The thoughts of the many things she would see, and the images of the proud beauties of the English court, whom she would soon be with, and she hoped outshine, so occupied the mind of Clara, that she had parted from her father and sister without much regret. But as she stood on the quarter-deck, and saw the objects on shore gradually grow smaller and smaller—first the trees, then the light-house, and eventually the blue shores of the now distant island itself disappear from her sight, as if they had all sunk to the depths of the ocean, and looking around, observed nothing but an expanse of clouds and water, upon which the brig was but a speck—a sudden and complete sense of her bereavement oppressed her, and she burst into tears; for though she knew her husband was near, there is something so inexpressibly melancholy in leaving for the first time the home of your childhood, and the land of your nativity, that, for awhile, she could not avoid giving way to her grief. But De Vere soothed her, by tales of the sea, the distant and new country she was about to visit, and by promising it would be but a short time ere she should return. Hardly had she regained her composure when she was disagreeably affected in another way. Father Neptune, not allowing even the most beautiful and fair to travel over his domains without paying tribute; and sick, nauseated, with her head swimming and aching as if it would split, she was led to her state-room, thinking she would give all she possessed in the world to be once more in the house she had so lately left.
When she recovered, and again came on deck, it was a warm, bright morning. The brig had just left the Gulf Stream. There was a fresh breeze, but the sea, unruffled by it, was heaving in long, rolling waves. Shoals of porpoises and black-fish were tumbling about in their uncouth gambols—interesting, because new, to Clara, but to the sailors more than uninteresting, as they prognosticated an approaching storm. The fragile and graceful nautilus, also, was seen expanding its tiny sail; numerous sea-birds were flying about, or for a moment resting on the water; and the Scorpion, as she moved rapidly along, seemed “a thing of life.”
Clara, forgetting her sickness, was delighted, and amused her husband by the incessant questions she put to him about every thing she saw. All day she remained on deck, and until a late hour in the evening; then with a lingering look at the bright stars, and the wide expanse of water that, alive with phosphorescent matter, seemed on fire, she reluctantly went below; but soon was dreaming of the glorious sublimity and beauty of all she had seen, nearly all the night, as the day had thus passed pleasantly by, when, toward morning, she was awakened by hoarse noises on deck, overhead, and found the ship rolling and pitching violently. Her husband she saw had left the cabin; and, alarmed, she hastily dressed, and started after him, to see what had happened; but she got no further than the top of the companion-way. Terrified, she clung to the railing, and with her body on the steps, and her head just above the level of the deck, with dilated pupils she gazed upon the awful change that had come over the face of the fickle deep in a few short hours. Instead of the long, unbroken, rolling waves she had left, she now found the surface of the ocean a mass of foam; huge, giant billows, as if in sport, chased each other with fearful rapidity, lifting the brig, now apparently as if they would carry her up into the low, dark, leaden-looking clouds, that seemed not much higher than her masts, and then, as they ran from under her, would leave her to sink between two hills of living water, as if to the bottomless pit, until another would pick up the brig, as a child’s plaything, and hurling her on, away she would go again, up, up, for awhile, only to sink into another yawning valley, pitching, rolling, struggling, creaking, she held her way; and Clara’s natural pride and self possession in a short time enabled her to look calmly around, and even to admire, the fearful scene.
The brig, she saw, was under nothing but her top-sails, close reefed; and a small storm stay-sail; and her husband coming to her, said that a heavy wind had come out from the northward and westward about twelve o’clock, and had been increasing ever since, and was still rising, and that though he was now able to hold his course, he did not think he could much longer, and insisted upon Clara’s going below. Well it was that she did; for scarcely had she left the deck, when a blast, stronger and fiercer than any they had felt, struck the Scorpion, and bore her almost on her beam-ends. Struggling, she nearly righted herself, but again the ruthless wind compelled her to bow to its power, and a tremendous wave striking her at the same time, she was laid over completely.
Captain De Vere had been expecting such a catastrophe; and as soon as he found his vessel was on her beam-ends, and could not again right herself, gave the order to “Cut away the masts!”
Never is the cool and intrepid bravery that forms the basis of a seaman’s character shown to such great advantage as in situations of the utmost emergency. And to have seen the self-collectedness with which the sailors of the Scorpion, axe in hand, crept along the brig’s weather bulwark, with the strong and angry billows momentarily threatening to carry them off to the coral depths beneath, as they swept over them, one would have thought the men were all unconscious of fear—and such was the truth; for mariners are danger’s children, begotten by courage.
Though fearless, they were fully aware of the risks they were running; with certain, but quick and rapid strokes, their sharp hatchets struck the thick-tarred lanyards, which, stretched to their utmost tension by the weight of the masts, quickly parted, and the tall spars losing their support, snapped short off, and toppled over into the boiling sea.
As soon as the masts fell the brig righted; and much to the joy of all on board, was once more on an even keel.
“Lively, men! lively, lads!” was now the order; and quickly cutting away the lee-lanyards, the brig was free from the wreck of her floating spars, and putting her before the wind, away the Scorpion flew, sailless, mastless, faster than she had ever sailed before, when, in the pride of all her lofty canvas, she had chased some flying enemy—on, on, they sped!
Never until now had the haughty spirit of Clara been thoroughly humbled, or had she a correct idea of man’s entire nothingness, when compared with nature in its might and majesty. But humbled she was, when she came on deck that day and saw the tall and gallant brig, that had obeyed every motion of the helmsman’s hand, a bare, naked hull, unmanageable, and driven whither the wind listed over the angry waves, which followed fast after, and as they rose under the stern, their vast white combs would curl over the very tafferel, as if about to break on deck; and as the vessel lifted, and was for a moment out of danger, they would send the spray in showers over her, as if they were shedding tears of anger that the poor vessel had, for an instant, escaped that destruction to which it seemed she was inevitably hurrying. At last, one mighty wave, more powerful than the rest, reared its tremendous bulk far over the devoted brig’s stern, and breaking in a torrent of resistless force, swept over her deck. De Vere saw the impending danger just soon enough to throw one arm around his wife’s waist, and casting himself and her flat on deck, seize with the other a ring-bolt, and save themselves from death.