A Marriage at Sea Part 14

In truth, I had had enough of the yacht; I should have cursed myself for my folly had we parted company with the ship and then met with bad weather again; it was impossible to hear the clanking of the pump, and glance at the coil of cold bright water gushing from it without a shudder that penetrated to my inmost being. And to keep my sweetheart in this perilous craft, rendered leaky and ricketty by storm; to go on subjecting her to the brain-addling convulsive pitching and tossing of the poor, mutilated hooker; to risk with her another pa.s.sage of violent winds, merely to preserve a vessel which I was now quite willing to let quietly go to the bottom!

"Not for a million!" said I aloud. "No, my darling," I continued, as I fondled her hand, "my business is to see you safe first of all. There is safety yonder," said I, pointing to the _Carthusian_, "but none here. We must take our chance of being trans-shipped from her as speedily as may be, of being put on board some pa.s.sing steamer that will carry us home swiftly and comfortably. But sooner than miss the chance that vessel yonder provides us with, I would be content to make the whole round voyage in her, with you by my side, though she should occupy three years in completing it."

We had been waiting, and watching the weather for about an hour, when my eye was suddenly taken by a cloud of extraordinary shape, sailing up the sky out of the north and east, whence the wind was still blowing.

It was of the colour of sulphur, and was the exact representation of a huge hand, the forefinger outstretched, the thumb curved backwards as it would be in life, the remaining fingers clenched. As it came along it seemed to project from the dirty grey surface of vapour under which it sailed; it was as though some t.i.tan, lying hid past the clouds, had thrust his hand through the floor of vapour with the finger pointing towards the mighty Atlantic.

By the time it was over the yacht its shape had changed, and it pa.s.sed away to leeward formless, a mere rag of yellowish vapour. But it had lingered long enough as a compacted colossal hand, pointing seawards, to astonish and even to awe me. It might have been that my brain was a little weakened by what we had pa.s.sed through, and by want of rest; it is certain, anyway, that the spectacle of that hand of vapour touched and stirred every superst.i.tious instinct in me. Grace, as well as Caudel and the others, had stared up at it with wonder, Job Crew agape, and the boy Bobby squeezing his knuckles into his eyes again and again as though to make sure. As it changed its form and floated away, I exclaimed to my sweetheart:

"It was the finger of Heaven pointing out our road to us, and telling us what to do."

"It was a wonderfully shaped cloud," said she.

"Grace, after that sign," I cried excitedly, "I would not remain in this yacht though her leak were stopped, all sail made upon her, and Penzance as far off as you can see," said I, pointing.

She looked, awed by the effect of the apparition of the cloud upon me, and held my hand in silence with her eyes fixed on my face.

The ship having canvas upon her, settled slowly upon our bow at a safe distance, but our drift was very nearly hers, and during those weary hours of waiting for the sea to abate, the two crafts fairly held the relative positions they had occupied at the outset. The interest we excited in the people aboard of her was ceaseless. The line of her bulwarks remained dark with heads, and the glimmer of the white faces gave an odd pulsing look to the whole length of them, as the heave of the ship alternated the stormy light. They believed us on our own report to be sinking, and that might account for their tireless gaze and riveted attention.

I could well imagine the deplorable figure our yacht made, as she soared and sank, time after time plunging into some hollow that put her out of sight to the ship, leaving nothing showing but the splintered masthead above the clear emerald green or frothing summit of the swollen heap of water. At such times the spectators aboard the _Carthusian_ might well have supposed us gone for ever.

CHAPTER VIII

OUTWARD BOUND

On a sudden, much about the hour of noon, there came a lull; the wind dropped as if by magic, here and there over the wide green surface of ocean the foam glanced, but in the main the billows ceased to break and washed along in a troubled but fast moderating swell. A kind of brightness sat in the east, and the horizon opened to its normal confines; but it was a desolate sea, nothing in sight save the ship, though I eagerly and anxiously scanned the whole circle of the waters.

The two vessels had widened their distance, yet the note of the hail, if dull, was perfectly distinct.

"Yacht ahoy! We're going to send a boat."

I saw a number of figures in motion on the ship's p.o.o.p. The aftermost boat was then swung through the davits over the side, four or five men entered her, and a minute later she sank to the water.

"Here they come, Grace!" cried I. "At last, thank Heaven!"

"Oh, Herbert, I shall never be able to enter her," she exclaimed, shrinking to my side.

But I knew better, and made answer with a caress only.

The oars rose and fell, the boat showed and vanished, showed and vanished again as she came buzzing to the yacht, to the impulse of the powerfully swept blades. Caudel stood by with some coils of line in his hand; the end was flung, caught, and in a trice the boat was alongside, and a sun-burnt, reddish-haired man, in a suit of serge, and a naval peak to his cap, tumbled with the dexterity of a monkey over the yacht's rail.

He looked round him an instant, and then came straight up to Grace and me, taking the heaving and slanting deck as easily as though it were the floor of a ball-room.

"I am the second mate of the _Carthusian_," said he, touching his cap with an expression of astonishment and admiration in his eyes as he looked at Grace. "Are all your people ready to leave, sir? Captain Parsons is anxious that there should be no delay."

"The lady and I are perfectly ready," said I, "but my men have made up their minds to stick to the yacht with the hope of carrying her home."

He looked round to Caudel who stood near.

"Ay, sir, that's right," exclaimed the worthy fellow, "it's agoing to be fine weather and the water's to be kept under."

The second mate ran his eye over the yacht with a short-lived look of puzzlement in his face, then addressed me:

"We had thought your case a hopeless one, sir."

"So it is," I answered.

"Are you wise in your resolution, my man?" he exclaimed, turning to Caudel again.

"Ay, sir," answered Caudel doggedly, as though antic.i.p.ating an argument, "who's agoing to leave such a dandy craft as this to founder for the want of keeping a pump going for a day or two? There are four men and a boy all resolved, and we'll _manage_ it," he added emphatically.

"The yacht is in no fit state for the young lady, anyway," said the second mate. "Now, sir, and you, madam, if you are ready," and he put his head over the side to look at his boat.

I helped Grace to stand, and whilst I supported her I extended my hand to Caudel.

"G.o.d bless you and send you safe home!" said I; "your pluck and determination make me feel but half a man. But my mind is resolved too. Not for worlds would Miss Bella.s.sys and I pa.s.s another hour in this craft."

He shook me cordially by the hand, and respectfully bade Grace farewell. The others of my crew approached, leaving one pumping, and amongst the strong fellows on deck and over the side--sinewy arms to raise and muscular fists to receive her--Grace, white and shrinking and exclaiming, was handed dexterously and swiftly down over the side.

Watching my chance, I sprang, and plumped heavily but safely into the boat. The second mate then followed and we shoved off.

The crew of the yacht raised a cheer and waved their caps to us, and I felt heartily grieved to leave them. They had behaved well throughout the wild hours of storm now pa.s.sed, and it seemed but a poor return, so to speak, on my part to quit the yacht in this fashion, as if, indeed, I was abandoning them to their fate, though, of course, they had made up their minds and knew very well what they were about; so that it was little more than sensitiveness that made me think of them as I did whilst I watched them flourishing to me and listened to their cheers.

By this time, the light that I had taken notice of in the east had brightened; there were breaks in it, with here and there a dim view of blue sky, and the waters beneath had a gleam of steel as they rolled frothless and swollen. In fact, it was easy to see that fine weather was at hand, and this a.s.surance it was that reconciled me as nothing else could to the fancy of Caudel and my little crew carrying the leaking, crippled yacht home.

The men in the boat pulled st.u.r.dily, eyeing Grace and me out of the corner of their eyes, and gnawing upon the hunks of tobacco in their cheeks, as though in the most literal manner they were chewing the cud of the thoughts put into them by this encounter. The second mate uttered a remark or two about the weather, but the business of the tiller held him too busy to talk. There was the heavy swell to watch, and the tall, slowly-rolling metal fabric ahead of us to sheer alongside of. For my part, I could not see how Grace was to get aboard, and, observing no ladder over the side as we rounded under the vessel's stern, I asked the second mate how we were to manage it.

"Oh," said he, "we shall send you both up in a chair with a whip.

There's the block," he added, pointing to the yard-arm, "and the line's already rove, you'll observe."

There were some seventy or eighty people watching us as we drew alongside, all staring over the rail and from the forecastle and from the p.o.o.p, as one man. I remarked a few bonnets and shawled heads forward, and two or three well-dressed women aft, otherwise the crowd of heads belonged to men-emigrants--shabby and grimy; most of them looking seasick, I thought, as they overhung the side.

A line was thrown from the ship, and the boat was hauled under the yard-arm whip, where she lay rising and falling, carefully fended off from the vessel's iron side by a couple of the men in her.

"Now, then, bear a hand!" shouted a voice from the p.o.o.p; "get your gangway unshipped, and stand by to hoist away handsomely."

A minute later a large chair with arms dangled over our heads, and was caught by the fellows in the boat. A more uncomfortable, nerve-capsizing performance I never took a part in. The water washed with a thunderous sobbing sound along the metal bends of the ship, that, as she stooped her side into the brine, flashed up the swell in froth, hurling towards us also a recoiling billow, which made the dance of the boat horribly bewildering and nauseating. One moment we were floated, as it seemed to my eye, to the level of the bulwarks of the stooping ship; the next we were in a valley, with the great bare hull leaning away from us--an immense wet surface of red and black and chequered band, her shrouds vanishing in a slope, and her yard-arms forking up sky high.

"Now, madam," said the second mate, "will you please seat yourself in that chair?"

Grace was very white, but she saw that it must be done, and with set lips and in silence, was helped by the sailors to seat herself. I adored her then for her spirit, for I confess that I had dreaded she would hang back, shriek out, cling to me, and complicate and delay the miserable business by her terrors. She was securely fastened into the chair, and the second mate paused for the chance.

"Hoist away!" he yelled, and up went my darling, uttering one little scream only as she soared.

"Lower away!" and by the line that was attached to the chair, she was dragged through the gangway where I lost sight of her.

It was now my turn. The chair descended, and I sat upon it, not without several yearning glances at the sloping side of the ship, which, however, only satisfied me that there was no other method by which I might enter the vessel than the chair, active as I was.