Part 5 (2/2)
The incident ended, as Polson had antic.i.p.ated that it would, in all hands coming on deck at the end of the first dogwatch, and clearing their brains by plunging their heads into buckets of sea water, after which the boatswain went forward and gave them all a mild and more than half good-humoured dressing-down, at the same time telling them one or two home truths in a tersely sarcastic strain that was far more effective than Wilde's rabidly intolerant language, which lost its point with those to whom it was addressed chiefly because of its violent exaggeration, through which he contrived, in a few minutes, to lose a measure of influence that it cost him months of strenuous endeavour to regain only partially. The fact is that this incident, comparatively trifling and harmless in its character as it was, led some of the men to question whether they had not thrown off the mild and easy restraints of lawful discipline, only to subject themselves to the grinding tyranny of a single individual of impulsive temper and overbearing disposition.
The sun went down that evening in a sky that glowed like molten copper and was streaked with long tatters of smoky-looking cloud, which seemed to presage both a windy and a dark night, to my great anxiety; for the s.h.i.+p was now navigating a comparatively restricted area of landlocked sea, the chart of which was dotted--much too thickly for my peace of mind--with dangers of various descriptions, the names of many of which, when they bore any names at all, were coupled with that sinister caution (”P.D.”) warning the mariner that the position, as laid down upon the chart, was doubtful, and that therefore an especially good lookout must be maintained lest it should be blundered upon unawares.
These hints as to the necessity for exceptionally careful navigation were supplemented by a further warning given in the directory to the effect that not only were the positions of many of the dangers shown upon the chart exceedingly doubtful, but also that the existence of other dangers, not indicated at all upon the chart, was very strongly suspected! The exhaustive study which I had given to both the chart and the directory had so very effectually impressed upon me the vital necessity for the exercise of the most extreme caution henceforward that, being yet very young, and quite new to the heavy load of responsibility imposed upon me, I was perhaps more anxious than there was any actual need for. Under the pressure of this anxiety I went below, again produced the chart, and very carefully laid down upon it the course and distance, as indicated by the compa.s.s and log, which the s.h.i.+p had travelled since noon. I did this chiefly because I had already ascertained that there lay in the s.h.i.+p's path two known dangers, the positions of which were doubtful; and what I had just done resulted in the discovery that, should the wind freshen sufficiently during the night to increase the speed of the s.h.i.+p to more than six knots, we were likely enough to approach within perilous proximity of those dangers before daylight of the next morning.
Accordingly I mentioned this fact to both Polson and Tudsbery, cautioning them to shorten sail in good time, and to call me should the wind freshen, as it seemed likely to do, during the hours of darkness.
As a matter of fact, not only did the wind freshen during the first watch, but it also hauled round over the port quarter, increasing our speed so greatly that at length, when the watch was called at midnight, I--having kept the deck in my anxiety--took the precaution of shortening sail to the three topsails and fore topmast staysail, thus ensuring, as I confidently believed, that we should keep well clear of those pestilent dangers while the darkness lasted. Then, to add further to my anxieties, a drizzling rain came driving down upon us, thickening the atmosphere to such an extent that it became impossible to see anything beyond a s.h.i.+p's length distant; and, after driving along through this at a speed of about five knots for the next four hours, my nervousness became so great that I gave orders to bring the s.h.i.+p to the wind and heave her to, determining to await the return of daylight before attempting any further progress.
At length a faint paling of the intense darkness astern proclaimed that the long night--wet, hot, steamy, and altogether unpleasant--was drawing to an end, and simultaneously the rain ceased, enabling us to discard the oilskins and sou'-westers in which we had been stewing all night. I took mine down on to the main deck, and hung them up to drain and dry on a hook commonly used to hook back the starboard door giving access to the p.o.o.p cabins. Then, feeling exceedingly weary with my all-night vigil--for I had never been off the deck since sunset--I went to my own cabin for a few minutes and, filling the wash basin with cold fresh water, indulged in the luxury of a good wash, which had the effect of considerably refres.h.i.+ng me. This done, I returned to the p.o.o.p, meeting Polson--whose watch it was--at the head of the p.o.o.p ladder.
”Oh, here you are, sir!” he exclaimed in accents of evident relief. ”I was just upon the p'int of goin' down to ask ye to come on deck again.”
”Indeed,” said I. ”Have there been any fresh developments, then, during the two or three minutes that I have been below?”
”Well, I dunno know much about 'developments', Mr Troubridge,” replied the boatswain; ”but turn your ear to wind'ard, sir, and tell me if you hears anything at all out of the common.”
”Why?” I demanded. ”Do you hear anything in particular?” And, as requested, I turned my head in a listening att.i.tude.
Even during my brief absence from the deck the sky away to the eastward had paled perceptibly, and there was already light enough abroad to enable one not only to distinguish all the princ.i.p.al details of the s.h.i.+p's hull and rigging, but also to render visible the heaving surface of the sea for the distance of perhaps a couple of cable's lengths, which was as far as the eye could penetrate the still somewhat misty atmosphere. As I glanced outboard my attention was instantly arrested by the short, choppy tumble of the water, and its colour, which was a pale, chalky blue.
”Why, Polson,” I exclaimed, ”what has happened to the sea during the night? Look at the colour of it! And--hark!--surely that cannot be the sound of broken water?”
”So you've catched it, Mr Troubridge, have ye, sir?” the man replied.
”Well, you hadn't scarcely got down off the p.o.o.p just now afore I thought I heard some'at o' the sort, but I couldn't be sure. And what you told us last night about them there shoals that's supposed to be somewheres ahead of us have been stickin' in my mind all night and makin' me-- Ah! did ye hear that, sir?” he broke off suddenly.
Again the peculiar ”shaling” sound, as of water breaking over some deeply submerged obstruction, came floating down to me from to windward!
”Yes, Polson, I certainly thought I did,” answered I in a state of considerable alarm; ”and, to tell you the honest truth, I don't half like it any more than I do the movement and colour of the water. Let them get the hand lead and take a cast of it.”
”Ay, ay, Mr Troubridge, I will. That's the proper thing to do,”
responded the boatswain, as he bustled away down on to the main deck and wended his way forward to bring up the lead-line.
The s.h.i.+p was already hove-to; there should therefore be no difficulty in obtaining absolutely accurate soundings. In another couple of minutes a man was stationed in the weather fore chains with the line coiled in his hand and the lead weight, its foot duly ”armed” with tallow, sweeping in long swings close over the surface of the water, preparatory to being cast. Presently the weight shot forward and plunged into the sea a fathom or two ahead of the s.h.i.+p, the coils of thin line leapt from the leadsman's hand, and, as the s.h.i.+p surged slowly ahead, the line slackened, showing that the lead had reached bottom, and the leadsman, bringing the sounding line up and down, proclaimed the depth--eighteen fathoms!
”Eighteen fathoms!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed I in horrified accents to Polson, who had rejoined me. ”That means, Polson, that we are already on top of one of those dangers that I was speaking about last night. Jump for'ard, man, at once; clear away the starboard anchor ready for letting go, and bend the cable to it. And hurry about it, my good fellow, as you value your life. We may need to anchor at any moment in order to save the s.h.i.+p!”
The daylight was by this time coming fast, and it was possible to see with tolerable distinctness all round the s.h.i.+p, to as great a distance as the haziness of the atmosphere would permit. Still at intervals there seemed to float down upon the pinions of the warm, steamy wind that curious suggestion--for it was scarcely more--of the sound of breaking water. But if it were indeed an actual sound, and not an illusion of the senses, what did it mean? Had we already become embayed or entangled among an intricacy of reefs and shoals during the night, or had we in some marvellous fas.h.i.+on blundered past or through them in the darkness, and were already leaving them behind us? As I stood on the p.o.o.p, asking myself these questions, and sending my glances into the mist that enshrouded the ocean on all sides of me, I fancied that I again caught the mysterious sound which resembled that of breaking water; but this time it seemed to come from ahead. And looking in that direction, I presently became aware of a line of spectral whiteness, stretching right athwart our hawse, that seemed to come and go even as I watched it.
”Stand by to wear s.h.i.+p!” I shouted. As the watch sprang to the braces I signed to the man who was tending the wheel to put it hard up. The s.h.i.+p, with her fore topsail aback, slowly fell off, until she was running dead before the wind; then, just as she was coming to on the other tack, the mist lifted for a moment and I caught a glimpse of a vast expanse of white water foaming and spouting and boiling dead ahead of and, as it seemed to me, close aboard of us!
”Lay aft here, some of you, and haul out the spanker!” I shouted.
”Flow your fore topmast staysail sheet, to help her to come to, and call all hands to make sail. Round in upon your after lee braces. Board your fore and main tacks, Polson. We are on a lee sh.o.r.e, here, and must claw off, if we can!”
The furious battering of the boatswain's handspike upon the fore scuttle brought up the watch below with a rush; and the sight of the white water close to leeward--caught by them the moment that they came on deck--was a hint to them, stronger than any words, of the necessity for haste, causing them to spring about the decks with a display of activity very unusual on the part of the merchant seaman. In a few minutes, the s.h.i.+p having come to on the starboard tack and brought the breakers square off her lee beam, the fore and main tacks were boarded, the sheets hauled aft, and half a dozen of the hands were in the weather rigging on their way aloft to loose the topgallantsails and royals, while two more were laying out upon the jibbooms to loose the jibs. Meanwhile I had sprung into the lee mizen rigging, and from that situation was anxiously scanning the sea ahead and upon the lee bow. To my great relief I presently saw that the s.h.i.+p was looking up high enough to justify the hope that she would claw off from the danger that menaced her to leeward; the sea being merely a short, irregular popple, with no weight in it to set us down toward the white water. Meanwhile the hand in the chains was continuing to take casts of the lead as fast as he could haul in the line, with the result that we seemed to be maintaining our depth of about eighteen fathoms, over a rocky bottom--composed of coral, as I had no doubt, from the peculiar whitish-blue tint of the water.
By the time that the topgallantsails, royals, jibs, and staysails had been set it had become broad daylight, and a few minutes later the sun rose above a heavy bank of thunderous-looking cloud that lay stretched along the eastern horizon, dispersing the mist that had hitherto obscured the atmosphere, and affording us an extended prospect of our surroundings.
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