“At dawn,” says Mrs. Murray, “taking my little girl by the hand, I went on deck. The storm had in some measure abated, but the sea looked black and sullen, and the swell of the vast heavy waves seemed to mock our frailty. The sailors had been up all night, and were [pg 58]as men playing at some ferocious game: some working in desperation at the pumps, and singing at the pitch of their voices wild sea-songs to time their common efforts; others employed in throwing hundreds of bags of grain into the sea, that they might thus lighten the ship. This, I think, more than all, showed me our peril. I wandered about, too miserable to remain in any one spot, till the captain assembled us all once more in the cabin to get some food, saying that it was impossible to save the ship, and that we should have need of all our fortitude. I remembered my own vain attempt to eat some bread, but the poor little children took their breakfast and enjoyed it.
“We were then each provided with a large bag made of sailcloth, and were advised by the captain to fill it with the warmest articles of clothing we possessed.
“All my worldly possessions were on board, comprising many memorials of dear friends, portraits of loved ones I shall never see again, and my money loss I knew would be no trifle. In perfect bewilderment I looked round, and filled my bag with stockings and a couple of warm shawls. On the top of a box I saw a little parcel that had been entrusted to me by a lady in California to deliver to her mother in Liverpool. I put that in my bag, and she got it.... There had been no thought of removing the breakfast, and with the rolling of the ship, which was every moment becoming worse, everything had fallen on the floor, and was dashing about in all directions. Boxes, water-jugs, plates, dishes, chairs, glasses, were pitching from one end of the saloon to the other. Children screaming, sailors shouting and cursing, and loud above all there was the creaking of timbers, and the sullen sound of water fast gaining upon us in the hold of the ship, which groaned and laboured like a living thing in agony.”
How the ridiculous will intrude even at such times is shown in the following. A little boy was discovered helping himself out of the medicine-chest, particularly busy with the contents of a broken calomel bottle! Lamp-oil served as an emetic in this emergency, and the youngster’s life was saved. And now the first mate, upon whose decision and firmness much depended, having lost his presence of mind, had drunk deeply of whisky. He was intoxicated, and so, too, were many of the sailors, who had followed his example. The captain, meantime, had been busily employed in ordering out food and water to supply the boats, collecting the ship’s papers, &c. The lowering of the boats he had entrusted to his officers. On hearing of the drunkenness on deck, his first thought was to get the women and children off at once, for should the sailors seize the boats, what would become of them? Two boats had already been smashed whilst lowering them into the sea, and there were only two remaining. Forty-seven people to cram into two frail boats, fifteen hundred miles from land: delicately-nurtured women, helpless children, drunken and desperate men.
“THE PASSENGERS WERE LET DOWN BY ROPES” (p. 58).
By the help of the most sober of the sailors, the captain’s own boat was lowered; some small mattresses, pillows, blankets, a cask of water, sacks of biscuit, and nautical instruments, were first put in; then the passengers were let down by ropes. “It seems marvellous,” says Mrs. Murray, “when I think of it now, that in our descent we were not dashed to pieces against the ship’s side. We had to wait for each descent a favourable moment while she was leaning over. Then the word of command was given, and we were slung down like sheep. My heart stood still whilst my little one was going down, and then I followed. It was a terrible sight for a woman to see that poor creature whose baby was born the night before, looking like a corpse in a long dressing-gown of white [pg 59]flannel, with the poor little atom of mortality tightly clasped in her arms. I thought she would die before the day was over.”
At last they were all in the boat: four women, five children, the second mate, and sixteen sailors. The captain stayed on the ship, providing for the safety of the drunken creatures who could not take care of themselves, and then he came off. How small the boat looked by the side of the tall ship! And they had to get quickly out of her reach, for she was rolling so heavily that the waters near her boiled up like a maelström.
Away they drifted, a mere speck upon the ocean. Before night there came a storm of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, that lasted through the darkness, and by which they were drenched through and through. “I sat up,” says the narrator, “for some twelve or fourteen hours on a narrow plank, with my child in my arms, utterly miserable, cold, and hopeless, soaked to the skin, blinded by the salt spray, my face and hands smarting intolerably with the unusual exposure.”
During the storm and confusion the greater part of their biscuit had been soaked with salt water, and made useless. It was also discovered that the food collected for the captain’s boat had been thrown by mistake into the other, therefore it was necessary at once to put them on allowance: half a pint of water and half a biscuit a day to each person. Except the biscuit, there were only a few small tins of preserved strawberries and Indian corn, and these were given to the ladies. “How the poor children cried with hunger as the days dragged on!”