A TORNADO AT SEA
(From The Green Hand.)
By GEORGE CUPPLES.
“What was my horror when I saw the quicksilver had sunk so far below the mark, probably fixed there that morning, as to be almost shrunk in the ball! Whatever the merchant service might know about the instrument in those days, the African coast was the place to teach its right use to us in the old Iris. I laid down my knife and fork as carelessly as I could, and went straight on deck.
“Here I sought out the mate, who was forward, watching the land—and at once took him aside to tell him the fact. ‘Well, sir,’ said he, coolly, ‘and what of that? A sign of wind, certainly, before very long; but in the meantime we’re sure to have it off the land.’ ‘That’s one of the very reasons,’ said I, ‘for thinking this will be from seaward—since towards evening the land’ll have plenty of air without it! But more than that, sir,’ said I, ‘I tell you, Mr. Finch, I know the west coast of Africa pretty well—and so far south as this, the glass falling so low as twenty-seven, is always the sign of a nor’westerly blow! If you’re a wise man, sir, you’ll not only get your upper spars down on deck, but you’ll see your anchors clear!’ Finch had plainly got furious at my meddling again, and said he, ‘Instead of that, sir, I shall hold on everything aloft, to stand out when I get the breeze!’ ‘D’ye really think, then,’ said I, pointing to the farthest-off streak of land, trending away by this time astern of us, faint as it was, ‘do you think you could ever weather that point, with anything like a strong nor’wester, besides a current heading you in, as you got fair hold of it again?’ ‘Perhaps not,’ said he, wincing a little as he glanced at it; ‘but you happen always to suppose what there’s a thousand to one against, sir. Why, sir, you might as well take the command at once. But, sir, if it did come to that, I’d rather—I’d rather see the ship lost—I’d rather go to the bottom with all in her, after handling her as I know well how, than I’d see the chance given to you!’ The young fellow fairly shouted this last word into my very ear—he was in a regular furious passion. ‘You’d better let me alone, that’s all I’ve got to say to you, sir!’ growled he, as he turned away; so I thought it no use to say more, and leaned over the bulwarks, resolved to see it out.
“The fact was, the farther we got off the land now, the worse, seeing that if what I dreaded should prove true, why, we were probably in thirty or forty fathoms of water, where no anchor could hold for ten minutes’ time—if it ever caught ground. My way would have been to get every boat out at once, and tow in till you could see the color of some shoal or other from aloft, then take my chance there to ride out whatever might come, to the last cable aboard of us. Accordingly, I wasn’t sorry to see that by this time the whole bight of the coast was slowly rising off our beam betwixt the high land far astern and the broad bluffs upon her starboard bow; which last came out already of a sandy reddish tint, and the lower part of a clear blue, as the sun got westward on our other side. What struck me was, that the face of the water, which was all over wrinkles and winding lines, with here and there a quick ripple, when I went below, had got on a sudden quite smooth as far as you could see, as if they’d sunk down like so many eels; a long uneasy ground-swell was beginning to heave in from seaward, on which the ship rose; once or twice I fancied I could observe the color different away towards the land, like the muddy chocolate spreading out near a river-mouth at ebb-tide—then again it was green, rather; and as for the look of the coast, I had no knowledge of it. I thought again, certainly, of the old quartermaster’s account in the Iris, but there was neither anything like to be seen, nor any sign of a break in the coast at all, though high headlands enough.
“The ship might have been about twelve or fourteen miles from the northeast point upon her starboard bow, a high rocky range of bluffs—and rather less from the nearest of what lay away off her beam; but after this you could mark nothing more, except it were that she edged farther from the point, by the way its bearings shifted or got blurred together: either she stood still, or she’d caught some eddy or underdrift, and the mate walked about quite lively once more. The matter was how to breathe, or bear your clothes—when all of a sudden I heard the second mate sing out from the forecastle—‘Stand by the braces, there! Look out for the tops’l hawl-yards!’
“He came shuffling aft the next moment as fast as his foundered old shanks could carry him, and told Mr. Finch there was a squall coming off the land. The mate sprang up on the bulwarks, and so did I—catching a glance from him, as much as to say, ‘There’s your gale from seaward, you pretentious lubber!’ The lowest streak of coast bore at present before our starboard quarter, betwixt east and south-east’ard, with some pretty high land running away up from it, and a sort of dim blue haze hanging beyond, as ’twere. Just as Macleod spoke, I could see a dusky dark vapor thickening and spreading in the haze, till it rose black along the flat, out of the sky behind it; whitened and then darkened again, like a heavy smoke floating up into the air. All was confusion on deck for a minute or two—off went all the awnings—and every hand was ready at his station, fisting the ropes; when I looked again at the cloud, and then at the mates. ‘By George!’ said I, noticing a pale wreath of it go curling up on the pale clear sky over it, as to a puff of air, ‘it is smoke! Some niggers, as they often do, burning the bush!’
“So it was; and as soon as Finch gave in, all hands quietly coiled up the ropes. It was scarce five minutes after, that Jacobs, who was coiling up a rope beside me, gave me a quiet touch with one finger. ‘Mr. Collins, sir,’ said he, in a low voice, looking almost right up, high over toward the ship’s larboard bow, which he couldn’t have done before, for the awnings so lately above us, ‘look, sir—there’s an ox-eye!’ I followed his gaze, but it wasn’t for a few seconds that I found what it pointed to, in the hot far-off-like blue dimness of the sky overhead, compared with the white glare of which to westward our canvas aloft was but dirty gray and yellow.