Chapter Seven.
The Strange Fate of the “Northern Queen.”
The welcome breeze that wafted us out of the neighbourhood of the ill-starred City of Calcutta held good, and, gradually freshening and working round more from the southward, eventually resolved itself into the south-east trade, under the beneficent influence of which, with our larboard tacks on board and our yards braced flat up against the starboard rigging, we merrily wended our way to the southward.
One morning, when we were about in the latitude of the islands of Martin Vaz and Trinidad, we discovered, at daybreak, a large ship broad on our weather-bow, the topsails of which were just clear of the horizon. The trades were at this time blowing fresh, and the barque was thrashing along under her main-topgallantsail, with the flying-jib stowed. No sooner, however, did Roberts come on deck and espy the stranger—which was steering the same way as ourselves—than he must needs give orders to loose and set the fore-topgallantsail and flying-jib; and while I was in the saloon at breakfast, I heard him give orders to set the two royals. Under this additional canvas, which caused the little hooker to bury her lee side to her covering-boards, and to plunge to her hawse-pipes into the long ridges of swell that came rolling up from the southward and eastward, while she sent an acre of milk-white foam roaring and hissing away from under her lee bow, we rapidly overhauled the strange sail until we had brought her square abeam. Then, having allowed us to reach this position, her people gallantly responded to our obvious challenge, and made sail until they showed precisely the same canvas to the breeze that we did. The stranger, ship-rigged, was at this time about eight miles away from us, broad on our weather-beam, her hull just showing above the horizon when she rose upon the crest of a sea; and, after taking a good look at her through our glasses, we came to the conclusion that she must be a vessel of about twelve hundred tons. That she was a remarkably smart craft under her canvas soon became evident, for though we were going eleven and a half knots by the log, we found it impossible to gain an inch upon her after she had got her additional canvas fairly set and trimmed; indeed, there were times when it seemed impossible to resist the conviction that she was, if anything, gaining the merest trifle upon us. If so, however, it was only when the breeze came down with a little extra strength; for so surely as it softened at all we immediately appeared to recover the trifle that we seemed to have previously lost.
But though we were unable to forereach upon our big neighbour, it became evident, as the morning now wore on, that the two craft were very gradually nearing each other, the extraordinary weatherly qualities of the Esmeralda coming conspicuously into notice in this thrash to windward on a taut bowline, now that we had the opportunity of comparing them with those of another vessel. At noon the stranger showed her colours, British, and, upon our responding, exhibited her number; from which and other signals we learned that she was the Northern Queen, of Glasgow, bound to Cape Town. Then followed an exchange of latitude and longitude, ours and hers agreeing within a mile or two; and before the signal flags were finally hauled down and stowed away we had accomplished quite a long conversation, to the intense delight of my passengers, especially the fairer members, to whom this sort of thing was still quite a novelty.
Thus the day wore on, the bright and pleasant hours being whiled away in a friendly trial of speed that, though we guessed it not, was hurrying our companion onward to a strange, sudden, and awful doom.
At length the sun went down in a bewildering blaze of gold and crimson and purple splendour; and almost simultaneously the full-orbed moon rose majestically above the eastern horizon, flooding the sea that way with liquid silver, and showing our friend, the Northern Queen, hull up in the very heart of the dazzle, the entire fabric, hull, spars, and canvas, standing out black as an ebony silhouette against the soft blue-grey and ivory of the cloud-dappled sky. She was at this time square upon our weather-beam; but with the rising of the moon the breeze acquired new life, as it often does, and came down upon us with a weight sufficient to render it advisable to clew up and furl our royals—which we did; the Northern Queen continuing to carry hers, as of course she could, being a much bigger craft than ourselves, and fitted with much stouter spars. She was thus enabled to draw gradually ahead of us, much to the chagrin of our worthy chief mate, who asserted, with quite unnecessary vehemence, that it was absolutely the first time that the Esmeralda had ever been beaten by anything in moderate weather. It thus came to pass that at midnight our companion was dead to windward of us, and about seven miles distant.
My lady passengers had retired to their berths about an hour before; but Sir Edgar, tempted by the beauty and cool freshness of the night, lingered on deck, and—both of us being shod with rubber-soled shoes in order that we might not disturb the repose of the sleepers below—was pacing the weather side of the poop with me, and relating some of his former adventures as a traveller, before he had settled down as a sober, steady, respectable Benedict—as he laughingly put it. Suddenly, as we turned in our walk, within arm’s length of the binnacle, we became conscious of a vivid increase of light, and at the same moment an indescribable, deep, hurtling roar smote upon our ears above the startled cry of the helmsman, the loud hum of the wind in our rigging, and the sobbing wash of the sea. The sound and the light so obviously came from overhead that we both involuntarily halted and directed our gaze aloft, when we became aware of an enormous meteor, fully four times the apparent diameter of the moon, and of such dazzling effulgence that our eyes could scarcely endure the brightness of it, while the whole ship, with every minutest detail of spars, rigging, and equipment, was as brilliantly illuminated as at noonday. It was passing, at no very great apparent speed, immediately over our mastheads, in a south-easterly direction, leaving a long trail of evanescent sparks behind it, and as we watched we could see that it was falling toward the sea.
“God of mercy—the ship, the ship!” gasped Sir Edgar, clutching my arm in a grip that left its mark on the skin for days afterward; and, as he spoke, the huge incandescent mass fell full upon the hull of the Northern Queen. There was a flash like that of a bursting shell on board her, and ere we could draw a breath the stately fabric of her spars and sails collapsed and vanished into the deep before our eyes!
For some seconds we were all, fore and aft, so paralysed with horror and dismay that not a sound escaped our lips. Even the weird night music of the wind and sea appeared to be hushed for the moment, or our startled senses failed to note it, and presently there came floating down to us upon the pinions of the breeze a muffled, booming crash, as confirmatory evidence of the appalling disaster.
“Gone—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye!” ejaculated Sir Edgar, with quivering, ashen lips, as he strained his eyes toward the point so recently occupied by our companion. “Oh, captain, can nothing be done? Is there no hope that out there some few survivors at least may be floating on a scrap or two of wreckage? You will go there and see, will you not?”
“Assuredly I will,” said I. “I will tack the moment that I think we can fetch the spot where the ship disappeared. Meanwhile,” continued I, to the second mate, who had charge of the deck, “get up three rockets and fire them, as a signal to the possible survivors that we have observed the disaster, and intend to look for them. They will, no doubt, understand what we mean.”
The rockets were brought on deck and fired; by which time I judged that we had gone far enough to justify us in tacking ship. We accordingly went about, and two hands were then stationed on the fore-topsail yard to keep a lookout for wreckage, while a third laid out as far as the flying-jib-boom end for the same purpose.
We had been on the starboard tack some three-quarters of an hour, and I had just hailed the lookouts, warning them to be especially vigilant, as we must now be near the scene of the catastrophe, when the man on the flying-jib-boom end cried out with startling suddenness—
“There’s something floating out there to wind’ard, sir; broad on the starboard bow!”
“Yes, yes,” added both the men aloft, with one consent. “It looks like something alive—like a man, sir, waving his arm!”
“Don’t take your eyes off it for an instant, either of you, on any account,” I answered, with a strange thrill in my voice at the idea of our being perhaps close to one or more survivors of that awful visitation of God that we had witnessed. “Back your main-topsail, Mr Forbes, and then man and lower the port quarter-boat.”
“Ay, ay,” was the brisk response. “Man the weather main-braces, my lads; lively, now. Cast off to leeward; round-in to windward. Well there; belay. Shall I take charge of the boat, sir?”
“Certainly,” I said; “it is your turn this time, Mr Forbes, and I hope you will be as successful as Mr Roberts was when we last had occasion to lower a boat. You will probably not be able to see the man when you are in the boat and under way, so I will stand on the wheel grating abaft, where you will be able to distinctly see me, and will indicate to you how to steer in accordance with the directions which I may receive from the hands aloft. If you can only manage to pick up the man they have seen, he will, perhaps, if he is still sensible, be able to direct you how to prosecute your further search. Now, if you are ready, go; and God speed you.”
The boat pushed off, and in less than ten minutes had picked up the man, who was found to be floating comfortably enough in a life-buoy. Questioned as to whether he thought there were any more survivors, he replied that he feared not, as, feeling sure that the catastrophe had been observed by us, and that we should make for the scene as promptly as possible—which assurance had been quickly confirmed by the sight of our rockets—he had simply clung to the life-buoy without making the slightest effort to shorten the distance between himself and us, believing that his best hope of deliverance consisted in remaining as near as possible to the scene of the disaster; and that, if there were any other survivors, they would most probably act in the same way, in which case he would almost certainly have seen or heard something of them in the interim; which had not been the case. Forbes, however, very properly pulled about the spot for more than an hour, the boat’s crew shouting at intervals, and then lying on their oars and listening for a reply. But it was all of no avail; for, though he fell in with and picked up two buckets marked with the name of the Northern Queen, and passed through a few small fragments of floating wreckage, clearly indicating that he was prosecuting his search in precisely the right spot, nothing more was found, and he was at length reluctantly constrained to abandon further efforts.
The rescued man—who, when brought on board, appeared not an atom the worse for his terrible adventure—gave his name as Joe Martin, and informed us that he had held the rating of carpenter on board the ill-fated Northern Queen. He gave us full particulars concerning the port of registry of the ship; the port from which she had sailed; the number of days out; the number of the crew, and their names, so far as he knew them—in short, all the information necessary to the identification of the ship and those on board her; and then he described the catastrophe as it had impressed itself upon him. He said that at midnight the deck had been relieved in the usual manner; and that, it being his trick at the wheel, he had arrived aft just in time to hear the “old man” (the captain) bid the mate good night, after laughingly enjoining him not to go to sleep and allow the little barque to leeward to slip past him. The night being fine and the breeze steady, the watch on deck, with the exception of the lookout, had quickly found snug corners for themselves, in which they had coiled themselves away for a quiet cat-nap; the mate had lighted his pipe and established himself in the skipper’s wicker armchair; and perfect peace and quiet reigned throughout the ship. Suddenly the whole sky seemed to brighten, and, glancing involuntarily over his right shoulder—from which direction the light appeared to emanate—Martin saw the meteorite in the sky immediately over our mastheads, and at the same moment became conscious of the screaming roar of its passage through the air.
“The moment I set eyes on it,” said he, “I knew—I felt certain, somehow—as the thing meant to strike us; and I shouted to the mate, to warn him; and then—not knowin’ why I did it—I let go the wheel and makes a spring for the life-buoy hangin’ at the taffr’l, whippin’ the knife out of my sheath at the same time. I’d got hold of the buoy, and the edge of my knife was on the seizin’, when it seemed to me as if the sun hisself was a-bearin’ down on us, the light and the heat got that dreadful fierce; then there came a most fearful smash as the thing struck us fair atween the fore and main masts, cuttin’ the ship clean in two, if you’ll believe me, gentlemen; and as my knife went through the seizin’ by which the buoy was lashed to the iron rail, I felt the poor old hooker double herself up together, just as if she was writhin’ with the pain of her death-wound; and with that, holdin’ the buoy in my hand, I makes a single spring overboard; and the next thing I knows, I finds myself bein’ sucked down with the wreck. If you’ll believe me, gen’lemen, it seemed years afore I felt that dreadful suction let go of me, and found myself risin’ to the top of the water again; and when I got there at last and caught my breath once more, it seemed to me as if another single second ’d ha’ done for me. I remembers congratulatin’ myself as the water was so warm and pleasant, and the breeze the same, as I settled myself comfortable in the middle of the buoy; and then, when I’d cleared the water out of my eyes, and slipped my knife back into his sheath, I set to work to look round and see if there was anybody else that had escaped besides myself. But I couldn’t see nobody; and while I was peerin’ round here and there into the black hollows between the seas, I catches sight of another flash in the sky, and looks up fully expectin’ to see another o’ them awful fire-balls. But it was only one o’ your rockets burstin’ up aloft; and lookin’ underneath the place when I floated up to the top of a sea, there I sees your to’ga’nts’ls and the upper half of your taups’ls; and I understood in a minute as you’d obsarved what had happened and meant to come and see if there was any of us left. Then I began hailin’, in hopes of hearin’ a reply from some of the lads; but there weren’t a sound come to me exceptin’ the moan of the wind and the hiss of the sea round about; so at last I knew that all hands exceptin’ myself had gone to the bottom with the good ship, leavin’ me alone to tell the tale.”
“What an extraordinary class of men sailors are!” remarked Sir Edgar, as the man Martin, having brought his narrative to a conclusion, and being dismissed by me, turned and shambled away forward with the usual careless, leisurely gait affected by forecastle Jack. “Here is a man who has just escaped—and is, moreover, the only survivor of—a catastrophe absolutely unique, I should say, in naval history, yet he is as unconcerned and undemonstrative over it as though the destruction of a ship by a meteorite were quite an everyday occurrence. Is such extraordinary sang-froid usual, or is this an exceptional example?”
“Oh dear, no,” I laughingly replied; “there is nothing in the least unusual in Martin’s demeanour, which, however, is doubtless partly assumed. It is not regarded as quite correct form to exhibit any excitement whatever over an adventure of which one’s self has been the hero; but, apart from that, sailors are so accustomed to carry their lives in their hands, and become so hardened to danger by being constantly brought face to face with it—often without a second’s warning, and sometimes in the most unexpected shapes—moreover, they witness from time to time such startling and inexplicable phenomena, that it is really difficult to provoke anything like a display of genuine, unmitigated surprise or excitement on their part. Whatever happens—unless it be something very distinctly suggestive of the supernatural—Jack is always prepared for it.”
“So it would appear,” assented the baronet. “But candidly now, captain, is not this present voyage of ours rather an eventful one?”
“Undoubtedly it is,” replied I. “Singularly so, thus far. A man might follow the sea all his life without witnessing so many casualties as have come under our notice since we sailed. Yet such casualties are constantly occurring in some part of the world. The only remarkable thing about those of which we have become cognisant is that so many should have occurred in so short a time, and within an area so small as to have permitted of our being in the vicinity of each just when it happened. Even the dreadful occurrence that we witnessed to-night, though it is the first case of the kind that I ever heard of, may be after all nothing very unusual in kind, and may possibly explain the loss of many of the craft that disappear and leave no sign behind them. For instance, it is safe to say that the only human eyes that witnessed the destruction of the Northern Queen are on board this ship, and if we had not seen it the chances are a hundred to one that her fate would never have been known. Martin’s prospects of escape would certainly have been remarkably small; for although, in this fine weather, he might have remained afloat for some time, he might have been passed unnoticed by a ship within a very short distance. Then, after exposure in the water for a certain number of hours, his strength would rapidly fail him, and he would die miserably of starvation, if he did not lose his hold upon the buoy and sink, or be dragged out of it by some hungry shark.”
“Upon my word, you would be an uncommonly cheerful companion for a nervous man,” remarked Sir Edgar, half jestingly, half in earnest. “I declare I shall never in future be able to look at that man without recalling the grim picture you have sketched of him floating helplessly in his life-buoy. You sailors certainly ought to be exceptionally religious men, for it seems to me that not one of you—not one of any of those who go down to the sea in ships—can count with certainty upon his life from one minute to another. Just look around you now, for instance. How gentle and peaceful is the whole aspect of nature at this moment, and how absolutely safe we seem to be! It was just as peaceful—just as apparently safe—three hours ago; yet in the interim a noble ship and her whole crew save one has perished; and what has befallen her may befall us or any other ship that floats, or ever will float, quite as suddenly, quite as unexpectedly. I hope that what we have witnessed to-night will enable us to realise more fully and vividly than ever, how completely we are in the hands of God, and how absolutely dependent upon His mercy. Good night, captain!”
I returned the salutation; and, as the baronet slowly and thoughtfully descended the companion, I mechanically turned away and began to pace the deck, with my thoughts busy upon the solemn words I had just heard, and the occasion that had given rise to them. And, as I did so, albeit I am perhaps no worse than the average man, the carelessness and indifference of my own conduct in the past rose up in judgment against me and condemned me of the grossest ingratitude for countless past mercies; the most shameful disobedience; the most criminal neglect to render to my Creator that honour and glory which is His due. And I there and then registered a solemn vow that from that moment I would lead a new and a better life; a vow that, I grieve to say, was afterwards far too frequently forgotten.
On the following day, after breakfast, Mr Roberts informed me that Martin had asked to be put into a watch; and he wished to know whether I was willing that such an arrangement should be made. I, of course, had no objection whatever to the proposal, as I by no means believe in idle people in the forecastle. So I told Mr Roberts to arrange the matter, and at the same time to keep an eye on the man; it being my intention to regularly ship him, if he proved worth having and should be willing to sign articles; the second mate’s being one hand weaker than the larboard watch.
About a week after this, little Edgar Desmond came up to me and, slipping his hand into mine, as was his wont when he desired to have a chat with me, began, in the straightforward way usual with children—
“Captain, where do you think will be a good place for me to sail my boat, when she is finished?”
“Your boat?” said I. “I didn’t know that you are making one.”
“Oh no,” said the child; “I am not making one; it is that new man, Martin, who is making it for me. And he is making it so nicely; just like a real boat. Come and see it, will you?”
Willing to humour the child, I walked forward with him; and on reaching the forecastle found Martin busy about some ordinary job connected with the usual routine work of the ship. As we halted before him he touched his forehead with his forefinger, in the usual style of the forecastle hand, and paused in his work to hear what we had to say to him.
“Good morning, Martin,” began Master Edgar. “I have brought the captain to see my boat. Will you show it him, please?”
“Well, you see, sir,” remonstrated Martin, obviously embarrassed by my presence, “’tain’t hardly fair to ask me to hexhibit the boat until she’s finished. There ain’t much of her yet, and what there is, is all in the rough. It’s a little job, sir,” he continued, turning in an explanatory way to me, “as I’ve undertook to do for this young gentleman in my afternoon watch below; and, as I said, she’s all in the rough at present—what there is of her.”
“Never mind that, Martin,” said I, seeing a shade of disappointment resting upon the child’s features; “bring her up, and let us have a look at her.”
Thereupon, the man dived below into the forecastle, and presently reappeared, bearing in his hand the skeleton of a miniature yacht, about two and a half feet long, half planked down. My first sensation, when I set eyes on the model, was surprise at the dainty, delicate character of the workmanship exhibited in it, which was greatly increased when, upon taking it into my hands and more closely inspecting it, I had an opportunity of examining its lines. They were as nearly perfect as anything I had ever seen; in short, it was evident that, when finished, the model would be a faithful miniature reproduction of a crack racing yacht of the most approved form.
“Why, Martin,” said I, greatly pleased at this example of his skill, “this is excellent. Where in the world did you learn to model lines like these?”
“Well, sir,” explained Martin, “you see, I was five years in the yard of the Fifes at Fairlie, yacht buildin’, before I shipped in the Northern Queen; and before that again I was more than three years with Summers and Payne, of Southampton; so I ought to know a little about the shape of a yacht, didn’t I, sir?”
“Assuredly you ought,” said I; “and evidently you do, if one may judge by this.” And I replaced the model in his hand, fully determined to regularly ship him if I could, now that I had seen what a handy, clever fellow he promised to be. For I may here tell the reader, in strict confidence, that there is nothing I more thoroughly enjoy than boat-sailing, and very few things that I more highly appreciate than a good model of a ship or boat. A few days after this I made the proposition to Martin that he should ship for the remainder of the voyage, offering him the same pay that I was giving our own carpenter; and he at once gladly assented. This arrangement, as will be seen later on, was destined to lead to more important results than either of us at the moment anticipated.
At length, after a phenomenally good passage as far south as the twenty-eighth parallel, we lost the trades, and immediately picked up a strong westerly wind, before which we bore away, under every rag we could spread, to round the Cape. When off Agulhas the wind southed upon us, and we fell in with the tremendous swell that is almost invariably met with about this spot. I had passed over the same ground ten times already—five times outward-bound, and five times on the homeward passage—and had always found a heavy swell running, but on this last occasion it was far heavier than I had ever before beheld it. To convey some idea of the enormous bulk and height of these liquid hills I may mention that while off the Agulhas Bank—where the swell was by no means at its highest—we overhauled and passed a barque of about our own size, at a distance of less than a cable’s length, yet so high was the swell that, when we both settled into the trough, she was completely hidden from us, to her topmast-heads!
In longitude 26 degrees East, with a moderate breeze from south-east, we bore away for the Straits of Sunda; and a few days afterwards met with a piece of exceptional good fortune. It was during the forenoon watch, the weather being beautifully fine, and a very gentle breeze blowing, under the influence of which we were slipping through the water at a speed of about five knots. The watch were busy, in a deliberate fashion, about various odd jobs on deck and aloft; and the occupants of the poop were lounging in their deck-chairs, amusing themselves according to their several fancies. As for me, I was engaged—as was indeed often the case—in a severe mental effort to find the key to Dick Saint Leger’s cryptogram. The gentle motion, the warm, genial sunshine, and the soft splash of the water along the bends, with the absence of any hurried movement on board or sharply spoken orders, seemed to have wrought in the entire ship, fore and aft, a condition of half-dreamy, blissful listlessness, from which we were suddenly startled by a man crying out, from halfway up the lee fore-rigging—
“Luff! luff hard! down with your helm, or you’ll be into it!”
“Into what?” shouted I, springing to my feet and running forward.
“I don’t know, sir, what it is, but it is something floating. Here you are, sir; it is just coming abreast of us now.”
As the ship shot up into the wind, with all her canvas flapping and rustling, I sprang upon the lee rail, and saw a mass of dirty greyish-white substance, mottled and streaked like marble, floating slowly past at a distance of some half a dozen yards from the ship’s side. Of course everybody else on deck must needs, in the excitement of the moment, rush to the lee rail, to gaze upon the cause of the sudden alarm; and, among them, the boatswain, an old whaler, who no sooner set eyes on the object than he exclaimed—
“Why, sir, that’s a lump of ambergrease, worth more’n a hundred pound, I’ll be bound. That’s worth pickin’ up, that is!”
I had never before seen a piece of ambergris, but had, of course, often heard of it, and knew it to be valuable; I accordingly ordered the mainyard to be laid aback, and sent the boatswain away with a crew in the gig to pick up the piece of “flotsam.” In about a quarter of an hour they returned to the ship with their prize, which proved to be a large lump—much larger than it had appeared to be when floating past—of hard, fatty matter, of a light, dirty grey colour, veined and mottled somewhat like marble, and giving off a peculiar sweet, earthy odour. Its weight seemed to be, as nearly as we could estimate it, about one hundred and fifty pounds; and the boatswain—who claimed to be an authority—confidently asserted that I should have no difficulty in getting a sovereign per pound for it at Hong Kong. Ambergris—I may as well mention, for the information of those who do not know—is said to be a secretion formed in the intestines of the sperm whale, as a result of disease. It is greatly in demand in the East generally, for a variety of purposes—medicinal, among others—but its chief use seems to be in the manufacture of perfumes. It is not often found, and, the supply being very limited, it commands a high price in the market. Strangely enough, we fell in with and secured a second and still larger piece a few days later; the total quantity amounting to no less than three hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which I afterwards disposed of without difficulty at twenty-five shillings per pound, remitting the proceeds home to my old friend, Mr Richards, in part liquidation of my debt to him.