THE HIGHLANDER PASSES A WRECK
We were still on the Banks, when a terrific storm came down upon us,
the like of which I had never before beheld, or imagined. The rain
poured down in sheets and cascades; the scupper holes could hardly
carry it off the decks; and in bracing the yards we waded about almost
up to our knees; every thing floating about, like chips in a dock.
This violent rain was the precursor of a hard squall, for which we duly
prepared, taking in our canvas to double-reefed-top-sails.
The tornado came rushing along at last, like a troop of wild horses
before the flaming rush of a burning prairie. But after bowing and
cringing to it awhile, the good Highlander was put off before it; and
with her nose in the water, went wallowing on, ploughing milk-white
waves, and leaving a streak of illuminated foam in her wake.
It was an awful scene. It made me catch my breath as I gazed. I could
hardly stand on my feet, so violent was the motion of the ship. But
while I reeled to and fro, the sailors only laughed at me; and bade me
look out that the ship did not fall overboard; and advised me to get a
handspike, and hold it down hard in the weather-scuppers, to steady her
wild motions. But I was now getting a little too wise for this foolish
kind of talk; though all through the voyage, they never gave it over.
This storm past, we had fair weather until we got into the Irish Sea.
The morning following the storm, when the sea and sky had become blue
again, the man aloft sung out that there was a wreck on the lee-beam.
We bore away for it, all hands looking eagerly toward it, and the
captain in the mizzen-top with his spy-glass. Presently, we slowly
passed alongside of it.
It was a dismantled, water-logged schooner, a most dismal sight, that
must have been drifting about for several long weeks. The bulwarks were
pretty much gone; and here and there the bare _stanchions,_ or posts,
were left standing, splitting in two the waves which broke clear over
the deck, lying almost even with the sea. The foremast was snapt off
less than four feet from its base; and the shattered and splintered
remnant looked like the stump of a pine tree thrown over in the woods.
Every time she rolled in the trough of the sea, her open main-hatchway
yawned into view; but was as quickly filled, and submerged again, with
a rushing, gurgling sound, as the water ran into it with the lee-roll.
At the head of the stump of the mainmast, about ten feet above the
deck, something like a sleeve seemed nailed; it was supposed to be the
relic of a jacket, which must have been fastened there by the crew for
a signal, and been frayed out and blown away by the wind.
Lashed, and leaning over sideways against the taffrail, were three
dark, green, grassy objects, that slowly swayed with every roll, but
otherwise were motionless. I saw the captain’s, glass directed toward
them, and heard him say at last, “They must have been dead a long
time.” These were sailors, who long ago had lashed themselves to the
taffrail for safety; but must have famished.
Full of the awful interest of the scene, I surely thought the captain
would lower a boat to bury the bodies, and find out something about the
schooner. But we did not stop at all; passing on our course, without so
much as learning the schooner’s name, though every one supposed her to
be a New Brunswick lumberman.
On the part of the sailors, no surprise was shown that our captain did
not send off a boat to the wreck; but the steerage passengers were
indignant at what they called his barbarity. For me, I could not but
feel amazed and shocked at his indifference; but my subsequent sea
experiences have shown me, that such conduct as this is very common,
though not, of course, when human life can be saved.
So away we sailed, and left her; drifting, drifting on; a garden spot
for barnacles, and a playhouse for the sharks.
“Look there,” said Jackson, hanging over the rail and coughing—“look
there; that’s a sailor’s coffin. Ha! ha! Buttons,” turning round to
me—“how do you like that, Buttons? Wouldn’t you like to take a sail
with them ’ere dead men? Wouldn’t it be nice?” And then he tried to
laugh, but only coughed again. “Don’t laugh at dem poor fellows,” said
Max, looking grave; “do’ you see dar bodies, dar souls are farder off
dan de Cape of Dood Hope.”
“Dood Hope, Dood Hope,” shrieked Jackson, with a horrid grin, mimicking
the Dutchman, “dare is no dood hope for dem, old boy; dey are drowned
and d .... d, as you and I will be, Red Max, one of dese dark nights.”
“No, no,” said Blunt, “all sailors are saved; they have plenty of
squalls here below, but fair weather aloft.”
“And did you get that out of your silly Dream Book, you Greek?” howled
Jackson through a cough. “Don’t talk of heaven to me—it’s a lie—I know
it—and they are all fools that believe in it. Do you think, you Greek,
that there’s any heaven for _you?_ Will they let _you_ in there, with
that tarry hand, and that oily head of hair? Avast! when some shark
gulps you down his hatchway one of these days, you’ll find, that by
dying, you’ll only go from one gale of wind to another; mind that, you
Irish cockney! Yes, you’ll be bolted down like one of your own pills:
and I should like to see the whole ship swallowed down in the Norway
maelstrom, like a box on ’em. That would be a dose of salts for ye!”
And so saying, he went off, holding his hands to his chest, and
coughing, as if his last hour was come.
Every day this Jackson seemed to grow worse and worse, both in body and
mind. He seldom spoke, but to contradict, deride, or curse; and all the
time, though his face grew thinner and thinner, his eyes seemed to
kindle more and more, as if he were going to die out at last, and leave
them burning like tapers before a corpse.
Though he had never attended churches, and knew nothing about
Christianity; no more than a Malay pirate; and though he could not read
a word, yet he was spontaneously an atheist and an infidel; and during
the long night watches, would enter into arguments, to prove that there
was nothing to be believed; nothing to be loved, and nothing worth
living for; but every thing to be hated, in the wide world. He was a
horrid desperado; and like a wild Indian, whom he resembled in his
tawny skin and high cheek bones, he seemed to run amuck at heaven and
earth. He was a Cain afloat; branded on his yellow brow with some
inscrutable curse; and going about corrupting and searing every heart
that beat near him.
But there seemed even more woe than wickedness about the man; and his
wickedness seemed to spring from his woe; and for all his hideousness,
there was that in his eye at times, that was ineffably pitiable and
touching; and though there were moments when I almost hated this
Jackson, yet I have pitied no man as I have pitied him.