Afloat at Last Part 20

As I had noticed previously, when crossing the Bay of Biscay, the sea got up very quickly as the wind increased, only with much more alarming rapidity now than then; for, while at sunset the ocean was comparatively smooth, it became covered with big rolling waves by the time that we began to reduce sail, the billows swelling in size each moment, and tossing and breaking against each other as the wind shifted round dead in our teeth to the north-east, the very quarter where we had seen the lightning.

"We're going to have a dirty night of it, sir," said Mr Mackay to the captain, who after turning in for a short time when the starboard watch was relieved had come on deck again, anxious about the ship. "I thought we'd have a blow soon."

"Humph, Cape weather!" snorted out Captain Gillespie. "We're just in the proper track of it now, being nearly due south of Table Mountain, as I make it. I think you'd better get down our lighter spars, Mackay, for this is only the beginning of it--the gla.s.s was sinking just now."

"Aye, aye sir," returned the first mate, who had previously called the watch aft for this very purpose, crying out to the men standing by: "Lay aloft there, and see how soon you can send down those royal yards!"

Matthews, who was trying all he could to deserve his promotion and had remained up after the rest of his watch had gone below, helped Tom Jerrold and me in sending down ours; and, when up aloft, the most active topman I noticed was Joe Fergusson, the bricklayer. As "Old Jock" with his shrewd seaman's eyes had antic.i.p.ated, he had developed into a smart sailor, considering the short time he was learning, being now quicker than some of those who had been to sea for years and were thought good hands.

On the present occasion he ran us a rare race with the main-royal yard, we getting the mizzen spar below but a second or two in advance of his party.

After this the topgallant yards were sent down likewise on deck and the masts struck, "all hands" being called to get the job done as soon as possible. Indeed this was vitally necessary, for the storm was increasing in force every moment, and our topsails had to be reefed immediately the royal yards were down and the topgallants lowered.

Getting rid of all this top hamper, however, made the ship ride all the easier over the heavy waves that met her bows full b.u.t.t; and, now, she did not roll half as much as she had done while she had all those spars up, although what she lost in this respect she made up for in pitching-- diving down as the big seas rolled under her keel and lifted up her stern as if she were about paying a visit to the depths below, and then raising her bowsprit the next instant so high in the air that it looked as if she were trying to poke a hole in the sky with it!

Shortly before "six bells" the gale blew so fiercely that it was as much as we could do to stand on the p.o.o.p; and when, presently, Mr Mackay gave the order for us to take in the mizzen-topsail, we had to wait between the gusts to get up aloft, for the pressure of the wind flattened us against the rigging as if we had been "spread-eagled,"

making it impossible to move for the moment.

But sailors mustn't be daunted by anything to be "worth their salt;" so, watching an opportunity, we climbed up by degrees to the top and then on to the upper rigging until we gained the cross-trees, being all the while pretty well lashed by the gale. Our eyes were blinded, and our faces all made sore and smarting by it, I can tell you, while we were well out of breath by the time we had got so far.

The topsail sheets and halliards, of course, had been let fly before we left the deck; but in order not to expose the sail more than could be helped to the force of the storm, the clewlines and buntlines were not hauled open until we were up on the yard, so that the topsail should not remain longer bagged in folds than necessary before we could furl it out of harm's way.

Still, the precaution was of no avail; for hardly had the men on deck handed the clewlines, when the sail, bulging out under our feet like a huge bag, or rather series of bags, as the wind puckered its folds, burst away from its bolt-ropes with a noise like the report of a gun discharged close to our ears, just as if we had cut it from off the yard, thus saving us any further trouble in furling it.

Casting my eyes round ere beginning the perilous task of climbing down the shrouds again, for it was as much as one could do to hold on, the sharp gusts when they caught one's legs twirling them about like feathers in the air, the outlook was not merely grand but positively awful. The sea was now rolling, without the slightest exaggeration but literally speaking, mountains high as far as the eye could reach, and the scud flying across my face in the mizzen cross-trees; while the waves on either side of the ship, as we descended into the hollow between them every now and then, were on a level with the yard-arms below and even sometimes rose above these.

"Come, my men," I heard Mr Mackay calling out, as I at last put my foot down to feel for the nearest ratline before commencing to descend the rigging, "look sharp with that fore-tops'le or we'll have it go like the mizzen!"

His words were prophetic.

"R-r-r-r-r-r-ip!" sounded the renting, tearing noise of the sail, almost as soon as he spoke; and then, with a greater "bang!" than that of the mizzen-topsail, the main topsail split first from clew to earing and the next second blew away bodily to leeward, floating like a cloud as it was carried along the crests of the rollers out of our ken in a minute. The fore-topsail imitated its example the next moment, leaving the ship now with only the reefed foresail on her in the shape of canvas, a wonderful metamorphosis to the appearance she presented the previous evening at sunset!

We had been trying to beat to windward, so as not to fall off our course; but now that we had hardly a rag to stand by, the captain put up the helm and let her run for it, the foresail with the gale that was blowing sending her at such a rate through the water as to prevent any of the following seas from p.o.o.ping her. The fear alone of this had prevented him doing so before, "Old Jock" being as fond of scudding as he was of carrying on when he had a fair wind.

Adams and the hands forward, though, were busy getting ready the storm staysails I had seen the former cutting out some days previously so as to be prepared to hoist them on the first available opportunity, as it would never do to run too far off our course, which many hours going at that rate before the nor'-easter would soon have effected; and so, during a slight lull that occurred about breakfast-time, a mizzen staysail and foretopmast staysail, each about the size of a respectable pocket-handkerchief, were got aloft judiciously and the foresail as carefully handed, when the ship was brought round again head to wind and lay-to on the port tack.

A little later there was one terrific burst, the tops of the waves being cut off as with a knife and borne aboard us in sheets of water, while the Silver Queen heeled over to starboard so greatly that it seemed as if she would "turn the turtle" and go down sideways with all hands; but it was the last blast of the storm, for each succeeding hour lessened its force, although the sea continued high. After that it grew gradually calmer and calmer, until we were able to make sail again and bear away eastwards, rounding the Cape two days afterwards, our fifty- sixth from England, in 37 degrees south lat.i.tude--the meridian of the "Flying Dutchman's fortress," as Table Mountain has been termed by those who once believed in the Vanderdecken legend, being a little over 18 degrees east longitude.

"Begorra, that's a good job done wid anyhow," said Tim Rooney on "Old Jock" telling us that all danger of weathering the Cape was past and that we were well within the limits of the Southern Ocean, whose long roll, however, and the cold breath of the Antarctic ice-fields had already betrayed this fact to the old hands on board. "I once knocked about in a vessel as were a-tryin' to git round this blissid place for a month av Sundays, an' couldn't."

"And what did you do, measter?" asked Joe Fergusson, who had a great respect for the boatswain and was eyeing him open-mouthed. "What did you do when you couldn't sail round it?"

"Be jabers we wint the other way, av course, ye nanny goat," cried Tim, raising the laugh against Joe. "Any omahdawn would know that, sure!"

The wind hauled round more to the west-sou'-west again when we had pa.s.sed the Argulhas Bank, reaching down to the southward until we were in lat.i.tude 39 degrees South; so, squaring our yards again, we preserved this parallel until we fetched longitude 78 degrees east, just below Saint Paul's Island, a distance of some three thousand miles. We accomplished this in another fortnight after rounding the Cape; and then, steering up the chart again, we shaped our course nor'-east by north, so as to cross the southern tropic in longitude 102 degrees East.

After two or three days, we reached a warmer temperature, when the wind falling light and becoming variable we crossed our topgallant and royal yards again, spreading all the sail we could so as to make the best of the breezes we got. These were now mingled with occasional showers of rain, as is customary with the south-west monsoon in those lat.i.tudes at this time of year, it being now well into the month of May.

For weeks past the Silver Queen had delighted the captain, and, indeed, all of us on board, with her sailing powers, averaging over two hundred knots a day, which considering her great bilge was as fast as the most famous clippers; but now that she only logged a paltry hundred or so, going but five or six per hour instead of ten to twelve, "Old Jock"

began to grumble, snapping and finding fault with everybody in turns.

The men forward, too, reciprocated very heartily in the grumbling line, there not being so much for them to do as of late; and, the great marmalade question again cropping up, things became very unpleasant in the ship.

One day I really thought there was going to be a mutiny.

The men came in a body aft, headed by the carpenter, whom the captain had been rather rough on ever since he found him that morning we were off Tristan da Cunha aiding and abetting Ching w.a.n.g in his cruel c.o.c.k- fighting propensities; although, strange to say, "Old Jock" seemed to condone the action of the chief offender, never having a hard word for the Chinee albeit plenty for Gregory, the carpenter.

On this eventful occasion Captain Gillespie was seated on the p.o.o.p in an American rocking-chair which he had brought up from his cabin, enjoying the warm weather and wrinkling his nose over the almost motionless sails hanging down limply from the yards; and he did not disturb himself in anywise when Gregory and the others advanced from forward, stepping aft along the main-deck one by one to the number of a round dozen or more, the crowd halting and forming themselves into a ring under the p.o.o.p ladder, above which the captain had fixed his chair, looking as if they "meant business."

"Hullo!" cried "Old Jock" rousing himself up, rather surprised at the demonstration. "What are you fellows doing below there?"

"We wants meat," replied the carpenter, taking off his straw hat and giving a sc.r.a.pe back with his left foot, so as to begin politely at any rate. "We aren't got enough to eat in the fo'c's'le, sir, an' we wants our proper 'lowance o' meat, instead of a lot of rotten kickshaw marmalade!"

"Wh-a-at--what the d.i.c.kens d'ye mean?" roared out "Old Jock," touched on his tenderest point, the word "marmalade" to him having the same effect as a red rag on a bull. "Didn't I tell ye if ye'd any complaints to make, to come aft singly and I'd attend to 'em, but that if ye ever came to me in a body I'd not listen to ye?"

"Aye, aye," said Gregory, "but--"

"Avast there!" shouted the captain interrupting him. "When I say a thing I mean a thing; and so ye'd better go forrud again as quick as ye can, or I'll come down and make ye!"

An indignant groan burst from the men at this; while "Jock" danced about the p.o.o.p brandishing a marlinespike he had clutched hold of, in a mighty rage, storming away until the hands had all, very reluctantly, withdrawn grumbling to the forecastle.

In the afternoon, they refused to turn out for duty; when, after a terrible long palaver, in which Mr Mackay managed to smooth down matters, the controversy was settled by all the men having half their meat ration restored to them, and being obliged only to accept a half- pound tin of marmalade in lieu of a larger quant.i.ty as previously. Both sides consequently gained a sort of victory, the only person discontented at this termination of the affair being the steward, Pedro, who took a malicious pleasure in serving out the marmalade each day. I often caught sight of him watching with a sort of fiendish glee the disappointed faces of the hands as they looked at the open casks of pork and beef, which he somewhat ostentatiously displayed before them, as if to make them long all the more for such substantial fare.

I knew the Portuguese was upset at the amicable end of the difficulty between the captain and crew, for I saw him stealthily awaiting the result, peeping from underneath the break of the p.o.o.p; and, when the hands raised a cheer in token of their satisfaction at the settlement, he immediately went and locked himself in his pantry, where he began kicking the despised marmalade tins about as if twenty riveters and boiler-makers and hammermen were below!

It was very nearly a mutiny, though.

A westerly current being against us as well as the winds light, it took us nearly a week to get up to the thirty-third parallel of lat.i.tude, during which time this little unpleasantness occurred; but then, picking up the south-east trades off the Australian coast, we went bowling along steadily again northward for the Straits of Sunda, making for the westwards of the pa.s.sage so as to be to windward of a strong easterly current that runs through the strait.

I was the first on board to see Java Head, a bluff promontory stretching out into the sea that marks the entrance to Sunda. This was how it was: we'd got more to the north of the captain's reckoning, and while up in the mizzen cross-trees, in the afternoon of our eighty-fifth day out from land to land, I clearly distinguished the headland far-away in the distance, over our starboard quarter.

"Land ho!" I sang out; "land ho!"

"Are you sure?" cried Captain Gillespie from the deck below looking up at me, when his long nose, being foreshortened, seemed to run into his mouth, giving him the most peculiar appearance. "Where away?"

"Astern now, sir," I answered. "South-east by south, and nearly off the weather topsail."

"I think I'd better have a look myself," said "Old Jock," clambering up the mizzen-shrouds and soon getting aloft beside me; adding as he caught sight of the object I pointed out--"by Jingo, you're right, boy! It's Java Head, sure enough."

He then scuttled down the ratlines like winking.

"Haul in to leeward!" he shouted. "Brace round the yards! Down with your helm!"

"Port it is," said the boatman.

"Steady then, so!" yelled "Old Jock," conning the ship towards the mouth of the straits. "Keep her east-nor'-east as nearly as you can, giving her a point if she falls off!"

By and by, we entered the Straits of Sunda; and then, keeping the Java sh.o.r.e on board, we steered so as to avoid the Friar's Rock in the middle of the channel, making for Prince's Island.