Strangely enough, there seemed some strong connection between the water-
spout and the wind; for, no sooner had the column of vapour broken up,
than the heavy clouds dispersed away to leeward. The sun then came out
again, and the squally weather calmed down to a gentle breeze from the
south-east that enabled us to haul round again on our proper course, the
ship presently being covered anew with canvas and the reefs in the
topsails shaken out.
When all danger was over, though, the whole thing puzzled me very much.
"What is a water-spout?" I asked Captain Miles later on in the evening
after dinner, as he was having a quiet cigar on the poop before turning
in. I saw that he then looked inclined for a chat, and thought it a
good opportunity to seek for information.
He answered my question in the Irish way, by asking me another.
"Did you ever see a whirlwind when you were at Grenada, Tom?" he
inquired.
"Yes," I replied, "I recollect a long time ago noticing one at Mount
Pleasant once, and wondering at the way in which all the loose straw in
the stable-yard was circled round and round, as if in a funnel, and then
drawn up into the sky."
"Well, then," said Captain Miles, "the celebrated Dr Franklin has
demonstrated, if I recollect aright, that a whirlwind on land, and a
water-spout at sea, arise from similar general causes, and may be
considered one and the same thing."
"But, what is the cause of them?" I asked now.
"The action of opposing atmospheric currents, Tom, if you can understand
what I mean. Two contrary winds meet: a vortex therefore ensues; and,
any cloud that happens to be between these opposing currents of air at
the time is condensed into a conical form and turned round with great
celerity. This whirling motion drives from the centre of the cloud all
the particles of vapour contained in it; consequently, a vacuum is
thereby produced in the body of it; and, as nature abhors a vacuum in
every case, the water of the sea lying below the overhanging mass is
carried up, in centrifugal fashion, and in a sort of way by capillary
attraction, into the vacant centre of the cloud cylinder."
"Why does it not stop there?" said I. "That one just now burst."
"Ah, that fellow was like a greedy boy who has eaten too much, and has
to disgorge after he has filled his little stomach too full! But, some
water-spouts carry their contents on to the land, where, when the clouds
have been attracted by mountains or some lofty object, they may do great
damage by wrecking houses and inundating the country for miles round.
At sea, they are not half so dangerous, having plenty of room there to
expend themselves without effecting much injury, except a ship should be
right beneath them when they fall to pieces."
"Do you think, sir," I then inquired, "that one would have sunk us, if
it had burst over the _Josephine_?"
"Well, I hardly know, Tom," answered Captain Miles reflectively.
"Although it looked terrific enough at one time, I am not inclined to
believe now that it would have been attended with any very serious
calamity to our ship, had even the whole quantity of water it contained
fallen on our decks. If you recollect, I ordered beforehand the hatches
to be battened down and the scuppers in the waist cleared. Besides, the
cylinder or spiral column of vapour, you observed, was very like a glass
tube in the centre of the water-spout, and this coming in contact with
our masts and rigging it would have been at once broken, when the
surrounding air rushing into the vacuum to restore the atmospheric
equilibrium, the torrent of water would have been forced sideways
instead of descending perpendicularly, coming down merely as a heavy
tropical shower, similar to those you have been well acquainted with in
Grenada. I have heard of some vessels being damaged by water-spouts,
but I have never come across anyone who happened to be on board one of
them at the time, so I rather fancy the tale was one of those generally
`told to the marines.'"
So, laughing it off, the captain finished his little scientific lecture
at this point, while I went below to my bunk, wishing to get undressed
before Harry the steward came to douse the light in the cabin, which he
always did sharp to time.
If the water-spout did us no actual damage it certainly served as a very
bad omen. It took away the favourable breezes, which, before its advent
on the scene, had sped the _Josephine_ so gaily on her way home to
England; and the weather for some days afterwards was not nearly so
pleasant, tedious calms and contrary winds preventing our making the
rapid passage Captain Miles anticipated from our good running at the
beginning of the voyage.
We were now in the region between the regular trade-winds and what are
termed "the anti-trades or passage winds," above the tropic of Cancer.
This is a particular portion of the ocean between the parallels known to
sailors as the "Horse Latitudes," where there is generally a lull met
with in the currents of air that elsewhere reign rampant over the sea;
and, once arrived within the precincts of this blissful zone, the ship
tossed about there for a week at a stretch, hardly making a mile towards
her wished-for goal--only rocking restlessly on the bosom of the deep.
There is nothing so irksome as calm weather at sea, to those at all
events whose duty lies upon the waters and who do not go on shipboard
for mere pleasure.
So long as the wind blows, whether favourably or not, there is something
to do. If it be fair, there is the cheering prospect of counting the
number of knots run when the log is hove, and knowing that one is
getting each hour so much nearer one's destination; while, if King
Aeolus be unpropitious, there is all the excitement of fighting against
his efforts to delay the vessel, and the proud satisfaction of making
way in spite of adverse breezes.
But, in a calm, nothing can be done excepting to wait patiently, or
impatiently, for the wind to blow again; and, consequently, all is
dreary stagnation and dead monotony--the captain ever pacing the poop in
not the best of tempers, with the men idling about the decks, or else
occupied in the unexciting task of unreeving rope yarn, to keep their
hands from mischief, and, perhaps, polishing up the ring-bolts as a last
resource!
Under such circumstances, it is not at all to be wondered that the crew
of a vessel usually get discontented; and, should her officers be in the
least inclined to be tyrannical, an ill feeling is produced which
sometimes leads to an outbreak.
Hardly a single mutiny ever occurred on a ship at sea save in calm
weather; at other times the hands have too much to do even to grumble,
in the way that sailors love to do ashore, comparing their nautical
experience to "a dog's life"--albeit they never give up the sea all the
same!
On board the _Josephine_, however, all went along pleasantly enough,
although we were becalmed and the seamen, had plenty of leisure time for
airing their grievances.
Captain Miles, it is true, did not come on deck looking jolly and
beaming with good-humour, as he used to do when we were bowling along
before a stiff breeze; but he was not a bit cantankerous, and if there
was no legitimate work to occupy the crew with, he did not go out of his
way unnecessarily to "haze" them by inventing new sorts of tasks, as a
good many other masters of vessels are in the habit of doing in similar
cases. As for Mr Marline, he was of a most even disposition, taking
all things that came with his usual equanimity and never giving a rough
word to anyone.
Davis, the second mate, whom I have already mentioned as having been
promoted from the fo'c's'le, was a very different sort of man; for,
being without education and any good principle, he took advantage of his
position, whenever the captain's eye was not upon him, to bully those
with whom he had previously associated on an equality. He was "very
much above them now," he thought, and showed it as it was in the nature
only of a low-minded fellow to do.
Like most "Jacks in office," he was always trying to assert his
position; and, as a natural result, he was not by any means in good
favour with the men, who resented his overbearing way all the more from
the fact of their having formerly been hail-fellow-well-met with him,
which of course they could not readily forget, if he did.
Still, things went on pretty smoothly on board while the calm lasted,
despite the little roughnesses which the second mate's way of evincing
his authority produced--and which I could not avoid noticing, for I'm
sure he used to be "down" on me whenever he had a chance of calling me
to account for going where I had no business to, as I confess I
sometimes did, although I used to be encouraged by the men, and Mr
Marline would wink at my escapades. We all found it terribly dull,
though; for, even the fish were too lazy to come to the surface to be
caught, and so we were deprived therefore of our old pastime of angling
for them from the bowsprit in the afternoons and evenings.
Day after day, the _Josephine_ rolled her hull from port to starboard
and then back again to port on the tumid sea, which, save throbbing with
a dull heavy swell, had now lost all its life and action:--day after day
we looked in vain for a breeze from sunrise to sunset; day after day our
watchful longing was all in vain; there, day after day, for over a week,
we rolled and lay!
Captain Miles used to come up regularly on the poop at noon to take the
sun, from a sense of duty; but it was almost a useless task, as we
hardly varied a mile in our position from the commencement of the calm,
the vessel remaining close in with the fiftieth parallel of longitude
and in latitude thirty-two North.
Mr Marline liked to chaff the captain about this, telling him that his
sextant wanted polishing up a bit and that the glasses were wrong.
However, that all went for nothing with his chief, who well knew where
the fault lay, fully understanding that the instrument was not to blame;
but, as regularly as he brought out the sextant he used to laugh at Mr
Marline's stereotyped joke.