Dorymates: A Tale of the Fishing Banks

by Kirk Munroe

Standing on the weather side of the wheel when the schooner was struck, he had saved himself from going overboard by clinging to it. Now he scrambled to the upper side of the house, and holding on to the weather-rail, began to hack desperately at the lanyards of the main rigging with his sheath-knife. If only the masts would break off and relieve the vessel of that awful weight of soaked canvas, she might right herself.

One after another the lanyards snap like strained harpstrings. There! the rigging has gone and the mast cracks. Now for the fore rigging! How he reached it the boy never knew; in fact he afterwards had very little recollection of what he did amid the terrible excitement of those two minutes; but he did reach and cut it.

Then there came a rending of wood as the tough masts broke off. Then slowly, very slowly, the vessel righted herself, and once more rode on an even keel, though half full of water, and as sad a looking wreck as ever floated.

As she righted, the after companion-way was burst open by the mighty effort of those beneath the slide, and they rushed out gasping for breath and with glaring eyes. They had been very nearly suffocated by steam and gas generated by the water pouring down the funnel on the glowing coals in the cabin stove.

From the forecastle also emerged, one by one, the half-drowned figures of those who had been imprisoned in it. But for the prompt action of the brave boy on deck, they would never have left its flooded recesses. One of their number was missing, and he was the man whose place at the wheel Breeze had taken, and who had forced his way out as the vessel capsized, only to be drowned beneath the canvas of the foresail. He would be sincerely mourned later, but there was no time to think of him now. The others were still in too imminent peril of losing their own lives.

As the stricken craft rolled like a log in the sea-way, she pounded heavily against the masts and spars, which, still attached to her by the lee rigging and head-stays, floated close alongside. The danger that her planking might thus be crushed in was so great that, in spite of his own wretched condition, Captain Coffin saw it the moment he gained the deck. Calling upon the others to follow his example, he drew his knife and began to cut away the tangle of cordage that bound the vessel to this new enemy.

When it was finally cleared, the seine-boat, which was still dragging astern, was pulled up, and half the crew went in it to tow the mass of spars and canvas clear of the schooner, and save such of the sails as they could. The rest began to labor at the pumps, and to rig a jury-mast on which they might spread such sail as would carry her into port. The main-mast had snapped off so close to the deck as to leave nothing to which they might fasten a jury-spar; but of the foremast a stump some six feet high remained, and with this they hoped to accomplish their purpose.

While the skipper, Breeze, and two others were thus engaged, those at the pumps suddenly called out that the water was gaining on them, and that the vessel was about to founder.

It was only too true; the stanch little schooner had evidently made her last voyage, and would never again sail into Gloucester harbor. In fact, the water was gaining so rapidly that it was within a foot or two of her deck, and there was no time to lose in leaving her. Those in the seine-boat were fortunately within easy hail, and dropping their work, they quickly had it alongside.

There was no need of seeking an explanation of the rapid inflow of water. It was only too plain that gaping seams had been opened by the great strain of her masts and sails while the schooner lay on her beam ends. It was more than probable, also, that butts had been started here and there by the jagged ends of the heavy spars as they lay in the water pounding and grinding against her sides.