All that morning the gale continued fresh and the sea dangerous. We
found that the ship was regularly making nine to ten inches of water an
hour; and after the funeral we turned to and pumped her out again.
But this heavy work, coupled with our extreme anxiety and the perils
and labour we had gone through, was beginning to tell heavily upon us.
The steward showed signs of what strength he had coming to an end,
and Cornish's face had a worn and wasted look as of a man who has
fasted long. The boatswain supported this fatigue best, and always
went cheerfully to work, and had encouraging words for us all. As
for me, what I suffered most from was, strange to say, the eternal
rolling of the ship. At times it completely nauseated me. Also it gave
me a racking headache, and occasionally the motion so bewildered me
that I was obliged to sit down and hold my head in my hands until the
dizziness had passed.
I believe this feeling was the result of over-work, long wakefulness,
and preying anxiety, which was hourly sapping my constitution. Yet
I was generally relieved by even a quarter of an hour's sleep, but
presently was troubled again, and I grew to dread the time when I
should take the wheel, for right aft the motion of the ship was
intensely felt by me, so much so that on that morning, the vessel's
stern falling heavily into a hollow, I nearly fainted, and only saved
myself from rolling on the deck by clinging convulsively to the wheel.
At a quarter-past eleven I had just gone into the cuddy, after having
had an hour's spell at the pumps with the boatswain and the steward,
when I heard Cornish's voice shouting down the companion, "A sail! a
sail!"
But a minute before I had felt so utterly prostrated, that I should not
have believed myself capable of taking half-a-dozen steps without a
long rest between each. Yet these magical words sent me rushing up the
companion ladder with as much speed and energy as I should have been
capable of after a long night's refreshing slumber.
The moment Cornish saw me he pointed like a mad man to the horizon on
the weather beam, and the ship's stern rising at that moment, I clearly
beheld the sails of a vessel, though in what direction she was going I
could not tell by the naked eye.
Both the boatswain and the other had come running aft on hearing
Cornish's exclamation, and the steward, in the madness of his
eagerness, had swung himself on to the mizzen rigging, and stood there
bawling, "Yonder's the ship! yonder's the ship! Come up here, and
you'll see her plain enough!"
I got the telescope and pointed it at the vessel, and found that she
was heading directly for us, steering due south, with the gale upon her
starboard quarter.
On this I cried out: "She's coming slap at us, boys! Hurrah! Cornish,
you were the first to see her; thank you! thank you!"
And I grasped his hand and shook it wildly. I then seized the
telescope, and inspected the vessel again, and exclaimed, while I held
the glass to my eye--
"She's a big ship, bo'sun. She's carrying a main top-gallant sail, and
there's a single reef in her fore-topsail. She can't miss us! She's
coming right at us, hand over fist, boys! Steward, go and tell Miss
Robertson to come on deck. Down with you and belay that squalling. Do
you think we're blind?"
The small ensign was still alive, roaring away just as we had
hoisted and left it; but in my excitement I did not think the signal
importunate enough, though surely it was so; and rushing to the
flag-locker, I got out the book of signals, and sang out to the
boatswain to help me to bend on the flags which I threw out, and which
would represent that we were sinking.
We hauled the ensign down, and ran up the string of flags, and glorious
they looked in our eyes, as they streamed out in a semicircle, showing
their brilliant colours against the clear blue sky.
Again I took the telescope, and set it on the rail, and knelt to steady
myself.
The hull of the ship was now half risen, and as she came rolling and
plunging over the seas I could discern the vast space of froth she was
throwing up at her bows. Dead on as she was, we could not tell whether
she had hoisted any flag at the peak, and I hoped in mercy to us that
she would send up an answering pennant to the royal mast-head, so that
we might see it and know that our signal was perceived.
But this was a foolish hope, only such a one as bitter eager anxiety
could coin. She was coming right at us; she _could_ not fail to see
us; what need to answer us yet when a little patience, only a little
patience, and she would be within a biscuit's throw of us?
Miss Robertson came on deck without any covering on her head, and the
wind blew her hair away from its fastenings and floated it out like a
cloud of gold. She held on to the rail and stared at the coming ship
with wild eyes and a frowning forehead, while the steward, who had
fallen crazy with the sight of the ship, clambered once more into the
mizzen rigging, and shouted and beckoned to the vessel as a little
child would.
It did not take me long, however, to recover my own reason, the more
especially as I felt that we might require all the sense we had when
the ship rounded and hove to. I could not, indeed, hope that they would
send a boat through such a sea; they would lie by us and send a boat
when the sea moderated, which, to judge by the barometer and the high
and beaming sky, we might expect to find that night or next morning;
and then we should require our senses, not only to keep the pumps
going, but to enter the boat calmly and in an orderly way, and help our
rescuers to save our lives.
The boatswain leaned against the companion hatchway with his arms
folded, contemplating the approaching ship with a wooden face.
Variously and powerfully as the spectacle of the vessel had affected
Cornish and Miss Robertson, and myself and the steward, on the
boatswain it had scarcely produced any impression.
I know not what kind of misgiving came into my mind as I looked from
the coming ship to his stolid face.
I had infinite confidence in this man's judgment and bravery, and
his lifelessness on this occasion weighed down upon me like a heavy
presentiment, insomuch that the cheery gratulatory words I was about
to address to Miss Robertson died away on my lips.
I should say that we had sighted this vessel's upper sails when she
was about seventeen miles distant, and, therefore, coming down upon us
before a strong wind, and helped onwards by the long running seas, in
less than half an hour her whole figure was plain to us upon the water.
I examined her carefully through the glass, striving to make out her
nationality by the cut of her aloft. I thought she had the look of a
Scotch ship, her hull being after the pattern of the Aberdeen clippers,
such as I remembered them in the Australian trade, painted green, and
she was also rigged with skysail-poles and a great breadth of canvas.
I handed the glass to the boatswain, and asked him what country he took
her to be of. After inspecting her, he said he did not think she was
English; the colour of her canvas looked foreign, but it was hard to
tell; we should see her colours presently.
As she approached, Miss Robertson's excitement grew very great; not
demonstrative--I mean she did not cry out nor gesticulate like the
steward in the rigging; it was visible, like a kind of madness, in her
eyes, in her swelling bosom, in a strange, wonderful, brilliant smile
upon her face, such as a great actress might wear in a play, but which
we who observe it know to be forced and unreal.
I ran below for the fur cap and coat, and made her put them on, and
then drew her away from the ship's side and kept close to her, even
holding her by the hand for some time, for I could not tell what effect
the sight of the ship might produce upon her mind, already strung and
weakened by privation and cruel sorrow and peril.
The vessel came rolling and plunging down towards us before the wind,
carrying a sea on either quarter as high as her main-brace bumpkins,
and spreading a great surface of foam before and around her.
When she was about a couple of miles off they let go the main
top-gallant halliards and clewed up the sail; and then the helm was
starboarded, which brought her bows astern of us and gave her a sheer,
by which we saw that she was a fine barque, of at least eight hundred
tons burden.
At the same moment she hoisted Russian colours.
I was bitterly disappointed when I saw that flag. I should have been
equally disappointed by the sight of any other foreign flag, unless it
were the Stripes and Stars, which floats over brave hearts and is a
signal to Englishmen as full of welcome and promise almost as their
own loved bit of bunting.
I had hoped, God knows how earnestly, that we should behold the English
ensign at the gaff end. Our chances of rescue by a British ship were
fifty to one as against our chances of rescue by a foreigner. Cases,
indeed, have been known of ships commanded by Englishmen sighting
vessels in distress and leaving them to their fate; but, to the honour
and glory of our calling, I say that these cases make so brief a list
that no impartial-minded man will allow them to weigh with him a moment
when he considers the vast number of instances of pluck, humanity, and
heroism which illustrate and adorn the story of British naval life.
It is otherwise with foreigners. I write not with any foolish insular
prejudice against wooden shoes and continental connexions: we cannot
dispute good evidence. Though I believe that the Russians make fair
sailors, and fight bravely on sea, why was it that my heart sank when
I saw that flag? I say that the British flag is an assurance to all
distressed persons that what can be done for them will be done for
them, and foreigners know this well, and would sooner sight it when
they are in peril than their own colours, be those colours Dutch, or
French, or Spanish, or Danish, or Italian, or Russian. But he must be a
confident man indeed who hopes anything from a vessel sailing under a
foreign flag when life is to be saved at the risk of the lives of the
rescuers.
"He's goin' to round to!" exclaimed the boatswain, who watched the
movements of ship with an unconcern absolutely phenomenal to me even
to recall now, when I consider that the lives of us all might have
depended upon the issue of the stranger's actions.
She went gracefully swooping and swashing along the water, and I saw
the hands upon the deck aft standing by at the main-braces to back the
yards.
"Bo'sun!" I cried, "she means to heave to--she won't leave us!"
He made no answer, but continued watching her with an immovable face.
She passed under our stern not more than a quarter of a mile distant,
perhaps not so far. There was a crowd of persons near the wheel, some
looking at us through binocular glasses, others through telescopes.
There were a few women and children among them.
Yet I could detect no hurry, no eagerness, no excitement in their
movements; they appeared as imperturbable as Turks or Hollanders,
contemplating us as though we were rather an object of curiosity than
in miserable, perishing distress.
I jumped upon the grating abaft the wheel and waved my hat to them
and pointed to our signals. A man standing near their starboard
quarter-boat, whom, by the way he looked aloft, I judged to be the
captain, flourished his hand in reply.
I then, at the top of my voice and through my hands, shouted, "We're
sinking! for God's sake stand by us!" On which the same person held up
his hand again, though I do not believe he understood or even heard
what I said.
Meanwhile they had braced up the foreyards, and as the vessel came
round parallel with us, at a distance of about two-thirds of a mile,
they backed the mainyards, and in a few moments she lay steady, riding
finely upon the water and keeping her decks dry, though the seas were
still splashing over us freely.
Seeing now, as I believed, that she meant to stand by us, all my
excitement broke out afresh. I cried out that we were saved, and fell
upon my knees and thanked God for His mercy. Miss Robertson sobbed
aloud, and the steward came down out of the rigging, and danced about
the deck, exclaiming wildly and extending his arms towards the ship.
Cornish retained his grasp of the wheel, but could not remove his eyes
from the ship; the boatswain alone remained perfectly tranquil, and
even angered me by his hard, unconcerned face.
"Good God!" I cried; "do you not value your life? Have you nothing to
say? See, she is lying there, and will wait till the sea moderates, and
then fetch us on board!"
"Perhaps she may," he answered, "and it'll be time enough for me to go
mad when I _am_ saved."
And he then folded his arms afresh, and leaned against the rail,
contemplating the ship with the same extraordinary indifference.
They now hauled down the flag, and I waited anxiously to see if they
would hoist the answering pennant to let us know they understood our
signal; but they made no further sign that way, nor could I be sure,
therefore, that they understood the flags we had hoisted; for though
in those days Marryatt's Code was in use among ships of all nations,
yet it often happened (as it does now), that vessels, both British and
foreign, would, through the meanness of their owners, be sent to sea
with merely the flags indicating their own number on board, so that
speaking one of these vessels was like addressing a dumb person.
The movements of the people on the Russian barque were quite
discernible by the naked eye; and we all now, saving the boatswain,
watched her with rapt eagerness, the steward stopping his mad antics to
grasp the poop rail, and gaze with devouring eyes.
We did not know what they would do, and, indeed, we scarcely knew what
we had to expect; for it was plain to us all that a boat would stand
but a poor chance in that violent sea, and that we should run a greater
risk of losing our lives by quitting the ship than by staying in her.
But would they not give us some sign, some assurance that they meant to
stand by us?
The agony of my doubts of their intentions was exquisite.
For some time she held her ground right abreast of us; but our topsail
being full, while the Russian was actually hove to, we slowly began to
reach ahead of her.
Seeing this, I cried out to Cornish to put the helm hard down, and keep
the sail flat at the leech; but he had already anticipated this order,
though it was a useless one; for the ship came to and fell off with
every sea, though the helm was hard down, and before we could have got
her to behave as we wished, we should have been obliged to clap some
after sail upon her, which I did not dare do, as we had only choice of
the mizzen and crossjack, and either of these sails (both being large),
would probably have slewed her round head into the sea, and thrown her
dead and useless on our hands.
Seeing that we were slowly bringing the Russian on to our lee quarter,
I called out in the hope of encouraging the others--
"No matter! she will let us draw ahead, and then shorten sail and stand
after us."
"Are they goin' to lower that boat?" exclaimed the boatswain, suddenly
starting out of his apathetic manner.
There was a crowd of men round the starboard davits where the
quarter-boat hung, but it was not until I brought the telescope to bear
upon them that I could see they were holding an animated discussion.
The man who had motioned to us, and whom I took to be master of
the ship, stood aft, in company with two others and a woman, and
gesticulated very vehemently, sometimes pointing at us and sometimes at
the sea.
His meaning was intelligible enough to me, but I was not disheartened;
for though it was plain that he was representing the waves as too
rough to permit them to lower a boat, which was a conclusive sign, at
least, that those whom he addressed were urging him to save us; yet
his refusal was no proof that he did not mean to keep by us until it
should be safe to send a boat to our ship.
"What will they do, Mr. Royle?" exclaimed Miss Robertson, speaking in a
voice sharpened by the terrible excitement under which she laboured.
"They will not leave us," I answered. "They are men--and it is enough
that they should have seen you among us to make them stay. Oh!" I
cried, "it is hard that those waves do not subside! but patience. The
wind is lulling--we have a long spell of daylight before us. Would to
God she were an English ship!--I should have no fear then."
I again pointed the glass at the vessel.
The captain was still declaiming and gesticulating; but the men
had withdrawn from the quarter-boat, and were watching us over the
bulwarks.
Since the boat was not to be lowered, why did he continue arguing?
I watched him intently, watched him until my eyes grew bleared and the
metal rim of the telescope seemed to burn into the flesh around my eye.
I put the glass down and turned to glance at the flags streaming over
my head.
"There she goes! I knew it. They never shows no pity!" exclaimed the
boatswain, in a deep voice.
I looked and saw the figures of the men hauling on the lee main-braces.
The yards swung round; the vessel's head paid off; they squared away
forward, and in a few minutes her stern was at us, and she went away
solemnly, rolling and plunging; the main top-gallant sail being sheeted
home and the yard hoisted as she surged forward on her course.
We remained staring after her--no one speaking--no one believing in
the reality of what he beheld.
Of all the trials that had befallen us, this was the worst.
Of all the terrible, cruel disappointments that can afflict suffering
people, none, _none_ in all the hideous catalogue, is more deadly, more
unendurable, more frightful to endure than that which it was our doom
then to feel. To witness our salvation at hand and then to miss it; to
have been buoyed up with hope unspeakable; to taste in the promise of
rescue the joy of renovated life; to believe that our suffering was
at an end, and that in a short time we should be among sympathetic
rescuers, looking back with shudders upon the perils from which we had
been snatched--to have felt all this, and then to be deceived!
I thought my heart would burst. I tried to speak, but my tongue clove
to the roof of my mouth.
When the steward saw that we were abandoned, he uttered a loud scream
and rushed headlong down into the cuddy.
I took no notice of him.
Cornish ran from the wheel, and springing on to the rail, shook his
fist at the departing vessel, raving, and cursing her with horrible,
blasphemous words, black in the face with his mad and useless rage.
The boatswain took his place and grasped the wheel, never speaking a
word.
I was aroused from the stupor that had come over me, the effect of
excessive emotion, by Miss Robertson putting her hand in mine.
"Be brave!" she whispered, with her mouth close to my ear. "God is with
us still. My dead father would not deceive me. We shall be saved yet.
Have courage, and be your own true self again!"
I looked into her shining eyes, out of which all the excitement that
had fired them while the Russian remained hove to, had departed. There
was a beautiful tranquillity, there was a courage heaven-inspired,
there was a soft and hopeful smile upon her pale face, which fell upon
the tempest in my breast and stilled it.
God had given her this influence over me, and I yielded to it as though
He Himself had commanded me.
All her own troubles came before me, all her own bitter trials, her
miserable bereavement; and as I heard her sweet voice bidding me have
courage, and beheld her smiling upon me out of her deep faith in her
simple, sacred dream, I caught up both her hands and bent my head over
them and wept.
"Cornish!" I cried, recovering myself, and seizing the man by the arm
as he stood shouting at the fast-lessening ship, "what is the use
of those oaths? let them go their ways--the pitiless cowards. We are
Englishmen, and our lives are still our own. Come, brave companion! we
have all undergone too much to permit this trial to break us. See this
lady! she swears that we shall be saved yet. Be of her heart and mine
and the bo'sun's there, and help us to make another fight for it. Come!"
He suffered me to pull him off his perilous perch, and then sat himself
down upon a coil of rope trembling all over, and hid his face in his
hands.
But a new trouble awaited me.
At this moment the steward came staggering up the companion ladder, his
face purple, his eyes protruding, and talking loudly and incoherently.
He clasped the sea-chest belonging to himself, which certainly was of
greater weight than he in his enfeebled state would have been able to
bear had he not been mad. The chest was corded, and he had no doubt
packed it.
He rushed to the ship's side and pitched the chest overboard, and was
in the act of springing on to the rail, meaning to fling himself into
the sea, when I caught hold of him, and using more force than I was
conscious of, dragged him backward so violently that his head struck
the deck like a cannon shot, and he lay motionless and insensible.
"That's the best thing that could have happened to him," exclaimed the
boatswain. "Let him lie a bit. He'll come to, and maybe leave his craze
behind him. It wouldn't be the fust time I've seen a daft man knocked
sensible."
And then, coolly biting a chew out of a stick of tobacco, which he very
carefully replaced in his breeches pocket, he added--
"Jim, come and lay hold of this here wheel, will yer, while me and Mr.
Royle pumps the ship out!"
Cornish got up and took the boatswain's place.
"I can help you to pump, Mr. Royle!" said Miss Robertson.
The boatswain laughed.
"Lor' bless your dear 'art, miss, what next?" he cried. "No, no; you
stand by here ready to knock this steward down agin if he shows hisself
anxious to swim arter the Roosian. We'll see what water the ship's
a-makin', and if she shows herself obstinate, as I rayther think she
will, why, we'll all turn to and leave her. For you've got to deal with
a bad ship as you would with a bad wife: use every genteel persuasion
fust, and if that won't alter her, there's nothen for it but to grease
your boots, oil your hair, and po-litely walk out."