OFF THE ROCKS AGAIN.--A BAD LEAK.--ANECDOTES.--THE RUN TO THE CAROLINE
ISLANDS.
"We shall have to heave taut again, Mr. Grafton, and give her another
swing," said the old man. "O, if we only had another hawser to hold her
stern where it is, and take this one in on the port bow! But I don't
like to risk her to swing broadside on."
At this moment a hand grasping a knife emerged from the water, near the
middle of the hawser, and a shaggy head rose partly above the surface.
Five or six muskets cracked simultaneously both from the ship and
shore. The head and arm disappeared, and the water was discolored where
they went down. Another savage had met the reward of his rashness and
the hawser was saved again.
"They wont try that move again right away," said the old man, coolly.
"But those canoes are almost here and I am fearful for those men who
are on the point, guarding the shore end of the hawser. There she slips
a little! Do you feel that, Mr. Grafton? We must risk it. Come up the
hawser all together! Lay aft here, every man! Take the bight round
outside and lead in on the port bow! Lively, men! You're working for
your lives!"
We knew it, and needed no urging; the heavy rope was passed swiftly
from hand to hand, and brought in forward to the fore-rigging; a turn
was thrown round the windlass and the brakes were instantly in motion.
As she lay now, this was the very pull she wanted. Hardly had we
brought a strain when she began to slide and rumble under us, and a
wild hurrah burst from all our lips as she settled into her element,
and her head paid briskly off, under the power of her foretopsail. But
as she did so, her stern swung in violently, and a projecting spur of
the rock beneath the water met her under the counter, with a kind of
dull, cracking sound that came ominously to our ears.
We could not stop to think of this now. We looked astern; Mr. Dunham
was coming! He had already cut the hawser at the shore end, and his
crew were pulling the boat off by it, hand over hand, while he and
Fisher stood with muskets keeping their foes at bay; for, maddened with
rage and disappointment, they were now beginning to close in upon him.
"Brace round the yards!" roared the captain. "Steady! meet her with the
helm! Keep her right in the channel! All the muskets here now, and open
a covering fire for this boat! Pull boys! pull! We'll have you all safe
in another minute!"
We no longer thought of saving powder, but fired away among the
thickest of them. A dozen of them were killed or wounded and they soon
found the work too hot. They hauled off with hideous yells, and we took
all our men safely on board, though Fisher had a bad cut from one of
the serrated spears, and the second mate and young Black Hawk were
both severely wounded by stones, which had been hurled in great numbers
from the canoes, when they closed up around the boat.
"Is that gun loaded with ball?" asked the old man.
"Ay, ay, sir!" responded Mr. Grafton. "Say the word!"
"Luff hard, there!" said the captain. "Let her come up and shiver!
Stand by, now, when she bears right--fire! Hard up, and keep full!"
The old "persuader" did her work as effectually as at Dominica. Two
canoes were struck by the discharge, and the yells that rose from
the terrified barbarians, now joined by the advance division of the
Woodle's Island fleet, rang in our ears, but with no terrors for us,
now that we were fairly standing seaward.
"Try the pumps, now, Mr. Grafton, while I look after these wounded
men," said the captain. "I'm afraid we may have started a leak, under
the counter, but I hope not a very bad one."
The first strokes of the pump told us that his fears were not without
good foundation. The water gushed from the scuppers bright and clean!
"Get me a dry ropeyarn," said Father Grafton, quietly. "Draw the boxes,
and let's sound the well."
A plummet was soon extemporized, and lowered into the pump-well. It was
drawn carefully up again. O, how anxiously all eyes were riveted upon
it, as with suspended breath we awaited the mate's words. "Twenty-five
inches."
"That's not so bad as it might be," he said cheerfully. "It's some time
since she struck there. Rig the other pump and man them both!"
We kept both pumps going fast and strong till they sucked. We then
timed her, and when we pumped her again, we made the leak about fifteen
hundred strokes an hour.
"That will keep us pretty busy pumping," said the old man, "until we
get in somewhere where we can stop it. However, we may thank God we
came off as well as we did. We can keep the leak under till we reach
one of the Carolines, and as for the three men, I don't consider either
of them wounded seriously, though they may be disabled from duty for
some days. We'll break out in the starboard side of the run this
afternoon, and see if we can make any discoveries."
We broke out, accordingly, and judging by the sound, where the leak
was, we cut out a piece of the ceiling. We found a place crushed in
two planks in width, the broken wood still remaining, though much
shattered, and forced out of its place. With a "fothering" of canvas
and oakum, and some boards nailed to the timbers to hold all in place,
we reduced the leak considerably. This was all that could be done to
it from the inside, but we were satisfied that we could get at it, by
careening the ship in a smooth harbor, and repair it, as we did the
former leak at Hanayapa; as the timbers did not appear to be materially
injured. We timed her again in our watch that night, and found we
pumped only about nine hundred strokes an hour.
[Illustration: OFF THE ROCKS AGAIN. Page 227.]
"Well," said Father Grafton, "that's much better than fifteen hundred,
for it's a kind of labor that seamen abominate, and no wonder at it.
There's a sameness about it that is not at all agreeable. I must
say that I dislike such jobs as pumping, sawing wood, and turning
grindstones."
Of course I agreed with him entirely in this antipathy.
"I don't think," continued the mate, "that there is any other leak in
her beside that one under the counter. It's likely that the copper and
sheathing are much torn up under the bows, but the ledge appeared to be
pretty smooth, and the pumps threw no water, up to just before the time
we hauled her afloat."
"I suppose," said I, "the cooper will admit now that she leaks enough
to keep her sweet. Ah! here he is, on deck, and his pipe loaded, too.
Say, Cooper, have you seen any flying fish come from the pump yet?"
"No," answered the cooper, gruffly. "She don't leak much, now, that is,
comparatively speaking. She's _tight_, compared to the old Harbinger.
But we didn't mind it so much in those days, as we should now."
"No, that's true," said the mate, "and, to go twenty or thirty years
still further back, they minded it still less, and seemed to look
upon pumping as a matter of course, a part of the regular routine of
ship's duty. I recollect a case in point. When I was a young fellow, I
happened to be present in court when a case was being tried involving
the insurance on the ship Tarquin, sunk at sea on her homeward passage.
It appeared that the Tarquin, when off Cape Horn, leaked a smart
thousand strokes an hour; that after getting down into the trades on
the Atlantic side, they had tinkered some of their leaks, and also,
being in lighter weather, she made less water, so that they pumped only
three or four hundred strokes an hour when off Cape St. Augustine.
Well, they held on their course, and, between there and home, she gave
out entirely, and sunk from under 'em. The underwriters refused to
pay, and the ground taken by them was, that the captain ought to have
gone into a port in Brazil, and overhauled his ship. Well, several
old sea-captains were called on the stand to give their opinions. I
remember one in particular, who is still living. The question was put
to him, whether, in his judgment, it was prudent for the captain of the
Tarquin, with his ship leaking some three or four hundred strokes, and
Pernambuco under his lee, to continue on towards home? 'Prudent!' said
the old gentleman. 'Yes, why not? Why,' said he, proudly, 'I sailed out
of New Bedford in a ship leaking five hundred strokes an hour to start
on a voyage!'"
"Yes, that was in what they call, 'the good old times,'" said the
cooper. "And that reminds me of a circumstance that happened many years
ago in which an uncle of mine was one of the parties concerned. He
was homeward bound in an old ship, I think it was the Criterion. They
got in on the coast, made Block Island, and took a pilot. It came on
to blow very heavily from the northward, and they were blown off the
coast and the ship leaked so that they found it impossible to free her,
and decided that the only safety for them was to put her off before it
and run her--somewhat. Well, they let her slide to leeward with both
pumps going, and when the weather moderated, they found themselves so
far to the southward that they kept on, and made a port at the French
island of Martinique. Here they discharged the oil, hove the ship out,
stopped the leaks, and took in their cargo again. In those days, you
will remember, communications with the West Indies was not an every-day
thing as it is now, and nothing was heard from that particular island
for a long time. Well, in the mean time the pilot-boat reported putting
a pilot on board ship Criterion, off Block island, such a date. Of
course, it was supposed she had foundered in the gale, and all had
perished. Well, four months afterwards, away along in the summer, the
Criterion came down to the bar, and when my uncle went ashore he found
his wife in mourning, having given him up for dead long before."
"I believe that's a true yarn, Cooper, if you _did_ tell it," said the
mate--"This way the watch! _Pump ship!_"
We still held on our course to the westward, to make a port at one of
the Carolines or Ladrones, and made good progress with the trade winds
in our favor. Our men soon recovered from their injuries, and resumed
their duties, rather priding themselves upon the ugly scars received
in the conflict. Whether the old man ever said anything in the way of
reprimand to the second mate, I never knew. If he did, the whole matter
was kept to themselves; and, indeed, it was not his habit to find fault
with an officer in the presence or hearing of any subordinate. Perhaps
he thought it best to overlook his almost fatal want of vigilance, in
view of his gallant conduct afterwards in charge of the forlorn hope
on the point, and trusted that the peril through which he had just
passed would prove a salutary lesson to him for the future. If so, he
judged correctly, for the young officer's eyes were opened to his own
carelessness; and, in a literal sense, he kept them open the remainder
of the voyage. As I learned from others in his watch, he never was
known, after this affair, to sit down during his hours of duty at night.
"We are drawing down near to the Carolines," said the mate to me one
evening, about a week after the accident. "I think we shall make
Strong's Island to-morrow."
"Have you ever been there, sir?" I asked.
"Not to go ashore," said Mr. Grafton. "I have passed in sight of it,
and I have been in and anchored at Ascension, which is beyond it to the
northward and westward. I hear that ships visit Strong's Island quite
frequently of late. I suppose the people are similar in appearance and
character to those of Ascension. We shall reconnoitre there a little,
and perhaps the old man will decide to go in, if he finds it a good
harbor to stay our leak in; if not, we shall keep on to Ascension or
Guam."
"Are these people anything like those at Kingsmill's Group?"
"Not at all," replied the mate. "Neither in appearance, language nor
general character. There is something very interesting about them; at
least, those that I have seen at Ascension. They are handsomer, and
lighter in color than those islanders we have left behind; and they
are also more intelligent and ingenious. The women, especially, are
more delicate, with good figures; some of them are really pretty. Then,
in place of the gibberish of uncouth sounds spoken in most parts of
Polynesia, these people have a musical language, full of soft liquids
and ringing consonants, that seems more like Chinese than like anything
we are accustomed to recognize as a 'Kanaka language.'"
"Are they safe people to deal with?" I asked.
"Well, no more so than the generality of savages. Indeed I think they
are quite as treacherous, though not as hardy and warlike as Marquesans
or New Zealanders. None of these races are to be trusted, and we must
be always on our guard in our intercourse with them; treating them
well, but never placing ourselves entirely in their power."
"Power makes right, with them, as it does with civilized nations," I
answered, "and the same rule of diplomacy which you have mentioned will
apply to our dealings with the best of them, I think."
"That's true," said Father Grafton, reflectively. "I suppose, after
all, we are no better than they are, only we have a more genteel way
of doing things and do them on a larger scale. We should not kill and
eat a man or two whom we caught on board our ship; but if it suited our
purposes, we should very likely take possession of a whole island or
group of islands, and kill the people in a legal way, if they resisted;
as is being done even now, by enlightened France, at the Marquesas and
Society Islands."
"And if they don't take possession of all Oceanica," said I, "it is
only because it is not worth their while, or as we Yankees would say,
'it wont pay.'"
"Just so," assented the mate. "And if, as some think, England will
protest against this occupation by the French, it will not be because
of any injustice done to the natives but because it might be thought
dangerous to her interests to permit France to have these naval
stations in the Pacific."
"It is a delicate matter, any way," he resumed, "to do justice in
dealing with these savages. We must secure the safety of our own lives,
if possible, and of our property, too. Of course I am speaking, now,
of the case of isolated ships, like our own. It seems cruel to kill or
wound a savage for pilfering, especially when we remember that a plug
of tobacco or a knife may appear as great a treasure to his simple
mind, as a mine of gold or a fertile province to our more enlightened
capacities. And yet how else are we to prevent the annoyance, and
secure our property? We cannot reason with them, nor can we punish them
according to any civilized form of law. And if we kill or maltreat
them, it's ten to one they will retaliate upon some other white men who
may be thrown in their way at a future time. It's a difficult subject,
to make the best of it," said the mate, dismissing the matter in an
unsatisfied way, as hundreds of others have done; and taking up another.
"There is evidence to prove," said he, "that the Caroline Islands were
once inhabited by a race of people far superior to those now found
here. The ruins of a large stone building, apparently a religious
temple of some sort, still stand on the island of Ascension, away up
in the interior, showing beyond all question that those who reared it
possessed a knowledge of arts and of mechanical powers far beyond the
capacity of the present owners of the soil. I am told that similar
evidences are to be found at Strong's Island, in the form of stone
walls, running in various directions about the island, which never
could have been built by the present inhabitants."
"What account do they give of them?" I asked.
"So far as I can learn, it is as great a mystery to the present
generation of them as it is to us; and I have never heard that they
have even any traditions to account for them. But there they are," said
he, dismissing this subject, like the other, unsatisfied.
"But it is time to set these faithful pumps going again; that's a
practical matter, with not much of interesting speculation about it.
_Pump ship!_"
We made Strong's Island the next day, as expected, and running down for
it, saw two ships lying at anchor in a bay on the weather side of it,
making in from the south-east. The old man lowered his boat and went
in, leaving us to lie off and on for his return. Soon afterwards a
canoe was seen coming out with three men. They paddled alongside very
quietly, in marked contrast with the jabbering barbarians whom I had
been accustomed to hear at the other group, or even to the Portuguese
boatmen at the Azores. I was looking at them over the rail in the
waist, and wondering how the first words of their language would sound
in my ears, when the man in the head of the canoe spoke up, in clear
and distinct English, "Give us a rope, if you please." The crew of
the Topez could hardly have been more surprised when they discovered
Pitcairn's Island, and were addressed in their own language by the
descendants of the Bounty mutineers, than were we at hearing this
polite request.
The men came on board, and it appeared that they all spoke a good
smattering of English, though the first speaker took the lead, he
having made a short cruise in a whaler. He told us one of the ships
in the bay was American and the other English. The mate asked him if
he knew the name of either of the ships, thinking at most, that he
might get some clew to guess from; but, to our further astonishment,
he replied, "Ship Leonidas, of New Bedford, Captain Taber, and Ship
Seringapatam, of London, Captain Courtenay," pronouncing all the names
with the greatest care and distinctness. He already knew the name of
our ship and captain, having spoken the boat going into the bay.
"Well," said Mr. Grafton, "they ought to establish a newspaper here,
and secure this man as marine news reporter. It's not one white man in
twenty could have given us these particulars, and done it in as good
shape;" for we had learned how much oil these ships has taken, where
they were bound, and many other things of interest concerning them.
"Why, either of these men talk better English than any ordinary Kanaka
who has made a four years' voyage in a whaler."
Our boat was seen returning, and the old man came on board with a
favorable report. He gave orders to get the chains up and the anchors
off the bow at once, having made up his mind to go in.
"It's a snug harbor," I heard him telling the mate, "and it's easy
getting into it. I have some doubts about getting out again as easy,
but I guess we shall have a slant of wind. Taber went in only yesterday
and is bound on Japan too. He wants a consort, and will stay as long
as we do, in case our job of stopping the leak should detain us. The
Englishman is all ready for sea, now, but he can't get out with this
wind."
Within an hour we were riding quietly at anchor in six fathoms, but a
short distance from the beach, and in a convenient place for heeling
the ship to repair the injury which had caused us so much monotonous
and fatiguing labor at the pumps.