging that still littered the deck as the brine roared from side to side.

"No, my darling," said I; "for the present you must keep below. The wind, thank G.o.d, is fast moderating, and the sea will be falling presently. But you cannot imagine, until you attempt to move, how violently the _Spitfire_ rolls and pitches. Besides, the decks are full of water, and a single wild heave might throw us both and send us flying overboard."

She shuddered and said no more about going on deck.

Spite of her having slept, her eyes seemed languid. Her cheeks were colourless, and there was an expression of fear and expectation that made my heart mad to behold in her sweet young face, that, when all was well with her, wore a most delicate bloom, whilst it was lovely with a sort of light that was like a smile in expressions even of perfect repose. I had brought her to this! Before another day had closed her love for me might have cost her her life! I could not bear to think of it--I could not bear to look at her--and I broke down burying my face in my hands.

She put her arm round my neck, pressed her cheek to mine, but said nothing, until the two or three dry sobs, which shook me to my very inmost soul, had pa.s.sed.

"Anxiety and want of sleep have made you ill," she said. "I am sure all will end well, Herbert. The storm, you say, is pa.s.sing, and then we shall be able to steer for the nearest port. You will not wait now to reach Penzance?"

I shook my head, unable to speak.

"We have both had enough of the sea," she continued, forcing a smile that vanished in the next breath she drew; "but you could not have foretold this storm. And even now, would you have me anywhere else but here?" said she, putting her cheek to mine again. "Rest your head on my shoulder and sleep. I feel better--and will instantly awaken you if there is any occasion to do so."

I was about to make some answer, when I heard a loud and, as it appeared to me, a fearful cry on deck. Before I could spring to my feet someone heavily thumped the companion-hatch, flinging the sliding cover wide open an instant after, and Caudel's voice roared down:

"Mr. Barclay! Mr. Barclay! there's a big ship close aboard us! She's rounding to. Come on deck, for G.o.d's sake, sir, that we may larn your wishes."

Bidding Grace remain where she was, I sprang to the companion steps, and the first thing I saw on emerging was a large, full-rigged ship, with painted ports, under small canvas, and in the act of rounding with her main topsail-yard slowly swinging aback. Midway the height of our little mizzenmast streamed the ensign which Caudel or another of the men had hoisted--the union down--but our wrecked mast, and the fellow labouring at the pump must have told our story to the sight of that ship, with an eloquence that could gather but little emphasis from the signal of distress streaming like a square of flame half-mast high at our stern.

It was broad daylight now, with a lightening in the darkness to windward that opened out twice the distance of sea that was to be measured before I went below. The ship, a n.o.ble structure, was well within hail, rolling somewhat heavily, but with a majestical, slow motion. There was a crowd of sailors on her forecastle staring at us, and I remember even in that supreme moment, so tricksy is the human intelligence, noticing how ghastly white the cloths of her topmast-staysail or jib showed by contrast with the red and blue shirts and other coloured apparel of the mob of seamen, and against the spread of dusky sky beyond. There was also a little knot of people on the p.o.o.p, and a man standing near them, but alone; as I watched him he took what I gathered to be a speaking-trumpet from the hand of the young apprentice or ordinary seaman who had run to him with it.

"Now, Mr. Barclay," cried Caudel, in a voice vibratory with excitement, "there's yours and the lady's hopportunity, sir. But what's your instructions? What's your wishes, sir?"

"My wishes? How can you ask? We must leave the _Spitfire_. She is already half-drowned. She will sink when you stop pumping."

"Right, sir," he exclaimed, and without another word posted himself at the rail in a posture of attention with his eyes upon the ship.

She was apparently a vessel bound to some Indian or Australian port, and seemingly full of pa.s.sengers, for even as I stood watching, the people in twos and threes arrived on the p.o.o.p, or got upon the main-deck bulwark-rail to view us. She was a long iron ship, red beneath the water-line, and the bright streak of that colour glared out over the foam, dissolving at her sides like a flash of crimson sunset, as she rolled from us. Whenever she hove her stern up, gay with what might have pa.s.sed as gilt quarter badges, I could read her name in long, white letters--"CARTHUSIAN, LONDON."

"Yacht ahoy!" now came in a hearty tempestuous shout through the speaking trumpet, which the man I had before noticed lifted to his lips.

"Halloa!" shouted Caudel in response.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Wessel's making water fast, and ye can see," shrieked Caudel, pointing at our wrecked and naked masts, "what our state is. The owner and a lady's aboard, and want to leave the yacht. Will you stand by till you can receive 'em, sir?"

The man with the speaking trumpet lifted his hand in token of having heard, which somewhat astonished me, for though Caudel's lungs were very powerful and piercing, we were not only to leeward of the ship, but the wind, pouring dead on to us from her, was full of whistlings and yells, and the clamour of colliding and breaking seas.