"Cruel! cruel! To think that we are so near, and yet it seems impossible to bridge the few remaining yards of s.p.a.ce that intervene between those poor creatures and the safety that we enjoy! Surely it _can_ be done, if only anyone were clever enough to think of the way!"
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," remonstrated the skipper, "please don"t consider me rude if I say that none of you know what you are talking about. There are only two ways of getting a line aboard that wreck; one way is, to _carry_ it, and the other, to _heave_ it. The former is impossible, with the sea that is now running; and the latter we have already tried once, unsuccessfully, and are now about to try again. If any of you can think of any other _practicable_ way, I shall be glad to listen to you; but, if not, please leave me alone, and let me give my whole mind to the job!"
Meanwhile I had been watching the run of the sea, at first idly, and with no other feeling than that of wonder that any vessel in the water-logged condition of the barque could continue to live in it, for it was as high and as steep a sea as I had ever beheld, and it broke incessantly over the barque with a fury that rendered her continued existence above water a constantly-recurring marvel. Heavy as it was, however, it was not so bad as the surf that everlastingly beat upon the sandy sh.o.r.es of the West Coast; and as I realised this fact I also remembered that upon more than one occasion it had been necessary for me to swim through that surf to save my life! "Surely," thought I, "the man who has fought his way through the triple line of a West African surf ought to be able to swim twenty or thirty fathoms in this sea!"
The idea seemed to come to me as an inspiration; and, undeterred by the thought that the individual who should essay the feat of swimming from the one ship to the other would be seriously hampered by being compelled to drag a lengthening trail of light rope behind him, I turned to the skipper and said:
"Captain Dacre, there appears to be but one sure way of getting a line aboard that wreck, and that is for someone to swim with it--Stop a moment--I know that you are about to p.r.o.nounce the feat impossible; but I believe I can do it, and, at all events, I am perfectly willing to make the attempt. Give me something light--such as a pair of signal halliards--to drag after me, and let a good hand have the paying of it out, so that I may neither be checked by having it paid out too slowly, nor hampered on the other hand by having to drag a heavy bight after me; and I think I shall be able to manage it. And if I succeed, bend the end of a heaving-line on to the other directly you see that I have got hold, and we will soon get the hawser aboard and the end made fast somewhere."
The skipper looked at me fixedly for several seconds, as though mentally measuring my ability to execute the task I had offered to undertake.
Then he answered:
"Upon my word, Mr Conyers, I scarcely know what to say to your extraordinarily plucky proposal. If you had been a landsman I should not have entertained the idea for a moment; and, even as it is, I am by no means sure that I should be justified in permitting you to make the attempt. But you are a sailor of considerable experience; you fully understand all the difficulty and the danger of the service you have offered to undertake; and I suppose you have some hope of being successful, or you would not have volunteered. And upon my word I am beginning to think, with you, that the course you suggest is the only one likely to be of any service to those poor souls yonder--so I suppose--I must say--Yes, and G.o.d be with you!"
The little crowd round about us, who had been listening with breathless interest, cheered and clapped their hands at this p.r.o.nouncement of the skipper"s--the cheer being taken up by the crowd of miners gathered in the waist--and General O"Brien, who was standing at my elbow, seized my hand and shook it enthusiastically as he exclaimed:
"G.o.d bless you, Conyers; G.o.d bless you, my boy; every man and woman among us will pray for your safety and success!"
"Thanks, General," answered I. "The knowledge that I have the sympathy and good wishes of you all will add strength to my arm and courage to my heart; but the issue is in G.o.d"s hands, and if it be His will, I shall succeed." Then, turning to the skipper, I said:
"I propose that you shall take the ship up as close as possible to the wreck, precisely as you did at first; and I will dive from the flying-jib-boom-end--which will approach the wreck more closely than our hull; and it will be for you to watch and so manoeuvre the ship--either by easing up the fore-topmast staysail sheet, or in any other way that you may think best--that she shall be kept fair abreast of and dead to leeward of the wreck until we can get the end of the hawser aboard and made fast. After that I think we may trust to the difference in the rate of the drift of the two craft to keep the hawser taut."
"Yes, yes," answered the skipper; "you may trust to me to do my part, Mr Conyers. If you can only manage to get the end of the hawser aboard and fast to the wreck, I will attend to the other part of the job. And now, you had better go and get ready for your swim; for I am about to wear ship."
I hurried away to my cabin and shifted into ordinary bathing attire; and while thus engaged I became aware that Dacre was wearing ship and getting her round upon the starboard tack once more. By the time that my preparations were completed and I had made my way out on the main deck, the ship was round, and heading up for the wreck again. As I appeared, threading my way forward among the great burly miners who were cl.u.s.tering thick in the waist, they raised a cheer, and the cuddy party again clapped their hands, some of them shouting an encouraging word or two after me.
On the forecastle I encountered Murgatroyd, the chief mate, who held a coil of small thin line in his hand.
"Here you are, Mr Conyers," he exclaimed, as I joined him. "This coil is the main signal halliards, which I have unrove for the purpose--they are better than new, for they have been stretched and have had the kinks taken out of them. And if they are not enough, here are the fore halliards, all ready for bending on at a second"s notice. I shall pay out for you, so you may depend upon having the line properly tended.
Now, how will you have the end? will you have it round your waist, or--?"
"No," said I. "Give it me as a standing bowline, which I can pa.s.s over my shoulder and under my arm. So; that will do. Is the hawser fitted, and all ready for paying out?"
"Yes," answered the mate, "everything is quite ready. I"ve left about five fathoms of bare end for bending on; and I think you can"t do much better than take a turn with it round the mizenmast, under the spider-band."
"That is exactly what I thought of doing," said I. "In fact it is about the only suitable place."
I stood talking with Murgatroyd until we were once more almost within hail of the barque, when, with the bowline at the end of the line over my left shoulder and under my right arm, I laid out to the flying-jib-boom-end, upon which I took my stand, steadying myself by grasping the royal stay in my left hand. The motion away out there, at the far extremity of that long spar, was tremendous; so much so, indeed, that seasoned as I was to the wild and erratic movements of a ship in heavy weather, the sinkings and soarings and flourishings of that boom-end, as the vessel plunged and staggered down toward the wreck, made me feel distinctly giddy. The wait was not a very long one, however, and in less than five minutes I found myself abreast the barque"s starboard quarter, and within a hundred feet of it. I was now as close to the wreck as Captain Dacre dared put me; so, as the ship met a heavy sea and flung me high aloft above the white water that seethed and swirled about the stern of the sinking craft, I let go my hold upon the stay and, poising myself for an instant upon the up-hove extremity of the boom, raised my hands above my head as I bent my body toward the water, and took off for a deep dive, my conviction being that I should do far better by swimming under water than on the surface. As I rushed downward I heard Dacre shout: "There he goes! G.o.d be with him!" and then I struck the water, head downward, almost perpendicularly, and the only sound I heard was the hissing of the water in my ears as the blue-green light about me grew gradually more and more dim. With my body slightly curved, and my back a trifle hollowed, I knew that even while plunging downward I was also rushing toward the barque, and presently I struck out strongly, arms and legs, as I caught sight, through the water, of a huge dark body, at no great distance, that I knew to be the swaying hull for which I was making. At length, gasping for breath, I rose to the surface, and found that I was within twenty feet of the barque"s stern, with the whole of her crew upon their feet, anxiously watching me, while a man stood at her taffrail, holding a coil of rope in his hand. The instant he saw me he shouted: "Look out, monsieur; I am about to heave!"
"All right; heave!" I shouted in return, gasping in the midst of the wild popple that leaped about the labouring craft; and the next instant a flake of the uncoiling end of the line hit me sharply across the face.
I seized it tightly, and sang out:
"Haul me to the starboard mizen chains!" The man flung up his hand in reply and, holding on to the rope, started _at a run_ along the deck, dragging me after him. It was a good job that I had thought of taking a turn round one arm, or in his eagerness he would have dragged the rope out of my grasp; as it was, the strain he brought to bear, added to that of the long length of line trailing behind me, almost tore my arms out of their sockets. Moreover, I was half suffocated by the deluge of water that came crashing down upon me like a cataract off the deck of the wreck every time that she rolled toward me. Luckily, this condition of affairs was of but brief duration; and presently I found myself in the wake of the mizen chains, and in imminent danger of being struck and driven under by the overhanging channel piece; I watched my opportunity, however, and, as the barque rolled toward me I seized the lanyards of one of the shrouds, got a footing, somehow, and dragged myself in over the rail. I felt terribly exhausted by the brief but fierce buffeting I had received alongside; but time was precious--the _City of Cawnpore_ was still square athwart the stern of the wreck, but driving away to leeward at a terrible rate, and I knew that unless we were very smart we should still fail to get the hawser from her--so I flung up one arm as a signal to Murgatroyd to pay out and, crying out to the Frenchmen to come and help me, began to haul upon the line I had brought aboard with me.
By dint of exhortation so earnest that it almost amounted to bullying I succeeded in awaking the Frenchmen to a sense of the urgency of the case, and persuaded them to put some liveliness into their movements, by which means we quickly hauled in the whole of the signal halliards, to the other end of which a light heaving-line was bent. This also we dragged away upon for dear life, and presently I had the satisfaction of seeing the end of the _City of Cawnpore"s_ towing-hawser being lighted out over her bows. This was a heavy piece of cordage for us to handle, but we dragged away at it breathlessly, and at length, when I had almost begun to despair of getting it aboard in time, we hauled the end in over the taffrail and, all hands of us seizing it, led it to the mizenmast, round the foot of which I had the satisfaction of pa.s.sing a couple of turns and securing it. So far, so good; the most difficult part of my task was now accomplished; for I knew that Murgatroyd would attend to the work at his end of the hawser, and do everything that was necessary; so I turned to the Frenchman who had a.s.sisted me aboard, and said:
"Are you the master of this barque, monsieur?"
"At your service, monsieur," he answered, bowing with all the grace of a dancing-master.
"Very good," said I. "You have a lady on board, I think?"
"But yes, monsieur: my wife!" and he flourished his arm toward the bundle of tarpaulin that still remained huddled up under the shelter of the skylight.
"She will of course have to go first," I said. "Are there any preparations she would wish to make before being transferred to the other vessel?"
Without replying to my question, the man hurried away to the heap and, unwrapping the tarpaulin, extricated a young, and rather pretty but terribly frightened woman from its folds. As he did so, I saw that she held a baby in her arms!
"What!" exclaimed I, as I joined the little group, "a baby also?"
"Yes, monsieur," answered the man. "You see we wrapped them both up in a tarpaulin, to protect them as much as possible from the cruel sea."
"A very wise precaution," I commented. "But this increases our difficulties somewhat: I greatly doubt whether mother and child will be able to make the pa.s.sage together. Madame will scarcely have the strength to hold herself and the baby safely at the same time; the little one might be washed out of her arms and lost."
"Oh, monsieur, what shall I do?" wailed the poor, terrified creature.
"Have we to cross by that rope?"
"I fear there is no other way," I replied gently.
"I can never do it! I can never do it!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed despairingly.
"The sea will drag me and my little Mimi off, and we shall be drowned!"
"Under the circ.u.mstances, monsieur, there seems to be only one thing for it," said I; "you must go first, carrying the child, and as soon as you are safe, I will follow with madame. Is that arrangement to your liking?"
The man intimated that it was; and forthwith we commenced the preparations necessary to secure for the poor little wailing mite of humanity a chance of surviving the fearful journey. And a fearful journey it certainly was, even for a strong man; how much more so, then, for a weak, terrified woman, or a helpless child, less than a year old?
The arrangement was this: The _City of Cawnpore"s_ to wing-hawser was now stretched between the two vessels, one end being made fast to the barque"s mizenmast, while the other end led in over the _City of Cawnpore"s_ bows, through a warping chock, and was secured somewhere inboard, probably to the windla.s.s bitts--it would have been much more convenient had the hawser been made fast to the foremast, about fifteen or twenty feet from the deck; but a very heavy intermittent strain was being thrown upon it, and I imagined that Dacre did not care to run the risk of springing so important a spar. The effect of this was that the _City of Cawnpore_, with both topsails thrown flat aback, was now actually riding by her hawser to the barque, as to a sea anchor, the deeply-submerged hull of the French craft offering sufficient resistance to the drift of the _City of Cawnpore_ to keep the hawser taut, except at the rather frequent intervals when the heave of the sea flung the barque far enough to leeward to temporarily slacken it. And it was by means of this hawser--at one moment taut as a bar, and, at the next, sagging slack enough to dip into the water--that the Frenchmen were to be hauled from their ship to ours.
Meanwhile, the work of securing the hawser aboard the _City of Cawnpore_, and the clearing away of the travelling-gear, had been going briskly forward, and at the moment when the Frenchman and I came to an understanding I saw the slung bosun"s chair hove over the _City"s_ bows and come sliding along the hawser toward us. The French skipper saw it, too; and tenderly taking the child from the arms of his almost swooning wife, he carefully wrapped it in his jacket, which he removed for the purpose, and then, with my a.s.sistance, securely lashed the bundle to his body. The bosun"s chair had by this time arrived at the barque"s taffrail, and was awaiting its first freight; so, as there was no time to lose, I hustled the poor fellow away from his wife, a.s.sisted him into the chair, saw that he had a good grip with both hands, and waved for Murgatroyd to haul away, which he instantly did. I next turned to the lady, and begged her to once more shelter herself temporarily in the tarpaulin, my object being to spare her the sight of the terrible pa.s.sage of her husband and child over and through that narrow stretch of ravening sea. But, as it happened, there was no need for my solicitude; she cast one glance at the swaying, dangling figure of her husband, and then, with a wild, wailing shriek, flung herself upon her knees, with her hands clasped over her eyes.
And truly a terrible sight it was for a woman to contemplate, especially with the knowledge that she would presently be obliged to herself undertake the dreadful journey. The sea was running so high that, close to each other as we were, when the crest of a wave interposed between us and the _City of Cawnpore_ the latter was hidden half-way to the height of her tops; and the headlong fury with which each wave came sweeping down upon us, foam-capped, and with arching crest, was alone enough to strike terror to the stoutest heart. That, however, was not the worst of it; for although Murgatroyd might safely be trusted to exercise the utmost judgment in the manipulation of the hauling-line, there were moments when--the two craft being upon the opposite slopes of a huge surge, with the hawser strained taut from one to the other--any luckless individual who might be so unfortunate as to be caught half-way between the two vessels would be momentarily buried some thirty feet deep in the heart of the rushing hill of water, and about equally exposed to the two dangers of suffocation or of being swept off beyond the reach of rescue, and drowned out of hand. This double danger overtook the unfortunate French skipper and his baby, but they got through all right, the child escaping suffocation mainly in consequence of the careful and secure manner in which she had been enveloped in her father"s coat.
Then came madame"s turn. It was impossible to so effectually enwrap her as had been the case with the child, but I did the best I could with a strip of the tarpaulin over her head and shoulders, well secured round her body with a length of the main-topgallant brace, and then, lashing her firmly to my own body, I took my place in the bosun"s chair, wrapping my arms tightly round my quaking companion, and then taking a firm grip upon the lanyards of the chair. The next instant I was whirled off the barque"s taffrail, and found myself dangling close over the seething white water between the two vessels. Then, while I was in the very act of shouting a few encouraging words through the tarpaulin to my companion, I heard the roaring crash of a heavy sea as it struck and swept over the unfortunate barque from stem to stern, and the next instant I felt the water envelop me and whirl and drag me hither and thither with a strength that it seemed impossible to resist; then as suddenly I found myself in the air again, with the great wave-crest rushing and roaring away from me toward the ship, the topmast-heads only of which were visible above the foaming ridge of water that had just swept past me. In another second or two, however, the end of her flying-jib-boom reared itself high above the seething wave-crest, her sharp bows, smothered in spray, quickly followed, and then the entire hull of the ship hung balanced for an instant upon the top of the wave ere her bows dipped, revealing the full length of her deck crowded with people, every one of them with their faces turned in my direction. A few more jerks and swings, every one of which seemed imbued with a devilish desire to unseat and hurl myself and my companion to destruction, and we were hauled safely up on to the rail of the _City of Cawnpore_--to an accompaniment of triumphant cheers from the spectators--and quickly released.
Before I could recover breath to say a word, the bosun"s chair was swiftly sliding along the hawser, on its way back to the barque; and presently, after some apparent delay and hesitation on the part of those aboard the doomed vessel, it swung off her taffrail, on its return journey, with a man seated in it. Swiftly the chair traversed about a third of the distance between the two vessels, and then it was overtaken by and deeply buried in the heart of an oncoming sea, even as I had been. For a few breathless seconds the chair and its occupant were lost to view; then, as the ship surmounted the wave, the chair again appeared; _but it was empty_; its late occupant had vanished! There was a cry of dismay as this became manifest, and with one consent everybody craned over the rail and peered down into the leaping water, in the hope of discovering the missing man, while a few of the smarter hands on the forecastle sprang for rope"s-ends, which they quickly coiled and stood by to heave to him, should he reappear. But he never did; and after watching for a full two minutes he was given up, and the chair was again hauled aboard the barque. A further delay now took place, no one seeming to have the courage to undertake the short but terrible pa.s.sage; at length, however, a man stepped forward and placed himself in the chair, and the journey began. Half the pa.s.sage was accomplished ere he was overtaken, when, like the rest of us, he was submerged for a few awful seconds; and when next we saw him he was just in the very act of falling from the chair, having apparently been dragged out of it by the fierce, sweeping rush of the sea. Shouts of horror at this fresh disaster, and of encouragement to the man, at once arose, in the midst of which I seized the end of a good long coil of line which a man was holding ready to throw, and, quickly tying a bowline therein, threw the bight over my shoulder, poised myself for a dive, waiting, with one foot on the topgallant rail, to see just exactly what was happening, before taking the leap. The unfortunate man sank, upon striking the water; but presently the man beside me sang out "There he is!" pointing at the same time down at the water about thirty feet from our bows; and, peering down, I at length caught sight, indistinctly, of what looked like a human form, twisting and writhing a few feet below the surface. I instantly dived, and the next moment found myself within arm"s reach of the man, whom I seized by the hair and dragged to the surface, when all that I had to do was to fling my arms about his body, and hold on like grim death, Murgatroyd and his people at once undertaking the rather delicate task of getting us both safely inboard. This was soon accomplished; but meanwhile the bosun"s chair hung stationary midway between the two vessels, our people seeming doubtful of the utility of proceeding further.
But there was no time to lose if the remaining Frenchmen were to be rescued--for it was perfectly evident to everybody that the barque could not possibly float much longer--so, shrewdly guessing at the source of the inaction, I requested Murgatroyd to haul the chair aboard; and, this being done, I seated myself in it and requested them to haul me across to the barque. Twice was I caught by the sea during this journey, and each time it seemed that I emerged at the precise moment when, it would have been impossible to resist the drag for even another second; but I reached the barque safely and, at once scrambling out of the chair, proceeded to despatch the Frenchmen in rotation: the task proving less difficult than I had expected, my voluntary journey to them seeming to have inspired them with fresh courage.
At length, by dint of lashing the weaker men into the chair, and earnestly cautioning the strong ones to hold on with all their might, I succeeded in securing the pa.s.sage of the entire remainder of the Frenchmen to the _City of Cawnpore_; and then came the task of effecting my own retreat. Of course this could have been accomplished by means of the hawser and the bosun"s chair; but this would have involved the loss of the hawser and all the hauling-gear attached--which it would have been necessary to cut away. I thought it a pity to inflict this loss upon the ship, merely to save myself the discomfort of being hauled through the water from one ship to the other, so as soon as the last Frenchman was safely aboard the _City of Cawnpore_ I proceeded to cut and cast adrift the hawser from the barque"s mizenmast, and a few minutes later the ma.s.sive rope"s-end flew overboard, quickly followed by the heaving-line, in the end of which I had knotted a bowline for my own accommodation. I had just thrown this bowline over my shoulder, and was watching the coils of the line go leaping overboard, one after the other, as the rescuing ship went drifting rapidly to leeward, when a perfect mountain of a sea came roaring down upon the wreck, sweeping unbroken in over her bows and right aft until it reached the front of the p.o.o.p, against which it broke with terrific violence, smashing in the entire front of the structure, as I judged by the tremendous crashing of timber that instantly followed. Checked for the fraction of an instant by its impact with the p.o.o.p, the sea piled itself up in a sort of wall, and then came surging and foaming along the deck toward me. I saw that it would inevitably sweep me off my feet, so, to avoid being dashed against the p.o.o.p rail, I unhesitatingly leapt overboard, and, while still under water, felt the weight of the sea falling upon me that I had jumped overboard to avoid. The pressure was as that of a mountain, and it drove me downward until the light dwindled to a sombre green twilight, while the whirling water seemed to clasp me about as with a thousand arms, flinging and dragging me hither and thither but ever downward, until I could hold my breath no longer, when with a great irresistible gasp my lungs filled with water, darkness and silence profound and impenetrable shut me in, a thousand quaint, fantastic fancies thronged my brain, and--I knew no more.
CHAPTER FOUR.
THE CATASTROPHE.
My next sensation was that of pain--burning, stabbing, racking pain, of so excruciating a character that I incontinently groaned aloud. Then, as though in response to my groan, I heard--vaguely, and without any immediate comprehension of the meaning of the words--a voice say:
"There, I think that will do, General; he is in pain, now, thank G.o.d!-- which means that he is coming round--and there is every reason to hope that he will pull through. Thanks for your valuable a.s.sistance. I can manage single-handed, now. You might make it known that Mr Conyers shows signs of returning consciousness, and that I have every hope of saving him. I fancy the intelligence will be not altogether unwelcome to at least one of the cuddy party."
"By Gad! yes; I think I know who you mean. I"ll make a point of telling the news in her hearing," was the reply. "Are you sure there is nothing else that I can do, doctor?"