For an instant there was an ominous silence, while even the tempest seemed to die momently away. No one who has not heard that fearful cry on a lee shore, when surrounded by darkness, can have any notion of our feelings. Each man held his breath, and turned his ear anxiously to leeward. In that awful second what varied emotions rushed through our minds, as we heard, rising distinctly over the partial lull of the tempest, the hoarse roar of the surf, apparently close under our lee.
“Port—a-port—jam her close to the wind,” almost shrieked Merrivale, the energy of his character, in the moment of peril, divesting him of his usual prolixity.
“Port it is,” answered the man at the helm, as the sheets came rattling in and the schooner flew to windward, shivering the opposing wave to atoms, and sending the foam crackling in showers over the forecastle. As she answered to her helm, we caught sight, through the shadowy tempest, of the white breakers boiling under our lee; and an ejaculation of heartfelt gratitude broke involuntarily from my lips when, a moment after, I saw the ghastly line of foam glancing astern.
“Thank God!” echoed Merrivale; “another instant of delay and we should have struck. But how could we have made such a mistake in our reckoning? Where are we?”
“We are off the Jersey coast, somewhere between Egg Harbor and Barnegat,” I answered, “but I thought we were at least twenty leagues at sea. How gallantly the old craft staggers to windward—she will yet weather the danger.”
The exertions of the schooner were indeed noble. With her nose close down to the tempest, and her masts bending before the fierce hurricane that whistled along her canvass, she threshed her way to windward, now doggedly climbing up an opposing billowy and now thumping through the head sea, scattering the foam on either side her path, her timbers quivering and groaning, in the desperate encounter. One moment the parted wave whizzed along the side, glittering with spectral brilliancy; and again, the wild spray went hissing by in the air, drenching the decks with water. Now, a huge billow striking on her bows, with the force of a dozen forge hammers, staggered her momently in her course; and now, shaking the water proudly from her, she addressed herself again to her task and struggled up the wave. Thus battling against sea, storm, and hurricane, she held on her way, like a strong man fighting through a host.
Every officer as well as man was now on deck, and each one, fully sensible of our danger, watched with eager eyes through the gloom to distinguish whether we gained ground in our desperate encounter. For an instant, perhaps, as the darkness hid the breakers from sight, or their roar came fainter to the ear in the increasing fury of the gale, we would fancy that our distance from the surf was slowly increasing; but as often, when the gale lulled, or the darkness on our lee broke partially away, our hearts sank within us at the conviction that our peril still continued as imminent as ever, and that the struggles of our gallant craft had been in vain. Meantime, the hurricane grew wilder and fiercer, and at length we saw that we were losing ground. The schooner still battled with a spirit as undaunted as before against her combined enemies, but she labored more and more at every opposing wave, as if fast wearing out in the conflict.
“We must crowd the canvass on her,” said the skipper, after a long and anxious gaze on the shore under our lee, “if we strike out here, a mile at least from land, we shall all be lost. Better then jerk the mast out of her in clawing off.”
The order was accordingly given to take a reef out of the fore and mainsail, and, after a desperate struggle with the canvass, the men succeeded in executing their duty. When our craft felt the increased sail, she started nervously forward, burying herself so deeply in the head sea that I feared she would never emerge, while every rope, shroud and timber in her cracked in the strain. At length, however, she rose from the surge, and rolled heavily to windward, slowly shaking from her the tons of water that had pressed on her decks and buried every thing forward in the deluge. With another partial check, and another desperate, but successful struggle, we breathed more freely. Yet there still came to our ears the sullen roar of the breakers on our lee, warning us that peril was yet imminent.
“Hark!” suddenly said Merrivale, “surely I heard a cannon. There is some craft nigh, even more dangerously situated than ourselves.”