An Ocean Tragedy

by William Clark Russell

Cutbill hove a curse at him under his breath, but the man did not seem to hear.

‘It’s curious,’ continued this sea philosopher in a salt, thick voice that seemed not a little appropriate to the strong fish-like, marine, drowned smell of this interior, ‘they should go on a-showing of affection which they’d sicken at if they was coated with flesh.’

‘Pray hold your tongue!’ said Lady Monson. ‘Captain Finn, please request that sailor to be silent.’

‘Told ’ee so,’ I heard Cutbill growl; ‘always a-sticking of that hoof of yourn into the wrong biling.’

Scarce had this been muttered when all on a sudden the squall ceased; there fell a black, dead calm; no more lightning played, not a murmur of thunder sounded; there was nothing to be heard but the roar of the near surf upon the beach and the creaming of seas off the huge area of the angry waters. In its way this sudden cessation, this abrupt, this instant hush on high, was more terrifying than the wildest outbreak of tempest. The lightning had been so continuous that in a manner we had grown used to it, and we had been able to see one another’s faces by it whilst we conversed as though by some lamp that waned and then waxed brilliant to its revolutions. Now we sat plunged in impenetrable blackness, whilst we sat hearkening, to use an Irishism, to the incredible silence of the atmosphere. Not the faintest loom of the galleon could be distinguished through the open door; yet the sheen of the mystic illumination in her hold hovered like a faint green mist over the hatch and dimly touched a little space of the marine growths round about.

‘What’s a-going to happen now?’ cried Finn; but I did not know that he had left the cabin until I heard him calling from the outside, ‘My eye, your honour, here it comes; a shower this time.’

I groped my way out, feeling down with my outstretched hands one of the men who was groping to the door also. The stagnant air was as thick as the fumes of brimstone and oppressively hot. It made one gasp after coming out of the cabin, where it was kept almost cool somehow by the strong weedy and salt-water smell that haunted it. I looked over the rail and saw the sea at the distance of about half a mile away from us, flaming as though it were an ocean of brandy on fire, only that the head of the luminous appearance had as straight a line to the eye as the horizon. But I could now observe how phosphorescent was the sea that, whilst tranquil, had hung a lustreless shadow by marking the vivid flashes of light in the white smother of the froth down in the gloom of the beach and the sharp darting gleams beyond.

I groped back to the cabin, followed by the others, found Laura by the shadow her figure made upon the dim glimmer of the sail and seated myself beside her. Then plump fell the rain. It was just a sheet of descending water, and spite of the fossilised decks being thickened by marine verdure, the hull echoed to the downpour with a noise as distracting and deafening as a goods train passing at full speed close alongside. But the wonder of that rain lay not so much in its weight as in its being electric. It came down black, but it sparkled on striking the decks as though every drop exploded in a blaze. I never witnessed such a sight before, and confess that I was never so frightened by anything in all my life.

‘Why, it’s raining lightning!’ called Head.