One of them strove to gild the calamity with cheerfulness, by humming and groaning the air of a “come-all-ye” ditty, the croon of which rose with quaint persistency after the crash of each engulfing wave had passed. The others were, perhaps, silently grateful to him—but they felt that if Jerry had been a born Muirisc man, he could not have done it.
At the helm, soaked and gaunt as a water-rat, with his feet braced against the waist-rails, and the rudder-bar jammed under his arm and shoulder, was a sixth man—the master and owner of the Hen Hawk. The strain upon his physical strength, in thus by main force holding the tiller right, had for hours been unceasing—and one could see by his dripping face that he was deeply wearied. But sign of fear there was none.
Only a man brought up in the interior of a country, and who had come to the sea late in life, would have dared bring this tiny cockle-shell of a coaster into such waters upon such a coast. The O’Ma-hony might himself have been frightened had he known enough about navigation to understand his present danger. As it was, all his weariness could nor destroy the keen sense of pleasurable excitement he had in the tremendous experience. He forgot crew and cargo and vessel itself in the splendid zest of this mad fight with the sea and the storm. He clung to the tiller determinedly, bowing his head to the rush of the broken waves when they fell, and bending knees and body this way and that to answer the wild tossings and sidelong plung-ings of the craft—always with a light as of battle in his gray eyes. It was ever so much better than fighting with mere men.
The gloom of twilight ripened into pitchy darkness, broken only by momentary gleams of that strange, weird half-light which the rushing waves generate in their own crests of foam. The wind rose in violence when the night closed in, and the vessel’s timbers creaked in added travail as huge seas lifted and hurled her onward through the black chaos toward the rocks. The men by the mast could every few minutes discern the red lights from the cottage windows of Muirisc, and shuddered anew as the glimmering sparks grew nearer.
Four of these five unhappy men were Muirisc born, and knew the sea as they knew their own mothers. The marvel was that they had not revolted against this wanton sacrifice of their lives to the whim or perverse obstinacy of an ignorant landsman, who a year ago had scarcely known a rudder from a jib-boom. They themselves dimly wondered at it now, as they strained their eyes for a glimpse of the fatal crags ahead. They had indeed ventured upon some mild remonstrance, earlier in the day, while it had still been possible to set the mainsail, and by long tacks turn the vessel’s course. But The O’Mahony had received their suggestion with such short temper and so stern a refusal, that there had been nothing more to be said—bound to him as Muirisc men to their chief, and as Fenians to their leader, as they were. And soon thereafter it became too late to do aught but scud bare-poled before the gale; and now there was nothing left but to die.
They could hear at last, above the shrill clamor of wind and rolling waves, the sullen roar of breakers smashing against the cliffs. They braced themselves for the great final crash, and muttered fragments of the Litany of the Saints between clenched teeth.
A prodigious sea grasped the vessel and lifted it to a towering height, where for an instant it hung trembling. Then with a leap it made a sickening dive down, down, till it was fairly engulfed in the whirling floods which caught it and swept wildly over its decks. A sinister thrill ran through the stout craft’s timbers, and upon the instant came the harsh grinding sound of its keel against the rocks. The men shut their eyes.
A dreadful second—and lo! the Hen Hawk, shaking herself buoyantly like a fisher-fowl emerging after a plunge, floated upon gently rocking waters—with the hoarse tumult of storm and breakers comfortably behind her, and at her sides only the sighing-harp music of the wind in the sea-reeds.
“Hustle now, an’ git out your anchor!” called out the cheerful voice of The O’Mahony, from the tiller.
The men scrambled from their knees as in a dream. They ran out the chain, reefed the jib, and then made their way over the flush deck aft, slapping their arms for warmth, still only vaguely realizing that they were actually moored in safety, inside the sheltered salt-water marsh, or muirisc, which gave their home its name.