“Faith!” said Garry O’Neil, who was not a deep thinker, not troubling himself much about anything beyond the present. “That’s a puzzling question; but I, for one, wouldn’t care to be of that way of thinkin’, sure, sir.”
“That question however, poor Jackson has solved, long ere this!”
As Captain Applegarth uttered these words, solemnly enough, the fireman’s ravings, when in the agonies of death, came back to me, and I thought that, if confident in his materialism when in health and strength, his creed had not altogether eased his mind at the last, when I saw him raise his eyes, for a few minutes, to heaven in prayer.
That night the gale, which had moderated considerably during the afternoon, assailed us again with renewed vigour, as if old Boreas had put a fresh hand to the bellows, as sailor folk say.
It began in the middle watch, when the wind suddenly veered to the southwards, and it came on to blow great guns, causing the skipper the utmost uneasiness, as he feared we would break away from our spar anchor, when, disabled as we were, a steamer in a storm without the use of the engines being no better off than a baby in arms deprived of its nurse, it seemed almost impossible to prevent the vessel from broaching-to, in which case she would more than likely founder with all hands.
Consequently, not a soul turned in the livelong night, the port and starboard watches both remaining on duty, with Captain Applegarth and Mr Fosset on the bridge, while Garry O’Neil relieved the boatswain, who now had eight men under him in charge of the wheel, where the utmost caution and the greatest vigilance were necessary to keep the old barquey’s head to the sea. I had fearfully hard work, too, for the big waves ever and anon leapt up over her bows, burying the fo’c’s’le in clouds of spray and spent water that came pouring down into the waist and rushing aft, flooding the whole deck almost up to the gunwhales taking everything movable overboard, the boats being lifted off the chocks amidships even and swept away, and the cook’s galley in the forward part of the deckhouse got badly damaged.
This was in the height of the storm, just before daybreak, about two bells in the morning watch, or five o’clock AM.
Our poor old barquey then rolled so much that the skipper thought the wire hawser attached to the spars had parted and that we were at the very mercy of the tempest. So certain, indeed, was he, that he yelled out for all hands to make sail, with the idea of trying one last desperate venture and beard the winds with our puny canvas.
Fortunately, however, there was no need for us to essay this futile expedient, breaking the force of the billows as they reared up in their colossal grandeur to annihilate us and keeping us steadily facing their attack; and presently, shortly after six bells, when we really experienced pretty nearly the worst of it, there was a muttered growl of thunder, accompanied by a lightning flash that illuminated the whole of the heavens from pole to pole, and then rain came down in a deluge, the wind dropping, as suddenly, with a wild, weird shrill shriek of disappointed rage that wailed and whistled through the rigging, and then quietly died away.
Of course the sea did not quiet down all at once, old Neptune not being easily pacified after being stirred up to so great an extent, and the waves ran high most of the day, while the sky was overcast and the ocean of a dull leaden colour; but towards evening it cleared up and, the water being a bit calmer, the captain thought it a fitting time to bury poor Jackson.