A BAD PORT.
When the lifting-frame was complete, there was no reason why it should
not at once be floated out and secured in place at the sunken hulk as
soon as possible, and as the weather was very fine at that particular
time, and the water clear, we concluded to do it immediately. We took
both boats, Mr. Millward and Alice in his boat, and I alone in the
“Mohawk.” With a line from the floating frame to each boat we towed it
along so easily and rapidly that in a couple of hours we were over the
wreck. We anchored the two boats one at the bow and one at the stern of
the galleon, and pulling the floating frame between the two, fastened it
safely by a line at each end to the boat anchors. The next task was to
get some heavy rocks with which to sink it, and attach them to the frame
in such manner that when the latter was down in position to engage the
wreck bow and stern, the rocks could be released to permit the frame to
rise by its own power of flotation. It would then, we thought, be secure
against displacement, as there was evidently very little, if any,
movement of the water at the depth the galleon lay. Leaving the frame
attached to the anchor-lines we went to the north cape with the boats,
and loaded on twelve stones of considerable weight, which we carried out
and secured to the frame by slip-knots in such manner that by a pull
from above on a rope each might be released.
When the stones were attached we found that ten of them were just enough
to sink the frame slowly. By means of a couple of ropes, one at each
end of the frame, paid out from the two boats by Mr. Millward and me, we
guided the contrivance in its descent until it landed exactly in place.
Alice Millward with the water-glass watched the frame, and indicated to
us how to manipulate the ropes. Thus she would call out, “Slowly, Mr.
Morgan, a little more forward; a little more aft, father; now you are
going right,” until it was in proper position. We then pulled the ropes
attached to the stones, releasing the slip-knots two at a time to keep
the balance properly, and when relieved of this weight the frame floated
up, enclosing and grasping the wreck at each end. This part of the work
was therefore successfully and easily completed.
The frame was in position, and it now only remained to attach the
calabashes, one cage of them at a time, and we hoped the galleon would
be lifted. In preparation for this work,--which we would not be ready to
undertake for some time, or until all the calabashes were caged and
fitted with attaching ropes,--we had, before sinking the frame-work,
passed over the spar that connected the two triangles the bight of an
endless rope, for use as a down-haul with which the calabash cages might
be pulled down. This endless down-haul line we proposed to hitch to a
buoy when we left, so that it might be supported within reach until
wanted.
Being very anxious to test the working of my plan for pulling down and
attaching the calabashes, I had brought along a single cage of them for
the purpose of trying the experiment of pulling it down and attaching it
to the longitudinal spar. This scheme was a very simple one, and I
sincerely hoped it would prove successful, as it had given me
considerable study in its contrivance, and was, I thought, the best and
easiest way to accomplish the result. The following description will
make it clear. To the cage holding the calabashes was attached a rope
four feet long. On the free end of this attaching rope was a hook made
of a stout forked branch. Secured to the endless down-haul rope was a
similar hook. By catching these hooks together, the cage could be pulled
down until the two hooks passed under the spar and came up on the other
side. Now by crossing the down-haul rope the hook on the attaching rope,
I thought, could be made to hook over that part of its own rope which
was on the other side of the spar. Then by reversing the pull on the
down-haul its hook would be released and the calabash cage be left
attached to the spar by the stout rope passing around the spar and
hooked to itself.
The experiment, to our great delight, was entirely successful and
satisfactory; and when we had fixed the down-haul rope securely to a
buoy we set sail and returned feeling highly encouraged at the outlook
for our labors.
As this business of pulling down and affixing the calabashes was likely
to be a long and tedious job, to be successfully prosecuted only in good
weather, we determined to begin it as soon as we could get a sufficient
number of cages ready for a start; and thus we could work in suitable
weather at the wreck attaching the cages, and in unsuitable weather at
home in preparing them for attachment. It would be only at the very last
that we need watch for the wreck to rise, and prepare for towing her in
to shore. Until enough calabashes to float her had been sent down, such
as were attached would of course be simply anchored to the wreck.
It was oppressively warm that evening after we had returned home, and we
all brought our chairs down to the shed to better enjoy the slight
breeze which breathed in from the sea. We sat thus, watching the
breakers roll in through the dim light, and crash on the sand with a
long, running sound that passed from left to right along the beach, slow
but regular as heart-beats in their constant reiteration. Mr. Millward
was seated at a little distance from Alice and me enjoying his pipe, the
fire in the bowl of which shone at intervals with a red glow, as though
in rhythmic sympathy with the sound of the surf. The stars were bright
and sprinkled all over the clear, dark sky, which was lit now and then
by the long, fiery thread of a meteor ruled rapidly across the azure
dome, and lingering as an impression on the retina long enough so that
by turning the eye away the line of fire was transported to another
quarter,--fading out, however, too fast for us to locate it distinctly.
It was a peaceful, quiet summer night, and we sat silent, enjoying
together the restfulness of it. I looked at the dim outlines of Alice as
she sat by my side leaning her cheek upon one hand, and my heart was
filled with conscious depths of love and tenderness; then past her at
the shadowy figure of the old man and the intermittent glow of his pipe.
A great peace seemed to possess my soul, a wonderful content of spirit,
and I said to myself, “This is the peace of pure content and happiness.”
Often since have I recalled that night, and felt that man, born to
trouble and sorrow on this earth,--beautiful though it be,--can hope for
no greater bliss than such hours afford him. Happy hours come not at
call, nor often, nor long remain. Satisfied ambition brings them not,
nor gratified pride, nor gathered wealth; but they come only when there
is united this trinity of conditions: rest from labor done, the healthy
body, the presence of those we love. When these three things are united,
the peaceful, happy hour will come. And when this sweet angel of peace
shall hover over you, drive it not away, my friend, by taking troubled
thought of the morrow, nor by grieving over the past, nor regretting
opportunities missed. Enjoy it in contented silence while you may, and
with little thought of past or future.
An unusually brilliant meteor shot in a long diagonal line from the
zenith nearly to the horizon, and there burst in a ball of fire like a
rocket. Alice laid her hand on my arm as though to call my attention,
but without a word. The touch was light; the little hand remained but a
moment on my arm, and was then as gently withdrawn. But, light and
momentary, it thrilled me through and through; the angel of peace took
instant flight, and thought came back with a rush. The restless fear
that we might be parted; that she could never love me; the instinctive
wish to know with certainty her heart; a thousand contending emotions
stirred me. With all my will I strove to calm myself and still the wild
beating of my heart. What strange power was this which the girl had
acquired over me, that a mere touch of her hand sufficed to banish
quiet, fill my brain with teeming fancies and my breast with longing and
unrest? The quiet stars still shone as before, the surf still fell in
measured cadence, the gentle, rustling breeze still fanned my cheek with
its soft, cool breath; but peace and quiet and rest had departed. My
soul was fevered, and anxiety preyed once more upon my heart.
The night-blooming cereus had unfolded its waxen, white flowers, and the
warm air was laden with its strange, sweet perfume mingling with the
fragrance of the dew-moistened foliage. Now there stole up out of the
verge of the sea the thin, pale crescent of the young moon, a mere
rounded line of silver tilted back as though reclining in its new
feebleness, and giving but little more light than the brilliant lamp of
Venus that hung, a point of corruscating splendor, near it.
Again, as the silver horn emerged from the dim horizon line, I felt the
soft touch of her hand upon my arm, and in low tones she said, “Is it
not beautiful?”
For answer I took the hand in mine. Cool and soft it felt to my fevered
grasp. She withdrew it not, but, passive, let it lie for a few minutes.
Some say that souls while still embodied do and can communicate with
each other in some occult and mysterious way. If that be true, then
surely my soul must then and there have greeted Alice Millward’s.
Mr. Millward, who had once or twice nodded over his pipe, now rose and
knocking out the ashes reminded us that it was time to go to bed; and he
and Alice retired to the house. As I had no fancy to be shut up in-doors
on such a night, I brought my hammock down to the shed and swung it
there where the sound of the sea would lull me to sleep, while the
breeze fanned by with its cool breath.
The next morning we went diligently to work caging the calabashes in
sets of four, rigging each cage with its short attaching rope and hook.
The hooks I cut with axe and knife from the bushes of the nearest
jungle. The work was congenial and light. Under the shed we arranged
some tussocks of dried grass so that we could be seated low down; and
thus ranged in a sociable triangle we worked, chatted, laughed, and
joked; the old gentleman revived his experiences of former years; and
altogether it was a very pleasant time. Whenever the weather was
favorable we would load the completed cages of calabashes on board Mr.
Millward’s boat, and all three of us would sail to the galleon and sink
and attach them one at a time, in the manner already indicated.
Little by little the great pile of calabashes near the shed diminished
until it was nearly gone. We had attached literally thousands of the
gourds to the framework which grasped the wreck, until now when we
looked through the water-glass the hull was no longer visible, by reason
of the mass of caged gourds sunk far under water, each one of course
pulling upwards to the full extent of its buoyancy. Still we kept on. I
began to think that I should have to make another trip to the calabash
trees. But it was not to be so.
One morning we arrived at the galleon with a huge load in both boats
which we had got ready during the two preceding days. We had not pulled
half of them down when I felt the hauling-line slacken in my hand. Now I
had fully expected this very thing sometime to take place; but when it
did occur I thought for the moment that the line had frayed and parted,
and did not realize that the hull was rising. Then as suddenly I
understood, and shouted to Mr. Millward to cast off his boat from the
buoy, as the wreck was rising, and suiting the action to the word did
the same for my boat. We had no sooner cast loose than slowly the gourds
lifted their heads in a confused mass to the surface, rattling and
knocking together in the swell. The water all about became dark with
ooze and sand and fragments of weed stirred up from the ocean’s bed. I
felt sure that the old hull was floating beneath in the frame, because,
though I could not see it on account of the condition of the water, I
knew that had the framework let go, its beams would have floated up and
would now be in view among the floating gourds.
At the sight Mr. Millward jumped upon the gunwale of his little schooner
and waving his hat began a cheer, in which we all joined. The old hulk
floated at last! Its long rest was broken and a new voyage begun.
By a piece of sheer good-luck it so happened that the tide was coming in
and nearly at the flood, the swell was setting to the land, and moreover
the little breeze there was came from the right quarter to drift the
wreck in to the point of rocks. Everything was favorable to success in
beaching the galleon there.
In the greatest imaginable excitement we hastened to get the
hauling-line on board the schooner, and securing both boats to it made
all sail and endeavored thus to help the old hulk along by towing. It
was sluggish business. The boats would rise and fall with the swell and
lean down to the breeze, then come up, the sails empty, and then down
again, and so on. But we moved, and in the right direction, though
slowly, very slowly at first, and then a little faster as the rattling
mass of gourds and the heavy load beneath it got fairly under way.
I never saw Mr. Millward so wrought up with excitement as at this time.
And indeed we were all in something of the same condition. For here was
the result of long labor culminating before our eyes. Small wonder,
then, that there should be much hilarity. The galleon was afloat, and
our ship was coming in! Halfway to the beach Mr. Millward, in a sweet
and powerful voice, rolled out that good old hymn, “We are going home,”
and back from the rocks came the echo of the last word, “to-morrow.” We
all joined heartily in the chorus, with the best of good-will.
In about an hour, and as near as could be at high tide the Spanish
galleon grounded between two rocks on a sandy bottom just at the north
cape of the island, and we beached my boat near by in a sheltered place
to the southwest of the cape. The other boat we sailed down to the
creek, got something to eat, put the axe and some other things on board,
and came back to the cape, where we anchored to await the falling of the
tide.
As we sat in the boat lifted by the swell, and watched each wave wash
through between the rocks where lay the galleon, I began to realize that
Mr. Millward’s spirited song about “going home to-morrow” was not very
likely to come true for a good many to-morrows. There was a regular
tide-way through this passage, and I began to doubt whether the sea had
not played us a sad trick in bringing the galleon to such a port.
That the situation of affairs may be better understood, it will be
necessary to describe precisely the lay of the land. The two rocks were
separated from each other by a narrow passage about thirty feet in width
at the end where the galleon entered, and narrowed to perhaps ten feet
at the other end in a length of a hundred and fifty feet. Through this
passage the swell washed with great force. Indeed, the galleon and its
supporting mass of gourds had been carried in on the heave of the swell
and the hull dropped there with a crash on the bottom. The frame-work
and cages had been at once torn loose, and the spars and gourds lay
jammed in the narrow exit beyond, the water churned to foam by the
obstruction they offered, dashing continually against them and tearing
them one by one loose from one another until the sea all beyond was
littered with the fragments.
Even as we watched, this débris little by little washed out and away.
The hull of the galleon, it is true, lying on the bottom and well under
water where at high tide it was full five and twenty feet in depth,
would suffer no such damage probably in the present state of the
weather. But on the other hand the fall of the tide would most likely
not be great enough to leave her above water, and there was no telling
what might happen if a gale of wind should come along, especially with a
low tide. Indeed I speedily made up my mind that there was not only
going to be great danger of the wreck breaking up and getting away from
us entirely by washing piecemeal out through the exit into the sea, but
also, if this dire misfortune should be long delayed, that we should not
be able to get at the cargo for the racing of the water, even when at
its lowest. I must confess that when this fully dawned on me I felt
greatly discouraged.
At last after a weary wait the tide reached its lowest, and as I feared,
we found that we dared not go into the race-way with the boat. Each
swell swept through it with a great rush, breaking into foam in the
narrower part, so that a boat would have been dashed to pieces unless
fortunate enough to swim fairly out through the exit, and would then be
extremely liable to be overwhelmed. We drew up to the rock which lay
adjoining the beach and landed, so that we might look down on the
galleon from above. There she lay with the deck just awash at the
water’s surface, except when a green sea came whelming through, and then
she was buried to the depth of several feet. The old hulk was a most
venerable and curious sight; shells of various kinds grown fast all over
her ancient deck and sides; long streamers of sea-weed floating from her
like hair; coral branches, sand, ooze, mud,--a thousand reminiscences of
her long sleep on the bottom were now plainly observable in the light of
day.
We all three stood looking down upon this curious sight in silence,
which was finally broken by Mr. Millward, saying,--
“I am afraid we are as far away from the treasure that lies in that old
ship as we were before we raised her.”
I did not feel like talking about it, and therefore said nothing, but
stood with hands in pockets looking at this exhibition of what I
regarded as the perversity of inanimate matter. That the bewitched old
galleon should have run her nose exactly into this place of all others,
when there were miles of fair sloping beach on which she might have
stranded, seemed like a deadly stab in the back by a treacherous adverse
fate. It was enough to make a man swear, if that would have done any
good. And possibly it might have eased my feelings temporarily if I had
possessed talent enough in that direction to have done full justice to
the subject.
This would have been a good time to give up the whole project,--to wash
my hands of all Spanish galleons in general and this perverse one in
particular. But I must say that no such thought entered my mind. I was
disgusted, and very much disappointed, and not a little angry; but as
for giving up, that was simply impossible. The situation stunned me, and
there seemed no way out of it; but I could not entertain the thought
that the recovery of the treasure was impossible.
Alice Millward came up and drew me away by the arm. “Do not look so
downcast,” said she. “Surely we need not grieve over this failure. If we
cannot get the treasure we are no worse off than we were yesterday.”
“But you do not know,” said I, fiercely, “what it means to me. I have
been working to save my birthplace.”
“Never mind, never mind, Mr. Morgan,” replied she, gently, “let us go
home to the house now and think it all over there, where the hateful
thing will be out of sight.”
“We can do no more here and we might as well be starting,” added the old
man. Between them they led me to the boat, the old man saying various
things about not putting your trust in things of this earth; that riches
are not enduring; and other like remarks, all of which fell on my ear
without at all penetrating to my understanding. To tell the truth, I
was utterly dazed and unable to give the thing any sort of consecutive
thought.
We made the run quickly to Home Creek, and all went early to bed, a most
disheartened lot of mortals. Contrary to my expectation, I soon fell
asleep and slept soundly all night long.