The knowledge of the vessel’s position appeared to give the skipper greater confidence; and, the waves ceasing to break over us, although the huge southern rollers swept by in heavy curves, he gave directions for getting some tackle rigged to launch the long-boat, which, although it was right in the way, had escaped injury when the foremast fell. At the same time, the mainsail and mizzen staysail were set, and the vessel steered in the direction of that Cape which she seemed destined never to round.
“We’ll run for the Wollaston group,” said the skipper—“that is, if the fire will let us stop aboard till we reach there; and if not, why, the less distance there will be for us to trust ourselves to the boats in this strong sea.”
No time was lost in making preparations to quit the ship, however—provisions and stores being brought up from the steerage by the steward and a couple of seamen who were told off to help him.
In the last few hours the fire had made considerable headway; for thin wreaths of smoke were curling up from the deck forwards, where the pitch had been melted from the seams, and the heat was plainly perceptible on the poop, accompanied as it was by a hot sulphurous smell.
“Be jabers, I fale like a cat on a hot griddle,” said Pat Doolan, as he danced in and out of the galley, engaged in certain cooking operations on a large scale which the skipper had ordered; “I’ll soon have no sowl at all, at all, to me cawbeens!”
The men laughed at this, but there was a good deal of truth in the joking words of the Irishman, as, although washed with water, the deck was quite unbearable to one’s naked foot.
It was now early in the afternoon, and the long-boat and jolly-boat were both launched and loaded with what stores were available, the skipper personally seeing that each was provided with a mast and sails and its proper complement of oars and ballast—barrels and barricoes containing water being utilised to this latter end, thus serving for a double purpose.
Other things and persons were also attended to.
Mr Ohlsen, the second mate, and Harmer, the seaman who had had his leg broken when thrown against the bulwarks—and who, by the way, had the injured limb excellently set by Mr Macdougall, who had passed through a hospital course in “Edinbro’ Toon,” he told us—were brought up from the cabin in their cots, being both invalids. The skipper likewise secured the ship’s papers and removed the compass from the binnacle; while I, of course, did not forget my sextant and a chart or two which Captain Billings told me to take. The foremast hands having also selected a small stock of useful articles, all of us were ready to leave the vessel as soon as she gave us notice to quit.
The fire was waxing hotter and hotter, the curling wreaths of smoke having expanded into dense black columns of vapour, and an occasional tongue of flame was licking the edges of the coamings of the fore hatchway, while sparks every now and then went flying up in the air and were wafted away to leeward by the wind.