When the pumping gangs had been at work for about an hour they complained of exhaustion, and I accordingly relieved them to the extent of setting them to work with the buckets and putting two fresh gangs at the pumps; yet, although these men worked pretty energetically, it soon became evident that we were not gaining anything upon the leak, and as time passed on it became exceedingly doubtful whether the leak were not rather gaining upon us. Moreover, as the sea continued to rise the vessel’s movements became more laboured, and she again began to take the water aboard in such dangerous quantities that at length we were reluctantly compelled to abandon our baling operations, and close the hatches to prevent the heavy seas from reaching her interior.
In this fashion the seemingly endless night at length wore itself away and the lowering dawn came, disclosing to us the true seriousness of our condition. There we were, aweary, hollow-eyed, haggard-looking little band, sodden to the very bones of us with long hours of exposure to the pitiless buffeting of rain and sea, our flesh salt-encrusted, our eyes bloodshot, our hands raw and bleeding with the severe and protracted work at the pumps, adrift in mid-ocean upon a mastless, sorely battered, and badly leaking hulk, with her ballast shifted and a heavy list, tossed helplessly upon a furiously raging sea that seemed instinct with a relentless determination to overwhelm us, toiling and fighting doggedly against the untiring elements, in the hope that, perchance, if our strength held out, we might keep the now crazy, straining, and complaining fabric beneath us afloat long enough to afford us some chance of saving our lives. Yet the hope was, after all, but a slender one; for with the coming of daylight we were able to see that our plight was very considerably worse than we had dreamed it to be during the hours of darkness; for then we had believed that the loss of our masts and the springing of a somewhat serious leak represented the sum total of our misfortunes; while now we saw, to our unspeakable dismay, that, with the solitary exception of the longboat, the whole of our boats were so badly damaged as to be altogether beyond our ability to repair; of two of them, indeed, nothing save the stem and stern remained dangling forlornly from the davit tackles. But that, bad though it was, was not the worst; for it was no longer possible for us to blind ourselves to the fact that the leak was gaining upon us inexorably, and that, even though we should continue to toil with unabated energy, we could not keep the ship afloat longer than a few hours more, at the utmost.
And then what were we to do? The longboat, fine boat though she was, when stocked with even a meagre supply of provisions and water, would not accommodate more than twenty-five men, and I gravely doubted whether she would live ten minutes in such a sea as was then running, with half that number in her. Still, with the exception of such a raft as we might be able to put together, she was all that we had, and half an hour of daylight sufficed to show me that no time must be lost in making preparations to quit the slowly foundering ship. Yet it would not do for us to leave the pumps for a moment; one gang must, at all costs, be kept hard at work pumping out as much as possible of the water that was pouring in through the open seams, otherwise the leak would gain upon us so rapidly that the ship would settle from under us long before we were ready to face such a catastrophe. I therefore at once set about the formulating of my plans and carrying them into effect. First of all, while one gang kept the pump-brakes clanking and the clear water spouting out upon our streaming deck, I got another gang to work at launching the guns overboard as the roll of the ship permitted—and this, I was glad to see, eased the poor labouring craft quite perceptibly. This done, all hands, except those at the pumps, went to breakfast, the meal consisting of hot coffee sweetened with molasses, and ship’s biscuit, more or less sodden with salt-water—for with the coming of daylight and the preparation of breakfast the unwelcome discovery had been made that the salt-water had got at the provisions and gone far toward spoiling them. Then, as soon as the first gang had finished breakfast, they relieved those at the pumps, who in their turn took breakfast and next proceeded to clear away the longboat and prepare her for launching, by providing her with a proper supply of oars and thole-pins, her rudder and tiller, masts and sails, and then carefully stowing her stock of water and provisions. But when all this was done it was still blowing too hard—although the worst of the gale seemed to be over—and the sea was altogether too rough to allow of our attempting to launch her. We therefore next got to work upon a raft, first of all lashing all our spare spars together as a sort of foundation, and then, upon the top of this, lashing the hen-coops, gratings, a few planks that the carpenter had stowed away down below, and, finally, some lengths of bulwark that we cut away for the purpose. This raft, when completed, was a fairly roomy affair, affording space enough to stow away some thirty people, together with a good supply of provisions and water, which we now proceeded to get up from below and stow; the cook, meanwhile, industriously boiling as much beef and pork as he could crowd into his coppers. Then we knocked off and piped to dinner; and while we were getting this—probably the last meal of which we should ever partake aboard the poor old Dolphin—our hearts were gladdened by a sudden burst of sunshine breaking through the clouds, and half an hour later the sky to windward was clear, the sun was shining brilliantly and pouring his welcome warmth upon our chilled bodies and saturated clothing, while the gale had broken and was fast moderating, having already declined to the strength of a double-reefed topsail breeze. The sea, too, was no longer raging like a boiling cauldron; yet, even so, it was still too heavy to justify us in attempting to launch either the longboat or the raft.
And now, at the very moment when it was most necessary that the crew should preserve an orderly and obedient disposition, they suddenly broke into open mutiny, flatly refusing to work any longer at the pumps; declaring that the ship was good for at least another hour, and that before that had passed we should all be safely away from her; that there was no sense in wanting to keep the ship afloat longer than there was any absolute need for; and that the time had now arrived when they must begin to think of saving their own personal belongings. When I attempted to remonstrate with them and point out the folly of their behaviour they became virulently abusive, and declared that if I wanted the pumps kept going I might keep them going myself—and this although I had already done considerably more than my fair share of that back-breaking labour. Therewith they abandoned the pumps and betook themselves forward to the forecastle, from which there shortly afterward came floating to my horrified ears loud peals of maudlin laughter, mingled with snatches of ribald songs and coarse jests, whereby I came to know, all too late, that, while getting up the provisions from below, some of them must have broken into the spirit-room and possessed themselves of a very considerable supply of rum, upon which they were now fast drinking themselves into a condition of reckless indifference to the awful danger that threatened them. Anything, I thought, was better than this; therefore, having first gone down below and brought up the chronometer, my sextant, and a chart of the Atlantic, and stowed the whole carefully in the stern-sheets of the longboat, loaded my pistols, and girded my sword to my side, I went forward to the fore-scuttle and, putting my head into it, shouted in as cheery a tone as I could summon:
“Now then, lads, tumble up on deck, all hands of you. We have still a great deal to do, and very little time to do it in; therefore let us see about getting the longboat into the water, and the raft over the side. There will be time enough to rest when we are safe away from the wreck.”
“All ri’, schipper, don’ you worry,” bawled a great hulking Dutchman in reply. “Dere’s blendy of dime yet; and ve’re nod going do move undil ve’ve vinished dhis grog.”
Then another—an American this time—took up the tale, shouting, “Go ’way, little man, go ’way! Wha’ d’you mean, anyway, by comin’ here and disturbin’ gen’lemen when they’re busy? Come in and have a drink with us, youngster, just to show that you’re not stuck up. I guess we’re all equals in this dandy little barkie; yes, sirree! I’m a free-born ’Murican, I am, an’ just as good as you or any other blamed Britisher, and don’ you forget it. So, if you won’ come in an’ have a drink, take your ugly-lookin’ mug out o’ the daylight, d’ye hear?”
To emphasise this polite request the man seized a heavy sea boot from the forecastle deck and hove it at me, with so poor an aim that instead of hitting me he dashed it into the face of an Englishman who happened at the moment to be drinking rum out of a pannikin. The blow dashed the pannikin out of the man’s hand, and splashed the fiery spirit all over his face and into his eyes; and the next instant, with a low, fierce growl of concentrated ferocity, he sprang to his feet and struck the free-born ’Murican a smashing blow under the chin that sent him sprawling.
“You have no time to waste in fighting, lads,” I cried, for I felt that the ship was fast settling under our feet. But my voice was completely drowned in the babel of angry yells that instantly arose, for it appeared that the men were, after their own fashion, rivals for leadership in the forecastle, and each man had his own partisans, every one of whom instantly took up the quarrel of his own favourite, and in another moment the whole of them were at each others’ throats, like so many quarrelsome dogs.
“Let the drunken, mutinous brutes fight it out among themselves,” I muttered disgustedly as I turned and walked away. “They will get a sobering-up before very long that will astonish them, or I am greatly mistaken!”