_HE SIGHTS A SHIP._
These three days of storm brought me into a tolerably close acquaintance
with some of the hardships of the sailor’s life. Our cabin did not leak,
yet somehow or other the deck of it was always damp, with a noise as of
the bubbling of water under the bunks. The scuttles were incessantly
under water, and all the light we had was imparted by the dingy flare of
our malodorous coffee-pot-shaped lamp.
The food was perhaps the hardest part to my young stomach. Every
midshipman’s father had been called upon to pay ten guineas mess money;
yet I do not know that this ninety guineas obtained any stores for us,
if it were not a cask or two of flour, a cask of sugar, a few dozens of
pickles, and some cases of “preserved spuds,” as potatoes are called
at sea. We were therefore thrown upon the ship’s stores, and fed as
the sailors forward did. This I say was the hardest part to me, since,
though my sickness had passed, my appetite had not recovered its old
strength, and for a long time I was never hungry enough to eat with the
least relish the greenish masses of salt pork, and the iron-hearted
rounds and squares and cubes of salt horse, and the pans of lukewarm
slush-flavoured water, at the bottom of which rolled a handful of peas,
as digestible as musket-balls, and the dark-skinned puddings, compounded
of the coarsest flour and the skimmings of the greasy water of the cook’s
copper, which the lad who waited upon us would come staggering with from
the galley, and place upon the narrow slip of table, scarce visible in
our twilight.
I believe I should have starved but for the biscuit, which was crisp and
good, though Kennet, the long-nosed midshipman, endeavoured to cheer me
by saying—
“Thtoph a bit, Rockafellah—wait till we’re a fortnight out, and then
ththand by! They’ll be broaching the regular provithionth then, and
if there don’t go a thcore of wormth to every chap’th bithcuith I’m a
lobthter.”
The crying of children outside, the growling of men, and the shrill
complaining of women combined with the crazy creaking and groaning of the
fabric, so that it was very hard to get any sleep.
It was on the night of the day of my adventure in the mizzen-top that
I stood my first watch. It was eight o’clock in the evening, and the
moment after the last of the chimes of the bell on deck had been swept
away by the gale, the four midshipmen who were in the starboard, or
second mate’s watch, came bundling below. Their oilskins were streaming
wet, and they blew upon their fingers’-ends as they entered the berth.
“Still raining, is it?” asked a fellow named Poole.
“Ay, murderously,” was the answer; “but the wind’s quartering us, and
you’ll be making sail, I allow, before we turn out.”
“What’s been doing?”
“Nothing. But talk of the Bay of Biscay! Why, the Straits of Magellan
might be close aboard. That’s right, my sweet and lively hearty! On with
your boots, my noble fellow! One, two, buckle my shoe; three, four, open
the door; five, six, cut all your sticks!”
And the youth who had thus spoken, and whose closing observations were
levelled at me, thrust a short black length of clay pipe into the flame
of the lamp, and sprang into his bed to refresh himself with a smoke
before going to sleep.
I got into my sea-boots, which were very new and creaked noisily, wrapped
my body in an oiled coat, wedged a sou’wester securely upon my little
head, and followed the others on deck. The night seemed very black
after the lamplight, dim as _it_ was, in the cabin. It was the darker
at that moment for a heavy squall of rain that was blowing with a note
of shrieking in it over the bulwark rail, and splitting in shouts and
whistlings through the masts and rigging. I clambered on to the poop,
and stood holding on to the brass rail staring about me in a blind way,
for there was a deal to daze a raw-head like me coming new to the scene,
I assure you. The ship was tearing through the water under three-reefed
topsails and foresail. She made a great swirling and roaring of white
water all round her, and the snow of it put an illumination into the
black air till you seemed able to see a mile away. There was a high sea
running, but it had quartered us along with the wind, and the _Lady
Violet_ sank and rose very nobly and easily upon the long black seething
coils of brine which chased her thundering to her counter, and expiring
there in foam.
The other midshipmen hung about the quarter-deck, under the shelter of
the break of the poop. Now and again they showed themselves, but at long
intervals. The shadowy figure of the chief mate paced the weather-deck.
Through the glass of the skylights I could see the people sitting in the
cuddy below. Some played at chess or cards; others lolled in a sickly
posture upon sofas; the captain, with his face burnished by weather,
conversed with two ladies; a small chart lay before him, and he was
explaining something to them, running his forefinger over the paper, and
smiling into their puzzled faces. It was more like a fancy than a reality
to witness that shining interior set in the black frame of the night—that
handsome cuddy, with its soft carpets, its brilliant lamps, its gleaming
swinging trays, its globes of gold fish, its ferns and richly-painted
panels, in which the lustre of the oil flames rippled; the whole showing,
as it were, like a picture flung by some magic-lantern upon an atmosphere
of sooty blackness.
I crept aft, and stood looking a little while at the man that steered.
The light in the binnacle touched his face and figure, and threw him
into relief. His sou’wester came low over his brow, and the rest of
him, saving a knob of a nose and a pair of cheeks compounded of warts,
freckles, and wrinkles, was formed of an oilskin coat, oiled leggings,
and huge sea-boots. He grasped the wheel with hands of iron, often
bending a reddish glittering eye upon the compass-card that swung in
the bowl, and I watched him thrusting the spokes first a little way up
and then a little way down, and wondered why he did not keep the wheel
steady. But I did not like to speak to him, for what little of his face
was visible looked very sour; and then, again, I was certain that he must
be in a bad temper, through having to stand exposed to the lashing wet
and strong cold wind of the night.
I went to the taffrail, and looked down over the stern of the ship at
the frothing cataract of water that boiled out from round about her
rudder, and streamed away pale and paler yet into the darkness, where I
could see the dim line of it rising and falling upon the black surges.
It resembled a footpath passing over a hilly country. The ocean looked a
dreadfully desolate immense surface in that darkness, wider than the sky,
it seemed to me, for the reason of the fancy of prodigious measureless
distance coming to one out of the obscurity that lay in ink upon it, with
the fitful flashings of the heads of seas showing in the heart of the
murkiness. I shuddered as I thought how cold a death drowning must be. I
shuddered again at the imagination of being alone in an open boat upon
the vast surface of weltering gloom. I recalled what I had read of the
sufferings of shipwrecked people, of fire at sea, of leaks which gained
upon the pumps and sunk the vessel deeper and deeper, of sudden fierce
storms which tore the masts out of ships, and left them helpless as logs
of wood to slowly drown.
[Illustration: “‘WHAT D’YE SEE, MY LAD?’ SAID HE.”]
Whilst my little brains were thus busy, my eye was taken by what appeared
to be a sort of smudge far away astern in the windy shadow of the night.
If I looked straight at it, it vanished, but on gazing a little away from
it I could see it very clearly. I continued to peer for some time, and
was quite sure that the blotch—whatever it might be—was hardening, so to
speak, and enlarging. I turned my head to see if the mate observed it,
but was sure he had not by his manner of walking the deck. I stepped up
to him, and said:
“If you please, sir, I think there’s something catching us up out there!”
and I levelled my small arm at the ocean over the stern.
“Why, what d’ye see, my lad?” said he, very kindly; “you must have
gimblet-like eyes to be able to bore a hole into such a night as this.
It’s Master Rockafellar, isn’t it?” stooping to get a sight of my face.
“Overtaking us, do you say?”
He walked right aft, I following him, and stood staring a moment or
two, then with a start cried, “By George, the _Flying Dutchman_, I do
believe! A big ship coming through the air it looks, and overhauling us
as though she were a roll of smoke. Jump below, my lad, and fetch me my
night-glass.”
He told me where his cabin was, and where I should find the glass, and
off I rushed, proud to be employed. His cabin window overlooked the
quarter-deck, and against the bulkhead the four middies of our watch were
grouped, smoking and yarning in the shelter there.
“Why, what are you up to?” shouted one of them; “that’s the chief
mate’s cabin. He’ll hang you up by the neck at that yard-arm, you young
Rockafellar, if he catches you in his berth.”
“He has sent me for his night-glass,” answered; “there is a big ship
coming up astern.”
“O-ho!” cried they, and emptying the bowls of their pipes, they fled like
startled deer on to the poop.
I found the glass—a binocular—and ran with all my might with it to the
mate, who, as he took it from me, said, “That’s right. You’re a smart
boy!” a piece of commendation which so inspirited me that, I believe, had
he told me to go up to the main-royal-yard, I should have promptly and
comfortably have made my way to that great height.
The sight I had been the first to descry was, indeed, well worth
watching. The speed of our own ship through the water, though she was
under very small canvas, could not have been less than nine knots in the
hour, yet the vessel astern grew upon us as though we were in tow of one
of our own quarter-boats, and scarcely moving. She showed pale as the
watery moon dimly glancing through a body of vapour.
“She is dead in our wake,” the chief mate said, as though talking
to himself. “Does she see us, I wonder? Heavens alive! what is she
under—_skysails_ can it be? It’s enough to make one think oneself in a
dream.”
I saw him send a glance towards the companion-hatch, as though he had a
mind to call the captain.
[Illustration: “THE VESSEL ASTERN GREW UPON US.”]
“Here, one of you,” he shouted to the midshipmen, who were grouped
on the other side of the wheel, staring with all their eyes at the
approaching ship, “whip that binnacle lamp out and show it.”
Kennet sprang to the compass-stand, unshipped the light, vaulted on to
the grating, and there stood holding, at the height of his arm, the
will-o’-the-wisp spark of flame.
The pursuing vessel was doubtless much closer to us when I first
perceived her than I should have supposed by the pallid shadow she made
on the troubled darkness of the waters. I think it must have been in
less than half-an-hour’s time from the moment of my sighting her that
she became a huge, easy-distinguishable shape in the heart of our wake.
You saw sail upon sail towering upon her in pale spaces, which glimmered
as though she reflected a strong starlight. By this time the news had
reached the cuddy, and the captain had come on deck, together with most
of the passengers, and we stood in a crowd, watching, and waiting, and
wondering; for not yet had the tall and rushing phantom astern of us
offered to shift her helm, and to my young eyes it seemed as though
she was bound to steer right into us, cleaving us to amidships, like
splitting a log with the blow of a hatchet.
“What does he mean to do? There seems no look-out on board!” called the
captain to the mate. “Show more lights, Mr. Johnson, and let it be done
quickly.”
The officer delivered some orders in a sharp, eager voice, and in a
few minutes three or four sailors came running aft with large lanterns
swinging in their hands.
“She has the cut of a Yankee,” I heard the captain say to the mate; “her
high bows and crowd of canvas forward screen us from her quarter-deck.
Great thunder! is she in a madman’s hands? She will be into us, sir. Fire
a rocket!”
These signals were kept somewhere below. A midshipman shot away like an
arrow, and returned, and then up soared the thing, the fire of it hissing
as it sped javelin-like into the flying thickness on high, where it burst
like a flash of lightning, flinging a green radiance far and wide, and
sailing in a ball of flame slowly over our mizzen-mast-head on to the
lee-bow.
Almost simultaneously with the detonation it made, like the blast of a
blunderbuss, we saw the head of the vessel astern falling off. As she
rose foaming to the head of a sea, her flying jibboom went majestically
rounding away to leeward of us, opening out the fabric behind into a ship
of some fifteen hundred tons, with high black sides and cotton-white
canvas of the Yankee swelling from the water-ways to the trucks. A sort
of groan of astonishment and admiration, mingled with a deep note of the
fear that had been excited, arose from amongst the crowd of us. Indeed,
but for her putting her helm over, her long bowsprit and tapering
jibbooms must have been spearing our rigging in another five minutes, and
her sharp clipper stem grinding into our counter.
A voice hailed us from her; our captain sprang on to the grating abaft
the wheel, and roared back, “What d’ye say?” But no response was made to
this. She swept past to leeward, within a musket-shot. You could hear the
thunder of the wind in her canvas, and the roaring of the water crushed
into yeast at her stem. It was like hearkening to the beating of surf on
a stormy night on the sea-coast. She showed no light of any kind, not a
spot of brightness on her deck or in her side to relieve the deep dye
of blackness her hull made upon the obscurity. In a few minutes she had
forged ahead, and a little later she had melted out upon the gloom over
the port bow.