AT SEA.
On a hot summer morning the Molly Asthore, a topsail schooner of 120
tons, tripped her anchor in Watson’s Bay, where she had been snugly
moored during the previous night. Her square sails hung from the yards
in graceful festoons, waiting to be sheeted home by her not very active
crew, and under a light wind she slowly glided through Port Jackson
Heads, where the swell of the lonely Southern Ocean was making itself
heard in measured cadence.
The rich perfume of the wattle trees was slowly wafted to us by the
lagging breeze. The shrill sounds of the garrulous cicadæ animated the
thick bush which sheltered them on the shore. The wild flowers drooped
under the heat. A lizard ventured forth upon the trunk of a dead tree
for a moment, but quickly retired before the universal glare; and an
occasional bright-winged parrot or lemon-crested cockatoo flashed
through the palpitating atmosphere in search of a more leafy
neighbourhood. A glimmering haze overspread the distant little
straggling town of Sydney, and we left port under the gaze of but one
man—a swarthy aboriginal, who brandished a spear at us from a
neighbouring cluster of mia-mias lying in the shadow of a rock.
As we cleared the South Head the wind freshened, the gaff-topsails were
run up, and soon the long line of Australian coast faded into dim
perspective.
The Molly Asthore was a roughly-built vessel. She had not the sharp,
yacht-like bows of the island traders of to-day. Her decks were neither
white nor well-kept; rope ends usually trailed about instead of being
Flemish-coiled, and she was innocent of brass work or ornamentation of
any kind. The cuddy, to which access was obtained by a short
perpendicular ladder, was furnished with two rude bunks for the master
and mate, and a little square table, round which there was barely room
to walk. The schooner had carried cocoanut oil, a commodity whose
penetrating scent is never eradicated from ships in which it has once
been stored, and the offensive odour of rancid oil and bilge-water was
almost overpowering in this little room. The men who slept forward were
not so well off, but they counted on a fine weather voyage, which would
admit of lying on deck through the nights. The provisions consisted
chiefly of weevily biscuits and bad salt meat, and the cockroaches which
abounded in all parts of the schooner showed a shocking tameness.
But a sailor bound for the South Seas in those days was not over
particular about his personal comfort. He had the romance of adventure
before him. Little was known of these seas, and all vessels which sailed
on them were more or less ships of discovery. The fate of La Perouse,
whose visit to Port Jackson, where he last saw the home of the white
man, I had often heard my father speak of, was still shrouded in
mystery, and we might even come upon the survivors of his unfortunate
expedition, who were believed to be imprisoned in some of the island
groups we purposed visiting. With all the interest of a new world
opening before me I was disposed to think lightly of the hardships in
store.
The ship’s company consisted of the master, Jacob Turner, an old
weatherbeaten tar, of mahogany complexion, with short, thick whiskers
like tufts of cocoanut fibre, who had many strange experiences of
lawless regions to tell; the mate, Silas Cobb, a Yankee who had served
in an American whaler and knew much of the adventurous life of the whale
fisheries; two English sailors who had run away from their last ship in
Hobart Town; an escaped New South Wales convict, a cabin boy, and
myself. We were short-handed, but that was no unusual occurrence.
We gave the dreary convict-home of Norfolk Ireland a wide berth for
obvious reasons, and entered the tropics when ten days out from Sydney
without having sighted land since leaving port.
For a whole fortnight an almost vertical sun blazed upon our crawling
ship. Idle days dawned in soft rose colour, swooned through languid
airs, and melted away in golden sunsets. Sapphire seas shimmered beneath
the sun across limitless fields of azure. One day a gentle regular
breeze came down upon us. It was the refreshing trade wind, which
rippled the ocean with tiny wavelets, and carried us along without the
sense of motion. We were in the Elysian Fields of Neptune’s empire.
The silver sheen of the flying-fish now added to the dreamlike splendour
of the view as they skipped through the pearly atmosphere to fall with a
faint rippling splash in the cool waters. I watched them through the
lazy hours from the ship’s side, and saw that the shower of brilliants
which entertained us was due to the keen pursuit of the dolphins and
bonitos. When the silvern cloud arose and took its arrow-like series of
flights and dips, like an imitation on a small scale of the ricochet of
a cannon-ball in the water, the relentless pursuers would describe the
chord of an arc, judging accurately where the spoil would fall when the
last drop of water on their wings had dried, and the poor little things
that escaped the gulls and frigate-birds in the air were often devoured
on touching the other element, though the smallest sprinkling of water
seemed to be sufficient to give the fish strength for another aerial
rebound.
The dolphins were not free from the vicissitudes of life. The sailors
amused themselves by spearing them from the forechains, and a fish was
often transfixed with jaws extended in the moment of an expected
banquet. Then the death of the dolphin was a picture—a beautiful
dissolving view. He always made a good end. “Nothing in his life became
him like the leaving of it.” The fleeting shades of green, yellow, and
gold which shot through him as he lay quivering on the deck, arrayed in
all the enchantments of colour, made a fascinating transformation scene.
He died emitting a flood of exquisite hues, as the swan is said to sing
his sweetest note at the moment of death. Rainbows served for his
apotheosis as his spirit ascended to the happy hunting grounds of all
good fishes, where there are no wicked sailors to annoy.
All that is bright must fade. Fair weather does not last for ever, even
in the Pacific. For a time we had heavy tropical showers, repulsive
mists, and short, fierce squalls which blew with hurricane force for a
few minutes.
The weather cleared again. We knew that we were very near the Fijian
archipelago, and we were expecting to sight land every moment, when a
great peace fell upon the ocean. It was an ominous calm. The barometer
indicated some startling change. As yet there was not a ripple on the
water, but heavy clouds hung motionless in the sultry air, and gradually
grew more lowering. The face of nature turned livid. The oppressive
silence communicated itself to all on board. We waited for the coming
storm, wondering from which direction we should feel it first. The
atmosphere was hot, lurid, obscure.
In a moment there was a perceptible chill. Turning round I noticed a
movement in a pillar of cloud on the far horizon astern of us, which had
become as black as ink. The whole mass seemed to be bearing down upon
us, and gathering volume as it progressed, till what was originally a
black spot filled half the heavens. Then we caught the sound of an angry
wind rapidly increasing in force. The water was lashed into fury, and
was being driven towards us in a compact body, which rose several feet
above the level of the smooth sea that lay between us and the blast. We
could hear the coming whirlwind screeching along the surface of the
water. Then it was upon us with a prolonged relentless shriek, and we
knew that we should soon be in the vortex of a South Sea hurricane.
The wind caught the schooner astern. She had been luckily brought under
easy sail, or she would have been dismasted. The canvas she carried
lifted her forward with one tremendous bound, and then every inch of it
was furiously torn from her and hurried away on the wings of the gale.
The vessel was now fairly enveloped in the tempest, running with it
under bare poles—a skeleton ship engaged in a terrible race with Death.
Her shrouds and stays rang responsive to the wind, like the strings of a
harp, furnishing a weird musical accompaniment to the howling of the
storm.
The noise was terrific. The sound was that of air travelling with the
highest attainable velocity, and carrying with it the ocean spray. It
was as if we were actually enclosed by a great body of water rapidly in
motion, forming part of a concrete moving mass, and as though every
particle of the element was endowed with the power of shrieking
demoniacally. No man’s voice could by any possibility be heard, nor
could anyone stand on deck without holding on to something. It was
appalling. We felt that the Angel of Death had encompassed us with his
wings.
In the course of the night the wind changed its direction several times.
Towards morning the fury of the storm had abated a little, but hoisting
sail was still out of the question. The two sailors who manfully stood
lashed to the wheel in an exposed position during the night had had
their jackets and shirts blown off their backs. With great difficulty a
bit of tarpaulin was made fast to the bowsprit to do duty as a
storm-jib, but the vessel was practically beyond control.
To add to the dismal terror of the time, a fearful thunderstorm broke
upon us. The vivid lightning flashes which lit up the whole of the inky
vault above brought the sweltering desert of water into view with a
weird effect which dazed us. The air was charged with electricity, and
our vessel became the subject of the phenomenon known as St. Elmo’s
light. Each mast was crowned with a baleful fire which shed a ghastly
bluish light upon the men on deck, imparting a corpse-like hue to their
faces. It was many hours since I had eaten or slept, and this gruesome
sight so held my fancy that I could not divest myself of the idea that I
was with the terrible crew of the spectral ship of old Vanderdecken, to
look upon whose fleshless heads was death to all respectable seafarers.
We sped along under those fearful candles, while the thunder with its
claps and peals and long-reverberating roll seemed to form the mad music
of a wild funeral march.
Day broke upon a woeful scene of desolation. The struggling dawn showed
through the gray mirk a canopy of clouds torn and mangled by the wind
into every conceivable shape, and a seething sea which boiled away to a
dismal horizon, where the broken surface was tinged with a wan light,
which added to the feeling of isolation and mystery that gathered round
the scene. On our lee was a great misty dome, which we were rapidly
approaching. It might be a cloud-form, or it might be an island, for all
that we could see in the neutral-tinted gloom.
It seemed to me that our captain, who had lashed himself to the mizzen
shrouds, was listening most intently to the thunder peals, which were
now rapidly dying away. Suddenly he started and shrieked in my ear. “Did
you not hear it?”
“I hear nothing but the distant roll of the thunder,” said I. “Let us
hope we are now through the worst of it.”
“I am not mistaken,” he continued. “No one who has once heard the sullen
roar of the South Sea reef with a lee shore before him ever forgets the
sound. And see you not the big island rising right before us through the
haze? Say all the prayers you know, boys, for to-night we sup with Davy
Jones.”
I gazed through the chilly light which was gradually spreading itself
around, and there was the clear outline of what seemed precipitous high
land coming out of the sea to meet us. I could not distinguish the break
upon the reef amid the circumambient foam driven in clouds before the
wind; but I could hear a low rumbling sound, gradually gaining in force
and then dying away again, which had a cadence of its own.
The sun rose like a molten globe shorn of his beams and powerless to
outstare a man, but giving a pale effulgence like that of the moon. As
the spectral light crept up towards the zenith it disclosed a sight
which has often appalled stout hearts, though forming in itself a
magnificent spectacle—a storm-tossed sea breaking in mad fury upon the
South Sea reef—one of those mighty fabrics of coral which myriads of
tiny architects, the conquerors of the ocean surge, have raised as
natural breakwaters for all the islands of the Fijian archipelago.
The gale was hurrying us with uncontrollable power upon Viti Levu, the
largest island of the group, and its girdle of coral, on which the
furious sea was breaking in magnificent desolation. The sound came to us
now like a roar of fierce anger, now with a measured dirge-like tone,
and now in melancholy strains mellowed by distance, tristfully surgent
like those of an Æolian harp. These reefs usually encircle the islands
at a distance of from half a mile to two miles. Within the barrier the
water is as smooth as a lake, but the trade winds, which blow for nine
months in the year upon the shore, send the long rollers of the Pacific
against the reef, which varies from 5ft. to 30ft. in width. Dashing upon
this impregnable barrier, they rise in columns of rosy foam often to a
height of from 20ft. to 50ft., and, glittering in the rays of the
tropical sun, fall like obelisks of diamonds. A long line of silent
ripples is often at first the only indication of the presence of one of
these spines of coral and volcanic rock; then the rollers come against
them with a sound like a thunder-clap, and the waters, broken into
milk-white foam, hurry along the side with wonderful impetuosity, like
an immense jet of vapour, until, meeting with a greater obstruction, a
column is thrown high into the air, and forming an aqueous arch, bursts
suddenly into spray.
As we neared what we felt to be our doom—for it was impossible to alter
the course of the schooner, which continued to be driven before the wind
under a storm-jib—the captain told us we had two chances, though very
small ones. One was to be driven in at the reef-opening, which is
usually found opposite a river or creek, and where the water is
generally of sufficient depth to admit of the largest vessel entering.
The other was to jump the barrier. If the vessel took the reef in a
narrow place it was possible for her, by great good fortune, to ride
clear over it on the back of a wave into smooth water, but the chances
were ten thousand to one that she would be caught on the obstruction, or
perhaps be dropped by a receding billow on a pointed coral patch and be
shivered to fragments.
The members of the ship’s company prepared themselves for the crisis of
their fate in the manner which seemed best to them. The skipper
descended to the cuddy, and occupied himself in gazing fondly upon a
miniature painting of a young woman which he took from his sea-chest.
The mate found some relief in turning up at hazard passages of Scripture
in an old Bible, opening the page by inserting a pin at random in the
closed leaves. The sailors discovered some rum in the hold, and my mind
was busy with a hundred plans, rejected as soon as conceived, for
buoying myself up until I could float into the smooth water on the
landward side of the reef; for that the schooner would go to pieces and
leave me like a bit of driftwood in the spray I had not the slightest
doubt.
As the wind slackened the sea rose. The hurricane no longer flattened
its surface. We were thrown up to dizzy heights and slid down fearful
green valleys with the sickening sense of a fall from a pinnacle in some
horrid nightmare. While buried in these terrible ravines we saw nothing
but the mountainous sides of imprisoning watery hills. As we shot to the
summit of one of these ranges I looked out wearily into the world of
throbbing ocean, and saw with a thrill which I can recall at this moment
that we were within a few hundred yards of a white wrath—the broad belt
of gleaming surge, the stupendous rampart of water, seething and boiling
in a vast chaos of foam—which marked the break on the reef.
In a moment we are thrown between two gigantic pillars in this leaping
and thundering aqueous gallery. It is the narrow opening in the reef,
where the flux and reflux of the sea form a miniature maelström of
sufficient power to engulf the largest ship afloat. We are wrapped in
mist and spray. We are being drawn into the boiling cauldron. The
schooner has a gyratory motion for some seconds as she is sucked by the
vortices, and it is doubtful which way she will be carried. Suddenly,
with a roar and a bellow which made me shake in every limb, we are
upborne on a mighty wave, which ascends like a waterspout, tapering to a
pyramidal point. Clinging desperately to a belaying cleat, I was blinded
and deafened by the drenching spray, and strangled by the wind.
For a moment we are poised on the watery apex in mid air. At that
instant I suffered a syncope of all my faculties. I did not lose
consciousness, but was spell-bound with the fascination of the rabbit
under the gaze of the rattlesnake. I even noticed without shuddering in
that terrible sixtieth part of a minute, during which our vessel
trembled at this dizzy height, that the sides of the column of
malachite-green had a ghastly radiance caught from the sickly sun, that
the interior rolled with the gleam of a sapphire, and that there were
faint rainbow tints on the outermost edge of spray, while below the sea
was churned into a thundering abyss in which it was impossible to
distinguish the coral bank from deep water.
I involuntarily shut my eyes. I gasp for breath as the closing waters
ring in my ears, crashing, and roaring, and booming with the voice of a
thousand cannon. Now we are falling with incredible velocity. Falling!
Falling! Oh God! Will the end never come?
* * * * *
My next recollection was that of being awakened by a hot sun playing on
my face. To my amazement I found that I was lying with my head on a
crown of cocoanut leaves, and that the deck of the schooner, which was
quite uninjured, was half-buried in the thick green foliage of a
tropical island. During the prolonged horror of the descent from the
starry-pointing sea I had swooned. It was not all descent, for the
vessel had been carried right through the avalanche of falling waters
before she reached the natural level of the sea, and she had been driven
on a tidal wave clear over the reef, high and dry on shore, and into a
grove of bread-fruits and cocoanuts.[1] All hands—with the exception of
the master, the mate, and myself—had been swept away in the tumult of
waters, and we never saw a trace of them again. Turner had been lashed
to the rigging, and Cobb having got jammed between the rudder and the
displaced binnacle, they outlived the adventure, though all but drowned
in the hail of salt sea which had fallen on them.
Footnote 1:
In the year 1871 this also happened to an iron ship, the Ellesmere, on
the island of Kandávu. She was purchased by a Levuka storekeeper for a
small sum and successfully launched.