Chapter Ten.Disrated.I can’t say what the rest felt; but I know that I, for one, was frightened when I heard that strange gurgling noise and saw the great black thing, spinning round like a teetotum and swirling up the water, coming down on our ship as if to overwhelm her!The squalls, which succeeded each other from different directions in rapid sequence, were even more dangerous than the water-spout; but Captain Miles was too good a seaman to be easily beaten, even by the most adverse circumstances.Telling off some of the best hands to the fore and main-braces on either side, so that these could be let go or hauled taut in an instant as the wind shifted, thus necessitating the vessel changing her tack with similar rapidity, he went to the helm himself; and from this point, with the assistance of Moggridge, he conned the ship as coolly as if he were in charge of a yacht trying to weather the mark-boat in a race so as to get to windward of her competitors!The captain was trying to make as much northing as he could, as well as endeavouring to run out of reach of the water-spout, which latter, although it gyrated about in the water so queerly and seemed moving every way at once, came up more from the eastwards, travelling to the south of west apparently; and, expert seaman that he was, in spite of the veering wind, which backed round every moment, he gallantly manoeuvred so as to gain his object—sailing ahead between the squalls, as it were.“Ready about!” he would call out one minute, when the main-topsail was backed and the fore-yard swung round; and, almost as soon as this was done and the weather braces handed, the cry “’bout ship!” was again repeated, when theJosephinewas brought once mere back to her previous bearings.Such tackings and beatings about, surely, no ship ever underwent before in so short a time!“By Jingo, he’s a sailor every inch of him!” I heard one of the old hands of the crew murmur in admiration as he pulled in with a will the weather braces for about the sixth time in as many minutes; and, truth to say, I could not help sharing the feeling of respect all the crew had for our captain, who, easy-going as he was generally in fine weather, letting the first mate then attend to the working of the ship, he was “all there,” as they said, when the necessity for prompt action in any emergency called for exertion and made him show himself in his true colours.But, struggle to outstrip it as much as he might, the water-spout came nearer and nearer to us, bearing down still broadside-on upon the ship. As I stood close to the captain and Moggridge, who alone were on the poop besides myself, Mr Marline and Davis the second mate being in the waist, looking after the men at the braces amidships, I noticed that the pillar of cloud became more transparent in proportion as it decreased in size from the upper portion, until it seemed almost perfectly so at the lower extremity where it touched the sea. I observed, too, that a small inner column of equal diameter, looking like a glass tube, went up the middle. This, evidently, was the water which was being sucked up into the mass of vapour above as if by a syphon.Fortunately, just as it seemed almost touching the ship, when the whirling waves round its base made us oscillate from side to side, theJosephine, heeling over to her chain-plates from a sudden rush of wind that appeared to accompany it, the portentous column of vapour darted off almost at right angles to its former course; and then, the cloud, having taken up more of the sea-water than it could contain, burst with a loud hissing sort of report, the contents falling around us in the form of a heavy downpour of rain which sluiced our decks down, but happily did no further damage.“Thank God!” exclaimed Captain Miles reverently, taking off his cap and looking upwards in grateful recognition of the providential care that had watched over and protected us from the fearful peril which had threatened us; and his thanksgiving was participated in by more than one other, I knew, for I could see Moggridge’s lips moving in silent prayer, while I felt inclined to fall on my knees, my heart was so full of joy and gladness at our narrow escape.I was overpowered with a feeling of wonder and awe.Strangely enough, there seemed some strong connection between the water-spout and the wind; for, no sooner had the column of vapour broken up, than the heavy clouds dispersed away to leeward. The sun then came out again, and the squally weather calmed down to a gentle breeze from the south-east that enabled us to haul round again on our proper course, the ship presently being covered anew with canvas and the reefs in the topsails shaken out.When all danger was over, though, the whole thing puzzled me very much.“What is a water-spout?” I asked Captain Miles later on in the evening after dinner, as he was having a quiet cigar on the poop before turning in. I saw that he then looked inclined for a chat, and thought it a good opportunity to seek for information.He answered my question in the Irish way, by asking me another.“Did you ever see a whirlwind when you were at Grenada, Tom?” he inquired.“Yes,” I replied, “I recollect a long time ago noticing one at Mount Pleasant once, and wondering at the way in which all the loose straw in the stable-yard was circled round and round, as if in a funnel, and then drawn up into the sky.”“Well, then,” said Captain Miles, “the celebrated Dr Franklin has demonstrated, if I recollect aright, that a whirlwind on land, and a water-spout at sea, arise from similar general causes, and may be considered one and the same thing.”“But, what is the cause of them?” I asked now.“The action of opposing atmospheric currents, Tom, if you can understand what I mean. Two contrary winds meet: a vortex therefore ensues; and, any cloud that happens to be between these opposing currents of air at the time is condensed into a conical form and turned round with great celerity. This whirling motion drives from the centre of the cloud all the particles of vapour contained in it; consequently, a vacuum is thereby produced in the body of it; and, as nature abhors a vacuum in every case, the water of the sea lying below the overhanging mass is carried up, in centrifugal fashion, and in a sort of way by capillary attraction, into the vacant centre of the cloud cylinder.”“Why does it not stop there?” said I. “That one just now burst.”“Ah, that fellow was like a greedy boy who has eaten too much, and has to disgorge after he has filled his little stomach too full! But, some water-spouts carry their contents on to the land, where, when the clouds have been attracted by mountains or some lofty object, they may do great damage by wrecking houses and inundating the country for miles round. At sea, they are not half so dangerous, having plenty of room there to expend themselves without effecting much injury, except a ship should be right beneath them when they fall to pieces.”“Do you think, sir,” I then inquired, “that one would have sunk us, if it had burst over theJosephine?”“Well, I hardly know, Tom,” answered Captain Miles reflectively. “Although it looked terrific enough at one time, I am not inclined to believe now that it would have been attended with any very serious calamity to our ship, had even the whole quantity of water it contained fallen on our decks. If you recollect, I ordered beforehand the hatches to be battened down and the scuppers in the waist cleared. Besides, the cylinder or spiral column of vapour, you observed, was very like a glass tube in the centre of the water-spout, and this coming in contact with our masts and rigging it would have been at once broken, when the surrounding air rushing into the vacuum to restore the atmospheric equilibrium, the torrent of water would have been forced sideways instead of descending perpendicularly, coming down merely as a heavy tropical shower, similar to those you have been well acquainted with in Grenada. I have heard of some vessels being damaged by water-spouts, but I have never come across anyone who happened to be on board one of them at the time, so I rather fancy the tale was one of those generally ‘told to the marines.’”So, laughing it off, the captain finished his little scientific lecture at this point, while I went below to my bunk, wishing to get undressed before Harry the steward came to douse the light in the cabin, which he always did sharp to time.If the water-spout did us no actual damage it certainly served as a very bad omen. It took away the favourable breezes, which, before its advent on the scene, had sped theJosephineso gaily on her way home to England; and the weather for some days afterwards was not nearly so pleasant, tedious calms and contrary winds preventing our making the rapid passage Captain Miles anticipated from our good running at the beginning of the voyage.We were now in the region between the regular trade-winds and what are termed “the anti-trades or passage winds,” above the tropic of Cancer. This is a particular portion of the ocean between the parallels known to sailors as the “Horse Latitudes,” where there is generally a lull met with in the currents of air that elsewhere reign rampant over the sea; and, once arrived within the precincts of this blissful zone, the ship tossed about there for a week at a stretch, hardly making a mile towards her wished-for goal—only rocking restlessly on the bosom of the deep.There is nothing so irksome as calm weather at sea, to those at all events whose duty lies upon the waters and who do not go on shipboard for mere pleasure.So long as the wind blows, whether favourably or not, there is something to do. If it be fair, there is the cheering prospect of counting the number of knots run when the log is hove, and knowing that one is getting each hour so much nearer one’s destination; while, if King Aeolus be unpropitious, there is all the excitement of fighting against his efforts to delay the vessel, and the proud satisfaction of making way in spite of adverse breezes.But, in a calm, nothing can be done excepting to wait patiently, or impatiently, for the wind to blow again; and, consequently, all is dreary stagnation and dead monotony—the captain ever pacing the poop in not the best of tempers, with the men idling about the decks, or else occupied in the unexciting task of unreeving rope yarn, to keep their hands from mischief, and, perhaps, polishing up the ring-bolts as a last resource!Under such circumstances, it is not at all to be wondered that the crew of a vessel usually get discontented; and, should her officers be in the least inclined to be tyrannical, an ill feeling is produced which sometimes leads to an outbreak.Hardly a single mutiny ever occurred on a ship at sea save in calm weather; at other times the hands have too much to do even to grumble, in the way that sailors love to do ashore, comparing their nautical experience to “a dog’s life”—albeit they never give up the sea all the same!On board theJosephine, however, all went along pleasantly enough, although we were becalmed and the seamen, had plenty of leisure time for airing their grievances.Captain Miles, it is true, did not come on deck looking jolly and beaming with good-humour, as he used to do when we were bowling along before a stiff breeze; but he was not a bit cantankerous, and if there was no legitimate work to occupy the crew with, he did not go out of his way unnecessarily to “haze” them by inventing new sorts of tasks, as a good many other masters of vessels are in the habit of doing in similar cases. As for Mr Marline, he was of a most even disposition, taking all things that came with his usual equanimity and never giving a rough word to anyone.Davis, the second mate, whom I have already mentioned as having been promoted from the fo’c’s’le, was a very different sort of man; for, being without education and any good principle, he took advantage of his position, whenever the captain’s eye was not upon him, to bully those with whom he had previously associated on an equality. He was “very much above them now,” he thought, and showed it as it was in the nature only of a low-minded fellow to do.Like most “Jacks in office,” he was always trying to assert his position; and, as a natural result, he was not by any means in good favour with the men, who resented his overbearing way all the more from the fact of their having formerly been hail-fellow-well-met with him, which of course they could not readily forget, if he did.Still, things went on pretty smoothly on board while the calm lasted, despite the little roughnesses which the second mate’s way of evincing his authority produced—and which I could not avoid noticing, for I’m sure he used to be “down” on me whenever he had a chance of calling me to account for going where I had no business to, as I confess I sometimes did, although I used to be encouraged by the men, and Mr Marline would wink at my escapades. We all found it terribly dull, though; for, even the fish were too lazy to come to the surface to be caught, and so we were deprived therefore of our old pastime of angling for them from the bowsprit in the afternoons and evenings.Day after day, theJosephinerolled her hull from port to starboard and then back again to port on the tumid sea, which, save throbbing with a dull heavy swell, had now lost all its life and action:—day after day we looked in vain for a breeze from sunrise to sunset; day after day our watchful longing was all in vain; there, day after day, for over a week, we rolled and lay!Captain Miles used to come up regularly on the poop at noon to take the sun, from a sense of duty; but it was almost a useless task, as we hardly varied a mile in our position from the commencement of the calm, the vessel remaining close in with the fiftieth parallel of longitude and in latitude thirty-two North.Mr Marline liked to chaff the captain about this, telling him that his sextant wanted polishing up a bit and that the glasses were wrong. However, that all went for nothing with his chief, who well knew where the fault lay, fully understanding that the instrument was not to blame; but, as regularly as he brought out the sextant he used to laugh at Mr Marline’s stereotyped joke.As related in Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner”:—“Day after day, day after dayWe stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean!”Had it not been for the two darkeys, Jake and Cuffee, I don’t know what we should have done for fun.These comical fellows were a constant source of amusement to us; for, although they did not come to fisticuffs again, they were always quarrelling and making friends afterwards in the oddest way possible. Their disputes usually arose from some little trifle concerning their order of precedence, each being highly jealous of his dignity, and resenting in a moment any fancied slight or want of proper respect on the part of the other.When Jake came on board in the summary way in which he “took his passage” at the beginning of our voyage, of course he had no wardrobe, or anything to wear save what he stood up in when he emerged dripping from the sea after the capsize of the boat in which he had come off to the ship. Captain Miles, however, had given him some cast-off slops, and the hands forward had also rigged him out from their chests, so that in a short time he made a very presentable appearance. This was especially the case on Sunday’s, when his dress was most conspicuous, Master Jake being something of a dandy like most negroes, and anxious to take the shine out of his fellows.Somehow or other Cuffee the cook got jealous of this feature in his brother darkey’s character.On week-days he did not mind submitting to any slight superiority Jake might have over him in his sailor-like rig; but one Sunday the latter donned an old blue coat that had been presented to him by Mr Marline. It was ornamented with brilliant brass buttons, and the effect was completed by a bright bandana handkerchief which he had begged from me, and this, contrasting with a white shirt and duck trousers, made his toilet so thoroughly effective that Cuffee was greatly aggrieved.“You tink youself one fine gen’leman now, I s’pose?” he said, with a snort of indignation, when Jake went down into the waist in all this grand array after prayers on the poop. “Fine fedders make fine birds, yah, yah!”“Me tinks what I like,” replied Jake nonchalantly, proceeding forward to the topgallant forecastle, where he sat down in such a lordly manner that Cuffee, unable to stand it any longer, hurriedly went into his caboose and bringing out a bucket of dirty water pitched it over Jake with much heartiness, sousing him from head to foot.“Dere, you big fool of niggah, take dat!” he cried triumphantly. “Guess dat’ll take de shine out ob your ole coat, wid yer grandy airs an’ bumptiousness!”The men on the fo’c’s’le shouted with laughter, and Jake rushed to resent the affront; but they held him back until his temper evaporated, and then the two made it up somehow, for afterwards I saw that Jake was enjoying a savoury mess of lobscouse which Cuffee had cooked for him in amends for the bucket of greasy water.Jake, however, paid out the cook for the indignity a little later on; for, when Cuffee came up on the forecastle while the hands were there yarning in the evening, he gave him the cold shoulder.“Wat for you come hyar?” he asked the poor cook. “Dis is de place for sailor man, not for de idlers aboard. You go back inter yer ole caboose, cookee!”There was another laugh at this, and Captain Miles hearing what had been said, every word being distinctly audible on the poop, began speaking to Mr Marline about the imitative habits of negroes.“They are just like monkeys,” he said; “and, in dress and in language will copy anyone they think superior to them, no matter how ridiculous their imitation may be—a sort of burlesque of the original.”“Yes,” replied Mr Marline. “Jake, I have noticed, has taken Jackson for his model on week-days. Have you observed how he copies him in every particular?”“Well, he couldn’t have a better study for a thorough sailor,” said the captain, adding, to my great delight, for I was very proud of poor Jake, who was faithful to me to the death; “and the darkey, mind you, Marline, has studied Jackson to good effect, for he’s already a smart seaman. He’s as quick aloft as anyone on board when any sudden call comes.”“He’s all that,” answered Mr Marline heartily; “but I was going to observe, that, while Jake copies Jackson for his week-day model, he tries to imitate you on Sundays.”“Me!” exclaimed Captain Miles bursting into a loud laugh. “You, you mean, with that swell blue coat that you gave him, and which you used, no doubt, to win all the ladies’ hearts with ashore, when it was in its prime!”“Oh, no,” retorted the mate, smiling too. “When Jake has got his Sunday rig on, he walks up the poop-ladder to prayers with all your dignity. Why, anyone would take him to be the skipper of the ship!”“Talking of prayers and niggers,” said Captain Miles at this point, turning the conversation, as he thought the mate was having a sly poke at him, “I heard one day a little time back a rather good yarn about two darkeys, and, as it was told by a clergyman at a missionary meeting, I don’t suppose there can be any great harm in the story.”“Well, heave ahead with it,” interposed Mr Marline.“You see,” began the captain, “these two niggers—we’ll call them Josh and Quashee for shortness—happened to be in a boat which got drifted out to sea accidentally, from the tow-rope slipping or something else; and, they didn’t know their danger till suddenly they found themselves far from land, with no oars in the boat and no means of getting to shore again. To make matters worse, too, the sea began to get up on account of the wind rising.”“I wish it would do so now,” said Mr Marline with much emphasis.“So do I,” returned Captain Miles with equal heartiness; “but, as there isn’t any chance of that as far as I can see, I may as well go on with my story.”“Do, sir,” said the other.“Well, then,” continued the captain, “as soon as Josh and Quashee realised their peril, of course they got into a great funk; but, after puzzling their brains as to the best means of getting back, and shouting themselves hoarse in calling for help, they gave up the thing as a gone case, sitting down on the thwarts and bewailing their fate. Josh, the younger negro, however, had the most go in him, and presently he roused up.“‘Say, Quashee,’ he asked of the other, ‘can you pray, sonny?’“‘No, Josh,’ replied Quashee gloomily. ‘I nebber learnt, nohow.’“‘Can you sing hymn, den?’ questioned his brother in misfortune again.“‘No, Josh,’ answered the other still more gloomily. ‘Um can’t pray, can’t sing hymn, can’t do nuffin’!’“‘Den,’ said Josh as if a brilliant idea had suddenly struck him, ‘we must hab collection—must do sumfin’ to git out ob dis hole, an’ I know when dey don’t pray or sing in de chapel dey always hab collection; so we’ll hab one now!’”“I wouldn’t mind betting,” observed Mr Marline, when he had done laughing at this anecdote, “that the clergyman who related the story did it as a sort of introduction for ‘passing round the hat’ at the very meeting where you heard it!”“That’s just precisely what he did!” replied Captain Miles, joining in the other’s laugh; “and, it was a very good introduction to a collection, too, I think!”It was on a Sunday evening that the little fracas between Jake and Cuffee occurred. This squabble terminated amicably enough; but the next day, Monday, a bit of a real row happened on board, which did not end quite so agreeably to one of the persons concerned.It was a blazing hot day, with the sun like a ball of fire in the heavens above and the sea steaming below with the heat. The atmosphere was close and hazy, making it so stifling that one could hardly breathe freely—just exactly the sort of weather, in fact, that is met with on the West Coast of Africa at the mouths of some of those pestilential and swampy rivers there that have been the death of so many gallant officers and seamen annually sent to the station for the purpose of putting down the slave-trade and protecting greedy traders in their pursuit of palm-oil and gold dust!During the afternoon of this day, when the sun was about its hottest, making the pitch melt and ooze out from the seams of the deck planking, Davis, who had charge of the starboard watch, came up from below to relieve Mr Marline.He was late in coming to his post, and I could see he had been drinking, a habit he had lately taken to indulging in, especially after the calm set in; and, as he mounted the poop-ladder, he certainly did not look particularly amiable, for his dark eyes were glaring and his tumbled hair gave him a most ferocious appearance.The men were mostly doing nothing, lying along the waist under what shelter they could find from the fiery rays of the scorching sun; for, although there was an awning over the poop, there was nothing forwards to shield them from the heat unless they crouched under the lee of the bulwarks and water-casks.Davis didn’t like to see them taking it easy in this fashion, so, catching hold of a marlinespike which someone had left on top of the cabin skylight, he began rapping the rail at the break of the poop with it.“Come, rouse up there, you lubbers!” he cried. “I’m not going to allow any caulking in my watch, no matter what the first mate chooses to let you do. Tumble up!”The men stretched themselves and rose up grumbling, whereupon Davis pitched upon Jackson, who had been asleep under the long-boat and was the last to show a leg, not hearing the second mate’s call until a messmate awoke him.“Hi, you, Jackson!” he roared out. “I’ll give you something to cure your laziness! I’ll haze you, I will, you hound! Get a bucket of grease from the cook’s caboose and slush the mainmast down.”“I’m no hound, sir!” retorted Jackson angrily, drawing himself up to his full height and flaring up angrily at Davis’ uncalled-for abuse. “The mast doesn’t need slushing; it was only done over the day before yesterday.”“What, you dare to answer me, you mutinous dog!” roared out Davis, raised to a pitch of fury by the seaman not recognising, as he thought, his authority as second mate and officer of the watch. “I tell you what, you shall slush that mast down from the main-truck to the bitts; and look sharp about it, too, or I’ll make you!”“Make me!” repeated Jackson scornfully. “I’d like to see you lay a finger on me!”Davis fairly foamed at the mouth with passion at this, the more particularly as the other men, grouped below in the waist, were sniggering and passing sly jokes from one to another about the affair.He started to go down the poop-ladder, brandishing the marlinespike savagely, with the evident intention of attacking Jackson and trying to compel him to obey his orders, utterly unnecessary and vindictive as they were; but, what from having been drinking heavily of late and the fresh air and exposure to the sun having increased the intoxicating effect of the rum which he doubtless had just swallowed before coming on deck to take charge of the watch, he reeled off the ladder as soon as he got to the bottom—falling down all of a heap right in front of the cabin door at the very moment that Captain Miles, who had been roused up by the altercation, was coming out to see what all the noise was about.“Mr Davis!” cried the captain sternly. “What is the matter?”The second mate scrambled to his feet, but he could not hold himself steady and he only muttered some utterly incomprehensible words, his power of speech vanishing with his equilibrium.“I dunno, canshay,” he murmured helplessly.“Faugh!” exclaimed Captain Miles in accents of the deepest disgust. “The man is dead drunk. Take him away at once to the fo’c’s’le some of you. He doesn’t come into my cabin again if I know it!”
I can’t say what the rest felt; but I know that I, for one, was frightened when I heard that strange gurgling noise and saw the great black thing, spinning round like a teetotum and swirling up the water, coming down on our ship as if to overwhelm her!
The squalls, which succeeded each other from different directions in rapid sequence, were even more dangerous than the water-spout; but Captain Miles was too good a seaman to be easily beaten, even by the most adverse circumstances.
Telling off some of the best hands to the fore and main-braces on either side, so that these could be let go or hauled taut in an instant as the wind shifted, thus necessitating the vessel changing her tack with similar rapidity, he went to the helm himself; and from this point, with the assistance of Moggridge, he conned the ship as coolly as if he were in charge of a yacht trying to weather the mark-boat in a race so as to get to windward of her competitors!
The captain was trying to make as much northing as he could, as well as endeavouring to run out of reach of the water-spout, which latter, although it gyrated about in the water so queerly and seemed moving every way at once, came up more from the eastwards, travelling to the south of west apparently; and, expert seaman that he was, in spite of the veering wind, which backed round every moment, he gallantly manoeuvred so as to gain his object—sailing ahead between the squalls, as it were.
“Ready about!” he would call out one minute, when the main-topsail was backed and the fore-yard swung round; and, almost as soon as this was done and the weather braces handed, the cry “’bout ship!” was again repeated, when theJosephinewas brought once mere back to her previous bearings.
Such tackings and beatings about, surely, no ship ever underwent before in so short a time!
“By Jingo, he’s a sailor every inch of him!” I heard one of the old hands of the crew murmur in admiration as he pulled in with a will the weather braces for about the sixth time in as many minutes; and, truth to say, I could not help sharing the feeling of respect all the crew had for our captain, who, easy-going as he was generally in fine weather, letting the first mate then attend to the working of the ship, he was “all there,” as they said, when the necessity for prompt action in any emergency called for exertion and made him show himself in his true colours.
But, struggle to outstrip it as much as he might, the water-spout came nearer and nearer to us, bearing down still broadside-on upon the ship. As I stood close to the captain and Moggridge, who alone were on the poop besides myself, Mr Marline and Davis the second mate being in the waist, looking after the men at the braces amidships, I noticed that the pillar of cloud became more transparent in proportion as it decreased in size from the upper portion, until it seemed almost perfectly so at the lower extremity where it touched the sea. I observed, too, that a small inner column of equal diameter, looking like a glass tube, went up the middle. This, evidently, was the water which was being sucked up into the mass of vapour above as if by a syphon.
Fortunately, just as it seemed almost touching the ship, when the whirling waves round its base made us oscillate from side to side, theJosephine, heeling over to her chain-plates from a sudden rush of wind that appeared to accompany it, the portentous column of vapour darted off almost at right angles to its former course; and then, the cloud, having taken up more of the sea-water than it could contain, burst with a loud hissing sort of report, the contents falling around us in the form of a heavy downpour of rain which sluiced our decks down, but happily did no further damage.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Captain Miles reverently, taking off his cap and looking upwards in grateful recognition of the providential care that had watched over and protected us from the fearful peril which had threatened us; and his thanksgiving was participated in by more than one other, I knew, for I could see Moggridge’s lips moving in silent prayer, while I felt inclined to fall on my knees, my heart was so full of joy and gladness at our narrow escape.
I was overpowered with a feeling of wonder and awe.
Strangely enough, there seemed some strong connection between the water-spout and the wind; for, no sooner had the column of vapour broken up, than the heavy clouds dispersed away to leeward. The sun then came out again, and the squally weather calmed down to a gentle breeze from the south-east that enabled us to haul round again on our proper course, the ship presently being covered anew with canvas and the reefs in the topsails shaken out.
When all danger was over, though, the whole thing puzzled me very much.
“What is a water-spout?” I asked Captain Miles later on in the evening after dinner, as he was having a quiet cigar on the poop before turning in. I saw that he then looked inclined for a chat, and thought it a good opportunity to seek for information.
He answered my question in the Irish way, by asking me another.
“Did you ever see a whirlwind when you were at Grenada, Tom?” he inquired.
“Yes,” I replied, “I recollect a long time ago noticing one at Mount Pleasant once, and wondering at the way in which all the loose straw in the stable-yard was circled round and round, as if in a funnel, and then drawn up into the sky.”
“Well, then,” said Captain Miles, “the celebrated Dr Franklin has demonstrated, if I recollect aright, that a whirlwind on land, and a water-spout at sea, arise from similar general causes, and may be considered one and the same thing.”
“But, what is the cause of them?” I asked now.
“The action of opposing atmospheric currents, Tom, if you can understand what I mean. Two contrary winds meet: a vortex therefore ensues; and, any cloud that happens to be between these opposing currents of air at the time is condensed into a conical form and turned round with great celerity. This whirling motion drives from the centre of the cloud all the particles of vapour contained in it; consequently, a vacuum is thereby produced in the body of it; and, as nature abhors a vacuum in every case, the water of the sea lying below the overhanging mass is carried up, in centrifugal fashion, and in a sort of way by capillary attraction, into the vacant centre of the cloud cylinder.”
“Why does it not stop there?” said I. “That one just now burst.”
“Ah, that fellow was like a greedy boy who has eaten too much, and has to disgorge after he has filled his little stomach too full! But, some water-spouts carry their contents on to the land, where, when the clouds have been attracted by mountains or some lofty object, they may do great damage by wrecking houses and inundating the country for miles round. At sea, they are not half so dangerous, having plenty of room there to expend themselves without effecting much injury, except a ship should be right beneath them when they fall to pieces.”
“Do you think, sir,” I then inquired, “that one would have sunk us, if it had burst over theJosephine?”
“Well, I hardly know, Tom,” answered Captain Miles reflectively. “Although it looked terrific enough at one time, I am not inclined to believe now that it would have been attended with any very serious calamity to our ship, had even the whole quantity of water it contained fallen on our decks. If you recollect, I ordered beforehand the hatches to be battened down and the scuppers in the waist cleared. Besides, the cylinder or spiral column of vapour, you observed, was very like a glass tube in the centre of the water-spout, and this coming in contact with our masts and rigging it would have been at once broken, when the surrounding air rushing into the vacuum to restore the atmospheric equilibrium, the torrent of water would have been forced sideways instead of descending perpendicularly, coming down merely as a heavy tropical shower, similar to those you have been well acquainted with in Grenada. I have heard of some vessels being damaged by water-spouts, but I have never come across anyone who happened to be on board one of them at the time, so I rather fancy the tale was one of those generally ‘told to the marines.’”
So, laughing it off, the captain finished his little scientific lecture at this point, while I went below to my bunk, wishing to get undressed before Harry the steward came to douse the light in the cabin, which he always did sharp to time.
If the water-spout did us no actual damage it certainly served as a very bad omen. It took away the favourable breezes, which, before its advent on the scene, had sped theJosephineso gaily on her way home to England; and the weather for some days afterwards was not nearly so pleasant, tedious calms and contrary winds preventing our making the rapid passage Captain Miles anticipated from our good running at the beginning of the voyage.
We were now in the region between the regular trade-winds and what are termed “the anti-trades or passage winds,” above the tropic of Cancer. This is a particular portion of the ocean between the parallels known to sailors as the “Horse Latitudes,” where there is generally a lull met with in the currents of air that elsewhere reign rampant over the sea; and, once arrived within the precincts of this blissful zone, the ship tossed about there for a week at a stretch, hardly making a mile towards her wished-for goal—only rocking restlessly on the bosom of the deep.
There is nothing so irksome as calm weather at sea, to those at all events whose duty lies upon the waters and who do not go on shipboard for mere pleasure.
So long as the wind blows, whether favourably or not, there is something to do. If it be fair, there is the cheering prospect of counting the number of knots run when the log is hove, and knowing that one is getting each hour so much nearer one’s destination; while, if King Aeolus be unpropitious, there is all the excitement of fighting against his efforts to delay the vessel, and the proud satisfaction of making way in spite of adverse breezes.
But, in a calm, nothing can be done excepting to wait patiently, or impatiently, for the wind to blow again; and, consequently, all is dreary stagnation and dead monotony—the captain ever pacing the poop in not the best of tempers, with the men idling about the decks, or else occupied in the unexciting task of unreeving rope yarn, to keep their hands from mischief, and, perhaps, polishing up the ring-bolts as a last resource!
Under such circumstances, it is not at all to be wondered that the crew of a vessel usually get discontented; and, should her officers be in the least inclined to be tyrannical, an ill feeling is produced which sometimes leads to an outbreak.
Hardly a single mutiny ever occurred on a ship at sea save in calm weather; at other times the hands have too much to do even to grumble, in the way that sailors love to do ashore, comparing their nautical experience to “a dog’s life”—albeit they never give up the sea all the same!
On board theJosephine, however, all went along pleasantly enough, although we were becalmed and the seamen, had plenty of leisure time for airing their grievances.
Captain Miles, it is true, did not come on deck looking jolly and beaming with good-humour, as he used to do when we were bowling along before a stiff breeze; but he was not a bit cantankerous, and if there was no legitimate work to occupy the crew with, he did not go out of his way unnecessarily to “haze” them by inventing new sorts of tasks, as a good many other masters of vessels are in the habit of doing in similar cases. As for Mr Marline, he was of a most even disposition, taking all things that came with his usual equanimity and never giving a rough word to anyone.
Davis, the second mate, whom I have already mentioned as having been promoted from the fo’c’s’le, was a very different sort of man; for, being without education and any good principle, he took advantage of his position, whenever the captain’s eye was not upon him, to bully those with whom he had previously associated on an equality. He was “very much above them now,” he thought, and showed it as it was in the nature only of a low-minded fellow to do.
Like most “Jacks in office,” he was always trying to assert his position; and, as a natural result, he was not by any means in good favour with the men, who resented his overbearing way all the more from the fact of their having formerly been hail-fellow-well-met with him, which of course they could not readily forget, if he did.
Still, things went on pretty smoothly on board while the calm lasted, despite the little roughnesses which the second mate’s way of evincing his authority produced—and which I could not avoid noticing, for I’m sure he used to be “down” on me whenever he had a chance of calling me to account for going where I had no business to, as I confess I sometimes did, although I used to be encouraged by the men, and Mr Marline would wink at my escapades. We all found it terribly dull, though; for, even the fish were too lazy to come to the surface to be caught, and so we were deprived therefore of our old pastime of angling for them from the bowsprit in the afternoons and evenings.
Day after day, theJosephinerolled her hull from port to starboard and then back again to port on the tumid sea, which, save throbbing with a dull heavy swell, had now lost all its life and action:—day after day we looked in vain for a breeze from sunrise to sunset; day after day our watchful longing was all in vain; there, day after day, for over a week, we rolled and lay!
Captain Miles used to come up regularly on the poop at noon to take the sun, from a sense of duty; but it was almost a useless task, as we hardly varied a mile in our position from the commencement of the calm, the vessel remaining close in with the fiftieth parallel of longitude and in latitude thirty-two North.
Mr Marline liked to chaff the captain about this, telling him that his sextant wanted polishing up a bit and that the glasses were wrong. However, that all went for nothing with his chief, who well knew where the fault lay, fully understanding that the instrument was not to blame; but, as regularly as he brought out the sextant he used to laugh at Mr Marline’s stereotyped joke.
As related in Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner”:—
“Day after day, day after dayWe stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean!”
“Day after day, day after dayWe stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean!”
Had it not been for the two darkeys, Jake and Cuffee, I don’t know what we should have done for fun.
These comical fellows were a constant source of amusement to us; for, although they did not come to fisticuffs again, they were always quarrelling and making friends afterwards in the oddest way possible. Their disputes usually arose from some little trifle concerning their order of precedence, each being highly jealous of his dignity, and resenting in a moment any fancied slight or want of proper respect on the part of the other.
When Jake came on board in the summary way in which he “took his passage” at the beginning of our voyage, of course he had no wardrobe, or anything to wear save what he stood up in when he emerged dripping from the sea after the capsize of the boat in which he had come off to the ship. Captain Miles, however, had given him some cast-off slops, and the hands forward had also rigged him out from their chests, so that in a short time he made a very presentable appearance. This was especially the case on Sunday’s, when his dress was most conspicuous, Master Jake being something of a dandy like most negroes, and anxious to take the shine out of his fellows.
Somehow or other Cuffee the cook got jealous of this feature in his brother darkey’s character.
On week-days he did not mind submitting to any slight superiority Jake might have over him in his sailor-like rig; but one Sunday the latter donned an old blue coat that had been presented to him by Mr Marline. It was ornamented with brilliant brass buttons, and the effect was completed by a bright bandana handkerchief which he had begged from me, and this, contrasting with a white shirt and duck trousers, made his toilet so thoroughly effective that Cuffee was greatly aggrieved.
“You tink youself one fine gen’leman now, I s’pose?” he said, with a snort of indignation, when Jake went down into the waist in all this grand array after prayers on the poop. “Fine fedders make fine birds, yah, yah!”
“Me tinks what I like,” replied Jake nonchalantly, proceeding forward to the topgallant forecastle, where he sat down in such a lordly manner that Cuffee, unable to stand it any longer, hurriedly went into his caboose and bringing out a bucket of dirty water pitched it over Jake with much heartiness, sousing him from head to foot.
“Dere, you big fool of niggah, take dat!” he cried triumphantly. “Guess dat’ll take de shine out ob your ole coat, wid yer grandy airs an’ bumptiousness!”
The men on the fo’c’s’le shouted with laughter, and Jake rushed to resent the affront; but they held him back until his temper evaporated, and then the two made it up somehow, for afterwards I saw that Jake was enjoying a savoury mess of lobscouse which Cuffee had cooked for him in amends for the bucket of greasy water.
Jake, however, paid out the cook for the indignity a little later on; for, when Cuffee came up on the forecastle while the hands were there yarning in the evening, he gave him the cold shoulder.
“Wat for you come hyar?” he asked the poor cook. “Dis is de place for sailor man, not for de idlers aboard. You go back inter yer ole caboose, cookee!”
There was another laugh at this, and Captain Miles hearing what had been said, every word being distinctly audible on the poop, began speaking to Mr Marline about the imitative habits of negroes.
“They are just like monkeys,” he said; “and, in dress and in language will copy anyone they think superior to them, no matter how ridiculous their imitation may be—a sort of burlesque of the original.”
“Yes,” replied Mr Marline. “Jake, I have noticed, has taken Jackson for his model on week-days. Have you observed how he copies him in every particular?”
“Well, he couldn’t have a better study for a thorough sailor,” said the captain, adding, to my great delight, for I was very proud of poor Jake, who was faithful to me to the death; “and the darkey, mind you, Marline, has studied Jackson to good effect, for he’s already a smart seaman. He’s as quick aloft as anyone on board when any sudden call comes.”
“He’s all that,” answered Mr Marline heartily; “but I was going to observe, that, while Jake copies Jackson for his week-day model, he tries to imitate you on Sundays.”
“Me!” exclaimed Captain Miles bursting into a loud laugh. “You, you mean, with that swell blue coat that you gave him, and which you used, no doubt, to win all the ladies’ hearts with ashore, when it was in its prime!”
“Oh, no,” retorted the mate, smiling too. “When Jake has got his Sunday rig on, he walks up the poop-ladder to prayers with all your dignity. Why, anyone would take him to be the skipper of the ship!”
“Talking of prayers and niggers,” said Captain Miles at this point, turning the conversation, as he thought the mate was having a sly poke at him, “I heard one day a little time back a rather good yarn about two darkeys, and, as it was told by a clergyman at a missionary meeting, I don’t suppose there can be any great harm in the story.”
“Well, heave ahead with it,” interposed Mr Marline.
“You see,” began the captain, “these two niggers—we’ll call them Josh and Quashee for shortness—happened to be in a boat which got drifted out to sea accidentally, from the tow-rope slipping or something else; and, they didn’t know their danger till suddenly they found themselves far from land, with no oars in the boat and no means of getting to shore again. To make matters worse, too, the sea began to get up on account of the wind rising.”
“I wish it would do so now,” said Mr Marline with much emphasis.
“So do I,” returned Captain Miles with equal heartiness; “but, as there isn’t any chance of that as far as I can see, I may as well go on with my story.”
“Do, sir,” said the other.
“Well, then,” continued the captain, “as soon as Josh and Quashee realised their peril, of course they got into a great funk; but, after puzzling their brains as to the best means of getting back, and shouting themselves hoarse in calling for help, they gave up the thing as a gone case, sitting down on the thwarts and bewailing their fate. Josh, the younger negro, however, had the most go in him, and presently he roused up.
“‘Say, Quashee,’ he asked of the other, ‘can you pray, sonny?’
“‘No, Josh,’ replied Quashee gloomily. ‘I nebber learnt, nohow.’
“‘Can you sing hymn, den?’ questioned his brother in misfortune again.
“‘No, Josh,’ answered the other still more gloomily. ‘Um can’t pray, can’t sing hymn, can’t do nuffin’!’
“‘Den,’ said Josh as if a brilliant idea had suddenly struck him, ‘we must hab collection—must do sumfin’ to git out ob dis hole, an’ I know when dey don’t pray or sing in de chapel dey always hab collection; so we’ll hab one now!’”
“I wouldn’t mind betting,” observed Mr Marline, when he had done laughing at this anecdote, “that the clergyman who related the story did it as a sort of introduction for ‘passing round the hat’ at the very meeting where you heard it!”
“That’s just precisely what he did!” replied Captain Miles, joining in the other’s laugh; “and, it was a very good introduction to a collection, too, I think!”
It was on a Sunday evening that the little fracas between Jake and Cuffee occurred. This squabble terminated amicably enough; but the next day, Monday, a bit of a real row happened on board, which did not end quite so agreeably to one of the persons concerned.
It was a blazing hot day, with the sun like a ball of fire in the heavens above and the sea steaming below with the heat. The atmosphere was close and hazy, making it so stifling that one could hardly breathe freely—just exactly the sort of weather, in fact, that is met with on the West Coast of Africa at the mouths of some of those pestilential and swampy rivers there that have been the death of so many gallant officers and seamen annually sent to the station for the purpose of putting down the slave-trade and protecting greedy traders in their pursuit of palm-oil and gold dust!
During the afternoon of this day, when the sun was about its hottest, making the pitch melt and ooze out from the seams of the deck planking, Davis, who had charge of the starboard watch, came up from below to relieve Mr Marline.
He was late in coming to his post, and I could see he had been drinking, a habit he had lately taken to indulging in, especially after the calm set in; and, as he mounted the poop-ladder, he certainly did not look particularly amiable, for his dark eyes were glaring and his tumbled hair gave him a most ferocious appearance.
The men were mostly doing nothing, lying along the waist under what shelter they could find from the fiery rays of the scorching sun; for, although there was an awning over the poop, there was nothing forwards to shield them from the heat unless they crouched under the lee of the bulwarks and water-casks.
Davis didn’t like to see them taking it easy in this fashion, so, catching hold of a marlinespike which someone had left on top of the cabin skylight, he began rapping the rail at the break of the poop with it.
“Come, rouse up there, you lubbers!” he cried. “I’m not going to allow any caulking in my watch, no matter what the first mate chooses to let you do. Tumble up!”
The men stretched themselves and rose up grumbling, whereupon Davis pitched upon Jackson, who had been asleep under the long-boat and was the last to show a leg, not hearing the second mate’s call until a messmate awoke him.
“Hi, you, Jackson!” he roared out. “I’ll give you something to cure your laziness! I’ll haze you, I will, you hound! Get a bucket of grease from the cook’s caboose and slush the mainmast down.”
“I’m no hound, sir!” retorted Jackson angrily, drawing himself up to his full height and flaring up angrily at Davis’ uncalled-for abuse. “The mast doesn’t need slushing; it was only done over the day before yesterday.”
“What, you dare to answer me, you mutinous dog!” roared out Davis, raised to a pitch of fury by the seaman not recognising, as he thought, his authority as second mate and officer of the watch. “I tell you what, you shall slush that mast down from the main-truck to the bitts; and look sharp about it, too, or I’ll make you!”
“Make me!” repeated Jackson scornfully. “I’d like to see you lay a finger on me!”
Davis fairly foamed at the mouth with passion at this, the more particularly as the other men, grouped below in the waist, were sniggering and passing sly jokes from one to another about the affair.
He started to go down the poop-ladder, brandishing the marlinespike savagely, with the evident intention of attacking Jackson and trying to compel him to obey his orders, utterly unnecessary and vindictive as they were; but, what from having been drinking heavily of late and the fresh air and exposure to the sun having increased the intoxicating effect of the rum which he doubtless had just swallowed before coming on deck to take charge of the watch, he reeled off the ladder as soon as he got to the bottom—falling down all of a heap right in front of the cabin door at the very moment that Captain Miles, who had been roused up by the altercation, was coming out to see what all the noise was about.
“Mr Davis!” cried the captain sternly. “What is the matter?”
The second mate scrambled to his feet, but he could not hold himself steady and he only muttered some utterly incomprehensible words, his power of speech vanishing with his equilibrium.
“I dunno, canshay,” he murmured helplessly.
“Faugh!” exclaimed Captain Miles in accents of the deepest disgust. “The man is dead drunk. Take him away at once to the fo’c’s’le some of you. He doesn’t come into my cabin again if I know it!”
Chapter Eleven.Bad Weather.Later on in the afternoon, some couple of hours or so after he had been carried into the forecastle, Davis, sobered down by his rest, came aft again. He did not, however, enter the cabin or go up on the poop, but remained hanging about the waist, as if uncertain what to do, evidently “smelling a rat,” as the saying goes.Captain Miles was prepared for this, Moggridge, the boatswain, who had made many voyages with him, and in whom he placed implicit trust, having related all that had occurred; so, although he saw Davis approach, he waited a while till the watch was relieved, when, advancing to the break of the poop, he hailed the whilom second mate below.“Davis!” he cried, “I have got something to say to you.”The other had lost all his defiant air now and looked very sheepish and crest-fallen—so much so, indeed, that he seemed unable at first to answer the captain.“Yes, sir,” said he at last, looking up and then dropping his eyes again in an instant, unable to stand the captain’s straightforward glance.“I’m sorry to have to say,” continued Captain Miles, speaking slowly and distinctly, so that every word he uttered was heard fore and aft the ship, “that you, a responsible officer of this vessel, came on duty three hours ago in a state of intoxication. The fault would have been bad enough in one of the ordinary hands, but is doubly so in a man having charge of the lives of those on board and the safety of the ship and cargo. Besides, it is not merely on a single occasion that you have so grossly behaved, as I have noticed of late that you have been several times under the influence of liquor.”“But, Captain Miles, sir,” interrupted Davis at this point. However, the captain soon silenced him.“Hear me out, sir,” he cried, his voice getting sterner and more energetic. “Not only have you given way to that cursed habit of drink, but you have also, I have perceived—for I’ve had my eye upon you when you have little known it—exercised your authority over the crew in a most unmanly and tyrannical fashion. Now, I have always prided myself on the fact of my ship being a comfortable one, and I have never found a hand who has sailed with me once objecting to ship for a second voyage if I wanted him. This I have achieved by treating the men as I would wish to be treated myself, and not by bullying and hazing them unnecessarily as you have done repeatedly, especially this afternoon when you relieved the port watch.”The captain paused here a moment, and I declare I felt quite ashamed for Davis being thus spoken to before all the men; but he did not seem to mind it much, for he began to resume his old bumptious manner, shrugging his shoulders in a careless way and glaring round at the listeners as if he would have liked to eat them.“I was drunk then,” was all he said, however, in extenuation of the last offence with which the captain had charged him.“That is no excuse for your conduct,” replied Captain Miles; “in my opinion it rather puts it in a worse light. I have nothing further to add, save that I deeply regret ever having promoted you from your station forwards. You are a good sailor, I’ll say that for you, but you haven’t got the sort of stuff in you that officers are made of! The only thing I can now do, to atone for my error of judgment in mistaking my man, is to send you back again to your old place in the fo’c’s’le, where I think you’ll find yourself far more at home than you were on the poop. Davis, you are no longer second mate of theJosephine! I disrate you on account of your unfitness for the post, and you will now return to your former rating, as I have restored your name to the list of the crew. You will be in Mr Marline’s watch, and I hope you’ll do your duty as well as you used before I brought you aft.”He did not say any more; and Davis, without answering a single word, slunk forwards towards the forecastle, anxious, apparently, to hide himself from observation. Although he had tried to brave it out when the captain first began to speak to him, even his hardened nature had to succumb before the contemptuous looks of the men he had so long bullied, the more especially as they now openly displayed their joy at his abasement.Thus ended the first act of the little drama; and I then noticed that Captain Miles turned to Mr Marline, with whom he exchanged a short whispered conversation. After this he advanced again to the break of the poop, and hailed for a second time the lower deck.“Jackson!” he called out.“Aye, aye, sir!” instantly responded the stalwart young Cornishman, coming out from amidst the others who had gathered in a cluster in the waist to watch the progress of the row between the captain and Davis.Jackson quite overtopped the rest of the crew by a foot; and, as he walked up to the foot of the poop-ladder, with his fine head thrown well back on his broad shoulders, he seemed afraid of looking no man in the face—presenting a marked contrast to his late antagonist, whom he passed on his way aft.“I have summoned you, Jackson,” began Captain Miles—speaking out distinctly as before, so that all hands could hear—“to inform you that Mr Marline and myself think you are the best man on board to fill the vacant post of second mate just vacated by Davis. I have been told of your recent altercation with that person when he was in authority over you; but, taking into consideration your previous good conduct and prompt obedience to the orders of myself and Mr Marline on all occasions, as well as your general proficiency as an able seaman, we have not allowed this little matter to affect our decision, and I have no doubt you will in future discharge your duty as ably as an officer of the ship as you have hitherto done as a foremast hand. You had better, therefore, move your chest aft and take the second cabin next to the steward’s pantry, hitherto occupied by Davis, whom I have just disrated and sent to fill your place in the fo’c’s’le. Men,” added the captain, raising his voice a little higher, “you will please considerMisterJackson to be the second mate of theJosephine, and treat him respectfully as such.”No one seemed more surprised at the ending of the affair than the newly-promoted foremast hand.Twirling his cap in his two hands and fidgeting first on one leg and then on the other, he looked the very picture of confusion.When he was told to come forwards, he expected no doubt to have been called to account for his insubordination, whereas here he was actually selected to fill Davis’s billet!He couldn’t make it out at all, and stared open mouth upwards at the poop unable to utter a word of thanks or anything.“Come up here, Mr Jackson,” said Captain Miles kindly, seeing how dumbfounded he looked; wherefore, the modest fellow, actually blushing at the unexpected honour bestowed on him, mounted the poop-ladder in a much more gingerly fashion than he would have done if he had been told to take his trick at the wheel or exercise some sailor’s job aft. However, as soon as he got alongside the captain and Mr Marline, they both shook hands with him, in order to give him a proper welcome to his new station, and the steward singing out a few minutes afterwards that dinner was ready, he was invited down into the cabin to “christen” his promotion, as it were, by partaking of that meal, in token of his being admitted to a social equality with his superior officers.I may add, too, that if his sudden rise in rank was unexpected, Jackson did not take long to settle down to his new duties, proving himself ere long a much better officer in every way than his predecessor. The men, too, were not in the least jealous of his being placed over them, but executed his orders with alacrity; for, he exercised his authority judiciously, remembering his former position—albeit he was ever a rigid and impartial disciplinarian.“After a storm comes a calm,” says the old adage, but the reverse of this axiom holds equally good at sea.It was so, at all events, in our instance; for, after our ten days of stagnation on the rolling ocean, a change came almost as suddenly as the calm had set in, the weather breaking towards the close of the very day that had witnessed the downfall of Davis and Jackson’s elevation to the dignity of the poop.Every evening during the continuance of the calm, as I think I have mentioned, the sun went down below the horizon like a ball of fire, while a thick misty fog afterwards enveloped the sea; but this day when we came on deck after dinner, about the middle of the second dog watch, the sky, for a wonder, was quite clear, and the glorious orb sank to rest with some of that old splendour of his which I had noticed when we were threading our way amongst the islands. Long after he had disappeared, too, from view the heavens were lit up with a ruby radiance which was reflected below in the water, making it look like a crimson ocean.“We’re going to have a change at last, Marline,” said Captain Miles rubbing his hands together. “It is better late than never!”“Aye,” responded the first mate who stood by the binnacle; “the question, though, is, what change?”“Hang it, man,” exclaimed the captain testily, “anything is preferable to this confounded calm.”“Well, I don’t quite agree with you there,” said Mr Marline drily; “there is such a thing as changing for the worse. Have you looked at the glass, eh?”“’Pon my word, I have not once glanced at it this evening! Dear me, what on earth could I have been thinking of?” ejaculated the captain in a sort of apologetic way, darting down instantly below to consult his unfailing guide, the barometer, which I suppose he had looked at so vainly for many days past that he had given up the instrument as incorrigible.In another moment, however, he was on deck again, rubbing his hands as triumphantly together as before.“Pooh, nonsense, Marline!” he cried, “you’re an old croaker, saying that the change would possibly be for the worse! Why, the glass is rising, man, rising steadily; and, I’ve no doubt we’ll have a splendid breeze ere nightfall, and glorious weather.”“All right, sir, we’ll see,” was the mate’s cautious answer.Meanwhile, the after-glow faded out of the sky and the stars began to come out in batches, especially to the north-west, where they shone as bright as diamonds, blinking and twinkling with various colours as one looked at them steadfastly, and seeming ever so much larger than usual.A faint stir in the air also became perceptible, and the idle sails, that had so long flapped against the yards lazily only with the roll of the ship as she lurched to port or starboard with the ocean swell, were crumpled out a bit, as if they half felt inclined to expand their folds; but there was not wind enough for this, so they presently flattened themselves again, determined, apparently, to take it easy.The time then came to set the first watch, from eight to midnight, of which Jackson, now, as second mate, took charge, when the captain went below, saying he was going to turn in early, so as to be ready when the breeze came, giving strict instructions to be called as soon as any change was apparent. Mr Marline, however, did not go below; so I remained on the poop with him and Jackson, the two walking up and down the deck and talking together while I stood by.The sky was wonderfully clear now, the firmament being studded with the greater constellations, and myriads of the lesser lights of the night powdering the heavens with their golden dust everywhere.But this was not for long.Shortly before nine o’clock a peculiar moaning noise came over the sea. It was like a sort of hushed sob of pain, resembling somewhat the sound of a number of voices wailing in chorus in the far distance.“What is that?” asked I of Mr Marline in alarm.“I’m sure I can’t tell you, my boy,” he replied; “I don’t think I ever heard such a queer noise before. If we were off the banks of Newfoundland, I should think it a fog-horn blowing somewhere about. But, we’re several hundred miles to the southward of Cape Race and the night is too clear for fogs. It is one of those mysterious voices of the sea that are for ever reminding the sailor that, no matter how wise he may think himself, he does not know everything!”“I imagine it’s the wind coming, sir,” observed Jackson deferentially, after listening to what Mr Marline had said. “When I was once on a voyage in the China Seas I noticed just such a sound before we had a thundering typhoon upon us, giving us hardly time to clew up.”“Perhaps you’re right,” said the first mate; but after giving a glance up and around the sky, and noticing that the stars still shone out from the blue empyrean, he added, “there does not seem much chance of a gale now, though.”“We’ll see, sir,” laughed Jackson, paraphrasing Mr Marline’s observation to the captain. “We’d just as clear a night off Hainan, when our blow came on there at a moment’s notice!”“All right, we’ll see,” replied Mr Marline, using his stock phrase, and the two continued to walk up and down chatting about other matters, while I went and sat down close to the taffrail, looking out over the sea and wondering what the moaning sound of the ocean meant. I let my imagination wander over the old stories I had heard of the mermaids below, and how they sang their weird songs of lament whenever a storm was coming, anticipating the shipwrecks that would follow and the invasion of their coral caves by the bodies of drowned mortals, over whom they are said to weep tears of pearl; and, in the flickering light of the stars, that seemed to come from underneath the purple deep and not be shining down from above, I almost fancied I could distinguish the sirens looking up at me from below the water with sad faces, as they combed their long weed-like tresses and raised their wailing croon.Presently, however, I observed the star reflections suddenly disappear from view; and then, the water grew greyer and greyer, until I was hardly able to see it at all under the stern of the vessel, a hazy obscurity enveloping all below and around.I roused myself with a start, thinking this effect was produced by the gloom of night, and that I had fallen asleep while weaving my quaint fancies anent the mermaidens; but a couple of sharp strokes of the ship’s bell sounding through the still air at that moment told me it was only nine o’clock. I then recognised the fact that I must seek some other reason for the sombre tone of the sea, as I knew well enough that the little beacons in the sky that had before lit it up, were not in the habit of drawing on their hatches until it was pretty nearly time for the sun to set about getting up for his day’s work, unless something out of the common was going to happen.Looking up, therefore, I was surprised to see a dense black cloud now covering over the heavens like a pall.It must have crept up from somewhere almost instantaneously; for, twenty minutes before, the sky was clear and bright, while now it was totally obscured from the horizon to the zenith, the angel of darkness seeming to be treading over the face of the deep.Just then, away ahead on the starboard bow to the eastwards, a window appeared to be opened for an instant in the dense veil, from which a vivid flash of lightning came forth, making the darkness even more visible as the cloud closed up again.“Shall I go and hail Captain Miles now, sir?” I heard Jackson ask Mr Marline near me, although I could not clearly make out either of them in the thick gloom—indeed, I could not see to the other side of the deck, or perceive the mizzen-mast even.“No, I hardly think there’s any need yet,” I distinguished Mr Marline’s voice say in reply. “It’s only a flash of lightning—nothing to make a fuss about, for there isn’t a breath of wind stirring yet.”“It’s coming though,” the other rejoined. “I can smell it.”“You’ve a better nose than I have then,” said Mr Marline with a laugh; but, he had hardly got out the words, when there came a terrific crash of thunder right overhead, sounding so fearfully near and grand and awful, that it seemed as if the roof of heaven had broken in!I jumped up at once from my seat and went towards the binnacle, where Jackson and Mr Marline were standing; for, although I wasn’t actually afraid of the thunder, still one likes to be by the side of some one else when it peals out so dreadfully, the sense of companionship lessening the fear of danger, I suppose.“Hullo, Master Tom, not turned in yet?” cried Mr Marline, seeing me by the light from the compass and appearing to be very much surprised at my not having gone below to bed.“No, sir,” I said. “I stopped up to wait for the wind.”“Ah, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait longer,” he replied. “This’ll be nothing but a tropical thunder-storm, and probably we won’t have the ghost of a breeze after it has gone over.”“I think differently, sir, begging your pardon,” said Jackson, interposing at this point; “and, if you don’t mind, Mr Marline, I’d like to have the lighter sails taken off her, in case it comes on to blow.”“All right, please yourself, my dear sir; you’re in charge of the deck,” answered the first mate drily. “Though, mind you, I think you’re giving yourself trouble for nothing. I wouldn’t, however, call the captain till we really know whether we’re going to have a squall or not.”“Very well, sir,” said Jackson, “I won’t call him; but I’ll have the upper canvas in, for it’s just as well to be on the safe side, especially as I do think we’re in for something.”“With all my heart,” replied Mr Marline cheerfully, seeing that Jackson was timid about exercising his new authority against his opinion, although he appeared to feel strongly in the matter. “Have in the rags by all means. I daresay it will save some trouble bye-and-by.”“Very well, I will,” said the other; and, calling the starboard watch, who were idling about and having a quiet caulk in the waist, he soon made them set about reducing theJosephine’scanvas—there being no necessity yet for summoning “all hands,” as there was not a breath of air stirring, while the sea had hushed its monotonous roll, calming down to the quiet of a mill-pond.Previously to this, the ship had been under all plain sail, so as to be ready for the wind when it chose to visit us again; but, in a very short time, under Jackson’s supervision and sharp, rapid orders, the courses were clewed up, the flying-jib hauled down, the topgallant-sails furled, and the spanker brailed up. In this half-dressed rig the vessel was now prepared to meet any sudden squall; while, should a favourable breeze come, sail could readily be added on—a much easier job to accomplish than that of taking in canvas in a gale!In the interim, although no further thunder was heard, and we only saw the one vivid flash of forked lightning that had accompanied the fearful peal which made me vacate my seat by the taffrail, the heavens grew blacker and blacker, the darkness settling down on the ship so that one could hardly see one’s hand even if held close to the face; but, after a bit, a meteor-like globe of electric light danced about the spars and rigging, making the faces of all those aft look ghastly with its pale blue glare. They seemed just as if they were dead.A second or two later, some heavy warning drops of rain, as big as saucers, fell on the deck, with a dull splashing noise; and while we were all waiting with some anxiety for what was to be the outcome of all this atmospheric disturbance, Captain Miles ascended the poop-ladder, his face being distinctly illumined by the meteor, which was apparently at that moment hovering about the slings of the main-yard.The captain had been roused out by the sound of the men’s feet busily trampling about the decks and the hauling of the ropes, as the main topgallant halliards and sheets were cast-off and the clew-lines and bunt-lines manned during the operation of taking in sail, so he came up expecting to find that the long-wished-for breeze had overhauled us; but he only saw, instead, the vessel as motionless on the water as when he went below, albeit now almost denuded of her canvas.After glancing round the ship, whose every outline was brought out in relief by the meteoric light, he warmly praised Jackson for his precaution in reducing sail.“You’ve done quite right,” he said, “only you haven’t quite gone far enough, my boy. I think we’d better have the courses furled and the topsails reefed. We’re in hurricane latitudes and this is the very month for them. I don’t like the sky at all.”“Watch, ho!” thereupon shouted Jackson. “Up you go and furl the mainsail.”This was soon accomplished, after which there was a scurry up the ratlines forward and the foresail followed suit, and thus, the topsail halliards were let go and the yards dropped on the caps for the men to lay out and double reef the upper sails, when they were again hoisted up only about a third of their former size, and looking like slabs of board against the masts, everything being hauled taut.“We’ll have it soon now,” said Captain Miles—“hark!”As he spoke, there was a rumbling noise in the distance, approaching nearer and nearer every second, and then, there came another deafening roar of thunder right over our heads, followed by a deadly zigzag sheet of lightning, not a flash, that lit up the whole sky.“Look sharp and batten down the hatches, the rain is close on the heels of that, I know,” cried the captain; but the men had hardly time to execute his order ere the heavens seemed to open and a deluge of water fell on to the ship, as if some reservoir above had suddenly burst. It literally swept down like a cataract, and almost beat me down to the deck with its force.It hardly lasted a minute, but in that brief spell it filled the scuppers just as if we had shipped a heavy sea, of course wetting us all to the skin.Next there was heard the same moaning noise along the surface of the ocean that we had heard at first, and then, as the rain stopped, a terrific gust of wind from the south-east caught us just abaft the beam, the ship heeled over until her yard-arms dipped, and we thought she was going to “turn turtle,” or capsize.“Hard up with the helm!” screamed out Captain Miles, Mr Marline jumping to the spokes of the wheel at the same time to help the man steering, when, fortunately, theJosephinepayed off handsomely, righting again at the same moment, to our great relief.“Brace up the yards!” then shouted the captain; and, in another instant, the vessel was dashing along madly towards the north-west, scudding before the rapidly risen gale, even with the little canvas she carried, at a greater rate of speed than she had ever attained with every sail set. She was going twelve knots, good, and increasing her velocity apparently each moment, the sea not yet having had time to get up and nothing interfering with her progress through the water, although the wind shrieked and howled destruction after her as it urged her along.
Later on in the afternoon, some couple of hours or so after he had been carried into the forecastle, Davis, sobered down by his rest, came aft again. He did not, however, enter the cabin or go up on the poop, but remained hanging about the waist, as if uncertain what to do, evidently “smelling a rat,” as the saying goes.
Captain Miles was prepared for this, Moggridge, the boatswain, who had made many voyages with him, and in whom he placed implicit trust, having related all that had occurred; so, although he saw Davis approach, he waited a while till the watch was relieved, when, advancing to the break of the poop, he hailed the whilom second mate below.
“Davis!” he cried, “I have got something to say to you.”
The other had lost all his defiant air now and looked very sheepish and crest-fallen—so much so, indeed, that he seemed unable at first to answer the captain.
“Yes, sir,” said he at last, looking up and then dropping his eyes again in an instant, unable to stand the captain’s straightforward glance.
“I’m sorry to have to say,” continued Captain Miles, speaking slowly and distinctly, so that every word he uttered was heard fore and aft the ship, “that you, a responsible officer of this vessel, came on duty three hours ago in a state of intoxication. The fault would have been bad enough in one of the ordinary hands, but is doubly so in a man having charge of the lives of those on board and the safety of the ship and cargo. Besides, it is not merely on a single occasion that you have so grossly behaved, as I have noticed of late that you have been several times under the influence of liquor.”
“But, Captain Miles, sir,” interrupted Davis at this point. However, the captain soon silenced him.
“Hear me out, sir,” he cried, his voice getting sterner and more energetic. “Not only have you given way to that cursed habit of drink, but you have also, I have perceived—for I’ve had my eye upon you when you have little known it—exercised your authority over the crew in a most unmanly and tyrannical fashion. Now, I have always prided myself on the fact of my ship being a comfortable one, and I have never found a hand who has sailed with me once objecting to ship for a second voyage if I wanted him. This I have achieved by treating the men as I would wish to be treated myself, and not by bullying and hazing them unnecessarily as you have done repeatedly, especially this afternoon when you relieved the port watch.”
The captain paused here a moment, and I declare I felt quite ashamed for Davis being thus spoken to before all the men; but he did not seem to mind it much, for he began to resume his old bumptious manner, shrugging his shoulders in a careless way and glaring round at the listeners as if he would have liked to eat them.
“I was drunk then,” was all he said, however, in extenuation of the last offence with which the captain had charged him.
“That is no excuse for your conduct,” replied Captain Miles; “in my opinion it rather puts it in a worse light. I have nothing further to add, save that I deeply regret ever having promoted you from your station forwards. You are a good sailor, I’ll say that for you, but you haven’t got the sort of stuff in you that officers are made of! The only thing I can now do, to atone for my error of judgment in mistaking my man, is to send you back again to your old place in the fo’c’s’le, where I think you’ll find yourself far more at home than you were on the poop. Davis, you are no longer second mate of theJosephine! I disrate you on account of your unfitness for the post, and you will now return to your former rating, as I have restored your name to the list of the crew. You will be in Mr Marline’s watch, and I hope you’ll do your duty as well as you used before I brought you aft.”
He did not say any more; and Davis, without answering a single word, slunk forwards towards the forecastle, anxious, apparently, to hide himself from observation. Although he had tried to brave it out when the captain first began to speak to him, even his hardened nature had to succumb before the contemptuous looks of the men he had so long bullied, the more especially as they now openly displayed their joy at his abasement.
Thus ended the first act of the little drama; and I then noticed that Captain Miles turned to Mr Marline, with whom he exchanged a short whispered conversation. After this he advanced again to the break of the poop, and hailed for a second time the lower deck.
“Jackson!” he called out.
“Aye, aye, sir!” instantly responded the stalwart young Cornishman, coming out from amidst the others who had gathered in a cluster in the waist to watch the progress of the row between the captain and Davis.
Jackson quite overtopped the rest of the crew by a foot; and, as he walked up to the foot of the poop-ladder, with his fine head thrown well back on his broad shoulders, he seemed afraid of looking no man in the face—presenting a marked contrast to his late antagonist, whom he passed on his way aft.
“I have summoned you, Jackson,” began Captain Miles—speaking out distinctly as before, so that all hands could hear—“to inform you that Mr Marline and myself think you are the best man on board to fill the vacant post of second mate just vacated by Davis. I have been told of your recent altercation with that person when he was in authority over you; but, taking into consideration your previous good conduct and prompt obedience to the orders of myself and Mr Marline on all occasions, as well as your general proficiency as an able seaman, we have not allowed this little matter to affect our decision, and I have no doubt you will in future discharge your duty as ably as an officer of the ship as you have hitherto done as a foremast hand. You had better, therefore, move your chest aft and take the second cabin next to the steward’s pantry, hitherto occupied by Davis, whom I have just disrated and sent to fill your place in the fo’c’s’le. Men,” added the captain, raising his voice a little higher, “you will please considerMisterJackson to be the second mate of theJosephine, and treat him respectfully as such.”
No one seemed more surprised at the ending of the affair than the newly-promoted foremast hand.
Twirling his cap in his two hands and fidgeting first on one leg and then on the other, he looked the very picture of confusion.
When he was told to come forwards, he expected no doubt to have been called to account for his insubordination, whereas here he was actually selected to fill Davis’s billet!
He couldn’t make it out at all, and stared open mouth upwards at the poop unable to utter a word of thanks or anything.
“Come up here, Mr Jackson,” said Captain Miles kindly, seeing how dumbfounded he looked; wherefore, the modest fellow, actually blushing at the unexpected honour bestowed on him, mounted the poop-ladder in a much more gingerly fashion than he would have done if he had been told to take his trick at the wheel or exercise some sailor’s job aft. However, as soon as he got alongside the captain and Mr Marline, they both shook hands with him, in order to give him a proper welcome to his new station, and the steward singing out a few minutes afterwards that dinner was ready, he was invited down into the cabin to “christen” his promotion, as it were, by partaking of that meal, in token of his being admitted to a social equality with his superior officers.
I may add, too, that if his sudden rise in rank was unexpected, Jackson did not take long to settle down to his new duties, proving himself ere long a much better officer in every way than his predecessor. The men, too, were not in the least jealous of his being placed over them, but executed his orders with alacrity; for, he exercised his authority judiciously, remembering his former position—albeit he was ever a rigid and impartial disciplinarian.
“After a storm comes a calm,” says the old adage, but the reverse of this axiom holds equally good at sea.
It was so, at all events, in our instance; for, after our ten days of stagnation on the rolling ocean, a change came almost as suddenly as the calm had set in, the weather breaking towards the close of the very day that had witnessed the downfall of Davis and Jackson’s elevation to the dignity of the poop.
Every evening during the continuance of the calm, as I think I have mentioned, the sun went down below the horizon like a ball of fire, while a thick misty fog afterwards enveloped the sea; but this day when we came on deck after dinner, about the middle of the second dog watch, the sky, for a wonder, was quite clear, and the glorious orb sank to rest with some of that old splendour of his which I had noticed when we were threading our way amongst the islands. Long after he had disappeared, too, from view the heavens were lit up with a ruby radiance which was reflected below in the water, making it look like a crimson ocean.
“We’re going to have a change at last, Marline,” said Captain Miles rubbing his hands together. “It is better late than never!”
“Aye,” responded the first mate who stood by the binnacle; “the question, though, is, what change?”
“Hang it, man,” exclaimed the captain testily, “anything is preferable to this confounded calm.”
“Well, I don’t quite agree with you there,” said Mr Marline drily; “there is such a thing as changing for the worse. Have you looked at the glass, eh?”
“’Pon my word, I have not once glanced at it this evening! Dear me, what on earth could I have been thinking of?” ejaculated the captain in a sort of apologetic way, darting down instantly below to consult his unfailing guide, the barometer, which I suppose he had looked at so vainly for many days past that he had given up the instrument as incorrigible.
In another moment, however, he was on deck again, rubbing his hands as triumphantly together as before.
“Pooh, nonsense, Marline!” he cried, “you’re an old croaker, saying that the change would possibly be for the worse! Why, the glass is rising, man, rising steadily; and, I’ve no doubt we’ll have a splendid breeze ere nightfall, and glorious weather.”
“All right, sir, we’ll see,” was the mate’s cautious answer.
Meanwhile, the after-glow faded out of the sky and the stars began to come out in batches, especially to the north-west, where they shone as bright as diamonds, blinking and twinkling with various colours as one looked at them steadfastly, and seeming ever so much larger than usual.
A faint stir in the air also became perceptible, and the idle sails, that had so long flapped against the yards lazily only with the roll of the ship as she lurched to port or starboard with the ocean swell, were crumpled out a bit, as if they half felt inclined to expand their folds; but there was not wind enough for this, so they presently flattened themselves again, determined, apparently, to take it easy.
The time then came to set the first watch, from eight to midnight, of which Jackson, now, as second mate, took charge, when the captain went below, saying he was going to turn in early, so as to be ready when the breeze came, giving strict instructions to be called as soon as any change was apparent. Mr Marline, however, did not go below; so I remained on the poop with him and Jackson, the two walking up and down the deck and talking together while I stood by.
The sky was wonderfully clear now, the firmament being studded with the greater constellations, and myriads of the lesser lights of the night powdering the heavens with their golden dust everywhere.
But this was not for long.
Shortly before nine o’clock a peculiar moaning noise came over the sea. It was like a sort of hushed sob of pain, resembling somewhat the sound of a number of voices wailing in chorus in the far distance.
“What is that?” asked I of Mr Marline in alarm.
“I’m sure I can’t tell you, my boy,” he replied; “I don’t think I ever heard such a queer noise before. If we were off the banks of Newfoundland, I should think it a fog-horn blowing somewhere about. But, we’re several hundred miles to the southward of Cape Race and the night is too clear for fogs. It is one of those mysterious voices of the sea that are for ever reminding the sailor that, no matter how wise he may think himself, he does not know everything!”
“I imagine it’s the wind coming, sir,” observed Jackson deferentially, after listening to what Mr Marline had said. “When I was once on a voyage in the China Seas I noticed just such a sound before we had a thundering typhoon upon us, giving us hardly time to clew up.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said the first mate; but after giving a glance up and around the sky, and noticing that the stars still shone out from the blue empyrean, he added, “there does not seem much chance of a gale now, though.”
“We’ll see, sir,” laughed Jackson, paraphrasing Mr Marline’s observation to the captain. “We’d just as clear a night off Hainan, when our blow came on there at a moment’s notice!”
“All right, we’ll see,” replied Mr Marline, using his stock phrase, and the two continued to walk up and down chatting about other matters, while I went and sat down close to the taffrail, looking out over the sea and wondering what the moaning sound of the ocean meant. I let my imagination wander over the old stories I had heard of the mermaids below, and how they sang their weird songs of lament whenever a storm was coming, anticipating the shipwrecks that would follow and the invasion of their coral caves by the bodies of drowned mortals, over whom they are said to weep tears of pearl; and, in the flickering light of the stars, that seemed to come from underneath the purple deep and not be shining down from above, I almost fancied I could distinguish the sirens looking up at me from below the water with sad faces, as they combed their long weed-like tresses and raised their wailing croon.
Presently, however, I observed the star reflections suddenly disappear from view; and then, the water grew greyer and greyer, until I was hardly able to see it at all under the stern of the vessel, a hazy obscurity enveloping all below and around.
I roused myself with a start, thinking this effect was produced by the gloom of night, and that I had fallen asleep while weaving my quaint fancies anent the mermaidens; but a couple of sharp strokes of the ship’s bell sounding through the still air at that moment told me it was only nine o’clock. I then recognised the fact that I must seek some other reason for the sombre tone of the sea, as I knew well enough that the little beacons in the sky that had before lit it up, were not in the habit of drawing on their hatches until it was pretty nearly time for the sun to set about getting up for his day’s work, unless something out of the common was going to happen.
Looking up, therefore, I was surprised to see a dense black cloud now covering over the heavens like a pall.
It must have crept up from somewhere almost instantaneously; for, twenty minutes before, the sky was clear and bright, while now it was totally obscured from the horizon to the zenith, the angel of darkness seeming to be treading over the face of the deep.
Just then, away ahead on the starboard bow to the eastwards, a window appeared to be opened for an instant in the dense veil, from which a vivid flash of lightning came forth, making the darkness even more visible as the cloud closed up again.
“Shall I go and hail Captain Miles now, sir?” I heard Jackson ask Mr Marline near me, although I could not clearly make out either of them in the thick gloom—indeed, I could not see to the other side of the deck, or perceive the mizzen-mast even.
“No, I hardly think there’s any need yet,” I distinguished Mr Marline’s voice say in reply. “It’s only a flash of lightning—nothing to make a fuss about, for there isn’t a breath of wind stirring yet.”
“It’s coming though,” the other rejoined. “I can smell it.”
“You’ve a better nose than I have then,” said Mr Marline with a laugh; but, he had hardly got out the words, when there came a terrific crash of thunder right overhead, sounding so fearfully near and grand and awful, that it seemed as if the roof of heaven had broken in!
I jumped up at once from my seat and went towards the binnacle, where Jackson and Mr Marline were standing; for, although I wasn’t actually afraid of the thunder, still one likes to be by the side of some one else when it peals out so dreadfully, the sense of companionship lessening the fear of danger, I suppose.
“Hullo, Master Tom, not turned in yet?” cried Mr Marline, seeing me by the light from the compass and appearing to be very much surprised at my not having gone below to bed.
“No, sir,” I said. “I stopped up to wait for the wind.”
“Ah, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait longer,” he replied. “This’ll be nothing but a tropical thunder-storm, and probably we won’t have the ghost of a breeze after it has gone over.”
“I think differently, sir, begging your pardon,” said Jackson, interposing at this point; “and, if you don’t mind, Mr Marline, I’d like to have the lighter sails taken off her, in case it comes on to blow.”
“All right, please yourself, my dear sir; you’re in charge of the deck,” answered the first mate drily. “Though, mind you, I think you’re giving yourself trouble for nothing. I wouldn’t, however, call the captain till we really know whether we’re going to have a squall or not.”
“Very well, sir,” said Jackson, “I won’t call him; but I’ll have the upper canvas in, for it’s just as well to be on the safe side, especially as I do think we’re in for something.”
“With all my heart,” replied Mr Marline cheerfully, seeing that Jackson was timid about exercising his new authority against his opinion, although he appeared to feel strongly in the matter. “Have in the rags by all means. I daresay it will save some trouble bye-and-by.”
“Very well, I will,” said the other; and, calling the starboard watch, who were idling about and having a quiet caulk in the waist, he soon made them set about reducing theJosephine’scanvas—there being no necessity yet for summoning “all hands,” as there was not a breath of air stirring, while the sea had hushed its monotonous roll, calming down to the quiet of a mill-pond.
Previously to this, the ship had been under all plain sail, so as to be ready for the wind when it chose to visit us again; but, in a very short time, under Jackson’s supervision and sharp, rapid orders, the courses were clewed up, the flying-jib hauled down, the topgallant-sails furled, and the spanker brailed up. In this half-dressed rig the vessel was now prepared to meet any sudden squall; while, should a favourable breeze come, sail could readily be added on—a much easier job to accomplish than that of taking in canvas in a gale!
In the interim, although no further thunder was heard, and we only saw the one vivid flash of forked lightning that had accompanied the fearful peal which made me vacate my seat by the taffrail, the heavens grew blacker and blacker, the darkness settling down on the ship so that one could hardly see one’s hand even if held close to the face; but, after a bit, a meteor-like globe of electric light danced about the spars and rigging, making the faces of all those aft look ghastly with its pale blue glare. They seemed just as if they were dead.
A second or two later, some heavy warning drops of rain, as big as saucers, fell on the deck, with a dull splashing noise; and while we were all waiting with some anxiety for what was to be the outcome of all this atmospheric disturbance, Captain Miles ascended the poop-ladder, his face being distinctly illumined by the meteor, which was apparently at that moment hovering about the slings of the main-yard.
The captain had been roused out by the sound of the men’s feet busily trampling about the decks and the hauling of the ropes, as the main topgallant halliards and sheets were cast-off and the clew-lines and bunt-lines manned during the operation of taking in sail, so he came up expecting to find that the long-wished-for breeze had overhauled us; but he only saw, instead, the vessel as motionless on the water as when he went below, albeit now almost denuded of her canvas.
After glancing round the ship, whose every outline was brought out in relief by the meteoric light, he warmly praised Jackson for his precaution in reducing sail.
“You’ve done quite right,” he said, “only you haven’t quite gone far enough, my boy. I think we’d better have the courses furled and the topsails reefed. We’re in hurricane latitudes and this is the very month for them. I don’t like the sky at all.”
“Watch, ho!” thereupon shouted Jackson. “Up you go and furl the mainsail.”
This was soon accomplished, after which there was a scurry up the ratlines forward and the foresail followed suit, and thus, the topsail halliards were let go and the yards dropped on the caps for the men to lay out and double reef the upper sails, when they were again hoisted up only about a third of their former size, and looking like slabs of board against the masts, everything being hauled taut.
“We’ll have it soon now,” said Captain Miles—“hark!”
As he spoke, there was a rumbling noise in the distance, approaching nearer and nearer every second, and then, there came another deafening roar of thunder right over our heads, followed by a deadly zigzag sheet of lightning, not a flash, that lit up the whole sky.
“Look sharp and batten down the hatches, the rain is close on the heels of that, I know,” cried the captain; but the men had hardly time to execute his order ere the heavens seemed to open and a deluge of water fell on to the ship, as if some reservoir above had suddenly burst. It literally swept down like a cataract, and almost beat me down to the deck with its force.
It hardly lasted a minute, but in that brief spell it filled the scuppers just as if we had shipped a heavy sea, of course wetting us all to the skin.
Next there was heard the same moaning noise along the surface of the ocean that we had heard at first, and then, as the rain stopped, a terrific gust of wind from the south-east caught us just abaft the beam, the ship heeled over until her yard-arms dipped, and we thought she was going to “turn turtle,” or capsize.
“Hard up with the helm!” screamed out Captain Miles, Mr Marline jumping to the spokes of the wheel at the same time to help the man steering, when, fortunately, theJosephinepayed off handsomely, righting again at the same moment, to our great relief.
“Brace up the yards!” then shouted the captain; and, in another instant, the vessel was dashing along madly towards the north-west, scudding before the rapidly risen gale, even with the little canvas she carried, at a greater rate of speed than she had ever attained with every sail set. She was going twelve knots, good, and increasing her velocity apparently each moment, the sea not yet having had time to get up and nothing interfering with her progress through the water, although the wind shrieked and howled destruction after her as it urged her along.