"Land, ho!" he exclaimed; "I sees him! It vas lighten oop, and I sees
him on ze port bow!"
As the second-mate spoke, there was a perceptible movement of the heavy,
close atmosphere, which had hitherto been still and sultry, like what it
generally is during a thunderstorm, or when some electrical disturbance
is impending in the air. Then, the land breeze sprang up again, the
wind, first coming in little puffs and subsequently settling down into a
steady breeze off shore, and the heavy curtain of black vapour that had
previously enveloped us began to drift away to leeward, enabling us
after a bit to see the ship's position and our surroundings--albeit all
was yet wrapped in the semi-darkness of night, as it was close on eleven
o'clock.
The frowning outlines of a big mountain towered up above the vessel's
masts on our left or port bow, hazy and dark and grim, and on the
starboard hand a jutting point of land, evidently a spur of the same
cliff, projected past the _Denver City_ a long way astern, for we could
distinguish the white wash of the sea on the sand at its base; while,
right in front, nearly touching our bowsprit, was a mass of trees, whose
dusky skeleton branches were waved to and fro by the tropical night
breeze, making them appear as if alive, their mournful whishing as they
swayed bearing out this impression.
It seemed, at first glance, that the ship had been driven ashore into a
small land-locked bay, no outlet being to be seen save the narrow
opening between the cliffs astern through which she had been carried by
the wave that stranded us--fortunately, without dashing us on the rocks
on either hand.
As we gazed around in startled wonder, striving to take in all the
details of the strange scene, the misty, brooding vapour lifted still
further, and a patch of sky cleared overhead. Through this opening the
pale moon shone down, illuminating the landscape with her sickly green
light; but she also threw such deep shadows that everything looked weird
and unreal, the perspective being dwarfed here and magnified there to so
great an extent that the ship's masts appeared to touch the stars, while
the men on the fo'c's'le were transformed into giants, their forms being
for the moment out of all proportion to their natural size, as they
craned their necks over the head rail.
Jan Steenbock's voice from the poop at this juncture recalled my
wandering and wondering imagination to the more prosaic and practical
realities of our situation, which quickly put to flight the ghostly
fancies that had previously crowded thick and fast on my mind.
"Vo'c's'le ahoy!" shouted the second-mate, his deep, manly tones at once
putting fresh courage into all of us, and making the men pull themselves
together and start up eager for action, abandoning all their craven
fears. "How vas it mit yous vorvarts! Ze sheep, I zink, vas in ze deep
vater astern."
"I'll soon tell you, sir," cried Tom Bullover in answer, jumping to the
side in a jiffey, with a coil of the lead line, which he took from the
main chains, where it was fastened. "I'll heave the lead, and you shall
have our soundings in a brace of shakes, sir!"
With that he clambered into the rigging, preparatory to carrying out his
intention; but he had no sooner got into the shrouds than he discovered
his task was useless.
"There's no need to sound, sir," he sang out; "the ship's high and dry
ashore up to the foremast, and there ain't more than a foot or two of
water aft of that, as far as I can see."
"Thunder!" roared out the skipper, who had in the meantime come up again
on the poop from the cuddy, where he and the first-mate had no doubt
been drowning their fright during the darkness with their favourite
panacea, rum, leaving the entire control of the ship after she struck to
Jan Steenbock. "Air thet so?"
"I says what I sees," replied Tom Bullover brusquely, he, like most of
the hands, being pretty sick by now of the captain's drunken ways, and
pusillanimous behaviour in leaving the deck when the vessel and all on
board were in such deadly peril; "and if you don't believe me, why, you
can look over the side and judge where the ship is for yerself!"
Captain Snaggs made no retort; but, moving to the port bulwarks from the
companion hatchway, where he had been standing, followed Tom's
suggestion of looking over the side, which indeed all of us, impelled by
a similar curiosity, at once did.
It was as my friend the carpenter had said.
The _Denver City_ was for more than two-thirds of her length high and
dry ashore on a sandy beach, that looked of a brownish yellow in the
moonlight, with her forefoot resting between two hillocks covered with
some sort of scrub. This prevented her from falling over broadside on,
as she was shored up just as if she had been put into dry dock for
caulking purposes; although, unfortunately, she was by no means in such
a comfortable position, nor were we on board either, as if she had been
in a shipbuilder's yard, with more civilised surroundings than were to
be found on a desert shore like this!
Her bilge abaft under the mizzen-chains was just awash; and, the water,
deepening from here, as the shore shelved somewhat abruptly, was about
the depth of four fathoms or thereabouts by the rudder post, where the
bottom could be seen, of soft, shining white sand, without a rock in
sight--so far, at least, as we were able to notice in the pale greenish
moonlight, by which we made our observations as well as we could, and
with some little difficulty, too.
"Guess we're in a pretty tight fix," said Captain Snaggs, after peering
up and down alongside for some time, Tom Bullover in the interim taking
the hand lead with him on to the poop and sounding over the taffrail at
the deepest part. "We can't do nuthin', though, I reckon, till
daylight, an' ez we're hard an' fast, an' not likely to float off, I'll
go below an' turn in till then. Mister Steenbock, ye'd better pipe the
hands down an' do ditter, I guess, fur thaar's no use, I ken see, in
stoppin' up hyar an' doin' nuthin'."
"Yous can go below; I vill keep ze vatch," replied the second-mate, with
ill-concealed contempt, as the skipper shuffled off down the companion
way again, back to his orgy with the equally drunken Flinders, who had
not once appeared on deck, after perilling the ship through his
obstinacy in putting her on the course that had led to our being driven
ashore.
The very first shock of the earthquake, indeed, which we felt before the
tidal wave caught us, had been sufficient to frighten him from the poop
even before the darkness enveloped us and the final catastrophe came!
As for Jan Steenbock, he remained walking up and down the deck as
composedly as if the poor _Denver City_ was still at sea, instead of
being cooped up now, veritably, like a fish out of water, on dry land.
He did not abandon his post, at any rate!
After a while, though, he acted on the skipper's cowardly advice so far
as to tell the starboard watch to turn in, which none of the men were
loth to do, for the moon was presently obscured by a thick black cloud,
and a torrent of heavy tropical rain quickly descending made most of us
seek shelter in the fo'c's'le.
Here I soon fell asleep, utterly wearied out, not only from standing
about so long, having been on my legs ever since the early morning when
I lit the galley fire, but also quite overcome with all the excitement I
had gone through.