Alone on a Wide Wide Sea, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by William Clark Russell

‘Why, did I not understand you to say that women are not allowed to be alone on deck after the lights are out?’

She laughed and answered, ‘The Captain would not like women to be wandering on deck alone at one o’clock in the morning as you were, my dear; but there are always passengers about in warm weather at ten o’clock, and sometimes after midnight, and whilst there are passengers on deck no notice will be taken of your being there.’

‘If I had known that,’ said I, ‘I should have gone on deck half an hour ago.’

I put on my shawl and hat—I call them mine—and, parting with Mrs. Richards at her own cabin door, went on to the poop by one of the ladders conducting to that raised platform from the quarter deck. It was a very fine glorious night. The moon rode high, and under her the sea lay brightly silvered. The sky was rich with stars, some of them a delicate green and two or three of them rose, and the firmament in which they sparkled had a soft and flowing look as though the velvet dusk were liquid. The ship was clothed with canvas to the starry altitude of her trucks. The swelling sails reflected the light of the moon, and their gleam was as that of snow against the dark sky as they rose with an appearance of cloud-like floating one above another, dwindling until the topmost sail seemed no more than a fragment of fleecy mist wan in the dusky heights. There was a pleasant breeze, and it blew over the rail cool with dew and sweet with that flavourless freshness of ocean air that is to the nostrils as a glass of water from a pure crystal spring is to the mouth.

I stood at the corner of the poop near the head of the ladder in the shadow made by the great sail called the mainsail, one wing or extremity of which was stretched a long way beyond the shrouds. Many passengers were on the poop; they were whitened by the moonlight, and as they moved here and there their figures showed as though beheld through a very delicate silver mist, but their shadows swayed black and firm from their feet upon the white planks. The forecastle of the ship was crowded with emigrants. The moonshine was raining down in silver upon that part of the vessel, and the people had a ghostly appearance, every face whitened, and their clothes white as though they had been powdered, as they stood staring across the dark sweep of sea upon the right-hand bow of the ship.

Woman-like I gazed everywhere but in the right direction when I first gained the poop; but, observing some people on the other side of the deck to point with shadowy hands, I immediately beheld what resembled a globe of red fire upon the sea. It looked like a huge star setting red as blood. I could not imagine how far off it might be, nor, but for the stewardess’s information, should I have supposed it to be a ship on fire. I had expected to see a great conflagration, a wide space of the night sky crimsoned with forked and writhing tongues of flame, and I was disappointed; but after I had stood gazing for a few minutes alone, for there was nobody in that corner of the deck where I had planted myself, a feeling of dismay, of consternation, even of horror possessed me. I knew that the dark red globe burning upon the sea yonder was a ship on fire, and knowing this I imagined that there might be living people on board of the flaming mass. The whole spirit of the solitude of this mighty scene of night, beautiful as it was with moonlight and with starlight, seemed to be centred in that distant point of fire; and the thought of the helplessness of the people on board the flaming fabric amid so vast a field, their horrible loneliness, the awful despair which that loneliness must excite—this thought, and other thoughts which visited me from that distant mass of fire, presently grew so insupportable to the deep melancholy which was upon me and which had been upon me throughout the evening that I crossed the deck in the hope of finding Mrs. Lee, that I might forget something of myself in conversing with her.

But Mrs. Lee was not to be seen. She was in her berth, probably in bed, and they would not give her the news of the ship on fire for fear of disturbing her daughter. The passengers stood in groups, pointing to the burning vessel and speaking in tones of excitement. I went from one to another, gazing into their faces and receiving nods and enquiries as to what I thought of the ship on fire. Captain Ladmore walked the hinder part of the deck alone. But as there was nobody near him who resembled Mrs. Lee, I returned to that part of the deck where I had first stationed myself, being in no humour to mingle with the passengers on the other side.

The sea was smooth, the wind fair and fresh, the spread of canvas vast, and the ship was sweeping through the water at a rapid rate. She was going through it clean as a sharp-built yacht would, making no noise save under the bows, whence arose a sound of shearing as though produced by a knife passing through thin ice. The marbled waters, moon touched, whirled past alongside, softly hissing as they fled by, and from the flight of those glimmering wreaths and eddies of foam I judged of the fast pace at which the ship was sailing.

Gradually the distant globe of fire enlarged, and now the sky was reddened all about it, and as I gazed there stole out of the blood red haze of light the dark shadow of a ship lying within a quarter of a mile of the burning vessel. Mr. Harris, who stood near some passengers on the opposite side of the deck, let fall a night-glass that he had been holding to his eyes and called out to the captain,

‘There’s a barque hove to close alongside of the burning vessel, sir.’