"When I went into the cuddy, more for relief's sake than to dine, the
passengers were chattering and talking away round the tables, hot and
choking though it was, in high glee because the land was in sight from
the starboard port-window, and they fancied the officers had changed
their minds as to 'touching' there. Every now and then a cadet or two
would start up, with their silver forks in their hands, and put their
heads out; some asked whether the anchor had been seen getting ready or
not; others disputed about the colour of tropical trees, if they were
actually green like English ones, or perhaps all over blossoms and fruit
together--the whole of them evidently expecting bands of negroes to line
the shore as we came in.
"One young fellow had taken a particular fancy to have an earthworm,
with earth enough to feed it all the rest of the voyage, otherwise he
couldn't stand it; and little Tommy's mother almost went into hysterics
again when she said, if she could just eat a lettuce salad once more,
she'd die contented; the missionary looking up through his spectacles,
in surprise that she wasn't _more_ interested about the slave-trade,
whereof he'd been talking to her. As for Westwood, he joined quietly in
the fun, with a glance now and then across to me; however, I pretended
to be too busy with the salt beef, and was merely looking up again for a
moment, when my eye chanced to catch on the swinging barometer that hung
in the raised skylight, right over the midst of our noise. By George!
ma'am, what was my horror when I saw the quicksilver had sunk so far
below the mark, probably fixed there that morning, as to be almost
shrunk in the ball! Whatever the merchant service might know about the
instrument in those days, the African coast was the place to teach its
right use to us in the old _Iris_. I laid down my knife and fork as
carelessly as I could, and went straight on deck.
"Here I sought out the mate, who was forward, watching the land--and at
once took him aside to tell him the fact. 'Well, sir,' said he coolly,
'and what of that? A sign of wind, certainly, before very long; but in
the meantime we're _sure_ to have it off the land.' 'That's one of the
very reasons,' said I, 'for thinking _this_ will be from seaward--since
towards evening the land'll have plenty of air without it! But more than
that, sir,' said I, 'I tell you, Mr Finch, I know the west coast of
Africa pretty well--and so far south as this, the glass falling so low
as _twenty-seven_, is always the sign of a nor'-westerly blow! If you're
a wise man, sir, you'll not only get your upper spars down on deck, but
you'll see your anchors clear!' Finch had plainly got furious at my
meddling again, and said he, 'Instead of that, sir, I shall hold on
_everything_ aloft, to stand out when I get the breeze!' 'D' ye really
think, then,' said I, pointing to the farthest-off streak of land,
trending away by this time astern of us, faint as it was, '_do_ you
think you could ever weather that point, with anything like a strong
nor'-wester, besides a current heading you in, as you got fair hold of
it again?' 'Perhaps not,' said he, wincing a little as he glanced at it;
'but you happen always to suppose what there's a thousand to one
against, sir. Why, sir, you might as well take the command at once. But,
sir, if it _did_ come to that, I'd rather--I'd rather see the ship
_lost_--I'd rather go to the bottom with all in her, after handling her
as I know well how, than I'd see the chance given to _you_!' The young
fellow fairly shouted this last word into my very ear--he was in a
regular furious passion. 'You'd _better_ let me alone, that's all I've
got to say to you, sir!' growled he as he turned away; so I thought it
no use to say more, and leant over the bulwarks, resolved to see it out.
"The fact was, the farther we got off the land _now_, the worse, seeing
that if what I dreaded should prove true, why, we were probably in
thirty or forty fathoms of water, where no anchor could hold for ten
minutes' time--if it ever caught ground. My way would have been to get
every boat out at once, and tow in till you could see the colour of some
shoal or other from aloft, then take my chance there to ride out
whatever might come, to the last cable aboard of us. Accordingly I
wasn't sorry to see that by this time the whole bight of the coast was
slowly rising off our beam betwixt the high land far astern and the
broad bluffs upon her starboard bow; which last came out already of a
sandy reddish tint, and the lower part of a clear blue, as the sun got
westward on our other side. What struck me was, that the face of the
water, which was all over wrinkles and winding lines, with here and
there a quick ripple, when I went below, had got on a sudden quite
smooth as far as you could see, as if they'd sunk down like so many
eels; a long uneasy ground-swell was beginning to heave in from seaward,
on which the ship rose; once or twice I fancied I could observe the
colour different away towards the land, like the muddy chocolate
spreading out near a river-mouth at ebb-tide--then again it was green,
rather; and as for the look of the coast, I had no knowledge of it. I
thought again, certainly, of the old quartermaster's account in the
_Iris_, but there was neither anything like it to be seen, nor any sign
of a break in the coast at all, though high headlands enough.
"The ship might have been about twelve or fourteen miles from the
north-east point upon her starboard bow, a high rocky range of
bluffs--and rather less from the nearest of what lay away off her beam;
but after this you could mark nothing more, except it were that she
edged farther from the point, by the way its bearings shifted or got
blurred together: either she stood still, or she'd caught some eddy or
under-rift, and the mate walked about quite lively once more. The matter
was how to breathe, or bear your clothes--when all of a sudden I heard
the second mate sing out from the forecastle 'Stand by the braces,
there! Look out for the topes'l hawl-yairds!'
"He came shuffling aft next moment as fast as his foundered old shanks
could carry him, and told Mr Finch there was a squall coming off the
land. The mate sprang up on the bulwarks, and so did I--catching a
glance from him as much as to say--There's your gale from seaward, you
pretentious lubber! The lowest streak of coast bore at present before
our starboard quarter, betwixt east and south-east'ard, with some pretty
high land running away up from it, and a sort of dim blue haze hanging
beyond, as 'twere. Just as Macleod spoke, I could see a dusky dark
vapour thickening and spreading in the haze, till it rose black along
the flat, out of the sky behind it; whitened and then darkened again,
like a heavy smoke floating up into the air. All was confusion on deck
for a minute or two--off went all the awnings--and every hand was ready
at his station, fisting the ropes; when I looked again at the cloud,
then at the mates. '_By_ George!' said I, noticing a pale wreath of it
go curling on the pale clear sky over it, as if to a puff of air, 'it
_is_ smoke! Some niggers, as they often do, burning the bush!'
"So it was; and as soon as Finch gave in, all hands quietly coiled up
the ropes. It was scarce five minutes after, that Jacobs, who was
coiling up a rope beside me, gave me a quiet touch with one finger. 'Mr
Collins, sir,' said he in a low voice, looking almost right up, high
over toward the ship's larboard bow, which he couldn't have done before,
for the awnings so lately above us, 'look, sir--there's an _ox-eye_!' I
followed his gaze, but it wasn't for a few seconds that I found what it
pointed to, in the hot far-off-like blue dimness of the sky overhead,
compared with the white glare of which to westward our canvas aloft was
but dirty grey and yellow.
"'Twas what none but a seaman would have observed, and many a seaman
wouldn't have done so--but a man-o'-war's-man is used to look out at all
hours, in all latitudes--and to a man that knew its meaning, _this_
would have been no joke, even out of sight of land; as it was, the
thing gave me a perfect thrill of dread. High aloft in the heavens
northward, where they were freest from the sun--now standing over the
open horizon amidst a wide bright pool of light--you managed to discern
a small silvery speck, growing slowly, as it were, out of the faint blue
hollow, like a star in the daytime, till you felt as if it _looked_ at
you, from God knows what distance away. One eye after another amongst
the mates and crew joined Jacobs' and mine, with the same sort of dumb
fellowship to be seen when a man in London streets watches the top of a
steeple; and however hard to make out at first, ere long none of them
could miss seeing it, as it got slowly larger, sinking by degrees till
the sky close about it seemed to thicken like a dusky ring round the
white, and the sunlight upon our seaward quarter blazed out doubly
strong--as if it came dazzling off a brass bell, with the bright tongue
swinging in it far off to one side, where the hush made you think of a
stroke back upon us, with some terrific sound to boot.
"The glassy water by this time was beginning to rise under the ship with
a struggling kind of unequal heave, as if a giant you couldn't see kept
shoving it down here and there with both hands, and it came swelling up
elsewhere.
"To north-westward or thereabouts, betwixt the sun and this ill-boding
token aloft, the far line of open sea still lay shining motionless and
smooth; next time you looked, it had got even brighter than before,
seeming to leave the horizon visibly; then the streak of air just above
it had grown grey, and a long hedge of hazy vapour was creeping as it
were over from beyond--the white speck all the while travelling down
towards it slantwise from nor'ard, and spreading its dark ring slowly
out into a circle of cloud, till the keen eye of it at last sank in, and
below, as well as aloft, the whole north-western quarter got blurred
together in one gloomy mass. If there was a question at first whether
the wind mightn't come from so far nor'ard as to give her a chance of
running out to sea before it, there was none now--our sole recourse lay
either in getting nearer the land meanwhile, to let go our anchors ere
it came on, with her head _to_ it--or we might make a desperate trial to
weather the lee-point now far astern. The fact was, we were going to
have a regular tornado, and that of the worst kind, which wouldn't soon
blow itself out; though near an hour's notice would probably pass ere it
was on.
"The three mates laid their heads gravely together over the capstan for
a minute or two, after which Finch seemed to perceive that the first of
the two ways was the safer; though, of course, the nearer we should get
to the land, the less chance there was of clearing it afterwards, should
her cables part, or the anchors drag. The two boats still alongside, and
two others dropped from the davits, were manned at once and set to
towing the Indiaman ahead, in-shore; while the bower and sheet anchors
were got out to the cat-heads ready for letting go, cables overhauled,
ranged, and clinched as quickly as possible, and the deep-sea lead
passed along to take soundings every few minutes.
"On we crept, slow as death, and almost as still, except the jerk of the
oars from the heaving water at her bows, and the loud flap of the big
topsails now and then, everything aloft save them and the brailed
foresail being already close furled; the clouds all the while rising
away along our larboard beam nor'-west and north, over the grey bank on
the horizon, till once more you could scarce say which point the wind
would come from, unless by the huge purple heap of vapour in the midst.
The sun had got low, and he shivered his dazzling spokes of light behind
one edge of it, as if 'twere a mountain you saw over some coast or
other; indeed, you'd have thought the ship almost shut in by land on
both sides of her, which was what seemed to terrify the passengers most,
as they gathered about the poop-stairs and watched it--_which_ was the
true land and which the clouds, 'twas hard to say--and the sea gloomed
writhing between them like a huge lake in the mountains.
"I saw Sir Charles Hyde walk out of the round-house and in again,
glancing uneasily about; his daughter was standing with another young
lady, gazing at the land; and at sight of her sweet, curious face, I'd
have given worlds to be able to do something that might save it from the
chance, possibly, of being that very night dashed amongst the breakers
on a lee-shore in the dark--or at best, suppose the Almighty favoured
any of us so far, perhaps landed in the wilds of Africa. Had there been
aught man could do more, why, though I never should get a smile for it,
I'd have compassed it, mate or no mate; but all was done that could be
done, and I had nothing to say. Westwood came near her, too, apparently
seeing our bad case at last to some extent, and both trying to break it
to her and to assure her mind; so I folded my arms again, and kept my
eyes hard fixed upon the bank of cloud, as some new weather-mark stole
out in it, and the sea stretched breathless away below, like new melted
lead.
"The air was like to choke you--or rather there was none--as if water,
sky, and everything else wanted _life_, and one would fain have caught
the first rush of the tornado into his mouth--the men emptying the
dipper on deck from the cask, from sheer loathing. As for the land, it
seemed to draw nearer of itself, till every point and wrinkle in the
headland off our bow came out in a red coppery gleam--one saw the white
line of surf round it, and some blue country beyond like indigo; then
back it darkened again, and all aloft was getting livid-like over the
bare royal mast-heads.
"Suddenly, a faint air was felt to flutter from landward; it half lifted
the topsails, and a heavy earthy smell came into your nostrils--the
first of the land-breeze, at last; but by this time it was no more than
a sort of mockery, while a minute after you might catch a low, sullen,
moaning sound far off through the emptiness, from the strong surf the
Atlantic sends in upon the west coast before a squall. If ever landsmen
found out what land on the wrong side is, the passengers of the
_Seringapatam_ did, that moment; the shudder of the topsails aloft
seemed to pass into everyone's shoulders, and a few quietly walked
below, as if they were safe in their cabins. I saw Violet Hyde look
round and round with a startled expression, and from one face to
another, till her eye lighted on me, and I fancied for a moment it was
like putting some question to me. I couldn't bear it!--'twas the first
time I'd felt powerless to offer anything; though the thought ran
through me again till I almost felt myself buffeting among the breakers
with her in my arms. I looked to the land, where the smoke we had seen
three-quarters of an hour ago, rose again with the puff of air, a slight
flicker of flame in it, as it wreathed off the low ground toward the
higher point--when all at once I gave a start, for something in the
shape of the whole struck me as if I'd seen it before.
"Next moment I was thinking of old Bob Martin's particular landmarks at
the river-mouth he spoke of, and the notion of its possibly being
hereabouts glanced on me like a godsend. In the unsure dusky sight I had
of it, certainly, it wore somewhat of that look, and it lay fair to
leeward of the weather; while, as for the dead shut-in appearance of it,
old Bob had specially said you'd never think it was a river; but then
again it was more like a desperate fancy owing to our hard case, and to
run the ship straight for it would be the trick of a Bedlamite. At any
rate, a quick cry from aft turned me round, and I saw a blue flare of
lightning streak out betwixt the bank of grey haze and the cloud that
hung over it--then another, and the clouds were beginning to rise slowly
in the midst, leaving a white glare between, as if you could see through
it towards what was coming. The men could pull no longer, but ahead of
the ship there was now only about eight or ten fathoms water, with a
soft bottom. The boats were hoisted in, and the men had begun to clue up
and hand the topsails, which were lowered on the caps, when, just in the
midst of the hubbub and confusion, as I stood listening to every order
the mate gave, the steward came up hastily from below to tell him that
the captain had woke up, and, being much better, wanted to see him
immediately. Mr Finch looked surprised, but he turned at once, and
hurried down the hatchway.
"The sight which all of us who weren't busy gazed upon, over the
larboard bulwarks, was terrible to see: 'twas half dark, though the sun
dropping behind the haze-bank, made it glimmer and redden. The dark heap
of clouds had first lengthened out blacker and blacker, and was rising
slowly in the sky like a mighty arch, till you saw their white edges
below, and a ghastly white space behind, out of which the mist and scud
began to fly. Next minute a long sigh came into her jib and foresail,
then the black bow of cloud partly sank again, and a blaze of lightning
came out all round her, showing you every face on deck, the inside of
the round-house aft, with the Indian judge standing in it, his hand to
his eyes--and the land far away, to the very swell rolling into it. Then
the thunder broke overhead in the gloom, in one fearful sudden crack,
that you seemed to hear through every corner of cabins and forecastle
below--and the wet back-fins of twenty sharks or so, that had risen out
of the inky surface, vanished as suddenly.
"The Indiaman had sheered almost broadside on to the clouds, her jib was
still up, and I knew the next time the clouds _rose_ we should fairly
have it. Flash after flash came, and clap after clap of thunder, _such_
as you hear before a tornado--yet the chief officer wasn't to be seen,
and the others seemed uncertain what to do first; while everyone began
to wonder and pass along questions where he could be. In fact, he had
disappeared. For my part, I thought it very strange he stayed so long;
but there wasn't a moment to lose. I jumped down off the poop-stairs,
walked forward on the quarter-deck, and said coolly to the men nearest
me,'Run and haul down that jib yonder--set the spanker here, aft. You'll
have her taken slap on her beam: quick, my lads!' The men did so at
once. Macleod was calling out anxiously for Mr Finch. 'Stand by the
anchors there!' I sang out, 'to let go the starboard one, the _moment_
she swings head to wind!' The Scotch mate turned his head; but Rickett's
face, by the next flash, showed he saw the good of it, and there was no
leisure for arguing, especially as I spoke in a way to be heard. I
walked to the wheel, and got hold of Jacobs to take the weather helm.
"We were all standing ready, at the pitch of expecting it. Westwood,
too, having appeared again by this time beside me, I whispered to him to
run forward and look after the anchors--when someone came hastily up the
after-hatchway, with a glazed hat and pilot-coat on, stepped straight to
the binnacle, looked in behind me, then at the black bank of cloud, then
aloft. Of course I supposed it was the mate again, but didn't trouble
myself to glance at him further--when 'Hold on with the anchors!' he
sang out in a loud voice--'hold on there for your lives!' Heavens! it
was the captain himself!
"At this, of course, I stood aside at once; and he shouted again,'Hoist
the jib and fore-topmast-staysail--stand by to set fore-course!' By
Jove! this was the way to pay the ship _head_ off, instead of stern off,
from the blast when it came--and to let her drive before it at no trifle
of a rate, wherever _that_ might take her! '_Down_ with that spanker, Mr
Macleod, d' ye hear?' roared Captain Williamson again; and, certainly, I
did wonder what he meant to do with the ship. But his manner was so
decided, and 'twas so natural for the captain to strain a point to come
on deck in the circumstances, that I saw he must have some trick of
seamanship above _me_, or some special knowledge of the coast--and I
waited in a state of the greatest excitement for the first stroke of the
tornado. He waved the second and third mates forward to their posts--the
Indiaman sheering and backing, like a frightened horse, to the long
slight swell and the faint flaw of the land-air. The black arch to
windward began to rise again, showing a terrible white stare reaching
deep in, and a blue dart of lightning actually ran zigzag down before
our glaring fore-to'gallant-mast. Suddenly, the captain had looked at
me, and we faced each other by the gleam; and, quiet, easy-going man as
he was commonly, it just flashed across me there was something
extraordinarily wild and _raised_ in his pale visage, strange as the air
about us made everyone appear. He gave a stride towards me, shouting,
'Who are----' when the thunder-clap took the words out of his tongue,
and next moment the tornado burst upon us, fierce as the wind from a
cannon's mouth.
"For one minute the _Seringapatam_ heeled over to her starboard streak,
almost broadside on, and her spars towards the land--all on her beam was
a long ragged white gush of light and mist pouring out under the black
brow of the clouds, with a trampling eddying roar up into the sky. The
swell plunged over her weather-side like the first break of a dam, and
as we scrambled up to the bulwarks, to hold on for bare life, you saw a
roller fit to swamp us, coming on out of the sheet of foam--when crash
went mizzen-topmast and main-to'gallant-mast; the ship payed swiftly off
by help of her headsails, and, with a leap like a harpooned whale, off
she drove fair before the tremendous sweep of the blast.
"The least yaw in her course, and she'd have never risen, unless every
stick went out of her. I laid my shoulder to the wheel with Jacobs, and
Captain Williamson screamed through his trumpet into the men's ears, and
waved his hands to ride down the fore-sheets as far as they'd go; which
kept her right before it, though the sail could be but half set, and she
rather flew than ran--the sea one breadth of white foam back to the
gushes of mist, not having power to rise higher yet. Had the foresail
been stretched, 'twould have blown off like a cloud. I looked at the
captain: he was standing in the lee of the round-house, straight
upright, though now and then peering eagerly forward, his lips firm, one
hand on a belaying-pin, the other in his breast--nothing but
determination in his manner: yet once or twice he started, and glanced
fiercely to the after-hatchway near, as if something from below might
chance to thwart him. I can't express my contrary feelings, betwixt a
sort of hope and sheer horror. We were driving right towards the land,
at thirteen or fourteen knots to the hour--yet _could_ there actually be
some harbourage hereaway, or that said river the quartermaster of the
_Iris_ mentioned, and Captain Williamson know of it?
"Something struck me as wonderfully strange in the whole matter, and
puzzling to desperation--still, I trusted to the captain's experience.
The coast was scarce to be seen ahead of us, lying black against an
uneven streak of glimmer, as she rushed like fury before the deafening
howl of wind; and right away before our lee-beam I could see the light
blowing, as it were, across beyond the headland I had noticed, where the
smoke in the bush seemed to be still curling, half-smothered, along the
flat in the lee of the hills, as if in green wood, or sheltered as yet
from seaward, though once or twice a quick flicker burst up in it.
"All at once the gust of the tornado was seen to pour on it like a long
blast from some huge bellows, and up it flashed--the yellow flame blazed
into the smoke, spread away behind the point, and the ruddy brown smoke
blew whitening over it:--when, Almighty power! what did I see as it
lengthened in, but part after part of old Bob's landmarks creep out
ink-black before the flare and the streak of sky together--first the low
line of ground, then the notch in the block, the two rocks like steps,
and the sugar-loaf shape of the headland, to the very mop-headed knot of
trees on its rise! No doubt Captain Williamson was steering for it; but
it was far too much on our starboard bow--and in half-an-hour at this
rate we should drive right into the surf you saw running along to the
coast ahead--so I signed to Jacobs for God's sake to edge her off as
nicely as was possible.
"Captain Williamson caught my motion. 'Port! port, sirrah!' he sang out
sternly; '_back_ with the helm, d' ye hear!' and pulling out a pistol,
he levelled it at me with one hand, while he held a second in the
other. 'Land!--land!' shouted he, and from the lee of the round-house it
came more like a shriek than a shout--'I'll be there though a thousand
mutineers----' His eye was like a wild beast's. That moment the truth
glanced across me--this was the _green leaf_, no doubt, the Scotch mate
talked so mysteriously of. The man was mad! The land-fever was upon him,
as I'd seen it before in men long off the African coast; and he stood
eyeing me with one foot hard stamped before him. 'Twas no use trying to
be heard, and the desperation of the moment gave me a thought of the
sole thing to do. I took off my hat in the light of the binnacle, bowed,
and looked him straight in the face with a smile--when his eye wavered,
he slowly lowered his pistol, then _laughed_, waving his hand towards
the land to leeward, as if, but for the gale, you'd have heard him
cheer. At the instant I sprang behind him with the slack of a rope, and
grappled his arms fast, though he'd got the furious power of a madman,
and, during half-a-minute, 'twas wrestle for life with me. But the line
was round him, arm and leg, and I made it fast, throwing him heavily on
the deck, just as one of the mates, with some of the crew, were
struggling aft, by help of the belaying-pins, against the hurricane,
having caught a glimpse of the thing by the binnacle-light. They looked
from me to the captain. The ugly topman made a sign, as much as to say,
Knock the fellow down; but the whole lot hung back before the couple of
pistol-barrels I handled. The Scotch mate seemed awfully puzzled; and
others of the men, who knew from Jacobs what I was, came shoving along,
evidently aware what a case we were in.
"A word to Jacobs served to keep him steering her anxiously, so as to
head two or three points more south-east in the _end_, furiously as the
wheel jolted. So there we stood, the tornado sweeping sharp as a knife
from astern over the poop-deck, with a force that threw anyone back if
he left go his hold to get near me, and going up like thunder aloft in
the sky. Now and then a weaker flare of lightning glittered across the
scud; and, black as it was overhead, the horizon to windward was but one
jagged white glare, gushing full of broad shifting streaks through the
drift of foam and the spray that strove to rise. Our fore-course still
held: and I took the helm from Jacobs, that he might go and manage to
get a pull taken on the starboard brace, which would not only _slant_
the sail more to the blasts, but give her the better chance to make the
sole point of salvation, by helping her steerage when most needed.
Jacobs and Westwood together got this done; and all the time I was
keeping my eyes fixed anxiously, as man can fancy, on the last gleams of
the fire ashore, as her head made a fairer line with it; but, by little
and little, it went quite out, and all was black--though I had taken its
bearings by the compass--and I kept her to that for bare life, trembling
at every shiver in the foresail's edge, lest either it or the mast
should go.
"Suddenly, we began to get into a fearful swell--the Indiaman plunged
and shook in every spar left her. I could see nothing ahead, from the
wheel, and in the dark; we were getting close in with the land, and the
time was coming; but still I held south-east-by-east to the mark of her
head in the compass-box, as nearly as might and main could do it, for
the heaves that made me think once or twice she was to strike next
moment.
"If she went ashore in my hands! why, it was like to drive one mad with
fear; and I waited for Jacobs to come back, with a brain ready to turn,
almost as if I'd have left the wheel to the other helmsman, and run
forward into the bows to look out. The captain lay raving and shouting
behind me, though no one else could either have heard or seen him; and
where the chief officer was all this time surprised me, unless the
madman had made away with him, or locked him in his own cabin, in return
for being shut up himself--which, in fact, proved to be the case,
cunning as it was to send for him so quietly. At length Jacobs struggled
aft to me again, and charging him, for Heaven's sake, to steer exactly
the course I gave, I drove before the full strength of the squall along
decks to the bowsprit, where I held on and peered out. Dead ahead of us
was the high line of coast in the dark--not a mile of swell between the
ship and it. By this time the low boom of the surf came under the wind,
and you saw the breakers lifting all along--not a single opening in
them! I had lost sight of my landmarks, and my heart gulped into my
mouth--what I felt 'twould be vain to say--till I thought I _did_ make
out one short patch of sheer black in the range of foam, scarce so far
on our bow as I'd reckoned the fire to have been; indeed, instead of
that, it was rather on her weather than her lee bow; and the more I
watched it, and the nearer we drove in that five minutes, the broader it
was. 'By all that's good!' thought I, 'if a river there is, that must be
the mouth of it!' But, by Heavens! on our present course the ship would
run just right upon the point--and, to strike the clear water, her
foreyard would require to be braced up, able or not, though the force of
the tornado would come fearfully on her quarter, then. There was the
chance of taking all the masts out of her; but let them stand ten
minutes, and the thing was done, when we opened into the lee of the
points--otherwise all was over.
I sprang to the fore-braces and besought the men near me, for God's
sake, to drag upon the lee one--and that as if their life hung upon
it--when Westwood caught me by the arm. I merely shouted through my
hands into his ear to go aft to Jacobs and tell him to keep her head a
_single point_ up, whatever might happen, to the last--then I pulled
with the men at the brace till it was fast, and scrambled up again to
the bowsprit heel. Jove! how she surged to it: the little canvas we had
strained like to burst; the masts trembled, and the spars aloft bent
like whip-shafts, everything below groaning again; while the swell and
the blast together made you dizzy, as you watched the white eddies
rising and boiling out of the dark--her cutwater shearing through it and
the foam, as if you were going under it. The sound of the hurricane and
the surf seemed to be growing together into one awful roar--my very
brain began to turn with the pitch I was wrought up to--and it appeared
next moment we should heave far up into the savage hubbub of breakers. I
was wearying for the crash and the wild confusion that would
follow--when all of a sudden, still catching the fierce rush of the gale
athwart her quarter into the fore-course, which steadied her though she
shuddered to it--all of a sudden, the dark mass of the land seemed as it
were parting ahead of her, and a gleam of pale sky opened below the dusk
into my very face. I no more knew what I was doing, by this time, nor
where we were, than the spar before me--till again, the light broadened,
glimmering low betwixt the high land and a lump of rising level on the
other bow.
"I hurried aft past the confused knots of men holding on to the lee of
the bulwarks, and seized a spoke of the wheel. 'Tom,' shouted I to
Westwood, 'run and let free the spanker on the poop! Down with the
helm--down with it, Jacobs, my lad!' I sang out; 'never mind spars or
canvas!' Down went the helm--the spanker helped to luff her to the
strength of the gust--and away she went up to port, the heavy swells
rolling her in, while the rush into her staysail and fore-course came in
one terrible flash of roaring wind--tearing first one and then the other
clear out of the bolt-ropes, though the loose spanker abaft was in less
danger, and the way she had from both was enough to take her careening
round the point into its lee. By Heavens! there were the streaks of soft
haze low over the rising moon, under the broken clouds, beyond a far
line of dim fringy woods, she herself just tipping the hollow behind,
big and red--when right down from over the cloud above us came a spout
of rain, then a sheet of it lifting to the blast as it howled across the
point. 'Stand by to let go the larboard anchor!' I sang out through the
trumpet; and Jacobs put the helm fully down at the moment, till she was
coming head to wind, when I made forward to the mates and men.
'Let--go!' I shouted; not a look turned against me, and away thundered
the cable through the hawse-hole; she shook to it, sheered astern, and
brought up with her anchor fast. By that time the rain was plashing down
in a perfect deluge--you couldn't see a yard from you--all was one white
pour of it; although it soon began to drive again over the headland, as
the tornado gathered new food out of it. Another anchor was let go,
cable paid out, and the ship soon began to swing the other way to the
tide, pitching all the while on the short swell.
"The gale still whistled her spars for two or three hours, during which
it began by degrees to lull. About eleven o'clock it was clear moonlight
to leeward, the air fresh and cool: a delicious watch it was, too. I was
walking the poop by myself, two or three men lounging sleepily about the
forecastle, and Rickett below on the quarter-deck, when I saw the chief
officer himself rush up from below, staring wildly round him, as if he
thought we were in some dream or other. I fancied at first the mate
would have struck Rickett, from the way he went on, but I kept aft where
I was. The eddies ran past the Indiaman's side, and you heard the fast
ebb of the tide rushing and rippling sweetly on her taut cables ahead,
plashing about the bows and bends. We were in old Bob Martin's river,
whatever that might be.