A fresh crew came down from London the following morning in charge of a crimp.
Duckling went ashore to meet them at the railway station, and they came off in the same boat that had landed the others on the previous day.
They appeared much the same sort of men as those who had left us; badly clothed for the most part, and but four of them had sea-chests, the rest bringing bags. There was one very big man among them, a fellow that dwarfed the others; he held himself erect, wore good boots, and might very well have passed for an escaped Lifeguardsman,were it not for the indescribablesomethingin his gait, and the way in which he hung his hands, that marked him for a Jack.
Another fellow I noticed, as he scrambled over the ship's side, and sung out, in notes as hoarse as a raven's, to pitch him up his "blooming portmantey," had a very extraordinary face, altogether out of proportion with his head, being, I dare say, a full third too small. The back of the skull was immense, and was covered with hair coarser than Duckling's—as coarse as hemp-yarns. This hair grew down beside his ears, and got mixed up with streaky whiskers, which bound up the lower part of his face like a tar poultice. Out of this circle of hair looked a face as small as a young boy's; little half-closed Chinese eyes, a bit of a pug nose, and a square mouth, kept open so as to show that he wanted four front teeth. The frame belonging to this remarkablehead and face was singularly vigorous though grievously misshapen. His long arms went far down his legs; his back, without having a hump, was as round as a shell, and he looked as if he measured a yard and a half from shoulder to shoulder. I watched this strange-looking creature with great curiosity until I lost sight of him in the forecastle.
The men bustled over the side with great alacrity, bawling for their bags and property to be handed up in a great variety of accents. There were two Dutchmen and a copper-coloured man, with African features, among them; the rest were English.
The crimp remained in the boat, watching the men go on board. He was from the other side of Jordan. His woolly hair was soaked with oil, and shone resplendent in the sun; the oil seemed to have got into his hat, too, for that had a most fearfulpolish. He wore a greatcoat that came down to his shins, and beneath this he exhibited a pair of blue serge breeches, terminating in boots as greasy as his hat. He was genteel enough to wear kid gloves; but the imagination was not to be seduced by such an artifice from picturing the dirt under the gloves.
I knew something of crimps, and amused myself with an idle speculation or two whilst watching the man. This was a fellow who would probably keep a lodging-house for sailors in some dirty little street leading out of the West India Dock Road. His terms would be very easy: seven shillings a week for board and lodging, and every gentleman to pay for extras. He would probably have two or three amiable and obliging sisters, daughters, or nieces living with him, knowing the generous and blind confidence Jack reposes in the endearmentsof the soft sex, and how very prodigally he will pay for them. So this greasy miscreant's dirty West India Dock Road lodging-house for sailors would always be pretty full, and he would never have much difficulty in mustering a crew when he got an order to raise one. Of course it would pay him as it pays other crimps to let lodgings to sailors, so as to have them always about him when a crew is wanted; for will he not obligingly cash their advance-notes for them, handing them say, thirty shillings for three pounds ten? "What do I do with this dirty risk?" he will exclaim, when Jack expostulates. "Supposing you cut stick? I lose my money! I only do this to obleege you. Go into the street," he cries, pretending to get into a passion, "and see what you'll get for your dirty piece of paper. You'll be comin' back to me on your bended knees, with thetears a tricklin' and runnin' over your cheeks, axing my parding for wronging me and willin' to say a prayer of thankfulness for me bein' put in your vay. You'll want a bag for your clothes, and here's one, dirt cheap, five and a 'arf. And you can't go to sea vith one pair o' brigs, and you shall have these beauties a bargain—come, fourteen and six, foryou, and I'll ask you not to say what you gave for 'em, or I shall have four hundred and fifty-vun customers comin' in a rage to tell me I'm a villin for charging of 'em a guinea for the shame article. And here's a first-class knife and belt—something fit for the heye to rest upon—honestly vorth 'arf a sovrin, which I'll make you a present of for a bob, and if you say a vord I'll take everything back, for Ican'tstand ingratitood."
Our friend watched the crew over thevessel's side with jealous eyes, for had they refused at the last moment to remain in the ship, he would have been a loser to the amount he had given them for their advance-notes. He looked really happy when the last man was out of the lugger and her head turned for the shore. He raised his greasy hat to Duckling, and his hair shone like polished mahogany in the sun.
"Aft here, some of you, and ship this gangway. Boatswain, pipe all hands to get the ship under weigh," cried Duckling; and turning to me with a wink, he added, "If the grub is going to bring more rows, we must fight 'em on the high seas."
There was a little breeze from the south-east; quite enough to keep the lighter sails full and give us headway against the tide that was running up Channel. The men, zealous as all new-comers are, hastened briskly out of the forecastle on hearingDuckling's voice and the boatswain's whistle, and manned the windlass. The pilot was now on the poop with the skipper, the latter looking lively enough as he heard the quick clanking of the palls. The men broke into a song and chorus presently, and the rude strains chimed in well with the hoarse echo of the cable coming link by link in-board.
Presently I reported the cable up and down. Then from Duckling, the pilot's mouthpiece, came the familiar orders—
"Loose the outer jib."
"Lay aloft, some of you, and loose the topsails."
"Up with that jib smartly, my lads."
"A hand aft here to the wheel."
The ship lay with her head pointing to the direction in which she was going: there was nothing more to do than sheet home the topsails and trip the anchor. The menwere tolerably nimble and smart. The three topsails were soon set, the windlass again manned, and within a quarter of an hour from the time when the order was given, the ship was under way, and pushing quietly through a tide that raced in a hundred wrinkles around her bows.
We set the fore and main top-gallant sails and spanker presently: the yards were braced sharp up, for we were heading well south, so as to give the Foreland a wide berth. This extra canvas sent us swirling past the red-hulled lightship off this point, and soon the Dover pier opened, and the great white cliffs with their green heights. Anon, our course bringing the wind more aft, we set the mainsail and main-royal and mizzen top-gallant sail, with the staysails and jibs.
The breeze freshened as we stretched seawards; the ship was now carrying a deal ofcanvas, and the men seemed pleased with her pace.
The day was gloriously fine. The sea was of an emerald green, alive with little leaping waves each with its narrow thread of froth: the breeze was strong enough to lay the vessel over, just so far as to enable one looking over the weather side to see her copper, shining red below the green line of water. The brilliant sunshine illuminated the brass-work with innumerable glories, and shone with fluctuating flashes in the glass of the skylights, and made the decks glisten like a yacht's. The canvas, broad and white, towered nobly to the sky, and the main-royal against the deep blue of the sky seemed like a cloud among the whiter clouds which swept in quick succession high above. It was a sight to look over the ship's bows, to see her keen stem shredding the water, and the permanentpillar of foam leaning away from her weather-bow.
This part of the Channel was full of shipping, and I know, by the vividness with which my memory reproduces the scene, how beautiful was the picture impressed upon it. All on our right were the English shores, made delicate and even fanciful by distance; here and there fairy-like groups of houses, standing on the heights among trees or embosomed in valleys, with silver sands sloping to the sea: deep shadows staining the purity of the brilliant chalk, and a foreground of pleasure-boats with sails glistening like pearl and bright flags streaming. And to our right and left vessels of different rigs and sizes standing up or down Channel, some running like ourselves, free, with streaming wakes, others coming up close-hauled, some in ballast high out of water, stretching their blacksides along the sea and exposing to windward shining surfaces of copper.
At half-past two o'clock in the afternoon, all sail that was required having been made, and the decks cleared, the hands were divided into watches, and I, having charge of the port watch, came on deck. The starboard watch went below; but as the men had not dined, a portion of my own watch joined the others in the forecastle to get their dinner.
I now discovered that the copper-faced man, to whom I have drawn attention, was the new cook. I heard the men bandying jokes with him as they went in and out of the galley, carrying the steaming lumps of pork and reeking dishes of pea-soup into the forecastle, whence I concluded that they had either not yet discovered the quality of the provisions, or that they were more easily satisfied than their predecessors had been.
Among the men in my own watch was the great strapping fellow whom I had likened to a Lifeguardsman. I had thought the man too big to be handy up aloft, but was very much deceived; for in all my life I never witnessed such feats of activity as he performed. His long legs had enabled him to take two ratlines at a time, and he saved himself the trouble of getting over the futtock shrouds by very easily making two steps from the mainshrouds to the mainyard, and from the mainyard to the maintop. I watched him leave the galley, carrying his smoking mess; but I also noticed, before I lost sight of him, that he took a suspiciously long sniff at the steam under his nose, and then violently expectorated.
The breeze was now very lively; the canvas was stretching nobly to it, and the shore all along our starboard beam was agliding panorama, brilliant with colour and sunshine. They were having dinner in the cuddy, and as often as I passed the skylight I could see the captain glancing upwards at the sails with a well-pleased expression.
I presently noticed the cook's copper face, crowned with an odd kind of knitted cap, protruding from the galley, and his small eyes gazed intently at me. I paced the length of the poop, and when I returned, the cook's head was still at its post, and then his body came out and he stood staring in my direction.
I had to turn abruptly to hide my mirth, for his face was ornamented with an expression of disgust exquisitely comical with the wrinkled nose, the arched thick mouth, and the screwed-up eyebrows.
When I again looked he was coming along the deck, swinging a piece of very fat pork at the end of a string. He advancedclose to the poop-ladder at the top of which I was standing, and holding up the pork, said—
"You see dis, sar?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Me belong to a country where we no eat pork," he exclaimed, with great gravity, still preserving his wrinkled nose and immensely disgusted expression.
"What country is that?" I asked.
"Hot country, sar," he answered. "But me will eat pork on board ship."
"Very proper."
"But me willnoteat stinking pork on board ship or anywhere else," he cried excitedly.
"Is that piece of pork tainted?" I inquired.
"Don't know nuffen 'bout tainted, sar," he replied; "but it smells kinder strong. But not so strong as the liquor wheret'other porks was biled in. Nebber smelled de like, sar. Most disgusting. Come and try it, sar. Make you feel queer."
"Pitch the water overboard, then."
"No good, sar. Fork'sle full of stinks, and men grumblin' like hell. Me fust-rate cook, too—but no make a stink sweet. Dat beats me."
He held up the pork, with an expression on his face as if he were about to sneeze, shook his finger at it as though it were something that could be affected by the gesture, and flung it overboard.
"Dat's my rations," said he. "Shouldn't like to eat de fish dat swallers it."
And turning jauntily in his frocked canvas breeches he walked off.
A few moments afterwards the extraordinary-looking man with the small face and large head, and shell-shaped back, came out of the forecastle, walking from side to sidewith a springing jerky action of the legs, they being evidently moved by a force having no reference to his will.
"Ax your pardon, sir," he said, twirling up his thumb in the direction of his forehead; "but the meat's infernal bad aboard this here wessel."
"I can't help it," I answered, annoyed to be the recipient of these complaints, which seemed really to justify Coxon's charge of my being the crew's confidant. "You must talk to the captain about it."
"Ne'er a man among us can eat of the pork; and the cook, as is better acquainted than us with these here matters, says he'd rather be biled alive than swaller a ounce of it."
"The captain is the proper person to complain to."
"That may be, sir," said the man, dropping his chin, so that by projecting hisbeard his face appeared to withdraw, and grow smaller still. "But the boatswain says there'll not be much got by complaining to the skipper."
"I can't make the ship's stores better than they are," I replied, moving a step, for I now perceived that some of the crew were watching us, and I did not want the captain to come on deck and find me talking to this man about the provisions. But it so happened that at this particular moment the captain emerged from the companion hatchway. The man did not stir, and the captain said—
"What does that fellow want?"
"He is complaining of the pork, sir. I have referred him to you."
He gave me a sharp look, and leaning forwards, said in a quiet, mild voice—
"What's the matter, my man?"
"Why, sir, I've been asked to come andsay that the pork that's been served to the men is in a werry bad state, to be sure. It's more smell than meat, and what ain't smell is brine."
"I am sorry to hear that," said the captain in a most benignant manner. "Look into the cuddy and tell the steward I want him."
The steward stepped on to the quarter-deck and looked up at his master in a way that made me suspect he had got his cue.
"What's the matter with the pork, steward?"
"Nothing, sir, that I know of."
"The men say it smells strong—that's what you say, I think?" remarked the captain, addressing the man.
"Werry strong, sir—strong enough to sit upon, sir."
"I don't know how that can be," exclaimed the steward, looking very puzzledindeed. "It's sweet enough in the cask. Perhaps it's the fault of the biling."
"Nothing to do with the biling, mate," said the man, shaking his extraordinary head, at the same time surveying the steward indignantly. "Biling clears away smells as a rule."
"Perhaps you've opened a bad cask. If so," said the captain, "fling it overboard, for I'll not have the men poisoned. Let the cook boil me a sample from the next cask you open, and put it upon my table—do you hear?"
"Yes, sir."
"That will do," continued the captain, addressing the man. "You may go forward and tell your mates what I have said."
And away straggled the man to inform the crew, no doubt, that the skipper was a brick, and that he'd like to punch the steward's head.
At seven o'clock next morning we were abreast the Isle of Wight, having carried a strong south-easterly breeze with us as far as Eastbourne, when the wind lulled and remained light all through the middle watch; but after four it freshened again from the same quarter, and came on to blow strong; but we kept the fore and main royals on her all through, and only furled them to heave the ship to off Ventnor, where we landed the pilot.
There was a nasty lump of a sea on just here, and some smacks making for Portsmouth carried half sails soaking and their decks running with water. TheGrosvenor, owing to her weight, lay steady enough; a little too steady, I thought, for she shipped water over her starboard bow without rising, reminding me of a deep-laden barge, along which you will see the swell running and washing, whilst she herself goes squashing through with scarcely a roll.
A dandy-rigged boat put off, in response to our signal, and I enjoyed the pretty picture she made as she came foaming, close hauled, towards the ship, burying herself in spray as she shoved her keen nose into the sea, and hopping nimbly out of one trough into another, so that sometimes you could see her forefoot right out of water.
I was glad when the pilot got over the side. He was a mean toady, and had done me no good with the captain. The gangway ladder had been thrown over to enable him to descend, and the boat washed high and low, up and down, alongside, sometimes level with the deck, sometimes twelve or fourteen feet in a hollow.
"Now's your time," said I, mischievously, as he hung on to the man-rope with one leg out to catch the boat as she rose. He took me at my word and let go; butthe boat was sinking, and down he went with her, and I had the satisfaction of seeing him roll right into the boat's bottom, and there get so hopelessly entangled with the pump and some trawling gear, that it took two boatmen to pull him out and set him on his feet.
Then away they went, the pilot waving his hat to the skipper, who cries—
"Man the lee main braces."
The great yards were swung around, and the ship lay over to the immense weight of canvas.
"Ease off those jib-sheets there, and set the mainsail."
The ship, feeling the full breeze, surged slowly forwards, parting the toppling seas with thundering blows of her bows. She had as much sail on her as she could well carry, and a trifle to spare, for the breeze had freshened whilst we had beenlying to, a couple of vessels to windward were taking in their fore and mizzen top-gallant sails, and ahead was a smart brig with a single reef in her fore-topsail. The wind was well abeam, perhaps half a point abaft, and every sail was swollen like the cheeks of rude Boreas in the picture of that bleak worthy.
This cracking on delighted Duckling, whose head turned so violently about as he stared first at these sails, then at those, then forward, then aft, that I thought he would end in putting a kink into his neck.
"This is proper!" he exclaimed, in his hoarse voice, after ordering some hands "to clap the watch-tackle on to the main-tack and rouse it down." "We'll teach 'em how to froth this blessed Channel! I guess we've had enough of calms, and if the Scilly ain't some miles astern by the second dog-watch to-morrow I'll turn a monk, you see!"
We were heading well west-south-west, and the water was flying in sheets of foam from the ship's bows. By this time it was dark, and the sky thick with the volume of wind that swept over it; the stars shone hazily, but it was as much as I could do to trace the outlines of the main-royal and top-gallant sail.
The vessel was rushing through the water at a great pace. I felt as exhilarated as one new to the life when I looked astern and saw the broad path of foam churned by the ship rising and falling and fading upon the desolate gloom of the hilly horizon. Blue fires burnt in the water; but, by-and-by, when by stretching out we had got into the broader sea, and the vessel plunged to the heavier waves which were running, big flakes of phosphorescent light were hurled up with the water every time the ship pitched, and for twenty fathoms astern thewater was as luminous as the Milky Way. The roaring of the wind on high, the creaking of the spars, the clanking and grinding of the chain-sheets, the squeal of sheaves working on rusty pins, the hissing and spitting of the seething foam, and ever and anon the sullen thunder of a sea striking the ship, filled the ear with a wonderful volume of sound. The captain was cracking on to make up for lost time, and he was on deck when I went below at ten o'clock to get some rest before relieving Duckling at midnight. There were then two hands at the wheel, and a couple on the look-out; our lamps were burning bravely, but we had long ago outrun all sight of shore and of lights ashore.
I slept soundly, and at eight bells Duckling roused me up. The unpleasantest part of a sailor's life is this periodical turning out of warm blankets to walk the deck forfour hours. The rawness of the night air is anything but stimulating to a man just awake and very sleepy. Let the wind be never so steady, the decks are full of powerful draughts rushing out of the sails and blowing into your eyes and ears and up the legs of your trousers, and down the collar of your shirt, turn where you will: and you think, as your hair is blown over your eyes and a shower of spray comes pattering upon your oilskins and annoying your face, of your sheltered cabin and warm cot, and wonder what, in the name of common sense, caused you to take to this uncomfortable profession. The crew in this respect are better off than their officers; for the watch on deck at night can always manage to sneak into the forecastle and dose upon their chests, or on the deck and keep under shelter; whereas the mate in charge must be always wide awake and on his legsthroughout his watch, and shirk nothing that the heavens may choose to pour upon his defenceless person.
I had four hours before me when I went on deck, and I may perhaps have wished myself ashore in a quiet bed. The captain stood near the wheel. It was blowing very fresh indeed, the wind about east-southeast, with a strong following sea. The yards had been braced further aft, but no other alteration had been made since I had gone below. If I had thought that the vessel was carrying too much sail then, I certainly thought that she was carrying a great deal too much sail now. She could have very well dispensed with the main-royal and two top-gallant sails, and in my opinion would have made the same way with a single reef in the topsails. The press of canvas was burying her. Well aft as the wind was, the vessel lay over to starboardunder it, and she was dragging her heavy channels sluicing and foaming through the water. The moon was weak, with a big ring round her, and the sky was obscured by the scud which fled swiftly away to the north-west. The horizon was thick, and the troubled sheen of the moon upon the jumping seas made the dark waters, with their ghastly lines of phosphorescent foam, a most wild and weird panorama.
I mustered the watch, and a couple of them went to relieve their mates on the forecastle. A night-glass lay on one of the skylights, and I swept the horizon with it, but nothing was to be seen. I walked aft to see how she was steering, for these heavy following seas lumping up against a ship's quarter play the deuce with some vessels, making the compass-card swing wildly and setting the square sails lifting; but found her steering very steadily, though the rushof some of the seas under her counter might have bewildered a two-thousand-ton ship. She rose, too, better than I thought she would, though she was sluggish enough, for some of the seas ran past her with their crests curling above her lee bulwarks, and she had received one souser near the galley; but her decks to windward were dry.
Coxon was smoking a big Dutch pipe, holding it with one hand and the rail with the other. He had a hair cap on with flaps over his ears, and sea-boots, and all that he was doing was first to blow a cloud and then look up at the sails, and then blow another cloud and then look up again. This would appear to have been going on since nine o'clock. I thought he must be pretty tired of his diversion by this time.
"She bears her canvas well, sir," said I.
"Yes," he answered gruffly, "I have losttwenty-four hours. I ought to have been clear of the Channel by this."
"She is a fast vessel, sir. We are doing good twelve, I should say."
He cast his eyes over the stern, then looked up aloft, but made no answer. I was moving away when he exclaimed—
"Go forward and tell the men to keep a bright look-out. And keep your weather-eye lifting yourself, sir."
I did as he bade me, and got upon the forecastle. I found the two men who were indistinguishable from the poop, wrapped in oilskins leaning against the forecastle rail. It blew harder here than it did aft, for a power of wind rushed slanting from the fore-topmast stay-sail and whirled up from under the foot of the foresail. The crashing sound of the vessel's bows, urged through the heavy water by the great power that was bellowing overhead, was wonderful tohear: an uproar of thunder was all around, mingled with wild shrieking cries and the strange groaning of straining timbers. The moon stood away to windward of the mizzen royal-mast head, and it was a sight to look up and see the grey canvas, full like balloons, soaring into the sky, and to hear the mighty rush of the wind among the rigging as the vessel rolled against it, making the moon whirl across her spars to and fro, to and fro.
I had been on deck three quarters of an hour when, feeling the wind very cold, I dived into my cabin for a shawl to wrap round my neck.
I had hardly left the cuddy door to return, when I heard a loud cry from the forecastle, and both hands roared out simultaneously, "A sail right ahead!"
Coxon walked quickly forward to the poop-rail to try to see the vessel to windward.Then he went over to the other side and peered under the mainsail; after which he said, "I see nothing. Where is she?"
I shouted through my hands, "On which bow is she?"
"Right ahead!" came the reply.
"There was a short pause, and then one of the men roared out, "Hard over! we're upon her! She's cutter rigged! she's a smack!"
"Hard a-port! hard a-port!" bawled Coxon.
I saw the spokes of the wheel fly round, but almost at the same moment, I felt a sudden shock—an odd kind ofthud, the effect of which upon my senses was to produce the impression of a sudden lull in the wind.
"God Almighty!" bellowed a voice, "we've run her down!"
In a second I had bounded to the weather-side of the poop and looked over, and what I saw sliding rapidly past, was a mast and a dark-coloured sail, which in the daylight would probably be red, stretched flat upon the wilderness of foam which our ship was sweeping off her sides. Upon this ghastly white ground the sail and mast were distinctly outlined—for a brief moment only—they vanished even as I watched, swallowed up in the seething water. And then all overhead the sails of the ship began to thunder, and the rigging quivered and jerked as though it must snap.
"Hard over! hard over!" bellowed Coxon.
I saw him rush to the wheel, thrust away one of the men, and pull the spokes over with all his force. The vessel answered splendidly, swerved nobly round like a creature of instinct, and was again rushing headlong with full sail over the sea.
This was a close shave. At the speed at which she was travelling she had obeyed the rudder in the first instance so promptly as to come round close to the wind. A few moments more and she would have been taken aback; and this, taking into consideration the amount of canvas she was carrying, must infallibly have meant the loss of most, if not of all, her spars.
Horrified by the thoughts of living creatures drowning in our wake, I cried out to the skipper—
"Won't you make an effort to save them, sir?"
"Save them be hanged!" he answered fiercely. "Why the devil didn't they get out of our road?"
I was so much shocked by the coarse inhumanity of this reply, that I turned on my heel; but yet was constrained by an ugly fascination to turn again and castshuddering glances at the spot where I pictured the drowning wretches battling with the waves.
Captain Coxon was too intent upon the compass to notice my manner; he was giving directions to the men in a low voice, with his eyes fixed on the card.
Presently he exclaimed, in his gruffest voice, "Call the carpenter to sound the well."
This was soon despatched, and I returned and reported a dry bottom.
"Heave the log, sir."
I called a couple of hands aft and went through the tiresome and tedious job of ascertaining the speed by the measured line and sand-glass. The reel rattled furiously in the hands of the man who held it: I thought the whole of the line would go away overboard before the fellow who was holding the glass cried, "Stop!"
"What do you make it?" demanded Coxon.
"Thirteen knots, sir."
He looked over the side as though to assure himself that the computation was correct, then called out—
"Clew up the main-royal, and furl it!"
This was a beginning, and it was about time that a beginning was made. The breeze had freshened into a strong wind, this had grown into half a gale, and the look of the sky promised a whole gale before morning. The main-royal halliards were let go, and a couple of hands went up to stow the bit of canvas that was thumping among the clouds.
Presently, "Furl the fore and mizzen top-gallant sails."
This gave occupation to the watch; and now the decks began to grow lively with the figures of men running about, withsongs and choruses, with cries of "Belay, there!"—"Up with it smartly, my lads!" and with the heavy flapping of canvas.
All this, however, was no very great reduction of sail. TheGrosvenorcarried the old-fashioned single topsails, and these immense spaces of canvas were holding a power of wind. Overhead the scud flew fast and furious, and all to windward the horizon was very thick. We took in the main-top-gallant sail; and while the hands were aloft we came up hand over fist with a big ship, painted white. She was to leeward, stretching away under double-reefed topsails, and showed out quite distinctly upon the dark sea beyond, and under the struggling moonshine. We ran close enough to take the wind out of her sails, and could easily have hailed her had there been any necessity to do so; but we could discern no one on deck but a single hand at the wheel. She showedno lights, and with her white hull and glimmering sails, and fragile naked yards and masts, she looked as ghostly as anything I ever saw on the water. She rolled and plunged solemnly among the seas, and threw up her own swirling outline in startling relief upon the foam she flung from her side, and which streamed away in pyramid-shape. She went astern like a buoy, and in a few minutes had vanished as utterly from our sight as if she had foundered.
I now stood waiting for an order which I knew must soon come. It is one thing to "carry on," but it is another thing to rip the masts out of a ship. I don't think we had lost half a knot in speed through the canvas that had been taken in: the vessel seemed to be running very nearly as fast as the seas. But the wind was not only increasing, but increasing with squalls, so that there were times when you would havethought that the inmates of forty mad-houses had got among the rigging and out upon the yards, and were screeching, yelling, and groaning with all the force they were master of.
At last the captain gave the order I awaited.
"All hands reef topsails."
In a few minutes the boatswain's pipe sounded, and the watch below came tumbling out of the forecastle. Now came a scene familiar to every man who has been to sea, whether as a sailor or a passenger. In a ship of war the crew go to work to the sound of fiddles or silver whistles; every man knows his station; everything is done quickly, quietly, and completely. But in a merchantman the men go to work to the sound of their own voices: these voices are, as a rule, uncommonly harsh and hoarse; and as every working party has its own soloand chorus, and as all working parties sing together, the effect upon the ear, to say the very least, is hideous. But also in a merchantman the crew is always less in number than they ought to be. Hence, when the halliards are let go, the confusion below and aloft becomes overwhelming; for not more, perhaps, than a couple of sails can be handled at a time, and, meanwhile, the others waiting to be furled are banged about by the wind, and fling such a thunder upon the ear that orders are scarce audible for the noise.
All this to a certain degree happened in the present instance. The captain having carried canvas with fool-hardy boldness, now ran into the other extreme. The quick fierce gusts which ran down upon the ship frightened him, and his order was to let go all three topsail halliards, and double-reef the sails. The halliards were easily let go; but then, the working hands beingfew, confusion must follow. The yards coming down upon the caps, the sails stood out in bellies hard as iron. A whole watch upon each reef-tackle could hardly bring the blocks together. When the mizzen-topsail was reefed, it was found that the fore-topsail would require all hands; the helm had to be put down to shake the sail, so as to enable the men to make the reef-points meet. The main-topsail lifted as well as the fore-topsail, and both sails rattled in unison; and the din of the pealing canvas, furiously shaken by the howling wind, the cries of the men getting the sail over to windward, the booming of the seas against the ship's bows, the groaning of her timbers, the excited grunting of terrified pigs, and the rumbling of an empty water-cask, which had broken from its lashings and was rolling to and fro the main-deck, constituted an uproar of which no description, howeverelaborate, could even faintly express the overwhelming character.
When the dawn broke it found theGrosvenorunder reefed topsails, fore-topmast, staysail, foresail, main-trysail, and spanker, snug enough, but with streaming decks, for the gale had raised a heavy beam sea, and the deep-laden ship was sluggish, and took the water repeatedly over her weather-bulwarks.
The watch below had turned in again, but it was already seven bells, and at four o'clock my turn would come to go to bed. I had charge of the ship, for the captain having passed the night in observing his vessel's sailing powers under all canvas, had gone below, and I was not sorry to get rid of him, for his continued presence aft had become a nuisance to my eyes.
The sea under the gathering light in the east was a remarkable sight. The creamingarching surfaces of the waves took the pale illumination, but the troughs or hollows were livid, and looking along the rugged surface as the ship rose, one seemed to behold countless lines of yawning caverns opening in an illimitable waste of snow. Nothing could surpass the profound desolation of the scene surveyed in the faint struggling dawn, the pallid heaven, bearing its dim and languishing stars, over which were swept long lines of smoke-coloured clouds torn and mangled by the wind; the broken ocean pouring and boiling away to a melancholy horizon, still dark, save where the dawn was creeping upwards with its chilly light, and making the eastern sea and sky leaden-hued.
I had now leisure to recall the fatal accident I have related, and the inhumanity of Captain Coxon's comment upon it. I hugged myself in my thick coat as I lookedastern at the cold and rushing waters, and thought of the bitter sudden deaths of the unfortunates we had run down. With what appalling rapidity had the whole thing happened! not even a dying shriek had been heard amid the roar of the wind among the masts. For many a day the memory of that dark-coloured sail, prone upon the foaming water, haunted me. The significance of it was awful to think upon. But for the men on the look-out, never a soul among us would have known that living beings had been hurled into sudden and dreadful death, that the ship in which we sailed had perchance made widows of sleeping wives, had made children fatherless, and that ruin and beggary and sorrow had been churned up out of the deep by our unsparing bows.
Our voyage had begun inauspiciously enough, God knows: and as I lookedtowards the east where the morning light was kindling over the livid, rugged horizon, a strange depression fell upon my spirits, and the presentiment then entered my mind and never afterwards quitted it, that perils and suffering and death were in store for us, and that when I had looked on the English coast last night I was unconsciously bidding farewell to scenes I should never behold again.
I was on deck again at eight o'clock. It was still blowing a gale, but the wind had drawn right aft, and though the topsails were kept reefed, Duckling had thought fit to set the main top-gallant sail, and the ship was running bravely.
Yet, though her speed was good, she was rolling abominably; for the wind had not had time to change the course of the waves, and we had now all the disadvantage of a beam sea without the modifying influence over the ship's rolling of a beam wind.
I reckoned that we had made over onehundred and thirty knots during the twelve hours, so that if the gale lasted, we might hope to be clear of the Scilly Isles by next morning. There was a small screw steamer crossing our bows right ahead, possibly hailing from France and bound to the Bristol Channel. I watched her through a glass, sometimes breathlessly, for in all my life I never saw any vessel pitch as she did, and live. Sometimes she seemed to stand clear out of water so as to look all hull: then down she would go and leave nothing showing but a bit of her funnel sticking up with black smoke pouring away from it. Several times when she pitched I said to myself, "Now she is gone!" Her bows went clean under, heaving aloft a prodigious space of foam: up cocked her stern, and, with the help of the glass, I could see her screw skurrying round in the air. Her decks were lumbered with cattle-pens, butthe only living thing I could see on board was a man steering her on the bridge. She vanished all on a sudden, amid a Niagara of spray; but some minutes after I saw her smoke on the horizon. Had I not seen her smoke I should have been willing to wager that she had foundered. These mysterious disappearances at sea are by no means rare; but are difficult to account for, since they sometimes happen when the horizon is clear. I have sighted a ship and watched her for some time: withdrawn my eyes for a minute, looked again, and perceived no signs of her. It is possible that mists of small extent may hang upon the sea, not noticeable at a distance, and that they will shut out a vessel suddenly and puzzle you as a miracle would. The fascinating legend of the "Phantom Ship" may have originated in disappearances of this kind, for they are quite complete and surprising enough toinspire superstitious thoughts in such plain, unlettered minds as sailors'.
They were breakfasting in the cuddy and in the forecastle, and I was waiting for the skipper to come on deck that I might go below and get something to eat. But before he made his appearance, the confounded copper-coloured cook, accompanied by a couple of men, came aft.
"Sar," said this worthy, who looked lovely in a pink-striped skirt and yellow overalls, "me ask you respeckfly to speak to de skipper and tell him him biscuit am dam bad, sar."
"I'm messman for the starboard watch, sir," exclaimed one of the men, "and the ship's company says they can't get the bread down 'em nohow."
"Why do you come to me?" I demanded of them angrily. "I have already told you, cook, that I have nothing to do with theship's stores. You heard what Captain Coxon said yesterday?"
"Can't the steward get us up a fresh bag of bread for breakfast?" exclaimed the third man.
"He's in the cuddy," I replied; "ask him."
They bobbed their heads forward to see through the cuddy windows, and at that moment Duckling came on deck up through the companion.
"You can get your breakfast," said he to me. "I'll keep watch until you've done."
"Here are some men on the quarter-deck complaining of the bread," said I. "Will you speak to them?"
He came forward at once, very briskly, and looked over.
"What's the matter?" he called out.
"We've come to complain of the ship's bread, sir," said one of the men, quite civilly.
"Dam bad bread, sar. Me honest man and speak plain truff," exclaimed the cook, who possibly thought that his position privileged him to be both easy and candid on the subject of eating.
"Get away forward!" cried Duckling, passionately. "The bread's good enough. You want to kick up a shindy."
The men made a movement, the instinct of obedience responding mechanically to the command. But the cook held his ground, and said, shaking his head and convulsing his face—
"De bread am poison, sar. All de flour's changed into worms. Nebber see such a ting. It get here"—touching his throat—"and make me—yaw!"
"Go forward, I tell you, you yellow-faced villain!" shouted Duckling. "D'ye hear what I say?"
"Dis chile is a cook," began the fellow;but Duckling sprang off the poop, and with his clenched fist struck him full under the jaw: the poor devil staggered and whirled round, and then up went Duckling's foot, and cook was propelled at a great pace along the main-deck towards the galley. He stopped, put his hand to his jaw, and looked at the palm of it; rubbed the part that had been kicked, turned and held up his clenched fist, and went into the galley. The two other men disappeared in the forecastle.
"Curse their impudence!" exclaimed Duckling, remounting the poop-ladder and polishing his knuckles on the sleeve of his coat. "Now, Mr. Royle, get you down to your breakfast. I want to turn in when you've done."
I entered the cuddy, not very greatly edified by Duckling's way of emphasizing his orders, and made a bow to the captain,who was still at table. He condescended to raise his eyes, but for some minutes afterwards took no notice of me whatever, occupying himself with glancing over a bundle of slips which looked like bill-heads in his hand.
The vessel was rolling so heavily that the very plates slided to and fro the table, and it not only required dexterity, but was no mean labour to catch the coffee-pot off the swinging tray as it came like a pendulum over to my side, and to pour out a cup of coffee without capsizing it. The mahogany panelling and cabin doors all round creaked incessantly, and in the steward's pantry there was a frequent rattle of crockery.
"What was going forward on the main-deck just now?" demanded Coxon, stowing away the papers in his pocket, and breaking fragments from a breakfast roll.
I explained.
"Ah!" said he; "they're still at that game, are they?"
"Mr. Duckling punched the cook's head——"
"I saw him, sir. Likewise he kicked him. Mr. Duckling knows his duty, and I hope he has taught the cook his. Steward!"
"Yes, sir?" responded the steward, coming out of the pantry.
"See that a piece of the pork you are serving out to the men is put upon my table to-day."
"Yes, sir."
The captain fell into another fit of silence, during which I ate my breakfast as quickly as I could, in order to relieve Duckling.
"Mr. Royle," said he presently, "when we ran that smack down this morning, what were you for doing?"
"I should have hove the ship to," I replied, meeting his eyes.
"Would you have hove her to had you been alone on deck, sir?"
"Yes, and depended on your humanity to excuse me."
"What do you mean by my humanity?" he cried, dissembling his temper badly. "What kind of cant is this you have brought on board my ship? Humanity! Damn it!" he exclaimed, his ungovernable temper blazing out: "had you hove my ship to on your own hook, I'd have had you in irons for the rest of the voyage."
"I don't see the use of that threat, sir," said I, quietly. "You have to judge me by what I did do, not by what I might or would do."
"Oh, confound your distinctions!" he went on, pushing his hair over his ears. "You told me that you would have hovethe ship to had you been alone, and that means you would have whipped the masts out of her. Do you mean to tell me that you knew what sail we were carrying, to talk like this?"
"Perfectly well."
My composure irritated him more than my words, and I don't know what savage answer he was about to return; but his attention was on a sudden arrested and diverted from me. I turned my eyes in the direction in which he was staring, and beheld the whole ship's company advancing along the main-deck, led by the big seaman whose name was Johnson, and by the tortoise-backed, small-faced man who was called Fish—Ebenezer Fish.
The moment the captain observed them, he rose precipitately, and ran up the companion-ladder; and as I had finished breakfast, I followed him.
By the time I had reached the break of the poop the hands were all gathered about the mainmast. A few of them held tin dishes in their hands, in which were lumps of meat swimming in black vinegar. One carried some dozen biscuits supported against his breast. Another held a tin pannikin filled with treacle, and another grasped a salt-jar, or some such utensil, containing tea.
Thecoup d'œilfrom the poop was at this moment striking. All around was a heavy sea with great waves boiling along it; overhead a pale blue sky, along which the wildest clouds were sweeping. The vessel running before the wind under double-reefed topsails, rolled deeply both to port and to starboard, ever and anon shipping a sheet of green water over her bulwarks, which went rushing to and fro the decks, seething and hissing among the feet of the men, andescaping, with loud bubbling noises, through the scupper-holes.
I was almost as soon on deck as Coxon, and therefore heard the opening address of Johnson, who, folding his arms upon his breast, and "giving" on either leg, so as to maintain his equilibrium while the deck sloped to and fro under him, said in a loud, distinct voice—
"The ship's company thinks it a dooty as they owe theirselves to come aft altogether to let you know that the provisions sarved out to 'em ain't eatable."
"Out, all hands, with what you've got to say," replied Coxon, leaning against the rail, "and when you've done I'll talk to you."
"Now then, mates, you hear what the skipper says," exclaimed Johnson, turning to the others.
Just then I noticed the copper face of thecook, who was skulking behind the men, with his eyes fixed, flashing like a madman's, upon Duckling.
The fellow with the biscuits came forward, but a heavy lurch at that moment made him stumble, and the biscuits rolled out of his arms. They were collected officiously by the others, and placed again in his hands, all sopping wet; but he said, in a collected voice—
"These here are the starboard watch's bread. Ne'er a man has tasted of them. We've brought 'em for you to see, as so be it may happen that you aren't formiliar with the muck the steward sarves out."
"Hand up a dry one," said the skipper.
A man ran forward and returned with a biscuit, which the captain took, broke, smelt, and tasted. He then handed it to Duckling, who also smelt and tasted. After which he (the captain) said, "Fire away!"
The fellow with the biscuits withdrew, and one of the men, bearing the pork swimming in vinegar, advanced. He was a Dutchman, and was heard and understood with difficulty.
"My mates they shay tat tiss pork ish tam nashty, an' it isshn't pork ash I fanshy; but Gott knowsh what it iss; an' I shwear it gifs me ta shtomack-ache—by Gott, it doess, sir, ass I am a man."
This speech was received with great gravity by the men as well as Coxon, who answered, "Hand it up."
The mess was shoved through the rail and poked at by the skipper with a pen-knife; he even jobbed a piece of it out and put it into his mouth. I watched for a grimace, but he made none. He handed the tin dish as he had the biscuit to Duckling, who looked at it closely and put it on the deck.
"The next?" said the captain.
The Dutchman, looking as a man would who is conscious of having discharged a most important duty, hustled back among the others, and the man with the treacle came out.
"This, sir, is what the steward's givin' us for molasses," said he, looking into the pannikin.
The captain made no answer.
"And though his senses are agin him, he goes on a callin' of it molasses."
Another pause.
"But to my way of thinkin' it ain't no more molasses than it's oysters. It's biled black-beetles, that's what I call it, and you want a toothpick as strong as a marlin-spike to get the shells out o' your teeth arter a meal of it."
"Hand it up," said the captain, from whom every moment I was expecting anexplosion of temper. He did not offer to taste the stuff, but inspected it with apparent attention, and tilted the vessel first this way and then that, that the treacle might run.
"Here's your molasses," said he, handing down the pannikin. "What else is there?"
"We're willin' to call this tea," said a man, holding up an earthenware jar filled with a black liquor; "but it ain't tea like what they sells ashore, an' it ain't tea like what I've bin used to drink on board other wessels. It's tea," continued he, looking first into the jar and then at the skipper, "and yet it ain't. Maybe it was growed in England, for there isn't no flavour of Chaney about it. It's too faint for 'bacca-leaves, and it ain't sweet enough for liquorish. Fish here says it's the mustiness as makes it taste like senna."
Here followed a pause, during which the men gazed eagerly at the skipper. I noticed some angry and even sinister countenances among them; and the cook looked as evil as a fiend, with his hard yellow face and gleaming eyes staring upwards under his eyebrows. But so far there had been nothing in the men's speeches and behaviour to alarm the most timid captain; and I thought it would require but little tact and a few kindly concessions to make them, on the whole, a hard-working and tractable crew.
The captain having kept silence for some time, exchanged looks with Duckling, and called to know if the men had any more complaints to make. They talked among themselves, and Johnson answered "No."
"Very well, then," said he. "I can do nothing for you here. There are no bake-houses yonder," nodding at the sea, "to getfresh bread from. You must wait till we get to Valparaiso."
A regular growl came up from the men, and Johnson exclaimed—
"We can't live on nothing till we get to Valparaiso."
"What do you want me to do?" cried the skipper savagely.
"It's not for us to dictate," replied Johnson. "All that the crew wants is grub fit to eat."
"Put into Brest," exclaimed a voice. "It ain't fur off. There's good junk and biscuit to be got at Brest."
"Who dares to advise me as to what I'm to do?" shouted the skipper in his furious way. "By Heaven, I'll break every bone in the scoundrel's body if he opens his infernal mutinous mouth again. I tell you I can't change the provisions here, and I'm not going to alter the ship's course withthis wind astern, not if you were all starving in reality." But having said this he pulled up short, as if his temper were diverting him from the line of policy he had in his mind to follow; he lowered his voice and said, "I'll tell you what, my lads; you must make the provisions serve you for the present, and if I can make a fair wind of it, I'll haul round for some Spanish port: or if not there, I'll see what land is to be picked up."
"You hear what the captain says, don't you?" growled Duckling.
"It isn't us that minds waiting, it's our stomachs," said Fish, the small-faced man.
"Do you mean to tell me you can't get a meal out of the food in your hands?" demanded the captain, pointing amongst them.
"We'd rayther drink cold water than the tea," said one.
"And the water ain't over-drinkable, neither," exclaimed another.
"The cook shays te pork 'll gif us te cholera," said one of the Dutchmen.
"We wouldn't mind if the bread an' molasses was right," cried Fish. "But they aren't. Nothen's right. The werry weevils ain't ordinary; they're longer an' fatter nor common bread-worms."
"Hold your jaw!" bawled Duckling. "The captain has spoke you fairer than any skipper that ever I sailed under would have spoke. So now cut forward—do you hear?—and finish your breakfast. Cook, come out from behind the mainmast, you loafing nigger, and leave the main-deck, or I'll make you trot to show the others the road."
He pulled a brass-belaying pin out of the rail and flourished it. The captain walked aft to the wheel, leaving Duckling to finish off with the men. They moved away, talkingin low grumbling tones among themselves, manifestly dissatisfied with the result of their conference, and presently were all in the forecastle.
"I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Royle," said Duckling, turning impudently upon me; "you must wake up, if you please, and help me to keep those fellows in their place. No use in staring and listening. You must talk to 'em and curse 'em, damme! do you understand, Mr. Royle?"
"No, I don't understand," I replied. "I don't believe in cursing men. I've seen that sort of thing tried, but it never answered."
"Oh, I suppose you are one of those officers who call all hands to prayers before you reef down, are you?" he asked, with a coarse, sneering laugh. "I don't think Captain Coxon will appreciate your services much if that's your kind."
"I am sorry you should misunderstand me," I answered gravely. "I believe I can do my work and get others to do theirs without foul language and knocking men down."
"Thunder and lightning! what spooney skipper nursedyouat his breast? Could you knock a man down if you tried?"
I glanced at him with a smile, and saw him running his eyes over me as though measuring my strength. There was enough of me, perhaps, to make him require time for his calculations. Sinewy and vigorous as his ill-built frame was, I was quite a match for him—half a head taller, and weighed more, with heavier arms upon me and a deeper chest than he; and was eight and twenty, whilst he was nearly fifty.
"I think," said I, "that Icouldknock a man down if I tried. Perhaps two. Butthen I don't try, and must be badly provoked in order to try. The skipper who nursed me was not a New Orleans man, but an Englishman, and something better—an English gentleman. That means that no one on board his ship ever gave him occasion to use his fists."
He muttered something about my thinking myself a very fine sort of bird, no doubt, but I could not catch all that he said owing to the incessant thundering of the gale; he then left me and joined the captain, who advanced to meet him, and they both went below.
It was now pretty plain that I was unsuited for the taste and society of the two men with whom I was thrown. The captain saw I was not likely to help his paltry views, and that my sympathy was with the crew; and try as I might, I couldnotdisguise my real contempt for Duckling. They weregreat chums, and thoroughly relished each other's nature. They were both bullies, and, in addition, Duckling was a toady. Hence it was inevitable—but less from the subordinate position that I filled than from the dislike I had of these men's characters—that I should be an outsider, distrusted by the skipper as objecting to his dealings with the crew and capable of opposing them, and hated by Duckling for the contempt of him I could not disguise. Much as I regretted this result and had done what I could to avert it, now that it was thrust upon me, I resolved to meet it quietly. For the rest of that watch, therefore, I amused myself by shaping my plans, which simply amounted to a determination to do my duty as completely as I could, so as to deprive Coxon of all opportunity of making my berth more uncomfortable than it was; to hold my tongue, to take no notice of theskipper's doings, to steer as clear of Duckling as possible, and to quit the ship, if possible, at Valparaiso. How I kept these good resolutions you shall hear.