Hard Cash Part 37

"Then do pray handle her yourself; captain! Is this weather to go tearing happy-go-lucky up the Channel?"

"I mean to sail her without your advice, sir; and, being a seaman, I shall get all I can out of a fair wind."

"That is right Captain Robarts, if you had but the British Channel all to yourself."

"Perhaps you will leave me my deck all to myself."

"I should be delighted: but my anxiety will not let me." With this Dodd retired a few steps, and kept a keen look-out.

At noon a l.u.s.ty voice cried "Land on the weather beam!"

All eyes were turned that way and saw nothing.

Land in sight was reported to Captain Robarts.

Now that worthy was in reality getting secretly anxious: so he ran on deck crying, "Who saw it?"

"Captain Dodd, sir."

"Ugh! n.o.body else?"

Dodd came forward, and, with a respectful air, told him that, being on the look-out, he had seen the coast of the Isle of Wight in a momentary lift of the haze.

"Isle of Fiddlestick!" was the polite reply; "Isle of Wight is eighty miles astern by now."

Dodd answered firmly that he was well acquainted with every outline in the Channel, and that the land he had seen was St. Katherine's Point

Robarts deigned no reply, but had the log heaved: it showed the vessel to be running twelve knots an hour. He then went to his cabin and consulted his chart; and, having worked his problem, came hastily on deck, and went from rashness to wonderful caution. "Turn the hands out, and heave the ship to!"

The manoeuvre was executed gradually and ably, and scarce a bucketful of water shipped. "Furl taupsles and set the main trysail! There, Mr. Dodd, so much for you and your Isle of Wight. The land you saw was Dungeness, and _you_ would have run on into the North Sea, I'll be bound."

When a man, habitually calm, turns anxious, he becomes more irritable; and the mixture of timidity and rashness he saw in Robarts made Dodd very anxious.

He replied angrily, "At all events, I should not make a foul wind out of a fair one by heaving to; and if I did, I would heave to on the right tack."

At this sudden facer--one, too, from a patient man--Robarts staggered a moment. He recovered, and with an oath ordered Dodd to go below, or he would have him chucked into the hold.

"Come, don't be an a.s.s, Robarts," said Dodd contemptuously.

Then, lowering his voice to a whisper, "Don't you know the men only want such an order as that to chuck you into the sea?"

Robarts trembled. "Oh, if you mean to head a mutiny----"

"Heaven forbid, sir! But I won't leave the deck in dirty weather like this till the captain knows where he is."

Towards sunset it got clearer, and they drifted past a revenue cutter, who was lying to with her head to the northward. She hoisted no end of signals, but they understood none of them, and her captain gesticulated wildly on her deck.

"What is that Fantoccio dancing at?" inquired Captain Robarts brutally.

"To see a first-cla.s.s ship drift to leeward in a narrow sea with a fair wind," said Dodd bitterly.

At night it blew hard, and the sea ran high and irregular. The ship began to be uneasy, and Robarts very properly ordered the top-gallant and royal yards to be sent down on deck. Dodd would have had them down twelve hours ago. The mate gave the order: no one moved. The mate went forward angry. He came back pale. The men refused to go aloft: they would not risk their lives for Captain Robarts.

The officers all a.s.sembled and went forward: they promised and threatened; but all in vain. The crew stood sullen together, as if to back one another, and put forward a spokesman to say that "there was not one of them the captain hadn't started, and stopped his grog a dozen times: he had made the ship h.e.l.l to them; and now her masts and yards and hull might go there along with her skipper, for them."

Robarts received this tidings in sullen silence. "Don't tell that Dodd, whatever you do," said he. "They will come round now they have had their growl: they are too near home to shy away their pay."

Robarts had not sufficient insight into character to know that Dodd would instantly have sided with him against a mutiny.

But at this juncture the ex-captain of the _Agra_ was down in the cabin with his fellow-pa.s.sengers, preparing a general remonstrance: he had a chart before him, and a pair of compa.s.ses in his hand.

"St. Katherine's Point lay about eight miles to windward at noon; and we have been drifting south and east this twelve hours, through lying to on the starboard tack; and besides, the ship has been conned as slovenly as she is sailed. I've seen her allowed to break off a dozen times, and gather more leeway. Ah! here is Captain Robarts. Captain, you saw the rate we pa.s.sed the revenue cutter. That vessel was nearly stationary; so what we pa.s.sed her at was our own rate of drifting, and our least rate.

Putting all this together, we can't be many miles from the French coast, and, unless we look sharp and beat to windward, I p.r.o.nounce the ship in danger."

A horselaugh greeted this conclusion.

"We are nearer Yarmouth sands than France, I promise you, and nothing under our lee nearer than Rotterdam."

A loud cry from the deck above, "A LIGHT ON THE LEE BOW!"

"There!" cried Robarts with an oath: "foul of _her_ next! through me listening to your nonsense." He ran upon deck, and shouted through his trumpet, "All hands wear ship!"

The crew, who had heard the previous cry, obeyed orders in the presence of an immediate danger; and perhaps their growl had really relieved their ill-humour. Robarts with delight saw them come tumbling up, and gave his orders l.u.s.tily: "Brail up the trysel! up with the helm! in with the weather main brace! square the after yards!"

The ship's bow turned from the wind, and, as soon as she got way on her, Robarts ran below again, and entered the cabin triumphant.

"That is all right: and now, Captain Dodd, a word with you. You will either retire at once to your cabin, or will cease to breed disaffection in my crew, and groundless alarm in my pa.s.sengers, by instilling your own childish, ignorant fears. The ship has been underlogged a hundred miles, sir; and but for my caution in lying to for clear weather we should be groping among the Fern Isl----"

CRASH!

An unheard-of shock threw the speaker and all the rest in a ma.s.s on the floor, smashed every lamp, put out every light; and, with a fierce grating noise, the ship was hard and fast on the French coast, with her stern to the sea.

One awful moment of silence; then, amidst shrieks of agony, the sea struck her like a rolling rock, solid to crush, liquid to drown, and the comb of a wave smashed the cabin windows and rushed in among them as they floundered on the floor, and wetted and chilled them to the marrow.

A voice in the dark cried, "O G.o.d! we are dead men."

CHAPTER XIV

"ON deck for your lives!" cried Dodd, forgetting in that awful moment he was not the captain; and drove them all up, Robarts included, and caught hold of Mrs. Beresford and Freddy at their cabin door and half carried them with him. Just as they got on deck the third wave, a high one, struck the ship and lifted her bodily up, canted her round, and dashed her down again some yards to leeward, throwing them down on the hard and streaming deck.

At this tremendous shock the ship seemed a live thing, shrieking and wailing, as well as quivering with the blow.

But one voice dissented loudly from the general dismay. "All right men,"

cried Dodd, firm and trumpet-like. "She is broadside on now. Captain Robarts, look alive, sir; speak to the men! don't go to sleep!"