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 assuming 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 phosphorescent 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 assurance that the worst of the weather was now over—an assurance 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 windlass 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.
It appeared to me that I had not been in my berth more than five minutes when, about a quarter of an hour before noon, Forbes called me in order that we might together take the meridian altitude of the sun; and I was no sooner on my feet than it became apparent that the ship’s motion was by no means so violent as it had been when I lay down; which was sufficiently accounted for by the information imparted to me by the mate that the gale had broken, and that in another hour or two the weather would probably have moderated sufficiently to permit of our filling away upon our course. This news was fully confirmed by the general aspect of affairs when I reached the deck; for the sun was now shining brilliantly in a cloudless sky, and the air was genially warm; while the wind, though still blowing heavily enough to justify us in retaining the close reefs in the topsails, had abated its violence so far that it now blew steadily, instead of beating upon the ship in gusts of headlong fury. The sea, moreover, though it still seemed to run as high as ever, was no longer so steep as it had been; the great mountains of water moving more slowly, and carrying a good wholesome slope on their lee sides, that enabled the ship to ride them easily and comfortably without the provocation of a constantly recurring feeling that each great menacing wall of water was about to overwhelm her.
We had taken the sun, and made it eight bells, and I was on the point of leaving the deck again to work out the sights in my own cabin, when, while exchanging some remarks with Forbes, I thought I caught a momentary glimpse of something—what, I knew not—as the ship hung poised for an instant upon the crest of an unusually heavy wave. It was but the barest, most fleeting glimpse; for before I could direct Forbes’s attention to it by so much as a word, we were plunging headlong down the weather slope of the wave, with our horizon on either hand bounded by a hissing crest that was rearing itself as high as our maintop, and the barque taking a weather roll of such portentous extent that both of us instinctively made a dash for the mizzen shrouds and clung to them for dear life in anticipation of the coming—and correspondingly abnormal—lee roll; while the roar of the bow wave and the wind aloft created such a din that I could not have made myself heard even had I been foolish enough to have attempted it. But I was confident that I had seen something; and when the ship reached the bottom of the abyss, where we on deck were becalmed, and the roar of the surge under our bows had died away, I mentioned the matter to the mate; so that when we were swung aloft again both of us were eagerly on the lookout for the object. As almost invariably happens, however, after the passage of an usually heavy wave, the two or three that now succeeded were only of moderate height, and higher crests each time intervened between us and the spot where the object was last seen; it was also probable enough that the object, whatever it might be, would be sunk in the trough of the sea just at the moment when we happened to be hanging on a wave-crest; and it thus happened that several minutes elapsed without my again catching sight of it. To cut the matter short, therefore, I handed Forbes my sextant to hold; and, seizing a favourable opportunity, sprang into the weather main rigging and swarmed aloft as far as the maintop, from which elevation I knew that I should soon sight it if it were still above water.
It was not until I was halfway up the shrouds that I fully realised how heavily it was still blowing, or how violent still was the motion of the ship. With every lee roll that we took I was involuntarily forced to cling with all my strength to the rigging, for it seemed to me that unless I did so I should infallibly be pitched head-foremost into the top; while when the ship rolled to windward the pressure of the air upon my body was so great that I was literally jammed hard and fast against the rigging, unable to move hand or foot. This was even more apparent when I reached the futtock-shrouds and was surmounting the edge of the top, the wind sustaining me so completely that I am confident I might have relaxed my hand-grasp for several seconds without the slightest danger of falling. However, I gained my lofty perch at last, and, lying prone in the top in order that I might see under the foot of the fore-topsail, soon again caught sight of the object.
It was distant about seven miles from the ship, bearing about north-north-east by compass, and floated very low in the water; a circumstance which, from the thick mist still overspreading the surface of the water, rendered it impossible at that distance to determine precisely what it was. It looked as much like a dead whale as anything else, and had I felt quite certain that it was really this, I should of course have troubled no more about it. But there were moments when, probably from some slight change in its position with regard to us, the resemblance I have mentioned ceased, and the conviction forced itself upon me that, whatever it might be, it was not a whale, living or dead; and at length, to set the matter at rest, I determined to fill upon the ship and get a nearer look at it. I accordingly descended to the deck, and, Forbes rousing out Joe and San Domingo, we all went to work, and, with some difficulty, succeeded in setting the fore-topmast staysail without splitting it, after which we filled the fore-topsail and headed the ship for the mysterious object.
We were now close-hauled upon the larboard tack, with the object a bare three points upon the lee bow, and it soon became apparent that, as we were making fully that amount of leeway, it would require some rather fine steering to fetch it without breaking tacks—an operation which I was particularly anxious to avoid, short-handed as we were. Forbes, however, was at the wheel, and as he was a splendid helmsman, it was pretty certain that if the thing could be done he would do it.
When luncheon was announced we had drawn up to within about four miles of the object; but so heavily was the sea still running that, even at that distance, it was only occasionally that we could catch sight of it, presenting now, as looked at through the ship’s telescope, the appearance of a large fragment of floating wreck.
The news which I took to the luncheon table, that a mysterious floating something of considerable size had been sighted ahead, and that we were making for it, had a very stimulating effect upon the occupants of the saloon, who, enveloping themselves in mackintoshes, followed me on deck when I rose from the table, with an eagerness born of the longing for some occurrence to break the monotony of and make them forget for a time the wearisome pitching and rolling of the ship, the monotonous, unceasing clank and jar of the cabin-doors on their hooks, the continuous creaking of the bulkheads, the thump of the wheel-chains on the deck, the never-ending wash of the water, and the howling of the wind in the rigging. And, despite the merciless buffeting of the wind, and the ceaseless drenching showers of spray that flew over us, the change from the saloon to the deck was unanimously voted an improvement; for it involved a transition from a close, oppressive atmosphere to an exhilarating breeze, redolent of the strong salt odour of the brine, and bracing by reason of its very violence; while the brilliant sunshine, sparkling upon the deep, windy blue of the vast mountain surges that surrounded us, and converting every spray-shower, into a gorgeous rainbow, constituted an ever-changing picture of rich and splendid colour and wild, tumultuous movement that was not to be easily forgotten. I thought Miss Merrivale had never looked so lovely as she did then, enveloped in a thin, soft, silky-looking mackintosh, with a dainty little, close-fitting hat upon her head, her beautiful hair all blown adrift and streaming, a long golden web of ringlets, in the fiery breeze, her cheeks flushed to a delicate pink with the rude buffeting of wind and sea, and her eyes fairly blazing with excitement and exhilaration at the wild scene around her.
Our first glances were naturally directed ahead in search of the mysterious object for which we were steering, and it was quickly discovered about two miles distant, and a good point on the lee bow. To the unaided eye its character still remained uncertain, but a single glance through the ship’s telescope now sufficed to satisfy us that it was a wreck, or a portion of one. It had all the appearance of a small craft, capsized; for the telescope enabled one to see a small strip of wet, black side showing above water, with a considerably greater expanse of copper-sheathed planking. But, even now that we had so greatly decreased the distance between us and it, there was still great difficulty in determining its precise character; for it was only when we and it happened to be upon the top of a sea at the same moment that it came within our ken, and those moments were comparatively rare.
As we continued to close, however, our glimpses of it became increasingly frequent; and at length, when we had approached to within half a mile, the heave of the sea having meanwhile flung it round into a more favourable position, it became apparent that it was a small craft of some sort—seemingly a brig—that had capsized, and now lay with her masts prone along the water, for we could now and then catch a glimpse of the spars, with the canvas still set, lifting a foot or two out of the water with the heave of the sea, only to settle back again the next moment, however. What interested us most keenly of all, however, and excited our profoundest astonishment, was the fact that a dark patch in her main rigging—for which I could not at first account—soon afterwards proved to be a group of men! for we presently saw one of them scramble along the shrouds until he reached the vessel’s upturned side, and then—despite the heavy masses of water that were continually breaking over the hull—rise to his feet and wave something that looked like a man’s jacket, by way of a signal, in answer to which I immediately ran our ensign up to the gaff-end.
The excitement of the fairer occupants of our poop was now intense, especially that of Miss Merrivale, who, in the extremity and oblivion of her enthusiasm, not only addressed me as “Jack,” but also volunteered to do all sorts of impossible things by way of assisting in the rescue that she took for granted. But how was such a thing to be achieved? We were only five men on board the Esmeralda, all told, and what could our united efforts accomplish? We certainly could not launch a boat, even had we dared to hope that so small a craft would live in such a wild and fearful sea; for the lightest of our gigs—the only boat it would have been possible to launch, under the circumstances—would need at least four men to do anything with her in such weather, which would leave only one man on board to look after and handle the ship during the process of rescue—which amounted to a physical impossibility.
I was, however, determined to save the men, if it could be done; we therefore steered the barque as close up under the lee of the wreck as we dared, and backed our mainyard, with the brig’s royal-mastheads showing just awash not ten feet to windward of us. It was an extraordinary and appalling picture that we now looked upon. The vessel—a brig of about one hundred and eighty tons—had been thrown over on her starboard side, and now lay submerged to about halfway up her hatchways, with her masts prone along the water, into and out of which they dipped and rose two or three feet with the wash of the sea and the roll of the hull. She was a wooden vessel, apparently American built, and was under whole topsails, foresail, spanker, and jib, which sufficiently accounted for her present predicament if, as seemed probable, she had been caught under that canvas in the outburst of the previous day. She had no quarter davits, and the chocks over the main hatchway—where the long-boat, and sometimes the jolly-boat as well, is usually stowed—were missing; but the gripes were still there, showing that the boat or boats that had been stowed there had evidently been washed away. There was, moreover, the remains of what had once been a gig on her gallows. She appeared to have been generously fitted up; for, as she rose and fell, we caught the flash of brass work about her skylight and companion, and when her stern lifted high enough out of the water a handsome brass binnacle, securely bolted to the deck, became exposed to our view. Lastly, huddled in her weather main rigging, about twelve or fifteen feet from the rail—where they were tolerably clear of the seas that constantly broke over the vessel’s upturned side—was a group of nine men, most of them bareheaded, clad in garments that clung to their bodies with the tenacity of clothing that has been soaked for many consecutive hours in water.
They were in a miserable and most precarious plight, indeed; and I could not help wondering how they had possibly managed to cling for so many hours to so insecure a refuge—assuming, of course, that the brig had capsized on the previous afternoon, as I surmised.
The first thing was to communicate with them; and this I first attempted by means of the speaking trumpet. But the roar of the wind and the wash of the sea, together with our drift—which was, of course, much more rapid than that of the wreck—rendered my voice inaudible; so it became necessary to resort to other methods. There happened to be a “bull-board” kicking about the poop; and setting this up on the skylight, where it could be distinctly seen, with its black face towards the wreck, I got a piece of chalk, and hastily wrote upon it the following words, one after the other, receiving a wave of the hand from those on the wreck in token that they had deciphered each word before I obliterated it and wrote the next:—
“Only—four—men—on—board—so—cannot—send—boat—Will—stand—by—and—take—you—off—if—possible.”
By the time that the last word of this communication had been written and acknowledged we were some distance to leeward of the wreck, and it became necessary to fill upon the ship once more. This done, the next matter for determination was the means whereby we were to get the people away from the wreck, and safe on board the barque—a problem which, had we been fully manned, would have proved sufficiently puzzling; while, circumstanced as we were, it seemed all but impossible.
At length, however, I hit upon a scheme that I thought might be worth trying; and we proceeded forthwith to put it into practical shape without more ado, since the unfortunate people on the wreck were in a perilously exposed situation, and evidently in such a terribly exhausted state that they might relax their hold, and be washed away at any moment.
There were, as I have already mentioned, nine men to be rescued. Now, the Esmeralda having been, ever since she was launched, a passenger-ship, was well found in life-saving appliances, life-buoys among the number, of which we carried no less than twelve; eight being stowed away in one of the cutters on the gallows, while the remainder were distributed about the poop, ready for immediate use.
The first thing done was to get up on deck two good stout warps, and bend them end to end, so that we might have plenty of length to work with; and the inner end of this long line was then made fast inboard at the fore-rigging. To the other end nine life-buoys were next securely bent, in the form of a chain, with a length of about a fathom between the buoys; and, finally, a long light heaving-line was bent on to the extreme outer end of the warp. The warp was then carefully coiled down on deck, ready for paying out; the buoys piled on the top of it; and the spare part of the heaving-line carried out to the flying-jib-boom end, where it was snugly coiled and stopped, ready for use.
Our preparations were now complete; and, having meanwhile been plying to windward, the helm was put up, and we wore round to return to the wreck. This operation provided work for us all, including Sir Edgar; and when at length we got the ship round upon the starboard tack we found, to our extreme vexation, that the circle we had made was so large that we should be unable to fetch the wreck. This was terribly annoying at a time when every minute lost might mean a human life; but we could do nothing to rectify the matter except stand on far enough upon the new tack to insure that when we next wore we should not again under-shoot our mark. And if it was vexatious for us, what must it have been for the poor fellows who, standing as it were within the very jaws of death, were anxiously watching our every movement?
To our eagerness and anxiety the minutes seemed hours; but at length we felt that we had reached far enough to justify another attempt; and upon getting the ship round again we had the satisfaction of seeing that we had measured our distance just right, and should be about able to fetch the wreck, with little or nothing to spare. As we approached the brig, the negro—who, now that he was separated from his late companions, proved himself to be not only a first-rate seaman, but also a very willing, good-natured fellow—most earnestly besought me to entrust to him the task of manipulating the heaving-line, vehemently asserting his ability to cast it further and straighter than any of the rest of us; and I accordingly deputed that duty to him, whereupon he laid out to the flying-jib-boom end and, placing himself astride the spar, outside the royal stay, clinched himself there in the most extraordinary manner by means of his feet and legs, and then calmly took the coil of heaving-line in his hand and held himself ready for a cast. The ease with which the fellow clung to the bare end of that dancing spar was a revelation to me; for the motion out there was, proportionately, as violent as it would have been in the maintop; yet there he sat, as composedly as though he had been in an easy-chair, while most white men would have found it difficult enough to maintain such a position with the aid of hands as well as feet, leaving out of the question any possibility of executing such a manoeuvre as that of throwing a line to windward against a whole gale of wind.
San Domingo thus safely established at his station, Joe and Sir Edgar placed themselves at the braces, standing by to back the main-topsail at the instant that I should give the word; while I climbed into the weather fore-rigging, as the best position from which to con the ship; and in this order we edged gradually and warily down toward the wreck.