"No,—my Lord," he replied in a faint voice.
"Keep heart, my man," said R——, placing his hand kindly on King's shoulder. "He ought to go to bed," he then observed to us; and giving instructions to the steward, ordered the large berth occupied by P——, should be prepared. P—— had made the proposal of vacating his cabin; and in a quarter of an hour, King was put to bed. Striving by every means in his power to alleviate the pain an honest and faithful servant was suffering, R—— suggested and tried a variety of remedies, both by external and internal applications; but in vain. The virulence of the disease, whatever it was, increased, and its painful intensity exceeding all endurance, King, with every contortion of body, groaned aloud.
An hour had passed, and the confusion on deck appeared to grow greater the nearer midnight came. The wind had been rising gradually and determinedly since we first left the deck, and now had arrived at the force and recklessness of a strong breeze. Rare, but great drops of rain struck the deck like lumps of molten lead, and flashes of lightning, yet without the sound of thunder, brought intelligence of an advancing storm. From mouth to mouth ran the order of,
"All hands on deck!" and the shuffling feet of men moving up the fore hatch intimated the promptitude with which the command was treated. R—— and P—— had already returned to the deck; but I remained below doing what little offices I could to assuage the anguish of King; and he seemed to desire my presence for no other service than to give him water; for during the paroxysms of his complaint, he ceased not saying,
"Water! Sir; water!" and would snatch the glass from me, and drink with avidity.
I crept on deck to see our situation and that of the vessel. Thick clouds, black and rolling one over the other in their headlong flight, overcast the sky, and the stars no longer shone in the firmament. The mountains that had been so distinctly defined when I looked on them two hours before, seemed now shapeless mounds of earth swelling towards Heaven, and adding to the obscurity of night; and when the lightning gleamed in broad sheets, their great forms hanging over us, had, from the motion of the vessel, the appearance of falling on us. Every instant the strength of the wind became mightier, the thunder roared louder, and before the echo had made response from the nearest mountain-top, the lightning leaped downward from the zenith into the valleys, and darted, while it hissed, from tree to tree. The sea began to rise, and the cutter, that had hitherto lain so placidly on the smooth water, heaved, and her larger spars creaked to the growing scud.
We had now opened the North Sea, and the pilots were desirous of getting under an island that lay about two miles from the mouth of the Fiord, before the gale reached its utmost fury; for by doing so, the vessel would then be perfectly secure in the quiet waters of another Fiord that flowed thence to the walls of Bergen. In the effort to accomplish this, the vessel was exposed to the whole drift of the Northern Ocean; and the wind having settled down to S.W. by W., blew directly in our faces, and placed a fearful shore on our lee. Having looked around me, as well as the pitchy darkness would allow, and ascertaining from the King's Pilot, as he was called, a seaman as courageous as he was skilful, the dangerous bearing of the land, and the object he desired to gain, I took my leave of the deck, and made more room for those who could be serviceable in the governance of the vessel. A deafening peal of thunder shook down a second deluge, and driven to seek shelter, R—— and P—— came to the cabin immediately after me.
Taking each a seat on the sofas, we spoke not; and no sounds but the loud words of command, the noise of men running to and fro over head, and the cries of King, interfered with the sovereignty of the thunder, and whistling of the impetuous wind.
Dripping with rain, and out of breath, anxious care sitting on his whitened lips to watch and thwart each word he would speak with firmness, D—— hastened down the main companion and addressed himself to R——.
"My Lord," he said, "the pilots begin to differ: one prays the other to put back, who persists in beating to windward. The gale increases, and the land is not two miles from our lee. What had better be done, my Lord?"