“Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed.”
_Tempest_.
The arms of Dillon were released from their confinement by the
cockswain, as a measure of humane caution against accidents, when
they entered the surf; and the captive now availed himself of the
circumstance to bury his features in the folds of his attire, when
he brooded over the events of the last few hours with that mixture of
malignant passion and pusillanimous dread of the future, that formed the
chief ingredients in his character. From this state of apparent quietude
neither Barnstable nor Tom seemed disposed to rouse him by their
remarks, for both were too much engaged with their own gloomy
forebodings, to indulge in any unnecessary words. An occasional
ejaculation from the former, as if to propitiate the spirit of the
storm, as he gazed on the troubled appearance of the elements, or a
cheering cry from the latter to animate his crew, alone were heard amid
the sullen roaring of the waters, and the mournful whistling of the
winds that swept heavily across the broad waste of the German Ocean.
There might have been an hour consumed thus, in a vigorous struggle
between the seamen and the growing billows, when the boat doubled the
northern headland of the desired haven, and shot, at once, from its
boisterous passage along the margin of the breakers into the placid
waters of the sequestered bay, The passing blasts were still heard
rushing above the high lands that surrounded, and, in fact, formed, the
estuary; but the profound stillness of deep night pervaded the secret
recesses, along the unruffled surface of its waters. The shadows of the
hills seemed to have accumulated, like a mass of gloom, in the centre of
the basin, and though every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was
in vain that the anxious seamen endeavored to discover their little
vessel through its density. While the boat glided into this quiet scene,
Barnstable anxiously observed:
“Everything is as still as death.”
“God send it is not the stillness of death!” ejaculated the cockswain.
“Here, here,” he continued, speaking in a lower tone, as if fearful of
being overheard, “here she lies, sir, more to port; look into the streak
of clear sky above the marsh, on the starboard hand of the wood, there;
that long black line is her maintopmast; I know it by the rake; and
there is her night-pennant fluttering about that bright star; ay, ay,
sir, there go our own stars aloft yet, dancing among the stars in the
heavens! God bless her! God bless her! she rides as easy and as quiet as
a gull asleep!”
“I believe all in her sleep too,” returned his commander. “Ha! by
heaven, we have arrived in good time: the soldiers are moving!”
The quick eye of Barnstable had detected the glimmering of passing
lanterns, as they flitted across the embrasures of the battery, and at
the next moment the guarded but distinct sounds of an active bustle
on the decks of the schooner were plainly audible. The lieutenant was
rubbing his hands together, with a sort of ecstasy, that probably will
not be understood by the great majority of our readers, while long Tom
was actually indulging in a paroxysm of his low spiritless laughter,
as these certain intimations of the safety of the Ariel, and of the
vigilance of her crew, were conveyed to their ears; when the whole hull
and taper spars of their floating home became unexpectedly visible, and
the sky, the placid basin, and the adjacent hills, were illuminated by
a flash as sudden and as vivid as the keenest lightning. Both Barnstable
and his cockswain seemed instinctively to strain their eyes towards the
schooner, with an effort to surpass human vision; but ere the rolling
reverberations of the report of a heavy piece of ordnance from the
heights had commenced, the dull, whistling rush of the shot swept over
their heads, like the moaning of a hurricane, and was succeeded by the
plash of the waters, which was followed, in a breath, by the rattling
of the mass of iron, as it bounded with violent fury from rock to rock,
shivering and tearing the fragments that lined the margin of the bay.
“A bad aim with the first gun generally leaves your enemy clean decks,”
said the cockswain, with his deliberate sort of philosophy; “smoke makes
but dim spectacles; besides, the night always grows darkest as you call
off the morning watch.”
“That boy is a miracle for his years!” rejoined the delighted
lieutenant. “See, Tom, the younker has shifted his berth in the dark,
and the Englishmen have fired by the day-range they must have taken, for
we left him in a direct line between the battery and yon hummock! What
would have become of us, if that heavy fellow had plunged upon our
decks, and gone out below the water-line?”
“We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our
metal and kentledge would have taken us down,” responded Tom; “such a
point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and
not even left the marines time to say a prayer!--tend bow there!”
It is not to be supposed that the crew of the whale-boat continued
idle during this interchange of opinions between the lieutenant and his
cockswain; on the contrary, the sight of their vessel acted on them like
a charm, and, believing that all necessity for caution was now over,
they had expended their utmost strength in efforts that had already
brought them, as the last words of Tom indicated, to the side of
the Ariel. Though every nerve of Barnstable was thrilling with the
excitement produced by his feelings passing from a state of the most
doubtful apprehension to that of a revived and almost confident hope of
effecting his escape, he assumed the command of his vessel with all that
stern but calm authority, that seamen find is most necessary to exert
in the moments of extremest danger. Any one of the heavy shot that their
enemies continued to hurl from their heights into the darkness of the
haven he well knew must prove fatal to them, as it would, unavoidably,
pass through the slight fabric of the Ariel, and open a passage to
the water that no means he possessed could remedy.--His mandates were,
therefore, issued with a full perception of the critical nature of the
emergency, but with that collectedness of manner, and intonation of
voice, that were best adapted to enforce a ready and animated obedience.
Under this impulse, the crew of the schooner soon got their anchor freed
from the bottom, and, seizing their sweeps, they forced her by their
united efforts directly in the face of the battery, under that shore
whose summit was now crowned with a canopy of smoke, that every
discharge of the ordnance tinged with dim colors, like the faintest
tints that are reflected from the clouds towards a setting sun. So long
as the seamen were enabled to keep their little bark under the cover of
the hill, they were, of course, safe; but Barnstable perceived, as they
emerged from its shadow, and were drawing nigh the passage which led
into the ocean, that the action of his sweeps would no longer avail them
against the currents of air they encountered, neither would the darkness
conceal their movements from his enemy, who had already employed men on
the shore to discern the position of the schooner. Throwing off at once,
therefore, all appearance of disguise, he gave forth the word to spread
the canvas of his vessel, in his ordinary cheerful manner.
“Let them do their worst now, Merry,” he added; “we have brought them to
a distance that I think will keep their iron above water, and we have no
dodge about us, younker!”
“It must be keener marksmen than the militia, or volunteers, or
fencibles, or whatever they call themselves, behind yon grass-bank, to
frighten the saucy Ariel from the wind,” returned the reckless boy;
“but why have you brought Jonah aboard us again, sir? Look at him by the
light of the cabin lamp; he winks at every gun, as if he expected the
shot would hull his own ugly yellow physiognomy. And what tidings have
we, sir, from Mr. Griffith and the marine?”
“Name him not,” said Barnstable, pressing the shoulder on which he
lightly leaned, with a convulsive grasp, that caused the boy to yield
with pain; “name him not, Merry; I want my temper and my faculties at
this moment undisturbed, and thinking of the wretch unfits me for my
duty. But, there will come a time! Go forward, sir; we feel the wind,
and have a narrow passage to work through.”
The boy obeyed a mandate which was given in the usual prompt manner
of their profession, and which, he well understood, was intended to
intimate that the distance which years and rank had created between
them, but which Barnstable often chose to forget while communing with
Merry, was now to be resumed. The sails had been loosened and set; and,
as the vessel approached the throat of the passage, the gale, which
was blowing with increasing violence, began to make a very sensible
impression on the light bark. The cockswain, who, in the absence of most
of the inferior officers, had been acting, on the forecastle, the part
of one who felt, from his years and experience, that he had some right
to advise, if not to command, at such a juncture, now walked to the
station which his commander had taken, near the helmsman, as if willing
to place himself in the way of being seen.
“Well, Master Coffin,” said Barnstable, who well understood the
propensity his old shipmate had to commune with him on all important
occasions, “what think you of the cruise now? Those gentlemen on the
hill make a great noise, but I have lost even the whistling of their
shot; one would think they could see our sails against the broad band of
light which is opening to seaward.”
“Ay, ay, sir, they see us, and mean to hit us too; but we are running
across their fire, and that with a ten-knot breeze; but, when we heave
in stays, and get in a line with their guns, we shall see, and it may
be feel, more of their work than we do now; a thirty-two an't trained as
easily as a fowling-piece or a ducking-gun.”
Barnstable was struck with the truth of this observation; but as there
existed an immediate necessity for placing the schooner in the very
situation to which the other alluded, he gave his orders at once, and
the vessel came about, and ran with her head pointing towards the sea,
in as short a time as we have taken to record it.
“There, they have us now, or never,” cried the lieutenant, when the
evolution was completed. “If we fetch to windward off the northern
point, we shall lay out into the offing, and in ten minutes we might
laugh at Queen Anne's pocket-piece, which, you know, old boy, sent a
ball from Dover to Calais.”
“Ay, sir, I've heard of the gun,” returned the grave seaman, “and a
lively piece it must have been, if the straits were always of the same
width they are now. But I see that, Captain Barnstable, which is more
dangerous than a dozen of the heaviest cannon that were ever cast can
be, at half a league's distance. The water is bubbling through our lee
scuppers, already, sir.”
“And what of that? hav'n't I buried her guns often, and yet kept every
spar in her without crack or splinter?”
“Ay, ay, sir, you have done it, and can do it again, where there is
sea-room, which is all that a man wants for comfort in this life.
But when we are out of these chops, we shall be embayed, with a heavy
northeaster setting dead into the bight; it is that which I fear,
Captain Barnstable, more than all the powder and ball in the whole
island.”
“And yet, Tom, the balls are not to be despised, either; those fellows
have found out their range, and send their iron within hail again: we
walk pretty fast, Mr. Coffin; but a thirty-two can cut-travel us, with
the best wind that ever blew.”
Tom threw a cursory glance towards the battery, which had renewed its
fire with a spirit that denoted they saw their object, as he answered:
“It is never worth a man's while to strive to dodge a shot; for they are
all commissioned to do their work, the same as a ship is commissioned to
cruise in certain latitudes: but for the winds and the weather, they
are given for a seafaring man to guard against, by making or shortening
sail, as the case may be. Now, the headland to the southward stretches
full three leagues to windward, and the shoals lie to the north; among
which God keep us from ever running this craft again!”
“We will beat her out of the bight, old fellow,” cried the lieutenant;
“we shall have a leg of three leagues in length to do it in.”
“I have known longer legs too short,” returned the cockswain, shaking
his head; “a tumbling sea, with a lee-tide, on a lee-shore, makes a sad
lee-way.”
The lieutenant was in the act of replying to this saying with a cheerful
laugh, when the whistling of a passing shot was instantly succeeded by
a crash of splintered wood; and at the next moment the head of the
mainmast, after tottering for an instant in the gale, fell towards the
deck, bringing with it the mainsail, and the long line of topmast, that
had been bearing the emblems of America, as the cockswain had expressed
it, among the stars of the heavens.
“That was a most unlucky hit!” Barnstable suffered to escape him in the
concern of the moment; but, instantly resuming all his collectedness of
manner and voice, he gave his orders to clear the wreck, and secure the
fluttering canvas.
The mournful forebodings of Tom seemed to vanish with the appearance
of a necessity for his exertions, and he was foremost among the crew in
executing the orders of their commander. The loss of all the sail on
the mainmast forced the Ariel so much from her course, as to render it
difficult to weather the point, that jutted, under her lee, for some
distance into the ocean. This desirable object was, however, effected
by the skill of Barnstable, aided by the excellent properties of his
vessel; and the schooner, borne down by the power of the gale, from
whose fury she had now no protection, passed heavily along the land,
heading as far as possible from the breakers, while the seamen were
engaged in making their preparations to display as much of their
mainsail as the stump of the mast would allow them to spread. The firing
from the battery ceased, as the Ariel rounded the little promontory;
but Barnstable, whose gaze was now bent intently on the ocean, soon
perceived that, as his cockswain had predicted, he had a much more
threatening danger to encounter, in the elements. When their damages
were repaired, so far as circumstances would permit, the cockswain
returned to his wonted station near the lieutenant; and after a
momentary pause, during which his eyes roved over the rigging with a
seaman's scrutiny, he resumed the discourse.
“It would have been better for us that the best man in the schooner
should have been dubb'd of a limb, by that shot, than that the Ariel
should have lost her best leg; a mainsail close-reefed may be prudent
canvas as the wind blows, but it holds a poor luff to keep a craft to
windward.”
“What would you have, Tom Coffin?” retorted his commander. “You see she
draws ahead, and off-shore; do you expect a vessel to fly in the very
teeth of the gale? or would you have me ware and beach her at once?”
“I would have nothing, nothing, Captain Barnstable,” returned the old
seaman, sensibly touched at his commander's displeasure; “you are as
able as any man that ever trod a plank to work her into an offing; but,
sir, when that soldier-officer told me of the scheme to sink the Ariel
at her anchor, there were such feelings come athwart my philosophy as
never crossed it afore. I thought I saw her a wrack, as plainly, ay, as
plainly as you may see the stump of that mast; and, I will own it, for
it's as natural to love the craft you sail in as it is to love one's
self, I will own that my manhood fetched a heavy lee-lurch at the
sight.”
“Away with ye, ye old sea-croaker! forward with ye, and see that the
head-sheets are trimmed flat. But hold! Come hither, Tom; if you have
sights of wrecks, and sharks, and other beautiful objects, keep
them stowed in your own silly brain; don't make a ghost-parlor of my
forecastle. The lads begin to look to leeward, now, oftener than I
would have them. Go, sirrah, go, and take example from Mr. Merry, who is
seated on your namesake there, and is singing as if he were a chorister
in his father's church.”
“Ah, Captain Barnstable, Mr. Merry is a boy, and knows nothing, so fears
nothing. But I shall obey your orders, sir; and if the men fall astarn
this gale, it sha'n't be for anything they'll hear from old Tom Coffin.”
The cockswain lingered a moment, notwithstanding his promised obedience,
and then ventured to request that:
“Captain Barnstable would please call Mr. Merry from the gun; for I
know, from having followed the seas my natural life, that singing in a
gale is sure to bring the wind down upon a vessel the heavier; for He
who rules the tempests is displeased that man's voice shall be heard
when he chooses to send his own breath on the water.”
Barnstable was at a loss whether to laugh at his cockswain's infirmity,
or to yield to the impression which his earnest and solemn manner had a
powerful tendency to produce, amid such a scene. But making an effort
to shake off the superstitious awe that he felt creeping around his own
heart, the lieutenant relieved the mind of the worthy old seaman so
far as to call the careless boy from his perch, to his own side; where
respect for the sacred character of the quarter-deck instantly put an
end to the lively air he had been humming. Tom walked slowly forward,
apparently much relieved by the reflection that he had effected so
important an object.
The Ariel continued to struggle against the winds and ocean for several
hours longer, before the day broke on the tempestuous scene, and the
anxious mariners were enabled to form a more accurate estimate of their
real danger. As the violence of the gale increased, the canvas of the
schooner had been gradually reduced, until she was unable to show more
than was absolutely necessary to prevent her driving helplessly on the
land. Barnstable watched the appearance of the weather, as the light
slowly opened upon them, with an intense anxiety, which denoted that the
presentiments of the cockswain were no longer deemed idle. On looking
to windward, he beheld the green masses of water that were rolling in
towards the land, with a violence that seemed irresistible, crowned with
ridges of foam; and there were moments when the air appeared filled with
sparkling gems, as the rays of the rising sun fell upon the spray that
was swept from wave to wave. Towards the land the view was still more
appalling. The cliffs, but a short half-league under the lee of the
schooner, were, at all times, nearly hid from the eye by the pyramids
of water, which the furious element, so suddenly restrained in its
violence, cast high into the air, as if seeking to overleap the
boundaries that nature had fixed to its dominion. The whole coast,
from the distant headland at the south to the well-known shoals that
stretched far beyond their course in the opposite direction, displayed
a broad belt of foam, into which it would have been certain destruction
for the proudest ship that ever swam to enter. Still the Ariel floated
on the billows, lightly and in safety, though yielding to the impulses
of the waters, and, at times, appearing to be engulfed in the yawning
chasm which apparently opened beneath her to receive the little fabric.
The low rumor of acknowledged danger had found its way through the
schooner, and the seamen, after fastening their hopeless looks on the
small spot of canvas that they were still able to show to the tempest,
would turn to view the dreary line of coast, that seemed to offer so
gloomy an alternative. Even Dillon, to whom the report of their danger
had found its way, crept from his place of concealment in the cabin,
and moved about the decks unheeded, devouring, with greedy ears, such
opinions as fell from the lips of the sullen mariners.
At this moment of appalling apprehension, the cockswain exhibited the
calmest resignation. He knew all had been done that lay in the power
of man, to urge their little vessel from the land, and it was now too
evident to his experienced eyes that it had been done in vain; but,
considering himself as a sort of fixture in the schooner, he was quite
prepared to abide her fate, be it for better or for worse. The settled
look of gloom that gathered around the frank brow of Barnstable was in
no degree connected with any considerations of himself; but proceeded
from that sort of parental responsibility, from which the sea-commander
is never exempt. The discipline of the crew, however, still continued
perfect and unyielding. There had, it is true, been a slight movement
made by one or two of the older seamen, which indicated an intention to
drown the apprehensions of death in ebriety; but Barnstable had called
for his pistols, in a tone that checked the procedure instantly, and,
although the fatal weapons were, untouched by him, left to lie exposed
on the capstan, where they had been placed by his servant, not another
symptom of insubordination appeared among the devoted crew. There was
even what to a landsman might seem an appalling affectation of attention
to the most trifling duties of the vessel; and the men who, it should
seem, ought to be devoting the brief moments of their existence to the
mighty business of the hour, were constantly called to attend to the
most trivial details of their profession. Ropes were coiled, and the
slightest damages occasioned by the waves, which, at short intervals,
swept across the low decks of the Ariel, were repaired, with the same
precision and order as if she yet lay embayed in the haven from which
she had just been driven. In this manner the arm of authority was kept
extended over the silent crew, not with the vain desire to preserve a
lingering though useless exercise of power, but with a view to maintain
that unity of action that now could alone afford them even a ray of
hope.
“She can make no head against this sea, under that rag of canvas,” said
Barnstable, gloomily, addressing the cockswain, who, with folded arms
and an air of cool resignation, was balancing his body on the verge of
the quarter-deck, while the schooner was plunging madly into waves that
nearly buried her in their bosom: “the poor little thing trembles like a
frightened child, as she meets the water.”
Tom sighed heavily, and shook his head, before he answered:
“If we could have kept the head of the mainmast an hour longer, we might
have got an offing, and fetched to windward of the shoals; but as it is,
sir, mortal man can't drive a craft to windward--she sets bodily in to
land, and will be in the breakers in less than an hour, unless God wills
that the wind shall cease to blow.”
“We have no hope left us, but to anchor; our ground tackle may yet bring
her up.”
Tom turned to his commander, and replied, solemnly, and with that
assurance of manner that long experience only can give a man in moments
of great danger:
“If our sheet-cable was bent to our heaviest anchor, this sea would
bring it home, though nothing but her launch was riding by it. A
northeaster in the German Ocean must and will blow itself out; nor shall
we get the crown of the gale until the sun falls over the land. Then,
indeed, it may lull; for the winds do often seem to reverence the glory
of the heavens too much to blow their might in its very face!”
“We must do our duty to ourselves and the country,” returned Barnstable.
“Go, get the two bowers spliced, and have a kedge bent to a hawser:
we'll back our two anchors together, and veer to the better end of two
hundred and forty fathoms; it may yet bring her up. See all clear there
for anchoring and cutting away the mast! we'll leave the wind nothing
but a naked hull to whistle over.”
“Ay, if there was nothing but the wind, we might yet live to see the sun
sink behind them hills,” said the cockswain; “but what hemp can stand
the strain of a craft that is buried, half the time, to her foremast in
the water?”
The order was, however, executed by the crew, with a sort of desperate
submission to the will of their commander; and when the preparations
were completed, the anchors and kedge were dropped to the bottom, and
the instant that the Ariel tended to the wind, the axe was applied to
the little that was left of her long, raking masts. The crash of the
falling spars, as they came, in succession, across the decks of the
vessel, appeared to produce no sensation amid that scene of complicated
danger; but the seamen proceeded in silence to their hopeless duty of
clearing the wrecks. Every eye followed the floating timbers, as
the waves swept them away from the vessel, with a sort of feverish
curiosity, to witness the effect produced by their collision with those
rocks that lay so fearfully near them; but long before the spars entered
the wide border of foam, they were hid from view by the furious element
in which they floated. It was now felt by the whole crew of the Ariel,
that their last means of safety had been adopted; and, at each desperate
and headlong plunge the vessel took into the bosom of the seas that
rolled upon her forecastle, the anxious seamen thought that they could
perceive the yielding of the iron that yet clung to the bottom, or could
hear the violent surge of the parting strands of the cable, that still
held them to their anchors. While the minds of the sailors were agitated
with the faint hopes that had been excited by the movements of their
schooner, Dillon had been permitted to wander about the deck unnoticed:
his rolling eyes, hard breathing, and clenched hands excited no
observation among the men, whose thoughts were yet dwelling on the means
of safety. But now, when, with a sort of frenzied desperation, he would
follow the retiring waters along the decks, and venture his person nigh
the group that had collected around and on the gun of the cockswain,
glances of fierce or of sullen vengeance were cast at him, that conveyed
threats of a nature that he was too much agitated to understand.
“If ye are tired of this world, though your time, like my own, is
probably but short in it,” said Tom to him, as he passed the cockswain
in one of his turns, “you can go forward among the men; but if ye have
need of the moments to foot up the reck'ning of your doings among men,
afore ye're brought to face your Maker, and hear the log-book of Heaven,
I would advise you to keep as nigh as possible to Captain Barnstable or
myself.”
“Will you promise to save me if the vessel is wrecked?” exclaimed
Dillon, catching at the first sounds of friendly interest that had
reached his ears since he had been recaptured; “Oh! If you will, I can
secure your future ease, yes, wealth, for the remainder of your days!”
“Your promises have been too ill kept afore this, for the peace of your
soul,” returned the cockswain, without bitterness, though sternly; “but
it is not in me to strike even a whale that is already spouting blood.”
The intercessions of Dillon were interrupted by a dreadful cry, that
arose among the men forward, and which sounded with increased horror,
amid the roarings of the tempest. The schooner rose on the breast of
a wave at the same instant, and, falling off with her broadside to the
sea, she drove in towards the cliffs, like a bubble on the rapids of a
cataract.
“Our ground-tackle has parted,” said Tom, with his resigned patience of
manner undisturbed; “she shall die as easy as man can make her!”--While
he yet spoke, he seized the tiller, and gave to the vessel such a
direction as would be most likely to cause her to strike the rocks with
her bows foremost.
There was, for one moment, an expression of exquisite anguish betrayed
in the dark countenance of Barnstable; but, at the next, it passed away,
and he spoke cheerfully to his men:
“Be steady, my lads, be calm; there is yet a hope of life for _you_--our
light draught will let us run in close to the cliffs, and it is still
falling water--see your boats clear, and be steady.”
The crew of the whale-boat, aroused by this speech from a sort of
stupor, sprang into their light vessel, which was quickly lowered
into the sea, and kept riding on the foam, free from the sides of
the schooner, by the powerful exertions of the men. The cry for the
cockswain was earnest and repeated, but Tom shook his head, without
replying, still grasping the tiller, and keeping his eyes steadily bent
on the chaos of waters into which they were driving. The launch, the
largest boat of the two, was cut loose from the “gripes,” and the bustle
and exertion of the moment rendered the crew insensible to the horror
of the scene that surrounded them. But the loud hoarse call of the
cockswain, to “look out--secure yourselves!” suspended even their
efforts, and at that instant the Ariel settled on a wave that melted
from under her, heavily on the rocks. The shock was so violent, as
to throw all who disregarded the warning cry from their feet, and the
universal quiver that pervaded the vessel was like the last shudder
of animated nature. For a time long enough to breathe, the least
experienced among the men supposed the danger to be past; but a wave of
great height followed the one that had deserted them, and raising the
vessel again, threw her roughly still farther on the bed of rocks, and
at the same time its crest broke over her quarter, sweeping the length
of her decks with a fury that was almost resistless. The shuddering
seamen beheld their loosened boat driven from their grasp, and dashed
against the base of the cliffs, where no fragment of her wreck could be
traced, at the receding of the waters. But the passing billow had thrown
the vessel into a position which, in some measure, protected her decks
from the violence of those that succeeded it.
“Go, my boys, go,” said Barnstable, as the moment of dreadful
uncertainty passed; “you have still the whale-boat, and she, at least,
will take you nigh the shore. Go into her, my boys. God bless you, God
bless you all! You have been faithful and honest fellows, and I believe
he will not yet desert you; go, my friends, while there is a lull.”
The seamen threw themselves, in a mass, into the light vessel, which
nearly sank under the unusual burden; but when they looked around them,
Barnstable and Merry, Dillon and the cockswain, were yet to be seen
on the decks of the Ariel. The former was pacing, in deep and perhaps
bitter melancholy, the wet planks of the schooner, while the boy hung,
unheeded, on his arm, uttering disregarded petitions to his commander to
desert the wreck. Dillon approached the side where the boat lay, again
and again, but the threatening countenances of the seamen as often drove
him back in despair. Tom had seated himself on the heel of the bowsprit,
where he continued, in an attitude of quiet resignation, returning no
other answers to the loud and repeated calls of his shipmates, than by
waving his hand towards the shore.
“Now hear me,” said the boy, urging his request, to tears; “if not for
my sake, or for your own sake, Mr. Barnstable, or for the hope of God's
mercy, go into the boat, for the love of my cousin Katherine.”
The young lieutenant paused in his troubled walk, and for a moment he
cast a glance of hesitation at the cliffs; but, at the next instant, his
eyes fell on the ruin of his vessel, and he answered:
“Never, boy, never; if my hour has come, I will not shrink from my
fate.”
“Listen to the men, dear sir; the boat will be swamped, alongside the
wreck, and their cry is, that without you they will not let her go.”
Barnstable motioned to the boat, to bid the boy enter it, and turned
away in silence.
“Well,” said Merry, with firmness, “if it be right that a lieutenant
shall stay by the wreck, it must also be right for a midshipman; shove
off; neither Mr. Barnstable nor myself will quit the vessel.”
“Boy, your life has been entrusted to my keeping, and at my hands will
it be required,” said his commander, lifting the struggling youth, and
tossing him into the arms of the seamen. “Away with ye, and God be with
you; there is more weight in you now than can go safe to land.”
Still the seamen hesitated, for they perceived the cockswain moving,
with a steady tread, along the deck, and they hoped he had relented, and
would yet persuade the lieutenant to join his crew. But Tom, imitating
the example of his commander, seized the latter suddenly in his powerful
grasp, and threw him over the bulwarks with an irresistible force. At
the same moment he cast the fast of the boat from the pin that held it,
and, lifting his broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in
the tempest:
“God's will be done with me,” he cried. “I saw the first timber of the
Ariel laid, and shall live just long enough to see it turn out of her
bottom; after which I wish to live no longer.”
But his shipmates were swept far beyond the sounds of his voice, before
half these words were uttered. All command of the boat was rendered
impossible, by the numbers it contained, as well as the raging of the
surf; and, as it rose on the white crest of a wave, Tom saw his beloved
little craft for the last time. It fell into a trough of the sea, and
in a few moments more its fragments were ground into splinters on the
adjacent rocks. The cockswain still remained where he had cast off the
rope, and beheld the numerous heads and arms that appeared rising, at
short intervals, on the waves; some making powerful and well-directed
efforts to gain the sands, that were becoming visible as the tide fell,
and others wildly tossed in the frantic movements of helpless despair.
The honest old seaman gave a cry of joy, as he saw Barnstable issue from
the surf, bearing the form of Merry in safety to the sands, where, one
by one, several seamen soon appeared also, dripping and exhausted.
Many others of the crew were carried, in a similar manner, to places of
safety; though, as Tom returned to his seat on the bowsprit, he could
not conceal from his reluctant eyes the lifeless forms that were, in
other spots, driven against the rocks with a fury that soon left them
but few of the outward vestiges of humanity.
Dillon and the cockswain were now the sole occupants of their dreadful
station. The former stood in a kind of stupid despair, a witness of the
scene we have related; but as his curdled blood began again to flow more
warmly through his heart, he crept close to the side of Tom, with that
sort of selfish feeling that makes even hopeless misery more tolerable,
when endured in participation with another.
“When the tide falls,” he said, in a voice that betrayed the agony of
fear, though his words expressed the renewal of hope, “we shall be able
to walk to land.”
“There was One and only One to whose feet the waters were the same as a
dry dock,” returned the cockswain; “and none but such as have his power
will ever be able to walk from these rocks to the sands.” The old seaman
paused, and turning his eyes, which exhibited a mingled expression of
disgust and compassion, on his companion, he added, with reverence: “Had
you thought more of Him in fair weather, your case would be less to be
pitied in this tempest.”
“Do you still think there is much danger?” asked Dillon.
“To them that have reason to fear death. Listen! do you hear that hollow
noise beneath ye?”
“'Tis the wind driving by the vessel!”
“'Tis the poor thing herself,” said the affected cockswain, “giving her
last groans. The water is breaking up her decks, and, in a few minutes
more, the handsomest model that ever cut a wave will be like the chips
that fell from her timbers in framing!”
“Why then did you remain here!” cried Dillon, wildly.
“To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God,” returned Tom.
“These waves, to me, are what the land is to you; I was born on them,
and I have always meant that they should be my grave.”
“But I--I,” shrieked Dillon, “I am not ready to die!--I cannot die!--I
will not die!”
“Poor wretch!” muttered his companion; “you must go, like the rest of
us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster.”
“I can swim,” Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness to the
side of the wreck. “Is there no billet of wood, no rope, that I can take
with me?”
“None; everything has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. If ye
are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a
clean conscience, and trust the rest to God!”
“God!” echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy; “I know no God!
there is no God that knows me!”
“Peace!” said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that seemed to
speak in the elements; “blasphemer, peace!”
The heavy groaning, produced by the water in the timbers of the Ariel,
at that moment added its impulse to the raging feelings of Dillon, and
he cast himself headlong into the sea.
The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was
necessarily returned to the ocean, in eddies, in different places
favorable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one of
these countercurrents, that was produced by the very rocks on which the
schooner lay, and which the watermen call the “undertow,” Dillon had,
unknowingly, thrown his person; and when the waves had driven him a
short distance from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his most
desperate efforts could not overcome. He was a light and powerful
swimmer, and the struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore
immediately before his eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by
a false phantom, to continue his efforts, although they did not advance
him a foot. The old seaman, who at first had watched his motions with
careless indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a
glance; and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice
that was driven over the struggling victim to the ears of his shipmates
on the sands:
“Sheer to port, and clear the undertow! Sheer to the southward!”
Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much obscured by
terror to distinguish their object; he, however, blindly yielded to the
call, and gradually changed his direction, until his face was once
more turned towards the vessel. The current swept him diagonally by the
rocks, and he was forced into an eddy, where he had nothing to contend
against but the waves, whose violence was much broken by the wreck. In
this state, he continued still to struggle, but with a force that was
too much weakened to overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked around
him for a rope, but all had gone over with the spars, or been swept away
by the waves. At this moment of disappointment, his eyes met those of
the desperate Dillon. Calm and inured to horrors as was the veteran
seaman, he involuntarily passed his hand before his brow, to exclude
the look of despair he encountered; and when, a moment afterwards, he
removed the rigid member, he beheld the sinking form of the victim as
it gradually settled in the ocean, still struggling, with regular
but impotent strokes of the arms and feet, to gain the wreck, and
to preserve an existence that had been so much abused in its hour of
allotted probation.
“He will soon know his God, and learn that his God knows him!” murmured
the cockswain to himself. As he yet spoke, the wreck of the Ariel
yielded to an overwhelming sea, and, after an universal shudder, her
timbers and planks gave way, and were swept towards the cliffs, bearing
the body of the simple-hearted cockswain among the ruins.