We had tops'ls and a reefed foresail on her while daylight lasted, but on threat of darkness we stowed all but the foretops'l; wings enough for the weight of a hurricane wind. Under that narrow band of straining canvas she sped on into the murk of advancing night, while behind the lurid western sky showed threat of a mightier blast in bank upon bank of ragged storm-cloud. It was a wild night, never a wilder!
In the darkness the uncanny green shimmer of breaking seas gave an added terror to the scene of storm. Rain and stinging sleet swept constantly over us, thundering seas towered and curled at our stern, lapping viciously at the fleeting quarter, or, parting, crashed aboard at the waist, filling the decks man high with a power of destruction. Part of the bulwarks were torn from the side. That was, perhaps, the saving of us, for the seas swept off as fast as they thundered aboard, and the barque rode buoyant, when, with bulwarks standing, the weight of compassed water would have held her at mercy of the next towering greybeard. A boat on the forward skids was smashed to atoms and the wreck swept overboard, and every moment we looked to see our crazy half-deck go tottering to ruin. The fo'ca'sle was awash through a shattered door, and all hands were gathered on the poop for such safety as it held. There was nowhere else where man could stand on the reeling hull, and crouching at the rails, wet and chilled to the marrow, we spent the night a-watching.
The bo'sun and Martin and Hans took turns of the steering; that was work beyond the rest of us, and the most we could do was to stand by a-lee and bear on the spokes with the helmsman. Dutchy was the best steersman, and his steering was no truer than the stout heart of him. Once she pooped, and the crest of a huge following sea came crashing on top of us. But for our hold-fasts, all would have been swept away. That was the time of trial. A falter at the helm—she would have 'broached-to'—to utter destruction!
Amid the furious rush of broken water, 'Dutchy' stood fast at his post, though there was a gash on his forehead and blood running in his eyes—the work of the wrenching wheel.
We showed no lights; no lamps would stand to the weather. There was only the flickering binnacle, tended as never was temple fire, to show the compass card. By turns we kept a look-out from the tops'l yard, but of what use was that when we could steer but to one point. We were a ship of chance, and God help us and the outward-bounder, 'hove-to' in the trough, that had come between us and the east that night!
How we looked for daylight! How it was long a-coming! How the mountain seas raced up and hove our barque, reeling from the blow, from towering crest to hollow of the trough! How every day of the twenty-five years of her cried out in creak of block, in clatter of chain sheet, in the 'harping' of the backstays, the straining groan of the burdened masts!
From time to time through the night the Mate and some of us would go forward to see to the gear; there was no need to touch a brace, for the wind blew ominously true. When we got back again, battered and breathless, it was something to know that the foretops'l still stood the strain. It was a famous sail, a web of '00 storm,' stitched and fortified at seam and roping for such a wind as this. Good luck to the hands that stitched it, to the dingy sail loft in the Govan Road that turned it out, for it stood us in stead that night!
Once an ill-stowed clew of the mains'l blew out with a sounding crack, and thrashed a 'devil's tattoo' on the yard. We thought it the tops'l gone—but no! Macallison's best stood bravely spread to the shrieking gale, and we soon had the ribbons of the main clew fast to the yard.
There was no broad dawn, no glow in the east to mark its breaking; the light grew out of the darkness. The masts and spars shaped themselves out of the gloom, till they stood outlined against the dull grey clouds. We could see the great seas, white-streaked by lash of driven spray, running up into the lowering sky. When day came, and the heaving, wind-swept face of the waters became plain to us, we saw the stormy path round the Horn in its wildest, grandest mood. Stretching far to the black murky curtain—the rear of the last shrieking rain squall—the great Cape Horn greybeards swept on with terrific force and grandeur, their mile-long crests hurtling skyward in blinding foam. The old barque ran well, reeling through the long, stormy slopes with buoyant spring, driving wildly to the trough, smashing the foam far aside. At times she poised with sickening uncertitude on the crest of a greater wave, then steadied, and leapt with the breaking water to the smoother hollow.
The Old Man stood by the helmsman, 'conning' her on. All night he had stood there, ordering, to the shock of following seas, a steady voiced command. Never a gainly man—short-legged, broad, uncouth—his was yet a figure in keeping with the scene; unkempt and haggard, blue-lipped, drenched by sea and rain, he was never less than a Master of the Sea. At daybreak we heard a hail from the tops'l yard, and saw the 'look-out' pointing ahead. Peering down the wind, we made out the loom of a ship rising and falling in the trough of the sea. A big 'four-master' she proved, lying 'hove-to' the wind. We shuddered to think of what would have been if daylight had been further delayed!