THE STORM AND SHIPWRECK.
The wind
Increased at night, until it blew a gale;
And though 'twas not much to naval mind,
Some landsmen would have looked a little pale,
For sailors are, in fact, a different kind:
At sunset they began to take in sail.
--BYRON.
Nearly two centuries and a half have made wonderful changes in ocean
travel. The floating palaces of to-day which plough the deep on schedule
time, regardless of storms, contrary winds and adverse tides, were
unknown when John Stevens embarked for England in 1654.
The vessel in which he sailed was one of the best of the time. It was
large, well manned and officered, and few had any fears of risking a
voyage in the stanch craft _Silverwing_; but John Stevens could no more
allay his fears than control the storm.
His wife, who stood weeping on the strand, became a speck in the
distance and then disappeared from his view. The heart of the husband
overflowed with bitterness, and he turned from the taffrail where he had
been standing and walked forward to conceal his emotion.
All about him were gay groups of people, laughing and jesting. They were
mostly men and women who had come from England and were happy now that
they were going home. John's wife seemed to have lost her many faults,
and the image that faded from his gaze was a creature of perfection.
Only the beautiful face, the great dark eyes and the sunny smiles were
remembered.
John went to his stateroom and, falling into his berth, wept. He may be
called weak, but he was not. John had braved too many dangers and
undergone too many hardships to be termed weak. His mind was filled with
his wife and children. The face of his sleeping baby, whose warm, tender
arms had been so often entwined about his neck, lingered in his mind.
When the dinner hour came he was not hungry, so he remained in
his cabin.
The vessel had gained the open sea by nightfall and was bowling along at
a three-knot rate under full spread of canvas and fair wind. He went to
supper, though little inclined to eat, and during the night was awakened
with a load heavier than grindstones on his stomach.
"Surely I will die," he groaned, as each heaving billow seemed to
torture his poor stomach. He rose at dawn and found himself unable to
stand. The sea was rough, and the ship was tossing and reeling like a
drunken man. John found himself unable to lie down or sit up. He spent
the day in rolling alternately in his berth or on the floor, groaning,
"Surely I will die."
The purser came and laughed at his distress, assuring him that he would
survive. Next day he felt better and crawled out upon the deck. The sea
still ran high, though the sky was clear, and the sun shone on the
wildly agitated sea.
He saw a wretch as miserable as himself crouching under a hencoop and
holding both hands upon his tortured stomach. John Stevens paused for a
moment at the rail, gasping with seasickness.
"Say, neighbor, are you having a hard time?" asked the seasick but
cheerful individual under the hencoop.
"My head hurts," John gasped.
"Verily, I ache all over," returned the new acquaintance under the
hencoop.
At this moment the cabin door was thrown suddenly and unceremoniously
open, and a man past middle age darted forward as if he had been shot
out of a cannon and went sprawling upon the deck, howling as he did so:
"Good morrow, stranger!"
John was not astonished at the sudden appearance of the man, but was
rather alarmed at the violence of his fall. He ran to him and assisted
him to rise.
"Are you injured?" he asked.
"Nay, nay; the fall was not violent."
The man under the hencoop, who had been a disinterested spectator, took
occasion to remark:
"Marry! my friend, I wish it were I who had taken such a tumble; surely
it would have crushed the stones in my stomach."
"I am not sick," the new-comer answered, rising to his feet. "I was
thrown by the sudden lurch of the ship; but it will soon be over."
"I trust so," groaned the seasick man by the hencoop.
"But the sea runs high," the old man said, "let us go in."
John Stevens, who had partially recovered from his seasickness, went
into the cabin with the stranger. He had formed no acquaintances since
coming on board the vessel and was strangely impressed with this old
gentleman. Men cannot always brood on the past and retain their senses.
John Stevens was not a coward, yet the helpless condition of his wife
and children made him dread danger. When they were seated he said:
"You do not belong at Jamestown."
"No. I am from London and know no one at Jamestown."
"You came in the last ship?"
"We did."
"You did not come alone?"
"No; my daughter Blanche came with me. She is all the child I have."
John Stevens remembered to have seen a very pretty girl on the streets
of Jamestown, and for having praised her beauty, his wife had grown
insanely jealous and given way to one of her outbursts of anger. The
gentleman from London was Mr. Samuel Holmes, who had been a too warm
friend of Charles I. to suit the Protectorate, and after Cromwellism had
become a certainty, he considered it better to fly the country. As
Virginia had been friendly to cavaliers, he had brought his daughter to
Jamestown and spent six months there; but, being assured by friends that
he could return with safety, he had decided to go home.
From that time John Stevens and Mr. Holmes became friends. In a day or
two more the passengers had nearly all recovered from their
seasickness, and the voyage promised to be a favorable one. John
Stevens met Blanche Holmes, a pretty blue-eyed English girl, with light
brown hair and ruddy cheeks. She was not over eighteen years of age, and
was one of those trusting, confiding creatures, who win friends at
first sight. By the strange, fortuitous circumstances which fate seems
to indiscriminately weave about people, the maid and John Stevens were
thrown much into each other's society.
She had many questions to ask about the New World. He, having passed all
his life there and having explored the coast to Massachusetts and fought
many battles with the Indians, was able to entertain her, and she never
seemed to tire of listening to his adventures. It never occurred to John
that there could be any impropriety in talking to this child, nor was
there any, though modern society might condemn him. He never mentioned
his family to either Blanche or her father.
That wife and children left at Jamestown were subjects too sacred for
general conversation. When alone in his stateroom he knelt and breathed
a prayer for them, and often in his dreams he heard his laughing boy at
play, or felt the warm, soft hand of his baby on his cheek, or heard her
sweet voice calling him. Often he awoke and sobbed like a child on
discovering that the ship was hourly bearing him further and further
from home.
Mr. Holmes was a cheerful companion at first, but gradually he grew
melancholy, and at times inapproachable. One day John met him at the
gangway, and he took the young man's arm and, leading him aft, said:
"I want to talk with you."
They sat upon some coils of rope, and Mr. Holmes resumed: "We are going
to have bad weather. I am something of a sailor, and, in addition to my
own experience, the captain says we will have a storm ere many hours."
There was something in the voice and manner of the man which chilled
Stevens; but he retained his self-possession and answered:
"Of course you feel no serious apprehension? The ship is strong and able
to weather any storm."
"I believe it is; yet in a storm at sea we have no assurance of safety.
Our captain is incompetent and the vessel has, through a miscalculation,
gone a long distance out of her true course. Now what I wish to say is
this: should anything happen to me on this voyage, I want you to care
for my daughter. You have seen and talked with her every day since first
we met, and you know how good she is. I am her only relative on earth,
and Cromwell has set a price on my head. Should I perish, she will be
without a protector."
John Stevens was astonished at the strange request, but consented to
accept the charge, provided he should be spared and Mr. Holmes
should perish.
Mr. Holmes was not mistaken in his surmises about the weather. The day
of this interview was the nineteenth of September, and before night the
sky was obscured by great fleecy clouds, and in the evening the rain
fell in torrents. The firmament darkened apace; sudden night came on,
and the horrors of extreme darkness were rendered still more horrible by
the peals of thunder which made the sphere tremble, and the frequent
flashes of lightning, which served only to show the horror of the
situation, and then leave them in darkness still more intense. The wind
grew more violent, and a heavy sea, raised by its force, united to add
to the dangers of the situation.
"It is coming," Mr. Holmes whispered to John, whom he met in the
gangway.
"We are going to have a terrible storm," John answered.
"Yes; remember your promise."
"I will not forget it, Mr. Holmes; but why do you refer to it? Surely
you are as likely as I to outlive the tempest."
"No, no," Mr. Holmes answered, shaking his white head despairingly, "I
have an impression that my time has surely come."
John Stevens was startled by the remark, for he too was living in the
shadow of some expected calamity. He next met the passenger whom he had
seen under the lee of the hencoop, and his despair and grimaces were
enough to make even the discouraged John smile.
"Oh, I shall be drowned. I shall be drowned!" the poor fellow was
groaning. "Pray for me, some of you who can. I cannot, for it would do
no good; but some of you can surely pray. By the mass! I see the very
whale that swallowed Jonah ready to gulp me down."
He was clinging to some ropes as if he expected momentarily to be swept
away.
John Stevens went to bed, which was the most sensible thing he could do.
By daylight on the morning of the twentieth, the gale had increased to a
furious tempest, and the sea, keeping pace with it, ran mountains high.
All that day the passengers were kept close below hatches, for the sea
beat over the ship.
About seven o'clock on the morning of the twenty-first, John Stevens was
alarmed by an unusual noise upon deck, and running up, perceived that
every sail in the vessel, except the foresail, had been totally carried
away. The sight was horrible, and the whole vessel presented a spectacle
of despair, which the stoutest heart could not withstand. Fear had
produced not only all the helplessness of despondency, but all the
mischievous freaks of insanity. In one place stood the captain, raving,
stamping and tearing his hair in handfuls from his head. Here some of
the crew were upon their knees, clasping their hands and praying, with
all the extravagance of horror depicted in their faces. Others were
flogging their images with might and main, calling upon them to allay
the storm. One of the passengers from England had got hold of a bottle
of rum and, with an air of distraction and deep despair imprinted on his
face, was stalking about in his shirt, crying:
"Come, drink to oblivion, death we must meet; let us make the
dissolution easy." Perceiving that it was his intent to serve it out to
the few undismayed members of the ship's crew, John rushed on him,
seized the liquor and hurled it over into the raging sea.
Having accomplished this, Stevens next applied himself to the captain,
endeavoring to bring him back to his senses, and a realization of the
duty which he owed as commander to the passengers and crew. He appealed
to his dignity as a man, exhorted him to encourage the sailors by his
example, and strove to raise his spirits by saying that the storm did
not appear so terrible as some he had before experienced. While he was
thus employed, they shipped a sea on the starboard side, which all
thought would send them to the bottom. For a moment the vessel seemed to
sink beneath its weight, shivered and remained motionless. It was a
moment of critical suspense, and, fancying that they were gradually
descending into the great bosom of the ocean, John Stevens gave himself
up for lost and summoned all his fortitude to bear the approaching death
as became a brave man.
At this crisis, the water, which rushed with incredible force through
all parts of the vessel, floated out. Mr. Holmes was almost drowned,
and, had not John seized one arm which he swung wildly above his head,
he probably would have been washed overboard. The vessel did not go down
immediately as they thought it would, and Mr. Holmes, partially
recovered, joined Stevens.
"The storm is terrible," said the old man. "The ship is going down, and
I will go with it."
"Nay, nay; keep up a stout heart," urged John.
"Verily, how can I, when danger overwhelms even the captain?"
"If we must die, let us die like men, struggling for our lives," said
John.
"Remember your pledge to me. Care for her, for I will go. The ship may
be saved, but my end I feel is near."
John promised to obey his request, and then, being one whom hope never
entirely deserted, he turned upon the captain of the ship and once more
urged him to make some manly exertion to save himself and the crew.
"Throw the guns overboard as well as much of the weighty cargo," he
cried, "and set the pumps a-going."
Mr. Holmes, having sufficiently recovered to realize the wisdom of the
course pursued by Stevens, joined him in his entreaties, and they got
the captain and some of his crew to make one more effort. The water,
however, gained on the pumps, and it seemed as if they would not long be
able to keep the vessel afloat.
At ten o'clock, the wind had increased to a hurricane; the sky was so
entirely obscured with black clouds, and the rain poured in such
torrents, that objects could not be discerned from the wheel to the
ship's head. Soon the pumps were choked and could be no longer worked.
Then dismay seized on all, and nothing but unutterable despair, anguish
and horror, wrought up to frenzy, were to be seen. Not a single person
was capable of an effort to be useful; all seemed more desirous to
terminate their calamities in an embrace of death, than willing, by a
painful exertion, to avoid it.
John Stevens, though despairing, yet determined to make a manly struggle
for life, and he was staggering through the main cabin, when some one
clutched his arm. He turned about and through the gloom saw Blanche's
pale face.
"Are we going down?" she asked.
"God grant that it be not so!" he answered.
"But such fearful noises, such hideous sights."
"Be brave, young maid," he urged. "Where is your father?"
"His shoulder is injured, and his left arm is almost useless."
At this moment Mr. Holmes came along, holding his injured arm with his
right hand.
"Aye, my friend, the worst is coming," he said, fixing his despairing
eyes on the white face of his daughter. "I am pleased to find you
together, for now I can say what I would to both of you. Blanche, he
hath promised to care for you; he is a man of honor, rely on him."
A sudden lurch of the vessel sent all three in a heap at one side of the
cabin, and, as soon as John could regain his feet and ascertain that the
old gentleman and his daughter had sustained no injury, he went on deck.
At about eleven o'clock, they could plainly distinguish a dreadful
roaring noise resembling that of waves rolling against the rocks; but
the darkness of the day and the accompanying rain made it impossible to
see for any distance, and John realized that, if they were near rocks,
they might be dashed to pieces on them before they were perceived. At
twelve o'clock, however, the weather cleared a little, when they
discovered breakers and reefs outside, so that it was evident they had
passed in quite close to them, and were now fairly hemmed in between the
rocks and the land.
At this very critical moment, the captain adopted the dangerous
expedient of dropping anchor, to bring the ship up with her head to the
sea. Any seaman of common sense and not frightened out of his wits must
have known that no ship could ride at anchor in that storm. John
Stevens, though no sailor, saw the folly of such a course and
expostulated with the captain, but to no purpose. Scarcely had the
anchor taken firm hold when an enormous sea, rolling over the ship,
overwhelmed her and filled her with water, and every one on board
concluded that she was sinking. On the instant a sailor, with presence
of mind worthy of an English mariner, took an axe, ran forward and cut
the cable.
The freed vessel again floated and made an effort to right herself, but
she was almost completely waterlogged and heeled to larboard so much
that the gunwale lay under water. They then endeavored to steer as fast
as they could for land, which they knew could not be at any great
distance, though through the hazy weather they were unable to see it.
The foresail was loosened, and, by great efforts in bailing, she righted
a little, her gunwale was raised above water, and they scudded as well
as they could before the wind, which blew hard on shore, and at about
two o'clock one of the sailors said he espied land ahead.
"We will never reach it," said Mr. Holmes, who was at the side of John
Stevens.
"Do not despair," said John.
"But we can't reach the shore, look at those waves."
A tremendous sea rolling after them broke over the stern of the ship,
tore everything before it, stove in the steerage, carried away the
rudder, shivered the wheel to pieces and tore up the very ringbolts of
the deck, carrying the men who stood on the deck forward and sweeping
them overboard. Among them was the unfortunate captain of the
_Silverwing_. John was standing at the time near the wheel, and
fortunately had hold of the taffrail, which enabled him to resist in
part the weight of the wave. He was, however, swept off his feet, and
dashed against the main-mast. So violent was the jerk from the taffrail,
that it seemed as if it would have dislocated his arms. However, it
broke the force of the stroke, and, in all probability, saved him from
being dashed to death against the mast.
John floundered about in the water at the foot of the mast, until at
length he got upon his feet and seized a rope, which he held while
considering what he should do to extricate himself. At this instant he
perceived Mr. Holmes and his daughter on the capstan. How they had got
there was a marvel to him which he had no time to investigate. Mr.
Holmes beckoned with his lame hand to John, while he clung to his
daughter with his right. A vivid flash of lightning lighted up the
scene, and John saw that Blanche was very pale, but calm. Never had he
seen a more beautiful picture than this pretty maiden with her face
turned in resignation to the storm. He forgot his own danger, forgot
wife and children at home in his unselfish eagerness to snatch the
unfortunate girl from the impending danger.
It was no easy matter for John Stevens to break away from his hold on
the main-mast and make his way to the capstan. At every roll of the ship
and every surge of the waves, unfortunate passengers or sailors were
washed overboard and plunged into the boiling, seething waves which
thundered about them. Stevens made a bold push, however, and reached the
capstan. Here he could survey the wreck, and he saw that the water was
nearly breast-high on the quarter-deck of the vessel.
"It will soon be over," said Mr. Holmes in a voice so despairing that it
rang in the ears of John Stevens to his dying day. "Crew and passengers
are nearly all gone, and my turn will come soon."
Even as he spoke, the purser, two men and four women were washed
overboard, their drowning screams mingling with the hollow roars of
the ocean.
"Take her! take her!" cried Mr. Holmes frantically. "I resign her to
you. I am going; I can hold out no longer."
A wave more terrible than any that had preceded it at this moment seemed
to bury the ship, which was driving straight toward the unknown shore.
Instinctively John wound one arm about the girl and held to the capstan
with the other. It seemed an age, and he was almost on the point of
relaxing his hold on the capstan, when they once more rose above the
water, and he got a breath of air. He still clung to Blanche in despair,
though she lay so limp in his arms that he thought her dead.
It was now dark, for night had fallen upon the awful scene. A flash of
lightning illuminated the wreck, Mr. Holmes was gone, and Stevens could
not see another soul on the vessel. The wild roar of surf fell on his
ears, and a moment later he felt the bottom of the ship grating on the
sands. It seemed to glide further and further on the beach, as if the
ship were being lifted and driven inland. The tide was at the full, and
the wind was blowing a hurricane on shore, so that the wreck was driven
far up on the beach, and at low tide it was high and dry.
John Stevens remained by the capstan, as it was highest point, holding
Blanche in his arms long after the ship had settled in the sands. The
waves leaped and raved angrily below; but not a human voice was heard.
He asked himself if Blanche were dead or living. At last he felt her
move and, placing his hand on her heart, was rejoiced to know that it
still beat.
"Father--father!" she faintly murmured.
"He is gone," John answered.
"Is this you?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Cling to me."
"I will. We will survive or perish together."
Then she became silent, and the night grew blacker, while the storm
howled; but the waves receded with the ebbing tide, and the broken hulk
remained fast fixed in the sands. The poor girl shivered all through
that night and clung to her preserver. She did not weep at the loss of
her father, for the horror of their situation dried the fountains of
grief. All night long the warring elements raged about the remaining
castaways, who clung with the tenacity of despair to the wreck.