Swept Out to Sea Part 8

In the cuddy up forward, with my provisions, there were a saw and hammer, and other tools. I could no more get at them than I could get out of the cabin. And although I might be able to do nothing to help myself or my boat if I was free from my prison, I would have felt a whole lot safer just then to have been upon her deck!

The door being nailed so fast, and the deck-hatch bolted tight, it was plain that I would have to smash something in order to get out of the cabin. Had I had anything to use as a battering ram, I would have begun on the door. But there seemed nothing to hand that would help me in that way. I examined the crack where the top of the door and the deck-hatch came together. Had I something to pry with I might tear the bolts holding the hatch out of the wood.

Such a thing as a bar was out of the question. But after a few minutes'

cogitation, I remembered that my bunks on either side of the cabin could be turned up against the bulkhead, and at each end of the bunks was a flat piece of steel fifteen or eighteen inches long which held the berth-bench when it was let down. Two screws at each end held these steel straps in place.

I had no screw driver; but I had the knife that I had taken away from my cousin when he attacked me the evening before. I thrust the point of its heavy blade into a crack and snapped the steel square off. It made a fairly usable screw-driver, and I quickly had one of the steel straps out of its fastenings.

The piece of steel was stiff and made as good a bar for prying as I could have found. With some difficulty I thrust one end up between the top of the cabin door and the edge of the hatch, close to one side. I slipped the closed knife up between the bar and the door for a block against which to prize, caught the end of the bar with both hands, and threw all my force against it. The hatch squeaked; there was a splintering sound of wood. I was badly marring the top of the door, but the bolt which held the hatch at that side was giving.

I repeated the process at the other side of the hatch, and gradually, by working first at one side, and then the other, I splintered the woodwork around the bolts, and bent the bolts themselves, so that the hatch began to shove back. As soon as possible I shoved it back far enough for my body to pa.s.s through the aperture.

The rain beat down upon my face as I worked my way out of the cabin in my oilskins; I left my hat behind. The Wavecrest was pitching and yawing pretty badly now and before I cast a single glance around I was sure that she was already going through the inlet.

Yes! there was the beacon at the extreme point of Bolderhead Neck--it was just abreast of me as I stood at last upon the sloop's unsteady deck. I leaped down into the c.o.c.kpit and quickly lowered the centerboard. Almost at once the Wavecrest began to ride more evenly. I could see little but the beacon, the night was so black; but I ran to the tiller and found that the sloop was under good steerage way and answered her helm nicely.

Like all sloops, the Wavecrest was very broad of beam for her depth of keel, and the standing-room, or c.o.c.kpit, was roomy. She was well rigged, too, having a staysail and gafftopsail. Really, to sail her properly there should have been a crew of two aboard; but under the present circ.u.mstances I felt that one person aboard the Wavecrest was one too many! With a rising gale behind her the craft was being driven to sea at express speed, and it was utterly impossible to r.e.t.a.r.d her course.

For an hour I sat there in the driving rain, hatless and shivering, hanging to the tiller and letting the sloop drive. Letting her drive!

why, there wasn't a thing I could do to change her course. She was rushing on through the foaming seas like a projectile shot from some huge gun, and every moment the howling wind seemed to increase!

The beacon on the Neck was behind me now. There was nothing ahead of the sloop's fixed bowsprit. We were driving into a curtain of blackness that had been let down from the sky to the sea. It is seldom that there is not some little light playing over the surface of the water. This night a palpable cloud had settled upon the face of the waters and I could not even see the foam on the crests of the waves, save where they ran past the sloop's freeboard.

I had left the broken slide open, however, and the rain was beating down into the cabin. This began to worry me and finally I lashed the tiller--fastening it in the bights of two ropes prepared for that purpose, and crept back into the cabin again. It was little use to remain outside, save that if the sloop was flung upon a rock, I might have a little better chance to escape.

At the speed she was traveling, however, I knew very well that we were already beyond the reefs and little islets that mask the entrance to Bolderhead Harbor. It was a veritable hurricane behind us. The wind was actually blowing so hard that the waves were scarcely of medium height.

I had seen a mere afternoon squall kick up a heavier sea.

It was awkward getting in and out of the cabin by way of the hatch; but I did not take the time then to open the door. I fixed the hatch so that it would slide back and forth properly, however. Then I lit my spirit lamp and made some coffee. I was pretty well chilled through, for the rain and wind seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of my bones.

I was sure that this was the beginning of the equinoctial gale. It might be a week before the storm would break. And where would the Wavecrest be in a week's time?

Not that I really believed the sloop would hold together, or still be on top of the sea, when this gale blew itself out. She was a mere speck on the agitated surface of the sea. My only hope then was that I might be rescued by some larger vessel--and how I should get from the Wavecrest craft to another was beyond the power of my imaginings.

I could not be content to remain below--nor was that unnatural. Aside from the fear I had of the sloop's yawing and possibly turning turtle, and so imprisoning me in the cabin with no hope of escape therefrom, I felt that I should be more on the alert to seize any opportunity for escape were I at the tiller. So I carried a Mexican poncho which I wound to the stern, draped it about me over the oilskins, and with the sou'wester tied under my chin I could defy the rain, nor did the keen wind search my vitals.

But thus bundled up I would have stood little show had the sloop capsized. Afterward I realized that I might as well have remained in the cabin.

However, to sleep in either place, was impossible. Sometimes the rain beat down upon the decked over portion of the boat with the sound of a drumstick beaten upon taut calfskin. Again the wind blew in such sharp gusts that the rain seemed to be swept over the face of the sea and then, if I chanced to glance over my shoulder, the drops stung like hail.

Altogether I have never pa.s.sed a more uncomfortable night--perhaps never one during which I was in greater peril. The wind was shifting bit by bit, too. My compa.s.s told me that the Wavecrest was now being driven straight out to sea, instead of running parallel with the Ma.s.sachusetts coast as had been at first the fact.

How fast I was traveling I could not guess. There was a patent log aboard; but I did not rig it. Indeed, it was much safer to remain in the stern of the sloop than to move about at all. I knew we were traveling much faster than I had ever traveled by water before and I had something beside the speed of my involuntary voyage to think about.

It had not crossed my mind at the time, but when I had slipped out to the Wavecrest that evening, giving my mother and the servants the impression that I had gone to my room as usual, I had done a very foolish--if not wrong--thing. The sloop might not be the only craft in Bolderhead Harbor to break away from moorings and go on an involuntary cruise. Other wandering craft might not escape the rocks about the beach, as the Wavecrest had. It might be supposed that my sloop was among the wreckage that would be cast ash.o.r.e along our rocky coast, and my absence might not be connected with the disappearance of the sloop.

My mother and friends would not suspect the reason or cause for my absence. If I had taken a soul into my confidence, in the morning my mother would be informed immediately of my accident. Perhaps, after all, it was not a bad thing that some uncertainty must of necessity attach itself to my disappearance.

For although I had every reason to believe that Paul Downes had either nailed me into the cabin, or caused me to be nailed in, well knowing that I had gone aboard the sloop to sleep, I was equally confident that he would not tell of what he had done, or allow his companions to tell of the trick, either.

These, and similar hazy thoughts regarding my condition, shuttled back and forth through my brain during the long and anxious hours of that never-to-be-forgotten night. Sometimes, I presume, I lost myself and slept for a few minutes; but the hours dragged on so dismally, and I was so uncomfortable and anxious, that I am sure I could not have slept much of the time. And it did seem as though the east would never lighten for dawn.

At last it came, however; and then I liked the prospect less than the no prospect of the black night! All that it revealed to my aching eyes was a vast, vast expanse of empty, heaving drab sea, across which the gale hurried sheets of cold and biting rain--not a sign of land behind me--not a sail against the equally drab horizon. My sloop, under her bare, writhing pole, was scudding across this deserted ocean with no haven in sight and I was without hope of rescue.

CHAPTER X

IN WHICH I FIND A MOST REMARKABLE HAVEN

With the coming of daylight I would have tried to get some canvas on the Wavecrest--if only a rag of jib--had the gale not been so terrific. I doubted if, under a pocket-handkerchief of sail, I could have got her head around without swamping her.

And then, what better off would I have been? I could have made no progress beating against such a wind and it was better and safer to ride before it, no matter where I was blown. There was no land ahead of me save the sh.o.r.es of Spain--and Spain was a long way off.

At least, it was better to run while the sea remained in its present condition. As I have said, the waves were beaten flat by the savage wind. But, if there should come a lull in that, I knew well enough the sea would instantly leap into billows that would soon founder the little sloop if she could neither be got around to ride them, or could not keep ahead of them.

I lashed the tiller again--as I had twice during the night--and went below for coffee. I brought back some pilot crackers and a can of peaches that was among the stores I had bought in town the day before, and made a fairly satisfactory breakfast of the hard bread and fruit with a pint can of coffee. But I would not remain below any length of time now. It looked very much to me as though the clouds might break and the wind shift, or lull, at any moment.

Several hours pa.s.sed, however, and my watch (which I had not forgotten to wind) told me that it was fast approaching noon before any change came. Then the shrieking gale dropped suddenly and the gusts of rain ceased.

I leaped up at once to unfurl the jib. With a little canvas on her I believed the sloop could be wore 'round and headed into the wind before the waves sprang up. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have given her a hand's breath of the mainsail. However, before the bit of canvas bellied out and I had dashed back to the helm, the first wave broke over the stern of the sloop.

It was a deluge! I was waist deep in the foaming flood; the c.o.c.kpit was full; the sloop had already shipped about all the water that was good for her, and it was plain she was too water-logged to answer the helm promptly.

Up came a second wave. The lulling of the wind gave the waves a chance to gather force and height. This one curled fairly over my head and, looking up and over my shoulder at the great, green, foam-streaked wall of water, I thought my last minute above the surface had come!

It broke. I can remember nothing at all of the ensuing few moments. I only know that I was smothered, drowned, completely overwhelmed by the deluge of water that came inboard. The force of it burst open the slide of the hatch and barrels of water flooded into the cabin. The Wavecrest settled. If another wave as great had come inboard directly in the wake of this one, I am convinced that I would not be writing this record of my life.

As the wave pa.s.sed on, the keen whistle of the gale returned. I leaped up and staggered forward. I knew that unless I could get way upon the sodden craft she would very quickly plunge beneath the surface. I shook out the staysail as well as the jib, but dared not spread too much canvas to the wind which seemed about to swoop down again. These sails filled and the Wavecrest showed her mettle, sodden as she was with the enormous amount of water that had come inboard.

There was a deal of water awash in the c.o.c.kpit; therefore the shallow hold must have been full. And I knew there was plenty slopping about in the cabin, ruining everything. I rigged the little pump amidships and the pipe threw a full stream of bilge across the deck. And it wasn't bilge long, but came clear. Inboard came another wave--but not a large one this time--and I pumped harder than ever.

The Wavecrest was lumbering on too slowly to escape the following waves. In her then condition it would have been folly to seek to head her about. She would have rolled helplessly in the trough of the sea as sure as I tried it. But if she was going to sail before this wind and sea she must sail faster.

The gale was steadily increasing again, but it did not blow as hard as it had during the night and early morning. I ventured a little more canvas and although the mast and rigging strained loudly, nothing got away. The speed of the sloop was increased, especially so as I kept at the pump and got the hold clear.

Although the hungry billows still followed the Wavecrest little water came inboard for a time save the spindrift whipped from the crests of the waves. But with a sea running so high there was danger of swamping every moment. I dared not leave the helm for long; to go below at all was out of the question. I went without food all that day, thankful that I had managed to make a fairly hearty breakfast.

And all the time the wind blew steadily, the sea strove mightily, and the sloop scudded before both like a whipped pup. I would not like to say how fast she traveled, for I do not know; I was only certain that even in a racing wind I had never sailed so fast before.

I had become wet through to the bone. Neither the poncho nor the oilskins could keep me dry when the sea had broken over the sloop. And the wind was keen and searched me through and through. My teeth were a-chatter, the cold p.r.i.c.ked me like needles, and I was altogether very miserable indeed. Often had I been soaked to the skin while on a fishing venture; but there was the prospect of a hot drink and a warm fire ahead of me. There was nothing in the line of comfort before me now. The sea remained untenanted and the Wavecrest drove on as though she were enchanted.

Hour after hour dragged by. The sun did not appear; indeed, rain-gusts swept now and then across the sea. The waves were so steep that when the sloop plunged down the slope of one the rain swept on over my head and only rattled upon my sail. Ragged ma.s.ses of cloud swept across the sky.

In the distance it really seemed as though the waves leaped up and met these low-hung clouds.

And how I strained my eyes for some speck to give me hope of rescue!