WE COME TO GRIEF
Fortune seemed to favor the voyage of the _Gladys H._ All the way to
Hatteras the weather was delightful and the breeze fresh and constant.
There was not a moment when the sails were not bulging to some extent
and in spite of the old ship’s labored motion we made excellent time.
However, I followed my instructions, keeping well in toward the coast,
and so crept steadily down to Key West.
Here an important proposition confronted us: whether to enter the Gulf
of Mexico and follow its great circle near to the shore—a method that
would require weeks—or run across to Cuba and then attempt the passage
of the Caribbean by the short cut to Colon or Porto Bella. We had
canvassed this alternative before I left harbor; but Mr. Harlan had
maintained that I must decide the question for myself, being guided by
the actions of the bark and the condition of the weather.
Both these requirements seemed favorable for the short cut. The ship had
behaved so far much better than I had expected, and the good weather
seemed likely to hold for some time longer.
So after a conference with Ned Britton—for Uncle Naboth refused to “mix
up in the business” or even to offer an opinion—I decided to take the
chances and follow the shortest route. After reaching Colon I would keep
close to land way down to the Horn.
So we stood out to sea, made Cuba easily, and skirted its western point
to the Isles de Pinos. Still the skies were clear and the breeze
favorable, and with good courage we headed south in a bee-line for
Colon.
And now we were in the Caribbean, that famous sea whose very name
breathes romance. It recalls to us the earliest explorers, the gold
seekers and buccaneers, the fact that scarce an inch of its rippling
surface is unable to boast some tragedy or adventure in the days of the
Spanish Main, when ships of all nations thronged the waters of the West
Indies.
For three whole days luck was our bedfellow; then, as Uncle Naboth drily
remarked, it “went a fishin’” and left us to take care of ourselves.
With gentle sighs our hitherto faithful breeze deserted us and our sails
flapped idly for a time and then lay still, while the ship floated upon
a sheet of brilliant blue glass, the tropic sun beat fiercely down upon
us, and all signs of life and animation came to an end.
No sailor is partial to calms. A gale he fights with a sense of elation
and a resolve to conquer; a favoring breeze he considers his right; but
a glassy sea and listless, drooping sails are his especial horror.
Nevertheless, he is accustomed to endure this tedium and has learned by
long experience how best to enliven such depressing periods.
Our men found they possessed a violinist—not an unskilled fiddler by any
means—and to his accompanying strains they sang and danced like so many
happy children.
Uncle Naboth and Ned Britton played endless games of penocle under the
deck awning and I brought out my favorite books and stretched myself in
a reclining chair to enjoy them.
Duncan Moit paced deliberately up and down for the first two days,
engrossed in his own musings; then he decided to go over his machine and
give it a careful examination. He removed the cover, started his
engines, and let them perform for the amusement of the amazed sailors,
who formed a curious but respectful group around him.
Finally they cleared a space on the deck and Moit removed the guy-ropes
that anchored his invention and ran his auto slowly up and down, to the
undisguised delight of the men. He would allow six or eight to enter the
car and ride—sixteen feet forward, around the mainmast, and sixteen feet
back again—and it was laughable to watch the gravity of their faces as
they held fast to the edge, bravely resolving to endure the dangers of
this wonderful mode of locomotion. Not one had ever ridden in an
automobile before, and although Moit merely allowed it to crawl over its
confined course, the ride was a strange and fascinating experience to
them.
I must allow that the performances of this clever machine astonished me.
The inventor was able to start it from his seat, by means of a simple
lever, and it was always under perfect control. The engines worked so
noiselessly that you had to put your ear close in order to hear them at
all, and the perfection of the workmanship could not fail to arouse my
intense admiration.
“If this new metal is so durable as you claim,” I said to Moit, “the
machine ought to last for many years.”
“My claim is that it is practically indestructible,” he answered, in a
tone of conviction.
“But you have still the tire problem,” I remarked. “A puncture will put
you out of business as quickly as it would any other machine.”
“A puncture!” he exclaimed. “Why, these tires cannot puncture, sir.”
“Why not?”
“They are not inflated.”
“What then?”
“It is another of my inventions, Mr. Steele. Inside each casing is a
mass of sponge-rubber, of a peculiarly resilient and vigorous character.
And within the casing itself is embedded a net of steel wire, which will
not allow the vulcanized rubber to be cut to any depth. The result is an
excellent tire that cannot be punctured and has great permanency.”
“You do not seem to have overlooked any important point,” I observed,
admiringly.
“Ah, that is the one thing that now occupies my mind,” he responded,
quickly. “That is why I have been testing the machine today, even in the
limited way that is alone possible. I am haunted by the constant fear
that I _have_ over-looked some important point, which another might
discover.”
“And have you found such a thing?”
“No; to all appearances the device is perfect. But who can tell what may
yet develop?”
“Not I,” with a smile; “you have discounted my mechanical skill already.
To my mind the invention seems in every way admirable, Mr. Moit.”
For nine days we lay becalmed, with cloudless skies above and a tranquil
sea around us. During the day we rested drowsily in the oppressive heat,
but the nights were always cooler and myriads of brilliant stars made it
nearly as light as day. Ned had taken in every yard of canvas except a
square sail which he rigged forward, and he took the added precaution to
lash every movable thing firmly to its place.
“After this, we’ve got to expect ugly weather,” he announced; and as he
knew the Caribbean well this preparation somewhat dismayed me. I began
to wish we had entered the Gulf of Mexico and made the roundabout trip;
but it was too late for regrets now, and we must make the best of our
present outlook.
Personally I descended into the hold and examined with care the seams,
finding that the calking had held securely so far and that we were as
right and tight as when we had first sailed. But even this assurance was
not especially encouraging, for we had met with no weather that a canoe
might not have lived through without shipping more than a few drops of
sea.
The ninth day was insufferably hot, and the evening brought no relief.
Ned Britton’s face looked grave and worried, and I overheard him
advising Duncan Moit to add several more anchor ropes to those that
secured his machine.
We awaited the change in the weather anxiously enough, and toward
midnight the stars began to be blotted out until shortly a black pall
overhung the ship. The air seemed vibrant and full of an electric feel
that drew heavily upon one’s nerves; but so far there had been no breath
of wind.
At last, when it seemed we could wait no longer, a distant murmur was
heard, drawing ever nearer and louder until its roar smote our ears like
a discharge of artillery. The ship began to roll restlessly, and then
the gale and the waves broke upon us at the same instant and with full
force.
Heavily weighted and lazy as the bark was, she failed to rise to the
first big wave, which washed over her with such resistless power that it
would have swept every living soul away had we not clung desperately to
the rigging. It seemed to me that I was immersed in a wild, seething
flood for several minutes; but they must have been seconds, instead, for
presently the water was gone and the wind endeavoring to tear me from my
hold.
The square sail held, by good luck, and the ship began to stagger
onward, bowing her head deep and submitting to constant floods that
washed her from end to end. There was not much that could be done to
ease her, and the fervid excitement of those first hours kept us all
looking after our personal safety. Along we went, scudding before the
gale, which maintained its intensity unabated and fortunately drove us
along the very course we had mapped out.
The morning relieved the gloom, but did not lessen the force of the
storm. The waves were rolling pretty high, and all faces were serious or
fearful, according to the disposition of their owners. In our old
_Saracen_, or even the _Flipper_, I would not have minded the blow or
the sea, but here was a craft of a different sort, and I did not know
how she might stand such dreadful weather.
I got Ned into the cabin, where we stood like a couple of drenched rats
and discussed the situation. On deck our voices could not be heard.
“Are the small boats ready to launch?” I asked.
“All ready, sir; but I doubt if they’d live long,” he replied. “However,
this ’ere old hulk seems to be doin’ pretty decent. She lies low, bein’
so heavy loaded, an’ lets the waves break over her. That saves her a
good deal of strain, Sam. If she don’t spring a-leak an’ the cargo holds
steady, we’ll get through all right.”
“Tried the pumps?”
“Yes; only bilge, so far.”
“Very good. How long will the gale last?”
“Days, perhaps, in these waters. There’s no rule to go by, as I knows
of. It’ll just blow till it blows itself out.”
He went on deck again, keeping an eye always on the ship and trying to
carry just enough canvas to hold her steady.
Duncan Moit and Uncle Naboth kept to the cabin and were equally
unconcerned. The latter was an old voyager and realized that it was best
to be philosophical; the former had never been at sea before and had no
idea of our danger.
On the third morning of this wild and persistent tempest the boatswain
came to where Ned and I clung to the rigging and said:
“She’s leaking, sir.”
“Badly?”
“Pretty bad, sir.”
“Get the pumps manned, Ned,” said I; “I’ll go below and investigate.”
I crawled into the hold through the forecastle cubby, as we dared not
remove the hatches. I took along a sailor to carry the lantern, and we
were not long in making the discovery that the _Gladys H._ was leaking
like a sieve. Several of the seams that Mr. Harlan had caused to be
calked so carefully had reopened and the water was spurting through in a
dozen streams.
I got back to my cabin and made a careful examination of the chart.
According to my calculations we could not be far from the coast of
Panama. If I was right, another six hours would bring us to the shore;
but I was not sure of my reckoning since that fearful gale had struck
us. So the question whether or no the ship could live six hours longer
worried me considerably, for the pumps were of limited capacity and the
water was gaining on us every minute.
I told Uncle Naboth our difficulty, and Duncan Moit, who stood by,
listened to my story with lively interest.
“Will you try to beach her, Sam?” enquired my uncle, with his usual
calmness.
“Of course, sir, if we manage to float long enough to reach the land.
That is the best I can hope for now. By good luck the coast of Panama is
low and marshy, and if we can drive the tub aground there the cargo may
be saved to the owners.”
“Ain’t much of a country to land in, Sam; is it?”
“Not a very lovely place, Uncle, I’m told.”
“It’s where they’re diggin’ the canal, ain’t it?”
“I believe so.”
“Well, we may get a chance to see the ditch. This ’ere travellin’ is
full of surprises, Mr. Moit. I never thought to ’a’ brung a guide book
o’ Panama, or we could tell exactly where they make the hats.”
The inventor appeared ill at ease. I could understand the man’s
disappointment and anxiety well enough. To beach his beloved machine on
a semi-barbarous, tropical shore was not what he had anticipated, and I
had time to feel sorry for him while thinking upon my own troubles.
He followed me on deck, presently, and I saw him take a good look at the
sea and shake his head despondently. The Convertible Automobile might
work in ordinary water, but it was not intended for such mammoth waves
as these.
Then he watched the men at the pumps. They worked with a will, but in
that cheerless way peculiar to sailors when they are forced to undertake
this desperate duty. The ocean was pushing in and they were trying to
keep it out; and such a pitiful struggle usually results in favor of the
ocean.
Suddenly Moit conceived a brilliant idea. He asked for a length of hose,
and when it was brought he threw off the covering of his machine and
succeeded in attaching the hose to his engines. The other end we dropped
into the hold, and presently, despite the lurching and plunging of the
ship, the engines started and a stream the full size of the hose was
sucked up and sent flowing into the scruppers. It really did better work
than the ship’s pumps, and I am now positive that this clever
arrangement was all that enabled us to float until we made the coast.
In the afternoon, while the gale seemed to redouble its force, we
sighted land—low, murky and uninteresting, but nevertheless land—and
made directly for it.
Darkness came upon us swiftly, but we held our course, still pumping for
dear life and awaiting with tense nerves the moment of impact.
What this shore, of which we had caught a glimpse, might be like I did
not know, more than that it was reported low and sandy at the ocean’s
edge and marshy in the interior. There were a few rocky islands at the
south of the isthmus, and there might be rocks or breakers at any point,
for all we knew. If the ship struck one of these we were surely doomed.
On and on we flew, with blackness all round us, until on a sudden the
bow raised and our speed slackened so abruptly that we were all thrown
prostrate upon the deck. The mainmast snapped and fell with a deafening
crash, and slowly the ship rolled to starboard until the deck stood at a
sharp angle, and trembled a few brief moments, and then lay still.
The voyage of the _Gladys H._ was at an end.