He hollowed his hands and roared back: “We’re shipwrecked seamen
adrift in a quarter-boat!”
Nearer and nearer came the shadow, and now it was a long, black hull,
a funnel pouring forth a dense volume of smoke, spotted with
fire-sparks, and tapering masts and fragile rigging, with the stars
running through them.
“Ease her!”
The sound of the throbbing grew more measured. We could hear the water
as it was churned up by the screw.
“Stop her!”
The sounds ceased, and the vessel came looming up slowly, more slowly,
until she stopped.
“What is that?—a boat?” exclaimed a strong bass voice.
“Yes!” answered the boatswain. “We’ve been shipwrecked; we’re adrift
in a quarter-boat.”
“Can you bring her alongside?”
“Ay, ay, sir!”
I threw out an oar, but trembled so violently that it was as much as I
could do to work it. We headed the boat for the steamer and rowed
toward her. As we approached, I perceived that she was very long,
bark-rigged, and raking, manifestly a powerful, iron-built ocean
steamer. They hung a red light on the forestay and a white light over
her port quarter, and lights flitted about her gangway.
A voice sung out: “How many are there of you?”
The boatswain answered: “Three men and a lady.”
On this the same voice called, “If you want help to bring that boat
alongside, we’ll send to you.”
“We’ll be alongside in a few minutes,” returned the boatswain.
But the fact was, the vessel had stopped her engines when further off
from us than we had imagined; being deceived by the magnitude of her
looming hull, which seemed to stand not a hundred fathoms away from
us, and by the wonderful distinctness of the voice that had spoken us.
I did not know how feeble I had become until I took the oar; and the
violent emotions excited in me by our rescue, now to be effected after
our long and heavy trials, diminished still the little strength that
was left in me; so that the boat moved very slowly through the water,
and it was full twenty minutes starting from the time when we had
shipped oars, before we came up with her.
“We’ll fling you a rope’s end,” said a voice; “look out for it.”
A line fell into the boat. The boatswain caught it, and sung out, “All
fast!”
I looked up the high side of the steamer: there was a crowd of men
assembled round the gangway, their faces visible in the light shed not
only by our own masthead lantern (which was on a level with the
steamer’s bulwarks), but by other lanterns which some of them held. In
all this light we, the occupants of the boat, were to be clearly
viewed from the deck; and the voice that had first addressed us said:
“Are you strong enough to get up the ladder? If not, we’ll sling you
on board.”
I answered that if a couple of hands would come down into the boat so
as to help the lady and a man (who had fallen imbecile) over the
ship’s side, the other two would manage to get on board without
assistance.
On this a short gangway-ladder was lowered, and two men descended and
got into the boat.
“Take that lady first,” I said, pointing to Mary, but holding on, as I
spoke, to the boat’s mast, for I felt horribly sick and faint, and
knew not, indeed, what was going to happen to me; and I had to exert
all my power to steady my voice.
They took her by the arms, and watching the moment when the wash of
the swell brought the boat against the ship’s side, landed her
cleverly on the ladder and helped her on to the deck.