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

by William Clark Russell

Alice and I watched the sunset whilst Captain Ladmore and Mrs. Lee discoursed upon the weather. Even whilst we looked dark smoke-like masses of cloud had gathered about the huge rayless orb, and the splendour went out on a sudden in a sort of dingy flare, that floated in rusty streaks up into the darkling sky, and swiftly vanished as though they had been the luminous trails of rockets. I looked at Alice. The last faint gleam of red touched her face, and then the rapid tropic twilight swept westward in an eclipse, and the girl in it grew wan as a phantom. I felt her shiver.

‘Let us return to the cabin,’ said I, and, supported by her mother and me, she descended. It was the last time that Alice Lee was ever on deck.

The night fulfilled the stormy threat of the sunset. It came on to blow fresh shortly after the night had settled down upon the sea. The stars were shrouded by flying clouds, but the moon glanced through the many rifts of the winging shadows, and when I took a peep at the ocean at half-past nine that night it was already a wild scene of stormy ocean rolling in snow, the wilder for the flash of the darting moonbeam.

At ten o’clock it was blowing very hard indeed, and by midnight the gale had risen to half a hurricane, with much lightning and thunder. I cannot remember whether or not the wind blew fair for our course; the gale was so heavy that the captain was forced to heave the ship to, and all through the night we lay in the trough rolling and pitching furiously, with no more canvas set than served to keep the vessel in the situation the captain had put her into.

I got no sleep that night. The noises within and without were distracting. The steerage passengers took fright, believed the ship was going down, lighted the lantern and sat at the table—that is to say, most of the men and two or three of the women; and then, by-and-by, taking courage perhaps from the discovery that the ship continued to swim, though still not being easy enough in their minds to return to their beds, they produced a bottle of spirits and drank and made merry after their fashion, and the noise of their singing was more dreadful to hear than the sound of the storm. Nobody interfered with them; probably nobody with power to control them knew that they were awake and drinking and singing.

So, as I have said, I got no sleep that night. As the ship lifted the cabin window out of the foaming water the black interior in which I lay would be dazzlingly illuminated by violet lightning striking on the snow-like froth upon the glass of the port-hole. The sight was beautiful and terrifying. The port-hole looked like a large violet eye winking in the blackness. I could trace the crystals of the brine and the froth upon the glass as the window came soaring out of the seething foam into the fiery flash from the clouds. The flaming, blinking disk was as if some huge sea monster clung to the side of the ship, trying to peer into my cabin and unable to keep his eye steady at the aperture.

It blew hard all next day; too hard to allow the ship to resume her course. The captain said it was strange weather to encounter near the equator. He had crossed the line I know not how many times; but, said he, never had he fallen in with such weather hereabouts. We were all willing, however, to endure the stormy buffeting for the sake of the respite it gave us from the overpowering heat. The gale was a hot wind, but the spray that clouded cooled it as the dew refreshes the breath of the Indian night. The sensation of putting one’s head into the companion-way and feeling the sweep of the spray-laden blast was delicious after the motionless atmosphere that had pressed like hot metal against the cheek and brow.

Alice Lee seemed to rally. The saloon was full of air that rushed through it in draughts purposely contrived by leaving open one of the doors which conducted to the quarter-deck; the breeze filled the girl’s berth, and she appeared to revive in it as a languishing flower lifts its head and sweetens its fragrance when watered.

‘Sometimes I think—sometimes I dare believe, Agnes,’ poor Mrs. Lee said to me, ‘that if Alice has strength enough to survive the ordeal of the horrid equinoctial belt she will recover. Did not you fancy she was looking much better this morning? Her eyes have not the bright, glassy appearance which shocked me every time I looked at her. And did not you notice that she breathed with less labour, and that the red of her lips was more lifelike and healthy? Oh, my dear! God may yet hear my prayers, and my heart is seldom silent. If this gale will blow us to the south of the equator and drive us into cooler latitudes I shall live in hope. But now we are stationary, the ship is merely tossing up and down and making no real progress, and my dread is that when the weather breaks the calm will come again and leave us roasting.’

These observations Mrs. Lee addressed to me in the saloon as I was passing through it on my way from Alice’s cabin to my own berth; her words were running in my head when, after having occupied myself for a short time in my berth, I was returning to Alice. As I cautiously passed through the steerage, carefully providing against a dangerous fall by keeping my arms outstretched and touching or holding whatever was nearest to me, I saw Mr. McEwan standing at the foot of the stairs grasping the thick brass banisters, and peering about as though in search of somebody.