“We landed him right enough,” he said, “for we just put him ashore, and then only cast off his hands, so we could get into the boat afore he could walk. But what seemed almighty queer was his asking me to give the skipper’s stewardess that ring. Do you suppose they was ever married or knowed each other afore?”
“I don’t suppose nothin’, Garnett; but you better give her the ring. Davis is a good enough man, but one man don’t try to kill another, so strong, for nothin.’ Better give her the ring—and you want to git that chafing-gear on the fore-royal-backstay a little higher up; it’s cuttin’ through against the yard.”
The following night at two bells the wind began to come in puffs, and in less than half an hour afterwards it was snorting away in true Cape Horn style.
It was Garnett’s watch on deck at midnight, and as he came on the poop he saw there was to be some discomfort. Each rope of the standing and running rigging, shroud and backstay, downhaul and clew-line, was piping away with a lively note, and the deep, smothered, booming roar overhead told how the ship stood to it and that the canvas was holding. The three lower storm-topsails and the main spencer were all the sails set, and for a while the ship stood up to it in good shape. At ten minutes past three in the morning she shipped a sea that smothered her. With a rush and thundering shock a hundred tons of water washed over her. The ship was knocked off into the trough of the sea, and hove down on her beam ends. The water poured down her hatch openings in immense volumes; the main-hatch, being a “booby,” was smashed; and all hands were called to save ship.
O’Toole and his watch managed to get the mizzen-trysail on her while Garnett got the clew of the foretop-sail on the yard without bursting it. Then the vessel gradually headed up again to the enormous sea.
The ship sagged off to leeward all the next day and was driven far below the latitude of the Cape; then, as she gradually cleared the storm belt, the wind slacked and top-gallant-sails were put on her to drive her back again.
Five times did she get to the westward of the Cape, only to be driven back again by gales of peculiar violence. She lost three sets of topsails, two staysails, a mizzen-trysail, besides a dozen or more pieces of lighter canvas, before the first day of August.
Part of this day she was in company with the large ship Shenandoah, but as the wind was light she drew away, for in that high rolling sea it is very dangerous for one ship to get close to another, as a sudden calm might bring them in contact, which would prove fatal to one or both.
The night was bitter cold. The canvas rolled on the yards was as hard as iron, and that which was set was as stiff to handle as sheet tin. Old Dan, the quartermaster, and Sadg Bilkidg, the African sailor, were at the wheel; the quartermaster swathed in a scarf and muffled up to the chin, with his long, hooked nose sticking forward, looked as watchful as—and not unlike—the great albatross that soared silently in the wake.
A giant sea began rolling in from the southwest and the wind followed suddenly. The foretop-sail went out of the bolt-ropes, and, as the ship was to the westward of Tierra del Fuego and the wind blowing her almost dead on it, she was hove-to with great difficulty. After a terrible night the wind hauled a little. Not much, but enough to throw her head a couple of points and let the sea come over her.