The White Squall Part 21

When I again went on deck, the ship was going beautifully, tearing through the water like a racehorse and parting the waves on either side of her bows as if she were veritably ploughing the deep, the crests of the sea rising in foam over the fore-yard and floating in the air in the shape of spindrift and spray far astern.

The sky, too, had somewhat lost its leaden hue, clearing towards the zenith, where one or two odd stars could be seen occasionally peeping down at us through the storm rack that flew overhead like sc.r.a.ps of fleecy wool. This cheery prospect told us to be of good courage, leading us to hope that if we only waited patiently we might expect fine weather bye and bye.

At nine o'clock, the greater portion of the heavens was quite un.o.bscured, the moon shining out, although looking pale and watery and with a big burr round her that showed the still unsettled condition of the atmosphere; the wind, strange to say, continuing to blow with almost as great force from the north-west as when it began, nearly forty-eight hours before.

"I'm afraid we're going to have a nasty night of it," said Captain Miles, who had just then come up from below with his s.e.xtant. "Still, I'm glad to see our old friend the moon again, however greasy she may look. I haven't been able to take an observation since Monday; so we'll see what a lunar may do in the way of fixing our position."

Just then, there was a break in the haze that had caused the watery appearance of the fair orb of night; and Captain Miles, taking advantage of the opportunity, took his angles, a sight of two of the constellations also helping his calculations, and giving him data to work upon. He then went down to his cabin again to work out the reckoning.

"Guess where we are, Marline?" he said when he came up for the second time. "I don't think you'll be able to tell within a degree!"

"Somewhere between the forties, I should think, with all this scudding about north and south," replied the other.

"Well, I make it that we're just about 33 degrees 10 minutes North, and 41 degrees West longitude. What do you think of that, eh?"

"Never!" exclaimed the first mate.

"But, it's true enough," returned Captain Miles. "I a.s.sure you I've tested my reckoning in every way, those star alt.i.tudes enabling me to correct my lunars. Yes, Marline, you see we did not lose so much by carrying on to the north as you fancied we would; and this bl.u.s.tering north-wester has now taken us almost eight hundred miles in the very direction we wanted to go. If we had lain to, as you wanted at first, we should now have been considerably to the southward of our position, and would probably have had to beat up northwards again; whereas now, as soon as the gale is blown out, we'll be right in the trades for home."

"And won't we touch the Gulf Stream, then?" I asked.

"No, my boy, thank goodness, we're a long way from that; but if you're anxious to see the Gulf-weed I told you about, we're now in its native home, a region called the Sarga.s.so Sea."

"The Sarga.s.so Sea!" I repeated. "I never heard of that before."

"No, I don't suppose you have," replied Captain Miles in answer to my implied question. "It is a name applied to a calm expanse of the ocean between the Gulf Stream and the Equatorial Current, and is called so from the _Sarga.s.sum_, or Gulf-weed, which is continually found floating there--that is, when the wind is not too strong, as now, to blow it elsewhere. You'll see plenty of the stuff as soon as the gale lulls, which it must do now, I think, in a very few hours."

"Are you going to carry on still before it, sir?" asked Mr Marline.

"Of course," answered the captain. "The ship is sailing easily and not straining herself, as she would do if lying-to; and we can't run into any harm following the same course till morning. I intend to work the gale in the same way as a friend of mine once treated a runaway horse.

It first started off to please itself, and then he made it keep up its pace to please him; so, as the wind has chosen to blow us along at its own sweet will all this time, it shall now drive the ship at my pleasure. What do you say, Master Tom, eh?"

"I say it's a very good plan, captain," I replied laughing.

"Well, my boy, I'll tell you of another good plan, and that is to go below and turn in, as I purpose doing. Mr Marline," added the captain to the first mate, "please take the first watch. I'll relieve you at midnight; I don't think there'll be any change before then."

With these words, Captain Miles, who had been on deck almost continuously now for two days and nights, went down to the cabin to have a couple of hours of much-needed repose; and taking his hint as an order, good-humouredly as it was spoken, I followed him at once.

Nor was I anything loth either to go to my bunk; for I had eaten a hearty dinner which made me feel drowsy. After I had turned in, too, there being no excitement to keep me awake, and the ship being quite safe, there being now every prospect of the gale coming soon to an end, I slept like a top--Harry the steward having to wake me again next morning to tell me that breakfast was ready, and coming twice to shake my bunk before I would turn out.

When I subsequently went on deck, I could soon see that the weather had altered for the better.

Although the sea was still rough, the clouds had cleared away from the sky entirely, not a speck of hazy vapour being discernible anywhere, while the sun was shining down brightly and warmly, enlivening the whole scene around and making the ocean, in spite of its still rough condition, almost look pleasant; the white wreaths of spray, broken-off by the wind from the tops of the waves, glistening with the prismatic hues of the rainbow as they were tossed up in the air on clashing billow meeting billow.

On board the ship, also, matters had considerably improved, only two men being required at the helm in place of four, for the vessel was ever so much more easy to steer; and, I could see preparations being made in the waist for bending a new main-topsail and mizzen staysail in place of those that had been blown away when we were in the vortex of the hurricane.

It was a difficult job getting the remains of the old main-topsail off the yard, the wind blowing still with great force and the men having to hold on with all their might. But, after an hour's labour, the task was accomplished, and then the new piece of canvas was sent up into the top by the halliards, where, after being bent and close-reefed, it was sheeted home and the yard hoisted up again, spreading the sail.

The mizzen staysail followed suit; and then, seeing that the ship bore the pressure pretty well, Captain Miles ordered the fore-topmast staysail to be hoisted. This brought the _Josephine_ more up to the wind, the vessel now sailing with it about a couple of points abaft the beam.

She heeled over tremendously, burying all the lee bulwarks under water, with the sea rushing along her channels like a mill-race; but, she held to it bravely, and we all congratulated ourselves on having weathered the storm and carried out Captain Miles's boast of making the gale serve his purpose, thus turning a foul wind into a fair one.

Towards mid-day, the captain took an observation, which amply corroborated his lunars of the previous evening, we being found to be in 32 degrees North lat.i.tude and 40 degrees West longitude, the slight difference between this and his former reckoning being due to the distance we had run during the night.

The wind still held up, however, and although we were carrying more canvas than we really ought to have had on the ship in such a gale, Captain Miles was just thinking of setting the spanker and bending a new fore-topsail, when, as if it had been all at once shut off from its source, the strong north-western wind in a moment ceased to blow.

At this time there was not a single cloud on the horizon anywhere, the sky being absolutely clear and beautifully blue; but I noticed something like a white wall of water on our port bow advancing towards the _Josephine_.

The sight resembled an enormous wave raised up to twenty times the height of those in our more immediate vicinity.

"Look, Mr Marline!" I cried. "What is that there to the left?"

He glanced where I pointed, and so did Jackson, the latter singing out the moment he caught sight of the wave to the two men at the wheel, who were Davis and a German sailor, "Down with the helm--sharp!"

"Hullo! what's the matter?" exclaimed Captain Miles, hearing the order and raising himself up from the cabin skylight where he had been bending over his log-book, in which he had been jotting down an entry. "What's up now?"

"Something uncommonly like a white squall, sir," hurriedly explained Jackson. "It's coming down fast on us from windward, and will be on us in a jiffey. Down with the helm sharp, don't you hear?" he called out a second time to the helmsmen.

Captain Miles, quite startled now, looked round, and seeing the great wave of water, now quite close, borne before the coming wind, repeated the order to put down the helm more sharply still, adding also to the watch on duty:

"Cast-off the topsail sheets and let everything go by the run!"

Whether Davis heard the order to let the ship's head fall off and wilfully disobeyed it, on account of its coming from Jackson, whom he hated, or whether he was paralysed with terror at the approach of this new danger, after our having pa.s.sed through all the perils of the cyclone, no one could say; but he not only did not turn the spokes of the wheel himself, but he absolutely prevented the other man from doing so.

Seeing the vessel did not answer the helm, the captain and Jackson together darted aft, dragging away Davis and fiercely jamming the wheel down as hard as they could.

The movement, however, came too late.

Before the _Josephine's_ bows could pay off, a terrific blast of wind, worse than anything that had yet a.s.sailed her, struck her sideways.

Over she was borne to leeward, dipping and dipping until her yard-arms; and then, the tops of her masts, touching the water, becoming gradually immersed as the ship canted.

At the same moment, too, with a loud double report, the foresail and main-topsail blew out of the bolt-ropes, floating away in the distance.

But this relief, great as it was, did not right the ship, for the huge white wave, following the gust, forced her over still more on her side; and, in less time than I have taken to tell of the occurrence, the _Josephine_ was on her beam-ends and every soul on board struggling in the water for dear life.

"Hole on, Ma.s.s' Tom, hole on!" I heard Jake's voice cry somewhere, as I sank beneath the rocking surges that were in an instant cresting over the p.o.o.p. "Hole on, Ma.s.s' Tom, hole on!"

I tried to battle with the sea, but it bore me down, and down, and down.

And then--I felt I was drowning!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

IN DIRE PERIL.

Jake's voice seemed ever so far away in the distance, and there was a confused sort of humming, buzzing noise in my ears; while some heavy weight on the top of my head appeared to be pressing me down, although I struggled frantically to free myself.

It was all in vain, though.