“We can do nothing more, I fear,” at length said the skipper, drawing me aside, “the fire is on the increase, and even the elements have turned against us. We must leave the little Dart to her fate, unless you can think of something else to do?” and he looked inquiringly at me.
“Alas!” I replied, with a mournful shake of my head, “we have done every thing that mortal man can do; but in vain. We must now think of saving ourselves. Had we not better order out the boats?”
The skipper did not, for a moment, reply to my question, but stood, with his arms folded on his breast, and a face of the deepest dejection, gazing on the burning forecastle. At length he spoke.
“Many a long day have we sailed together, in many a bold fray have we fought for each other, and now to leave you, my gallant craft, ah! little did I think this would be your doom. But God’s will be done. We must all perish sooner or later, and better go down here than rot, a forgotten hulk, on some muddy shore—better consume to ashes than fall a prey to some huge cormorant of an enemy. And yet,” he continued, his eye lighting up, “and yet I should have wished to die with you under the guns of one of those gigantic monsters—aye! die battling for the possession of your deck inch by inch.” At this instant one of the forward guns, which had become heated almost to redness in the conflagration, exploded. The sound seemed to recall him to himself. He started as if roused from a reverie, and, noticing me beside him, recollected my question. Immediately resuming his usual energy, he proceeded to order out the boats, and provide provisions and a few hasty instruments, with a calmness which was in striking contrast to the raging sea around, and the lurid fire raging on our bows.
The high discipline of the men enabled us to complete our preparations in a space of time less than one half that which would have been consumed by an ordinary crew under like circumstances; and, indeed, in many cases, all subordination would have been lost, and perhaps the ruin of the whole been the consequence. The alacrity of the men and the forecast of the officers were indeed needed; for our preparations had scarcely been completed when the heat on the deck became intolerable. The fire had now reached the after hatch, and, notwithstanding the violence of the gale, was extending aft with great rapidity, and had already enveloped the mainmast in its embraces. For some time before we left the schooner the heat, even at the tafferel, almost scorched the skin from our faces; nor did we descend into the boats a minute too soon. This was a feat also by no means easily accomplished, so great was the agitation of the sea. As I looked on the frail boats which were to receive us, and thought of the perils which environed us, of our distance from land, and the slight quantity of provisions we had been enabled to save, I felt that, in all human probability, we should never again set foot on shore, even if we survived until morning. To my own fate I was comparatively indifferent, for life had now lost all charms to me; but when I reflected on the brave men who were to be consigned to the same destiny, and of the ties by which many of them were bound to earth—of the wives who would become widows, of aged parents who would be left childless, of children for whom the orphan’s lot was preparing—the big tears gushed into my eyes, and coursed down my cheek, though unobserved.
“All ready,” said the skipper, who was the last to leave the deck, and pausing to cast a mournful look at his little craft, he sprung into the boat and we pushed off from the quarter. For some minutes, however, it seemed doubtful whether our frail barges could live in the tumultuous sea that now raged. One minute we were hurried to the sky on the bosom of a wave, and then we plunged headlong into the dark trough below, the walls of water on either hand momently threatening to overwhelm us. But though small, our boats were buoyant, and rode gallantly onward. Every exertion was made, meanwhile, to increase our distance from the schooner, for our departure had been hurried by the fear that the fire would soon reach the magazine, and our proximity to the burning ship still continued to threaten us with destruction in case of an explosion. The men, conscious of the peril, strained every sinew to effect our object, and thus battling against wind and wave we struggled on our way.
With every fathom we gained, the sight of the burning ship increased in magnificence. The flames had now seized the whole after part of the schooner as far back as the companion way, so that hull, spars and rigging were a sheet of fire, which, caught in the fierce embraces of the hurricane, now whirled around, now streamed straight out, and now broke into a thousand forked tongues, licking up the masts and around the spars like so many fiery serpents. Millions of sparks poured down to leeward, while ever and anon huge patches of flame would be torn from the main body of the conflagration and blown far away ahead. Volumes of dark, pitchy smoke, curling up from the decks of the schooner, often partially concealed a portion of the flames, but they reappeared a moment afterwards with even greater vividness. In some places so intense was the conflagration that the fire was at a white heat. The whole horizon was illuminated with the light, except just over and ahead of the schooner, where a black smoky cloud had gathered, looking like the wing of some gigantic monster of another world; and no description can adequately picture the spectral aspect of the gloomy waves that rolled up their ghastly crests beneath this canopy.
“She cannot last much longer,” said the doctor, who was in my boat, “the flames will soon reach the magazine.”
“Aye! aye! and look there—”
As I spoke, a vivid, blinding jet of fire streamed high up into the air, while the masts of the schooner could be seen, amid the flame, shooting arrow-like to the sky. Instantaneously a roar as of ten thousand batteries smote the ear; and then came the pattering of fragments of the hull and spars as they fell on the water. Even while these sounds continued, a darkness that brought to my mind that of the day of doom enveloped us, though that intense light still swam in our eyes, producing a thousand fantastic images on the retina. No word was spoken, but each one held his breath in awe; and then came a long, deep drawn sigh, that seemed to proceed simultaneously from each one in the boat. The Dart was no more. We were alone in the boundless deep, alone with a storm still raging around us, alone without any hope of rescue, and a thousand miles from land. God only knew whether it would be our lot to perish by starvation, or sink at an earlier hour a prey to the overwhelming deep! As I contemplated our situation I shuddered, and breathed an involuntary prayer that the latter might be our doom.