AN ACCIDENT
That which arrested the attention of the little girl in the arms of
Captain Strathmore, was a sight--unique, rare and impressively
beautiful.
All around the steamer stretched the vast Pacific, melting away into
darkness, with here and there a star-like twinkle, showing where some
ship was moving over the waste of waters. Overhead, the sky was clear,
with a few stars faintly gleaming, while the round, full moon, for
whose rising so many on the steamer had been watching, had just come
up, its disk looking unusually large, as it always does when so close
to the horizon.
Just when the moon was half above the ocean, and when the narrowing
path of the illumination stretched from the ship to the outer edge of
the world, a vessel under full sail slowly passed over the face of the
moon.
The partial eclipse was so singular that it arrested the attention of
Inez, who uttered the exclamation we have recorded. It was seen by
nearly all the passengers, too, most of whom were looking toward the
horizon for the rising of the orb, and expressions of delight were
heard from every quarter, for such a sight, we say, is rare.
When observed by the passengers on board the _Polynesia_, the moon had
barely cleared the horizon, as we have stated, and the top of the
mainmast just reached the uppermost portion of the periphery, while
spars, rigging and hull were marked against the yellow disk as
distinctly as if painted in India ink.
Such an obscuration, like a total one of the sun, could last but a few
seconds, for the _Polynesia_ and the other ship were moving in
opposite directions, while the moon itself was creeping upward toward
the zenith. Slowly the black ship glided toward its destination--hull,
masts and rigging gradually mingled with the gloom beyond, until the
moon, as if shaking off the eclipse, mounted upward with its face
unmarred, excepting by the peculiar figures stamped there when it was
first launched into space.
When the wonderful exhibition was over there were murmurs of
admiration from the passengers, who, grouped here and there, or
promenading back and forth, had stood spellbound, as may be said,
while it was in progress.
Captain Strathmore and two of his officers had seen the same thing
once or twice before, but they had been favored in this respect above
others, and could hardly expect anything of the kind again.
The captain now prepared for an interesting and novel ceremony, which
he had announced would take place that evening by moonlight.
Descending to the deck, and approaching the stern, where the expectant
passengers had gathered together, the group were silent a minute,
while he stood among them holding little Inez by the hand. A few
minutes later the purser came aft, carrying a parcel in his hand,
which he carefully placed upon the taffrail. Then he spoke in a
sepulchral voice.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we all have lost minutes and hours, but it is
seldom that we deliberately throw away a day. But we are to do so now.
We are about to bury a day. To-day is the Twentieth, to-morrow will be
the Twenty-second, and where, then, is the Twenty-first? There it
lies" (pointing to the parcel on the taffrail). "Life is short enough,
without deliberately casting an entire day into the sea; but there is
the consolation of knowing, on your return, that it shall be restored
to you, and thus beautifully does nature preserve the equilibrium
throughout the world. What more fitting than that the day should be
buried by the hands of one whose life is as spotless as the snow upon
the peaks of the Sierras we have left behind us?"
All now uncovered their heads--that is, the gentlemen did--and the
captain advanced, leading Inez Hawthorne by the hand. Holding her up a
short distance from the deck, she called out:
"Good-by, Twenty-first of September!"
She repeated the words correctly, for the captain whispered them in
her ear, and as she spoke she gave the parcel a slight shove, and
overboard it went, striking the water with a splash, and instantly
sinking out of sight. The package was nothing but some old iron,
wrapped about with coarse brown paper.
The ceremony of burying a day, as the reader knows, is a common, and
it may be said, a necessary, one with vessels sailing westward over
the Pacific, as the picking up of a day is necessary on the return. At
first sight it seems incongruous, but it is in fact the only way in
which the reckoning of time can be kept correctly.
The little ceremony naturally caused the matter itself to become one
of discussion, and probably a goodly number of young ladies and
gentlemen picked up more knowledge of the matter than they had ever
dreamed of before.
Two curious things happened within a half hour of this novel
ceremony.
The _Polynesia_ was driving along with that steady motion in which the
throbbing of the vessel can only be detected by carefully standing
still and watching for it, when every passenger, and especially the
captain and his officers, suddenly felt an alarming jar, which shook
the steamer from stem to stern. It was noticed that the engine
instantly stopped and the enormous ship gradually came to rest upon
the long, heaving swell of the Pacific.
In a few minutes it was ascertained that the steamer had broken the
shaft of her propeller, thus rendering the all-important screw
useless. This necessitated the hoisting of her sails, and a monotonous
voyage to her destination, a return to San Francisco, or a long
deviation to Honolulu for repairs.
While the necessary investigation was going on, a sail had been
sighted bearing down upon them, and in half an hour it came-to, a
short distance off, in the hope of being able to afford some
assistance--as the sight of a steamer lying motionless on the water
meant that something was amiss.
This new craft was the schooner _Coral_, a stanchly-built, sharp-bowed
little vessel of forty tons burden, built for the Honolulu trade. She
was about seven years old, very fast, and constructed as strongly as
iron and wood could make her. The forecastle, cook's quarters and
cabin were all under deck, so that in heavy weather there was no
danger of being washed from one's bunk whenever a big sea came
thundering over the rail.
The skipper or captain of this trim little craft was Jack Bergen, of
Boston, and he with his mate, Abram Storms, had made the trip across
the continent by rail to San Francisco--thus saving the long,
dangerous and expensive voyage around Cape Horn.
In the Golden Gate City they--for the mate and captain were joint
partners--bought the _Coral_ at auction, paying just two-thirds the
sum they expected to give for the vessel they needed. However, when
she was fitted up and provisioned, they found very little of their
funds left, and they could but feel some anxiety as to the result of
the extraordinary enterprise upon which they were engaged. The crew of
the little schooner consisted of the two sailors, Hyde Brazzier,
Alfredo Redvignez, and a huge African, Pomp Cooper, who shipped as
cook and steward, with the liability of being called upon to do duty
in an emergency.
But of these, more hereafter.
Captain Bergen, after his craft came-to, was rowed across the short,
intervening distance with his mate, and they were assisted upon deck,
where they were received most courteously.
"Is there anything I can do to help you?" he asked after he and his
brother officer were received by Captain Strathmore.
"I'm obliged to you, but I'm afraid not," was the courteous response.
"You know, there's no way of telling when a piece of iron is going to
fracture, and so there is no way of providing against such an
accident."
"Is the shaft broke?"
"Yes; broken clean off."
"Where?"
The captain of the steamer smiled, for he saw no need of such a
question, since he considered the damage irremediable.
"Quite a distance from the screw, and it's a curious fracture. Would
you like to look at it?"
"I would, indeed. You see, we have got considerable out of our
course--being too far west--and we shall make a pretty sharp turn to
the south, toward Honolulu."
"I am debating whether to go there, turn back to San Francisco, or
keep on under sail to Tokio."
"This is my mate, Abram Storms, from Enfield, Connecticut," said
Captain Bergen, introducing the two. "I bring him along because he is
the most ingenious man ever turned out by that home of ingenuity; and
when I saw that something was the matter with you, I came alongside,
more because I believed he could help you, than in the expectation
that I could be of any service."
"Captain Bergen does me too much honor," protested the stoop-shouldered
New Englander, who, had there been more of daylight, would have been
seen to blush under the compliment.
"I have no doubt he speaks the truth," replied Captain Strathmore,
leading the way below to where the broken shaft rested motionless;
"but this trouble is too much like a broken neck for any surgery to
help."
A minute later, a group of half a dozen stood about and stooped over
the broken shaft, and examined it by the aid of lanterns, the chief
engineer showing a more courteous spirit than is usual under such
circumstances.
As one looked at the huge cylinder of solid iron, gleaming with a
silvery whiteness all over the jagged face where it had been twisted
off, the wonder was how it could be possible for any force to be
tremendous enough to do such damage. The peculiarity about the
breakage, however, was that, instead of snapping nearly squarely off,
the fracture extended longitudinally for fully eighteen inches, so
that the face of each part was a great deal broader and longer than is
generally the case in such accidents.
The group surveyed it a minute or two in silence, stooping down and
feeling of the innumerable jagged protuberances, the indentations, and
the exceedingly rough surface, the minute particles gleaming in the
lamp-light like a mass of silver ore split apart.
The first remark came from the New Englander, Abe Storms.
"That is curious, for there are no signs of crystallization, nor can I
detect a flaw."
"Nevertheless, it must be there, for perfect iron would not have
broken in that manner," said the chief engineer.
"I beg your pardon," said the mate, courteously, "but it frequently
happens. There has been some peculiar combination of the movement of
the steamer on the swell of the sea, with the position of the screw at
that moment--a convergence of a hundred conditions--some almost
infinitesimal, but necessary, and which convergence is not likely to
take place in a million revolutions of the screw--that has brought an
irresistible strain upon the shaft--one that would have wrenched it
off, had the diameter been twice what it is."
The group looked wonderingly at the speaker, for every intelligent man
felt that the theory of the New Englander had a stratum of truth
beneath it. It was hard to make clear what the mate meant, but all to
a certain extent understood, and no one ventured to gainsay it.
"However," added Abe Storms, "there's one good thing about this; it
will be easy to mend it."
Captain Bergen smiled, for he expected something of the kind, and he
knew that that wonderful Yankee mate of his never boasted, and would
demonstrate every assertion he made. But the others stared at the
speaker with something like consternation, and seemed to be debating
whether he was crazy or a natural born idiot.