On Board the Esmeralda Part 23

But, no; he would not accept the olive branch.

When it was time for me to relieve his watch, the mate invariably sent one of the hands to summon me, telling me through the same medium the course to be steered, and giving what orders were necessary for the working of the ship, so that there should be no occasion for any conversation between us; and it likewise happened that when we were on deck together, as was frequently the case during the day, he always walked on the weather side of the p.o.o.p, while I took the leeward place-- that is, unless the skipper was there too, when of course the latter promenaded the more honourable beat, and I walked by his side, while Mr Macdougall had the lee-side then all to himself.

At meal-times also, in the cabin, he took care that we should not meet, never coming in until after I had left the table, and always rising up to go on deck should I enter while he was there.

The mate held aloof in a similar fashion from the skipper, the two never interchanging a word save with reference to the navigation of the vessel. He seemed, indeed, to have sent us both to Coventry, although Captain Billings made no comment to me on his conduct; but I did not fail to notice--what indeed was the popular belief through the ship-- that, if the first mate was paying us out in this way, he did not forget to "take it out of the crew" in another and very practical mode of his own, which was by driving them as hard as a workhouse superintendent in charge of a lot of poor paupers.

To return to the ship and her voyage, I should observe that, after the south-east Trades failed us--succeeded for a short spell by light variable winds, as we kept well away from the coast, and so perhaps missed the land breeze that we might have had--we picked up the south- west monsoon, which carried us past Rio Janeiro.

The term monsoon, or "monsun," I may explain, is derived from an Arabic word, _mausim_, meaning "a set time, or season of the year;" and is generally applied to a system of regular wind currents, like the Trades, blowing in different hemispheres beyond the range of those old customers with which ordinary voyagers are familiar.

From Rio we ran down in five days to the Plate River, having fine weather and making pretty good sailing all the time, as indeed we had done since crossing the Line; but, arrived off Monte Video, we soon had warning that our quiet days of progress through the water on one tack, without shifting a brace or starting a sheet, were numbered with the fortunate things of the past.

One morning, just when we were in lat.i.tude 34 degrees 55 minutes south, and 55 degrees 10 minutes West, or nearly a hundred miles off the wide estuary of the Rio de la Plata, I noticed a peculiar phenomenon.

The wind was blowing from the northward of west, while the atmosphere was bright and clear, so that the horizon was extended to almost double its ordinary distance; but, although no land was to be seen anywhere in sight, myriads of little winged insects began all at once to hover over us, just as if we were close in sh.o.r.e under the lee of some tropical forest, while our hands, clothes, faces, and the ship's rigging as well, began to be covered with long, white, hair-like webs, similar to those woven by spiders in a garden shrubbery! I couldn't make it out at all, feeling inclined to view the matter as one of those extraordinary freaks of Nature, which even science is unable to throw any light on--phenomena that are every now and then exhibited to us, as if only to show our ignorance of the workings of the invisible Power around us guiding the movements and physical cosmogony of our sphere; but Jorrocks, who was a thorough seaman, believing in portents, and thinking that everything unusual at sea was sent for a purpose, and "meant something," advised my calling the skipper.

"I 'specs, Mister Leigh," said he, "as how there's a squall brewing, or summat, for they're pretty plentiful down here when the wind bears round to the west."

"All right, Jorrocks; I'll give him a hail," I replied; and leaving the boatswain in charge of the deck, it being my watch, I went down to wake up the skipper, he having only turned in just before I came on duty.

"How's the gla.s.s?" asked Captain Billings, as soon as I had roused him and told him what I had observed.

"I didn't think of looking at it, sir," I replied.

"Then do so at once," he said; "a sailor should never fail to consult his barometer, even when the weather is apparently fine, for it gives warning of any change hours, perhaps, before it may occur. It is an unswerving guide--more so than the wind and sky in some lat.i.tudes."

I hastened now to look at the instrument, and noticing that it had fallen, I reported the fact to the skipper as he was dressing.

"Ah," said he, "then that has occurred since I turned in;" and, completing his toilet rapidly, he soon followed me on deck, whither I returned at once.

In the short interval of my absence below, however, there was a marked alteration in the scene.

The wind had dropped to the faintest breeze, which presently, too, died away, succeeded by a dead stillness of the atmosphere, while the sea became like gla.s.s, except where an occasional heave of the unbroken surface betrayed the restless force beneath that seeming calm; and, instead of the clear sky and wide-stretching horizon melting into the azure distance, which had previously struck me with admiration, a thick haze had crept up over the heavens from the westwards, which, extending right up to the zenith, had soon shut out the bright sunlight, making it darker than night--the air becoming at the same time chill and cold.

I had not much leisure, though, to note the pictorial effects of the scene; for I heard the skipper's voice behind me.

"By Jove, Leigh!" he exclaimed, "we're going to have one of those pamperos, as they call them, that come off the mouth of the Plate; and we'll have all our work cut out for us to be ready in time. Call the other watch, boatswain!"

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Jorrocks; and quickly his familiar hail rang out fore and aft, as he rapped on the scuttle forwards--

"All ha-a-ands take in sail!"

We were carrying a full spread of canvas at the time; but the men, tumbling out of their bunks with a will, not having had much of that sort of work lately, were soon clambering up the rigging, furling the royals and topgallant sails--I amongst them, you may be sure, having been the first, as usual, on the main royal yard.

"Now, men, take in the flying jib," cried Captain Billings, when we had come below, having so far stripped the ship for the coming fight; and the headsail was stowed, the spanker and trysail were brailed, the courses hauled up and the yards squared, when we awaited the attack of the pampero.

"It'll soon be on us now," said the skipper, seeing that the heavens became blacker and blacker to the westwards; and presently it came!

A streak of vivid lightning shot out from the blue-black storm-clouds that were hung over the ship like a funeral pall, lighting up the surrounding gloom and making it appear all the more sombre afterwards from the momentary illumination; and then, with a crash of thunder--that seemed as if the sky above was riven open, it was so awfully loud and reverberating--the tornado burst upon us, accompanied by a fierce blast of wind, that almost took the ship aback, and would have sent her down beneath the water in an instant to a certainty if we had been under sail.

"Let fly everything!" shouted the skipper; and the halliards being cast loose, the topsails came down on the caps by the run; when the _Esmeralda_, paying off from the wind, began to exhibit her old form of showing her heels to the enemy--tearing away through the sea with all her sheets flying.

Along with the pampero came a terrific shower of hail that lacerated our faces and almost took away our breath for the moment; but, never heeding this, on the skipper issuing his orders, we were up aloft again reefing topsails in a jiffey, and, as soon as the halliards had been manned and the yards rehoisted, the courses were furled and the jib hauled down, the fore-topmast staysail being set in its place. Everything being now made snug, the vessel was brought once more round to her course on the starboard tack, heading a little to the westward of south.

To the hail succeeded a heavy storm of rain; and then, the pampero having blown itself out by its sudden frenzy, a short calm now came on, after which the wind chopped round to the old quarter, the southwards and eastwards, bringing us back again to the port tack as we steered between the Falkland Islands and the South American continent--keeping in closer to the land now, for any fresh wind that might spring up would be certain to come from off sh.o.r.e.

The day of the pampero, however, did not pa.s.s by before another incident happened on board the _Esmeralda_.

When "all hands" were called, of course Mr Macdougall came up too; and, although he did not go aloft the same as I did to help in reefing topsails and furl the canvas--for he was neither so young nor so active as myself, and besides, it was not his place as first mate of the ship thus to aid the crew in doing the practical part of their duty--yet, on deck, he was of much a.s.sistance to the skipper in seeing that his different orders were promptly executed at the moment required; being not chary either of lending a hand at a brace when help was necessary, and exerting himself as much as any one, in a way very unusual for him.

So now, when the pampero had pa.s.sed away and the excitement was over, Captain Billings, in his joyful exuberance of feeling at the _Esmeralda_ having weathered the peril, went up to him and shook hands cordially.

"Hurrah, Macdougall!" he exclaimed, "the old barquey has been too much for my River Plate bully of a pampero."

"Aye, mon, she's weethered it weel, I ween," replied the mate, accepting the proffered pledge of restored friendship; and he was shaking away at the skipper's fist as if he was never going to relinquish its grasp, when, suddenly, the calm came on that I have mentioned, and the sails flapped against the masts heavily, shaking the ship and making the rigging vibrate.

Both Mr Macdougall and the skipper looked aloft, impelled by the same instinct, as they stood aft, the mate close to the taffrail; when, at that instant, the spanker boom swinging round, the lee sheet--not being hauled taut--caught the mate athwart his chest and swept him incontinently over the side!

I was on the opposite side of the deck, witnessing with much satisfaction the mode in which he and the skipper had made up their differences, the feud having lasted for over a fortnight; but, on seeing the accident, was for a moment horror-struck.

However, I soon recovered myself.

"Man overboard!" I shouted out, with all the power of my lungs; and then, without hesitation, I plunged after Mr Macdougall into the sea.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

ON FIRE IN THE HOLD!

The wind had dropped to a calm, as I've mentioned, just before this; but the sea was still running high, with those heavy waves that get up in a moment in the lower lat.i.tudes as soon as it begins to blow. But I never thought of this when I plunged in to the mate's rescue.

When I was at Dr h.e.l.lyer's, the only two things I ever really learnt that were of any use to me in my after-life were, a substantial grounding in mathematics--thanks to "Smiley"--which subsequently made the study of navigation easy to me when Sam Pengelly put me under charge of a tutor; and, secondly, the art of swimming, the place where the school was situated and the practice of taking out the boys on the beach for the purpose every day, offering great facilities to any one with the least apt.i.tude for taking to the water and possessed of a desire to learn how to support himself in it.

Now, therefore, I found the second of these acquirements to stand me in good stead--the consciousness of knowing how to swim, not only giving me the courage to leap over the vessel's side after the unfortunate man, but also enabling me to decide what to do when I found myself battling with the waves on my errand of succour.

The _Esmeralda's_ quarter was a good height from the sea level; so, on my diving off, what with this and the impetus of my leap, I went considerably below the surface, coming up panting for breath some distance away from the ship, which, having still a little way on her, besides offering a considerable surface of hull for the waves to act upon, was drifting further and further off each instant.

I had no concern about this, though, the only impression on my mind being the necessity of getting hold of Mr Macdougall as soon as I could; and when I had recovered from the half-suffocating feeling produced by my impromptu long dive beneath the Atlantic rollers, I raised myself on the top of one of these, and proceeded to look for the first mate, who ought, I thought, to be pretty close to me.

The water struck bitterly cold, as I trod it down in order to elevate myself as much as I could and so have a wider view around, for it made my limbs feel as if cramp was coming on; but I kicked out vigorously, and the sensation pa.s.sing off I began to feel more at home in the water, and as confident as if I were bathing off the sh.o.r.e at Beachampton-- albeit I was now having a bath in the middle of the Southern ocean, with my ship almost half a mile from me by this time!

I did not see Mr Macdougall anywhere at first, so I feared that the force with which the boom sheet had come against his chest might have so injured him as to paralyse his movements when he fell overboard; but, presently, when I rose on the crest of another huge rolling billow that took me up a little higher aloft, I saw him struggling in one of the watery valleys between the ridges of the waves about half a cable's length away to the windward of me, so that I was between him and the ship, whose sails alone now were all I could see of her from my low position in the water.

Catching sight of him, at once inspired me with fresh courage, making me as buoyant as a cork; and I faced the task before me, offering up a heartfelt prayer that I might accomplish it successfully.

"Hold up, Mr Macdougall! I'm coming to help you!" I cried out as loudly as I could, for he seemed just then, from the look of despair I saw on his face, to be on the point of chucking up his hands and allowing himself to sink to the bottom, impressed probably with the hopelessness of attempting to reach the vessel. Then, striking out with a good strong breast-stroke, which is worth all your fancy side business in rough water, I made towards him; although, having to go against the set of the sea, I found it much harder work than merely keeping myself afloat, which was all that I had previously tried to do, without actually swimming.