“I FELL THROUGH THE RIGGING.”
It was the forenoon watch, as the hours from eight to twelve are called. The fellows who had been on deck since four o’clock had come below at eight bells, and after breakfasting had turned in to smoke a pipe and then get some sleep. They were in the port or chief mate’s watch, to which division of the ship’s company I was supposed to belong, though I don’t remember how I came to know this. We were still in “soundings” as it is termed—that is to say, not yet out of the Channel, though we were a long way down it.
On this morning there was a strong sea running on the bow, but not so much wind as the motion of the ship would have led one to suppose. The mids, when they came below, had told the others who were to relieve them that the vessel was under all plain sail saving the flying jib and fore and mizzen royals, and that the “old man” as they termed the captain, was driving her; that they had heard the mate say that he expected it would be an “all hands” job before four bells had gone—ten o’clock. I caught all this, scarce comprehending it, and lay drowsily and stupidly watching the lads get their breakfast and then vault into their bunks with all their clothes on—“all standing” as the sea saying is—ready to rush on deck to the first summons. The ship was lying over at a sharp angle, and there was a great roaring and seething along her sides of swollen waters smitten into yeast, and the cabin portholes came and went like the winking of eyes to the shrouding of the glass by the liftings and leapings of the green billows. Presently there were certain sounds on deck which unmistakably denoted that sail was being shortened.
“It’s ‘in main royal’ now, I suppose,” said one of the middies, sleepily, “and about time too. What’s the hurry all this side of Sydney, New South Wales?”
Presently more hoarse songs resounded on deck, along with the echo of tramping feet and of rigging dropped hastily from the hand.
“Old man’th growing alarmed, I reckon!” exclaimed the lisping long-nosed midshipman, whose name was Kennet. “Oh, how I do with,” he cried, feigning to speak in a voice as though he wept, “that I had thtoptht at home to bottle vinegar for my poor deah mamma. Eh, Rockafellar? Better to bottle vinegar athore, my beauty, than to lie thick and hungry in a nathty cabin.”
As he spoke, the third mate’s voice was to be heard ringing like the roar of a bull down through the booby-hatch—“All hands reef topsails! Up you come, all you young gentlemen bee-low there! Lively, now! before the ship falls overboard!”
The youngsters sprang from their bunks, and were out of the cabin in a breath. Then it was that I made up my mind to linger no longer sea-sick in this dismal, straining cabin. I pulled on my shoes, plunged into my jacket, and, setting my cap firmly upon my head, went clawing my way to the steps of the hatch, up which I staggered, feeling exceedingly ill and weak, but determined now to push on even to perishing sooner than suffer in darkness and loneliness below.