The watch below had been dismissed upon the completion of our work of
preparation, but not a man had left the deck, their anxiety to see and
know the worst of what was to befall having completely overcome their
usual propensity to make the utmost of every moment allotted to them for
necessary rest, and they were now all huddled and clustered together
upon the forecastle, discussing the situation in low, murmured tones,
and holding themselves in readiness, like hounds in the leash, to spring
into activity at the first word of command.
The moaning and wailing sounds were now floating all round us, and
presently, making itself rapidly audible above them, we became conscious
of a deep, fierce, bellowing roar that seemed to be approaching us on
our starboard beam, the schooner's head being then about north-west.
"Here it comes!" exclaimed Ryan, in a hoarse tone of suppressed
excitement. "Get hold of a belaying-pin each, you two, or you will
stand a very good chance of being blown overboard. Starboard your helm;
hard over with it, my man. Get under the lee of the starboard bulwarks,
men. Carpenter, are your axes ready in case we should be obliged to cut
anything away?"
"All ready, sir," came the reply, scarcely audible above the roar of the
tempest that was now close upon us; and as the man spoke a fierce gust
of wind laden with salt mist swooped down upon us and careened the
schooner almost to her covering-board as it filled the foresail with a
jar and a report like that of a nine-pounder. This blast was only
momentary, however, it was upon us and gone again in an instant, but it
was quickly succeeded by others; and then, away in the gloom, right
abeam of us, appeared a white, spectral glimmer swooping down upon the
schooner with the speed of a race-horse, and spreading momentarily wider
athwart the blackness as it came. It was a line of white foam churned
up on the surface of the sea by the advancing hurricane, and all behind
it the ocean was white as milk. The air was now in violent motion all
about us, fierce eddies swooping hither and thither, but generally in
the same direction as that from which the gale was approaching. Another
heavy salt-laden gust struck us, lasting just long enough to give the
schooner way and render her obedient to her helm, and then the deep bass
roar rose into a deafening, yelling medley of indescribable sounds as
the gale struck us, and the poor little schooner bowed beneath the blow
until the water poured in over her lee gunwale and I thought that she
was going to "turn the turtle" with us. The foresail stood the strain
for just an instant, and then it split to ribbons, and was torn from the
bolt-ropes as cleanly as though the work had been done with a knife.
But the good sail had already done its work before the hurricane proper
had struck us, in that it had imparted some life, even though ever so
little, to the schooner; she was already paying slowly off when the
first stroke of the hurricane beat her down, and she continued to do so
until, as she got dead before it, she rose suddenly to an even keel and
went scudding away to leeward like a frightened sea-bird. The awful
volume of sound given out by the fierce, headlong swoop of the wind as
it bore down upon us quite prepared me to see both masts blown clean out
of the schooner; but all her gear fortunately happened to be sound and
good, and the loss of the foresail was the full extent of the damage
sustained by us.
Having satisfied myself upon that point, I ventured to raise my head a
little above the bulwarks to see how the strange sail was faring.
Pierrepoint had reported her as being visible in the north-eastern
quarter, and if this were so she ought now to be somewhere astern of us,
since we were running off about south-west; and, sure enough, there she
was, about a point and a half on our starboard quarter, just visible in
the midst of the ghostly glare of the phosphorescent foam. She was,
like ourselves, running dead before the gale, and I thought I could make
out that her topsails had withstood the tremendous strain of the
outburst and were still doing their duty. If this were so, since we
were scudding under bare poles, she would soon overtake and pass us
quite as closely as would be at all consistent with the safety of the
two craft, and we should be afforded an opportunity to learn something
of her character, and to judge whether she was the barque that we had
been so industriously seeking. I made my way over to Ryan, who was
standing--as well as he could against the violence of the wind that
threatened to sweep him off his feet--close to the helmsman, pointed
toward the stranger, and, clinging to the companion, we stood and
watched her for a minute or two, half suffocated with the difficulty of
breathing in so furious a tempest. She was now about four miles from
us, and it soon became apparent that she was overhauling us fast,
although by no means so fast as I expected; and she was so nearly end-on
to us that I suggested to Ryan the advisability of our showing a light,
as it looked very much as though she had not yet seen us and might
approach us so closely as to put both craft in imminent peril.
"All in good time," shouted the captain in my ear, in response to this
suggestion. "I do not believe that she _has_ seen us yet; but that is
not of much consequence, since both of us are steering as steadily as
pleasure-boats on a river, and I will take care to make her acquainted
with our whereabouts if there appears to be the slightest danger of her
running over us. But I want her to pass as near us as possible, so that
we may have a good view of her. For there seems to me to be a something
familiar-looking about her, as though I had seen her before; and,
between you and me, Harry, I believe her to be our old friend the barque
again. And, if so, we must keep up with her at all costs until the
weather moderates sufficiently to bring her to; so just step for'ard,
will you, my lad, and get the fore-trysail on deck and bent ready for
setting in case we need it. And let one hand bring aft a lantern, _not_
lighted, mind ye; he can take it below, light it _there_, and leave it
at the foot of the companion-ladder all ready to show a light if yonder
stranger seems likely to sheer too close to us in passing."
I went forward, as requested, and found that the watch below had already
returned to their hammocks, the crisis having passed, and the schooner
scudding as comfortably as could be before the gale. The trysail was
got up from below, bent, halliards and sheets hooked on, and, in short,
made all ready for setting, and I returned aft to Ryan's side, having to
claw my way to him along the rail in preference to creeping along the
deck upon all fours, which seemed to be the only alternative method of
making headway against the wind. The sea was by this time getting up,
and the air was full of spume and scud-water, caught up from the surface
of the sea and the crests of the waves and swept along in a blinding,
drenching shower by the gale. My superior officer was still clinging to
the companion, with his eyes intently fixed upon the strange sail
astern, which, now that the dense masses of cloud overhead were torn
into shreds of flying scud by the fury of the wind, was pretty
distinctly visible, at a distance of about a mile and a half, by the
dim, misty moonlight that filtered through.
"I've been trying to get a peep at her through my night-glass,"
exclaimed Ryan, with a wave of his hand toward the dark blotch in the
midst of the white foam, "but there is no holding it in such a breeze as
this; you have to keep a tight grip on the thing or the wind will take
it away from you altogether. But I'm pretty certain that it is the
barque; and if so I'll stick to her as long as this schooner will hang
together."
"Do you think that she has seen us yet?" I asked.
"Yes, I fancy so," answered Ryan. "She appears to me to be edging away
a trifle, so as to pass us to starboard, giving us as wide a berth as
possible. But even although she may have seen us, I do not believe that
we are recognised, as yet; indeed, how should we be? At this distance,
and end-on as we are, with no canvas set and our topmasts struck, we
must look like little more than a dot on the water."
This was quite true, and I fully believed, with Ryan, that we had _not_
been recognised, for although our companion had indeed manifested signs
of an inclination to edge away from us, the tendency was only to a
sufficient extent to insure her passing us in safety. Had she suspected
us of being an enemy, it would not have been positively dangerous for
her to have altered her course fully a point, although, blowing as it
then did, it would have been exceedingly imprudent to have attempted
more than that.
In about half-an-hour after I had joined Ryan the strange craft overtook
us; but while she was yet some half-a-mile astern of us we had made her
out to be a barque of just about the same size as the one that we had
been hunting for; and when she came up abreast of us at a distance of
not more than a quarter of a mile, we saw that her main-topmast had gone
just at the cap, and her people were still busy with the wreck of it; a
pretty tough job they seemed to be having with it, too. That she was
much more strongly-manned than is usually the case with a merchantman of
her size was also evident, for we could see that while one gang was at
work clearing away the wreck, another was busy securing the fore-topmast
by getting up preventer-backstays, and so on. How they managed to work
aloft at all in such terrific weather passed my comprehension; but there
they were, at least _trying_ to do something. And, as Ryan remarked, it
showed conclusively what a resolute set of fellows they were on board
her, and afforded us a clue as to the sort of resistance we were likely
to meet with should it ever come to a game of fisticuffs between them
and ourselves.
Having once overtaken us she seemed to very quickly pass ahead, and when
she was once more about two miles distant, Ryan gave the order to set
the storm fore-trysail, a step that we might then very well take without
exciting any very strong suspicion on board the barque as to our
ulterior intentions, since the sea was by this time getting up to an
extent which made the exhibition of a small amount of canvas on board
the schooner not only justifiable but absolutely necessary. The sail
was accordingly set, and all risk of being pooped was, for the time at
least, done away with, and what was almost of equal importance in our
eyes, we now appeared to be holding our own with the sail ahead.
The watch had just been called when we noticed that the wind was backing
further round from the northward--a pretty conclusive indication that it
was a cyclone, or revolving storm, that we had encountered--and Ryan
began to be exceedingly anxious upon the subject of heaving-to, since,
as he explained to me, every mile that we now travelled carried us
nearer to the terrible vortex or "eye" of the storm. Still he could not
bring himself to do so while the barque held on, thus allowing her to
effect her escape from us a second time--assuming, of course, that she
really was, as we very strongly suspected, our former acquaintance; it
was therefore with a feeling of considerable satisfaction that we
shortly afterwards saw her start her fore-topsail sheets with the
evident intention of clewing up the sail, if possible, preparatory to
heaving-to.
"Ah!" exclaimed Ryan, admiringly, "that fellow is no fool; he scents
danger ahead; he has been in a cyclone before to-day, I'll warrant, and
seems to know exactly what he is about. There goes his topsail, clean
out of the bolt-ropes, as I expected it would; but I do not suppose he
ever seriously hoped to save the sail. And now over goes his helm, and
there he rounds-to--ah-h! look at _that_! on her beam-ends, by all
that's--no--no--she is righting again--good! very prettily done,
_v-e-r-y_ prettily done indeed! _Now_ she luffs!--excellent! capital!
You are all safe now, my man. We will run down to him, Harry, my bhoy,
and heave-to about a mile to leeward of him; then perhaps he will not
suspect us; he will gradually settle down towards us, as we shall lie
closer than he will; and when the wind drops we shall have him to do as
we like with."
It was a very anxious moment with us when, having run down to the spot
selected by Ryan, we eased the helm over to bring the schooner to _on
the starboard tack_--that being the correct tack upon which to heave-to
in a cyclone in the northern hemisphere--and I shall never forget the
feeling of absolute helplessness that seized me when, as our little
craft gradually presented her broadside to the gale, I felt her going
over--over--over--until the water poured in a raging cataract over her
lee rail, and she laid down beneath the strength of the howling blast--
that now seemed to have suddenly increased to twice its former fury--
until the lee side of her deck was buried almost to the combings of the
hatchways. But as her bows came round and presented themselves more
obliquely to the gale she righted somewhat, and although she still
careened until her lee rail was all but awash, she rode the furious seas
as gallantly and buoyantly as a gull.
Ryan had displayed a very considerable amount of judgment in conducting
the schooner down to the berth he had chosen for her, and had placed her
there in so natural a manner that we scarcely believed it possible that
our presence so near the barque would be likely to arouse any suspicions
of our intentions in the minds of her crew; and as we had never been
very near her during the time of our former pursuit of her, we were in
hopes that we should not now be recognised. We had taken up a position
exactly to leeward of our neighbour; and, as Ryan had anticipated, we
soon found that the schooner was looking up a full point higher than the
bigger craft; but this was very evenly balanced by the greater amount of
lee drift that we made, in consequence of our much lighter draught; we
therefore, contrived to maintain our position with almost perfect
exactitude, except that the schooner manifested the greater tendency to
forge ahead, thus placing herself gradually further upon the barque's
lee bow.
The wind continued to blow with unabated fury, and when day broke and we
were able to look about us, the scene was grand and awful beyond all
power of description. The sky was of an uniform deep, slaty,
purple-grey hue, across the face of which careered a constant succession
of lighter grey, smoky-looking clouds, all shredded and torn to tatters
by the headlong sweep of the gale. The colour of the sea was a dirty
green, deepening in tint to purple-black in the hollows, and capped by
long ridges of dirty yellowish foam, that was continuously snatched up
by the wind and hurled through the air in drenching sheets that cut and
stung the skin like the lash of a whip. The sea, although not so high
as might have been expected from the force of the wind, was still
formidable enough to be almost terrifying in its aspect as it swept down
upon the schooner in long, steep, mountain-like ridges, that soared to
nearly half the height of our main cross-trees, with a hollow of fully
one hundred and eighty feet in width between them, each wave crowned
with a roaring, foaming crest that reared itself above our low hull as
though eager to hurl itself upon and destroy us.
As the day wore on we received a temporary addition to our company, in
the shape of a brig. She hove in sight in the eastern quarter, about
six bells in the forenoon watch; and the first sight that we got of her
revealed that her jib-boom and both her topmasts were gone. She was
showing a storm-staysail; and at first sight we supposed her to be
hove-to; but she drove down towards us so fast that we soon came to the
conclusion that there must be something wrong with her steering-gear,
and as she drew nearer it became evident that she was unmanageable,
falling off occasionally until she was almost dead before the wind; and
we could see that whenever this happened the sea made a clean breach
over her. When within about a mile of us she showed the Russian ensign,
upside down, in her main-rigging, to which we responded by hoisting
Spanish colours--to lull any doubts that might possibly be lurking in
the minds of our friends on board the barque, who did not condescend to
favour us with a sight of their bunting. As for the brig, she drove
straight down towards us, occasioning us a considerable amount of
anxiety, for so erratic were her movements that when she had arrived
within a couple of cables' lengths of us it became impossible to say
whether she would pass ahead or astern of us. The only thing that we
could do to avoid her was to fill upon the schooner and forge ahead out
of her way, and this we would have done but for the possibility that
after our having done so the brig might take a sheer in the wrong
direction and fall foul of us, when the destruction of the schooner, if
not of both vessels, must inevitably have happened. At length it became
evident that something must be done, for she was settling bodily down
upon us, and another two minutes would bring the two craft into
collision.
Ryan therefore ordered the helm to be shifted, and we were just forging
clear, as we thought, and leaving her room to pass under our stern, when
a terrific sea swept down upon her, throwing her quarter round, sweeping
her from stem to stern, and driving her crew into the rigging, and in an
instant there she was, driving along stem-on right for us--or, rather,
for the spot that we should occupy when she reached it. There was now
only one way of avoiding a disastrous collision, and that was by putting
our helm hard up, and, at all risks, jibing round upon the other tack;
and this we accordingly did, missing the brig by a hair's-breadth, but
springing our foremast-head so badly as the trysail jibed over, that we
had to get in the sail at once, and set a close-reefed main-staysail
instead. As for the brig, she was little better than a wreck, for as
she drove past us we saw that her rudder was gone, her bulwarks carried
away on both sides, from cat-head to taffrail, and her decks swept of
everything that was movable. It was of course utterly impossible for us
to help them in any way in the wind and sea that then raged; nor could
we follow them in their helpless progress to leeward, and stand by them,
the damage to our foremast being so serious as to utterly preclude the
possibility of getting any headsail upon the schooner until it had been
at least temporarily repaired, while the little hooker, having again
been brought-to on the starboard tack, absolutely refused to pay off
under her staysail only, which was perhaps just as well, so far as we
were concerned, since any attempt on our part to run to leeward would
almost certainly have resulted in the swamping of the schooner. What
became of the brig, and whether she outlived the gale or not, we never
knew, for she continued her erratic course to leeward, and we lost sight
of her in about an hour and a half from the time when she so nearly fell
on board us, and we saw her no more. But she was driving in a direction
that would carry her right into the track of the vortex of the storm, to
encounter which, in her wrecked and helpless condition, would infallibly
mean her destruction.
As the day wore on, the wind gradually shifted round further from the
eastward, and by nightfall it was blowing from about east-south-east,
and showing some signs of moderating, although it still blew very
heavily; much too heavily indeed to justify us in sending any hands
aloft to fish our sprung mast-head. Nevertheless, every preparation was
made for the commencement of the operation at the earliest possible
moment, as we had detected signs on board the barque indicative of an
intention to send a new main-topmast up without delay; which might or
might not mean that a suspicion as to our true character had begun to
dawn upon them. By midnight the gale had moderated to a strong breeze,
and the sky had cleared sufficiently to permit of a little moonlight
percolating through between the denser clouds, and we were then able to
make out--to our inexpressible chagrin--that the barque's people had
already got their new topmast aloft and ridded, and were getting their
main-topsail-yard across, having been hard at work, doubtless, ever
since darkness set in, though how they had managed to perform their task
was a puzzle to us. It was, however, another evidence of the resolute
character of their skipper; another hint to us that we should have all
our work cut out to bag him; and the carpenter was therefore at once
sent for, and set forthwith to the task of fishing our mast-head with
all possible expedition. The task was not half executed, however, when
we had the mortification to see our neighbour sheet home his
double-reefed topsails and make sail to the westward. This sight put
our men upon their mettle; they could vividly picture to themselves the
laugh that the slavers would be enjoying at our expense, should they
have suspected our intentions toward them, and before the barque was
absolutely out of sight from aloft, Chips had managed to make such a job
of his work as enabled us to make sail also.
Daylight brought with it a clear sky, dappled with high, fleecy, white,
fine-weather clouds, and a moderate breeze from the south-east, with a
very heavy, confused sea still running, however; and as the barque's
royals were still in sight above the horizon, we cracked on after her,
although the carpenter had warned Ryan that the work done during the
night was scarcely as satisfactory as might be, and that the mast-head
was hardly to be trusted. But the fellow was a thoroughly good man, and
eager to avoid all possibility of it being said that we had lost the
chance of a prize through him. As soon therefore as it was light enough
to see, he was aloft again; and by eight bells he had finished his work,
and reported that we might now pack sail upon the schooner to our
hearts' content, which we forthwith did, giving her everything that
would draw, from the royal down, the wind being very nearly aft, that is
to say, about two points on the larboard quarter. By noon it became
apparent that we were gaining, although but slowly, on the barque, her
royals and half her topgallant-sails being by this time above the
horizon; and now all was anxiety on board the schooner as to the
character of the coming night; for we had no doubt that, seeing, as they
now must, that we were following them, the ever-vigilant suspicions of
the barque's people would prompt them to avoid us should the night prove
dark enough to permit of such a manoeuvre. The indications were all for
fine weather, however; the glass was rising steadily, the sky was
becoming of a deeper clearer blue; the white clouds were melting away,
promising a clear, star-lit night between the hours of sunset and
moonrise, and, what was equally as much in our favour, both wind and sea
were going down steadily.
Toward eight bells in the afternoon watch we sighted another sail--a
schooner this time; she was beating up to the eastward, and crossed the
hawse of the barque at no great distance, exchanging signals with her,
although what was their nature we could not see, and even had we been
near enough to have made out the flags, it is exceedingly improbable
that we should have understood them. We had a suspicion, however, that
they in some way referred to us; for shortly afterwards the schooner
tacked and stood towards us, crossing our bows at a distance of about a
mile, and exhibiting the French ensign. We replied by showing Spanish
colours, as before; upon which the stranger threw out some signal that
we could not understand, and after displaying it for some few minutes
hauled it down and hoisted another. We thought it would never do to
display a total ignorance of the signals; Ryan therefore ordered the
signal-bag to be produced, and we strung some flags together haphazard,
and hoisted them. This signal the schooner acknowledged, tacking at the
same time and standing toward us once more; but we were far too busy to
wait for her, for although she had all the looks of a slaver, we knew,
from the course she was steering, that she could have no slaves on
board, and was therefore altogether unworthy of our attention with so
promising a craft as the barque in plain view. She made no attempt to
follow us, and in an hour was out of sight to the northward.
By sunset that night the weather was everything that we could wish, and
we had risen the chase to her topsails; everybody on board the
_Felicidad_ was therefore in the highest spirits, and hope ran high that
by daybreak on the morrow we should have our neighbour under our guns,
and be able to give her an overhaul. The stars came out brilliantly,
and although the moon would not rise until after midnight--and would not
give us much light even then, since she had entered her fourth quarter--
we soon found that we should have light enough to prevent the barque
from giving us the slip, provided that we kept both eyes open.
Nevertheless, darkness had no sooner set in, than she made an effort to
do so by edging off to the northward, a couple of points, which move,
however, we soon detected and frustrated by steering directly after her.
During the night the wind breezed up again somewhat, and this gave the
chase so great an advantage that at daybreak she was still about eight
miles ahead. Shortly after sunrise, however, it dwindled away again,
and gradually dropped to a gentle air that barely fanned us along at a
speed of five knots.
By noon we had brought the chase to within five miles of us, and Ryan
deemed that the time had now arrived for us to declare ourselves; we
accordingly hoisted British colours, and fired a gun as a signal to the
barque to heave-to; the only notice taken of which was the exhibition of
Spanish colours by the chase, and the firing of a shotted gun of
defiance; so now at last we knew each other.
Meanwhile the wind was very gradually dropping, and the schooner as
gradually gaining upon the craft ahead, until at length, late in the
afternoon, we had reached within a mile and a half of her. And then
began one of those barbarous practices that I had heard of, but had
hitherto been scarcely able to credit as sober truth, namely, the
throwing of slaves overboard in order to retard pursuit by causing the
pursuer to stop and pick up the poor wretches, as British men-o'-war
invariably did whenever it was at all practicable.
The mode of procedure was generally to launch the unhappy black
overboard, securely lashed to a plank or piece of timber large enough to
float him, and as he was dropped exactly in the track of the pursuing
man-o'-war, he was certain to be seen by some one on board, and an
effort made to pick him up. In waters infested by sharks, however, this
had been found to be of very doubtful utility, since it happened as
often as not that long before the unfortunate wretch had served the
purpose for which he was sacrificed, the sharks had found him and torn
him to pieces. In order, therefore, that certain hundreds of good
dollars--or their value--might not be wasted, and not from any motives
of humanity to the slave, or any desire to give him a better chance for
his life, but merely that he might last long enough to delay the
man-o'-war to the extent of picking him up, an improved plan had been
devised for use on occasions where the presence of sharks might be
expected; this plan consisting simply in _heading the black up in a
cask_! This was the plan now adopted by the people on board the barque.