Chapter IXIn Which I See the Day Dawn Upon a Deserted Ocean
Chapter IX
In Which I See the Day Dawn Upon a Deserted Ocean
I don’t claim to possess an atom more courage than the next fellow. I was heartily scared the instant I realized that theWavecrestwas adrift and I was fastened into her cabin. But I was not made helpless by my terror.
I tried my best to open that cabin door; but the big nails had been driven home. The ports were too small for my body to pass through, although I did open one and was tempted to shriek for help. But that would have been a ridiculous thing to do—and useless, as well. Had anybody heard and understood my need, I was beyond assistance from land, and there was nobody out in the harbor but myself, I felt sure.
TheWavecresthad got well out into the harbor now. She rolled very little and therefore I knew that, unguided as she was, her head was right and wind and tide were sweepingher on. She might be piled up on either shore at the mouth of the inlet; but from the start I believed she would be shot through the outlet of the harbor into the open sea.
In the cuddy up forward, with my provisions, there were a saw and hammer, and other tools. I could no more get at them than I could get out of the cabin. And although I might be able to do nothing to help myself or my boat if I was free from my prison, I would have felt a whole lot safer just then to have been upon her deck!
The door being nailed so fast, and the deck-hatch bolted tight, it was plain that I would have to smash something in order to get out of the cabin. Had I had anything to use as a battering ram, I would have begun on the door. But there seemed nothing to hand that would help me in that way. I examined the crack where the top of the door and the deck-hatch came together. Had I something to pry with I might tear the bolts holding the hatch out of the wood.
Such a thing as a bar was out of the question. But after a few minutes’ cogitation, I remembered that my bunks on either side of the cabin could be turned up against the bulkhead, and at each end of the bunks was aflat piece of steel fifteen or eighteen inches long which held the berth-bench when it was let down. Two screws at each end held these steel straps in place.
I had no screw driver; but I had the knife that I had taken away from my cousin when he attacked me the evening before. I thrust the point of its heavy blade into a crack and snapped the steel square off. It made a fairly usable screw-driver, and I quickly had one of the steel straps out of its fastenings.
The piece of steel was stiff and made as good a bar for prying as I could have found. With some difficulty I thrust one end up between the top of the cabin door and the edge of the hatch, close to one side. I slipped the closed knife up between the bar and the door for a block against which to prize, caught the end of the bar with both hands, and threw all my force against it. The hatch squeaked; there was a splintering sound of wood. I was badly marring the top of the door, but the bolt which held the hatch at that side was giving.
I repeated the process at the other side of the hatch, and gradually, by working first at one side, and then the other, I splintered the woodwork around the bolts, and bent thebolts themselves, so that the hatch began to shove back. As soon as possible I shoved it back far enough for my body to pass through the aperture.
The rain beat down upon my face as I worked my way out of the cabin in my oilskins; I left my hat behind. TheWavecrestwas pitching and yawing pretty badly now and before I cast a single glance around I was sure that she was already going through the inlet.
Yes! there was the beacon at the extreme point of Bolderhead Neck—it was just abreast of me as I stood at last upon the sloop’s unsteady deck. I leaped down into the cockpit and quickly lowered the centerboard. Almost at once theWavecrestbegan to ride more evenly. I could see little but the beacon, the night was so black; but I ran to the tiller and found that the sloop was under good steerage way and answered her helm nicely.
Like all sloops, theWavecrestwas very broad of beam for her depth of keel, and the standing-room, or cockpit, was roomy. She was well rigged, too, having a staysail and gafftopsail. Really, to sail her properly there should have been a crew of two aboard; but under the present circumstances I felt thatone person aboard theWavecrestwas one too many! With a rising gale behind her the craft was being driven to sea at express speed, and it was utterly impossible to retard her course.
For an hour I sat there in the driving rain, hatless and shivering, hanging to the tiller and letting the sloop drive. Letting her drive! why, there wasn’t a thing I could do to change her course. She was rushing on through the foaming seas like a projectile shot from some huge gun, and every moment the howling wind seemed to increase!
The beacon on the Neck was behind me now. There was nothing ahead of the sloop’s fixed bowsprit. We were driving into a curtain of blackness that had been let down from the sky to the sea. It is seldom that there is not some little light playing over the surface of the water. This night a palpable cloud had settled upon the face of the waters and I could not even see the foam on the crests of the waves, save where they ran past the sloop’s freeboard.
I had left the broken slide open, however, and the rain was beating down into the cabin. This began to worry me and finally I lashed the tiller—fastening it in the bights of tworopes prepared for that purpose, and crept back into the cabin again. It was little use to remain outside, save that if the sloop was flung upon a rock, I might have a little better chance to escape.
At the speed she was traveling, however, I knew very well that we were already beyond the reefs and little islets that mask the entrance to Bolderhead Harbor. It was a veritable hurricane behind us. The wind was actually blowing so hard that the waves were scarcely of medium height. I had seen a mere afternoon squall kick up a heavier sea.
It was awkward getting in and out of the cabin by way of the hatch; but I did not take the time then to open the door. I fixed the hatch so that it would slide back and forth properly, however. Then I lit my spirit lamp and made some coffee. I was pretty well chilled through, for the rain and wind seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of my bones.
I was sure that this was the beginning of the equinoctial gale. It might be a week before the storm would break. And where would theWavecrestbe in a week’s time?
Not that I really believed the sloop would hold together, or still be on top of the sea,when this gale blew itself out. She was a mere speck on the agitated surface of the sea. My only hope then was that I might be rescued by some larger vessel—and how I should get from theWavecrestcraft to another was beyond the power of my imaginings.
I could not be content to remain below—nor was that unnatural. Aside from the fear I had of the sloop’s yawing and possibly turning turtle, and so imprisoning me in the cabin with no hope of escape therefrom, I felt that I should be more on the alert to seize any opportunity for escape were I at the tiller. So I carried a Mexican poncho which I wound to the stern, draped it about me over the oilskins, and with the sou’wester tied under my chin I could defy the rain, nor did the keen wind search my vitals.
But thus bundled up I would have stood little show had the sloop capsized. Afterward I realized that I might as well have remained in the cabin.
However, to sleep in either place, was impossible. Sometimes the rain beat down upon the decked over portion of the boat with the sound of a drumstick beaten upon taut calfskin. Again the wind blew in such sharp gusts that the rain seemed to be swept overthe face of the sea and then, if I chanced to glance over my shoulder, the drops stung like hail.
Altogether I have never passed a more uncomfortable night—perhaps never one during which I was in greater peril. The wind was shifting bit by bit, too. My compass told me that theWavecrestwas now being driven straight out to sea, instead of running parallel with the Massachusetts coast as had been at first the fact.
How fast I was traveling I could not guess. There was a patent log aboard; but I did not rig it. Indeed, it was much safer to remain in the stern of the sloop than to move about at all. I knew we were traveling much faster than I had ever traveled by water before and I had something beside the speed of my involuntary voyage to think about.
It had not crossed my mind at the time, but when I had slipped out to theWavecrestthat evening, giving my mother and the servants the impression that I had gone to my room as usual, I had done a very foolish—if not wrong—thing. The sloop might not be the only craft in Bolderhead Harbor to break away from moorings and go on an involuntary cruise. Other wandering craftmight not escape the rocks about the beach, as theWavecresthad. It might be supposed that my sloop was among the wreckage that would be cast ashore along our rocky coast, and my absence might not be connected with the disappearance of the sloop.
My mother and friends would not suspect the reason or cause for my absence. If I had taken a soul into my confidence, in the morning my mother would be informed immediately of my accident. Perhaps, after all, it was not a bad thing that some uncertainty must of necessity attach itself to my disappearance.
For although I had every reason to believe that Paul Downes had either nailed me into the cabin, or caused me to be nailed in, well knowing that I had gone aboard the sloop to sleep, I was equally confident that he would not tell of what he had done, or allow his companions to tell of the trick, either.
These, and similar hazy thoughts regarding my condition, shuttled back and forth through my brain during the long and anxious hours of that never-to-be-forgotten night. Sometimes, I presume, I lost myself and slept for a few minutes; but the hours dragged on so dismally, and I was so uncomfortable andanxious, that I am sure I could not have slept much of the time. And it did seem as though the east would never lighten for dawn.
At last it came, however; and then I liked the prospect less than the no prospect of the black night! All that it revealed to my aching eyes was a vast, vast expanse of empty, heaving drab sea, across which the gale hurried sheets of cold and biting rain—not a sign of land behind me—not a sail against the equally drab horizon. My sloop, under her bare, writhing pole, was scudding across this deserted ocean with no haven in sight and I was without hope of rescue.
Chapter XIn Which I Find a Most Remarkable Haven
Chapter X
In Which I Find a Most Remarkable Haven
With the coming of daylight I would have tried to get some canvas on theWavecrest—if only a rag of jib—had the gale not been so terrific. I doubted if, under a pocket-handkerchief of sail, I could have got her head around without swamping her.
And then, what better off would I have been? I could have made no progress beating against such a wind and it was better and safer to ride before it, no matter where I was blown. There was no land ahead of me save the shores of Spain—and Spain was a long way off.
At least, it was better to run while the sea remained in its present condition. As I have said, the waves were beaten flat by the savage wind. But, if there should come a lull in that, I knew well enough the sea would instantly leap into billows that would soon founder the little sloop if she could neitherbe got around to ride them, or could not keep ahead of them.
I lashed the tiller again—as I had twice during the night—and went below for coffee. I brought back some pilot crackers and a can of peaches that was among the stores I had bought in town the day before, and made a fairly satisfactory breakfast of the hard bread and fruit with a pint can of coffee. But I would not remain below any length of time now. It looked very much to me as though the clouds might break and the wind shift, or lull, at any moment.
Several hours passed, however, and my watch (which I had not forgotten to wind) told me that it was fast approaching noon before any change came. Then the shrieking gale dropped suddenly and the gusts of rain ceased.
I leaped up at once to unfurl the jib. With a little canvas on her I believed the sloop could be wore ’round and headed into the wind before the waves sprang up. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have given her a hand’s breath of the mainsail. However, before the bit of canvas bellied out and I had dashed back to the helm, the first wave broke over the stern of the sloop.
It was a deluge! I was waist deep in the foaming flood; the cockpit was full; the sloop had already shipped about all the water that was good for her, and it was plain she was too water-logged to answer the helm promptly.
Up came a second wave. The lulling of the wind gave the waves a chance to gather force and height. This one curled fairly over my head and, looking up and over my shoulder at the great, green, foam-streaked wall of water, I thought my last minute above the surface had come!
It broke. I can remember nothing at all of the ensuing few moments. I only know that I was smothered, drowned, completely overwhelmed by the deluge of water that came inboard. The force of it burst open the slide of the hatch and barrels of water flooded into the cabin. TheWavecrestsettled. If another wave as great had come inboard directly in the wake of this one, I am convinced that I would not be writing this record of my life.
As the wave passed on, the keen whistle of the gale returned. I leaped up and staggered forward. I knew that unless I could get way upon the sodden craft she would very quickly plunge beneath the surface. I shook out thestaysail as well as the jib, but dared not spread too much canvas to the wind which seemed about to swoop down again. These sails filled and theWavecrestshowed her mettle, sodden as she was with the enormous amount of water that had come inboard.
There was a deal of water awash in the cockpit; therefore the shallow hold must have been full. And I knew there was plenty slopping about in the cabin, ruining everything. I rigged the little pump amidships and the pipe threw a full stream of bilge across the deck. And it wasn’t bilge long, but came clear. Inboard came another wave—but not a large one this time—and I pumped harder than ever.
TheWavecrestwas lumbering on too slowly to escape the following waves. In her then condition it would have been folly to seek to head her about. She would have rolled helplessly in the trough of the sea as sure as I tried it. But if she was going to sail before this wind and sea she must sail faster.
The gale was steadily increasing again, but it did not blow as hard as it had during the night and early morning. I ventured a little more canvas and although the mast and rigging strained loudly, nothing got away. Thespeed of the sloop was increased, especially so as I kept at the pump and got the hold clear.
Although the hungry billows still followed theWavecrestlittle water came inboard for a time save the spindrift whipped from the crests of the waves. But with a sea running so high there was danger of swamping every moment. I dared not leave the helm for long; to go below at all was out of the question. I went without food all that day, thankful that I had managed to make a fairly hearty breakfast.
And all the time the wind blew steadily, the sea strove mightily, and the sloop scudded before both like a whipped pup. I would not like to say how fast she traveled, for I do not know; I was only certain that even in a racing wind I had never sailed so fast before.
I had become wet through to the bone. Neither the poncho nor the oilskins could keep me dry when the sea had broken over the sloop. And the wind was keen and searched me through and through. My teeth were a-chatter, the cold pricked me like needles, and I was altogether very miserable indeed. Often had I been soaked to the skin while on a fishing venture; but there was theprospect of a hot drink and a warm fire ahead of me. There was nothing in the line of comfort before me now. The sea remained untenanted and theWavecrestdrove on as though she were enchanted.
Hour after hour dragged by. The sun did not appear; indeed, rain-gusts swept now and then across the sea. The waves were so steep that when the sloop plunged down the slope of one the rain swept on over my head and only rattled upon my sail. Ragged masses of cloud swept across the sky. In the distance it really seemed as though the waves leaped up and met these low-hung clouds.
And how I strained my eyes for some speck to give me hope of rescue!
From the summit of almost every wave I stood up and gazed about me—especially ahead. Behind were only the ravenous waves seeking to overtake and swamp me. Ahead I hoped to see the vapor of some steamer, or, at least, the bare poles of a sailing vessel that could rescue me from my perilous situation.
I dreaded another night. Indeed, I did not see how I could sail theWavecrestuntil morning without either food or sleep. To lash the tiller and let the sloop drive on was too reckless a course to even contemplate.
A man lost in a forest, or on a desert, may be lonely; but a voyager alone on the trackless and empty ocean is in far worse condition, believe me! Not only is he lost, but the elements themselves are continually buffeting him. In all this dreary day there was not a second in which my life was not threatened.
Finally when I knew there could not be many hours more of daylight, upon rising to the summit of a great billow, I beheld something riding the seas not far ahead. For some reason I had not seen the bulk of this strange apparition before and at first I was sure it was the turtle-turned hulk of a wreck.
But as theWavecrestsped on, bringing me nearer and nearer to the object, I saw that I must be wrong. It was not shaped like a ship’s hull although it was black and clumsy enough. But immediately about it the waves seemed to be calm. At least no waves broke and foamed about the floating mass.
I watched the thing eagerly, although I could not hope for rescue under such a guise. It was not, I was almost instantly sure, a vessel of any kind; as theWavecrestkept on her course, which brought me directly upon the object, I was not long at a loss to identify it.
Although I had seldom been far out of sight of land myself, and had never seen any ocean creature bigger than a blackfish (not the tautog, but the pilot-whale) I had listened to the stories of old whalemen along the Bolderhead docks, and I was pretty sure that I had sighted one of those great mammals—a creature of the sea which is no more a fish than a horse or a cow is a fish, yet is the greatest wonder of marine life.
Beside, the peculiar condition of the sea immediately about the object revealed its identity. The whale was dead, I was sure. Otherwise it would not have been at the surface so long in such a gale. And being dead, and the seabirds and shark-fish having got at its carcass before the storm, there was good reason for the waves not breaking over it.
The dead whale lay in a slick, or “sleep,” as some old whalemen pronounce the word, and hope revived in my troubled mind the instant I realized what the object was, and its condition. The waves were following me as hungrily as ever; at any moment the sloop might be overwhelmed. But once let me get theWavecrestin the lee of this dead whale, I could bid defiance to the storm. There Icould outride the gale and, when it was fair again, set the sloop’s nose toward the distant mainland.
With rare good fortune the sloop needed little guidance to reach the dead whale. My original course had been aimed for the huge beast. As theWavecrestgained upon it the monster was revealed, lying partly on its side, all of fifty feet from tail to nose. Of course there were no seabirds upon the carcass now, nor did I see the triangular fin of a shark anywhere about. They had ripped and torn at the carcass sufficiently, however, to release copiously the oil from the casing of blubber, or fat, with which the whale is entirely covered.
MyWavecrestbore down upon the becalmed circle and suddenly I found the waves heaving smoothly under the sloop instead of breaking all about her. I ran to the canvas and stowed it quickly, then brought the sloop around into the lee of the huge bulk of the whale. I had a broken-shanked harpoon and a boathook. I plunged these both into the carcass and then attached theWavecrest, bows and stern, to these strange mooring-posts.
There she was, as safe as though we were in a landlocked harbor, rising and falling witha motion by no means unpleasant. The exuding oil made a charmed circle about the sloop, into which the agencies of the gale could not venture. The wind wailed as madly across the sea, and the sea itself, at a little distance, tumbled, and burst in a most chaotic manner; but here in the slick I lay at peace—and grateful indeed I was for this remarkable haven.
Chapter XIIn Which I Am a Terrified Witness of a Wonderful Phenomenon
Chapter XI
In Which I Am a Terrified Witness of a Wonderful Phenomenon
Evening was dropping down and I was woefully hungry. Being sure that theWavecrestwas safely moored to the body of the dead leviathan, I set about correcting the need which preyed upon me. I was thankful, indeed, that I had stocked my larder so well on that last day at Bolderhead. There was plenty of water, too. I could ride out a week’s storm here beside the whale I was very sure, and then have plenty of provisions to serve me until I could beat back to the mainland.
I got out my lanterns, filled and trimmed them, and cutting steps in the side of the whale with the boat-hatchet, I mounted to the top of the great body and there stuck my oar upright in the blubber and hung a lantern to it. I was pretty sure that no vessel would pass that signal light without investigating, even in the gale.
I made a very comfortable supper indeed. I managed now to force the cabin door and closed the sliding hatch. Then I warmed the cabin well with the spirit stove, stripped off my wet clothes, and got into dry garments. I went out on deck at nine o’clock, saw that my moorings were fast and the lanterns burning brightly, and then turned in. After the uncertainties of the day and the lack of sleep suffered the night before, I slept as soundly when I now turned in on one of the bunks as ever I did in my own bed at home!
At daybreak—another drab dawning of the new day—I was up and climbed the whale for the lantern. In its place I left attached to the upright oar a shirt to flutter in the wind for a signal. I hoped that any vessel passing near enough to see my signal would stop for me. But of one thing I was sure: If it chanced that a whaling ship came within sight of the dead leviathan my peril would soon be over. This huge beast had not been long dead and it would be all clear gain to any “blubber boiler” that chanced to pass that way.
Nor was the possibility of being rescued by a whaleship so slight as it would have been a few years before. There were for two decades,few whaling barks put forth from the New England ports; but of late years there is either a greater demand for whale-oil, or the cachelot (the sperm whale) is becoming more frequently seen both in northern and southern seas, and is being hunted both by steam vessels and by the old-time whaling ships.
I didn’t know where I was—that is, my position in the North Atlantic; but I believed that I had sailed so far and so fast in the sloop that I was about midway of the course of the British steam lines running ’twixt Halifax and the Bermudas. Those two ports are between seven and eight hundred miles apart, and I suspected I was nearer one or the other than I was to Boston! I knew I had done some tall sailing since being swept out of Bolderhead Harbor.
After having cooked and eaten a hearty breakfast, despite the blowing of the gale—for dirty weather prevailed and rain swept down in torrents every hour or two—I set about making such slight repairs as I could with the tools and materials I had at hand. And while thus engaged I made a discovery that—to say the least—startled me.
Dragging over the bows of theWavecrestwas the cable by which she had been moored in Bolderhead Harbor. I had never chanced to draw it aboard. Now I did so. It was only a bit, some three or four feet long. And instead of finding it frayed and broken by the strain of the sloop as she dragged at her old anchorage, I found that the hemp had been cut sharply across. Nothing less than a knife—and a sharp one—had severed that cable when it was taut!
The appearance of the bit of rope gave me such a jolt that I sat down and stared at it. I had been quite sure that Paul Downes and his friends knew I was aboard theWavecrestwhen they nailed me into the cabin. But it really never crossed my mind that they had deliberately cut the sloop adrift. But here was evidence of the crime. There was no doubting it. I had been imprisoned on theWavecrestand then the sloop was sent on a voyage which Paul and his friends must have realized could end in nothing less than death.
It was an awful thought. In sudden and uncontrollable anger my cousin had attempted to stab me when we had our unfortunate quarrel aboard the sloop; but this crime was far greater than his former attempt. He had deliberately planned my death.
And if Ham Mayberry, or any of my other friends, took the pains to look at theWavecrest’s mooring cable, they would know that the sloop had been cut adrift. The evidence lay in both pieces of the cable.
Perhaps, however, it would not be known—it might never be suspected, indeed—that I had been swept out to sea in the sloop. The mere fact that I had left my tender tied to the mooring buoy might not be understood. Beside, the tender might have been cut adrift, too. Or the gale might have done much havoc in Bolderhead Inlet. Other craft could easily have been strewn along the rocky shores, or carried—like theWavecrest—out into the open sea.
The mystery of my disappearance might never be explained—until I returned home. And when would I get back? I did not like to think of this. I worried over the effect my disappearance would have upon my mother’s mind. And, while I was absent, Mr. Chester Downes would have full swing.
Worried as I was because of my situation, here in the seemingly empty Atlantic, my greatest anxiety was for my mother. More and more had I come to fear the evil machinations of Mr. Chester Downes. While I hadbeen on hand to defend mother from her brother-in-law—and defend her from her own innocent belief in him, as well!—I was but mildly disturbed. If worse came to worse, I could always write to Lawyer Hounsditch whom I believed would never see my mother cheated.
But now—and God only knew for how long a time—it was beyond my power to do a single thing toward guarding my mother from Chester Downes. How I wish I had taken the old attorney of the Darringford Estate into my confidence before this time!
These were some of my sad thoughts following the discovery of the severed cable. I remained in a very, very low state of mind indeed during that forenoon. The gale did not abate; nothing but the boisterous sea and the overcast sky could I see about me. Not even a seabird came to the dead whale. I was alone—stark alone.
At mid-afternoon, however, I sighted something to the southward. I had climbed to the top of the whale for a better observation and against the horizon I beheld a long ribbon of smoke—just a faint streak against the lighter colored clouds. I knew that a steamer was there; but she was far, far away, andwould never sight the whale, or my fluttering signal.
I thought of all manner of curious plans to attract attention to my plight from a long distance over the sea. Fire was my main thought. I knew that no vessel—scarcely a mail-carrying steamship—would pass a fire at sea without investigation. Had I been a modern Munchausen I might have found some way of drawing a wick through the whale and setting fire to its blubber!
As it was, had I been likely to run short of burning fluid I surely would have endeavored to “try out” some of the blubber. I knew that, before the day of mineral oil—kerosene—people used whale oil almost altogether for lamps. But I was fortunately well supplied with oil, water and food. I might ward off starvation for a month; but I was not at all sure that I wished to exist so long under the then prevailing conditions.
But life is very sweet to us, and I suppose I should have clung to the last shred of mine had Fate intended me to remain in this abandoned state so long. This day and another night passed. I went to bed and slept well. The whale’s carcass might roll over and crush my boat, or some other accident happento theWavecrestduring my retirement. But I could do nothing to fend off Fate did I keep awake and had already made up my mind that I had little to fear.
As for the whale sinking again, that was impossible. It may have sunk after being killed; but putrefaction had set in within the carcass and the gases which had thereby formed would keep the whale afloat until the fish and seabirds had stripped its bones, in great part at least.
With the returning day the clouds broke. I had noted before arising that the gale was subsiding. The sun showed his face and I welcomed him enthusiastically. The sea did not subside however. I could not think of leaving my sure haven yet. It did not look exactly like settled weather but the sun shone warmly for part of that forenoon.
Before noon several screaming gulls had found the dead whale and were circling around it, gaining courage to attack. The presence of the sloop moored to it bothered them at first. But in a few hours there were other scavengers of the sea at hand which were afraid of nothing. I sighted the first ugly fin soon after eating my dinner. Then another, and another and another appeared, and soonthe voracious sharks were tearing at the whale from beneath while the increasing number of seabirds were hovering and fighting above the carcass.
Both the finned and winged denizens of the sea became so fearless that I could have stroked the sides of the sharks with my hand or got upon the whale and knocked the birds over with a club. Blood as well as oil ran from the great carcass and the sea was soon streaked all around with foulness. A dreadful stench began to be apparent, too. The fetid gasses from the abdominal cavity of the dead creature were escaping.
But I could not afford to change my anchorage just for a bad smell! Anxious as I was to get home again, I dared not start for land yet awhile. I must wait for a fair wind and the promise of a spell of steady weather. I knew that by heading into the northwest I must reach the New England coast if I sailed far enough; but otherwise I was quite ignorant of my position. Having a nicely drawn chart in my chest did not help me in the least now, for I did not know my position and had no means of learning it had I been a navigator.
This day passed likewise and an uncertain,windy night was ushered in. I set my lantern again on the whale’s back, the birds having become less troublesome; but determined to keep watch for part of the night, at least. To this end I rolled myself in my blanket and lay down on the bench at the stern. The clouds still fled across the skies, harried by the wind; and the wind itself fluctuated, wheeling around to various points of the compass within a short hour.
I fell asleep occasionally and finally, before dawn, descended into a heavy slumber. I don’t know what awoke me. The wind was whining very strangely through the sloop’s standing rigging. My oar had tumbled down and oar and lantern were in the sea. The birds had all disappeared, nor were the fins of the sharks visible. Off to the south’ard was a strange, copper colored bank of cloud. The east was streaked lividly, for it was all but sunrise.
I rose and stretched, yawning loudly. I suddenly felt a prickling sensation all over me. I knew that the air must be strongly impregnated with electricity. Despite the whining of the wind here beside the dead whale there seemed to have fallen a calm.
I scrambled up the side of the whale and turned to look northward. Glory! Within five miles was a bark, under full sail, coming down upon me—a vision of rescue that brought the stinging tear-drops to my eyes. I was saved.
I did not care for the oar and the lost lantern now. I stood there and waved the coat that I had dragged off at first sight of the vessel. I knew her company must see me. I was as positive of rescue as of anything in the world. The bark was flying before a stiff breeze, and it was head on to the whale. I could not be missed.
Although the on-coming ship sailed so proudly, however, the breeze that filled her canvas did not breathe upon my cheek. Nor was it the whining of that favoring wind I had heard since first opening my eyes. I swung about suddenly and looked to the south. Up from that direction rolled the copper colored cloud—and it seemed veritably to roll along the surface of the sea.
The sound came from this cloud. Before it the sea itself turned white. Far above, the upper reaches of the rolling mist seemed to writhe as though in travail of some great phenomenon. And it was so! Out of thismass of vapor I saw born within the hour the most remarkable of all sea-spells.
But at first my attention was divided between the tornado coming up from the south and the bark approaching from the north. Not at once did the favoring wind leave the craft. Where the dead whale lay seemed to be a belt of calm between the bark and the coming tornado. And this craft in which my hope was set was really a bark, by the way; I do not use the word poetically. Her fore and mainmasts were square rigged while her mizzen mast was rigged fore and aft like my littleWavecrest.
As I watched her I saw that her navigator had espied the coming tempest from the south and the crew began to swarm among the sails. She still came on at a spanking pace; but her canvas was reefed down rapidly until there was nothing left but the foretopsail, flying jib and the spanker. Soon these began to shake and then her fair wind left her entirely. She had reached the belt of calm in which the dead whale and my sloop still lay.
In my ears the savage voice from the cloud to the south’ard was now a roar. The remaining canvas on the bark was reefed down. She lay waiting for the tempest. I turned to descendfrom my rather slippery situation. I preferred to be in the sloop when the tempest struck us, for possibly I would be obliged to cast off from the dead mammal.
But before I could get off the whale the writhing cloud changed its appearance—and changed so rapidly that I was held spellbound. It was sweeping over the seas so close, it seemed that the topmasts of the bark could not have cleared it. Now whirling tongues of cloud shot downward while dozens of spiral columns of water leaped up to meet these gyrating tongues. Thus sucked up by the whirling cloud the waterspouts were formed, and dozens of them swept on across the sea beneath the hovering cloud.
As the cloud advanced the wind which accompanied it beat the waves flat. But they boiled about the waterspouts and the roaring sound increased rapidly. The heavens above and to the north and east grew dark. The rising sun seemed snuffed out. A vivid glare which was neither sunlight nor starlight accompanied the tempest as it swept on.
I trembled at the sight and as the seconds passed I grew more terrified—and for good reason. What would happen to me if any of those whirling columns of water and miststruck the dead whale? If they burst upon the drifting mammal where would I be? What would happen to theWavecrest?
And then quite suddenly there came a change in the on-rushing tornado. Amid thunderous reports—like nothing so much as the explosions of great guns—the dozens of small spouts ran together, or were quenched as it might be, in one huge, whirling column of water which, swept on by the wind, charged down upon me as though aiming at my particular destruction.
I fell upon my knees and clung with both hands to the slot I had cut in the whale’s blubber in to which to thrust the oar. I dug my fingers into the greasy flesh and hung on for dear life. I actually expected that the whale—and of course my sloop—would be overwhelmed.
The waterspout, traveling with the speed of an express train, bore down upon me. With it came the wind, roaring deafeningly. I lost all other sound, with such enormous confusion the tornado swept upon me. The whale rolled as though it had come to sudden life again.
Over and over it canted. I know my sloop was lifted completely out of the sea. Thewaterspout whirled past—within three cable-lengths of the dead leviathan,—and the tempest shrieked after. The whale rolled back. I slid down the curve of the carcass and dropped into my plunging sloop. I feared to remain longer near the dead whale, but cast off both at bow and stern, and let the sea carry me some yards from the heaving, rolling carcass.
And then I could once more see the waterspout. It was still careening over the sea, its general direction being nor’west; but it whirled so that it was quite impossible to be sure of its exact direction.
However, of one thing I was confident. The sailing vessel which I had so joyfully discovered an hour ago, lay in the track of the waterspout. She lay still becalmed and if the spout threatened to board her, there would be no possible chance of the vessel’s escaping destruction.
Chapter XIIIn Which I Find Myself Bound for Southern Seas
Chapter XII
In Which I Find Myself Bound for Southern Seas
My little sloop pitched so abominably that I could not stand upright, but fell into her sternsheets and there clung to the tiller as she swept along in the wake of the tornado. The waves did not break about theWavecrest, for she was still within the charmed circle of oily calmness supplied by the dead whale. At some distance, however, the waves were tossed about most tempestuously.
I could see the bark from bow to stern, for she lay broadside to me. When the draught from the south first struck her she went over slowly almost upon her beam-ends; but righted majestically and her helm being put over she slewed around so as to take the gale bow-on.
She mounted the first wave splendidly and I saw her crew gathered forward in her bows. They seemed to be at work on something and there was a vast amount of running backand forth upon her deck. Meanwhile the waterspout, whirling like a dervish, bore down upon the bark.
The great column of water passed between me and the bark, then swung around and rushed down upon the craft in a way to threaten its complete extinction. I expected nothing more than to see the bark borne down and sunk under the weight of the bursting waterspout.
But when it was still several cable-lengths from the bark I saw the group upon her forward deck separate, and a long cannon was revealed. Its muzzle was slewed a little over the port bow and the next instant it spoke. The explosion sharply echoed across the sea, audible to my ears despite the huge roaring of the waterspout.
The column of water, rushing down upon the bark, was cut in twain by the ball from the gun. The connection ’twixt the whirling cloud and the whirling water was actually severed by it. Had the spout swept aboard the bark the great ship would have scarcely escaped complete wreck. As it was, the revolving water poured down into the ocean with the noise of a cascade, beating the sea to foam for yards and yards around, but withoutdoing the slightest damage either to the bark, or to my little sloop.
The tornado tore into the north, smaller spouts leaping up and twirling in their mad dance, but none forming the threatening aspect of that which the bark’s gun had burst. In half an hour the sun was out and I dared spread a whisp of sail and ran down to hail the bark.
I saw the crew crowding to the rail. There was a large number for even a sailing vessel of these times, and I more than half suspected the nature of her business before a rope ladder was let down to me and I scrambled up the tall side of the craft with the bight of my sloop’s painter over my shoulder and saw the “nests” of boats stowed amidships.
“I say, young fellow!” was the greeting I received from a smart looking youngster—not much older than myself—who welcomed me at the rail “is that your whale?”
“If ‘findings is keepings’ it is surely mine,” I said. “But I didn’t kill it, and now I’ve got a leg over your rail I’ll give you all my title and share in the beast.”
“Good luck, boys!” rumbled a bewhiskered old barnacle who stood behind the youngofficer of the bark, “We’ve struck ile before we’re a week out o’ Bedford.”
As I say, without these words I could have been sure that the bark was a whaler. She was the Scarboro Captain Hiram Rogers, and just beginning her voyage for the South Seas. The Greenland, or right whale, is no longer plentiful, but the cachelot and other species have become wonderfully common of late years. This fact has drawn capital to the business of whaling once more, and although steam has for the most part supplanted sails, and the gun and explosive bullet serve the office formerly held by the harpoon and the lance, more than a few of the old whale-fishing fleet have come into their own again.
For the Scarboro was built in the thirties of the last century; but so well did those old Yankee boat builders construct the barks meant for the fishing trade—for they were expected to stand many a tightsqueezein the ice as well as a possible head-on collision with a mad whale—that their length of life, and of usefulness, is phenomenal. At least, the Scarboro looked to be a most staunch and seaworthy craft.
The young fellow who had hailed me was Second Mate Gibson, nephew of the captainand, I very soon discovered, possessed of little more practical knowledge of sea-going and seamanship than myself. But he was a brisk, cheerful, educated fellow and being merely the captain’s lieutenant over the watch got along very well. He expected to study navigation with his uncle and be turned off a full-fledged mate, with a certificate, on his return from this whaling voyage.
However, these facts I learned later. Just now I was only anxious to know what was to be done with me, and if there was a likelihood of the captain of the Scarboro touching at any port from which I might make a quick passage home. This last was the uppermost thought in my mind when I followed Ben Gibson below to see the captain.
Captain Rogers was a lanky man with a sandy beard and a quiet blue eye. He did not look as though he ever had, or ever could, be hurried or disturbed. Had I been a Triton that had just come abroad I reckon he would have eyed me quite as calmly and listened as tranquilly to my story. But Gibson was so impatient (as I could easily see) that I made the story brief. He burst out with:
“Captain Rogers! aren’t we going to get that whale? She’s delivered into our hand,as ye might say. The men are eager for it, sir, but you haven’t given orders to change our course.”
“And I’m not likely to, Bennie,” returned his uncle.
“But it’s a waste of oil!” exclaimed the young fellow.
“And it would be a waste of time for us to stop for one miserable whale when we don’t expect to break out our boats until we’re well below the equator. We’d just make a mess of the old hooker and have to clean her up again.”
Gibson was disappointed, and would have urged his desire further, but Captain Rogers turned to me:
“If we meet a homeward bound sailing vessel in good weather I’ll put you aboard. Steamships won’t stop for you. If you want to join my crew—you’re a husky looking youngster—I’ll fit you out and lot you a greenhorn’s share. Best I can do for you. Is your sloop any good?”
“She’s not started a plank, sir,” I declared.
“Pass the word for the carpenter to take his gang and get the stick out of her, and hoist her aboard,” Captain Rogers said to Gibson. “Then take this lad to breakfast and see that he gets a good one.”
He turned me off rather cavalierly I thought. Of course, my situation appealed more strongly to me than it was likely to appeal to anybody else. But Captain Rogers did not seem to consider my being carried away, willy-nilly, into the Southern Seas, and on a voyage likely to last anywhere from eighteen months to three years—for the Scarboro was just out of New Bedford, as has been stated—the captain did not seem to consider, I say, what my state of mind might be. Of course, I was thankful that I had been picked up; yet if the weather settled I might have safely made my way back home in theWavecrest. And it was easy to see that the skipper of the Scarboro considered the sloop his property in return for taking me aboard.
The lanky captain of the whale ship was not a person to argue with. I knew it would be useless to bandy words with him. Even his nephew plainly showed that he considered it wise to drop the matter of the dead whale right there and then—before the captain at least. He grumbled a bit about the loss of this first chance for oil when we went to breakfast, however. Apropos of which, and while we discussed the good breakfast that was putbefore us, Ben Gibson repeated for my delectation the famous whaling story—a classic in its way—wherein the Yankee skipper and the Yankee mate differ as to the advisability of chasing a cachelot. Some version of this tale is known to every whaler and I preserve Ben’s story, as he told it, imitating the Down East twang as well as I may:
“Forty-two days aout, an’ not a drop o’ ile in the tanks. I went for’ard. The lookaout he hailed. ‘On deck, sir,’ says he, ‘thar she blaows.’
“I went aft. ‘Cap’n Symes,’ says I, ‘thar she blaows; shall I lower?’
“Cap’n Symes he gin a look to wind’ard. ‘Mr. Symes,’ says he, (’Twas cur’ous, his name was Cap’n Symes, an’ my name was Mister Symes, but we warn’t neither kith nor kin), ‘Mr. Symes,’ says he, ‘it’s a-bloawin’ right smart peart, an’ I don’t see fitten for to lower.’
“I went for’ard. The lookaout hailed again. ‘On deck, sir,’ says he, ‘thar she blaowsan’spouts.’
“I went aft. ‘Cap’n Symes,’ says I, ‘thar she blaowsan’spouts. Shall I lower?’
“Cap’n Symes he casts an eye aloft. ‘Mr. Symes,’ says he, ‘it’s a bloawin’ right smart peart, and I don’t see fitten for to lower.’
“I went for’ard. The lookaout he hailed again. ‘On deck, sir,’ says he, ‘thar she blaows, an’ spouts, an’ breaches.’
“I went aft. ‘Cap’n Symes,’ says I, ‘thar she bloaws, an’ spouts, an’ breaches. Shall I lower?’
“Cap’n Symes he took a look at the clouds that was a-scuddin’ acrosst. ‘Mr. Symes,’ says he, ‘it’s a-bloawin’ right smart peart, an’ I don’t see fitten for to lower.’
“I went for’ard. The lookaout he hailed again. ‘On deck, sir,’ says he, ‘thar she blaows, an’ spouts, an’ breaches, an’ it’s a right smart sperm, too.’
“I went aft. ‘Cap’n Symes,’ says I, ‘thar she bloaws, an’ spouts, an’ breaches,an’its a right smart sperm-whale, too. Shall I lower?’
“Cap’n Symes, he gin a last look at the weather. ‘Mr. Symes,’ says he, ‘it’s a-bloawin’ right smart peart, andIdon’t see fitten for to lower, still—if you’re so gol-darned sot on lowerin’, you can lower and be hanged to you.’
“I went for’ard and sings aout for volunteers, an’ the boys jest tumbled over each other into the boat. We got the whale, and as I was a-swarmin’ over the side, thar stood Cap’n Symes with tears in his eyes.
“‘Mr. Symes,’ says he, ‘forty years,’ says he, ‘I’ve sailed the seas,’ says he, ‘man an’ boy, manan’ boy, an’ in all that time I never see no mate to compare with you,’ says he. ‘Mr. Symes,’ says he, ‘you’re the Jim Dandyest mate as ever I sailed shipmates with,’ says he. ‘Mr. Symes,’ says he, ‘daown in my cabin in the starboard locker aft,’ says he, ‘you’ll find some prime Havana seegars, and the best o’ Lawrence’s aould Medford New England rum,’ says he. ‘That best o’ Lawrence’s aould Medford New England rum,’ says he, ‘an’ them prime Havana seegars,’ says he, ‘is yourn for the rest of the v’y’ge.’
“‘Cap’n Symes,’ says I, ‘you can take them prime Havana seegars an’ that best o’ Lawrence’s aould Medford New England rum,’ says I, ‘an’ stick ’em overboard as fur as I’m consarned. All I asks is common sea-vility; an’ that o’ the gol-darndest commonest kind!’”
Ben told me this story while he ate. He was the liveliest kind of a companion. I liked him immensely from the start, and the longer I knew him the better I liked him. This was his first deep sea voyage, but he had been looking forward to it ever since he was in petticoats—unlike myself, who had onlylonged for the sea but knew I probably would never be allowed to follow my bent.
Now, it seemed, Fate had flung me right into the life I had so longed for. Had it not been for mother and the fears I felt for her in the mesh of Chester Downes’ web, I should have welcomed this chance that had put me aboard the whaling bark Scarboro.
“And she’s a fine old craft,” declared the young second mate. “Maybe she’s a bit tender in her bends, but she’s sailed in every quarter of the globe and has brought home many a cargo of oil. We all own shares in her—in the bark herself, I mean—we Rogerses and Gibsons. I’ve a twentieth part myself in pickle against the time I’m twenty-one,” and he laughed, meaning that his guardian held that investment for him—and a very good slice of fortune his holdings in the old Scarboro proved to be, at the end of the voyage.
But now we were at the beginning of it—all the romance and adventure was ahead of us. Before noon I was not sorry to be aboard of the bigger craft and looked with equanimity upon my own bonny sloop stowed amidships. The wind had wheeled again and coming abaft, the bark shot on into the southward,trying to outrun the gale. Had I not been picked up as I was I might have been swamped in theWavecrest.
For a week, or more, we ran steadily toward the tropics, and in all that time we passed—and that distantly—but two steam vessels and only one sailing craft. There was no chance for me to get home. I had to possess my soul with such patience as I could, while the old Scarboro bore me swiftly away toward the Southern Seas.