THE WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR."
THE
WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR:"
AN ACCOUNT OF
_THE MUTINY OF THE CREW AND THE
LOSS OF THE SHIP_
WHEN TRYING TO MAKE THE BERMUDAS.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. III.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1877.
(_All rights reserved._)
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
THE WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR."
CHAPTER I.
Our next job was to man the port-braces and bring the ship to a
westerly course. But before we went to this work the boatswain and I
stood for some minutes looking at the appearance of the sky.
The range of cloud which had been but a low-lying and apparently a
fugitive bank in the north-west at midnight, was now so far advanced
as to project nearly over our heads, and what rendered its aspect
more sinister was the steely colour of the sky, which it ruled with a
line, here and there rugged, but for the most part singularly even,
right from the confines of the north-eastern to the limits of the
south-western horizon. All the central portion of this vast surface
of cloud was of a livid hue, which, by a deception of the eye, made
it appear convex, and at frequent intervals a sharp shower of arrowy
lightning whizzed from that portion of it furthest away from us, but as
yet we could hear no thunder.
"When the rain before the wind, then your topsail halliards mind,"
chaunted the boatswain. "There's rather more nor a quarter o' an inch
o' rain there, and there's something worse nor rain astern of it."
The gloomiest feature of this approaching tempest, if such it were, was
the slowness, at once mysterious and impressive, of its approach.
I was not, however, to be deceived by this into supposing that, because
it had taken nearly all night to climb the horizon, there was no wind
behind it. I had had experience of a storm of this kind, and remembered
the observations of one of the officers of the ship, when speaking
of it. "Those kind of storms," he said, "are not driven by wind, but
create it. They keep a hurricane locked up in their insides, and wander
across the sea, on the look-out for ships; when they come across
something worth wrecking they let fly. Don't be deceived by their
slow pace, and imagine them only thunderstorms. They'll burst like an
earthquake in a dead calm over your head, and whenever you see one
coming snug your ship right away down to the last reef in her, and keep
your stern at it."
"I am debating, bo'sun," said I, "whether to bring the ship round or
keep her before it. What do you think?"
"There's a gale of wind there. I can smell it," he replied; "but we're
snug enough to lie close, aren't we?" looking up at the masts.
"That's to be proved," said I. "We'll bring her close if you like; but
I'm pretty sure we shall have to run for it later on."
"It'll bowl us well away into mid-Atlantic, won't it, Mr. Royle?"
"Yes; I wish we were more to the norrard of Bermudas. However, we'll
tackle the yards, and have a try for the tight little islands."
"They're pretty nigh all rocks, aren't they? I never sighted 'em."
"Nor I. But they've got a dockyard at Bermuda, I believe, where the
Yankees refit sometimes, and that's about all I know of those islands."
I asked Miss Robertson to put the helm down and keep it there until the
compass pointed west; but the ship had so little way upon her, owing
to the small amount of canvas she carried now and the faintness of the
wind, that it took her as long to come round as if we had been warping
her head to the westwards by a buoy.
Having braced up the yards and steadied the helm, we could do no more;
and resolving to profit as much as possible from the interval of rest
before us, I directed Cornish to take the wheel, and ordered the
steward to go forward and light the galley fire and boil some coffee
for breakfast.
"Bo'sun," said I, "you might as well drop below and have a look at
those plugs of yours. Take a hammer with you and this light," handing
him the binnacle lamp, "and drive the plugs in hard, for if the ship
should labour heavily, she might strain them out."
He started on his errand, and I then told Miss Robertson that there
was nothing now to detain her on deck, and thanked her for the great
services she had rendered us.
How well I remember her as she stood near the wheel, wearing my straw
hat, her dress hitched up to allow freedom to her movements; her small
hands with the delicate blue veins glowing through the white clear
skin, her yellow hair looped up, though with many a tress straying like
an amber-coloured feather; her marble face, her lips pale with fatigue,
her beautiful blue eyes fired ever with the same brave spirit, though
dim with the weariness of long and painful watching and the oppressive
and numbing sense of ever-present danger.
On no consideration would I allow her to remain any longer on deck, and
though she begged to stay, I took her hand firmly, and led her into the
cuddy to her cabin door.
"You will faithfully promise me to lie down and sleep?" I said.
"I will lie down, and will sleep if I can," she answered, with a wan
smile.
"We have succeeded in saving you so far," I continued, earnestly, "and
it would be cruel, very cruel, and hard upon me, to see your health
break down for the want of rest and sleep, when both are at your
command, now that life is bright again, and when any hour may see us
safe on the deck of another vessel."
"You shall not suffer through me," she replied. "I will obey you,
indeed I will do anything you want."
I kissed her hand respectfully, and said that a single hour of sound
sleep would do her a deal of good; by that time I would take care that
breakfast should be ready for her and her father, and I then held open
the cabin door for her to enter, and returned on deck.
A most extraordinary and wonderful sight saluted me when I reached the
poop.
The sun had risen behind the vast embankment of cloud, and its glorious
rays, the orb itself being invisible, projected in a thousand lines of
silver beyond the margin of the bank to the right and overhead, jutting
out in visible threads, each as defined as a sunbeam in a dark room.
But the effect of this wonderful light was to render the canopy of
cloud more horribly livid; and weird and startling was the contrast
of the mild and far-reaching sunshine, streaming in lines of silver
brightness into the steely sky, with the blue lightning ripping up the
belly of the cloud and suffering the eye to dwell for an instant on the
titanic strata of gloom that stood ponderously behind.
Nor was the ocean at this moment a less sombre and majestical object
than the heavens; for upon half of it rested a shadow deep as night,
making the water sallow and thick, and most desolate to behold under
the terrible curtain that lay close down to it upon the horizon; whilst
all on the right the green sea sparkled in the sunbeams, heaving slowly
under the calm that had fallen.
Looking far away on the weather beam, and where the shadow on the sea
was deepest, I fancied that I discerned a black object, which might
well be a ship with her sails darkened by her distance from the sun.
I pointed it out to Cornish, who saw it too, and I then fetched the
telescope.
Judge of my surprise and consternation, when the outline of a boat with
her sail low down on the mast, entered the field of the glass! I cried
out, "It's the long-boat!"
Cornish turned hastily.
"My God!" he cried, "they're doomed men!"
I gazed at her intently, but could not be deceived, for I recognised
the cut of the stu'nsail, lowered as it was in anticipation of the
breaking of the storm, and I could also make out the minute dark
figures of the men in her.
My surprise, however, was but momentary, for, considering the lightness
of the wind that had prevailed all night, and the probability of her
having stood to and fro in expectation of coming across us, or the
quarter-boat which had attacked us, I had no reason to expect that they
should have been far off.
The boatswain came along the quarterdeck singing out, "It's all right
below! No fear of a leak there!"
"Come up here!" I cried. "There's the long-boat yonder!"
On hearing this, he ran aft as hard as he could and stared in the
direction I indicated, but could not make her out until he had the
glass to his eye, on which he exclaimed--
"Yes, it's her, sure enough. Why, we may have to make another fight for
it. She's heading this way, and if she brings down any wind, by jingo
she'll overhaul us."
"No, no," I answered. "They're not for fighting. They don't like the
look of the weather, bo'sun, and would board us to save their lives,
not to take ours."
"That's it, sir," exclaimed Cornish. "I reckon there's little enough
mutineering among 'em now Stevens is gone. I'd lay my life they'd turn
to and go to work just as I have if you'd lay by for 'em and take 'em
in."
Neither the boatswain nor I made any reply to this.
For my own part, though we had been perishing for the want of more
hands, I don't think I should have had trust enough in those rascals
to allow them on board; for I could not doubt that when the storm was
over, and they found themselves afloat in the _Grosvenor_ once more,
they would lay violent hands upon me and the boatswain, and treat us as
they had treated Coxon and Duckling, revenging themselves in this way
upon us for the death of Stevens and the other leaders of the mutiny,
and likewise protecting themselves against their being carried to
England and handed over to the authorities on shore as murderers.
The lightning was now growing very vivid, and for the first time I
heard the sullen moan of thunder.
"That means," said the boatswain, "that it's a good bit off yet; and
if that creature forrard 'll only bear a hand we shall be able to get
something to eat and drink afore it comes down."
However, as he spoke, the steward came aft with a big coffee-pot. He
set it on the skylight, and fetched from the pantry some good preserved
meat, biscuit and butter, and we fell to the repast with great relish
and hunger.
Being the first to finish, I took the wheel while Cornish breakfasted,
and then ordered the steward to go and make some fresh coffee, and keep
it hot in the galley, and prepare a good breakfast for the Robertsons
ready to serve when the young lady should leave her cabin.
"Bo'sun," said I, as he came slowly towards me, filling his pipe, "I
don't like the look of that mainsail. It 'll blow out and kick up a
deuce of a shindy. You and Cornish had better lay aloft with some spare
line and serve the sail with it."
"That's soon done," he answered, cheerfully. And Cornish left his
breakfast, and they both went aloft.
I yawned repeatedly as I stood at the wheel, and my eyes were sore for
want of sleep.
But there was something in the aspect of that tremendous, stooping,
quarter-sphere of cloud abeam of us, throwing a darkness most sinister
to behold on half the sea, and vomiting quick lances of blue fire from
its caverns, while now and again the thunder rolled solemnly, which was
formidable enough to keep me wide awake.
It was growing darker every moment: already the sun's beams were
obscured, though that portion of the great canopy of cloud which lay
nearest to the luminary carried still a flaming edge.
A dead calm had fallen, and the ship rested motionless on the water.
The two men remained for a short time on the main-yard, and then came
down, leaving the sail much more secure than they had found it. Cornish
despatched his breakfast, and the boatswain came to me.
"Do you see the long-boat now, sir?"
"No," I replied; "she's hidden in the rain yonder. By Heaven! it _is_
coming down!"
I did not exaggerate; the horizon was grey with the rain: it looked
like steam rising from a boiling sea.
"It 'll keep 'em busy bailing," said the boatswain.
"Hold on here," I cried, "till I get my oilskins."
I was back again in a few moments, and he went away to drape himself
for the downfall, and to advise Cornish to do the same.
I left the wheel for a second or two to close one of the skylights,
and as I did so a flash of lightning seemed to set the ship on fire,
and immediately came a deafening crash of thunder. I think there is
something more awful in the roar of thunder heard at sea than on shore,
unless you are among mountains; you get the full intensity of it, the
mighty outburst smiting the smooth surface of the water, which in
itself is a wonderful vehicle of sound, and running onwards for leagues
without meeting with any impediment to check or divert it.
I hastened to see if the lightning conductor ran clear to the water,
and finding the end of the wire coiled up in the port main-chains,
flung it overboard and resumed my place at the wheel.
Now that the vast surface of cloud was well forward of overhead,
I observed that its front was an almost perfect semicircle, the
extremities at either point of the horizon projecting like horns.
There still remained, embraced by these horns, a clear expanse of
steel-coloured sky. _There_ the sea was light, but all to starboard it
was black, and the terrible shadow was fast bearing down upon the ship.
Crack! the lightning whizzed, and turned the deck, spars, and rigging
into a network of blue fire. The peal that followed was a sudden
explosion--a great dead crash, as though some mighty ponderous orb had
fallen from the highest heaven upon the flooring of the sky and riven
it.
Then I heard the rain.
I scarcely know which was the more terrifying to see and hear--the
rain, or the thunder and lightning.
It was a cataract of water falling from a prodigious elevation. It was
a dense, impervious liquid veil, shutting out all sight of sea and
sky. It tore the water into foam in striking it.
Then, _boom_! down it came upon us.
I held on by the wheel, and the boatswain jammed himself under the
grating. It was not rain only--it was hail as big as eggs; and the rain
drops were as big as eggs too.
There was not a breath of air. This terrific fall came down in
perfectly perpendicular lines; and as the lightning rushed through it,
it illuminated with its ghastly effulgence a broad sheet of water.
It was so dark that I could not see the card in the binnacle. The water
rushed off our decks just as it would had we shipped a sea. And for
the space of twenty minutes I stood stunned, deaf, blind, in the midst
of a horrible and overpowering concert of pealing thunder and rushing
rain, the awful gloom being rendered yet more dreadful by the dazzling
flashes which passed through it.
It passed as suddenly as it had come, and left us still in a breathless
calm, drenched, terrified, and motionless.
It grew lighter to windward, and I felt a small air blowing on my
streaming face; lighter still, though to leeward the storm was raging
and roaring, and passing with its darkness like some unearthly night.
I squeezed the water out of my eyes, and saw the wind come rushing
towards us upon the sea, whilst all overhead the sky was a broad
lead-coloured space.
"Now, bo'sun," I roared, "stand by!"
He came out from under the grating, and took a grip of the rail.
"Here it comes!" he cried; "and by the holy poker," he added, "here
comes the long-boat atop of it!"
I could only cast one brief glance in the direction indicated, where,
sure enough, I saw the long-boat flying towards us on a surface of
foam. In an instant the gale struck the ship and over she heeled,
laying her port bulwark close down upon the water. But there she
stopped.
"Had we had whole topsails," I cried, "it would have been Amen!"
I waited a moment or two before deciding whether to put the helm up and
run. If this was the worst of it, the ship would do as she was. But in
that time the long-boat, urged furiously forward by the sail they still
kept on her, passed close under our stern. Twice, before she reached
us, I saw them try to bring her so as to come alongside, and each time
I held my breath, for I knew that the moment they brought her broadside
to the wind she would capsize.
May God forbid that ever I should behold such a sight again!
It was indescribably shocking to see them swept helplessly past within
hail of us. There were seven men in her. Two of them cried out and
raved furiously, entreating with dreadful, mad gesticulations as they
whirled past. But the rest, some clinging to the mast, others seated
with their arms folded, were silent, like dead men already, with fixed
and staring eyes--a ghastly crew. I saw one of the two raving men
spring on to the gunwale, but he was instantly pulled down by another.
But what was there to see? It was a moment's horror--quick-vanishing as
some monstrous object leaping into sight under a flash of lightning,
then instantaneously swallowed up in the devouring gloom.
Our ship had got way upon her, and was surging forward with her
lee-channels under water. The long-boat dwindled away on our quarter,
the spray veiling her as she fled, and in a few minutes was not to be
distinguished upon the immeasurable bed of foam and wave, stretching
down to the livid storm that still raged upon the far horizon.
"My God!" exclaimed Cornish, who stood near the wheel unnoticed by me.
"I might ha' been in her! I might ha' been in her!"
And he covered his face with his hands, and sobbed and shook with the
horror of the scene, and the agony of the thoughts it had conjured up.