A HARD SWIM.
BY DAVID KER.
There are few things more delightful than to be at sea on a fine summer day, with a bright blue sky above and a bright blue sea below, while the fresh breeze fills your sails, and the great smooth waves toss you lightly along, and spatter you at times with their glittering spray, like frolicsome giants. But it is a very different thing to be out in the teeth of a real equinoctial gale, with the whole sky black as ink, and the whole sea one sheet of boiling foam, and a huge wave coming thundering over the deck every other minute, sweeping everything before it, and making the whole vessel tremble from stem to stern.
So, doubtless, thought Olaf Petersen, captain and owner of the Norwegian schooner Thyra, of Bergen, when just such a storm caught him half way across the North Sea. It did seem rather hard, after escaping all the storms of blustering March, that fresh, genial April should serve him such a trick; but so it was, and instead of having a short and easy run northeastward to Bergen, as he expected, he found himself flying away to the west, driven by a gale which seemed strong enough to blow him right round the world, if it did not happen to sink him by the way.
All the sails had long since been taken in, and the little craft was scudding under bare poles, no one being on deck but the two men at the wheel (who had quite enough to do keeping her head straight) and the captain himself. A fine picture Olaf Petersen would have made as he stood there, with the spray rattling like hail upon his drenched tarpaulins, and his clear bright eye looking keenly out through the wet hair that was plastered over his face. It might be seen by the firm set of his mouth that he meant to fight it out while a plank would swim; but he looked grave and anxious, nevertheless.
And well he might. This time it was not only his vessel and the lives of himself and his crew that were in danger: his young wife was on board, after whom the Thyra had been named, and it was now too late to blame himself for having granted her entreaty to be allowed to sail along with him, instead of being left at home by herself for so many weary weeks, without knowing whether he was alive or dead.
Still it blew harder, and harder yet. Had not the Thyra been as good a sea-boat as ever swam, it would have been all over with her. Even as it was, she could barely hold her own against the mountains of water that came plunging over her deck with a force that seemed sufficient to rend a rock. More than once the captain's stiffened fingers were almost torn from their hold upon the weather rigging, while the men at the wheel were under water again and again. Vainly did Olaf strain his eyes to windward in the hope of seeing a break in the inky sky. All was grim and gloomy, and amid the blinding spray and the deepening darkness it was hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky began.
All that night and all the next morning they drove blindly onward, not knowing where they were; for the sun had not been seen for two whole days, and no observation could be taken. But Captain Petersen, who had those seas by heart, began to fear that they were being driven in among the Orkney Isles, and he knew only too well what chance the stoutest three-decker would have against those tremendous rocks with such a sea running.
Toward afternoon the wind fell suddenly, though the sea still ran high; but now came something worse than all—one of those terrible Northern fogs which turn day into night, and make the oldest sailor as helpless as a child. The lanterns were lit and hoisted, the ship's bell was kept constantly tolling, and the captain ordered up two "look-outs" besides himself; but the fog grew thicker and thicker, till those on the forecastle could barely make out the foremast.