CHAPTER XI
"THE STORMFIEND"
"Crojjick buntlines and clew-garnets!" roared Black Davis.
The men stumbled clumsily round the fife-rail and groped about in the darkness for the right ropes; then, like sundry tug-of-war teams, stood waiting for the word.
"Ready with your tack there, bosun?" called the mate.
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"Haul away!" came the order.
"Hoo-oop, come in with her! Ho-yah, an' she must!" sang Jack, giving time to the hauling.
"Hand over hand, hand over hand!" yelled the bosun.
"Yo-ho-yo-ho-oh-yo-har!"
Swish! and a green sea tumbled aboard, washing the men at the clew-garnet off their legs.
"Bedad, an' it's could!" gasped Pat.
"Thet'll do, y'r weather buntlines; haul away to leeward!" called the mate.
"Hy-ei-ei-ei-ei-ei!" came the swelling chorus, the note rising at each pull.
"Now, then, what ye crowdin' up like that for? Spread out! How can you haul if you ain't got room?" holloaed the bosun. "Up with her, boys, lively now, lively!" he cried sharply. "Oh ho! Two-block her!"
Suddenly from aft came the old man's voice, rising above the roar of the gathering gale.
"Belay all that! Git them t'gallant-s'ls in, Mr. Davis, quick!"
"Aye, aye, sir!"
There was no time to lose. A nasty-looking heavy black cloud with torn, ragged edges was racing up to windward.
"There's dirt in that," said the bosun to Jack, as they manned the t'gallant clew-lines.
"Haul, yew mutton-faced haymakers, haul!" bellowed the mate.
The ship resounded with the cries of the men and the thunder of the flogging canvas.
As the Higgins lay over, it was almost impossible to stand on her gleaming wet decks, and to leeward the men on the spilling-lines were up to their waists in broken water.
"Sweat her up, my barnacle-backs!" yelled the bosun encouragingly, standing out a very tower of strength in the midst of the panting, struggling men.
"There's snow coming," jerked out the rover to Broncho, as he sniffed to windward.
First the mizzen topgallant-sail was clewed up and four light men were sent aloft to make it fast; but it was touch and go whether the fore and main topgallant-sails would be clewed up before the approaching squall was upon them, and the men had only just got out on to the footropes and started to fist the sails when it swooped down upon the ship with a furious roar, accompanied by a mixture of snow, hail, and sleet.
The driving snow thickened the darkness into the density of black mud. The sleet spattered and hissed and the hail rattled, pounding on the wet decks like dancing pebbles and beating with blood-drawing force upon the grim, weather-worn faces.
Upon the yards, headed by the bosun, the men fought furiously with the maddened canvas. Crooked fingers scratched despairingly at the rigid curves, bleeding knuckles struck ragingly at the stubborn, iron-like folds. Wildly-shouted commands, cut off by the hooting wind, flew to leeward unheard.
The face of the bosun at the bunt of the main topgallant-sail grew twisted and distorted with grimaces in his vain attempts to make the men understand, unseen in the smothering darkness of the squall even by the man next him; vainly he waved and gesticulated; again and again his mouth shaped the words:
"All together! All together!"
The footropes swung violently as the savage sail jerked them, in a vain attempt to dislodge the struggling men.
The Higgins lay over and over and yet over under the strength of the blast; the covering-board disappeared, then the dead-eyes and the topgallant rail; the sheerpoles were dipped, the fair-leads smothered, and a hissing cauldron of seething white water boiled up to and over the hatch tarpaulins.
Minutes passed and she lay steady, her lower yardarms spiking the whirling smother to leeward, right over, pressed down and overwhelmed by the fearful strength of the screeching tempest.
Then there came a lull. The gallant vessel gave a desperate quiver as she struggled to rise, then slowly she brought her spars to windward and shook herself free, the water pouring off the maindeck and dragging the gear off the pins in a hideous tangle.
"Now! now! now!" screeched the bosun, his voice strained to cracking point, and ten sets of hooked claws from ten burly fists fastened upon the swelling breast of the main topgallant-sail.
A few inches were gained and stuffed between the groaning yard and the straining, perspiring bodies. Again the aching finger-tips caught hold; a foot came in this time, then another, and the men at the yardarms fumbled for the gaskets.
"Catch a turn! catch a turn!" bellowed the bosun.
The cockney to windward, his sou'wester gone, his long hair streaming in the wind, and his thin, comical face working furiously with his efforts, managed to get the yardarm gasket passed.
One more heave and the sail was muzzled, and the worn-out men clambered slowly down from aloft.
Meanwhile, Jack, Broncho, Hank, and the gambler were having the time of their lives on the fore.
Jack, at the bunt, with a grim smile on his streaming face and eyes gleaming with a kind of strenuous joy, leant far over and watched like a prize-fighter for an opening.
Broncho and Hank, on each side of him, plucked furiously at the tightly stretched canvas without success.
Like the bosun, Jack saw his chance in the short lull and grabbed a fold, but it was too strong for him and tore itself free; again he dived at it, but the sail, which had not been properly clewed up, behaved like a fiend.
It bellied up in front of him and above him in raging protest, and battered him mercilessly against the mast, whilst it nearly sent Broncho and Hank headlong overboard.
The cowpuncher made a wild clutch at the man-rope as he was hurled backward, and hung there, his muscles strained and cracking as the canvas beat its weight upon him.
Hank, with both arms embracing the bunt-line, swung on the footrope with head and shoulders buried in the shaking folds.
Unsuccessful in its murderous attempt, the sail dropped back and the battle began anew.
Fiercely, enraged by the dastardly behaviour of the vicious sail, the three deep-sea musketeers leant forward to the attack again.
Again and again the sail broke away from the clawing hands, staining itself red with the blood from torn finger-nails and skinned knuckles, until at last they got a firm hold.
Up it came, inch by inch; their arms groaned under the strain, their curved fingers throbbed with fiery pains—still with gritted teeth, they hung on.
Bending over, Jack drove his strong teeth into the sail where his left hand had a grip; then with the weight on his jaw, he shifted his hand and groped for the bunt gasket, whilst Hank hurled furious profanity at the frightened gambler, who was hanging on to the jackstay to leeward, terrified, half-demented, quite useless.
The card-sharper made no attempt to move from his position, and whilst Jack and Broncho passed the bunt gasket, Hank slid out along the footrope and, grasping the jackstay with his left hand, hit fiercely with his right at the face of the shirker.
There is a grim work sometimes aloft in the raging of a gale, the work of heated blood and feelings overwrought by the cruel stress of the moment.
The gambler flinched from the vicious blows and whimpered miserably.
"The cur's no use, anyhow!" shouted Jack disdainfully, but Hank in his mad rage heeded him not.
At last the sail was overcome; they swung themselves into the rigging and slowly descended, struggling against the fury of the wind.
Each gust pinned them down as if spreadeagled, and it was a work of difficulty and arduous labour shifting their feet from one ratline to another. When they reached the deck they were streaming with perspiration and nearly dead beat with their terrific exertions, but the keen, chilly wind soon put new life into them. Paying no heed to the buffeting of the storm, the flying spume, or the pattering hail, they hastily hauled themselves along the weather rail in the pitch darkness, knowing by long experience of night work the geography of the ship.
They found the rest of the crew gathered round the main fife-rail, about to haul up the main course.
The lull had passed and the wind was once more shrieking over them in its mad turbulence. Hail, snow, and spindrift flew across the straining vessel in solid sheets, whilst on every side the torn-up sea lashed itself into smoking soap-suds, and in rushing breakers hurled itself to leeward.
The ship, too heavily pressed under whole topsails and two courses, ploughed her way straight through the rising seas, taking whole mountains of green water over her weather rail forward which, pouring aft, kept the maindeck continually awash.
A bright shaft of light from the carpenter's lamp suddenly flashed forth upon the wild scene, illuminating with its rays the group of sorely spent men amidships. Then it went out before the onslaught of the furious wind, and the darkness seemed greater than before.
Muller, the German, was just slacking away the main-tack when a furious gust came; he lost his head at the wrong moment and the tack took charge.
In a second pandemonium reigned. A frightful slating arose from the released sail, and the heavy block raged about at random, threatening death at every spring, whilst the great ninety-foot mainyard buckled like a bamboo cane.
The confusion for some minutes was indescribable, and by way of improving the situation, the bosun and four of the best men were washed from the clew-garnet into the lee-scuppers.
At the break of the poop the old man danced and screamed with rage, swinging his arms and beating his fists on the rail in a very whirlwind of passion.
Black Davis, hanging on with one hand and grasping a belaying-pin in the other, clawed his way skilfully along the weather bulwark and pounced upon the unfortunate Dutchman.
"Hell an' furies!" he screeched. "Yew infernal, stockfish poundin' Dutch son of a shark, yew slab-sided, bean-swillin', dunderhead yew, what yew think y'r doin', hey? Want ter carry away the mainyard, yew slush-brained numskull?"
Crack! crack! crack! went the belaying-pin on the wretched man's head.
Suddenly, in the midst of it all, the wind lulled again, and the bosun, crawling up the sloping deck on hands and knees, gave tongue lustily:
"Haul away there, haul away, haul away, haul away!"
Once more backs were bent and arms stretched out. Slowly the buntlines came two blocks under the frenzied efforts of the half-dazed men.
"Away aloft an' make it fast!" came the command.
The stumbling, panting crowd pushed and shoved and tumbled over each other as they struggled to the rail and swarmed over it into the rigging.
Headed by the untiring bosun, they raced up the ratlines and scrambled out along the footropes.
"Dig your fingers in and on to the yard with her, boys. All together, now, ay-hay an' up she comes!" roared the bosun from the bunt. "Make a skin! make a skin!" he went on sharply.
"It's shore none easy," muttered Broncho.
"Now you have her! now you have her!" came the bosun's overstrained voice again. "Roll her, boys, roll her!"
"She's a-comin'!" gasped some one, and with a last great effort they got the sail on the yard.
"I'll sit down on the footrope, whilst you swing the gasket to me," Jack called to the cowpuncher, leaning over and putting his lips close to the other's ear.
"I surmise as how a diamond-hitch ain't needful in these heavenly regions," grunted Broncho to himself as he passed the gasket.
"Don't haul on it with both hands," suddenly cried the rover from the footrope below him. "Keep fast hold of the jackstay with one hand. Never trust a gasket, or one day you'll take a header to the deck."
"You can bet your moccasins I'll be a heap regyardful of what you-alls advises. I'm none anxious to come flutterin' from my perch that-away," observed Broncho, as he took Jack's advice.
Hardly was the main course fast before the wind shifted suddenly into the west-south-west, and began to blow harder than ever.
The men were trooping off to man the fore and mizzen upper-topsail spilling-lines, and Black Davis and the bosun were at the halliards; but as the wind came astern, the old man thundered out:
"Hold all fast there! Weather crojjick brace!"
"Weather crojjick brace!" echoed the mate. "Let go o' that gear!" and he crossed the deck to slack away the lee braces.
As the helm was put up and the ship went off, a heavy westerly sea came up on each quarter, and soon converted the maindeck into a raging flood, which made squaring the yards no child's play.
"Now you're going to see what a Cape Horner's maindeck is like in heavy weather," remarked Jack to Broncho, as they took hold of the brace, ready to haul away on the word of command.
"I ain't hankerin' after no sech spectacle," replied Broncho. "I've had the vividest scrimmage of my life, an' I'm some jolted up an' chewed from the effects tharof."
"Haul away!" roared Black Davis.
Hardly had three pulls been taken before the top of a sea fell upon them, and the whole watch lay on their backs submerged and hanging on to the brace for dear life.
Two or three unfortunates let go their hold and were washed helplessly away, head under, at the sport of the mighty, swirling mass of water. Bruised, battered, and choked, they were rolled over and over and hurtled mercilessly forward in the cruel grasp of the raging torrent.
As the water gradually drained off, Black Davis, who was clinging to the lee crojjick brace, with which he had taken a rapid turn round the pin, felt a heavy bundle of gasping humanity bump heavily up against his sturdy sea-boots.
Long habit caused him to draw back his toe and deliver a shrewd kick at the object.
A muffled yell broke forth.
"Oh, it's yew, is it, yew lump o' Dutch grease? Git up!" he snarled as he repeated the dose.
Half senseless, chock full of salt water, breathless and bruised, with sore head and sore ribs, the luckless Muller contrived to scramble giddily to his feet and blunder hurriedly out of range.
As he once more took hold of the brace, the German gritted his teeth and muttered ferociously:
"Vait, mine fine mister mate, I dink I vill my knife stick into you von dark nacht; yah, mine Gott! Den you no more kick me, ain't it? Yah!"
Then other unfortunates gathered their scattered faculties together as the thundering voices of the mate and bosun mingled with the roar and the scream of the stormfiend.
Pinto disengaged himself from the rough embrace of the fife-rail and crawled up on all fours. Studpoker Bob, who had clung wildly to the poop-ladder after the first mad rush, appeared grumbling in his usual surly fashion, and Jimmy Green limped painfully forth from behind the hatch.
"Haul away!" roared the bosun.
A bright whisp of a moon now appeared, soaring like a flashing scimitar into the eye of the wind, and it was very welcome as it shed its cold beams upon the wild scene.
The wet, glistening decks, the mass of curved cordage bending to the blast, the line of toiling men, the clear-cut figure of the old man swaying at the break of the poop, the raging sea which rolled in great snow-capped mountains of ink, the scudding ragged clouds, and the rounded bosoms of the straining topsails—all these its silver rays showed forth in rugged, strongly touched relief.
The wheel was now too much for the strength of little Angelino, and though he worked furiously, heaving it up and down with all his might, he was always too late in meeting her; the compass card grew more and more unsteady in its movements, and the ship began to swing a couple of points on each side of her course.
The result was that the tired men at the braces spent most of their time under water.
"Somebody'll be overboard directly, if Angelino goes on letting her run off like that," grunted Jack to the bosun, as they hung on, dipped to their waists in the surging flood, and waited for the maindeck to clear itself.
"This old Higgins is a bit of a wet ship, I'm thinkin'," reflected the bosun. "She's as bad as any iron ship that ever I was on. Call 'em diving-bells an' half-tide rocks—these here wooden Yankees are just as bad."
Presently an extra big monster came along, and broke aboard high over the men's heads, sweeping across the maindeck with a deafening roar, and taking every man on the braces away in its furious embrace.
This was too much for the old man. For a few moments his whole crew disappeared from sight in the flood; then, as the water began to pour off over each rail in turn, he caught sight of an odd leg or arm poking out of the torrent for a second, like derelict boughs tossed about in a swollen mountain stream.
With a furious imprecation he turned and pounced upon Angelino.
"Oh, it's yew again, is it? What in hell d'yew think y're doin', spinnin' tops er what? Snakes! d'ye want to have her broach to? Hard up, yew scattermouch, hard up! Thet's enuff! Neow then, meet her as she goes off. Gol darn my skin, yew ain't got more strength than er cockroach! Heave her down, man, heave her down——Gaul bust my boots, down, I said—don't yew know down from up yet? Jeerusalem, y're enuff to make the Archangel Gabriel bawl blue hell."
Then, giving the little dago a cuff on the ear, he rushed to the break of the poop, bellowing,
"Lee-wheel, hyeh, send a lee-wheel along, Mister Davis, an' send a man to relieve thet dago; he ain't more use than a bad egg."
By the time the yards were squared and the starboard watch allowed to go forward, all but an hour of their watch below had passed.
"Well, Broncho," said Jack with a queer note of gaiety in his voice, as they stripped off their oilskins, "this is something like, eh? This is the weather to wash the mud out of a man and keep his blood from getting sluggish and clogged." And he sang softly,
"See how she buries that lee cat-head;
Hold on, good Yankee pine!"
The foc's'le presented a dreary interior, and seemed more calculated to produce melancholy and sourness than gaiety; yet, as the light from the lamp fell upon the rover's face, there was a look of exultation upon it; his eyes glittered and beamed with a great content, whilst the corners of his lips curved and his mouth opened with a bright, unconscious smile.
A born fighter, the blood of battle was surging in his veins, roused by the tempestuous strife with the elements. The queer fascination of danger gripped him; he gloried in the desperate struggle with those two mighty ones, the wind and sea, in all the grandeur of their fearful passions.
It is not given to every nature to feel this strange delight in battle, this glorious uplifting of the soul in moments of great stress or peril, this queer, sweet sensation of sheer personal joy which tingles through a man's blood and converts it into electric fluid, whilst it cools his nerve, clears and sharpens his brain, and enables him to take no heed of hunger or thirst, heat or cold, bruises or knockdowns, but to accomplish prodigies of strength, endurance, and valour with a cold, icy courage and unwearying muscles.
Broncho stared at the rover with wondering eyes, then glanced round as if to see wherein lay the cause of this strange joy.
On the floor of the foc's'le three inches of water washed steadily backwards and forwards at each heave of the tumbling vessel; from a line overhead suspended a row of yellow oilskin coats and pants, which swayed gravely to the rolling like so many headless bodies. Everything seemed damp and miserable; the air was close and foul and the wet clothing steamed; a mess of debris and wreckage washed wearily to and fro on the flood; tired men with aching limbs lay silent between their damp blankets, whilst that great comforter, the pipe, sent out great clouds of smoke from each pair of lips.
Outside, mingling with the crash of the seas, the stormfiend could be heard playing his great oratorio.
"We shore seems to be havin' a mighty strenuous time of it," replied Broncho slowly, "though how you contrives to accoomilate joy an' delight tharfrom has me a heap surprised. What with the way this here locoed ship's a-buckin' an' pitchin' worse'n the meanest cayuse that ever wears ha'r, an' the waves like stampeded landslides a-pourin' over one an' a-heavin' one around without consultin' nobody's opeenions on the proposition, it's shore toomultuous an' is due to have me some ravelled an' frayed if it keeps up this vigorous high-flung gait."
"Waache eein bietje!" laughed Jack. "This cattle stampede's merely beginning; it's just taking a preliminary pasear. Wait till we get into the clutches of a Cape Horn snorter."
"A cattle stampede is low down an' ornery compared to this here fatiguin' disturbance," returned Broncho in disgust.
"It bogs down as plumb dull an' no account before this impulsive whirlwind, which I states emphatic is a whole team an' jest raises Almighty discord from the heavenly vaults to the bottomless pit as easy as winnin' a Jack-pot with four aces."
"Douse that glim," growled a voice, and soon the foc's'le resounded with the deep, heavy breathing of tired men asleep in a foul atmosphere.