I am not writing this story as a mere diary of travel, and will
therefore push on as rapidly as possible to the point where the real
living interest of the voyage began, contenting myself with a mere brief
reference to the various spots at which we touched. We took eight days
to make the passage to Aden, where we arrived early on a certain
morning, leaving at five o'clock the same afternoon, after a visit to
the famous Tanks. Our next port of call was Zanzibar, whence we
proceeded to Durban, in Natal. From Durban we proceeded to Mauritius,
remaining in Port Louis harbour two days to permit of a visit to that
extraordinary natural curiosity, the Peter Botte Mountain.
From Mauritius we sailed for Colombo. The weather was glorious when we
left Port Louis, and for two days afterward, with moderate breezes from
the south-east; toward sunset, on our third day out, however, we began
to notice signs of a change. The barometer had started to decline
shortly after noon; and as the afternoon advanced the breeze weakened,
so that from a speed of fourteen knots we dropped down to a bare five,
although we were under royals, had all our staysails set, and were
showing our whole flight of starboard studding sails as well, the wind
being about a point and a half abaft the beam. At the same time the
aspect of the sky underwent a subtle change. The clear, rich blue of
the vault became gradually obscured by a veil, at first scarcely
perceptible, of dirty, whitish-grey haze, from which, by the time of
sunset, every trace of blue had completely vanished.
Gradually, too, the sun became shorn of his rays, although there was no
perceptible diminution of heat, until at length when the great luminary
was upon the point of sinking below the horizon, he had changed into the
semblance of a huge, shapeless mass of molten copper hanging suspended
in the midst of an almost equally shapeless conglomeration of flame and
smoke. Then he slowly vanished from view; the flaming, smoky western
sky seemed to blaze up for a few moments into a still fiercer
conflagration, the hues deepened until they became a mingling of blood
and soot, when with startling suddenness they died out and an inky
blackness enveloped the ship. At the same time the small remains of the
wind died away, leaving the yacht rolling and lurching heavily upon a
sea that seemed to have no run in it, but heaved itself up into great
hummocks, only to subside again in the same purposeless manner.
It was drawing on toward the end of the first dog-watch, and as a matter
of fact I was off duty. But one never spends a dog-watch below in the
tropics if it can be avoided, and Kennedy and I had gone up on the poop
together to watch the sunset and discuss with Briscoe, the second mate,
the meaning of the portents. Kennedy had never before been in that part
of the world, but I had, and while he did not quite know what to make of
the aspect of the sky, I had already made up my mind pretty well
regarding what was in store for us, and had expressed my opinion as to
what we might expect. The first mate did not altogether agree with me,
and had proposed that we should refer the matter to Briscoe, who, like
myself, knew, or professed to know, the Indian Ocean pretty well. So up
we went; and presently, when the last gleam of light was vanishing from
the sky, Kennedy beckoned Briscoe to him and said:
"Well, Mr Briscoe, what d'ye think all that grand show away to the
west'ard means? Mr Leigh here, who has been in these parts before,
says he belaives we're in for a hurricane."
"Hurricane be hanged!" retorted Briscoe, who always seemed to find a
peculiar pleasure in belittling any opinion that I might express. "What
we are in for is a thunderstorm that will make some of ye sit up and
take notice. I guess it will bring with it some pretty considerable
squalls, so it will be a good plan to stow a few of them flyin' kites of
ours. They're doin' no good anyway, and will only thrash themselves
threadbare if we leave 'em abroad."
"That's so, and I guess you'd better see about it at once, Mr Briscoe,"
remarked Mrs Vansittart, emerging from the companion at that moment.
She had apparently heard Briscoe's last words as she came up the
companion way. "I've just been looking up the weather remarks in the
_Indian Ocean Directory_," she continued; "and from what it says I guess
there's a hurricane brewing, Mr Kennedy, so--"
"Why," interrupted Kennedy, "that's what Mr Leigh here says. But Mr
Briscoe, who ought to know something about the Indian Ocean, says no,
it's only going to be a thunderstorm, probably accompanied by heavy
squalls."
"And do you know the Indian Ocean, Mr Leigh? Have you ever been here
before?" demanded the skipper.
"Several times, madam," I answered. "And once I was caught in a
hurricane which dismasted us. The appearance of the sky then was very
much what it was this evening, while the barometer behaved pretty
similarly to what ours has been doing."
"Then that settles it," exclaimed Mrs Vansittart. "There are two to
one--the _Indian Ocean Directory_ and Mr Leigh against you, Mr
Briscoe; and I guess we'll prepare for the hurricane. Stow all the
light canvas; stow everything, in fact, except the fore and main
topsails and the fore-topmast staysail; then we shall be ready for
anything that comes--eh, Mr Leigh?"
"Assuredly much better prepared than we are at the present moment," I
said. "But if I may be permitted to offer a suggestion--"
"You may, Mr Leigh," replied the skipper. "Yes; go ahead. What do you
advise?"
"Well, madam," I said, "since you are good enough to give me leave, I
would advise that the staysail be stowed also, the topsail yards lowered
to the caps,"--we carried patent reefing topsails--"the royal and
topgallant yards and topgallant masts sent down on deck, as well as the
studding sails out of the tops; and that extra lashings be put upon the
boats and booms. Then I have no doubt we shall ride out whatever may
come with reasonable comfort and safety. And when it comes, I would
heave the ship to with her close-reefed fore topsail aback; also I would
have a small tarpaulin ready to lash in the weather mizen rigging in
case the topsails should blow away. Finally, I would direct Mackenzie
to see that his engine is all ready for starting at a moment's notice,
if need be."
"Sakes alive!" exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, "do you really believe it's
going to be so bad as all that?"
"I certainly think it not at all improbable, madam," I said.
"Then I guess we'll do as you say," exclaimed the lady. "It's the right
thing to err on the safe side, and I won't take any chances. But it
will be bad for the men to have to work in this darkness. When does the
moon rise?"
"She is due to rise at about eight forty-five to-night," I said. "But I
am afraid it will be useless for us to look for any help from her; we
shall get no light from her to-night."
"You think not?" she said. "Then--ah! there is four bells," as Briscoe,
having descended to the main-deck, came up on the poop and struck the
bell. "Let the men get to work at once, Mr Kennedy, both watches, and
see that Mr Leigh's suggestions are carried out. And, say, I guess I
won't risk having the topsails blown away; we'll furl everything while
we're about it; and if the hurricane comes we'll heave to under bare
poles. How will that do, Mr Leigh?"
"Admirably, madam," I replied. "You will then have done everything
possible to provide for the safety of the ship; and when the blow comes,
as I feel sure it will, there will be no need to risk the lives of any
of the crew."
The necessary orders were at once given, and we all repaired to our
several stations. My duty was to supervise operations on the mizenmast,
Kennedy having charge of the men working upon the mainmast, and Briscoe
supervising those upon the foremast, and when I went aft I found Miss
Anthea and her brother seated in a couple of basket chairs by the
taffrail. It was necessary for me to stand quite close to them for a
few minutes; and I had no sooner taken up my position than I heard the
boy say to his sister, in tones loud enough to reach my ears:
"Say, 'Thea, why does Momma pay so much attention to what the Britisher
says? I guess I don't like it--and I don't like him, either. I am
going to speak to her about it. Who is he, that he is to be consulted
before Kennedy and Briscoe? They're Amuricans, while he is only a
Britisher, and they've been to sea longer than he has; and anyway, an
Amurican is a darn sight better than a Britisher any day."
"Yes, I guess you are right, Ju," replied the young lady; "only you need
not allow your dislike to betray you into vulgarity. I hate Englishmen,
but I do not find it necessary to use the word `darn', and I wish you
wouldn't; it is only common, vulgar people who use it. And I wouldn't
speak to Momma either, if I were you; it is not worth while. Momma
thinks the man is clever, but, of course, he isn't, and she will find it
out sooner or later."
So that was it! I had often wondered at the attitude of latent
hostility of these two youngsters toward me; and now I understood. They
hated Englishmen! Well, their hatred did not trouble me in the least;
it was passive, or at all events was only so far active as to prompt
them now and then to make offensive remarks in my hearing, and taking
into consideration who and what they were, I could put up with a good
deal of that. But it had the effect of putting me upon my mettle. I
was determined to prove to them that they were mistaken in their
estimate of Englishmen, not because I attached any value personally to
their good or bad opinion, but because eventually they would be man and
woman, if they lived, and, from the position which their wealth would
give them, would have the power of influencing the opinion of their
fellow countrymen to a certain limited extent. I felt that it was my
duty to do what I could to lessen the unreasoning dislike of my fellow
countrymen which I had noticed in so many Americans.
It was at this time a dead calm, with a very heavy, confused swell
running, so that the only sounds heard, apart from our own voices, were
the wash and gurgle of the water alongside, as the ship wallowed
uneasily, the loud rustle and flap of the canvas aloft, and the creaking
of the spars. Moreover, it was intensely dark--to such an extent indeed
that I found it impossible to superintend operations from the deck.
Presently, therefore, I sprang into the mizen rigging and made my way
aloft to the mizen topmast crosstrees, from which I directed the
operation of sending down the royal and topgallant yards, and afterwards
took a hand in sending down the topgallant mast, having the satisfaction
of finding, when I returned to the deck, that we on the mizenmast had
beaten both Briscoe and Kennedy. I reckoned that, on board a
well-disciplined, old-fashioned British man-o'-war, the task of sending
down royal and topgallant yards and masts and stowing all canvas would
have been accomplished, under similar circumstances, in about twelve
minutes, at the utmost; but it took us thirty-five minutes by the ship's
clock. This I thought not at all bad, however; for in the first place
we were nothing like so heavily manned as a man-o'-war of our size would
have been, nor had our hands the constant practice in such evolutions
that a frigate's crew would have had. But the main thing was that our
lady skipper was satisfied, and was good enough to say so.
It remained intensely dark until close upon ten o'clock that night, when
the thinnest imaginable suggestion of moonlight came filtering weakly
through the dense curtain of cloud that now overspread the heavens, just
enough of it to enable us to see objects close at hand and avoid hurting
ourselves by running foul of them, as we had been doing while moving
about the decks. The weather still remained stark calm, and the ship
was rolling so furiously that I should not have been at all surprised to
see the masts go over the side at any moment. The gear was all good and
new, however, and held bravely; but the motion was so intensely
disagreeable, and we shipped so much water over both rails, flooding the
main-deck and necessitating the battening down of the hatches, that at
length Mrs Vansittart gave orders to start the engine, and the ship was
then put stem-on to the swell, which had now become more regular,
setting out from about North-North-East. This action brought us
immediate relief, as it enabled the helmsman to keep the ship out of the
trough, though the violent rolling was exchanged for almost as violent a
pitching. But the thunderstorm which Briscoe still persistently
maintained was coming, failed to eventuate; and hour after hour dragged
away with no indication of any immediate change, save that the feeble
glimmer of moonlight, instead of increasing, gradually died away again,
leaving us in almost as bad a plight as before.
At midnight, when I went on deck to keep the middle watch, Mrs
Vansittart was still up; and I thought that her temper seemed to be
rather on edge, perhaps owing to the strain of the long-spun-out
suspense. At least she responded rather sharply to Kennedy's and my
greeting when we joined her on the poop.
I thought that perhaps Briscoe had been talking to her during his watch,
and doing his best to discredit my judgment, for no sooner had we joined
her than she turned upon me, and, in very incisive tones, informed me
that she had come to the conclusion that I had been mistaken, and that
there was going to be no hurricane after all, otherwise it would have
come before then. But I knew that the Indian Ocean hurricane sometimes
takes a long time brewing; indeed, in the case of my previous experience
it had threatened for more than ten hours before it actually burst upon
us. I explained this to her; and also said that there was nothing in
the aspect of the weather to make me alter my original opinion. We were
still engaged in debating the matter when a peculiar low, moaning sound
became audible in the air, rapidly increasing to a weird, unearthly
howl, and a wild, scuffling gust of hot wind swept over us from the
north and went whining away astern of us until we lost sound of it
altogether.
"It is coming at last, madam," I said; "we shall probably have three or
four more such gusts as that, each lasting longer than the one preceding
it, and--"
"And, begorra, here comes number two, now!" exclaimed Kennedy, as a
similar sound once more became audible; and with a vicious swoop another
gust smote us so fiercely that the yacht stopped dead, unable to make
headway against it. For a full minute or more it seemed as though half
a dozen separate and distinct winds were battling together for the
mastery, the yacht being the centre and focus round which the battle
raged. We on the poop were buffeted helplessly this way and that, so
that it was only with the utmost difficulty we could keep our feet;
indeed, Mrs Vansittart was literally lifted off her feet for a moment
and blown across the deck with such violence that, had she not luckily
been forced straight into my arms, so that I was able to catch and hold
her, she would probably have been seriously injured by being dashed
furiously against the poop rail.
She thanked me breathlessly as I dragged her by main force to the
mizenmast and passed a couple of turns of the topgallant halyard round
her waist, securing her to a belaying pin; and by the time that this was
done the gust, like the first, had passed. I begged her to go below,
before worse happened, assuring her that Kennedy, who was in charge,
would know exactly what to do; but the little lady was grit to the
backbone, and positively refused to leave the deck. On the contrary,
she ordered Kennedy to counter-brace the yards with the head yards
aback, and then heave the ship to on the port tack, after which
everybody but ourselves and the look-outs was to go below, and while she
was giving these orders she deftly passed a few more turns of the
halyard about herself, so that she could not possibly be blown away
unless the mizenmast was blown out of the ship. Also she begged the
loan of my black silk neck scarf, which she tied over her head and under
her chin, so that her yachting cap might not be blown overboard, as mine
had been.
By this time the air all about us was in a state of continuous
agitation, the wind sometimes swooping down upon us in savage gusts, and
anon easing up for a moment until it was scarcely more than a zephyr;
but these lulls momentarily became of briefer duration, until in the
space of about ten minutes it was blowing hard but very unsteadily, the
heavy gusts following each other with ever-increasing rapidity. And now
we felt the full benefit of our earlier preparations; for with the
counter-bracing of the yards--a task accomplished in less than a
minute--everything that was possible had been done; and all that
remained was to ride out the gale as best we could.
We were now afforded an opportunity--the first that had ever occurred,
as Kennedy yelled for my information--to see what a really magnificent
sea boat we had under our feet, for under the scourging of that terrible
wind the sea rose with appalling rapidity, notwithstanding that the top
of every sea, as it rose, was torn off and swept to leeward in blinding
and drenching clouds of spindrift. And although our engine had been
stopped, the ship lay to in the most perfect manner, heading well up
into the wind and taking the seas, as they came at her, as buoyantly as
a gull, shipping very little water except what came aboard in the form
of spindrift or scud water, with an occasional spattering over the
weather cathead.
But this was only the beginning of the hurricane--merely its awakening,
so to speak. With the passage of the minutes the wind steadily
increased in strength until the wailing and shrieking of it through the
spars and rigging aloft resembled the tones of a mighty organ, drowning
every other sound; while the yacht lay down to it until her lee rail was
completely buried and the water was right up to her main-hatch coamings.
As the wind increased, however, we rode somewhat easier, for after a
time it became impossible for the sea to rise; indeed, the strength of
the wind was such that it actually flattened the sea down, every wave,
as it reared its head, being swept away as a deluge of spray. The air
was full of it--as full as it is of water during a tropical shower; and
the only manner in which we could distinguish it from rain was by the
salt taste of it upon our lips.
I think the worst feature of it all, however, was the hideous darkness
in which we were enwrapped; for outside the small circle of light
emanating from the skylights it was impossible to see anything save a
faint, ghostly white radiance representing the phosphorescent surface of
the foaming sea, in the midst of which the hull of the yacht stood out
black, vague, and shapeless, it being impossible to see the whole length
of her because of the dense clouds of spindrift which enveloped us.
At length it occurred to me to wonder how our lady skipper was faring in
the midst of this awful turmoil of wind and sea; and, watching my
opportunity, I made a dash for the spot where, dimly outlined in the
sheen of light from the foremost skylight, I could just distinguish her
form huddled up against the foot of the mizen mast. As I reached her I
noticed that she seemed to be hanging limply in her lashings, and,
stooping closer, I presently discovered that the plucky little lady had
fainted. The buffeting of the wind and the pitiless incessant pelting
of the spray had been too much for her; and unable to call for
assistance, or to escape unaided, she had succumbed. This fact
established, I lost no time in summoning Kennedy to my assistance, when,
having cast her adrift, we managed between us to convey her safely to
the companion and carry her below to her cabin. We then roused the
doctor and Lizette, the chief stewardess, and turned her over to their
care, after which we left her there and returned to the deck to complete
our watch.
I think that middle watch was the longest four hours hat I had ever
spent, chiefly because of its extreme discomfort and the fact that there
was nothing to do. First of all, I was drenched to the skin, the
conversation in which I was engaged with Mrs Vansittart when the
hurricane started having rendered it impossible for me to go below and
get into my oilskins. Then there was the unceasing buffeting of the
wind, which seemed at times as though it would drag me limb from limb.
There was also the continuous scourging of the spray, which stung like
the lash of a million whips; and finally, there was the oppression of a
very real anxiety, for, as I think I have mentioned, the yacht was as
heavily rigged as a frigate, and notwithstanding the relief afforded by
sending down her tophamper, she lay down so alarmingly that at length I
began seriously to question whether it would not eventually end in her
turning turtle. Eight bells came at length, however; and when shortly
afterward I got below, shed my streaming garments, towelled myself dry,
and tumbled into my bunk, my discomfort and anxiety promptly left me as
I sank into a sound and dreamless sleep.