The Secret of the Sands Part 5

We now felt the full strength of the breeze, and I was somewhat alarmed to find how fresh it was blowing. But we were as stiff as a house, and could have carried half as much sail again, had there been more to set.

We lowered our centre-board just before hauling up, and now we found ourselves tearing along in a manner which perfectly astounded me.

Our long, slender, pointed tubes appeared to offer no resistance whatever to our pa.s.sage through the water. The motion was delightfully easy and gentle, the tubes piercing the body of each wave, as it rolled towards us, without the slightest shock, and lifting us gently and easily over the cap of it just as it seemed upon the point of coming in upon our deck. There was not an atom of spray; we were as dry going to windward as when running free.

With the _Emerald_ it was very different. Her huge mainsail was almost too much for her now that she was hauled close upon a wind; and as we looked astern, we could see her taking plunge after plunge, and sending her sharp bows clear through the seas at every dive, until her jib and foresail were wet half way up to their heads, whilst her lee-rail was completely buried in the boiling surge.

Now that we were close-hauled, the _Emerald_ walked up to us, though by no means so rapidly as might have been expected. There was no comparison between the powers of the two craft, yet, though we certainly dropped to leeward a little more than she did, it was _only_ a little; and the difference in our speeds was very trifling, considering the great difference in size between the cutter and ourselves.

About a quarter of an hour after we rounded the light-ship, the _Emerald_ pa.s.sed us close to windward. She presented a most beautiful sight, at least to a nautical eye, as she swept by. She was heeling over to such an extent that the water was up over her deck, on the lee side, nearly to the skylights and companion; and her immense sails were driving her so irresistibly through the short, jumping seas, that she had no time to rise to each as she met it. Her bowsprit plunged deeply into the advancing wave, her sharp bows cleft it asunder, and then, as they rose through it, amidst a blinding shower of spray, the water shipped forward, rushed foaming aft and to leeward like a swollen mountain torrent, until it mingled with the water which flooded her decks to leeward.

As soon as she was past us, her crew hauled down a couple of reefs in her mainsail, and set a smaller jib. This, of course, relieved her very materially, and, if anything, rather increased than diminished her speed, as she kept sailing round and round us with ease, until we were well over towards Weymouth Roads once more, and it had become perfectly evident that we needed no looking after.

As soon as he was quite satisfied of this, Lord--made the best of his way to the anchorage, and brought up, having had such a dusting as ought to have satisfied him for some time to come.

As for Bob and myself, we were as pleased with our novel boat as it was possible to be. She proved to be a perfect success in every way; and when we took the tubes to pieces to stow them away, we found that, so accurately had the joints been made, that not a drop of water had penetrated to the interior of either.

One alteration, however, we resolved to make, and that was in the size of the sails. The boat was stiff enough to carry much larger sails than we had provided for her; and as we did not know but that a time _might_ come when speed would be a matter of the most vital importance to us, we determined to furnish her with sails as large as it was prudent to carry.

We also decided to alter her rig somewhat, by subst.i.tuting what is known among the initiated as a "sliding gunter" for a gaff-mainsail. This gives you a mainsail and jib-headed topsail in one, whilst it does away with the gaff altogether, whereby you obtain a much flatter standing sail; indeed, when this sail is properly cut (and it is not a difficult sail to shape), there is nothing to beat it in this respect.

Accordingly, we despatched an order to Lapthorn that night for the new suit of sails, and also for a balloon-topsail for the _Water Lily_, the dimensions of which satisfied even Bob, greedy as he was for canvas.

Meantime, the remainder of our stores were ordered, received, and shipped, and ten days after our arrival in Weymouth Roads we had everything on board which we could think of as necessary or likely to be in any degree useful to us on our voyage.

But when all was shipped, we found we had made a mistake somewhere in our calculations, and not only had rather more room than we expected, but our little craft still floated rather higher than her regular load-line. We therefore took in half a ton more lead ballast, which brought her down to within an inch of her proper trim, and with that we determined to rest satisfied.

Volume One, Chapter V.

A GALE IN THE BAY OF BISCAY.

On the evening of Wednesday, August 8th, 18--, having wished all our friends good-bye, and pressed my last kiss upon the lips of my sobbing sister, I ran hastily down the flight of stone steps before my aunt's front door, crossed the road, and walked briskly down the Esplanade until I overtook Bob, who had gone on before me; we then proceeded together to the New Quay end, found the man of whom we had hired our punt, paid him his money, and got him to row us on board the _Water Lily_.

We had arranged to start at daybreak on the following morning; but as we pulled off to the cutter we remarked that there was a nice little breeze blowing from the westward, and as the evening was beautifully fine and clear, with the promise of a brilliant starlight when the night should have fully set in, the idea occurred to us both that we might just as well be getting on down Channel at once, as be lying at anchor all night.

Accordingly, as soon as we got on board, we loosed and set our canvas, hove up our anchor, and in half an hour afterwards were slipping through the opening in the Portland Breakwater.

In little more than half an hour after that we were clear of the dreaded Bill, when, noticing that a small drain of flood-tide was still making, we hauled our wind on the port tack, and stood in towards Bridport for an hour; then tacked again, and stood out towards mid-Channel, so as to obtain the full benefit of the ebb-tide, which by this time had begun to make.

By "six bells," or seven o'clock, on the following morning we were abreast the Start, about six miles distant. We stood on until eight o'clock, when we tacked again towards the land, having now a flood-tide against us, and had breakfast.

By noon we were in Plymouth Sound, when we made a short leg to the southward until we could weather Rame Head; then went about once more, stretched across Whitesand Bay until the ebb-tide began to make again, and then again hove about and stood to the southward and westward, on the starboard tack.

At six o'clock that evening we pa.s.sed the Lizard lighthouse, distant two and a half miles, and here we _took our departure_.

For the benefit of those who may be ignorant of the meaning of this expression, I may as well explain that the commander of a vessel _takes his departure_ from the last _well-known_ point of land he expects to see before launching into mid-ocean, by noting, as accurately as he possibly can, its compa.s.s-bearing and distance from his ship at a particular hour.

With these data he is enabled to lay down upon his chart the exact position of his ship at that hour, and from this spot the _skip's reckoning_ commences. The courses she steers, and the number of _knots_ or nautical miles (sixty of which are equal to sixty-nine and a half English miles) she sails every hour, together with certain other items of information, such as the direction of the wind, the direction and speed of the currents, if any, which she pa.s.ses through, and the state of the weather, the _lee-way_ the ship makes, etc., etc., are all entered in the log-book; and at noon every day, by means of certain simple calculations, the ship's position is ascertained from these particulars.

The entering of all these particulars in the log-book is termed _keeping the dead reckoning_, and the working out of the calculations just referred to is called _working up the day's work_.

This, however, only gives the ship's position _approximately_, because it is difficult to judge _accurately_ of the amount of lee-way which a ship makes, and it is not at all times easy to detect the presence of currents, both of which produce a certain amount of deviation from the apparent course of the ship.

To correct, therefore, all errors of this kind, which are otherwise impossible to detect when the ship is out of sight of land, various observations of the sun, moon, or stars are taken, whereby the _exact_ lat.i.tude or longitude (or sometimes both together) of the ship at the moment of observation is ascertained.

This short lesson in navigation over, we will now rejoin the _Water Lily_, which we left at six p.m. off the Lizard, on the starboard tack.

It was my "eight hours out" that night, and when I took the tiller at eight o'clock we were dashing along a good honest eight knots, under whole canvas and a jib-headed gaff-topsail. The night was as fine as the previous one, but with a little more wind, and we were just beginning to get within the influence of the Atlantic swell. There was no sea on, but the long, majestic, heaving swell was sweeping with stately motion towards the Channel, rising like low hills on either side of us as our little barkie sank between them, and gleaming coldly, like polished steel, where the moon's rays fell upon their crests. But the little _Lily_ sprang gaily onward upon her course, mounting the watery ridges and gliding down into the liquid valleys with the ease and grace of a sea-bird, and without throwing so much as a drop of water upon her deck.

The serenity and beauty of the night, the brilliancy of the stars which studded the deep purple vault above me, and the gentle murmur of the wind through the cutters rigging, combined to produce a sensation of solemnity almost amounting to melancholy within me, and my thoughts flew back to the beloved sister I had so recently parted with, wondering whether she was at that moment thinking of me, or whether we should ever meet again, and, if so, how long hence and under what circ.u.mstances; and so on, and so on, until I was recalled to myself by a sprinkling of spray upon my cheek, whereupon I awoke, in the first place, to the fact that the breeze had so far freshened that the _Lily_ was flying through the water with her lee gunwale pretty well under; and, in the second, to the knowledge that I had outstayed my watch a good half hour.

I lost no time in calling Bob, and as soon as he came upon deck we got our gaff-topsail down and our topmast housed.

I then went below and turned in; but I had time, before leaving the deck, to notice that we went through the water quite as fast (if not a trifle faster), now that our lee gunwale was just awash, as we did when it was buried a couple of planks up the deck in water.

When Bob called me at the expiration of his watch, I found, on going on deck, that the wind had continued to freshen all through the four hours I had been below, and it was now blowing quite a strong breeze. It had gradually hauled round to about north-west, too, which brought it well upon our starboard quarter, and we were flying along at a tremendous pace, with all our sheets eased well off.

But although by this change we were running _off_ the wind, and consequently did not feel its full force, I decided to take down a single reef in the mainsail, and shift the jib; for there was a windy look in the sky that seemed to promise a very strong blow shortly. I did not wish to disturb Bob when perhaps about half way through his four hours' sleep, so I got him to a.s.sist me in making my preparations before he left the deck. And the promise was amply fulfilled as the sun rose higher in the sky, the wind freshening rapidly, but hauling still farther round from the northward as it did so.

By the time that Bob came on deck again, at seven bells, to prepare breakfast, I had my hands full. The sea was fast getting up, and I began to tremble for my spars and gear. The gla.s.s had fallen rather suddenly, and altogether there seemed to be every prospect of a regular summer gale.

Bob was of the same opinion as myself in this respect, so we decided to get everything snug and in readiness for the blow before thinking of breakfast.

This was rather a ticklish job, for it was now blowing far too strong to round-to and shorten sail, and it required something more than freshwater seamanship to get our big mainsail in without getting into trouble. But Bob seemed perfectly at home. He set the weather-topping-lift up hand-taut, and took a turn with the lee one; then dropped the peak of the mainsail until the end of the gaff was pressing against the lee-lift; triced the tack right up to the throat; then let run the throat-halliards, and hauled down the throat of the sail by the tack tripping-line; whilst I rounded in upon the main-sheet.

Then, by lowering away the peak, and carefully gathering in the canvas as it came down, we got our big sail snugly down without any trouble.

This we carefully stowed and covered up with its coat.

Next, Bob got the jib in, close-reefed the bowsprit, and set the smallest or _storm_ jib, with its sheet eased well off. I hauled in the weather fore-sheet until it was just in the wake of the mast, and our little barkie was then left to take care of herself whilst we got the trysail bent and set.

This done, we filled away again upon our course, with reduced speed, it is true, but very comfortably indeed.

It was well we took these precautions when we did, for by noon that day it had hardened down into a regular summer gale, with a really formidable sea for so small a craft. Still, we continued to run away very nearly dead before it, and that too without deviating from our proper course.

I managed, with the utmost difficulty, in consequence of the violent motion of the boat, to get an observation at noon, by which I found that we had run, since six o'clock on the previous evening, a distance of no less than one hundred and sixty-four miles. This placed us at about the entrance to the Bay of Biscay, which we were thus running into in a gale of wind. Still, I did not experience the slightest degree of alarm: our little craft was behaving beautifully--_angelically_, Bob termed it, and really it almost merited the expression. As she fell away into the trough of the sea, our low sails would become almost becalmed under the lee of the following wave; but as she lifted with it, the wind would again fill them out, and she would dart away again just in time to escape the mishap of being _p.o.o.ped_ by its breaking and hissing crest.

At four p.m. I again succeeded in obtaining an observation, this time for the longitude. On working it up, we proved to be rather to leeward of our proper track; so we hauled up a point or so, and at six o'clock decided to try what she was like when hove-to.

Watching an opportunity, we brought her to the wind on the starboard tack, first stowing our foresail, and found, to our great delight, that she rode like a gull. Beyond an occasional shower of spray, she shipped not a drop of water, although the gale was still increasing, and the sea rising rapidly.

We took a reef in our trysail, afterwards hoisting the gaff as high as it would go, so as to avoid, as much as possible, being becalmed in the trough of the sea, and then we were snug for the night.

Bob was a veteran seaman, and I had been in many a heavy blow before this--in gales, in fact, to which this was a mere nothing, comparatively speaking; yet neither of us could help feeling impressed--and for myself I may say somewhat awe-stricken--at the sublimity of the scene as the evening closed in. Hitherto, our experiences of gales of wind had come to us with a good, wholesome ship under our feet; but now we found ourselves face to face with one in a mere _boat_, little more than a toy craft. The sea, though nothing like as high as I had frequently seen it before, now wore a more formidable aspect than I could ever have believed possible. The hackneyed expression of "running mountains high"

seemed strictly applicable; and I fairly own to having experienced, for, I believe, the first time in my life, a qualm or two of _fear_ on that night.

The liquid hills, their foaming ridges as high as the top of our lower-mast, swept down upon us with an impetuous fury which seemed irresistible; and the effect was further heightened, as darkness closed around us, by the phosph.o.r.escent glare and gleam of their breaking crests. But the _Lily_ rose lightly and buoyantly to each as it rushed down upon her, surmounting its crest in a blinding shower of spray, and then settling easily into the trough between it and the next one.

The roaring of the gale, too, and the angry hiss of the storm-lashed waters, contributed their quota to the feeling of awe with which we looked abroad from our pigmy ark.

But confidence returned after a while, as we watched the ease with which the little craft overrode the seas; and when I at length turned into my hammock, it was with a sense of security I could not have believed possible a couple of hours before.