“E impossible, signor. If you do go to the bottom, heretics though we are, you will be in very goodly company,” exclaimed Tourniquet. “And then think of the magnificent feast we shall make for the fishes. Let that be your consolation.”
But poor Signor Mezzi refused to be comforted even by such a prospect; and even our medico himself, when he found the ship still remaining in her unusual position, and heard the uproar going on overhead, began to entertain some very disagreeable doubts as to the possibility of the event to which he was alluding actually occurring, and looked very blue about the gills; whereat little Scribble, the clerk, laughed heartily at him, and seated himself on the table, with his feet on the side of the ship, affirming that he was not afraid, and was as contented and happy as ever—the truth being, not that the young donkey was a bit more brave than the other two, but that he had not the sense to know the danger he was in, and that not a seaman on board but saw that the next moment might be his last. Tourniquet had not the heart to move and give Scribble a thrashing, or he would have done so. But to return on deck. The instant the squall struck the ship, Captain Poynder hastened from his cabin, and, seizing his speaking-trumpet, in a calm tone issued the necessary orders.
“Down, every youngster, from the rigging. Clue up—haul down—let fly of all!”
It was too late. Before the words were out of his mouth, the ship was over on her beam-ends, and lay like a log, neither sails nor rudder having longer power over her. To describe the wild horror of the scene would be almost impossible. The rent sails flashing and flapping in the gale; the ropes lashing furiously, as if in an attempt to seize some one within their deadly coils; every timber quivering and groaning; the wind roaring; and the foam in thick sheets flying over us. Though the helm, as I have said, was hard up, still she lay in the trough of the sea, without a hope of once more rising.
“Send the carpenter and his crew aft, with their axes,” shouted the captain.
Chissel and his mates quickly obeyed the summons, for he had seen from the first that his services would too probably be required.
“Stand by, to cut away the masts,” added Captain Poynder.
It was a melancholy alternative, but the only one to save the ship from foundering. Afterwards we must trust to our anchors; and if they failed to hold with the wind as it then was, we could not fail of being driven on the inhospitable coast of Africa. And who could tell how many might reach the shore alive!—perhaps none. The uplifted axes gleamed in the hands of Chissel and his mates, as they stood round the mizen-mast; others were sent to cut away the shrouds, and clear the wreck of the mast as it fell. Once more Captain Poynder raised his trumpet to his lips. It was to give the dire orders to cut, when, at that moment, the ship with a violent jerk righted herself, and, speedily answering to the helm, away she flew before the wind. As such a course would very quickly have brought us up, sail was taken off her; and then, merely under her spanker and fore-staysail, she was brought to the wind, for it was discovered that the bowsprit was badly sprung, and that the topsail sheets were carried away. Happily the squall, having vented its fury on our heads, quickly passed over, and we were left with much less wind than before.
“This is all that young beggar Bobby Smudge’s doing, I’ll warrant,” I heard Ned Grummit, a topman, exclaim, as he came down from aloft. “I never knowed a chap of that sort who went for to go for to drown hisself, if he threatened to do mischief, but found means to do it. I knowed it would be so from the first, and we shall be lucky if worse doesn’t come of it.”