Jerome slept. He could breathe up here under the open sky, and wanted to
be alone. For the first time, consciously, in his life, he felt a full
sufficiency in his own being. He had made a mess of wedding his destiny
to other destinies. He was through with women, and wanted to feel himself
free of them, quite free. It was sweet to lie up here in the dark all
alone and mourn his baby’s death, and begin to pull himself together a
little, and look toward the future.
His life, he felt, was pretty sombre and difficult, despite the high
promise of the release which had given him a start in the great world.
But at least he could take up his burden and go on alone. It no longer
concerned him what Lili did, or what became of Lili. He was free. And
with each puff of his little short-stemmed pipe, which now looked
anything but jaunty, Jerome felt himself more a misogynist.
When his pipe was smoked out he did not refill it, but curled up instead,
right where he was, with his head on one arm, and fell asleep.
During the hours that followed he was occasionally half conscious of
voices and passing steps. He slept lightly, and, as the phrase has it,
with one eye open, the way people often do who sleep out under the sky.
At a little before four o’clock Jerome woke suddenly and sat up. He
felt vividly awake, yet there seemed no cause for it. Everything was
quiet. There was less wind than at midnight. Dawn was in the sky; but it
struggled as yet unequally with great rolling clouds, dense as boiling
tar, which seemed to have broken loose from some mysterious mooring
that had held them embanked all night. Jerome saw at once that Captain
Bearman’s thunder storm was upon them at last. There was a clap quite
close at hand, and then he realized that it was thunder which had aroused
him from sleep.
Some of the top sails were flapping a little in a lull that would be
broken any minute—the quietest and most sinister kind of lull in the
whole realm of human experience.
Mr. Nelson, the mate, was giving orders. They could see the rain coming
afar off across the troubled sea. A gust of wind made the sails strain
and the rigging creak in an abrupt, complex way.
Jerome watched, and the spell of the sea was strong upon him. He had no
terror left. A feeling of restlessness made him ask himself: “Why don’t
I cut loose and ship before the mast?” He watched the mate and felt his
cool authority; watched the seamen on duty going intelligently about
their work, undismayed by the threatening chaos of the sky. “Yes. I love
it,” Jerome murmured. And then he added, half to himself and half aloud:
“It’s so big and free!”
The mate wanted to get up to the forecastle before the rain came, if he
could, and see if the anchors were all ship-shape for Captain Bearman’s
flying moor; but he waited for the wheelman to bring the vessel around
into the starboard tack. In his effort to perform this manœuvre neatly,
the wheelman spun the wheel so far that the rudder jammed on the port
side. He made a futile effort to release it and turned deploringly toward
the mate.
Mr. Nelson swore at the man softly and effectively. There was no bluster
about it. The mate knew, and the seaman knew, it is no light and airy
calamity, getting the rudder jammed. Already the schooner was swinging
around before the wind. In another moment the wind would come over the
port quarter, and the sails would jibe.
“Run up forward and rouse the other men!” shouted the mate, his words
snatched from his lips by a sudden rush of wind.
The storm was upon them—wind, thunder, rain. With her rudder disabled,
the vessel lay helpless. And the mate had no more than spoken when the
jigger topmast snapped with a sharp crack and came crashing down with the
topsail and gaff. The splintered topmast lay on deck, but the gaff had
fallen clean of the gunwale, and floated on the waves. Everything was
in confusion. The sails were jibing, and the seamen were rushing about,
ducking out of the way of the booms.
Captain Bearman came up the companion ladder to take possession of the
deck. (It was the beginning of the morning watch.) He heard the crash
and hastened, his face full of alarm. But as he emerged, the jigger boom
swung round and struck him in such a way that he was swept clear of his
ship, and, temporarily dazed, recovered his senses in the water.
V
From out the tempestuous maw of the sea came the bawling voice of the
_Skipping Goone’s_ unfortunate master.
“Help! Help! Throw me a line, d’you hear?”
But though the mate heard well enough, he was too good a seaman to take
any heed. Out of the corner of his eye he had already noted that the
jigger gaff floated near at hand. The captain could temporarily take care
of himself, while the mate took care of the vessel.
It was time for quick action.
They were lowering the sails. That done, the mate caught one of the
seamen by the arm and shouted in his ear: “Go aft and haul in the log!”
Then rapid preparations were made for taking a sounding.
“Run up forward with the deepsea lead, and carry the line from the poop,
but keep it well outboard”—however, as they feared, the depth was beyond
the reach of their cable.
Meantime, the storm had crashed and roared to the point of its fullest
fury. There was not very much wind, but the rain was like a cloudburst,
and lightning seemed to strike on all sides of the schooner at once.
“Help! Help!” bawled the voice of the skipper. “I can’t hold out much
longer!”
They paid no attention, but set to work quickly to rig up a sea anchor.
“Take that broken jigger topmast,” ordered the mate, “and slash a piece
of canvas—that will do—just slash it on there, and get some leads for the
bottom....” When it was launched, the sea anchor made the schooner head
up out of the trough.
Orders had to be shouted and reshouted on account of the fearful uproar
of the skies.
“On the port side—”
“The rudder—”
Men called out and ran here and there shouting. But always the voice that
dominated even the fury of the storm was the voice of the ship’s master
out in the sea.
“Help! Help! Let down that boat, you swine!”
And then, in the midst of it all, the real calamity befell them. A bolt
of lightening struck the mainmast, shivered it, and plunged on straight
down into the hold of the ship. The crash of it was frightful.
Terrified faces appeared in the companionway. Songbirds came scrambling
up to see what was happening to them. They trembled with dismay, and were
instantly drenched by the rain.
At first the mate ordered them below, out of the way. But almost
immediately a new crisis developed.
A seaman ran up, panting: “We’re afire!” His eyes rolled.
Flames, indeed, began almost at once shooting up out of the hold where
the bolt had struck. Everything below was very dry. From this moment
there was no time even to think of saving the vessel. And now the mate
shouted:
“Get all hands on deck! Bring up blankets, and throw two chests of
biscuit into the boats!”
The _Skipping Goone_ was done for. It no longer mattered whether her
rudder was jammed or whether it wasn’t. It no longer even mattered about
her splintered masts. A bolt had plunged into her bowels, and no power on
earth could save her now.
“I guess it’s our scenery that’s on fire!” said Mr. Curry wildly, rushing
about in an effort to make sure all his songbirds were up from below.
A look of amazement and deep anguish was in his face. “We must get
these people off, Mr. Nelson! Where’s Captain Bearman? Lord, Lord!”—he
was wringing his hands—“it doesn’t seem possible a thing like this has
happened to us!”
The life boats could only be launched from two davits on the poop deck.
One boat always hung there in readiness.
The sea was not running very high, so that it would be possible to launch
the boats and then lower the passengers into them. The mate shouted his
orders.
“Two men at each davit. Easy, easy! Don’t let that line get wedged there!
Now lower!”
The boats were built to hold about twenty each. The ship’s cook, cabin
boy, and two of the seamen went along in the first boat with the women.
Then the second boat, already hauled up to the davits, was hoisted with
some difficulty and maddening delays, out over the gunwale. Men began
sliding down the rope ladder.
The fire spread rapidly through the hold of the ancient vessel. Smoke
rolled up in huge spirals and puffs into the dawn of the breaking sky.
The squall was passing rapidly up the world.
“Shove ’er off!” shouted Mr. Nelson hoarsely. And the second boat drifted
loose. Jerome seized an oar, the impresario another, and they stroked
side by side with the seamen.
Slowly the boats pulled away from the doomed old ship which had seemed
to share with them such a deal of human drama, and which had valiantly
brought them so far.
They picked the skipper up; and so overwhelmed was he by the immense
misfortune which had come upon him in so short a time that he no longer
bawled but seemed unable to do more than stare in a dazed way.