From time to time, I would creep up into the companion, always in the hopes of finding the lights of a ship close to, but nothing came of our rockets, whilst I doubt if the little blast the quarter-deck pop-gun delivered was audible half a mile away to windward. But though the night remained a horrible black shadow—the blacker for the phantasmal sheets of foam which defined, without illuminating it, the wind about this time—somewhere between four and five o'clock—had greatly moderated. Yet at dawn it was blowing hard still, with an iron-grey, freckled sea rolling hollow and confusedly, and a near horizon thick with mist.
There was nothing in sight. The yacht looked deplorably sodden and wrecked as she pitched and wallowed in the cold, desolate, ashen atmosphere of that daybreak. The men, too, wore the air of castaway mariners, fagged, salt-whitened, pinched; and their faces, even the boy's, looked aged with anxiety.
I called to Caudel. He approached me slowly, as a man might walk after a swim that has nearly spent him.
"Here is another day, Caudel. What is to be done?"
"What can be done, sir?" answered the poor fellow, with the irritation of exhaustion and of anxiety but little removed from despair. "We must go on pumping for our lives, and pray to the Lord that we may be picked up."
"Why not get sail upon the yacht, put her before the wind, and run for the French coast?"
"If you like sir," he answered languidly, "but it's a long stretch to the French coast, and if the wind should shift—" he paused, and looked as though worry had weakened his mind a little and rendered him incapable of deciding swiftly and for the best.
The boy Bobby was pumping, and I took notice of the glass-like clearness of the water as it gushed out to the strokes of the little brake. The others of my small crew were crouching under the lee of the weather bulwark. I looked at them, and then said to Caudel:
"Shall we call a council? Something must be done. Those men have lives to save, and I should like to have their opinion."
He at once halloaed to them, and they grouped themselves about me as I stood in the companion way. Every man's voice was hoarse with fatigue, and the skin of the poor fellows' faces had a puffed, pale appearance that made one think of drowned bodies.
I asked them what they thought of my proposal of running for the French shore under all the sail we could spread; but after some discussion they were unanimous in opposing the scheme.
"Who's to tell," said Crew, "how fur off the French coast is? And what port are we agoing to make? We're nearer the English coast now than we are to France, and if there should come a shift," he added, casting his moist, blood-shot eyes at the sky, and then fixing them upon the pump, "we might be able to stagger into Plymouth or some port near it."
"This yacht," exclaimed Foster, "isn't agoing to keep afloat long, sir. If then it's to come to that there boat," indicating with a jerk of his chin the little boat that we carried, "we'd better launch her here than furder out."
"Depend upon it, Mr. Barclay," exclaimed Caudel, "there's nothen for it but to keep all on as we are, and wait for the weather to improve. There are plenty of ships knocking about. Let it come clear enough for us to be seen and we shall be picked up."
In this way ran the little debate we held, but as I am not a sailor I am unable to repeat more of it than I have set down.
Before returning to Grace I looked at our little boat—she was just a yacht's dinghy—and thought of the chance the tiny ark would provide us with of saving our lives—seven souls in a boat fit to hold five, and then only in smooth water! And yet she was the only boat we had, and there was absolutely nothing else by which we might preserve ourselves—scarce any materials that I could think of or see, out of which the rudest craft could be manufactured, though the mere thought of it coming to a raft turned me sick and faint, when I glanced at the green slopes of the hurling hills of water, and marked the frothing of their heads and the fathom-thick surface of yeast they shot from their surcharged summits.
Grace was awake when I had gone on deck at daybreak, though she had slept for two or three hours very soundly, never once moving when the cannon was discharged, frequent as the report of it had been. On my descending she begged me to take her on deck.
"I shall be able to stand if I hold your arm," she said, "and the air will do me good."
But I had not the heart to let her view the sea nor the wet, broken, shipwrecked figure the yacht made with water flying over the bow, and water gushing from the pump, and the foam flashing amongst the rigging that still littered the deck as the brine roared from side to side.
"No, my darling," said I; "for the present you must keep below. The wind, thank God, is fast moderating, and the sea will be falling presently. But you cannot imagine, until you attempt to move, how violently theSpitfirerolls and pitches. Besides, the decks are full of water, and a single wild heave might throw us both and send us flying overboard."
She shuddered and said no more about going on deck.
Spite of her having slept, her eyes seemed languid. Her cheeks were colourless, and there was an expression of fear and expectation that made my heart mad to behold in her sweet young face, that, when all was well with her, wore a most delicate bloom, whilst it was lovely with a sort of light that was like a smile in expressions even of perfect repose. I had brought her to this! Before another day had closed her love for me might have cost her her life! I could not bear to think of it—I could not bear to look at her—and I broke down burying my face in my hands.
She put her arm round my neck, pressed her cheek to mine, but said nothing, until the two or three dry sobs, which shook me to my very inmost soul, had passed.
"Anxiety and want of sleep have made you ill," she said. "I am sure all will end well, Herbert. The storm, you say, is passing, and then we shall be able to steer for the nearest port. You will not wait now to reach Penzance?"
I shook my head, unable to speak.
"We have both had enough of the sea," she continued, forcing a smile that vanished in the next breath she drew; "but you could not have foretold this storm. And even now, would you have me anywhere else but here?" said she, putting her cheek to mine again. "Rest your head on my shoulder and sleep. I feel better—and will instantly awaken you if there is any occasion to do so."
I was about to make some answer, when I heard a loud and, as it appeared to me, a fearful cry on deck. Before I could spring to my feet someone heavily thumped the companion-hatch, flinging the sliding cover wide open an instant after, and Caudel's voice roared down:
"Mr. Barclay! Mr. Barclay! there's a big ship close aboard us! She's rounding to. Come on deck, for God's sake, sir, that we may larn your wishes."
Bidding Grace remain where she was, I sprang to the companion steps, and the first thing I saw on emerging was a large, full-rigged ship, with painted ports, under small canvas, and in the act of rounding with her main topsail-yard slowly swinging aback. Midway the height of our little mizzenmast streamed the ensign which Caudel or another of the men had hoisted—the union down—but our wrecked mast, and the fellow labouring at the pump must have told our story to the sight of that ship, with an eloquence that could gather but little emphasis from the signal of distress streaming like a square of flame half-mast high at our stern.
It was broad daylight now, with a lightening in the darkness to windward that opened out twice the distance of sea that was to be measured before I went below. The ship, a noble structure, was well within hail, rolling somewhat heavily, but with a majestical, slow motion. There was a crowd of sailors on her forecastle staring at us, and I remember even in that supreme moment, so tricksy is the human intelligence, noticing how ghastly white the cloths of her topmast-staysail or jib showed by contrast with the red and blue shirts and other coloured apparel of the mob of seamen, and against the spread of dusky sky beyond. There was also a little knot of people on the poop, and a man standing near them, but alone; as I watched him he took what I gathered to be a speaking-trumpet from the hand of the young apprentice or ordinary seaman who had run to him with it.
"Now, Mr. Barclay," cried Caudel, in a voice vibratory with excitement, "there's yours and the lady's hopportunity, sir. But what's your instructions? What's your wishes, sir?"
"My wishes? How can you ask? We must leave theSpitfire. She is already half-drowned. She will sink when you stop pumping."
"Right, sir," he exclaimed, and without another word posted himself at the rail in a posture of attention with his eyes upon the ship.
She was apparently a vessel bound to some Indian or Australian port, and seemingly full of passengers, for even as I stood watching, the people in twos and threes arrived on the poop, or got upon the main-deck bulwark-rail to view us. She was a long iron ship, red beneath the water-line, and the bright streak of that colour glared out over the foam, dissolving at her sides like a flash of crimson sunset, as she rolled from us. Whenever she hove her stern up, gay with what might have passed as gilt quarter badges, I could read her name in long, white letters—"CARTHUSIAN, LONDON."
"Yacht ahoy!" now came in a hearty tempestuous shout through the speaking trumpet, which the man I had before noticed lifted to his lips.
"Halloa!" shouted Caudel in response.
"What is wrong with you?"
"Wessel's making water fast, and ye can see," shrieked Caudel, pointing at our wrecked and naked masts, "what our state is. The owner and a lady's aboard, and want to leave the yacht. Will you stand by till you can receive 'em, sir?"
The man with the speaking trumpet lifted his hand in token of having heard, which somewhat astonished me, for though Caudel's lungs were very powerful and piercing, we were not only to leeward of the ship, but the wind, pouring dead on to us from her, was full of whistlings and yells, and the clamour of colliding and breaking seas.
The man with the speaking trumpet appeared to consult with another figure that had drawn to his side. He then took a long look round at the weather, and afterwards put the tube again to his mouth.
"Yacht ahoy!"
"Halloa!"
"We will stand by you; but we cannot launch a boat yet. Does the water gain rapidly upon you?"
"We can keep her afloat for some hours, sir."
The man again elevated his hand, and crossed to the weather side of his ship to signify, I presume, that there was nothing more to be said.
"In two or three hours, sir, you and the lady'll be safe aboard," cried Caudel; "the wind's failing fast, and by that time the sea'll be flat enough for one of that craft's fine boats."
I re-entered the cabin, and found Grace standing, supporting herself at the table. Her attitude was full of expectancy and fear.
"What have they been crying out on deck, Herbert?" she exclaimed.
"There is a big ship close beside us, darling," I answered; "the weather is fast moderating, and by noon I hope to have you safe on board of her."
"On board of her!" she cried, with her eyes large with wonder and alarm. "Do you mean to leave the yacht?"
"Yes; I have heart enough to tell you the truth now, Grace; she has sprung a leak and is taking in water rapidly, and we must abandon her."
She dropped upon the locker with her hands clasped.
"Do you tell me she is sinking, Herbert?"
"We must abandon her," I cried; "put on your hat and jacket, my darling. The deck is comparatively safe now, and I wish the people on board the ship to see you."
She was so overwhelmed, however, by the news, that she appeared incapable of motion. I procured her jacket and hat, and presently helped her to put them on, and then, grasping her firmly by the waist, I supported her to the companion steps, and carefully, and with difficulty, got her on deck, making her sit under the lee of the weather bulwark, where she would be visible enough to the people of the ship at every windward roll of the yacht, and I crouched beside her with her arm linked in mine.
There was nothing to do but to wait. Some little trifle of property I had below in the cabin, but nothing that I cared to burthen myself with at such a time. All the money I had brought with me, bank-notes and some gold, was in the pocket-book I carried. As for my sweetheart's wardrobe, what she had with her, as you know, she wore, so that she would be leaving nothing behind her. But never can I forget the expression of her face, and the exclamations of horror and astonishment which escaped her lips, when, on my seating her under the bulwark, she sent a look at the yacht. The soaked, stained, mutilated appearance of the little craft persuaded her she was sinking even as we sat together gazing. At every plunge of the bows she would tremulously suck in her breath and bite upon her under-lip with nervous twitchings of her fingers, and a recoil of her whole figure against me.
"Oh, Herbert," she cried, "when shall we leave? We shall be drowned."
I answered her that there was no fear of that. "Though," said I, "but for that ship heaving into sight and standing by us, our fate might have been sealed before the close of the day."
"But how are we to get into the ship?" she cried, straining her eyes, brilliant with emotion, at the vessel that hung, rolling stately, so close by that I could distinguish the features of the crowds of people who lined the rails staring at us.
I explained that the gale was slackening, that fair weather was at hand, as one might tell by the gradual opening of the horizon, and the clarification of the stuff that had been hanging in soot for hours and hours low down over our splintered, withered-looking mast-head, and that, in a short time, the sea would be sufficiently quiet to enable the ship to lower one of the large white quarter-boats which were hanging by davits inboards over the poop.
"The sea runs too high yet," said I, "not for a boat to live in, but to take us off. She might be swamped, stove, sunk alongside of us; and there is time, plenty of time, my darling. Whilst that ship keeps us in view we are safe."
But though there might have been plenty of time, as I told her, the passage of it was of a heart-subduing slowness. It was some half-hour or so after our coming on deck, that Caudel, quitting the pump at which he had been taking a spell, approached me and said:
"You'll onderstand, of course, Mr. Barclay, that I, as master of this yacht, sticks to her?"
"What!" cried I, "to be drowned?"
"Isticksto her, sir," he repeated, with the emphasis of irritability in his manner that was not at all wanting in respect either. "I dorn't mean to say if it should come on to blow another gale afore that there craft," indicating the ship, "receives ye, that I wouldn't go too. But the weather's amoderating; it'll be tarning fine afore long, and I'm agoing to sail theSpitfirehome."
"I hope, Caudel," said I, astonished by this resolution in him, "that you'll not stick to her on my account. Let the wretched craft go and—" I held the rest behind my teeth.
"No, sir. There'll be nothen to hurt in the leak if so be as the weather gets better, and it's fast getting better as you can see. What? Let a pretty little dandy craft like theSpitfirego down merely for the want of pumping? All of us men are agreed to stick to her and carry her home."
Grace looked at me; I understood the meaning her eyes conveyed, and exclaimed:
"The men will do as they please. They are plucky fellows, and if they carry the yacht home, she shall be sold, and two-thirds of what she fetches divided amongst them. ButIhave had enough of her, and more than enough of yachting. I must see you, my pet, safe on board some ship that does not leak!"
"I could not live through another night in theSpitfire," she exclaimed.
"No, miss, no," rumbled Caudel, soothingly; "nor would it be right and proper that you should be asked to live through it. They'll be sending for ye presently; though, of course, as the vessel's outward bound—" here he ran his eyes slowly round the sea, "ye've got to consider that onless she falls in soon with something that'll land you, why then, of course, you both stand to have a longer spell of seafaring than Mr. Barclay and me calculated upon when this here elopement was planned."
"Where is she bound to, I wonder?" I said, viewing the tall, noble vessel, with a yearning to be aboard her with Grace at my side; the desperate seas which still stormily tossed between her and us safely traversed.
"To Australia, I allow," answered Caudel. "Them passengers ye sees forrads and along the bulwark rail ain't of the sort that goes to Chaney or the Hindies."
"We can't go to Australia, Herbert," said Grace, surveying me with startled eyes.
"My dear Grace, there are plenty of ships betwixt this Channel and Australia—plenty hard by, rolling up Channel, and willing to land us for a few sovereigns, would their steersmen only shift their helm and approach within hail."
But though there might be truth in this for aught I knew, it was a thing easier to say than to mean, as I felt when I cast my eyes upon the dark-green, frothing waters, still shrouded to within a mile or so past the ship by the damp and dirty grey of the now fast expiring gale that had plunged us into this miserable situation. There was nothing to be seen but theCarthusianrolling solemnly and grandly to windward, and the glancing of white heads of foam arching out of the thickness and running sullenly, but with weight too, along the course of the wind.
"Will not that ship put into an English port before she leaves for good?" asked Grace.
"Shehasleft for good, miss," answered Caudel. "There's no English port for her unless she ups hellum and tries back'ards again."
"Where are we, then?" cried Grace, with a wild stare over the lee rail.
"In what they call the Chops, miss," replied Caudel.
"In the mouth of the English Channel," I explained.
"I calculate, Mr. Barclay," said Caudel, "that our drift's been all three mile an hour since, it first came on to blow. The wind's hung about nothe, nothe-east, and I don't think it's shifted a point since it first busted down upon us."
"You seriously believe, Caudel, that you can make the land, seeing where we are, in this leaky, mast-wrecked craft?"
"Ay, sir, as easy as lighting a pipe."
"For heaven's sake, consider before it is too late! There's no obligation to stick to the vessel. Give us time to get out of her and you have my consent to let her go," and I pointed downwards.
"No, sir, that's not to be theSpitfire'sroad. The weather's going to come settled, and I trust that when you get ashore ye'll find the yacht safe and snug in harbour, and me in readiness to wait upon your honour's further commands."
I could see in his face, and by the looks he directed at his mates who stood within ear-shot of us, that his mind was made up. Argument or remonstrance would have been idle. He and the others were sailors, and must be allowed to know what they were about when their resolution dealt with their own calling. No doubt, if fine weather followed this gloom and wind, the danger of navigating the yacht would be trifling. The water in the hold was to be kept under, as was proved by our salvation, when the yacht was labouring furiously and taking in whole thunderstorms of wet over the bows; the vessel then was surely to be easily kept afloat should the weather clear up; there were spare sails below, a spare gaff, and other materials for rigging the broken height of mast; and there was also plenty of fresh water and provisions. But those were considerations to weigh with men bred to the sea life; they would not in the least degree have influenced me even had I been alone.
In truth, I had had enough of the yacht; I should have cursed myself for my folly had we parted company with the ship and then met with bad weather again; it was impossible to hear the clanking of the pump, and glance at the coil of cold bright water gushing from it without a shudder that penetrated to my inmost being. And to keep my sweetheart in this perilous craft, rendered leaky and ricketty by storm; to go on subjecting her to the brain-addling convulsive pitching and tossing of the poor, mutilated hooker; to risk with her another passage of violent winds, merely to preserve a vessel which I was now quite willing to let quietly go to the bottom!
"Not for a million!" said I aloud. "No, my darling," I continued, as I fondled her hand, "my business is to see you safe first of all. There is safety yonder," said I, pointing to theCarthusian, "but none here. We must take our chance of being trans-shipped from her as speedily as may be, of being put on board some passing steamer that will carry us home swiftly and comfortably. But sooner than miss the chance that vessel yonder provides us with, I would be content to make the whole round voyage in her, with you by my side, though she should occupy three years in completing it."
We had been waiting, and watching the weather for about an hour, when my eye was suddenly taken by a cloud of extraordinary shape, sailing up the sky out of the north and east, whence the wind was still blowing. It was of the colour of sulphur, and was the exact representation of a huge hand, the forefinger outstretched, the thumb curved backwards as it would be in life, the remaining fingers clenched. As it came along it seemed to project from the dirty grey surface of vapour under which it sailed; it was as though some Titan, lying hid past the clouds, had thrust his hand through the floor of vapour with the finger pointing towards the mighty Atlantic.
By the time it was over the yacht its shape had changed, and it passed away to leeward formless, a mere rag of yellowish vapour. But it had lingered long enough as a compacted colossal hand, pointing seawards, to astonish and even to awe me. It might have been that my brain was a little weakened by what we had passed through, and by want of rest; it is certain, anyway, that the spectacle of that hand of vapour touched and stirred every superstitious instinct in me. Grace, as well as Caudel and the others, had stared up at it with wonder, Job Crew agape, and the boy Bobby squeezing his knuckles into his eyes again and again as though to make sure. As it changed its form and floated away, I exclaimed to my sweetheart:
"It was the finger of Heaven pointing out our road to us, and telling us what to do."
"It was a wonderfully shaped cloud," said she.
"Grace, after that sign," I cried excitedly, "I would not remain in this yacht though her leak were stopped, all sail made upon her, and Penzance as far off as you can see," said I, pointing.
She looked, awed by the effect of the apparition of the cloud upon me, and held my hand in silence with her eyes fixed on my face.
The ship having canvas upon her, settled slowly upon our bow at a safe distance, but our drift was very nearly hers, and during those weary hours of waiting for the sea to abate, the two crafts fairly held the relative positions they had occupied at the outset. The interest we excited in the people aboard of her was ceaseless. The line of her bulwarks remained dark with heads, and the glimmer of the white faces gave an odd pulsing look to the whole length of them, as the heave of the ship alternated the stormy light. They believed us on our own report to be sinking, and that might account for their tireless gaze and riveted attention.
I could well imagine the deplorable figure our yacht made, as she soared and sank, time after time plunging into some hollow that put her out of sight to the ship, leaving nothing showing but the splintered masthead above the clear emerald green or frothing summit of the swollen heap of water. At such times the spectators aboard theCarthusianmight well have supposed us gone for ever.
On a sudden, much about the hour of noon, there came a lull; the wind dropped as if by magic, here and there over the wide green surface of ocean the foam glanced, but in the main the billows ceased to break and washed along in a troubled but fast moderating swell. A kind of brightness sat in the east, and the horizon opened to its normal confines; but it was a desolate sea, nothing in sight save the ship, though I eagerly and anxiously scanned the whole circle of the waters.
The two vessels had widened their distance, yet the note of the hail, if dull, was perfectly distinct.
"Yacht ahoy! We're going to send a boat."
I saw a number of figures in motion on the ship's poop. The aftermost boat was then swung through the davits over the side, four or five men entered her, and a minute later she sank to the water.
"Here they come, Grace!" cried I. "At last, thank Heaven!"
"Oh, Herbert, I shall never be able to enter her," she exclaimed, shrinking to my side.
But I knew better, and made answer with a caress only.
The oars rose and fell, the boat showed and vanished, showed and vanished again as she came buzzing to the yacht, to the impulse of the powerfully swept blades. Caudel stood by with some coils of line in his hand; the end was flung, caught, and in a trice the boat was alongside, and a sun-burnt, reddish-haired man, in a suit of serge, and a naval peak to his cap, tumbled with the dexterity of a monkey over the yacht's rail.
He looked round him an instant, and then came straight up to Grace and me, taking the heaving and slanting deck as easily as though it were the floor of a ball-room.
"I am the second mate of theCarthusian," said he, touching his cap with an expression of astonishment and admiration in his eyes as he looked at Grace. "Are all your people ready to leave, sir? Captain Parsons is anxious that there should be no delay."
"The lady and I are perfectly ready," said I, "but my men have made up their minds to stick to the yacht with the hope of carrying her home."
He looked round to Caudel who stood near.
"Ay, sir, that's right," exclaimed the worthy fellow, "it's agoing to be fine weather and the water's to be kept under."
The second mate ran his eye over the yacht with a short-lived look of puzzlement in his face, then addressed me:
"We had thought your case a hopeless one, sir."
"So it is," I answered.
"Are you wise in your resolution, my man?" he exclaimed, turning to Caudel again.
"Ay, sir," answered Caudel doggedly, as though anticipating an argument, "who's agoing to leave such a dandy craft as this to founder for the want of keeping a pump going for a day or two? There are four men and a boy all resolved, and we'llmanageit," he added emphatically.
"The yacht is in no fit state for the young lady, anyway," said the second mate. "Now, sir, and you, madam, if you are ready," and he put his head over the side to look at his boat.
I helped Grace to stand, and whilst I supported her I extended my hand to Caudel.
"God bless you and send you safe home!" said I; "your pluck and determination make me feel but half a man. But my mind is resolved too. Not for worlds would Miss Bellassys and I pass another hour in this craft."
He shook me cordially by the hand, and respectfully bade Grace farewell. The others of my crew approached, leaving one pumping, and amongst the strong fellows on deck and over the side—sinewy arms to raise and muscular fists to receive her—Grace, white and shrinking and exclaiming, was handed dexterously and swiftly down over the side. Watching my chance, I sprang, and plumped heavily but safely into the boat. The second mate then followed and we shoved off.
The crew of the yacht raised a cheer and waved their caps to us, and I felt heartily grieved to leave them. They had behaved well throughout the wild hours of storm now passed, and it seemed but a poor return, so to speak, on my part to quit the yacht in this fashion, as if, indeed, I was abandoning them to their fate, though, of course, they had made up their minds and knew very well what they were about; so that it was little more than sensitiveness that made me think of them as I did whilst I watched them flourishing to me and listened to their cheers.
By this time, the light that I had taken notice of in the east had brightened; there were breaks in it, with here and there a dim view of blue sky, and the waters beneath had a gleam of steel as they rolled frothless and swollen. In fact, it was easy to see that fine weather was at hand, and this assurance it was that reconciled me as nothing else could to the fancy of Caudel and my little crew carrying the leaking, crippled yacht home.
The men in the boat pulled sturdily, eyeing Grace and me out of the corner of their eyes, and gnawing upon the hunks of tobacco in their cheeks, as though in the most literal manner they were chewing the cud of the thoughts put into them by this encounter. The second mate uttered a remark or two about the weather, but the business of the tiller held him too busy to talk. There was the heavy swell to watch, and the tall, slowly-rolling metal fabric ahead of us to sheer alongside of. For my part, I could not see how Grace was to get aboard, and, observing no ladder over the side as we rounded under the vessel's stern, I asked the second mate how we were to manage it.
"Oh," said he, "we shall send you both up in a chair with a whip. There's the block," he added, pointing to the yard-arm, "and the line's already rove, you'll observe."
There were some seventy or eighty people watching us as we drew alongside, all staring over the rail and from the forecastle and from the poop, as one man. I remarked a few bonnets and shawled heads forward, and two or three well-dressed women aft, otherwise the crowd of heads belonged to men-emigrants—shabby and grimy; most of them looking seasick, I thought, as they overhung the side.
A line was thrown from the ship, and the boat was hauled under the yard-arm whip, where she lay rising and falling, carefully fended off from the vessel's iron side by a couple of the men in her.
"Now, then, bear a hand!" shouted a voice from the poop; "get your gangway unshipped, and stand by to hoist away handsomely."
A minute later a large chair with arms dangled over our heads, and was caught by the fellows in the boat. A more uncomfortable, nerve-capsizing performance I never took a part in. The water washed with a thunderous sobbing sound along the metal bends of the ship, that, as she stooped her side into the brine, flashed up the swell in froth, hurling towards us also a recoiling billow, which made the dance of the boat horribly bewildering and nauseating. One moment we were floated, as it seemed to my eye, to the level of the bulwarks of the stooping ship; the next we were in a valley, with the great bare hull leaning away from us—an immense wet surface of red and black and chequered band, her shrouds vanishing in a slope, and her yard-arms forking up sky high.
"Now, madam," said the second mate, "will you please seat yourself in that chair?"
Grace was very white, but she saw that it must be done, and with set lips and in silence, was helped by the sailors to seat herself. I adored her then for her spirit, for I confess that I had dreaded she would hang back, shriek out, cling to me, and complicate and delay the miserable business by her terrors. She was securely fastened into the chair, and the second mate paused for the chance.
"Hoist away!" he yelled, and up went my darling, uttering one little scream only as she soared.
"Lower away!" and by the line that was attached to the chair, she was dragged through the gangway where I lost sight of her.
It was now my turn. The chair descended, and I sat upon it, not without several yearning glances at the sloping side of the ship, which, however, only satisfied me that there was no other method by which I might enter the vessel than the chair, active as I was.
"Hoist away!" was shouted, and up I went, and I shall not readily forget the sensation. My brains seemed to sink into my boots as I mounted. I was hoisted needlessly high, almost to the yard-arm itself, I fancy, through some blunder on the part of the men who manned the "whip." For some breathless moments I dangled between heaven and ocean, seeing nothing but grey sky and heaving waters. But the torture was brief. I felt the chair sinking, saw the open gangway sweep past me, and presently I was out of the chair at Grace's side, stared at by some eighty or a hundred emigrants, all 'tweendecks passengers, who had left the bulwarks to congregate on the main deck.
"Well, thank Heaven, here we are, anyway!" was my first exclamation to Grace.
"It was a thousand times worse than theSpitfirewhilst it lasted," she answered.
"You behaved magnificently," said I.
"Will you step this way?" exclaimed a voice overhead.
On looking up I found that we were addressed by a short, somewhat thick-set man, who stood at the rail that protected the forward extremity of the poop deck. This was the person who had talked to us through the speaking-trumpet, and I at once guessed him to be the captain. There were about a dozen first-class passengers gazing at us from either side of him, two or three of whom were ladies. I took Grace by the hand, and conducted her up a short flight of steps, and approached the captain, raising my hat as I did so, and receiving from him a sea-flourish of the tall hat he wore. He was buttoned up in a cloth coat, and his cheeks rested in a pair of high, sharp-pointed collars, starched to an iron hardness, so that his body and head moved as one piece. His short legs arched outwards, and his feet were encased in long boots, the toes of which were of the shape of a shovel. He wore the familiar tall hat of the streets; it looked to be brushed the wrong way, was bronze at the rims, and on the whole showed as a hat that had made several voyages. Yet, if there was but little of the sailor in his costume, his face suggested itself to me as a very good example of the nautical life. His nose was scarcely more than a pimple of a reddish tincture, and his small, moist, grey eyes lying deep in their sockets seemed, as they gazed at you, to be boring their way through the apertures which Nature had provided for the admission of light. A short piece of white whisker decorated either cheek, and his hair that was cropped close as a soldier's was also white.
"Is that your yacht, young gentleman?" said he, bringing his eyes from Grace to me, at whom he had to stare up as at his masthead, so considerably did I tower over the little man.
"Yes," said I, "she is theSpitfire—belongs to Southampton. I am very much obliged to you for receiving this lady and me."
"Not at all," said he, looking hard at Grace; "your wife, sir?"
"No," said I, greatly embarrassed by the question, and by the gaze of the ten or dozen passengers who hung near, eyeing us intently and whispering, yet, for the most part, with no lack of sympathy and good nature in their countenances. I saw Grace quickly bite upon her under-lip, but without colouring or any other sign of confusion than a slight turn of her head as though she viewed the yacht.
"But what have you done with the rest of your people, young gentleman?" inquired the captain.
"My name is Barclay—Mr. Herbert Barclay: the name of the young lady to whom I am engaged to be married," said I, significantly sending a look along the faces of the listeners, "is Miss Grace Bellassys, whose aunt, Lady Amelia Roscoe, you may probably have heard of."
This, I thought, was introduction enough. My business was to assert our dignity first of all, and then as I was addressing a number of persons who were either English or Colonial, or both, the pronunciation of her ladyship's name was, I considered, a very early and essential duty.
"With regard to my crew—" I continued, and I told the captain they had made up their minds to carry the vessel home.
"Miss Bellassys looks very tired," exclaimed a middle-aged lady with grey hair, speaking with a gentle, concerned smile, engaging with its air of sympathetic apology, "if she will allow me to conduct her to my cabin—"
"By all means, Mrs. Barstow," cried the captain. "If she has been knocking about in that bit of a craft there through the gale that's been blowing, all I can say, ladies and gentlemen, she'll have seen more tumbling and weather in forty-eight hours than you'll have any idea of though I was to keep you at sea for ten years in this ship."
Mrs. Barstow, with a motherly manner, approached Grace, who bowed and thanked her, and together they walked to the companion hatch and disappeared.
By this time the boat had been hoisted, and the ship was full of the animation and business of her sailors piling canvas upon her. The sudden stagnation that had fallen was now threaded by a weak draught of air out of the east where the brightness of the new weather had first shown. The compacted pall of cloud was fast breaking up, settling into large bodies of vapour, with spaces of dim blue sky between and in the south there stood a shaft of golden sunshine that flashed up a space of water at its base in splendour, though past it the sulky heaps of cloud loomed the darker for that magical and beautiful lance of radiance. Miles away in the south-west a white sail hovered, but nothing else broke the sea-line.
I took all this in at a glance: also the figure of my poor, mutilated yacht heaving forlorn and naked upon the swell that still rolled heavily, as though after the savage vexing of its heart during the past hours, old ocean could not quickly draw its breath placidly. The little vessel looked but a toy from the height of the poop of the iron ship. As I surveyed her, I marvelled to think that she had successfully encountered the weather of the past two days and nights. I could see one of the men—Dick Files—steadily labouring at the pump whilst the others were busy with the tackle and gear that supported the mast. But even as I watched, theCarthusianhad got way upon her, and was dwarfing yet the poor brave littleSpitfireas she slided round to the government of her helm, her yards squaring, her canvas spreading, and her crew chorussing all about her decks as she went.
The captain asked me many questions, most of which I answered mechanically, for my thoughts were fixed upon the little yacht, and my heart was with the poor fellows who had resolved to carry her home—but withthemonly! not withher. No! as I watched her rolling, and the fellow pumping, not for worlds would I have gone aboard of her again with Grace, though Caudel should have yelled out that the leak was stopped, and though a fair, bright breezy day, with promise of its quiet lasting for a week, should have opened round about us.
The captain wanted to know when I had sailed, from what port I had started, where I was bound to, and the like. I kept my face with difficulty when I gave him my attention at last. It was not only his own mirth-provoking, nautical countenance; the saloon passengers could not take their eyes off me, and they bobbed and leaned forward in an eager, hearkening way to catch every syllable of my replies. Nor was this all, for below on the quarter-deck and along the waist stood the scores of steerage passengers, all straining their eyes at me. The curiosity and excitement were ridiculous. But fame is a thing very cheaply earned in these days.
The captain inquired a little too curiously sometimes. So Miss Bellassys was engaged to to be married to me, hey? Was she alone with me? No relative, no maid, nobody of her own sex in attendance? To these questions the ladies listened with an odd expression on their faces. I particularly noticed one of them: she had sausage-shaped curls, lips so thin that when they were closed they formed a fine line as though produced by a single sweep of a camel's hair-brush under her nose; the pupil of one eye was considerably larger than that of the other, which gave her a very staring, knowing look on one side of her face; but there was nothing in my responses to appease hers, or the captain's, or the others' thirst for information. In fact, ever since I had resolved to quit theSpitfirefor theCarthusian, I had made up my mind to keep secret the business that had brought Grace and me into this plight. The captain and the rest of them might think as they chose; Grace was not to be much hurt by their conjectures or opinions; there could be nothing to wholly occupy our thoughts whilst aboard theCarthusian, but the obligation of leaving her as speedily as might be, of reaching Penzance, and then getting married.
"There can be no doubt, I hope, Captain Parsons," said I, for the second mate had given me the skipper's name, "of our promptly falling in with something homeward bound that will land Miss Bellassys and me? What the craft may prove can signify nothing—a smack would serve our purpose."
"I'll signal when I have a chance," he answered, looking round the sea and then up aloft, "but it's astonishing, ladies and gentlemen," he continued, addressing the passengers, "how lonesome the ocean is, even where you look for plenty of shipping."
"Not in this age of steam, I think," observed a tall, thin man mildly.
"In this age of steam, sir," responded the captain. "You may not credit it, but on three occasions I have measured the two Atlantics from abreast of Ushant to abreast of the Cape of Good Hope without sighting a single ship, steam or sail."
"You amaze me," said the mild, thin man.
"How far are we from Penzance, captain?" I inquired.
"Why," he answered, "all a hundred and fifty miles."
"If that be so then," I cried, "our drift must have been that of a balloon."
"Will those poor creatures ever be able to reach the English coast in that broken boat?" exclaimed one of the ladies, indicating theSpitfirethat now lay dwarfed right over the stern of the ship.
"If they are longshoremen—and yet I don't know," exclaimed the captain with a short laugh, "a boatman will easily handle a craft of that sort when a blue-water sailor would be all abroad." He put his hand into the skylight and lifted a telescope off its brackets, and applied it to his eye. "Still pumping," said he, talking whilst he gazed through the glass, "and they're stretching a sail along—bending it no doubt. There's plenty of mast there for cloths enough to blow them home. The pump keeps the water under—that's certain. To my mind she looks more buoyant than she was. Ladies and gentlemen, she'll do—she'll do. If I thought not—" he viewed her for a little while in silence. "Oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen, she'll do," he repeated, and then replacing the glass, exclaimed to me, "Have you lunched, Mr. Barclay?"
"No, captain, I have not, neither can I say I have breakfasted."
"Oh, confound it, man, you should have said so before. Step this way, sir, step this way," and he led me to the companion hatch that conducted to the saloon, pausing on the road, however, to beckon with a square forefinger to a sober, Scotch-faced personage in a monkey jacket and loose pilot trousers—the chief mate as I afterwards learnt—to whom in a wheezy undertone he addressed some instructions, which, as I gathered from one or two syllables I overheard, referred to the speaking of inward-bound ships, and to our trans-shipment.
The saloon was a fine, long, handsome interior, but I preserve no more of it than a general impression of mirrors, rich panels, a short row of lamps formed of some lustrous metal, an elaborate stove aft, a piano secured to the richly-decorated shaft of the mizzenmast; a long table with fixed revolving chairs on either hand, flanked to port and starboard by a row of cabins or berths. After our experience aboard theSpitfire, I was scarcely sensible of the motions of the deck of this big ship, albeit she was rolling and curtseying as she floated, clothed to her royal yards, over the sulky undulations of the water. But I was able to gather from certain sounds which penetrated through the closed doors of the berths that some of the passengers were not yet quite well. There was nobody in the saloon save one little man with a quantity of hair down his back after the manner of poets and professors. He was seated near the main-deck entrance with a countenance of a ghastly hue. His eyes were riveted to the deck, and when the captain cheerily called to him to know how he did, he answered without moving his figure or shifting his gaze, "Ach! Gott! don't shpeak to me."
At this moment a door close beside which I was standing opened and Grace came out, followed by the kind lady, Mrs. Barstow. She had removed her hat and jacket, and was sweet and fresh with the application of such toilet conveniences as her sympathetic acquaintance could provide her with. Captain Parsons stared at her and then whipped off his tall hat.
"This is better than theSpitfire, Grace," said I.
"Oh, yes, Herbert," she answered, sending a glance of her fine dark eyes over the saloon; "but Mrs. Barstow tells me that the ship is going to New Zealand."
"So she is, so she is," cried Captain Parsons, bursting into a laugh, "and if you like, Mr. Barclay and you shall accompany us."
She looked at him with a frightened girlish air.
"Oh, no, Miss Bellassys," said Mrs. Barstow. "Captain Parsons is a great humorist. I have made two voyages with him, and he keeps me laughing from port to port. He will see that you get safely home, and I wish that we could count upon arriving at Otaga as speedily as you will reach England."
Just then a man in a camlet jacket entered the saloon—cuddy, I believe, is the proper word for it. He was the head steward, and Captain Parsons immediately called to him.
"Jenkins, here. This lady and gentleman have not breakfasted; they have been shipwrecked, and wish to lunch. You understand? And draw the cork of a quart bottle of champagne. There is no better sea-physic, Miss Bellassys. I've known what it is to be five days in