We were now drawing close down upon the barque, steering a course that,
if persisted in, would have resulted in our striking her fair amidships
on her starboard broadside, but which, by attention to the helm at the
proper moment, with a due allowance for our own heavy lee drift, was
intended to take us close enough to the sinking craft to enable us to
speak her. Presently, at a word from the skipper, the third mate--who
was acting as the captain's _aide_--sang out for some men to lay aft and
back the main-topsail; and at the same moment the helm was eased gently
up, with the result that our bows fell off just sufficiently to clear
the barque's starboard quarter.
I shall never forget the sight that the unfortunate craft presented at
that moment. Her foremast and jib-boom were under the bows, with all
attached, and were hanging, a tangled mass of raffle, by the shrouds and
stays, leaving about twenty feet of naked, jagged, and splintered stump
of the lower-mast standing above the deck; and her main-topmast was also
gone; but the wreckage of this had been cut away and had gone adrift,
leaving only the heel in the cap, and the ragged ends of the topmast
shrouds streaming from the rim of the top. She had been a very
smart-looking little vessel in her time, painted black with false ports,
and under her bowsprit she sported a handsomely-carved half-length
figure of a crowned woman, elaborately painted and gilded. She carried
a short topgallant forecastle forward, and a full poop aft, reaching to
within about twenty-five feet from the mainmast; and between these two
structures the bulwarks had been completely swept away, leaving only a
jagged stump of a stanchion here and there protruding above the
covering-board. She was sunk so low in the water that her channels were
buried; and the water that was in her, making its way slowly and with
difficulty through the interstices of her cargo, had at this time
collected forward, and was pinning her head down to such an extent that
her bows were unable to lift to the 'scend of the sea, with the result
that every sea broke, hissing white, over her topgallant forecastle, and
swept right aft to the poop, against the front of which it dashed
itself, as against the vertical face of a rock, throwing blinding and
drenching clouds of spray over the little group of cowering people who
crouched as closely as they could huddle behind the meagre and
inadequate shelter of the skylight.
I counted fourteen of these poor souls, and in the midst of them,
occupying the most sheltered spot on the whole deck, I noticed what at
first looked like a bundle of tarpaulin, but as we swept up on the
barque's starboard quarter I saw one of the men gently pull a corner of
the tarpaulin aside with one hand, while he pointed at the _City of
Cawnpore_ with the other, and, to my amazement, the head and face of a
woman--a young woman--looked out at us with an expression of mingled
hope and despair that was dreadful to see.
"Good God, there's a woman among them!" exclaimed Dacre. "We must save
her--we must save them all, if we can; but it looks as if we shall not
be given much time to do it in. I suppose they want to be taken off?
They'll never be mad enough to wish to stick to that wreck, eh? Hail
them, Mr Conyers; you know what to say!"
"Barque ahoy!" I hailed, in French, as, with main-topsail aback, we
surged and wallowed slowly athwart the stern of the stranger, "do you
wish to be taken off?"
At the first sound of my voice, the man who had pointed us out to the
woman rose stiffly to his feet and staggered aft to the taffrail, with
his hand to his ear.
"But yes," he shouted back, in the same language; "our ship is sinking,
and--"
"All right," I interrupted--for time was precious--"we will endeavour to
get the end of a hawser aboard you. Have you any light heaving-line
that you can veer down to us by means of a float? If so, get it ready,
and we will try to pick it up on our return. We are now about to stand
on and take room to wear, when we will come back and endeavour to
establish a connection between the two craft. Have the line ready and
veered well away to leeward at once."
"But, monsieur," replied the man, wringing his hands, "we have _no_
line--no anything--you see all that we have,"--indicating the bare poop
with a frantic gesture.
"You have a lot of small stuff among the gear upon your mizenmast," I
retorted; but although I pointed to the mast in question, and the man
glanced aloft as I did so, I very much doubted whether he comprehended
my meaning, for our lee drift was so rapid that we were by this time
almost beyond hailing distance.
"Fill the main-topsail," shouted the skipper. "What have you arranged?"
he demanded, turning to me.
I told him. He stamped on the rail with impatience. "It is clear that
it will not do to trust overmuch to them for help; we shall have to do
everything ourselves. Mr Murgatroyd!" he shouted.
The mate came aft.
"Is that hawser nearly ready?" demanded the skipper.
"All but, sir," answered the mate. "Another five minutes will do it."
"Then," said the skipper, "your next job, sir, will be to muster all the
light line you can lay your hands upon, and range it along the larboard
rail--which will be our weather rail, presently, when we have got the
ship round--and station half a dozen men, or more, all along the weather
rail, each with a coil, and let them stand by to heave as we cross the
barque's stern. My object is to get a line aboard her as quickly as
possible, by means of which we may send the hawser to them. For they
appear to be a pretty helpless lot aboard there, and, if they are to be
saved, there is very little time to lose."
"Ay, ay, sir," responded Murgatroyd; and away he went to perform this
additional duty.
Captain Dacre now showed the stuff of which he was made, handling his
ship with the most consummate skill and judgment, wearing her round upon
the port tack the moment that he could do so with the certainty of again
fetching the barque, and ranging up under her stern as closely as he
dared approach. Eight of the strongest and most skilful seamen in the
ship were ranged along the weather rail, and as we drew up on the
barque's starboard quarter--with our main-topsail once more thrown
aback--man after man hurled his coil of light, pliant line with all his
strength, in the endeavour to get the end of it aboard the barque. But
such was the strength of the gale that line after line fell short--
checked as effectually in its career as though it had been dashed
against a solid wall--and although, after his first failure, each man
hauled in his line and, re-coiling it with the utmost rapidity,
attempted another cast, all were unsuccessful, and we had the
mortification of feeling that at least twenty minutes of priceless time
had been expended to no purpose. And what made it all the worse was
that during that twenty minutes absolutely nothing had been done by the
Frenchmen toward the preparation of a line to veer down to us. Within
three minutes of the moment when the first line had been hove we were
once more out of hailing distance, and the main yards were again being
swung.
"We will have another try," said the skipper; "but if we fail again it
will be all up with them--if, indeed, it is not already too late. That
barque cannot possibly live another half-hour!"
There seemed to be no room to regard this otherwise than as a plain,
literal statement of an incontrovertible fact; we were all agreed that
the unfortunate craft had settled perceptibly in the water since we had
first sighted her; and at the same rate another half-hour would suffice
to annihilate the very small margin of buoyancy that appeared to be
still remaining to her, even if she escaped being earlier sunk out of
hand by some more than usually heavy sea. But this seemed to have been
temporarily lost sight of by the little crowd of onlookers that
clustered closely round us on the poop, in the absorbing interest
attendant upon our endeavours to get a line on board the barque, and was
only recalled to them--and that, too, in a very abrupt and startling
manner--by the significance of the skipper's last remark. The imminence
and deadly nature of the Frenchmen's peril was brought home to them
anew; and now they seemed to realise, for the first time, the
possibility that they might be called upon to witness at close quarters
the appalling spectacle not only of a foundering ship but also of the
drowning of all her people. Instantly quite a little hubbub arose among
the excited passengers, General O'Brien and some half a dozen other men
among them pressing about poor Dacre with suggestions and proposals of
the most impossible character. And in the midst of it all I heard Miss
Onslow's clear, rich voice exclaiming bitterly:
"Cruel! cruel! To think that we are so near, and yet it seems
impossible to bridge the few remaining yards of space that intervene
between those poor creatures and the safety that we enjoy! Surely it
_can_ be done, if only anyone were clever enough to think of the way!"
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," remonstrated the skipper, "please don't
consider me rude if I say that none of you know what you are talking
about. There are only two ways of getting a line aboard that wreck; one
way is, to _carry_ it, and the other, to _heave_ it. The former is
impossible, with the sea that is now running; and the latter we have
already tried once, unsuccessfully, and are now about to try again. If
any of you can think of any other _practicable_ way, I shall be glad to
listen to you; but, if not, please leave me alone, and let me give my
whole mind to the job!"
Meanwhile I had been watching the run of the sea, at first idly, and
with no other feeling than that of wonder that any vessel in the
water-logged condition of the barque could continue to live in it, for
it was as high and as steep a sea as I had ever beheld, and it broke
incessantly over the barque with a fury that rendered her continued
existence above water a constantly-recurring marvel. Heavy as it was,
however, it was not so bad as the surf that everlastingly beat upon the
sandy shores of the West Coast; and as I realised this fact I also
remembered that upon more than one occasion it had been necessary for me
to swim through that surf to save my life! "Surely," thought I, "the
man who has fought his way through the triple line of a West African
surf ought to be able to swim twenty or thirty fathoms in this sea!"
The idea seemed to come to me as an inspiration; and, undeterred by the
thought that the individual who should essay the feat of swimming from
the one ship to the other would be seriously hampered by being compelled
to drag a lengthening trail of light rope behind him, I turned to the
skipper and said:
"Captain Dacre, there appears to be but one sure way of getting a line
aboard that wreck, and that is for someone to swim with it--Stop a
moment--I know that you are about to pronounce the feat impossible; but
I believe I can do it, and, at all events, I am perfectly willing to
make the attempt. Give me something light--such as a pair of signal
halliards--to drag after me, and let a good hand have the paying of it
out, so that I may neither be checked by having it paid out too slowly,
nor hampered on the other hand by having to drag a heavy bight after me;
and I think I shall be able to manage it. And if I succeed, bend the
end of a heaving-line on to the other directly you see that I have got
hold, and we will soon get the hawser aboard and the end made fast
somewhere."
The skipper looked at me fixedly for several seconds, as though mentally
measuring my ability to execute the task I had offered to undertake.
Then he answered:
"Upon my word, Mr Conyers, I scarcely know what to say to your
extraordinarily plucky proposal. If you had been a landsman I should
not have entertained the idea for a moment; and, even as it is, I am by
no means sure that I should be justified in permitting you to make the
attempt. But you are a sailor of considerable experience; you fully
understand all the difficulty and the danger of the service you have
offered to undertake; and I suppose you have some hope of being
successful, or you would not have volunteered. And upon my word I am
beginning to think, with you, that the course you suggest is the only
one likely to be of any service to those poor souls yonder--so I
suppose--I must say--Yes, and God be with you!"
The little crowd round about us, who had been listening with breathless
interest, cheered and clapped their hands at this pronouncement of the
skipper's--the cheer being taken up by the crowd of miners gathered in
the waist--and General O'Brien, who was standing at my elbow, seized my
hand and shook it enthusiastically as he exclaimed:
"God bless you, Conyers; God bless you, my boy; every man and woman
among us will pray for your safety and success!"
"Thanks, General," answered I. "The knowledge that I have the sympathy
and good wishes of you all will add strength to my arm and courage to my
heart; but the issue is in God's hands, and if it be His will, I shall
succeed." Then, turning to the skipper, I said:
"I propose that you shall take the ship up as close as possible to the
wreck, precisely as you did at first; and I will dive from the
flying-jib-boom-end--which will approach the wreck more closely than our
hull; and it will be for you to watch and so manoeuvre the ship--either
by easing up the fore-topmast staysail sheet, or in any other way that
you may think best--that she shall be kept fair abreast of and dead to
leeward of the wreck until we can get the end of the hawser aboard and
made fast. After that I think we may trust to the difference in the
rate of the drift of the two craft to keep the hawser taut."
"Yes, yes," answered the skipper; "you may trust to me to do my part,
Mr Conyers. If you can only manage to get the end of the hawser aboard
and fast to the wreck, I will attend to the other part of the job. And
now, you had better go and get ready for your swim; for I am about to
wear ship."
I hurried away to my cabin and shifted into ordinary bathing attire; and
while thus engaged I became aware that Dacre was wearing ship and
getting her round upon the starboard tack once more. By the time that
my preparations were completed and I had made my way out on the main
deck, the ship was round, and heading up for the wreck again. As I
appeared, threading my way forward among the great burly miners who were
clustering thick in the waist, they raised a cheer, and the cuddy party
again clapped their hands, some of them shouting an encouraging word or
two after me.
On the forecastle I encountered Murgatroyd, the chief mate, who held a
coil of small thin line in his hand.
"Here you are, Mr Conyers," he exclaimed, as I joined him. "This coil
is the main signal halliards, which I have unrove for the purpose--they
are better than new, for they have been stretched and have had the kinks
taken out of them. And if they are not enough, here are the fore
halliards, all ready for bending on at a second's notice. I shall pay
out for you, so you may depend upon having the line properly tended.
Now, how will you have the end? will you have it round your waist,
or--?"
"No," said I. "Give it me as a standing bowline, which I can pass over
my shoulder and under my arm. So; that will do. Is the hawser fitted,
and all ready for paying out?"
"Yes," answered the mate, "everything is quite ready. I've left about
five fathoms of bare end for bending on; and I think you can't do much
better than take a turn with it round the mizenmast, under the
spider-band."
"That is exactly what I thought of doing," said I. "In fact it is about
the only suitable place."
I stood talking with Murgatroyd until we were once more almost within
hail of the barque, when, with the bowline at the end of the line over
my left shoulder and under my right arm, I laid out to the
flying-jib-boom-end, upon which I took my stand, steadying myself by
grasping the royal stay in my left hand. The motion away out there, at
the far extremity of that long spar, was tremendous; so much so, indeed,
that seasoned as I was to the wild and erratic movements of a ship in
heavy weather, the sinkings and soarings and flourishings of that
boom-end, as the vessel plunged and staggered down toward the wreck,
made me feel distinctly giddy. The wait was not a very long one,
however, and in less than five minutes I found myself abreast the
barque's starboard quarter, and within a hundred feet of it. I was now
as close to the wreck as Captain Dacre dared put me; so, as the ship met
a heavy sea and flung me high aloft above the white water that seethed
and swirled about the stern of the sinking craft, I let go my hold upon
the stay and, poising myself for an instant upon the up-hove extremity
of the boom, raised my hands above my head as I bent my body toward the
water, and took off for a deep dive, my conviction being that I should
do far better by swimming under water than on the surface. As I rushed
downward I heard Dacre shout: "There he goes! God be with him!" and
then I struck the water, head downward, almost perpendicularly, and the
only sound I heard was the hissing of the water in my ears as the
blue-green light about me grew gradually more and more dim. With my
body slightly curved, and my back a trifle hollowed, I knew that even
while plunging downward I was also rushing toward the barque, and
presently I struck out strongly, arms and legs, as I caught sight,
through the water, of a huge dark body, at no great distance, that I
knew to be the swaying hull for which I was making. At length, gasping
for breath, I rose to the surface, and found that I was within twenty
feet of the barque's stern, with the whole of her crew upon their feet,
anxiously watching me, while a man stood at her taffrail, holding a coil
of rope in his hand. The instant he saw me he shouted: "Look out,
monsieur; I am about to heave!"
"All right; heave!" I shouted in return, gasping in the midst of the
wild popple that leaped about the labouring craft; and the next instant
a flake of the uncoiling end of the line hit me sharply across the face.
I seized it tightly, and sang out:
"Haul me to the starboard mizen chains!" The man flung up his hand in
reply and, holding on to the rope, started _at a run_ along the deck,
dragging me after him. It was a good job that I had thought of taking a
turn round one arm, or in his eagerness he would have dragged the rope
out of my grasp; as it was, the strain he brought to bear, added to that
of the long length of line trailing behind me, almost tore my arms out
of their sockets. Moreover, I was half suffocated by the deluge of
water that came crashing down upon me like a cataract off the deck of
the wreck every time that she rolled toward me. Luckily, this condition
of affairs was of but brief duration; and presently I found myself in
the wake of the mizen chains, and in imminent danger of being struck and
driven under by the overhanging channel piece; I watched my opportunity,
however, and, as the barque rolled toward me I seized the lanyards of
one of the shrouds, got a footing, somehow, and dragged myself in over
the rail. I felt terribly exhausted by the brief but fierce buffeting I
had received alongside; but time was precious--the _City of Cawnpore_
was still square athwart the stern of the wreck, but driving away to
leeward at a terrible rate, and I knew that unless we were very smart we
should still fail to get the hawser from her--so I flung up one arm as a
signal to Murgatroyd to pay out and, crying out to the Frenchmen to come
and help me, began to haul upon the line I had brought aboard with me.
By dint of exhortation so earnest that it almost amounted to bullying I
succeeded in awaking the Frenchmen to a sense of the urgency of the
case, and persuaded them to put some liveliness into their movements, by
which means we quickly hauled in the whole of the signal halliards, to
the other end of which a light heaving-line was bent. This also we
dragged away upon for dear life, and presently I had the satisfaction of
seeing the end of the _City of Cawnpore's_ towing-hawser being lighted
out over her bows. This was a heavy piece of cordage for us to handle,
but we dragged away at it breathlessly, and at length, when I had almost
begun to despair of getting it aboard in time, we hauled the end in over
the taffrail and, all hands of us seizing it, led it to the mizenmast,
round the foot of which I had the satisfaction of passing a couple of
turns and securing it. So far, so good; the most difficult part of my
task was now accomplished; for I knew that Murgatroyd would attend to
the work at his end of the hawser, and do everything that was necessary;
so I turned to the Frenchman who had assisted me aboard, and said:
"Are you the master of this barque, monsieur?"
"At your service, monsieur," he answered, bowing with all the grace of a
dancing-master.
"Very good," said I. "You have a lady on board, I think?"
"But yes, monsieur: my wife!" and he flourished his arm toward the
bundle of tarpaulin that still remained huddled up under the shelter of
the skylight.
"She will of course have to go first," I said. "Are there any
preparations she would wish to make before being transferred to the
other vessel?"
Without replying to my question, the man hurried away to the heap and,
unwrapping the tarpaulin, extricated a young, and rather pretty but
terribly frightened woman from its folds. As he did so, I saw that she
held a baby in her arms!
"What!" exclaimed I, as I joined the little group, "a baby also?"
"Yes, monsieur," answered the man. "You see we wrapped them both up in
a tarpaulin, to protect them as much as possible from the cruel sea."
"A very wise precaution," I commented. "But this increases our
difficulties somewhat: I greatly doubt whether mother and child will be
able to make the passage together. Madame will scarcely have the
strength to hold herself and the baby safely at the same time; the
little one might be washed out of her arms and lost."
"Oh, monsieur, what shall I do?" wailed the poor, terrified creature.
"Have we to cross by that rope?"
"I fear there is no other way," I replied gently.
"I can never do it! I can never do it!" she ejaculated despairingly.
"The sea will drag me and my little Mimi off, and we shall be drowned!"
"Under the circumstances, monsieur, there seems to be only one thing for
it," said I; "you must go first, carrying the child, and as soon as you
are safe, I will follow with madame. Is that arrangement to your
liking?"
The man intimated that it was; and forthwith we commenced the
preparations necessary to secure for the poor little wailing mite of
humanity a chance of surviving the fearful journey. And a fearful
journey it certainly was, even for a strong man; how much more so, then,
for a weak, terrified woman, or a helpless child, less than a year old?
The arrangement was this: The _City of Cawnpore's_ to wing-hawser was
now stretched between the two vessels, one end being made fast to the
barque's mizenmast, while the other end led in over the _City of
Cawnpore's_ bows, through a warping chock, and was secured somewhere
inboard, probably to the windlass bitts--it would have been much more
convenient had the hawser been made fast to the foremast, about fifteen
or twenty feet from the deck; but a very heavy intermittent strain was
being thrown upon it, and I imagined that Dacre did not care to run the
risk of springing so important a spar. The effect of this was that the
_City of Cawnpore_, with both topsails thrown flat aback, was now
actually riding by her hawser to the barque, as to a sea anchor, the
deeply-submerged hull of the French craft offering sufficient resistance
to the drift of the _City of Cawnpore_ to keep the hawser taut, except
at the rather frequent intervals when the heave of the sea flung the
barque far enough to leeward to temporarily slacken it. And it was by
means of this hawser--at one moment taut as a bar, and, at the next,
sagging slack enough to dip into the water--that the Frenchmen were to
be hauled from their ship to ours.
Meanwhile, the work of securing the hawser aboard the _City of
Cawnpore_, and the clearing away of the travelling-gear, had been going
briskly forward, and at the moment when the Frenchman and I came to an
understanding I saw the slung bosun's chair hove over the _City's_ bows
and come sliding along the hawser toward us. The French skipper saw it,
too; and tenderly taking the child from the arms of his almost swooning
wife, he carefully wrapped it in his jacket, which he removed for the
purpose, and then, with my assistance, securely lashed the bundle to his
body. The bosun's chair had by this time arrived at the barque's
taffrail, and was awaiting its first freight; so, as there was no time
to lose, I hustled the poor fellow away from his wife, assisted him into
the chair, saw that he had a good grip with both hands, and waved for
Murgatroyd to haul away, which he instantly did. I next turned to the
lady, and begged her to once more shelter herself temporarily in the
tarpaulin, my object being to spare her the sight of the terrible
passage of her husband and child over and through that narrow stretch of
ravening sea. But, as it happened, there was no need for my solicitude;
she cast one glance at the swaying, dangling figure of her husband, and
then, with a wild, wailing shriek, flung herself upon her knees, with
her hands clasped over her eyes.
And truly a terrible sight it was for a woman to contemplate, especially
with the knowledge that she would presently be obliged to herself
undertake the dreadful journey. The sea was running so high that, close
to each other as we were, when the crest of a wave interposed between us
and the _City of Cawnpore_ the latter was hidden half-way to the height
of her tops; and the headlong fury with which each wave came sweeping
down upon us, foam-capped, and with arching crest, was alone enough to
strike terror to the stoutest heart. That, however, was not the worst
of it; for although Murgatroyd might safely be trusted to exercise the
utmost judgment in the manipulation of the hauling-line, there were
moments when--the two craft being upon the opposite slopes of a huge
surge, with the hawser strained taut from one to the other--any luckless
individual who might be so unfortunate as to be caught half-way between
the two vessels would be momentarily buried some thirty feet deep in the
heart of the rushing hill of water, and about equally exposed to the two
dangers of suffocation or of being swept off beyond the reach of rescue,
and drowned out of hand. This double danger overtook the unfortunate
French skipper and his baby, but they got through all right, the child
escaping suffocation mainly in consequence of the careful and secure
manner in which she had been enveloped in her father's coat.
Then came madame's turn. It was impossible to so effectually enwrap her
as had been the case with the child, but I did the best I could with a
strip of the tarpaulin over her head and shoulders, well secured round
her body with a length of the main-topgallant brace, and then, lashing
her firmly to my own body, I took my place in the bosun's chair,
wrapping my arms tightly round my quaking companion, and then taking a
firm grip upon the lanyards of the chair. The next instant I was
whirled off the barque's taffrail, and found myself dangling close over
the seething white water between the two vessels. Then, while I was in
the very act of shouting a few encouraging words through the tarpaulin
to my companion, I heard the roaring crash of a heavy sea as it struck
and swept over the unfortunate barque from stem to stern, and the next
instant I felt the water envelop me and whirl and drag me hither and
thither with a strength that it seemed impossible to resist; then as
suddenly I found myself in the air again, with the great wave-crest
rushing and roaring away from me toward the ship, the topmast-heads only
of which were visible above the foaming ridge of water that had just
swept past me. In another second or two, however, the end of her
flying-jib-boom reared itself high above the seething wave-crest, her
sharp bows, smothered in spray, quickly followed, and then the entire
hull of the ship hung balanced for an instant upon the top of the wave
ere her bows dipped, revealing the full length of her deck crowded with
people, every one of them with their faces turned in my direction. A
few more jerks and swings, every one of which seemed imbued with a
devilish desire to unseat and hurl myself and my companion to
destruction, and we were hauled safely up on to the rail of the _City of
Cawnpore_--to an accompaniment of triumphant cheers from the
spectators--and quickly released.
Before I could recover breath to say a word, the bosun's chair was
swiftly sliding along the hawser, on its way back to the barque; and
presently, after some apparent delay and hesitation on the part of those
aboard the doomed vessel, it swung off her taffrail, on its return
journey, with a man seated in it. Swiftly the chair traversed about a
third of the distance between the two vessels, and then it was overtaken
by and deeply buried in the heart of an oncoming sea, even as I had
been. For a few breathless seconds the chair and its occupant were lost
to view; then, as the ship surmounted the wave, the chair again
appeared; _but it was empty_; its late occupant had vanished! There was
a cry of dismay as this became manifest, and with one consent everybody
craned over the rail and peered down into the leaping water, in the hope
of discovering the missing man, while a few of the smarter hands on the
forecastle sprang for rope's-ends, which they quickly coiled and stood
by to heave to him, should he reappear. But he never did; and after
watching for a full two minutes he was given up, and the chair was again
hauled aboard the barque. A further delay now took place, no one
seeming to have the courage to undertake the short but terrible passage;
at length, however, a man stepped forward and placed himself in the
chair, and the journey began. Half the passage was accomplished ere he
was overtaken, when, like the rest of us, he was submerged for a few
awful seconds; and when next we saw him he was just in the very act of
falling from the chair, having apparently been dragged out of it by the
fierce, sweeping rush of the sea. Shouts of horror at this fresh
disaster, and of encouragement to the man, at once arose, in the midst
of which I seized the end of a good long coil of line which a man was
holding ready to throw, and, quickly tying a bowline therein, threw the
bight over my shoulder, poised myself for a dive, waiting, with one foot
on the topgallant rail, to see just exactly what was happening, before
taking the leap. The unfortunate man sank, upon striking the water; but
presently the man beside me sang out "There he is!" pointing at the same
time down at the water about thirty feet from our bows; and, peering
down, I at length caught sight, indistinctly, of what looked like a
human form, twisting and writhing a few feet below the surface. I
instantly dived, and the next moment found myself within arm's reach of
the man, whom I seized by the hair and dragged to the surface, when all
that I had to do was to fling my arms about his body, and hold on like
grim death, Murgatroyd and his people at once undertaking the rather
delicate task of getting us both safely inboard. This was soon
accomplished; but meanwhile the bosun's chair hung stationary midway
between the two vessels, our people seeming doubtful of the utility of
proceeding further.
But there was no time to lose if the remaining Frenchmen were to be
rescued--for it was perfectly evident to everybody that the barque could
not possibly float much longer--so, shrewdly guessing at the source of
the inaction, I requested Murgatroyd to haul the chair aboard; and, this
being done, I seated myself in it and requested them to haul me across
to the barque. Twice was I caught by the sea during this journey, and
each time it seemed that I emerged at the precise moment when, it would
have been impossible to resist the drag for even another second; but I
reached the barque safely and, at once scrambling out of the chair,
proceeded to despatch the Frenchmen in rotation: the task proving less
difficult than I had expected, my voluntary journey to them seeming to
have inspired them with fresh courage.
At length, by dint of lashing the weaker men into the chair, and
earnestly cautioning the strong ones to hold on with all their might, I
succeeded in securing the passage of the entire remainder of the
Frenchmen to the _City of Cawnpore_; and then came the task of effecting
my own retreat. Of course this could have been accomplished by means of
the hawser and the bosun's chair; but this would have involved the loss
of the hawser and all the hauling-gear attached--which it would have
been necessary to cut away. I thought it a pity to inflict this loss
upon the ship, merely to save myself the discomfort of being hauled
through the water from one ship to the other, so as soon as the last
Frenchman was safely aboard the _City of Cawnpore_ I proceeded to cut
and cast adrift the hawser from the barque's mizenmast, and a few
minutes later the massive rope's-end flew overboard, quickly followed by
the heaving-line, in the end of which I had knotted a bowline for my own
accommodation. I had just thrown this bowline over my shoulder, and was
watching the coils of the line go leaping overboard, one after the
other, as the rescuing ship went drifting rapidly to leeward, when a
perfect mountain of a sea came roaring down upon the wreck, sweeping
unbroken in over her bows and right aft until it reached the front of
the poop, against which it broke with terrific violence, smashing in the
entire front of the structure, as I judged by the tremendous crashing of
timber that instantly followed. Checked for the fraction of an instant
by its impact with the poop, the sea piled itself up in a sort of wall,
and then came surging and foaming along the deck toward me. I saw that
it would inevitably sweep me off my feet, so, to avoid being dashed
against the poop rail, I unhesitatingly leapt overboard, and, while
still under water, felt the weight of the sea falling upon me that I had
jumped overboard to avoid. The pressure was as that of a mountain, and
it drove me downward until the light dwindled to a sombre green
twilight, while the whirling water seemed to clasp me about as with a
thousand arms, flinging and dragging me hither and thither but ever
downward, until I could hold my breath no longer, when with a great
irresistible gasp my lungs filled with water, darkness and silence
profound and impenetrable shut me in, a thousand quaint, fantastic
fancies thronged my brain, and--I knew no more.