THE next morning, when Tom came upon deck, he found that the wind had
increased to half a gale. It was a dreary sight. The sky was heavy and
leaden, and the sea was like liquid lead, for, when the sky is dull,
like it was that morning, it seems as though one could almost walk
over the surface of the ocean, so hard does it look, and so lacking of
depth, excepting where the crest of the wave sharpens just before it
breaks.
The _Nancy Hazlewood_ showed that she was a very wet ship, for her
decks were covered with water, that ran swashing from side to side. She
would roll well over on her side, like a log, and scoop in the top of a
wave, that would rush backward and forward across the deck until it had
run out of the scupper holes; but before it was fairly gone another sea
would come, so that the decks were never free of water. Not only was
the ship laboring strangely, but she was yawing so that two men at the
wheel could hardly keep her to her course.
Jack was standing on the poop, anxious and troubled. Tom stood beside
him, but neither of them spoke for a while, both being sunk in deep
thought.
“Tom,” said Jack, at last, in a low voice, “I’ve sailed in a many ships
in my time, but I never saw one behave like this. She bothers me; I
don’t know what to make of her.” He paused for a moment, and then he
clapped his hand to his thigh. “D—n it,” said he, “she ain’t either
equipped or stowed in a fit way. She ought never to have put out from
Lewestown Harbor in her condition, and, without I’m much mistaken,
we’ll find that out long before we reach Key West.”
Then he turned over the orders and went below to get his breakfast,
leaving Tom in charge of the deck.
The day passed without especial event, and that night at the mid-watch
Tom turned in to get a little sleep. It seemed to him that he had
hardly closed his eyes when he was aroused by the sound of the
boatswain’s voice ringing, as it were, in his very ears:
“_All hands reef topsails!_”
Tom tumbled out of his bunk and stood on the cabin floor. There was a
noise of pounding and grinding alongside, and the decks were careened,
so that the first thought that occurred to him was that the ship was
foundering. He ran up on deck without stopping a moment, for there
was a vibration in the boatswain’s voice that told him that something
serious had befallen.
The gale had increased with a sudden and heavy squall, and the
maintop-gallant-mast had gone by the board. It was hanging alongside,
a tangled wreck, and it was the thumping and grinding of this that Tom
had heard when he had first opened his eyes. A dozen men were at work
cutting away the wreck, and Tom jumped to help them. At last it drifted
away astern, a tangled mass on the surface of grey foam.
All around them were seas, ten or fifteen feet high, shining with
phosphorescent crests, moving solemnly forward with their black weight
of thousands of tons of solid water. Amongst these the little ship
labored like a living thing in pain. The men ran up aloft, and Jack,
trumpet to mouth, bellowed orders that rang above all the thunder of
the gale. Presently the sails were clapping and thundering in the
darkness above, as the men wrestled with them. Now and then voices were
to be heard through all the roaring of the waters and the howling of
the wind: “Haul out to windward!” and “Light out to leeward!”—an uproar
of noises that one never hears excepting on shipboard, and at such a
time.
Day broke with the storm blowing as furiously as ever. Tom was officer
of the deck, when, about ten o’clock, Maul, the carpenter, came aft to
where he was standing. He was a fine-looking fellow, broad-shouldered
and deep-chested. He chucked his thumb up to his forehead, and,
shifting the quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other, told Tom that
which sent a thrill shivering through him:
“Ten inches of water in the well, sir.”
The pumps sucked at five inches, so the _Nancy Hazlewood_ had made five
inches of water in the last hour.
“I was afraid it would come,” said Tom to himself, and then he went
and reported it to the captain, for, though the leak was not of much
account as regarded size, it was as dangerous as it was sudden.
“Man the pumps, sir,” was all that the captain said.
Before very long the pumps sucked, and the men gave a cheer. So far
all was well enough. But an hour afterward the carpenter came aft and
reported that there was a little less than thirteen inches of water in
the well. Captain Knight, and Tom, and Jack were standing near together
on the poop at the time.
“Man the pumps,” was all that the captain said, and then he moved away.
“Jack,” said Tom, in a low voice, “this looks ugly.”
“You’re right; it does,” said Jack.
There was a cold, dull rain blowing slantwise across the ocean at that
time, which shut in everything to within a mile or two of the ship.
The gale had moderated but little, but now, through all the roaring,
you could hear the regular thump, thump of the pumps, where two lines
of men were working at the brakes. Every now and then the sound of the
pumping would stop with the sucking of water, but presently it would
begin again—thump! thump! thump! thump! When evening came the sound was
unceasing, for at that time they were not pumping the water out of the
ship as fast as she was making it.
The last thing that Tom heard that night was the continuous thumping,
and it was the first thing that met his ears when he opened his eyes
again. He went up on deck, and when he looked around him his heart
fell within him. Half of the maintop-sail was blown away, the shreds
standing straight out with the force of the wind. There was a great
deal of water on the deck—perhaps never less than three feet on the lee
side.
She was not taking much water over the weather rail, but she would take
it to leeward, and then roll to windward, and the sea would go rushing
across the deck, carrying everything before it.
That afternoon he stood on the poop deck looking over the side of the
vessel. She was rolling with a dull, heavy motion from side to side; it
was just such a motion as a log in a mill pond will take if you give it
a push with your foot. He looked first astern, and then forward, and
he saw that the stern was deeper in the water than the bows. Just then
he felt a hand on his shoulder; he looked up and saw that it was Jack
Baldwin.
“Tom,” said he, in a low voice.
“What is it, Jack?”
“I’ve been looking too; do you know that the ship’s foundering?”
Tom nodded his head, for he did not feel like speaking.
“Tom,” said Jack, after a moment of silence; “what do you suppose is
the reason that Captain Knight don’t give orders to have the boats
cleared away, ready for lowering.”
“Perhaps he don’t think it’s time; the ship’ll last a good while longer
yet, Jack.”
“Do you think that’s his reason, Tom?” said Jack.
Tom did not answer.
“I see you don’t. Look here, Tom; do you want to know what I’m
beginning to think? It’s this,—_that he don’t intend to let a man leave
this ship, if he can’t bring her to Key West!_”
“For God’s sake, don’t breathe a word of that in the men’s hearing,
Jack. You can’t believe what you say.”
“What did Captain Sedgwick do last November?”
Tom did not answer; he knew that story only too well. Captain Sedgwick,
of the privateersman _Mirabel_, had fallen in with a British cruiser
off Barnegat; had been crippled by her, and had blown up his ship and
all hands on board, so that she might not fall into the Englishman’s
hands. Three men out of one hundred and eighteen had come off with
their lives.
“For heaven’s sake, Jack, don’t breathe a word of this to the crew!”
said Tom again, and then he turned away.
As the day wore along, things looked more and more gloomy.
About three o’clock in the afternoon a sound fell on their ears, that
thrilled through every man on board. It was the voice of the lookout,
roaring,—“Sail ho!”
“Where away?” sang out Jack.
“Two points on the port bow,” came the answer.
Most of the crew ran to the side of the vessel, as did the men at the
brakes. Tom did not order them back, for he saw that there would be no
use in doing so.
As the day had worn along, the discipline of the ship had begun to go
pretty much to pieces, and there had been great difficulty in keeping
the men at the brakes. I think that they, like Jack and Tom, had gotten
a notion that the ship was doomed, for, though they worked when they
were ordered, it was in a dull, stolid way, as though they had no
interest in it one way or another. Tom had tried to do all that lay in
him to keep them going, and I think that it was only through his urging
that they were kept at it at all.
So now they all left the pumps and ran to the side of the vessel to get
a look at the sail.
At first it was seen like a flickering speck in the dull, grey
distance, but it presently rose higher and higher as the _Nancy
Hazlewood_ held on her course. Jack Baldwin was on the poop when
the vessel was first sighted; he did not lose a moment, but went
straightway and reported it to the captain, who presently came upon
deck from his cabin. He had wound a red scarf about his waist, and had
thrust a brace of large pistols in it. There was an odd look about
him, that at first led Tom to think that he had been drinking, but he
soon found that he was wrong. Whatever it was that had led him to rig
himself up in this style, it was not drink.
He stood silently with the glass at his eye, looking at the distant
sail that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was slowly raising above the horizon.
He did not seem to notice that the men had left the pumps; at least
he made no remark upon it. Minute after minute passed, until at last
the hull of the vessel hove in sight and showed her to be a large
barque—apparently, from the cut of her sails, an English merchantman.
She came within about three miles of them, but Captain Knight neither
gave orders to have the course of the _Hazlewood_ altered, or signals
of distress run up. Every moment Tom expected to hear such an order,
but none passed the captain’s lips. Presently, he shut the tube of the
glass sharply, and then he spoke.
“She’s too large for us to tackle in our present condition,” said he.
“Tackle!” burst out Jack. “My G—d! You didn’t think of _fighting_ that
vessel, did you?”
Captain Knight turned sharply upon him, as though he were about to say
something; but he seemed to think better of it, for he swung on his
heel, as though to enter his cabin again.
Then Jack Baldwin strode directly up to him. “Captain Knight,” said he,
and he did not so much as touch his hat, “a’n’t you going to signal
that vessel?”
His voice rang like a bell, and every man aboard of the sinking ship
heard it, and listened eagerly for the captain’s answer. Captain Knight
stood where he was, and looked Jack from top to toe, and back again.
“No, sir,” said he, coldly, “I am not going to signal that vessel.”
“Do you mean to say that you’re going to drown every man aboard this
ship, as you might a cage full of rats, just because you’re too proud
to signal an Englishman.”
Captain Knight made no answer; he only looked at Jack and smiled, and
Tom Granger thought that it was as wicked a smile as he had ever seen
in all of his life.
“Now, by the eternal,” roared Jack, “I’ll run the signals up myself!”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Captain Knight. He spoke very
quietly, but his face was as white as the other’s was red.
“Won’t I? That you’ll see,” said Jack, passionately, and he made a
movement to turn.
“Wait a moment, sir,” said the captain, in his quiet voice. But the
words were hardly out of his mouth, when, as quick as a flash, a pistol
was leveled at Jack’s head, with a pair of wicked grey eyes behind it.
There was a dead pause for about as long as you could count ten; the
captain’s finger lay on the trigger, and every instant Tom expected to
see the flash that was to come. He held his breath, for there was death
in the captain’s eyes, but he did not draw the trigger.
It was Tom that broke the silence. “For God’s sake, don’t shoot,
captain,” cried he, from where he stood. The captain did not seem to
hear him.
“You mutinous scoundrel,” said he at last, “down on your knees and ask
pardon!”
Jack did not move.
“You hear me? Down on your knees and ask pardon, or you’re a dead man!”
He spoke as quietly as ever, but there was a deadly ring in his voice
for all that.
“I’ll give you till I count three,” said he, at last, and then he began
to count, “one,—two—”
Jack looked around, with despair in his eyes. The captain smiled.
“Stand where you are,” said he, and then his teeth and tongue began to
form the “th—”
Jack Baldwin was no coward; but would you yourself have stood still
and be shot down like a dog? It would have been a brave man indeed—a
foolishly brave man—that would have done such a thing. I will not tell
the rest. It is enough to say that Jack _did_ do that which the captain
ordered him, and that before the whole ship’s company.
“You are wise,” said Captain Knight, dryly, and then he thrust the
pistol back again into his belt, and, turning on his heel, went into
his cabin.
Jack got up slowly from his knees. His face was haggard and drawn. He
looked at no one, but went to the side of the ship and stood gazing
into the water. Tom saw him a half an hour afterward, standing just in
the same way, and in the same place.
When the captain had gone into his cabin, Tom turned to the pumps
again. “Shake her up!—— your eyes! Shake her up!” roared he.
It was the first time that he ever used an oath to the men under him,
and it is hard to tell why he used it then, for in his heart he did not
believe that he was long for this life. Then the men fell to pumping
again, but what little life they had left was all gone out of them now.