THE HERICANO.
We were sailing toward the shore again, but the wind had gone down and
the _Trinity_ moved sluggishly enough through the heavy swells, making
scarce a league an hour. But this was a humor of the elements and meant
nothing--or everything. In those latitudes a ship-master should ever be
in a plague and torment.
It was three weeks that we had been upon the sea, when one night,
at the beginning of October, four of the ships still being in
company, there broke a storm, the equal of which I have never had the
ill-fortune to behold. And it was afterwards told me by Indians of
Emola that never had there been known such a tempest upon that coast.
The Lieutenant Bachasse had the watch on deck. I was standing by his
side. Suddenly far down on the starboard quarter we heard a roaring
like that of the surf upon the shore; only it was a hundred times
greater and had in it something more ominous and terrible. The sky
was black as soot in that direction, and though we peered through the
darkness we could see nothing there. More and more distinct it grew,
and then we could make out a line of white growing more plain with
each second. Bachasse was giving some hoarse orders to have the sails
and yards lowered, when the Admiral rushed from his cabin clad only in
shirt and breeches.
“Dieu nous bénisse!” he shouted. “It is the hericano! Set her stern to
it, mes gars, for your lives!”
I knew what he meant and rushing to the starboard tiller rope, caught
the slack from the hand of the man who stood there and ran it through
the pulley with all the strength and quickness I could muster. I jammed
it far over and hung on like death.
Amid the deafening noise, with the ripping and slatting of the sails,
the threshing of the ropes and pollys, and the roaring of the sea above
it all, I could not think. I hung blindly to the tackle, loosing and
easing her as she felt the helm. I saw the main topsail which had been
reefed down, torn out of its ropes and go flying entire like a great
bird in the air, where it vanished in the wrack and mist. Then the
faces blew out of the lanthorns, hitting and cutting us like needles,
and we were in darkness. I could dimly make out the figures of the
Admiral, Bourdelais, and several others as they hung to the tackling at
the mizzen. I saw them put hand to mouth as though shouting, but could
hear no sound other than the thundering of wind and sea.
The first shock had caught the ship fairly upon her stern. Her nose had
gone well down into the smother, for I felt the poop rise high in the
air as though she were going all way over. Then she fell back into the
depths with a blow that seemed to shake loose every joint and elbow in
her hull. A wave many feet high dashed over, washing forward into the
waist the man at my side and carrying overboard everything that was
not lashed to the rail or mast. One of the lanthorns came down with a
crash, just missing me where I swung to the tiller-polly, and swept
down the slant of the after-castle, carrying away the hand-rail of the
mounting ladder and vanishing into the quarter-deck.
The ship swayed and yawed frightfully from this side to that. It was
a moment fraught with dreadful anxiety. The great tiller was smashing
into the bulwarks and pounding back against the tackle, and it seemed
for a moment as though the ship would fall into the trough. With great
difficulty I reached the larboard tackle and hand over hand gathered
the slack of it in until both gearings pulled alternately so that she
seemed to be going aright. These tackles I passed through a ring-bolt
to ease the strain, which pulled me this way and that like a rope
yarn. It was desperate work keeping the feet; for with the great seas
coming aboard over the quarter and the swaying of the top hamper from
side to side I should have been thrown overboard a dozen times but for
the gripe upon the tiller tackle. From the trough, the ship with a
sickening motion rose high into the air as though shot from a saker;
and then the deck fell away under the feet as she was thrust forward
by the mighty rush of wind and wave behind her. Those great leaps
were twice the length of the _Trinity_ herself, for we could not have
been going at a less rate than fifteen leagues an hour. Before long
there was a great crash up aloft and the fore topmast was carried
away, bringing down the fore and main top gallant yards. There came a
pounding that jarred the ship grievously, but by God’s Providence the
wreckage tore away and went by the board.
And yet it was most wonderful! I strained and sweated at the tiller,
all hot with the work, though the spray was cutting my face like hail
and I could feel the sting of the rain-drops even through my doublet.
We were going to the westward now--to Fort Caroline perhaps, and I
cared not how hard it blew. The spirit of the storm entered into me
and I was drunk--drunk with the speed and motion, and mad with the
struggle. The strain upon endurance was great; but there came a
feeling of the glory of it, and as I fought on I prayed that no one
might reach me. I set my teeth till my jaws throbbed and throbbed
again, while my eyes watched the glow of the mass of foam forward as
the water dashed up and over the bows, at times completely hiding the
forward part of the ship.
I do not know how long I struggled there alone. It may have been ten
minutes--it may have been an hour. But by and by I made out several
figures crawling along the larboard bulwarks, seizing hold upon any
rigging that came within their reach. They were the Admiral, Job
Goddard and one other. When they could stand upright, Goddard and a
seaman took hold upon the tackles, thus relieving me of a part of the
strain. Then, in a while, Bachasse came up from below, saying that the
ship was taking water both forward and aft and was creaking piteously.
Matters were bad enough, for we could not be far from the coast. Unless
the wind veered to the north, nothing could save us from the breakers.
The topsails had been blown to ribbons and the seas would have set us
on our beam ends or the wind would have overset us completely had we
tried to put the ship on the wind. And so we flew on, the _Trinity_
leaping every moment nearer to her death, the waves dashing over and
around her, sure of their prey.
Goddard swinging to his tackle leaned over till his mouth was next my
ear shouting,
“Tis a fine speed for enterin’ Paradise, Master Sydney!”
All the night long we stood there, having now and then a relief of four
men upon the tackles, the officers for the most part moving at their
places of duty and saying what they could of good cheer to the men. The
Sieur de la Notte came up toward dawn and asked Captain Bourdelais what
the chances were. He being a person of few words replied shortly, “The
ship will be upon the beach in three hours.”
Never had I seen the ocean wear so frightful a mien as when the long
night came at last to an end. There was a gray waste about us and one
could see no color anywhere; the ocean was like the dead ashes of a
fire. At night we had not been able to see; we could only feel the
great motion, and accustom ourselves. But by light of day the _Trinity_
seemed but a speck upon those waves. At one moment, high as our
top-hamper was, upon all sides we could see nothing but great walls of
water, tumbling down upon us; the next we would look over abysses which
were bottomless, out across a waste of foam which seemed to mingle and
war with the cloud flakes that fell down upon it.
Among the soldiers there was great fear; for they had no stomach for
such business as this. Even the seamen, many of them hardy in service,
had lost their wits completely. Once when a wave had come aboard an old
boatswain dashed terror-stricken into the half-deck and fore-castle
shouting,
“The cabin is stove in,--we are sinking!” and three arquebusiers crazy
with fear jumped overboard. One of the fine gentry of the cabin, with
a satin coat, came running wild-eyed from below and falling upon his
knees threw his hands in the air raving that should he reach land he
would be no more a Lutheran, but a good Catholic, as he always was.
Providence intervened, for a sea struck him fairly in the face and he,
having no hold--by reason of his hands being up--was overset backwards
and vanished with a shriek. Salvation Smith disappeared, and came upon
deck again dressed in a suit of black which he had taken from some
half-dead gentleman in the cabin, “to go before the Holy Trinity in
a fitting manner,” as he solemnly said. Another seaman, getting most
drunk upon _eau de vie_ ran amuck with a pike, maiming and hurting
several.
It was about two hours of the morning watch when the waves seemed to
grow suddenly less in length; and though the wind still roared as
fiercely as ever, and the foam flew by us in scattering flakes or
lashed furiously against the masts and shrouds, it was plain to be seen
we were coming into the shallows. The _Trinity_ moved more steadily,
and that showed the better the great speed at which we were making for
the beach. The wrack and the spume hid everything ahead, but I thought
in a moment I could mark a white jet here and there which showed where
the breakers were. Bourdelais saw them too, for he rushed to the
tiller-tackles. The Admiral stood at the break of the poop, calm and
quiet as though at a sailing drill, ready to set the bows straight for
the beach when the end was near. The tackle crew were straining at the
tiller watching the yawing of the ship and the motions of the hands of
Bourdelais as he gave the course.
Suddenly out of the mist ahead I saw a line of white, leaping and
writhing as far as the eye could reach to starboard and larboard;
and then another beyond it, rolling onward. We came up to them and
were soon in the midst of the seething, churning mass of white as the
_Trinity_ went pounding over the outer bar. She hung there a moment,
reluctant; and then dashed forward again like a poor desperate creature
hunted by the hounds, with a great straining leap. Everything was white
about us now, and we had barely time to note the yellow strip of the
beach under the bows, when with pitiful tremble and a quiver that went
through her, bow and stern, the poor ship took her death blow with a
dreadful crash and brought up hard and fast upon the sands.
The white tongues of surf licked her sides greedily, and sea after sea
made clean breaches over bows and waist as though impatient to engulf
her. So fairly and fast had we struck that the waves which followed us
did not at first swing her broadside to the beach. But at last the drag
of the wreck of the spars to larboard, added to the stress of the wind,
pulled her around and we swung high up completely wrecked.
We were in bad case. Now we could plainly see the line of the beach
with its backing of brown sand grasses and here and there a patch of
dark where the gnarled firs and bay trees grew sparsely in the dunes.
The wrack and spray were flying thick, and the great waves behind
drove completely over the vessel, wedging her farther up and making
her destruction more certain. Yet one thing we noted. There were no
rocks or reefs; only the long line of gently shelving beach. It seemed
that with care we might all be saved; but there was not a moment to be
lost. Bachasse went below again, with a carpenter, and found the hold
turned into a small sea, which had flowed over the provision lockers
and buried them under six feet of water. The surges were washing this
way and that and seemed like to rend the timbers apart. Already a sea,
larger than the others, had torn off one of the quarter galleries, and
this wreckage had floated up on the beach, where it lay in the drift
of the spent sea.
No boats could swim in that surf. So a most fearless young Frenchman,
called Brunel, sprang into the waves with a rope about his body and
struck out for the shore. It was not far to the shallows, and but for
the anger of the waves it would have been an easy passage. We watched
the swimmer borne along; now he was carried ahead shoreward in the very
cap of a wave, and then he was swept back in the hollow toward the
ship. It was a fine struggle. Twice he disappeared, and we thought he
must have gone; but in a moment a great wave took him and bore him well
onward in its topping of foam. Then he was up to his shoulders in the
brine, fighting desperately for a foothold. Soon we saw him rise and
work his way to the dry beach, where he fell and lay exhausted.
But after a little space he rose, waving his hands, and ropes were
attached to his line. These Brunel hauled ashore and made fast to
trees among the sand hills. Over these other men went, hand over hand;
and soon two pollys with their tackling were traveling back and forth
carrying the company ashore, many of them bearing their armor and
accoutrements.
The work had been done none too speedily. A dozen or so of the
company remained on the ship when we heard below decks the creaking
of the timbers as the bolts pulled out and split them apart. Captain
Bourdelais now urged the Admiral to go ashore; he would not, saying
that none should leave after him,--a matter which Bourdelais and
Bachasse disputed. There they stood with their hands on their hearts,
all three bowing to one another as though at some fine levee of the
Court. I had no humor for this business, for ’twas no place for
foot-scraping. I was minded to get ashore without further ado, and so
sprang to the tackle, which I hitched about my body. I had no more than
done so when there was a great crashing and the deck suddenly fell away
under my feet, throwing me into the sea.