"Belay the fore down-haul!" the mate thundered, and leaving his tale untold, the old man went crawling forward.
The men heard faintly the orders to the helmsman, "Hard a-weather!—Right your helm!—Now port, port hard! More hands! He cannot put up the helm!"
Then out of the turmoil and confusion a great voice cried, "A sail! A sail!"
"Where?"
"Fair by us."
"How stands she?"
"To the north'ard."
She lay close hauled by the wind and as the Rose of Devon, scudding before the sea, bore down the wind and upon her, she hove out signs to speak; but though Captain Candle passed under her lee as near as he dared venture and learned by lusty shouting that she was an English ship from the East Indies, which begged the Rose of Devon for God's sake to spare them some provisions, since they were eighty persons on board who were ready to perish for food and water, the seas ran so high that neither the one vessel nor the other dared hoist out a boat; and parting, the men of the Rose of Devon lost sight of her in the gathering dusk.
Still more and more the storm increased. Darkness came, but there was no rest at sea that night.
Thanks to the storm, and the labour and anxiety it brought all hands, Martin, the latter part of that day, escaped the duties of ship's liar, and glad was he of the chance to slip unobserved about the deck with no reminder of his late humiliation. But by night he was blue with the cold, and drenching wet and so hungry that he gnawed at a bit of biscuit when he needed both hands to haul on a rope.
Finding Phil Marsham at his shoulder and still resenting bitterly the jest to which he had fallen victim, he shot at him an ill-tempered glance and in sullen silence turned his back.
"Belay!"
A line of struggling men tripped and stumbled as they secured the rope and went swaying and staggering across the deck when the ship rolled; for the weight of her towering superstructure and her cannon would set her wallowing fearfully in the merest seaway. One caught up the rope's end in loose coils; another, having fallen, got clumsily on his feet and staunched his bleeding nose; the rest shivered as the icy wind struck through their wet shirts.
Martin again turned his back on the boatswain and hugged himself, but to little profit, although his fat arms covered a goodly area. Phil laughed softly at Martin's show of spleen and was about to warm the man's temper further by a thrust well calculated to stir him to fury, when the ship rose with a queer lurch and descended into a veritable gulf.
They saw above them a sea looming like a black cloud. It mounted slowly up, hung over them, curled down a dark tongue of water and, before the Rose of Devon had righted from her plunge into the trough, broke upon the ship and overwhelmed her. The waist was flooded from the head of the forecastle to the break of the poop. Water, licking across the quarter-deck, rose in a great wave that drenched the captain to his thighs and poured into the steerage room, momentarily blinding the men at the helm,—for in those old ships they stood with their faces on a level with the quarter-deck,—and, following whipstaff and tiller, spilled into the main deck and hold.
Philip Marsham, as the water washed him off his feet, made shift to lay hands on the shrouds, and though he had no footing and was washed far out over the side, his grasp was strong and he held himself against the rush of water as the ship rose like a dog shaking its head and coming up through a wave. In very truth she seemed to shake her head and struggle up to the black night above. But as Phil saved himself he saw Martin cowering by a gun and striving to reach the breeching; and as the ship rose, the lad half felt, half saw, some great body washed past him and over the side.
There was no one beside the gun: Martin was gone.
Though a man were a knave and liar, Phil Marsham had no stomach to see him drown thus; and though he held old Martin in contempt and bedevilled him night and day, yet he had a curious liking for the fellow. Overhead there hung from the maintop a loose rope. He faintly saw it swinging against the leaden-black sky. By a nimble leap there was a fair chance a man might reach it and if it did not part, an active man might by a stroke of fortune regain the ship. All this Phil saw in the falling of a single grain of sand, then the rope swung within reach of his hand and he seized it. Spared the hazard of leaping for it, he let go the shrouds and swung with all his strength out into the night.
Swinging high over the sea he saw for an instant, while he was in mid-air, the Rose of Devon surging away from under him. The single great lanthorn was burning on her poop, and dim lights in forecastle and cabin showed that those parts of the ship, at least, had come up through the sea unflooded. He thought he saw a cloaked figure like a shadow on the quarter-deck. Then he slid down into darkness till the rope burned his hands, then he struck the water and went under, gasping at the shock, for the sea was as cold as a mountain stream. He caught a last glimpse of the great ship, now looming high above him, then clutching fast the rope with one hand and wildly kicking out, he felt with his knees what might be a man's body.
With his free hand he reached for the body. He snatched at an arm and missed it, then felt hair brushing his fingers and tangled them in it and gripped it. He went down and down; then the drag of the water, for the ship was scudding fast, raised him to the surface. The ship rolled toward him and he again went under, overshadowed by the lofty poop which leaned out so far that notwithstanding the tumble home he thought the poop would come down and crush him. The ship then rolled away from him, and the rope brought up on his arm so hard that he feared the bones would pull from their sockets; but if he died in doing it he was bound he would hold the rope and keep his man.
The ship rolled till he bumped against her side and was lifted half out of water.
"Help!" he cried. "Help or we die!"
He heard voices above and felt the rope move as if some one had seized it, then the looming bulk of the ship rolled back and drove him again down into the sea.
He had no wind left for calling when he came up as once more the ship rolled, but the man he held had come to life and was clinging like a leech to the rope, which vastly lightened the strain, and some one above was hauling on it. For a moment the two swung in air with the sea beneath them, then the ship rolled farther and their weight rested on planks, and hands from within the ship reached down and lifted them on board.
The man—and it was indeed Martin—coughed like one who is deathly sick, as well he might be, and went rolling down the deck with a boy to help him. But Phil, having kept his head and having swallowed no great quantity of salt water, was able after breathing deeply a few times to stand alone beside Will Canty whose hands had drawn him to safety, and to perceive that waist, boat, capstan, windlass and sheet anchor were washed away.
He then heard a pounding and shouting aft. "What in the fiend's name hath befallen us?" he demanded.
"'Tis even worse than doth appear," Will cried. "The sea hath a free passage into the hold between the timber heads. They are pumping with both pumps. The captain hath ordered the mizzenmast cut away, the better to keep us before the wind. Hear you not the sound of axes? And—"
Out of the darkness burst the mate. "Come, my hearts! Below there! Cram blankets and hammocks into the leak, yea, the shirts from off your backs! And then to the pumps to take your turn. And pray Almighty God to give us sight of another day."
There was running on the deck and shadows passed forward and aft.
From the quarter-deck a clear voice, so sharp that it pierced the noise of the storm, was calling, "Port the helm! Ease her, ease her! Now up! Hard up! Ease her, ease her!"
As the boatswain dropped through the hatch, he saw very dimly the captain crouching under the poop, his cloak drawn close about him.
There was wild confusion below, for as the ship rolled to starboard the sea burst in through the great gap along the timber heads and pushed through the gap and into the ship the blankets and rugs that were stuffed in place. Though the men leaped after them and came scrambling back to force them again into place between the t
imbers, and though they tore down hammocks and jammed them in with the blankets to fill the great opening, yet as the ship again rolled and the sea once more came surging against the barrier, they again fled before it, and again the sea cleared the gap and came flooding in upon the deck. It was a sight to fill a brave man with despair.
The more hands made faster work, and though the labour seemed spent in vain they stuffed the gap anew. But now when the ship again rolled to starboard an old seaman raised his hand and roared, "Every man to his place and hold against the sea! Stay! Hold fast your ground!—Come, bullies, hold hard!—Good fellows! See, we have won!"
They had perceived his meaning and braced themselves and with their hands they had held the stuffing in the gap until the pressure ceased, which was more of a feat than a man might think, since despite their every effort the sea had found passage in great strong streams, yet they held to the last; and when the ship rolled back, Boatswain Marsham cried out:—
"Now, Master Carpenter, quick! Bring great nails and hammer and a plank or two. Yare, yare!"
"Yea, yea," the carpenter cried, and came running down the deck.
The men held the planking and the carpenter drove home the nails and thus they made the plank fast along the timbers behind the gap, where it would serve to brace the stuffing. Between the plank and the stuffing they forced a great mass of other wadding, and though the ship rolled ever so deeply the plank held against the sea. They left it so; but all that night, which seemed as long as any night they had ever seen, no man slept in the Rose of Devon, for they still feared lest the sea should batter away the plank and work their undoing.
All night long they kept the pumps going and all night long they feared their labour would be lost. But at four in the morning one of the pumps sucked, which gave them vast comfort, and at daybreak they gave thanks to God, who had kept them safe until dawn.
The storm had passed and the sky was clear, and Phil and Martin met at sunrise.
"Since thou hast haled me out of the sea by the hair of my head," quoth Martin, after the manner of one who swallows a grievance he can ill stomach, "I must e'en give thee good morrow."
CHAPTER IX
THE MASTER'S GUEST
"A sail! A sail!"
The seas had somewhat abated and the Rose of Devon was standing on her course under reefed mainsail when the cry sounded.
The vessel they sighted lay low in the water; and since she had one tall mast forward and what appeared to be a lesser mast aft they thought her a ketch. But while they debated the matter the faint sound of guns fired in distress came over the sea; and loosing the reef of their mainsail and standing directly toward the stranger, the men in the Rose of Devon soon made her out to be, instead, a ship which had lost her mainmast and mizzenmast and was wallowing like a log. While the Rose of Devon was still far off, her men saw that some of the strange crew were aloft in the rigging and that others were huddled on the quarter-deck; and when, in the late afternoon, she came up under the stranger's stern, the unknown master and his men got down on their knees on the deck and stretched their arms above their bare heads.
"Save us," they cried in a doleful voice, "for the Lord Jesus' sake! For our ship hath six-foot water in the hold and we can no longer keep her afloat."
In all the Rose of Devon there was not a heart but relented at their lamentable cry, not a man but would do his utmost to lend them aid.
"Hoist out thy boat and we will stand by to succour thee," Captain Candle called. "We can do no more, for we ha' lost our own boat in the storm."
It appeared they had but one boat, which was small, so they must needs divide the crew to leave their vessel, part at one time and part at another; and the seas still ran so high, though wind and wave had moderated, that it seemed impossible they could make the passage. With men at both her pumps the Rose of Devon lay by the wind, wallowing and plunging, and her own plight seemed a hard one. But the poor stranger, though ever and again she rose on the seas so that the water drained from her scupper-holes, lay for the most part with her waist a-wash and a greater sea than its fellows would rise high on the stumps of mainmast and mizzenmast. Her ropes dragged over the side and her sails were a snarl of canvas torn to shreds, and a very sad sight she presented.
Three times they tried to hoist out their boat and failed; but the fourth time they got clear, and with four men rowing and one steering and seven with hats and caps heaving out the water, they came in the twilight slowly down the wind past the Rose of Devon and up into her lee.
The men at the waist of the ship saw more clearly, now, the features of those in the boat, and the one in the stern who handled the great steering oar had in the eyes of Philip Marsham an oddly familiar look. Phil gazed at the man, then he turned to Martin and knew he was not mistaken, for Martin's mouth was agape and he was on the very point of crying out.
"Holla!" Martin yelled.
The man in the stern of the boat looked up and let his eyes range along the waist of the ship. Not one of all those in sight on board the Rose of Devon escaped his scrutiny, which was quick and sure; but he looked Martin coldly in the face without so much as a nod of recognition; and though his brief glance met Phil's gaze squarely and seemed for the moment to linger and search the lad's thoughts, it then passed to the one at Phil's side.
It was the thin man who had been Martin's companion on the road—it was Tom Jordan—it was the Old One.
Martin's face flamed, but he held his tongue.
A line thrown to the boat went out through the air in coils that straightened and sagged down between the foremost thwarts. A sailor in the boat, seizing the line, hauled upon it with might and main. The Old One hotly cursed him, and bellowed, "Fend off, fend off, thou slubbering clown! Thy greed to get into the ship will be the means of drowning us all."
Some thrust out oars to fend away from the side of the ship and some held back; but two or three, hungering for safety, gave him no heed and hauled on the rope and struggled to escape out of their little boat, which was already half full of water. The Old One then rose with a look of the Fiend in his eyes and casting the steering oar at the foremost of them, knocked the man over into the sea, where he sank, leaving a blotch of red on the surface, which was a terrible sight and brought the others to observe the Old One's commands.
Some cried "Save him!" but the Old One roared, "Let the mutinous dog go!"
Perhaps he was right, for there are times when it takes death to maintain the discipline that will save many lives. At all events it was then too late to save either the man or the boat, for although they strove thereafter to do as the Old One bade them, the boat had already thumped against the side of the ship and it was each man for himself and the Devil take the last. The men above threw other ropes and bent over to give a hand to the poor fellows below, and all but the man who had sunk came scrambling safe on board.
The Old One leaned out and looked down at the boat, which lay full of water, with a great hole in her side.
"I would have given my life sooner than let this happen," he said. "There are seven men left on board our ship, who trusted me to save them. Indeed, I had not come away but these feared lest without the master you should refuse to take them. What say ye, my baw-cocks, shall we venture back for our shipmates?"
Looking down at the boat and at the gaping holes the sea had stove by throwing her against the Rose of Devon, the men made no reply.
"Not one will venture back? Is there no one of ye?"
"'Twere madness," one began. "We should—"
"See! She hath gone adrift!"
And in truth, her gunwales under water, the boat was already drifting astern. At the end of the painter, which a Rose of Devon's man still held, there dangled a piece of broken board.
"Let us bring thy ship nigh under the lee of mine," the Old One cried to Captain Candle. "It may be that by passing a line we can yet save them."
"It grieves me sorely to refuse them aid, but to approach nearer, with the darkness now drawing u
pon us, were an act of folly that might well cost the lives of us all. Mine own ship is leaking perilously and in this sea, were the two to meet, both would most certainly go down."
The Old One looked about and nodded. "True," said he. "There is no recovering the boat and darkness is upon us. Let us go as near to the ship as we may and bid them have courage till morning, when, God willing, we shall try to get aboard and save them."
"That we will. And I myself will con the ship."
Leaning over the rail, Tom Jordan, the Old One, called out, "Holla, my hearts! The boat hath gone adrift with her sides stove; but do you make a raft and keep abroad a light until morning, when God helping us, we will endeavor to get you aboard."
Perceiving for the first time that the boat was gone and there was no recovering her, those left on board the wreck gave a cry so sad that it pierced the hearts of all in the Rose of Devon, whose men saw them through the dusk doing what they could to save themselves; and presently their light appeared.
Working the Rose of Devon to windward of the wreck, Captain Candle lay by, but all his endeavours could not avail to help them, for about ten o'clock at night, three hours after the Old One and his ten men had got on board the Rose of Devon, their ship sank and their light went out and seven men lost their lives.
The Old One, standing beside Captain Candle, had watched the light to the last. "It is a bitter grief to bear," he said, "for they were seven brave men. A master could desire no better mariners. 'Tis the end of the Blue Friggat from Virginia, bound for Portsmouth, wanting seven weeks."
"A man can go many years to sea without meeting such a storm."
"Yea! Three days ago when the wind was increasing all night we kept only our two courses abroad. At daybreak we handed our main course, but before we had secured it the storm burst upon us so violently that I ordered the foreyard lowered away; but not with all their strength could the men get it down, and of them all not one had a knife to cut away the sail, for they wore only their drawers without pockets; so the gale drove us head into the sea and stopped our way and a mighty sea pooped us and filled us and we lay with only our masts and forecastle out of the water. I myself, being fastened to the mizzenmast with a rope, had only my head out of water. Yea, we expected to go straight down to the bottom, but God of his infinite goodness was pleased to draw us from the deep and another sea lifted up our ship. We got down our foresail and stowed it and bored holes between the decks to let the water into the hold and by dint of much pumping we kept her afloat until now. In all we have lost eight lives this day and a sad day it is."
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