THE END OF THE 'EARLY MORN.'
The first business of the men was to get the broken mast out of the
water. Helga helped, and worked with as much dexterity as though she had
been bred to the calling of the Deal waterman. The mast in breaking had
been shortened by ten feet, and was therefore hardly as useful a spar to
step as the bowsprit. It was laid along the thwarts in the side, and we
went to work to strengthen the mast that had been sprung in the Channel
by laying pieces of wood over the fractured part, and securely binding
them by turn upon turn of rope. This, at sea, they call 'fishing a
spar.' Jacob shook his head as he looked at the mast when we had made an
end of the repairs, but said nothing. When the mast was stepped, we
hoisted the sail with a reef in it to ease the strain. Abraham went to
the tiller, the boat's head was put to a south-west course, and once
again the little fabric was pushing through it, rolling in a long-drawn
way upon a sudden swell that had risen while we worked, with a frequent
little vicious shake of white waters off her bow, as though the combing
of the small seas irritated her.
The wind was about east, of a November coldness, and it blew somewhat
lightly till a little before ten o'clock in the morning, when it came
along freshening in a gust which heeled the boat sharply, and brought a
wild, anxious look into Abraham's eyes as he gazed at the mast. The
horizon slightly thickened to some film of mist which overlay the
windward junction of heaven and water, and the sky then took a windy
face, with dim breaks of blue betwixt long streaks of hard vapour, under
which there nimbly sailed, here and there, a wreath of light-yellow
scud. The sea rapidly became sloppy--an uncomfortable tumble of billows
occasioned by the lateral run of the swell--and the boat's gait grew so
staggering, such a sense of internal dislocation was induced by her
brisk, jerky wobbling--now to windward, now to leeward, now by the
stern, now by the head, then all the motions happening together, as it
were, followed by a sickly, leaning slide down some slope of rounded
water--that for the first time in my life I felt positively seasick, and
was not a little thankful for the relief I obtained from a nip of poor
Captain Nielsen's brandy out of one of the few jars which had been taken
from the raft, and which still remained full.
Some while before noon it was blowing a fresh breeze, with a somewhat
steadier sea; but the rolling and plunging of the lugger continued sharp
and exceedingly uncomfortable. To still further help the mast--Abraham
having gone into the forepeak to get a little sleep--Helga and I, at the
request of Jacob, who was steering, tied a second reef in the sail:
though, had the spar been sound, the lugger would have easily borne the
whole of her canvas.
'If that mast goes, what is to be done?' said I to Jacob.
'Whoy,' he answered, 'we shall have to make shift with the remains of
the mast that went overboard last night.'
'But what sail will you be able to hoist on that shortened height?'
'Enough to keep us slowly blowing along,' he answered, 'till we falls in
with a wessel as will help us to the sort o' spar as 'll sarve.'
'Considering the barrenness of the sea we have been sailing through,'
said I, 'the look-out seems a poor one, if we're to depend upon passing
assistance.'
'Mr. Tregarthen,' said he, fixing his eyes upon my face, 'I'm an older
man nor you, and therefore I takes the liberty of telling ye this: that
neither ashore nor at sea do things fall out in the fashion as is
hanticipated. That's what the Hi-talian organ-grinder discovered. He
conceived that if he could get hold of a big monkey he'd do a good
trade; so he buys the biggest he could meet with--a chap pretty nigh as
big as himself. What happened? When them parties was met with a week
arterwards, it was the monkey that was a-turning the handle, while the
horgan-grinder was doing the dancing.'
'The public wouldn't know the difference,' said Helga.
'True for you, lady,' answered Jacob, with an approving nod and a smile
of admiration. 'But Mr. Tregarthen here'll find out that I'm speaking
the Lard's truth when I says that human hanticipation always works out
contrariwise.'
'I heartily hope it may do so in our case!' I exclaimed, vexed by the
irrationality, as it seemed to me, of this homely boatman's philosophic
views.
'About toime for Abraham to take soights, ain't it?' said he.
I went to the hatch and called to Abraham, who in a few minutes arrived,
and, with sleepy eyes, fell to groping after the sun with his old
quadrant. While he was thus occupied, Helga touched me lightly on the
shoulder and pointed astern. I peered an instant, and then said:
'I see it! A sail!--at the wrong end of the sea again, of course!
Another _Thermopylæ_, maybe, to thunder past us with no further
recognition of our wants than a wagging head over the rail, with a
finger at its nose.'
'It's height bells!' cried Abraham; and he sat down to his rough
calculations.
Jacob looked soberly over his shoulder at the distant tiny space of
white canvas.
'If there's business to be done with her,' said he, 'we must steer to
keep her head right at our starn. What course'll she be taking?'
'She appears to be coming directly at us,' answered Helga.
'Why not lower your sail, heave the lugger to, and fly a distress
signal?' said I.
I had scarcely uttered the words when the boat violently jumped a sea; a
crash followed, and the next instant the sail, with half of the fished
mast, was overboard, with the lugger rapidly swinging, head to sea, to
the drag of the wreckage.
I was not a little startled by the sudden cracking of the mast, that was
like the report of a gun, and the splash of the sail overboard, and the
rapid slewing of the boat.
Helga quietly said in my ear, 'Nothing better could have happened. We
are now indeed a wreck for that ship astern to sight, and she is sure to
speak to us.'
Abraham flung down his log-book with a sudden roaring out of I know not
what 'longshore profanities, and Jacob, letting go the helm, went
scrambling forwards over the thwarts, heaping sea-blessings, as he
sprawled, upon the eyes and limbs of the boat-builder who had supplied
the lugger with spars. The three of us went to work, and Helga helped us
as best she could, to get the sail in; but the sea that was now running
was large compared to what it had been during the night, and the task
was extraordinarily laborious and distressful. Indeed, how long it took
us to drag that great lugsail full of water over the rail was to be told
by the ship astern, for when I had leisure to look for her I found her
risen to her hull, and coming along, as it seemed to me, dead for us,
heeling sharply away from the fresh wind, but rolling heavily too on the
swell, and pitching with the regularity of a swing in motion.
Helga and I threw ourselves upon a thwart, to take breath. The boatmen
stood looking at the approaching vessel.
'She'll not miss seeing us, any way,' said Abraham.
'I'm for letting the lugger loie as she is,' exclaimed Jacob: 'they'll
see the mess we're in, and back their taws'l.'
'You will signal to her, I hope?' said I.
'Ay,' answered Abraham; 'we'll gi' 'em a flourish of the Jack presently,
though there'll be little need, for if our condition ain't going to stop
'em there's nothen in a colour to do it.'
'Abraham,' said I, 'you and Jacob will not, I am sure, think us
ungrateful if I say that I have made up my mind--and I am sure Miss
Nielsen will agree--that I have made up my mind, Abraham, to leave your
lugger for that ship, outward-bound as I can see she is, if she will
receive us.'
'Well, sir,' answered Abraham mildly, 'you and the lady are your own
masters, and, of course, you'll do as you please.'
'It is no longer right,' I continued, 'that we should go on in this
fashion, eating you out of your little floating house and home; nor is
it reasonable that we should keep you deprived of the comfort of your
forepeak. We owe you our lives, and, God knows, we are grateful! But our
gratitude must not take the form of compelling you to go on maintaining
us.'
Abraham took a slow look at the ship.
'Well, sir,' said he, 'down to this hour the odds have been so heavy
agin your exchanging this craft for a homeward-bounder that I really
haven't the heart to recommend ye to wait a little longer. It's but an
oncomfortable life for the likes of you and the lady--she having to loie
in a little bit of a coal-black room, forrads, as may be all very good
for us men, but werry bad and hard for her; and you having to tarn in
under that there opening, into which there's no vartue in sailcloth to
keep the draughts from blowing. I dorn't doubt ye'll be happier aboard a
craft where you'll have room to stretch your legs in, a proper table to
sit down to for your meals, and a cabin where you'll loie snug. 'Sides,
tain't, after all, as if she wasn't agoing to give ye the same chances
of getting home as the _Airly Marn_ dew. Only hope she'll receive ye.'
'Bound to it,' rumbled Jacob, 'if so be as her cap'n's a _man_.'
I turned to Helga.
'Do I decide wisely?'
'Yes, Hugh,' she answered. 'I hate to think of you lying in that cold
space there throughout the nights. The two poor fellows,' she added
softly, 'are generous, kind, large-hearted men, and I shrink from the
thought of the mad adventure they have engaged in. But,' said she, with
a little smile and a faint touch of colour in her cheeks, as though she
spoke reluctantly, 'the _Early Morn_ is very uncomfortable.'
'All we have now to pray for is that the captain of that vessel will
take us on board,' said I, fixing my eyes on the ship, that was yet too
distant for the naked sight to make anything of. 'I suppose, Abraham,' I
spoke out, turning to the man, 'that you will request them to give you a
boom for a spare mast?'
'Vy, ask yourself the question, sir,' he answered.
'But suppose they have no spare booms, and are unable to accommodate
you?'
'Then,' said he, 'we must up with that there stick,' pointing with his
square thumb to the mast that had carried away on the previous night,
'and blow along till we meets with something that _will_ accommodate
us.'
'But, honestly, men--are you in earnest in your resolution to pursue
this voyage to Australia? You two--the crew now half the working
strength you started with--a big boat of eighteen tons to handle,
and----' I was on the point of referring to the slenderness of his skill
as a navigator, but, happily, snapped my lips in time to silence the
words.
Abraham eyed me a moment, then gave me a huge, emphatic nod, and,
without remark, turned his back upon me in 'longshore fashion, and
leisurely looked around the ocean line.
'Men,' said I, 'that ship may take us aboard, and in the bustle I may
miss the chance of saying what is in my mind. My name is Hugh
Tregarthen, as you know, and I live at Tintrenale, which you have
likewise heard me say. I came away from home in a hurry to get alongside
the ship that this brave girl's father commanded; and as I was then, so
am I now, without a single article of value upon me worthy of your
acceptance; for, as to my watch, it was my father's, and I must keep it.
But if it should please God, men, to bring us all safely to England
again, then, no matter when you two may return, whether in twelve months
hence or twelve years hence, you will find set apart for you, at the
little bank in Tintrenale, a sum of fifty pounds--which you will take
as signifying twenty-five pounds from Miss Helga Nielsen, and
twenty-five pounds from me.'
'We thank you koindly, sir,' said Jacob.
'Let us get home, first,' said Abraham; 'yet, I thank ye koindly tew,
Mr. Tregarthen,' he added, rounding upon me again and extending his
rough hand.
I grasped and held it with eyes suffused by the emotion of gratitude
which possessed me: then Jacob shook hands with me, and then the poor
fellows shook hands with Helga, whose breath I could hear battling with
a sob in her throat as she thanked them for her life and for their
goodness to her.
But every minute was bringing the ship closer, and now I could think of
nothing else. Would she back her topsail and come to a stand? Would she
at any moment shift her helm and give us a wide berth? Would she, if she
came to a halt, receive Helga and me? These were considerations to
excite a passion of anxiety in me. Helga's eyes, with a clear blue gleam
in them, were fixed upon the oncoming vessel; but the agitation, the
hurry of emotions in her little heart, showed in the trembling of her
nostrils and the contraction of her white brow, where a few threads of
her pale-gold hair were blowing.
Jacob pulled the Jack out of the locker, and attached it to the long
staff or pole, and fell to waving it as before, when the Hamburger hove
into view. The ship came along slowly, but without deviating by a hair's
breadth from her course, that was on a straight line with the lugger.
She was still dim in the blue, windy air, but determinable to a certain
extent, and now with the naked vision I could distinguish her as a
barque or ship of about the size of the _Anine_, her hull black and a
row of painted ports running along either side. She sat somewhat high
upon the water, as though she were half empty or her cargo very light
goods; but she was neat aloft--different, indeed, from the Hamburger.
Her royals were stowed in streaks of snow upon their yards, but the rest
of her canvas was spread, and it showed in soft, fair bosoms of white,
and the cloths carried, indeed, an almost yacht-like brilliance as they
steadily swung against the steely gray of the atmosphere of the horizon.
The ship pitched somewhat heavily as she came, and the foam rose in
milky clouds to the hawse-pipes with a regular alternation of the
lifting out of the round, wet, black bows, and a flash of sunshine off
the streaming timbers. From time to time Jacob flourished his flagstaff,
all of us, meanwhile, waiting and watching in silence. Presently,
Abraham put his little telescope to his eye, and, after a pause, said:
'She means to heave-to.'
'How can you tell?' I cried.
'I can see some figures a-standing by the weather mainbraces,' said he;
'and every now and again there's a chap, aft, bending his body over the
rail to have a look at us.'
His 'longshore observation proved correct. Indeed, your Deal boatman can
interpret the intentions of a ship as you are able to read the passions
in the human face. When she was within a few of her own lengths of us,
the mainsail having previously been hauled up, the yards on the mainmast
were swung, and the vessel's way arrested. Her impulse, which appeared
to have been very nicely calculated, brought her surging, foaming, and
rolling to almost abreast of us, within reach of the fling of a line
before she came to a dead stand. I instantly took notice of a crowd of
chocolate-visaged men standing on the forecastle, staring at us, with a
white man on the cathead, and a man aft on the poop, with a white
wideawake and long yellow whiskers.
'Barque ahoy!' bawled Abraham, for the vessel proved to be of that rig,
though it was not to have been told by us as she approached head on.
'Hallo!' shouted the man in the white wideawake.
'For God's sake, sir,' shouted Abraham, 'heave us a line, that we may
haul alongside! We're in great distress, and there's a couple of parties
here as wants to get aboard ye.'
'Heave them a line!' shouted the fellow aft, sending his voice to the
forecastle.
'Look out for it!' bawled the white man on the heel of the cathead
within the rail.
A line lay ready, as though our want had been foreseen; with sailorly
celerity the white man gathered it into fakes, and in a few moments the
coils were flying through the air. Jacob caught the rope with the
unerring clutch of a boatman, and the three of us, stretching our backs
at it, swung the lugger to the vessel's quarter.
'What is it you want?' cried the long-whiskered man, looking down at us
over the rail.
'We'll come aboard and tell you, sir,' answered Abraham. 'Jacob, you
mind the lugger! Now, Mr. Tregarthen, watch your chance and jump into
them channels [meaning the mizzen chains], and I'll stand by to help the
lady up to your hands. Ye'll want narve, miss! Can ye do it?'
Helga smiled.
I jumped on to a thwart, planting one foot on the gunwale in readiness.
The rolling of the two craft, complicated, so to speak, by the swift
jumps of the lugger as compared with the slow stoops of the barque, made
the task of boarding ticklish even to me, who had had some experience in
gaining the decks of ships in heavy weather. I waited. Up swung the
boat, and over came the leaning side of the barque: then I sprang, and
successfully, and, instantly turning, waited to catch hold of Helga.
Abraham took her under the arms as though to lift her towards me when
the opportunity came.
'I can manage alone--I shall be safer alone!' she exclaimed, giving him
a smile and then setting her lips.
She did as I had done--stood on a thwart, securely planting one foot on
the gunwale; and even in such a moment as that I could find mind enough
to admire the beauty of her figure and the charming grace of her posture
as her form floated perpendicularly upon the staggering motions of the
lugger.
'Now, Hugh!' she cried, as her outstretched hands were borne up to the
level of mine. I caught her. She sprang, and was at my side in a breath.
'Nobly done, Helga,' said I: 'now over the rail with us.'
She stopped to call Abraham with a voice in which I could trace no hurry
of breathing: 'Will you please hand me up my little parcel?'
This was done, and a minute later we had gained the poop of the barque.
The man with the long whiskers advanced to the break of the short poop
or upper deck as Helga and I ascended the ladder that led to it. He
seized the brim of his hat, and, without lifting it, bowed his head as
though to the tug he gave, and said with a slightly nasal accent by no
means Yankee, but of the kind that is common to the denomination of
'tub-thumpers':
'I suppose you are the two distressed parties the sailor in the lugger
called out about?'
'We are, sir,' said I. 'May I take it that you are the captain of this
barque?'
'You may,' he responded, with his eyes fixed on Helga. 'Captain Joppa
Bunting, master of the barque _Light of the World_, from the river
Thames for Table Bay, with a small cargo _and_ for orders. That gives
you everything, sir,' said he.
He pulled at his long whiskers with a complacent smile, now
contemplating me and now Helga.
'Captain Bunting,' said I, 'this lady and myself are shipwrecked people,
very eager indeed to get home. We have met with some hard adventures,
and this lady, the daughter of the master of the barque _Anine_, has not
only undergone the miseries of shipwreck, the hardships of a raft, and
some days of wretchedness aboard that open boat alongside: she has been
afflicted, besides, by the death of her father.'
'Very sorry indeed to hear it, miss,' said the Captain; 'but let this be
your consolation, that every man's earthly father is bound to die at
some time or other, but man's Heavenly Father remains with him for
ever.'
Helga bowed her head. Language of this kind in the mouth of a plain
sea-captain comforted me greatly as a warrant of goodwill and help.
'I'm sure,' said I, 'I may count upon your kindness to receive this lady
and me and put us aboard the first homeward-bound ship that we may
encounter.'
'Why, of course, it is my duty as a Christian man,' he answered, 'to be
of service to all sorrowing persons that I may happen to fall in with. A
Deal lugger--as I may presume your little ship to be--is no fit abode
for a young lady of sweet-and-twenty----'
He was about to add something, but at that moment Abraham came up the
ladder, followed by the white man whom I had noticed standing on the
forecastle.
'What can I do for you, my man?' said the Captain, turning to Abraham.
'Whoy, sir, it's loike this----' began Abraham.
'He wants us to give him a spare boom to serve as a mast, sir,' clipped
in the other, who, as I presently got to know, was the first mate of the
vessel--a sandy-haired, pale-faced man, with the lightest-blue eyes I
had ever seen, a little pimple of a nose, which the sun had caught, and
which glowed red, in violent contrast with his veal-coloured cheeks. He
was dressed in a plain suit of pilot-cloth, with a shovel peaked cap;
but the old pair of carpet slippers he wore gave him a down-at-heels
look.
'A spare boom!' cried the Captain. 'That's a big order, my lad. Why, the
sight of your boat made me think I hadn't got rid of the Downs yet!
There's no hovelling to be done down here, is there?'
'They're carrying out the boat to Australia, sir!' said the mate.
The Captain looked hard at Abraham.
'For a consideration, I suppose?' said he.
'Ay, sir, for a consideration, as you say,' responded Abraham, grinning
broadly, and clearly very much gratified by the Captain's reception of
him.
'Then,' said the Captain, pulling down his whiskers and smiling with an
expression of self-complacency not to be conveyed in words, 'I do not
for a moment doubt that you _are_ carrying that lugger to Australia, for
my opinion of the Deal boatmen is this: that for a consideration they
would carry their immortal souls to the gates of the devil's palace, and
then return to their public-houses, get drunk on the money they had
received, and roll about bragging how they had bested Old Nick himself!
Spare boom for a mast, eh?' he continued, peering into Abraham's face.
'What's your name, my man?'
'Abraham Vise,' answered the boatman, apparently too much astonished as
yet to be angry.
'Well, see here, friend Abraham,' said the Captain turning up his eyes
and blandly pointing aloft, 'my ship isn't a forest, and spare booms
don't grow aboard us. And yet,' said he, once again peering closely into
Abraham's face, 'you're evidently a fellow-Christian in distress, and
it's my duty to help you! I suppose you _are_ a Christian?'
'Born one!' answered Abraham.
'Then, Mr. Jones,' exclaimed the Captain, 'go round the ship with friend
Abraham Vise, and see what's to be come at in the shape of a spare
boom. Off with you now! Time's time on the ocean, and I can't keep my
tops'l aback all day.'
The two men went off the poop. The Captain asked me my name, then
inquired Helga's, and said, 'Mr. Tregarthen, and you, Miss Nielsen, I
will ask you to step below. I have a drop of wine in my cabin, and a
glass of it can hurt neither of you. Come along, if you please;' and, so
saying, he led the way to a little companion-hatch, down which he
bundled, with Helga and myself in his wake; and T recollect, as I turned
to put my foot upon the first of the steps, that I took notice (with a
sort of wonder in me that passed through my mind with the velocity of
thought) of the lemon-coloured face of a man standing at the wheel, with
such a scowl upon his brow, that looked to be withered by the sun to the
aspect of the rind of a rotten orange, and with such a fierce, glaring
expression in his dusky eyes, the pupils of which lay like a drop of ink
slowly filtering out upon a slip of coloured blotting-paper, that but
for the hurry I was in to follow the Captain I must have lingered to
glance again and yet again at the strange, fierce, forbidding creature.
We entered a plain little state-cabin, or living-room, filled with the
furniture that is commonly to be seen in craft of this sort--a table,
lockers, two or three chairs, a swinging tray, a lamp, and the like. The
Captain asked us to sit, and disappeared in a berth forward of the
state-cabin; but he returned too speedily to suffer Helga and me to
exchange words. He put a bottle of marsala upon the table, took the
wineglasses from a rack affixed to a beam, and produced from a
side-locker a plate of mixed biscuits. He filled the glasses, and, with
his singular smile and equally curious bow, drank our healths, adding
that he hoped to have the pleasure of speedily transhipping us.
He had removed his wideawake hat, and there was nothing, for the moment,
to distract me from a swift but comprehensive survey of him. He had a
long hooked nose, small, restless eyes, and hair so plentiful that it
curled upon his back. His cheeks were perfectly colourless, and of an
unwholesome dinginess, and hung very fat behind his long whiskers, and
I found him remarkable for the appearance of his mouth, the upper lip
of which was as thick as the lower. He might have passed very well for a
London tradesman--a man who had become almost bloodless through long
years of serving behind a counter in a dark shop. He had nothing
whatever of the sailor in his aspect--I do not mean the theatrical
sailor, our old friend of the purple nose and grog-blossomed skin, but
of that ordinary every-day mariner whom one may meet with in thousands
in the docks of Great Britain. But that, however, which I seemed to find
most remarkable in him was his smile. It was the haunting of his
countenance by the very spectre of mirth. There was no life, no
sincerity in it. Nevertheless, it caused a perpetual play of features
more or less defined, informed by an expression which made one instantly
perceive that Captain Joppa Bunting had the highest possible opinion of
himself.
He asked me for my story, and I gave it him, he, meanwhile, listening to
me with his singular smile, and his eyes almost embarrassingly rooted
upon my face.
'Ah!' cried he, fetching a deep sigh, 'a noble cause is the lifeboat
service. Heaven bless its sublime efforts! and it is gratifying to know
that her Majesty the Queen is a patron of the institution. Mr.
Tregarthen, your conscience should be very acceptable to you, sir, when
you come to consider that but for you this charming young lady must have
perished'--he motioned towards Helga with an ungainly inclination of his
body.
'I think, Captain,' said I, 'you must put it the other way about--I
mean, that but for Miss Nielsen _I_ must have perished.'
'Nielsen--Nielsen,' said he, repeating the word. 'That is not an English
name, is it?'
'Captain Nielsen was a Dane,' said I.
'But you are not a Dane, madam?' he exclaimed.
'My mother was English,' she answered; 'but I am a Dane, nevertheless.'
'What is the religion of the Danes?' he asked.
'We are a Protestant people,' she answered, while I stared at the man,
wondering whether he was perfectly sound in his head, for nothing could
seem more malapropos at such a time as this than his questions about,
and his references to, religion.
'What is your denomination, madam?' he asked, smiling, with a drag at
one long whisker.
'I thought I had made you understand that I was a Protestant,' she
answered, with an instant's petulance.
'There are many sorts of Protestants!' he exclaimed.
'Have you not a black crew?' said I, anxious to change the subject,
sending a glance in search of Abraham through the window of the little
door that led on to the quarter-deck, and that was framed on either hand
by a berth or sleeping-room, from one of which the Captain had brought
the wine.
'Yes, my crew are black,' said he; 'black here'--he touched his
face--'and, I fear, black here'--he put his hand upon his heart. 'But I
have some hope of crushing one superstition out of them before we let go
our anchor in Table Bay!'
As he said these words a sudden violent shock was to be felt in the
cabin, as though, indeed, the ship, as she dropped her stern into the
trough, had struck the ground. All this time the vessel had been rolling
and plunging somewhat heavily as she lay with her topsail to the mast
in the very swing of the sea; but after the uneasy feverish friskings of
the lugger, the motion was so long-drawn, so easy, so comfortable, in a
word, that I had sat and talked scarcely sensible of it. But the sudden
shock could not have been more startling, more seemingly violent, had a
big ship driven into us. A loud cry followed. Captain Bunting sprang to
his feet; at the same moment there was a hurried tramp and rush of
footsteps overhead, and more cries. Captain Bunting ran to the
companion-steps, up which he hopped with incredible activity.
'I fear the lugger has been driven against the vessel's side!' said
Helga.
'Oh, Heaven, yes!' I cried. 'But I trust, for the poor fellows' sake,
she is not injured. Let us go on deck!'
We ran up the steps, and the very first object I saw as I passed through
the hatch was Jacob's face, purple with the toil of climbing, rising
over the rail on the quarter. Abraham and two or three coloured men
grasped the poor fellow, and over he floundered on to the deck,
streaming wet.
Helga and I ran to the side to see what had happened. There was no need
to look long. Directly under the ship's quarter lay the lugger with the
water sluicing into her. The whole of one side of her was crushed as
though an army of workmen had been hammering at her with choppers. We
had scarcely time to glance before she was gone! A sea foamed over and
filled her out of hand, and down she went like a stone, with a snap of
the line that held her, as though it had been thread, to the lift of the
barque from the drowning fabric.
'Gone!' cried I. 'Heaven preserve us! What will our poor friends do?'
Captain Bunting was roaring out in true sea-fashion. He might continue
to smile, indeed; but his voice had lost its nasal twang.
'How did this happen?' he bawled. 'Why on earth wasn't the lugger kept
fended off? Mr. Jones, jump into that quarter-boat and see if we've
received any injury.'
The mate hopped into the boat, and craned over. 'It seems all right with
us, sir!' he cried.
'Well, then, how did this happen?' exclaimed the Captain, addressing
Jacob, who stood, the very picture of distress and dejection, with the
water running away upon the deck from his feet, and draining from his
finger-ends as his arms hung up and down as though he stood in a
shower-bath.
'I'd gone forward,' answered the poor fellow, 'to slacken away the line
that the lugger might drop clear, and then it happened, and that's all I
know;' and here he slowly turned his half-drowned, bewildered face upon
Abraham, who was staring over the rail down upon the sea where the
lugger had sunk, as though rendered motionless by a stroke of paralysis.
'Well, and what'll you do now?' cried Captain Bunting.
'Do? Whoy, chuck myself overboard!' shouted Jacob, apparently quickened
into his old vitality by the anguish of sudden realization.
Here Abraham slowly looked round, and then turned and lay against the
rail, eyeing us lifelessly.