BETWEEN FIRE AND WATER
OCTOBER 24 to 29.--For the last five days the sea has been very heavy,
and although the Chancellor sails with wind and wave in her favor, yet
her progress is considerably impeded. Here on board this veritable
fire-ship I cannot help contemplating with a longing eye this vast
ocean that surrounds us. The water supply should be all we need.
"Why not bore the deck?" I said to Curtis. "Why not admit the water by
tons into the hold? What could be the harm? The fire would be quenched;
and what would be easier than to pump the water out again?"
"I have already told you, Mr. Kazallon," said Curtis, "that the very
moment we admit the air, the flames will rush forth to the very top of
the masts. No; we must have courage and patience; we must wait. There
is nothing whatever to be done, except to close every aperture."
The fire continued to progress even more rapidly than we had hitherto
suspected. The heat gradually drove the passengers nearly all on deck,
and the two stern cabins, lighted, as I said, by their windows in the
aft-board were the only quarters below that were inhabitable. Of these
Mrs. Kear occupied one, and Curtis reserved the other for Ruby, who, a
raving maniac, had to be kept rigidly under restraint. I went down
occasionally to see him, but invariably found him in a state of abject
terror, uttering horrible shrieks, as though possessed with the idea
that he was being scorched by the most excruciating heat.
Once or twice, too, I looked in upon the ex-captain. He was always calm
and spoke quite rationally on any subject except his own profession;
but in connection with that he prated away the merest nonsense. He
suffered greatly, but steadily declined all my offers of attention, and
pertinaciously refused to leave his cabin.
To-day, an acrid, nauseating smoke made its way through the panelings
that partition off the quarters of the crew. At once Curtis ordered the
partition to be enveloped in wet tarpaulin, but the fumes penetrated
even this, and filled the whole neighborhood of the ship's bows with a
reeking vapor that was positively stifling. As we listened, too, we
could hear a dull rumbling sound, but we were as mystified as ever to
comprehend where the air could have entered that was evidently fanning
the flames. Only too certainly, it was now becoming a question not of
days nor even of hours before we must be prepared for the final
catastrophe. The sea was still running high, and escape by the boats
was plainly impossible. Fortunately, as I have said, the mainmast and
the mizzen are of iron; otherwise the great heat at their base would
long ago have brought them down and our chances of safety would have
been very much imperiled; but by crowding on sail the Chancellor in the
full northeast wind continued to make her way with undiminished speed.
It is now a fortnight since the fire was first discovered, and the
proper working of the ship has gradually become a more and more
difficult matter. Even with thick shoes any attempt to walk upon deck
up to the forecastle was soon impracticable, and the poop, simply
because its floor is elevated somewhat above the level of the hold, is
now the only available standing-place. Water began to lose its effect
upon the scorched and shriveling planks; the resin oozed out from the
knots in the wood, the seams burst open, and the tar, melted by the
heat, followed the rollings of the vessel, and formed fantastic
patterns about the deck.
Then to complete our perplexity, the wind shifted suddenly round to the
northwest, whence it blew a perfect hurricane. To no purpose did Curtis
do everything in his power to bring the ship ahull; every effort was in
vain; the Chancellor could not bear her trysail, so there was nothing
to be done but to let her go with the wind, and drift further and
further from the land for which we are longing so eagerly.
To-day, the 29th, the tempest seemed to reach its height; the waves
appeared to us mountains high, and dashed the spray most violently
across the deck. A boat could not live a moment in such a sea.
Our situation is terrible. We all wait in silence, some few on the
forecastle, the great proportion of us on the poop. As for the picrate,
for the time we have quite forgotten its existence; indeed it might
almost seem as though its explosion would come as a relief, for no
catastrophe, however terrible, could far exceed the torture of our
suspense.
While he had still the remaining chance, Curtis rescued from the
store-room such few provisions as the heat of the compartment allowed
him to obtain; and a lot of cases of salt meat and biscuits, a cask of
brandy, some barrels of fresh water, together with some sails and
wraps, a compass and other instruments are now lying packed in a mass
all ready for prompt removal to the boats whenever we shall be obliged
to leave the ship.
About eight o'clock in the evening, a noise is heard, distinct even
above the raging of the hurricane. The panels of the deck are upheaved,
and volumes of black smoke issue upward as if from a safety-valve. A
universal consternation seizes one and all; we must leave the volcano
which is about to burst beneath our feet. The crew run to Curtis for
orders. He hesitates; looks first at the huge and threatening waves;
looks then at the boats. The long-boat is there, suspended right along
the center of the deck; but it is impossible to approach it now; the
yawl, however, hoisted on the starboard side, and the whale-boat
suspended aft, are still available. The sailors make frantically for
the yawl.
"Stop, stop," shouts Curtis; "do you mean to cut off our last and only
chance of safety? Would you launch a boat in such a sea as this?"
A few of them, with Owen at their head, give no heed to what he says.
Rushing to the poop, and seizing a cutlass, Curtis shouts again:
"Touch the tackling of the davit, one of you; only touch it, and I'll
cleave your skull."
Awed by his determined manner, the men retire, some clambering into the
shrouds, while others mount to the very top of the masts.
At eleven o'clock, several loud reports are heard, caused by the
bursting asunder of the partitions of the hold. Clouds of smoke issue
from the front, followed by a long tongue of lambent flame that seems
to encircle the mizzen-mast. The fire now reaches to the cabin of Mrs.
Kear, who, shrieking wildly, is brought on deck by Miss Herbey. A
moment more, and Silas Huntly makes his appearance, his face all
blackened with the grimy smoke; he bows to Curtis, as he passes, and
then proceeds in the calmest manner to mount the aft-shrouds, and
installs himself at the very top of the mizzen.
The sight of Huntly recalls to my recollection the prisoner still
below, and my first impulse is to rush to the staircase and do what I
can to set him free. But the maniac has already eluded his confinement,
and with singed hair and his clothes already alight, rushes upon deck.
Like a salamander he passes across the burning deck with unscathed
feet, and glides through the stifling smoke with unchoked breath. Not a
sound escapes his lips.
Another loud report; the long-boat is shivered into fragments; the
middle panel bursts the tarpaulin that covered it, and a stream of
fire, free at length from the restraint that had held it, rises
half-mast high.
"The picrate! the picrate!" shrieks the madman; "we shall all be blown
up! the picrate will blow us all up."
And in an instant, before we can get near him, he has buried himself,
through the open hatchway, down into the fiery furnace below.