the yacht had encountered on her way across the Atlantic Mainbrace
became as excited as if he had had a personal stake in the safety of the
Merle. His ejaculations became more and more emphatic and more and more
picturesque, and his rejoicing over the safe weathering of the storm
almost as fervid as if he had been in it himself. The race at Nice Jack
told of with as little reflection on the unsportsmanlike conduct of Lord
Merryfield as was possible; but the jovial countenance of Mainbrace
darkened, and he expressed an opinion of the absent nobleman which was
sufficiently tonic to satisfy even Taberman. Jack said afterward that by
the time they got through the log a quotation from "Horatius" popped
into his head, and he came very near breaking out with it:--
With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told.
To which Jerry replied that he couldn't think of quotations, he was so
carried away by the enthusiastic delight of the jolly old inspector and
the quaint ways in which it was expressed.
When at last the record was closed, the conversation still at first ran
on the cruise, but soon it began to take a turn which made Jerry prick
up his ears anew. The inspector remarked, with an exceedingly droll
twinkle of his eyes, that duty was duty, but that he would be summarily
dealt with if he wouldn't feel bad to have to bear on hard on a couple
of fellows that had played the biggest joke he ever heard of in his
life, and had carried the whole thing through with so much cleverness
and grit. To this Jack responded that he was most appreciative of the
kindness of Mr. Mainbrace, but that of course duty was duty--although it
would really have been luck for the owner of the Merle, quite as much as
for himself and his mate, if the yacht could have gone on her way
uninterrupted. To this in turn Mainbrace gave his assent, and went on to
say that he must, of course, carry out instructions, and that he was
legally empowered to leave a keeper on board until he could come out
again to-morrow with directions he expected to receive from London.
"Though I dunno," he added drolly, "'s it's safe to trust a man with ye.
Ye're cap'ble o' runnin' off with 'im."
"We might," Jack responded brightly. "I wouldn't be responsible."
"Or we might throw him overboard," suggested Jerry, with the broadest
possible grin.
"Most o' my men kin swim some," Mainbrace retorted. "I should 'ave to
tell 'im 'f 'e got overboard to tow the yacht in shore."
The jest was not of the first water, but they had got to a merry mood,
and it was properly laughed over. Then Mainbrace, in high good humor,
went on to say that he'd been so well treated, and he had so enjoyed the
log, that he thought on the whole he would not put a man in charge. He
added that it was late, and he must be on his way ashore now, but that
they might expect him out again to-morrow.
"I'm sorry I 'ave to bother ye, gentlemen," he added, as they went on
deck. "I've been to sea myself too many years not to 'ate this bloody
red-tape business,--an' they do reel it off by the cable-length when
they 'ave 'arf a chance."
The inspector's jolly-boat, the most appropriate of conveyances for the
jovial sea-dog, was still alongside. The fog had lightened somewhat, and
watery beams of the sun leaked through it overhead. As Mr. Mainbrace was
about to descend the steps to the boat, he paused a moment and pulled at
his thick beard as if meditating profoundly.
"I'm 'most afraid if you gentlemen took it into your 'eads to give us
the slip we shouldn't know it on shore in this 'ere fog," he observed,
casting a queer, sidling glance at Jack.
"It is trusting somewhat to luck to leave us," the captain responded
coolly, "and I want to say now that I appreciate your kindness in not
forcing a keeper on us."
"Well, cap'n," continued the inspector, gazing out over the water with
the look of one who has no personal interest in the matter under
discussion, "I was goin' to say, if you get a good chance, you'd better
shift your berth. You'll find it kind o' snugger ridin' some ways along
to the west'ard, I expect. But you know best, o' course. All is, you're
in a tightish place here. I alers liked more sea-room myself. Good-day,
sir."
"Good-day. Maybe you'll find we've shifted by to-morrow. If we have,
it'll be to westward."
"I'll come out to-morrow," said the old sailor in his most official
manner. Then he looked from one to the other with his merriest twinkle
and an emphatic nod. "Duty is duty," he remarked. "Good-day, sirs."
He turned to descend, but suddenly Jack arrested him.
"Oh, you've forgotten your pipe," he said.
"My pipe?" echoed Mainbrace, stopping short.
"Yes, I'll get it."
The captain dashed into the cabin, and reappeared with a silver-mounted
briarwood, colored just enough to suggest a comfortable chimney-corner
and a mind at ease.
"You left it on the table," he said, presenting it to the big inspector.
The other took it with an expression queerly compounded of surprise,
awkwardness, amusement, and delight.
"Thank ye, sir," he said. "It's 'ansome of you to fetch it up
ye'self,--most 'ansome. I'm mortal fond o' that pipe."
He regarded it affectionately a moment, and then stowed it away inside
his jacket. Then he turned again to go down to the waiting jolly-boat.
"I'll come out to-morrow," he called up to them. "Duty is duty.
Good-day, sirs."
"Good-day," they called in concert; and off went the deputy inspector
toward the hardly perceptible shore through the fog.
"By George, he's a brick!" Jack cried.
"Right-o," assented Jerry, "but it took you to cement him."
"Atrocious! If you're going to pun like that you must be taken home to
your family at once. 'Duty is duty'! Did you see the solemn wink the
old fellow tipped me when he spoke of shifting to westward? I thought I
should burst out laughing on the spot, and give the whole thing away.
How's the water?"
"Tanks chock-a-block. Gonzague had them filled from the water-boat this
morning. Did you get your money?"
"Every pound of it. Wrenmarsh took me to the bank and identified me, and
was mighty nice about the whole thing. Provisions are O.K. Off we go.
Call the watch."
"Yes, but see my ring first," Tab said, holding it out.
In half an hour the Merle was changing her berth to the westward.
[Illustration: Decoration]
Chapter Sixteen
STORM!
A gray sea, a gray sky, and the Mid-Atlantic Ocean in September. Over
the heaving waters the Merle, under reduced canvas, was staggering
westward on the port-tack with a stiff southerly breeze. Jack, clad in
his yellow oil-skins like the rest of the hands, was standing just
outside the cockpit on the windward side of the yacht. Jerry was asleep
below. Having had the early morning watch, he had turned in directly
after breakfast. The captain glanced aloft uneasily, and wondered if
they were going to encounter on their return such a gale as they had
weathered while going over. He reluctantly admitted to himself that
there was every appearance of dirty weather, and thought he had better
step below to take a look at the glass.
He pushed back the companion, and descended. The cabin was stuffy and no
warmer than the air without. The racks were on the table, and the lamps
swung in erratic circles in their gimbals. The barometer, a beautifully
finished instrument of the columnar type, was placed against the
after-bulkhead of the saloon on the starboard beside a closet door, its
slender length enclosed in bronze. It gyrated wildly, in unison with the
Thom's list-indicator above it. Jack steadied the tube with his hand,
and looked anxiously to see if the mercury had fallen.
"Good God!" he burst out.
At eight bells that morning the vernier of the glass had been set at
29.32. With staring eyes, Jack saw that now, little more than two hours
later, the mercury had sunk to 27.09,--a drop portentous of a furious
gale. For one brief moment, in the face of approaching danger, and
filled with a quick sense of his great responsibility, he stood
appalled. He put his hand to his forehead as if he were dizzy and found
it hard to think.
"How's the glass, Jack?" asked a voice beside him. He turned with
troubled eyes to see Tab in his pajamas, a freshly lighted cigarette
between his fingers. "What's the trouble?" the mate demanded instantly,
seeming bewildered at the captain's appearance.
"What brought you out here?" the captain retorted, though why he should
have asked he could not have told.
"Heard you exclaiming. What's the trouble?"
"Look!" Jack answered, pointing to the glass.
"All that!" gasped Jerry.
"Get your togs on," was the only reply Jack offered. "Be quick, and come
on deck."
Jerrold left him without a word, and padded off to his cabin. Jack reset
the vernier, and went out. To his disturbed mind it seemed as if in the
brief interval during which he had been below the whole appearance of
nature had grown more ominous. In five minutes Jerry was with him.
"Well, Jack?"
"I've made up my mind what to do," the captain announced. "It's going to
blow fit to take your hair out by the roots: that much is sure."
Jerry nodded soberly, and looked his friend straight in the eye.
"We'll have to lay-to before we see the end of this, and I'd rather do
so at sea-anchor 'n any other way. What do you think?"
"That's right enough. I suppose we'd better make ready now?"
"We sha'n't have much time when it does come. We must get a mess of
things together up for'ard fit to hold a liner. We'll need it."
Jack got the hands together around the winch forward, and set them at
once, under his direction, to the making of the "sea-anchor." The
spinnaker-boom and the two shorter boat-booms were first lashed firmly
together with inch rope in a rough isosceles triangle.
"Now," Jack ordered, "fetch the old staysail, and bend it on in the
frame."
"How are you going to ballast the thing?" asked Tab. "It'll float flat
if you don't give it a sinker."
"I fancy the market-boat's killock would be about the right thing if we
could get at it," Jack answered. "Do you know where"--
"Yes, yes," interrupted Jerry hastily. "It's with the rest of her gear.
I'll get it." And he went aft.
Although the wind had not as yet increased in violence, Jack, standing
as he did almost at the peak of the vessel, felt the motion much more
than he had farther aft. The great gray-green seas heaved hard about the
plunging yacht, and every now and then she ran bowsprit under. She was a
rather dry boat, fortunately, of the "hollow bow" model, and in the
fifteen or twenty minutes that the men had been working on the anchor,
she had not taken any waves aboard. The spindrift, it is true, flew
across her by the bucketful, but the men, dressed in their oilers,
blinked the cold water out of their eyes and went on with their work.
Before Jerry returned, however, as the crew were bending the old
staysail to the triangular frame, the captain, to his consternation, saw
that the Merle was just working her way up the breast of a mighty hill
of water with all likelihood of burying herself in the rising wall of a
wave ahead.
"'Ware water!" he shouted.
The men dropped their work and caught at whatever was nearest at hand.
Some threw an arm about the bollard by the knighthead; some jumped for
the winch; two men got a tight grip on the large ring-bolts by the port
cat-heads; Jack himself leaped for the winch and put his right arm
around the drum.
The Merle labored to the crest of the hill of water. It sank away
beneath her instantly, and she shot down the slope of the wave into the
trough of the sea with a headlong, staggering rush. Towering above her
was the roughened, foam-blotched face of the succeeding wave. She tried
bravely to climb it, but she was too near, the angle was too sharp; she
could not so quickly recover from the impetus of her downward plunge.
She seemed to tremble--to hesitate--for an instant, and then as if in
the courage of despair, to leap forward with a jerk into the very midst
of the flood as if she would force her way through its tons of swinging
sea-water.
Jack went to the deck under the tremendous blow of the on-rushing wave
as if he had been struck down by a thunderbolt. He felt the shock, the
biting cold of the water, and then it seemed as if a giant had gripped
him with hands of ice and were trying to wrench him from his hold. He
clung on, drenched, bewildered, desperate, until he wondered if his arm
would be pulled out of its socket. He had a stifling sensation of having
been for hours without air; he felt as if he were being dragged by some
terrible power swiftly through the sea miles below the surface. On a
sudden he again felt the deck under him, and opened his eyes. The Merle
had forced her way through the wave, and they were again free. He
gasped, spluttered, and rose to his feet, the water streaming from him.
Inside the bulwarks to starboard the green, foam-mixed brine washed
about knee-deep, and was pouring with a hoarse gurgling out of the
scuppers forward. The "anchor" had been swept bodily aft as far as the
foremast, and there was jammed between the mast itself and the
weather-shrouds. Drenched and cursing, the men squelched their way aft,
dislodged the structure, and dragged it forward again. Luckily the
mishap, really a slight one of twenty seconds' duration, had wrought no
damage which could not be easily repaired, and so the crew took up their
work where they had left it.
Jerry reappeared with the killock of the market-boat just as they got
into place once more.
"Did you get wet?" he asked cheerily, with a broad grin which showed
that he saw what had happened.
"What do you think?" burst out the captain hotly. "No; I got dry, damn
it!"
"Did you really, though! Well, I thought you looked damp."
Jack paid this boyish jest with a word that was sharp and a look that
was too near a grin not to take the sting from it. He took the killock
that Jerry had brought, and had the men make it fast to the lower point
of the kite-like frame where the short boat-booms met. To the ends of
the long spinnaker-boom he fastened lengths of strong inch Manilla, and
a piece somewhat shorter to the point where the killock was attached.
The captain meant that the "sea-anchor," when in the water, should ride
not exactly vertical, but that by the shorter line the weighted point
should be lifted a little toward the yacht as the Merle dragged back on
it. In the end of each of these lines a bow-line was bent, and through
the bights of them he had the rode bent and made fast. The whole
contrivance was then like a triangular kite weighted at the point made
by the shorter sides, and held by lines from the three corners joined on
the rode, which corresponded to the string. When the work was finished
Jack inspected it all carefully, and examined the fastenings.
"It's a rough enough concern," he said to Jerry; "but it's stanch, and
if we have to use it, it'll do good service. Make it fast," he added to
the men. "Put on a couple of strong gaskets for stoppers. Come on, Tab;
I don't want another ducking."
They went aft to the cockpit, and the captain started to go below.
"I'll just take another look at that glass," he said. "It's well to keep
a"--
"Look!" cried Jerry suddenly, seizing him by the arm, and pointing away
to the southward.
Jack's eyes followed the mate's arm. Afar off on the gloomy horizon, the
black sea below and the gray sky above were in one place welded together
by a wall of impenetrable haze. It was not much more than a spot, but
Jack at a glance took in its full significance, and knew that before the
Merle was a struggle that would try her strength and his seamanship to
the very utmost. He opened his mouth to speak, and closed his lips
firmly without a word. He looked a moment at the inky mist, and then
dashed below. In a couple of minutes he reappeared with a grim look on
his usually genial face.
"Jerry," he said hurriedly, "I've been down and tried the storm-card on
the chart. If we keep on as she's going, we'll fetch up plumb in the
centre of this mess. The Merle wouldn't live there half an hour."
"Well?" questioned Jerry. His face was sober, and had about it a
suggestion of a big, serious dog that watches its troubled master. "What
can we do?"
"There is only one thing to do," Jack responded quickly, but with
absolute decision. "The centre bears southwesterly,--that's why our
wind's hauled 'round. We've got to put about and run into the heart of
that greasy streak yonder. It'll be a tough job, but not so bad as if we
were farther westward. When we get the wind westerly, we'll lay to. If
we do anything else, we'll be swept into the centre, sure's fate."
"Can't we run it out?" Jerry asked desperately. "It'll be tremendous!
That blow we had coming over'll be pale beside it. Think, man!"
"I have," Jack said shortly. "Ready 'bout ship!" he shouted.
The men sprang to their places, although Jack could see that they threw
swift glances of surprise at him as they did so. The evidence, slight as
it was, that he was acting alone, and that he must see farther and more
wisely than the men under him, accustomed as they were to the sea,
imparted a new ring of command to his voice as he gave the necessary
orders. With some difficulty and with much uproar of booming canvas and
slatting ropes, the schooner came about, and Jack had her headed
straight for the black spot on the horizon.
Jack hurried on preparations for the storm before them. He had sail
taken in and double-reefed; the "spitfire" jib set in place of the
larger forestaysail, and tarpaulins battened over the skylights. He put
the yacht as completely as possible in heavy-weather trim, to meet the
gale scudding along over the black sea toward them.
He was none too soon, for the storm was not long in coming. The gray sky
above the yacht grew darker and darker, the sea about her more and more
"cobbly." The wind freshened rapidly, and veered more toward the west.
The Merle sailed on gallantly, the green waves breaking against her
weather shoulder, and the spindrift flying down the decks as she
slashed her way to windward. The tops of the great seas, as they heaved
themselves skyward, were snatched off by the gale, and sped in white
sheets down the wind.
Jack was standing in the cockpit with Jerry. He was watching the weather
narrowly, and now and then, with a brief word or two, gave the
steersmen--for the wheel needed two of them--a command or a warning. The
force of the gale so increased that at the end of an hour and a half the
mainsail, though triple-reefed, was got down and furled, and the
forestaysail, which had been unbent to give place to the spitfire, was
set on the boom as a trysail.
It had come on to rain, and the big drops were driven along almost in
horizontal lines. When they struck the face Jack felt as if he had been
pelted with hailstones. Mixed with the flying spindrift they filled the
air as if with a mist, blinding and fierce.
Suddenly, as the yacht was dipping into the trough of a long sea, a
strong gust listed her over so that aft the green water rose on the
decks to within a fathom of the cockpit combings. A sharp report burst
out above all the roaring of the wind and the multitudinous clamor of
the waters. Jack looked up to see the trysail streaming out in tattered
ribbons, writhing and twisting like pale snakes in mad fury. The sight
inflamed him like a personal insult flung at him by the storm. He broke
out with a cry, and with a great oath swore he would see the Merle
through in spite of everything.
"Tab," he shouted in the mate's ear, "get along forward on that
sea-anchor! Stand by to launch it. We don't want any more of this!"
He saw Jerry gather the port watch,--for all the men had been on deck
for two hours past, clinging to whatever was nearest and alternately
watching the storm and the captain,--and with them scrabble forward,
making way by the help of whatever could be grasped. Their difficulty in
getting forward was to Jack like a sudden realization of the danger they
were in, and made him for the moment think of the men, whereas he had
before been conscious of nothing but of the yacht herself. He saw the
men gather about the "sea-anchor," swaying and pitching with the motion
of the bow, and Jerry turn to look for his signal. The yacht was
carrying such a strong lee-helm that the steersmen could not keep her
head to the wind, and Jack shouted and gesticulated frantically to Jerry
to get down the storm-jib, while at the same time he ordered the
starboard watch to unstop the mainsail. He was in deadly fear lest the
vessel should get clean broadside to the wind and that the decks would
be swept.
"Unstop the mainsail!" he roared. "Show the peak! Douse the jib!"
Again he motioned to Jerry, knowing that his voice would not be heard
forward. He saw Tab pause a moment, and then wave his arm in reply. To
his utter dismay, however, he saw the mate and the men with him stoop,
get hold of the "sea-anchor," and, tugging and stumbling, begin to haul
it up to the weather side. It flashed on Jack that his gestures had been
misunderstood, and his order to get down the jib mistaken for a command
to launch the "anchor." With a sickening plunge the Merle at that moment
coasted down a mighty wave, fell off, and lay broadside to the seas. For
a second he felt as if everything was lost.
"Smartly!" he roared to the starboard watch, who were working for their
lives upon the main-boom.
He gave them one glance, and started to rush forward, running recklessly
along, and feeling for his sheath-knife as he went. A quick lurch of the
yacht to port flung him off his feet, and shot him forward and to his
right. He instinctively flung out his hand, and clutched something
metallic.
"'Ware water!" he mumbled, half stunned.
A green shadow curled over him. There was a crashing roar to leeward. He
felt the yacht stagger and tremble, and suddenly and with an odd mental
twist he remembered vividly an earthquake shock he had once felt at
Patras. The shadow disappeared, a little water came slap! on his oilskin
jacket between the shoulders. The rest of the wave--tons and tons of
green water--had curled itself over him, and crashed on the decks to
leeward.
He got to his feet unsteadily, and with a queer singing in his ears ran
forward. He threw a quick look to port as he ran. The force of the sea
had evidently been heaviest amidships, for he saw that for thirty feet
on the lee beam the rail had been burst out between the fore and main
rigging; two boats were gone, and the skylights, broken, yawned blackly.
Jack groaned inwardly, but did not stop. Pitching and staggering, he
made his way to the foremast. A sudden fling of the yacht threatened to
make him, as he afterward put it, "overshoot the mark" and tumble past
the halyards. Fortunately, however, he checked himself by catching at
the foretopsail-clewline as he was being pitched by, and he clung to it
desperately. He laid hold of the spitfire halyard. One quick glance at
the turns about the pin in the rack told him how much time he should
save by cutting the rope, and with a swift backdrawing of the sharp
sheath-knife he severed it. The fall of the halyard flew up aloft,
playfully dealing him a smart rap on the chin as it went; the sail ran
down in thunder, and blew away in shreds. The Merle began to rise, and
Jack felt a thrill of joyful relief to see that she was coming up into
the wind. The men aft had showed the peak of the mainsail, and the
schooner was feeling its effects.
A few yards forward, Jerry and the port watch were still toiling over
the "sea-anchor." Twice they had tried to set it in position for
launching, and each time wind and sea had overmastered them. Jack, in an
agony lest the structure should be launched before the yacht was laid
about on the other tack, or at least so near the wind that the awkward
contrivance could be got over the bows to port, stumbled forward
shouting.
"To port!" he roared. "Get it over to port!"
He gripped Jerry by the arm.
"The wrong tack!" he bellowed in the mate's ear. "Run it over to
leeward, and put it over when I wave my arm. Watch sharp!"
"Aye!" shouted Tab, but Jack was already gone.
Castleport stumbled aft much as he had gone forward, now climbing
laboriously up hill, now leaning back and struggling to keep himself
from rushing headlong down the sloping deck with an impetus that would
have carried him overboard. When he reached the cockpit, he dropped
inside almost spent.
"Back the helm every time she rises!" he called to the men at the wheel.
"We want her to fall over!"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Now, then,--over with her!" he cried, as the yacht rose.
The men gave her all they dared. The effect was imperceptible.
"Hold her!" shouted Jack.
At the risk of their lives, the two helmsmen held her as the schooner
slid down the big slope of the wave, shivering as she went. As she rose,
the captain, with a laughing heart, saw that she would make it. He tore
off his "sou'-wester," and waved it frantically to Tab forward. Jerry
threw up his arm in reply; the big "sea-anchor" rose from the deck, and
went out on the port side.
"Helm amidships!" sang out Jack.
"Aye, aye, sir."