The sea is raging. Mountainous waves of dark green, marbled with white
foam, stand out, in high, deep undulations, from the broad streak of red
light, which extends along the horizon. Above are piled heavy masses
of black and sulphurous vapor, whilst a few lighter clouds of a reddish
gray, driven by the violence of the wind, rush across the murky sky.
The pale winter sun, before he quite disappears in the great clouds,
behind which he is slowly mounting, casts here and there some oblique
rays upon the troubled sea, and gilds the transparent crest of some of
the tallest waves. A band of snow-white foam boils and rages as far
as the eye can reach, along the line of the reefs that bristle on this
dangerous coast.
Half-way up a rugged promontory, which juts pretty far into the sea,
rises Cardoville Castle; a ray of the sun glitters upon its windows; its
brick walls and pointed roofs of slate are visible in the midst of this
sky loaded with vapors.
A large, disabled ship, with mere shreds of sail still fluttering from
the stumps of broken masts, drives dead upon the coast. Now she rolls
her monstrous hull upon the waves--now plunges into their trough. A
flash is seen, followed by a dull sound, scarcely perceptible in
the midst of the roar of the tempest. That gun is the last signal of
distress from this lost vessel, which is fast forging on the breakers.
At the same moment, a steamer, with its long plume of black smoke, is
working her way from east to west, making every effort to keep at a
distance from the shore, leaving the breakers on her left. The dismasted
ship, drifting towards the rocks, at the mercy of the wind and tide,
must some time pass right ahead of the steamer.
Suddenly, the rush of a heavy sea laid the steamer upon her side; the
enormous wave broke furiously on her deck; in a second the chimney
was carried away, the paddle box stove in, one of the wheels rendered
useless. A second white-cap, following the first, again struck the
vessel amidships, and so increased the damage that, no longer answering
to the helm, she also drifted towards the shore, in the same direction
as the ship. But the latter, though further from the breakers, presented
a greater surface to the wind and sea, and so gained upon the steamer
in swiftness that a collision between the two vessels became imminent--a
new clanger added to all the horrors of the now certain wreck.
The ship was an English vessel, the “Black Eagle,” homeward bound from
Alexandria, with passengers, who arriving from India and Java, via
the Red Sea, had disembarked at the Isthmus of Suez, from on board
the steamship “Ruyter.” The “Black Eagle,” quitting the Straits of
Gibraltar, had gone to touch at the Azores. She headed thence for
Portsmouth, when she was overtaken in the Channel by the northwester.
The steamer was the “William Tell,” coming from Germany, by way of the
Elbe, and bound, in the last place, for Hamburg to Havre.
These two vessels, the sport of enormous rollers, driven along by tide
and tempest, were now rushing upon the breakers with frightful speed.
The deck of each offered a terrible spectacle; the loss of crew and
passengers appeared almost certain, for before them a tremendous sea
broke on jagged rocks, at the foot of a perpendicular cliff.
The captain of the “Black Eagle,” standing on the poop, holding by the
remnant of a spar, issued his last orders in this fearful extremity
with courageous coolness. The smaller boats had been carried away by
the waves; it was in vain to think of launching the long-boat; the only
chance of escape in case the ship should not be immediately dashed to
pieces on touching the rocks, was to establish a communication with the
land by means of a life-line--almost the last resort for passing between
the shore and a stranded vessel.
The deck was covered with passengers, whose cries and terror augmented
the general confusion. Some, struck with a kind of stupor, and clinging
convulsively to the shrouds, awaited their doom in a state of stupid
insensibility. Others wrung their hands in despair, or rolled upon the
deck uttering horrible imprecations. Here, women knelt down to pray;
there, others hid their faces in their hands, that they might not see
the awful approach of death. A young mother, pale as a specter, holding
her child clasped tightly to her bosom, went supplicating from sailor
to sailor, and offering a purse full of gold and jewels to any one that
would take charge of her son.
These cries, and tears, and terror contrasted with the stern and silent
resignation of the sailors. Knowing the imminence of the inevitable
danger, some of them stripped themselves of part of their clothes,
waiting for the moment to make a last effort, to dispute their lives
with the fury of the waves; others renouncing all hope, prepared to meet
death with stoical indifference.
Here and there, touching or awful episodes rose in relief, if one may so
express it, from this dark and gloomy background of despair.
A young man of about eighteen or twenty, with shiny black hair, copper
colored complexion, and perfectly regular and handsome features,
contemplated this scene of dismay and horror with that sad calmness
peculiar to those who have often braved great perils; wrapped in a
cloak, he leaned his back against the bulwarks, with his feet resting
against one of the bulkheads. Suddenly, the unhappy mother, who, with
her child in her arms, and gold in her hand, had in vain addressed
herself to several of the mariners, to beg them to save her boy,
perceiving the young man with the copper-colored complexion, threw
herself on her knees before him, and lifted her child towards him with
a burst of inexpressible agony. The young man took it, mournfully shook
his head, and pointed to the furious waves--but, with a meaning gesture,
he appeared to promise that he would at least try to save it. Then the
young mother, in a mad transport of hope, seized the hand of the youth,
and bathed it with her tears.
Further on, another passenger of the “Black Eagle,” seemed animated
by sentiments of the most active pity. One would hardly have given him
five-and-twenty years of age. His long, fair locks fell in curls on
either side of his angelic countenance. He wore a black cassock and
white neck-band. Applying himself to comfort the most desponding, he
went from one to the other, and spoke to them pious words of hope and
resignation; to hear him console some, and encourage others, in language
full of unction, tenderness, and ineffable charity, one would have
supposed him unaware or indifferent to the perils that he shared.
On his fine, mild features, was impressed a calm and sacred intrepidity,
a religious abstraction from every terrestrial thought; from time to
time, he raised to heaven his large blue eyes, beaming with gratitude,
love, and serenity, as if to thank God for having called him to one of
those formidable trials in which the man of humanity and courage may
devote himself for his brethren, and, if not able to rescue them at all,
at least die with them, pointing to the sky. One might almost have
taken him for an angel, sent down to render less cruel the strokes of
inexorable fate.
Strange contrast! not far from this young man’s angelic beauty, there
was another being, who resembled an evil spirit!
Boldly mounted on what was left of the bowsprit, to which he held on by
means of some remaining cordage, this man looked down upon the terrible
scene that was passing on the deck. A grim, wild joy lighted up his
countenance of a dead yellow, that tint peculiar to those who spring
from the union of the white race with the East. He wore only a shirt and
linen drawers; from his neck was suspended, by a cord, a cylindrical tin
box, similar to that in which soldiers carry their leave of absence.
The more the danger augmented, the nearer the ship came to the
breakers, or to a collision with the steamer, which she was now rapidly
approaching--a terrible collision, which would probably cause the two
vessels to founder before even they touched the rocks--the more did the
infernal joy of this passenger reveal itself in frightful transports. He
seemed to long, with ferocious impatience, for the moment when the work
of destruction should be accomplished. To see him thus feasting with
avidity on all the agony, the terror, and the despair of those around
him, one might have taken him for the apostle of one of those sanguinary
deities, who, in barbarous countries, preside over murder and carnage.
By this time the “Black Eagle,” driven by the wind and waves, came so
near the “William Tell” that the passengers on the deck of the nearly
dismantled steamer were visible from the first-named vessel.
These passengers were no longer numerous. The heavy sea, which stove
in the paddle-box and broke one of the paddles, had also carried away
nearly the whole of the bulwarks on that side; the waves, entering
every instant by this large opening, swept the decks with irresistible
violence, and every time bore away with them some fresh victims.
Amongst the passengers, who seemed only to have escaped this danger
to be hurled against the rocks, or crushed in the encounter of the two
vessels, one group was especially worthy of the most tender and painful
interest. Taking refuge abaft, a tall old man, with bald forehead and
gray moustache, had lashed himself to a stanchion, by winding a piece of
rope round his body, whilst he clasped in his arms, and held fast to his
breast, two girls of fifteen or sixteen, half enveloped in a pelisse of
reindeer-skin. A large, fallow, Siberian dog, dripping with water, and
barking furiously at the waves, stood close to their feet.
These girls, clasped in the arms of the old man, also pressed close to
each other; but, far from being lost in terror, they raised their
eyes to heaven, full of confidence and ingenuous hope, as though they
expected to be saved by the intervention of some supernatural power.
A frightful shriek of horror and despair, raised by the passengers of
both vessels, was heard suddenly above the roar of the tempest. At the
moment when, plunging deeply between two waves, the broadside of the
steamer was turned towards the bows of the ship, the latter, lifted to
a prodigious height on a mountain of water, remained, as it were,
suspended over the “William Tell,” during the second which preceded the
shock of the two vessels.
There are sights of so sublime a horror, that it is impossible to
describe them. Yet, in the midst of these catastrophes, swift as
thought, one catches sometimes a momentary glimpse of a picture, rapid
and fleeting, as if illumined by a flash of lightning.
Thus, when the “Black Eagle,” poised aloft by the flood, was about
to crash down upon the “William Tell,” the young man with the angelic
countenance and fair, waving locks bent over the prow of the ship, ready
to cast himself into the sea to save some victim. Suddenly, he perceived
on board the steamer, on which he looked down from the summit of
the immense wave, the two girls extending their arms towards him in
supplication. They appeared to recognize him, and gazed on him with a
sort of ecstacy and religious homage!
For a second, in spite of the horrors of the tempest, in spite of the
approaching shipwreck, the looks of those three beings met. The features
of the young man were expressive of sudden and profound pity; for the
maidens with their hands clasped in prayer, seemed to invoke him as
their expected Saviour. The old man, struck down by the fall of a plank,
lay helpless on the deck. Soon all disappeared together.
A fearful mass of water dashed the “Black Eagle” down upon the “William
Tell,” in the midst of a cloud of boiling foam. To the dreadful crash
of the two great bodies of wood and iron, which splintering against one
another, instantly foundered, one loud cry was added--a cry of agony and
death--the cry of a hundred human creatures swallowed up at once by the
waves!
And then--nothing more was visible!
A few moments after, the fragments of the two vessels appeared in the
trough of the sea, and on the caps of the waves--with here and there
the contracted arms, the livid and despairing faces of some unhappy
wretches, striving to make their way to the reefs along the shore, at
the risk of being crushed to death by the shock of the furious breakers.