THE "FROLIC" IN A GALE, IN WHICH THE FROLICKERS SEE NO FUN--A SAIL IN
SIGHT--HER FATE--AN UNEXPECTED INCREASE TO THE CREW--BUBBLE SHOWS THAT
HE CAN THINK AND FEEL--INTELLIGENCE OBTAINED.
"What sort of weather are we going to have, Snow?" asked Hearty, as we
came on deck after dinner one afternoon, when the cutter was somewhere
about the middle of the Bay of Biscay.
"Dirty, sir, dirty!" was the unenlivening answer, as the old master
looked with one eye to windward, which just then was the south-west. In
that direction thick clouds were gathering rapidly together, and
hurrying headlong towards us, like, as Carstairs observed, "a band of
fierce barbarians, rushing like a torrent down upon the plain." The sea
grew darker and darker in hue, and then flakes of foam, white as the
driven snow, blew off from the hitherto smooth surface of the ocean.
The sea rose higher and higher, and the cutter, close-hauled, began to
pitch into, them with an uneasy motion, subversive of the entire
internal economy of landsmen.
"The sooner we get the canvas off her the better, now, sir," said Snow
to Porpoise, who had come on deck after calculating our exact position
on the charts.
"As soon as you like," was the answer. "We shall have to heave-to, I
suspect; but that little matters, as we have plenty of sea-room out
here, and she may dance away for a fortnight with the helm a-lee, and
come to no harm."
The topmast was struck; the jib was taken in, and a storm-jib set; the
foresail was handed, and the mainsail meantime was closely reefed.
Relieved for a time, she breasted the seas more easily; but the wind had
not yet reached its strength. Before nightfall down came the gale upon
us with all its fury; the cutter heeled over to it as she dashed wildly
through the waves.
"The sooner we get the mainsail altogether off her the better, sir,"
said Snow. This was accordingly done, and the trysail was set instead,
and the helm lashed a-lee.
"There; we are as snug and comfortable as possible," exclaimed Porpoise,
as the operation was completed. "Now all hands may turn in and go to
sleep till the gale is over."
The landsmen looked rather blue.
"Very funny notion this of comfort!" exclaimed Carstairs, who had the
worst sea-going inside of any of the party. "Oh, oh, oh! is it far from
the shore?"
"Couldn't get there, sir, if any one was to offer ten thousand guineas,"
said Snow. "We are better as we are, sir, out here--by very far."
The cutter, which in Cowes Harbour people spoke of as a fine large
craft, now looked and felt very like a mere cockle-shell, as she pitched
and tumbled about amid the mighty waves of the Atlantic.
"Don't you feel very small, Carstairs?" exclaimed Hearty, as he sat
convulsively grasping the sides of the sofa in the cabin.
"Yes, faith, I do," answered the gentle giant, who lay stretched out
opposite to him. "Never felt so very little since I was a baby in
long-clothes. I say, Porpoise, I thought you told me that the Bay of
Biscay was always smooth at this time of the year."
"So it should be," replied our fat captain. "No rule without an
exception though; but never mind, it will soon roll itself quiet; and
then the cutter will do her best to make up for lost time."
The person evidently most at his ease was Will Bubble. Blow high or
blow low, it seemed all the same to him; he sang and whistled away as
happily as ever.
"Oh, oh, oh! you jolly dog, don't mock us in our misery!" exclaimed
Carstairs with a groan.
"On no account," answered Will, with a demure look. "I'll betake myself
to the dock, and smoke my weed in quiet."
On deck he went, and seated himself on the companion-hatch, where he
held on by a becket secured for the purpose; but as to smoking a cigar,
that was next to an impossibility, for the wind almost blew the leaves
into a flame. I was glad to go on deck, also; for the skylights being
battened down made the cabin somewhat close. The cutter rode like a
wild fowl over the heavy seas, which, like dark walls crested with foam,
came rolling up as if they would ingulf her. Just as one with
threatening aspect approached her, she would lift her bows with a
spring, and anon it would be found that she had sidled up to the top of
it.
It was a wild scene--to a landsman it must have appeared particularly
so. The dark, heavy clouds close overhead; the leaden seas, not jumping
and leaping as in shallow waters, but rising and falling, with majestic
deliberation, in mountain masses, forming deep valleys and lofty ridges,
from the summits of which, high above our heads, the foam was blown off
in sheets of snowy whiteness with a hissing sound, interrupted by the
loud flop of the seas as they dashed together.
We were not the only floating thing within the compass of vision. Far
away I could see to windward, as the cutter rose to the top of a sea,
the canvas of a craft as we were hove-to. She was a small schooner, and
though we undoubtedly were as unsteady as she was, it seemed impossible,
from the way she was tumbling about, that any thing could hold together
on board her.
I had rejoined the party in the cabin, when an exclamation from Bubble
called us all on deck.
"The schooner has bore up, and is running down directly for us!" he
exclaimed.
So it was; and in hot haste she seemed indeed.
"Something is the matter on board that craft," said Porpoise, who had
been looking at her through his glass. "Yes, she has a signal of
distress flying."
"The Lord have mercy on the hapless people on board, then!" said I.
"Small is the help we or any one else can afford them."
"If we don't look out, she'll be aboard us, sir," sung out Snow. "To my
mind, she's sprung a leak, and the people aboard are afraid she'll go
down."
"Stand by to make sail on the cutter; and put the helm up," cried
Porpoise. "We must not let her play us that trick, at all events."
On came the little schooner, directly down for us, staggering away under
a close-reefed fore-topsail, the seas rolling up astern, and threatening
every instant to wash completely over her. How could her crew expect
that we could aid them? still it was evidently their only hope of being
saved--remote as was the prospect. They might expect to be able to
heave-to again under our lee, and to send a boat aboard us. The danger
was that in their terror they might run us down, when the destruction of
both of us was certain. We stood all ready to keep the cutter away,
dangerous as was the operation--still it was the least perilous of two
alternatives. We were, as may be supposed, attentively watching every
movement of the schooner; so close had she come that we could see the
hapless people on board stretching out their arms, as if imploring that
aid which we had no power to afford them. On a sudden they threw up
their hands; a huge sea came roaring up astern of them; they looked
round at it--we could fancy that we almost saw their terror-stricken
countenances, and heard their cry of despair. Down it came, thundering
on her deck; the schooner made one plunge into the yawning gulf before
her. Will she rise to the next sea?
"Where is she?" escaped us all. With a groan of horror we replied to
our own question--"She's gone!"
Down, down she went before our very eyes--her signal of distress
fluttering amid the seething foam, the last of her we saw. Perhaps her
sudden destruction was the means of our preservation. Some dark objects
were still left floating amid the foam; they were human beings
struggling for life; the sea tossed them madly about--now they were
together, now they were separated wide asunder. Two were washed close
to us; we could see the despairing countenance of one poor fellow; his
staring eye-balls; his arms outstretched as he strove to reach us. In
vain; his strength was unequal to the struggle; the sea again washed him
away, and he sunk before our sight. His companion still strove on; a
sea dashed towards us; down it came on our deck. "Hold on, hold on, my
lads!" sung out Porpoise.
It was well that all followed the warning, or had we not, most certainly
we should have been washed overboard. The lively cutter, however, soon
rose again to the top of the sea, shaking herself like a duck after a
dive beneath the surface. As I looked around to ascertain that all
hands were safe, I saw a stranger clinging to the shrouds. I with
others rushed to haul him in, and it was with no little satisfaction
that we found that we had been the means of rescuing one of the crew of
the foundered schooner from a watery grave. The poor fellow was so
exhausted that he could neither speak nor stand, so we carried him
below, and stripping off his wet clothes, put him between a couple of
warm blankets. By rubbing his body gently, and pouring down a few drops
of hot brandy and water, he was soon recovered. He seemed very grateful
for what had been done for him, and his sorrow was intensely severe when
he heard that no one else of the schooner's crew had been saved.
"Ay, it's more than such a fellow as I deserve!" he remarked.
I was much struck by his frank and intelligent manners, when having got
on a suit of dry clothes, he was asked by Hearty into the cabin, to give
an account of the catastrophe which had just occurred.
"You see, gentlemen," said he, "the schooner was a Levant trader. Her
homeward-bound cargoes were chiefly figs, currants, raisins, and
such-like fruit. A better sea-boat never swam. I shipped aboard her at
Smyrna last year, and had made two voyages in her before this here event
occurred. We were again homeward-bound, and had made fine weather of it
till we were somewhere abreast of Cape Finisterre, when we fell in with
some baddish weather, in which our boats and caboose were washed away;
and besides this, we received other damage to hull and rigging. We were
too much knocked about to hope to cross the Bay in safety, so we put
into Corunna to refit. The schooner leaked a little, though we thought
nothing of it, and as we could not get at the leak, as soon as we had
got the craft somewhat to rights, we again put to sea. We had been out
three days when this gale sprang up, and the master thought it better to
heave the vessel to, that she might ride it out. The working of the
craft very soon made the leak increase; all hands went to the pumps, but
the water gained on us, and as a last chance the master determined to
run down to you, in the hopes that before the schooner went down, some
of us might be able to get aboard you. You saw what happened. Oh,
gentlemen! may you never witness the scene on board that vessel, as we
all looked into each other's faces, and felt that every hope was gone!
It was sad to see the poor master, as he stood there on the deck of the
sinking craft, thinking of his wife and seven or eight little ones at
home whom he was never to see again, and whom he knew would have to
struggle in poverty with the hard world! He was a good, kind man; and
to think of me being saved,--a wild, careless chap, without any one to
care for him, who cares for nobody, and who has done many a wild,
lawless deed in his life, and who, maybe, will do many another! I can't
make it out; it passes my notion of things."
Will Bubble had been listening attentively to the latter part of the
young seaman's account of himself. He walked up to him with an
expression of feeling I did not expect to see, seemingly forgetful that
any one else was present, and took his hand: "God in his mercy preserved
you for better things, that you might repent of your follies and vices,
and serve him in future. Oh, on your knees offer up your heartfelt
thanks to him for all he has done for you!"
Hearty and Carstairs opened their eyes with astonishment as they heard
Will speaking.
"Why, Bubble, what have?" began Hearty.
"I have been thinking," was the answer; "I had time while you fellows
lay sick; and I bethought me how very easily this little cockle-shell
might go down and take up its abode among the deposits of this Adamite
age,"--Will was somewhat of a geologist,--"and how very little we all
were prepared to enter a pure state of existence."
"That's true, sir," said the seaman, not quite understanding, however,
Bubble's remarks; "that's just what I thought before the schooner sank.
I am grateful to God, sir; but, howsomdever, I feel that I am a very
bad, good-for-nothing chap."
"Try to be better, my friend; you'll have help from above if you ask for
it," said Bubble, resuming his seat.
"Why, where did you get all that from?" asked Carstairs, languidly; "I
didn't expect to hear you preach, old fellow."
"I got it from my Bible," answered Bubble. "I'm very sure that's the
only book of sailing directions likely to put a fellow on a right
course, and to keep him there, so I hope in future to steer mine by it;
but I don't wish to be preaching. It's not my vocation, and a
harum-scarum, careless fellow as I am is not fitted for it; only all I
ask of those present is to think--to think of their past lives; how they
have employed their time--whether in the way for which they were sent
into the world to employ it, in doing all the good to their
fellow-creatures they can; or in selfish gratification; and to think of
the future, that future without an end--to think if they are fitted for
it--for its pure joys--its never-ending study of God's works; to think
whether they have any claim to enter into realms of glory--of
happiness."
Will sprang on deck as he ceased speaking. He had evidently worked
himself up to utter these sentiments, so different to any we should have
conceived him to have possessed. I never saw a party of gentlemen more
astonished, if not disconcerted. Had not Tom Martin, the young seaman
just saved, been present, I do not know what might have been said.
Still the truth, the justice, the importance of what Bubble had said,
struck us all, though perhaps we thought him just a little touched in
the upper story, to venture on thus giving expression to his feelings.
While Tom Martin had been giving an account of himself, I had been
watching his countenance, and it struck me that I had seen him somewhere
before.
"You've been a yachtsman, I think," I observed; "I have known your face,
I am sure."
"Yes, sir," said he, frankly; "and, if I mistake not, I know yours. I
used to meet you at Cowes last year; but the craft I belonged to I can't
say was a yacht, though its owner called her one. I'm sure you
gentlemen won't take advantage of any thing I say against me, and so
I'll tell you all about the matter. The craft I speak of was the
`Rover' cutter, belonging to Mr Miles Sandgate. I first shipped aboard
her about three years ago; he gave high pay, and let us carry on aboard
pretty much as we liked, when not engaged in his business. An old chum
of mine, a man called Ned Holden, who was, I may say, born and bred a
smuggler, first got me to join; there wasn't a dodge to do the revenue
which Ned wasn't up to, and he thought no more harm of smuggling than of
eating his dinner. I didn't inquire how the `Rover' was employed; she
belonged to a gentleman who paid well, and that's all I asked, though I
might have suspected something. She had just come from foreign parts,
and the people who had then been in her talked of all sorts of curious
things they had done. Smuggling was just nothing to what she'd been
about. Mr Sandgate seemed to have tried his hand at every thing. He
had been out in the China seas, running opium among the long
pigged-tailed gentlemen of that country. More than once he had some hot
fighting with the Government revenue-vessels, and several times he was
engaged with the pirates, who swarm, they say, in those seas. I did not
hear whether he made money out there, but after a time he got tired of
the work, and shaped a course for England. On his way, after leaving
the Cape of Good Hope, he fell in with a craft, which he attacked and
took. She was laden with goods of all sorts fitted for the markets in
Africa, and intended to be exchanged for slaves. Besides them she had
the irons, and all the other fittings for a slaver. Such vessels sail
without a protection from any government. After he had taken every
thing he wanted, he hove the rest overboard, and then told the crew that
he gave them their liberty, and that they might make the best of their
way back to the parts from whence they came. With the goods he had thus
obtained he stood for the slave-coast; he had acquaintance there, as
everywhere else; indeed it would be difficult to say in what part of the
world he would not find himself at home. He was not long in fitting the
`Rover' inside into a regular slave-vessel, but outside she looked as
honest and harmless as any yacht. He ran up the Gaboon, or one of those
rivers on the slave-coast--I forget which exactly--where lived a certain
Don Lopez Mendoza, the greatest slave-dealer in those parts; besides
which, as I heard say, it would be difficult to find anywhere a bigger
villain. Well, he and Mr Sandgate were hand-in-glove, and one would
have done any thing for each other. They were fairly matched, you may
depend on it; however that might be, the Don took all the goods Mr
Sandgate brought him, and asked no questions, and filled his vessel in
return with a lot of prime slaves and water, and farina enough to carry
them across to Havana. As soon as he got them on board he was out of
the river again, and, loosening his jib, away he went with some two
hundred human souls stowed under hatches, in a craft fit to carry only
thirty or forty in comfort. She had a quick run across, and escaped all
the ships-of-war looking after slavers. Mr Sandgate there sold the
blacks for a good round sum, and thought he had done a very clever
thing. However, he does not seem to be a man to keep money, though he
is ready enough to do many an odd thing to get it. He gave his crew a
handsome share of the profits; he and they went ashore at the Havana,
and spent it as fast as they had made it, just in the old buccaneering
style I've heard tell of, in all sorts of wild games and devilry, till I
rather fancy the Dons were glad to be rid of them. When their money was
nearly all gone, they went aboard again and made sail. I don't mean to
say but what I suppose Mr Sandgate had some left. He had also armed
the cutter, and stored and provisioned her completely for a voyage round
the world.
"Once more he stood across for the African coast. He had heard, it
appears, that one of those store-ships I was speaking of, which supply
slavers with goods and provisions, and irons and stores, was to be met
with in a certain latitude. He fell in with her, and, without asking
her leave or saying a word, he ran her alongside, and, before her people
had time to stand to their arms, he had mastered every one of them. He
never ill-treated any one, but he just clapped them in irons till he had
rifled the vessel, and then, leaving them a somewhat scant supply of
provisions and water, he, as before, told them that they were at liberty
to make the best of their way home again.
"Some men would, perhaps, have gone back to the coast, taken in a cargo
of slaves, and returned to the Havana or the Brazils, but our gentleman
was rather too cautious to run any such risk. He knew that he had made
enemies, who would try to prove him a pirate, with or without law; so he
just goes off the Gaboon, and sends in a note to his friend Don Lopez,
to say that he had got a rich cargo for him, which he should have for so
many dollars, two thousand or more below its value. The Don, in return,
despatched two or three small craft with the sum agreed on aboard, and
all being found right and fair, the exchange was quickly made, and Mr
Sandgate once more shaped a course for England. As you may suppose,
every one was sworn to secrecy aboard; but, bless you, the sort of chaps
he had got for a crew didn't much care for an oath; and besides, as it
was that they mightn't say any thing out of the ship, they didn't mind
talking about it to me and others who afterwards joined her. He brought
home a good round sum of money; but he took it into his head to go up to
London, and what with gambling and such-like ways, he soon managed to
get rid of most of it. He had got tired, it seems, of having his neck
constantly in a noose, so he took to the quieter occupation of
smuggling. He didn't do it in the common way like the people along the
coast, but in a first-rate style, like a gentleman. He had some
relatives or other, rich silk merchants in London, and he undertook to
supply them with goods to any amount, free of duty. There was nothing
new in the plan, for it was an old dodge of this house, by which they
had made most of their money. You would be surprised, gentlemen, to
hear of the number of people employed in the business, and who well knew
it was against the laws. First, there were the agents in France to buy
the goods, and to have them packed in small bales fit for running; then
they had to ship them; next there were the cutters and other craft to
bring them over, and the people to assist at their landing; and the
carters with their light carts to bring them up to London; and the
clerks in the warehouse in London, many of whom knew full well that not
a penny of duty had ever been paid on the goods; and the shop people
too, who knew full well the same thing, as they could not otherwise have
got their articles so cheap. It's a true saying, that one rascal makes
many; and so it was in this case."
Much to the same effect Tom told us about Sandgate; but as with several
of the points the readers are already acquainted, I need not repeat
them. Tom frankly acknowledged that he was on board the "Rover" when
Sandgate attempted to carry off Miss Manners; but he seemed to be little
aware of the enormity of the offence. He said that he fancied the young
lady had come of her own free will, as Sandgate had made the crew
believe a tale to that effect.
"But what became of him after that?" I asked, eagerly. "Did he return
to the coast of Africa, and turn pirate again?"
"No, sir," answered Martin. "He had several plans of the sort though, I
believe; but at last we stood for the Rock of Gibraltar, and ran through
the Straits into the Mediterranean. We could not make out what Mr
Sandgate was about. We touched at two or three places on the African
coast, and he had some communication with the Moors. To my mind, he
scarcely knew himself what he would be at. He spoke and acted very
often like a person out of his wits. Sometimes we would be steering for
a place, and our course would be suddenly altered, and we would go back
to the port from whence we came. However, by degrees we got higher and
higher up the Mediterranean. We did not touch at Malta, but stood on
till we got among the Greek islands: there he seemed quite at home, and
was constantly having people aboard whom he treated as old friends.
Still we did nothing to make the vessel pay her way, and that was very
unlike Mr Sandgate's custom. After a time we ran on to Smyrna: we
thought that we were going to take in a cargo of figs and raisins, and
to return home. One day, however, a fine Greek polacca-brig stood into
the harbour, and Mr Sandgate, after examining her narrowly, went on
board her. On his return, calling us together, he said that as he was
going to sell the cutter, he should no longer have any need of our
services; and that as he was very well pleased with the way we had more
than once stuck by him, he would therefore add five pounds to the wages
of each man. We all cheered him, and thought him a very fine fellow;
and so I believe he would have been had he known what common honesty
means. The `Rover' was sold next day, and we all had to bundle on shore
and look out for fresh berths. When we were there I heard some curious
stories about that polacca-brig; and all I can say is, that if I had
been aboard a merchantman and sighted her, I shouldn't have been
comfortable till we got clear of her again. Whether Mr Sandgate went
away in her or not I cannot say for certain; all I know is, that the
polacca-brig left Smyrna in a few days. The crew of the `Rover' joined
different vessels, and though I was very often on shore, I saw no more
of him. The rest of my story you know, gentlemen. I shipped on board
the schooner which you lately saw go down."
"Very extraordinary story altogether," exclaimed Hearty, as soon as Tom
Martin had left the cabin, highly pleased with his treatment. "If you
had not been able to corroborate some of it, Brine, I certainly should
not have felt inclined to believe it."
"I know the circumstance of one quite as extraordinary," said Porpoise.
"Some day I will tell it you if you wish it. I should not be surprised
when we get up the Straits if we hear more of Mr Sandgate and his
doings. He is evidently a gentleman not addicted to be idle, though,
clever as he is, he will some day be getting his neck into a halter."
"I should think it was well fitted for one by this time," added
Carstairs; "but I say, Porpoise, let us have your story at once; there's
nothing like the present time for a good thing when it can be got, and
we want something amusing to drive away all the bitter blue-devilish
feelings which this confounded tumblefication of a sea has kicked up in
our insides."
"You shall have it, with all my heart, and without delay," added
Porpoise. "All I have first to say is, that as I was present during
many of the scenes, and as descriptions of the others were given me,
strange as the account may appear, it is as true as every thing we have
just heard about that fellow Sandgate. I could almost have fancied that
he and the hero of my story were one and the same person."
Our curiosity being not a little excited by this prelude, in spite of
the rolling and pitching of the vessel, seldom has a more attentive
audience been collected, as our jovial companion began his story.