I felt a vague heaviness of heart, as at the approach of a great misfortune. Turning my eyes over the waves, I asked them to tell me my destiny, or else I used to write, more inconvenienced by their motion than troubled by their threats.
So far from calming, the tempest increased the nearer we came to Europe; but it blew steadily: the uniformity of its raging produced a sort of furious lull in the wan sky and leaden sea. The captain, having no means of taking the altitude, was uneasy; he climbed into the shrouds and scanned each point of the horizon through a telescope. A look-out was placed on the bowsprit, another in the main-top-mast cross-trees. The sea became choppy, and the colour of the water changed, signs that we were approaching land: what land? The Breton sailors have a proverb, "Who sees Belle-Isle sees his isle; who sees Groie sees his joy; who sees Ouessant's shore sees his gore."
I had spent two nights in walking the deck, to the hissing of the waves in the dark, the moaning of the wind in the rigging, and the constant dashing of the sea which swept the decks: the waves rioted all around us. Tired with the shocks and jerks of the vessel, I went below early on the third night. The weather was terrible; my hammock creaked and rocked with the blows of the sea, which, breaking over the vessel, threatened to dislocate her very planks. Soon I heard men running from one end of the deck to the other, and coils of rope falling: I experienced the motion which one feels when a vessel is put about. The hatch of the steerage ladder was thrown open; a frightened voice called for the captain: that voice, in the middle of the night and the tempest, sounded tremendous. I listened; I thought I heard sailors discussing the lie of a coast. I tumbled out of my hammock; a sea drove in the quarter-deck, flooded the captain's room, knocked over and rolled pell-mell tables, mattresses, chests, furniture, and arms; I made my way on deck half-drowned.
When I put my head out of the steerage, a splendid sight met my eyes. The ship had tried to put about; but, failing in this attempt she had become embayed under the stress of the wind. By the light of the moon, her horns broken by the clouds, from beneath which she emerged only to be hidden by them again, we discovered on either side of the ship, through a yellow fog, a coast bristling with rocks. The sea threw up waves like mountains in the channel in which we found ourselves engulfed: now they scattered into foam and spray; again they presented merely an oily and vitreous surface, mottled with black, coppery, or greenish stains, according to the colour of the bottom over which they roared. During two or three minutes, the moaning of the abyss and that of the wind would be confused; the next moment, one distinguished the ripple of the currents, the hissing on the reefs, the voice of the distant surge. From the hold of the ship issued sounds which made the hearts of the stoutest sailors beat faster. The stem of the vessel cut through the thick mass of waves with a hideous crash, and, at the helm, torrents of water flowed away eddying as from the mouth of a sluice. Amid all this uproar, nothing was so alarming as a certain dull, murmuring sound, like that of a vase filling.
Lighted by a ship's lantern and held down by weights, harbour-books, charts, and log-books lay spread out upon a hen-coop. A gust of wind had put out the binnacle-lamp. Every one was at variance about the land. We had entered the Channel without noticing it; the vessel, staggering under each wave, was drifting between the islands of Guernsey and Alderney. Our shipwreck appeared inevitable, and the passengers put up their valuables to save them.
The crew included some French seamen; one of them, in the absence of a chaplain, raised the hymn to "Our Lady of Succour," the first thing I had learnt as a child; I repeated it in sight of the coast of Brittany, almost under my mother's eyes. The American Protestant sailors joined in chorus in the song of their French Catholic mates: danger teaches men their weakness and unites their prayers. All, passengers and sailors, were on deck, one clinging to the rigging, another to the sides, another to the capstan, others to the bills of the anchors, in order not to be swept away by the sea or thrown overboard by the heaving of the ship. The captain shouted, "An axe! an axe!" to cut away the masts; and the rudder, of which the tiller had been forsaken, swung from side to side with a harsh sound.
And I am nearly shipwrecked.
One experiment remained to be tried: the lead marked only four fathoms on a sand-bank which crossed the channel; it was just possible that the swell might enable us to clear this bank and carry us into deep water; but who would dare to seize the helm and charge himself with the common safety? One false turn of the tiller, and we were lost.
One of those men who spring from events and who are the spontaneous children of danger was found: a New York sailor took the post deserted by the steersman. I seem still to see him in his shirt and canvas trousers, his bare feet, his tangled streaming hair, holding the tiller in his powerful grasp, while, with turned head, he looked over the stern at the sea which was to save or sink us. See that great wave coming, embracing the whole width of the channel, rolling high without breaking, as it were a sea invading the billows of another sea: large white birds go before with a calm flight, like the birds of death. The ship touched and struck; there was a complete silence; every face turned pale. The swell came: at the moment when it touched us, the sailor put down the helm; the vessel, just ready to fall on her side, turned her stern, and the swell, which seemed about to swallow us, lifted her. The lead was heaved; it registered twenty-seven fathoms. A cheer rose to the sky, and we added a shout of "Long live the King!" God did not hear it for Louis XVI.; it benefited none save ourselves.
Although clear of the two islands, we were not out of danger; we were unable to run up above the coast of Granville. At last the ebbing tide carried us out, and we doubled Cape La Hougue. I experienced no agitation during the semi-shipwreck and felt no delight at being saved. Better to give up possession of one's life while young than to be evicted from it by time.