‘He was goin’ home by Good Hope, sir. But he didn’t. What the skipper
means to do, an’ what the Lord wills is two very different things. My
time’s gettin’ short; but we’ll both go together—_him_ an’ me. I don’t
reckon as there ’ll be any hazin’ to speak of in the next world.
P’r’aps it’s best as it is. If I wasn’t sure an’ certain o’ what’s
comin’, I’d have killed him long ago. But,’ he concluded, ‘I’m ready.
I’ve been showed how it’s ordained to happen; an’, so long as I’ve the
company I want, I don’t care.’
During these days, impressed, somehow, by the feeling of intense
expectation that pervaded all hands for’ard, I took more notice of
Mr Harris, the mate, than I had hitherto done.
‘He was no favourite of mine, and, beyond passing the time of day, we
had found very little to say to each other.
And now, although scouting the idea of anything being about to happen
to the man, I watched him and listened to him with curiosity.
Certainly he was an ill-favoured customer. Besides being plentifully
pitted with smallpox over what of his face was visible through the
red tangle of hair and beard, the fleshy tip of his nose had been
sliced clean off, leaving a nasty-looking, flat, red scar.
This, he said, was the work of a Malay kreese, whilst ashore at
Samarang on a drunken spree. But the captain once told me
confidentially that common report around Limehouse and the Docks
attributed the mishap to Mrs Harris and a carving-knife.
Be this as it may, he was a bad-tempered, overbearing brute, although,
I believe, a good seaman.
At meal times he rarely spoke, but, gulping his food down, left the
table as quickly as possible.
The captain, who occupied the whole of his time in making models of a
new style of condenser, for which he had taken out a patent, but by no
means could get to work properly, never interfered with his first
officer, but left the ship entirely in his charge.
No thought of approaching evil appeared to trouble Mr Harris, and he
became, if possible, more tyrannical in his behaviour towards the
crew, Ashby in particular. Truly wonderful is it how much hazing
Mercantile Jack will stand before having recourse to the limited
amount of comparatively safe reprisal that a heavy object and a high
altitude endows him with!
But the Jacks of the _Dido_ were waiting, with more or less of faith,
the fulfilment of their shipmate’s dream.
It was on the 23d of December—which, by the way, was also the extra
day we gained—that the strong westerlies, after serving us so well,
began to haul to the south’ard.
‘You’ll see the Horn after all,’ remarked the captain to me that
morning. ‘Two years ago I was becalmed close to it. But I scarcely
think that such a thing will happen this time,’ and off he went to his
condenser.
It was bitterly cold, and the sharp wind from the ice-fields cut like
a knife. The water was like green glass for the colour and clearness
of it, the sky speckless, and as bitter looking as the water.
Gradually freshening, and hauling still to the south, the wind at
length made it necessary to shorten some of the plain sail the _Dido_
had carried right across. On the 24th land was sighted, and the
captain, coming on deck with his pockets full of tools and little tin
things, told us that it was Cape Horn.
The fo’k’stle-head was crowded with men, one minute all gazing at the
land, the next staring aft.
‘What the deuce are those fellows garping at?’ growled the mate,
walking for’ard.
Whereupon the watchers scattered.
Looking behind me, I saw that Jack Ashby was at the wheel.
He smiled as his eye caught mine, and pointed one mittened hand at the
chief officer’s back. I looked at the land, and began for the first
time, to feel doubtful.
Coming on deck that Christmas morning, I rubbed my eyes before being
able to take in the desolation of the scene, and make sure that I was
indeed on board the _Dido_.
The ship looked as if she had been storm-driven across the whole
Southern Ocean, and then mopped all over with a heavy rain-squall.
The wet decks, the naked spars, the two top-sails tucked up to a
treble reef, and seeming mere strips of canvas, grey with damp, the
raffle of gear lying about, with here and there a man over his knees
in water slowly coiling it up, hanging on meanwhile by one hand,
combined, with the lowering sky and leaden sea, to make up a gloomy
picture indeed. The ship was nearly close-hauled, and a big lump of a
head-sea on, with which she was doing her level, or rather, most
unlevel, best to fill her decks fore and aft.
Broad on the port bow loomed the land—great cliffs, stern and
ragged—at whose base, through the thin mist that was softly drizzling,
could be seen a broad white belt of broken water.
‘Cape Horn weather!’ quoth the captain at my elbow.
He was swathed in oilskins, and squinting rather anxiously at the sky.
‘The glass is falling,’ he continued; ‘but there’s more southing in
the wind. Might give us a slant presently through the Straits of Le
Maire.’
And with that, pulling out a bit of the condenser, and looking
lovingly at it, he went below. The mate was standing near, staring
hard at the land. It might have been the shadow of the sou’-wester on
his face, but I thought he appeared even more surly and forbidding
than ever.
Of course it was a holiday. During the last four hours both watches
had been on deck shortening sail. After clearing up the washing raffle
of ropes, and leaving a man at the wheel and another on the lookout,
they were free to go into the fo’k’stle, and smoke or sleep, as they
pleased.
Dinner—a curious acrobatic feat that Christmas day in the _Dido’s_
cabin—over, I donned waterproofs and sea-boots, and, putting four
bottles of rum in a handbag, which I slung over my shoulder, I stepped
across the washboards and made for the fo’k’stle.
Creeping from hold to hold along the weather bulwarks, at times up to
my waist in water, I wondered how any ship could pitch as the _Dido_
was doing and yet live.
One moment, looking aft, you would imagine that the man at the wheel
was about to fall on your head; the next that the jibbooms were a
fourth mast; whilst incessantly poured such foaming torrents over her
fo’k’stle that, as I slowly approached, I seriously doubted of getting
in safely with my precious freight. Luckily, the men were watching me,
and a couple, running out, caught hold of my hands, roaring in my
ear,—
‘Run, sir, when she lifts again!’
And, making a dash for it, we got through the doorless entrance just
in time to escape another avalanche.
I found the fo’k’stle awash, chests and bags lashed into lower bunks,
and the greater part of both watches sitting on the upper ones,
smoking, and eyeing the cold sparking water as it rushed to and fro
their habitation.
My arrival, or rather, perhaps, my cargo, was hailed with acclamation.
The captain certainly had sent them a couple of dozen of porter. But,
as one explained,—
‘What’s the good of sich rubbishin’ swankey as that when a feller
wants somethin’ as ’ll warm ’is innards this weather?’
‘Where’s Ashby?’ I asked, hoisting on to a bunk amongst the crowd.
‘Here I am, sir,’ replied a voice close to in the dimness.
‘Well,’ I said, cheerily, ‘what did I tell you? Here’s Christmas Day
well on for through, everything snug—if damp—and nothing happening.
Give him a stiff nip, one of you, and let us drink to better times,
and no more nonsense. Once we’re round the corner, yonder, this trip
will soon be over.’
‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ replied Ashby, as he emptied the pannikin,
which was being so carefully passed around by the one appointed, who,
holding on like grim death, after every poured-out portion, held the
bottle up to the light to see how the contents were faring. ‘Thank you
kindly, sir,’ said he. ‘But Christmas Day isn’t done yet.’
Even as he spoke, a form clad in glistening oilskins came through the
water-curtain that was roaring over the break of the fo’k’stle, and,
leaning upon the windlass, sang out,—
‘You there, Ashby?’
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ replied the seaman.
‘Lie out, then,’ continued the mate, for he it was, ‘and put another
gasket around that inner jib! It’s coming adrift! Bear a hand, now!’
The ship for a minute seemed to stand quite still, as if waiting to
hear the answer, and each man turned to look at his neighbour.
Then Ashby, jumping down, with a curious set expression on his face,
walked up to the mate and said very loud,—
‘Don’t send a man where you’d be frightened to go yourself.’
‘You infernal soger!’ shouted the other, enraged beyond measure at
this first sign of rebellion in his victim. ‘Come out here and I’ll
show you all about that! Come out and crawl after me, and I’ll learn
you how to do your work!’
He disappeared, and Ashby followed him like a flash. In a trice every
soul was outside—some clinging to the running gear around the
foremast, others on the galley, others in the fore rigging.
I could see no sign of any of the head sails being adrift. All, except
the set fore-topmast stay-sail, lay on their booms, masses of sodden
canvas, off which poured green cataracts as the _Dido_ lifted her nose
from a mighty plunge.
For a minute or two, so dense was the smother for’ard of the windlass
bits, that nothing was visible but foam. But, presently, as the _Dido_
paused, weaving her head backwards and forwards as if choosing a good
spot for her next dive, we saw, clear of everything, and high in air
fronting us, the two men.
One was on the boom, the other on the foot-rope. The topmost man
seemed to be hitting rapidly at the one below him, who strove with
uplifted arm to shield himself.
Perhaps for half a minute this lasted. Then the ship gave her headlong
plunge, the crest of a great wave met the descending bows, and when
the bitter spray cleared out of our eyes again the lower figure was
missing.
From the other, overhanging us, a black streak against the sullen sky,
came what sounded like a faint cheer. There was a rapid throwing
motion of the arm released from the supporting stay, followed by a
clink of steel on the roof of the galley. Then came once more the
roaring plunge, and slow upheaval as of a creature mortally wounded.
But, this time, the booms were vacant, and a man beside me was
curiously examining a sheath-knife, bloody from point of blade to tip
of wooden handle.
Louder shrieked the gale through the strained rigging, and more
heavily beat the thundrous seas against the _Dido’s_ sides, as,
breathless, drenched and horrified, I staggered into the captain’s
state-room.
‘I think I’ve got it now,’ said he, smiling, and holding up a thing
like a tin saucepan.