"A wet sheet and a flowing sail."
But there are times when even a sailor may feel weary on the ocean. My
experience leads me to believe that so long as a ship is positively
doing something, and going somewhere in particular, Jack-a-tar is
perfectly contented and happy. In such a case--a sailing ship on a long
voyage, for example--if the wind blows dead ahead, dead in the good
chip's eye, Jack may feel thrown back a bit in his reckoning, but he
eats and sleeps and doesn't say much, he has got to work to windward,
and this brings out all the craft's good sailing capacity. If it blows
a gale in a wrong direction--well, she is laid to, and however rough the
weather be, Jack comforts himself and his mates with the assurance that
it can't go on blowing in the same direction for ever. Neither it does;
and no sooner is the vessel lying her course again, with her stem
cleaving through the blue water, than Jack begins to sing, like a
blackbird just let loose from a pie.
If the ship gets caught in a tornado, then there is so much to do that
there is really no time for grumbling.
But what Jack can _not_ stand, with anything like equanimity, is
inaction. Being in the doldrums, for instance, on or about the line.
"As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."
In such a case Jack does growl, and, in my humble opinion, no one has a
better right to do so.
The day after that joyful evening described in last chapter, when, by
this time, the men had not only read their letters o'er and o'er, but
had almost got them by heart, as the long row of white palatial-looking
buildings that forms the frontage of that strange city, Zanzibar, was
left behind, and the greenery of trees was presently lost to view, the
men's spirits grew buoyant indeed. For fires were now ordered to be
banked, as a breeze sprang up--quickly, too, as breezes are wont to in
these latitudes.
Sail was set, pretty close hauled she had to be, but away went the
_Bunting_ nevertheless, cutting through the bright sparkling water like
a knife. It was a wind to make the heart of a true sailor jump for joy.
It cut the pyramidal heads of the waves off, and the spray so formed
glittered in the sunshine like showers of molten silver; it sang rather
than roared through the rigging, it kept the vane extended like a
railway signal arm, it kept the pennant in a constant state of flutter,
it kept the sails all full and free from wrinkle, and every sheet as
taut as a fiddle-string. It was a "ripping" breeze, a happy bracing
breeze, a breeze that gave one strength of nerve and muscle, and light
and joy of mind.
The officers were all on deck, from the captain to the clerk, walking
rapidly up and down as if doing a record or winning a bet.
The breeze continued for days till, indeed, the ship was degrees north
of the line.
But one lovely night, with a clear sky and the moon shimmering on the
wave crests, and dyeing the water with streaks like molten gold, it fell
calm. The wind went away as suddenly almost as it had sprung up.
There were men in the chains. Every now and then their voices rang up
from near the bows in that mournful kind of chant that none can forget
who have ever heard it "And a half fi--ive."
"And a quarter less six." And so on. They had just come over an ugly
bit of shoal water, and from the mast-head, where Harry himself--it was
his watch--had gone to view the situation, he could notice that there
were patches of the same kind of coral shoals almost everywhere around.
It was an ugly situation. He could not help wishing that the wind had
continued but a little longer, or that it would again spring up from the
same quarter. But there were the sails flapping sometimes in one
direction, sometimes in another, and taking desperate pulls and jerks at
the sheets, causing the _Bunting_ to kick about in a manner that was far
from agreeable.
Harry was just about to order sail to be taken in, for he knew not in
what direction the wind would come from.
He had already taken the liberty of rousing the sleeping engineer, and
telling him to get up steam with all possible speed.
"Hands, shorten sail!"
"Ready about."
For the wind seemed now commencing to blow from off the land.
He ran up to the maintop once more to take a view of the situation.
Heavens! what was coming yonder? Away on the horizon a long bank of
snow-white fog or foam, high as poplar trees it seemed; and as he
listened for a moment spellbound, he could hear a distant roar like that
which breakers make on a sandy beach on a windless, frosty night in
winter, only more continuous. It was the scourge of the Indian Ocean.
It was the dreaded white squall.
It came on in foam and fury, lightning even playing athwart and behind
it.
"All hands on deck!" roared Harry. In his excitement he hardly knew
what he was saying. "Stand by to let go everything! Hard a port!"
Everything indeed! Hardly had he spoken ere the squall was on them, the
wind roaring like a den of wild beasts, the sea around them like a
maelstrom, ropes snapped like worsted threads, sails in ribbons, and
rattling like platoon fire, blocks adrift, sheets streaming like
pennants, and the canvas that held out-bellying to the dreadful blast
and carrying the vessel astern at the rate of knots.
Caught aback in a white squall! no situation can be more dangerous or
appalling! Well for them was it that the _Bunting_ was long and low and
rakish; a brig would have gone down stern first, giving those on board
hardly time to utter a prayer.
For five long minutes astern she sped. Two men were knocked down
dangerously wounded, and washed into the lee scuppers, where they would
have been drowned, but for the almost superhuman exertions of the
surgeon and steward.
Five long minutes, but see, good seamanship has triumphed! She is round
at last, all sail off that could be got off. She is scudding almost
under bare poles--scudding whither?
Scudding straight apparently to destruction. Through the mist and the
rain that swallows the moonlight, they cannot make out a reef that lies
right ahead of them, till she is on it, till she rasps and bumps, till
every man is thrown flat on deck, and the man pitched over the wheel.
It is all up with the _Bunting_!
Ah! many a half-despairing prayer went heavenward then, many a
half-smothered cry for mercy from Him to whom all things are possible,
and who holds the sea in the hollow of His hand.
Bending over his bleeding patients down below in the steerage, the
doctor never ceases his work, albeit the ship has struck, and the seas
are making a clear breach over, albeit he is up to the ankles in the
water that is pouring down green through the hatchway.
The steward is frantic.
Little Raggy in the captain's cabin, to whom Harry himself had taken
pains to teach the things of a better life and a better world, is on his
knees.
"O! big Fader in heaven," he is saying, "don't let de ship sinkee for
true. Dis chile no want to die to-night. De waves make plenty much
bobbery, de masts dey break and fall. Take us out ob de gulp (gulph).
Lor, take us out ob de gulp, and save us for true."
It is all up with the _Bunting_, is it?
No, for even now from away to windward yonder, unseen by those on board,
comes the bore, the hurricane wave. High as houses is it, fleet almost
as the wind itself, onward it rolls, downward it comes; and now it is on
the reef, it lifts the ship aloft as gently, as easily as a mother lifts
her baby and bears her away to safety.
Almost immediately afterwards the fury of the squall is completely
spent, the waves no longer break on board, nor the foam and the froth,
and the spume. Men can see each other now, and hear each other talk,
and orders are given by the captain himself to cut away the wreck, for
the foremast has gone five feet above the board.
Half an hour afterwards steam was up, and all was still around the ship,
while in the sky calmly shone the moon and stars. But a narrow escape
indeed it had been for the good little vessel and the gallant crew that
were in her. Though not scathless, the ship had escaped destruction on
the reef in that terrible hurricane-squall.
"If ever," said Captain Wayland, solemnly, "we have had cause for
thankfulness to that great Being who rules on earth and sea, it is this
night."
The captain was standing near the wheel with uncovered head and upturned
gaze, the soft light of the moon falling on his face.
There was something very beautiful in this simple, silent, thankful
adoration; both the doctor and Dewar, who were standing not far off,
felt its influence. Ay, and rough old sailors, who had weathered many a
storm and braved many a danger, bared their heads even as the captain
did, and breathed that little word that means so much--"Amen?"
The loss of her foremast did not improve the appearance of the
_Bunting_, but as they would now complete the voyage under steam, and
repair damages at Calcutta, it did not matter very much.
She was kept more in towards the low sandy coast, for north here never a
tree or shrub may be seen, while away down south of the line the ocean
is edged with a cloudland of green, the leafy mangroves growing on the
beach--yes, and in the water itself.
Low sandy hills, and mountains and rocks beyond. Sometimes they come in
sight of a squalid Somali-Arab village, but there was no inducement to
land.
But see, what is that stealing out round the point? A dhow, and a very
large one; a two-masted vessel.
She notices the _Bunting_ as soon as they notice her, and immediately
puts about and stands away northward before the breeze.
This is suspicious, and the _Bunting_ gives chase. The dhow has a four
miles' start and goes swinging along at a wonderful rate.
"Go ahead at full speed," is the order.
The _Bunting_ is gaining on the dhow, but in another hour it will be
dark.
Mr Dewar slips slyly down below. He goes to the store-room, and a few
minutes afterwards he appears at the engine-room door, bearing in his
arms half a side of fat bacon.
He winks to the engineer. The latter cuts off a huge junk and sticks it
in the fire.
"If you'd like Raggy to come and sit on the safety valve," says Mr
Dewar, "I'll send him."