Suddenly the surface of the water darkened away toward the north-west, showing that a breeze was coming along from that direction, and we sprang to the port braces, rounding them in a foot or two to meet it, and hauling taut and making fast the starboard. We worked quickly, not yet knowing quite what was at the back of the coming breeze; but it proved to be only a trifle after all, creeping down toward us very gradually, and scarcely careening the ship when at length it reached her. But, trifling though it was, it was none the less welcome to us all; for it was inexpressibly refreshing once more to feel a wind fanning our fevered faces, stirring our hair, raising a pleasant tinkling sound of water under the bows and along the bends, and stilling the eternal and distracting flap of canvas aloft after the long period of breathless calm through which we had sweltered. Moreover, the ship was once more moving through the water, with her jibboom pointing in the right direction, and every mile that she now travelled was so much to the good, increasing our chances of getting across the Line and making our escape from the awful region of equatorial calms which constitute such a ghastly bugbear to those who go down to the sea in sailing-ships. Our self-congratulations proved, however, to be premature, for the breeze lasted only about half an hour when it died away again, leaving us as completely becalmed as before. But during that half-hour we had succeeded in covering quite two miles; while the schooner, evidently strong-handed, had snatched at the opportunity afforded her and, hastily setting her mainsail and jibs once more, had managed to creep up to within a short mile of us before the breeze died away, leaving both craft once more boxing the compass.
But we were by no means discouraged, for we had only to glance round us at the great lowering cloud-masses, that seemed to have descended almost to the level of our mastheads, to know that there would be plenty more wind before we again beheld blue sky. And, if appearances went for anything, we should not have very much longer to wait for it, for the blackness overhead was working like yeast, and the outfly might come at any moment. Yet another half-hour passed, and nothing happened. Then, while we all stood gazing and waiting, the canopy of cloud that arched above us was rent asunder by a steel-bright flash of lightning so intensely vivid that we were all completely blinded for a few seconds, and the next instant there followed a crash of thunder that would have drowned the combined broadsides of a thousand line-of-battle ships, and the tremendous concussion of which caused the poor old Mercury to quiver and tremble from stem to stern.
“Now look out for the rain!” shouted Gurney exultantly, as he sprang to close the skylight covers. “Jump below, Gracie dear,” he continued, “or get under cover before the rain comes and washes you overboard!”
But the rain did not come, at least not just then; but, as though that first flash had been a signal-gun, the whole of the visible heavens seemed to break at the same moment into lightning flashes, and for a full quarter of an hour there was such a terrific lancing of lightning, such a crashing and roaring and rumbling of thunder, that one might almost have thought the navies of the world had foregathered up aloft there and with one accord had set about the task of annihilating each other. During the whole of this time not a solitary drop of rain fell, and not enough stirring of air occurred to extinguish the flame of a candle; we had nothing to do but simply to stand there, dazzled and deafened, and watch, as far as we might, this wonderful, awe-inspiring manifestation of the conflicting forces of nature.
It happened that the schooner lay right in the wake of the most violent part of the storm; we therefore had her full in view as we stood and watched. Her people were at this time busily engaged in restowing their mainsail and jibs, apparently convinced that the ultimate outcome of all this elemental disturbance must be an outfly of wind against which it would be well to be fully prepared. They had got their mainsail down, and some eight or ten hands were stretched along the length of the boom, tightly rolling up the great folds of canvas, while four more were laid out on the jibboom furling the jibs, when the storm seemed to reach its height, and a great vivid flash of lightning, like a sword of blue-green fire, lighting up the whole scene with its ghastly glare, fell, as it appeared to us, full upon the little craft, and the next instant, as the accompanying peal of thunder crashed and boomed in our ears, we all distinctly saw a flash, as of fire, leap up aboard her, accompanied by a great puff of whitish smoke. It was only momentary, and had the appearance of an explosion; but it was perfectly apparent that something more or less serious had happened to the little vessel. After an appreciable pause on the part of her crew, as though they were collecting their faculties in the face of some sudden disaster, they broke at once into a state of feverish activity, rushing hither and thither about her decks like men who are attempting to do half a dozen separate and distinct things at the same moment. Then came another flash of flame on board her; and all in a moment, as it seemed to us, the whole after part of her burst into a fierce blaze!
“Why, Gurney!” I exclaimed, turning to where the man stood with his sweetheart: “that last flash of lightning seems to have set the schooner on fire.”
“Yes,” he answered; “and she is blazing like a tar barrel. If the rain doesn’t come within the next two or three minutes they will have their work cut out to extinguish the flames.”
“Ay,” cut in Saunders, “you are right there, George. Look how she flares up. Why, she must be as dry as tinder. Ah! there they go with their buckets. But what is the use of buckets against a blaze like that; why don’t they get their hose along and start their head-pump? They’ll never put out that fire by balin’ up water from over the side.”
“No,” assented Gurney, “nor by means of a hose and head-pump either. Nothing but a good downpour of rain will do them any good now, and the rain seems to be holding off. Scissors! that ought to fetch it down”—as another terrific flash of lightning illuminated the whole scene from horizon to horizon.
But it did not; the lightning—fierce, vivid, and baleful—continued to flash, the thunder rolled and crashed and reverberated in one continuous deafening uproar; but the rain held off for a good five minutes longer, during which the fire aboard the schooner gained apace and spread with amazing rapidity. When at length the heavens opened, and the overladen clouds began to discharge their contents, it was not by any means the kind of tropical deluge that might have reasonably been expected, but simply a sudden brisk shower lasting less than a minute, and then ceasing abruptly. It was neither copious enough nor of sufficient duration to be of any appreciable service to the crew of the schooner, and indeed it did not perceptibly check the progress of the flames. To the onlookers aboard the Mercury it seemed that the other craft was irretrievably doomed; and such also seemed to be the opinion of her own crew, for they were presently seen to be frantically busy over the clearing away of the longboat, which was stowed on top of the main hatch, and the safety of which was now threatened by the rapidly advancing flames.