As the sound of the hanks travelling up the brig's fore-topmast stay
reached my ear I murmured cautiously to the carpenter.
"Is it safe for me to move now, Chips?"
"No, sir, no," he replied, in a low, strained whisper; "don't move a
muscle for your life, Mr Grenvile, until I tell you, sir. The brig's
still alongside, and that unhung villain of a skipper's standin' on the
rail, holdin' on to a swifter, and lookin' down on our decks as though,
even now, he ain't quite satisfied that his work is properly finished."
At this moment I felt a faint breath of air stirring about me, and heard
the small, musical lap of the tiny wavelets alongside as the new breeze
arrived. The brig's canvas and our own rustled softly aloft; and the
cheeping of sheaves and parrals, the rasping of hanks, the flapping of
canvas, and the sound of voices aboard the pirate craft gradually
receded, showing that she was drawing away from us.
When, as I supposed, the brig had receded from us a distance of fully a
hundred feet, the carpenter said, this time in his natural voice:
"Now, Mr Grenvile, you may safely move, sir, and the sooner you do so
the better, for them villains have scuttled us, and I don't doubt but
what the water's pourin' into us like a sluice at this very moment. So
please crawl over to me, keepin' yourself well out of sight below the
rail, for I'll bet anything that there's eyes aboard that brig still
watchin' of us, and cast me loose, so that I can make my way down below
and plug them auger-holes without any loss of time."
I at once made a move, with the intention of getting upon my hands and
knees, but instantly experienced the most acute pain in my temple, due
to the fact, which I now discovered, that the shot which had struck me
down had torn loose a large piece of the skin of my forehead, which had
become stuck fast to the deck planking by the blood which had flowed
from the wound and had by this time dried. To loosen this flap of skin
cost me the most exquisite pain, and when at length I had succeeded in
freeing myself, and rose to my hands and knees, so violent a sensation
of giddiness and nausea suddenly swept over me that I again collapsed,
remaining insensible for quite ten minutes according to the carpenter's
account.
But even during my unconsciousness I was vaguely aware of some urgent,
even vital, necessity for me to be up and doing, and this it was, I
doubt not, that helped me to recover consciousness much sooner than I
should have done but for the feeling to which I have alluded. Once more
I rose to my hands and knees, half-blinded by the blood that started
afresh from my wound, and crawled over to where the carpenter lay on the
deck, in what must have been a most uncomfortable attitude, hunched up
against the port bulwarks, with his wrists lashed tightly together
behind his back and his heels triced up to them, so that it was
absolutely impossible for him to move or help himself in the slightest
degree.
As I approached him the poor fellow groaned rather than spoke.
"Thank God that you're able to move at last, Mr Grenvile! I was mortal
afraid that 'twas all up with you when you toppled over just now. For
pity's sake, sir, cut me loose as soon as you can, for these here
lashin's have been drawed so tight that I've lost all feelin' in my
hands and feet, while my arms and legs seems as though they was goin' to
burst. What! haven't you got a knife about you, sir? I don't know
what's become of mine, but some of the men'll be sure to have one, if
you enquire among 'em."
Hurried enquiry soon revealed the disconcerting fact that we could not
muster a solitary knife among us; we had all either lost them, or had
had them taken from us; there was therefore nothing for it but to heave
poor Chips over on his face, and cast him adrift with my hands, which
proved to be a longer and much more difficult job than I could have
believed, owing, of course, to the giddiness arising from my wound,
which made both my sight and my touch uncertain. But at length the last
knot was loosed, the last turn of the rope cast off, and Chips was once
more a free man.
But when he essayed to stand, the poor fellow soon discovered that his
troubles were not yet over. For his feet were so completely benumbed
that he had no feeling in them, and when he attempted to rise his ankles
gave way under him and let him down again upon the deck. Then, as the
blood once more began to circulate through his benumbed extremities, the
pricking and tingling that followed soon grew so excruciatingly painful
that he fairly groaned and ground his teeth in agony. To allay the pain
I chafed his arms and legs vigorously, and in the course of a few
minutes he was able to crawl along the deck to the companion, and then
make his way below.
Meanwhile, taking the utmost care to keep my head below the level of the
bulwarks, in order that my movements might not be detected by any chance
watcher aboard the pirate craft, I cast loose the three unwounded men--
the carpenter being the fourth of our little band who had escaped the
destructive broadside of the pirates--and bade them assist me to cast
off the lashings which confined the wounded. We were still thus engaged
when Simpson came up through the companion, dripping wet, glowering
savagely, and muttering to himself.
"Well, Chips," said I, "what is the best news from below?"
"Bad, sir; pretty nigh as bad as can be," answered the carpenter.
"They've scuttled us most effectually, bored eight holes through her
skin, close up alongside the kelson, three of which I've managed to plug
after a fashion, but by the time I had done them the water had risen so
high that I found it impossible to get at t'others. I reckon that
sundown will about see the last of this hooker; but by that time yonder
brig 'll be pretty nigh out of sight, and we shall have a chance to get
away in the boats, which, for a wonder, them murderin' thieves forgot to
damage."
"There is no hope, you think, of saving the schooner, if all of us who
are able were to go below and lend you a hand?" said I.
"No, sir; not the slightest," answered Simpson. "If I could have got
below ten minutes earlier, something might have been done; but now we
can do nothing."
"Very well, then," said I; "let San Domingo take two of the uninjured
men to assist him in getting up provisions and water, while you and the
other overhaul the boats, muster their gear, and get everything ready
for putting them into the water as soon as we may venture to do so
without attracting the attention of the brig and tempting her to return
and make an end of us."
While these things were being done, the wounded men assisted each other
down into the little cabin of the schooner, where I dressed their
injuries and coopered them up to the best of my ability with such means
as were to hand; after which, young Sinclair, whose wound was but a
slight one, bathed my forehead, adjusted the strip of displaced skin
where it had been torn away, and strapped it firmly in position with
sticking-plaster.
Meanwhile, the breeze which had sprung up so opportunely to take the
brig out of our immediate neighbourhood not only lasted, but continued
to freshen steadily, with the result that by the time that we had
patched each other up, and were ready to undertake the mournful task of
burying our slain, the wicked but beautiful craft that had inflicted
such grievous injury and loss upon us had slid away over the ocean's
rim, and was hull-down. By this time also the water had risen in the
schooner to such a height that it was knee-deep in the cabin. We lost
no time, therefore, in committing our dead comrades to their last
resting-place in the deep, and then proceeded to get the boats into the
water, and stock them with provisions for our voyage.
Now, with regard to this same voyage, I had thus far been much too busy
to give the matter more than the most cursory consideration, but the
time had now arrived when it became necessary for me to decide for what
point we should steer when the moment arrived for us to take to the
boats. Poor Gowland was, unfortunately, one of the five who had been
killed by the brig's murderous broadside of grape, and I was therefore
deprived of the benefit of his advice and assistance in the choice of a
port for which to steer; but I was by this time a fairly expert
navigator myself, quite capable of doing without assistance if
necessary. I therefore spread out a chart on the top of the skylight,
and, with the help of the log-book, pricked off the position of the
schooner at noon that day, from which I discovered that Cape Coast
Castle was our nearest port. But to reach it with the wind in the
quarter from which it was then blowing it would be necessary to put the
boats on a taut bowline, with the possibility that, even then, we might
fall to leeward of our port, whereas it was a fair wind for Sierra
Leone. I therefore arrived at the conclusion that, taking everything
into consideration, it would be my wisest plan to make for the latter
port, and I accordingly determined there and then the proper course to
be steered upon leaving the schooner.
The _Dolores_ had by this time settled _so_ deeply in the water that it
was necessary to complete our preparations for leaving her without
further delay. San Domingo had contrived to get together and bring on
deck a stock of provisions and fresh water that I considered would be
ample for all our needs, and Simpson had routed out and stowed in the
boats their masts, sails, oars, rowlocks, and, in short, everything
necessary for their navigation. It now remained, therefore, only to get
the craft themselves in the water, stow the provisions and our kits in
them, and be off as quickly as possible.
The boats of the _Dolores_ were three in number, namely, a longboat in
chocks on the main hatch, a jolly-boat stowed bottom-upward in the
longboat, and a very smart gig hung from davits over the stern. The
longboat was a very fine, roomy, and wholesome-looking boat, big enough
to accommodate all that were left of us, as well as our kits and a very
fair stock of provisions; but in order to afford a little more room and
comfort for the wounded men I decided to take the gig also, putting into
her a sufficient quantity of provisions and water to ballast her, and
placing Simpson in charge of her, with one of the unwounded and two of
the most slightly-wounded men as companions, leaving six of us to man
the longboat.
Simpson's estimate of the time at our disposal proved to be a very close
one, for the sun was within ten minutes of setting when, all our
preparations having been completed, I followed the rest of our little
party over the side, and, entering the longboat, gave the order to shove
off and steer north-west in company. There was at this time a very
pleasant little breeze blowing, of a strength just sufficient to permit
the boats to carry whole canvas comfortably; the water was smooth, and
the western sky was all ablaze with the red and golden glories of a
glowing tropical sunset.
We pulled off to a distance of about a hundred yards from the schooner;
and then, as with one consent, the men laid in their oars and waited to
see the last of the little hooker. Her end was manifestly very near,
for she had settled to the level of her waterways, and was rolling
occasionally on the long, level swell with a slow, languid movement that
dipped her rail amidships almost to the point of submergence ere she
righted herself with a stagger and hove her streaming wet side up toward
us, all a-glitter in the ruddy light of the sunset, as she took a
corresponding roll in the opposite direction; and we could hear the rush
and swish of water athwart her deck as she rolled. She remained thus
for some three or four minutes, each roll being heavier than the one
that had preceded it, when, quite suddenly, she seemed to steady
herself; then, as we watched, she slowly settled down out of sight, on a
perfectly even keel, the last ray of the setting sun gleaming in fire
upon her gilded main truck a moment ere the waters closed over
it.--"_Sic transit_!" muttered I, as I turned my gaze away from the
small patch of whirling eddies that marked the spot where the little
beauty had disappeared, following up the reflection with the order:
"Hoist away the canvas, lads, and shape for Sierra Leone!"
Five minutes later we were speeding gaily away, with the wind over our
starboard quarter and the sheets eased well off, the gig, with her finer
lines and lighter freight, revealing so marked a superiority in speed
over the longboat, in the light weather and smooth water with which we
were just then favoured, that she was compelled to luff and shake the
wind out of her sails at frequent intervals to enable us to keep pace
with her. Meanwhile, the pirate brig, which, like ourselves, had gone
off before the wind, had sunk below the horizon to the level of her
lower yards. I had, between whiles, been keeping the craft under fairly
steady observation, for what Simpson had said relative to the behaviour
of her captain, and the attitude of doubt and suspicion which the latter
had exhibited when leaving the _Dolores_, had impressed me with the
belief that he would possibly cause a watch to be maintained upon the
schooner until she should sink, with the object of assuring himself that
none of us had escaped to tell the tale of his atrocious conduct. As I
have already mentioned, the _Dolores_ happened to founder at the precise
moment of sunset, and in those latitudes the duration of twilight is
exceedingly brief. Still, following upon sunset there were a few
minutes during which the light would be strong enough to enable a sharp
eye on board the distant brig, especially if aided by a good glass, to
detect the presence of the two boats under sail; and I was curious to
see whether anything would occur on board the brig to suggest that such
a discovery had been made. For a few minutes nothing happened; the
brig's canvas, showing up clear-cut and purple almost to blackness
against the gold and crimson western sky, revealed no variation in the
direction in which she was steering; but presently, as I watched the
quick fading of the glowing sunset tints, and noted how the sharp
silhouette of the brig's canvas momentarily grew more hazy and
indistinct, I suddenly became aware of a lengthening out of the fast-
fading image, and I had just time to note, ere they merged into the
quick-growing gloom, that the two masts had separated, showing that the
brig had shifted her course and was now presenting a broadside view to
us. That I was not alone in marking this change was evidenced a moment
later when, as we drew up alongside the gig, which had been waiting for
us, Simpson hailed me with the question:
"Did ye notice, sir, just afore we lost sight of the brig, that he'd
hauled his wind?"
"Yes," said I, "I did. And I have a suspicion that he has done so
because he had a hand aloft to watch for and report the sinking of the
schooner; and that hand has caught sight of the boats. If my suspicion
is correct, he has waited until he believed we could no longer see him,
and has then hauled his wind in the hope that by making a series of
short stretches to windward he will fall in with us in the course of an
hour or two and be able to make an end of us. He probably waited until
we had been lost sight of in the gathering darkness, and then shifted
his helm, forgetful of the fact that his canvas would show up against
the western sky for some few minutes after ours had vanished."
"That's just my own notion, sir," answered Simpson, "I mean about his
wishin' to fall in with and make an end of us. And he'll do it, too,
unless we can hit upon some plan to circumvent him."
"Quite so," said I. "But we must see to it that we do not again fall
into his hands. And to avoid doing so I can think of nothing better
than to shift our own helm and shape a course either to the northward or
the southward, with the wind about two points abaft the beam; by doing
which we may hope to get to leeward of the brig in about two hours from
now, when we can resume our course for Sierra Leone with a reasonable
prospect of running the brig out of sight before morning. And, as she
was heading to the northward when we last saw her, our best plan will be
to steer a southerly course. So, up helm, Simpson, and we will steer
west-south-west for the next two hours, keeping a sharp look-out for the
brig, meanwhile, that we may not run foul of her unawares."
We had been steering our new course about an hour when it became
apparent that a change of weather was brewing, though what the nature of
the impending change might be it was, for the moment, somewhat difficult
to guess. The appearance of the sky seemed to portend a thunderstorm,
for it had rapidly become overcast with dense masses of heavy, lowering
cloud, which appeared to have quite suddenly gathered from nowhere in
particular, obscuring the stars, yet not wholly shutting out their
light, for the forms of the cloud-masses could be made out with a very
fair degree of distinctness, and it would probably also have been
possible to distinguish a ship at the distance of a mile. It was the
presence of this light in the atmosphere, emanating apparently from the
clouds themselves, that caused me rather to doubt the correctness of the
opinion, pretty freely expressed by the men, that what was brewing was
nothing more serious than an ordinary thunderstorm, for I had witnessed
something of the same kind before, on the coast, but in a much more
marked degree, it is true; and in that case the appearance had been
followed by a tornado, brief in duration, but of great violence while it
lasted. I therefore felt distinctly anxious, the more so as it was
evident that the wind was dropping, and this I regarded as a somewhat
unfavourable sign. I hailed Simpson, and asked him what he thought of
the weather.
"Why, sir," replied he, "the wind's droppin', worse luck; and if it
should happen to die away altogether, or even to soften down much more,
we shall have to out oars and pull; for we must get out of sight of that
brig somehow, between this and to-morrow morning."
"Undoubtedly," said I. "But that is not precisely what I mean. What is
worrying me just now is the question whether there is anything worse
than thunder behind the rather peculiar appearance of the sky."
He directed his glance aloft, attentively studying the aspect of the
heavens for a few moments.
"It's a bit difficult to say, sir," he replied at last. "Up to now I've
been thinkin' that it only meant thunder and, perhaps, heavy rain; but,
now that you comes to mention it, I don't feel so very sure that there
ain't wind along with it, too--perhaps one of these here tornaders. And
if that's what's brewin' we shall have to stand by, and keep our weather
eye liftin'; for a tornader'd be an uncommon awk'ard customer to meet
with in these here open boats."
"You are right there," said I, "and for that reason it is especially
desirable that the boats should keep together for mutual support and
assistance, if need be. You have the heels of us in such light weather
as the present, and might very easily slip away from and lose sight of
us in the darkness; therefore I think that, for the present at all
events, in order to avoid any such possibility, you had better take the
end of our painter and make it fast to your stern ring-bolt. Then you
can go ahead as fast as you please, without any risk of the boats losing
sight of each other."
This was done, and for the next two hours the boats slid along in
company, the gig leading and towing the longboat, although of course the
towing did not amount to much, since we in the longboat kept our sails
set to help as much as possible.
It was by this time close upon three bells in the first watch, and
notwithstanding the softening of the wind I came to the conclusion that
we must have slipped past the brig, assuming our suspicion, that she had
hauled her wind in chase of us, to be correct. I therefore ordered our
helm to be shifted once more, and our course to be resumed in a north-
westerly direction.
Half an hour later the wind had dropped to a flat calm, and Simpson
suggested that, as a measure of precaution, in view of the possibility
that the brig might still be to the westward of us, we should get out
the oars and endeavour to slip past her. But I had for some time past
been very anxiously watching the weather, and had at length arrived at
the conclusion that, if not an actual tornado, there was at least a very
heavy and dangerous squall brewing away down there in the eastern
quarter, before which, when it burst, not only we, but also the brig,
would be obliged to run; and, since she would run faster than the boats,
it was no longer desirable, but very much the reverse, that we should
lie to the westward of her. I therefore decided to keep all fast with
the oars for the present, and employ such time as might be left to us
upon the task of preparing the boats, as far as possible, for the ordeal
to which it seemed probable that they were about to be subjected.
I was far less anxious about the safety of the longboat than I was about
that of the gig, which, being a more lightly built and much smaller
craft, and excellent in every way for service in fine weather and smooth
water, yet was not adapted for work at sea except under favourable
conditions; and in the event of it coming on to blow hard I feared that
in the resulting heavy sea she would almost inevitably be swamped. I
therefore turned my attention to her in the first instance, causing her
to be brought alongside the longboat and her painter to be made fast to
the ring-bolt in the stern of the latter, thus reversing the original
arrangement; my intention being that, in the event of bad weather, the
longboat should tow the gig. This done, I caused Simpson to unstep the
gig's single mast and lay it fore and aft in the boat, with the heel
resting upon and firmly lashed to the small grating which covered the
after end of the boat between the backboard of the stern-sheets and the
stern-post, while the head was supported by a crutch formed of two
stretchers lashed together and placed upright upon the bow thwart, the
whole being firmly secured in place by the two shrouds attached to the
mast-head. Thus arranged, the mast formed a sort of ridge pole which
sloped slightly upward from the boat's stern toward the bow. The
lugsail was then unbent from the yard, stretched across the mast, fore
and aft--thus forming a sort of tent over the open boat for about two-
thirds of her length from the stern-post,--and the luff and after-leach
of the sail were then strained tightly down to the planking of the boat
outside, by short lengths of ratline led underneath the gig's keel. The
result was that, when the job was finished, the gig was almost
completely covered in by the tautly stretched sail, which I hoped would
not only afford a considerable amount of protection to her crew, but
would also keep out the breaking seas that would otherwise be almost
certain to swamp her.
So pleased was I with the job, when it was finished, that I determined
to attempt something similar in the case of the longboat. This craft
was rigged with two masts, carrying upon the foremast a large standing
lug and a jib, and a small lug upon the jigger-mast. These latter, that
is to say the jigger-mast and the small lug, we stretched over the
stern-sheets of the longboat in the same way as we had dealt with the
gig, leading the yoke lines forward on top of the sail, so that the
steering arrangements might not be interfered with. And finally, we
close-reefed the big lug and took in the jib, when we were as ready for
the expected outfly as it was possible for people in such circumstances
to be.
That something more than a mere thunderstorm was impending there could
now be no possible doubt. The strange light of which I have spoken, and
which had seemed to emanate from the clouds, had now vanished, giving
place to a darkness so profound that it seemed to oppress us like some
material substance; and the silence was as profound and oppressive as
the darkness--so profound, indeed, was it that any accidental sound
which happened to break in upon it, such as the occasional lap of the
water against the boat's planking, the scuffling movement of a man, or
the intermittent flap of the sail as the longboat stirred upon a
wandering ridge of slow-moving swell, smote upon the ear with an
exaggerated distinctness that was positively startling to an almost
painful degree. I accounted for this, at the time, by attributing it in
part to the peculiar electrical condition of the atmosphere, and partly
to the fact that we had all been wrought up to a condition of high
nervous tension by the conviction that something--we did not quite know
what--was impending, for which we were all anxiously on the watch, and
that, in the Cimmerian darkness which enveloped us, we were obliged to
depend for adequate warning, upon our hearing alone, which caused us to
resent and be impatient of all extraneous sounds. That this was to some
extent the case was evidenced by the fact that, our preparations
finished, we had, as with one consent, subsided into silence, which was
broken only in a low whisper if anyone felt it necessary to speak.
Suddenly, as we all sat waiting for the outburst of the threatened
storm, a long-drawn, piercing cry pealed out across the water,
apparently from a spot at no very great distance from us. It was,
although not very loud, the most appalling, soul-harrowing sound that
had ever smote upon my ears, and a violent shudder of horror thrilled me
from head to foot, while I felt the hair bristling upon my scalp as I
listened to it. Three times in rapid succession did that dreadful,
heart-shaking cry come wailing to our ears, and then all was silence
again for perhaps half a minute, when the men about me began to ask, in
low, tense whispers, whence it came, and from what creature. To me, I
must confess, the sounds seemed to be such as might burst from the lips
of a fellow-creature in the very uttermost extremity of mortal terror.
But that could scarcely be, for how could mortal man have approached us
within a distance of some two hundred yards in that breathless calm,
unless, indeed, in a boat--of which there had certainly been no sign in
any direction half an hour before. And if one were disposed for a
moment to admit such a possibility, whence could a boat come? The
pirate brig had been the only craft in sight when darkness fell, and it
was scarcely within the bounds of probability that anything then out of
sight beneath the horizon could have drawn so near to us during the
succeeding hours of darkness. Or again, admitting such a possibility,
what dreadful happening could have wrung from human lips such blood-
curdling sounds? We were all eagerly discussing the matter, some of the
men agreeing with me that the sounds were human, while others stoutly
maintained that they were supernatural, and boded some terrible disaster
to the boats, when our discussion was abruptly broken in upon by the
sound of rippling water near at hand, as though a craft of some kind
were bearing down upon us at a speed sufficient to raise a brisk surge
under her bows, and the next instant the voice of San Domingo pealed out
in piercing tones, eloquent of the direst terror:
"Oh, look dere eberybody! Wha' dat?" And with a howl like that of a
wild beast he rose to his feet and made a frantic dash aft for the
stern-sheets, fighting his way past the other men, and trampling over
the unfortunate wounded in the bottom of the boat, quite beside himself
with fright.
And indeed there was some excuse for the negro's extraordinary
behaviour; for, intense as was the darkness that enveloped us, the water
was faintly phosphorescent, and we were thus enabled to discern
indistinctly that, less than a hundred yards distant from us, a huge
creature, which, to our excited imaginations, appeared to be between two
and three hundred feet long, had risen to the surface and was now slowly
swimming in a direction that would carry it across the bows of the
longboat at a distance of some fifty feet. I frankly confess that for a
moment I felt petrified with horror, for the creature was streaming with
faintly luminous phosphorescence, and thus, despite the darkness, it was
possible to see that it was certainly not a whale, or any other known
denizen of the deep, for it had a head shaped somewhat like that of an
alligator--but considerably larger than that of any alligator I had ever
seen--attached to a very long and somewhat slender neck, which it
carried stretched straight out before it at an angle of some thirty
degrees with the surface of the water, and which it continually twisted
this way and that, as though peering about in search of something.
Suddenly it paused, lifted its head high, and looked straight toward the
boats, and at the same moment a whiff of air came toward us heavily
charged with a most disgusting and nauseating odour, about equally
suggestive of musk and the charnel-house. Its eyes, distinctly
luminous, and apparently about two feet apart, were directed straight
toward the longboat, and the next instant it began to move toward us,
again stretching out its neck.
Instinctively I sprang to my feet and whipped a pistol out of my belt,
cocking it as I did so.
"Out pistols, men, and give it a volley!" I cried; and the next instant
a somewhat confused pistol discharge shattered the breathless silence of
the night. My own fire I had withheld, waiting to see what would be the
effect of the men's fire upon the monster. Whether any of them had hit
it or not I could not tell, but beyond causing the creature to pause for
an instant, as though startled by the flashing of fire, the volley
seemed to have had no effect, for the horrid thing continued to approach
the boat, while the disgusting odour which it emitted grew almost
overpowering. It must have been within ten feet of the boat when I
aimed straight at its left eye, and pulled the trigger of my pistol.
For an instant the bright flash dazzled me so that I could see nothing,
but I distinctly heard the "phitt" of the bullet, felt a hot puff of the
sickening stench strike me full in the face, and became aware of a
tremendous swirl and disturbance of the water as the huge creature
plunged beneath the surface and was gone.