AN INVISIBLE FOE.
The wind increased. It now became obvious that the captain's
predictions would be verified, and that it would blow a whole gale
before morning. It was midnight, and gradually Captain Drew had been
taking off canvas. The sea had begun to rise. The yacht was now
close-reefed, but it had not been necessary to turn up the whole crew.
The wind had come on so gradually that the watch had been able to make
the necessary reductions. Captain Drew was a considerate man, and
never gave any unnecessary hardship to his men.
In the dim light of a moonless June night the sea looked dreary and
forlorn. Although the wind was high, and round the rigging and the
spars it seemed secret and furtive, it appeared to cling closely to
the water, to leave the hollows between the waves stealthily, and to
leave them only when goaded forward by something behind. Then it
leaped the crests of the waves swiftly, and flung itself in the
hollows once more.
The water looked cold and pallid. From the heavy swash at the bows, to
the almost human murmur of the back-water under the counter, there ran
all along the side a gamut of depressing sounds, into which every now
and then ran the swirl of spray, mounting from the bow and falling
with a groan on the deck, to run aft in whispered hisses, until it
found its way to scupper-holes, whence it fell with a weary drone into
the sea to leeward.
Captain Drew was not, for a sailor, a very superstitious man. But in
the atmosphere of this night there was something which daunted him.
The mere fact that a flaw should have been found in a vital part of
the yacht, and that this flaw had never been discovered until it was,
under existing circumstances, past effectual cure, was depressing. But
then again there was the sustaining fact that this yacht, which he had
sailed for years, was now practically his own property. He was now, in
effect, five to six thousand pounds a richer man than when that day
had broken.
How was he to regard that rudder-head? As a friend or an enemy? If it
had not been for the defect in the rudder, the Duke would, in all
probability, not have thought of getting rid of the _Seabird_; and if
he had not thought of getting rid of her, it would never have occurred
to him to give her to his captain. If the rudder-head held until they
got back to Silver Bay, it would undoubtedly be the best friend, after
the Duke, he had ever had in all his life. But if the rudder-head
gave, what then? No one could tell. They might be driven ashore and
all lost, or they might be able to live through the gale, and be
picked up by some steamer or sailing-vessel, which would stand by them
until a tug or some other kind of succour could reach them. Of course,
if the rudder gave, they could do something with a few spars towed
behind them, but not much. It was better to keep on hoping the
rudder-head would hold.
It was now more than four hours since the Duke and the Marquis had
gone below, and these four hours had settled one thing. There was no
longer any chance of their putting in anywhere. Silver Bay was now the
nearest harbour. The watch had been changed, and a second new hand was
now at the wheel.
"Does she answer well, Jefferson?" asked the captain.
"As well as ever, sir," answered the man at the wheel.
By this time every man aboard knew what had happened, and the means
which had been taken to meet the emergency.
The captain had slung the lantern on a belaying-pin on the weather
side, abreast the companion. He unslung the lantern, and once more
went aft and turned the bull's eye full on the rudder head.
He could notice no alteration. The iron looked taut, the wedges looked
unchanged, the helmsman found the wheel worked as well as ever. And
yet all this time there was creeping up at an infinitesimal rate, from
the inner side of the rudder-iron, that which would be sufficient to
dash all Captain Drew's hopes to the ground.
As he gazed at the rudder he thought:
"If the Duke does give her to me when we get into the bay, I'll let
her swing there at anchor until I get a new rudder into her. She shall
have the best rudder they can make for her at Izleworth. It will cost
fifteen--ay, maybe twenty--pounds. It ought not to cost more than
twenty pounds. But cost what it may, she shall have the best. Whatever
the ship-carpenter asks he shall have. I will not cheapen him a penny.
If he says five-and-twenty pounds, he shall have five-and-twenty
pounds. You must not look a gift horse in the mouth, and I won't
haggle over a few pounds to make the craft I sailed so long, and that
now is going to bring me a fortune, shipshape and seaworthy. She
doesn't want anything else. We never knew anything she wanted that she
didn't get. Not likely, with such an owner as the Duke, God bless him!
"Ay, it's a fortune, and a large fortune, too, for a man like me. The
most I ever had any reason to hope for was a few hundreds in the will
of the Duke; and here now it has come to thousands all at once, and
with the Duke alive and friendly to me yet, and promising me a new
ship, and giving me the old one."
He bent forward and felt round the rudder-head carefully, tenderly, as
though it were sensitive. Then he rose, hung up the lantern on the
belaying-pin, and resumed his walk. His thoughts went on:
"I will run no risk with her. A plank or beam or stanchion may get
dozed any time. It is likely everything else in the _Seabird_ is as
sound as a bell. But this matter of the rudder-head is a warning. I'll
never take her to sea again at my own risk. I'll sell her in the bay,
and will take good care I have the money in my pocket before she goes
to sea again. How do I know but that the mainmast may be gone, or the
sternpost? No, no. It won't do to throw away a chance like this. Not
twice in a lifetime does a man in my position meet with a chance like
this. It will not do to throw away a chance like this."
He filled and lit another pipe, and continued his walk.
It was now grey dawn, and the wind continued still to increase.
Captain Drew was in no way uneasy about the wind or the sea. She was
equal to it all, and much more, if the rudder-head only held. Although
the wind had now double the force it had when he ordered in the
flying-jib and ordered down the gaff-topsails, so skilfully had sail
been reduced, and so free from anything like squall had been the gale,
that she had never been more than a plank or two under to leeward.
Water was now coming over the weather-side in bucketfals; and now and
then the schooner plunged her nose under a big sea, and washed her
decks fore and aft.
It was a dismal daybreak. The sky was all overcast with low-flying
grey clouds, the sea a tangled maze of irregular billows. As day
advanced there was no encouraging element in the scene. No land, no
vessel, was in sight. All looked void and purposeless. The water and
the air were given up to the tempest, and the schooner seemed an
impertinence the presence of which air and water resented with deadly
hatred.
Still, dreary as the dawn. Captain Drew preferred it to the night. He
kept the deck. He was resolved to carry out his determination of not
going below until the _Seabird_ was safely at anchor in Silver Bay. It
was now between two and three, and, if all went well, and all had been
going well, he might, in reason, hope to be in smooth water in less
than a dozen hours.
Every half hour, as morning grew into day, he paused and examined that
rudder-head. It held admirably to all appearances. He could discover
no sign of any weakness, of any working, of any giving out. He rubbed
his hands once more in satisfaction. He now felt assured the rudder
would last until they had reached security. Of course there was no
great strain on the steering-gear. It was not as if they had been
tacking up a narrow river, where they had to come about every few
minutes. A couple of spokes to port now, a couple of spokes to
starboard at another moment, sufficed to keep her on her course. He
should not have to put any strain on the tiller until they ported to
enter the bay; that was, of course, provided they did not encounter
very much worse weather or the danger of a collision. As soon as he
saw anything he would be able to tell better how they were, but he
calculated that they would fetch Silver Bay on this reach without
changing the course a point; and he ought to know if anyone did, for
it was not the first nor the fiftieth northeast wind he had run away
on in this same yacht _Seabird_.
When he was getting that new rudder made, there was one thing he would
be certain not to have like the old one: there should be no sacrifice
of strength to appearance. If there were to be interior angles, there
should be exterior angles also.
All this while the silent invisible foe was slowly, but surely,
working its way upwards.
At eight o'clock the Marquis came on deck, and was informed of the way
in which the night had gone over, and that Captain Drew hoped to let
go anchor in Silver Bay at about two o'clock that afternoon, if the
wind kept steadily as it now was, and the sea did not get very much
worse. The Duke did not come on deck. He feared to face the bitter
air.
As the day grew the wind and sea rose considerably, until the gale
became a storm, and the _Seabird_ had not a single dry inch of deck.
The rudder held bravely, although it now had to contend against
hardships which the captain had not foreseen for it a couple of hours
ago.
At noon they made out land under the port-bow; and by what Captain
Drew could see he knew he was right in his calculation, and that the
yacht would, on her present course, sail almost into the bay.
For miles and miles there was no other place of refuge but that bay.
In such a storm it was a serious thing to have such a lee-shore, for
at this part of the coast the land tends north-west, making a
lee-shore for a north-east wind. Captain Drew would have felt no
anxiety if no accident had happened; but in the face of a damaged
rudder on a lee-shore such as this, and in such a storm, he felt very
uneasy. If anything went at the rudder there would be no hope for the
yacht, and little or none for any man aboard her.
The schooner was now able to show only a storm-jib and close-reefed
scandalised mainsail to the storm.
At half-past one the foe, which had been so long invisible, came into
sight, the _Seabird_ being then about three miles to the south-west of
the entrance to Silver Bay.
At a quarter to two the carpenter, who had been ordered to watch the
rudder-head, saw the foe, which had so long been working in darkness,
and reported to the captain. The carpenter said to the captain:
"In the starboard side of the rudder-cap iron----"
"Yes."
"There's a crack."
"Good God! a crack? If that goes, we are all lost!"
"I think it's going fast, sir."
While the carpenter was telling this terrible news to the captain, on
shore Cheyne was standing among a knot of fishermen watching the
approaching yacht.