Roswell Gardiner was again surprised, and for another moment he forgot the gale and its dangers. Gale it was no longer, however, for the lull was now decided, and the two cables of the schooner were distended only when the roll of the seas came in upon her. This wash of the waves still menaced the other schooner, driving her down towards the breakers, though less rapidly than before.
"Why don't the fellow anchor!" exclaimed Gardiner, in his anxiety, all care for himself being now over. "Unless he anchor, he will yet go into the white water, and be lost!"
"So little does he think of that, that he is turning out his reefs," answered Hazard. "See! there is a hand aloft loosening his topsail--and there goes up a whole mainsail, already!"
Sure enough, Daggett appeared more disposed to trust to his canvass, than to his ground-tackle. In a very brief space of time he had his craft under whole sail, and was struggling, in the puffs, to claw off the land. Presently, the wind ceased altogether, the canvass flapping so as to be audible to Gardiner and his companions, at the distance of half a mile. Then, the cloth was distended in the opposite direction, and the wind came off the land. The schooner's head was instantly brought to meet the seas, and the lead dropped at her side showed that she was moving in the right direction. These sudden changes, sometimes destructive, and sometimes providential as acts of mercy, always bring strong counter-currents of air in their train.
"Now we shall have it!" said Hazard--"a true nor'wester, and butt-end foremost!"
This opinion very accurately described that which followed. In ten minutes it was blowing heavily, in a direction nearly opposite to that which had been the previous current of the wind. As a matter of course, the Sea Lion of the Vineyard drew off the land, wallowing through the meeting billows that still came rolling in from the broad Atlantic; while the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond tended to the new currents of air, and rode, as it might be, suspended between the two opposing forces, with little or no strain on her cables. Gardiner expected to see his consort stand out to sea, and gain an offing; but, instead of this, Captain Daggett brought his schooner quite near to the disabled vessel, and anchored. This act of neighbourly kindness was too unequivocal to require explanation. It was the intention of the Vineyard men to lie by their consort until she was relieved from all apprehensions of danger. The 'butt-end' of the 'nor'-wester' was too large to admit of intercourse until next morning, when that which had been a small gale had dwindled to a good steady breeze, and the seas had gone down, leaving comparatively smooth water all along the coast. The line of white water which marked the breakers was there, and quite visible; but it no longer excited apprehension. The jury-masts on board the disabled craft were got up, and what was very convenient, just at that moment, the wreck came floating out on the ebb, so near to her as to enable the boats to secure all the sails and most of the rigging. The main-boom, too, an excellent spar, was towed alongside and saved.
Chapter X.
"The shadow from thy brow shall melt,
The sorrow from thy strain;
But where thy earthly smile hath dwelt,
Our hearts shall thirst in vain."Mrs. Hemans.
As soon as it would do to put his boats in the water, or at daylight next morning, Captain Daggett came alongside of his consort. He was received with a seaman's welcome, and his offers of services were accepted, just as frankly, as under reversed circumstances, they would have been made. In all this there was a strange and characteristic admixture of neighbourly and Christian kindness, blended with a keen regard of the main chance. If the former duties are rarely neglected by the descendants of the Puritans, it may be said, with equal truth, that the latter are never lost sight of. Speculation, and profit, are regarded as so many integral portions of the duty of man; and, as our kinsmen of Old England have set up an idol to worship, in the form of aristocracy, so do our kinsmen of New England pay homage to the golden calf. In point of fact, Daggett had a double motive in now offering his services to Gardiner; the one being the discharge of his moral obligations, and the other a desire to remain near the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond, lest she should visit the key, of which he had some very interesting memorandums, without having enough to find the place unless led there by those who were better informed on the subject of its precise locality than he was himself.
The boats of Daggett assisted in getting the wreck alongside, and in securing the sails and rigging. Then, his people aided in fitting jury-masts; and, by noon, both vessels got under way, and stood along the coast, to the southward and westward. Hatteras was no longer terrible, for the wind still stood at north-west, and they kept in view of those very breakers which, only the day before, they would have given the value of both vessels to be certain of never seeing again. That night they passed the formidable cape, a spit of sand projecting far to seaward, and which is on a low beach, and not on any main land at all. Once around this angle in the coast, they had a lee, hauling up to the south-west. With the wind abeam, they stood on the rest of the day, picking up a pilot. The next night they doubled Cape Look Out, a very good landmark for those going north to keep in view, as a reminder of the stormy and sunken Hatteras, and arrived off Beaufort harbour just as the sun was rising, the succeeding morning. By this time the north-wester was done, and both schooners entered Beaufort, with a light southerly breeze, there being just water enough to receive them. This was the only place on all that coast into which it would have answered their purposes to go; and it was, perhaps, the very port of all others that was best suited to supply the present wants of Roswell Gardiner. Pine timber, and spars of all sorts, abounded in that region; and the "Banker," who acted as pilot, told our young master that he could get the very sticks he needed, in one hour's time after entering the haven. This term of "Banker" applies to a scattering population of wreckers and fishermen, who dwell on the long, low, narrow beaches which extend along the whole of this part of the coast, reaching from Cape Fear to near Cape Henry, a distance of some hundred and fifty miles. Within lie the capacious sounds already mentioned, including Albemarle and Pimlico, and which form the watery portals to the sea-shores of all North Carolina. Well is the last headland of that region, but one which the schooners did not double, named Cape Fear. It is the commencement, on that side, of the dangerous part of the coast, and puts the mariner on his guard by its very appellation, admonishing him to be cautious and prudent.