Will Weatherhelm: The Yarn of an Old Sailor

by William Henry Giles Kingston

It was a large ship. On she came. I felt sure that our last moments had arrived. There was no use shouting. The other men looked up. Terror kept them dumb. Had we indeed strained our voices till they cracked, no one would have heard us on board the ship. The dark pyramid of canvas seemed to reach up to the very clouds as she flew along, careering before the gale.

In another moment I thought we should have been run down, and struggling under her vast keel, but my eye had deceived me. She dashed on; but instead of her stem striking us, her broadside appeared on our starboard hand. She was a line-of-battle ship of the largest class. Then, indeed, we found our voices and shouted, and perhaps the sentries or look-outs might have heard us; but away she rushed, like some monstrous phantom of a dream, and, mighty as she was, she quickly disappeared in the darkness ahead. Our companions, who had been awoke by our shouting, lifted up their heads, but as the ship passed by, lay them down again, probably under the belief that what they had seen was merely the effect of their imagination.

La Motte remained awake. “What is the hour?” he asked. I told him. He therefore insisted on my taking his place, though I saw that he had some difficulty in unbending his limbs from the position they had assumed while he was sleeping. In an instant I was asleep. It was daylight when I was once more aroused to take the helm. I found that there was a sail in sight, just rising above the horizon in the north-east, but we could not tell in what direction she was standing.

The morning passed as had the former one. Our attention was kept awake by watching the progress of the strange sail. Her topsails rose above the horizon, then her courses appeared, and it became very clear that she was sailing on a parallel course with us. At the distance we were from her, we could not have been distinguished from the white crest of a rising wave, so that we knew it was useless to hope for any assistance from her. Trying, indeed, it was to watch her gliding by us. Sometimes, when she rose on the top of a sea, and rolled from side to side as she ran before the wind, we could see her copper glancing brightly in the sunbeams, and could almost count her ports; yet we ourselves, we knew, could scarcely have been seen, even had any on board been looking out for us. On she went, her crew rejoicing in the fair breeze which was carrying them on to their destined port, while we were grieving at being driven away from ours.

“‘It’s an ill wind that blows no one good,’ remember that, mates,” said La Motte. “We may get the fair breeze before long.”

Scarcely had the stranger disappeared in the western horizon when another sail rose in the east out of the water. We watched her even with greater eagerness than before. We fancied that we could not again be doomed to disappointment.

“She is more, I think, to the southward than the other ship,” said Andrews. “She’ll pass not far to the nor’ard of us, and can’t help seeing us.”

I watched the new-comer attentively, but could not agree with Andrews. She appeared to me to be following exactly in the track of the former vessel. I earnestly hoped that I might be wrong in my opinion. The ship came on, rapidly overtaking us. We ought to have found cause for satisfaction when we thus had evidence that we could not be driving fast to the eastward, and that when we came to haul up we should still find ourselves at no great distance from the Cornish coast.

We waited, anxiously watching the ship; but all differences of opinion were soon settled when she appeared abeam, fully as far off as the former one. As our hopes had risen to a high pitch, so they now fell proportionately low. I began to fear that despondency would seize on all hands. The ship came up on our quarter; then she got abeam of us. We could see her as clearly as we had seen the former one. Some of our people shouted and waved their hats and caps. No answering signal was made. Again they shouted and shrieked out till they were hoarse. Their cries and their signals were equally vain. Those on board could probably scarcely have seen the boat even had they been looking for her, and of course our shouts would not have reached one-tenth part of the distance. The ship glided quickly on. She passed us altogether, and, like her predecessor, disappeared in the western horizon. As she was leaving us, some of the men lost all command of their feelings and broke forth into imprecations loud and deep, and abused the ship and all on board her, as if they were to blame for not having seen us. I saw that in their present state of mind there would be no use finding fault with them, so I tried to cheer them up.

“Never mind, mates,” said I. “We should not have been much better off if we had got on board those ships. They are outward-bound, and must have carried us wherever they are going, and perhaps we might have had to go half-way round the world before we could get home again. Let us wait till we sight a ship bound up Channel, and then if we miss her we may have reason to complain.”