Homeward Bound; Or, the Chase Part 20

"Surely you cannot suspect Mademoiselle Viefville of indiscretion, Nanny; a better spirit, or a better tone than hers, does not exist."

"No, ma'am, 'tis not that: but I should like to have one more secret with you, all to myself. I honour and respect mamerzelle, who has done a thousand times more for you than a poor ignorant woman like me could have done, with all my zeal; but I do believe, Miss Eve, I love your shoe tie better than she loves your pure and beautiful spirit."

"Mademoiselle Viefville is an excellent woman, and I believe is sincerely attached to me."

"She would be a wretch else. I do not deny her attachment, but I only say it is nothing, it ought to be nothing, it can be nothing, it shall be nothing, compared to that of the one who first held you in her arms, and who has always held you in her heart. Mamerzelle can sleep such a night as this, which I'm sure she could not do were she as much concerned for you as I am."

Eve knew that jealousy of Mademoiselle Viefville was Nanny's greatest weakness, and drawing the old woman to her, she entwined her arms around her neck and complained of drowsiness. Accustomed to watching, and really unable to sleep, the nurse now pa.s.sed a perfectly happy hour in holding her child, who literally dropped asleep on her bosom; after which Nanny slid into the berth beneath, in her clothes, and finally lost the sense of her apprehensions in perturbed slumbers.

A cry on dock awoke all in the cabins early on the succeeding morning. It was scarcely light, but a common excitement seized every pa.s.senger, and ten minutes had not elapsed when Eve and her governess appeared in the hurricane-house, the last of those who came from below. Few questions had been asked, but all hurried on deck with their apprehensions awakened by the gale, increased to the sense of some positive and impending danger.

Nothing, however, was immediately apparent to justify all this sudden clamour. The gale continued, if anything with increased power; the ocean was rolling over its cataracts of combing seas, with which the ship was still racing, driven under the strain of a reefed fore-course, the only canvas that was set. Even with this little sail the hull was glancing through the raging seas, or rather in their company, at a rate a little short of ten miles in the hour.

Captain Truck was in the mizzen-rigging, bare-headed, every lock of hair he had blowing out like a pennant. Occasionally he signed to the man at the wheel which way to put the helm; for instead of sleeping, as many had supposed, he had been conning the ship for hours in the same situation, As Eve appeared, he was directing the attention of several of the gentlemen to some object astern, but a very few moments put all on deck in possession of the facts.

About a cable's length, on one of the quarters of the Montauk, was a ship careering before the gale like themselves, though carrying more canvas, and consequently driving faster through the water. The sudden appearance of this vessel in the sombre light of the morning, when objects were seen distinctly but without the glare of day; the dark hull, relieved by a single narrow line of white paint, dotted with ports; the glossy hammock-cloths, and all those other coverings of dark glistening canvas which give to a cruiser an air of finish and comfort, like that of a travelling carriage; the symmetry of the spars, and the gracefulness of all the lines, whether of the hull or hamper, told all who knew anything of such subjects, that the stranger was a vessel of war. To this information Captain Truck added that it was their old pursuer the Foam.

"She is corvette-built," said the master of the Montauk, "and is obliged to carry more canvas than we, in order to keep out of the way of the seas; for, if one of these big fellows should overtake her, and throw its crest into her waist, she would become like a man who has taken too much Sat.u.r.day-night, and with whom a second dose might settle the purser's books forever."

Such in fact was the history of the sudden appearance of this ship. She had lain-to as long as possible, and on being driven to scud, carried a close-reefed maintop-sail, a show of canvas that urged her through the water about two knots to the hour faster than the rate of the-packet.

Necessarily following the same coa.r.s.e, she overtook the latter just as the day began to dawn. The cry had arisen on her sudden discovery, and the moment had now arrived when she was about to come up, quite abreast of her late chase. The pa.s.sage of the Foam, under such circ.u.mstances, was a grand but thrilling thing. Her captain, too, was seen in the mizzen-rigging of his ship, rocked by the gigantic billows over which the fabric was careering. He held a speaking-trumpet in his hand, as if still bent on his duty, in the midst of that awful warring of the elements. Captain Truck called for a trumpet in his turn, and fearful of consequences he waved it to the other to keep more aloof, The injunction was either misunderstood, the man-of-war's man was too much bent on his object, or the ocean was too uncontrollable for such a purpose, the corvette driving up on a sea quite abeam of the packet, and in fearful proximity. The Englishman applied the trumpet, and words were heard amid the roaring of the winds. At that time the white field of old Albion, with the St. George's cross, rose over the bulwarks, and by the time it had reached the gaff-end, the bunting was whipping in ribbons.

"Show 'em the gridiron!" growled Captain Truck through his trumpet, with its mouth turned in board.

As everything was ready this order was instantly obeyed, and the stripes of America were soon seen fluttering nearly in separate pieces. The two ships now ran a short distance in parallel lines, rolling from each other so heavily that the bright copper of the corvette was seen nearly to her keel. The Englishman, who seemed a portion of his ship, again tried his trumpet; the detached words of "lie-by,"--"orders,"--"communicate," were caught by one or two, but the howling of the gale rendered all connexion in the meaning impossible. The Englishman ceased his efforts to make himself heard, for the two ships were now rolling-to, and it appeared as if their spars would interlock. There was an instant when Mr. Leach had his hand on the main-brace to let it go; but the Foam started away on a sea, like a horse that feels the spur, and disobeying her helm, shot forward, as if about to cross the Montauk's forefoot.

A breathless instant followed, for all on board the two ships thought they must now inevitably come foul of each other, and this the more so, because the Montauk took the impulse of the sea just as it was lost to the Foam, and seemed on the point of plunging directly into the stern of the latter.

Even the seamen clenched the ropes around them convulsively, and the boldest held their breaths for a time. The "p-o-r-t, hard a port, and be d---d to you!" of Captain Truck; and the "S-t-a-r-b-o-a-r-d, starboard hard!" of the Englishman, were both distinctly audible to all in the two ships; for this was a moment in which seamen can speak louder than the tempest. The affrighted vessels seemed to recede together, and they shot asunder in diverging lines, the Foam leading. All further attempts at a communication were instantly useless; the corvette being half a mile ahead in a quarter of an hour, rolling her yardarms nearly to the water.

Captain Truck said little to his pa.s.sengers concerning this adventure; but when he had lighted a cigar, and was discussing the matter with his chief-mate, he told the latter there was "just one minute when he would not have given a ship's biscuit for both vessels, nor much more for their cargoes. A man must have a small regard for human souls, when he puts them, and their bodies too, in so much jeopardy for a little tobacco."

Throughout the day it blew furiously, for the ship was running into the gale, a phenomenon that we shall explain, as most of our readers may not comprehend it. All gates of wind commence to leeward; or, in other words, the wind is first felt at some particular point, and later, as we recede from that point, proceeding in the direction from which the wind blows.

It is always severest near the point where it commences, appearing to diminish in violence as it recedes. This, therefore, is an additional motive for mariners to lie-to, instead of scudding, since the latter not only carries them far from their true coa.r.s.e, but it carries them also nearer to the scene of the greatest fury of the elements.

Chapter XIV.

Good boatswain, have care.

TEMPEST.

At sunset, the speck presented by the reefed top-sail of the corvette had sunk beneath the horizon, in the southern board, and that ship was seen no longer. Several islands had been pa.s.sed, looking tranquil and smiling amid the fury of the tempest; but it was impossible to haul up for any one among them. The most that could be done was to keep the ship dead before it, to prevent her broaching-to, and to have a care that she kept clear of those rocks and of that bottom, for which Nanny Sidley had so much pined.

Familiarity with the scene began to lessen the apprehensions of the pa.s.sengers, and as scudding is an easy process for those who are liable to sea-sickness, ere another night shut in, the princ.i.p.al concern was connected with the course the ship was compelled to steer. The wind had so far hauled to the westward as to render it certain that the coast of Africa would lie in their way, if obliged to scud many hours longer; for Captain Truck's observations actually placed him to the southward and eastward of the Canary Islands. This was a long distance out of his course, but the rate of sailing rendered the fact sufficiently clear.

This, too was the precise time when the Montauk felt the weight of the tempest, or rather, when she experienced the heaviest portion of that which it was her fate to feel. Lucky was it for the good ship that she had not been in this lat.i.tude a few hours earlier, when it had blown something very like a hurricane. The responsibility and danger of his situation now began seriously to disturb Captain Truck, although he kept his apprehensions to himself, like a prudent officer. All his calculations were gone over again with the utmost care, the rate of sailing was cautiously estimated, and the result showed, that ten or fifteen hours more would inevitably produce shipwreck of another sort, unless the wind moderated.

Fortunately, the gale began to break about midnight. The wind still blew tremendously, but it was less steadily, and there were intervals of half-an-hour at a time when the ship might have carried much more canvas, even on a bowline: of course her speed abated in proportion, and, after the day had dawned, a long and anxious survey from aloft showed no land to the eastward. When perfectly a.s.sured of this important fact, Captain Truck rubbed his hands with delight, ordered a coal for his cigar, and began to abuse Saunders about the quality of the coffee during the blow.

"Let there be something creditable, this morning, sir," added the captain, after a sharp rebuke; "and remember we are down here in the neighbourhood of the country of your forefathers, where a man ought, in reason, to be on his good behaviour. If I hear any more of your washy compounds, I'll put you ash.o.r.e, and let you run naked a summer or two with the monkeys and ouran-outangs."

"I endeavour, on all proper occasions, to render myself agreeable to you, Captain Truck, and to all those with whom I have the happiness to sail,"

returned the steward; "but the coffee, sir, cannot be very good, sir, in such weater, sir. I do diwine that the wind must blow away its flavour, for I am ready to confess it has not been as odorous as it usually is, when I have had the honour to prepare it. As for Africa, sir, I flatter myself, Captain Truck, that you esteem me too highly to believe I am suited to consort or besort with the ill-formed and inedicated men who inhabit that wild country. I misremember whether my ancestors came from this part of the world or not; but if they did, sir, my habits and profession entirely unqualify me for their company, I hope. I know I am only a poor steward, sir, but you'll please to recollect that your great Mr. Vattel was nothing but a cook."

"D--n the fellow, Leach; I believe it is this conceit that has spoiled the coffee the last day or two! Do you suppose it can be true that a great writer like this man could really be no better than a cook, or was that Englishman roasting me, by way of showing how cooking is done ash.o.r.e? If it were not for the testimony of the ladies, I might believe it; but they would not share in such an indecent trick. What are you lying-by for, sir?

go to your pantry and remember that the gale is broken, and we shall all sit down to table this morning, as keen-set as a party of your brethren ash.o.r.e here, who had a broiled baby for breakfast."

Saunders, who _ex-officio_ might be said to be trained in similar lectures, went pouting to his work, taking care to expend a proper part of his spleen on Mr. Toast, who, quite as a matter of course, suffered in proportion as his superior was made to feel, in his own person, the weight of Captain Truck's authority. It is perhaps fortunate that nature points out this easy and self-evident mode of relief, else would the rude habits of a ship sometimes render the relations between him who orders and him whose duty it is to obey, too nearly approaching to the intolerable.

The captain's squalls, however, were of short duration and on the present occasion he was soon in even a better humour than common, as every minute gave the cheering a.s.surance, that the tempest was fast drawing to a close.

He had finished his third cigar, and was actually issuing his orders to turn the reef out of the foresail, and to set the main-top-sail close-reefed, when most of the pa.s.sengers appeared on deck, for the first time that morning.

"Here we are, gentlemen!" cried Captain Truck, in the way of salutation, "nearer to Guinea than I could wish, with every prospect, now, of soon working our way across the Atlantic, and possibly of making a thirty or thirty-five days' pa.s.sage of it yet. We have this sea to quiet; and then I hope to show you what the Montauk has in her, besides her pa.s.sengers and cargo. I think we have now got rid of the Foam, as well as of the gale. I did believe, at one time, her people might be walking and wading on the coast of Cornwall; but I now believe they are more likely to try the sands of the great Desert of Sahara."

"It is to be hoped they have escaped the latter calamity, as fortunately as they escaped the first!" observed Mr. Effingham.

"It may be so; but the wind has got round to nor-west, and has not been sighing these last twelve hours. Cape Bianco is not a hundred leagues from us, and, at the rate he was travelling, that gentleman with the speaking-trumpet may now be philosophizing over the fragments of his ship, unless he had the good sense to haul off more to the westward than he was steering when last seen. His ship should have been christened the 'Scud,'

instead of the 'Foam.'"

Every one expressed the hope that the ship, to which their own situation was fairly enough to be ascribed, might escape this calamity; and all faces regained their cheerfulness as they saw the canvas fall, in sign that their own danger was past. So rapidly, indeed, did the gale now abate, that the topsails were hardly hoisted before the order was given to shake out another reef, and within an hour all the heavier canvas that was proper to carry before the wind was set, solely with a view to keep the ship steady. The sea was still fearful, and Captain Truck found himself obliged to keep off from his course, in order to avoid the danger of having his decks swept.

The racing with the crest of the waves, however, was quite done, for the seas soon cease to comb and break, after the force of the wind is expended.

At no time is the motion of the vessel more unpleasant, or, indeed, more dangerous, than in the interval that occurs between the ceasing of a violent gale, and the springing up of a new wind. The ship is unmanageable, and falling into the troughs of the sea, the waves break in upon her decks, often doing serious injury, while the spars and rigging are put to the severest trial by the sudden and violent surges which they have to withstand. Of all this Captain Truck was fully aware, and when he was summoned to breakfast he gave many cautions to Mr. Leach before quitting the deck.

"I do not like the new shrouds we got up in London," he said, "for the rope has stretched in this gale in a way to throw too much strain on the old rigging; so see all ready for taking a fresh drag on them, as soon as the people have breakfasted. Mind and keep her out of the trough, sir, and watch every roller that you find comes tumbling upon us."

After repeating these injunctions in different ways, looking to windward some time, and aloft five or six minutes, Captain Truck finally went below, to pa.s.s judgment on Mr. Saunders' coffee. Once in his throne, at the head of the long table, the worthy master, after a proper attention to his pa.s.sengers, set about the duty of restoration, as the steward affectedly called eating, with a zeal that never failed him on such occasions. He had just swallowed a cup of the coffee, about which he had lectured Saunders, when a heavy flap of the sails announced the sudden failure of the wind.

"That is bad news," said Captain Truck, listening to the fluttering blows of the canvas against the masts. "I never like to hear a ship shaking its wings while there is a heavy sea on; but this is better than the Desert of Sahara, and so, my dear young lady, let me recommend to you a cup of this coffee, which is flavoured this morning by a dread of ouran-outangs, as Mr. Saunders will have the honour to inform you--"

A jerk of the whole ship was followed by a report like that made by a musket. Captain Truck rose, and stood leaning on one hand in a bent att.i.tude, expectation and distrust intensely portrayed in every feature.

Another helpless roil of the ship succeeded, and three or four similar reports were immediately heard, as if large ropes had parted in quick succession. A rending of wood followed, and then came a chaotic crash, in which the impending heavens seemed to fall on the devoted ship. Most of the pa.s.sengers shut their eyes, and when they were opened again, or a moment afterwards, Mr. Truck had vanished It is scarcely necessary to describe the confusion that followed. Eve was frightened, but she behaved well, though Mademoiselle Viefville trembled so much as to require the a.s.sistance of Mr. Effingham.

"We have lost our masts," John Effingham coolly remarked; "an accident that will not be likely to be very dangerous, though by prolonging the pa.s.sage a month or two, it may have the merit of making this good company more intimately acquainted with each other, a pleasure for which we cannot express too much grat.i.tude."

Eve implored his forbearance by a glance, for she saw his eye was unconsciously directed towards Mr. Monday and Mr. Dodge, for both of whom she knew her kinsman entertained an incurable dislike. His words, however, explained the catastrophe, and most of the men hastened on deck to a.s.sure themselves of the fact.

John Effingham was right. The new rigging which had stretched so much during the gale, had permitted too much of the strain, in the tremendous rolls of the ship, to fall upon the other ropes. The shroud most exposed had parted first; three or four more followed in succession, and before there was time to secure anything, the remainder had gone together, and the mainmast had broken at a place where a defect was now seen in its heart. Falling over the side, the latter had brought down with it the mizzen-mast and all its hamper, and as much of the fore-mast as stood above the top. In short, of all the complicated tracery of ropes, the proud display of spars, and the broad folds of canvas that had so lately overshadowed the deck of the Montauk, the mutilated fore-mast, the fore-yard and sail, and the fallen head-gear alone remained. All the rest either c.u.mbered the deck, or was beating against the side of the ship, in the water.

The hard, red, weather-beaten face of Captain Truck was expressive of mortification and concern, for a single instant, when his eye glanced over the ruin we have just described. His mind then seemed made up to the calamity, and he ordered Toast to bring him a coal of fire, with which he quietly lighted a cigar.

"Here is a category, and be d---d to it, Mr. Leach," he said, after taking a single whiff. "You are doing quite right, sir; cut away the wreck and force the ship free of it, or we shall have some of those sticks poking themselves through the planks. I always thought the chandler in London, into whose hands the agent has fallen, was a--rogue, and now I know it well enough to swear to it. Cut away, carpenter, and get us rid of all this thumping as soon as possible. A very capital vessel, Mr. Monday, or she would have rolled the pumps out of her, and capsized the galley."