THE THUNDERBOLT.
An emotion of mingled freedom and satisfaction possessed the whole
crew on being rid of our tormentor, and Lambourne now took charge of
the brig, which he was perfectly able to handle and work, though
ignorant of navigation as a science, and having but a vague idea of
the course to steer for the Cape of Good Hope.
She was hove in the wind, while in the moonlight, about two hours
after the exciting scene which closes the last chapter, we committed
to the deep the body of Antonio's last victim, the poor apprentice,
whom the sailmaker sewed up in his hammock, to which, being without
shot or other suitable weights, we tied a sack of coals to sink the
corpse.
The head-yards were filled again, and as if anxious to leave that
portion of the sea as far as possible astern, we hauled up for the
Cape. Tom Lambourne ordered every stitch of canvas that the spars
would hold, to be spread upon the _Eugenie_, that she might, as he
said, "walk through the water in her own style."
All he could do, at first, was to keep her in the course we had been
steering on the night these disasters began, for as yet we knew not
to what degree of latitude, south or north, we might have been
drifting; however, we calculated that Hislop, weak as he was, might
be able to take a solar observation, and prick off our place on the
chart, in the course of six or seven days.
We had the usually snug little cabin cleansed and cleared from the
_débris_ created by the outrageous proceedings of Antonio, who must
have gone to the bottom with all Weston's valuables and money about
him, as we could find neither; and the sweet expression of the poor
widow's face, as it seemed to smile on us from the miniature on the
after-bulkhead, contrasted strangely with all the wild work that had
so lately taken place on board.
Hislop and I were restored to our former berths, and then more than
once in my dreams the pale olive-green visage and glaring eyes of the
Cubano came before me, and again I seemed to see him clinging
unpitied, and in desperation, to the slender boom which swung above
the seething sea,--for his death and all its concomitant horrors
haunted me and made me unhappy.
The intensity of the heat in that season suggested the idea that we
could not have drifted far south of the line.
So great was it, that the upper spars of the _Eugenie_ appeared to
wriggle or vibrate like serpents aloft in the sunshine; while so hot,
so clear, and so rarefied was the atmosphere between decks, that it
was suffocating, especially in the lullings of the faint breeze. A
white heat seemed to make sea and sky grow pale, and the former cast
upward a reflection from its glassy surface and long smooth swells,
that was hot,--hot beyond all description.
Though ever and anon the upper deck was drenched with salt water, it
dried immediately, emitting a strong odor of wet wood, while the
skids over the side failed to keep the paint, tar, and rosin from
rising in large burnt blisters.
About the time when we hoped that Hislop would have been well enough
to make an observation, even by being placed in a chair on deck, the
weather became so rough that he was unable to leave his berth, and
during all that day the brig drove before a heavy gale, with her
courses hauled close up, the fore and main-topsail yards lowered on
the caps, and their canvas close reefed.
After the heat we had endured, the reader may imagine this gale would
be refreshing and a relief. Not so. The atmosphere, as it became
dark with gathering clouds, increased in density, closeness, and
heat; thus about the time we should have had clear twilight, the hour
was gloomy as a northern midnight,--so dark that the men in the tops,
or those lying out along the foot-ropes at the yard-arms, when under
close-reefed topsails, could not be seen from the deck, while the
breeze that swept over the ocean was breathless,--hot as the simoom
of the desert; and our men knew not whether they were most drenched
by perspiration or the spoondrift torn from the warm wave tops by the
increasing blast.
The peculiar appearance of this black gale alarmed and bewildered
Tattooed Tom, who could make nothing of it, while poor Marc Hislop,
whose skill would have been invaluable to us, when he heard the
singing out on deck, the thunder of the bellying courses struggling
with their brails, the roar of the wind through the half-bared masts
and rigging, the clatter of blocks and feet overhead, writhed in his
bed, and mourned his own inactivity, or rather incapacity; but he
sent me to tell Lambourne to cover up the anchors with wetted canvas,
as it was not improbable, by the state of the atmosphere, that it was
full of electricity, and thus we might be in a dangerous way.
"Tell Tom," he whispered, "it is a trade-wind gale,--I know it to be
so."
"How?" I asked, "when you are lying here below."
"By the barometer, which remains high, while the wind is steady,"
replied Hislop in a low voice, for he was still very weak; "if the
barometer _fall_, be sure it will become a typhoon, and then, with a
short-handed craft, heaven help us! But assure Tom it is only as yet
a trade-wind gale,--to take as much canvas off her as he can, and to
make all snug aloft. We'll have thunder directly, Dick,--such
thunder as you can only hear in the tropics."
He sank back, exhausted even by these few words, while I hurried on
deck with his orders.
I had scarcely conveyed them to Lambourne, who was keeping a look-out
forward, when, amid the dusky obscurity of sea and sky, there burst a
sudden gleam of wondrous light.
The men, who were spreading some old wetted sails over the sheet and
working anchors; the steersman at the wheel; the watch, and all hands
who were crouching to leeward, or holding on by ropes and
belaying-pins to windward, seemed for a moment to become
white-visaged spectres, amid a sea of pale-blue flame,--a sea whereon
the flying brig with her brailed courses and reefed topsails, her
half naked masts and black cordage, were all distinctly visible as at
noonday, while the polished brass on funnel, binnacle, and skylight,
all flashed and shone, as ship and crew, with all their details of
form and feature,
"Were instant seen and instant lost."
For a broad and blinding sheet of electric flame burst upon the
darkness of the night, and passed away as rapidly, when the livid
brand burst in the welkin or in the wave, we knew not which.
Then came the roar of thunder--the stunning and appalling thunder of
the tropics, every explosion of which seemed to rend earth, sea, and
sky, as they rolled like a palpable thing, or like the united salvo
of a thousand cannon overhead, to die away in rumbling echoes at the
far horizon.
After a sound so mighty and bewildering, the bellowing of the wind
through the rigging, the hiss and roar of the sea as wave broke
against wave, the flapping of the brailed courses, the creaking and
straining of the timbers, seemed as nothing--the very silence of
death--while the _Eugenie_ tore on, through mist and spray, through
darkness and obscurity, with the foam flying white as winter drift
over her bows and martingale.
Again there was a pale-green gleam overhead, right above the truck of
the mainmast, where the chambers of the sky seemed to open. The
clouds divided in the darkness of heaven, and out of that opening
came the forked lightning, zigzag, green, and ghastly.
There was a dreadful shock, which knocked every man down, except
Carlton, who was at the wheel, and an exclamation of terror escaped
us all.
A thunderbolt had struck the _Eugenie_!
With all its wondrous speed--instantaneous as electric light could
be--it glided down the maintop gallant mast, rending the topmast-cap
and the framed grating of the top to pieces; thence it ran down the
mainmast, burst through the deck, and spent its fury in the hold.
At that moment the main-topmast, with all its yards, gear, and
canvas, fell about the deck in burning brands, and the brig was hove
right in the wind's eye, while the sea twitched the helm out of the
hands of Ned Carlton, who became bewildered on finding the compasses
lose all their polarity, by the influence of the electric fluid, the
north point of one heading south-east, and of the other south-west.
Almost immediately after this there was a cry of "Fire!"--that cry so
terrible, so appalling on board ship; and then thick white smoke was
seen to issue from the crevices of the battened main-hatchway.
All hands rushed to this point. The long-boat was unshipped from its
chocks and dragged aft; some stood by with buckets of water, while
others struck off the padlocks and iron bars; the tarpaulin was torn
away--the hatch lifted--and lo!
A column of fire ascended in a straight line from the body of the
hold, lurid, red, and scorching, as the casks of molasses and bales
of cotton burned and blazed together. A column that rose up between
the masts, scorched through the main-stay, all the braces of the fore
yards, and filled the whole vessel with light, announced that all was
over!
"It is a doomed ship!" cried Tom Lambourne; "we must leave her at
last. Clear away the longboat. Be cool, lads; be cool and steady!
Your lives depend upon your conduct now, and your obedience to
orders!"