Gladly welcoming the change, Leslie—who had spent the whole of the preceding night on deck—ordered the close-reefed fore topsail to be set, as well as the foresail and main trysail; under which considerable increase of canvas the brig was soon once more moving with comparative rapidity through the water, and looking well up into the wind. Then, watching for a “smooth,” they wore the craft round, and brought her to on the port tack, during the progress of which evolution the wind shifted a couple of points to the southward, enabling them to lay a course of north-west by west, which Leslie hoped would suffice him to draw out clear of everything, and carry him into the Pacific Ocean.
This hope was strengthened as the day wore on, for the wind continued to draw gradually still further round from the southward, while it steadily decreased in force—though growing colder every hour—thus enabling Leslie to shake out first one reef in his topsails, then a second, and finally the last, also to set his jib and main-topmast staysail; so that by sunset the brig, under whole topsails and main-topgallantsail, was booming along famously, with an excellent prospect of finding herself fairly in the Pacific in the course of the next twenty-four hours.
A disconcerting circumstance, however, that rather tended to damp Leslie’s hopes, was the fact that the barometer persistently refused to rise, although the wind was subsiding so rapidly that it threatened to dwindle to a calm, and as the evening faded into night the stars grew dim and finally disappeared. Still, there was nothing that could be called actually alarming in the aspect of the weather; and as Leslie had been almost continuously on deck during the entire duration of the gale—snatching a brief half-hour of rest from time to time as best he could—and it was now his eight hours in, he decided, after deliberating the matter until four bells in the first watch had struck, to go below and turn in until midnight; leaving instructions with the carpenter to instantly call him in the event of anything occurring to necessitate his presence on deck.
It seemed to him that he had scarcely laid his head upon his pillow and closed his eyes ere he was awakened from a profound sleep by a sudden screaming roar of wind; the brig heeled over to port until she appeared about to capsize; and as Leslie, dazed for the moment by his sudden awakening, sprang from his bunk, a loud crash on deck, immediately succeeded by a lesser one, told a tale of disaster. The brig righted as the harassed man sprang up the companion ladder, clad only in his pyjamas, and dashed out on deck to find everything in confusion, the mainmast gone by the board and hammering viciously at the ship’s side, while a furious banging forward told that the fore-topmast also had gone, and, with everything attached, was hanging to leeward by its rigging. Moreover, a howling gale from the northward was sweeping over the brig and deluging her with showers of cutting spray.
“Where is the carpenter?” was Leslie’s first cry as he emerged from the companion and groped blindly about him in the blackness of the starless night.
“Here I be, sir,” answered Chips, close at hand. “Oh, Mr Leslie, here’s a dreadful business! And I be to blame for it, sir—”
“Never mind, just now, who is to blame,” exclaimed Leslie. “Call all hands, and let them get to work with their tomahawks upon that main rigging. Cut everything away, Chips, and be smart about it, my man, or we shall have the mast punching a hole in the ship’s side, and there will be an end of us all.”
And so saying, without waiting for an answer, Leslie made a spring for the rack in which the tomahawks were kept, and, seizing the first of the small axes that he could lay hands upon, he set an example to the rest by hacking away at the lanyards of the main shrouds. It was a heart-breaking business, that blind hewing and chopping at the complicated gear that held the wreck of the mainmast fast to the hull; but it was accomplished at last, and then, the brig having paid off almost dead before the wind, it drifted astern and went clear, with much scraping and a final bump under the counter that made the old hooker tremble, and must have infallibly destroyed the rudder had it chanced to hit it. Then all hands went to work and attacked the topmast rigging, which, being less complicated, was soon cleared away.
The harassed crew now had a moment in which to collect their energies for fresh efforts, and take stock, as it were, of the extent of the disaster that had befallen them. And the first matter into which Leslie made particular inquiry—after he had gone below and got into his clothes—was the state of the crew; it had been impressed upon him—although he had hitherto been too busy to mention it—that some men seemed to be missing—or rather, he had vaguely felt that there were not so many men on deck as there ought to be.
So he now turned to the carpenter, and said—