The Red Rover: A Tale

by James Fenimore Cooper

“Foreseen and foretold!” returned the other, in a manner to show that her faith in the professional prescience of the stranger was not altogether so unbounded as that of her more youthful and ardent companion. “No mortal could have foreseen this awful calamity; and least of all, foreseeing it, would he have sought to incur its danger! Mr Wilder, I will not annoy you with requests for explanations that might now be useless, but you will not refuse to communicate your grounds of hope.”

Wilder hastened to relieve a curiosity that he well knew must be as painful as it was natural. The mutineers had left the largest, and much the safest, of the two boats belonging to the wreck, from a desire to improve the calm, well knowing that hours of severe labour would be necessary to launch it, from the place it occupied between the stumps of the two principal masts, into the ocean. This operation, which might have been executed in a few minutes with the ordinary purchases of the ship, would have required all their strength united, and that, too, to be exercised with a discretion and care that would have consumed too many of those moments which they rightly deemed to be so precious at that wild and unstable season of the year. Into this little ark Wilder proposed to convey such articles of comfort and necessity as he might hastily collect from the abandoned vessel; and then, entering it with his companions, to await the critical instant when the wreck should sink from beneath them.

“Call you this hope?” exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, when his short explanation was ended, her cheek again blanching with disappointment. “I have heard that the gulf, which foundering vessels leave, swallows all lesser objects that are floating nigh!”

“It sometimes happens. For worlds I would not deceive you; and I now say that I think our chance for escape equal to that of being ingulfed with the vessel.”

“This is terrible!” murmured the governess, “but the will of Heaven be done! Cannot ingenuity supply the place of strength, and the boat be cast from the decks before the fatal moment arrives?”

Wilder shook his head in an unequivocal negative.

“We are not so weak as you may think us,” said Gertrude. “Give a direction to our efforts, and let us see what may yet be done. Here is Cassandra,” she added—turning to the black girl already introduced to the reader, who stood behind her young and ardent mistress, with the mantle and shawls of the latter thrown over her arm, as if about to attend her on an excursion for the morning—“here is Cassandra who alone has nearly the strength of a man.”

“Had she the strength of twenty, I should despair of launching the boat without the aid of machinery But we lose time in words; I will go below, in order to judge of the probable duration of our doubt and then to our preparations. Even you, fair and fragile as you seem, lovely being, may aid in the latter.”

He then pointed out such lighter objects as would be necessary to their comfort, should they be so fortunate as to get clear of the wreck, and advised their being put into the boat without delay. While the three females were thus usefully employed, he descended into the hold of the ship, in order to note the increase of the water, and make his calculations on the time that would elapse before the sinking fabric must entirely disappear. The fact proved their case to be more alarming than even Wilder had been led to expect. Stripped of her masts, the vessel had laboured so heavily as to open many of her seams; and, as the upper works began to settle beneath the level of the ocean, the influx of the element was increasing with frightful rapidity. As the young manner gazed about him with an understanding eye, he cursed, in the bitterness of his heart, the ignorance and superstition that had caused the desertion of the remainder of the crew. There existed, in reality, no evil that exertion and skill could not have remedied; but, deprived of all aid, he at once saw the folly of even attempting to procrastinate a catastrophe that was now unavoidable. Returning with a heavy heart to the deck, he immediately set about those dispositions which were necessary to afford them the smallest chance of escape.

While his companions deadened the sense of apprehension by their light but equally necessary employment Wilder stepped the two masts of the boat, and properly disposed of the sails, and those other implements that might be useful in the event of success Thus occupied, a couple of hours flew by, as though minutes were compressed into moments. At the expiration of that period, his labour had ceased. He then cut the gripes that had kept the launch in its place when the ship was in motion, leaving it standing upright on its wooden beds, but in no other manner connected with the hull, which, by this time, had settled so low as to create the apprehension, that, at any moment, it might sink from beneath them. After this measure of precaution was taken, the females were summoned to the boat, lest the crisis might be nearer than he supposed; for he well knew that a foundering ship was, like a tottering wall, liable at any moment to yield to the impulse of the downward pressure. He then commenced the scarcely less necessary operation of selection among the chaos of articles with which the ill-directed zeal of his companions had so cumbered the boat, that there was hardly room left in which they might dispose of their more precious persons. Notwithstanding the often repeated and vociferous remonstrances of the negress, boxes, trunks, and packages flew from either side of the launch, as though Wilder had no consideration for the comfort and care of that fair being in whose behalf Cassandra, unheeded, like her ancient namesake of Troy, lifted her voice so often in the tones of remonstrance. The boat was soon cleared of what, under their circumstances, was literally lumber; leaving, however, far more than enough to meet all their wants, and not a few of their comforts, in the event that the elements should accord the permission to use them.