December 10th.—The weather remains still unsettled. The wind, during the last five or six days, has gone twice around the compass, never stopping in the west, but lingering in the east. The barometer has been in a constant state of fluctuation, and there will, doubtless, be a grand climax before the atmosphere regains its equilibrium. These easterly winds are retarding our passage very much, and taxing our patience. Observed, to-day, in latitude 32° 39′; the longitude being 49° 57′.
The next day, the weather culminated, sure enough, in a gale. The barometer began to settle, in the morning watch, and dense black clouds, looking ragged and windy, soon obscured the sun, and spread an ominous pall over the entire heavens. I at once put the ship under easy sail; that is to say, clewed up everything but the topsails and trysails, and awaited the further progress of the storm. The wind was as yet light, but the barometer, which had stood at 29° 70′ at eight o’clock, had fallen to 29° 59′ by two P. M. The dense canopy of clouds now settled lower and lower, circumscribing more and more our horizon, and presently fitful gusts of wind would strike the sails, pressing the ship over a little. It was time to reef. All hands were turned up, and the close reefs were taken, both in topsails and trysails; the jib hauled down and stowed, and the top-gallant yards sent down from aloft. The squalls increasing in frequency and force, the gale became fully developed by three P. M. The wind, which we first took from about E. S. E., backed to the N. E., but did not remain long in that quarter, returning to east. It now began to blow furiously from this latter quarter, the squalls being accompanied by a driving, blinding rain; the barometer going down, ominously down, all the while.
As the night closed in, an awful scene presented itself. The aspect of the heavens was terrific. The black clouds overhead were advancing and retreating like squadrons of opposing armies, whilst loud peals of thunder, and blinding flashes of lightning that would now and then run down the conductor, and hiss as they leaped into the sea, added to the elemental strife. A streaming scud, which you could almost touch with your hand, was meanwhile hurrying past, screeching and screaming, like so many demons, as it rushed through the rigging. The sea was mountainous, and would now and then strike the little Sumter with such force as to make her tremble in every fibre of her frame. I had remained on deck during most of the first watch, looking anxiously on, to see what sort of weather we were going to make. The ship behaved nobly, but I had no confidence in her strength. Her upper works, in particular, were very defective. Her bends, above the main deck, were composed of light pine stanchions and inch plank, somewhat strengthened in the bows. Seeing the fury of the gale, and that the barometer was still settling, I went below about midnight, and turned in to get a little rest, with many misgivings. I had scarcely fallen into an uneasy slumber, when an old quartermaster, looking himself like the demon of the storm, with his dishevelled hair and beard dripping water, and his eyes blinking in the light of his lantern, shook my cot, and said, “We’ve stove in the starboard bow-port, sir, and the gun-deck is all afloat with water!” Here was what I had feared; unless we could keep the water out of the between-decks, all the upper works, and the masts along with them, would be gone in a trice. I hurried at once to the scene of disaster, but before I could reach it, my energetic and skilful first lieutenant had already, by the aid of some planks and spare spars, erected a barricade that would be likely to answer our purpose.
The gale lulled somewhat in an hour or two afterward, and I now got some sleep. I was on deck again, however, at daylight. The same thick gloom overspread the heavens, the scud was flying as furiously, and as low as before, and the gale was raging as fiercely as ever. But we had one great comfort, and that was daylight. We could see the ship and the heavens—there was nothing else visible—and this alone divested the gale of half its terrors. At last, at six A. M., the barometer reached its lowest point, 29.32, which, in the latitude we were in, was a very low barometer. Any one who has watched a barometer under similar circumstances, will understand the satisfaction with which I saw the little tell-tale begin to rise. It whispered to me as intelligibly as if it had been a living thing, “the gale is broken!” We had been lying to, all this time, under a close-reefed main-topsail. We now bore up under a reefed foresail, and kept the ship on her course, east by south. She scudded as beautifully as she had lain to, darting ahead like an arrow, on the tops of the huge waves that followed her like so many hungry wolves, and shaking the foam and spray from her bows, as if in disdain and contempt of the lately howling storm.
December 13th.—Weather clear, with passing clouds. Wind fresh from the south-west, but abating, with a rapidly rising barometer. The cyclone, for such evidently the late gale was, had a diameter of from three hundred and fifty to four hundred miles. We took it in its northern hemisphere—the gale travelling north. Hence it passed over us in nearly its entire diameter—the vortex at no great distance from us. Observed in latitude 33° 28′; the longitude being 47° 03′. Repairing damages. The ship leaks so badly as to require to be pumped out twice in each watch. During the heaviest of the gale, the masters and mates of the captured ships offered their services, like gallant men, to assist in taking care of the ship. We thanked them, but were sufficiently strong-handed ourselves.
December 14th.—We had an alarm of fire on the berth deck last night. The fire-bell, sounded suddenly in a sleeping city, has a startling effect upon the aroused sleepers, but he who has not heard it, can have no conception of the knell-like sound of the cry of fire! shouted from the lungs of an alarmed sailor on board a ship, hundreds of miles away from any land. It is the suddenness with which the idea of danger presents itself, quite as much as the extent of the danger, which intimidates. Hence the panics which often ensue, when a ship is discovered to be on fire. Ships of war, as a rule, are not the subjects of panics. Discipline keeps all the passions and emotions under control, as well those which arise from fear, as from lawlessness. We had no panic on board the Sumter, although appearances were sufficiently alarming for a few moments. A smoke was suddenly seen arising through one of the ventilators forward, in the dead hour of the night, when except the sentry’s lantern and the lamp in the binnacle, there should be no other fire in the ship. The midshipman of the watch, upon rushing below, found one of the prisoners’ mattresses on fire. The flames were soon smothered, and the whole danger was over before the ship’s crew were fairly aroused. Some prisoner, in violation of orders, had lighted his pipe for a smoke, after hours, and probably gone to sleep with it in his mouth. The prisoner could not be identified, but there were two sentinels on post, and these in due time paid the penalty of their neglect.
CHAPTER XXII.
VOYAGE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC PURSUED—CHRISTMAS-DAY ON BOARD THE SUMTER—CAPE FLY-AWAY, AND THE CURIOUS ILLUSION PRODUCED BY IT—THE SUMTER PASSES FROM THE DESERT PARTS OF THE SEA, INTO A TRACT OF COMMERCE ONCE MORE—BOARDS A LARGE FLEET OF SHIPS IN ONE DAY, BUT FINDS NO ENEMY AMONG THEM—ARRIVAL AT CADIZ.