Geoffrey Hamstead Part 21

"I don't know. I don't think we got as far as saying anything about that." Then, turning to Geoffrey, with simplicity, "Are we engaged?"

"Girl! are my words but as wind that you should mock me with their emptiness? Come and let us dance, for it is advocated by the preacher."

And they danced.

When Nina had seen Mrs. Dusenall kiss Margaret on her late arrival, she knew its meaning at once, and her heart sickened.

Pretty playthings seemed in some way rather degrading to Geoffrey that night, and Nina was able to speak to him only for a moment, just before all were going away. She then pretended to know nothing about the engagement, and said, with cat-like sweetness:

"I thought you did not care for Margaret's dancing much? I see she must have improved, as you have been with her all the evening."

Geoffrey answered gravely; "I believe you are right; there is a difference. Yes, I did not think of it before, but, now you speak of it, there does seem to have been an improvement in her dancing."

"Ah!" said Nina.

As Geoffrey paddled the canoe back to the yacht that night, or rather morning, and the Yankee band had finished a complimentary G.o.d save the Queen, and after the last cheer had been exchanged, Margaret said to him in the darkness, just before they parted:

"If there were no more happiness to follow, Geoffrey, to-night would last me all my life!"

CHAPTER XV.

How like a younker, or a prodigal, The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, Hugged and embraced by the wanton wind.

How like the prodigal doth she return, With over-weathered ribs and ragged sails.

Lean, rent, and beggared by the wanton wind.

_Merchant of Venice._

Next morning the deck of the Ideal was all activity.

A strong northeasterly wind had sprung up, so that by a rare chance they were able to sail up the current instead of employing a tug. Only the paid hands and one or two others were on deck as they struggled up the stream till near Clayton. Here the channels opened out, the current seemed to ease up, and they got the wind continuously as she boiled up to Kingston. The steward went ash.o.r.e at the city, and there was a delay while he was getting in more ice for the refrigerator, and poultry, and other supplies. Then they went off again, flying before the wind, past the wharves of Kingston toward Snake Island lying hull down and showing nothing but its tree-tops.

Breakfast was very irregular that day--terribly so, the steward thought.

He was preparing breakfast at any and all times up to twelve o'clock, and after that it was called luncheon. No troublesome bell awoke the tired sleepers, no colored man came to take away their beds as on the sleeping-cars. The dancers of the previous night tumbled up, more or less thirsty, just when the spirit moved them, and, as all had a fair quantum of sleep in this way, there were no bad tempers on board, except--well, the steward knew enough to look pleasant.

It was a fine start they made. But it did not last long. During the night the heavy water-laden atmosphere began to break up into low clouds that went flying across the face of the moon, producing weird effects in alternate light and darkness. They were soon close-hauled on a wind from the southward, and before the port of Charlotte was reached they had a long tussle with a stiff breeze from the west--topmast housed, two reefs down, and the lee-scuppers busy.

At dawn, when they went into Charlotte, it was blowing a gale. Not a Cape Horn gale, perhaps, but a good enough gale, and the water was lively around the pier-heads. Several vessels could be seen up the lake, running down to the harbor for shelter, and wallowing in the sea. So they ran the yacht far up into the harbor between the piers, and made fast as far away from the lake as they could get, to avoid being fouled by incoming vessels, and to escape the heavy swell that found its way in from outside. An hour after the sailing vessels had made the port the mail-line steamer Eleusinian came yawing in, with some of her windows in bad shape, and glad to get in out of the sea.

Next morning it was blowing harder than ever. Everything outside the cabins was disagreeable. The water they floated in seemed to be princ.i.p.ally mud, and on land the mud seemed princ.i.p.ally water. Some of the adventurous waded through the mire to see the works for smelting iron in the neighborhood. But the only thing resembling fun outside the boat was trying to walk on the piers. Two figures, to which yellow oilskin suits lent their usual grace, would support a third figure, clad in a long water-proof, resembling a sausage. These three would make a dash through the wind and seize a tall post or a spile for mooring vessels, and here they would pause, hold on, and recover their lost breath. Then, slanting into the wind, they would make a sort of tack, partly to windward, till they reached the next spile, and so on, while occasionally they would be deluged with the top of a wave. The fun of this consisted in the endeavor to avoid being blown into the water.

Certainly the sausage could not have gone alone. After several hours in the cabin the element of change in this exercise made it quite a pastime. It cooled the blood and took away the fidgets, and, on returning, made the cabins seem a pleasant shelter instead of a prison.

So far there had been no chance to leave the harbor for the purpose of reaching Toronto. The wind was dead ahead from that quarter. Young Dusenall was watching the weather continually, very anxious to get away to be in time for the yacht race there on the 7th and 8th. He was over at the steamboat hobn.o.bbing with the captain of the Eleusinian, who was also anxious to get on with his vessel. What with whisky and water, nautical magic, and one thing or another between the two of them they got the wind to go down suddenly about five o'clock that evening.

Charley came back in high good-humor. The captain had offered to tow the Ideal behind the steamer to Toronto, and nothing but a long, rolling sea, with no wind to speak of, could be noticed outside.

Jack did not like going to sea hitched up, Mazeppa-like, to a steamer, and he had misgivings as to the weather. The leaden-colored clouds, banked up in the west, were moving slowly down the lake like herded elephants. They did not yet look pacific, and he feared that they would make another stampede before the night was over. He declared it was only looking for another place to blow from. Charley answered that the race came off on the day after to-morrow, and, as they had to get to Toronto somehow, why not behind the steamer? As Jack was unable to do any more than say what he thought, he suggested "that, if the boat must go out in this sort of way during bad weather, that the women had better take the train home." The trip in the yacht promised to be unpleasant, but when Mrs. Dusenall considered the long, dusty, and hot journey around the western end of the lake she decided to "stick to the ship."

At seven o'clock in the evening they were flying out of port behind the steamer at the end of a long hawser. A heavy dead swell was rolling outside, and the way the Ideal got jerked from one wave to another boded ill for the comfort of the pa.s.sage. Charley hung on, however, thinking that this was the worst of it and that the sea would go down.

The night grew very dark, and two hours afterward the gale commenced again, and blew harder than before from the same quarter. Every time they plunged hard into a wave the decks would be swept from stem to stern, while a blinding spray covered everything. If they had cast off at this time they could have sailed back to Charlotte in safety, but Charley was bound to see Toronto, and held on.

Suddenly, in the wildness of the night, they heard a crack of breaking timber, and the next moment the tall mast whipped back toward the stern like a bending reed. A few anxious moments pa.s.sed before those aft could find out what had happened. In the darkness, and the further obscurity caused by the flying water, the bowsprit had fouled the towline. The bowstays had at once parted and, perhaps a.s.sisted by the recoil of the mast, the bowsprit had snapped off, like a carrot, close to the stem.

This large piece of timber was now in the water, acting like a battering-ram against the starboard bow, with the stowed staysail, and all the head gear, attached to it. There was no use trying to clear away the wreck by endeavoring to chop through all the wire rigging, chains, forestays, bowsprit shrouds, bobstays, and running gear, all adrift in a ma.s.s that would have taken a long time to cut away or disentangle, even in daylight and calm water. Besides this, one could not see his hand held before his face, except by lantern-light, and such was the unnatural pitching of the yacht that it was almost impossible to stand without holding on to something. Charley, who was steering, asked of one of the English hands, who was carefully crawling aft to take the wheel, "How's everything forward?" To Charley's mind the reply seemed to epitomize things as the man touched his hat and answered respectfully, "Gone to 'ell, sir." He spat on the watery deck, as he said this, while a blast of wind and half a ton of water from the bows swept away so effectually both the remark and the tobacco juice that Mr. Lemons could not help absurdly thinking of the tears of Sterne's recording angel. The sailor was very much disgusted at the condition of things, and both he and his remark were so free from any appearance of timidity that the Hon. M. T. Head felt like giving him five dollars. While on sh.o.r.e, the honorable gentleman was accustomed to emphasize his language, but, in the present crisis, no wild horses could have dragged from him a questionable word.

Geoffrey's long arms and strength came in well that night. At the first crack of the timber he slid out of his oil-skins for work, and his was one of those cool heads that alone are of use at such a time. On a sailing vessel the first effect of a bad accident in the night-time is to paralyze thought. The danger and the damage are at first unknown. The blackness of the night, the sounds of things smashing, the insecurity of foothold, the screaming of the wind, and the tumbling of the waters, all tend to kill that energy and concentration of thought which, to be useful, must rise above these enervating influences.

Jack had had more experience than Geoffrey, and thus knew better what to do. But Geoffrey, for his part, was "all there." When he was hanging down over the side, and climbing about to get the floating, banging ma.s.s of wreckage attached to the throat-halyards, the tops of the waves that struck him were unable to wash him away, and when he had succeeded in his efforts, the wreckage was hoisted bodily inboard.

The fellows at the wheel were momentarily expecting the mast to snap and fall backward on their heads, as there was now no forestay on it. The worst fault of the sloop-rig here became apparent. Unlike cutters, sloops have no forestay leading from the masthead down to the stem, but one leading only to the outer end of the bowsprit, and when the bowsprit carries away, as it frequently does, the mast then has nothing but its own strength to save it from snapping in a sudden recoil.

What made the plunging of the mast worse was that the lower-mast backstays had both carried away at the deck, as also had the topmast backstays, after pulling the head off the housed topmast. All this heavy wire rigging, with its blocks, immediately became lost to sight. It was streaming out aft on the gale from the masthead, together with every other line that had a chance to get adrift. If a halyard got loose from its belaying pin that night it was not seen again. It said good-by to the deck and went to join the flying ma.s.s overhead, that afterward by degrees wound itself round and round the topping-lifts and peak-halyards, effectually preventing the hoisting of the mainsail. The long and heavy main-boom, which had long since kicked its supporting crutch overboard, was now lowered down to rest on the cabin-top, so as to take the weight off the mast; and while the end of it dragged in the boiling caldron behind the counter, the middle part of it rose and fell with every pitch, in spite of endeavors to lash it down, until it seemed that the cabin-top would certainly give way. Had the top caved in, the chances of swamping were good.

Their power to sail by means of the canvas was now virtually gone.

Nothing was left for them but to follow the huge "smoke-grinding" ma.s.s that yawed and pitched in front of them. One or two men were kept at the stern of the steamer during this part of the night, to report any signals of distress and to aid the yacht's steering by showing bright lights. Near to these bright lights the figure of the captain could be seen from time to time through the night, anxiously watching the lights on the yacht, which told him that she still survived. Sometimes he was apparently calling out to those on the yacht, but of course no sound could be heard.

The ladies were in their cabins all this time, sorry enough that they had not taken the railway home.

When the mast was stayed forward, by setting up the staysail-halyards, etc., at the stem, there was nothing to do on deck but steer and keep watch, and as nearly everything had been carried away except the whale boat, Geoffrey went below for dry clothes and, feeling tired with his hard work, took a nap in one of the bunks in the after-cabin. As the sailors say, he "turned in all standing"--that is, with his clothes on.

The other men remained on deck. Most of them were drenched to the skin and were becoming gradually colder in the driving spray and heavy swashes of solid wave that swept the decks with clock-like regularity.

They thought it better to remain where they could at least swim for a while if the yacht went down, and they preferred exposure to the idea of being drowned like rats in the cabin.

After some time Geoffrey awoke, feeling that a soft warm hand was being pa.s.sed around his chin. He knew it was Margaret before he got his eyes open. He peered at her for a moment without raising his head. She was sitting on the seat outside, looking very despairing.

"Oh, Geoffrey," she said, "I think we are going to the bottom."

Geoffrey listened, with his eyes shut, and heard both pumps clanging outside. Margaret thought he was going off to sleep again. She was very frightened, and the fear seemed to draw her toward Geoffrey all the more for protection. She put her hand half around his neck and urged him to wake up.

"Oh, how can you go on sleeping at such a time? Do wake up, dear Geoffrey. I tell you the yacht is sinking. We are all going to the bottom. Do get up!"

Geoffrey was perfectly wide awake, but this was even pleasanter than being waked by music, and her hand on his chin seemed like a caress.

With his eyes shut, he reproached her sleepily: "No, no, don't make me get up. I like it. I like going to the bottom."

Margaret smiled through her fears. "But, Geoffrey, do look here! The water has risen up over the cabin floor."

He got up then. Certainly, things did seem a little threatening. A couple of corks were dancing about in the water upon the carpet quite merrily. This meant a good deal. He heard that peculiar sound of rushing water inside the boat which can be easily recognized when once heard.

Above the howling of wind and swash of waves, both pumps could be heard working for all they were worth. The vessel was pitching terribly, mercilessly dragged as she was from one wave to another, without having time to ride them.

Geoffrey thought the time for bailing with the pails might be deferred for a while. Without Margaret's knowledge he stuck a pen-knife into the woodwork near the floor to define high-water mark, and thus detect any increase in the leakage over the pumps. Then he devoted some time toward endeavoring to calm Margaret's fears, chiefly by exhibiting a masterly inaction in regard to the leak and in searching about for a lost pipe.

By the time he had found it and was enjoying a quiet smoke, reclining on the cushions to make the motion seem easier, her fears began to weaken.

She did not at all object to the smoke of pipes, and Geoffrey's comfort became contagious. Although the clanging of the pumps outside recalled stories of shipwreck, she was, on the other hand, more influenced by the easy-going indifference that he a.s.sumed. Twenty minutes pa.s.sed in this way, and then she felt sure that the danger was not so great as she had thought. Geoffrey in the mean time was covertly watching his pen-knife, that marked the rise or fall of the water in the boat. At the end of half an hour he could see, from where he lay, that half the blade of the knife was covered with water. So he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and said he would go and see the boys on deck, and that Margaret had better go and comfort the others in the ladies' cabins, and tell them it was all right.

When Margaret had staggered away, Geoffrey's manner was not that of one satisfied with his surroundings. He ripped up the carpet and the planks underneath to get at the well, and then skipped up the companion-way in the liveliest manner. When on deck, he made out Jack at the wheel.

"How's the well?" Jack cried, in the wind. "Did you sound it?"