YACHTING ONLY.
Some hearts might have yearned to have been on board during the fishing
in Hay Bay, and to have enjoyed those evenings when the yacht anchored
in the twilight calm, beside rocky shores, or near waving banks of sedge
and rushes, where the whip-poor-will and bull frog supplied all the
necessary music. I abandon all that occurred at pretty Picton and
Belleville, but I must not forget the little episode that happened one
evening near Indian Point as the yacht was on her way to Kingston. A
fresh breeze had been blowing during the afternoon, and the two reefs,
taken in for comfort's sake, still remained in the mainsail, as no one
after dinner felt equal to the exertion of shaking them out. The wind
had almost died away as they approached Indian Point, and not far off,
on the other side of this long, narrow arm of the sea called the Bay of
Quinte, lay MacDonald's Cove, a snug little place for anchorage in any
kind of weather. A heavy bank of clouds was rapidly rising over the
hills in the west, and hastening up the sky to extinguish the bright
moon that had been making a fairy landscape of the bay and its
surroundings, and the barometer was falling rapidly.
This condition of affairs Jack reported to Charley, who was below with
several others having a little game in which the word "ante" seemed to
be used sometimes in a tone of reproach. Charles answered gayly, without
looking away from the game, that Jack had better get the yacht into the
Cove while there was wind to take her there, and Jack, who observed that
he was "seeing" and "raising" an antagonist for the fifth time on a pair
of fours, thought a man should not be disturbed at such a time, and went
on deck to shake out the reefs so as to drift into the Cove, if
possible, before the storm came on. But when in the middle of the bay
the wind gave out entirely. For half an hour the Ideal lay becalmed and
motionless. Oilskin suits and sou'westers were donned. Now fringes of
whitish scud, torn from the driving clouds, could be seen flying past
the bleared moon, and it seemed in the increasing darkness, while they
were waiting for the tumult, as if the shores around contracted, so as
to give the yacht no space for movement. Jack took the compass bearings
of the lighthouse, expecting soon to be in total darkness, and he had
both anchors prepared for instant use. The sails had been close-reefed,
but after being reefed they were lowered again so as to present nothing
but bare poles to the squall. The darkness came on and grew intense.
Between the rapidly increasing peals of thunder the squall could be
heard approaching, moaning over the hills in the west and down the bay
as if ravening for prey, while the lightning seemed to take a savage
delight in spearing the distant cliffs which, in the flashes, were
beautifully outlined in silhouette against an electric atmosphere. Still
the yacht lay motionless in the dead air difficult to breathe and
oppressive; and still Charley continued to "raise" and get "raised" in
the cheerfully lighted cabin, whence the laughter and the talk of the
game mingled strangely, in the ears of those on deck, with the sounds of
the coming tempest. Margaret, with her head out of the companion-way,
watched the scene with a nervousness that impending electrical storms
oppressed her with. Her quick eyes soon caught sight of something on the
water, not far off. A mystic line of white could be seen coming along
the surface. She asked what it was at a moment when the deadness and
blackness of the air seemed appalling, and the ear was filled with
strange swishing sounds. She never heard any answer. Another instant and
the yacht heeled over almost to the rail in that line of white water,
which the whips of the tornado had lashed into spume. Blinding sheets of
spray, picked up by the wind from the surface of water, flew over those
on deck, and instantly the lee scuppers were gushing with the rain and
spray which deluged the decks. Word was carried forward by a messenger
from the wheel to hoist a bit of headsail, and when this was
immediately done the yacht paid off before the squall, running easterly,
with all the furies after her. The darkness was so great that it was
impossible to see one's hand close to one's eyes. The thunderclaps near
at hand were rendered more terrific by the echoes from the hills, and
only while the lightning clothed the vessel in a spectral glare could
they see one another. Still the yacht sped on, while Jack jealously
watched the binnacle where the only guide was to be found. The Indian
Point light, though not far off, was completely blotted out by the rain,
which seemed to fall in solid masses, and even the lightning failed to
indicate the shores or otherwise reveal their position.
A wild career, such as they were now pursuing, must end somewhere, and
in the narrow rock-bound locality they were flying through, the chance
of keeping to the proper channel entirely by compass and chart did not
by any means amount to a certainty. Nor was anchoring in the middle of
the highway to be thought of, especially as some trading vessels were
known to be in the vicinity. The chance of being cut down by them was
too great. Jack felt that an error now might cause the loss of the
yacht. After calculating a variation of the compass in these parts, he
decided to run before the gale for a while and keep in the channel if
possible--hoping for a lull in the downfall of rain, so that his
whereabouts could be discovered.
A high chopping sea was driving the yacht on, while she scudded under
bare poles before the gale, and Jack had been for some little time
endeavoring to estimate their rate of speed when the deluge seemed to
abate partly and the glimmer of a light could be seen to the southward.
A sailor called out "There's Indian Point light." If it had been the
light he mentioned they would have had all they wanted. Jack feared
they had run past it, but, to make sure, he asked the sailors their
opinion. They all said they were certain it was Indian Point light. One
of them declared he had seen the lighthouse itself in one of the
flashes. So Jack had the peak of the mainsail partly hoisted and they
drew around to the southward, so as to anchor under the lee of the
lighthouse point. As the yacht came round sideways to the wind she lay
down to it and moved slowly and heavily through the short angry seas
that, hitting the side, threw spray all over her. Jack was feeling his
way carefully and slowly through the inky blackness of the night with
the lead-line going to show the depth of the water, when the lookout on
the bowsprit-end, after they had proceeded a considerable distance to
the south, suddenly cried "Breakers ahead!" and he tumbled inboard off
the bowsprit, as if he thought the boat about to strike at once. "Let
her go round, sir, for God's sake! We're right on the rocks."
Jack, back at the wheel, had not been able to get a glimpse of the
foaming rocks in the lightning which the man on the bowsprit had seen.
He despaired of the boat's going about, but he tried it. The high
chopping sea stopped the yacht at once. He knew it was asking too much
of her to come about with so little way on, and the canvas all in a bag,
so, as there was evidently no room to wear the ship, he had the big
anchor dropped. His intention was to come about by means of his anchor
and get out on the other tack into the channel and anywhere away from
the rocks and the breakers that could be heard above the tempest roaring
close to them on the port side. While the chain was being paid out, the
close-reefed mainsail was hoisted up to do its work properly. The storm
staysail was also hoisted and sheeted home on the port side to back her
head off from the land. As this was being done, the sailors paid out the
anchor-chain rapidly. To do so more quickly they carelessly threw it
off the winch and let it smoke through the hawse-pipe at its own pace.
But suddenly there came a check to it, which, in the darkness, could not
be accounted for. A bight or a knot in the chain had come up and got
jammed somewhere, and now it refused to run out. The Ideal immediately
straightened out the cable, and, at the moment, all the king's horses
and all the king's men would have been powerless to clear it. Jack came
forward, and with a lantern discovered how things were. "Never mind," he
thought. "If she will lie here for a while no harm will be done." In the
mean time, while the men were getting a tackle rigged to haul up a bit
of the chain, so as to obtain control of it again, the rain ceased to
fall, while the lightning, by which alone the men could see to work,
served only to make the succeeding darkness more profound.
The place they had sailed into was on the north shore of Amherst Island.
As Jack feared, the sailors had been wrong in thinking that the light
they saw was the one on Indian Point. It was a lantern on a schooner
which had gone ashore on the rocks close to where the Ideal now lay.
The worst of their anxiety was, however, yet to come. During a vivid
flash, after the rain had partly cleared away, a reef of rocks was
discovered a short distance off, trending out from the shore directly
behind the yacht. Jack had been lying with his hand on the cable to feel
whether the anchor was holding or not. He soon found that the yacht was
"dragging." The sails were lowered at once, and the second anchor was
left go, in the hope that it might catch hold when the first one had
dragged back far enough to allow the second to work.
With the rocks behind waiting for them, it was now a question of anchors
holding, or nothing--yacht or no yacht. Every moment as she pitched and
ducked and tossed against the driving seas and wind she dropped back
toward a black mass over which the waves broke savagely. The yacht was
literally locked up to the big anchor. They could neither haul up nor
pay out its cable, so that, until this was remedied by means of a tackle
(which takes some time in a jumping sea and darkness) sailing again was
impossible. Carefully they paid out chain enough for the second anchor
to do its work. Not till they were close to the rocks did they allow any
strain to come upon it. Then they took a turn on its chain and waited to
see how it would hold.
Feeling the cable, when there is nothing to hope for but that the hook
will do its work, is a quiet though anxious occupation. Jack waited for
the sensations in the hand which will often tell whether the anchor is
holding or not, and then rose, and in the moonlight which now began to
break through the clouds his face looked anxious. "Flat rock," he
muttered, "with a layer of mud on it."
By this time the men had got control of the big anchor's chain again and
had knocked the kink out of it. But there was no room now to slip cables
and sail off.
The rocks were too close. The idea struck him of winding in the first
anchor a bit--in the hope that it might catch in a crack in the rock, or
on a bowlder, before it got even with the second one.
This proved of no use, and the yacht was now approaching, stern-first,
the point or outward rock of the reef which stood up boldly in the
water. Only a few feet now separated this outside rock from the counter
of the yacht. In two minutes more the stem would be dashing itself into
matches.
Jack's brain, you may be sure, was on the keen lookout for expedients.
He had the mainsail hoisted and the staysail flattened down to the port
side--so as to back her head off. He hoped by this possibly to grind
off the rocks by his sails after striking, and by then slipping his
cables to get out into deep water before the stern was completely stove
in. But while this was being done the thought came into his mind whether
the stern might not clear the outer rock without hitting it. The
changeable gusts of wind had been swinging the yacht sidewise--first a
little one way and then a little the other. At the time he looked back
at the yacht, they were just about near enough to strike when the wind
shifted her a little toward the north, and for a moment the stern
pointed clear of the outer rock. His first idea was that the wind was
shifting permanently. But suddenly it came to him that this might be his
only chance. He did not wait to command others, but flew to the anchor
chains and threw off the coils. The yacht shot astern like the recoil of
a cannon. He threw the chains clear of the windlass so that the vessel
could dart backward without any check. It seemed a mad thing to do--to
let both anchors go overboard--but it was a madness which when
successful is called genius. It was genius to conceive and carry out the
idea in an instant, and single handed, too, as if he were the only one
on the boat, genius to know quickly enough exactly how the vessel would
act. Half a dozen seconds sufficed to throw off the chains, and then he
got back to the wheel, steering her as she went backward grazing her
paint only against the rock, while the chains rushed out like a
whirlwind over the bows. The staysail sheets had already been flattened
down on the port side and the yacht's head paid off fast on the port
tack, while Jack rapidly slacked the main sheet well off, and as she
gathered way and plunged out into the open channel, an understanding of
the quick idea that had saved the vessel trickled through the brains of
the hired men. Instead of climbing to the rocks from a sinking yacht, as
they expected to be doing at this moment, here they were heading out
into deep water again--with the old packet good as new.
Cresswell called to the mate to keep her "jogging around" till he spoke
to the owner about getting back the anchors, and then went below with
the other men of the party who had remained on deck throughout the
uncomfortable affair.
The workers on deck, who looked like submarine divers, slipped out of
their oil-skins and descended from the deck to the gay cabin below.
Charley still continued to "raise" and get "raised" with a pertinacity
which defied the elements. His game had had the effect of making his
mother and the others think, in spite of their tremors, that the danger
lay chiefly in their own minds, and, under the circumstances, Charley
had no easy time of it. He had listened to every sound, and knew a good
deal more about the proximity of the rocks, and the trouble generally,
than any one would have supposed.
He decided not to attempt to pick up the anchors that night, so they
beat back to MacDonald's Cove, where they entered, in the moonlight, and
made fast for the night to some trees beside a steep rocky shore.