“Ah!” ejaculated Lance, contemplatively. “I have no doubt but that—if the truth could be arrived at, which of course it never can be in this world—this dream, or whatever you like to call it, is the faint recollection which still remains impressed on your memory of some of the incidents connected with the wreck of your ship—what was her name, by the by? The Lightning, of London! Um; that’s not a very difficult name to remember, at all events. And the beautiful face of which you spoke—is your impression of it clear enough to enable you to describe it? Or, supposing it possible for you to see a picture of the original, do you think you would recognise it?—Do you mind my asking these questions? No; that’s all right; but if it is in the least painful to you, I will not put them. You see, Legerton, I have very little doubt that face was the face of your mother; and I confess I feel a trifle curious to know how far back a man can carry his remembrance of his mother. I cannot remember anything about mine previous to my fourth birthday.”
“Well,” answered Bob, “I can scarcely remember the face clearly enough to describe it. All I can say about it is that it was very beautiful, with tender loving eyes and dark hair, which I am almost sure must have been worn in curls; but I think that if ever I saw a really good picture of it I should recognise it directly.”
“You would, eh?” said Lance. “Very well, now go ahead—if you are not tired of talking—and tell me about the old fellow who found you, and the sort of life you led as a fisherman, and so on; it is all very interesting, I assure you; quite as much so as any of the novels in the saloon book-case.”
Bob accordingly went ahead, his companion occasionally interrupting him with a question; and when the story was finished Lance rose and stretched himself, saying as he turned to walk away—
“Thank you very much. Your story is so interesting that I think I shall make a few notes of it for the benefit of a literary friend of mine; so if you meet with it in print some day you must not be very much surprised.”
And as Bob saw him shortly afterwards, note-book in hand; and as this story actually is in print, it is to be presumed that Mr Lance Evelin really carried out his expressed intention.
On the day following this conversation the wind, which had been blowing steadily from the westward for some time, suddenly dropped; and by four bells in the afternoon watch it had fallen to a dead calm; the ship rolling like a log on the heavy swell. Not the faintest trace of cloud could be discerned in the stupendous vault which sprang in delicate carnation and primrose tints from the encircling horizon, passing through a multitude of subtle gradations of colour until it became at the zenith a broad expanse of clearest purest deepest blue. The atmosphere was transparent to an almost extraordinary degree, the slow-moving masses of swell rising sharply outlined to the very verge of the horizon, while the mast-heads of a far-distant ship stood out clear and well-defined, like two minute and delicately drawn thin lines on the pale primrose background of the sky.
Suddenly, however, a curious phenomenon occurred. A subtle but distinct and instantaneous change of colour took place, which made it seem as though the spectators were regarding the scene through tinted glass. All the brilliance and purity and beauty of the various hues had died out. The dazzling ultramarine of the zenith became indigo; the clear transparent hues of the horizon thickened and deepened to a leaden-grey; the sun gleamed aloft pallid and rayless, like a ghost of its former self; and the ocean, black and turbid, heaved restlessly, writhing as if in torture. An intense and unnatural silence, too, seemed suddenly to have fallen upon nature, enwrapping the scene as with a mantle, a silence in which the flap of the canvas, the pattering of the reef-points, the cheep of blocks, and the occasional clank of the rudder-chains, fell upon the ear with a sharpness which was positively painful.
The occupants of the Galatea’s deck glanced from one to another, dismayed; Violet Dudley’s startled whisper to Rex Fortescue of “What dreadful thing is about to happen?” being but the utterance of the thought which flashed through every brain.
Captain Staunton, turning to Mr Bowles, who was standing beside him, in low tones requested that trusty officer to keep a look-out for a minute or two; and then hurried down to the saloon to consult his barometer. He returned to the deck in less than a minute, his face wearing a look of anxiety and concern which was very rarely to be seen there.
“The glass has fallen a full inch within the last half-hour” he muttered, as he rejoined the mate.
Then in a louder tone of voice he added, “Call all hands, Mr Bowles, if you please, and shorten sail at once. Stow everything except the lower fore and main topsails and the fore-topmast stay-sail; I think we are going to have a change of weather.”
The seamen were as much startled as the occupants of the poop, by the preternatural change in the aspect of the sky; and they sprang to their posts with all the alacrity of men who anticipate a deadly struggle, and believe they may have none too much time for preparation. The work of shortening sail proceeded rapidly but methodically and in an orderly manner—Captain Staunton had never before in all his experience witnessed anything quite like what was now passing around him, and was oppressed by an undefined foreboding of some terrible catastrophe; but he was too brave a man and too thorough a seaman to allow aught of this to appear in either countenance, voice, or manner; nor would he allow the work to be hurried through with inconsiderate haste; he saw that the men were startled; and it rested with him to steady them, restore their confidence, and so prepare them for the coming struggle, whatever its nature might be.
Meanwhile, the atmospheric phenomena were momentarily assuming a more and more portentous aspect. The sky deepened in tint from indigo to a purple black; the sun lost its pallid sickly gleam and hung in the sable heavens a lurid blood-red ball until it became obscured by heavy masses of dusky vapour which had gathered imperceptibly in the firmament, and now seemed to be settling slowly down upon the ship’s mast-heads, rolling and writhing like huge tortured serpents, meanwhile. The silence—broken though it was by the sounds of preparation on board—grew even more oppressively intense and death-like than before; and darkness now came to add new terrors to the scene; not the wholesome solemn darkness of nightfall, but a weird unearthly gloom which was neither night nor day, a gloom which descended and encompassed them stealthily and menacingly, contracting the horizon until nothing could be seen further than half a mile from the ship, and which still seemed to be saturated with a pale spectral shimmering light, in the which men looked in each other’s eyes like reanimated corpses. The ocean presented an aspect no less appalling; at one moment black as the waters of the Styx, and indistinguishable beyond the distance of a cable’s length, and anon gleaming into view to the very verge of the horizon, a palpitating sheet of greenish ghastly phosphorescent light.
The canvas was stowed, down to the lower fore and main topsail and the fore-topmast stay-sail, and the men were about to hurry down from aloft when Captain Staunton stopped them.
“Clew up and stow the lower topsails as well,” he shouted; adding in an undertone to Mr Bowles, “I don’t know what to expect; but it threatens to be something terrible; and the less canvas we show to it the better. The stay-sail will be quite as much as we shall want, I expect.”
The topsails were stowed, and the men came down on deck again, evidently glad to find themselves there once more, and huddling together on the forecastle like frightened sheep.
The passengers were clustered together on the poop, standing in a group somewhat apart from the skipper and the mate, awaiting pale and silent the dénouement. Bob, who had been aloft helping to stow the mizen canvas, stepped up to them as he swung himself out of the rigging, and, addressing himself more particularly to Violet and Blanche, recommended them to go below at once.
“These warnings,” said he, “are not for nothing. The precautions which Captain Staunton has taken show clearly enough that he expects something quite out of the common; and the change is likely enough to come upon us suddenly, bringing perh
aps some of our top-hamper about our ears; so, if you ladies will be advised, I would recommend you to go below where you will certainly be in much less danger.”
Blanche and Violet looked at each other inquiringly. “I shall remain here,” said Violet, unconsciously tightening her hold upon Rex Fortescue’s arm as she spoke. “Whatever happens, I would very much rather be here, where I can see the full extent of the danger, than pent up in a cabin picturing to myself I know not what horrors.”
Blanche expressed the same determination; but Mr Dale hurried at once to the companion, loudly lamenting that he had ever intrusted his precious self to the ‘beastly treacherous sea!’
His remarks attracted Captain Staunton’s attention to the party; and he at once stepped hurriedly toward them exclaiming, “Good heavens, ladies and gentlemen! let me beg you to go below at once; I had no idea you were here. The saloon is the safest place for you all at a time like this; you will be out of harm’s way there, while here—”
“Look out!” shouted Mr Bowles. “Here it comes with a vengeance. Take care of yourselves, everybody.”
The gloom had visibly deepened, until it became difficult for those grouped together on the poop to distinguish each other’s features, and a low deep humming sound was now audible, which increased in volume with startling rapidity.
“Go below all of you, I beg,” repeated Captain Staunton in anxious tones, “and be as quick as you can about it, please. What is the matter, Mr Dale?” as that individual stood a few steps down the staircase, grasping the handrail on each side, neither descending himself nor allowing anyone else to do so.
“My book,” exclaimed Dale; “I left a book on one of the hen-coops, and—”
His further remarks were drowned in the deafening din of the tempest, which at this moment swooped down upon the ship with indescribable fury, striking her full upon her starboard broadside, and hurling her over in an instant on her beam-ends. The group gathered about the companion-way made an instinctive effort to save themselves, Rex Fortescue flinging his arm about Violet Dudley’s waist and dragging her with him to the mizen-mast, where he hung on desperately to a belaying-pin. Brook nimbly scrambled upon the upturned weather side of the companion. Evelin, exasperated by Mr Dale’s ill-timed anxiety about his book, had stepped inside the companion-way and down a stair or two to summarily remove the obstructor, and the two were flung together to the bottom of the staircase. Blanche, left thus without a protector, clung convulsively for a moment to one of the open doors of the companion; but her strength failing her, she let go and fell backwards with a shriek into the water which foamed hungrily up over the lee rail.
Bob, who had made a spring for the weather mizen rigging, was just passing a turn or two of a rope round his body when, happening to turn his head, he saw Blanche fall. To cast himself adrift and spring headlong after her was the work of an instant, and he succeeded in grasping her dress just in the nick of time, for in another instant the ship would have driven over her, and Blanche’s fate would have been sealed. As it was, they both had a very narrow escape, for Bob in his haste had omitted to take a rope’s-end with him, and had consequently no means of returning inboard, or rather, for the lee side of the deck was buried in the water, of regaining a place of safety. In this emergency Brook, who was a witness of the scene, acted in a very prompt and creditable manner. The rope, by which Bob had been in the act of securing himself, streamed out in the wind in such a way as to come within Brook’s reach, and by its aid he at once drew himself up to windward, and, climbing out on to the weather side of the ship, dexterously dropped from thence a coiled-up rope’s-end, which he had taken off a belaying-pin, directly down upon Bob’s head. Bob at once grasped the rope with his disengaged hand, and with a rapid twist threw two or three turns round his arm, whereupon Brook, exerting all his strength, drew his prizes steadily up the steeply inclined deck until they were able to scramble into the place he had vacated upon the companion.
CHAPTER SIX
Dismasted
As the hurricane swooped down upon the ship, Captain Staunton and Mr Bowles sprang with one accord aft to the helm. It was well that they did so; for when the vessel was thrown upon her beam-ends the wheel flew suddenly and violently round, taking unawares the unfortunate man who was stationed at it and hurling him far over the lee quarter into the sea, where he immediately sank, being probably disabled by a blow from the rapidly revolving spokes. The two officers saw in a moment that the poor fellow was irretrievably lost, so without wasting time in useless efforts to save him they devoted themselves forthwith to the task of preserving the ship. The wheel was put hard up, with the object of getting the craft before the wind; and then the two men stood anxiously watching and awaiting the result. Two or three minutes passed, and there still lay the ship prone on her side, with her lee topsail and lower yard-arms dipping in the water, she would not pay off.
“Bowles,” said Captain Staunton, lashing the wheel as he spoke, “make your way forward; muster the carpenter and one or two of the most reliable men you have, and bring them aft with axes to cut away the mizen-mast; we must get her before it somehow; should it come any stronger she will ‘turn the turtle’ with us. Station your men; but do not cut until I hold up my hand.”
Mr Bowles nodded his head; and then set out upon his difficult journey, climbing up to windward by the grating upon which the helmsman usually stood, and then working his way along the deck by grasping the bulwarks, which on the poop were only about a foot above the deck. On reaching the wake of the mizen-mast he was compelled to pause in order to help Rex Fortescue and Violet out of their dangerous position, a position of course altogether untenable now that the order had been given to cut away the mast. This, with Brook’s assistance, he with some difficulty accomplished, landing them safely alongside Blanche and Bob upon the companion. The slight delay thus incurred threatened to have the most disastrous consequences; for when the chief mate was once more free to proceed upon his errand he became aware that the ship’s inclination had sensibly increased, to such an extent indeed that he momentarily expected to feel her rolling bottom-up. Glancing aft once more, he caught the eye of Captain Staunton, who immediately raised his hand. This the mate took to mean an order to cut away the mast with all possible expedition; and whipping out his keen broad-bladed knife he thrust it into Brook’s hand, and tapping the lanyards of the mizen rigging roared in his ear the one word “Cut.”
Then without pausing another instant he proceeded as rapidly as he could forward, much impeded by the continuous blinding shower of spindrift which swept across the vessel, and compelled to cling with all his strength to whatever he laid hold of in his progress, in order to escape being literally blown away.
Meanwhile Brook, who now showed that he was made of far better stuff than anyone had hitherto suspected, began without a moment’s delay to vigorously attack the rigid and tightly strained lanyards of the weather mizen rigging, being speedily joined by Bob, who turned Blanche over to Rex Fortescue’s care the moment he saw that he could be of use. Steadily and rapidly they hacked and notched away at the hard rope, working literally for their lives, for it was now no longer possible to doubt that the Galatea was slowly but surely capsizing. The upturned side which supported them was becoming every moment more nearly horizontal, the lee yard-arms were steadily burying themselves deeper and deeper in the water, and it became apparent that unless relieved, another minute would see the ship bottom-up. Mr Bowles, meanwhile, was out of sight forward, hidden by the gloom and the cloud of spindrift.
At last one of the lanyards was severed by the keen blade in Brook’s hand. The others attached to the same shroud immediately began to render through the deadeye, throwing an extra strain upon the lanyards of the other shrouds, one of which immediately parted under Bob’s knife; then twang, twang, twang, one after the other, they rapidly yielded, until, as the last lanyard parted, crash went the mizen-mast short off by the deck and away to leeward, carrying away the saloon skylight as it
went.
A perceptible shock was felt as the mast went over the side, and every one watched anxiously to see what the effect would be. The disappointment was extreme when it was seen that the relief was not sufficient to enable the ship to recover herself; she still lay down upon her side, and though she now no longer threatened momentarily to capsize, she neither righted nor paid off.
The chief mate now reappeared upon the poop, having by this time mustered a gang of men, whom he had left clinging to the main-rigging, thinking it not unlikely the main-mast would also have to go.
By the time he reached Captain Staunton’s side the mind of the latter was made up.
“It is no good, Bowles,” he said; “she will do nothing; we must part with the main-mast also. Cut it away at once, and let us get her upon an even keel again if we can.”
Mr Bowles hurried forward, and as soon as he became visible to the men clustered about the main-rigging he made a sign to them to cut. The axes gleamed in the darkened air, a few rapid strokes were struck upon the lanyards of the rigging, and the main-mast bowed, crashed off at about ten feet from the deck, and was carried by the wind clear of the lee rail into the sea.
The Pirate Story Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Tales Page 297