A period of perhaps twenty minutes had elapsed since the retirement of the watch below at the conclusion of their labours, and I had stolen on tiptoe to the skylight--doubtless influenced to this stealthy mode of progression by the profound silence of the night--for the purpose of again consulting the barometer that swung therein, when I felt a heavy drop of tepid water fall upon my face. This was followed by another, and another, and another; and then, with the roar of a cataract, down came the rain in a perfect deluge, thrashing the surface of the sea into an expanse of ghostly, lambent, phosph.o.r.escent white that quickly spread apparently to the extreme limits of the horizon, and filling our decks so rapidly that it became necessary to open the ports fore and aft in order to free them. This deluge lasted for about five minutes, when it ceased as abruptly as it had begun; but even that short time had sufficed to beat the sea down so smooth that the previous violent rolling of the ship was reduced to a gentle, scarcely perceptible oscillation.
"Now stand by to let run your fore and main-topsail halliards!" I cried--a command which was responded to by a prompt "Ay, ay, sir!" from the forecastle, the pattering of bare feet upon the deck, and the sound of ropes falling smartly on the planking as the halliard-falls were lifted off their pins and flung to the deck.
"How is her head?" I inquired of the helmsman.
"West-nor"-west, sir," was the reply.
"Man your starboard fore and main-braces, Mr Forbes," said I to the second mate, who was standing by the break of the p.o.o.p, peering anxiously into the impenetrable gloom.
"Ay, ay, sir! Starboard fore and main-braces, lads. Be smart, now, and lay the yards fore and aft before the squall breaks upon us!"
The men, who were evidently uneasy, and anxious to be doing anything rather than spend their time in pa.s.sive antic.i.p.ation, sprang to the braces and hauled the yards smartly round to a cheery "Yo heave ho;"
flattening in until they could get no more.
"Well there, belay!" commanded Forbes. And as he spoke a sudden, powerful puff of warm air swept athwart the ship and was gone, causing the topsails to flap violently once, and collapse again. This was quickly followed by a second puff, heavier and rather less transient than the last; indeed, it continued long enough to give the ship steerage-way; for which I was deeply thankful, promptly availing myself of it to order the helm hard up and get our bows pointed in a north-easterly direction, so as to place the point in the horizon from which we expected the squall dead astern of us. This was barely done when Forbes cried out, in a voice the tones of which curiously expressed a feeling of mingled alarm and relief--
"Stand by, sir; here it comes at last!"
CHAPTER FIVE.
A WRECK AND A RESCUE.
At the sound of the second mate"s voice I turned, and saw, dead astern, a thin streak of ghostly white, drawn horizontally across the curtain of Stygian darkness in that quarter. The line lengthened and broadened with amazing rapidity; and presently a low moaning sound became audible.
"Let run your topsail halliards, fore and aft," I cried; and the command was instantly followed by the creaking of the parrels as the yards slid down the well-greased topmasts, and the scream of the block-sheaves as the falls rapidly overhauled themselves.
The moaning sound grew louder as the band of spectral white astern extended and approached; and presently, with a deafening shriek, the hurricane struck us, the line of white foam at the same instant sweeping past us at railway speed. The stroke of the blast was like a blow from something solid, causing the ship to quiver from stem to stern; then she gathered way, and, with bows buried deep in the milk-white water, drove ahead like a frightened sentient thing. I had never witnessed so fierce a squall before in those lat.i.tudes; the outfly was indeed as violent as anything I had ever seen in the tropics; and there was nothing for it but to let the ship scud. This she luckily did in splendid style, gathering way quickly, and steering like a little boat, otherwise I firmly believe that the first stroke would have dismasted us. The air was so full of scud-water that, but for the salt taste of it on the lips, one would have thought we were being pursued by a drenching torrent of rain; while the roar and shriek of the wind overhead produced a wild medley of sound that was simply indescribable, and so deafeningly loud that it would have been quite impossible to issue an order in the usual way, had it been ever so necessary, for the simple reason that in that wild turmoil of sound no human voice could have made itself audible. Fortunately, no orders were needed, we had done everything that could be done for the safety of the ship--short of putting her under bare poles--and now all that was left to us was to trust in the mercy of G.o.d, and the staunchness of our spars and rigging.
The first mad fury of the squall lasted for only some five minutes; but after that it still continued to blow so fiercely that we were compelled to scud for fully three hours before we dared venture to round-to.
Then, having first with great difficulty clewed up and furled the fore-topsail, we watched our opportunity and, taking advantage of a momentary lull, put the helm over, and brought the ship to on the starboard tack. We now, for the first time, had an opportunity of realising the full strength of the wind, which still blew with such violence as to careen the ship gunwale-to, even under the small canvas which remained exposed to the blast. It was still intensely dark overhead; but the surface of the sea, highly phosph.o.r.escent, and scourged into foam by the wind, gave forth a pale lambent light against which the hull of the ship and all her rigging up to the level of the horizon stood out with tolerable distinctness. The swell, meanwhile, was rapidly rising, but there were as yet no waves, the wind instantly catching any inequality in the surface of the water and carrying it away to leeward in the form of spindrift. This lasted until daybreak, when the strength of the gale had so far moderated that--despite the fact of the wind having backed to the southward--I ventured to set the fore-topsail, close-reefed; more, however, for the sake of steadying the ship than for any other advantage that I expected to get from it.
With sunrise the sky cleared; and when my pa.s.sengers came on deck before breakfast, they had the--to them--novel experience of witnessing a hard gale of wind under a cloudless blue sky, with brilliant sunshine. And, truly, it was a grand and exhilarating scene that met their gaze; for the wind, though it still blew with the force of a whole gale, had so far moderated its fury as to permit the sea to rise; and now the staunch little ship, heeling to her covering-board, was gallantly breasting the huge billows of the mid-Atlantic; each wave a deep blue liquid hill, half as high as our fore-yard, crested with a ridge of snow-white foam that, caught up and blown into spray by the gale, produced an endless procession of mimic rainbows past the ship. And, as the crest of each wave struck our weather-bow and burst into a drenching shower of silvery spray, a rainbow formed there too, overarching the ship in the wake of the foremast and causing the whole forepart of her to glow and glitter with the loveliest prismatic hues.
As the day wore on the gale continued to moderate somewhat, until by noon its fury had become so far spent that I thought we might venture to once more get the courses on the ship; and this was accordingly done when the watch was called. The effect of these large areas of sail upon the craft was tremendous, causing her to heel like a yacht under a heavy press of canvas; ay, and to travel like a yacht, too, notwithstanding the heavy sea that was running. But the little beauty behaved superbly, luffing to each comber as it approached, and taking it in a blinding shower of diamond spray, it is true, but still with an easy, buoyant movement such as I had never experienced before. It was the first opportunity that had been afforded me of testing the barque"s behaviour in heavy weather, and I was more than pleased at the result, for she not only proved to be a superb sea-boat, but she also travelled like a racehorse.
By four bells in the afternoon watch the wind and sea had so far moderated that the mate, whose watch it then was, gave orders to take a small pull upon the topsail halliards, to set the jib, and to haul out the mizzen. When the last of these operations were undertaken it was found that something had jammed aloft, so that the head of the sail would not haul out along the gaff; and a hand was sent up to see what was foul, and to clear it. The man had accomplished his task, and was just swinging himself off the gaff into the lower rigging, when he was observed to pause and gaze intently to windward.
"Well, what is the matter, Bill? Do you see anything unusual away there to wind"ard, to set you staring like an owl in an ivy bush?" demanded the mate, somewhat impatiently.
"Yes, sir. There"s something away over there," replied the man, pointing with his hand, "that looks like a dismasted ship, or a craft on her beam-ends. Whatever it is, it is very low in the water; and the sea is breaking very heavily over it."
The mate said no more, but swung himself into the mizzen-rigging, and made his way as far aloft as the cross-trees; when he turned and, bracing himself against the masthead, directed his glances toward that part of the horizon indicated by the seaman. Shading his eyes with his hand, he looked steadily for a full minute; then he said something to the man beside him, when the latter nimbly descended the ratlines to the deck, and, explaining that "Mr Roberts wants the gla.s.s, sir," went to the companion, where the instrument always hung in beckets, secured it, and took it aloft to the mate. With its a.s.sistance a still more prolonged examination was made; and when it was at length completed, the two men returned to the deck together.
"Well, Mr Roberts, what do you make of it?" I inquired, as the mate, having restored the telescope it its accustomed place, joined me near the break of the p.o.o.p.
"Well, sir, there is _something_ away there to windward," was the reply, "but what it is I couldn"t very well make out, the sea was breaking so heavy over it. Sometimes it has the look of a dismasted and waterlogged ship; and then again it takes the look of a craft on her beam-ends, with her yardarms just showing above the water; and once or twice I thought I could catch a glimpse of something like an attempt to make a signal by waving a white cloth or something of the sort. But that may have been only the glancing of the flying foam in the sunshine."
"How did she bear when you were aloft?" I inquired.
"Broad on our weather-beam," answered Roberts.
"And how far distant do you judge her to be?"
"About a matter of nine miles, I should say. I suppose you"ll be taking a look at her, sir?"
"Most certainly," said I. "We will stand on for a quarter of an hour or so, when we will go about, if you think we should then be able to fetch her. Meanwhile, we may as well run our ensign up to the peak, to let the people on board--if there are any--know that we have seen them."
"Yes, sir," a.s.sented Roberts; "I should think that in that time we ought to have head-reached far enough to fetch her. Shall we get a small drag at the topsail halliards? She will bear another inch or two."
"Very well," I agreed; and away trundled the sympathetic Roberts forward to muster the hands.
The extra "inch or two" of topsail that he proposed to give her resolved itself into a liberal two feet of hoist; under which augmented canvas the barque bounded from sea to sea like a mad thing, completely burying her lee rail with every roll, and causing the gale to fairly howl through her rigging when she recovered herself; while a whole acre of dazzling snow-white foam hissed and stormed and roared out from under her lee bow, and glanced past the side at what looked like railway speed when she stooped to it under the influence of wind and wave together; the spray meanwhile flying over the weather cat-head in such a perfect deluge that the whole fore deck was knee-deep in water, while the foresail was drenched halfway up to the yard, and even the weather clew of the mainsail came in for a liberal share. To leeward the shrouds sagged limp and loose at every roll of the ship, while to windward they were as taut as bars; and it was by no means without apprehension that I contemplated the possibility of a lanyard parting, or a bolt drawing under the tremendous strain to which they were subjected. Truly we were driving the little ship in a most reckless fashion; and, but for the presence of that mysterious object to windward--which was undoubtedly the hull of a ship, to which possibly a helpless crew were clinging in deadly peril--I would have shortened sail forthwith. But, for aught we knew, the question of rescue or no rescue might be a matter of minutes, or even of seconds, with the distressed ones; we therefore "carried on,"
and took our chance of everything bearing the strain.
At the expiration of the allotted half-hour the hands were called, and, taking the wheel myself and watching for a "smooth," we proceeded to "bout ship. This manoeuvre was successfully accomplished, though by no means without danger, the ship, while head to wind, taking a green sea over the bows that literally filled her decks fore and aft, washing some of the men off their feet and compelling everybody to cling for life to whatever they could lay hold of until the open ports partially freed her. Strange to say, beyond the flooding of the forecastle, the deck-house, and the galley, no damage was done; and, the next sea that met us happening to be a moderate one, the nimble little craft was round and away upon the other tack before another could come on board us.
Once round and fairly on the move again, upon being relieved at the wheel I took the telescope and myself ascended to the foretop upon a visit of inspection. Yes; there the object was, sure enough, about three points on the lee bow, and, as the mate had said, about nine miles distant. I tried to get a peep at her through the telescope; but, even at the moderate elevation of the foretop, the plunging and rolling motion of the ship was so wild that I found it most difficult. I managed, however, to catch an occasional momentary glimpse of her; and from what I then saw I came to the conclusion that she was a dismasted craft, of some five hundred tons or so, floating very deep in the water, with the sea breaking heavily and constantly over her, and that there was a flag of some sort flying from the stump of the mizzenmast--no doubt a signal of distress. She seemed to be a craft with a full p.o.o.p, the after-part of her standing somewhat higher out of the water than the rest of the hull; and once or twice I caught a glimpse of what had the appearance of a small group of people clinging about the stump of the mizzenmast. More than that I could not just then make out, owing--as I have said--to the exasperatingly wild motion aloft; but I had at least ascertained the important fact that, with careful attention to the helm, we should fetch her on our present tack; and with that I was compelled to be for the nonce satisfied.
We were evidently nearing her very fast, much faster than I had dared to hope, for upon my return to the deck after my somewhat protracted investigation I found that we had risen her from the deck, and all hands were intently watching for a glimpse of her every time that we rose to the crest of a sea, notwithstanding the deluges of spray that flew incessantly in over our weather-bow. My pa.s.sengers were of course intensely excited and interested and sympathetic at the idea of a real genuine wreck and the possibility of a rescue, even Lady Emily seeming to have utterly forgotten her ailments in her anxiety to see as much as possible. To their credit, however, be it said, they were considerate enough to abstain from tormenting me with ridiculous questions, evidently realising that I had at that moment more important matters occupying my thoughts.
And truly I had; for there was the question of how the people, if any, were to be taken off the wreck. For it must not be forgotten that, hard as we were driving the ship, it was still blowing with the force of quite a strong gale; while the sea was so tremendously heavy that, though a boat, moderately loaded, could undoubtedly live in it if once fairly launched, the task of safely launching her and getting her away from the ship in such weather, and, still more, in getting her alongside, either to ship or to unship people, presented so many difficulties as almost to amount to an impossibility. Fortunately, our boats were all fitted with a most excellent pattern of patent releasing tackle, but for which I should not have felt justified in risking the lives of my men by asking them to undertake such a desperate task. As to the possibility of the wreck being able to lower a boat, the thought presented itself only to be instantly dismissed; for, with the sea breaking so heavily over her as I had seen, it was to the last degree improbable that any of her boats had so far escaped damage as to be capable of floating, even had they escaped total destruction. True, there was a bare possibility that the strait of those on the wreck might not be quite so desperate as it had appeared to me to be--in which case we could stand by them until the weather moderated sufficiently to render the operation of launching a boat a comparatively safe one--but I was very doubtful of this. The wreck had presented all the appearance of being either waterlogged, or absolutely in a sinking condition; and in either case there would be but little time to lose; for, even if the craft were only waterlogged, her people were constantly exposed to the danger of being washed overboard. These points, however, would soon be made plain, for we were rapidly approaching the wreck; and the time had arrived for us to commence our preparations.
Mr Roberts, meanwhile, had been forward, talking to the men; and presently he came aft again to the p.o.o.p, wearing a very gratified expression of countenance.
"They are a downright good lot--those lads of ours, for"ard," he began, as he ranged up alongside of me in the wake of the mizzen-rigging.
"I"ve just been on the fo"c"s"le to find out what their ideas are about manning a boat; and I"d hardly had a chance to mention the matter when every man Jack of "em gave me to understand that they were ready to do anything you choose to ask "em, and that I"d only to say who I"d have to go in the boat with me. So I"ve picked Joe Murray and Tom Spearman, Little d.i.c.k, and Hairy Bill--as they call him in the fo"c"s"le; and if you"re agreeable, sir, I"ll take the whaleboat gig; she"s as light as a cork, and far and away the prettiest boat for a sea like this. The other gig would hold a man or two more, perhaps, but she"s a much heavier boat; and those flat-starned craft are not half so safe as a double-ended boat when it comes to running before such a sea as this."
"I fully agree with you, Mr Roberts," said I; "and I am very much obliged to you for your readiness to take command of the boat. Let two hands lay aft at once and see that everything you require is in her, and get her ready for lowering. The rest of the men can set to work to haul up the courses, take in the jib, and brail in the spanker. I shall heave to, and drop you as close to windward of the wreck as I can with safety; and then shall fill, and round-to again close under her stern."
"Very good, sir," was the response. And Roberts turned away forthwith to prepare for the work of rescue.
As we rapidly decreased the distance between ourselves and the wreck, it became unmistakably clear that the situation of those on board her was frightfully critical, and that if they were to be saved no time must be wasted. The craft was a wooden, English-built barque of between five hundred and six hundred tons register, with a full p.o.o.p; and seemed, from the little we could see of her, to be a very fine, handsome vessel.
Her three masts, as well as her jib-boom, were gone; and from the stump of her mizzenmast the red ensign was flying, union down; while the wreck of the spars and all the raffle of sails and rigging was floating along her starboard or lee side in a wild swirl of foam. Her bulwarks were swept clean away on both sides, from the catheads as far aft as the p.o.o.p, only the stump of a staunchion remaining here and there to show where they had been. She had, like ourselves, a short topgallant forecastle, under which the windla.s.s was housed, and this structure remained intact; but a deck-house abaft the foremast, and between it and the main hatch, had been swept entirely away, with the exception of the sills, which still remained bolted to the deck. The long-boat, also, which is almost invariably stowed on top of the main hatch, was gone, not even the chocks remaining to show where she had been. In short, the whole of the deck, forward of the p.o.o.p, had been cleared of everything removable, the only things remaining above the level of the deck being the gallows, the stumps of the main and fore masts, the fife-rails, and the pumps. The front of the p.o.o.p was stove in, and the p.o.o.p ladders were gone; there were no boats on the gallows; and while the boat hanging in the lee davits had had her bottom torn out, of that which had hung at the weather davits only the stem and stern-posts remained. She was floating broadside-on to the sea, and was very deep in the water, so deep, indeed, that every wave swept completely over her maindeck in a perfect smother of foam; and she rolled so horribly that I momentarily expected to see her turn bottom up. Moreover, that there was a very considerable quant.i.ty of water in her hold was made painfully manifest by the sickening sluggishness of her movements in response to the heave of the sea; there seemed to be scarcely a particle of life left in her, many of the seas running completely over the forepart of her before she could lift herself to them. And, to make matters still worse, she appeared to have a heavy list to starboard, as though her cargo, whatever it might be, had shifted. On the p.o.o.p, which stood some seven feet higher than the maindeck, matters were not quite so bad, the deck fittings, such as the skylights, etcetera, remaining intact, although much of the gla.s.s had been smashed. The wheel remained entire, and as we drew nearer we could see it wildly spinning round, now to port and now to starboard, as the sea acted on the rudder. There were ten men cl.u.s.tered in this part of the wreck, six of whom were crouching under the lee of the skylight, while four had lashed themselves to the stump of the mizzenmast. They were all, of course, drenched to the skin, the sea breaking over them constantly; and some of them were clad only in shirt and trousers, seeming to indicate that they had turned out hurriedly. As we drew close up to this pitiful victim of the relentless power of the wind and sea, we saw a movement of some sort among the figures crouching under the lee of the skylight; and presently, watching their opportunity, they retreated aft, one or two to the wheel grating, one to the standard of the binnacle, and others to positions where they could secure themselves from being washed overboard by grasping ringbolts, bollards, and the like, revealing the whole length of the skylight, on the panelling of which was inscribed in chalk--
"We are fast sinking. For G.o.d"s sake, take us off quickly!"
I was able to read this distinctly through my own binoculars; and I no sooner made it out than I jumped on to the top of a hen-coop, and, grasping the mizzen-rigging with one hand, waved the other encouragingly to them, their response being a feeble cheer.
At this moment Sir Edgar Desmond, who with the rest of his party had been absorbed spectators of everything that pa.s.sed, stepped quickly to my side, and, fairly panting with excitement, said--
"Captain, if there is _anything_ I can do to a.s.sist in this matter, I shall take it as a very especial favour if you will command me."
"Thank you very much, Sir Edgar," I replied. "I do not know that you can help us very materially at present, unless,"--as I saw a look of deep disappointment come into his eyes--"you would kindly produce a bottle or two of your remarkably fine port, and have it warmed ready for those poor fellows when--or rather _if_--we get them on board. They have been exposed for some hours at least to wind and sea, and--"
"Say no more, my dear fellow," he interrupted; "I understand perfectly."
And away he went, highly delighted at finding he had the power of doing something, however little, toward succouring the poor wretches whose pitiable condition was so patent to us all.