“Every day, some sailor’s wife,
The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,
Have just our theme of woe.”
_Tempest._
“We are safe!” said Wilder, who had stood, amid the violence of the
struggle, with his person firmly braced against a mast, steadily
watching the manner of their escape. “Thus far, at least, are we safe;
for which may Heaven alone be praised, since no art of mine could avail
us a feather.”
The females had buried their faces in the folds of the vestments and
clothes on which they were sitting; nor did even the governess raise
her countenance until twice assured by her companion that the imminency
of the risk was past. Another minute went by, during which Mrs Wyllys
and Gertrude were rendering their thanksgivings, in a manner and in
words less equivocal than the expression which had just broken from the
lips of the young seaman. When this grateful duty was performed, they
stood erect, as if emboldened, by the offering, to look their situation
more steadily in the face.
On every side lay the seemingly illimitable waste of waters. To them,
their small and frail tenement was the world. So long as the ship,
sinking and dangerous as she was, remained beneath them, there had
appeared to be a barrier between their existence and the ocean. But one
minute had deprived them of even this failing support, and they now
found themselves cast upon the sea in a vessel that might be likened to
one of the bubbles of the element. Gertrude felt, at that instant, as
though she would have given half her hopes in life for the mere sight
of that vast and nearly untenanted Continent which stretched for so
many thousands of miles along the west, and kept the world of waters to
their limits.
But the rush of emotions that so properly belonged to their forlorn
condition soon subsided, and their thoughts returned to the study of
the means necessary to their further safety. Wilder had, however
anticipated these feelings; and, even before Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude
had recovered their recollections, he was occupied, aided by the ready
hands of the terrified but loquacious Cassandra, in arranging the
contents of the boat in such a manner as would enable her to move
through the element with the least possible resistance.
“With a well-trimmed ship, and a fair breeze,” cried our adventurer,
cheerfully, so soon as his little job was ended, “we may yet hope to
reach the land in one day and another night. I have seen the hour when,
in this good launch, I would not have hesitated to run the length of
the American coast, provided”—
“You have forgotten your provided,” said Gertrude observing that he
hesitated, probably from a reluctance to express any exception to the
opinion, which might increase the fears of his companions.
“Provided it were two months earlier in the year,” he added, in a tone
of less confidence.
“The season is, then, against us: It only requires the greater
resolution in ourselves!”
Wilder turned his head to regard the fair speaker, whose pale and
placid countenance, as the moon silvered her fine features, expressed
any thing but the courage to endure the hardships he so well knew she
was liable to encounter, before they might hope to gain the Continent.
After musing a moment, he lifted his open hand towards the south-west,
and held its palm some little time to the air of the night.
“Any thing is better than idleness, for people in our condition,” he
said. “There are some symptoms of the breeze coming in this quarter; I
will be ready to meet it.”
He then spread his two lug-sails; and, trimming aft the sheets, placed
himself at the helm, like one who expected his services there might be
shortly needed. The result did not disappoint his expectations. Ere
Long, the light canvas of the boat began to flutter; and then, as he
brought the bows in the proper direction, the little vessel commenced
moving slowly along its blind and watery path.
The wind soon came fresher upon the sails, heavily charged with the
dampness of the hour. Wilder urged the latter reason as a motive for
the females to seek their rest beneath a little canopy of tarpaulings,
which his foresight had also provided, and on mattresses he had brought
from the ship Perceiving that their protector wished to be alone, Mrs
Wyllys and her pupil did as desired; and, in a few minutes, if not
asleep, no one could have told that any other than our adventurer had
possession of the solitary launch.
The middle hour of the night went by, without any material change in
the prospects of those whose fate so much depended on the precarious
influence of the weather. The wind had freshened to a smart breeze;
and, by the calculations of Wilder, he had already moved across many
leagues of ocean, directly in a line for the eastern end of that long
and narrow isle that separates the waters which wash the shores of
Connecticut from those of the open sea. The minutes flew swiftly by;
for the time was propitious and the thoughts of the young seaman were
busy with the recollections of a short but adventurous life. At moments
he leaned forward, as if he would catch the gentle respiration of one
who slept beneath the dark and rude canopy, and as though he might
distinguish the soft breathings of her slumbers from those of her
companions. Then would his form fall back into its seat, and his lip
curl, or even move, as he gave inward utterance to the wayward fancies
of his imagination. But at no time, not even in the midst of his
greatest abandonment to reverie and thought, did he forget the
constant, and nearly instinctive, duties of his station. A rapid glance
at the heavens, an oblique look at the compass, and an occasional, but
more protracted, examination of the pale face of the melancholy moon,
were the usual directions taken by his practised eyes. The latter was
still in the zenith; and his brow began again to contract, as he saw
that she was shining through an atmosphere without a haze. He would
have liked better to have seen even those portentous and watery circles
by which she is so often environed and which are thought to foretel the
tempest, than the hard and dry medium through which her beams fell so
clear upon the face of the waters. The humidity with which the breeze
had commenced was also gone; and, in its place, the quick, sensitive
organs of the seaman detected the often grateful, though at that moment
unwelcome, taint of the land. All these were signs that the airs from
the Continent were about to prevail, and (as he dreaded, from certain
wild-looking, long, narrow clouds, that were gathering over the western
horizon) to prevail with a power conformable to the turbulent season of
the year.
If any doubt had existed in the mind of Wilder as to the accuracy of
his prognostics, it would have been solved about the commencement of
the morning watch. At that hour the inconstant breeze began again to
die; and, even before its last breathing was felt upon the flapping
canvas, it was met by counter currents from the west. Our adventurer
saw at once that the struggle was now truly to commence, and he made
his dispositions accordingly. The square sheets of duck, which had so
long been exposed to the mild airs of the south, were reduced to one
third their original size, by double reefs; and several of the more
cumbrous of the remaining articles such as were of doubtful use to
persons in their situation, were cast, without pausing to hesitate,
into the sea. Nor was this care without a sufficient object. The air
soon came sighing heavily over the deep from the north-west, bringing
with it the chilling asperity of the inhospitable regions of the
Canadas.
“Ah! well do I know you,” muttered Wilder, as the first puff of this
unwelcome wind struck his sails, and forced the little boat to bend to
its power in passing; “well do I know you, with your fresh-water
flavour and your smell of the land! Would to God you had blown your
fill upon the lakes, without coming down to drive many a weary seaman
back upon his wake, and to eke out a voyage, already too long, by your
bitter colds and steady obstinacy!”
“Do you speak?” said Gertrude, half appearing from beneath her canopy,
and then shrinking back, shivering, into its cover again, as she felt
the influence in the change of air.
“Sleep, Lady, sleep,” he answered, as though he liked not, at such a
moment, to be disturbed by even her soft and silvery voice.
“Is there new danger?” asked the maiden, stepping lightly from the
mattress, as if she would not disturb the repose of her governess. “You
need not fear to tell me the worst: I am a soldier’s child!”
He pointed to the signs so well comprehended by himself, but continued
silent.
“I feel that the wind is colder than it was,” she said, “but I see no
other change.”
“And do you know whither the boat is going?”
“To the land, I think. You assured us of that, and I do not believe you
would willingly deceive.”
“You do me justice; and, as a proof of it, I will now tell you that you
are mistaken. I know that to your eyes all points of the compass, on
this void, must seem the same; but I cannot thus easily deceive
myself.”
“And we are not sailing for our homes?”
“So far from it, that, should this course continue we must cross the
whole Atlantic before your eyes could again see land.”
Gertrude made no reply, but retired, in sorrow, to the side of her
governess. In the mean time, Wilder again left to himself, began to
consult his compass and the direction of the wind. Perceiving that he
might approach nearer to the continent of America by changing the
position of the boat, he wore round, and brought its head as nigh up to
the south-west as the wind would permit.
But there was little hope in this trifling change. At each minute, the
power of the breeze was increasing until it soon freshened to a degree
that compelled him to furl his after-sail. The slumbering ocean was not
long in awakening; and, by the time the launch was snug under a
close-reefed fore-sail, the boat was rising on dark and ever-growing
waves, or sinking into the momentary calm of deep furrows, whence it
rose again, to feel the rapidly increasing power of the blasts. The
dashing of the waters, and the rushing of the wind, which now began to
sweep heavily across the blue waste, quickly drew the females to the
side of our adventurer. To their hurried and anxious questions he made
considerate but brief replies, like a man who felt that the time was
far better suited to action than to words.
In this manner the last lingering minutes of the night went by, loaded
with a care that each moment rendered heavier, and which each
successive freshening of the breeze had a tendency to render doubly
anxious. The day came, only to bestow more distinctness on the
cheerless prospect. The waves were looking green and angrily, while,
here and there, large crests of foam were beginning to break on their
summits—the certain evidence that a conflict betwixt the elements was
at hand. Then came the sun over the ragged margin of the eastern
horizon, climbing slowly into the blue arch above, which lay clear,
chilling, distinct, and entirely without a cloud.
Wilder noted all these changes of the hour with a closeness that proved
how critical he deemed their case. He seemed rather to consult the
signs of the heavens than to regard the tossings and rushings of the
water, which dashed against the side of his little vessel in a mariner
that, to the eyes of his companions, often appeared to threaten their
total destruction. To the latter he was too much accustomed, to
anticipate the true moment of alarm, though to less instructed senses
it might already seem so dangerous. It was to him as is the thunder,
when compared to the lightning, in the mind of the philosopher; or
rather he knew, that, if harm might come from the one on which he
floated, its ability to injure must first be called into action by the
power of the sister element.
“What think you of our case now?” asked Mrs Wyllys, keeping her look
closely fastened on his countenance, as if she would rather trust its
expression than even to his words for the answer.
“So long as the wind continues thus, we may yet hope to keep within the
route of ships to and from the great northern ports; but, if it freshen
to a gale, and the sea begin to break with violence. I doubt the
ability of this boat to lie-to.”
“Then our resource must be in endeavouring to run before the gale.”
“Then must we scud.”
“What would be our direction, in such an event?” demanded Gertrude, to
whose mind, in the agitation of the ocean and the naked view on every
hand, all idea of places and distances was lost, in the most
inextricable confusion.
“In such an event,” returned our adventurer, regarding her with a look
in which commiseration and indefinite concern were so singularly
mingled, that her own mild gaze was changed into a timid and furtive
glance, “in such an event, we should be leaving that land it is so
important to reach.”
“What ’em ’ere?” cried Cassandra, whose large dark eyes were rolling on
every side of her, with a curiosity that no care or sense of danger
could extinguish; “’em berry big fish on a water?”
“It is a boat!” cried Wilder, springing upon a thwart, to catch a
glimpse of a dark object that was driving on the glittering crest of a
wave, within a hundred feet of the spot where the launch itself was
struggling through the brine. “What ho!—boat, ahoy!—holloa there!—boat,
ahoy!”
The deep breathing of the wind swept by them, but no human sound
responded to his shout. They had already fallen, between two seas, into
a deep vale of water, where the narrow view extended no farther than
the dark and rolling barriers on either side.
“Merciful Providence!” exclaimed the governess, “can there be others as
unhappy as ourselves!”
“It was a boat, or my sight is not true as usual,” returned Wilder,
still keeping his stand, to watch the moment when he might catch
another view. His wish was quickly realized. He had trusted the helm,
for the moment, to the hands of Cassandra, who suffered the launch to
vary a little from its course. The words were still on his lips, when
the same black object came sweeping down the wave to windward, and a
pinnace, bottom upwards, washed past them in the trough. Then followed
a shriek from the negress, who abandoned the tiller, and, sinking on
her knees, hid her face in her hands. Wilder instinctively caught the
helm, as he bent his face in the direction whence the revolting eye of
Cassandra had been turned. A grim human form was seen, erect, and half
exposed, advancing in the midst of the broken crest which was still
covering the dark declivity to windward with foam. For a moment, it
stood with the brine dripping from the drenched locks, like some being
that had issued from the deep to turn its frightful features on the
spectators; and then the lifeless body of a drowned man drove past the
launch, which, at the next minute, rose to the summit of the wave, to
sink into another vale where no such terrifying object floated.
Not only Wilder, but Gertrude and Mrs Wyllys. had seen this startling
spectacle so nigh them as to recognize the countenance of Nighthead,
rendered still more stern and forbidding than ever, in the impression
left by death. But neither spoke, nor gave any other evidence of their
intelligence. Wilder hoped that his companions had at least escaped the
shock of recognizing the victim; and the females themselves saw, in the
hapless fortune of the mutineer too much of their own probable though
more protracted fate, to be able to give vent to the horror each felt
so deeply, in words. For some time, the elements alone were heard
sighing a sort of hoarse requiem over the victims of their conflict.
“The pinnace has filled!” Wilder at length observed, when he saw, by
the pallid features and meaning eyes of his companions, it was in vain
to affect reserve on the subject any longer. “Their boat was frail, and
loaded to the water’s edge.”
“Think you all are lost?” observed Mrs Wyllys, in a voice that scarcely
amounted to a whisper.
“There is no hope for any! Gladly would I part with an arm, for the
assistance of the poorest of those misguided seamen, who have hurried
on their evil fortune by their own disobedience and ignorance.”
“And, of all the happy and thoughtless human beings who lately left the
harbour of Newport, in a vessel that has so long been the boast of
mariners, we alone remain!”
“There is not another: This boat, and its contents are the sole
memorials of the ‘Royal Caroline!’”
“It was not within the ken of human Knowledge to foresee this evil,”
continued the governess, fastening her eye on the countenance of
Wilder, as though she would ask a question which conscience told her,
at the same time, betrayed a portion of that very superstition which
had hastened the fate of the rude being they had so lately passed.
“It was not.”
“And the danger, to which you so often and so inexplicably alluded, had
no reference to this we have incurred?”
“It had not.”
“It has gone, with the change in our situation?”
“I hope it has.”
“See!” interrupted Gertrude, laying a hand, in her haste, on the arm of
Wilder. “Heaven be praised! yonder is something at last to relieve the
view.”
“It is a ship!” exclaimed her governess; but, an envious wave lifting
its green side between them and the object, they sunk into a trough, as
though the vision had been placed momentarily before their eyes, merely
to taunt them with its image. The quick glance of Wilder had caught,
however, a glimpse of the tracery against the heavens, as they
descended. When the boat rose again, his look was properly directed,
and he was enabled to be certain of the reality of the vessel. Wave
succeeded wave, and moments followed moments, during which the stranger
was given to their gaze, and as often disappeared, as the launch
unavoidably fell into the troughs of the seas. These short and hasty
glimpses sufficed, however, to convey all that was necessary to the eye
of a man who had been nurtured on that element, where circumstances now
exacted of him such constant and unequivocal evidences of his skill.
At the distance of a mile, there was in fact a ship to be seen, rolling
and pitching gracefully, and without any apparent effort, on those
waves through which the launch was struggling with such difficulty. A
solitary sail was set, to steady the vessel, and that so reduced, by
reefs, as to look like a little snowy cloud amid the dark maze of
rigging and spars. At times, her long and tapering masts appeared
pointing to the zenith, or even rolling as if inclining against the
wind; and then, again, with slow and graceful sweeps, they seemed to
fall towards the ruffled surface of the ocean, as though about to seek
refuge from their endless motion, in the bosom of the agitated element
itself. There were moments when the long, low, and black hull was seen
distinctly resting on the summit of a sea, and glittering in the
sun-beams, as the water washed from her sides; and then, as boat and
vessel sunk together, all was lost to the eye, even to the attenuated
lines of her tallest and most delicate spars.
Both Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude bowed their faces to their knees, when
assured of the truth of their hopes, and poured out their gratitude in
silent and secret thanksgivings. The joy of Cassandra was more
clamorous, and less restrained. The simple negress laughed, shed tears,
and exulted in the most touching manner, on the prospect that was now
offered for the escape of her young mistress and herself from a death
that the recent sight had set before her imagination in the most
frightful form. But no answering look of congratulation was to be
traced in the contracting and anxious eye of their companion.
“Now,” said Mrs Wyllys, seizing his hand in both her own, “may we hope
to be delivered; and then shall we be allowed, brave and excellent
young man, some opportunity of proving to you how highly we esteem your
services.”
Wilder permitted the burst of her feelings with a species of bewildered
care, but he neither spoke, nor in any other manner exhibited the
smallest sympathy in her joy.
“Surely you are not grieved, Mr Wilder,” added the wondering Gertrude,
“that the prospect of escape from these awful waves is at length so
mercifully held forth to us!”
“I would gladly die to shelter you from harm,” returned the young
sailor; “but”—
“This is not a time for any thing but gratitude and rejoicing,”
interrupted the governess; “I cannot hearken to any cold exceptions
now; what mean you with that ‘but?’”
“It may be not so easy as you think to reach yon ship—the gale may
prevent—in short, many is the vessel that is seen at sea which cannot
be spoken.”
“Happily, such is not our cruel fortune. I understand considerate and
generous youth, your wish to dampen hopes that may possibly be yet
thwarted, but I have too long, and too often, trusted this dangerous
element, not to know that he who has the wind can speak, or not, as he
pleases.”
“You are right in saying we are to windward Madam; and, were I in a
ship, nothing would be easier than to run within hail of the
stranger.—That ship is certainly lying-to, and yet the gale is not
fresh enough to bring so stout a vessel to so short canvas.”
“They see us, then, and await our arrival.”
“No, no: Thank God, we are not yet seen! This little rag of ours is
blended with the spray. They take it for a gull, or a comb of the sea,
for the moment it is in view.”
“And do you thank Heaven for this!” exclaimed Gertrude, regarding the
anxious Wilder with a wonder that her more cautious governess had the
power to restrain.
“Did I thank Heaven for not being seen! I may have mistaken the object
of my thanks: It is an armed ship!”
“Perhaps a cruiser of the King’s! We are the more likely to meet with a
welcome reception! Delay not to hoist some signal, lest they increase
their sail, and leave us.”
“You forget that the enemy is often found upon our coast. This might
prove a Frenchman!”
“I have no fears of a generous enemy. Even a pirate would give shelter,
and welcome, to females in such distress.”
A long and profound silence succeeded. Wilder still stood upon the
thwart, straining his eyes to read each sign that a seaman understands;
nor did he appear to find much pleasure in the task.
“We will drift ahead,” he said, “and, as the ship is lying on a
different tack, we may yet gain a position that will leave us masters
of our future movements.”
To this his companions knew not well how to make any objections. Mrs
Wyllys was so much struck with the remarkable air of coldness with
which he met this prospect of refuge against the forlorn condition in
which he had just before confessed they were placed, that she was much
more disposed to ponder on the cause, than to trouble him with
questions which she had the discernment to see would be useless.
Gertrude wondered, while she was disposed to think he might be right,
though she knew not why. Cassandra alone was rebellious. She lifted her
voice in loud objections against a moment’s delay, assuring the
abstracted and perfectly inattentive young seaman, that, should any
evil come to her young mistress by his obstinacy, General Grayson would
be angered; and then she left him to reflect on the results of a
displeasure that to her simple mind teemed with all the danger that
could attend the anger of a monarch. Provoked by his contumacious
disregard of her remonstrances, the negress, forgetting all her
respect, in blindness in behalf of her whom she not only loved, but had
been taught to reverence, seized the boat-hook, and, unperceived by
Wilder, fastened to it, with dexterity, one of the linen cloths that
had been brought from the wreck, and exposed it, far above the
diminished sail, for a couple of minutes, ere her device had caught the
eyes of either of her companions. Then, indeed she lowered the signal,
in haste, before the dark and frowning look of Wilder. But, short as
was the triumph of the negress, it was crowned with complete success.
The restrained silence, which is so apt to succeed a sudden burst of
displeasure, was still reigning in the boat, when a cloud of smoke
broke out of the side of the ship, as she lay on the summit of a wave;
and then came the deadened roar of artillery struggling heavily up
against the wind.
“It is now too late to hesitate,” said Mrs Wyllys; “we are seen, let
the stranger be friend or enemy.”
Wilder did not answer, but continued to profit, by each opportunity, to
watch the movements of the stranger. In another moment, the spars were
seen receding from the breeze, and, in a couple of minutes more, the
head of the ship was changed to the direction in which they lay. Then
appeared four or five broader sheets of canvas in different parts of
the complicated machinery, while the vessel bowed to the gale, as
though she inclined still lower before its power. At moments, as she
mounted on a sea, her bows seemed issuing from the element altogether
and high jets of spray were cast into the air, glittering in the sun,
as the white particles scattered in the breeze, or fell in gems upon
the sails and rigging, “It is now too late, indeed;” murmured our
adventurer bearing up the helm of his own little craft, and letting its
sheet glide through his hands, until the sail was bagging with the
breeze nearly to bursting. The boat, which had so long been labouring
through the water, with a wish to cling as nigh as possible to the
Continent, flew over the seas, leaving a long trail of foam behind it;
and, before either of the females had regained their entire
self-possession, she was floating in the comparative calm that was
created by the hull of a large vessel. A light active form stood in the
rigging of the ship, issuing the necessary orders to a hundred seamen;
and, in the midst of the confusion and alarm that such a scene was
likely to cause in the bosom of woman, Gertrude and Mrs Wyllys, with
their two companions, were transferred in safety to the decks of the
stranger. The moment they and their effects were secured the launch was
cut adrift, like useless lumber. Twenty mariners were then seen
climbing among the ropes; and sail after sail was opened still wider,
until bearing the vast folds of all her canvas spread, the vessel was
urged along the trackless course, like a swift cloud drifting through
the thin medium of the upper air.