Three uneventful days later land was sighted on the larboard bow, and late in the afternoon the headland at the north-eastern extremity of Yucatan peninsula was passed at a distance of some twelve miles, and the course was altered to due west for the run along the northern coast of the peninsula. It was near this spot that, just a year earlier, the squadron under Captain Hawkins’ command had encountered the two successive hurricanes which had played such havoc with them as to compel them to run to San Juan de Ulua to refit, with the result that irremediable disaster had overtaken them; and Dyer, who had looked forward with considerable trepidation to the time when he would again be called upon to sail those treacherous seas, was loud in his thanksgivings for the good fortune which had thus far attended them, for nothing could be more satisfactory and delightful than the weather which the voyagers were now experiencing, the only drawback to their content being an unaccountably heavy sea into which they ran about midnight, and which Dyer was inclined to regard as the forerunner of the much dreaded hurricane. With the passage of the hours, however, the violence of the sea manifested a tendency to moderate, which caused the more experienced ones among the crew to arrive at the conclusion that, instead of being the forerunner of a hurricane, the turbulent sea was merely the aftermath of one which had very recently blown itself out.
And this conclusion was abundantly verified on the following day, for about mid-morning a floating object was sighted on the starboard bow which, as the Nonsuch drew nearer, proved to be the hull of a small ship, dismasted, floating low in the water, and rolling horribly in the trough of the sea. Then, as now, the sight of a ship in distress always appeals irresistibly to the humanity of the British seaman and no sooner was the character of the floating object identified than the helm of the Nonsuch was shifted and she was headed for the wreck. Shortly afterwards the Spanish ensign was hoisted half-way up the ensign staff of the stranger, thus declaring not only her nationality but also that she was in distress, a fact which was sufficiently obvious to all with eyes to see.
When the Nonsuch had arrived within about a mile of the heavily labouring craft, George ordered sail to be shortened, and announced to his officers his intention to stand by the wreck until the sea should moderate sufficiently to enable boats to be lowered, when he would take off the crew, and every preparation was made accordingly. The English ship was so manoeuvred as to enable her to pass athwart the stranger’s stern and heave-to close under the lee of the latter; and presently, as the space between the two craft rapidly narrowed, George was enabled to distinguish, painted in large letters, the name Doña Catalina. Springing into the weather main rigging of his own ship, the young commander waited until but a few fathoms separated the two vessels, and he was able to clearly distinguish the features of the three men who were clinging desperately to the shattered poop bulwark rail of the wreck, and then, with his hand placed trumpet-wise to his mouth as he stood with his back supported by the rigging, he hailed in Spanish:
“Ho! the Catalina, ahoy! Do you wish to be taken off?”
“Si, Señor, si, si,” answered a short, stout, black-bearded individual who formed one of the trio on the stranger’s poop, “we are full of water and sinking. Take us off, for the love of God! We have pumped until we can pump no more, our strength being completely exhausted, and the leak is gaining on us rapidly.”
“Very well,” returned George. “I will remain near you until the sea goes down sufficiently to launch a boat. Until then you must do the best you can.”
“But, Señor,” shrieked the black-bearded one, “if you wait until then it will be too late. It will be hours before the sea goes down enough to permit of a boat being launched, and meanwhile our ship is filling fast. Cannot you devise some means of taking us off at once? See how we are rolling, and how the sea is breaking over us! Every moment I am in fear that a heavier sea than usual will strike us and roll our vessel completely over. Holy Mother of God! Do not leave us to drown like rats in a trap, Señor!”
But by this time the two craft had drifted so far apart that further speech just then was impossible, and as George descended from the rigging he gave orders to fill the main topsail and get way on the ship again. Then he ascended to the poop and joined Dyer, who was already there.
“Well, Cap’n, what be us goin’ to do?” demanded the pilot, whose knowledge of Spanish was just sufficient to enable him to gather the drift of what had passed. “Shall us wait a bit longer, and chance the hooker stayin’ right side up till the sea do go down a bit more; or shall us try to launch a boat? I don’t doubt but what, if us watches carefully and works quickly, we can get a boat afloat and unhooked; but us couldn’t get alongside the wrack to take her people off—they’d have to jump overside and trust to we to pick mun up. Then how would us all get out of the boat a’terwards and get mun hoisted up again? But it do surely look to me as though we must do some’at pretty soon, because I don’t believe as that wrack’ll last so very much longer. Look to mun, how her do roll, and look how the sea do breach her! There must be tons o’ water a-pouring down into her hold every minute, and—Lard be merciful—there a goeth. She be turnin’ over now, as I’m a livin’—No, no; ’tis all right; her be rightin’ again, but Cap’n, her can’t live much longer to that rate.”
“No,” agreed George, who, like Dyer, had been breathlessly watching the outrageous antics of the waterlogged craft, and had seen how very nearly she had come to capsizing as the sea flung her up and hove her over on her beam ends—“I’m afraid she cannot. As you say, something must be done if we are to save those poor wretches; but the only thing that I can think of is to at least make the attempt to launch a boat. We will get to windward of the wreck, and then, everything having been previously made ready, we will lower a boat and—if we can get away without being stove—run down to the wreck in the ‘smooth’ of the Nonsuch’s lee; get under the lee of the wreck; and her people must jump overboard, two or three at a time, and trust to us to pick them up. I will take command of the boat, and as soon as you see us safely under the lee of the wreck you must fill and keep away, pass to leeward of the wreck, and heave-to as close to her as you can, when we will come round under your lee and get the people aboard one at a time by means of a ‘whip’ from the lee mainyard-arm, trusting to luck for the chance to get the boat aboard again without smashing her to staves. Now try her about, Dyer; I think we ought to be able to fetch well to windward of her now. And I believe the starboard quarter boat will be the easiest to lower and unhook.”