As long as the trade-wind lasted I managed to run the ship well enough
with Brown’s help, for there was seldom much to do in the way of
handling canvas, but as we neared the zone of variables things took a
different turn. The third mate was not enough of a sailor to take
advantage of the slants, and the heavy weather of the pampero was
approaching. It made it necessary for me to be on deck most of the time,
and even then I could not save some of the lighter canvas which was
caught in a squall. The strain was hard, but Benson, who kept strict
watch with his mate, Johnson, called me at any sudden change and spared
me not at all.
One morning it fell dead calm. The sun shone through a sort of haze and
the day was cool. We had made thirty-three degrees of southing and were
about four hundred miles off the Plate. The swell ran smoothly, but even
through its oily surface one could see the swirls of the current from
the great river. They formed tide rips which ridged the ocean for a
space and then disappeared only to form again when a mass of water would
force its way to the surface. The sea had lost its blue colour and it
was dull. About eleven o’clock in the morning the sun broke through the
haze and shone strongly. There was absolutely no wind and we lay
drifting all around the compass. Suddenly, from a great distance, came
the deep roll of thunder. The sky was now absolutely cloudless and the
rolling crashes following each other at close intervals made an uncanny
sound. Not a tip of cloud bank rose above the horizon, and the men about
the deck gazed in some astonishment at the noise.
I knew it well, and knew it was the pampero from the River Plate. We
would get a touch of it during the night and then things would be
somewhat mixed aboard the _Arrow_.
It started to breeze up gently from the westward about sundown, but not
a cloud rose above the horizon. By nine o’clock that night it grew very
dark. The blackness was most impenetrable. The wind came sighing over
the smooth sea, and I began to strip the ship for the fracas.
We carried no running lights, as Benson didn’t care to be seen at night,
although, for that matter, he would have been much safer than in the
daytime. His ideas upon nautical subjects were at a variance with my
own, but I made no comment. We carried a light in the binnacle in order
to steer. Besides this single lamp there was never a light allowed
aboard the ship except in the captain’s cabin.
I was very tired that evening, but stayed upon the poop watching the
west on the lookout for the first signs of a squall. About ten o’clock
there was sharp lightning to starboard. We were heading almost due south
and our yards were sharp on the starboard tack. Suddenly the blackness
grew denser to windward. A deep murmuring came over the inky sea. Then a
puff of wind smote sharply.
“Hard up, hard up that wheel,” I bawled, as the thrashing of the weather
leech of the maintopsail warned me. Brown sprang to the wheel and with
the man already there rolled it hard up. Then with a rush and droning
roar through the rigging the pampero struck us.
Luckily, we had steering-way, for if she had not answered her helm on
the instant, the _Arrow_ would have been taken flat aback and dismasted,
which would have meant a terrible ending for the desperate rascals. A
dismasted ship in mid-ocean is usually a lost ship. The horrors of a
boat cruise in overloaded small craft in that latitude meant the worst
that could happen to the seafarer.
With a heel to leeward that brought the water well up on her deck, the
_Arrow_ paid off before the gale and tore her way through a sea which
now shone ghastly and white with the phosphorescent foam. I looked
aloft and saw that every yard-arm and truck held a ball of fire. The
bellying lower topsails of the heaviest double nought canvas strained
away like the wings of some giant bird in the night overhead. The roar
of the wind rushing through the standing rigging and pouring out under
the foot of the canvas made the cries of the men sound faint and
distant, those on the yard-arms rolling up the lighter canvas bawling to
those on deck in strained and frantic tones. None of the convicts had
seen such weather before and the flare of the St. Elmo fires lent a
ghastliness to the scene that might have made a sailor’s heart beat
quicker. A man came close to me on the poop muttering curses and prayers
and feeling about for something he probably did not want. A bright flash
of lightning lit the scene, and I saw a crowd of men on the main-deck
forward, huddled under the port side of the forward house. They seemed
absolutely panic-stricken. However, we had some sailor-men aboard, and
they worked manfully getting gaskets upon the yards and the gear
cleared up after a fashion. Then I managed to get the yards squared and
ran the ship dead before the blast, leaving a wake flashing and
whitening a full hundred feet on either side.
A flash of lightning showed Benson standing near the break of the poop.
He was straining his eyes to windward and holding on to a line, but he
appeared little concerned. Close by, leaning against the mizzen with his
arms folded and pipe stuck rakishly in his mouth, was Johnson. Whatever
the two ruffians felt, I knew that fear found no place in their hearts.
They were trusting me to see them safely through, and all the time,
whether they knew it or not, the thought of the girl below in the
scoundrel’s stateroom was the only thing that kept me from sending them
to hell. A sudden swing into the wind and a couple of cast off braces,
and the fate of the villains would be as certain as death and suffering
itself. Yet, there they stood, trusting me. I never could understand it,
and I thought upon it for some time that night in the black rush of the
pampero. The futility of their struggles, the absolute hopelessness of
their case, were all plain before me, but they were unconcerned.
Benson was a fatalist of the most pronounced type. He dealt only and
simply with the present. The past was irrevocably dead, blotted out. The
future was a mystery, absolute and unyielding to even the subtlest mind.
He dealt with what matter he had in hand nor worried himself the least
with that he held in no control.
On and on into the blackness ahead we tore at the rate of fifteen knots
an hour with the wind upon our starboard taffrail. No one went on
lookout, although I ordered a man to do so. Whoever went forward was
probably swallowed in the crowd of frightened convicts, or took
advantage of the panic to turn in and get some much needed rest. I knew
we were entering the zone of commerce and would probably sight some
vessel soon, and the thought of tearing away into the night at the wild
rate we were going without a light made me strain every nerve for
something ahead.
It was about midnight that I thought I saw a light ahead. I called
Benson and asked him to look, for my eyes were raw from the salt spume
and want of rest. The fellow saw nothing, and we stood together gazing
into the blackness beyond the jib-boom end. Then I suddenly made out a
green light close aboard and to port, and I knew we were upon a vessel
hove to in the storm.
We had been running with the wind drawing more and more upon the
starboard quarter and I saw that it would not do to luff any further and
cross the stranger’s bow. Besides, he might be going ahead some in spite
of the sea which was now running heavily. There was not a second to
lose, and I sprang to the wheel and rolled it up to pass his stern.
Almost before the lubber’s mark began to shift, the green light
disappeared and the blackness ahead took form. Right in front of us lay
an immense ship wallowing along under short canvas and not fifty
fathoms distant.
Not a word had come from forward. Not a soul had seen her. Before any
one on the main-deck knew of her whereabouts we were grinding along her
stern, our yard-arms hooking into the vang of her spankergaff and
tearing that spar out of her while our mainbrace bumkin tore away a
piece of her taffrail. Hoarse yells came from her quarter-deck, and I
heard distinctly a deep voice asking, “What ship is that?” but we went
rushing onward without a word and disappeared. It was a close call.
Benson turned his face toward me and I tried to catch the look of his
eye, but it was too dark.
“I reckon we’ll not hit anything more to-night,” I said. “I’m about
tired out and will leave Brown on deck to call me if there is any
change.”
“All right,” he answered, coolly.
And I went below.