THE NIGHT AND MORNING
It seemed such a heart-breaking thing to be hitched in that place, so
immovable, while the seas were slapping us and the wind so foully
misbehaving, that I declare I could have wept for bitterness of spirit.
But it was no time for weeping; we had other guesswork on hand, and we
buckled to our work with a will. We agreed that the straightest course
open to us was to cut away the mainmast, and this we promptly set about
doing. There are few sadder sights in the world than to see stout
fellows striving with all their strength to hew down the mainmast of a
goodly ship. The fall of a great tree in a forest preaches its sermon,
but not with half the poignancy of a noble mast which men who love their
vessel are compelled to cast overboard. As the axes rose and fell it
seemed to me as if their every stroke dealt me a hurt at the heart. As
the white wood flew it would not have surprised me if blood had
followed upon the blow--as I have read the like concerning a tree in
some old tale--so dear was the ship to me. A man's first ship is like a
man's first love, and grips him hard, and he parts from neither without
agony. When at last our purpose was accomplished, and the mast swayed to
its fall, I could have sat me down and blubbered like a baby.
And yet in another moment, so strange is the ordering of human affairs
and so much irony is there in the lessons of life, we who were all ready
to weep for the loss of our mainmast would have been only too glad to
say good-bye to it. For while its fall augmented the shock, and made us
in worse case that way, we were not lightened of it for all our pains,
for it was so entangled with the rigging that we could not for all our
efforts get it overboard. We were now in sheer desperation, for it did
not seem as if we could ever get our ship free, but must needs bide
there in our agony until she broke and gave us all to the waters. But a
little after there came a gleam of hope, for the furious wind and rain
abated, and finally fell away altogether, and at last the longest night
I had ever known came to an end, and the dawn came creeping up to the
sky as I had often seen it come creeping when I awakened early lying on
my bed in Sendennis. Oh, the joy to hail the daylight again, and yet
what a terrible condition of things the daylight showed to us! There was
our ship stuck fast on the bank; there was her deck all encumbered with
the fallen mast and the twisted ropes and the riven sails. Every man's
face was as white as a dish, and there was fear in every man's eyes. Nor
was it longer possible to pacify all the women-folk or the children, now
that the daylight showed them the full extent of their disaster, and
every now and then they would break forth into cries or fits of sobbing
which were pitiful to hear. Marjorie did much to calm their terrors, as
did Barbara Hatchett, both of whom showed very brave and calm; and,
indeed, the only pleasing memory of all that time of terror is the
thought of those two women, the one in all the pride of her dark beauty,
the other in all the glory of her fair loveliness, moving about like
ministering angels amongst all those people whom the sudden peril of
death had made so fearful and so helpless. The beautiful woman and the
beautiful maid--none on board had braver hearts than they!
You may imagine with what eagerness we scanned the sea for any sight of
land. But though Captain Amber searched the whole horizon with his
spy-glass, we could find nothing better than an island which lay off
from us at a distance of about two leagues, and what seemed to be a
smaller island, which lay further from us. This did not offer any great
promise of refuge to us, but as it was apparently the only hope we had
we all strove to make the best of it, and to pretend to be greatly
rejoiced at the sight of even so much land.
Captain Amber immediately ordered Hatchett to man one of the ship's
boats and to make for those islands to examine them, a task that now
presented no difficulty, for the wind had fallen away and the sea was
smooth as it had been turbulent. I would fain have gone with the boat
for the sake of the change, for I was sick at heart of the moaning and
the groaning of the poor wretches on board, but Captain Amber did not
send me, and I had no right to volunteer; and, besides, I was still
troubled by a confused sense of something that I had to tell him; some
danger that I was instinctively seeking to ward off from him--and from
her.
There was something piteous in the sight of that single boat creeping
slowly across the sea towards those distant islands, and I watched it as
it grew smaller and smaller, until it was little more than a mere speck
upon the waters.
Everything depended for us upon the fortunes of that boat, upon the
tidings that it might bring back to us. I am proud to say that my
thoughts went out across that sea to the home where my mother was, who
prayed day and night for her boy's safety, and that my lips repeated
that prayer she had taught me while I supplicated Heaven with all
humility of heart, if it were His will, to bring us out of that peril.
We spent the time during the boat's absence in clearing the decks as
well as we might, in renewing our efforts to pacify our women-kind, and
in fresh attempts, which, however, were unavailing, to get our mast
overboard. Captain Amber had gathered together those of his men who were
old soldiers, and, having addressed them in a stirring speech, which
made my blood beat more warmly, he set them to various tasks in
preparation for what now appeared to be inevitable--our leaving the
ship. The brave fellows behaved as obediently as if they had been on
parade, as courageously as if they had been going into action. They were
picked men of fine mettle, and they were yet to be tested by severer
tests, and to stand the test well.
At about nine o'clock or a little later the boat returned. We could see
it, of course, a long way off, as it made its course towards us, but
none of those on board made any sign to us, which we took, and rightly,
too, to be a sign of no great cheer. Then our hopes, which had begun to
run a little higher, ebbed away again, and we waited in silence for the
boat to come alongside and for Hatchett to climb on board and to make
his report to Captain Marmaduke. This he did in private, Captain
Marmaduke taking him a little apart, while we all looked on and hungered
for the news.
We had not long to wait, and when it came it was not so bad as we had
feared, if it was not so good as some of us had hoped for.
Captain Amber came forward to the middle of the deck, where everybody
was assembled waiting for the tidings.
'Friends and companions,' he said, 'our explorers report that yonder
island is far from inhospitable. It is not covered by the sea at high
water, as we feared at first; it is much larger than it seems to us at
this distance; there will be ample room for us all during the short time
that we may have to abide there before we sight a ship. I must indeed
admit to you that the coast is both rocky and full of shoals, and that
the landing thereupon will not be without its difficulties, and even its
dangers, but we came out prepared to face difficulties and dangers if
needs were, and these shall not dismay us. As for the further island, we
may learn of that later.'
He looked very gallant as he said all this, standing there with the
morning sunlight shining upon his brave face and upon his fine coat--for
by this time he was fully habited and in his best, as beseemeth the
leader of an expedition when about to disembark upon an unfamiliar
shore. All around him had listened in silence while he spoke, but now,
at the close, some of the soldier-fellows set up a kind of cheer in
answer to his speech. It was not very much of a cheer, but it was better
than nothing in our dismal case. It served to set our bloods tingling a
little, so Lancelot and I caught it up, and kept it up too, with the
whole strength of our lungs, till the example spread, and soon we had
every man on deck huzzaing his best, while Cornelys Jensen and Hatchett
swung their caps and lifted their voices with the best. It was a strange
sound, that hearty British cheer ringing out through that lonely air; it
was a strange sight, all those stout fellows marshalled as best they
might on the sloping deck and fanning their scanty hopes into a flame
with shouting, while the ruined mast, thrust over the side, pointed
curiously enough straight in the direction of those islands whose
hospitable qualities we were soon to try.
It was soon decided, after a brief conference between Captain Amber and
Cornelys Jensen, that we should transfer our company as fast as might be
to the near island, for there was no knowing when the smooth weather
might shift again and how long our Royal Christopher would hold together
if the waves, which were now lapping against its sides, grew angrier. It
was resolved that the most pressing business was to send on shore at
once the women and children and such sick people as we had on board, for
these, as was but natural, were the most troublesome for us to deal with
in our difficulty, being timorous and noisy with their fears, and
setting a bad example.
So when it was about ten of the clock, or maybe later, for the time
slipped by rapidly, we got loose our shallop and our skiff and lowered
them into the water, and got most of the women and the children and the
sick folk into them and sent them off, poor creatures, across the waste
of waters to the islands. Barbara Hatchett went with them, for her
firmness and courage served rarely to keep them quiet and inspire them
with some little fortitude. As for Marjorie, she would by no means leave
the ship so long as Lancelot was on board, so she stayed with us, at
which I could not help in my heart being glad, in spite of the danger
that there was to everyone who stuck by the ship.
While these first boat loads were away we on board made efforts for the
provisioning of our new home, getting up the bread and such viands as we
could, and packing them in as portable a manner as might be for the next
journey. But by this time unhappily we began to be threatened by a fresh
trouble. No sooner were we free from the women-folk and the children,
whose presence had hampered us so sorely, than a far more pressing
vexation came upon us. For certain of the sailors, who up to this point
had behaved well enough, suddenly flung aside their good behaviour. They
had got at the wine, of which, unhappily, in the first confusion of our
mischance no care had been taken, and many of them were roaring drunk,
and capable of doing little service beyond shouting and cursing at one
another. When Cornelys Jensen saw this he did his best to prevent them,
and though some of them were too sullen to obey him, he did at last
contrive with threats and oaths to keep such of the sailors as were
still sober away from the liquor. By this time Lancelot, facing the new
danger, got from his uncle the key of the storeroom where the arms were
kept, and served out weapons to all those on board who had been soldiers
and who loved Captain Amber. A pretty body of men they made, each with a
musket on his shoulder, a hanger by his side, and a brace of pistols in
his belt. They were all reliable men--many of them, indeed, had
experienced religion, and had in them something of the old Covenanting
spirit, which had worked such wonders under General Cromwell.
I could see that Cornelys Jensen was very ill-pleased with this act on
our part, but he could say nothing, for the thing was done before he
could say or do aught to prevent it, and very fortunate it was that we
had done so betimes, for now Captain Marmaduke had under him a body of
sober, disciplined, well-armed men, who would obey him and stand by him
to the last extremity. I myself had slung a hanger by my side and thrust
a brace of pistols into my girdle, and I believe that I well-nigh
rejoiced in the peril which gave me the chance to carry those weapons
and to make, as I fancied, so brave a show. Lancelot armed himself too
in like fashion, for he served as second in command of our little troop
under Captain Amber. For my part, I held no rank indeed in the little
army, but I looked upon myself as a kind of _aide-de-camp_ to my
Captain.
With half a dozen of those men we gathered together all the cases of
wine that had been brought out and placed them back in the spirit room,
over which we mounted two men as guard. It was idle to try and lock the
door, for the lock had been shattered, possibly when we ran aground, and
would not hold. But we locked the door of the room where our weapons and
ammunition were, and placed another guard there.
I think many of the sailors were mightily annoyed at this action of
ours, and gladly would have resented it. But there was nothing they
could do just then, and though Cornelys Jensen was more savage than any
of them, he wore a smooth face, and kept them in check by his authority.
Though we did not dream of it then, it was a mighty blessing for us,
that same shipwreck, for if it had not come about just when it did worse
would have happened. As matters now stood, our little party--for it was
becoming pretty plain that there were two parties in the ship--was
well-armed, while the sailors had no other weapons than their knives.