*Reprinted by courtesy of Harper & Brothers.
Across the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Guinea to Cape St. Roque
moves a great body of water--the Main Equatorial Current--which can be
considered the motive power, or mainspring, of the whole Atlantic
current system, as it obtains its motion directly from the ever-acting
push of the tradewinds. At Cape St. Roque this broad current splits
into two parts, one turning north, the other south. The northern part
contracts, increases its speed, and, passing up the northern coast of
South America as the Guiana Current, enters through the Caribbean Sea
into the Gulf of Mexico, where it circles around to the northward;
then, colored a deep blue from the fine river silt of the Mississippi,
and heated from its long surface exposure under a tropical sun to an
average temperature of eighty degrees, it emerges into the Florida
Channel as the Gulf Stream.
From here it travels northeast, following the trend of the coast line,
until, off Cape Hatteras, it splits into three divisions, one of which,
the westernmost, keeps on to lose its warmth and life in Baffin's Bay.
Another impinges on the Hebrides, and is no more recognizable as a
current; and the third, the eastern and largest part of the divided
stream, makes a wide sweep to the east and south, enclosing the Azores
and the deadwater called the Sargasso Sea, then, as the African
Current, runs down the coast until, just below the Canary Isles, it
merges into the Lesser Equatorial Current, which, parallel to the
parent stream, and separated from it by a narrow band of backwater,
travels west and filters through the West Indies, making puzzling
combinations with the tides, and finally bearing so heavily on the
young Gulf Stream as to give to it the sharp turn to the northward
through the Florida Channel.
In the South Atlantic, the portion of the Main Equatorial Current split
off by Cape St. Roque and directed south leaves the coast at Cape Frio,
and at the latitude of the River Plate assumes a due easterly
direction, crossing the ocean as the Southern Connecting Current. At
the Cape of Good Hope it meets the cold, northeasterly Cape Horn
Current, and with it passes up the coast of Africa to join the
Equatorial Current at the starting-point in the Gulf of Guinea, the
whole constituting a circulatory system of ocean rivers, of speed value
varying from eighteen to ninety miles a day.
On a bright morning in November, 1894, a curious-looking craft floated
into the branch current which, skirting Cuba, flows westward through
the Bahama Channel. A man standing on the highest of two points
enclosing a small bay near Cape Maisi, after a critical examination
through a telescope, disappeared from the rocks, and in a few moments a
light boat, of the model used by whalers, emerged from the mouth of the
bay, containing this man and another. In the boat also was a coil of
rope.
The one who had inspected the craft from the rocks was a tall young
fellow, dressed in flannel shirt and trousers, the latter held in place
by a cartridge-belt, such as is used by the American cowboy. To this
was hung a heavy revolver. On his head was a broad-brimmed cork
helmet, much soiled, and resembling in shape the Mexican sombrero.
Beneath this head-gear was a mass of brown hair, which showed a
non-acquaintance with barbers for, perhaps, months, and under this hair
a sun-tanned face, lighted by serious gray eyes. The most noticeable
feature of this face was the extreme arching of the eyebrows--a
never-failing index of the highest form of courage. It was a face that
would please. The face of the other was equally pleasing in its way.
It was red, round, and jolly, with twinkling eyes, the whole borrowing
a certain dignity from closely cut white hair and mustaches. The man
was about fifty, dressed and armed like the other.
"What do you want of pistols, Boston?" he said to the younger man.
"One might think this an old-fashioned, piratical cutting out."
"Oh, I don't know, Doc. It's best to have them. That hulk may be full
of Spaniards, and the whole thing nothing but a trick to draw us out.
But she looks like a derelict. I don't see how she got into this
channel, unless she drifted up past Cape Maisi from the southward,
having come in with the Guiana Current. It's all rocks and shoals to
the eastward."
The boat, under the impulse of their oars, soon passed the fringing
reef and came in sight of the strange craft, which lay about a mile
east and half a mile off shore. "You see," resumed the younger man,
called Boston, "there's a back-water inside Point Mulas, and if she
gets into it she may come ashore right here."
"Where we can loot her. Nice business for a respectable practitioner
like me to be engaged in! Doctor Bryce, of Havana, consorting with
Fenians from Canada, exiled German socialists, Cuban horse-thieves who
would be hung in a week if they went to Texas, and a long-legged sailor
man who calls himself a retired naval officer, but who looks like a
pirate; and all shouting for _Cuba Libre_! _Cuba Libre_! It's plunder
you want."
"But none of us ever manufactured dynamite," answered Boston, with a
grin. "How long did they have you in Moro Castle, Doc?"
"Eight months," snapped the doctor, his face clouding. "Eight months
in that rathole, with the loss of my property and practice--all for
devotion to science. I was on the brink of the most important and
beneficent discovery in explosives the world ever dreamed of. Yes,
sir, 'twould have made me famous and stopped all warfare."
"The captain told me this morning that he'd heard from Marti," said
Boston, after an interval. "Good news, he said, but that's all I
learned. Maybe it's from Gomez. If he'll only take hold again we can
chase the Spanish off the island now. Then we'll put some of your
stuff under Moro and lift it off the earth."
In a short time, details of the craft ahead, hitherto hidden by
distance, began to show. There was no sign of life aboard; her spars
were gone, with the exception of the foremast, broken at the hounds,
and she seemed to be of about a thousand tons burden, colored a mixed
brown and dingy gray, which, as they drew near, was shown as the action
of iron rust on black and lead-colored paint. Here and there were
outlines of painted ports. Under the stump of a shattered bowsprit
projected from between bluff bows a weather-worn figurehead,
representing the god of the sea. Above on the bows were wooden-stocked
anchors stowed inboard, and aft on the quarters were iron davits with
blocks intact--but no falls. In a few of the dead-eyes in the channels
could be seen frayed rope-yarns, rotten with age, and, with the stump
of the foremast, the wooden stocks of the anchors, and the teak-wood
rail, of a bleached gray color. On the round stern, as they pulled
under it, they spelled, in raised letters, flecked here and there with
discolored gilt, the name "Neptune, of London." Unkempt and forsaken,
she had come in from the mysterious sea to tell her story.
The climbed the channels, fastened the painter, and peered over the
rail. There was no one in sight, and they sprang down, finding
themselves on a deck that was soft and spongy with time and weather.
"She's an old tub," said Boston, scanning the gray fabric fore and aft;
"one of the first iron ships built, I should think. They housed the
crew under the t'gallant forecastle. See the doors forward, there?
And she has a full-decked cabin--that's old style. Hatches are all
battened down, but I doubt if this tarpaulin holds water." He stepped
on the main hatch, brought his weight on the ball of one foot, and
turned around. The canvas crumbled to threads, showing the wood
beneath. "Let's go below. If there were any Spaniards here they'd
have shown themselves before this." The cabin doors were latched but
not locked, and they opened them.
"Hold on," said the doctor, "this cabin may have been closed for years,
and generated poisonous gases. Open that upper door, Boston."
Boston ran up the shaky poop ladder and opened the companion-way above,
which let a stream of the fresh morning air and sunshine into the
cabin, then, after a moment or two, descended and joined the other, who
had entered from the main-deck. They were in an ordinary ship's cabin,
surrounded by staterooms, and with the usual swinging lamp and tray;
but the table, chairs, and floor were covered with fine dust.
"Where the deuce do you get so much dust at sea?" coughed the doctor.
"Nobody knows, Doc. Let's hunt for the manifest and the articles.
This must have been the skipper's room." They entered the largest
stateroom, and Boston opened an old-fashioned desk. Among the
discolored documents it contained, he found one and handed it to the
doctor. "Articles," he said; "look at it." Soon he took out another.
"I've got it. Now we'll find what she has in her hold, and if it's
worth bothering about."
"Great Scott!" exclaimed the doctor; "this paper is dated 1844, fifty
years ago." Boston looked over his shoulder.
"That's so; she signed her crew at Boston, too. Where has she been all
this time? Let's see this one."
The manifest was short, and stated that her cargo was 3000 barrels of
lime, 8000 kids of tallow, and 2500 carboys of acid, 1700 of which were
sulphuric, the rest of nitric acid. "That cargo won't be much good to
us, Doc. I'd hope to find something we could use. Let's find the
log-book, and see what happened to her." Boston rummaged what seemed
to be the first-mate's room. "Plenty of duds here," he said; "but
they're ready to fall to pieces. Here's the log."
He returned with the book, and, seated at the dusty table, they turned
the yellow leaves. "First departure, Highland Light, March 10, 1844,"
read Boston. "We'll look in the remarks column."
Nothing but the ordinary incidents of a voyage were found until they
reached the date June 1st, where entry was made of the ship being
"caught aback" and dismasted off the Cape of Good Hope in a sudden
gale. Then followed daily "remarks" of the southeasterly drift of the
ship, the extreme cold (which, with the continuance of the bad weather,
prevented saving the wreck for jury-masts), and the fact that no sails
were sighted.
June 6th told of her being locked in soft, slushy ice, and still being
pressed southward by the never-ending gale; June 10th said that the ice
was hard, and at June 15th was the terrible entry: "Fire in the hold!"
On June 16th was entered this: "Kept hatches battened down and stopped
all air-holes, but the deck is too hot to stand on, and getting hotter.
Crew insist on lowering the boats and pulling them northward over the
ice to open water in hopes of being picked up. Good-bye." In the
position columns of this date the latitude was given as 62 degrees 44
minutes S. and the longitude as 30 degrees 50 minutes E. There were no
more entries.
"What tragedy docs this tell of?" said the doctor. "They left this
ship in the ice fifty years ago. Who can tell if they were saved?"
"Who indeed?" said Boston. "The mate hadn't much hope. He said
'Good-bye.' But one thing is certain; we are the first to board her
since. I take it she stayed down there in the ice until she drifted
around the Pole, and thawed out where she could catch the Cape Horn
current, which took her up to the Hope. Then she came up with the
South African Current till she got into the Equatorial drift, then
west, and up with the Guiana Current into the Caribbean Sea to the
southward of us, and this morning the flood-tide brought her through.
It isn't a question of winds; they're too variable. It's currents,
though it may have taken her years to get here. But the surprising
part of it is that she hasn't been boarded. Let's look in the hold and
see what the fire has done."
When they boarded the hulk, the sky, with the exception of a filmy haze
overhanging the eastern end of the island, was clear. Now, as they
emerged from the cabin, this haze had solidified and was coming--one of
the black and vicious squalls of the West India seas.
"No man can tell what wind there is in them," remarked Boston, as he
viewed it. "But it's pretty close to the water, and dropping rain.
Hold on, there, Doc. Stay aboard. We couldn't pull ashore in the
teeth of it." The doctor had made a spasmodic leap to the rail. "If
the chains were shackled on, we might drop one of the hooks and hold
her; but it's two hours work for a full crew."
"But we're likely to be blown away, aren't we?" asked the doctor.
"Not far. I don't think it'll last long. We'll make the boat fast
astern and get out of the wet." They did so, and entered the cabin.
Soon the squall, coming with a shock like that of a solid blow, struck
the hulk broadside to and careened her. From the cabin door they
watched the nearly horizontal rain as it swished across the deck, and
listened to the screaming of the wind, which prevented all
conversation. Silently they waited--one hour--two hours--then Boston
said: "This is getting serious. It's no squall. If it wasn't so late
in the season I'd call it a hurricane. I'm going on deck."
He climbed the companionway stairs to the poop, and shut the scuttle
behind him--for the rain was flooding the cabin--then looked around.
The shore and horizon were hidden by a dense wall of gray, which seemed
not a hundred feet distant. From to windward this wall was detaching
great waves or sheets of almost solid water, which bombarded the ship
in successive blows, to be then lost in the gray whirl to leeward.
Overhead was the same dismal hue, marked by hurrying masses of darker
cloud, and below was a sea of froth, white and flat; for no waves could
rise their heads in that wind. Drenched to the skin, he tried the
wheel and found it free in its movements. In front of it was a
substantial binnacle, and within a compass, which, though sluggish, as
from a well-worn pivot, was practically in good condition. "Blowing us
about nor'west by west," he muttered, as he looked at it--"straight up
the coast. It's better than the beach in this weather, but may land us
in Havana." He examined he boat. It was full of water, and tailing to
windward, held by its painter. Making sure that this was fast, he went
down.
"Doc," he said, as he squeezed the water from his limp cork helmet and
flattened it on the table, "have you any objections to being rescued by
some craft going into Havana?"
"I have--decided objections."
"So have I; but this wind is blowing us there--sideways. Now, such a
blow as this, at this time of year, will last three days at least, and
I've an idea that it'll haul gradually to the south, and west towards
the end of it. Where'll we be then? Either piled up on one of the
Bahama keys or interviewed by the Spaniards. Now I've been thinking of
a scheme on deck. We can't get back to camp for a while--that's
settled. This iron hull is worth something, and if we can take it into
an American port we can claim salvage. Key West is the nearest, but
Fernandina is the surest. We've got a stump of a foremast and a rudder
and a compass. If we can get some kind of sail up forward and bring
her 'fore the wind, we can steer any course within thirty degrees of
the wind line."
"But I can't steer. And how long will this voyage take? What will we
eat?"
"Yes, you can steer--good enough. And, of course, it depends on food,
and water, too. We'd better catch some of this that's going to waste."
In what had been the steward's storeroom they found a harness-cask with
bones and dry rust in the bottom. "It's salt meat, I suppose," said
the doctor, "reduced to its elements." With the handles of their
pistols they carefully hammered down the rusty hoops over the shrunken
staves, which were well preserved by the brine they had once held, and
taking the cask on deck, cleaned it thoroughly under the scuppers--or
drain-holes--of the poop, and let it stand under the stream of water to
swell and sweeten itself.
"If we find more casks we'll catch some more," said Boston; "but that
will last us two weeks. Now we'll hunt for her stores. I've eaten
salt-horse twenty years old, but I can't vouch for what we may find
here." They examined all the rooms adjacent to the cabin, but found
nothing.
"Where's the lazarette in this kind of a ship?" asked Boston. "The
cabin runs right aft to the stern. It must be below us." He found
that the carpet was not tacked to the floor, and, raising the after
end, discovered a hatch, or trap-door, which he lifted. Below, when
their eyes were accustomed to the darkness, they saw boxes and
barrels--all covered with the same fine dust which filled the cabin.
"Don't go down there, yet, Boston," said the doctor. "It may be full
of carbonic acid gas. She's been afire, you know. Wait." He tore a
strip from some bedding in one of the rooms, and, lighting one end by
means of a flint and steel which he carried, lowered the smouldering
rag until it rested on the pile below. It did not go out.
"Safe enough, Boston," he remarked. "But you go down; you're younger."
Boston smiled and sprang down on the pile, from which he passed up a
box. "Looks like tinned stuff, Doc. Open it, and I'll look over here."
The doctor smashed the box with his foot, and found, as the other had
thought, that it contained cylindrical cans; but the labels were faded
with age. Opening one with his jack-knife, he tasted the contents. It
was a mixture of meat and a fluid, called by sailors "soup-and-bully,"
and as fresh and sweet as though canned the day before.
"We're all right, Boston," he called down the hatch. "Here's as good a
dish as I've tasted for months. Ready cooked, too."
Boston soon appeared. "There are some beef or pork barrels over in the
wing," he said, "and plenty of this canned stuff. I don't know what
good the salt meat is. The barrels seem tight, but we won't need to
broach one for a while. There's a bag of coffee--gone to dust, and
some hard bread that isn't fit to eat; but this'll do." He picked up
the open can.
"Boston," said the doctor, "if those barrels contain meat, we'll find
it cooked--boiled in its own brine, like this."
"Isn't it strange," said Boston, as he tasted the contents of the can,
"that this stuff should keep so long?"
"Not at all. It was cooked thoroughly by the heat, and then frozen.
If your barrels haven't burst from the expansion of the brine under the
heat or cold, you'll find the meat just as good."
"But rather salty, if I'm a judge of salt-horse. Now, where's the
sail-locker? We want a sail on that foremast. It must be forward."
In the forecastle they found sailor's chests and clothing in all stages
of ruin, but none of the spare sails that ships carry. In the
boatswain's locker, in one corner of the forecastle, however, they
found some iron-strapped blocks in fairly good condition, which Boston
noted. Then they opened the main-hatch, and discovered a mixed pile of
boxes, some showing protruding necks of large bottles, or carboys,
others nothing but the circular opening. Here and there in the tangled
heap were sections of canvas sails--rolled and unrolled, but all yellow
and worthless. They closed the hatch and returned to the cabin, where
they could converse.
"They stowed their spare canvas in the 'tween-deck on top of the
cargo," said Boston; "and the carboys--"
"And the carboys burst from the heat and ruined the sails," broke in
the doctor. "But another question is, what became of that acid?"
"If it's not in the 'tween-deck yet, it must be in the hold--leaked
through the hatches."
"I hope it hasn't reached the iron in the hull, Boston, my boy. It
takes a long time for cold acids to act on iron after the first
oxidation, but in fifty years mixed nitric and sulphuric will do lots
of work."
"No fear, Doc; it had done its work when you were in your cradle.
What'll we do for canvas? We must get this craft before the wind.
How'll the carpet do?" Boston lifted the edge, and tried the fabric in
his fingers. "It'll go," he said; "we'll double it. I'll hunt for a
palm-and-needle and some twine." These articles he found in the mate's
room. "The twine's no better than yarn," said he, "but we'll use four
parts."
Together they doubled the carpet diagonally, and with long stitches
joined the edges. Then Boston sewed into each corner a thimble--an
iron ring--and they had a triangular sail of about twelve feet hoist.
"It hasn't been exposed to the action of the air like the ropes in the
locker forward," said Boston, as he arose and took off the palm; "and
perhaps it'll last till she pays off. Then we can steer. You get the
big pulley-blocks from the locker, Doc, and I'll get the rope from the
boat. It's lucky I thought to bring it; I expected to lift things out
of the hold with it."
At the risk of his life Boston obtained the coil from the boat, while
the doctor brought the blocks. Then, together, they rove off a tackle.
With the handles of their pistols they knocked bunk-boards to pieces
and saved the nails; then Boston climbed the foremast, as a painter
climbs a steeple--by nailing successive billets of wood above his head
for steps. Next he hauled up and secured the tackle to the forward
side of the mast, with which they pulled up the upper corner of their
sail, after lashing the lower corners to the windlass and fiferail.
It stood the pressure, and the hulk paid slowly off and gathered
headway. Boston took the wheel and steadied her at northwest by
west--dead before the wind--while the doctor, at his request, brought
the open can of soup and lubricated the wheel-screw with the only
substitute for oil at their command; for the screw worked hard with the
rust of fifty years.
Their improvised sail, pressed steadily on but one side, had held
together, but now, with the first flap as the gale caught it from
another direction, appeared a rent; with the next flap the rag went to
pieces.
"Let her go!" sang out Boston gleefully; "we can steer now. Come here,
Doc, and learn to steer."
The doctor came; and when he left that wheel, three days later, he had
learned. For the wind had blown a continuous gale the whole of this
time, which, with the ugly sea raised as the ship left the lee of the
land, necessitated the presence of both men at the helm. Only
occasionally was there a lull during which one of them could rush below
and return with a can of soup. During one of these lulls Boston had
examined the boat, towing half out of water, and concluded that a short
painter was best with a water-logged boat, had reinforced it with a few
turns of his rope from forward. In the three days they had sighted no
craft except such as their own--helpless--hove-to or scudding.
Boston had judged rightly in regard to the wind. It had hauled slowly
to the southward, allowing him to make the course he wished--through
the Bahama and up the Florida Channel with the wind over the stern.
During the day he could guide himself by landmarks, but at night, with
a darkened binnacle, he could only steer blindly on with the wind at
his back. The storm centre, at first to the south of Cuba, had made a
wide circle, concentric with the curving course of the ship, and when
the latter had reached the upper end of the Florida channel, had
spurted ahead and whirled out to sea across her bows. It was then that
the undiminished gale, blowing nearly west, had caused Boston, in
despair, to throw the wheel down and bring the ship into the trough of
the sea--to drift. Then the two wet, exhausted, hollow-eyed men slept
the sleep that none but sailors and soldiers know; and when they
awakened, twelve hours later, stiff and sore, it was to look out on a
calm, starlit evening, with an eastern moon silvering the surface of
the long, northbound rollers, and showing in sharp relief a dark
horizon, on which there was no sign of land or sail.
They satisfied their hunger; then Boston, with a rusty iron pot from
the galley, to which he fastened the end of his rope, dipped up some of
the water from over the side. It was warm to the touch, and, aware
that they were in the Gulf Stream, they crawled under the musty bedding
in the cabin berths and slept through the night. In the morning there
was no promise of the easterly wind that Boston hoped would come to
blow them to port, and they secured their boat--reeving off
davit-tackles, and with the plug out, pulling it up, one end at a time,
while the water drained out through the hole in the bottom.
"Now, Boston," said the doctor, "here we are, as you say, on the outer
edge of the Gulf Stream, drifting out into the broad Atlantic at the
rate of four miles an hour. We've got to make the best of it until
something comes along; so you hunt through that store-room and see what
else there is to eat, and I'll examine the cargo. I want to know where
that acid went."
They opened all the hatches, and while Boston descended to the
lazarette, the doctor, with his trousers rolled up, climbed down the
notched steps in a stanchion. In a short time he came up with a yellow
substance in his hand, which he washed thoroughly with fresh water in
Boston's improvised draw-bucket, and placed in the sun to dry. Then he
returned to the 'tween-deck. After a while, Boston, rummaging the
lazarette, heard him calling through the bulkhead, and joined him.
"Look here, Boston," said the doctor; "I've cleared away the muck over
this hatch. It's 'corked,' as you sailormen call it. Help me get it
up."
They dug the compacted oakum from the seams with their knives, and by
iron rings in each corner, now eaten with rust to almost the thinness
of wire, they lifted the hatch. Below was a filthy-looking layer of
whitish substance, protruding from which were charred, half-burned
staves. First they repeated the experiment with the smouldering rag,
and finding that it burned, as before, they descended. The whitish
substance was hard enough to bear their weight, and they looked around.
Overhead, hung to the under side of the deck and extending the length
of the hold, were wooden tanks, charred, and in some places burned
through.
"She must have been built for a passenger or troop ship," said Boston.
"Those tanks would water a regiment."
"Boston," answered the doctor, irrelevantly, "will you climb up and
bring down an oar from the boat? Carry it down--don't throw it, my
boy." Boston obliged him, and the doctor, picking his way forward,
then aft, struck each tank with the oar. "Empty--all of them," he said.
He dug out with his knife a piece of the whitish substance under foot,
and examined it closely in the light from the hatch.
"Boston," he said, impressively, "this ship was loaded with lime,
tallow, and acids--acids above, lime and tallow down here. This stuff
is neither; it is lime-soap. And, moreover, it had not been touched by
acids." The doctor's ruddy face was ashen.
"Well?" asked Boston.
"Lime soap is formed by the cauticizing action of lime on tallow in the
presence of water and heat. It is easy to understand this fire. One
of those tanks leaked and dribbled down on the cargo, attacking the
lime--which was stowed underneath, as all these staves we see on top
are from tallow-kids. The heat generated by the slaking lime set fire
to the barrels in contact, which in turn set fire to others, and they
burned until the air was exhausted, and then went out. See, they are
but partly consumed. There was intense heat in this hold, and
expansion of the water in all the tanks. Are tanks at sea filled to
the top?"
"Chock full, and a cap screwed down on the upper end of the pipes."
"As I thought. The expanding water burst every tank in the hold, and
the cargo was deluged with water, which attacked every lime barrel in
the bottom layer, at least. Result--the bursting of those barrels from
the ebullition of slaking lime, the melting of the tallow--which could
not burn long in the closed-up-space--and the mixing of it in the
interstices of the lime barrels with water and lime--a boiling hot
mess. What happens under such conditions?"
"Give it up," said Boston, laconically.
"Lime soap is formed, which rises, and the water beneath is in time all
taken up by the lime."
"But what of it?" interrupted the other.
"Wait. I see that this hold and the 'tween-deck are lined with wood.
Is that customary in iron ships?"
"Not now. It used to be a notion that an iron skin damaged the cargo;
so the first iron ships were ceiled with wood."
"Are there any drains in the 'tween-deck to let water out, in case it
gets into that deck from above--a sea, for instance?"
"Yes, always; three or four scupper-holes each side amidships. They
lead the water into the bilges, where the pumps can reach it."
"I found up there," continued the doctor, "a large piece of wood, badly
charred by acid for half its length, charred to a lesser degree for the
rest. It was oval in cross section, and the largest end was charred
most."
"Scupper plug. I suppose they plugged the 'tween-deck scuppers to keep
any water they might ship out of the bilges and away from the lime."
"Yes, and those plugs remained in place for days, if not weeks or
months, after the carboys burst, as indicated by the greater charring
of the larger end of the plug. I burrowed under the debris, and found
the hole which that plug fitted. It was worked loose, or knocked out
of the hole by some internal movement of the broken carboys, perhaps.
At any rate, it came out, after remaining in place long enough for the
acids to become thoroughly mixed and for the hull to cool down. She
was in the ice, remember. Boston, the mixed acid went down that hole,
or others like it. Where is it now?"
"I suppose," said Boston, thoughtfully, "that it soaked up into the
hold, through the skin."
"Exactly. The skin is calked with oakum, is it not?" Boston nodded.
"That oakum would contract with the charring action, as did the oakum
in the hatch, and every drop of that acid--ten thousand gallons, as I
have figured--has filtered up into the hold, with the exception of what
remained between the frames under the skin. Have you ever studied
organic chemistry?"
"Slightly."
"Then you can follow me. When tallow is saponified there is formed,
from the palmitin, stearin, and olein contained, with the cauticizing
agent--in this case, lime--a soap. But there are two ends to every
equation, and at the bottom of this immense soap vat, held in solution
by the water, which would afterwards be taken up by the surplus lime,
was the other end of this equation; and as the yield from tallow of
this other product is about thirty per cent., and as we start with
eight thousand fifty-pound kids--four hundred thousand pounds--all of
which has disappeared, we know that, sticking to the skin and sides of
the barrels down here, is--or was once--one hundred and twenty thousand
pounds, or sixty tons, of the other end of the equation--glycerine!"
"Do you mean, Doc," asked Boston, with a startled look, "that--"
"I mean," said the doctor, emphatically, "that the first thing the
acids--mixed in the 'tween-deck to just about the right proportions,
mind you--would attack, on oozing through the skin, would be this
glycerine; and the certain product of this union under intense
cold--this hull was frozen in the ice, remember--would be
nitro-glycerine; and, as the yield of the explosive is two hundred and
twenty per cent. of the glycerine, we can be morally sure that in the
bottom of this hold, each minute globule of it held firmly in a hard
matrix of sulphate or nitrate of calcium--which would be formed next
when the acids met the hydrates and carbonates of lime--is over one
hundred and thirty tons of nitro-glycerine, all the more explosive from
not being washed of free acids. Come up on deck. I'll show you
something else."
Limp and nerveless, Boston followed the doctor. This question was
beyond his seamanship.
The doctor brought the yellow substance--now well dried. "I found
plenty of this in the 'tween-deck," he said; "and I should judge they
used it to pack between the carboy boxes. It was once cotton-batting.
It is now, since I have washed it, a very good sample of gun-cotton.
Get me a hammer--crowbar--something hard."
Boston brought a marline-spike from the locker, and the doctor, tearing
off a small piece of the substance and placing it on the iron barrel of
a gipsy-winch, gave it a hard blow with the marline spike, which was
nearly torn from his hand by the explosion that followed.
"We have in the 'tween-deck," said the doctor, as he turned, "about
twice as many pounds of this stuff as they used to pack the carboys
with; and, like the nitro-glycerine, is the more easily exploded from
the impurities and free acids. I washed this for safe handling.
Boston, we are adrift on a floating bomb that would pulverize the rock
of Gibraltar!"
"But, doctor," asked Boston, as he leaned against the rail for support,
"wouldn't there be evolution of heat from the action of the acids on
the lime--enough to explode the nitro-glycerine just formed?"
"The best proof that it did not explode is the fact that this hull
still floats. The action was too slow, and it was very cold down
there. But I can't yet account for the acids left in the bilges. What
have they been doing all these fifty years?"
Boston found a sounding-rod in the locker, which he scraped bright with
his knife, then, unlaying a strand of the rope for a line, sounded the
pump-well. The rod came up dry, but with a slight discoloration on the
lower end, which Boston showed to the doctor.
"The acids have expended themselves on the iron frames and plates. How
thick are they?"
"Plates, about five-eighths of an inch; frames, like railroad iron."
"This hull is a shell! We won't get much salvage. Get up some kind of
distress signal, Boston." Somehow the doctor was now the master-spirit.
A flag was nailed to the mast, union down, to be blown to pieces with
the first breeze; then another, and another, until the flag locker was
exhausted. Next they hung out, piece after piece, all they could spare
of the rotten bedding, until that too was exhausted. Then they found,
in a locker of their boat, a flag of Free Cuba, which they decided not
to waste, but to hang out only when a sail appeared.
But no sail appeared, and the craft, buffeted by gales and seas,
drifted eastward, while the days became weeks, and the weeks became
months. Twice she entered the Sargasso Sea--the graveyard of
derelicts--to be blown out by friendly gales and resume her travels.
Occasional rains replenished the stock of fresh water, but the food
they found at first, with the exception of some cans of fruit, was all
that came to light; for the salt meat was leathery, and crumbled to a
salty dust on exposure to the air. After a while their stomachs
revolted at the diet of cold soup, and they ate only when hunger
compelled them.
At first they had stood watch-and-watch, but the lonely horror of the
long night vigils in the constant apprehension of instant death had
affected them alike, and they gave it up, sleeping and watching
together. They had taken care of their boat and provisioned it, ready
to lower and pull into the track of any craft that might approach. But
it was four months from the beginning of this strange voyage when the
two men, gaunt and hungry--with ruined digestions and shattered
nerves--saw, with joy which may be imagined, the first land and the
first sail that gladdened their eyes after the storm in the Florida
Channel.
A fierce gale from the southwest had been driving them, broadside on,
in the trough of the sea, for the whole of the preceding day and night;
and the land they now saw appeared to them a dark, ragged line of blue,
early in the morning. Boston could only surmise that it was the coast
of Portugal or Spain. The sail--which lay between them and the land,
about three miles to leeward--proved to be the try-sail of a black
craft, hove-to, with bows nearly towards them.
Boston climbed the foremast with their only flag and secured it; then,
from the high poop-deck, they watched the other craft, plunging and
wallowing in the immense Atlantic combers, often raising her forefoot
into plain view, again descending with a dive that hid the whole
forward half in a white cloud of spume.
"If she was a steamer I'd call her a cruiser," said Boston; "one of
England's black ones, with a storm-sail on her military mainmast. She
has a ram bow, and--yes, sponsors and guns. That's what she is, with
her funnels and bridge carried away."
"Isn't she right in our track, Boston?" asked the doctor, excitedly.
"Hadn't she better get out of our way?"
"She's got steam up--a full head; sec the escape-jet? She isn't
helpless. If she don't launch a boat, we'll take to ours and board
her."
The distance lessened rapidly--the cruiser plunging up and down in the
same spot, the derelict heaving to leeward in great, swinging leaps, as
the successive seas caught her, each one leaving her half a length
farther on. Soon they could make out the figures of men.
"Take us off," screamed the doctor, waving his arms, "and get out of
our way!"
"We'll clear her," said Boston; "see, she's started her engine."
As they drifted down on the weather-side of the cruiser they shouted
repeatedly words of supplication and warning. They were answered by a
solid shot from a secondary gun, which flew over their heads. At the
same time, the ensign of Spain was run up on the flag-staff.
"They're Spanish, Boston. They're firing on us. Into that boat with
you! If a shot hits our cargo, we won't know what struck us."
They sprang into the boat, which luckily hung on the lee side, and
cleared the falls--fastened and coiled in the bow and stern. Often
during their long voyage they had rehearsed the launching of the boat
in a seaway--an operation requiring quick and concerted action.
"Ready, Doc?" sang out Boston. "One, two, three--let go!" The falls
overhauled with a whir, and the falling boat, striking an uprising sea
with a smack, sank with it. When it raised they unhooked the tackle
blocks, and pushed off with the oars just as a second shot hummed over
their heads.
"Pull, Boston; pull hard--straight to windward!" cried the doctor.
The tight whaleboat shipped no water, and though they were pulling in
the teeth of a furious gale, the hulk was drifting away from them, so,
in a short time, they were separated from their late home by a full
quarter-mile of angry sea. The cruiser had forged ahead in plain view,
and, as they looked, took in the try-sail.
"She's going to wear," said Boston. "See, she's paying off."
"I don't know what 'wearing' means, Boston," panted the doctor, "but I
know the Spanish nature. She's going to ram that hundred and thirty
tons of nitro. Don't stop. Pull away. Hold on, there; hold on, you
fools!" he shouted. "That's a torpedo; keep away from her!"
Forgetting his own injunction to "pull away," the doctor stood up,
waving his oar frantically, and Boston assisted. But if their shouts
and gestures were understood aboard the cruiser, they were ignored.
She slowly turned in a wide curve and headed straight for the _Neptune_
which had drifted to leeward of her.
What was in the minds of the officers on that cruiser's deck will never
be known. Cruisers of all nations hold roving commissions in regard to
derelicts, and it is fitting and proper for one of them to gently prod
a "vagrant of the sea" with the steel prow and send her below to
trouble no more. But it may be that the sight of the Cuban flag,
floating defiantly in the gale, had something to do with the full speed
at which the Spanish ship approached. When but half a length separated
the two craft, a heavy sea lifted the bow of the cruiser high in air;
then it sank, and the sharp steel ram came down like a butcher's
cleaver on the side of the derelict.
A great semicircular wall of red shut out the gray of the sea and sky
to leeward, and for an instant the horrified men in the boat saw--as
people see by a lightning flash--dark lines radiating from the centre
of this red wall, and near this centre poised on end in mid-air, with
deck and sponsons still intact, a bowless, bottomless remnant of the
cruiser. Then, and before the remnant sank into the vortex beneath,
the spectacle went out in the darkness of unconsciousness; for a
report, as of concentrated thunder, struck them down. A great wave had
left the crater-like depression in the sea, which threw the boat on
end, and with the inward rush of surrounding water rose a mighty gray
cone, which then subsided to a hollow, while another wave followed the
first. Again and again this gray pillar rose and fell, each subsidence
marked by the sending forth of a wave. And long before these
concentric waves had lost themselves in the battle with the
storm-driven combers from the ocean, the half-filled boat, with her
unconscious passengers, had drifted over the spot where lay the
shattered remnant, which, with the splintered fragments of wood and
iron strewn on the surface and bottom of the sea for a mile around, and
the lessening cloud of dust in the air, was all that was left of the
derelict _Neptune_ and one of the finest cruisers in the Spanish navy.
A few days later, two exhausted, half-starved men pulled a whaleboat up
to the steps of the wharf at Cadiz, where they told some lies and sold
their boat. Six months after, these two men, sitting at a camp-fire of
the Cuban army, read from a discolored newspaper, brought ashore with
the last supplies, the following:
"By cable to the 'Herald.'
"CADIZ, March 13, 1895.--Anxiety for the safety of the _Reina Regente_
has grown rapidly to-day, and this evening it is feared, generally,
that she went down with her four hundred and twenty souls in the storm
which swept the southern coast on Sunday night and Monday morning.
Despatches from Gibraltar say that pieces of a boat and several
semaphore flags belonging to the cruiser came ashore at Ceuta and
Tarifa this afternoon."