"If we hold this tack, will we clear the rocks, Mister Collins?"
"Yes, sir. If we hold this tack."
The two men stood tensely, trying to detect any notice of the brig's slipping in the great troughs, but she held firm. A minute passed, then two, then three, and finally Captain Janders shouted to all topside, "We'll run for the rocks. Stand ready to cut yourselves loose and tend the ropes."
Rarely did a group of men sailing a ship face a more clear-cut problem. If the winds held, and the keel maintained its cut into the waves, this long tack would throw the Thetis just outside the Four Evangelists, and the penetration would have been accomplished, for on the southward tack the little ship could sail all night it necessary, until the last turbulence was cleared.
"Now's the time to pray, Reverend Hale," Janders shouted above the wind, and Abner, lashed to the mainmast at both the armpits and waist, prayed only that the present relationship of ship and ocean and wind be maintained.
Then came Mister Collins' calm warning: "She's slipping, sir."
"I feel her slipping, Mister Collins," Captain Janders replied, his stem face hiding his fear.
"Shall we raise the topsail a little more into the wind?"
"Raise her all the way, Mister Collins." "She may carry away, sir, in this wind."
Captain Janders hesitated, studied the way in which his brig was losing purchase, and cried, "We've got to have that sail! If it holds, we'll make it. If it carries away, no matter. We were lost anyway." And he whipped around toward where his men were lashed, shouting directions that sent them hauling ropes which started the after topsail higher into the wind, where it could counteract the sideward set of the ocean. But as the men hauled, their lines caught in the top block, and the triangular topsail whipped dangerously in the wind, and the Thetis appeared doomed.
"You and you, clear the top block!” Janders shouted. And from the stormy deck, where they had been lashed to save themselves, Cridland and the old whaler cut themselves loose and grabbed for the ropes leading to the top of the mainmast.
They climbed like monkeys, four secure hands, four certain feet clinging to the ropes as the mast whipped back and forth in the freezing storm. Higher and higher they went, as their ship drifted toward the rocks. "May God protect them," Abner prayed, as they dangled far above his head.
The Thetis now entered a segment of the sea where the waves were of special violence, for they were rebounding from the Evangelists off to starboard, and as the little brig rolled from one beam end to the other, torn this way and that, the top of the mainmast, where the two sailors worked, slashed swiftly in great arcs of more than a hundred degrees. At the extremity of each swing the tall mast whipped sharply, whistling in the wind, as if determined to dislodge the men that annoyed its ropes. On one such desperate passage Cridland lost his cap, and in grabbing for it with his right hand, he seemed, as viewed from below, to have been swept away, and Abner screamed, "God save his soul!" But it was only his hat that was gone.
"Try the ropes again!" Captain Janders shouted. "They don't pull clear yet," the second mate yelled above the storm.
"Are we drifting toward the rocks, Mister Collins?" "We are, sir."
"Shall we send more men aloft?" "Nothing any more can do," Collins replied. So the two mariners stared ahead in the late afternoon storm, feeling the ship, praying. "Try the ropes again!" Janders cried, but again they failed to respond. Clasping his hands behind him, Janders took several deep breaths and said with resignation, "We've about eight more minutes, Mister Collins. This was a sane try."
At this point Abner forgot the navigators near him and focused only on the two sailors, who continued to fly through great sickening arcs of heaven. Freezing rain and howling winds were upon them; the violence of the pitching ship seemed concentrated at the point where they labored; and Abner recalled the plea of the old whaler: "I would not like to round Cape Horn without a Bible." And he began to pray for the salvation of these two brave men on whom the safety of the brig now rested. And as they flashed through the gray sky, riding high in the heart of the storm, his agonized prayers went with them.
"Try the ropes again!" Janders called at the expiry of two of his vital eight minutes, and this time the sailors shouted madly, and the ropes moved, and the after mainsail crept slowly up the swaying mast, and wind was mysteriously trapped in its triangular expanse, and the sliding shoreward stopped.
"I feel her steady on course," Janders shouted.
"She is steady on," Collins repeated.
"Will she clear the Evangels?" Janders checked.
"She will clear them," Collins replied dully, hiding the exultation his heart felt.
And as the last fearful moments passed, the little brig Thetis maintained her northward tack into the storm, until at last she neared the perilous rocks, and all on deck saw that she would pass them by a margin of dreadful precision.
"The Lord God of Hosts is with us!" Abner shouted in unministerial joy.
But Captain Janders did not hear, for he kept his eyes fixed ahead, refusing to look at the Evangelists. He was seeking the ocean area where it would be safe for him to swing the Thetis onto her new and final tack. Minutes passed, then a quarter of an hour, then a half hour, and still he kept his eyes monotonously fixed on the great, heaving ocean, until finally, in swift alteration, he heeled the brig over, and cut her back on a southward tack that would carry her through the last mountainous waves and down the final vile troughs. Then he shouted, "Bring the men down." And Cridland and the old whaler came down from their dizzy perch and found footing on the deck. "May God be praised," Abner mumbled.
Yet at this exact moment, when he was entitled to share in the ship's jubilation, Abner was grave, as if in a trance, thinking: "Two days ago when a comforting wind was at our back, we were unable to accomplish anything. But today, with the gale right in our faces, we were able to fight it." He studied the little brig to discover the secret whereby a New England ship could cut directly into the heart of a storm, combating the elements each inch of the way, and although he did not understand the technique Captain Janders had utilized, he understood the man, and all men, and himself. "How strange," he reflected in the howling wind, "that when the storm is in your face, you can fight it."
Later, when Captain Janders unleashed Abner, the mariner said, in a kind of daze, "I would not want to be the captain of whom it was said in Boston, 'He tried to round the Horn, but ran instead for Good Hope.' "
"No one will say that of you, Captain," Abner said proudly. The hatches were broken open and Mister Collins shouted the good news to the missionaries: "We are safe!”
All below who could stand piled on deck, and in the cold wind Captain Janders said, "Reverend Hale, through God's grace we broke through. Will you pray?" But for the only time on the voyage, Abner was numbed into silence. His eyes were filled with tears and he could think only of Cridland and the whaler, whipping through distant space, working to save the ship, and of Captain Janders fighting the storm, so John Whipple read from the sweet thundering passages in the Psalms that sailors love:
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
"Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
"Though the water thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. . . .
"The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. ... "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
"These see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. "For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
"They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
"They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.
"Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
"Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven.
"Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness."
It was then noticed that Captain Janders had disappeared during the reading, and he now climbed from the hatchway with an armful of books. "Yesterday I promised Reverend Hale that if his prayers could get us through this barrier, I would forsake my books for his. Richardson . . . Steme . . . Smollett. . . Walpole." One by one he tossed them into the Pacific, already beginning to merit its name. Then he added, "From December 21 to January 31 we were forty-two days in these straits. I have never known such a passage, but we have made it safely. God be praised."
Abner's triumph was tempered by defeat, for as the missionaries were watching the worldly books disappear, they were attracted by the sight of Jerusha Hale climbing on deck followed by Keoki, who lugged the remnants of the bananas. Walking unsteadily past her husband, she found the railing of the ship and threw the bananas, one by one, far out to sea. That night she told her husband, in a berth already quieter, "You bullied me, Abner . . . No, I shall use your name from now, for to me you are Abner. You bullied me through your sin of overzealousness. Never in our life again will I submit to your bullying, Abner, for I am as good a judge of God's will as you, and God never intended a sick woman to eat so hatefully." When Abner showed his surprise at this ultimatum she softened it by adding the truth: "While you were away talking with the men tonight, Captain Janders said that at the worst part of the passage, he felt comforted that a man of your courage was with him. What is more important, Abner, is that I am comforted that a man of your courage and piety is with me." And she kissed him.
Before she could kiss him again, Keoki came to the cabin, saying, "Reverend Hale, the old whaler needs you. In the fo'c's'l."
"Is he drunk again?" Abner asked suspiciously.
"He needs you," the Hawaiian repeated, and he led Abner to where the rugged old man lay in his filthy bunk, mumbling.
"What is it?" Abner asked quietly.
"Can I have my Bible back, now?" the whaler asked.
"No. The church gave you a Bible once, and you defiled it. You brought scorn and ridicule on us all."
"Reverend Hale, you saw me in the ropes today. You know how I feared going aloft at Cape Horn . . . without a Bible, that is."
"No, the Lord is harsh with backsliders," Abner said sternly.
At this point Cridland, who had shared the perils with the old man, suggested, "Reverend Hale, suppose you didn't have to give him the Bible. Suppose I gave him mine. Would you then . . ."
"Give you another! Never! Cridland, the Lord has said, 'The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways.' It is these men, more than sinners, who damage the church."
"But, Reverend Hale, in the storm it was this man who saved us all. I tried to break the sail loose, but I couldn't. He did it all."
"It's true, Reverend," the old whaler confessed. "I saved the ship, and I want my Bible back."
"No," Abner said. "While you were aloft, I prayed for you. And I pray for you now. If you saved this ship, we all thank you gratefully. But run the risk of having the entire ship laugh at the church again? No. That I cannot do." And he stalked aft.
It was not until Saturday night that Abner noticed Jerusha without her Bible. He was conducting prayers and saw that his wife was reading from Sister Whipple's, so when they had returned to their quarters he asked quietly, "Where is your Bible, my dear wife?"
She replied, "I gave it to the old whaler."
"To the old ... How did you hear of him?"
"Keoki came to me, weeping for the evil old man."
"And you sided with Keoki against your own husband . . . against the church?"
"No, Abner. I simply gave a brave old man a Bible."
"But, Mrs. Hale . . ."
"My name is Jerusha."
"But we discussed this in the cabin. How backsliders are the ones who do the church greatest damage."
"I didn't give my Bible to a backslider, Abner. I gave it to a man who was afraid. And if the Bible cannot dispel fear, then it is not the book we have been led to believe."
"But the position of the mission? The foundation of our church?"
"Abner," she said persuasively, "I'm sure that this old man will backslide again, and he may do us damage. But on Thursday night, when he climbed down from that mast, he was close to God. He saved my life, and yours. And the idea of God has no meaning for me unless at such times He is willing to meet even an evil old man with love."
"What do you mean, the idea of God?"
"Abner, do you think that God is a man who hides up there in the clouds?"
"I think that God hears every word you are saying, and I think He must be as perplexed as I am." But before he could continue his charges, Jerusha, with her liquid brown curls dancing beside her ears, kissed him once more, and they fell into their narrow bunk.
It was long after midnight when Abner Hale, troubled as never before, left his bunk and went on deck, where a few bright stars were strong enough to dominate the dim, gray Antarctic night. He was troubled, first because Jerusha had given the old man her Bible, against his orders as it were, but more because of his deep and growing appetite for his wife's consoling body. Three times on this trip major arguments with Jerusha had ended by her laughingly drawing him into the narrow bunk, across whose opening she lowered the curtains, and each time during the next dazzling half hour he had forgot God and the problems of God. All he knew was that Jerusha Bromley Hale was more exciting than the storm, more peaceful than the ocean at rest.
He was convinced that such surrender on his part must be evil. He had often listened, in the cramped stateroom, to John and Amanda Whipple whiling away the hours, and he had marked their sudden cessation of whispering, followed by strange noises and Amanda's curious, uncontrollable cries, and he had judged that this was what the church meant when it spoke of "sanctified joy." He had intended discussing this with Jerusha, but he had been ashamed to do so, for now and again his own great surges of "sanctified joy" had left him morally stunned. Anything so mysterious and powerful must be evil, and surely the Bible spoke frequently of women who tempted men, with disastrous results. So on the one hand, Abner's imperfect knowledge of life inclined him to think that as a minister he would be far better off with Jerusha not so close to him. She was too intoxicating, too instinct with "sanctified joy."
But as soon as he reached this confused yet understandable conclusion, he was faced with the undeniable fact, clear to even a fool, that for a minister to live without a wife was nothing but popery, and if there was one thing he wished with all his heart to avoid it was popish ways. "The great men of the Old Testament had wives," he reasoned, "and it is not until you reach St. Paul that you get such admonitions as, 'I say therefore to the unmarried . . . , It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.' What does such a passage signify?" he asked himself throughout the strange half-night.
He walked back and forth for several hours, and the night watch joked, "He really has to do the missionary waltz!" but being of simpler minds, and particularly of minds that had long ago settled this difficult problem of man and woman--"The reason Honolulu's the best port on earth is that in Honolulu the women climb aboard the ship already undressed and ready to work"--they would have been unable to comprehend his real perplexities.
"Do I love Jerusha too profoundly?" he asked the gray night. But whenever he came near concluding that he ought to love her less, he would think of her overwhelming loveliness and he would cry, "No! That is the Romish way!" and he would return to his dead center of confusion. Thus in the night hours he wrestled with his sweet, perplexing temptation.
Sunday rose brisk and clear, and for the first time on the voyage, the entire missionary family was able to attend topside service in the cold
, bracing air which swept up from the Antarctic. Since it was to be an occasion of special celebration, the four wives in Abner's stateroom asked their husbands to move elsewhere while they helped one another dress.
For this thanksgiving day Jerusha modestly changed from the two-piece red flannel underwear she had been wearing for some weeks into a fresh set, over which she laced a stout corset held in position by a two-inch-wide busk of polished birch. Long hand-knitted black stockings were pinned to the bottom edge of the corset, and a corset cover, starched long ago in Walpole, was fitted into place, after which pantaloons, also starched, were drawn up. Thus properly founded, Jerusha now climbed into a woolen underpetticoat, a starched linen petticoat and finally a cambric petticoat, all lashed securely at the waist. A small bustle was added, over which a hooped broadcloth dress was hung, its alternate patterns of black and purple providing a properly subdued color.
Next Jerusha adjusted a Paisley shawl about her shoulders, fitted a saucy poke bonnet about her pale face, slipped a knitted bag over her arm, tucked a handkerchief into one cuff of her dress, jammed her fingers first into silk mittens and then into woolen ones, and stood while Amanda Whipple held her coat for her. She was then ready for morning service, and after she had helped the other women into their coats, the four missionary wives climbed the hatchway ladder and appeared on deck.
Now CAME THE DAYS of gold, the memorable days when the Thetis rolled gently in the sun, all canvas set, and dolphins chased flying fish that shone in iridescence as they leaped. The little brig was away on an unbroken leg of more than seven thousand miles from Cape Horn to Hawaii, and slowly the ugly cold of the south gave way to the increasing warmth of the north. The new stars of Tierra del Fuego began to disappear and the old familiar constellations of New England crept back into place. But most of all, the mission family became fused into a single organized and dedicated group. Some, who forgot how sick they had been and how Abner alone had kept the family functioning, protested at his assumption of leadership, and one sharp-tongued wife was heard to say, "You'd think he was the Lord's anointed," but her husband quieted her by remembering, "Someone had to make decisions . . . even in a family."
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