Well, as I said, the fine weather continued for a long time, till I was awoken one morning by a loud, roaring, dashing, creaking sound, or rather, I might say, of a mixture of such sounds; and as I began to rub my eyes, I thought that I should have been hove out of the narrow crib in which I was stowed away in the very bows of the vessel. Sometimes I felt the head of the brig lifted up, and then down it came like a sledge-hammer into the water; now I felt myself rolled on one side, now on the other. I fully thought that the vessel must be on the rocks.
Not a gleam of light reached me, nor could I hear the sound of a human voice. I wanted to be out of the place; but when I tried to get up, I felt so sick and wretched, that I lay down again with an idea that it would be more comfortable to die where I was. At last, however, Barney Bogle came below and discovered me.
"Turn out, you young skulker; turn out!" he exclaimed, belabouring me with a rope"s end. "Didn"t you hear all hands called to shorten sail an hour ago?"
I had no help for it, so on deck I crawled, where the grey light of morning was streaming from beneath a dark ma.s.s of clouds which hung overhead, and a gale was blowing which sent the foam flying from the tops of the seas, deluging us fore and aft. Now the brig was lifted up to the summit of a wave, and now down she sank into the trough of the sea, with a liquid wall on one side which, as it came curling on, looked as if it must inevitably overwhelm her. She was under close-reefed topsails and storm-jib, and two of the best hands were at the helm.
Peter was one of them. I managed to climb up to windward, and to hold on by the weather-fore-rigging, where the rest of the crew were collected.
I shall never forget the dark, dreary, and terrific scene which the ocean presented to my unaccustomed sight. At first, too, I felt very sick and miserable, and I thought that I would far rather have been starving on sh.o.r.e than going to be drowned, as I fancied, and being tossed about by the rough ocean. Barney, who was on deck before me, abused me as I crawled up near him, and contrived to give me a kick, which, had I let go my hold, as it was calculated to make me do, would probably have been the cause of my immediate destruction. At that moment a huge sea came rolling up towards the brig, topping high above our deck. I saw Peter Poplar and the other man at the helm looking out anxiously at it. They grasped tighter hold of the spokes of the wheel, and planted their feet firmer on the deck. Captain Helfrich and his mates were standing by the main-rigging.
"Hold on, hold on for your lives, my men!" he sung out. The crew did not neglect to obey him, and I clung to a rope like a monkey. Most of the pa.s.sengers were below, sick in their berths. Down came the huge sea upon us like the wall of a city overwhelming its inhabitants. Over our deck it rushed with terrific force. I thought to a certainty that we were sinking. What a horrible noise there was!--wrenching and tearing, and the roar and dashing sound of the waves, and the howling of the wind! All contributed to confuse my senses, so that I forgot altogether where I was. I had an idea, I believe, that the end of the world was come. Still my shipmates did not shriek out, and I was very much surprised to find the brig rise again out of the water, and to see them standing where they were before, employed in shaking the wet off their jackets. The deck of the brig, however, presented a scene of no little confusion and havoc. Part of her weather-bulwarks forward had been stove in, the long-boat on the booms had been almost knocked to pieces, and a considerable portion of the after-part of the lee-bulwarks had been washed away, showing the course the sea had taken over us.
"We must not allow that trick to be played us again," said the captain to the mates. I had crept as far aft as I dared go, for I did not like the look of the sea through the broken bulwark, so I could hear him.
"Stand by to heave the ship to!" he shouted, and his voice was easily heard above the sounds of the tempest. "Down with the helm!--In with the jib!--Hand the maintopsail!" The officers and men, who were at their stations, flew to obey their orders. I trembled as I saw the third mate, with several other men, taking in the jib. Having let go the halliards, and eased off the sheets, hauling away on the down-hauler; and having got it down on the bowsprit-cap, though nearly blown out of the bolt-ropes, stowing it away in the foretopmast staysail-netting. As the bows of the brig now rose and now plunged into the trough of the sea, I thought they must have been, to a certainty, washed away. The maintopsail was, in the meantime, taken in, and I felt that I was very glad I was not obliged to lay-out on the yard with the other men. It seemed a wonder how they were not shaken off into the sea, or carried away by the bulging sail. The great thing in taking in a sail in a gale, as I now learned from Peter, is not to allow the sail to shake, or it is very likely to split to pieces. Keep it steadily full, and it will bear a great strain. Accordingly, the clew-lines, down-haul-tackle, and weather-brace being manned, the halliards were let go, the weather-brace hauled in, the weather-sheet started and clewed up; then the bowline and lee-sheets being let go, the sail caught aback, and the men springing on the yard, grasped it in their arms as they hung over it. Folding it in inch by inch, they at length mastered the seeming resistless monster, and pa.s.sing the gaskets round it, secured it to the yard. Those who for the first time see a topsail furled in a heavy gale may well deem it a terrific operation, and perilous in the extreme to those employed in it. I know that I breathed more freely when all the men came down safely from the yard, Barney Bogle among the number; and the helm being lashed a-lee, the brig rode like a duck over the seas.
There was no time, however, to be idle, and all hands set to work to repair damages. I now saw that the captain, who appeared so fine a gentleman in harbour, or when there was nothing to do, could work as well, if not rather better, than any one. With his coat off, and saw, axe, or hammer in hand, he worked away with the carpenter in fitting a new rail, and planking up the bulwarks; and the steward had twice to call him to breakfast before he obeyed the summons. His example inspired the rest; and in a very short time the bulwarks were made sufficiently secure to serve till the return of fine weather.
"I told you, Jack, that you would have a taste of the bitters of a sea-life before long," said Peter, as soon as he had time to have a word with me. "Let me tell you, however, that this is just nothing, and that we shall be very fortunate if we do not fall in with something much worse before long."
I knew that Peter would not unnecessarily alarm me, and so I looked up at the dark clouds driving across the sky, and saw the hissing, foaming waves dancing up wildly around us, looking as if every moment they were ready to swallow up the brig, I asked myself what worse could occur, without our going to the bottom. I had never then been in a regular hurricane or a typhoon, or on a lee-sh.o.r.e on a dark night, surrounded by rocks, or among rapid currents, hurrying the ship within their power to destruction; nor had I been on board a craft when all hands at the pumps could scarcely keep her afloat; nor had I seen a fire raging. Indeed, I happily knew nothing of the numberless dangers and hardships to which a seaman in his career is exposed. I must not say that I was in any way frightened. I resolved to keep a bold heart in my body. "Never mind,"
I answered to Peter"s remark; "while I"ve got you and the captain on board, I don"t fear anything."
Peter laughed. "We may be very well in our way," said he; "but, Jack, my advice is: Trust in G.o.d, and hold on by the weather-rigging. Should the ship go down, look out for spar or a plank if there"s no boat afloat; and if you can find nothing, swim as long as you can; but whatever you do, trust in G.o.d."
I have never forgotten Peter"s advice. Never have I found that trust deceive me; and often and often have I been mercifully preserved when I had every reason to believe that my last hour had come. I should remark also that, badly off as I have often fancied myself, I have soon had reason to be thankful that I was not in the condition of others around me.
While Peter was speaking, one of the crew sung out, "a sail on the weather-bow!" Sure enough, as we rose on the summit of a sea, a ship could be seen with all her topsails set running before the wind. Peter remarked that she was standing directly for us. "She is a large ship, by the squareness of her yards; probably either from the West Indies or South America, or maybe China, or from some port in the Pacific, and she has come round the Horn."
We watched her for some time. "She has a signal of distress flying, sir," said the first mate, who had been looking at her through a gla.s.s.
"She is in a bad way, then," remarked the captain. "I fear that unless the sea goes down, and she in the meantime can heave-to near us, we can render her no a.s.sistance."
On came the ship right for us. I thought that she would run us down; so, indeed, I found did others on board. The mates, indeed, went to the wheel to put the helm up to let the brig fall off, that we might get out of her way; but as she approached, she altered her course a little, so that she might pa.s.s clear under our stem. Never shall I forget the look of that strange ship; for, as she came near us, rolling in the trough of the sea, we could see clearly everything going forward on her decks.
She was a Spaniard, so Peter told me, as he knew from the ensign which flew out, hoisted half-way to her peak. She was a high-p.o.o.ped ship, with a deep waist and a lofty forecastle, her upper works narrowing as they rose, with large lanterns, and much rich carved work all gilt and painted. Such a craft is never seen now-a-days.
She was crowded with people. Some were soldiers, worn-out men, with their wives and families returning home from the colonies; others were cabin pa.s.sengers. There were rich Hidalgos, attended on by their slaves--old men, who had spent their lives abroad in the pursuit of wealth; and there were fair girls, too, probably their daughters, some young and lovely; and there were young men, with life before them, and thinking that life was to be very sweet; and there were children, and infants in arms, and their fond mothers or nurses anxious to shelter them from harm. Then there were the officers of the ship and the crew; fierce, dark-bearded men--a mongrel set of various ranks and many nations. She was evidently a rich galleon, returning to old Spain from one of her ill-governed dependencies in South America. But it was the way in which all these people were employed that made so deep an impression on me. Then the scene looked only like a strange picture.
It was not till long afterwards, when I reasoned on what I had observed, that I understood what I now describe.
The greater number of the men were at the pumps, labouring in a way which showed that they fancied their lives depended on their exertions; but the clear streams of water which came out of the scuppers, and the heavy way in which the ship plunged into the trough of the sea, showed that their labour would too probably be in vain. Others seemed paralysed or pitied, and sat down with their heads on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s waiting their fate. Many, as they pa.s.sed us, came to the side of their ship, and held out their hands imploringly towards us, as if we could help them. But what seemed most dreadful--some of the sailors and soldiers had got hold of a quant.i.ty of wine and spirits, and were reeling about the decks, offering liquor to every one they encountered, and holding out bottles and cans of wine mockingly at us, or as if inviting us to join them. Several, although they must have given up all hope of a.s.sistance from man, might have looked for it from Heaven, for they were on their knees imploring help--was it from Him who alone can give it, or was it from their various saints? I don"t know.
Two groups of figures on the p.o.o.p especially struck me. In the centre of one stood a tall man in rich vestments of gold, and white, and purple. He had a shorn crown. He was a priest. He was holding aloft a golden crucifix, which I thought the wind would have blown out of his hand, but he must have been a powerful man, and he grasped it fast.
a.s.sisting to support him and it were two monks in dark dresses, kneeling on the deck on either side of him. Around them knelt and clung, holding on to each other, a number of men and women, and among them were some little children, holding up their tiny hands in supplication towards the crucifix. Of course, no sound could reach us, but there seemed to be much wailing, and crying, and groaning. Some were stretching out their arms, others were beating their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and tearing their hair. The priest stood unmoved, with head erect, uttering prayers, or p.r.o.nouncing absolution. At some distance from them were a couple, not to be overlooked either. One was a fine handsome young man, in the uniform of a military officer; the other a young and beautiful girl, who lay nearly fainting in his arms. He looked towards us eagerly, hopefully, as if he fancied that he would plunge with his precious charge into the water. I thought that at that moment he was going to make the daring leap. Some of the officers of the ship were gathered round the wheel. Just then the helm was put down, and we saw some of them with blows and threats urging the drunken crew to take in the headsails, leaving the maintopsail only to steady the ship. In the operation, however, carelessly performed, the sails were blown to ribbons, and the ship drifted away to leeward of us. She had before this evidently suffered severely. Her boats were gone; her bulwarks in many places stove in; and her bowsprit and foretopmast had been carried away, while, of course, still more serious damage had been sustained in her hull.
"Shall we be able to do anything for all those poor people?" I asked of Peter, who stood near me.
"No, Jack, we shall not," he answered; "man can"t help them. This ship, by the look of her, will not keep above water another half-hour; and then Heaven have mercy on their souls! I doubt if the captain will venture to lower a boat in this sea to attempt to save them, or if a boat could lift if he did."
"It"s very dreadful," said I.
"Yes, Jack; but it"s the lot all sailors must be prepared for," answered Peter. "Remember, it may be my fate or yours one of these days. We should not be afraid; but I repeat it, Jack, we should be prepared." I did not quite understand Peter then.
"Then, Peter, you would not go in the boat if one was lowered?" I observed.
"Wait till the captain says what he wants done," he answered calmly.
"If he thinks a boat can live, and wants volunteers, it"s my duty to go, you know. Remember, Jack, obey first, and calculate risk afterwards."
Peter"s predictions as to the fate of the Spanish ship were fulfilled sooner even than he had expected. That moment, while we were looking at her, she settled lower and lower in the water; she rolled still more heavily; her bow looked as if about to rise, but instead her stem lifted high--up it went. There seemed a chasm yawning for her. Into it she plunged, and down, down she went--the waves wildly rushing over her decks, and scattering the shrieking mult.i.tude a.s.sembled on them far and wide over the foaming ocean; mothers, children, husbands, wives, lovers, and friends, the priests and their disciples, were rudely torn asunder, and sent hither and thither. Numbers went down in the vortex of the huge ship--the men at the pumps, the drunken seamen, some who had clung madly to the rigging. Others supported themselves on anything which could float; and brave swimmers struck out for dear life.
"I can"t stand this," cried our captain, unconscious that he was speaking aloud; "we must try at all risks to save the poor wretches."
"I"ll go," cried the second mate, Harry Gale, a fine, quiet, gentleman-reared young man as ever I met.
"I"m one with you, Mr Gale," cried Peter Poplar, springing aft to the falls of the lee-quarter-boat, the only one which could be lowered.
"Bear a hand here, mates; there"ll no time to be lost!"
"Hold fast!" shouted the captain. "No hurry, my men; those who go clear the boat. The mates will stand by the falls with Jackson and Farr. All ready now!--Lower away!"
The captain gave the word, so that the boat touched the water just at the best time. Peter Poplar stood in the bows, boat-hook in hand, and moved off; Mr Gale steered; the three other men were the strongest of the ship"s company; and truly it required all the care and seamanship mortal man could possess to keep a boat alive in such a boiling caldron as the wide Atlantic then was. I was very anxious for Peter"s safety, for he was indeed my friend. I feared also for the rest. I was fully alive to the danger of the expedition they were on.
The boat, keeping under the lee of the brig, dropped down towards the scene of the catastrophe. So fiercely boiling, however, were the waves, that with awful rapidity the greater number of those who had lately peopled the deck of that big ship were now engulfed beneath them. Some, however, still struggled for existence.
Had the sea been less violent many might have been saved; for as we stood on the deck we could see the poor wretches struggling among the foam, but by the time the boat reached the spot they had sunk for ever.
The captain had gone into the main-rigging, and with his outstretched arm was indicating to the second mate the direction in which to steer; but of course she could venture to go very little out of one particular direction without a certainty of being swamped. It was very dreadful to watch one human being after another engulfed in the hungry ocean. We have just to picture to ourselves how we should be feeling if we were in their places, to make us eager to save those under like circ.u.mstances.
The most conspicuous object was the tall priest, and towards him the boat was accordingly making her way. Two other figures were at the same time seen. One floated only a short distance to leeward of the brig; it was that, I felt certain, of the beautiful girl I had seen supported by the young officer. She was unconscious of all around, and I believe that even then life had left her frame. She was supported by a piece of plank, to which probably she had been secured with the last fond effort of affection by him who had thus been unable to provide any means of escape for himself. He, however, must have struggled bravely for existence, for I made him out at a short distance beyond, now rising on the crest of a wave, now sinking into the trough of the sea, but still swimming on with his eye gazing steadily in the direction of that floating form.
Meantime the boat was making towards the priest. "Give way, lads!"
shouted several of our people in their eagerness, forgetting that they could not possibly be heard. No time was to be lost, for already the priest"s rich dress was saturated with water, and he was sinking lower and lower, and what at first had supported him was now dragging him down. Still he did not give in, but, cross in hand, waved the boat on.
The distance he was from the boat must have been greater than we supposed. Suddenly he threw up his arms, and a white-crested top of a sea breaking over him, he disappeared for ever amidst a ma.s.s of foam.
Mr Gale saw what had occurred, and instantly turned the boat"s head towards the young officer, who was still swimming on with wonderful strength. In this instance the men were more successful; the boat"s head dropped down close to him, and Peter, stretching out his arm, grasped the young man by the shoulder, and hauled him in over the bows, and pa.s.sed him on into the stern-sheets. Though faint at first, the Spaniard instantly recovered himself, and stood upright in the boat, gazing eagerly around. As the boat rose on a sea, he caught sight of the object of his search. He pointed towards the floating form of the young lady. Even when first seen, the line by which she had been hurriedly and imperfectly secured to the plank I observed was loosened.
The wash of the sea now parted her from it entirely. The young man saw what had occurred. With a cry of anguish, before our people could seize him, he sprang from the gunwale towards the object of his love, as her dress carried her down beneath the foaming waters. I think he reached her. They disappeared at the same moment, and never rose again!
Still a few people kept above water, holding on to planks, or swimming, chiefly seamen or soldiers; but most of them had been carried to too great a distance from the brig for a boat to save them. It was only by keeping under our lee, our hull preventing the sea from breaking so much, that the boat avoided being swamped. Thus we could expect that only a very few of those who floated to the last could be saved. No one could have ventured further than did our brave mate and his crew;--they would in all probability have thrown away their own lives had not Captain Helfrich recalled them. He signalled with his hand, but Mr Gale did not observe him. "Fire a gun there," he shouted; "quick, for your lives!" A gun had been ready loaded for the purpose. Its report served as the funeral knell of many a despairing wretch.
The boat put about. The returning alongside was as perilous an operation almost as the lowering the boat had been. All hands not required at the falls stood ready with ropes to heave to our shipmates should she be swamped alongside; but the oars being thrown in, Mr Gale and Peter seizing the fall-tackles at the right moment, hooked on, and the rest of the people handing themselves up by the ropes hanging ready for them, the boat was hoisted up before the sea again rose under her bottom. It was sad to think: that all their gallant efforts had been unavailing. In two or three minutes more not a human being of all the Spaniard"s crew was to be seen alive; and except a few planks and spars, and here and there a bale or a chest, mere dots in the ocean, we might have fancied, as we looked out on those foaming waters, that all that had pa.s.sed was some hideous dream. Often, indeed, have I since had the same dreadful drama acted over before my eyes while I slept; so deep was the impression made on me by the reality. Very many things which long after that time occurred have entirely faded from my memory.
Had it been possible, (as Peter told me he thought it would have been, had all the crew done their duty), to keep the galleon afloat a few hours longer, in all probability we should have been the means of saving the people. In the course of the day the wind fell, and the sea went down sufficiently to have allowed our boats to have pa.s.sed between the two vessels without any great risk. Captain Helfrich was certainly not a man to have deserted her while a chance remained of saving a human being. While she floated he would have stuck to her. "Remember, Jack,"
said Peter, "the first duty of a ship"s company is to stick by each other--to keep sober, and to obey their officers. Without a head, men can do nothing. They are like a flock of sheep running here and there, and never getting on. What is a man"s duty is best; and you see here, for instance, that the lives of all depend on their doing their duty."
Sail was again made on the brig, and she was able to lay her course. At night, however, it came on to blow again, and by next morning we were once more hove-to with more sea, and the wind chopping about and making it break in a far more dangerous way than it had done on the previous day. I found, when I came on deck after my watch below, all hands looking out at an object which had just been discovered a little abaft the lee-bow. Some said it was a dead whale; one or two declared that it was a rock; but the officers, after examining it with their gla.s.ses, p.r.o.nounced it to be a vessel bottom uppermost! The question was, whether the wreck was deserted, or whether any people still clung to it.
Hove-to as we were, we made of course considerable lee-way; and keeping in the direction we were then driving, we should before long get near enough to examine her condition. Had not the brig already received some damage, Captain Helfrich would, I believe, have run down at once to the wreck; but this, a right care for the safety of his own vessel would not allow him to do. Every instant, too, the gale was increasing, till it blew a perfect hurricane; and not for a moment could a boat have lived had one been lowered. The wreck drove before the wind, but of course we moved much faster; it was some hours, however, before we got near enough to the wreck to discover if anyone was upon it.
"There are three or four people at least upon it," exclaimed Mr Gale.
"Poor fellows! can we do nothing for them, sir?"
"I cannot allow you to throw away your life, as you would if you had your own way," answered the captain, to whom he spoke. "All we can do is to hope that the wind will go down before we drift out of sight of each other."