Chapter Fourteen.In the Horse Latitudes.At noon on our second day out, running right before the north-east by east wind all the while and making but little southing, with our royals and studding-sails set, and everything that could draw—theEsmeraldaaveraging nearly ten knots an hour every time we hove the log from the time of our clearing the Bristol Channel—we had reached the meridian of 12 degrees 15 minutes west; for Captain Billings wisely took advantage of such a favourable breeze, as I’ve remarked before, to get well to windward of the French coast, knowing well that we might shortly meet with westerly winds of a variable nature that would probably put us quite as far to the eastward as we should want—in the event of our making too much westing.However, having now gained such a good offing, we hauled our wind, and steered a west-sou’-west course, as previously mentioned, towards Madeira.Up to this time we had not started a brace, or loosed a sheet, the wind being fair from aft while we were steering to the west, and now well abeam, on our bearing up to the southward on the port tack; but, we had hardly made a couple of days’ sail in our new direction, running down to the parallel of 45 degrees north, which we crossed in 15 degrees west, before the wind began to come in light puffs. Shortly afterwards, it shifted round to the westward, backing occasionally to the east and south-east and causing us plenty of work in the way of tacking, first to starboard, and then to port again—the skipper striving all the while to keep all the westing he had made, and preserve a diagonal course for the Line; although the set of the Gulf Stream, in towards the coast of Portugal, gave us a lot of leeway to add to our dead reckoning.What with the baffling breezes and occasional calms, it took us another four days to get to the southwards of the Azores, passing them much further to the eastwards than Captain Billings had calculated on; but then a fresh wind sprang up from the north-west, bidding fair to last, which took us down to the thirty-fifth parallel in fine style, theEsmeraldacovering over three hundred miles between the morning of one day and noon the next.All hands now began hoping we were going to make a quick run of it after all, in spite of the tedious delays of the last few days; but it was a very fallacious hope, as we quickly found out.The favourable north-wester lasted another twelve hours, driving us down our latitudes on the starboard tack, the ship sailing pretty free, with the wind nearly abeam and all her canvas set that could draw, racing through the water like a crack cutter at a regatta; when, on the evening of our eleventh day out, by which time we had nearly reached the parallel of Madeira, although forty miles or so to the westward of the island, the breeze failed us all of a sudden, just close on to midnight, a dead calm setting in, accompanied by a heavy rolling swell.“Ah,” said Jorrocks, who was sharing the first watch with me—Mr Ohlsen, the second mate, being ill and excused from duty—“we’re now in the Hoss Latitudes, Mister Leigh, and may know what we’ve got to expect!”“Horse Latitudes?” I repeated after him, inquiringly, thinking he was having a little joke at my expense, and taking advantage of my ignorance.“Aye, I ain’t trying to bamboozle you, my lad! They calls them so, ’cause, in the old days, the West India traders that carried out hosses to the Windward Islands had frequently to throw ’em overboard during the shifts of wind and changes they had when they got hereabouts; for the weather can’t be depended on for an hour at a time, it being calm, just as now, one minute, and the next a gale springing up strong enough to blow the masts out o’ your ship ’fore you can let the sheets fly.”“Oh!” I exclaimed; “and, do you think there’s any likelihood of a hurricane now?”“Can’t say,” replied Jorrocks, sententiously. “We’d better give the skipper a hail; he left orders to be called if the wind dropped, or in case of any change.”“All right,” said I, turning to leave the poop. “I will go down and rouse him at once, and I may as well knock up Mr Macdougall at the same time to relieve the deck, for it’s past eight bells.”“Aye, aye, do so, sir,” responded the boatswain; so I hastened below to perform my mission, leaving him in charge until I returned.Captain Billings answered my call almost the instant I rapped at his door, coming from his cabin fully dressed, having turned in to his bunk “all standing,” as if prepared for the summons; but the first mate was a heavy sleeper, and it took me more than ten minutes to rouse him, so that when I had gained the deck again the port watch had come on duty, the “starbowlines” having gone to their bunks as soon as relieved by the fresh hands. Jorrocks, however, I noticed, remained still on the poop; and, knowing that he would not thus inconvenience himself by going without his proper “caulk,” like the rest, unless there was some urgent reason—for he dearly loved his sleep when duty did not interfere with the indulgence—I stayed behind, too, the more especially as I remembered what he had said about there being the chance of a “blow.”In the short time I had been away, a change was apparent, even to my unaccustomed eyes, unused as they were as yet to many nautical phenomena.The stillness of the atmosphere I had noticed when I quitted the deck to summon the skipper, had been succeeded by a series of light puzzling puffs of air; while, although the night was clear, with a few stars shining overhead, fleecy fragments of cloud were whirling about in eddies, some settling in heavy masses on the water and banking themselves round the horizon.But, the sea itself showed much the greatest sign of coming disturbance. The waves, no longer following each other in long heaving rollers, were curving upwards and jostling each other—like so many fiery coursers, suddenly thrown back on their haunches, by reason of being reined in when in the full burst of their mad career, and now champing their bits with angry impatience!There was, likewise, an alteration in the aspect of the ship.Captain Billings had already reduced his canvas, the topgallant sails having been taken in and the courses clewed up; and now, pretty nearly stripped of all her “drapery,” like a gladiator entering the arena, theEsmeraldaappeared awaiting the issue of whatever decision the elements might arrive at—ready to take her part in the conflict should strife ensue between the opposing forces of the wind and waves; or, in the event of a contest being avoided through the disinclination of the storm fiend to “come to the scratch,” equally prepared to spread her wings again and proceed on her voyage.“It’s just a toss up now, whether we’ll have it or not,” whispered Jorrocks to me as we stood side by side together on the poop, watching the skipper, whose eyes were as intently riveted on the dog-vane at the main truck above.Just at this moment, Mr Macdougall came lazily sauntering up the poop ladder. He did not see that Captain Billings was on deck; and, eyeing the change in the ship’s appearance, exclaimed, angrily, with that Scottish burr of his, which was always more pronounced when he was excited—“Hoot, mon, wha’ the dickens hae ye takken the sails off her—who ordered ye, I’d like ta ken?”He was addressing Jorrocks; but the skipper, who was annoyed by his late arrival to relieve the watch, answered him sharply—“I gave the order, Mr Macdougall, which you should have been up in time to have seen carried out; and, if you’re a seaman and will just give a glance round, you’ll soon see the reason why!”The first mate made no reply to this save to follow out the captain’s suggestion of looking over the side; and what he saw there did not appear to give him any excuse for controverting the skipper’s words; for, the clouds had now spread over the horizon—except to the southward, where it was still clear, and from which a short sharp gust of wind came every now and then, filling out the loose folds of the courses, and then, as it died away, letting them flap against the masts with a heavy dull sound as of distant thunder, an occasional streak of pale lightning darting across the sky to the north-west, where the heavens were most obscured, as if to bear out the illusion.“We’re in for it now, for certain,” said Captain Billings presently, noticing a faint stir in the air above amidst the whizzing clouds, the upper strata of which were going in a contrary direction to that in which the vane pointed, which was still to the south-east. “Boatswain, rouse out the watch below!”Jorrocks thereupon immediately went forward towards the fo’c’s’le, knocking with a marlinspike three times on the deck, and shouting out the well-known hail that every sailor knows but too well.“Tumble up there! All hands shorten sail!”The men, who had hardly shifted their clothes and turned in, after being relieved by the port watch at eight bells, came tumbling up on deck hurriedly, and the skipper at once ordered the topsail and foresail to be reefed, spanker to be brailed up, and the main course furled; while the vessel was kept with her head to the southward, that is, as well as the cross sea and the fitful gusts of wind would allow, under her jib, fore and main-topsails and forecourse.Presently there was an ominous hum in the surrounding atmosphere, when the waves calmed down as if by magic; and then, a large rent disclosed itself in the sombre curtain of cloud to the north-west, the heavy masses of vapour that had been previously piling themselves along the horizon there and spreading up to the zenith falling back again and scurrying away in a retrograde direction, like skirmishers on a battle-field driven-in on to their supports by a rush of cavalry trying to cut them off.“Here it comes!” shouted out Captain Billings, ordering the hands at the same time to “stand by” the braces and topsail halliards; and, almost ere the crew could get to their respective posts, the clouds had disappeared, with what seemed a supernatural celerity from the heavens, letting the clear blue sky be seen again and the bright twinkling stars peep down to see what all the fuss was about, all being calm and easy up there!Thanks to the skipper’s precautions, the outburst of the gale did not take theEsmeraldaaback, as would most probably have been the case if the first mate had been in charge of the deck, when we should have most likely lost our spars, if the vessel had not foundered, as frequently happens when a ship is caught unprepared; as it was, she only winced slightly, with a shiver through her frame, as the wind struck her on the quarter, the masts and yards creaking and the topsails expanding with a sound like that of an explosion as they were blown out to their fullest extent, almost jumping from the bolt-ropes, and then her hull lay over to leeward while she began to push through the water, driven along before the blast at racehorse speed.“Ease off those starboard braces there, and haul in to leeward?” cried out Captain Billings, directing the man at the wheel by a wave of his hand to put the helm down slightly, so as to bring her head more up to the wind; but this was more than the steersman could do unaided, the vessel—carrying out the analogy I recently used—resembling a vicious charger that had taken the bit between his teeth—so, Mr Macdougall at once sprang to help the steersman, when the two together managed, by exerting all their united strength, to jam the spokes round so that the ship’s head was brought over to the south-west, bearing off then with the wind before the beam.The north-west gale was then blowing with tremendous force and increasing to the power of a hurricane each instant as it whistled through the cordage, wailing and shrieking like the lost souls in Dante’s “Inferno.” The momentarily quiet sea, too, had got up again, and was now covered with huge broken waves—raised aloft in pyramids one moment, and the next scooped out into yawning valleys, into which the vessel plunged, with a shock that made her timbers vibrate with the sledge-hammer thud of the bows meeting the billows full butt, the concussion causing columns of spray to be thrown up that came in over the cathead, drenching the fo’c’s’le and pouring in a cascade into the waist, whence the broken water, washing aft along the deck, forming a lake on the lee-side, where the scuppers were level with the sea, from the ship’s heeling over.We were still carrying too much sail; and this the skipper was as quick as any one to perceive, although he was anxious to pursue his course as long as he could, and make as much capital as he could out of the north-wester in his way to the Line.“Hands shorten sail!” accordingly was the repeated cry; and, knowing what was wanted, the crew were soon racing up the shrouds to close-reef the topsails, although the force of the wind nearly pinned them to the rigging like spread eagles, and they had hard difficulty in gaining the yards, and working out along the foot-ropes, especially on those to windward.The topsail halliards had of course been let go before this, and the loose sails were filled out like balloons, so that it took some time to get in the bunt and tie the reef points; but it was at last done, and we returned to the deck—I being especially triumphant at having out-paced one of the smartest topmen in the ship, in gaining the weather earing of the foretop sail before him, and completing my task so quickly as to get down on deck before some of the rest had yet left the yard.Captain Billings, I was pleased to see, noticed my activity, giving me an approving smile, which more than counterbalanced the scowl that Macdougall greeted my reappearance with below; but all such thoughts were soon banished by the skipper’s fresh order to go aloft and take in the topsail we had only just close-reefed, the vessel being buried too much by the head.Away up the rattlins we all climbed again; while those below, on the halliards being started by the run, began hauling on the clewlines and buntlines, bagging up the sail so that we could hand it easier. It was stiffer work furling it than the reefing had been; but, at length this, too, was accomplished, albeit I nearly narrowly got knocked off the yard-arm by the flapping back of the folds of canvas in my face as the wind caught the leech sideways. We then returned once more to the more substantial platform of the deck, glad enough to get down safe again.“Let go the jib halliards!” was the next command, some of the hands starting forwards to man the down haul; but the moment the halliards were cast loose, the accommodating sail saved us any further trouble in the way of stowing it, by blowing clean away to leeward with a report as if a small cannon had been fired off on the fo’c’s’le—floating out against the dark background of the sky like a child’s kite whose string has parted and let it go to grief, tumbling down from its soaring height, and disappearing in the dim distance to leeward, where the clouds had already vanished.The ship was now only under her close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, all the rest of her canvas having been taken off her by degrees; still, she laboured so greatly, and got such a list to leeward—with the topmasts bent like fishing rods under the strain, while the weather shrouds were as taut as fiddle-strings, and those on the port side hung limp and loose through the stretching of the rigging—that the skipper saw she would not stand driving any more. The only thing now to be done, he thought, was to lay her to, so that, as he could not get her any further on her forward journey, she should not, at all events, lose the progress she had already made save by leeway drift, which of course was unavoidable.“Ease down the helm!” he cried to the two men, who were now necessary at the wheel, while the fore-tack was boarded, the lee braces hauled aft, and the mainyard braced in, when the ship was brought up to the wind, bowing and scraping, and taking in tons of water over the fo’c’s’le, in this operation, that washed everybody off their legs in the waist, bundling them away to leeward in a bunch.For a time theEsmeraldanow behaved very well, the mizen trysail being set to steady her, although, being hove to on the starboard tack, she drifted sideways, before the fierce north-west gale, making as much leeway towards the south and east as if she had been running free; but, presently, there was a loud crack heard forwards, and Haxell, the carpenter, came up to the skipper on the poop, looking even more serious than usual as he crawled aft under shelter of the bulwarks.“The foremast is sprung, sir,” said he in a melancholy tone of voice, as if he were announcing the fact of his just going to be hanged.“Is it serious?” asked Captain Billings.“Aye, aye, sir, it’s all that,” replied Haxell. “There’s a big flaw close under the slings of the foreyard. It won’t stand the pressure of that foresail ag’in it much longer, Cap’; and it’ll be safe to carry away presently.”“Then we must relieve it before that happens,” said the skipper, giving orders for us to furl the foresail and hoist the fore-topmast staysail in its place, for that would serve to keep control of the helm, he thought. The ship required some headsail, and this would not try the damaged mast so severely as the foresail had done, with its wide extent of canvas.By the time all these different manoeuvres had been essayed and effected it was broad daylight. It was a fine morning, too, although the wind was still blowing a hurricane and the sea was fearfully high and choppy, for there wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the heavens, while the sun was shining down with almost tropical heat; but, in spite of its looking so bright, we hadn’t done with the nor’-wester yet.Towards mid-day, when we found from observation that we were in latitude 27 degrees North and longitude 18 degrees West—nearly abreast of the island of Palma in the Canaries, and a terrible distance to the eastward of our position on the previous day, thus showing all the leeway we had lost—the wind increased so much in strength that it blew now with even greater force than at its first onset the evening before on the breaking out of the gale.This was not all, either.The heavy waves that dashed against the ship as she headed them, broke upon her bows with such fury that it seemed every moment as if they would beat in the timbers; while, every now and then, some billow mightier than its fellows would force her head away, making her fall off, and then, the succeeding sea would take her broadside on, hurling tons of broken water on her decks that would have soon filled her had not the hatches been battened down, which precaution had been taken when we first reduced sail.The situation became serious on this being repeated several times during the afternoon, for there was great danger of the vessel being any moment thrown on her beam ends, when there would certainly be a clean sweep made of everything on board and theEsmeraldabe speedily converted into a floating wreck!Captain Billings accordingly called a council of his officers, I standing by and listening to what Mr Macdougall and Jorrocks advised should be done in the emergency. These both, however, came to the same opinion as the skipper, that scudding would be the best course to pursue under the circumstances—although, like him, they were well aware that the difficulty which faced us all consisted, not so much in running before the wind, as in managing to get the vessel’s head round so as to do it without broaching or letting her to.Still, the manoeuvre had to be tried as a last resource.“I don’t see that anything else can be done,” said Captain Billings, with a more anxious look on his face than I had ever noticed there before. “I only hope we’ll manage it successfully; for, if we once get broadside on in the trough of this sea, she’ll never rise out of it, with the heavy cargo she carries, and so it will be a case of Davy Jones’ locker for the lot of us!”
At noon on our second day out, running right before the north-east by east wind all the while and making but little southing, with our royals and studding-sails set, and everything that could draw—theEsmeraldaaveraging nearly ten knots an hour every time we hove the log from the time of our clearing the Bristol Channel—we had reached the meridian of 12 degrees 15 minutes west; for Captain Billings wisely took advantage of such a favourable breeze, as I’ve remarked before, to get well to windward of the French coast, knowing well that we might shortly meet with westerly winds of a variable nature that would probably put us quite as far to the eastward as we should want—in the event of our making too much westing.
However, having now gained such a good offing, we hauled our wind, and steered a west-sou’-west course, as previously mentioned, towards Madeira.
Up to this time we had not started a brace, or loosed a sheet, the wind being fair from aft while we were steering to the west, and now well abeam, on our bearing up to the southward on the port tack; but, we had hardly made a couple of days’ sail in our new direction, running down to the parallel of 45 degrees north, which we crossed in 15 degrees west, before the wind began to come in light puffs. Shortly afterwards, it shifted round to the westward, backing occasionally to the east and south-east and causing us plenty of work in the way of tacking, first to starboard, and then to port again—the skipper striving all the while to keep all the westing he had made, and preserve a diagonal course for the Line; although the set of the Gulf Stream, in towards the coast of Portugal, gave us a lot of leeway to add to our dead reckoning.
What with the baffling breezes and occasional calms, it took us another four days to get to the southwards of the Azores, passing them much further to the eastwards than Captain Billings had calculated on; but then a fresh wind sprang up from the north-west, bidding fair to last, which took us down to the thirty-fifth parallel in fine style, theEsmeraldacovering over three hundred miles between the morning of one day and noon the next.
All hands now began hoping we were going to make a quick run of it after all, in spite of the tedious delays of the last few days; but it was a very fallacious hope, as we quickly found out.
The favourable north-wester lasted another twelve hours, driving us down our latitudes on the starboard tack, the ship sailing pretty free, with the wind nearly abeam and all her canvas set that could draw, racing through the water like a crack cutter at a regatta; when, on the evening of our eleventh day out, by which time we had nearly reached the parallel of Madeira, although forty miles or so to the westward of the island, the breeze failed us all of a sudden, just close on to midnight, a dead calm setting in, accompanied by a heavy rolling swell.
“Ah,” said Jorrocks, who was sharing the first watch with me—Mr Ohlsen, the second mate, being ill and excused from duty—“we’re now in the Hoss Latitudes, Mister Leigh, and may know what we’ve got to expect!”
“Horse Latitudes?” I repeated after him, inquiringly, thinking he was having a little joke at my expense, and taking advantage of my ignorance.
“Aye, I ain’t trying to bamboozle you, my lad! They calls them so, ’cause, in the old days, the West India traders that carried out hosses to the Windward Islands had frequently to throw ’em overboard during the shifts of wind and changes they had when they got hereabouts; for the weather can’t be depended on for an hour at a time, it being calm, just as now, one minute, and the next a gale springing up strong enough to blow the masts out o’ your ship ’fore you can let the sheets fly.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed; “and, do you think there’s any likelihood of a hurricane now?”
“Can’t say,” replied Jorrocks, sententiously. “We’d better give the skipper a hail; he left orders to be called if the wind dropped, or in case of any change.”
“All right,” said I, turning to leave the poop. “I will go down and rouse him at once, and I may as well knock up Mr Macdougall at the same time to relieve the deck, for it’s past eight bells.”
“Aye, aye, do so, sir,” responded the boatswain; so I hastened below to perform my mission, leaving him in charge until I returned.
Captain Billings answered my call almost the instant I rapped at his door, coming from his cabin fully dressed, having turned in to his bunk “all standing,” as if prepared for the summons; but the first mate was a heavy sleeper, and it took me more than ten minutes to rouse him, so that when I had gained the deck again the port watch had come on duty, the “starbowlines” having gone to their bunks as soon as relieved by the fresh hands. Jorrocks, however, I noticed, remained still on the poop; and, knowing that he would not thus inconvenience himself by going without his proper “caulk,” like the rest, unless there was some urgent reason—for he dearly loved his sleep when duty did not interfere with the indulgence—I stayed behind, too, the more especially as I remembered what he had said about there being the chance of a “blow.”
In the short time I had been away, a change was apparent, even to my unaccustomed eyes, unused as they were as yet to many nautical phenomena.
The stillness of the atmosphere I had noticed when I quitted the deck to summon the skipper, had been succeeded by a series of light puzzling puffs of air; while, although the night was clear, with a few stars shining overhead, fleecy fragments of cloud were whirling about in eddies, some settling in heavy masses on the water and banking themselves round the horizon.
But, the sea itself showed much the greatest sign of coming disturbance. The waves, no longer following each other in long heaving rollers, were curving upwards and jostling each other—like so many fiery coursers, suddenly thrown back on their haunches, by reason of being reined in when in the full burst of their mad career, and now champing their bits with angry impatience!
There was, likewise, an alteration in the aspect of the ship.
Captain Billings had already reduced his canvas, the topgallant sails having been taken in and the courses clewed up; and now, pretty nearly stripped of all her “drapery,” like a gladiator entering the arena, theEsmeraldaappeared awaiting the issue of whatever decision the elements might arrive at—ready to take her part in the conflict should strife ensue between the opposing forces of the wind and waves; or, in the event of a contest being avoided through the disinclination of the storm fiend to “come to the scratch,” equally prepared to spread her wings again and proceed on her voyage.
“It’s just a toss up now, whether we’ll have it or not,” whispered Jorrocks to me as we stood side by side together on the poop, watching the skipper, whose eyes were as intently riveted on the dog-vane at the main truck above.
Just at this moment, Mr Macdougall came lazily sauntering up the poop ladder. He did not see that Captain Billings was on deck; and, eyeing the change in the ship’s appearance, exclaimed, angrily, with that Scottish burr of his, which was always more pronounced when he was excited—
“Hoot, mon, wha’ the dickens hae ye takken the sails off her—who ordered ye, I’d like ta ken?”
He was addressing Jorrocks; but the skipper, who was annoyed by his late arrival to relieve the watch, answered him sharply—
“I gave the order, Mr Macdougall, which you should have been up in time to have seen carried out; and, if you’re a seaman and will just give a glance round, you’ll soon see the reason why!”
The first mate made no reply to this save to follow out the captain’s suggestion of looking over the side; and what he saw there did not appear to give him any excuse for controverting the skipper’s words; for, the clouds had now spread over the horizon—except to the southward, where it was still clear, and from which a short sharp gust of wind came every now and then, filling out the loose folds of the courses, and then, as it died away, letting them flap against the masts with a heavy dull sound as of distant thunder, an occasional streak of pale lightning darting across the sky to the north-west, where the heavens were most obscured, as if to bear out the illusion.
“We’re in for it now, for certain,” said Captain Billings presently, noticing a faint stir in the air above amidst the whizzing clouds, the upper strata of which were going in a contrary direction to that in which the vane pointed, which was still to the south-east. “Boatswain, rouse out the watch below!”
Jorrocks thereupon immediately went forward towards the fo’c’s’le, knocking with a marlinspike three times on the deck, and shouting out the well-known hail that every sailor knows but too well.
“Tumble up there! All hands shorten sail!”
The men, who had hardly shifted their clothes and turned in, after being relieved by the port watch at eight bells, came tumbling up on deck hurriedly, and the skipper at once ordered the topsail and foresail to be reefed, spanker to be brailed up, and the main course furled; while the vessel was kept with her head to the southward, that is, as well as the cross sea and the fitful gusts of wind would allow, under her jib, fore and main-topsails and forecourse.
Presently there was an ominous hum in the surrounding atmosphere, when the waves calmed down as if by magic; and then, a large rent disclosed itself in the sombre curtain of cloud to the north-west, the heavy masses of vapour that had been previously piling themselves along the horizon there and spreading up to the zenith falling back again and scurrying away in a retrograde direction, like skirmishers on a battle-field driven-in on to their supports by a rush of cavalry trying to cut them off.
“Here it comes!” shouted out Captain Billings, ordering the hands at the same time to “stand by” the braces and topsail halliards; and, almost ere the crew could get to their respective posts, the clouds had disappeared, with what seemed a supernatural celerity from the heavens, letting the clear blue sky be seen again and the bright twinkling stars peep down to see what all the fuss was about, all being calm and easy up there!
Thanks to the skipper’s precautions, the outburst of the gale did not take theEsmeraldaaback, as would most probably have been the case if the first mate had been in charge of the deck, when we should have most likely lost our spars, if the vessel had not foundered, as frequently happens when a ship is caught unprepared; as it was, she only winced slightly, with a shiver through her frame, as the wind struck her on the quarter, the masts and yards creaking and the topsails expanding with a sound like that of an explosion as they were blown out to their fullest extent, almost jumping from the bolt-ropes, and then her hull lay over to leeward while she began to push through the water, driven along before the blast at racehorse speed.
“Ease off those starboard braces there, and haul in to leeward?” cried out Captain Billings, directing the man at the wheel by a wave of his hand to put the helm down slightly, so as to bring her head more up to the wind; but this was more than the steersman could do unaided, the vessel—carrying out the analogy I recently used—resembling a vicious charger that had taken the bit between his teeth—so, Mr Macdougall at once sprang to help the steersman, when the two together managed, by exerting all their united strength, to jam the spokes round so that the ship’s head was brought over to the south-west, bearing off then with the wind before the beam.
The north-west gale was then blowing with tremendous force and increasing to the power of a hurricane each instant as it whistled through the cordage, wailing and shrieking like the lost souls in Dante’s “Inferno.” The momentarily quiet sea, too, had got up again, and was now covered with huge broken waves—raised aloft in pyramids one moment, and the next scooped out into yawning valleys, into which the vessel plunged, with a shock that made her timbers vibrate with the sledge-hammer thud of the bows meeting the billows full butt, the concussion causing columns of spray to be thrown up that came in over the cathead, drenching the fo’c’s’le and pouring in a cascade into the waist, whence the broken water, washing aft along the deck, forming a lake on the lee-side, where the scuppers were level with the sea, from the ship’s heeling over.
We were still carrying too much sail; and this the skipper was as quick as any one to perceive, although he was anxious to pursue his course as long as he could, and make as much capital as he could out of the north-wester in his way to the Line.
“Hands shorten sail!” accordingly was the repeated cry; and, knowing what was wanted, the crew were soon racing up the shrouds to close-reef the topsails, although the force of the wind nearly pinned them to the rigging like spread eagles, and they had hard difficulty in gaining the yards, and working out along the foot-ropes, especially on those to windward.
The topsail halliards had of course been let go before this, and the loose sails were filled out like balloons, so that it took some time to get in the bunt and tie the reef points; but it was at last done, and we returned to the deck—I being especially triumphant at having out-paced one of the smartest topmen in the ship, in gaining the weather earing of the foretop sail before him, and completing my task so quickly as to get down on deck before some of the rest had yet left the yard.
Captain Billings, I was pleased to see, noticed my activity, giving me an approving smile, which more than counterbalanced the scowl that Macdougall greeted my reappearance with below; but all such thoughts were soon banished by the skipper’s fresh order to go aloft and take in the topsail we had only just close-reefed, the vessel being buried too much by the head.
Away up the rattlins we all climbed again; while those below, on the halliards being started by the run, began hauling on the clewlines and buntlines, bagging up the sail so that we could hand it easier. It was stiffer work furling it than the reefing had been; but, at length this, too, was accomplished, albeit I nearly narrowly got knocked off the yard-arm by the flapping back of the folds of canvas in my face as the wind caught the leech sideways. We then returned once more to the more substantial platform of the deck, glad enough to get down safe again.
“Let go the jib halliards!” was the next command, some of the hands starting forwards to man the down haul; but the moment the halliards were cast loose, the accommodating sail saved us any further trouble in the way of stowing it, by blowing clean away to leeward with a report as if a small cannon had been fired off on the fo’c’s’le—floating out against the dark background of the sky like a child’s kite whose string has parted and let it go to grief, tumbling down from its soaring height, and disappearing in the dim distance to leeward, where the clouds had already vanished.
The ship was now only under her close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, all the rest of her canvas having been taken off her by degrees; still, she laboured so greatly, and got such a list to leeward—with the topmasts bent like fishing rods under the strain, while the weather shrouds were as taut as fiddle-strings, and those on the port side hung limp and loose through the stretching of the rigging—that the skipper saw she would not stand driving any more. The only thing now to be done, he thought, was to lay her to, so that, as he could not get her any further on her forward journey, she should not, at all events, lose the progress she had already made save by leeway drift, which of course was unavoidable.
“Ease down the helm!” he cried to the two men, who were now necessary at the wheel, while the fore-tack was boarded, the lee braces hauled aft, and the mainyard braced in, when the ship was brought up to the wind, bowing and scraping, and taking in tons of water over the fo’c’s’le, in this operation, that washed everybody off their legs in the waist, bundling them away to leeward in a bunch.
For a time theEsmeraldanow behaved very well, the mizen trysail being set to steady her, although, being hove to on the starboard tack, she drifted sideways, before the fierce north-west gale, making as much leeway towards the south and east as if she had been running free; but, presently, there was a loud crack heard forwards, and Haxell, the carpenter, came up to the skipper on the poop, looking even more serious than usual as he crawled aft under shelter of the bulwarks.
“The foremast is sprung, sir,” said he in a melancholy tone of voice, as if he were announcing the fact of his just going to be hanged.
“Is it serious?” asked Captain Billings.
“Aye, aye, sir, it’s all that,” replied Haxell. “There’s a big flaw close under the slings of the foreyard. It won’t stand the pressure of that foresail ag’in it much longer, Cap’; and it’ll be safe to carry away presently.”
“Then we must relieve it before that happens,” said the skipper, giving orders for us to furl the foresail and hoist the fore-topmast staysail in its place, for that would serve to keep control of the helm, he thought. The ship required some headsail, and this would not try the damaged mast so severely as the foresail had done, with its wide extent of canvas.
By the time all these different manoeuvres had been essayed and effected it was broad daylight. It was a fine morning, too, although the wind was still blowing a hurricane and the sea was fearfully high and choppy, for there wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the heavens, while the sun was shining down with almost tropical heat; but, in spite of its looking so bright, we hadn’t done with the nor’-wester yet.
Towards mid-day, when we found from observation that we were in latitude 27 degrees North and longitude 18 degrees West—nearly abreast of the island of Palma in the Canaries, and a terrible distance to the eastward of our position on the previous day, thus showing all the leeway we had lost—the wind increased so much in strength that it blew now with even greater force than at its first onset the evening before on the breaking out of the gale.
This was not all, either.
The heavy waves that dashed against the ship as she headed them, broke upon her bows with such fury that it seemed every moment as if they would beat in the timbers; while, every now and then, some billow mightier than its fellows would force her head away, making her fall off, and then, the succeeding sea would take her broadside on, hurling tons of broken water on her decks that would have soon filled her had not the hatches been battened down, which precaution had been taken when we first reduced sail.
The situation became serious on this being repeated several times during the afternoon, for there was great danger of the vessel being any moment thrown on her beam ends, when there would certainly be a clean sweep made of everything on board and theEsmeraldabe speedily converted into a floating wreck!
Captain Billings accordingly called a council of his officers, I standing by and listening to what Mr Macdougall and Jorrocks advised should be done in the emergency. These both, however, came to the same opinion as the skipper, that scudding would be the best course to pursue under the circumstances—although, like him, they were well aware that the difficulty which faced us all consisted, not so much in running before the wind, as in managing to get the vessel’s head round so as to do it without broaching or letting her to.
Still, the manoeuvre had to be tried as a last resource.
“I don’t see that anything else can be done,” said Captain Billings, with a more anxious look on his face than I had ever noticed there before. “I only hope we’ll manage it successfully; for, if we once get broadside on in the trough of this sea, she’ll never rise out of it, with the heavy cargo she carries, and so it will be a case of Davy Jones’ locker for the lot of us!”
Chapter Fifteen.“A Little Unpleasantness.”“Say, Cap’, we’ll have to strip her first,” suggested Jorrocks, when it was thus decided to carry out the contemplated measure for the relief of the ship—“if we don’t do that, we’ll have every stick taken out of her as soon as we try to wear her!”“Oh, aye, boatswain, I haven’t forgotten that, you may be sure,” said the skipper; and the hands were then once more sent aloft to furl the main-topsail, while the mizzen trysail was hauled down and the braces manned, so as to help the vessel round with the yards the moment the helm was put up.It was a ticklish job, though. The utmost care was necessary in order that the manoeuvre might be successfully accomplished.Should one of the heavy rollers strike her after she had once yielded to the influence of the rudder and while coming round with the wind, before she had fully paid off—thus presenting her stern to the attack of her stubborn assailants even as she now faced them, like a stag at bay or a cat fronting a bull-dog—why, the gale would undoubtedly catch her broadside on. In such a case, theEsmeraldawould be exposed at her weakest point to the full force of the wind and sea, in the same way as the deer or cat turning tail to its pursuer—with what result we on board could readily anticipate, even without the skipper’s warning words!As Jorrocks expressed it, in the event of such a catastrophe happening, “It was all Lombard Street to a China orange we’d lose the number of our mess and sarve as food for fishes!”Everything, therefore, depended on our seizing the right moment for putting the helm up and bringing her head round, the critical period being that between the onslaught of one of the rollers and the advent of the next; when, if the vessel answered her helm smartly, rising out of the trough of the sea ere the following wave had time to reach her, she would be away scudding in front of the gale safely, before many minutes would be past and the present peril might then be a thing to look back upon with feelings of thankfulness and satisfaction.Captain Billings explained this to Jorrocks, while all the remaining canvas was being stripped off the vessel, with the exception of the fore-topmast staysail, which was still retained in order to assist in forcing her head round when all was ready for trying the hazardous experiment.“You know what I want, Boatswain,” he said, sending Jorrocks forwards to watch for a favourable opening between the following waves and turn the ship—“the moment you see our chance, give the word; and then, Heaven help us to get round in time and not broach-to!”“Aye, aye, sir, I knows what you want,” answered Jorrocks, who then proceeded to crawl as carefully towards the fore-chains, as the carpenter had come aft—bending down beneath the protection of the weather-bulwarks as he crept along the waist, and holding on by a stray rope’s-end here and there to preserve his balance—although he did this as much to prevent exposing his body as leverage for the wind to force the vessel over to leeward before the proper time, as to shield himself from its boisterous buffeting.Arrived at the point he had selected, Jorrocks drew himself up gingerly into the fore-rigging, his hat blowing from off his head and his hair streaming out before the wind the instant he abandoned the shelter of the bulwarks. However, he had not long to remain in that exposed position.He had waited to stand up until he heard the blow of one of the heavy billows as it careered before the gale, coming against the bows in due rotation, and the instant he heard this he raised himself erect at once, receiving part of the deluge that broke over the cathead in a fountain of spray on his exposed head and hairy face, the impromptu shower bath making him appear like a dripping merman fresh from the briny deep.Jorrocks, however, did not mind the cold bath. He had much more serious matter on hand to take notice of it, beyond giving himself a shake like a retriever fresh from a dip.Looking over the side to windward, as quickly as he dashed the water from his eyes, he noticed that the following wave succeeding the one which had just delivered its attack, was quite two cable lengths off—a more than usually long interval between the waves as yet.It seemed like an interposition of Providence in our favour, I thought, noticing the lull from my station on the poop almost as soon as Jorrocks perceived it in the bows, and I feared he would have missed the opportunity.But the boatswain was too good a seaman for that. The very instant the reflection crossed my mind that he would be too late, for the whole thing happened in the “wink of an eye,” he raised his right hand high in the air, standing up to his full height on the bulwarks, while holding on to the ratlines of the foreshrouds—thus allowing his body to act as a sort of additional headsail to aid the fore-topmast staysail, which, as I’ve said before, was the only rag the ship had on her, in forcing her bows round.Captain Billings was watching Jorrocks even more intently than I; and, without a second’s delay, the moment the latter gave the signal that the critical point for action had arrived, he roared out in a voice of thunder, “Hard up with the helm, hard up, my men, for your lives!”Mr Macdougall and the two seamen who were standing on either side of the wheel, clutching hold of the spokes and holding on to them with all their might, shifted it round almost as quickly as the skipper’s order was given. But they had to put all their strength into the task to overcome the resistance of the dead weight of the hull, aided as that was by the mountain of water pressing it back upon them and thus resisting their efforts to shift the helm over to port.For a brief space of time, hardly an instant though it seemed an eternity, the ship appeared somewhat sluggish to respond to the movement of the rudder, hanging in stays and settling down into the great valley of water that loomed on our lee; but the next moment a glad cry of relief burst from all as she answered her helm, a wavering motion of her bows denoting this being then perceptible.“Now, men, look alive,” cried the skipper. “Cast-off those lee braces here; haul round to windward sharp, and square the yards!”These orders were executed as rapidly as they were given, the hands being ready at the braces, and only waiting for the word of command to ease the yards round. When these were squared, however, the fore-topmast staysail fluttered and filled with a jerk that made the foremast crack and tremble, the vibration shaking the ship to her centre and penetrating even as far as to the deck beneath our feet as we stood awaiting the issue of the operation—the very planks “creeping” with the concussion caused by this and the bows meeting the send of the sea.But the power of the little staysail forward, and the effect of the exposed surface of the boatswain’s body in the rigging, both catching the wind at the same time, settled the matter.Without making any further opposition to our wishes, theEsmeraldapayed off handsomely; and, rising up on the crest of an enormous green roller, that had swept up to overwhelm her, but which now passed harmlessly under her keel instead, she surged through the water, gathering way every moment as she showed her heels to the gale, careering over the stormy billows before the blast like a mad thing, as if rejoicing in her freedom after so long being forced to lay to—although the fore-topmast staysail, which had done such good work in getting her head round, parted company as soon as the yards were braced round, blowing away to atoms, and floating off in the distance in the same kite-like fashion in which the jib had previously disappeared.The loss, however, seemed to affect the ship’s speed but little, for she scudded off under bare poles at as great a rate as if she had all her canvas set, and was running before a ten-knot breeze.“Thank Heaven!” I heard Captain Billings exclaim in a low voice, taking off his cap reverently, as soon as we were safely round before the wind; and I could see his lips move as if in silent prayer. In this, I confess, I joined with all my heart; for, if ever in my life I experienced the feeling of religious emotion which causes us to express our gratitude for rescue from peril, I had that feeling then!TheEsmeralda, though, was not out of all danger yet.There was still the fear of her being pooped by the following waves, which now raced after, in anger at her having escaped their clutches; so, to lessen this possibility, the skipper had the reefed main-topsail set again, and the mizzen trysail once more hoisted, so that the ship might get through the water faster than the pursuing rollers. The strain on the masts was tremendous; but, fortunately, everything held, and under the impetus of this additional sail power she doubled her speed, bidding defiance to the harpies of the ocean that had so nearly worsted her in the combat.It was just four bells in the afternoon watch when we got her head round before the wind, although it was not until nearly midnight that the hurricane blew itself out, the wind then dropping almost as suddenly as it had sprung up twenty-four hours before.During all this time, only one of the watches had a short spell below, and neither the skipper, Jorrocks, nor I, had ever left the deck after the gale had begun—the only exception being Mr Macdougall, who had turned in for a caulk when we were lying-to. Had it not been, however, for the praiseworthy exertions of Pat Doolan, the Irish cook, I do not believe we should have been able to hold out so long.The willing fellow, despite the series of liquid avalanches that were constantly flooding the ship as she took in the green seas over her bows, managed in some wonderful way or other to keep his galley fire alight, supplying us with a grateful cup of hot coffee at intervals through the harassing night; and, late in the afternoon, when we were all utterly exhausted, he served out to each of us, much to our surprise, a pannikin apiece of the most delicious pea-soup I ever tasted—“It was enough,” as one of the men said on receiving the welcome refreshment, “to have put life in a post!”This was while our struggle with the elements yet lasted; but as soon as that was over, and when all fear of peril was dispelled by the lulling of the gale, the inevitable reaction after such protracted exertions without any recuperative rest became painfully apparent, and I was not at all sorry when Captain Billings told the hands belonging to the port watch that they might go below.“And I fancy, Mister Leigh,” said Jorrocks to me, “we can go down and turn in too; for we ain’t a going to have another such a blow in a hurry again for a month of Sundays!”Nor did it look like it either, the stars twinkling away in a cloudless sky, and the night being perfectly bright and clear, although there was no moon, while the rollers were rolling less angrily, as if the ocean were hushing itself down into repose at last.There was nothing, therefore, to keep me on deck any longer; so, following the example of my old friend Jorrocks, I speedily sought my bunk, and, turning in, did not wake again until nearly noon on the following day—the good-natured skipper having given orders to Mr Macdougall not to disturb me when the starboard watch was relieved in the early morning, saying that I had earned my rest fairly by rolling two days’ duty into one, which, indeed, I believe I had!I was up on deck again, however, in time to “tak’ the soon,” as the Scottish mate termed it in his north-country accent, for I was anxious to see how far the gale had driven the vessel off her proper course.It was our thirteenth day out, counting from the time we “took our departure,” as navigators say, from Lundy Island; and both the skipper and I made it out, after working the reckoning, that we were as far down as the twenty-fifth parallel, although a good deal to the eastward of what our true position should be—the leeway we had made while lying-to, and our subsequent scudding for nearly twelve hours before the north-wester, having taken us much too close in towards the African continent, thus causing us to lose all that westing we had secured on our first start from the Bristol Channel, and which we had afterwards so carefully preserved, even amidst the baffling winds of the middle latitudes.Still, this mortifying conclusion had a redeeming feature.If we were too far to the eastwards, we were as assuredly beyond the region specially designated by Jorrocks as the “Horse Latitudes,” where the calms of Cancer hold sway; for, now, setting all plain sail before a steady breeze from off the land, we soon managed to run into the regular north-east Trades, picking them up in the next degree or two we ran down to the southward.From this point, keeping on the starboard tack again, with the wind well on our beam, we ran for the Line; but before crossing the equator, Mr Macdougall and I, between whom relations had been somewhat strained almost from our first introduction, came to an open rupture, the “little unpleasantness” happening in this wise.Mr Ohlsen, the second mate—“Old son of a gun,” as the crew called him, from his taciturn manner of going about his work—was still on the sick list; and Captain Billings, who had expressed himself much pleased with my behaviour since I was on board, especially during the storm, had assigned the performance of this gentleman’s duties to me.At this Mr Macdougall was extremely indignant, remonstrating with the skipper for putting so young a lad as myself in such an important post as that of second mate.“What are your reasons for objecting to him?” asked Captain Billings.“Why, the loon’s but a bairn,” said Mr Macdougall, at a nonplus for some objection to my promotion.“If he’s young,” answered the skipper, “he’s got a man’s courage and a seaman’s aptitude, which is more than I can say for some aboard here!”“Hoot, mon, d’ye mean to eenseenuate?”“I insinuate nothing,” interrupted Captain Billings, hotly. “If the cap fits you, why, you can wear it! Leigh is a strong, sturdy fellow, worth any two hands on a yard; and, as for navigating, he can work out a reckoning better than—than myself!”“That mebbe, that mebbe, I dinna gang for to denee that stat’ment, Cap’en,” said the Scotsman, sneeringly, implying that I or anybody else might easily eclipse the skipper’s powers of calculation; “but I hae my doots, mon, I hae my doots.”“You can ‘hay’ your grandmother if you like,” retorted Captain Billings, decisively; “still, it’s my order that Leigh acts as second mate until Mr Ohlsen is able to return to duty. I’m captain of this ship, Mr Macdougall, please remember!”This was the invariable expression the skipper always made use of when he had made up his mind to anything, so the mate knew that there was no use in his trying to argue the point any further, and he left the poop, where the altercation had taken place, in a towering rage. This his freckles plainly showed, his equanimity not being restored by the ill-concealed titters of the men standing by, for they had overheard most of what had been said, and repeated the substance of the conversation to me afterwards.I was, it is true, only sixteen at the time; but, being a sturdy, broad-shouldered chap, I looked all two years older; and I really do not think the skipper complimented me too strongly when he said I was worth a couple of hands on a yard, for, during my experience in the coal brig under Jorrocks’ tuition, I had acquired considerable proficiency and dexterity in most of a seaman’s functions, which aptitude I had further improved while sailing in Sam Pengelly’s schooner between the various ports between Plymouth and the Land’s End for two years nearly at a stretch afterwards.My nautical education, too, as I have already mentioned, had not been neglected all the time I had been waiting to get on board a sea-going ship, for since I had joined theEsmeraldaI had not lost a single opportunity for developing my book learning by practical examples in seamanship, Captain Billings encouraging me to persevere whenever he saw me inclined to laziness, and giving me all the advantage of his own training and experience; so that, by this time, I believe I was almost as competent to take charge of the ship on an emergency and navigate her to her destination, as if I had passed the Trinity House examination and received a first mate’s certificate like Mr Macdougall, whom in the mathematical part of navigation I could beat easily.Of course, I was not up in sailor lore as to atmospheric changes and those signs and tokens which it takes a long apprenticeship to the sea thoroughly to learn; but in the ordinary work of the ship I was second to none, the men, with whom I was a prime favourite, thanks to Jorrocks, acknowledging that I could reef, hand, and steer, with any of them.Mr Macdougall was jealous of me—that was the reason of his animosity; so he took advantage of every chance he had to discount the captain’s favour by making me in the wrong, to prove his assertion as to my incompetence to take charge of a watch.One day I had taken an observation at noon as usual, the skipper of late leaving that operation entirely to me, for he knew Mr Macdougall would be certain to get a sight too, if only in order to have a wrangle with me as to the right position of the ship. Having made out the reckoning with a stop watch, I was busily engaged marking out our place on the chart on top of the cabin sky-light, as it was a fine day, with a pair of callipers and parallel rulers, when the Scottish mate came up to me.“And whaur d’ye find us the noo?” said he, insinuatingly, to me.“We’re in 1 degree 35 minutes north, and 28 degrees west; and I think ought to alter our course a trifle more to the southward to avoid the Saint Paul islets, which we must be heading for direct, steering south-west as we are now.”“Whaur d’ye mean, bairn? There’s no land near us, I ween, save the Rocas, and that is far awa’ to the westwar’.”“I tell you,” said I, positively, with perhaps a good deal of bumptiousness, “we’re heading on straight for those rocks there marked on the chart!”“Why, ye’re mad—a stork staring loon!” retorted Mr Macdougall, in the most irritating way; “ye’d better gang awa’ to schule again.”“I think you had,” I answered; “I have forgotten more than you ever learned!”Now this was very rude and impertinent for me to remark to a man so much older than myself, and my superior officer; but I did not reflect at the moment what I said to my tormentor, for he used to nag at me every day about the very same point—my taking the sun and working out the reckoning. It was a very sore subject with him ever since the skipper praised me at his expense on our first day out.At all events, rude or not, my reply had the desired effect of exasperating Mr Macdougall to the last pitch of endurance, for he was very easily excited.“Gin you say that ag’in, ye onmannerly loon,” said he, foaming with passion, his pale complexion becoming paler, which made the freckles stand out prominently, “I’ll knock ye doon.”“Will you?” I cried, “you just try it, that’s all!”He did; and down I went on the deck, as flat as a pancake, from a well-directed blow of his brawny fist!I was not beaten, however.Jumping up, I faced him again, only to undergo a repetition of the flooring process; when, seeing that I with my boy’s strength was no match for him as yet, and losing my temper quite as much as he had done, I seized a large snatch-block which was lying by on the deck close to my hand, hurling it at his head with all my force.The mate started back in terror, for the missile only missed him by half an inch, and if it had struck him would most certainly have killed him on the spot, although I did not think of that when I pitched it at him; and, just at that moment, I heard Captain Billings’ voice behind us.
“Say, Cap’, we’ll have to strip her first,” suggested Jorrocks, when it was thus decided to carry out the contemplated measure for the relief of the ship—“if we don’t do that, we’ll have every stick taken out of her as soon as we try to wear her!”
“Oh, aye, boatswain, I haven’t forgotten that, you may be sure,” said the skipper; and the hands were then once more sent aloft to furl the main-topsail, while the mizzen trysail was hauled down and the braces manned, so as to help the vessel round with the yards the moment the helm was put up.
It was a ticklish job, though. The utmost care was necessary in order that the manoeuvre might be successfully accomplished.
Should one of the heavy rollers strike her after she had once yielded to the influence of the rudder and while coming round with the wind, before she had fully paid off—thus presenting her stern to the attack of her stubborn assailants even as she now faced them, like a stag at bay or a cat fronting a bull-dog—why, the gale would undoubtedly catch her broadside on. In such a case, theEsmeraldawould be exposed at her weakest point to the full force of the wind and sea, in the same way as the deer or cat turning tail to its pursuer—with what result we on board could readily anticipate, even without the skipper’s warning words!
As Jorrocks expressed it, in the event of such a catastrophe happening, “It was all Lombard Street to a China orange we’d lose the number of our mess and sarve as food for fishes!”
Everything, therefore, depended on our seizing the right moment for putting the helm up and bringing her head round, the critical period being that between the onslaught of one of the rollers and the advent of the next; when, if the vessel answered her helm smartly, rising out of the trough of the sea ere the following wave had time to reach her, she would be away scudding in front of the gale safely, before many minutes would be past and the present peril might then be a thing to look back upon with feelings of thankfulness and satisfaction.
Captain Billings explained this to Jorrocks, while all the remaining canvas was being stripped off the vessel, with the exception of the fore-topmast staysail, which was still retained in order to assist in forcing her head round when all was ready for trying the hazardous experiment.
“You know what I want, Boatswain,” he said, sending Jorrocks forwards to watch for a favourable opening between the following waves and turn the ship—“the moment you see our chance, give the word; and then, Heaven help us to get round in time and not broach-to!”
“Aye, aye, sir, I knows what you want,” answered Jorrocks, who then proceeded to crawl as carefully towards the fore-chains, as the carpenter had come aft—bending down beneath the protection of the weather-bulwarks as he crept along the waist, and holding on by a stray rope’s-end here and there to preserve his balance—although he did this as much to prevent exposing his body as leverage for the wind to force the vessel over to leeward before the proper time, as to shield himself from its boisterous buffeting.
Arrived at the point he had selected, Jorrocks drew himself up gingerly into the fore-rigging, his hat blowing from off his head and his hair streaming out before the wind the instant he abandoned the shelter of the bulwarks. However, he had not long to remain in that exposed position.
He had waited to stand up until he heard the blow of one of the heavy billows as it careered before the gale, coming against the bows in due rotation, and the instant he heard this he raised himself erect at once, receiving part of the deluge that broke over the cathead in a fountain of spray on his exposed head and hairy face, the impromptu shower bath making him appear like a dripping merman fresh from the briny deep.
Jorrocks, however, did not mind the cold bath. He had much more serious matter on hand to take notice of it, beyond giving himself a shake like a retriever fresh from a dip.
Looking over the side to windward, as quickly as he dashed the water from his eyes, he noticed that the following wave succeeding the one which had just delivered its attack, was quite two cable lengths off—a more than usually long interval between the waves as yet.
It seemed like an interposition of Providence in our favour, I thought, noticing the lull from my station on the poop almost as soon as Jorrocks perceived it in the bows, and I feared he would have missed the opportunity.
But the boatswain was too good a seaman for that. The very instant the reflection crossed my mind that he would be too late, for the whole thing happened in the “wink of an eye,” he raised his right hand high in the air, standing up to his full height on the bulwarks, while holding on to the ratlines of the foreshrouds—thus allowing his body to act as a sort of additional headsail to aid the fore-topmast staysail, which, as I’ve said before, was the only rag the ship had on her, in forcing her bows round.
Captain Billings was watching Jorrocks even more intently than I; and, without a second’s delay, the moment the latter gave the signal that the critical point for action had arrived, he roared out in a voice of thunder, “Hard up with the helm, hard up, my men, for your lives!”
Mr Macdougall and the two seamen who were standing on either side of the wheel, clutching hold of the spokes and holding on to them with all their might, shifted it round almost as quickly as the skipper’s order was given. But they had to put all their strength into the task to overcome the resistance of the dead weight of the hull, aided as that was by the mountain of water pressing it back upon them and thus resisting their efforts to shift the helm over to port.
For a brief space of time, hardly an instant though it seemed an eternity, the ship appeared somewhat sluggish to respond to the movement of the rudder, hanging in stays and settling down into the great valley of water that loomed on our lee; but the next moment a glad cry of relief burst from all as she answered her helm, a wavering motion of her bows denoting this being then perceptible.
“Now, men, look alive,” cried the skipper. “Cast-off those lee braces here; haul round to windward sharp, and square the yards!”
These orders were executed as rapidly as they were given, the hands being ready at the braces, and only waiting for the word of command to ease the yards round. When these were squared, however, the fore-topmast staysail fluttered and filled with a jerk that made the foremast crack and tremble, the vibration shaking the ship to her centre and penetrating even as far as to the deck beneath our feet as we stood awaiting the issue of the operation—the very planks “creeping” with the concussion caused by this and the bows meeting the send of the sea.
But the power of the little staysail forward, and the effect of the exposed surface of the boatswain’s body in the rigging, both catching the wind at the same time, settled the matter.
Without making any further opposition to our wishes, theEsmeraldapayed off handsomely; and, rising up on the crest of an enormous green roller, that had swept up to overwhelm her, but which now passed harmlessly under her keel instead, she surged through the water, gathering way every moment as she showed her heels to the gale, careering over the stormy billows before the blast like a mad thing, as if rejoicing in her freedom after so long being forced to lay to—although the fore-topmast staysail, which had done such good work in getting her head round, parted company as soon as the yards were braced round, blowing away to atoms, and floating off in the distance in the same kite-like fashion in which the jib had previously disappeared.
The loss, however, seemed to affect the ship’s speed but little, for she scudded off under bare poles at as great a rate as if she had all her canvas set, and was running before a ten-knot breeze.
“Thank Heaven!” I heard Captain Billings exclaim in a low voice, taking off his cap reverently, as soon as we were safely round before the wind; and I could see his lips move as if in silent prayer. In this, I confess, I joined with all my heart; for, if ever in my life I experienced the feeling of religious emotion which causes us to express our gratitude for rescue from peril, I had that feeling then!
TheEsmeralda, though, was not out of all danger yet.
There was still the fear of her being pooped by the following waves, which now raced after, in anger at her having escaped their clutches; so, to lessen this possibility, the skipper had the reefed main-topsail set again, and the mizzen trysail once more hoisted, so that the ship might get through the water faster than the pursuing rollers. The strain on the masts was tremendous; but, fortunately, everything held, and under the impetus of this additional sail power she doubled her speed, bidding defiance to the harpies of the ocean that had so nearly worsted her in the combat.
It was just four bells in the afternoon watch when we got her head round before the wind, although it was not until nearly midnight that the hurricane blew itself out, the wind then dropping almost as suddenly as it had sprung up twenty-four hours before.
During all this time, only one of the watches had a short spell below, and neither the skipper, Jorrocks, nor I, had ever left the deck after the gale had begun—the only exception being Mr Macdougall, who had turned in for a caulk when we were lying-to. Had it not been, however, for the praiseworthy exertions of Pat Doolan, the Irish cook, I do not believe we should have been able to hold out so long.
The willing fellow, despite the series of liquid avalanches that were constantly flooding the ship as she took in the green seas over her bows, managed in some wonderful way or other to keep his galley fire alight, supplying us with a grateful cup of hot coffee at intervals through the harassing night; and, late in the afternoon, when we were all utterly exhausted, he served out to each of us, much to our surprise, a pannikin apiece of the most delicious pea-soup I ever tasted—“It was enough,” as one of the men said on receiving the welcome refreshment, “to have put life in a post!”
This was while our struggle with the elements yet lasted; but as soon as that was over, and when all fear of peril was dispelled by the lulling of the gale, the inevitable reaction after such protracted exertions without any recuperative rest became painfully apparent, and I was not at all sorry when Captain Billings told the hands belonging to the port watch that they might go below.
“And I fancy, Mister Leigh,” said Jorrocks to me, “we can go down and turn in too; for we ain’t a going to have another such a blow in a hurry again for a month of Sundays!”
Nor did it look like it either, the stars twinkling away in a cloudless sky, and the night being perfectly bright and clear, although there was no moon, while the rollers were rolling less angrily, as if the ocean were hushing itself down into repose at last.
There was nothing, therefore, to keep me on deck any longer; so, following the example of my old friend Jorrocks, I speedily sought my bunk, and, turning in, did not wake again until nearly noon on the following day—the good-natured skipper having given orders to Mr Macdougall not to disturb me when the starboard watch was relieved in the early morning, saying that I had earned my rest fairly by rolling two days’ duty into one, which, indeed, I believe I had!
I was up on deck again, however, in time to “tak’ the soon,” as the Scottish mate termed it in his north-country accent, for I was anxious to see how far the gale had driven the vessel off her proper course.
It was our thirteenth day out, counting from the time we “took our departure,” as navigators say, from Lundy Island; and both the skipper and I made it out, after working the reckoning, that we were as far down as the twenty-fifth parallel, although a good deal to the eastward of what our true position should be—the leeway we had made while lying-to, and our subsequent scudding for nearly twelve hours before the north-wester, having taken us much too close in towards the African continent, thus causing us to lose all that westing we had secured on our first start from the Bristol Channel, and which we had afterwards so carefully preserved, even amidst the baffling winds of the middle latitudes.
Still, this mortifying conclusion had a redeeming feature.
If we were too far to the eastwards, we were as assuredly beyond the region specially designated by Jorrocks as the “Horse Latitudes,” where the calms of Cancer hold sway; for, now, setting all plain sail before a steady breeze from off the land, we soon managed to run into the regular north-east Trades, picking them up in the next degree or two we ran down to the southward.
From this point, keeping on the starboard tack again, with the wind well on our beam, we ran for the Line; but before crossing the equator, Mr Macdougall and I, between whom relations had been somewhat strained almost from our first introduction, came to an open rupture, the “little unpleasantness” happening in this wise.
Mr Ohlsen, the second mate—“Old son of a gun,” as the crew called him, from his taciturn manner of going about his work—was still on the sick list; and Captain Billings, who had expressed himself much pleased with my behaviour since I was on board, especially during the storm, had assigned the performance of this gentleman’s duties to me.
At this Mr Macdougall was extremely indignant, remonstrating with the skipper for putting so young a lad as myself in such an important post as that of second mate.
“What are your reasons for objecting to him?” asked Captain Billings.
“Why, the loon’s but a bairn,” said Mr Macdougall, at a nonplus for some objection to my promotion.
“If he’s young,” answered the skipper, “he’s got a man’s courage and a seaman’s aptitude, which is more than I can say for some aboard here!”
“Hoot, mon, d’ye mean to eenseenuate?”
“I insinuate nothing,” interrupted Captain Billings, hotly. “If the cap fits you, why, you can wear it! Leigh is a strong, sturdy fellow, worth any two hands on a yard; and, as for navigating, he can work out a reckoning better than—than myself!”
“That mebbe, that mebbe, I dinna gang for to denee that stat’ment, Cap’en,” said the Scotsman, sneeringly, implying that I or anybody else might easily eclipse the skipper’s powers of calculation; “but I hae my doots, mon, I hae my doots.”
“You can ‘hay’ your grandmother if you like,” retorted Captain Billings, decisively; “still, it’s my order that Leigh acts as second mate until Mr Ohlsen is able to return to duty. I’m captain of this ship, Mr Macdougall, please remember!”
This was the invariable expression the skipper always made use of when he had made up his mind to anything, so the mate knew that there was no use in his trying to argue the point any further, and he left the poop, where the altercation had taken place, in a towering rage. This his freckles plainly showed, his equanimity not being restored by the ill-concealed titters of the men standing by, for they had overheard most of what had been said, and repeated the substance of the conversation to me afterwards.
I was, it is true, only sixteen at the time; but, being a sturdy, broad-shouldered chap, I looked all two years older; and I really do not think the skipper complimented me too strongly when he said I was worth a couple of hands on a yard, for, during my experience in the coal brig under Jorrocks’ tuition, I had acquired considerable proficiency and dexterity in most of a seaman’s functions, which aptitude I had further improved while sailing in Sam Pengelly’s schooner between the various ports between Plymouth and the Land’s End for two years nearly at a stretch afterwards.
My nautical education, too, as I have already mentioned, had not been neglected all the time I had been waiting to get on board a sea-going ship, for since I had joined theEsmeraldaI had not lost a single opportunity for developing my book learning by practical examples in seamanship, Captain Billings encouraging me to persevere whenever he saw me inclined to laziness, and giving me all the advantage of his own training and experience; so that, by this time, I believe I was almost as competent to take charge of the ship on an emergency and navigate her to her destination, as if I had passed the Trinity House examination and received a first mate’s certificate like Mr Macdougall, whom in the mathematical part of navigation I could beat easily.
Of course, I was not up in sailor lore as to atmospheric changes and those signs and tokens which it takes a long apprenticeship to the sea thoroughly to learn; but in the ordinary work of the ship I was second to none, the men, with whom I was a prime favourite, thanks to Jorrocks, acknowledging that I could reef, hand, and steer, with any of them.
Mr Macdougall was jealous of me—that was the reason of his animosity; so he took advantage of every chance he had to discount the captain’s favour by making me in the wrong, to prove his assertion as to my incompetence to take charge of a watch.
One day I had taken an observation at noon as usual, the skipper of late leaving that operation entirely to me, for he knew Mr Macdougall would be certain to get a sight too, if only in order to have a wrangle with me as to the right position of the ship. Having made out the reckoning with a stop watch, I was busily engaged marking out our place on the chart on top of the cabin sky-light, as it was a fine day, with a pair of callipers and parallel rulers, when the Scottish mate came up to me.
“And whaur d’ye find us the noo?” said he, insinuatingly, to me.
“We’re in 1 degree 35 minutes north, and 28 degrees west; and I think ought to alter our course a trifle more to the southward to avoid the Saint Paul islets, which we must be heading for direct, steering south-west as we are now.”
“Whaur d’ye mean, bairn? There’s no land near us, I ween, save the Rocas, and that is far awa’ to the westwar’.”
“I tell you,” said I, positively, with perhaps a good deal of bumptiousness, “we’re heading on straight for those rocks there marked on the chart!”
“Why, ye’re mad—a stork staring loon!” retorted Mr Macdougall, in the most irritating way; “ye’d better gang awa’ to schule again.”
“I think you had,” I answered; “I have forgotten more than you ever learned!”
Now this was very rude and impertinent for me to remark to a man so much older than myself, and my superior officer; but I did not reflect at the moment what I said to my tormentor, for he used to nag at me every day about the very same point—my taking the sun and working out the reckoning. It was a very sore subject with him ever since the skipper praised me at his expense on our first day out.
At all events, rude or not, my reply had the desired effect of exasperating Mr Macdougall to the last pitch of endurance, for he was very easily excited.
“Gin you say that ag’in, ye onmannerly loon,” said he, foaming with passion, his pale complexion becoming paler, which made the freckles stand out prominently, “I’ll knock ye doon.”
“Will you?” I cried, “you just try it, that’s all!”
He did; and down I went on the deck, as flat as a pancake, from a well-directed blow of his brawny fist!
I was not beaten, however.
Jumping up, I faced him again, only to undergo a repetition of the flooring process; when, seeing that I with my boy’s strength was no match for him as yet, and losing my temper quite as much as he had done, I seized a large snatch-block which was lying by on the deck close to my hand, hurling it at his head with all my force.
The mate started back in terror, for the missile only missed him by half an inch, and if it had struck him would most certainly have killed him on the spot, although I did not think of that when I pitched it at him; and, just at that moment, I heard Captain Billings’ voice behind us.
Chapter Sixteen.Breakers Ahead!“Hullo, steady there—belay that!” exclaimed Captain Billings, half-way up the poop ladder, which he was ascending hastily, two steps at a time, “Mr—Mr Macdougall—Martin Leigh! What’s this disgraceful row about?”I had quickly picked up a handspike when I saw that I had missed my aim with the snatch-block, while my antagonist—who, to do him justice, had plenty of pluck, and had only been startled for the moment by the heavy missile hurtling through the air close to his projecting nose—was advancing to attack me again with his fists clenched, a savage look the while on his face, as if he meant to settle me this time; but, on this interruption from the skipper, we both relinquished our hostile attitudes, Mr Macdougall slinking towards the binnacle, as if innocently engaged in studying the bearings of the compass there, and I dropping the handspike incontinently.There was a ringing tone of command in the skipper’s voice which meant that he intended to be obeyed; but mixed with this, beyond a slight suspicion of surprise at the unexpected scene which met his gaze, there was a good deal of subdued irritation, which really was not to be wondered at.He had been having an afternoon nap in his cabin, which was situated immediately below the deck where the mate and I had been rehearsing the little drama I have just detailed; and the noise we had made with “the movements of the piece,” to speak theatrically, having very unceremoniously disturbed his slumbers before the period he generally allowed himself for his “forty winks” had expired, his temper was not sweetened thereby beforehand, only just needing the unseemlyfracaswhich he noticed on coming on the poop to send it up to fever-heat.I had never seen Captain Billings so angry since I had been on board theEsmeralda; his blue eyes fairly flashed forth fire!He took no notice of me at first, advancing towards the chief mate.“Mr Macdougall,” said he, sharply, “I call upon you for an explanation of this—this—discreditable affair!”“Yon dratted loon, Capting, sought me life!” replied the other, glibly. “He hove a snatch-block at me, and takkin’ the pairt of my ain defeence I was gangin’ to poonish him a wee when ye came on deck.”“And did you give him no occasion for behaving so insubordinately, sir?” asked the skipper, looking Mr Macdougall straight in the face with a piercing glance, as if defying him to answer him untruthfully.But the mate was too old a hand at “spinning a yarn,” as sailors term dealing in fictitious statements. He could utter a falsehood without winking once!“Nae, sir,” said he, as cool as a cucumber, making no reference to the fact of his having twice knocked me down before I retaliated on him, “I did naething to the loon, naething at a’! I only joost reprovit him a wee for his bad language and inseelance, ye ken, an’ he oops wi’ yon block an’ heaves at me puir head. It’s joost a marcy o’ Proveedence he did nae knockit me brains oot!”Fortunately for the Scotsman, his good or bad angel was in the ascendant at this moment, substantiating this incomplete account he gave as to what had happened. As luck would have it, too, Captain Billings had only got up the poop ladder in time to take heed of the latter part of the fray, and thus the evidence of his own eyesight corroborated apparently the mate’s assertion, that I had made a most unjustifiable assault on him.Greatly incensed, therefore, he now turned on me.“I saw the assault myself, Mr Macdougall; so I don’t merely take your word alone for it. What have you got to say, Leigh, in excuse for your outrageous behaviour? It’s—it’s scandalous; I could thrash you myself!”My pride, however, was roused by the fact of his having accepted the mate’s explanation without asking me for any explanation first, and so condemning me unheard; consequently, without taking into consideration the thought that it was only proper that Captain Billings should support the authority of his chief officer unhesitatingly, I answered him rather pertly, only feeling my own wrong, and not considering what was the skipper’s obvious duty.“If you believe Mr Macdougall,” I replied, in a rude, off-hand way, “there’s nothing for me to say.”“You ungrateful young hound!” cried out the skipper, who, if angry before, was now as mad as a hatter at my impudence. “That’s the thanks I get, is it, for favouring you and promoting you out of your station! Listen; consider yourself disrated from this instant—do you hear?”“Yes, I hear, Captain Billings,” said I, in a sullen voice.“Then, heed sharply, my lad,” he retorted. “Get off this deck and go forward. Your place, henceforth, sir, will be in the fo’c’s’le, along with the other hands; and the sooner you lug that chest of yours out of the spare bunk I gave you amidships, the better!”This was a terrible downfall; but, of course, there was no use my arguing against the skipper’s decision, the master of a merchant ship being lord paramount on board his own vessel, and having the power to make and unmake his officers, like a nautical Warwick, the whilom creator of kings!So, much chapfallen, I withdrew from the poop; and, abandoning all my dignities as acting second mate and first-class apprentice, proceeded to make myself at home with the crew forward—much against the grain, I confess, although the men received me cordially, and took my part, not only from their liking for me personally, but from their hatred of the chief mate as well.Mr Macdougall, I could plainly see, was cock-a-hoop at my disgrace, from the malicious grin on his freckled face.His triumph, however, was not very long-lived.On making me relinquish my functions on the quarter-deck, the skipper had sent for Jorrocks, telling him that he would have to take charge of Mr Ohlsen’s watch in my place.“But I doesn’t know nothing o’ navigation, Cap’,” said the boatswain, who felt keenly my abasement, and was loth to “step into my shoes,” as it were.“Oh, never mind that,” replied the skipper. “Mr Macdougall will give you the courses to steer; and, if anything particular happens—which I don’t expect, with the wind we have now and us in the open sea—why, you can call me.”“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Jorrocks, being thus foiled in his attempt at getting me reinstated, which he thought might have been the case on his pleading his inability to con the ship; and so, when Macdougall went below with the starboard watch at eight bells in the afternoon, the boatswain took charge of the deck with the relief hands—the mate telling him still to keep to the same west-sou’-west course which I had suggested to Mr Macdougall, a couple of hours or so before, should be altered to a more southerly one, and the controversy about which had caused that “little unpleasantness” between us, which had terminated so disastrously for myself.To explain this matter properly, I should mention that, when, on our thirteenth day out, after the cessation of the north-westerly gale that had driven us to the south of the Canaries, Captain Billings discovered that we were so near in to the African coast, in taking advantage of the wind off the land he had perhaps committed an error of judgment in making an attempt to recover our lost westing, instead of pursuing a course more directly to the southwards; for, in the early part of the northern summer, the Equatorial Current begins to run with greater rapidity towards the west, causing vessels to lose much of their true direction, and the most experienced navigators recommend crossing this stream at right angles, if possible, so as to get beyond its influence as speedily as circumstances will permit, at least at that time of year, when an easterly passage of the equator is advisable.However, the skipper acted for the best, wishing to get well to the windward of Cape Blanco and the contrary currents and variable breezes generally encountered in that vicinity; and so, theEsmeraldahad therefore continued on a diagonal course across the equatorial stream even after we had picked up the regular north-east Trades, until we had reached the meridian of 25 degrees West, when we had run as far south as 8 degrees 15 minutes North.Here, we lost the Trades that had blown us so far on our route, entering into the second great belt of calms met with in the Atlantic to perplex the mariner when essaying to pass either to the north or south of the equator—a zone of torpidity, known popularly under the name of the “Doldrums,” which was originally derived most probably from the old Portuguese phrasedolorio, “tormenting.”This belt of calms separates the two wind zones of the north-east and south-west Trades, which meeting here, their opposing forces are neutralised, and the air they bring with them from the colder regions of the north and south, becoming rarified by the heat of the equator, passes up into the higher atmosphere, producing a stagnation of the wind currents; and hence ensue calms that vary in duration according to the position of the sun, whether north or south of the Line, calms that are sometimes accompanied by tremendous rain showers, and sometimes varied with frequent squalls and thunder and lightning, followed sometimes by thick fogs hanging on the surface of the water.The belt of the Doldrums has an average width of some six degrees, or about five hundred miles of latitude, roughly speaking; and in crossing it we were not much more favoured than most navigators, having to knock about for seven days under a sweltering tropical sun—taking advantage of whatever little breeze we could get that aided our progress to the equator, until we emerged from the retarding influence of this zone of inactivity, some three degrees to the northward of the Line, when we fortunately succeeded in sailing into the south-east Trades almost before we expected.We had, however, lost some little way eastwards through the sweep of the Guinea current, a stream which seems strangely enough to take its rise in the middle of the ocean, and makes a sudden set thence towards the Bight of Benin; so, Captain Billings, who appeared to be prejudiced on the subject of the western passage of the equator, instead of now trying again to shape a true south course towards our point of destination, Cape Horn, directed a parallel so as to fetch the Brazilian coast. The ship, consequently, after leaving the Doldrums was steered south-west and by west, a direction which, if preserved, would have run us on in a straight line to the Rocas, a dangerous reef stretching out into the sea off the westward peak of the island of Fernando Noronha, some eighty-four miles out from the mainland to the northward of Cape Saint Roque.This was on our thirtieth day out from the Bristol Channel, two days before the first mate and I had come to loggerheads; and since then the vessel had kept on in the same course, closing with the equator each hour under the steady south-easterly breeze which we had with us, on the port tack, and speeding even more rapidly to the west than our skipper imagined—for, through the set of some current to the northward and westwards, our dead reckoning showed a wide discrepancy from the position of the ship by observation, as I made it on the day of the row—when, as I’ve stated, the skipper, feeling indisposed, had left me to take the sun, knowing that the mate would check my calculations.But, as things turned out, the altercation which occurred completely took off the attention of Captain Billings from the subject; and, as I left the chart which I had been using on the top of the cabin sky-light when he ordered me to quit the poop without informing him of the serious error I had discovered, and Mr Macdougall, wise in his own conceit and confident that he and the dead reckoning were both right, did not hint of the ship’s course being wrong, on we went, with all our canvas spread, racing into the teeth of a danger which the skipper never dreamt of our being near.The weather was now beautifully fine, the breeze tempering the heat of the sun, and flying fish and albicore playing around the vessel as we neared the equator; while, occasionally, a school of whales would spout to windward, or a shoal of porpoises, having a game of high jinks as they leaped out of the water in their graceful curves one after the other, would cross our bows backwards and forwards in sport, apparently mocking our comparatively slow progress through the sea in contrast to their own rapid and graceful movements, and showing how easily they could outstrip us when they so pleased.I was standing on the fo’c’s’le head, sadly looking out over the bows, while the light lasted, at the moving panorama of Nature around me; the dancing waves curled up on either side of the catheads as the vessel plunged her forefoot down, and streaming aft in a long wake to leeward; the cloudless sky above; the vast solitary expanse of the horizon; the leaping fish and spouting whales—keenly alive to everything and yet my mind full of all my grievances, being especially wrathful with the skipper for accepting Mr Macdougall’s statement against me, without first allowing me to utter a word in my own defence.It was worse than tyranny, I thought, this arbitrary conduct in disrating me unjustly!I remained here till I heard one bell strike soon after the second dog-watch commenced; for I was waiting for Jorrocks to be relieved, as I wished to speak to him in order to get him to put in a word for me with Captain Billings, when he had calmed down and could listen to reason. While I was waiting, the evening closed in, the sun having not long set; for, in the tropics, night succeeds day with startling rapidity, there being no twilight to temper the transition between bright sunshine and darkness—the one ensuing almost immediately after the other without any “toning down,” as painters express it, to lessen the effect of the change.Hearing, as I fancied, a whale spouting nearer than usual—these monsters of the deep making a noise as they eject the water through the spout-holes on top of their heads in a fountain of spray, after drawing it with their gills, like surf breaking on a distant shore—the sound somehow or other took back my thoughts to the chart, and I suddenly remembered what I had told the mate about the danger of the ship approaching the Islets of Saint Paul.These are a cluster of rocks, called by the early Portuguese navigators the Peñedo de Saint Pedro, lying almost in mid-ocean, close to the equator, in latitude zero degrees 55 minutes 30 seconds North, and longitude 29 degrees 22 minutes West; and, from the water being beyond soundings in their immediate neighbourhood, they must form the peak of some submarine mountain range. They are only about sixty feet or so in height clear above the level of the sea; and, consequently, being only visible at a comparatively short distance off—not more than a couple of leagues at the outside, even in broad daylight—and situated as the shoal is in the direct track of the trade wind, the rocks form a source of great peril to mariners traversing their bearings, especially at night time, nothing existing to give warning of their proximity until a vessel may be right on to them, as it were.Thinking of all this, which I had read in the “Sailing Directions for the North Atlantic,” a book which the skipper had lent me to study, in order to perfect me in navigation, I felt a sudden fear lest the ship should be wrecked on the reef, making up my mind to tell Jorrocks about the error I had discovered in our position on the chart, which I determined to ask him to fetch for me, so as to show it to Captain Billings.Jorrocks, however, was a long time coming forwards after being relieved from charge of the deck by Mr Macdougall, remaining some little time talking to him on the poop; so that it was nearly two bells, and quite dusky, when he made his way to where I was standing looking out for him, I having asked one of the hands to say that I wanted to speak with him.“Well, Mister Leigh,” he said, on making his appearance, “here I am at last; better late nor never, as the old folks say! But that blessed Scotchman would have a long yarn with me, about goodness knows what!”“I’m glad you’ve come,” I replied; and then I went on to tell him about my fears of peril to the ship from our vicinity to the Rocks of Saint Paul, which I was certain we were approaching every mile we ran further west.But the boatswain was almost as incredulous of our being near the shoal as the first mate had been in the afternoon.“Bless you, Mister Leigh, we’re miles to windward of that place,” said he with a laugh. “But it’s allers the way with your young navigators as is full chock up to the bung with book larnin’ and hasn’t had no real ’sperience o’ the sea yet! They allers fancy all sorts o’ dangers that your old seamen who’ve been a v’yage or two never thinks o’ reckonin’ on!”However, the good-natured fellow, seeing how earnest I was in the matter, promised to take the chart to the skipper, who was lying down in his cabin again, feeling far from well of late, as, indeed, his looks lately showed—and we were all afraid he had caught the same sort of low fever like Mr Ohlsen, the second mate.“An; I’ll tell him as mildly as I can, Mister Leigh, of this here mare’s nest as you’ve found out, so as not to make him angry with you again.”“Thank you, Jorrocks,” I replied heartily; but, just at that moment, hearing the whales making a noise quite close to the ship’s side as I thought—although I could not see them within the limited circle of dusky light to which the surrounding gloom narrowed my vision, I said, “What a row those whales are making, are they not? They’re quite near, and yet, although it’s not dark enough yet to hide them from our gaze, there’s not a trace of one in sight!”Jorrocks cocked his head on one side and listened; but in an instant there was a striking alteration in the quizzical look with which he had at first regarded me, under the evident idea that I had discovered another “mare’s nest.”“By Jingo, Mister Leigh, you’re right after all!” he exclaimed, his face turning pale as if with sudden fright.“What, do you think we’re running on the rocks I spoke about?” I asked, anxiously.“Aye, not a doubt of it,” he answered, in the same quick way, bending his head again to listen over the side. “Either them identical ones, or else we’re on the Rocas off the Brazilian coast.”In another moment, however, if in doubt previously, his suspicions were apparently confirmed; for, springing up again, and rushing aft as if he were suddenly possessed, Jorrocks roared out at the pitch of his voice—the words ringing like a trumpet note through the ship—“Breakers ahead on the weather bow! Hard up with the helm—hard!”
“Hullo, steady there—belay that!” exclaimed Captain Billings, half-way up the poop ladder, which he was ascending hastily, two steps at a time, “Mr—Mr Macdougall—Martin Leigh! What’s this disgraceful row about?”
I had quickly picked up a handspike when I saw that I had missed my aim with the snatch-block, while my antagonist—who, to do him justice, had plenty of pluck, and had only been startled for the moment by the heavy missile hurtling through the air close to his projecting nose—was advancing to attack me again with his fists clenched, a savage look the while on his face, as if he meant to settle me this time; but, on this interruption from the skipper, we both relinquished our hostile attitudes, Mr Macdougall slinking towards the binnacle, as if innocently engaged in studying the bearings of the compass there, and I dropping the handspike incontinently.
There was a ringing tone of command in the skipper’s voice which meant that he intended to be obeyed; but mixed with this, beyond a slight suspicion of surprise at the unexpected scene which met his gaze, there was a good deal of subdued irritation, which really was not to be wondered at.
He had been having an afternoon nap in his cabin, which was situated immediately below the deck where the mate and I had been rehearsing the little drama I have just detailed; and the noise we had made with “the movements of the piece,” to speak theatrically, having very unceremoniously disturbed his slumbers before the period he generally allowed himself for his “forty winks” had expired, his temper was not sweetened thereby beforehand, only just needing the unseemlyfracaswhich he noticed on coming on the poop to send it up to fever-heat.
I had never seen Captain Billings so angry since I had been on board theEsmeralda; his blue eyes fairly flashed forth fire!
He took no notice of me at first, advancing towards the chief mate.
“Mr Macdougall,” said he, sharply, “I call upon you for an explanation of this—this—discreditable affair!”
“Yon dratted loon, Capting, sought me life!” replied the other, glibly. “He hove a snatch-block at me, and takkin’ the pairt of my ain defeence I was gangin’ to poonish him a wee when ye came on deck.”
“And did you give him no occasion for behaving so insubordinately, sir?” asked the skipper, looking Mr Macdougall straight in the face with a piercing glance, as if defying him to answer him untruthfully.
But the mate was too old a hand at “spinning a yarn,” as sailors term dealing in fictitious statements. He could utter a falsehood without winking once!
“Nae, sir,” said he, as cool as a cucumber, making no reference to the fact of his having twice knocked me down before I retaliated on him, “I did naething to the loon, naething at a’! I only joost reprovit him a wee for his bad language and inseelance, ye ken, an’ he oops wi’ yon block an’ heaves at me puir head. It’s joost a marcy o’ Proveedence he did nae knockit me brains oot!”
Fortunately for the Scotsman, his good or bad angel was in the ascendant at this moment, substantiating this incomplete account he gave as to what had happened. As luck would have it, too, Captain Billings had only got up the poop ladder in time to take heed of the latter part of the fray, and thus the evidence of his own eyesight corroborated apparently the mate’s assertion, that I had made a most unjustifiable assault on him.
Greatly incensed, therefore, he now turned on me.
“I saw the assault myself, Mr Macdougall; so I don’t merely take your word alone for it. What have you got to say, Leigh, in excuse for your outrageous behaviour? It’s—it’s scandalous; I could thrash you myself!”
My pride, however, was roused by the fact of his having accepted the mate’s explanation without asking me for any explanation first, and so condemning me unheard; consequently, without taking into consideration the thought that it was only proper that Captain Billings should support the authority of his chief officer unhesitatingly, I answered him rather pertly, only feeling my own wrong, and not considering what was the skipper’s obvious duty.
“If you believe Mr Macdougall,” I replied, in a rude, off-hand way, “there’s nothing for me to say.”
“You ungrateful young hound!” cried out the skipper, who, if angry before, was now as mad as a hatter at my impudence. “That’s the thanks I get, is it, for favouring you and promoting you out of your station! Listen; consider yourself disrated from this instant—do you hear?”
“Yes, I hear, Captain Billings,” said I, in a sullen voice.
“Then, heed sharply, my lad,” he retorted. “Get off this deck and go forward. Your place, henceforth, sir, will be in the fo’c’s’le, along with the other hands; and the sooner you lug that chest of yours out of the spare bunk I gave you amidships, the better!”
This was a terrible downfall; but, of course, there was no use my arguing against the skipper’s decision, the master of a merchant ship being lord paramount on board his own vessel, and having the power to make and unmake his officers, like a nautical Warwick, the whilom creator of kings!
So, much chapfallen, I withdrew from the poop; and, abandoning all my dignities as acting second mate and first-class apprentice, proceeded to make myself at home with the crew forward—much against the grain, I confess, although the men received me cordially, and took my part, not only from their liking for me personally, but from their hatred of the chief mate as well.
Mr Macdougall, I could plainly see, was cock-a-hoop at my disgrace, from the malicious grin on his freckled face.
His triumph, however, was not very long-lived.
On making me relinquish my functions on the quarter-deck, the skipper had sent for Jorrocks, telling him that he would have to take charge of Mr Ohlsen’s watch in my place.
“But I doesn’t know nothing o’ navigation, Cap’,” said the boatswain, who felt keenly my abasement, and was loth to “step into my shoes,” as it were.
“Oh, never mind that,” replied the skipper. “Mr Macdougall will give you the courses to steer; and, if anything particular happens—which I don’t expect, with the wind we have now and us in the open sea—why, you can call me.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Jorrocks, being thus foiled in his attempt at getting me reinstated, which he thought might have been the case on his pleading his inability to con the ship; and so, when Macdougall went below with the starboard watch at eight bells in the afternoon, the boatswain took charge of the deck with the relief hands—the mate telling him still to keep to the same west-sou’-west course which I had suggested to Mr Macdougall, a couple of hours or so before, should be altered to a more southerly one, and the controversy about which had caused that “little unpleasantness” between us, which had terminated so disastrously for myself.
To explain this matter properly, I should mention that, when, on our thirteenth day out, after the cessation of the north-westerly gale that had driven us to the south of the Canaries, Captain Billings discovered that we were so near in to the African coast, in taking advantage of the wind off the land he had perhaps committed an error of judgment in making an attempt to recover our lost westing, instead of pursuing a course more directly to the southwards; for, in the early part of the northern summer, the Equatorial Current begins to run with greater rapidity towards the west, causing vessels to lose much of their true direction, and the most experienced navigators recommend crossing this stream at right angles, if possible, so as to get beyond its influence as speedily as circumstances will permit, at least at that time of year, when an easterly passage of the equator is advisable.
However, the skipper acted for the best, wishing to get well to the windward of Cape Blanco and the contrary currents and variable breezes generally encountered in that vicinity; and so, theEsmeraldahad therefore continued on a diagonal course across the equatorial stream even after we had picked up the regular north-east Trades, until we had reached the meridian of 25 degrees West, when we had run as far south as 8 degrees 15 minutes North.
Here, we lost the Trades that had blown us so far on our route, entering into the second great belt of calms met with in the Atlantic to perplex the mariner when essaying to pass either to the north or south of the equator—a zone of torpidity, known popularly under the name of the “Doldrums,” which was originally derived most probably from the old Portuguese phrasedolorio, “tormenting.”
This belt of calms separates the two wind zones of the north-east and south-west Trades, which meeting here, their opposing forces are neutralised, and the air they bring with them from the colder regions of the north and south, becoming rarified by the heat of the equator, passes up into the higher atmosphere, producing a stagnation of the wind currents; and hence ensue calms that vary in duration according to the position of the sun, whether north or south of the Line, calms that are sometimes accompanied by tremendous rain showers, and sometimes varied with frequent squalls and thunder and lightning, followed sometimes by thick fogs hanging on the surface of the water.
The belt of the Doldrums has an average width of some six degrees, or about five hundred miles of latitude, roughly speaking; and in crossing it we were not much more favoured than most navigators, having to knock about for seven days under a sweltering tropical sun—taking advantage of whatever little breeze we could get that aided our progress to the equator, until we emerged from the retarding influence of this zone of inactivity, some three degrees to the northward of the Line, when we fortunately succeeded in sailing into the south-east Trades almost before we expected.
We had, however, lost some little way eastwards through the sweep of the Guinea current, a stream which seems strangely enough to take its rise in the middle of the ocean, and makes a sudden set thence towards the Bight of Benin; so, Captain Billings, who appeared to be prejudiced on the subject of the western passage of the equator, instead of now trying again to shape a true south course towards our point of destination, Cape Horn, directed a parallel so as to fetch the Brazilian coast. The ship, consequently, after leaving the Doldrums was steered south-west and by west, a direction which, if preserved, would have run us on in a straight line to the Rocas, a dangerous reef stretching out into the sea off the westward peak of the island of Fernando Noronha, some eighty-four miles out from the mainland to the northward of Cape Saint Roque.
This was on our thirtieth day out from the Bristol Channel, two days before the first mate and I had come to loggerheads; and since then the vessel had kept on in the same course, closing with the equator each hour under the steady south-easterly breeze which we had with us, on the port tack, and speeding even more rapidly to the west than our skipper imagined—for, through the set of some current to the northward and westwards, our dead reckoning showed a wide discrepancy from the position of the ship by observation, as I made it on the day of the row—when, as I’ve stated, the skipper, feeling indisposed, had left me to take the sun, knowing that the mate would check my calculations.
But, as things turned out, the altercation which occurred completely took off the attention of Captain Billings from the subject; and, as I left the chart which I had been using on the top of the cabin sky-light when he ordered me to quit the poop without informing him of the serious error I had discovered, and Mr Macdougall, wise in his own conceit and confident that he and the dead reckoning were both right, did not hint of the ship’s course being wrong, on we went, with all our canvas spread, racing into the teeth of a danger which the skipper never dreamt of our being near.
The weather was now beautifully fine, the breeze tempering the heat of the sun, and flying fish and albicore playing around the vessel as we neared the equator; while, occasionally, a school of whales would spout to windward, or a shoal of porpoises, having a game of high jinks as they leaped out of the water in their graceful curves one after the other, would cross our bows backwards and forwards in sport, apparently mocking our comparatively slow progress through the sea in contrast to their own rapid and graceful movements, and showing how easily they could outstrip us when they so pleased.
I was standing on the fo’c’s’le head, sadly looking out over the bows, while the light lasted, at the moving panorama of Nature around me; the dancing waves curled up on either side of the catheads as the vessel plunged her forefoot down, and streaming aft in a long wake to leeward; the cloudless sky above; the vast solitary expanse of the horizon; the leaping fish and spouting whales—keenly alive to everything and yet my mind full of all my grievances, being especially wrathful with the skipper for accepting Mr Macdougall’s statement against me, without first allowing me to utter a word in my own defence.
It was worse than tyranny, I thought, this arbitrary conduct in disrating me unjustly!
I remained here till I heard one bell strike soon after the second dog-watch commenced; for I was waiting for Jorrocks to be relieved, as I wished to speak to him in order to get him to put in a word for me with Captain Billings, when he had calmed down and could listen to reason. While I was waiting, the evening closed in, the sun having not long set; for, in the tropics, night succeeds day with startling rapidity, there being no twilight to temper the transition between bright sunshine and darkness—the one ensuing almost immediately after the other without any “toning down,” as painters express it, to lessen the effect of the change.
Hearing, as I fancied, a whale spouting nearer than usual—these monsters of the deep making a noise as they eject the water through the spout-holes on top of their heads in a fountain of spray, after drawing it with their gills, like surf breaking on a distant shore—the sound somehow or other took back my thoughts to the chart, and I suddenly remembered what I had told the mate about the danger of the ship approaching the Islets of Saint Paul.
These are a cluster of rocks, called by the early Portuguese navigators the Peñedo de Saint Pedro, lying almost in mid-ocean, close to the equator, in latitude zero degrees 55 minutes 30 seconds North, and longitude 29 degrees 22 minutes West; and, from the water being beyond soundings in their immediate neighbourhood, they must form the peak of some submarine mountain range. They are only about sixty feet or so in height clear above the level of the sea; and, consequently, being only visible at a comparatively short distance off—not more than a couple of leagues at the outside, even in broad daylight—and situated as the shoal is in the direct track of the trade wind, the rocks form a source of great peril to mariners traversing their bearings, especially at night time, nothing existing to give warning of their proximity until a vessel may be right on to them, as it were.
Thinking of all this, which I had read in the “Sailing Directions for the North Atlantic,” a book which the skipper had lent me to study, in order to perfect me in navigation, I felt a sudden fear lest the ship should be wrecked on the reef, making up my mind to tell Jorrocks about the error I had discovered in our position on the chart, which I determined to ask him to fetch for me, so as to show it to Captain Billings.
Jorrocks, however, was a long time coming forwards after being relieved from charge of the deck by Mr Macdougall, remaining some little time talking to him on the poop; so that it was nearly two bells, and quite dusky, when he made his way to where I was standing looking out for him, I having asked one of the hands to say that I wanted to speak with him.
“Well, Mister Leigh,” he said, on making his appearance, “here I am at last; better late nor never, as the old folks say! But that blessed Scotchman would have a long yarn with me, about goodness knows what!”
“I’m glad you’ve come,” I replied; and then I went on to tell him about my fears of peril to the ship from our vicinity to the Rocks of Saint Paul, which I was certain we were approaching every mile we ran further west.
But the boatswain was almost as incredulous of our being near the shoal as the first mate had been in the afternoon.
“Bless you, Mister Leigh, we’re miles to windward of that place,” said he with a laugh. “But it’s allers the way with your young navigators as is full chock up to the bung with book larnin’ and hasn’t had no real ’sperience o’ the sea yet! They allers fancy all sorts o’ dangers that your old seamen who’ve been a v’yage or two never thinks o’ reckonin’ on!”
However, the good-natured fellow, seeing how earnest I was in the matter, promised to take the chart to the skipper, who was lying down in his cabin again, feeling far from well of late, as, indeed, his looks lately showed—and we were all afraid he had caught the same sort of low fever like Mr Ohlsen, the second mate.
“An; I’ll tell him as mildly as I can, Mister Leigh, of this here mare’s nest as you’ve found out, so as not to make him angry with you again.”
“Thank you, Jorrocks,” I replied heartily; but, just at that moment, hearing the whales making a noise quite close to the ship’s side as I thought—although I could not see them within the limited circle of dusky light to which the surrounding gloom narrowed my vision, I said, “What a row those whales are making, are they not? They’re quite near, and yet, although it’s not dark enough yet to hide them from our gaze, there’s not a trace of one in sight!”
Jorrocks cocked his head on one side and listened; but in an instant there was a striking alteration in the quizzical look with which he had at first regarded me, under the evident idea that I had discovered another “mare’s nest.”
“By Jingo, Mister Leigh, you’re right after all!” he exclaimed, his face turning pale as if with sudden fright.
“What, do you think we’re running on the rocks I spoke about?” I asked, anxiously.
“Aye, not a doubt of it,” he answered, in the same quick way, bending his head again to listen over the side. “Either them identical ones, or else we’re on the Rocas off the Brazilian coast.”
In another moment, however, if in doubt previously, his suspicions were apparently confirmed; for, springing up again, and rushing aft as if he were suddenly possessed, Jorrocks roared out at the pitch of his voice—the words ringing like a trumpet note through the ship—
“Breakers ahead on the weather bow! Hard up with the helm—hard!”