THE GALE

Those who, standing on the pier, had witnessed the proud bearing of the _Circa.s.sian_ as she gave her canvas to the winds, little contemplated her fate: still less did those on board; for confidence is the characteristic of seamen, and they have the happy talent of imparting their confidence to whomsoever may be in their company. We shall pa.s.s over the voyage, confining ourselves to a description of the catastrophe.

It was during a gale from the north-west, which had continued for three days, and by which the _Circa.s.sian_ had been driven into the Bay of Biscay, that, at about twelve o'clock at night, a slight lull was perceptible. The captain, who had remained on deck, sent down for the chief mate. 'Oswald,' said Captain Ingram, 'the gale is breaking, and I think before morning we shall have had the worst of it. I shall lie down for an hour or two: call me if there be any change.'

Oswald Bareth, a tall, sinewy-built, and handsome specimen of transatlantic growth, examined the whole circ.u.mference of the horizon before he replied. At last his eyes were steadily fixed to leeward: 'I've a notion not, sir,' said he; 'I see no signs of clearing off to leeward: only a lull for relief, and a fresh hand at the bellows, depend upon it.'

'We have now had it three days,' replied Captain Ingram, 'and that's the life of a summer's gale.'

'Yes,' rejoined the mate; 'but always provided that it don't blow black again. I don't like the look of it, sir; and have it back we shall, as sure as there's snakes in Virginny.'

'Well, so be if so be,' was the safe reply of the captain. 'You must keep a sharp look-out, Bareth, and don't leave the deck to call me; send a hand down.'

The captain descended to his cabin. Oswald looked at the compa.s.s in the binnacle--spoke a few words to the man at the helm--gave one or two terrible kicks in the ribs to some of the men who were _caulking_--sounded the pump-well--put a fresh quid of tobacco into his cheek, and then proceeded to examine the heavens above. A cloud, much darker and more descending than the others, which obscured the firmament, spread over the zenith, and based itself upon the horizon to leeward. Oswald's eye had been fixed upon it but a few seconds, when he beheld a small lambent gleam of lightning pierce through the most opaque part; then another, and more vivid. Of a sudden the wind lulled, and the _Circa.s.sian_ righted from her careen. Again the wind howled, and again the vessel was pressed down to her bearings by its force; again another flash of lightning, which was followed by a distant peal of thunder.

'Had the worst of it, did you say, captain? I've a notion that the worst is yet to come,' muttered Oswald, still watching the heavens.

'How does she carry her helm, Matthew?' inquired Oswald, walking aft.

'Spoke a-weather.'

'I'll have that trysail off of her, at any rate,' continued the mate.

'Aft, there, my lads! and lower down the trysail. Keep the sheet fast till it's down, or the flogging will frighten the lady pa.s.senger out of her wits. Well, if ever I own a craft, I'll have no women on board.

Dollars shan't tempt me.'

The lightning now played in rapid forks; and the loud thunder, which instantaneously followed each flash, proved its near approach. A deluge of slanting rain descended--the wind lulled--roared again--then lulled--shifted a point or two, and the drenched and heavy sails flapped.

'Up with the helm, Mat!' cried Oswald, as a near flash of lightning for a moment blinded, and the accompanying peal of thunder deafened, those on deck. Again the wind blew strong--it ceased, and it was a dead calm.

The sails hung down from the yards, and the rain descended in perpendicular torrents, while the ship rocked to and fro in the trough of the sea, and the darkness became suddenly intense.

'Down, there, one of you! and call the captain,' said Oswald. 'By the Lord! we shall have it. Main braces there, men, and square the yards.

Be smart! That topsail should have been in,' muttered the mate; 'but I'm not captain. Square away the yards, my lads!' continued he; 'quick, quick!--there's no child's play here!'

Owing to the difficulty of finding and pa.s.sing the ropes to each other, from the intensity of the darkness, and the deluge of rain which blinded them, the men were not able to execute the order of the mate so soon as it was necessary; and before they could accomplish their task, or Captain Ingram could gain the deck, the wind suddenly burst upon the devoted vessel from the quarter directly opposite to that from which the gale had blown, taking her all aback, and throwing her on her beam-ends.

The man at the helm was hurled over the wheel; while the rest, who were with Oswald at the main-bits, with the coils of ropes, and every other article on deck not secured, were rolled into the scuppers, struggling to extricate themselves from the ma.s.s of confusion and the water in which they floundered. The sudden revulsion awoke all the men below, who imagined that the ship was foundering; and, from the only hatchway not secured, they poured up in their shirts with their other garments in their hands, to put them on--if fate permitted.

Oswald Bareth was the first who clambered up from to leeward. He gained the helm, which he put hard up. Captain Ingram and some of the seamen also gained the helm. It is the rendezvous of all good seamen in emergencies of this description; but the howling of the gale--the blinding of the rain and salt spray--the seas checked in their running by the shift of wind, and breaking over the ship in vast ma.s.ses of water--the tremendous peals of thunder--and the intense darkness which accompanied these horrors, added to the inclined position of the vessel, which obliged them to climb from one part of the deck to another, for some time checked all profitable communication. Their only friend, in this conflict of the elements, was the lightning (unhappy, indeed, the situation in which lightning can be welcomed as a friend); but its vivid and forked flames, darting down upon every quarter of the horizon, enabled them to perceive their situation; and, awful as it was, when momentarily presented to their sight, it was not so awful as darkness and uncertainty. To those who have been accustomed to the difficulties and dangers of a seafaring life, there are no lines which speak more forcibly to the imagination, or prove the beauty and power of the Greek poet, than those in the n.o.ble prayer of Ajax:--

Lord of earth and air, O king! O father! hear my humble prayer.

Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore; Give me to see--and Ajax asks no more.

If Greece must perish--we thy will obey; But _let us perish in the face of day_!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Oswald Bareth gained the helm, which he put hard up._]

Oswald gave the helm to two of the seamen, and with his knife cut adrift the axes, which were lashed round the mizenmast in painted canvas covers. One he retained for himself--the others he put into the hands of the boatswain and the second mate. To speak so as to be heard was almost impossible, from the tremendous roaring of the wind; but the lamp still burned in the binnacle, and by its feeble light Captain Ingram could distinguish the signs made by the mate, and could give his consent. It was necessary that the ship should be put before the wind, and the helm had no power over her. In a short time the lanyards of the mizen rigging were severed, and the mizen mast went over the side, almost unperceived by the crew on the other parts of the deck, or even those near, had it not been from blows received by those who were too close to it, from the falling of the topsail sheets and the rigging about the mast.

Oswald, with his companions, regained the binnacle, and for a little while watched the compa.s.s. The ship did not pay off, and appeared to settle down more into the water. Again Oswald made his signs, and again the captain gave his a.s.sent. Forward sprang the undaunted mate, clinging to the bulwark and belaying-pins, and followed by his hardy companions, until they had all three gained the main channels. Here, their exposure to the force of the breaking waves, and the stoutness of the ropes yielding but slowly to the blows of the axes, which were used almost under water, rendered the service one of extreme difficulty and danger.

The boatswain was washed over the bulwark and dashed to leeward, where the lee-rigging only saved him from a watery grave. Unsubdued, he again climbed up to windward, rejoined and a.s.sisted his companions. The last blow was given by Oswald--the lanyards flew through the dead-eyes--and the tall mast disappeared in the foaming seas. Oswald and his companions hastened from their dangerous position, and rejoined the captain, who, with many of the crew, still remained near the wheel. The ship now slowly paid off and righted. In a few minutes she was flying before the gale, rolling heavily, and occasionally striking upon the wrecks of the masts, which she towed with her by the lee-rigging.

Although the wind blew with as much violence as before, still it was not with the same noise, now that the ship was before the wind with her after-masts gone. The next service was to clear the ship of the wrecks of the masts; but, although all now a.s.sisted, but little could be effected until the day had dawned, and even then it was a service of danger, as the ship rolled gunwale under. Those who performed the duty were slung in ropes, that they might not be washed away; and hardly was it completed, when a heavy roll, a.s.sisted by a jerking heave from a sea which struck her on the chesstree, sent the foremast over the starboard cathead. Thus was the _Circa.s.sian_ dismasted in the gale.

CHAPTER IV

THE LEAK

The wreck of the foremast was cleared from the ship; the gale continued; but the sun shone brightly and warmly. The _Circa.s.sian_ was again brought to the wind. All danger was now considered to be over, and the seamen joked and laughed as they were busied in preparing jury-masts to enable them to reach their destined port.

'I wouldn't have cared so much about this spree,' said the boatswain, 'if it warn't for the mainmast; it was such a beauty. There's not another stick to be found equal to it in the whole length of the Mississippi.'

'Bah! man,' replied Oswald; 'there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, and as good sticks growing as ever were felled; but I guess we'll pay pretty dear for our spars when we get to Liverpool--but that concerns the owners.'

The wind, which at the time of its sudden change to the southward and eastward had blown with the force of a hurricane, now settled into a regular strong gale, such as sailors are prepared to meet and laugh at.

The sky was also bright and clear, and they had not the danger of a lee sh.o.r.e. It was a delightful change after a night of darkness, danger, and confusion; and the men worked that they might get sufficient sail on the ship to steady her, and enable them to shape a course.

'I suppose, now that we have the trysail on her forward, the captain will be for running for it,' observed one who was busy turning in a dead-eye.

'Yes,' replied the boatswain; 'and with this wind on our quarter we shan't want much sail, I've a notion.'

'Well then, one advantage in losing your mast--you haven't much trouble about the rigging.'

'Trouble enough, though, Bill, when we get in,' replied another gruffly; 'new lower rigging to parcel and sarve, and every block to turn in afresh.'

'Never mind, longer in port--I'll get spliced.'

'Why, how often do you mean to get spliced, Bill? You've a wife in every State, to my sartin knowledge.'

'I arn't got one at Liverpool, Jack.'

'Well, you may take one there, Bill; for you've been sweet upon that n.i.g.g.e.r girl for these last three weeks.'

'Any port in a storm, but she won't do for harbour duty. But the fact is, you're all wrong there, Jack: it's the babbies I likes--I likes to see them both together, hanging at the n.i.g.g.e.rs' b.r.e.a.s.t.s, I always think of two spider-monkeys nursing two kittens.'

'I knows the women, but I never knows the children. It's just six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; ain't it, Bill?'

'Yes; like two bright bullets out of the same mould. I say, Bill, did any of your wives ever have twins?'

'No; nor I don't intend, until the owners give us double pay.'

'By the bye,' interrupted Oswald, who had been standing under the weather bulkhead, listening to the conversation, and watching the work in progress, 'we may just as well see if she has made any water with all this straining and buffeting. By the Lord! I never thought of that.

Carpenter, lay down your adze and sound the well.'

The carpenter, who, notwithstanding the uneasiness of the dismasted vessel, was performing his important share of the work, immediately complied with the order. He drew up the rope-yarn, to which an iron rule had been suspended, and lowered down into the pump-well, and perceived that the water was dripping from it. Imagining that it must have been wet from the quant.i.ty of water shipped over all, the carpenter disengaged the rope-yarn from the rule, drew another from the junk lying on the deck, which the seamen were working up, and then carefully proceeded to plumb the well. He hauled it up, and, looking at it for some moments aghast, exclaimed, '_Seven feet_ water in the hold, by G--d!'

If the crew of the _Circa.s.sian_, the whole of which were on deck, had been struck with an electric shock, the sudden change of their countenances could not have been greater than was produced by this appalling intelligence.