The Cruise of the "Esmeralda"

by Harry Collingwood

Meanwhile, during the progress of these operations I had been taking counsel with myself as to the most desirable course to pursue under the circumstances in which we found ourselves. My original intention had been to proceed to Valparaiso in quest of a crew, but that intention had been arrived at under the impression that it would be necessary only to leave three or four men behind us on the island. Joe’s opinion upon the matter had, however, altered all this, and had necessitated our going to sea with a crew of only seven men, including Sir Edgar, whose assistance I felt we could only claim under circumstances of exceptional necessity. This reduced us to two watches of three men each, who might indeed suffice to handle the ship under easy canvas and during fine weather, but who could do very little with her should we happen to fall in with a heavy gale, or, still worse, a downright Pacific hurricane. Then, too, the prevailing winds in that part of the world are easterly; which placed Valparaiso well to windward, and rendered it even more difficult to fetch than San Francisco. The latter port, however, I had no desire whatever to visit under the circumstances, with such a precious cargo on board, and three men at least whose tongues it would be impossible to bridle. By the time, therefore, that the ship was fairly under way, I had come to the conclusion that my best plan would be to make for the Sandwich Islands, which were only some sixteen hundred and fifty miles distant, in a north-westerly direction, and might therefore be easily reached in a fortnight, if all went well with us. An important advantage attaching to this plan was that Honolulu, if it did not lie directly in my road to China, was nearer it than any other port, and I still considered it very essential that, in order to avoid inconvenient questions, I should take home a cargo of some sort, which might as well be tea as anything else; and although I had never visited the Sandwich Islands, I thought it probable I should there be able to pick up at least a sufficient number of men to carry us comfortably to the Canton river. As soon, therefore, as we were fairly clear of the island I set the course for the island of Oahu; the wind being at the time a four-knot breeze, well over the starboard quarter. This done, I relieved Miss Merrivale at the wheel, leaving Forbes and the other four men to continue at leisure the operation of making sail.

Meanwhile the question had arisen, “How was the cooking to be done?” and the natural reply to this seemed to be, “Set the darkie to do it.” This would have been all very well but for my passengers, who, it occurred to me, might possibly have a prejudice against having their food handled by a black man. I therefore laid the matter before Sir Edgar, who immediately consulted with his wife; and the ultimate result was that one of the maids very good-naturedly undertook the work, with San Domingo as cook’s mate, to do all the dirty work, while the other maid volunteered as steward. I was greatly distressed in my mind lest all these inconveniences should prove a serious annoyance to my good friends in the saloon; but on mentioning the matter to Lady Emily, she quickly and kindly reassured me by declaring that they looked upon the whole thing in the light of an adventure or experience of a novel kind to be made the most of.

“Besides,” she added, “a little inconvenience and privation will do us good by teaching us to appreciate our comforts more nearly at their proper value when we get them again.”

The weather looked fine, and the barometer stood high; I therefore had no hesitation whatever about packing sail upon the ship; and as everybody worked with a will, it came to pass that by noon we had not only got our anchor secured, but had also clothed the ship with every stitch of plain sail, from the royals down. Forbes was not satisfied even with that, and would have gone on to studding-sails; but I considered enough to be as good as a feast. Studding-sails are rather ungainly things to handle in a quickly freshening breeze, if one happens to be at all short-handed. I therefore determined to have nothing to do with them—the more resolutely that, as we drew away from the island, the breeze strengthened until we were reeling off our nine knots by the log.

This exceedingly satisfactory state of affairs prevailed for exactly forty hours from noon of the day upon which we left the island; the breeze remaining so steady and true that we were not called upon to touch tack, sheet, or halliard during the whole time. There was nothing, in fact, to do but simply to steer the ship; and we were already beginning to flatter ourselves that we were not only to be favoured with a pleasant passage, but that we were going to accomplish it in about half the time that I had allotted to it. Such a magnificent opportunity was not to be wasted; and I accordingly took advantage of it to have the ballast cleared away right in midships, and the gold and silver stowed there equally on each side of the keelson, and carefully concealed with matting and a quantity of dunnage; after which the ballast was trimmed back over it and everything left shipshape against the time of our arrival in port.

In hoping for a sufficiently long continuance of fine weather to carry us without break or interruption to Honolulu, however, we were reckoning without our host; for about four o’clock in the morning of our second day out, the wind began to fail us, and by eight o’clock it had fallen to a stark, glassy calm. There had been but a moderate amount of sea running, and this soon went down, leaving only a long, oily swell, upon which the ship rolled with a quick, jerky, uneasy movement. The sun rose clear and brilliant, with every promise of a fine and scorchingly hot day; but when I went on deck after breakfast to take my sights for the longitude, I noticed that the sky had lost much of its brilliant colouring, while the sun hung in it a white, shapeless blotch, instead of the dazzling orb that had risen a few hours before. This, of course, might mean nothing worse than heat; but when I went below shortly afterwards to work out my sights, I saw that the mercury had fallen a little. This, too, might only mean heat, with possibly a smart thunderstorm a little later on in the day; but, short-handed as we were, I deemed it best to be on the safe side; and accordingly, having worked out my sights, I returned to the deck, and all hands of us went to work upon the canvas, clewing up and hauling down all our lighter sails, until we had stripped the ship to topsails, courses, fore-topmast staysail, jib, and mizzen. At this stage of the proceedings another glance at the barometer showed that the mercury was still shrinking in the tube, while the atmosphere had assumed a hazy appearance that rendered it difficult to distinguish the horizon. There could no longer be any doubt that a change of weather was impending, although there was nothing at present to indicate very precisely what the character of the change was to be. We therefore went aloft, three of us on the foremast, and three on the main, and beginning with the royals and working downward, snugly stowed everything that we had previously hauled down. It was whilst we were thus engaged that an increasing uneasiness in the motion of the ship first became apparent; and looking about us for the cause, we became aware of the fact that a cross swell had begun to gather, and was slowly creeping down to us from the north-west—the sure precursor, Forbes affirmed, of a stiff blow from that quarter. In this opinion I fully agreed; still there was at that moment nothing of a menacing character in the aspect of the sky, beyond an increasing thickness of the atmosphere; and I was therefore hopeful that we should have a sufficiency of time given us to complete our preparations for the worst that could happen, before it came upon us.

The furling of the light canvas was neither a very long nor a very laborious job, and in less than an hour we were all once more on deck. The north-westerly swell had by this time gathered sufficient weight to render itself distinctly perceptible even to the eye, and, the ship having swung round broadside-on to it, she was rolling in a fashion that set all the trusses, parrels, and bulkheads creaking, the yards jerking, the patent block-sheaves squeaking, the heavy canvas flapping, the reef-points pattering, the cabin-doors rattling, and the wheel-chains clanking, so that, with the heavy wash of water along the bends and under the counter, and an occasional clatter of crockery in the pantry, quite a small Babel of sound was raised about us. The motion of the ship, however, though more violent, was not so awkward and uncomfortable as it had been, doubtless in consequence of the young swell killing the old; and still there was no sign whatever of an immediate breeze. But another look at the barometer showed that the mercury was still falling, and now at a more rapid rate. Fully convinced, therefore, that something rather more serious than a mere thunder-squall was brewing, we now went to work with a will, and, having first furled the mizzen, hauled up the courses and stowed them, leaving the ship with nothing showing but her two topsails and the fore-topmast staysail, which—as our topsails were patent-reefing—left us practically prepared for almost anything that might happen.

The haze had by this time thickened overhead to such an extent that the sun showed in it as a mere white, rayless disc, the light of which seemed to be gradually dying out; and by the time that noon had arrived the atmosphere had become so obscure that the horizon was no longer distinguishable, and I, therefore, lost my observation for the latitude. At one o’clock, when our neat stewardess summoned me below to luncheon, the mercury was still sinking, which, with the slow progress of the change that was taking place, assured me that when the outburst came, it would be something a little out of the common. Luckily, we had plenty of sea-room, and a thoroughly staunch little ship under our feet; I therefore looked forward to the impending conflict with tolerable equanimity.

At length, just as I had completed my hasty lunch, there occurred a sudden but perceptible darkening of the atmosphere which seemed to indicate that the expected change was now imminent, and, springing up the companion-way to the deck, I found a most extraordinary scene awaiting me. The thickness that had hitherto pervaded the atmosphere had vanished, as if by magic, leaving the air astonishingly clear and transparent right to the boundary of the horizon, and revealing a vast expanse of dense, livid, purple-grey cloud, which had overspread the north-western half of the heavens, and was at the precise moment passing over and shutting out the sun from view. The edge of the cloud was as straight and sharply defined as though it had been trimmed with a knife, and it divided the firmament into two almost equal portions, the larger of which was a beautiful expanse of clear, serene, unclouded blue; while the other hung livid and threatening above us, with the promise of a raving tornado lurking within its black bosom. Immediately overhead the colour of this immense cloud curtain was a cold, slaty blue, from whence, as the eye travelled down its expanse toward the north-western horizon, the hue became darker until where it met the water it was as black as night; while, underneath it, the sea undulated restlessly, with the writhings of an angry serpent, showing a surface as lustreless and of the same colour as molten lead. Low down in the bosom of the cloud could be seen occasional palpitating quiverings, as though the fires within it were striving to burst their way through, and presently, quite at the horizon, a flash of lightning sparked vividly out of it.

“Are the topsail halliards all ready for running, Mr Forbes?” said I.