a breadth in them you find in no other sea; deep-blue sparkling
hills of water, with green gleams about the crests, of which every
single wave had a hundred or so; and a long seething, simmering,
glassy hollow of a still valley between, where the flecks of foam
slid away glittering out of the shadow. But, Lord! it was glorious
to feel the schooner rising quietly in the trough, with the mount
of a wave, to the very ridge of it; then with a creak of all her
timbers and bulk-heads below, a slight shake to windward, and a
yerk at her bows, lean over to leeward again and go hissing through
the breast of a huge sea, till you thought she'd go down into it;
while there she was, however, lifting head up, with a swift flash
of her cutwater, on the cross half wave that joined every first and
third one--"billow" and "sea," as you may say. The breeze having
drawn more easterly toward morning, Jones had braced her more upon
a wind, with reefed main and foresails, and fore-staysail set,
which brought out the Aniceta's weatherly qualities to a marvel;
as notwithstanding almost a head-wind and a swelling sea, she went
nearly as fast as the frigate would have done before the breeze, and
not a sign of the land was to be seen from her crosstrees.
It was not till the afternoon, when the midshipman and I had both
been busy together seeing various things done about the rigging,
as well as having preventer-braces and guys clapped on the booms
and gaffs, that we had time to look about us; the schooner still
driving along with the breeze strong abeam, and a floating plunge
from one wide dark-blue sea to another, as if they handed her
onward. Jones had got himself made decent below, as I told him,
till what with different clothes and a shave together, besides
refreshment from sea weather, he was quite a different man to look
at. Even Snelling owned to his sailor-like appearance, though
rather surprised at my notion of making him a mate; while as for
the men, they didn't know but he had come aboard as such, and to
tell the truth, he was having the mainstaysail got up and ready to
bend at the time, like one accustomed to give orders. By this time
I remembered the harbour officer, Webb, whom we'd carried off so
unceremoniously, and found he was still in his "bunk" below, half
sulky and half sick, consoling himself with brandy and water till
we should get into Table Bay again, as he said. "Only put him into
my watch, Mr Collins," said Snelling gravely, "and I'll work him
up, sir." The reefer himself, in fact, had all of a sudden turned
out in a laughably dignified style, to meet his new post--in full
midshipman's rig, dirk and all, with his cocked hat, which I sent
him down immediately to change; but he had brushed up his mop of
hair, and begun to cultivate the down on his upper lip; while
being a deep-shouldered, square-built, short-armed little fellow,
as muscular as a monkey, you'd have thought from the back of his
coat he was a man cut shorter, and for his face, he had contrived
to put such a sour effect into it--meant for great experience, no
doubt--that it was only by his eyes one saw he was a boy of sixteen
or so; and _they_ were brimful of wild glee, as he jumped about
wherever he was needed, doing the work of a couple of ordinary men,
and actually delighted when a spray came over the weather bulwarks
on top of him, seeing that, instead of the frigate, she was "our
schooner" that did it.
"I think she walks, Mr Collins!" observed Snelling, holding up
his head stiffly, and looking aloft as we went aft, after shaking
ourselves from one of these same sprays. "No denying that, Mr
Snelling," said I as gravely; "I only wish your fond parents
could see you just now, first mate of such a smart craft, Mister
Snelling!" His father was a country baronet, who had sent him off to
sea with an allowance--I daresay because his looks were no ornament,
and there were plenty more coming; though Snelling always pretended
his worthy progenitor was an old man. "Fond be blowed!" said he,
starting; "I just see him at this moment at the foot of that blessed
old mahogany, proposing my health before the ladies go, and--" Here
the schooner rose on a sharp, short wave, making a plunge through it
that sent the helmsman swinging to the lee-side of the wheel, while
a sea washed up over her forecastle, and away aft with the tubs,
buckets, and spars, knocking everybody right and left. Snelling
and I held on by the weather main-rigging with our feet in a bath,
till she lifted bodily through it, careering to her lee-gunnel. "By
George, though!" broke out the reefer, smacking his lips as we drew
breath, "I wish he _did_ see me--wouldn't it cheer his declining
years, when I'd got to hand the governor carefully below! And
such a rough night as we're going to have of it, too, sir!" "You
unfilial young dog!" said I; "but so I'm afraid we shall--and no
joke either!" Jones was standing near us, watching the looks of the
weather with evident uneasiness, and I asked him what he thought of
it. "In my opinion, sir," said he, "you'll have some pretty sudden
shift of wind ere long, of a kind I have seen more than once off the
Cape before--and that as furious as a south-easter ordinarily is
hereabouts. Look away yonder, sir!"
It had got to a clear, dry, north-easterly gale, that shook our
canvass every time she lifted, singing through the ropes, and bitter
cold. Long and heavy as the roll of the sea was, the sky was as
keen and clear as glass all round about and aloft, save the mist
kicked up by the spray off a wave here and there. If a rag of white
cloud appeared, it was blown away, and you saw the black wrinkled
side of one wave at a time, a mile wide, you'd have said, freckled
all over with spots of foam, and its ridge heaving against the eye
of the blast. The waves had begun to break shorter. The schooner,
buoyant as she was, and sharp as a dolphin, pitched and rolled at
times like mad, and the men forward were standing by to let go the
fore-halliards, throat and peak, to ease her a little: when Jones
pointed out the bank of gray cloud ahead of us, scarce to be seen
through the troughs of the water, except when she lifted well upon
a swell of sea. The sun going down in a wild red glare to leeward
of us, threw a terrible glitter across the huge slant of one single
wave that rose stretching away far and wide from her very bow, then
brought out the sulky wrinkled blue in it; the hissing green crests
curled over to the very sunset, as it were, while we sunk slowly
into the long dark lulling trough, and saw the broken shaft of a
rainbow stand glimmering for a moment or two into a black hollow
right ahead, when the gale drove it back upon us like an arrow, as
the schooner urged through the breast of the next wave. I looked
from Snelling to the new mate, who still held on by a belaying-pin
and watched the clouds, giving me back a glance that showed he
thought the matter more serious than ordinary. "The sooner we strip
her to the storm-staysails," said I quickly, as we fell into the
trough again, "the better, I think. If it blows harder, we must
lie-to with her at once." My eye was anxiously fixed on Jones, for
large as the schooner was, between two and three hundred tons, yet
no craft in the world is so nice to bring to the wind in a gale,
with a heavy sea running. Scudding before it might have done for
the frigate, with her full bows, and spars high enough to keep her
main-topsail full in spite of the troughs; but even that would have
taken us out of our course after the Indiaman. Besides that, to tell
the truth, I didn't sufficiently understand fore-and-aft rigged
craft in all weathers yet, to be quite sure of what I did at a pinch
like the present. "Yes, yes, sir," answered he; "but if you'll take
an older man's advice, before that you'll wear her round on the
other tack to it. We've the worst to come, or else I'm mistaken,
sir."--"You're accustomed to schooners?" asked I firmly, and gazing
him in the face. I saw his lips open in the sweep of the wind
through our after-rigging, and he made a sign with his hand, while a
gnawing sort of spasm, as it were, shot through the muscles of his
jaw, and for a moment he gave me a devilishly fierce, keen glance,
almost a glare, from under his strong straight eyebrows--then turned
away. "Take the trumpet then, Mr Jones," said I, singing out into
his ear; "I'll leave her to you, sir. Mr Snelling, let's see the
hatches all fast!" And we scrambled along by the belaying-pins.
"Are you all ready fore and aft?" came Jones's voice like thunder
in the next dip she made, and he leapt up bareheaded on the breech
of one of the small carronades aft, holding on with one hand by the
weather main-shrouds, and watching the run of the waves as they
glimmered off our lee-beam into the dusk, for full five minutes.
I had hold of a rope near him, and his eye was as steady as if he
were picking out hills in a view. I had full confidence in the
man; but I must say it was a nervous moment to me, when I saw him
lift the trumpet to his mouth--and furiously as the wind shook
the schooner, you heard his hoarse cry, "Put your helm up--slack
off the mainsheet--brail up the mainsail--ease down the weather
boom-guy--main-staysail sheet--" And the rest was lost in the
wild shriek of the north-east gale. We were hard at it, however,
staggering as we hauled and held on, even to the poor half-drowned,
terrified Lascars, whom the midshipman had roused out of the caboose
and long-boat, shoving the ropes into their leathery hands. But I
knew little else till I saw the schooner had payed off before the
wind, shearing with a hiss like red-hot iron right through the
ridge, betwixt two tremendous combing waves. It swelled green over
her larboard bulwark as she heeled over, and she gave a heavy dead
lurch with it, as if she would let the next sea break aboard. "Now!
now!" shouted Jones, at a pitch of voice like no earthly sound; "aft
the mainsheet, for your lives!" He jumped to the wheel himself, at
a single bound. We were in two floundering heaps, as we dragged at
the mainboom aft, and the head-sheets on the forecastle, while she
came trembling up in the long bight of the sea, and took the gale
steadily before her other beam. It was blowing harder than ever; and
the awful "scud" of the sea rolled her bodily away, as she met it
with her weather-bow, washing white over the headrail, with spray
from cathead to bowsprit; the gale heaving her down on the lee-beam,
till she plunged to the brim on that side, at every forward pitch,
so that all hands on deck had to keep crowded together aft. Still
it was keen starlight overhead, the gale dry, though it was bitter
cold, and the seas long and pretty regular. The schooner behaved
wonderfully, being as tight as a bottle; and at the same time we
were not only lying our course either for the Mozambique or Indian
Ocean, but instead of running farther into the gale, as before,
and getting more into the wild Cape latitudes, why, at present she
tended to clear out of them. I accordingly agreed with Jones to hold
on with everything as long as possible, in spite of the way she was
sometimes flung off with the crest of a wave, as it were, making a
clear dive with her nose under water through a white seething sea
that seemed to swell round the whole horizon: the black bank of
cloud off our weather-beam towered like icebergs against the cold
green sky to south-east, the stars glittering and twinkling over it,
with little hazy rings round them, after a fashion that one of us
liked no more than the other.
About midnight, we had got everything off her to the two small
storm-staysails, main and fore, the wind blowing great guns, and
the half moon shining right over the long bank, as if the back of
it were dead-white; while betwixt it and the washing glimmer of
moonlight half-way, you'd have thought the black heave of the ridges
vanished into a bulk of shadow ten times blacker, save for the heads
of spray tossing dimly over in it here and there. All at once, in
the very height of the gale, as the black floating clouds from the
bank began to cross over the gray scud flying fast aloft, a blue
flash of lightning shot zig-zag into the very comb of a wave ahead
of us, then came the clap of thunder, loud enough to be heard above
the wind, and in half a minute there was a sudden lull. You saw
the fleecy rags of scud actually settling together under the dark
vapour moving above them, and heard nothing but the vast washing
welter of the billows rising and seething for miles round, as if
the world were water, while the schooner rolled helplessly away,
with her storm-staysails flapping, into the trough. The midshipman
almost gasped as he looked to me--not from fear, but as much as to
say, "What next?" Our strange mate stood against the fife-rail of
the mainmast, apparently too intent on the sky and sea for speaking.
For my own part, I let go of my belaying pin, and half tumbled to
the wheel, almost knocking the sailor down in my haste to put the
helm hard up--for I saw how the blast was to come, fairly before the
beam, upon us. "Hard a-starboard with it!" shouted I; "haul down
the main-staysail there--let her fall off as she rises!" The last
words were never heard, for next moment there was another flash of
lightning, this time a blaze all round into the troughs of the sea;
I saw a body of mist coming down upon us from south-east, through
which the gale struck her on the starboard beam, having suddenly
shifted eight points or so. The heavy rolling swell from north-east
was close aboard, and as soon as I knew what I was about, here she
was leaning over to the full tremendous force of the storm, without
power to surge ahead, though struggling to rise like a cart-horse
down on his knees with a load uphill of him. 'Twas by instinct,
as they say, I found myself scrambling along to her weather
main-channels, where I managed to get out on the side, slippery as
it was, and drenched with the blinding showers of spray. I had got
my knife at work, cutting the lanyards of the shrouds to let the
mainmast go, when I saw Snelling creep after me, like a fearless
little fellow as he was, dirk in hand; although what was come of
Jones I couldn't see, unless he had lost heart and skulked. All at
once, to my great joy, the main-staysail blew inway to leeward out
of the bolt-ropes, like a scrap of paper, the main-topmast crashed
at the cap and went alongside, when the schooner righted to her
keel, with a wild bolt forward through the whole width of an immense
wave--one of the "third waves" it was, commonly the last and the
hugest in a single roll of the sea of the Cape, before you sink into
a long gliding valley, with a sort of a lull in it. The scene was
so terrible at the moment, though we bore up for full half a minute
to the fair steady stroke of the awful gale, nothing but a yeast
of mist, scud, and darkness ahead, the spray torn off the ridge of
the wave and flying with us, while the triple run of the heavy seas
astern was in danger of sweeping her decks from over the poop--that
I felt we must try lying-to with her at once. Indeed, Snelling and
I hardly knew whether we were holding on or not, as we were half
washed inboard and half crawled round the rigging; but Jones had
already seized the exact point, when she sank in the hollow, to have
the helm eased down to leeward. Meanwhile he had got the reefed
foresail balanced and set, with the sheet hauled aft beforehand--a
tackle hooked on to the clue, and bowsed amidships--everything else
was off her; and with this sail she came slowly up close to the
wind on the slant of the next wave, lying-to nearly head toward the
force of the sea, as her helm was kept fast, two or three points
to leeward. I never had seen a craft of the kind hove-to in a gale
before, and a very nice matter it is, too. We drew breath, scarce
able to credit our eyes, while the schooner rode apparently safe on
a sea rolling mountain-high; rising and falling off from the breasts
to the sides of the waves, so far as leeway went, and forging ahead
a little at the same time through the fierce spray that showered out
of the dark over her weather-bow.
Cape weather as bad I had seen before, but always in good-sized
ships; and I owned to Snelling I would rather have handled any one
of them, even with a lee-shore near, ten times over, than this
schooner of ours in the present case. However, none of us were in
any mood for speaking at the time, let alone the waste of breath it
was. The best thing we had to do, after getting somewhat satisfied
of her weathering it this way, was to have the grog served out
to the men, swig off a stiff pannikin one's self, and make one's
self as comfortable as possible with his pea-coat in the lee of
something. The sight of the sea ridging up with a dim glimmer
against the dark, kept your eye fixed to it: first you thought
it would burst right aboard, crash down upon the decks; then she
lifted with it, swelling broad under her, while the long steady
sweep of the gale drove just over the bulwarks with a deep moan:
for half a minute, perhaps, a shivering lull, when you heard the
bulkheads and timbers creak and strain below from stem to stern,
and the bilge-water yearning, as it were, to the water outside.
Then, again, it was a howl and a shriek, a wide plunge of sea bore
up her weather-bow, and the moment ere she came fairly to, one
felt as if the schooner were going to pitch God knows where. Her
whole bulwarks shook and shivered, the wind found out every chink
in them, whistling round every different rope it split upon, while
all the time, the loose wet dreary spars behind the long-boat kept
slatting and clattering against each other in the lashings, like
planks in a woodyard of a November night. This was the way we stuck
till the morning watch showed it all in a drizzling, struggling
sort of half light, blowing as hard as ever, the Cape seas rolling
and heaving mountain-high, of a pale yesty hue, far and wide to the
scud; the spray drifting from the crests, and washing over her bare
forecastle, with now and then the white wings of a huge albatross to
be seen aslant to windward, riding on the breast of a long wave down
into the trough.
Well, the whole blessed day did this sort of thing continue,
only varied by now and then a huger sea than ordinary lifting
close aboard of us, and we being hove up to get a glimpse of the
long glaring streak of horizon through the troughs of the waves:
sometimes an unluckier splash than usual over the bow and through
the forechains, that made us look sharp lest the canvass of the
foresail should go, or the schooner broach end-on to the sea.
Otherwise, all we had to do was to watch the binnacle, hold on with
one hand to a rope, and with the other to our caps; or turn out and
in with each other down the booby-hatch for a snatch of sleep, and
a bit of biscuit and cold beef, with a glass of grog. Mr Webb, the
harbour officer, was to be seen below in his berth all this time,
lying as peaceable as a child--whether he was dead sick, or only
confoundedly afraid, I didn't know; but I must say I felt for the
poor fellow when I heard him ask Snelling, in a weak voice, if he
would get somebody to stand off the bull's-eye in the deck over
his berth, as it always made him think there was a new hurricane
coming on. "D--n it, you low skulking hound!" said the reefer, who
had wonderfully little pity in his make, "it can't be worse--what
d'ye want light for, eh?" "Only to see the opposite wall," said
Webb, meekly; "do, sir--oh now!" "Oh, you lubber ye!" said Snelling,
"don't you know a bulkhead from a wall yet? If you'd come on deck to
bear a hand like others, you wouldn't need light; and _I_ thought
you might do for a mate aboard, too--pah, you scum!" "Mr Snelling,"
said I sharply, as he came through the cabin, "a worm will turn when
it's trod upon, and so you may find yet, sir!" "Well, Mr Collins,"
said he, as confidentially as if I hadn't meant to give him a set
down, "I don't like the fellow's eye. I'll look after him, sir!"
Not to mention the young rogue's power of face, which was beyond
brass, he had a way of seeing you in two places at once with that
upward squint of his, as if his eyes were the points of a pair of
compasses, that made the officers of the Hebe always send him to the
masthead directly, for fear it should take the frown out of them. In
fact, when Snelling's twinkling weather-eye lighted on one's neck,
without the other, you almost felt it tickle you, and as usual I
turned away with a "pshaw!"
On the second morning, the gale at last began to break, shifting
southward; on which, as soon as the sea ran a little easier, I
had the helm cautiously put up at a favourable moment, the reefed
mainsail, fore-topmast-staysail, and square fore-topsail set as
she got before the wind, and away the schooner went; rising on the
wide deep-blue swells with a long roll in them, then shearing ahead
through their breasts, wrinkled and seething pale-green, till she
sank with the fall of the wave--the stump of her aftermast standing,
and the fore one shortened by the to'gallant-mast. You may easily
believe there was no one aboard more eager to get clear of this
weather than myself; as in ordinary circumstances, with a craft like
this, in two or three days more we might have been in a high enough
latitude to begin looking out for the Indiaman. For my part, I can't
deny that the wish for having Tom Westwood safe out of harm's way,
and with me in the schooner, strong as it was, played second to
the notion of seeing sweet Violet Hyde in any way again, if it was
only the last time before she went out of reach altogether; for her
getting amongst East India ways of doing, high-flying civilians and
soldiers, shows, and sights, either in Calcutta or up-country, was
equal to anything else, in my mind. Still, we had six or seven days
longer of the heavy seas and hard gales, before north-easting enough
could be made to take us beyond the Cape winter, just then coming
on, and which the Seringapatam had very likely escaped by two or
three days, so that she would have a considerable start of us.