Chapter Twenty Seven.
The Loss of the “Juanita.”
A fortnight was very pleasantly spent by us at the island, during the progress of the repairs, the good people of Bridgetown vieing with each other in their efforts for our amusement, a ball also upon a very grand scale being given in our honour by the officers of the garrison; and then all defects being made good, we once more put to sea.
We appeared by this time to have come to the end of our run of good luck, however; for, though we most assiduously worked the entire archipelago, not a sign of an enemy could we find.
At length, the period of our cruise having expired, we bore up and returned to Port Royal, where Captain Annesley was received by the admiral with effusion.
The frigate remained at anchor in the harbour ten days, during which all hands indulged in a little welcome recreation, the officers attending quality balls, shooting, and visiting at various estates belonging to new-made, but most hospitable Kingstonian friends.
I had accepted an invitation from a Mr Finnie—whose acquaintance I had made on my previous visit to Kingston—to spend a few days on his estate among the Blue Mountains and enjoy a little shooting on a small lake adjoining it; and in my indefatigable pursuit of this amusement I managed to contract a severe attack of yellow fever.
I was most kindly and carefully nursed through it by Mrs Finnie, and it was chiefly owing to her unceasing attention, under God, that I recovered at all. I was ill for weeks, what with the fever, a relapse, and the terrible prostration which followed; and when at length I was able once more to crawl about, the “Astarte” had been long gone to sea upon a sort of roving commission, from which it was quite uncertain when she would return.
Under such circumstances the time soon began to hang heavily on my hands, and I longed for a sniff of the pure salt sea-breeze, once more. I was therefore greatly delighted when, on calling at the country house of the admiral—to whom I had been introduced by Captain Annesley—the following conversation occurred.
“Ah! Chester,” said the admiral, “glad to see you on your pins once more; you have had a very narrow squeak of it, I hear.”
“Indeed I have, sir,” I replied. “So narrow was it that they had my coffin all ready built for me. I have managed to weather upon Yellow Jack this time, however, thank God; and now, if I could only get to sea again, I believe I should soon pull round and completely recover my strength.”
“Ah! say you so? It is quite likely.” The old gentleman was silent for a few minutes, and then, turning abruptly to me, he said,—
“Have you heard that the ‘Juanita’—that pirate brigantine which the ‘Astarte’ took among the Roccas—has been brought to Port Royal, and that we are putting a new foremast in her and converting her into a topsail schooner?”
“No, sir, I have not,” I replied. “Indeed I have heard nothing in connection with naval matters, for I have not yet been as far as Kingston.”
“Umph! Well, we are doing so,” he said. “How do you think the change will affect her?”
“I believe it will be a great improvement. All that heavy gear forward must, I am sure, have been detrimental to her sailing powers, especially in a sea-way.”
“To be sure it was. Couldn’t have been otherwise. Then you approve of the change?”
“Yes, sir, certainly,” I replied, wondering why on earth so great a personage should attach any importance to the opinion of a midshipman.
“Ah! I am glad of that,” returned the admiral; “because, since you have expressed a wish to go to sea again, the idea has come into my head to give her to you—that is to say, until the ‘Astarte’ comes in again.”
I murmured something—I hardly knew what—by way of thanks, to which the admiral kindly replied,—
“There, there; don’t say a word about it, my dear boy. Annesley has told me all about you, and if the half of what he says be true, I know of no one who is better fitted for the trust than yourself. Besides, I have really nobody else to place in charge. If you feel well enough, you had better run down on board in the course of a day or two, and see how matters are going on. Now come away into the other room and have some lunch.”
On the following morning, directly after breakfast, I started in Mr Finnie’s ketureen for Kingston, and, reaching the wharf about noon, chartered that fast-sailing clipper, the “Fly-by-night,” to convey me to Port Royal. The jabber of the black boatmen and the exhilarating sensation of being once more afloat had quite a tonic effect upon my spirits, which rose higher and higher as we tore down past the Palisades, the boat careening gunwale-to, with the hissing, sparkling foam seething past and trailing away in a long wake astern.
When I got on board the “Juanita,” I found that they had just stepped the foremast, and a most beautiful spar it was, without a knot in it, and as straight as a ray of light.
Fisher, the dockyard foreman, was on board, superintending operations, and from him I learned that it was intended to make some slight alterations in the armament of the craft; for, whereas when captured she carried four long-sixes of a side, it was now proposed to alter the position of the ports, reducing their number to three, and bringing them more toward the middle or waist of the vessel, and mounting three long-nines on each side instead of the four sixes, thus removing the weight from the two ends, and adding three pounds to the weight of her broadside. It was also proposed to take away the long-nine from forward, and to substitute for it a long-eighteen between the masts.
These alterations accorded strictly with my own views upon the subject, and were precisely what I should have suggested, had I been asked. There had been some little talk about increasing the height of her bulwarks, but this, I was glad to hear, had been overruled; for it would certainly have gone far toward spoiling her light, jaunty, graceful appearance.
It took the dockyard people just another week to complete the proposed alterations, during which I visited the craft every morning, returning to my quarters at Mr Finnie’s in time for their six o’clock dinner. On the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher’s hands, and as I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft, and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though light, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which she had been fitted fore and aft, and which had been stretching all the week and were permanently bent only that same morning, gleamed in the brilliant sunshine, white as snow.
Her hull was coppered to about six inches beyond the water-line, and above this she was painted a cool grey up to her rail, this colour being relieved by a narrow scarlet riband along the covering-board. It was a fancy of the admiral, that she should be made as unlike a ship of war as possible, in order that she might be the more thoroughly fitted for her destined work; and, between us all, we certainly managed to meet his wishes in that respect to perfection, for she looked, both in hull and rigging, more like a yacht than anything else.
On the following day the stores and ammunition were shipped, and on the day after I called at the admiral’s office for my instructions, joined the ship, and that same evening, as soon as the land breeze set in, proceeded to sea; my orders being to cruise among the Windward Passages for the protection of trade and the suppression of piracy until recalled, and to look in at the post office on Crooked Island about once a month for orders.
Keeping close along in under the land, so as to take full advantage of the land breeze, we were off Morant Point by midnight, when we stretched away to seaward, and finally, after being obliged to take to our sweeps to get across the calm belt between the terral and the trade-wind, stood away to the northward, close-hauled upon the starboard tack, toward the Cuban shore.
Weathering in due time Cape Maysi, the eastern extremity of the island of Cuba, we shaped a course for Crooked Island Passage, and being then able to get a small pull upon the weather-braces and to ease off the mainsheet a foot or so, we bowled along in a style which filled all hands with delight.
On our arrival at Crooked Island we called at the post office, and I left a letter for the admiral, reporting progress. There was a fine full-rigged ship lying there when we arrived, bound for London; she had been there two days, waiting and hoping for the arrival of a man-of-war, under the protection of which to get safely through the Passage. She carried a very rich cargo and some sixteen passengers, most of whom were ladies, and as she only mounted four small guns, and carried no more than just sufficient men to work the ship, her skipper was willing to lose a day or two upon the chance of getting a safe convoy clear of the islands, among which there had been of late some very daring cases of piracy.
Finding that the “Centurion”—as his ship was named—was perfectly ready for sea, I arranged with her skipper to sail again that afternoon, which we accordingly did. The “Centurion” proving to be a slow sailer, we were four days taking her out clear of everything, when, having done so without molestation, the two ships parted company, and we bore up for a regular cruise to the southward among the various passages.
We fell in with a good many ships, all English, pushing through the various passages, and a few of them asked for convoy; but of pirates, slavers, or French privateers—any of which would have been game for our bag—we saw nothing.
At length, having made the circuit of the archipelago once, calling at the post office on reaching it, but finding no orders, we had proceeded so far on our cruise as to have arrived off the Square Handkerchief Shoal on our second round, and were about to bear up through the Silver Kay Passage, when, toward the end of the afternoon watch, the wind suddenly dropped, and by sun-down it had fallen stark calm.
The air turned close and hot as the breath of an oven, and as the evening wore on a heavy bank of black cloud worked up from to leeward and slowly overspread the sky, gradually settling down until the vapour appeared to touch our mast-heads.
Hawsepipe, a master’s-mate, who was acting as master, had been very fidgety for some time, and at last, “What do you think all this means, Mr Chester?” said he.
“I scarcely know what to make of it,” I replied. “I have never seen anything quite like it before. It looks more like an impending thunder-storm than anything else; but it may be something very different, and I was about to give the order to shorten sail when you spoke.”
“I really think we had better,” he returned. “I see no sign of wind as yet, certainly; still, as we are in no hurry, it would be just as well to be prepared for anything and everything that can possibly happen. What sail shall we get her under?”
“Well, being, as you remark, in no sort of hurry, I think we will make our precautions as complete as possible by stowing everything except the fore-trysail and staysail. Let the men commence with the mainsail, as it is the largest and least manageable sail in a breeze.”
“All hands, shorten sail!” sang out Hawsepipe.
The boatswain’s pipe sounded, his gruff voice reiterated the order, and the men, who had been grouped together on the forecastle discussing the singular appearance of the weather, sprang to their stations.
“Main and peak halliards let go! Man the main-tack tricing-line and down with the throat of the sail; round-in upon the mainsheet! Now, then, is there no one to attend to the peak downhaul? That’s right. Now roll up the sail snugly and put the coat on. In with the whole of your square canvas forward. Royal, topgallant, and topsail halliards and sheets let go; man the clewlines, and clew them up cheerily, my lads. Haul down and stow both jibs. Lay aloft there! and see that you stow your canvas snugly, although it is too dark at present for me to see what you are about.” Thus Mr Hawsepipe, in as authoritative a tone as though he were the first luff of a 120-gun ship.
Sail was shortened in considerably less time than it has taken to write the above description; for though this was the first cruise wherein Hawsepipe had been placed in a position of actual authority, he was anything but a tyro in the science of seamanship, and insisted on everything on board being done as thoroughly well as it was possible to do it, and the schooner was soon ready for whatever might come.
The night grew hotter and hotter, and still the glassy calm continued. The darkness was so intense, so opaque, that on placing my hand close before my eyes, I was quite unable to see it; and the stillness of the air was such that the flame of a lamp brought on deck burned straight up and down, merely swaying a trifle with the heave of the ship upon the long, sluggish swell.
This state of things continued until nearly four bells in the first watch, when a startling phenomenon occurred. The curtain of vapour grew more dense even than it had been before, entirely precluding the possibility of any light penetrating from above; notwithstanding which, the atmosphere very gradually became luminous with a ghastly, blue, sulphurous light, until it was possible, not only to see distinctly every object on board the schooner, but also to distinguish the gleaming surface of the water for a distance on every side of some three miles or so.
The faces of the men huddled together on the forecastle looked ghastly and death-like in this unearthly light, and the hull, spars, rigging and canvas of the schooner assumed such a weird and supernatural appearance when illumined by it, that she might easily have been mistaken for a cruiser from Phlegethon.
But this was not all. About half-an-hour after this singular luminosity of the atmosphere first became apparent, and before the startled seamen had recovered their self-possession, in an instant, without any premonition whatever, there appeared at each mast-head and yardarm, at the jibboom-end—in fact, at the end of every spar on board the schooner—a globe of greenish-coloured light, about the size of an ordinary lamp-globe, each of which wavered and swayed, elongated and flattened, as the ship gently rose and fell over the glassy sea.
The men were now thoroughly terrified.
“See that, Tom?” exclaimed one. “What d’ye call all them things?”
“Why, they be Davy Jones’ lanterns, they be,” returned Tom; “and right sorry am I to see ’em.”
“Davy Jones’ lanterns?” echoed the questioner. “What—you don’t mean as them lights has been h’isted aboard here by the real old genuine Davy hisself, eh?”
“That’s just what I do mean, then, and no mistake. My eyes! there’s a show of ’em, too; never seed so many afore in my life. You mark my words, Dick, and see if something out o’ the common don’t happen to this here little barkie afore four-and-twenty hours is over our heads.”
“What sort of a somethin’ d’ye mean, Tom, bo’?” asked another.
“Why, harm or damage o’ some kind,” replied the oracle. “I’ve heerd say as how when them lanterns is showed aboard of a craft, that it’s a sure sign as she’s a doomed ship. I remembers one time when I was in the Chinee seas in the old—Lord ha’ mercy on us! what’s that?”
A dazzling, blinding flash, which seemed to set both sky and sea on fire, and a simultaneous crash of thunder of so terrific a character that my ears rang and tingled, and I was stone-deaf for a few minutes afterwards, interrupted the speaker. I reeled under the awful concussion, as though I had received a crushing blow, and for a minute or two I felt dazed to the verge of unconsciousness. Then I became sensible that Hawsepipe was grasping my hand and trying to direct my attention forward; he seemed, too, to be anxious to say something, for his lips were moving rapidly in an excited manner.
I looked forward, and—behold!—there lay our foremast, with all attached, over the side; the stump—standing about four feet above the deck—being nothing but a mass of charred and blackened splinters. This was bad enough, but, letting my glance travel forward, I saw that the whole of the men on the forecastle had been struck to the deck by the electric fluid.
Hawsepipe, the surgeon, the quarter-master, and I, all rushed forward in a body to the assistance of the unfortunate men, and to ascertain the extent of their injuries. We raised the poor fellows, as we came to them, into a sitting position against the bulwarks, while the surgeon hastily examined them. To our horror it was found that all but four had been killed by that tremendous discharge, the dead men’s bodies being in some cases blackened and charred as if by fire; while, in other cases, their knives and the coin in their pockets were fused into shapeless lumps of metal. The living were carried aft to the cabin, where the surgeon, assisted by Hawsepipe, devoted all his energies to their restoration, while the quarter-master and I returned to the deck to look after the safety of the ship.
In the meantime a terrific thunder-storm heralded by that first destructive discharge, had set in, the green and baleful glare of the livid lightning illuminating the scene until it became almost as light as day; while the crashing roll of the thunder was absolutely continuous, and so deafening that I felt stunned and stupefied by it. There was no rain, neither was there any wind, properly speaking, the dead calm being only interrupted now and then by a momentary gust of wind, hot as the blasting breath of a furnace, which passed over us and was gone almost before we had time to realise its presence. These fitful and transient gusts of wind came from all quarters of the compass. I had never before experienced weather of at all a similar character, nor had Simpson, the quarter-master, and we were equally puzzled as to what to expect. The heavens were black as ink, and the clouds, rendered visible by the unearthly bluish-green glare of the lightning, were seen to be writhing and working like tortured serpents; but there was nothing to indicate a probable breeze.
There was plenty of work to be done, the clearing away of the wreck being our first task. Simpson and I accordingly armed ourselves with a tomahawk each, and went forward to make a commencement. Simpson began at the jibboom-end, cutting away the stays attached thereto, and working his way in, while I made an attack upon the shrouds and backstays. Our intention was to cut away everything in the first instance, in case of bad weather coming on, and afterwards to save as much of the wreck as we could.
I had scarcely begun my task when I fancied I smelt a smell of burning, but for the first minute or so I paid little attention to it, as the air had been for a long time pervaded by a strong choking sulphurous odour. I had struck but a few strokes with my tomahawk however, when a very strong whiff assailed my nostrils, and at the same instant a thin wreath of smoke appeared hovering over the fore-scuttle. Dropping my tomahawk, I darted toward the opening, and, looking down, found the place full of smoke, which appeared to be prevented from rising by the peculiar condition of the atmosphere.
“Lay in, Simpson,” I shouted to the quarter-master; “the ship is on fire!”
The old fellow, with his arm raised in the act of striking at the jib-stay, turned, and, catching sight of the smoke, bundled inboard in a trice. We descended to the forecastle together, and found it so full of dense pungent smoke that it was impossible to remain there a moment without adopting precautions of some kind to escape suffocation; we accordingly returned to the deck, and, removing our black silk handkerchiefs from our throats saturated them with water, and then bound them tightly about the lower part of our faces, leaving our eyes only uncovered. Thus protected, we once more descended, and were then enabled to remain long enough to assure ourselves that the forecastle was not the seat of the fire. As we returned to the deck up the steep ladder, I detected smoke issuing into the forecastle in dense jets through the joints in the bulkhead, and this, together with the odour, which at that moment became very strong, led me to suspect that the fire was located in the store-room.
Saturating our handkerchiefs afresh and readjusting them upon our faces, we rushed aft and descended the main hatchway. Here—that is to say, immediately in the wake of the hatchway—there was very little smoke, but with every step forward it became more and more dense, and as we approached the store-room the heat and smoke became so stifling that we could only proceed with the utmost difficulty.
At length, however, we managed to reach the store-room door, and then the heat, the heavy smoke, the dull roar and crackling of the flames, gave us unmistakable assurance that we had found the seat of the mischief. I placed my hand upon the thick planking of the bulkhead and found it to be scorching hot.
We were unable to remain a moment where we were, so intense was the smoke and heat. We accordingly returned to the deck and summoned Hawsepipe and the doctor to our assistance. We informed them in a few words of this new catastrophe, or rather of the unexpected result of the original one—for I had no doubt whatever that it was the lightning which had set the ship on fire,—and received from them in return the news that the four men had been restored to consciousness, but had not yet recovered the use of their limbs; we then at once set about cutting a hole through the deck into the store-room, hoping that by means of the fire-engine and hose we might yet be able to conquer the flames.
A hole was first cut in the deck large enough to admit the end of the hose; the hose was then inserted, and packed carefully round with wet canvas where it passed through the deck, so as to prevent, as far as possible, the access of fresh air to the fire, and we four then manned the engine and proceeded with all our energy to pump water down upon the flames.
We had been thus engaged for about a quarter of an hour, the lightning raging round us all the while in undiminished fury, when, in an instant, down came the rain in a perfect flood.
“Shut the ports!” yelled Hawsepipe.
We understood in a moment the object he had in view, and, leaving the engine, went round the decks, closing the ports and stopping up the scuppers with pieces of canvas, so as to prevent the water from flowing off the deck. The rain was descending in such copious torrents that in a few minutes we were up to our knees in warm, fresh water, when the hose was withdrawn from the hole in the deck and the water allowed to stream down into the store-room. A dense jet of steam rushed up through the hole immediately that we withdrew the hose and its packing.
We now had a moment in which to take a look below, and see what result had attended our labours. A glance at the fore-scuttle was anything but reassuring, dense clouds of steam and smoke issuing by this time from the opening, and as we looked the smoke suddenly became tinged with the lurid reflection of flames. I darted to the opening, and looking down as well as I could through the blinding suffocating clouds which rushed up in denser volumes every instant, saw that the bulkhead was burned through, and the flames already spreading in every direction.
The fire-engine was instantly started once more, the hose being this time directed down into the forecastle, and for twenty minutes we played upon the fire there—the rain all the while rushing down in sheets and fast filling our decks—without result; at the end of that time it became apparent that the ship was doomed.
Hawsepipe and the doctor had meanwhile pressed their investigations farther aft, soon reappearing with the alarming news that the fire was spreading aft with great rapidity.
“Then there is nothing for it but to take to the boat without further delay,” said I.
And we set about getting her over the side forthwith, our motions being considerably accelerated by the increasing loudness of the roaring crackling sound of the fire, the dense cloud of smoke which now enveloped the ship, and the almost unbearable heat of the deck. The flames spread so rapidly that by the time we had got the boat into the water, with her oars, sails, etcetera, a couple of breakers of water, a bag or two of biscuits, and a miscellaneous collection of small stores from the cabin lockers, the heat and smoke had become so unendurable that we could not remain still a moment, indeed so sorely pressed were we that the poor fellows who had been injured by the lightning, and who had been brought on deck some time before to save them from suffocation, were almost thrown over the side into the boat; we scrambled in after them, and casting off got out the oars, and pulled as fast as we could from the ship, which in another minute was blazing from stem to stern, notwithstanding the still pouring rain.
We pushed off in dead silence, and, having pulled far enough away to be clear of the scorching heat, laid with one consent upon our oars to watch the conflagration. We had been lying thus motionless upon the water some three or four minutes, when the mainmast swayed slowly to and fro for a moment, and then fell with a hissing splash into the water alongside, a shower of sparks shooting up at the same moment from the burning bulwarks which had been crushed out by the mast in its fall. We were watching and remarking upon the way in which the planks of the topsides were twisting up and opening out from the timbers under the influence of the tremendous heat, when suddenly an awful recollection flashed upon me.
“Pull! pull for your lives!” I screamed. “We have forgotten to drown out the magazine.”
Not another word was needed. With one accord the oars dashed into the water, and you may rest assured that we threw our entire weight and strength into each stroke, bending the stout ash staves as though they were pliant whalebone, and all but lifting the boat clear out of the water.
We had not pulled more than a dozen strokes before there was a violent concussion, as though we had run stem-on upon a sandbank, the schooner’s sides burst apart, the flaming planks of the deck, with its fittings, the guns, and everything else upon it, soared into the air in the midst of a blinding sheet of flame, and then came the dull, heavy roar of the explosion, and—black darkness.
We ceased pulling as the explosion took place, struck powerless for the moment at this sudden and terrible destruction which had befallen the craft so lately our home and ark of safety, and it was only when the fiery fragments began to fall thickly round us that we took to our oars once more.
But our troubles had scarcely yet begun, for our oars had hardly dipped in the water when—crash!—there fell a ponderous fragment of one of the schooner’s timbers down upon the boat, literally cutting her in two and killing poor old Simpson on the spot.
The boat at once sank from under us, leaving us all struggling for our lives in the water. Hawsepipe was a famous swimmer, and he immediately seized the doctor—who could not swim a stroke—and placed him in a position of temporary safety upon the floating piece of timber which had inflicted upon us this fresh disaster, while I looked after the injured men who, probably owing to the shock of immersion, had suddenly so far recovered the use of their limbs as to be able with very little assistance to gain the same refuge.
We now found, what we had been too busy to notice before, that the thunder-storm had nearly worn itself out; an occasional flash, low down upon the horizon, and its long, rumbling accompaniment of distant thunder being all that remained to remind us of it, except the frequent gleam of sheet lightning which continued to play all round the horizon and behind the great banks of cloud into which the black canopy overhead had now broken.
The question calling for immediate attention was, how best to provide for our safety. Clinging to the floating timber we were safe only as long as it remained calm; a very gentle sea would be sufficient to wash us from our hold. Looking round me, I perceived that we were at no great distance from the wreck of the foremast, and I thought if all hands could only reach it, we might be able to construct from it and the spars attached to it a raft of sufficient capacity to accommodate us all in some degree of comfort and safety. I mentioned my idea to Hawsepipe, who approved of it greatly; whereupon I left him to look after the survivors while I went to the spar. Reaching it, I was able without much difficulty to form from the halliards of the various sails and the other running-gear still attached to the spars a warp long enough to reach from the foremast to the timber to which the others were clinging, with which I swam back. Bending the end of this warp securely to the piece of timber, Hawsepipe and I then swam to the foremast, and hauling upon the warp, soon had the rest of the party there also.
Hawsepipe undertaking with the assistance of the others to cut the yards adrift and separate the topmast from the lower-mast, I took another cruise with the warp, and was fortunate enough, after swimming about for over an hour, to bag a half-burned hen-coop with four dead fowls still therein, three hatches, and the remains of the mainmast with topmast attached, the latter spar being still in good enough condition to be serviceable, and the jibboom. All these things I contrived to get alongside the foremast without interrupting the labours of the others.
Hawsepipe evidently knew how to construct a raft upon scientific principles. The foremast he took for a sort of foundation or keel, laying the two topmasts, one on each side and parallel to it, at a distance of about ten feet. The ends of these spars were then crossed by and lashed to the two yardarms of the fore-yard at the end of the raft which he intended for its stern, and to the topsail yardarms at the fore end. This formed a rectangular staging, with the lower-mast running fore and aft through its centre. This staging was then strengthened by lashing the jibboom across it in the middle, and upon the top of all, the hatches and the hen-coop were firmly secured, forming a small platform, upon which, however, there was room for us all with a little crowding. The topgallant yard with the sail still attached was then got on end, one arm being lashed to the foremast, and the other sustained aloft by means of shrouds and stays. The topgallant sail we cut in two diagonally, and thus treated it formed a tolerably serviceable leg-of-mutton sail.
It took us so long to do all this, that by the time we had finished, day was breaking; and as the sun rose the clouds cleared away, and the trade-wind once more resumed its sway, the fresh, cool breeze greatly reviving our exhausted energies, while it bore us, at the rate of about a knot and a half per hour, away from the scene of the catastrophe.