WE ARE CHASED AND NEARLY CAPTURED.
We talked occasionally of the Phantom Ship after this for a few days,
the captain on one occasion, to my surprise, producing an old volume on
magic and sorcery which it seems he had, along with an odd collection
of books, in his cabin, and arguing and reasoning out of it. But he
never spoke of this thing in the presence of the mate who, to be sure,
was a simple, downright man, without the least imaginable flavour of
imagination to render sapid the lean austerity of his thoughts, and
who, therefore, as you may suppose, as little credited the stories told
of the Dutchman's ship as the Ebrew Jew believes in our Lord.
Hence, as there were but the captain and me to keep this shuttlecock
of a fancy flying, it fluttered before long to the ground; perhaps the
quicker, because on the Sunday following our speaking with the Plymouth
snow, there happened a piece of work, sharp and real enough to drive
all ideas of visions and phantasms out of our heads.
It was ten o'clock in the morning when a sail was descried broad on
the larboard beam. We gave her no heed at first. It being the Sabbath,
and a warm sweet morning, the men having nothing to do, hung about the
decks, smoking, telling stories and the like; and being cleanly attired
in jackets and white trousers, they contributed a choice detail to
the general structure of well-kept decks, shining brass work, massive
shrouds soaring from the black dead-eyes to the great round tops,
with further rigging of a similar kind ruling the topmasts to the
cross-trees, and on yet to the topgallant heights, ropes crossing ropes
and ratline following ratline, till the tracery, both in its substance
aloft and its shadows below and in the inclined hollows of the sails,
puzzled the eye with the complexity of a spider's web; whilst from the
water-ways to the lower yard-arms and thence to the ends of the yards
above, mounted the vast sheets of canvas, each central surface arching
in snow to the raining light of the sun, like the fair full breasts of
a virgin, passed the taut bolt-ropes, narrowing as they rose till, the
royal-yards being reached, the sails there swelled yearning skywards as
though they were portions of the prismatic ribbed and pearly beds of
cloud directly over the ship, rent from them by the sweep of our trucks
and knitted by our seamen to those lofty spars.
It was not long, however, before we made out that the vessel down in
the eastern quarter was steering large, and at the time the appearance
of her canvas assured us of this, she slackened away her larboard
braces to head up for us, hauling upon a bowline with a suddenness
that left her intention to parley with us questionless.
We hoisted the English ensign and held on a bit, viewing her with an
intentness that brought many of our eyes to a squint; then the captain,
observing that she showed no colours and was a big ship, put his helm
up for a run.
No sooner had we braced in our yards, when the fellow behind us
squared away too, and threw out lower and topmast studding-sails with
a rapidity that satisfied us she was a man-of-war, apparently a liner.
This notion, joined to the belief that she was a Dutchman, was start
enough for us all. Our small company were not likely to hold their own
against the disciplined masses of a two or three decker, even though
she should prove a Spaniard. Our guns were too few to do anything
with tiers of batteries heavy enough to blow us out of water. So as
there was nothing for it but a fair trial of speed, we sprung to our
work like hounds newly unleashed, got her dead before it, ran out
studding-sail booms on both sides and sent the sails aloft soaking
wet for the serviceableness of the weight the wetness would give, and
stationing men in the tops and cross-trees we whipped up buckets of
water to them, with which they drenched the canvas, till our cloths
must have looked as dark as a collier's to the ship astern of us.
It was very slow work at first, and we were thankful for that; for
every hour carried us nearer to the night into which the moon now
entered so late and glowed with such little power, even when she had
floated high, that we could count, after sundown, upon several hours
of darkness; but it was not long before it became evident to us all
that, spite of the ceaseless wetting of our sails, the ship in our
wake was growing. Then, satisfied of her superiority, and convinced of
our nationality, she let fly a forecastle gun at us, of the ball of
which we saw nothing, and hoisted the Dutch colours at her fore-royal
masthead, where, at all events, we could not fail to distinguish the
flag.
"Confound such luck!" cries Skevington at this. "How can our apple-bows
contend with those pyramids of sails there? What's to be done?" he
says, as if thinking aloud. "It's clear she's our master in running,
and I fear she'll be more than our match on a bowline--with the weather
gage too! And yet, by the thunder of Heaven, Mr. Hall, it does go
against the current of any sort of English blood to haul down that
piece of bunting there," says he, casting his eyes at the peak where
our flag was blowing, "to the command of a Dutchman's cannon!"
"The wind's coming away more easterly," said the mate, with a slow
turning of his gaze into the quarter he mentioned, "and it'll be
breezing up presently, if there's any signification in the darker blue
of the sea that way."
It happened as he said; but the Dutchman got the first slant of it,
and you saw the harder pulling of his canvas in the rounded rigidity
of light upon the cloths, whilst the dusky line of the wind, followed
by the flashings of the small seas, whose leaping heads it showered
into spray, was yet approaching our languid ship, whose lower and heavy
canvas often flapped in the weak air.
A couple of shot came flying after us from the man-of-war's bowchasers
ere the breeze swept to our spars; and now the silvery line of the
white water that her stem was hewing up and sending in a brilliant
whirl past her was easy to be seen; aye, 'twas even possible to make
out the very lines of her reef-points upon the fore-course and topsail,
whilst through the glass you could discern groups of men stationed
upon her forecastle, and mark some quarter-deck figure now and again
impatiently bound on to the rail and overhang it like a davit, with an
arm round a backstay, in his eagerness to see how fast they were coming
up with us.
With all element of terror in it extinguished by time, it is a sight
to recall with a sailor's fondness; for indeed the Dutchman was a fine
ship, very tall, with port-lids painted red inside, so that with the
guns projecting from them, in two tiers, the aspect was that of rows
of crimson, wolfish jaws, every beast with his tongue out; her yards
were immensely square, and her studding-sail booms extending great
spaces of canvas far over the side, she showed upon the dark blue
frothing ocean like some Heaven-seeking hill, fleecily clad with snow
to twenty feet above the water-line, where it was black rock down to
the wash of the froth. In the freshening wind, as it came up to us, I
seemed to catch an echo of the drum-like roll of the briskening gale in
those airy heights, and to hear the seething of the boiling stuff at
her forefoot. But, thanks be to Heaven, there was now a swift racing
of foam from under our counter, whence it streamed away with a noise
delicious to hearken to, as though it was the singing of the rain of
a thunder-cloud upon hard land; for whenever the breeze gathered its
weight in our canvas the Saracen sprang from it meteor-fashion, and
away we sped with helm right amidships, and the wind flashing fair over
the taffrail.
The excitement of this chase was deep in us when the captain gave
orders to train a couple of guns aft and to continue firing at
the pursuing craft; which was done, the powder-smoke blowing like
prodigious glistening cobwebs into our canvas forward. Meanwhile, the
English colours flew hardily at our peak, whilst preventer guys were
clapped on the swinging-booms and other gear added to give strength
aloft; for the wind was increasing as if by magic, the ribbed clouds
had broken up and large bodies of vapour were sailing overhead with
many ivory-white shoulders crowding upon the horizon, and the strain
upon the studding-sail tacks was extremely heavy. But you saw that it
was Captain Skevington's intention to make the Saracen drag what she
could not carry, and to let what chose blow away before he started a
rope-yarn, whilst we had that monster astern there sticking to our
skirts; and by this time it was manifest that with real weight in the
wind our heels were pretty nearly as keen as hers, which made us hope
that should the breeze freshen yet we might eventually get away.
Well, at three o'clock it was blowing downright hard, though the
weather was fine, the heavens mottled, the clouds being compacted and
sailing higher, stormy in complexion and moving slowly; the sea had
grown hollow and was most gloriously violet in colour, with plumes of
snow, which curled to the gale on the head of each liquid courser; the
sun was over our fore-topgallant yard-arm and showered down his glory
so as to form a golden weltering road for us to steer beside. The ship
behind catched his light and looked to be chasing us on wings of yellow
silk. But never since her keel had been laid had the Saracen been so
driven. The waters boiled up to the blackfaced turbaned figure under
the bowsprit, and from aft I could sometimes observe the glassy curve
of the bow sea, arching away for fathoms forward, showing plain through
the headrails. A couple of hands hung grinding upon the wheel with set
teeth, and the sinews in their naked arms stood out like cords; others
were at the relieving-tackles; and through it we pelted, raising about
us a bubbled, spuming and hissing surface that might have answered to
the passage of a whirlwind, repeatedly firing at the Dutch man-of-war
when the heave of the surge gave us the chance, and noticing the
constant flash in his bows and the white smother that blew along with
him, though the balls of neither appeared to touch the other of us.
Yet, that we should have been ultimately overhauled and brought to a
stand I fully believe but for a providential disaster. For no matter
how dark the dusk may have drawn around at sundown, the Dutchman was
too close to us to miss the loom of the great press of canvas we should
be forced to carry: at least, so I hold; and then, again, there was
the consideration of the wind failing us with the coming of the stars,
for we were still in the gentle parallels. But let all have been as it
might, I had just noted the lightning-like wink of one of the enemy's
fore-chasers, when to my exceeding amazement, ere the ball of smoke
could be shredded into lengths by the gale, I observed the whole fabric
of the Dutchman's towering foremast, with the great course, swelling
topsail, topgallant-sail and royal, and the fore-topmast staysail and
jibs melt away as an icicle approached by flame; and in a breath, it
seemed, the huge ship swung round, pitching and foaming after the
manner of a harpooned whale, with her broadside to us, exhibiting the
whole fore-part of her most grievously and astonishingly wrecked.
A mighty cheer went up from our decks at the sight, and there was a
deal of clapping of hands and laughter. Captain Skevington seized the
telescope, and talked as he worked away with it.
"A rotten foremast, by the thunder of Heaven!" he cried, using his
favourite adjuration; "it could be nothing else. No shot our guns throw
could work such havoc. By the height that's left standing the spar has
fetched away close under the top. And the mess! the mess!"
With the naked eye one could see that. The foremast had broken in
twain; its fall had snapped off the jibbooms to the bowsprit cap, and
I do not doubt a nearer view would have shown us the bowsprit itself
severely wrenched. I could not imagine the like of that picture of
confusion--her studding-sails, having been set on both sides, drowned
all her forward part in canvas, a goodly portion of which had been torn
into rags by the fall; immense stretches of sail lay in the water,
sinking and rising with the rolling of the ship, and dragging her
head to the wind; her main topmast studding-sails, and all the canvas
on that mast and the mizzen--the yards lying square--were shaking
furiously, owing to the posture in which she had fallen; every moment
this terrible slatting threatened her other spars; and it needed not
a sailor's imagination to conceive how fearfully all that thunderous
commotion aloft must heighten the distracting tumult on deck, the
passionate volleys of commands, the hollow shocks of seas smiting the
inert hull, the shouting of the seamen, and, as we might be sure, the
cries and groans of the many upon whom that soaring fabric of yards,
sails, and rigging had fallen with the suddenness of an electric bolt
from the clouds.
For a whole hour after this we touched not a rope, leaving our ship to
rush from the Dutchman straight as an arrow from a bow. But, Lord!--the
storming aloft!--the fierce straining of our canvas till tacks and
guys, sheets and braces rang out upon the wind like the clanking of
bells, to a strain upon them tauter than that of harp-strings; the
boiling noises of the seas all about our bow and under our counter,
where the great bodies of foam roared away into our wake, as the white
torrent raves along its bed from the foot of a high cataract! There was
an excitement in this speed and triumph of escape from what must have
proved a heavy and inglorious disaster to us all which put fire into
the blood, and never could I have imagined how sentient a ship is,
how participant of what stirs the minds of those she carries, until I
marked the magnificent eagerness of our vessel's flight--her headlong
domination of the large billows which underran her, and the marble-hard
distention of her sails, reminding you of the tense cheeks of one who
holds his breath in a run for his life.
Distance and the sinking of the sun, and the shadows which throng
sharply upon his heels in these climes, left the horizon in course
bare to our most searching gaze. We then shortened sail, and under
easy canvas, we put our helm a-lee, and stood northwards on a bowline
until midnight, when we rounded in upon our weather-braces and steered
easterly, Captain Skevington suspecting that the Dutchman would make
all haste to refit and head south under some jury contrivance, in the
expectation that as we were bound that way when he fell in with us so
we should haul to our course afresh when we lost sight of him. Yet in
the end we saw him no more, and what ship he was I never contrived to
learn; but certainly it was an extraordinary escape, though whether due
to our shot, or to his foremast being rotten, or to its having been
sprung and badly fished, or to some earlier wound during an engagement,
must be left to conjecture.