Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 12

[Footnote 1: This and several of the other rules are concisely concentrated in the couplet-

Long foretold, long last; Short notice, soon past. ]

than forty miles an hour; and he recognized the necessity of at once shortening sail. He had already used the precaution to take in the royal, the main-top-sail, and the flying jib, but he now at once resolved likewise to take in the top-gallant, and to have a couple of reefs in the foretop-sail.

To an inexperienced crew, the last operation was far from easy; but there was no symptom of shrinking from it. Followed by Bat and Austin, d.i.c.k mounted the rigging of the foremast, and with little trouble got to the top-gallant. Had the weather been less unpromising he would have been inclined to leave the two yards as they were, but antic.i.p.ating the ultimate necessity of being obliged to lower the mast, he unrigged them, and let them down to the deck; he knew well enough that in the event of the gale rising as he expected, the lowering of the mast as well as the shortening of sail would contribute to diminish the strain and stress upon the vessel.

It was the work of two hours to get this preliminary operation over. There still remained the task of taking in the reefs in the top-sail.

The "Pilgrim" in one respect differed from most modern vessels. She did not carry a double foretop, which would very much have diminished the difficulty attending the reefing. It was consequently necessary to proceed as before; to mount the rigging, by main force to haul in the flapping canvas, and to make the fastening secure. But critical and dangerous as the task was, it was successfully accomplished, and the three young men, having descended safely to the deck, had the satisfaction of seeing the schooner run easily before the wind, which had further increased till it was blowing a stiff gale.

For three days the gale continued brisk and hard, yet without any variation in its direction. But all along the barometer was falling; the mercury sank to 28 without symptom of recovery. The sky was becoming overcast; clouds, thick and lowering, obscured the sun, and it was difficult to make out where it rose or where it set. d.i.c.k did his best to keep up his courage, but he could not disguise

[Ill.u.s.tration: For half an hour Negoro stood motionless.]

from himself that there was cause for uneasiness. He took no more rest than was absolutely necessary, and what repose he allowed himself he always took on deck; he maintained a calm exterior, but he was really tortured with anxiety.

Although the violence of the wind seemed to lull awhile, d.i.c.k did not suffer himself to be betrayed into any false security; he knew only too well what to expect, and after a brief interval of comparative quiet, the gale returned and the waves began to run very high.

About four o'clock one afternoon, Negoro (a most unusual thing for him) emerged from his kitchen, and skulked to the fore. Dingo was fast asleep, and did not make his ordinary growl by way of greeting to his enemy. For half an hour Negoro stood motionless, apparently surveying the horizon. The heavy waves rolled past; they were higher than the condition of the wind warranted; their magnitude witnessed to a storm pa.s.sing in the west, and there was every reason to suspect that the "Pilgrim" might be caught by its violence.

Negoro looked long at the water; he then raised his eyes and scanned the sky. Above and below he might have read threatening signs. The upper stratum of cloud was travelling far more rapidly than that beneath, an indication that ere long the ma.s.ses of vapour would descend, and, coming in contact with the inferior current, would change the gale into a tempest, which probably would increase to a hurricane.

It might be from ignorance or it might be from indifference, but there was no indication of alarm on the face of Negoro; on the other hand there might be seen a sort of smile curling on his lip. After thus gazing above him and around him, he clambered on to the bowsprit, and made his way by degrees to the very gammonings; again he rested and looked about him as if to explore the horizon; after a while he clambered back on deck, and soon stealthily retreated to his own quarters.

No doubt there was much to cause concern in the general aspect of the weather; but there was one point on which they never failed to congratulate each other;-that the direction of the wind had never changed, and consequently must be carrying them in the desired course. Unless a storm should overtake them, they could continue their present navigation without peril, and with every prospect of finding a port upon the sh.o.r.e where they might put in. Such were their mutual and acknowledged hopes; but d.i.c.k secretly felt the misgiving lest, without a pilot, he might in his ignorance fail to find a harbour of refuge. Nevertheless, he would not suffer himself to meet trouble half-way, and kept up his spirits under the conviction that if difficulties came he should be strengthened to grapple with them or make his escape.

Time pa.s.sed on, and the 9th of March arrived without material change in the condition of the atmosphere. The sky remained heavily burdened, and the wind, which occasionally had abated for a few hours, had always returned with at least its former violence. The occasional rising of the mercury never encouraged d.i.c.k to antic.i.p.ate a permanent improvement in the weather, and he discerned only too plainly that brighter times at present were not to be looked for.

A startling alarm had more than once been caused by the sudden breaking of storms in which thunderbolts had seemed to fall within a few cables' lengths of the schooner. On these occasions the torrents of rain had been so heavy that the ship had appeared to be in the very midst of a whirlpool of vapour, and it was impossible to see a yard ahead.

The "Pilgrim" pitched and rolled frightfully. Fortunately Mrs. Weldon could bear the motion without much personal inconvenience, and consequently was able to devote her attention to her little boy, who was a miserable sufferer. Cousin Benedict was as undisturbed as the c.o.c.kroaches he was investigating; he hardly noticed the increasing madness of either wind or wave, but went on with his studies as calmly as if he were in his own comfortable museum at San Francisco. Moreover, it was fortunate that the negroes did not suffer to any great degree from sea-sickness, and consequently were able to a.s.sist their captain in his arduous task, d.i.c.k was far too experienced a sailor himself to be inconvenienced by any oscillations of the vessel, however violent.

The "Pilgrim" still made good headway, and d.i.c.k, although he was aware that ultimately it would probably be necessary again to shorten sail, was anxious to postpone making any alteration before he was absolutely obliged. Surely, he reasoned with himself, the land could not now be far away; he had calculated his speed; he had kept a diligent reckoning on the chart; surely, the sh.o.r.e must be almost in sight. He would not trust his crew to keep watch; he was aware how easily their inexperienced eyes would be misled, and how they might mistake a distant cloud-bank for the land they coveted to see; he kept watch for himself; his own gaze was ever fixed upon the horizon; and in the eagerness of his expectation he would repeatedly mount to the cross-trees to get a wider range of vision.

But land was not to be seen.

Next day as d.i.c.k was standing at the bow, alternately considering the canvas which his ship carried and the aspect presented by the sky, Mrs. Weldon approached him without his noticing her. She caught some muttered expressions of bewilderment that fell from his lips, and asked him whether he could see anything.

He lowered the telescope which he had been holding in his hand, and answered,-

"No, Mrs. Weldon, I cannot see anything; and it is this Hiat perplexes me so sorely. I cannot understand why we have not already come in sight of land. It is nearly a month since we lost our poor dear captain. There has been no delay in our progress; no stoppage in our rate of speed. I cannot make it out."

"How far were we from land when we lost the captain?"

"I am sure I am not far out in saying that we were scarcely more than 4500 miles from the sh.o.r.es of America."

"And at what rate have we been sailing?"

"Not much less than nine score knots a day."

"How long, then, do you reckon, d.i.c.k, we ought to be in arriving at the coast?"

"Under six-and-twenty days," replied d.i.c.k.

He paused before he spoke again, then added,-

"But what mystifies me even more than our failing to sight the land is this: we have not come across a single vessel; and yet vessels without number are always traversing these seas."

"But do you not think," inquired Mrs. Weldon, "that you have made some error in your reckoning? Is your speed really what you have supposed?"

"Impossible, madam," replied d.i.c.k, with an air of dignity, "impossible that I should have fallen into error. The log has been consulted, without fail, every half-hour. I am about to have it lowered now, and I will undertake to show you that we are at this present moment making ten miles an hour, which would give considerably over 200 miles a day."

He then called out to Tom,-

"Tom, lower the log!"

The old man was quite accustomed to the duty. The log was fastened to the line and thrown overboard. It ran out regularly for about five-and-twenty fathoms, when all at once the line slackened in Tom's hand.

"It is broken!" cried Tom; "the cord is broken!"

"Broken?" exclaimed d.i.c.k: "good heavens! we have lost the log!"

It was too true. The log was gone.

Tom drew in the rope. d.i.c.k took it up and examined it. It had not broken at its point of union with the log; it had given way in the middle, at a place where the strands in some unaccountable way had worn strangely thin.

d.i.c.k's agony of mind, in spite of his effort to be calm, was intensely great. A suspicion of foul play involuntarily occurred to him. He knew that the rope had been of first-rate make; he knew that it had been quite sound when used before; but he could prove nothing; he could only mourn over the loss which committed him to the sole remaining compa.s.s as his only guide.

That compa.s.s, too, although he knew it not, was misleading him entirely!

Mrs. Weldon sighed as she witnessed the grief which the loss manifestly caused poor d.i.c.k, but in purest sympathy she said nothing, and retired thoughtfully to her cabin.

It was no longer possible to reckon the rate of progress, but there was no doubt that the "Pilgrim" continued to maintain at least her previous speed.

Before another four-and-twenty hours had pa.s.sed the barometer had fallen still lower, and the wind was threatening to rise to a velocity of sixty miles. Resolved to be on the safe side, d.i.c.k determined not only to strike the top-gallant and the main-top-mast, but to take in all the lower sails. Indeed, he began to be aware that no time was to be lost. The operation would not be done in a moment, and the storm was approaching. d.i.c.k made Tom take the helm; he ascended the shrouds with Bat, Austin, and Actaeon, making Hercules stay on deck to slacken the halyards as required.

By dint of arduous exertion, and at no little risk of being thrown overboard by the rolling of the ship, they succeeded in lowering the two masts; the fore-top-sail was then reefed, and the fore-sail entirely struck, so that the only canvas that the schooner carried was the reefed fore-top and the one stay. These, however, made her run with a terrific speed.

Early on the morning of the 12th, d.i.c.k noted with alarm that the barometer had not ceased to fall, and now registered only 27.9. The tempest had continued to increase, till it was unsafe for the ship to carry any canvas at all. The order was given for the top-sail to be taken in, but it was too late; a violent gust carried the sail completely away, and Austin, who had made his way to the fore-top-yard, was struck by the flying sheet; and although he was not seriously hurt, he was obliged at once to return to deck.

d.i.c.k Sands became more uneasy than ever; he was tortured by apprehensions of reefs outlying the sh.o.r.e, to which he imagined he must now be close; but he could discern no rocks to justify his fears, and returned to take his place at the helm.

The next moment Negoro appeared on deck; he pointed mysteriously to the far-off horizon, as though he discerned some object, as a mountain, there; and looking round with a malevolent smile, immediately left the deck, and went back to his cabin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Under bare poles]

CHAPTER XII.

HOPE REVIVED.