CHAPTER XXXI.
THE REEFS OF PALEGROSSA.
No French girl, waiting for her lover, was ever more impatient than I to see the enemy, yet it was my fate never to plough the waters of the Euxine.
In company with the Mahmoudieh, a small Osmanli steam-brig of ten guns, we had left astern the narrow channel of the Hellespont, and the lights of Gallipoli had sunk into haze and darkness on our larboard quarter, as we steamed, but slowly, into the sea of Marmora.
The night, at first, was calm, but intensely dark, yet on we glided—on, on—over the waste of waters, our almost noiseless speed forming a strange contrast to the silence and sleep of the hundreds on board, who were borne forward through the seething foam and whirling water, as the revolving screw urged on the sharp-prowed frigate—an even course before us, a long white wake of froth astern; no light visible, save a faint ray near the binnacle, or that red and dusky gleam which shoots at times upward from the engine-room, when the iron jaws of the hot furnace are unclosed for a moment, and a flash of fiery radiance falls on the mysterious intricacies of the clanking machinery, and on the dark and swarthy visages of the engineer and his mates.
So thought Belton and I, as we trod the deck together, cigar in mouth, while gliding over the darkened waters of the Propontis.
Our coal was becoming scarce, for after an hour the engines almost ceased, and every stitch of canvas she could carry was set upon the vessel; but this was continued only for a time, as before midnight a gale came on, and the sails were rapidly reduced, and we lost sight of the Mahmoudieh, with her crescent and lantern glittering at her foremast-head.
Jack Belton was officer of the watch, and about fifty of our men were on deck in their forage-caps and greatcoats, ready to bear a hand whenever they were required, in working the ship and general deck duty. As he scanned the horizon of the dark sea of Marmora, and saw a peculiar white streak at its utmost verge, Captain Crank swore a few nautical oaths, and bent his piercing solitary eye aloft on every yard and rope and sail, to see, as he said, 'if she drawed properly.'
'What headland is that, now rising like a dark cloud upon our larboard bow?' I inquired, with great suavity, as our skipper was not in a mood to be trifled with.
'Cape St. George—and a d—ned unpleasant place it may prove to us, if the wind shifts, and we find it on our lee,' he answered, in a voice not unlike a growl, as he turned his red and weather-beaten visage to windward. 'How's her head?' he snappishly asked the midshipman of the watch.