THE LAST RESOURCE.
There was a hole in the keel. A leak had been sprung. When it happened
no one could have said. Was it when they touched the Caskets? Was it off
Ortach? Was it when they were whirled about the shallows west of
Aurigny? It was most probable that they had touched some rock there.
They had struck against some hidden buttress which they had not felt in
the midst of the convulsive fury of the wind which was tossing them. In
tetanus who would feel a prick?
The other sailor, the southern Basque, whose name was Ave Maria, went
down into the hold, too, came on deck again, and said,--
“There are two varas of water in the hold.”
About six feet.
Ave Maria added, “In less than forty minutes we shall sink.”
Where was the leak? They couldn’t find it. It was hidden by the water
which was filling up the hold. The vessel had a hole in her hull
somewhere under the water-line, quite forward in the keel. Impossible to
find it--impossible to check it. They had a wound which they could not
stanch. The water, however, was not rising very fast.
The chief called out,
“We must work the pump.”
Galdeazun replied, “We have no pump left.”
“Then,” said the chief, “we must make for land.”
“Where is the land?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor I.”
“But it must be somewhere.”
“True enough.”
“Let some one steer for it.”
“We have no pilot.”
“Stand to the tiller yourself.”
“We have lost the tiller.”
“Let’s rig one out of the first beam we can lay hands on. Nails--a
hammer--quick--some tools.”
“The carpenter’s box is overboard, we have no tools.”
“We’ll steer all the same, no matter where.”
“The rudder is lost.”
“Where is the boat? We’ll get in and row.”
“The boat is lost.”
“We’ll row the wreck.”
“We have lost the oars.”
“We’ll sail.”
“We have lost the sails and the mast.”
“We’ll rig one up with a pole and a tarpaulin for sail Let’s get clear
of this and trust in the wind.”
“There is no wind.”
The wind, indeed, had left them, the storm had fled; and its departure,
which they had believed to mean safety, meant, in fact, destruction. Had
the sou’-wester continued it might have driven them wildly on some
shore--might have beaten the leak in speed--might, perhaps, have carried
them to some propitious sandbank, and cast them on it before the hooker
foundered. The swiftness of the storm, bearing them away, might have
enabled them to reach land; but no more wind, no more hope. They were
going to die because the hurricane was over.
The end was near!
Wind, hail, the hurricane, the whirlwind--these are wild combatants that
may be overcome; the storm can be taken in the weak point of its armour;
there are resources against the violence which continually lays itself
open, is off its guard, and often hits wide. But nothing is to be done
against a calm; it offers nothing to the grasp of which you can lay
hold.
The winds are a charge of Cossacks: stand your ground and they disperse.
Calms are the pincers of the executioner.
The water, deliberate and sure, irrepressible and heavy, rose in the
hold, and as it rose the vessel sank--it was happening slowly.
Those on board the wreck of the _Matutina_ felt that most hopeless of
catastrophes--an inert catastrophe undermining them. The still and
sinister certainty of their fate petrified them. No stir in the air, no
movement on the sea. The motionless is the inexorable. Absorption was
sucking them down silently. Through the depths of the dumb
waters--without anger, without passion, not willing, not knowing, not
caring--the fatal centre of the globe was attracting them downwards.
Horror in repose amalgamating them with itself. It was no longer the
wide open mouth of the sea, the double jaw of the wind and the wave,
vicious in its threat, the grin of the waterspout, the foaming appetite
of the breakers--it was as if the wretched beings had under them the
black yawn of the infinite.
They felt themselves sinking into Death’s peaceful depths. The height
between the vessel and the water was lessening--that was all. They could
calculate her disappearance to the moment. It was the exact reverse of
submersion by the rising tide. The water was not rising towards them;
they were sinking towards it. They were digging their own grave. Their
own weight was their sexton.
They were being executed, not by the law of man, but by the law of
things.
The snow was falling, and as the wreck was now motionless, this white
lint made a cloth over the deck and covered the vessel as with a
winding-sheet.
The hold was becoming fuller and deeper--no means of getting at the
leak. They struck a light and fixed three or four torches in holes as
best they could. Galdeazun brought some old leathern buckets, and they
tried to bale the hold out, standing in a row to pass them from hand to
hand; but the buckets were past use, the leather of some was unstitched,
there were holes in the bottoms of the others, and the buckets emptied
themselves on the way. The difference in quantity between the water
which was making its way in and that which they returned to the sea was
ludicrous--for a ton that entered a glassful was baled out; they did not
improve their condition. It was like the expenditure of a miser, trying
to exhaust a million, halfpenny by halfpenny.
The chief said, “Let us lighten the wreck.”
During the storm they had lashed together the few chests which were on
deck. These remained tied to the stump of the mast. They undid the
lashings and rolled the chests overboard through a breach in the
gunwale. One of these trunks belonged to the Basque woman, who could not
repress a sigh.
“Oh, my new cloak lined with scarlet! Oh, my poor stockings of
birchen-bark lace! Oh, my silver ear-rings to wear at mass on May Day!”
The deck cleared, there remained the cabin to be seen to. It was greatly
encumbered; in it were, as may be remembered, the luggage belonging to
the passengers, and the bales belonging to the sailors. They took the
luggage, and threw it over the gunwale. They carried up the bales and
cast them into the sea.
Thus they emptied the cabin. The lantern, the cap, the barrels, the
sacks, the bales, and the water-butts, the pot of soup, all went over
into the waves.
They unscrewed the nuts of the iron stove, long since extinguished:
they pulled it out, hoisted it on deck, dragged it to the side, and
threw it out of the vessel.
They cast overboard everything they could pull out of the deck--chains,
shrouds, and torn rigging.
From time to time the chief took a torch, and throwing its light on the
figures painted on the prow to show the draught of water, looked to see
how deep the wreck had settled down.