The Three Midshipmen

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“I won’t boast of it, and if I had to fit out a yacht, I should choose something better,” answered Murray, laughing. The whole cabin was only eight feet long, and though it was five high in the centre, under a raised skylight, it was scarcely more than three at the sides, which being right aft, it decreased rapidly as the stern narrowed. There was a fore-peak, in which the two poor negroes lay, but there was no room in it for more people, so that the rest of the crew were obliged to live in the after-cabin. Adair certainly did not know the discomforts to which he was subjecting himself when he undertook to accompany Murray. Not a particle of furniture was there in the cabin, the beams and sides were begrimed with dirt and cockroaches, and a considerable variety of other entomological specimens crawled in and out of every crevice in the planks, and found their way among all the provisions, as well as into every mess of food cooked on board.

The schooner was laden with tobacco and monkey-skins, which latter she had taken on board at one of the ports, in exchange for some of her tobacco, the remainder of which she was about to barter for slaves.

“Negro-head for negroes,” as Paddy remarked, when Murray gave him the account.

Several days of the voyage had passed with light winds and smooth sea, and not unpleasantly, though but little progress had been made, when as Adair, who had the first watch at night, was walking the deck, thinking that all was right, he heard a roaring noise on the port quarter. He looked astern. A long white line of curling foam came rolling up at a rapid rate towards them.

“Lower the peak, slack away the main halyards, in with the mainsail, brail up the foresail! Murray, Murray! on deck here; all hands on deck! In with the jib and down with the fore-staysail!”

The sudden quick jerking of the little vessel would soon have awakened all the watch below had his voice not done so. The sails were not lowered a moment too soon. On flew the schooner under bare poles, the seas roaring up on either side, and often breaking over her. Every man had to hold on for his life; away, away she flew; every instant plunging more and more, while the foaming seas seemed still more eager to make her their prey. Murray, attended by Wasser, disappeared below. He soon returned.

“Paddy,” he said, touching Adair on the shoulder, “I’ve bad news. We’ve sprung a leak, and I fear that the vessel is sinking.”

Both Murray and Adair had gone through so many dangers, that neither of them were inclined to despair, even when they found themselves on board a little rotten vessel, plunging along through terrific seas with a leak in her bottom, which was letting in the water at a rate which must speedily send her far down to the depths of old ocean. Away flew the little craft under bare poles, the dark seas, with thick crests of white, rolling up on either side of them, with loud roars, and threatening to come right down upon the deck and swamp them. Tumbling about as the vessel was, it was no easy matter even to get the pump rigged in the dark. That task, however, was at length accomplished, and all hands set to with a will in the hopes of clearing the vessel of water. At first it seemed to be rushing in as fast as it gushed out.

“I believe after all it was only the water which got down the hatches when the first sea broke aboard of us,” said Murray, and with this idea both he and Terence were much comforted. Drearily and wearily drew on the dark hours of that tempestuous night. Daylight came at last, and only exhibited the scene of wild commotion around; the leaden sky, the dark grey waves broken into strange shapes, leaping and rolling over each other, and covered with masses of white foam. Off that strange African coast, storms and calms succeed each other with but scant warning. By seven o’clock the wind suddenly dropped, and in another hour the sea went down, and the lately wave-tossed bark lay perfectly becalmed.

“Terence,” said Murray, “look over the side of the vessel; doesn’t she strike you as being much lower in the water than she was?” Terence feared so. The well was sounded, and three feet of water was found in the hold.