From 'Paul and Virginia of a Northern Zone': copyright 1895, by Way
and Williams, Chicago
The Anna Dorothea, in the North Sea, was pounding along under
shortened sail. The weather was thick, the air dense; there was a
falling barometer.
It had been a short trip this time. Leroy and Sons, wine merchants of
Havre, had made better offers than the old houses in Bordeaux. At each
one of his later trips, Captain Spang had said it should be his last.
He would "lay up" at home; he was growing too stout and clumsy for the
sea, and now he must trust fully to Toennes, his first mate. The
captain's big broad face was flushed as usual; he always looked as if
he were illuminated by a setting October sun; there was no change
here--rather, the sunset tint was stronger. But Toennes noted how the
features, which he knew best in moments of simple good-nature and of
sullen tumult, had gradually relaxed. He thought that it would indeed
soon be time for his old skipper to "lay up"; yet perhaps a few trips
might still be made.
"Holloa, Toennes! let her go about before the next squall strikes her.
She lies too dead on this bow."
The skipper had raised his head above the cabin stairs. As usual, he
was in his shirt-sleeves, and his scanty hair fluttered in the wind.
When he had warned his mate, he again disappeared in the cabin.
Toennes gave the order to the man at the helm, and hurried to help at
the main-braces. The double-reefed main-topsail swung about, the Anna
Dorothea caught the wind somewhat sluggishly, and not without getting
considerable water over her; then followed the fore-topsail, the
reefed foresail, and the trysail. When the tacking was finished and
the sails had again caught the wind, the trysail was torn from the
boltropes with a loud crack.
The captain's head appeared again,
"We must close-reef!" said he.
The last reef was taken in; the storm came down and lashed the sea;
the sky grew more and more threatening; the waves dashed over the deck
at each plunge of the old bark in the sea. The old vessel, which had
carried her captain for a generation, lay heavily on the water--Toennes
thought too heavily.
The second mate--the same who had played the accordion at the
inn--came over to Toennes.
"It was wrong to stow the china-clay at the bottom and the casks on
top; she lies horribly dead, and I'm afraid we shall have to use the
pumps."
"Yes, I said so to the old man, but he would have it that way,"
answered Toennes. "We shall have a wet night."
"We shall, surely," said the second mate.
Toennes crawled up to the helm and looked at the compass. Two men were
at the helm--lashed fast. Toennes looked up into the rigging and out to
windward; then suddenly he cried, with the full force of his lungs:--
"Look out for breakers!"
Toennes himself helped at the wheel; but the vessel only half answered
the helm. The greater portion of the sea struck the bow, the quarter,
and the bulwarks and stanchions amidship, so that they creaked and
groaned. One of the men at the helm had grasped Toennes, who would
otherwise have been swept into the lee scupper. When the ship had
righted from the terrible blow, the captain stood on the deck in his
oilcloth suit.
"Are any men missing?" cried he, through the howling of the wind and
the roaring of the water streaming fore and aft, unable to escape
quickly enough through the scuppers.
The storm raged with undiminished fury. The crew--and amongst them
Prussian, who had been promoted to be ship's-dog--by-and-by dived
forward through the seething salt water and the fragments of wreck
that covered the deck.
Now it was that the second mate was missing.
The captain looked at Toennes, and then out on the wild sea. He
scarcely glanced at the crushed long-boat; even if a boat could have
been launched, it would have been too late. Toennes and his skipper
were fearless men, who took things as they were. If any help could
have been given, they would have given it. But their eyes sought
vainly for any dark speck amidst the foaming waves--and it was
necessary to care for themselves, the vessel and the crew.
"God save his soul!" murmured Captain Spang.
Toennes passed his hand across his brow, and went to his duty. Evening
set in; the wind increased rather than decreased.
"She is taking in water," said the captain, who had sounded the
pumps.
Toennes assented.
"We must change her course," said the captain. "She pitches too
heavily in this sea."
The bark was held up to the wind as closely as possible. The pumps
were worked steadily, but often got out of order on account of the
china-clay, which mixed with the water down in the hold.
It was plain that the vessel grew heavier and heavier; her movements
in climbing a wave were more and more dead.
During the night a cry arose: again one of the crew was washed
overboard.
It was a long night and a wet one, as Toennes had predicted. Several
times the skipper dived clown into the cabin--Tonnes knew perfectly
well what for, but he said nothing. Few words were spoken on board the
Anna Dorothea that night.
In the morning the captain, returning from one of his excursions down
below, declared that the cabin was half full of water.
"We must watch for a sail," he said, abruptly and somewhat huskily.
Toennes passed the word round amongst the crew. One might read on their
faces that they were prepared for this, and that they had ceased to
hope, although they had not stopped work at the pumps.
The whole of the weather bulwark, the cook's cabin and the long-boat,
were crushed or washed away; the water could be heard below the
hatches. While keeping a sharp lookout for sails, many an eye glanced
at the yawl as the last resort. But on board Captain Spang's vessel
the words were not yet spoken which carried with them the doom of the
ship: "We are sinking!"
In the gray-white of the dawn a signal was to be hoisted; the bunting
was tied together at the middle and raised half-mast high.
Both the captain and Toennes had lashed themselves aft; for now the
bark was but little better than a wreck, over which the billows broke
incessantly, as the vessel, reeling like a drunken man, exposed
herself to the violent attacks of the sea instead of parrying them.
"A sail to windward, captain!" cried Toennes.
Captain Spang only nodded.
"She holds her course!" cried one of the crew excitedly. "No," said
Toennes, quietly. "She has seen us, and is bearing down upon us!"
The captain again nodded.
"Tis a brig!" cried one of the crew.
"A schooner-brig!" Toennes corrected. "She carries her sails finely. I
am sure she is a fruit-trader."
At last the strange vessel was so near that they could see her deck
each time she was thrown upon her side in the violent seething sea.
"Yes, 'tis the schooner-brig!" exclaimed Toennes. "Do you remember,
captain, the time when--"
Again Captain Spang nodded. He acted strangely. Toennes looked sharply
at him, and shook his head.