“Lie down and hold on tight to the rope,” I said to the Señor Strickland and Molas, who were beside me, “here comes el Norte, and he brings death for many of us on board this ship.”
CHAPTER VI.
“EL NORTE”
Another moment and el Norte had come in strength. First a sudden rush of wind struck the vessel, causing her to shiver, and with a sharp report rending from its fastenings the jib, which had not been furled. This gust went howling by, and after it rolled the storm.
To us it seemed that the Santa Maria dived head first into a huge wave, a level line of white illumined with lightnings and swept forward by the hurricane, for in an instant a foot of foaming water tore along her deck from stem to stern, sweeping away everything movable upon it, including two Indian sailors. We should have gone with the rest had we not clung with all our strength to the rope coiled about the foremast, but as it was we escaped with a wetting.
For a while the ship stood quite still, and it seemed as though she were being pressed into the deep by the weight of water on her decks, but as this fell from her in cataracts, she rose again and ploughed forward. Fortunately the first burst of the tempest was also the most terrible, and it had not taken her broadside on, for one or two more such waves would have swamped us.
After it had passed shorewards, driven by the hurricane wind, for a little space there was what by comparison might be called a lull, then the Santa Maria met the full weight of the norther. For a while she forged ahead against the shrieking wind and vast succeeding seas, shipping such a quantity of water that presently the captain found it necessary to reduce her engines to half speed, which it was hoped would suffice to give her way without filling her.
Now less water came aboard, but on the other hand, as was soon evident, the vessel began to drift towards the Point Xicalango, and from this moment it became clear that only a miracle could save her. For an hour or more the Santa Maria kept up a gallant and unequal fight, being constantly pressed backwards by the might of the storm, till at length we could see in the glare of the lightning that the breakers of the Point were raging not two hundred paces from her stern. The captain saw them also and made a last effort. Shifting the vessel’s bow a little, so that the seas struck her on the port quarter, he gave the order of “Full steam ahead,” and once more we drove forward.
Before and since that day I have made many voyages across the Gulf of Mexico in all weathers, but never have I met with such an experience as that which followed. The ship plunged and strained and rocked, lifting now her bow and now her stern high above the waves, till it seemed as though she must fall to pieces, while water in tons rushed aboard of her at every dip, which, as she righted herself, streamed through the broken bulwarks.
Slowly, very slowly, we were forging away from the Point and out into the channel which lies between it and Carmen Island, but the effort was too fierce to last. Presently, after a succession of terrible pitchings, one paddle-wheel suddenly ceased to thrash the water, while the other broke to pieces, and a faint cry from below told those on deck that the worn-out machinery had collapsed.
Now we were in the mid-race or channel, through which the boiling current, driven by the fury of the gale and the push of the tide, tore at a speed of fifteen or sixteen knots, carrying the Santa Maria along with it as a chip of wood is carried down a flooded gutter. Twice she whirled right round, for now that her machinery had gone there was no power to keep her head to the waves, and on the second occasion, as she lay broadside to them, a green sea came aboard of her that swept her decks almost clean, taking away with it every boat except the cutter, which fortunately was slung upon davits to starboard and out of its reach.