THE STORM.
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the northeast;
The snow fell hissing in the brine;
And the billows foamed like yeast.
Down came the storm and smote amain,
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused like a frightened steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.
And fast through the midnight, dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept,
Toward the reef of Norman's Woe.
--_Wreck of the "Hesperus_."
Ishmael remained upon the quarterdeck, gazing out upon the stormy
glory of the sea and sky until he was interrupted by the most
prosaic, though the most welcome of sounds--that of the dinner-bell.
Then he went below.
On his way to the saloon he stopped at the entrance of the second
cabin; called one of the stewards, and while putting a piece of
money in his hand, requested him to take a bowl of soup up to the
old man on deck, and to see that he wanted nothing.
Then Ishmael paid a visit to each of his suffering companions.
First he opened the door of Judge Merlin's stateroom, and found that
gentleman with his face sulkily turned to the wall, and in a state
of body and mind so ill and irritable as to make all attempts at
conversation with him quite dangerous to the speaker.
Next Ishmael looked in upon Mr. Brudenell, whom he luckily found
fast asleep. And then, after having given the stateroom stewards a
strict charge concerning the comfort of these two victims, Ishmael
passed on to the dining saloon. It was nearly empty. There were even
fewer people gathered for dinner than there had been for breakfast.
The tables had the storm-guards upon them, so that each plate and
dish sat down in its own little pen to be kept from slipping off in
the rolling of the ship. But this arrangement could not prevent them
from occasionally flying out of their places when there was an
unusually violent toss.
At the table where Ishmael sat there was no one present except the
old retired merchantman, Captain Mountz, who sat on the opposite
side, directly under the port lights. And with the rolling of the
ship these two diners, holding desperately onto the edge of the
table, were tossed up and down like boys on a see-saw plank.
The mingled noise of wind and wave and ship was so deafening as to
make conversation difficult and nearly impossible. And yet Ishmael
and the captain seemed to feel in courtesy compelled to bawl at each
other across the table as they see-sawed up and down.
"The gale seems to have knocked down all our fellow passengers and
depopulated our saloon," cried Ishmael, soaring up to the sky with
his side of the table.
"Yes, sir, yes, sir; a lot of land-lubbers, sir; a lot of lubbers,
sir! Gale? Nothing but a capful of wind, sir! Nothing but a capful
of wind!" roared the captain, sinking down to the abyss on his side
of the table.
Here the steward, seizing a favorable moment, deftly served them
with soup. And nothing but the utmost tact and skill in marine
legerdemain enabled this functionary to convey the soup from the
tureen to the plates. And when there, it required all the attention
and care of the diners to get it from plate to lip. And, after all,
more than half of it was spilled.
"Thank goodness, that is over! The solids won't give us so much
trouble," said the captain, handing his empty plate to the steward.
The second course was served. But the motion of the ship increased
so much in violence that the two diners were compelled to hold still
more firmly on to the edge of the table with one hand, while they
ate with the other, as they were tossed up and down.
"You're a good sailor, sir!" bawled the captain as he pitched down
out of sight.
"Yes, thank Heaven!" shouted Ishmael, flying up.
Then came a tremendous lurch of the ship.
"Oh, I must see that wave!" cried the captain, imprudently climbing
up to look out from the port-light above him.
He had scarcely attained the desired position when there came
another, an unprecedented toss of the ship, and the unlucky captain
lay sprawling on the top of the table--with one wide-flung hand deep
in the dish of mashed turnips and the other grasping the roast pig,
while his bullet head was butted into Ishmael's stomach.
"Blast the ship!" cried the discomfited old man--very unnecessarily,
since there was "blast" enough, and to spare.
"'Only a capful of wind,' captain! 'Only a capful of wind,'" said
Ishmael, in a grave, matter-of-fact way, as he carefully assisted
the veteran to rise.
"Humph! humph! humph! I might have known you would have said that.
Ha! glad none of the women are here to see me! I s'pose I've done
for the mashed turnips and roast pig; and I shouldn't wonder if I
had knocked your breath out of your body, too, sir," sputtered the
old man, trying to recover his feet, a difficult matter amid the
violent pitching of the ship.
"Oh, you've not hurt me the least," said Ishmael, still rendering
him all the assistance in his power.
But this mishap put an end to the dinner. For the captain's toilet
sadly needed renovating, and the table required putting right.
Ishmael went up on deck--a nearly impossible feat for any landsman,
even for one so strong and active as Ishmael was, to accomplish with
safety to life and limb, for the ship was now fearfully pitched from
side to side, and wallowing among the leaping waves.
High as the wind was--blowing now a hurricane--the sky was perfectly
clear, and the sun was near its setting.
Ishmael found his old servant sitting propped up against the back of
the wheel-house, looking out at one of the most glorious of all the
glorious sights in nature--sunset at sea.
"As soon as the sun has set you must go down and turn in, Morris.
The wind is increasing, and it is no longer safe for a landsman like
you to remain up here," said his master.
"Mr. Ishmael, sir, you must just leave me up here to my fate. As to
getting me down now, that is impossible; I noticed that it took both
your hands, as well as both your feet, to help yourself up," replied
the professor.
"What! do you mean to stay on deck all night?"
"I see no help for it, sir; I should be pitched downstairs and have
my neck broken, or be washed into the sea and get drowned, by any
attempt to go below."
"Nonsense, Morris; the sun has gone down now; follow his example. I
will take you safely," said Ishmael, offering his arm to the old man
in that kind, but peremptory, way that admitted of no denial.
A sailor near at hand came forward and offered his assistance. And
between the two the professor was safely taken down to the second
cabin and deposited in his berth.
A German Jew, who shared the professor's stateroom, saw the party
coming, and exclaimed to a fellow-passenger:
"Tere's tat young shentleman mit his olt man again. Fader Abraham!
he ish von shentleman; von drue shentleman!"
"A 'true gentleman,' I believe you, Isaacs. Why, don't you know who
he is? He is that German prince they've been making such a fuss
over, in the States. I saw his name in the list of passengers.
Prince--Prince Edward of--of Hesse--Hesse something or other, I
forget. They are all Hesses or Saxes up there," said his
interlocutor.
"No, no," objected the Jew. "Dish ish nod he. I know Brince Etwart
ven I see him. He ish von brince, but nod von shentleman. He svears
ad hish mens."
The near approach of the subject of this conversation prevented
farther personal remarks. But when Ishmael had seen his old follower
comfortably in bed, the Jew turned to him and, as it would seem, for
the simple pleasure of speaking to the young man whom he admired so
much, said:
"Zir; te zhip rollts mush. Tere vill pe a gread pig storm."
"I think so," answered Ishmael courteously.
"Vell, if zhe goesh down do te boddom tere vill pe von lesh drue
shentleman in de vorlt, zir. Ant tat vill be you."
"Thank you," said Ishmael, smiling.
"Ant tere vill pe von lesh Sherman Shew in te vorlt. Ant tat vill pe
me."
"Oh, I hope there is no danger of such a calamity. Good-night!" said
Ishmael, smiling upon his admirer and withdrawing from the cabin.
Ishmael took tea with the old captain, who came into the saloon and
sat down in a perfectly renovated toilet, as if nothing had
happened.
But when I say they took tea, I mean that they took quite as much of
it up their sleeves and down their bosoms as into their mouths.
Drinking tea in a rolling ship is a sloppy operation.
After that the captain produced a chess-board, ingeniously arranged
for sea-service, and the two gentlemen spent the evening in a mimic
warfare that ended in a drawn battle.
"The gale seems to be subsiding. The motion of the ship has not been
so violent for the last half hour, I think," said Ishmael, as they
arose from the table.
"No; if it had been, we could not have played chess, even on this
boxed board," was the reply.
"I hope we shall have fine weather now. What do you say, captain?"
"I say as I said before. I am a passenger, and the weather is
nothing to me. But if you expect we are going to have fine weather
because the wind has lulled--humph!"
"We shall not, then?"
"We shall have a twister, that is what we shall have--and before
many hours. And I shouldn't wonder if we had a storm of snow and
sleet to cap off with. Good-night, sir!" And with this consoling
prophecy the old man withdrew.
Ishmael went to his berth and slept soundly until morning. When he
awoke he found the ship rolling, pitching, tossing, leaping,
falling, and fairly writhing and twisting like a living creature in
mortal agony.
He fell out of his berth, pitched into his clothes, slopped his face
and hands, raked his hair, and tumbled on deck. In other words, by
sleight of hand and foot, he made a sea-toilet and went up.
What a night!
The sky black as night; the sea lashed into a foam as white as snow;
the waves running mountain high from south to north; the wind
blowing a hurricane from east to west; the ship subjected to this
cross action, pitching onward in semicircular jerks, deadly
sickening to see and feel.
"I suppose this is what you call a 'twister,'" said Ishmael, reeling
towards the old captain, who was already on deck.
"Yes; just as I told you! You see that gale blew from the south for
about forty-eight hours and got the sea up running north. And then,
before the sea had time to subside, the wind chopped round and now
blows from due east. And the ship is rolled from side to side by the
waves and tossed from stem to stern by the wind. And between the two
actions she is regularly twisted, and that is the reason why the
sailors call this sort of thing a 'twister.' And this is not the
worst of it. This east wind will be sure to blow up a snowstorm. We
shall have it on the Banks."
"This has gone beyond a gale. I should call this a hurricane," said
Ishmael.
"Hurricane? hurricane? Bless you, sir, no, sir! capful of wind!
capful of wind!" said the old man doggedly.
Nevertheless Ishmael noticed that the ship's captain looked anxious
and gave his orders in short, peremptory tones.
The predicted snowstorm did not come on during that short winter's
day, however. The "twister" "twisted" vigorously; twisted the ship
nearly in two; twisted the souls, or rather the stomachs, nearly out
of the bodies of the seasick victims. Even the well-pickled "old
salt," Captain Mountz, felt uncomfortable. And it was just as much
as Ishmael could do to keep himself up and avoid succumbing to
illness. Those two were the last of the passengers that attempted to
keep up. And they were very glad when night came and gave them an
excuse for retiring.
The predicted snowstorm came on about midnight. When Ishmael dressed
and struggled out of his stateroom in the morning, he found it just
the nearest thing to an impossibility to go up on deck. The wind was
still blowing a hurricane; the sea leaping in the wildest waves; the
ship pitching, tossing, and jerking as before; and in addition to
all this, the snow was falling thick and fast, and freezing as it
fell, and every part of the deck and rigging was covered with a
slippery, shining coating of ice.
Those who find it dangerous to walk on a motionless pavement in
sleety weather may now imagine what is was to climb the ice-sheathed
steps of this pitching ship.
Ishmael managed to get up on deck somehow; but he found the place
deserted of all except the man at the wheel and the officer of the
watch. Even the old sea lion, Captain Mountz, was among the missing.
There was little to be seen. He stood on the deck of a tossing ship
of ice, in the midst of a high wind, a boiling sea, and a storm of
snow; he could not discern an object a foot in advance of him.
And so, after a few words with the well-wrapped-up officer of the
watch, he went below to look after the companions of his voyage.
Judge Merlin and Mr. Brudenell, like all the other passengers, were
so ill as still to hate the sight of a human being. Leaving them in
the care of the stateroom steward, Ishmael went to see after his old
retainer. The professor was up, clothed, and in his right mind.
"You see I made an effort, Mr. Ishmael, sir, and a successful one,
so far as getting on my feet was concerned. When I woke up this
morning it occurred to me, like a reproach, that I had come with
you, sir, to wait on you and not to be waited on by you--which
latter arrangement was a sort of turning things topsy-turvy--"
"I ding sho doo," interrupted the German Jew, whose name was Isaacs.
"And so," continued the professor, "I made an effort to get up and
do my duty, and I find myself much better for it."
"I am glad you are well enough to be up, Morris, but indeed, you
need have suffered no twinges of conscience on my account," said
Ishmael, smiling.
"I know your kindness, sir, and that makes it more incumbent on me
to do my duty by you. Well, sir, I've been to your stateroom; but
finding you gone, and everything dancing a hornpipe there, I tried
to get up on deck to you, but there, sir, I failed. And, besides,
while I was doing my best, a stout old gentleman, a sea captain I
take him to be, blasted my eyes, and ordered me to go below and not
break my blamed neck. And so I did."
"That was Captain Mountz. He meant you well, Morris. You did quite
right to obey him."
Soon after this Ishmael went to his stateroom, took a volume of
Shakspeare, and then ensconsed himself in a corner of the saloon,
where he sat and read until dinner-time.
The progress of the steamer was very slow. The day passed heavily.
And again when night came everyone was glad to go to bed and to
sleep.