Chapter Fourteen.
In the Horse Latitudes.
At noon on our second day out, running right before the north-east by east wind all the while and making but little southing, with our royals and studding-sails set, and everything that could draw—the Esmeralda averaging nearly ten knots an hour every time we hove the log from the time of our clearing the Bristol Channel—we had reached the meridian of 12 degrees 15 minutes west; for Captain Billings wisely took advantage of such a favourable breeze, as I’ve remarked before, to get well to windward of the French coast, knowing well that we might shortly meet with westerly winds of a variable nature that would probably put us quite as far to the eastward as we should want—in the event of our making too much westing.
However, having now gained such a good offing, we hauled our wind, and steered a west-sou’-west course, as previously mentioned, towards Madeira.
Up to this time we had not started a brace, or loosed a sheet, the wind being fair from aft while we were steering to the west, and now well abeam, on our bearing up to the southward on the port tack; but, we had hardly made a couple of days’ sail in our new direction, running down to the parallel of 45 degrees north, which we crossed in 15 degrees west, before the wind began to come in light puffs. Shortly afterwards, it shifted round to the westward, backing occasionally to the east and south-east and causing us plenty of work in the way of tacking, first to starboard, and then to port again—the skipper striving all the while to keep all the westing he had made, and preserve a diagonal course for the Line; although the set of the Gulf Stream, in towards the coast of Portugal, gave us a lot of leeway to add to our dead reckoning.
What with the baffling breezes and occasional calms, it took us another four days to get to the southwards of the Azores, passing them much further to the eastwards than Captain Billings had calculated on; but then a fresh wind sprang up from the north-west, bidding fair to last, which took us down to the thirty-fifth parallel in fine style, the Esmeralda covering over three hundred miles between the morning of one day and noon the next.
All hands now began hoping we were going to make a quick run of it after all, in spite of the tedious delays of the last few days; but it was a very fallacious hope, as we quickly found out.
The favourable north-wester lasted another twelve hours, driving us down our latitudes on the starboard tack, the ship sailing pretty free, with the wind nearly abeam and all her canvas set that could draw, racing through the water like a crack cutter at a regatta; when, on the evening of our eleventh day out, by which time we had nearly reached the parallel of Madeira, although forty miles or so to the westward of the island, the breeze failed us all of a sudden, just close on to midnight, a dead calm setting in, accompanied by a heavy rolling swell.
“Ah,” said Jorrocks, who was sharing the first watch with me—Mr Ohlsen, the second mate, being ill and excused from duty—“we’re now in the Hoss Latitudes, Mister Leigh, and may know what we’ve got to expect!”
“Horse Latitudes?” I repeated after him, inquiringly, thinking he was having a little joke at my expense, and taking advantage of my ignorance.
“Aye, I ain’t trying to bamboozle you, my lad! They calls them so, ’cause, in the old days, the West India traders that carried out hosses to the Windward Islands had frequently to throw ’em overboard during the shifts of wind and changes they had when they got hereabouts; for the weather can’t be depended on for an hour at a time, it being calm, just as now, one minute, and the next a gale springing up strong enough to blow the masts out o’ your ship ’fore you can let the sheets fly.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed; “and, do you think there’s any likelihood of a hurricane now?”
“Can’t say,” replied Jorrocks, sententiously. “We’d better give the skipper a hail; he left orders to be called if the wind dropped, or in case of any change.”
“All right,” said I, turning to leave the poop. “I will go down and rouse him at once, and I may as well knock up Mr Macdougall at the same time to relieve the deck, for it’s past eight bells.”
“Aye, aye, do so, sir,” responded the boatswain; so I hastened below to perform my mission, leaving him in charge until I returned.
Captain Billings answered my call almost the instant I rapped at his door, coming from his cabin fully dressed, having turned in to his bunk “all standing,” as if prepared for the summons; but the first mate was a heavy sleeper, and it took me more than ten minutes to rouse him, so that when I had gained the deck again the port watch had come on duty, the “starbowlines” having gone to their bunks as soon as relieved by the fresh hands. Jorrocks, however, I noticed, remained still on the poop; and, knowing that he would not thus inconvenience himself by going without his proper “caulk,” like the rest, unless there was some urgent reason—for he dearly loved his sleep when duty did not interfere with the indulgence—I stayed behind, too, the more especially as I remembered what he had said about there being the chance of a “blow.”
In the short time I had been away, a change was apparent, even to my unaccustomed eyes, unused as they were as yet to many nautical phenomena.
The stillness of the atmosphere I had noticed when I quitted the deck to summon the skipper, had been succeeded by a series of light puzzling puffs of air; while, although the night was clear, with a few stars shining overhead, fleecy fragments of cloud were whirling about in eddies, some settling in heavy masses on the water and banking themselves round the horizon.
But, the sea itself showed much the greatest sign of coming disturbance. The waves, no longer following each other in long heaving rollers, were curving upwards and jostling each other—like so many fiery coursers, suddenly thrown back on their haunches, by reason of being reined in when in the full burst of their mad career, and now champing their bits with angry impatience!
There was, likewise, an alteration in the aspect of the ship.
Captain Billings had already reduced his canvas, the topgallant sails having been taken in and the courses clewed up; and now, pretty nearly stripped of all her “drapery,” like a gladiator entering the arena, the Esmeralda appeared awaiting the issue of whatever decision the elements might arrive at—ready to take her part in the conflict should strife ensue between the opposing forces of the wind and waves; or, in the event of a contest being avoided through the disinclination of the storm fiend to “come to the scratch,” equally prepared to spread her wings again and proceed on her voyage.
“It’s just a toss up now, whether we’ll have it or not,” whispered Jorrocks to me as we stood side by side together on the poop, watching the skipper, whose eyes were as intently riveted on the dog-vane at the main truck above.
Just at this moment, Mr Macdougall came lazily sauntering up the poop ladder. He did not see that Captain Billings was on deck; and, eyeing the change in the ship’s appearance, exclaimed, angrily, with that Scottish burr of his, which was always more pronounced when he was excited—
“Hoot, mon, wha’ the dickens hae ye takken the sails off her—who ordered ye, I’d like ta ken?”
He was addressing Jorrocks; but the skipper, who was annoyed by his late arrival to relieve the watch, answered him sharply—
“I gave the order, Mr Macdougall, which you should have been up in time to have seen carried out; and, if you’re a seaman and will just give a glance round, you’ll soon see the reason why!”
The first mate made no reply to this save to follow out the captain’s suggestion of looking over the side; and what he saw there did not appear to give him any excuse for controverting the skipper’s words; for, the clouds had now spread over the horizon—except to the southward, where it was still clear, and from which a short sharp gust of wind came every now and then, filling out the loose folds of the courses, and then, as it died away, letting them flap against the masts with a heavy dull sound as of distant thunder, an occasional streak of pale lightning darting across the sky to the north-west, where the heavens were most obscured, as if to bear out the illusion.
“We’re in for it now, for certain,” said Captain Billings presently, noticing a faint stir in the air above amidst the whizzing clouds, the upper strata of which were going in a contrary direction to that in which the vane pointed, which was still to the south-east. “Boatswain, rouse out the watch below!”
Jorrocks thereupon immediately went forward towards the fo’c’s’le, knocking with a marlinspike three times on the deck, and shouting out the well-known hail that every sailor knows but too well.
“Tumble up there! All hands shorten sail!”
The men, who had hardly shifted their clothes and turned in, after being relieved by the port watch at eight bells, came tumbling up on deck hurriedly, and the skipper at once ordered the topsail and foresail to be reefed, spanker to be brailed up, and the main course furled; while the vessel was kept with her head to the southward, that is, as well as the cross sea and the fitful gusts of wind would allow, under her jib, fore and main-topsails and forecourse.
Presently there was an ominous hum in the surrounding atmosphere, when the waves calmed down as if by magic; and then, a large rent disclosed itself in the sombre curtain of cloud to the north-west, the heavy masses of vapour that had been previously piling themselves along the horizon there and spreading up to the zenith falling back again and scurrying away in a retrograde direction, like skirmishers on a battle-field driven-in on to their supports by a rush of cavalry trying to cut them off.
“Here it comes!” shouted out Captain Billings, ordering the hands at the same time to “stand by” the braces and topsail halliards; and, almost ere the crew could get to their respective posts, the clouds had disappeared, with what seemed a supernatural celerity from the heavens, letting the clear blue sky be seen again and the bright twinkling stars peep down to see what all the fuss was about, all being calm and easy up there!
Thanks to the skipper’s precautions, the outburst of the gale did not take the Esmeralda aback, as would most probably have been the case if the first mate had been in charge of the deck, when we should have most likely lost our spars, if the vessel had not foundered, as frequently happens when a ship is caught unprepared; as it was, she only winced slightly, with a shiver through her frame, as the wind struck her on the quarter, the masts and yards creaking and the topsails expanding with a sound like that of an explosion as they were blown out to their fullest extent, almost jumping from the bolt-ropes, and then her hull lay over to leeward while she began to push through the water, driven along before the blast at racehorse speed.
“Ease off those starboard braces there, and haul in to leeward?” cried out Captain Billings, directing the man at the wheel by a wave of his hand to put the helm down slightly, so as to bring her head more up to the wind; but this was more than the steersman could do unaided, the vessel—carrying out the analogy I recently used—resembling a vicious charger that had taken the bit between his teeth—so, Mr Macdougall at once sprang to help the steersman, when the two together managed, by exerting all their united strength, to jam the spokes round so that the ship’s head was brought over to the south-west, bearing off then with the wind before the beam.
The north-west gale was then blowing with tremendous force and increasing to the power of a hurricane each instant as it whistled through the cordage, wailing and shrieking like the lost souls in Dante’s “Inferno.” The momentarily quiet sea, too, had got up again, and was now covered with huge broken waves—raised aloft in pyramids one moment, and the next scooped out into yawning valleys, into which the vessel plunged, with a shock that made her timbers vibrate with the sledge-hammer thud of the bows meeting the billows full butt, the concussion causing columns of spray to be thrown up that came in over the cathead, drenching the fo’c’s’le and pouring in a cascade into the waist, whence the broken water, washing aft along the deck, forming a lake on the lee-side, where the scuppers were level with the sea, from the ship’s heeling over.
We were still carrying too much sail; and this the skipper was as quick as any one to perceive, although he was anxious to pursue his course as long as he could, and make as much capital as he could out of the north-wester in his way to the Line.
“Hands shorten sail!” accordingly was the repeated cry; and, knowing what was wanted, the crew were soon racing up the shrouds to close-reef the topsails, although the force of the wind nearly pinned them to the rigging like spread eagles, and they had hard difficulty in gaining the yards, and working out along the foot-ropes, especially on those to windward.
The topsail halliards had of course been let go before this, and the loose sails were filled out like balloons, so that it took some time to get in the bunt and tie the reef points; but it was at last done, and we returned to the deck—I being especially triumphant at having out-paced one of the smartest topmen in the ship, in gaining the weather earing of the foretop sail before him, and completing my task so quickly as to get down on deck before some of the rest had yet left the yard.
Captain Billings, I was pleased to see, noticed my activity, giving me an approving smile, which more than counterbalanced the scowl that Macdougall greeted my reappearance with below; but all such thoughts were soon banished by the skipper’s fresh order to go aloft and take in the topsail we had only just close-reefed, the vessel being buried too much by the head.
Away up the rattlins we all climbed again; while those below, on the halliards being started by the run, began hauling on the clewlines and buntlines, bagging up the sail so that we could hand it easier. It was stiffer work furling it than the reefing had been; but, at length this, too, was accomplished, albeit I nearly narrowly got knocked off the yard-arm by the flapping back of the folds of canvas in my face as the wind caught the leech sideways. We then returned once more to the more substantial platform of the deck, glad enough to get down safe again.
“Let go the jib halliards!” was the next command, some of the hands starting forwards to man the down haul; but the moment the halliards were cast loose, the accommodating sail saved us any further trouble in the way of stowing it, by blowing clean away to leeward with a report as if a small cannon had been fired off on the fo’c’s’le—floating out against the dark background of the sky like a child’s kite whose string has parted and let it go to grief, tumbling down from its soaring height, and disappearing in the dim distance to leeward, where the clouds had already vanished.
The ship was now only under her close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, all the rest of her canvas having been taken off her by degrees; still, she laboured so greatly, and got such a list to leeward—with the topmasts bent like fishing rods under the strain, while the weather shrouds were as taut as fiddle-strings, and those on the port side hung limp and loose through the stretching of the rigging—that the skipper saw she would not stand driving any more. The only thing now to be done, he thought, was to lay her to, so that, as he could not get her any further on her forward journey, she should not, at all events, lose the progress she had already made save by leeway drift, which of course was unavoidable.
“Ease down the helm!” he cried to the two men, who were now necessary at the wheel, while the fore-tack was boarded, the lee braces hauled aft, and the mainyard braced in, when the ship was brought up to the wind, bowing and scraping, and taking in tons of water over the fo’c’s’le, in this operation, that washed everybody off their legs in the waist, bundling them away to leeward in a bunch.
For a time the Esmeralda now behaved very well, the mizen trysail being set to steady her, although, being hove to on the starboard tack, she drifted sideways, before the fierce north-west gale, making as much leeway towards the south and east as if she had been running free; but, presently, there was a loud crack heard forwards, and Haxell, the carpenter, came up to the skipper on the poop, looking even more serious than usual as he crawled aft under shelter of the bulwarks.
“The foremast is sprung, sir,” said he in a melancholy tone of voice, as if he were announcing the fact of his just going to be hanged.
“Is it serious?” asked Captain Billings.
“Aye, aye, sir, it’s all that,” replied Haxell. “There’s a big flaw close under the slings of the foreyard. It won’t stand the pressure of that foresail ag’in it much longer, Cap’; and it’ll be safe to carry away presently.”
“Then we must relieve it before that happens,” said the skipper, giving orders for us to furl the foresail and hoist the fore-topmast staysail in its place, for that would serve to keep control of the helm, he thought. The ship required some headsail, and this would not try the damaged mast so severely as the foresail had done, with its wide extent of canvas.
By the time all these different manoeuvres had been essayed and effected it was broad daylight. It was a fine morning, too, although the wind was still blowing a hurricane and the sea was fearfully high and choppy, for there wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the heavens, while the sun was shining down with almost tropical heat; but, in spite of its looking so bright, we hadn’t done with the nor’-wester yet.
Towards mid-day, when we found from observation that we were in latitude 27 degrees North and longitude 18 degrees West—nearly abreast of the island of Palma in the Canaries, and a terrible distance to the eastward of our position on the previous day, thus showing all the leeway we had lost—the wind increased so much in strength that it blew now with even greater force than at its first onset the evening before on the breaking out of the gale.
This was not all, either.
The heavy waves that dashed against the ship as she headed them, broke upon her bows with such fury that it seemed every moment as if they would beat in the timbers; while, every now and then, some billow mightier than its fellows would force her head away, making her fall off, and then, the succeeding sea would take her broadside on, hurling tons of broken water on her decks that would have soon filled her had not the hatches been battened down, which precaution had been taken when we first reduced sail.
The situation became serious on this being repeated several times during the afternoon, for there was great danger of the vessel being any moment thrown on her beam ends, when there would certainly be a clean sweep made of everything on board and the Esmeralda be speedily converted into a floating wreck!
Captain Billings accordingly called a council of his officers, I standing by and listening to what Mr Macdougall and Jorrocks advised should be done in the emergency. These both, however, came to the same opinion as the skipper, that scudding would be the best course to pursue under the circumstances—although, like him, they were well aware that the difficulty which faced us all consisted, not so much in running before the wind, as in managing to get the vessel’s head round so as to do it without broaching or letting her to.
Still, the manoeuvre had to be tried as a last resource.
“I don’t see that anything else can be done,” said Captain Billings, with a more anxious look on his face than I had ever noticed there before. “I only hope we’ll manage it successfully; for, if we once get broadside on in the trough of this sea, she’ll never rise out of it, with the heavy cargo she carries, and so it will be a case of Davy Jones’ locker for the lot of us!”