However, our Seine pilot pointed to an English steamer “which dared not go out;” so any remonstrance on the subject was silenced, and then he boldly asked if I would like a pilot on board the Rob Roy (towed by the steamer all the time), and I had sufficient command of countenance to decline with due gravity. Better, perhaps, it would have been for me not to carry then so much of the John Bull into these strange waters, as will be seen from what occurred that night.
The tide rushed up with extraordinary strength, until it was quite full. Then it paused for five minutes, and again it set off in the opposite direction with the same fury, increased, too, by the stream and the wind being also down the river.
At each of these changes every vessel, of course, swung round to its anchor, and so must have loosened its hold, while all the water picture changed from right to left like a scene shifted on the stage. During this short interval of quiet you could row ashore, but to get back again was almost impossible when the full torrent of water ran in straight.
As night came on I noticed that our steamer’s anchor was dragging, and that other steam vessels, more on the alert, were easing the strain on their cables by working their engines at half power all the time.
“Captain, we are dragging anchor.” “No, sir,” he said, “you are mistaken.” “I am sure we are dragging: I have watched for ten minutes.” “No, sir, I am certain we do not drag.” He said this with such firmness, that I confidingly believed it, and turned into bed.
But it was not to sleep, except in fitful snatches. The sound of the water hurrying by my side, like a mill race, and within a few inches of my ear, had a strange and unwonted effect, not now to soothe, but to drive sleep away. Bits of wood and other débris often struck my mahogany sounding-board with a loud thump, until I became accustomed even to this, and was in a dreamy dozing about one o’clock.
Then there came a new noise,—a low, steady rap, tap, tap, tap, on the boat, and from underneath. For a moment or two there was a sensation without apprehension,—a sort of mesmeric, irresistible spell; but a sudden thought burst through the trance, and with a powerful impression of what was doing—one no less horrid than true—I dashed off covering, roof, hatchway, and all, and stood upon deck to meet a terrible scene.
Our steamer had drifted in the dark until we closed upon another steamboat astern. My yawl, tied to the stern of one, was between that and the bows of the other, the anchor chain of which had already got underneath the waist of the Rob Roy, and had been ringing the rap, tap, tap of a warning that undoubtedly saved her life. Light flashed from the riding lamp at the steamer’s bow full on my boat’s deck, which was now heeled over deeply until the dark water rushed through her gunwale; it seemed that only a few seconds more and the poor little yawl would sink in the flood, or be ground into splinters by the two great iron monsters nearing each instant in the dark.
All this was noticed in the same rapid glance which in such dangers grasps a whole scene in a moment and stamps it in the mind for years.
My boat hung on the cold iron chain, yet it wavered with equal poise to go this way or that. If she could be swerved to the stern she might possibly escape destruction, but if to the other side, then the strong rope at her bow would entirely prevent her escape. With a loud shout to arouse the crews I put every atom of bodily force into one strenuous shove, straining nerve and muscle in the desperate effort until I could not see. She trembled and surged—it was successful, and I fell into the water, but my yawl was saved. [159a]