Bahama Bill, Mate of the Wrecking Sloop Sea-Horse

by T. Jenkins Hains

The men aboard the bark began to get nervous. Sanders went aboard the Sea-Horse with his mate and they hoisted the mainsail close reefed, making ready to get to sea in case of trouble. The skipper of the Buccaneer finally knocked off also, and soon the clanking of windlasses broke the silence of the tropical evening. They were getting ready to get away at the first shift to the eastward, for the sea would break heavily where they lay in a strong wind. There was much to carry away, but they would take no chances. The most valuable part of the wreck's belongings were already on deck waiting to be transferred to the Buccaneer, and she would lie by with a man aboard the bark to watch and take charge.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it blowed," said Captain James of the little sloop Seabird. "I reckon we'll stop fishin' an' pull out afore it's too hot. I wouldn't keer to be the man left in thet bark, hey?"

"If they abandon her, it's fair play all over agin to the first man what gets aboard," said one of his men. "I don't believe the wessel is badly hurt, anyways."

The heavy bank of cloud rose rapidly. A flash of lightning lit the gloom of the evening and the edge of the pall swept past overhead. It was travelling rapidly. To the southward the growing darkness seemed to melt into the blackness above like a smooth black wall of mist. A murmur of unrest came over the sea, a weird far-reaching cry vibrating through the quiet atmosphere, rising and falling like the distant voices of a vast host.

Sanders, who had signed on his men as helpers, could gain nothing by staying. He had signed away his future rights, therefore he lost no time in getting up his anchor and standing out to sea with his canvas shortened for trouble and everything being made snug.

The Buccaneer crew were struggling with as much gear as they could carry to get it aboard their ship before the sea began to make if it blew. All hands were overside hurrying the work, and even the two men who were to remain aboard to take charge were helping and had left the bark's deck when a line of white showed to the southward upon the black sea. There was a puff of wind, cool and whirling as though it had dropped from some great height in the realms of snow. The surface of the heaving swell ruffled, a blinding flash of fire followed by a crash; then a few moments of silence broken gradually by a deep-toned roar growing louder and louder. The line of white bore down upon the vessels, and as it came the darkness grew blacker. There was a fierce rush of wind, and with a burst as though fired from a gun, the blast of the squall struck the vessels and bore them prone with its sweep.

The Buccaneer's mainsail tore to bits as she lay upon her beam ends, her anchor parted, and in a moment she was going out to sea, every man aboard of her struggling with the flying strips of canvas. The wind had come from the southward and with just enough slant to allow her to clear the shoal water and make the open ocean. Macreary, with nothing to do but watch the coming squall, let go the halliards of the Seabird's sail, and her crew had managed to get a line around it before the weight of the wind struck. The captain reached the wheel and managed to pay her off somehow, dragging the anchor which had been hove short as though it were a bit of iron hanging to the line. Then handing the spokes to his pilot, he pointed to the northward, where the dry bank of the cay had just disappeared in the storm.

"Git in—behind—harbour," he bawled, and as the words came brokenly above the roar, Macreary knew he meant to run the crooked channel for harbour behind the reef.

The two men hove up the anchor while the Seabird tore along ten knots with nothing save her mast to pull with the wind. Macreary swung her first this way and then that, blindly, stupidly, and unreasoning, but with rising hopes as the wind beat down the sea into an almost level plain of water white as milk. He held her north by west, making as much westing as he could, blindly hoping to make enough inside the reef to clear the end of the bank and gain the shelter beyond. All was blackness ahead and there was no way of telling when he reached the dry bank; no way of telling when he should round her to and drop both anchors with every fathom bent on to hold them, but he kept on.