TAKEN ABACK!
At five o’clock the wind was south-east; a fresh breeze, with a lively
sea and a cloudy sky. The wind being aft, the ship sailed on an even
keel, to the great comfort of the passengers, who found the inclined
decks intolerable.
From the aspect of the sea, it was evident that the ship had got into
water which had not been touched by the gale of the morning--of such
narrow proportions sometimes are the tempests which sweep the ocean.
Away northwards, whither the clouds were rolling, there loomed a long,
low, smoke-coloured bank of cloud or fog, so exactly resembling a coast
seen from a distance that the passengers were deceived, and some of
them called out that yonder was land!
“Tell us now, captain,” cried Mrs. Ashton; “it _is_ land, isn’t it?”
“Why, madam,” rejoined the captain, “for anything I can tell, it may be
Laputa.”
“Or Utopia,” suggested the General, “the land of idealisms and
paradisaical institutions.”
Mrs. Ashton laughed, seeing the joke, but Mr. St. Aubyn, conceiving
that they were talking of real countries, proposed that the captain
should head the vessel for the shore.
“No, no! too far out of my course,” answered the skipper, with a wise
shake of the head. “It would make a Flying Dutchman of the ship were we
once to set to work to reach that land.”
“If I really thought it Utopia,” said the General, stroking his
moustache, “I would beg you to land me at once, so eager am I to
witness the condition of a people living under a form of government the
like of which, for wisdom, humanity, and availability, is not to be met
with in any other part of the world. But it _may_ be Laputa, as you
suggested.”
“Or Lilliput,” said Mr. Holland; whereupon the actor, perceiving that
a joke was playing at his expense, scowled dramatically at the bank of
cloud, and muttered, that, for his part, when he asked a civil question
he usually looked for a truthful answer.
Just then a voice forward shouted out, “A sail on the lee bow!”
There is always something exciting in this cry at sea. Storms and calms
grow wearisome after a bit, but the interest that clusters about a
vessel met on the broad deep never loses its freshness. The captain
went for his telescope, and, after a brief inspection, announced the
vessel to be a large barque going the same road as themselves. Mrs.
Ashton asked leave to look through the telescope, and a good deal of
coquettish bye-play took place; for, first she shut both eyes, and then
she couldn’t see at all; and then she shut the eye that looked through
the telescope, and, keeping the other open, declared that she could see
better without the glass. Then the telescope wouldn’t keep steady; so
Mr. St. Aubyn went upon his knees and begged her to use his shoulder
for a rest. At last, after an infinity of trouble, and when the cramp
was just beginning to seize the actor’s legs, she obtained a glimpse
of the barque as it swept through the field of the glass, and owned
herself delighted and satisfied.
The “Meteor” came up with the stranger hand over fist, keeping to
windward of her; and soon she was no farther than a mile off, a big
hull high in the water, bare and black, with round bows and a square
stern. They hoisted the ensign on board the “Meteor,” but the barque
showed no colours.
“Some sour North Countryman, I reckon,” said Captain Steel. “She has a
Sunderland cut.”
She was under full sail, but just when the “Meteor” got abreast of her,
she clewed her royals up, down came the flying and outer jibs, and the
topgallant yards.
“What is she afraid of?” exclaimed Captain Steel, gazing at her
curiously.
You could see the pigmy figures of the men clambering up the rigging,
and presently down fell the topsail yards and up went more figures,
and the spars were dotted with heads. Anything more picturesque than
this vessel--her black hull rolling majestically, her white sails
vanishing even as you watched them, her rigging marked against the
cloudy sky, the sense of the noisy activity on board of her, of which
no faintest echo stole across the water, and all between, the tumbling
cloud-coloured waters--cannot be imagined. The crew of the “Meteor”
watched her with curiosity; but she now fell rapidly astern, and in a
short time could be seen clearly only by the telescope, which Captain
Steel held to his eye, speculating upon her movements.
The dinner-bell rang. It was now the first dog-watch. Thompson, the
second mate, came on deck, and the passengers went to dinner. The
sunlight had a watery gleam in it as the lengthening rays fell upon
the skylight, and Holdsworth’s eyes constantly wandered to the sails,
which were visible through the glass. The skipper was in high humour,
and during dinner laughed at the barque they had passed for shortening
sail under a blue sky.
“I’ll wager a hat,” he exclaimed, “that she’s commanded by a Scotchman,
even if she don’t hail from a North British port. I don’t mean to say
that your Scotchman’s a timid man, but he’s unco’ thoughtful. My first
skipper was a Sawney, and every night, as regularly as the second
dog-watch came round, it was ‘In royals and flying-jib, and a single
reef in the mizzen-top-sail.’”
“But there must be some reason for the barque furling her sails,” said
the General.
“From his point of view, no doubt, sir. You have seen what the weather
has been all the afternoon?”
“The wind is dropping, sir,” said Holdsworth, looking through the
skylight.
He had an uneasy expression in his eyes, and he frequently glanced at
the skipper; but etiquette of a very severe kind prohibited him from
imparting his misgivings of a change, in the face of the skipper’s
manifest sense of security.
“It may freshen after sunset,” rejoined the skipper. “Mr. Holland, the
pleasure of a glass of wine.”
The conversation drifted into other channels. Mrs. Ashton gave an
account of a country ball she had attended a week or two before she
left England, and described the dress she wore on that occasion,
appealing often to her husband to aid her memory, and riveting
the attention of Mr. St. Aubyn. Then the General talked of the
garrison-towns he had visited, and paid some handsome compliments to
the British army, and to English society in general. Mrs. Tennent,
seated on the captain’s right hand, with her boy at her side, listened
to without joining in the conversation.
Holdsworth’s eyes roamed incessantly through the skylight.
It happened presently that the General, in speaking of the beauty of
English inland scenery, mentioned the county in which Southbourne was
situated, and instanced in particular the country around Hanwitch, a
town lying not half a dozen miles from Southbourne. Holdsworth pricked
his ears, and joined in the conversation. He had reason to remember
Hanwitch. One of the happiest days he had spent, during the three
months he had been ashore, was that in which he had driven Dolly over
to that town, and dined in the queer little hotel that fronted a piece
of river-scenery as beautiful as any that is to be found up the Thames.
Whilst he and the General talked, the skipper argued with Mr. St. Aubyn
on the merits of the English as a paying people. St. Aubyn declared
that the English public, taken in the aggregate, was a mean public,
rarely liberal, and then liberal in wrong directions, supporting
quack institutions, responding to quack appeals, and ignoring true
excellence, especially histrionic excellence. Both grew warm; then Mr.
Holland joined in. He sent the discussion wandering from the point, and
in stepped Mr. Ashton.
Meanwhile the decanters went round, the cuddy grew dark, and the negro
was looking at the steward for orders to light the swinging lamps.
Hark!
A loud cry from the deck, followed by a sudden rush of feet, and the
ship heeled over--over--yet over!
The women shrieked; the skylight turned black; plates, decanters,
cutlery, glass, rolled from the table and fell with quick crashes. The
decks fore and aft echoed with loud calls. You could hear the water
gurgling in the lee port-holes. A keen blue gleam flashed upon the
skylight; but if thunder followed the lightning it was inaudible amid
the wild and continuous shrieking of the wind.
The skipper and Holdsworth scrambled to the companion-ladder and gained
the deck. In a trice they saw what had happened. The ship, with all
sails set, had been taken aback.
Away to windward, in the direction directly contrary to where the wind
had been blowing before dinner, the sky was livid, flinging an early
night upon the sea, and sending forth a tempest of wind that tore the
water into shreds of foam. The whole force of the hurricane was upon
the ship’s canvas, which lay backed against the masts, and the vessel
lay on her beam-ends, her masts making an angle of forty degrees with
the horizon.
The confusion was indescribable. Every halliard had been let go;
but the yards were jammed by the sails, and would not descend. The
clew-lines were manned, but the sheets would not stir an inch through
the blocks. Nor was the worst of the squall, tempest, hurricane,
whatever it might be, upon them yet; that livid pall of cloud which the
lightning was seaming with zigzag fire was still to come, and with it
the full fury its scowling aspect portended.
“My God!” thundered the skipper to the second mate, who stood white,
cowed, and apparently helpless, “what have you brought us into?”
The wheel was jammed hard a-starboard, but the ship lay like a log,
broadside on to the wind, her masts bowed almost on a level with the
water.
“Haul! for your lives, men! haul!” shrieked the skipper frantically to
the men, who appeared paralysed by the sudden catastrophe, and stood
idly with the clew-lines and reef tackles passed along them.
Holdsworth, half-way up the weather-poop ladder, his head above the
bulwarks, saw sooner than the captain what was about to happen.
“Crowd to windward, all hands!” he roared. There was no time to say
more; the great broad, livid cloud was upon them even whilst Holdsworth
sang out the command; the men held their breath--unless the masts went
the vessel was doomed.
Crash! A noise of wood shivered into splinters, of flogging ropes and
sails thundering their tatters upon the wind; the fore and main masts
went as you would break a clay-pipe stem across your knee--the first,
just below the top, the other clean off at the deck; and the huge mass
of spars, ropes, and sails lay quivering and rolling alongside--a
portion on deck, but the greater bulk of them in the water--grinding
into the vessel’s side as if she had grounded upon a shoal of rocks.
The ship righted, and then another crash; away went the mizzen-topmast,
leaving the spanker and cross-jack set. The wind caught these sails and
swept the ship’s head round right in the eye of the storm, and off she
drove to leeward, disabled, helpless--dragging her shattered spars with
her, like something living its torn and mangled limbs.
There was no situation in the whole range of the misfortunes which
may befall a ship at sea more critical than the one the “Meteor” was
now in. The sea was rising quickly and leaping high over the ship’s
bows, pouring tons of water in upon the decks (the weight of the wreck
alongside preventing the vessel from rising to the waves), and carrying
whatever had become unlashed--casks, spare spars, and the like--aft to
the cuddy front, against which they were launched with a violence that
broke the windows, and soon promised to demolish the woodwork.
But the worst part of the business was--the action of the sea set the
spars in the water and the hull of the ship rolling against each other,
and the thump, thump, thump of the bristly wreck against the vessel’s
side sent a hollow undertone through the hooting of the tempest that
was awful to hear.
Though the mizzen-mast still stood, the weight of the other masts in
falling had severely wrenched it, and it literally rocked in its bed
to the swaying of the great spanker-boom. Add to all this the midnight
darkness in the air, which the flashes of lightning only served to
deepen by the momentary and ghastly illumination they cast.
Yet, if the ship was not to be dragged to destruction, it was
imperative that she should be freed, and freed at once, from the
ponderous incumbrance of the wreck that ground against her side. The
captain had shouted himself hoarse, and was no longer to be heard. But
now Holdsworth made himself audible in tones that rose above the gale
like trumpet-blasts.
“We must clear the wreck or founder! All hands out with their knives
and cut away everything!”
A comprehensive order that must be literally obeyed.
“Carpenter!” he roared.
“Here, sir,” came a voice from the main-deck.
Holdsworth sprang in the direction of the voice: shouted again, and the
man was at his side.
“Quick! Where’s your tool chest? Bear a hand, now!”
The two men fought their way through the water that came drenching
and flying over the forecastle, to the boatswain’s berth, which the
carpenter shared; and in a few moments returned staggering aft with
their arms full of tools, which they thrust into the hands of the men.
Holdsworth seized an adze; the carpenter another; and to it fell all
hands, feeling for the ropes and then letting drive at them.
The mere occupation heartened the men, who worked with a will, bursting
into encouraging cheers from time to time and calling to each other
incessantly. The lightning was so far useful that it enabled them to
obtain glimpses of the progress they made. The starboard shrouds lay
across the deck, from bulwark to bulwark, like bridges; these were the
first that were dealt with. They kept the wreck close alongside, and
the strain upon them was enormous. Whilst Holdsworth and the carpenter
hacked, they repeatedly called to a few of the men whose zeal kept them
working on the lee side, though their figures could not be seen, to
stand clear, wisely guessing that after a few of the shrouds had been
severed, the whole would part like a rope-yarn: and this happened. One
final blow divided a shroud and left the weight upon a few others,
which were unequal to support it; and as they flew a loud shriek rose;
a man had been caught by the flying shrouds round the body and whirled
overboard like dust. But in the darkness none could tell who the
messmate was that had lost his life.
The parting of these shrouds released the wreck from the ship’s side,
and it drifted some fathoms away. The horrible grinding sounds ceased;
but still the masts and yards, which the lightning disclosed seething
in the water, black, ugly, and as dangerous as a lee-shore, were
attached to the hull by a network of rope, all which must be severed.
The knives of the men cut and hacked in all directions; and first here
and then there, and sometimes as if crashing in half-a-dozen places at
once, the adze wielded by Holdsworth was to be heard.
The last shroud was at length severed, the last rope parted; the hull,
drifting faster than the dead weight of wreck, fell astern of the
horrible incumbrance, and the next flash of lightning showed the water
boiling round the black spars ahead.
“Hurrah!” shouted Holdsworth; but the men, wearied and faint after
their long and great struggle, and sickened by the shriek of their
perishing comrade, whose cry still sounded in their ears, answered the
encouraging shout faint-heartedly.
The ocean was still a black and howling wilderness, and the vessel
plunged and rolled, and trembled in the jumping seas, with her head
right in the wind’s eye, and the water pouring over her in sheets
of undulating fire. The water had stove in the cuddy front, and was
washing in tons down into the steerage. What they had now to do was to
furl the cross-jack; aft came the men and clewed the sail up; on which
the vessel fell broadside to the wind and rolled her bulwarks under
water.
To furl the cross-jack was a job full of peril; but, if the thing was
to be done at all, it was to be done by a _coup de main_. Holdsworth,
crying to the hands to follow him, sprang up the port mizzen rigging.
Half-a-dozen went up after him, the rest skulked in the darkness, and
stood holding their breath, expecting every moment the crash that
should fling the men aloft into the sea. No glimpse of the brave
fellows was to be obtained; nothing but the flapping outline of the
white sail could be seen; the mast creaked harshly; but from time
to time the men’s voices could be heard even above the roar of the
tempest, the groaning of the ship, and the rolling of spare casks, a
sheep-pen which had become unlashed, and other things about the waist
and quarter-deck; and slowly the faint spaces of thundering canvas
vanished in the darkness, and were securely stowed.
Meanwhile, the hands about the poop had been sent to man the pumps. The
carpenter had sounded the well and reported three feet of water in the
hold.
“She must be tight, sir! I am sure she is tight, sir! She has shipped
the water that’s in her through the mast-coat of the main-mast!” the
skipper shouted to Holdsworth, who stood, panting from his exertions
aloft, close against the mizzen-mast, that he might judge what chance
there was of its standing.
Meanwhile, the wheel was hard a-starboard, and the gale was now upon
the ship’s quarter, the huge waves breaking under her counter and
sending her wildly yawing forward. Had there been daylight, they could
have rigged up a jury foresail on the stump of the fore-mast, which
would have served to keep her before the wind; but nothing could be
done in the overwhelming darkness except to keep the pumps at work.
But she was riding more easily now, and shipping fewer seas; the port
bulwark just abaft the gangway had been crushed to a level with the
deck by the fall of the main-mast, and offered a wide aperture for the
escape of the water, so that the main-deck, where the hands worked the
pumps, was practicable.
Furiously as it still blew, it was evident that the storm was abating;
there were rifts in the clouds, through which, here and there, a pale
star glimmered for an instant, and was then swallowed up.
It was now five bells (half-past ten); the skipper ordered rum to be
served out to the men, who were wet through to the skin, and fagged to
death by their extraordinary exertions. The carpenter sounded the well
again, and reported an increase of three inches in the depth of water.
This was a terrible announcement, and proved beyond a doubt that the
ship was leaking, though the crew were kept in ignorance of the report,
that they might not be disheartened.
At six bells the clouds had broken into huge black groups, with spaces
of clear sky between, and the wind was lulling as rapidly as it had
risen.
The ship was still buoyant enough to rise easily over the seas; but
anything more forlorn than her appearance, as it was disclosed by the
dim light that fell from the rifts among the clouds, cannot be imagined.
The fore-mast stood like a black and lightning-shattered tree; the
jib-boom hung in two pieces from the bowsprit; where the main-mast had
stood were some huge jagged splinters; and aft towered the mizzen-mast,
with the cross-jack swinging to the roll of the ship, the spanker with
its peak halliards gone, and the whole picture of it completing the
unutterable air of desolation presented by the storm-shattered vessel.
At eight bells the carpenter reported no increase of the water in the
hold, which cheering intimation the captain delivered to the men from
the break of the poop, who received it with a faint cheer.
The pumps had been relieved three times, and now the port watch was at
them, making the water bubble on to the deck, where it was washed to
and fro, and poured in streams through the scupper-holes.
At one o’clock, Holdsworth, who had been on deck since a quarter to
seven, went below to put on dry clothes; and as he was leaving his
cabin to return on deck he met Mrs. Tennent. Her face was very pale in
the light of the swinging lamp, and she stood at her cabin door, by the
handle of which she supported herself.
“Are we not in great danger, Mr. Holdsworth?” she whispered, in a tone
of deep excitement.
“The worst is passed, I hope,” answered Holdsworth cheerfully.
“Do not be afraid of telling me the truth. I can be brave for my
child’s sake. If real danger should come, Mr. Holdsworth, will you
remember him? Will you be near him in that moment?”
“We won’t talk of danger yet, Mrs. Tennent. We have had an ugly bout of
it, but the daylight is coming, and then we shall be more comfortable.”
“Many times,” she exclaimed, “I thought we were sinking! O God! what a
horrible night this has been! I heard the water rushing past the cabin
door, and I tried to reach the deck, but was too faint to carry my
child, and I could not leave him.”
“Well, you see we are still afloat,” Holdsworth answered cheerily.
“Depend upon it, we will do our best to save the ship. Take my advice
and lie down and get some sleep. This water here,” pointing to the
cuddy-deck, “means nothing; a swab will put that to rights. The morning
is coming, and you are sailing under a skipper who knows what he is
about.”
He waved his hand cordially, and left her.
* * * * *
All through that long night the hands stuck to the pumps, but the water
gained upon them inch by inch, and when the morning broke at last, the
vessel was deep and heavy, rolling sluggishly, and leaking fast.
The sun was a welcome sight to the poor fagged seamen. Up he sprang,
flushing the universe with a pink splendour, and dispersing the heavy
clouds which hung in clusters about his rising-point.
Up to that time there had been a fresh breeze blowing, the dregs, so
to speak, of the storm that had dismantled the ship; but this lulled
as the sun rose, the sea smoothed out its turbulent waves, and a day
filled with the promise of calm and beauty broke on a scene as desolate
as any the heart can conceive.
One of the watches was in the forecastle; half the other watch on deck
was at the pumps, the monotonous sounds of which had been echoing many
hours, together with the gushing of water surging over the decks, and
pouring in streams from the ship’s sides.
The vessel was now no more than a log on the water; not a shred of
canvas, with the exception of the mutilated spanker upon her, her
port bulwarks crushed, her fore-mast a stump, her decks exhibiting a
scene of wild disorder--loose spars that had been washed from forward
encumbering the entrance of the cuddy; the cuddy front battered to
pieces, spare casks piled tumultuously about the poop-ladders, and the
long-boat, lashed between the galley and the fore-mast, and which had
held some of the live stock, full of water and drowned sheep. On the
port side, the severed shrouds, which had supported the masts, trailed
their black lengths in the sea; and all about the starboard side were
the fragments of ropes and stays hacked and torn to pieces; while the
port main-chains had received a wrench that had torn the bolts out of
the ship’s side, and left the irons standing out.
As yet none of the passengers had made their appearance. The captain
had brought a chart from his cabin and unrolled it upon the skylight,
and stood with his finger upon it, calculating his whereabouts by
yesterday’s reckoning, and waiting for Holdsworth to return from the
hold, which he and the carpenter were exploring for the leak.
The swell, which was heavy, surged against the ship’s sides; but her
buoyancy was gone, she hardly moved to the pressure.
Presently Holdsworth came out of the hold, wet and exhausted, followed
by the carpenter in worse plight.
“Well?” exclaimed the captain, in a subdued but eager voice.
“I am afraid it is a hopeless case, sir. She’s leaking in a dozen
different places.”
“The worst leak is just amidships,” said the carpenter. “It’s under the
water in the hold. You can hear it bubbling, but there’s no getting at
it.”
“What soundings have you got?”
“Eleven feet, sir!”
“Good God!” cried the skipper; “that’s an increase of a foot and a half
since seven bells.”
“We had better look to the boats, sir,” said Holdsworth, scanning the
horizon.
“Don’t talk of the boats yet, sir!” panted the skipper. “Clap some
backstays on to the fore-mast and turn to and rig up the spare
staysail.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Holdsworth, and went forward to call all hands
and make what sail they could upon the stump of the fore-mast, whilst
the skipper walked passionately to and fro, perfectly conscious of the
hopelessness of their situation, but determined to blind his eyes to it.
The first among the passengers to come on deck was the General, who
stood transfixed by the spectacle of the wreck. He and some of the
others had attempted during the night to leave their berths and find
out the reason of the uproar that was going on over their heads, but
had been literally blown back again the moment they showed their noses
above the hatchway; and none of them, with the exception of Mrs.
Tennent, having had an opportunity of speaking to either the captain
or Holdsworth, they were all in perfect ignorance that the vessel was
actually a wreck.
Whilst the General stood gasping and staring up aloft in search of the
majestic masts and sails that had reared their graceful heights when he
was last on deck, he was joined by Mr. St. Aubyn and Mr. Holland, both
of whom turned pale with amazement and fear.
Then all three of them ran up to the captain.
“Oh, tell us what has happened? What will become of us? Are we
sinking?” cried the actor.
“Where are the masts gone? Is it possible that we can ever reach
America in this condition?” gasped Mr. Holland.
“Captain, we seem to be in a frightful mess! Why, we are foundering,
sir!” exclaimed the General, rolling his eyes over the sea and then
fixing them upon the captain.
“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” returned the skipper, extending his hands,
“pray leave me! You distract me by your questions.”
“Are we in danger?” implored Mr. St. Aubyn.
“Yes, sir; can’t you see?” answered the skipper fiercely.
“Is it possible?” stammered Mr. St. Aubyn, turning deadly pale.
“It is possible!” cried the skipper scornfully. “But I hope you are not
going to be afraid, sir. Look over the break of the poop and you’ll
see the men pumping for their lives. Danger is one thing, and drowning
is another. I beg, sir, that you will control your fears. Panics are
easily created, and you will remember, please, that we have women among
us.”
Saying which he walked some paces away. Mr. St. Aubyn burst into tears;
Mr. Holland gazed around him with an air of stupefaction; the General
followed the skipper.
“Is our position really serious?”
“Yes, General; the ship’s bottom is leaky fore and aft.”
“What do you mean to do?”
“Keep her afloat as long as I can. And now will you do me a service? Go
and clap that snivelling actor on the back and put some heart in him.
One coward makes many, and this is no time for any man on board my ship
who values his life at one farthing to lose his pluck.”
By this time the hands forward had lashed a block on the stump of the
fore-mast, and run up a spare staysail. Holdsworth then came aft
to the poop. The captain called him to the skylight, and they hung
together over the chart, calculating their neighbourhood, and devising
expedients in subdued tones. The men who were far enough forward to see
them as they stood together on the poop eyed them curiously, and held
muttering conversations together, some of them going to the ship’s side
and looking over.
It was felt by every man among them that the vessel was sinking;
and those who worked the pumps plied them languidly, as though
understanding the fruitlessness of their labour.
Mrs. Tennent came on deck with her boy and stood near Holdsworth,
asking no questions, but with an expression on her face that plainly
showed her conscious of the danger and prepared for the worst. Soon
afterwards came Mrs. Ashton, who shrieked out when she beheld the
dismasted hull, and clung convulsively to her husband. Her maid
followed her, shivering, cowed, with big eyes staring everywhere like
a madwoman’s.
Then a dead silence fell upon the ship, disturbed only by the languid
clanking of the pumps and the fall of the continuous streams of water
over the ship’s sides.
It was now half-past eight o’clock. Not a breath of air rippled the
surface of the sea, which rose and sank to a deep and voluminous
under-swell. Some heavy clouds hung motionless in the blue sky, from
one of which a shower of rain was falling about a mile off, arching a
little brilliant rainbow upon the water.
Presently Holdsworth advanced to the poop-rail and sang out to the
carpenter to sound the well. This was done, and the report showed that
the leak was gaining fast upon the pumps.
On this announcement all heart went out of the captain like a flash,
and left him silent and spiritless.
He rallied, went to Holdsworth’s side and called out: “Belay that
pumping there! Boatswain, send all hands aft to the quarter-deck.”
The sound of the pumping ceased, the men came aft in groups and stood
in a crowd.
Some of them were bearded, some quite young; their attire was various
but always picturesque: here a red shirt, there white, here blue
serge, there coarse canvas, many with bare brown arms ringed with
tattoo-marks; some in sea-boots, some with naked feet. The bright sun
gleamed upon their upturned faces, pale for want of sleep and with the
intense weariness of their long and heavy labours. There was no want
of respect suggested by any of them; but, on the contrary, there was a
rough and sympathetic deference in their manner and gaze as they fixed
their eyes on their white-haired skipper and listened to his speech,
which he delivered in a voice that now and then faltered.
“My men, I had hoped to keep our poor old hooker afloat by manning the
pumps day and night and head for home, which, with a breeze astern of
us, we might have reached even in the trim the gale last night has put
us in. But I find that the water is gaining upon us faster than we can
pump it out, and it’s not my intention to fag you with useless work.
But in this sea the hull is likely to float for some hours yet; so we
shall have plenty of time to get the boats out and do the best we can
for our lives. You are most of you Englishmen, and those who are not
are all brave fellows, and no man can be better than that, let him
hail from what port he may: so I can depend upon you turning to and
obeying orders quietly. There are thirty-four souls aboard of us and
four boats; there’s room for thirteen in the long-boat, and for seven
apiece in the quarter-boats. I’ll take charge of the long-boat, your
chief mate of the pinnace, and the second mate and boatswain will take
the others. There’s no hurry, and there must be no confusion. Let a
dozen hands man the pumps, the rest go to breakfast and then relieve
the pumps. Then tumble aft, get the long-boat launched, and do the best
we can for ourselves; and may God preserve us! Amen.”
At the conclusion of this speech the men raised a cheer, the
boatswain’s pipe shrilled, clang went the pumps again, and the
quarter-deck was deserted.
The captain turned to the passengers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, these are ugly straits for me to have brought
you into, and I would that God in His mercy had ordained it otherwise.
I have been forty years at sea, and the like of this has never befallen
me before. But that’s no matter. I’ll take care to do my duty by you to
the last. We have got enough boats to accommodate us all comfortably;
the weather promises fair, and it’s odds if every one of us isn’t snug
and safe on board some ship before to-night; for we’re right in the
track of homeward-bound ships from the United States. Some of you will
come with me, and some go along with my chief officer, who has worked
nobly for us all, and who’ll work as nobly right away through for those
who are with him whilst the life is in his body. Ladies, keep up your
courage; for a sinking ship is a small matter when you’ve got good
boats, and are with men who know how to handle ’em. We’ll go below now
and make as good a breakfast as we can; we’ll then provision the boats
and put off, as sure as our hearts can make us that God’s eye, which is
everywhere, will not lose sight of us.”
There were some murmurs, and then a silence, which Mrs. Ashton broke by
bursting into a passion of tears. When she was in some measure calmed,
the General said:
“Fellow-passengers, will you unite with me in a prayer to our merciful
God for His protection?”
The men took off their hats, but the captain exclaimed:
“General, there are hands for’ard who might like to join us. We should
give them the chance.”
Holdsworth went to the forecastle, and presently returned with the
whole ship’s company following him. The hands at the pump ceased their
work to gather round the capstan, and the passengers attended the
skipper in a body to the quarter-deck. The old General stood in the
midst of the crowd and knelt--an example followed by the rest.
There was something too sacred in the nature of the extemporaneous
prayer offered up by the General to make it proper for me to write it
down here; but its effect was deeply impressive. Noble, beyond the
power of words to describe, was the spectacle of the fine old American,
bare-headed and kneeling, his trembling hands clasped, his kindly,
honest face upturned to the skies, breathing forth in broken tones an
earnest entreaty that God, in His infinite mercy, would look down upon
His servants now and grant them His all-powerful protection in this
their hour of danger and suffering. Equally affecting was the spectacle
of the men--some with hands clasped before their faces, some kneeling
with reverently-bowed heads, some gazing with earnest eyes upon the
petitioner, and some even weeping--not unmanly tears--those who wept
were among the bravest. The widow knelt with her arms about her child’s
neck, in an attitude both shielding and imploring. The husband and wife
prayed hand-in-hand.
Overhead shone the joyous sun; the long and polished swell surged
against the sluggish vessel’s side; and amidst the tones of the old
General and the solemn murmur of those who followed his words, you
might hear the gurgling of the water in the hold, and feel the ship’s
growing weight and helplessness in the heavy and weary rolls she gave
to the movement of the sea.