Chapter Ten.
Disrated.
I can’t say what the rest felt; but I know that I, for one, was frightened when I heard that strange gurgling noise and saw the great black thing, spinning round like a teetotum and swirling up the water, coming down on our ship as if to overwhelm her!
The squalls, which succeeded each other from different directions in rapid sequence, were even more dangerous than the water-spout; but Captain Miles was too good a seaman to be easily beaten, even by the most adverse circumstances.
Telling off some of the best hands to the fore and main-braces on either side, so that these could be let go or hauled taut in an instant as the wind shifted, thus necessitating the vessel changing her tack with similar rapidity, he went to the helm himself; and from this point, with the assistance of Moggridge, he conned the ship as coolly as if he were in charge of a yacht trying to weather the mark-boat in a race so as to get to windward of her competitors!
The captain was trying to make as much northing as he could, as well as endeavouring to run out of reach of the water-spout, which latter, although it gyrated about in the water so queerly and seemed moving every way at once, came up more from the eastwards, travelling to the south of west apparently; and, expert seaman that he was, in spite of the veering wind, which backed round every moment, he gallantly manoeuvred so as to gain his object—sailing ahead between the squalls, as it were.
“Ready about!” he would call out one minute, when the main-topsail was backed and the fore-yard swung round; and, almost as soon as this was done and the weather braces handed, the cry “’bout ship!” was again repeated, when the Josephine was brought once mere back to her previous bearings.
Such tackings and beatings about, surely, no ship ever underwent before in so short a time!
“By Jingo, he’s a sailor every inch of him!” I heard one of the old hands of the crew murmur in admiration as he pulled in with a will the weather braces for about the sixth time in as many minutes; and, truth to say, I could not help sharing the feeling of respect all the crew had for our captain, who, easy-going as he was generally in fine weather, letting the first mate then attend to the working of the ship, he was “all there,” as they said, when the necessity for prompt action in any emergency called for exertion and made him show himself in his true colours.
But, struggle to outstrip it as much as he might, the water-spout came nearer and nearer to us, bearing down still broadside-on upon the ship. As I stood close to the captain and Moggridge, who alone were on the poop besides myself, Mr Marline and Davis the second mate being in the waist, looking after the men at the braces amidships, I noticed that the pillar of cloud became more transparent in proportion as it decreased in size from the upper portion, until it seemed almost perfectly so at the lower extremity where it touched the sea. I observed, too, that a small inner column of equal diameter, looking like a glass tube, went up the middle. This, evidently, was the water which was being sucked up into the mass of vapour above as if by a syphon.
Fortunately, just as it seemed almost touching the ship, when the whirling waves round its base made us oscillate from side to side, the Josephine, heeling over to her chain-plates from a sudden rush of wind that appeared to accompany it, the portentous column of vapour darted off almost at right angles to its former course; and then, the cloud, having taken up more of the sea-water than it could contain, burst with a loud hissing sort of report, the contents falling around us in the form of a heavy downpour of rain which sluiced our decks down, but happily did no further damage.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Captain Miles reverently, taking off his cap and looking upwards in grateful recognition of the providential care that had watched over and protected us from the fearful peril which had threatened us; and his thanksgiving was participated in by more than one other, I knew, for I could see Moggridge’s lips moving in silent prayer, while I felt inclined to fall on my knees, my heart was so full of joy and gladness at our narrow escape.
I was overpowered with a feeling of wonder and awe.
Strangely enough, there seemed some strong connection between the water-spout and the wind; for, no sooner had the column of vapour broken up, than the heavy clouds dispersed away to leeward. The sun then came out again, and the squally weather calmed down to a gentle breeze from the south-east that enabled us to haul round again on our proper course, the ship presently being covered anew with canvas and the reefs in the topsails shaken out.
When all danger was over, though, the whole thing puzzled me very much.
“What is a water-spout?” I asked Captain Miles later on in the evening after dinner, as he was having a quiet cigar on the poop before turning in. I saw that he then looked inclined for a chat, and thought it a good opportunity to seek for information.
He answered my question in the Irish way, by asking me another.
“Did you ever see a whirlwind when you were at Grenada, Tom?” he inquired.
“Yes,” I replied, “I recollect a long time ago noticing one at Mount Pleasant once, and wondering at the way in which all the loose straw in the stable-yard was circled round and round, as if in a funnel, and then drawn up into the sky.”
“Well, then,” said Captain Miles, “the celebrated Dr Franklin has demonstrated, if I recollect aright, that a whirlwind on land, and a water-spout at sea, arise from similar general causes, and may be considered one and the same thing.”
“But, what is the cause of them?” I asked now.
“The action of opposing atmospheric currents, Tom, if you can understand what I mean. Two contrary winds meet: a vortex therefore ensues; and, any cloud that happens to be between these opposing currents of air at the time is condensed into a conical form and turned round with great celerity. This whirling motion drives from the centre of the cloud all the particles of vapour contained in it; consequently, a vacuum is thereby produced in the body of it; and, as nature abhors a vacuum in every case, the water of the sea lying below the overhanging mass is carried up, in centrifugal fashion, and in a sort of way by capillary attraction, into the vacant centre of the cloud cylinder.”
“Why does it not stop there?” said I. “That one just now burst.”
“Ah, that fellow was like a greedy boy who has eaten too much, and has to disgorge after he has filled his little stomach too full! But, some water-spouts carry their contents on to the land, where, when the clouds have been attracted by mountains or some lofty object, they may do great damage by wrecking houses and inundating the country for miles round. At sea, they are not half so dangerous, having plenty of room there to expend themselves without effecting much injury, except a ship should be right beneath them when they fall to pieces.”
“Do you think, sir,” I then inquired, “that one would have sunk us, if it had burst over the Josephine?”
“Well, I hardly know, Tom,” answered Captain Miles reflectively. “Although it looked terrific enough at one time, I am not inclined to believe now that it would have been attended with any very serious calamity to our ship, had even the whole quantity of water it contained fallen on our decks. If you recollect, I ordered beforehand the hatches to be battened down and the scuppers in the waist cleared. Besides, the cylinder or spiral column of vapour, you observed, was very like a glass tube in the centre of the water-spout, and this coming in contact with our masts and rigging it would have been at once broken, when the surrounding air rushing into the vacuum to restore the atmospheric equilibrium, the torrent of water would have been forced sideways instead of descending perpendicularly, coming down merely as a heavy tropical shower, similar to those you have been well acquainted with in Grenada. I have heard of some vessels being damaged by water-spouts, but I have never come across anyone who happened to be on board one of them at the time, so I rather fancy the tale was one of those generally ‘told to the marines.’”
So, laughing it off, the captain finished his little scientific lecture at this point, while I went below to my bunk, wishing to get undressed before Harry the steward came to douse the light in the cabin, which he always did sharp to time.
If the water-spout did us no actual damage it certainly served as a very bad omen. It took away the favourable breezes, which, before its advent on the scene, had sped the Josephine so gaily on her way home to England; and the weather for some days afterwards was not nearly so pleasant, tedious calms and contrary winds preventing our making the rapid passage Captain Miles anticipated from our good running at the beginning of the voyage.
We were now in the region between the regular trade-winds and what are termed “the anti-trades or passage winds,” above the tropic of Cancer. This is a particular portion of the ocean between the parallels known to sailors as the “Horse Latitudes,” where there is generally a lull met with in the currents of air that elsewhere reign rampant over the sea; and, once arrived within the precincts of this blissful zone, the ship tossed about there for a week at a stretch, hardly making a mile towards her wished-for goal—only rocking restlessly on the bosom of the deep.
There is nothing so irksome as calm weather at sea, to those at all events whose duty lies upon the waters and who do not go on shipboard for mere pleasure.
So long as the wind blows, whether favourably or not, there is something to do. If it be fair, there is the cheering prospect of counting the number of knots run when the log is hove, and knowing that one is getting each hour so much nearer one’s destination; while, if King Aeolus be unpropitious, there is all the excitement of fighting against his efforts to delay the vessel, and the proud satisfaction of making way in spite of adverse breezes.
But, in a calm, nothing can be done excepting to wait patiently, or impatiently, for the wind to blow again; and, consequently, all is dreary stagnation and dead monotony—the captain ever pacing the poop in not the best of tempers, with the men idling about the decks, or else occupied in the unexciting task of unreeving rope yarn, to keep their hands from mischief, and, perhaps, polishing up the ring-bolts as a last resource!
Under such circumstances, it is not at all to be wondered that the crew of a vessel usually get discontented; and, should her officers be in the least inclined to be tyrannical, an ill feeling is produced which sometimes leads to an outbreak.
Hardly a single mutiny ever occurred on a ship at sea save in calm weather; at other times the hands have too much to do even to grumble, in the way that sailors love to do ashore, comparing their nautical experience to “a dog’s life”—albeit they never give up the sea all the same!
On board the Josephine, however, all went along pleasantly enough, although we were becalmed and the seamen, had plenty of leisure time for airing their grievances.
Captain Miles, it is true, did not come on deck looking jolly and beaming with good-humour, as he used to do when we were bowling along before a stiff breeze; but he was not a bit cantankerous, and if there was no legitimate work to occupy the crew with, he did not go out of his way unnecessarily to “haze” them by inventing new sorts of tasks, as a good many other masters of vessels are in the habit of doing in similar cases. As for Mr Marline, he was of a most even disposition, taking all things that came with his usual equanimity and never giving a rough word to anyone.
Davis, the second mate, whom I have already mentioned as having been promoted from the fo’c’s’le, was a very different sort of man; for, being without education and any good principle, he took advantage of his position, whenever the captain’s eye was not upon him, to bully those with whom he had previously associated on an equality. He was “very much above them now,” he thought, and showed it as it was in the nature only of a low-minded fellow to do.
Like most “Jacks in office,” he was always trying to assert his position; and, as a natural result, he was not by any means in good favour with the men, who resented his overbearing way all the more from the fact of their having formerly been hail-fellow-well-met with him, which of course they could not readily forget, if he did.
Still, things went on pretty smoothly on board while the calm lasted, despite the little roughnesses which the second mate’s way of evincing his authority produced—and which I could not avoid noticing, for I’m sure he used to be “down” on me whenever he had a chance of calling me to account for going where I had no business to, as I confess I sometimes did, although I used to be encouraged by the men, and Mr Marline would wink at my escapades. We all found it terribly dull, though; for, even the fish were too lazy to come to the surface to be caught, and so we were deprived therefore of our old pastime of angling for them from the bowsprit in the afternoons and evenings.
Day after day, the Josephine rolled her hull from port to starboard and then back again to port on the tumid sea, which, save throbbing with a dull heavy swell, had now lost all its life and action:—day after day we looked in vain for a breeze from sunrise to sunset; day after day our watchful longing was all in vain; there, day after day, for over a week, we rolled and lay!
Captain Miles used to come up regularly on the poop at noon to take the sun, from a sense of duty; but it was almost a useless task, as we hardly varied a mile in our position from the commencement of the calm, the vessel remaining close in with the fiftieth parallel of longitude and in latitude thirty-two North.
Mr Marline liked to chaff the captain about this, telling him that his sextant wanted polishing up a bit and that the glasses were wrong. However, that all went for nothing with his chief, who well knew where the fault lay, fully understanding that the instrument was not to blame; but, as regularly as he brought out the sextant he used to laugh at Mr Marline’s stereotyped joke.
As related in Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner”:—
“Day after day, day after day
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean!”
Had it not been for the two darkeys, Jake and Cuffee, I don’t know what we should have done for fun.
These comical fellows were a constant source of amusement to us; for, although they did not come to fisticuffs again, they were always quarrelling and making friends afterwards in the oddest way possible. Their disputes usually arose from some little trifle concerning their order of precedence, each being highly jealous of his dignity, and resenting in a moment any fancied slight or want of proper respect on the part of the other.
When Jake came on board in the summary way in which he “took his passage” at the beginning of our voyage, of course he had no wardrobe, or anything to wear save what he stood up in when he emerged dripping from the sea after the capsize of the boat in which he had come off to the ship. Captain Miles, however, had given him some cast-off slops, and the hands forward had also rigged him out from their chests, so that in a short time he made a very presentable appearance. This was especially the case on Sunday’s, when his dress was most conspicuous, Master Jake being something of a dandy like most negroes, and anxious to take the shine out of his fellows.
Somehow or other Cuffee the cook got jealous of this feature in his brother darkey’s character.
On week-days he did not mind submitting to any slight superiority Jake might have over him in his sailor-like rig; but one Sunday the latter donned an old blue coat that had been presented to him by Mr Marline. It was ornamented with brilliant brass buttons, and the effect was completed by a bright bandana handkerchief which he had begged from me, and this, contrasting with a white shirt and duck trousers, made his toilet so thoroughly effective that Cuffee was greatly aggrieved.
“You tink youself one fine gen’leman now, I s’pose?” he said, with a snort of indignation, when Jake went down into the waist in all this grand array after prayers on the poop. “Fine fedders make fine birds, yah, yah!”
“Me tinks what I like,” replied Jake nonchalantly, proceeding forward to the topgallant forecastle, where he sat down in such a lordly manner that Cuffee, unable to stand it any longer, hurriedly went into his caboose and bringing out a bucket of dirty water pitched it over Jake with much heartiness, sousing him from head to foot.
“Dere, you big fool of niggah, take dat!” he cried triumphantly. “Guess dat’ll take de shine out ob your ole coat, wid yer grandy airs an’ bumptiousness!”
The men on the fo’c’s’le shouted with laughter, and Jake rushed to resent the affront; but they held him back until his temper evaporated, and then the two made it up somehow, for afterwards I saw that Jake was enjoying a savoury mess of lobscouse which Cuffee had cooked for him in amends for the bucket of greasy water.
Jake, however, paid out the cook for the indignity a little later on; for, when Cuffee came up on the forecastle while the hands were there yarning in the evening, he gave him the cold shoulder.
“Wat for you come hyar?” he asked the poor cook. “Dis is de place for sailor man, not for de idlers aboard. You go back inter yer ole caboose, cookee!”
There was another laugh at this, and Captain Miles hearing what had been said, every word being distinctly audible on the poop, began speaking to Mr Marline about the imitative habits of negroes.
“They are just like monkeys,” he said; “and, in dress and in language will copy anyone they think superior to them, no matter how ridiculous their imitation may be—a sort of burlesque of the original.”
“Yes,” replied Mr Marline. “Jake, I have noticed, has taken Jackson for his model on week-days. Have you observed how he copies him in every particular?”
“Well, he couldn’t have a better study for a thorough sailor,” said the captain, adding, to my great delight, for I was very proud of poor Jake, who was faithful to me to the death; “and the darkey, mind you, Marline, has studied Jackson to good effect, for he’s already a smart seaman. He’s as quick aloft as anyone on board when any sudden call comes.”
“He’s all that,” answered Mr Marline heartily; “but I was going to observe, that, while Jake copies Jackson for his week-day model, he tries to imitate you on Sundays.”
“Me!” exclaimed Captain Miles bursting into a loud laugh. “You, you mean, with that swell blue coat that you gave him, and which you used, no doubt, to win all the ladies’ hearts with ashore, when it was in its prime!”
“Oh, no,” retorted the mate, smiling too. “When Jake has got his Sunday rig on, he walks up the poop-ladder to prayers with all your dignity. Why, anyone would take him to be the skipper of the ship!”
“Talking of prayers and niggers,” said Captain Miles at this point, turning the conversation, as he thought the mate was having a sly poke at him, “I heard one day a little time back a rather good yarn about two darkeys, and, as it was told by a clergyman at a missionary meeting, I don’t suppose there can be any great harm in the story.”
“Well, heave ahead with it,” interposed Mr Marline.
“You see,” began the captain, “these two niggers—we’ll call them Josh and Quashee for shortness—happened to be in a boat which got drifted out to sea accidentally, from the tow-rope slipping or something else; and, they didn’t know their danger till suddenly they found themselves far from land, with no oars in the boat and no means of getting to shore again. To make matters worse, too, the sea began to get up on account of the wind rising.”
“I wish it would do so now,” said Mr Marline with much emphasis.
“So do I,” returned Captain Miles with equal heartiness; “but, as there isn’t any chance of that as far as I can see, I may as well go on with my story.”
“Do, sir,” said the other.
“Well, then,” continued the captain, “as soon as Josh and Quashee realised their peril, of course they got into a great funk; but, after puzzling their brains as to the best means of getting back, and shouting themselves hoarse in calling for help, they gave up the thing as a gone case, sitting down on the thwarts and bewailing their fate. Josh, the younger negro, however, had the most go in him, and presently he roused up.
“‘Say, Quashee,’ he asked of the other, ‘can you pray, sonny?’
“‘No, Josh,’ replied Quashee gloomily. ‘I nebber learnt, nohow.’
“‘Can you sing hymn, den?’ questioned his brother in misfortune again.
“‘No, Josh,’ answered the other still more gloomily. ‘Um can’t pray, can’t sing hymn, can’t do nuffin’!’
“‘Den,’ said Josh as if a brilliant idea had suddenly struck him, ‘we must hab collection—must do sumfin’ to git out ob dis hole, an’ I know when dey don’t pray or sing in de chapel dey always hab collection; so we’ll hab one now!’”
“I wouldn’t mind betting,” observed Mr Marline, when he had done laughing at this anecdote, “that the clergyman who related the story did it as a sort of introduction for ‘passing round the hat’ at the very meeting where you heard it!”
“That’s just precisely what he did!” replied Captain Miles, joining in the other’s laugh; “and, it was a very good introduction to a collection, too, I think!”
It was on a Sunday evening that the little fracas between Jake and Cuffee occurred. This squabble terminated amicably enough; but the next day, Monday, a bit of a real row happened on board, which did not end quite so agreeably to one of the persons concerned.
It was a blazing hot day, with the sun like a ball of fire in the heavens above and the sea steaming below with the heat. The atmosphere was close and hazy, making it so stifling that one could hardly breathe freely—just exactly the sort of weather, in fact, that is met with on the West Coast of Africa at the mouths of some of those pestilential and swampy rivers there that have been the death of so many gallant officers and seamen annually sent to the station for the purpose of putting down the slave-trade and protecting greedy traders in their pursuit of palm-oil and gold dust!
During the afternoon of this day, when the sun was about its hottest, making the pitch melt and ooze out from the seams of the deck planking, Davis, who had charge of the starboard watch, came up from below to relieve Mr Marline.
He was late in coming to his post, and I could see he had been drinking, a habit he had lately taken to indulging in, especially after the calm set in; and, as he mounted the poop-ladder, he certainly did not look particularly amiable, for his dark eyes were glaring and his tumbled hair gave him a most ferocious appearance.
The men were mostly doing nothing, lying along the waist under what shelter they could find from the fiery rays of the scorching sun; for, although there was an awning over the poop, there was nothing forwards to shield them from the heat unless they crouched under the lee of the bulwarks and water-casks.
Davis didn’t like to see them taking it easy in this fashion, so, catching hold of a marlinespike which someone had left on top of the cabin skylight, he began rapping the rail at the break of the poop with it.
“Come, rouse up there, you lubbers!” he cried. “I’m not going to allow any caulking in my watch, no matter what the first mate chooses to let you do. Tumble up!”
The men stretched themselves and rose up grumbling, whereupon Davis pitched upon Jackson, who had been asleep under the long-boat and was the last to show a leg, not hearing the second mate’s call until a messmate awoke him.
“Hi, you, Jackson!” he roared out. “I’ll give you something to cure your laziness! I’ll haze you, I will, you hound! Get a bucket of grease from the cook’s caboose and slush the mainmast down.”
“I’m no hound, sir!” retorted Jackson angrily, drawing himself up to his full height and flaring up angrily at Davis’ uncalled-for abuse. “The mast doesn’t need slushing; it was only done over the day before yesterday.”
“What, you dare to answer me, you mutinous dog!” roared out Davis, raised to a pitch of fury by the seaman not recognising, as he thought, his authority as second mate and officer of the watch. “I tell you what, you shall slush that mast down from the main-truck to the bitts; and look sharp about it, too, or I’ll make you!”
“Make me!” repeated Jackson scornfully. “I’d like to see you lay a finger on me!”
Davis fairly foamed at the mouth with passion at this, the more particularly as the other men, grouped below in the waist, were sniggering and passing sly jokes from one to another about the affair.
He started to go down the poop-ladder, brandishing the marlinespike savagely, with the evident intention of attacking Jackson and trying to compel him to obey his orders, utterly unnecessary and vindictive as they were; but, what from having been drinking heavily of late and the fresh air and exposure to the sun having increased the intoxicating effect of the rum which he doubtless had just swallowed before coming on deck to take charge of the watch, he reeled off the ladder as soon as he got to the bottom—falling down all of a heap right in front of the cabin door at the very moment that Captain Miles, who had been roused up by the altercation, was coming out to see what all the noise was about.
“Mr Davis!” cried the captain sternly. “What is the matter?”
The second mate scrambled to his feet, but he could not hold himself steady and he only muttered some utterly incomprehensible words, his power of speech vanishing with his equilibrium.
“I dunno, canshay,” he murmured helplessly.
“Faugh!” exclaimed Captain Miles in accents of the deepest disgust. “The man is dead drunk. Take him away at once to the fo’c’s’le some of you. He doesn’t come into my cabin again if I know it!”