The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" Part 19

A shapeless object upon the floor of the cabin, indistinctly seen in the semi-darkness which pervaded the place, proved to be the mate, lying just as he had been carelessly flung in there, hours before, with his wrists and heels lashed together behind his back. The poor fellow was in a dreadful state, having lain there all those hours in excruciating agony from the cruel pressure of the lashings about his limbs, which, with brutal carelessness, had been drawn so tight as to have completely stopped the circulation of the blood in his extremities. His limbs were now swollen almost out of recognition; he had bitten his lower lip right through in the extremity of his torment; his beard was drenched with b.l.o.o.d.y foam; and our efforts to release him occasioned him such exquisite agony that he fainted under our hands. A sharp knife, however, speedily freed him from his bonds, after which Joe and I gently chafed his swollen wrists and ankles until the circulation of the blood was restored; but it was nearly an hour before the poor fellow was able to move with any degree of freedom.

At length, however, he p.r.o.nounced himself ready for action; when, going on deck, and arming ourselves with a heavy bra.s.s belaying-pin each, the three of us proceeded forward, resolutely determined to stand no nonsense whatever from anybody who should presume to interfere with us.

It was, therefore, a distinctly unfortunate circ.u.mstance for Rogers that he should, a moment or two previously, have awakened from his drunken sleep and staggered to his feet with, apparently, some confused notion of taking a look round the ship and a.s.suring himself that all was right; for, coming face to face with Forbes and _Joe_ as they rounded the corner of the galley, he was promptly felled by the latter with a blow from a belaying-pin that must have caused him discomfort for many a day afterwards, while its immediate effect was to stretch him out upon the deck senseless and bleeding. The sound of his fall disturbed one or two of the rest--all of whom were sprawled out inertly upon the foredeck, in the midst of empty and overturned bottles and pannikins--just sufficiently to cause them to raise their heads and grumble out a few unintelligible words; but we had no difficulty whatever with them, and in less than half an hour we had the whole of them securely bound, hand and foot, and lying at our mercy. Having reduced them to this condition, and disarmed them, we distributed them about the deck fore and aft, lashing each man separately to a ringbolt, cleat, or other convenient mooring in such a way that no man might be within another's reach--for I had heard before now of men releasing each other by working at the lashings with their teeth--and then left them to recover their sober senses at their leisure, while we busied ourselves about other matters.

Our first act was to lower the port quarter-boat, get into her, and pull ash.o.r.e to the creek, where we found Sir Edgar and his party pretty much as I had left them; he and Miss Merrivale being the only two still awake. Our arrival was greeted with a shout of delight from the baronet that effectually awoke the sleepers; and the whole party quickly tumbled into the boat, Sir Edgar and Lady Emily vying with each other in the heartiness of their congratulations at our success and the eagerness with which they asked for details of the adventure. Miss Merrivale, on the contrary, was strangely silent, contenting herself with a warm clasp of the hand at the moment of our reunion; and presently, when we had shoved off again for the ship, I noticed that she was furtively crying.

I concluded that the reaction from the long hours of suspense that she had just pa.s.sed through had proved rather too much for her nerves, and so prudently appeared to take no notice whatever of her little break-down. We soon reached the ship, and, upon my solemn a.s.surance that they might do so with absolute safety, the rescued party at once retired below to their respective cabins; Miss Merrivale only lingering behind for a moment to say--

"I have no words to express how glad and thankful I am that you have been successful in your hazardous enterprise. You are a brave man, as well as a--But,"--with a sudden, merry smile, "I will not say more, lest I make you vain. Good night!"

I was beginning to feel a bit puzzled at this young lady's manner, which seemed to have undergone a subtle, indescribable change within the last twelve hours that was as incomprehensible as it was pleasant. It was just then, however, scarcely a suitable moment for speculation upon such an inscrutable subject as the deportment of a lovely and charming woman to a simple sailor like myself; so I dismissed the matter from my mind and turned to the consideration of other subjects, less agreeable, but calling more imperatively for my immediate attention.

The first thing was to summon Forbes and Joe to a council of war for discussion of the question what was to be done with the mutineers.

There were some of them that it would be obviously impossible to retain on board the ship with the least chance of safety to ourselves; but I scarcely believed they could all be equally bad, and I was in hopes that, upon consultation with Joe, I should learn that we might trust a sufficient number of them to enable us to make the voyage to Valparaiso in safety, where I thought it probable I might be able to pick up an entire new crew, without very much difficulty. On submitting the question to him, however, Joe gave it as his very decided opinion that there were only three out of the eleven mutineers whom it would be in the least degree prudent to trust; those three being the negro, the Swede, and Barr, one of the Americans. These three we accordingly gave the benefit of the doubt, for the moment; and, that point settled, we next proceeded to draw up a list of such articles as we deemed absolutely necessary to the welfare of the men whose conduct had rendered it imperative that we should maroon them.

After some consideration, the contents of this list resolved themselves into: each man's personal effects in their entirety, including weapons and ammunition, the latter, however, to be securely screwed up in a stout wooden case, so that it might not be got at and used against us whilst effecting the transfer of the mutineers to the sh.o.r.e; a saw, hammer, chisel, and an a.s.sortment of nails; half a dozen barrels of beef, and the same of bread; a half-chest of tea, a few pounds of coffee, and some sugar; a c.o.c.k and three hens; some cooking utensils; a little crockery; matches; and an old main-course; which, with the axes, shovels, picks, rope, blocks, and spars used in securing the treasure, and which still remained on sh.o.r.e, ought, we considered, to furnish them with the means to make themselves fairly comfortable until they should be taken off. This important matter decided, the next thing was to get everything up and pa.s.sed into the boat--a task which fully occupied us until daylight; by which time the effects of the carouse showed signs of pa.s.sing off, and the men began to awake in a measure to a consciousness of their situation. A few of them--Rogers, Moore, and O'Connor especially--gave vent to their indignation and disgust in a continuous flood of the vilest language, mingled with blood-curdling threats of the vengeance that they would wreak upon us some time in the future; but the rest accepted their impending fate with sullen stoicism. We, meanwhile, comfortably conscious that, for the present at least, they were utterly powerless to fulfil any of their threats, or otherwise work us any evil, went composedly on with our work; first conveying to and landing all the baggage on the sandy beach of the creek, and then ferrying the marooned men ash.o.r.e, with their hands securely lashed behind them. We had determined to land only eight of them; and when this had been done, and we were all ready to leave them, we cut the bonds of the last man ash.o.r.e, and left him to free his companions at leisure, thus effectually insuring ourselves against any trouble from the marooned party at the last moment. Then, having shouted to them a parting promise that we would make known the fact of their presence on the island to the first British man-o'-war we met with, together with the cause of their being left there, we paddled quietly on board again, and set to work to provide ourselves with a much-needed breakfast.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A PACIFIC HURRICANE.

Our meal over, the three remaining prisoners were released, and offered their choice between being landed on the island to join the other men, and returning to duty. I reminded them that their conduct in having aided and abetted the more active among the mutineers to seize the ship rendered them guilty of the crime of piracy--a crime punishable with death--and that it still remained with me to clap them in irons, if I pleased, and keep them prisoners until an opportunity should arrive to hand them over to justice, charged with that offence. I added that as it appeared, however, that they, the three men in question, seemed only to have pa.s.sively consented to the deed of the others, I had no desire to be severe with them; I was anxious rather to give them an opportunity of retrieving their character; and would willingly do so could I but feel a.s.sured that, separated as they would be from their more guilty comrades, they would henceforward serve me faithfully, I said that if they were prepared to do this, I, on my part, was willing to forgive them their share in the mutiny, and to treat them as though the incident had never occurred. I warned them, however, that unless they were fully prepared, not only to solemnly pledge themselves to fidelity, but also to faithfully fulfil that pledge, it would be infinitely better for them to elect to be landed on the island to take their chance with the rest; for I a.s.sured them that, should they take the pledge of fidelity, and afterwards break it, I would, upon the first symptom of insubordination, clap them in irons and hand them over to the authorities, as pirates, at the first port we might happen to touch. This address had precisely the effect upon the fellows that I desired; the mention of the word "piracy," and the reminder of the penalty due to that crime, thoroughly frightened them; while my promise, on the other hand, of forgiveness as the reward for faithful service in the future, had all the rea.s.suring influence that I intended it to have; and upon the conclusion of my lecture, they with one accord begged my pardon for what had already happened, and most fervently promised that I should have no cause of complaint against them in the future.

This important matter settled thus far to my satisfaction, I sent Barr and Christianssen aloft to loose the fore-topsail and topgallantsail, while Joe and the negro performed a similar duty on the mainmast, both parties receiving instructions to cast off the lashings from the staysails on their way down. While this was doing, Forbes lay out upon the jib-boom and loosed the jib and fore-topmast staysail, I busying myself, meanwhile, in casting loose the mizzen. Presently, Joe hailed from aloft that the men on sh.o.r.e had made their appearance on the beach; and, upon looking in that direction, I saw the whole party of them gathered there, close to the water's edge, intently watching our movements. Just then Sir Edgar made his appearance on deck, and, with a cheery "good morning," laughingly declared that he intended to ship for the voyage to the nearest port as an "honorary seaman," and was ready to enter upon his duties at once. I, of course, thanked him for this kind proffer of his services, a.s.suring him that, short-handed as we were, it would be in his power to render us invaluable a.s.sistance; and, the hands at that moment coming down from aloft, we sheeted home the topsails, and got the yards to the mastheads.

Nothing now remained but to loose our hold upon the ground, and make a start. This we could, of course, at once do by simply slipping the cable; but an anchor is altogether too useful an article to be needlessly thrown away. Many a good ship has driven ash.o.r.e and gone to pieces for want of an anchor that has been slipped and not replaced; I was, therefore, very much averse to slipping in the present instance without at least _trying_ to get the anchor. On putting the question to the others, Forbes had no doubt of our ability to do it, while the rest expressed their perfect readiness to try; we accordingly manned the windla.s.s, and--San Domingo starting a lively "shanty"--walked the barque up to her anchor almost without an effort. Having got the cable "up and down," we next ran up the fore-topmast staysail, and then went to the fore-braces and trimmed the head-yards for casting the ship to starboard. Just then, and in the very nick of time, Miss Merrivale came on deck, looking as bright and radiant as the morning itself; and I at once impressed her as helmswoman, stationing her at the wheel, and briefly explaining how she was to act upon the receipt of certain signals from me. She seemed quite proud at the idea that she could be really useful, and took her station at the wheel with a heightened colour and sparkling eyes, which, with her spotless white dress, trimmed with dainty lace and light-blue ribbons, her broad-brimmed hat set jauntily upon the heavy coils of her dusky golden hair, and casting a delicate shadow upon her lovely face, her hands and arms encased in long loose gloves, and her delicate feet shod in small brown shoes, made her, to my mind, the sweetest, loveliest picture that my eyes had ever rested upon. So irresistibly charming, indeed, did she look, that I with difficulty forebore from telling her so, plump and plain; and so, to avoid the committal of such an impertinence, was constrained to rush for'ard and add my weight to that of the others at the windla.s.s handles in their efforts to break out the anchor. Fortunately for us, our windla.s.s was an exceptionally good and powerful one; but, on the other hand, the holding-ground proved to be exceptionally tenacious; and, for a long five minutes, the cable stood straight up and down, rigid as a solid bar, defying our utmost efforts to get so much as a single additional pawl. Then an opportune puff, with a little more weight in it than the soft breathing off the land that had hitherto reached us, struck the broad expanses of our topsails, and, with a sudden jerk, the ground broke away and the anchor came home.

"Hurrah, lads! she's away; heave, for your lives; heave, and raise the dead!" vociferated Forbes.

The windla.s.s pawls clanked merrily, the chain came rattling in through the hawse-pipe, and the ship, gathering stern-way, began to pay off with her head to seaward. At the right moment I signed to Miss Merrivale to put the wheel hard up, while Forbes and I sprang aft to the braces and swung the yards; the ship halted, hung stationary for a moment, and then, gathering headway, gradually swept round until we had brought the island upon our starboard beam and were gliding along under the lee of its western sh.o.r.e. Our new voyage had begun.

The marooned men had all this time been intently watching our movements from the beach; and, from their excited actions and the way in which they closed up in a circle when they saw our canvas drop from the yards, it was apparent that they were engaged in a heated discussion of some kind. Presently, when they saw us man the windla.s.s and heard the clink of its pawls, I observed O'Connor break from the conclave, dash his cap down upon the sand, and somewhat hesitatingly enter the water, as though about attempting to swim off to us. Whereupon, I sprang upon the rail, and, putting the whole power of my lungs into the shout, hailed him to go back, as there were sharks in the bay. I had to repeat this warning two or three times, however, before he seemed willing to heed it; and it was not in fact until the anchor was broken out of the ground and the ship was seen to be canting to seaward that he turned back and rejoined his companions. When we last saw them they were still standing upon the beach, watching our departure, and shouting to us with gestures that were eloquent of threats and curses, though we were too far distant to catch the words that they hurled after us.

Meanwhile, during the progress of these operations I had been taking counsel with myself as to the most desirable course to pursue under the circ.u.mstances in which we found ourselves. My original intention had been to proceed to Valparaiso in quest of a crew, but that intention had been arrived at under the impression that it would be necessary only to leave three or four men behind us on the island. Joe's opinion upon the matter had, however, altered all this, and had necessitated our going to sea with a crew of only seven men, including Sir Edgar, whose a.s.sistance I felt we could only claim under circ.u.mstances of exceptional necessity.

This reduced us to two watches of three men each, who might indeed suffice to handle the ship under easy canvas and during fine weather, but who could do very little with her should we happen to fall in with a heavy gale, or, still worse, a downright Pacific hurricane. Then, too, the prevailing winds in that part of the world are easterly; which placed Valparaiso well to windward, and rendered it even more difficult to fetch than San Francisco. The latter port, however, I had no desire whatever to visit under the circ.u.mstances, with such a precious cargo on board, and three men at least whose tongues it would be impossible to bridle. By the time, therefore, that the ship was fairly under way, I had come to the conclusion that my best plan would be to make for the Sandwich Islands, which were only some sixteen hundred and fifty miles distant, in a north-westerly direction, and might therefore be easily reached in a fortnight, if all went well with us. An important advantage attaching to this plan was that Honolulu, if it did not lie directly in my road to China, was nearer it than any other port, and I still considered it very essential that, in order to avoid inconvenient questions, I should take home a cargo of some sort, which might as well be tea as anything else; and although I had never visited the Sandwich Islands, I thought it probable I should there be able to pick up at least a sufficient number of men to carry us comfortably to the Canton river. As soon, therefore, as we were fairly clear of the island I set the course for the island of Oahu; the wind being at the time a four-knot breeze, well over the starboard quarter. This done, I relieved Miss Merrivale at the wheel, leaving Forbes and the other four men to continue at leisure the operation of making sail.

Meanwhile the question had arisen, "How was the cooking to be done?" and the natural reply to this seemed to be, "Set the darkie to do it." This would have been all very well but for my pa.s.sengers, who, it occurred to me, might possibly have a prejudice against having their food handled by a black man. I therefore laid the matter before Sir Edgar, who immediately consulted with his wife; and the ultimate result was that one of the maids very good-naturedly undertook the work, with San Domingo as cook's mate, to do all the dirty work, while the other maid volunteered as steward. I was greatly distressed in my mind lest all these inconveniences should prove a serious annoyance to my good friends in the saloon; but on mentioning the matter to Lady Emily, she quickly and kindly rea.s.sured me by declaring that they looked upon the whole thing in the light of an adventure or experience of a novel kind to be made the most of.

"Besides," she added, "a little inconvenience and privation will do us good by teaching us to appreciate our comforts more nearly at their proper value when we get them again."

The weather looked fine, and the barometer stood high; I therefore had no hesitation whatever about packing sail upon the ship; and as everybody worked with a will, it came to pa.s.s that by noon we had not only got our anchor secured, but had also clothed the ship with every st.i.tch of plain sail, from the royals down. Forbes was not satisfied even with that, and would have gone on to studding-sails; but I considered enough to be as good as a feast. Studding-sails are rather ungainly things to handle in a quickly freshening breeze, if one happens to be at all short-handed. I therefore determined to have nothing to do with them--the more resolutely that, as we drew away from the island, the breeze strengthened until we were reeling off our nine knots by the log.

This exceedingly satisfactory state of affairs prevailed for exactly forty hours from noon of the day upon which we left the island; the breeze remaining so steady and true that we were not called upon to touch tack, sheet, or halliard during the whole time. There was nothing, in fact, to do but simply to steer the ship; and we were already beginning to flatter ourselves that we were not only to be favoured with a pleasant pa.s.sage, but that we were going to accomplish it in about half the time that I had allotted to it. Such a magnificent opportunity was not to be wasted; and I accordingly took advantage of it to have the ballast cleared away right in midships, and the gold and silver stowed there equally on each side of the keelson, and carefully concealed with matting and a quant.i.ty of dunnage; after which the ballast was trimmed back over it and everything left shipshape against the time of our arrival in port.

In hoping for a sufficiently long continuance of fine weather to carry us without break or interruption to Honolulu, however, we were reckoning without our host; for about four o'clock in the morning of our second day out, the wind began to fail us, and by eight o'clock it had fallen to a stark, gla.s.sy calm. There had been but a moderate amount of sea running, and this soon went down, leaving only a long, oily swell, upon which the ship rolled with a quick, jerky, uneasy movement. The sun rose clear and brilliant, with every promise of a fine and scorchingly hot day; but when I went on deck after breakfast to take my sights for the longitude, I noticed that the sky had lost much of its brilliant colouring, while the sun hung in it a white, shapeless blotch, instead of the dazzling orb that had risen a few hours before. This, of course, might mean nothing worse than heat; but when I went below shortly afterwards to work out my sights, I saw that the mercury had fallen a little. This, too, might only mean heat, with possibly a smart thunderstorm a little later on in the day; but, short-handed as we were, I deemed it best to be on the safe side; and accordingly, having worked out my sights, I returned to the deck, and all hands of us went to work upon the canvas, clewing up and hauling down all our lighter sails, until we had stripped the ship to topsails, courses, fore-topmast staysail, jib, and mizzen. At this stage of the proceedings another glance at the barometer showed that the mercury was still shrinking in the tube, while the atmosphere had a.s.sumed a hazy appearance that rendered it difficult to distinguish the horizon. There could no longer be any doubt that a change of weather was impending, although there was nothing at present to indicate very precisely what the character of the change was to be. We therefore went aloft, three of us on the foremast, and three on the main, and beginning with the royals and working downward, snugly stowed everything that we had previously hauled down.

It was whilst we were thus engaged that an increasing uneasiness in the motion of the ship first became apparent; and looking about us for the cause, we became aware of the fact that a cross swell had begun to gather, and was slowly creeping down to us from the north-west--the sure precursor, Forbes affirmed, of a stiff blow from that quarter. In this opinion I fully agreed; still there was at that moment nothing of a menacing character in the aspect of the sky, beyond an increasing thickness of the atmosphere; and I was therefore hopeful that we should have a sufficiency of time given us to complete our preparations for the worst that could happen, before it came upon us.

The furling of the light canvas was neither a very long nor a very laborious job, and in less than an hour we were all once more on deck.

The north-westerly swell had by this time gathered sufficient weight to render itself distinctly perceptible even to the eye, and, the ship having swung round broadside-on to it, she was rolling in a fashion that set all the trusses, parrels, and bulkheads creaking, the yards jerking, the patent block-sheaves squeaking, the heavy canvas flapping, the reef-points pattering, the cabin-doors rattling, and the wheel-chains clanking, so that, with the heavy wash of water along the bends and under the counter, and an occasional clatter of crockery in the pantry, quite a small Babel of sound was raised about us. The motion of the ship, however, though more violent, was not so awkward and uncomfortable as it had been, doubtless in consequence of the young swell killing the old; and still there was no sign whatever of an immediate breeze. But another look at the barometer showed that the mercury was still falling, and now at a more rapid rate. Fully convinced, therefore, that something rather more serious than a mere thunder-squall was brewing, we now went to work with a will, and, having first furled the mizzen, hauled up the courses and stowed them, leaving the ship with nothing showing but her two topsails and the fore-topmast staysail, which--as our topsails were patent-reefing--left us practically prepared for almost anything that might happen.

The haze had by this time thickened overhead to such an extent that the sun showed in it as a mere white, rayless disc, the light of which seemed to be gradually dying out; and by the time that noon had arrived the atmosphere had become so obscure that the horizon was no longer distinguishable, and I, therefore, lost my observation for the lat.i.tude.

At one o'clock, when our neat stewardess summoned me below to luncheon, the mercury was still sinking, which, with the slow progress of the change that was taking place, a.s.sured me that when the outburst came, it would be something a little out of the common. Luckily, we had plenty of sea-room, and a thoroughly staunch little ship under our feet; I therefore looked forward to the impending conflict with tolerable equanimity.

At length, just as I had completed my hasty lunch, there occurred a sudden but perceptible darkening of the atmosphere which seemed to indicate that the expected change was now imminent, and, springing up the companion-way to the deck, I found a most extraordinary scene awaiting me. The thickness that had hitherto pervaded the atmosphere had vanished, as if by magic, leaving the air astonishingly clear and transparent right to the boundary of the horizon, and revealing a vast expanse of dense, livid, purple-grey cloud, which had overspread the north-western half of the heavens, and was at the precise moment pa.s.sing over and shutting out the sun from view. The edge of the cloud was as straight and sharply defined as though it had been trimmed with a knife, and it divided the firmament into two almost equal portions, the larger of which was a beautiful expanse of clear, serene, unclouded blue; while the other hung livid and threatening above us, with the promise of a raving tornado lurking within its black bosom. Immediately overhead the colour of this immense cloud curtain was a cold, slaty blue, from whence, as the eye travelled down its expanse toward the north-western horizon, the hue became darker until where it met the water it was as black as night; while, underneath it, the sea undulated restlessly, with the writhings of an angry serpent, showing a surface as l.u.s.treless and of the same colour as molten lead. Low down in the bosom of the cloud could be seen occasional palpitating quiverings, as though the fires within it were striving to burst their way through, and presently, quite at the horizon, a flash of lightning sparked vividly out of it.

"Are the topsail halliards all ready for running, Mr Forbes?" said I.

"All ready, sir," was the reply; and, turning away, the mate walked quietly forward, throwing the falls off the pins on his way.

A minute later I heard him telling Joe to stand by the fore-topsail halliards, and the rest of the men to lay aft to the braces, following them along the deck and stationing himself at the main-topsail halliards in readiness to let them run. At this moment Sir Edgar, with the two ladies and the children, came on deck and looked round with startled eyes upon the portentous scene; but, upon my earnest recommendation, the youngsters were at once sent below again, the ladies holding themselves in readiness to follow at a moment's notice. Sir Edgar, however, announced his determination to remain on deck, upon the chance of his becoming useful; upon which, Lady Emily, without saying a word, went below and brought up on deck not only her husband's, but also my own mackintosh coat--a little piece of thoughtful consideration for which I was deeply grateful, since the aspect of the weather was now such that I dared not leave the deck for a single instant.

Slowly the great cloud worked its insidious way athwart the heavens until nearly three-fourths of the firmament was obscured, yet still there was not air enough to have extinguished a burning match. Then, while the barque was lying helpless, with her head pointing directly toward the quarter from which we expected the outfly, a white mist suddenly appeared ahead, sweeping down upon us with the speed of an express train, its course along the water indicated by a long line of continuous white.

"Here comes the rain, at last!" exclaimed Forbes, turning to me and pointing ahead with one hand, as he grasped the fall of the main-topsail halliards with the other.

"Ay, and the wind with it," I answered him, as I sprang to the wheel and whirled it hard over.

"Let go your topsail halliards! Away below, ladies, for your lives; the gale will be upon us in less than a minute. Lay aft here, some of you, and round-in upon the larboard fore-braces! Mr Forbes, get the starboard fore-topmast staysail sheets aft and well belayed, if you please. Whew! here it is; hold on, everybody!"

The rain seemed to reach us a single instant ahead of the wind, dashing vertically down upon us, for just that brief period, not in drops, but in an overwhelming deluge that I verily believe must have drowned us had it lasted; then, as the hurricane reached us in a deafening medley of sound, the sheets of water were caught and swept horizontally along with a force that it was literally impossible to face without the risk of being blinded, while the barque gathered stern-way until the water was piled up level with her taffrail, and for a few breathless seconds I was firmly convinced that it would end in our foundering, stern-foremost.

The good little ship was paying off all the time, however, and presently she had swept round until we had it fairly abeam, when she laid down to it until her lee lower yardarms were dipping in the water. Then, signing to the men at the braces to haul round the head-yards, I waited until she had lost her stern-way, when I shifted the helm, putting it hard up, and she began to draw slowly ahead. The danger was now practically over, for the ship continued to pay off, and presently she righted with a sudden jerk, and went foaming away before it, with the white froth level with her hawse-pipes.

The rain was by this time over, and while all was still thick as a hedge ahead and to leeward of us, the atmosphere astern was clear, save for the spindrift and scud-water with which it was heavily loaded along the water surface. The first mad fury of the outfly was past; but, even so, it was blowing harder than I had ever seen it blow before; so hard, indeed, that I wondered at the brave way in which the close-reefed topsails withstood the tremendous strain and drag of the ship upon them.

So great was this strain that I began to entertain very serious fears for the masts; and, now that it was too late, deeply regretted that I had not stripped the ship entirely bare and faced the outfly under bare poles; and it would have been a positive relief to me to have seen both topsails go flying out of the boltropes. They still held on, however; and a little later, when Forbes, having at my request gone the round of the chain-plates, and subjected them to a careful examination, reported that he could see no sign of any of the bolts drawing, I began to hope that, after all, we might pull through without any very serious damage, especially as Joe almost immediately afterwards sounded the pumps and reported that everything was right below.

We had been scudding for about an hour when the sea began to rise, and by five o'clock in the afternoon there was a very high, steep sea following us, which I foresaw would soon become dangerous. I therefore determined to watch for an opportunity, and, if possible, heave the ship to before dark. As a preliminary to this manoeuvre. I ordered the fore-topmast staysail to be hauled down; and this having been accomplished without damage to the sail, two of the men--Barr and the Swede--lay out upon the bowsprit to stow it, under the direction of the mate. This, at the moment that the order was given, seemed a perfectly simple affair, and entirely free from danger; it unfortunately happened, however--just at the moment when the sail had been made secure and the men were on the point of laying in again, as Forbes subsequently informed me--that an unusually heavy sea overtook us and, catching the barque under her counter, raised her stern high in the air, slightly p.o.o.ping us, while it buried her bows and bowsprit deep in the water.

Standing at the wheel, I saw what was about to happen, and was in the very act of shouting a warning to the men to hold on, when the sea curled in over the taffrail, completely burying me for the moment; and when, a few seconds later, I was able to clear my eyes of water, both men _had vanished_, and Forbes was running aft, crying out to me that they were overboard. I looked astern, but could see nothing of either of them; nor, in the increasingly perilous situation of the ship, dared I leave the wheel even for the brief s.p.a.ce of time requisite to cut adrift and throw overboard a life-buoy. Forbes, however, dashed aft and did this with most commendable prompt.i.tude; after which he, with the a.s.sistance of Joe and San Domingo, lost not a moment in counter-bracing the yards, when we successfully brought the ship to on the larboard tack, with her fore-topsail aback. This done, and with Joe at the wheel, Forbes and I clambered into the maintop and peered long into the fast gathering gloom, in the faint hope that even yet we might catch sight of one or both of the missing men, and be able to do something to save them; but we never saw either of them again.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

IN DIRE EXTREMITY.

The sudden loss of these two men was not only a terrible shock to us all, it was also a cruel misfortune; for, exclusive of Sir Edgar, it left only four of us to handle the ship. It is true that we were now as snug as it was possible to be, and in a condition to face almost anything that might befall us in the shape of weather; but when it again came to a question of making sail, or, still worse, being obliged to once more shorten sail, perhaps in a hurry, there would be a good deal of heavy labour, all to be done by four, or at most five men. It was, however, one of those deplorable accidents that are incidental to the life of a seaman; and, having in the mean time done all that was possible for the safety of the ship, it was useless to meet our troubles half way, and I therefore arranged that during the continuance of the gale, while there would be really nothing to do but to keep an eye upon the ship, the regular watches should be taken by the four of us in rotation, one at a time, which would thus allow the others plenty of time for rest against the moment when the utmost exertions of all would be once more demanded.

It was now drawing on toward six o'clock, and the aspect of the coming night was very threatening. The sky was completely overspread with a vast unbroken curtain of inky cloud, torn and shredded into a countless host of ragged, fantastic shapes that came rushing up from the northward and westward at headlong speed before the breath of the raving gale, while the air was thick and salt with the ceaseless pelting of the brine torn from the wave-crests, and swept along in a drenching, pitiless rain by the mad fury of the wind. The sea was rising fast, and already presented a formidable and threatening aspect as the towering liquid hills swept successively down upon the ship, froth-laced, and each capped by a hissing, roaring crest of milky foam that reared itself nearly to the height of our foretop over the weather-bow--so steep was it--ere the barque rose to and surmounted it in a smothering deluge of spray. Yet we were doing well; for although, under the tremendous pressure of the wind upon her two close-reefed topsails, the ship was heeled to her covering-board, while in some of her wild lee rolls she careened until her topgallant rail was awash and it became impossible to maintain one's footing on the deck without holding on to something, she looked well up into the wind, and rode the boiling fury of the sea as buoyantly as a cork. Her foredeck, it is true, from the knight-heads to well abaft the galley, was streaming with the water that incessantly poured over her weather-bow in a torrent of spray; but abaft that the decks would have been dry but for the drenching spindrift.

The darkness fell upon us with a suddenness that was almost startling.

I had been for some time--ever since we had hove-to, _in fact_--narrowly watching the ship to see how she met the seas; but at length, finding that she was taking care of herself, I ordered Joe to lash the wheel, and gave him permission to go below and join the others at supper in the forecastle. Before finally releasing him, however, and a.s.suming my solitary watch, I thought I would have another look at the mercury. I accordingly went below into the saloon, where the lamps were already lighted, glanced at the barometer and saw that the mercury was now stationary, chatted for a minute or two with the occupants of the apartment, and then went on deck again. When I left the deck a few minutes before, the horizon and the forms of the flying clouds were clearly distinguishable; but now, when I returned to it again, the blackness of impenetrable darkness was all round about me, relieved only by the ghostly light of the pale seafire in the foaming wave-crests, and in the tiny stars of phosph.o.r.escent light that went careering to leeward across the deck with every lee roll of the ship. It was a weird and awe-inspiring sensation to stand there in the blackness upon the wildly heaving deck, and watch the irresistible, menacing onrush upon the ship of those furious mountain surges, capped with ghostly green fire, with the deafening shriek and din of the gale in the unseen rigging overhead resounding in one's ears--a sensation well calculated to bring home to a man his own nothingness in presence of the power and majesty of Him Who causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; Who maketh lightnings for the rain; Who bringeth forth the wind out of His treasuries; Who hath His way in the whirlwind and the storm; Who holdeth the sea in the hollow of His hand. And this feeling was in nowise lessened--nay, it was rather intensified--by the thrill of exultation I experienced at the reflection that man, puny as is his strength compared with the mighty forces of Nature, has been endowed by his Creator with an intellect capable of devising and framing a structure so subtly moulded and so strongly put together, that it is able to face and triumphantly survive such a mad fury of wind and sea as then raged around me.

Throughout the greater part of that night the gale continued to blow with unabated fury; but about three o'clock on the following morning a rapid rise of the barometer commenced, and some two hours later a single star twinkling brightly for a moment through a small rift in the hitherto unbroken cloud-rack overhead gave welcome a.s.surance that the worst of the weather was now over--an a.s.surance which was shortly afterward strengthened by a slight but unmistakable decrease in the violence of the wind. Then a few more stars beamed mildly down upon us for brief but lengthening intervals; and finally, about half an hour before the time of sunrise, the great pall of cloud broke up into squadrons of tattered streamers speeding swiftly athwart the sky, which, away down in the eastern quarter, was rapidly paling before the dawn.

Anon the pallor became tinged with a chilly hue of yellow, against which the mountainous sea reared itself in vast sharply defined ridges of blackest indigo, paling, as the eye travelled round the horizon toward the western quarter, into a deep blue-grey, capped with lofty, curling crests of pallid foam. Quickly the cold yellow along the eastern horizon became flushed with streaks of angry red; the flying squadrons of rent grey cloud became fringed along their lower edges with dyes of purple and crimson; and presently the upper rim of the sun's disc, copper-hued and fiery, gleamed through the flying rack low down upon the horizon, flashing a cheerless ray of angry orange across the mountain waste of waters, changing it into a heaving, turbulent surface of sickly olive-green.

It was as dreary, cheerless a sunrise, I think, as I had ever seen. The air, still full of spindrift, was, despite our position only a few degrees north of the Line, chill enough to set one shuddering; the maindeck was all awash with the water that flew incessantly over the weather-bow and poured aft with the heaving of the ship, breaking into miniature cascades among the booms lashed in the waist, and over the lengths of cable stretched along the decks from the windla.s.s to the chain-locker, swirling round the pumps and the foot of the mainmast, and gurgling and sobbing in the lee scuppers; the weather bulwarks were streaming with water; even the topsails were dark with wet: miniature showers were blowing away to leeward off the top of the galley and forward deck-house; and the few dry spots that were to be found here and there about the decks in sheltered places were white with encrusted salt. It was still blowing heavily; the ship was plunging furiously, and rolling so wildly that it was impossible to maintain one's footing without clinging to something; the continuous raving of the wind among the maze of spars and rigging, especially when the ship rolled to windward, was most depressing to listen to; and the appalling proportions of the vast liquid mountain ranges that, with dreary, persistent, remorseless monotony, came sweeping down upon us from the northward and westward, piling their hissing crests high around us, completed a picture which, for dreary sublimity, I had never seen equalled.

I was tired, and wet, and cold; for, notwithstanding our arrangement of the watches, I had been on deck, off and on, the whole night. I was not sorry, therefore, when Forbes came on deck to relieve me at eight o'clock, thus affording me an opportunity to shift into dry clothes before sitting down to breakfast. We were rather a small company that morning, Sir Edgar and Miss Merrivale being the only members of the saloon party who felt equal to the putting in of an appearance; and after breakfast I was obliged--rather unwillingly, I confess--to go on deck again to secure an observation of the sun, which observation, when worked out, showed that we were nearly thirty miles to the eastward of our proper position. This ascertained, I retired to my cabin, and, flinging myself upon the bunk, "all standing," instantly sank into a dreamless, refreshing sleep.