My Danish Sweetheart: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3

by William Clark Russell

'Why?' she inquired. 'The flag we hoist will not be seen in the dark'—knowing that the mast was there for no other purpose than to display a flag on.

'But we ought to light the lamp and masthead it,' said I, 'and keep it burning all night—if God suffers us to live through the night. Who can tell what may come along?—what vessel invisible to us may perceive the light?'

She answered quickly: 'Yes. Your judgment is clearer than mine. I will help you to set up the mast.'

Her father again addressed her in Danish. She answered him, and then said to me, 'My father asks why we are without a sail.'

'I thought of a sail,' I replied, speaking as I went about to erect the mast, 'but without wind it could not serve us, and with wind it would blow away like a cobweb. It would have occupied too much time to rig and securely provide for a sail. Besides, our hopes could never lie in the direction of such a thing. We must be picked up—there is no other chance for us.'

The Captain made no response, but sat, propped up on his pillows, motionless, his eyes fixed upon the barque.

The sun had sunk, but a strong scarlet yet glowed in the western sky by the time we had erected and stayed the spar. I then lighted the lamp and ran it aloft by means of a line and a little block which I had taken care to throw into the raft. This finished, we seated ourselves.

There was now nothing more to be done but watch and pray. This was the most solemn and dreadful moment that had as yet entered into the passage of our fearful and astonishing experience. In the hurry and agitation of leaving the barque there had been scarcely room for pause. All that we could think of was how quickly to get away, how speedily to equip and launch the raft, how to get Captain Nielsen over, and the like; but all this was ended: we could now think—and I felt as if my heart had been suddenly crushed in me as I sat on the slanting, falling, and rising platform viewing the barque, that lay painted in clear black lines against the fast-dimming glow in the west.

Helga sat close against her father's cot. So far as I was able to distinguish her face, there was profound grief in it, and a sort of dismay, but no fear. Her gaze was steady, and the expression of her mouth firm. Her father kept his eyes rooted upon his ship. I overheard her address him once or twice in Danish, but getting no reply, she sighed heavily and held her peace. I was too exhausted in body and spirits to desire to speak. I remember that I sat, or rather squatted, Lascar fashion, upon the hatch-cover, that somewhat raised the platform of the raft, with my hands clasped upon my shins, and my chin on a level with my knees, and in this posture I continued for some time motionless, watching the Anine, and waiting for her to sink, and realizing our shocking situation to the degree of that heart-crushing sensation in me which I have mentioned. I was exactly clad as I had been when I boarded the barque out of the lifeboat. Never once, indeed, from the hour of my being in the vessel, down to the present moment, had I removed my oilskins, saving my sou'-wester, which I would take from my head when I entered the cabin; and I recollect thinking that it was better for me to be heavily than thinly clad, because being a stout swimmer, a light dress would help me to a bitter long battle for life, whereas the clothes I had on must make the struggle brief, and speedily drag me down into peace, which was, indeed, all that I could bring my mind to dwell upon now, for when I sent my glance from the raft to the darkling ocean, I felt hopeless.

The rusty hectic died out. The night came along in a clear dusk with a faint sighing of wind over the raft every time the swell threw her up. There was a silver curl of moon in the south-west, but she was without power to drop so much as a flake of her light into the dark shadow of water under her. Yet the starlight was in the gloom, and it was not so dark but that I could see Helga's face in a sort of glimmer, and the white outline of the cot and the configuration of the raft upon the water in dusky strokes.