Forward, the men were industrious in the forecastle, rigging up their hammocks, or preparing their bunks for the night, or overhauling their sea-chests, or the canvas bags which, among seamen, often answer the purpose of sea-chests. It was a queer sight to see their busy figures in the twilight of the forecastle—here the black face of a negro; there the broad features of a Dutchman; here a mulatto; there a lantern-jawed Yankee, peak-bearded and narrow-hipped—a world in miniature, something after the nature of a menagerie, all talking in English, with accents which made the effect indescribable gibberish to the unaccustomed ear. They were most of them friends already; some had sailed in company before; and now they would suspend their work to offer one another a chew of tobacco, to beg the loan of a “draw,” meaning a pipe; while the air grew insufferable to all but a seaman’s digestion, with the smell of black cavendish and the inexpressible odour of bilge-water, tar, hemp, and the ship’s cargo generally, which rose, directly through the fore-hatch, and was blown into the forecastle by the draught under the foresail.
At eight o’clock the “Meteor” was off Margate, all sails but royals set; one of the noblest spectacles of beauty, grace, and majesty the world has to offer—a full-rigged ship—a leaning mountain of canvas rushing under the sky, with a whirl of foam bursting like two gigantic white arms from her sides.
But the North Foreland brings you to a sharp turn, and the wind had drawn three or four points to the west, and was blowing fresh in Mid Channel as the pilot saw by the distant Goodwin Sands on the port bow, which lay, upon the horizon in a long streak of foam, like the Milky-way in the sky.
This was a pity, because, unless they were disposed to stand for the French shore, and so make Folkestone by a long board, they would have to bring-up in the Downs.
However, there was no help for it; for, though the vessel’s yards were braced hard up against the lee rigging, she continued to fall off half a point by half a point, and, by the time she was off Ramsgate, her head was south. But the “Meteor” could sail to windward like a yacht. They furled the mainsail, took a single reef in the topsails, and then all hands stood by to put the ship about. Standing-by is sailors’ English for being ready. The men went forward, and the ship, with two hands at the wheel, made straight for the South Sand Head—the southernmost portion of the formidable Goodwin Sands.
The Channel was a glorious scene. The sun had sunk behind the land, bequeathing a broad red glare to the heavens, over which some great clouds were unfurling themselves—livid promontories with flaring crimson headlands. Astern rose the solid white cliffs, looking phantasmal upon the dark-coloured water. On the right the land swept into a bay, hugging the water flatly as far as Deal, then rising into a great front of frowning cliffs, which stood black against the background of the red sky. The gloom of the gathering evening had paled the outlines of the houses into the shadowy land; but here and there you could see small vessels riding close in shore, or smacks with red sails creeping round the various points, whilst all between was the quick-running sea, coloured by the different depths of sand into an aspect of wild and multiform beauty. Away on the left the water, quivering with hurrying waves polished like oil, stretched to a dim and desolate horizon. Here and there a brig, or a barque, ploughed laboriously for the Downs, shipping seas like columns of snow and lurching like a drunkard that must presently fall. The “Meteor” overtook and passed many of these vessels as if they were buoys, sometimes running so close alongside as to take the wind out of their sails and set them upright on an even keel. It was strange to look down upon their decks, lying close to the water, and see the steersmen gazing upwards, the masters walking to and fro and not deigning to notice anything but their own ships, a head or two peering over the bulwarks; to hear the groaning and grunting of the timbers, the yelling of the wind in the masts; and then, in a moment, to see them pitching and tumbling astern, dwindling into toys and scarcely perceptible among the lead-coloured waves.
But now the crimson had faded out from over the land, and where it had vanished burned a strong and steady light, topping the summit of the highest and outermost cliff. The night fell, and all about the expanse of water innumerable lights started into life: lanterns of vessels in the Downs, of passing ships, of the Goodwin beacons. The clouds which had looked slate-coloured against the sunset were now white, and rolled like great volumes of steam across the stars. Then right ahead of the ship rose a pale white line—a quick, spectral play of froth, and a great, red star shining like an arrested meteor, and which a few minutes before seemed to be many miles distant, grew big and lurid and dangerous.
A deep voice sounded along the “Meteor”—“All hands about ship!”
A rush of feet and then a silence; round flew the wheel like a firework; the red light ahead swept away giddily to the left.