An Ocean Tragedy

by William Clark Russell

He knuckled his forehead with a grateful smile and lay down again.

The work ran us deep into the afternoon. There did not seem much to be done, but somehow it occupied a deal of time. The heat was a terrible hindrance; it fell a dead calm, the atmosphere pressed with a tingling vibration to the skin and swam in a swooning way, till sometimes on pausing and bringing my hand to my brow I would see the hot blue horizon beginning to revolve as though it were some huge teetotum with myself perched on the top of the middle of it. With a vast deal of trouble and after a long time a boom was secured to the stump of the galleon’s foremast with a block at the end of it, through which a line was rove. There had washed ashore close to the great dead shark down on the beach a small arm-chair of red velvet that had formerly stood in Laura’s cabin. Cutbill spied it and brought it to Finn, and said that it would do to hoist the ladies on board by. It was accordingly carried to the galleon, and made fast to one end of the whip. Dowling then climbed on board whilst the others of us stood by to sway away.

‘Will you go up first, Lady Monson?’ said I.

She coldly inclined her head and came to the chair, sweeping her hair backwards over her shoulders with a white, scared look at the height up which she was to be hoisted. I snugged her in the chair, and passed the end of a piece of line round her, and all being ready, we ran her up hand over hand till she was on a level with the shell-bristling rail of the galleon’s forecastle. Here Dowling caught hold of the chair and drew it inboards, singing out to us to lower away, and a few moments after the chair was floating over the side empty.

We then sent Laura aloft. She smiled at me as she seated herself, but there was a deal of timidity in her sweet eyes, and her smile vanished as if by magic the moment the chair was off the ground. However, she soared in perfect safety and was received by Dowling, and no sooner had she sent a look along the decks than her head shone over the side and she called down to me, ‘Oh, Mr. Monson, it is exquisite—a very Paradise of shells and sea flowers!’

‘Will you go up now, sir?’ said Finn.

‘Not yet,’ I replied; ‘I can be useful down here. Let us get Johnson hoisted out of the way first.’

Cutbill brought the poor fellow round to the chair and we sent him up. Dowling remained on the vessel to receive what we whipped up aloft to him, and in the course of an hour from the time of swaying Lady Monson aboard we had hoisted all the provisions we had brought into the shadow of the galleon—Laura’s box of clothes, the yacht’s foresail and fore-staysail, a bundle of mattresses that had washed out of the forecastle, the cask of sherry, two casks of fresh water, the carpenter’s chest, and other matters which I cannot now recall. This was very well indeed, but we were nigh-hand spent, and had to fling ourselves down upon the pumice rocks to rest and breathe ere tailing on to the whip again to hoist one or another of us up.

The sun was now in the west, his light a rich crimson and the sea a sheet of molten gold polished as quicksilver under him. The galleon’s shadow lay broad on her port side, and in it we sprawled with scarlet faces and dripping brows.

‘No chance of being picked up in such weather as this, sir,’ said Finn, who had worked as hard as any of us and seemed the better for his labours, though I observed that his breath was caught at times as if by a spasm or shooting pain in the side.