That a squall was indeed brewing was by this time perfectly evident; for
while we had been getting our supper the cloud which had made its
appearance on the western horizon had rapidly risen, and now hung, an
enormous lowering mass of livid purple vapour, in the western heavens,
covering an arc of the horizon of fully a hundred degrees, completely
hiding the setting sun, and towering aloft until its upper edge was
nearly overhead. Yet so far there was not a breath of wind, and the
surface of the sea remained an unbroken, polished mirror, perfectly
reflecting the hues of the overhanging cloud to the westward and the
deep rich azure of the sky away down toward the east; and when Simpson
again climbed the boat's mast to take a final look at the stranger, he
reported her naked mastheads as standing up black, sharp, and motionless
against the soft primrose tones of the northern sky.
Some ten minutes later, and just as the brief twilight of that region
had begun to veil the scene, we saw a faint glimmer of lightning in the
heart of the now slowly advancing cloud, and a few seconds after the low
mutter of thunder reached our ears. And before the rumble of this had
died away there suddenly darted from the bosom of the cloud a long,
vivid, baleful, sun-bright flash that seemed to strike into the sea
within a quarter of a mile of us, immediately followed by so stupendous
a crash that it caused the very timbers of our boat to vibrate and
tremble--or so I verily believed. And as though that flash had been a
signal, the great cloud seemed suddenly to burst apart, and the next
moment we were enveloped in a very deluge of rain, which fairly roared
as it threshed the surface of the sea all round us.
"The bread! the bread!" I shouted. "Cover it with the tarpaulin and
keep it dry. If we let it get wet it will be spoiled," and immediately
we all made a dash for the two bags of biscuits and hastily enveloped
them in a small sheet of tarpaulin that Chips had had the forethought to
toss into the gig while she was being lowered from the davits.
"Now," said I, as soon as we had taken such precautions as were possible
for the preservation of our bread, "spread out the sail, from gunwale to
gunwale, right across the boat. This rain is far too precious to be
wasted. That's your sort, bos'n, make a good deep sag in the middle of
the sail--it will soon fill at this rate; and then we can all drink as
much as we please, and put what more we can catch into the broached
breaker, filling it until it overflows. Find the pannikin, one of you;
there is enough for a drink round already."
The hollow sail filled with the sweet, tepid rainwater faster than we
could drink it; and before the rain ceased we had each emptied the pint
pannikin twice and had filled the broached breaker right up to the edge
of its bung-hole. Then we had another drink all round, after which we
bathed our smarting, blistered hands in the cooling liquid before
emptying it into the sea. The downpour lasted for perhaps twelve
minutes; then it ceased as suddenly as it had begun--as suddenly as
though a tap had been turned off up aloft--and we had an opportunity
once more to look around us. And, glancing instinctively to the
westward in the first instance--for that was where we expected the wind
to come from--the first thing we saw, in the fast-deepening twilight,
was a broad belt of dark water, flecked here and there with white, about
a mile distant, and advancing in our direction.
"Hurrah, lads!" I exclaimed, "here comes the breeze--a foul one it is
true, but even a foul wind, so long as there is not too much of it, is
better than none at all. Set the lug for a board on the port tack;
since we can't go straight to our port I'll make a board to the nor'ard,
which will at least be going in the right direction. Yes, bos'n," in
reply to a question from that functionary, "keep the sail close-reefed;
we shall have all the wind we want, and a little over, before very long,
unless I am greatly mistaken."
The wind swooped down upon us in a fierce little flurry that careened
the gig to her gunwale, despite the careful tending of the sheet by the
boatswain; then, with all hands of us sitting well up to windward, the
boat gathered way and darted off upon a course that was as nearly as
might be due north-west, lying well down to it, with the spray from the
short, choppy seas that the squall instantly whipped up showering in
over her sharp weather bow at every plunge, and quickly drenching us to
the skin. But there was worse to come, for the wind was freshening
every moment and rapidly kicking up a short, steep, choppy sea, the
surges of which smothered us with spray as the gig leaped viciously at
them under the steadily increasing pressure of the wind upon her
close-reefed lugsail; so that within a very few minutes it was taking
one hand all his time to keep the boat free of water by continually
baling with the bucket, although we eased the craft as much as possible
by keeping the weather-leech of the sail ashiver most of the time.
"Just our luck!" growled the boatswain, as he slacked the sheet to a
still fiercer puff. "If this had been a fair wind, now, we could have
shown whole canvas to it, and would have been reelin' off our seven, or
even eight knots as easily as possible. But, as it is, we can't make no
headway agin it; and the time ain't far off, in my opinion, when we'll
have to up stick and run afore it."
"We'll not do that until we are obliged," said I. "I don't feel at all
like losing, in the course of two or three hours, the ground that we
have made by the hardest day's work that I ever did in my life. No,
Murdock, when we can't face it any longer we will lash the oars together
and ride to them as a sea anchor at the full scope of our painter. They
will keep the boat head-on to wind and sea, and we shall ride as
comfortably that way as any other; while, although our drift will
probably amount to as much as three knots every hour, we shall not lose
nearly as much ground as we should by scudding before--"
I was interrupted by the sailmaker, who was sitting far enough forward
to be able to see some distance past the luff of the sail. Seaman-like,
he was instinctively keeping a lookout, and he now suddenly turned and
yelled:
"Sail ho! close aboard on the lee bow. Hard up, Mr Temple; hard up,
sir, and keep her broad away, or that chap'll run us down."
There was an urgency and imperativeness in the man's tones which made it
clear enough that there was no time for investigation. I therefore did
the only thing that remained to be done under the circumstances, namely,
trusted to the correctness of Sails's judgment and implicitly followed
his directions, dragging the tiller hard up, and at the same time
calling upon the boatswain to ease off the sheet still further. Under
the pressure of her weather helm the boat at once fell broad off; and as
she did so I saw, through the rapidly deepening darkness, a great black
blotch swing into view past the luff of our sail, which the next instant
resolved itself into the shape of a big, hulking brigantine, wallowing
along down toward us with her topsail-yard down on the cap, her reef
tackles bowsed up, and eight men on her yard busily engaged in reefing
her topsail. It was not yet so dark but that those men must have seen
us distinctly--in fact one of them paused in his work to flourish his
hand at us; yet, but for the sailmaker's watchfulness, the craft would
have driven right over us! There could be no doubt of the fact that her
crew had seen us, for, in addition to the man who waved to us from the
yard, there were two men pacing her monkey poop aft who paused in their
march to look at us as we drove past each other; yet, although we yelled
to them frantically to heave-to and pick us up, they made no movement to
do anything of the sort, and ten minutes later the craft vanished in the
darkness. The light was too poor to enable us to read the name on her
stern as she swept past us, but she had all the look of a
Portuguese-built craft; and, justly or unjustly, the Portuguese have
gained rather a sinister reputation for callousness and inhumanity in
their behaviour toward people circumstanced as we were at that moment.
"I s'pose they thinks we're out here in a hopen boat for pleasure and
the fun o' the thing," was the boatswain's sarcastic comment upon their
behaviour, prefaced by a stream of profanity, as the vessel disappeared
from our view.
As soon as we realised that the crew of the brigantine had no intention
of heaving-to and picking us up we again brought the gig to the wind.
But we soon found that this would not do: the wind and sea were both
rapidly becoming too much for us, and to continue fighting against them
meant the speedy swamping or capsizal of the boat. We therefore adopted
the plan which I had been expounding to the boatswain when the
brigantine hove into view, securely lashing the four oars of the boat
together in a bundle, bending the extreme end of our painter to the
middle of the bundle, and launching the whole overboard, at the same
time lowering the sail and striking the mast, when the drag of the boat
upon the oars brought her head to wind and sea, and enabled her to ride
in comparative safety and comfort, although a breaking sea occasionally
slopped in over her bows, necessitating the frequent employment of the
bucket as a baler.
There was very little sleep for any of us that night, for within an hour
it was blowing really hard, with a heavy, steep sea that frequently
broke aboard us, causing us intense discomfort as the water rushed aft
and surged about our feet and legs to the wild plunging of the boat, and
keeping one or another of us constantly busy baling to prevent the boat
from being swamped. We were thankful that we had not the added
discomfort of cold to contend with, for, hard though it blew, the wind
was quite warm; yet, even so, it was unpleasant enough, since we were in
the greatest peril every moment of that long, weary night, our utmost
efforts being continually required to keep the boat above water. But,
notwithstanding everything, it was a fine, exhilarating experience; for,
added to the joy of battle with the elements, there was the wild
grandeur of the scene, the great masses of black cloud scurrying athwart
the sky, with little patches of starlit blue winking in and out between,
the roar and swoop of the wind, and the menacing hiss of the
phosphorescent foam-caps as they came rushing down upon the boat in
endless succession, all combining together to form a picture the like of
which, as viewed from a wildly leaping, half-swamped, spray-smothered
open boat, it is given to comparatively few men to look upon.
The gale lasted all through the night, breaking at sunrise; but although
the sky cleared with the coming of the dawn, the wind continued to blow
so strongly that it was not until the sun had crossed the meridian that
it again became possible for us to make sail upon the boat: and
meanwhile we found that during the night it had hauled round from the
north-west, and was therefore still practically dead in our teeth. But
the moment that the sea had gone down enough to render sailing once more
possible, we got under way and headed westward close-hauled upon the
starboard tack, under a double-reefed sail; and I took fresh heart when
presently I saw that, even under the exceedingly unfavourable conditions
then prevailing--and they were about as unfavourable as they could
possibly be--the boat was keeping a good luff, hanging well to windward,
thanks to an exceptionally deep keel, and making about four knots of
headway every hour.
My hopes rose high that even yet, despite the delays which we had
already experienced, we might be able to cover the distance to the coast
before our provisions gave out; for if we were doing well under almost
the worst conditions that could possibly befall us, what might we not do
when those conditions improved? And they certainly did improve as the
afternoon wore on, for the wind eventually dropped sufficiently to
permit us to shake out our reefs and sail the boat under whole canvas,
while with the moderating of the wind the sea also went down and ceased
to break, although the swell still ran very high. But it was only the
heavily breaking seas that were really dangerous to us; and now that we
no longer had them to fear we drove the gig for all that she was worth,
luffing her through the fresher puffs, hawsing her up to windward fathom
by fathom, and generally handling her as though we were sailing her in a
race, as indeed we were in a sense--a race against time.
We continued to do exceedingly well all through that afternoon, and
indeed up to about midnight; but the wind was softening all the time,
and shortly after midnight our speed began to slacken, until by daylight
of the next morning it had once more fallen to less than three knots.
Moreover, the weather was by no means satisfactory in appearance; there
were no actual clouds to be seen in the sky, but instead of being a
clear, deep, rich blue, as it ought to have been, and as it no doubt
would have been had there been fine weather in prospect, the entire
vault of heaven was veiled in a thick, steamy, colourless haze, through
which the sun showed as a feeble, shapeless blotch of white. There was
barely enough wind, still dead against us, to fan us along at a bare two
knots; but I did not like the look of the sea, which, despite the almost
total absence of wind, was in a strange state of unrest, the long heave
of the swell being overrun by small, short, choppy miniature seas, which
seemed to leap up at brief intervals without visible cause, and then
curled over and fell in a casual, sloppy manner that suggested the idea
that they would have liked to break but could not summon up the energy
to do so.
But whatever else they may have failed to do, these sloppy seas managed
to retard the way of the boat through the water very considerably, and
to fill our souls with exasperation; for they were distinctly hindering
our progress, while we could see no valid reason why they should exist
at all. They had the appearance of having sprung up solely to delay us,
and for no other purpose whatever. More than once, when I felt
exceptionally impatient at our miserably slow rate of progress, I had it
on the tip of my tongue to propose that we should again take to the
oars; but I did not actually speak the words, for in the first place I
doubted whether the gain in speed would be sufficient to justify the
expenditure of strength, and in the next place our hands were by this
time in such a frightful condition of rawness that the idea of proposing
what would make them very much worse seemed to smack of downright
cruelty, unless I could urge some more valid reason than the mere desire
to get ahead a little faster. And our situation just then was scarcely
desperate enough for that.
It was very shortly after midday, and we were all gathered aft partaking
of the meal that we dignified with the name of dinner, when the
boatswain, who was sitting on the after thwart, facing me, suddenly
paused in the act of conveying a piece of biscuit to his mouth, stared
intently over my shoulder for a moment, and then sprang to his feet,
shading his eyes with his hand.
"What is it, Murdock?" I asked, turning as I spoke in the direction
toward which he was gazing, "do you--?"
"Sail ho!" interrupted the boatswain, pointing eagerly with his hand.
"Do ye see her, Mr Temple, sir?"
"Ay, I do," I answered, as I caught sight of a faint pearly gleam afar
off on the north-eastern horizon. "Mr Cunningham, will you kindly lend
me your telescope for a moment?"
"Certainly, with pleasure," answered Cunningham, producing the
instrument from his pocket. It was not a very big affair, being only
about six inches long by perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, but it
was a three-draw tube, measuring about one foot nine inches long when
fully extended, and, for its size, was the most splendid instrument I
had ever used. I quickly brought it to bear upon the distant gleam,
which the lenses instantly resolved into the heads of the fore and main
royals of a craft--either a barque or a brig--standing to the southward.
When I had finished with the instrument the boatswain took a squint
through it, and after him the carpenter and the sailmaker; and when they
had had their turn Cunningham applied it to his eye. As the boatswain
passed the telescope over to Chips he turned to me eagerly and looked at
me hard with _so_ expressive an eye that I instantly read what was in
his mind. I shook my head.
"We could never do it, Murdock," I said. "She's too far to the
south'ard. Had she borne three, or even a couple of points farther to
the nor'ard I might have felt inclined to risk it; but--"
"What are you talking about?" demanded Cunningham. "Is it a question of
whether we can or cannot intercept that ship? Because if it is, I am
most emphatically in favour of our making the attempt. Mind you, I do
not say that we can actually intercept her; but I believe we might
manage to get close enough to her to be seen, for she is almost certain
to have a man or two aloft at work upon her rigging."
"Yes, ye're right, Mr Cunnin'ham; that's exactly my notion," eagerly
agreed the boatswain. "I believe that by runnin' away off in about this
here direction," pointing away toward the south--east, "we ought to lift
her pretty nigh to her rail by the time that she draws up abreast of us;
and if we can do that we stands a very good chance of bein' seen. I
haven't no great faith in our prospec's of fetchin' Rio; and if we gets
half a chance of bein' picked up by a ship, we ought to take it.
Moreover than that, I don't like the look of the weather none too well;
and I'd a deal rather spend the comin' night aboard that ship than in
this here gig."
There was certainly good, sound reason and common sense in Murdock's
words, and particularly in what he said about the weather; so I turned
to the carpenter, to ascertain his view of the matter.
"What do you say, Chips?" I asked. "Are you of opinion that we shall
be justified in losing ten or fifteen miles of ground upon the
off-chance of being able to close with yonder craft near enough to be
seen?"
"Why, yes, Mr Temple, I certainly am," answered Chips. "I won't go so
far as to say that we'll be actually able to manage it; but I think it's
our dooty to have a good try for it. I'm like the bos'n, I've got a
sort of feelin' that we ain't goin' to fetch Rio this trip--"
"All right, then," I said; "you three constitute the majority, even if
Sails happens to think as I do--"
"Ah, but I don't, Mr Temple!" interrupted Simpson. "I agrees with the
bos'n--"
"Then round we go," I interrupted in my turn; and, putting the helm hard
up, I bore away, the sail jibed over, and off we went almost dead before
the wind, heading about south-east, and bringing the stranger about a
point and a half abaft our port beam.
Sailing before the wind was a very different matter from plugging to
windward with the sheet flattened well in, and although our shift of
helm had the effect of making it seem that the wind had suddenly died
away almost to nothing, there was no longer that heart-breaking
smack-smack of the small seas against our weather bow which had seemed
to retard our way in such an exasperating fashion. On the contrary,
with the sheet eased well off and the lug boomed out with the boathook
so that the yard swung square across the length of the boat, we went
sliding smoothly away to leeward with a long, easy, buoyant motion, a
pleasant, musical gurgling of water along our bottom planking, and a
swift gliding past us of tiny air bubbles and occasional morsels of weed
that told us we were now travelling at the rate of quite four knots.
For the first half-hour the stranger did not appreciably alter her
bearing relative to the boat, which seemed to indicate that we were
practically holding our own with her, and our hopes soared high,
especially as within that brief period we had raised her royals and the
heads of her topgallantsails above the horizon. But when this latter
circumstance enabled us to see that she had her starboard topgallant
studdingsails set, my enthusiasm flagged again, for I argued that she
must be a slow-coach indeed if, with the breeze then blowing and
studdingsails set, she could not do any better than four knots. I held
my peace, however, for there was no use in damping the hopes of the
others, while there was always the possibility that if any of her hands
happened to be employed aloft, the eye of one or another of them might
chance upon our sail, which, small though it was, ought to be perfectly
visible at a distance of five or six miles, even in that somewhat hazy
atmosphere. But by the end of the first hour after we had begun our
chase it became apparent that she had the heels of us, for although we
were still steering exactly the same course as at first, she had drawn
up square abeam of us. And there it was imperatively necessary that we
should keep her if we did not wish her to slip past us, even although
the keeping of her there should entail upon us the necessity to edge
gradually away, thus bringing our own course ever more nearly parallel
to hers, instead of causing the two steadily to converge. Then, about
the end of the second hour of the chase, by which time we had lifted the
stranger's main topsail-yard above the horizon, and had discovered that
she was barque-rigged, the breeze suddenly freshened up sufficiently to
add an extra knot and a half to our speed. But this was a misfortune
rather than otherwise for us: for although it increased our speed, it
also increased that of the stranger, when it reached her, which it did
about ten minutes later; and whereas it added only about a knot and a
half to our rate of travel, it probably quickened up her pace by more
than double that amount, as was painfully apparent from the increased
frequency with which we were obliged to edge away to keep her square
abeam. And now the anxiety which I had all along felt began to be
shared by the others, one or another of whom kept Cunningham's telescope
continually bearing upon the barque. They began to fidget where they
sat, to mutter and grumble under their breath, and to cast frequent
looks at the sky astern, which had not materially altered its aspect
since the morning, except that the haze had thickened somewhat. At last
the boatswain could restrain himself no longer.
"If this here humbuggin' breeze'd only drop," he grumbled, "we'd out
oars and pull to her. But it ain't goin' to drop, that's the worst of
it, it's agoin' to freshen still furder; and that cussed old hooker's
goin' to run away from us, that's what she's agoin' to do. Let's have a
look at that there glass again, Mr Cunnin'ham," he continued. "I can't
make out what they're a-thinkin' about aboard her. It's fine weather,
and surely there ought to be some work to be done aloft." Here he got
the telescope to bear upon her for at least the tenth time since the
chase had begun, and relapsed into temporary silence, while he subjected
every visible part of her to a most searching scrutiny. Presently he
resumed, with animation: "Ah! I thought it'd be strange if her bos'n
couldn't find somethin' that wanted doin' aloft in such fine weather as
this. Just you take this here glass, Mr Temple--Chips'll catch hold of
the tiller for a minute or two--and see if there ain't a man sittin'
astride of her weather main tawps'l-yardarm doin' somethin' or other."
I handed over the tiller to Chips, took the telescope, and raised the
eyepiece to my eye. Instantly I had a small but exquisitely clear
picture of the three masts of the distant barque, from the level of the
second reef-band of her main topsail upward, with every rope and piece
of rigging and gear, even to the reef-points of the topsail, rising and
falling upon the horizon line with the lift of the ship upon the swell.
And there, sure enough, at the point named by the boatswain, but tucked
away in the shadow of the weather clew of the topgallantsail, so that it
was not very easy to make him out, I saw what I certainly took to be the
figure of a man. And that the boatswain and I were not mistaken
presently became apparent, for, while I still looked, the fellow
leisurely swung himself on to the foot rope and began to lay in along
the yard.
"Quick!" I exclaimed, "we must attract his attention somehow, for he
has finished his job and is laying in off the yard. Off with your
jacket, Sails, and jump up on the thwart and wave it for all you are
worth!"
The sailmaker tore off his white canvas jacket, and, grasping it by one
arm, sprang up on the mast thwart and waved it furiously, while I kept
the telescope focused upon the slowly moving figure of the distant
seaman. But the man worked his way steadily in, swung himself off the
yard to the topmast rigging, and, with the merchant sailor's usual
deliberation, descended until he vanished below the horizon line,
seemingly without giving a single glance at the widespreading surface of
sea that stretched away for miles on either side of him.
"That will do, Sails," I said; "you may belay your flourishing, and get
down off the thwart. That shellback has gone down on deck without so
much as a glance in our direction."
"Laid down, have he, without stoppin' so much as to take a look round?"
snarled the boatswain savagely, dashing his clenched fist down on the
gunwale. "I'll be jiggered if I can understan' what's comin' to the
sailorman as sails these here seas. Fust there was that there Portugee,
as went past without stoppin' to pick us up, although they see'd us, and
must 'ave knowed that we was castaways; and now here's this here
bloomin' barque, manned by chaps as don't seem to think it worth while
to give a look round while they're aloft, to see whether there's any
poor sailormen washin' about in distress. But she ain't British, I'll
take my Bible oath o' that; the British shellback don't do that there
sort o' thing. Why, when I first went to sea we was never ordered aloft
but what the skipper used to say: `Take a good look round, men, afore
you comes down again. We never knows when we may be passin' within
sight of some poor unfortunate, perishin' of hunger and thirst, and
prayin' to be sighted and picked up!'"
"Well," said I, "I am afraid it is all up with us, so far as that barque
is concerned. Nevertheless, we will stick to her as long as she remains
in sight. Another hand may be sent aloft aboard her before she
disappears; or the wind may drop--although I confess I see no sign of it
at present. And in any case it is comforting, in a way, to know that we
are in the track of the south-bound ships; we are certain to sight
others within the next day or two, and it will be pretty poor luck if we
cannot intercept one or another of them."
But although I spoke so confidently I am afraid that I was not very
successful in cheering up my companions in misfortune. This second
disappointment was producing its effect upon them; they were becoming
depressed and pessimistic; and although they all agreed that the proper
thing to do was to hang on to the distant barque, in the hope of
eventually attracting the attention of somebody aboard her, I could see
that we were all fully convinced that the attempt would result in
failure.
And so it did. We chased that barque until the sun set and the shades
of night hid her from our sight; and although about mid-afternoon we got
so close to her that her lower yards showed above the horizon when she
lifted on the swell, and kept the telescope bearing upon her all the
time, no more hands were sent aloft, and as the afternoon progressed she
steadily drew away from us again, until when at length we lost sight of
her in the gathering darkness only her royals and the upper halves of
her topgallantsails were showing above the horizon. And all this time
so absorbed were we in the chase that we were scarcely conscious of the
fact that the wind was steadily freshening every minute, the result
being that, when at length we were compelled to abandon the hope of
being seen and picked up, we suddenly awoke to the fact that it was
blowing quite a strong breeze, and that it had kicked up such a high,
steep sea that it was no longer possible for us to round-to and ride to
a sea anchor as we had done on the night but one before. We were
therefore obliged to scud before the wind all night under whole canvas,
to avoid being pooped and swamped by the breaking seas that
remorselessly chased us.
That was a harassing, anxious night for all hands of us, for by midnight
it was blowing what is generally termed a fresh gale, that is, a breeze
strong enough to compel a ship of, say, a thousand tons to reduce canvas
to single-reefed topsails; and that, to us, in a small open boat, was
about equivalent to what a hurricane would be to the bigger craft.
There was no sleep for any of us, for we were in constant, imminent
danger, and it taxed the resources of all hands to their utmost limit
all through the night to keep the boat from being overwhelmed. The
chief danger to an open boat under such circumstances arises from the
fact that, lying so low in the water as she does, her sail becomes
becalmed every time that she settles into the trough of a sea, and she
gradually loses way. Then, as she is hove up on the breast of the next
following sea, her sail suddenly fills again, and those in her have to
be careful that, in filling, it does not jibe over, for if it did so it
would certainly capsize the boat. But in guarding against that danger
another of equal magnitude is incurred, for unless the boat is kept dead
stern-on to the sea the chances are that she will broach-to and be
filled by the breaking head of the sea when it overtakes her. When it
comes to be remembered that this twofold peril threatens an open boat
about twice a minute hour after hour, as long as the gale continues,
some faint idea may be gained of the anxiety and discomfort we were
called upon to endure on the occasion which I am now attempting to
describe. And while the anxiety of all is sufficiently acute, the man
who is most worried is the one who is at the helm, for the behaviour of
a craft under such circumstances is in one respect distinctly and
harassingly peculiar: at the most perilous moment of all, which is the
moment before she is actually overtaken by the breaking crest of the
wave, she is apt to refuse to answer her helm, and he who is steering
her loses all control over her; she seems to be seized with a perverse
determination to take a broad sheer one way or the other, with
disastrous results, despite a hard-over helm, and then the only thing to
be done to retrieve the situation is to effect a lightning shift of helm
against all your past experience and your better judgment. But
notwithstanding this, it generally has the desired effect, the reason
commonly assigned being that, contrary to what is usually supposed, the
body of water constituting the head of a sea actually has a quick
forward motion, and when this overtakes a craft, large or small, which
is only beginning to gather fresh headway, the result is practically the
same as though she were going astern instead of ahead, and the helm must
be manipulated accordingly. Whether this is really the true explanation
of the curiously awkward phenomenon of which I have spoken I cannot say;
but I know that the phenomenon occurs, and that it placed us in
the direst peril at least half a hundred times during that
never-to-be-forgotten night, a peril from which, it appeared to me, we
each time escaped by the very skin of our teeth, and by what seemed to
be nothing short of a series of miracles. True, we are told that the
days of miracles are long past; but, after all, who knows?