From this time forward, for a full month and more, life was absolutely uneventful on board the City of Cawnpore: the gale blew itself out that same night, and we got a breeze that carried us right into the north-east trades; then we lost five days on the Line parallels ere we caught the south-east trades; and when they left us we were baffled for two days more before getting a wind that would permit us to make any easting.
We caught this fair wind early one morning in the second week of December; and by noon it was blowing over the larboard quarter quite as strong as we wanted it, with studding-sails abroad on both sides, from the royals down, and every other inch of canvas that would draw. As the afternoon waned the breeze freshened; but Murgatroyd had by this time got preventer backstays rigged, fore and aft, with the avowed determination of carrying on and making the very utmost of so splendid a breeze. And making the most of it, he was, with a vengeance, for the ship was sweeping along like a mist wreath, reeling off her seventeen knots by the log, when the latter was hove at the end of the first dog-watch.
When I went on deck after dinner that night the sky had banked up to windward and astern of us, and heavy masses of cloud were sweeping rapidly athwart the firmament, permitting an occasional brief and hasty glimpse of the young moon and a few misty stars. It was then blowing strong, with every promise of a windy night before us; and it seemed to me that, with so dim and uncertain a light, it was scarcely prudent to drive the ship at such headlong speed through the night. Indeed I ventured to suggest as much to Dacre, but he only laughed at me.
“It is all very well for you navy men, when you are cruising, to shorten sail at sunset, so that your people may be reasonably sure of an undisturbed night,” he said. “But with us of the red ensign it is different; our owners expect us to pile up the profits for them; and the only way in which we can do that is by making quick passages. But of course, while doing our best to accomplish this, we exercise every possible precaution. For instance, you seem to think that I am rather reckless in driving my ship at this speed through the night; but what have I to fear? We have all the sea-room we want; there are no rocks or shoals in our road for us to fetch up on; and if we should happen to fall in with any other vessels, they will be going the same way as ourselves, so we shall see them in ample time to avoid running over them. And, in addition to all this, we maintain a first-rate lookout, one on each bow, two in the waist, and the officer of the watch up here on the poop; so we need have no fear of collision. Take my word for it, Mr Conyers; you are every bit as safe aboard here, sir, as if you were under the pennant!”
After this, of course, there was nothing more to be said, especially as I was well aware that, in mentioning such a matter at all to the skipper, I had committed an almost unpardonable breach of nautical etiquette.
Notwithstanding the strong breeze the night was quite warm, for we were not very far south of the tropic of Capricorn, and, moreover, it was close upon the midsummer of the Southern Hemisphere; consequently when two bells of the first watch struck, a good many of the passengers were on deck, most of them listening to the miners, who were congregated on the main deck, singing. As for me, I was right aft, on the wheel grating, smoking, and staring skyward at the racing cloud masses as they swept scurrying athwart the face of the moon.
Suddenly a loud yell of dismay and warning arose from the topgallant forecastle, the only words I caught being, ”—under our bows!”
The next instant, with a shock that shot me off the grating on to the poop, the ship was brought up all standing—not stopped dead as though she had run into a cliff, but rather as a horse stops when pulled up and thrown on his haunches—and then, as I lay on my back, half stunned by the shock of my fall, and still gazing skyward, I saw the three masts bow forward, bending like fishing-rods, when, with a dreadful rending crash, the entire complicated mechanism of sails, spars, and rigging went by the board, and lay fore and aft along the deck.
There was a moment’s pause of utter silence, broken only by the hissing splash and rush of water alongside, and the moaning of the wind over the sea; and then arose the most terrific hubbub to which I had ever been doomed to listen—shrieks, groans, and curses from those injured by the fall of, or buried under, the wreckage from aloft; cries of “We’re sinking! we’re sinking! God help us!” people calling each other’s names; and the voices of Captain Dacre and Mr Murgatroyd shouting orders. Then, all in a moment there arose among the miners a cry of “The boats! the boats! Let’s launch the boats!” instantly followed by a rush of the whole crowd of them on to the poop, where as many as could swarmed into the two quarter boats hanging at the davits. These two boats would not hold much more than a quarter of their number, and the moment that this was discovered there arose a sanguinary fight for the possession of the two frail craft, those who were crowded out drawing their knives and attacking the other party. Then Murgatroyd suddenly appeared on the poop with a brace of revolvers in his hands, which he levelled at the fighting, surging mob.
“Come out of those boats, you cowardly blackguards; come out, I say, and stand by to obey orders! D’ye hear, there, what I say? You there with the red head, I’m talking to you: come out of that boat, or by God I’ll shoot! You won’t? Then take that,”—his pistol flashed as he spoke. “I’ll soon see who is master here!”