AND STILL MORE ILL-LUCK
As I crawled up the lee steps of the poop of _The Gentle Hand_, I began
to believe it was blowing. I could not possibly stand before that blast.
Holding to the poop-rail, I worked aft and relieved Yankee Dan, who had
helped the man already there by taking the spokes to windward.
All about the barque were the lowering banks of scud, darkening the
ocean now almost to night, and flying with the rapidity of the wind.
Above was the deep gray of the heavy pall of vapour.
I glanced into the binnacle and noticed that the wind had already
shifted, although it had been blowing less than an hour. It had become
more and more squally, and the blasts roared down upon the barque with
incredible force. The sea was ugly, but instead of the great, rolling
sea of the Cape, it was a short, quick mass of water that flung itself
with appalling force. High as she was, _The Gentle Hand_ took them now
and again over the topgallant-rail, and flooded her main-deck
waist-deep. Soon her lee bulwarks tore away, letting the flood have full
sway across and overboard. This eased her a trifle, and we strove to
nurse her closer to the wind, although, without canvas, the wheel would
have been as well lashed hard down.
For three hours more she headed up beautifully, although sometimes the
blasts would take her to leeward and whirl her head up into the sea.
Then another would strike her full, and off she would swing almost into
the trough, while Hawkson and the rest would struggle to get a cloth
against the weather mizzen ratlines.
Suddenly, after one wild, snoring rush of warm wind, it fell dead calm.
The sea was leaping wildly, bursting over our bow one moment, and then
the next piling in amidships with a crash that tested the strength of
the old hull. She would seem to settle under the load, and once there
was nothing visible forward of the break of the poop save the end of her
t’gallant forecastle. The men had to lay aft and keep alive.
While the calm moments lasted, the air was oppressively warm, and I
noticed Hicks come from behind the shelter of the spanker-boom and
coolly light his pipe, although the barque was rolling and plunging so
heavily it was hard to see how he kept his feet without holding on. He
made his way aft just as Mr. Curtis emerged from the companion, followed
by Miss Allen.
The barque was plunging wildly, and I had all I could do to hold the
wheel-spokes. Suddenly I heard a cry from forward. Captain Howard stood
clear of the mizzen for a moment and pointed aft. Over the starboard
quarter a huge sea rose like a wall, then topped into a snoring comber,
and flung with the rush of an avalanche over the poop. The dull,
thunderous crash drowned all sound, and the same instant I felt myself
being torn from the wheel by the flood. Then I went under, still holding
on with all my strength to the spokes, but feeling them dragged from my
hands by the prodigious power washing me away.
When I came to my senses, I was lying against the rise of the poop,
where I had brought up doubled over, my body on top and my legs hanging
in the swirl that rolled over to leeward. There was no one at the wheel.
The Norwegian had gone overboard, and, as he had probably struck heavily
against the spokes, he was doubtless killed outright.
I crawled back, gasping and driving the brine from my face. Then I
remembered Miss Allen and her lover, Mr. Curtis, and looked for them.
In the boiling foam of the side-wash a few fathoms from the side, the
girl’s head, with her hair floating in tangles, showed above the white.
She was apparently swimming, though feebly, for she must have been
hurled far below in the cataract that poured to leeward. Near her was
Mr. Curtis, his eyes staring at the ship and his face expressing
surprise and anxiety. He struck out for the barque, and did not help the
girl near him, or, in fact, give her any attention until he had grasped
the lee mizzen channels as the vessel rolled down. Here he drew himself
up, and started to coil a line trailing overboard to throw to her. I
started to the side, letting go the wheel, but before I reached the
rail, I saw a form plunge from the mizzen sheer-pole, and in an instant
Hicks rose to the surface almost alongside the young lady. It was boldly
done, and I caught the expression in his eyes as he seized her by the
shoulder and turned toward the ship.
Hawkson was bawling out something, and I turned in time to feel the
first puff of a squall that came snoring down upon us with a rush that
made every line sing to the strain. In an instant the barque was laying
over to it, and as it struck her abaft the beam she started ahead.
Hicks was now alongside, and Curtis, aided by Yankee Dan, was helping
the young girl on deck. It was a remarkable occurrence, happening as it
did in the centre of that hurricane, when the barque was becalmed and
without any headway. Otherwise it would have been a certain death for
any one going over the side. In less than five minutes the gale was
blowing as hard as ever from an almost opposite point of the compass,
the squalls coming with appalling force, sending us a good fifteen knots
an hour, with nothing but the bare yards aloft to receive the pressure.
Two men came aft to relieve the wheel, which I had rolled up with Mr.
Gull’s help, and I had a few minutes’ breathing space as we tore along,
the men forward trimming in the braces and squaring the yards for a run
before it.
Hicks stood upon the poop near the mizzen, where he had climbed up, and
he gazed after Curtis, who, with Yankee Dan, half-dragged and
half-carried Miss Allen below. There was a strange look in his eyes, and
I saw him cursing in a sinister manner, though what he said was lost in
the uproar. Then he joined the captain at the break of the poop, where
the old man had remained, having escaped the flood by springing with the
rest upon the spanker-boom.
Sir John Hicks was a thorough rascal, according to report, but somehow
he showed up very well with Mr. Curtis, who had been a well-known
churchman and piously inclined even to the time he had bought his
interest in _The Gentle Hand_.
As for the grim old villain in command, he made no comment, but stood
watching his ship without a trace of anxiety upon his mask-like
countenance. Even as I watched him, he was calculating the time to swing
her up on the port tack to keep afloat in that cross-sea, before which
no vessel could run very long.
I could hardly help thinking then that so much nervous strength and
control must have a limit sometime. The old fellow had been through a
good deal, and certainly must have used up much of his giant energy in
earlier trials. I wondered vaguely for a few moments when the time would
come when his stoical indifference and cruelty would be used up and he
become a debtor to nature. How would the old man die? Would he be
inscrutable and implacable to the last? It would be a matter of physical
force with him, and he appeared pretty tough yet, ready for many a rough
fracas, and afraid of nothing.
Yet I doubted whether his courage was any finer than some others who
were less reckless and held responsibility as something of value. He
finally gave the order to Hawkson, and the deep voice of the mate
sounded above the booming, sonorous roar overhead. A heavy tarpaulin was
lashed in the mizzen-rigging on the outside, so that the shrouds might
make a solid background to hold it against the blast. It was an old
hatch-cover, but of heavier cloth than our topsail.
The wheel was rolled hard down just as a heavy squall showed signs of
slacking, and a comparative smooth space showed to windward. The old
barque came quickly into the trough, and, as she did so, the full force
of the hurricane could be felt. Over and over she went until her lee
rail disappeared beneath the foam, while above her towered a sea that
bade fair to drive her under as it fell aboard. She lay perfectly on end
for an instant, the deck being absolutely perpendicular, and her
yard-arm beneath the swirl to leeward, and the weight of that rolling
hill broke clear across, the larger part of it landing in the sea to
starboard.
The shock was terrific. Both fore and main topmasts went out of her and
trailed alongside in the smother. There was no sound save the thundering
crash of the water, but as soon as the men who had saved themselves
could move from their places, we tried to save the ship. Hawkson, Gull,
Henry, Richards, Jones, Martin, and the rest made their way forward by
holding to the pin-rail, and we cut to clear away the foretopmast
alongside. All the time the barque was on end, her hatches under water,
and the wild, booming snore of the hurricane roaring over her, sending
cataracts of water over her t’gallant-rail. By desperate work we led the
wreckage forward, and towed it by a heavy line from the port cat-head.
This finally had the effect, together with the tarpaulin aft, of pulling
her head into the sea, and after a quarter of an hour, every minute of
which I expected to see her go under, she began to right herself.
Too exhausted to speak and half-drowned by the seas, we hung on under
the shelter of the forecastle until she once more rode safely into it. I
looked into the streaming faces of the men, and wondered how many had
gone to leeward that day, and then it seemed to me that slaving for
wealth might not be any better than I had originally held it to be.
Aloft in that gray pall the scud were whirling past, and I found myself
thinking of Tim and the cry of the South Sea. A sailor is apt to get
superstitious even without reason, and it struck me that there would be
little luck aboard the old pirate on this cruise.
When we had a chance to leave, we found that one dago and the little
Dane had disappeared from among us, and, as the gale wore down toward
evening, there was a sorry picture of a black barque riding the quick
sea of the western ocean, her rigging hanging and trailing to leeward
from the stumps of her topmasts, and a half-drowned crew holding on to
anything they could.
Before morning the hurricane had passed, and we were again heading off
across the ocean, with a badly wrecked ship and an ugly, demoralized set
of men, cursing their luck, the ship, and especially her officers in a
manner that spoke of trouble ahead.