Part 29 (1/2)
Still I could scarcely believe.
”Is it very far away?” I inquired.
He shook his head, and forebore in the act of speaking to lift his hand for me to listen. The _Elsinore_ rolled uneasily, and from without came the soft and hollow thunder of sails emptying themselves against the masts and gear.
We had chatted a bare five minutes, when again he lifted his head. This time the _Elsinore_ heeled over slightly and remained heeled over, while the sighing whistle of a rising breeze awoke in the rigging.
”It's beginning to make,” he said, in the good old Anglo-Saxon of the sea.
And then I heard Mr. Pike snarling out orders, and in my heart discovered a growing respect for Cape Horn--Cape Stiff, as the sailors call it.
An hour later we were hove to on the port tack under upper-topsails and foresail. The wind had come out of the south-west, and our leeway was setting us down upon the land. Captain West gave orders to the mate to stand by to wear s.h.i.+p. Both watches had been taking in sail, so that both watches were on deck for the manoeuvre.
It was astounding, the big sea that had arisen in so short a time. The wind was blowing a gale that ever, in recurring gusts, increased upon itself. Nothing was visible a hundred yards away. The day had become black-gray. In the cabin lamps were burning. The view from the p.o.o.p, along the length of the great labouring s.h.i.+p, was magnificent. Seas burst and surged across her weather-rail and kept her deck half filled, despite the spouting ports and gus.h.i.+ng scuppers.
On each of the two houses and on the p.o.o.p the s.h.i.+p's complement, all in oilskins, was in groups. For'ard, Mr. Mellaire had charge. Mr. Pike took charge of the 'mids.h.i.+p-house and the p.o.o.p. Captain West strolled up and down, saw everything, said nothing; for it was the mate's affair.
When Mr. Pike ordered the wheel hard up, he slacked off all the mizzen- yards, and followed it with a partial slacking of the main-yards, so that the after-pressures were eased. The foresail and fore-lower- and-upper- topsails remained flat in order to pay the head off before the wind. All this took time. The men were slow, not strong, and without snap. They reminded me of dull oxen by the way they moved and pulled. And the gale, ever snorting harder, now snorted diabolically. Only at intervals could I glimpse the group on top the for'ard-house. Again and again, leaning to it and holding their heads down, the men on the 'mids.h.i.+p-house were obliterated by the drive of crested seas that burst against the rail, spouted to the lower-yards, and swept in horizontal volumes across to leeward. And Mr. Pike, like an enormous spider in a wind-tossed web, went back and forth along the slender bridge that was itself a shaken thread in the blast of the storm.
So tremendous were the gusts that for the time the _Elsinore_ refused to answer. She lay down to it; she was swept and racked by it; but her head did not pay off before it, and all the while we drove down upon that bitter, iron coast. And the world was black-gray, and violent, and very cold, with the flying spray freezing to ice in every lodgment.
We waited. The groups of men, head down to it, waited. Mr. Pike, restless, angry, his blue eyes as bitter as the cold, his mouth as much a- snarl as the snarl of the elements with which he fought, waited. The Samurai waited, tranquil, casual, remote. And Cape Horn waited, there on our lee, for the bones of our s.h.i.+p and us.
And then the _Elsinore's_ bow paid off. The angle of the beat of the gale changed, and soon, with dreadful speed, we were das.h.i.+ng straight before it and straight toward the rocks we could not see. But all doubt was over. The success of the manoeuvre was a.s.sured. Mr. Mellaire, informed by messenger along the bridge from Mr. Pike, slacked off the head-yards. Mr. Pike, his eye on the helmsman, his hand signalling the order, had the wheel put over to port to check the _Elsinore's_ rush into the wind as she came up on the starboard tack. All was activity. Main- and mizzen-yards were braced up, and the _Elsinore_, snugged down and hove to, had a lee of thousands of miles of Southern Ocean.
And all this had been accomplished in the stamping ground of storm, at the end of the world, by a handful of wretched weaklings, under the drive of two strong mates, with behind them the placid will of the Samurai.
It had taken thirty minutes to wear s.h.i.+p, and I had learned how the best of s.h.i.+pmasters can lose their s.h.i.+ps without reproach. Suppose the _Elsinore_ had persisted in her refusal to payoff? Suppose anything had carried away? And right here enters Mr. Pike. It is his task ever to see that every rope and block and all the myriad other things in the vast and complicated gear of the _Elsinore_ are in strength not to carry away.
Always have the masters of our race required henchmen like Mr. Pike, and it seems the race has well supplied those henchmen.
Ere I went below I heard Captain West tell Mr. Pike that while both watches were on deck it would be just as well to put a reef in the foresail before they furled it. The mainsail and the crojack being off, I could see the men black on the fore-yard. For half-an-hour I lingered, watching them. They seemed to make no progress with the reef. Mr.
Mellaire was with them, having direct supervision of the job, while Mr.
Pike, on the p.o.o.p, growled and grumbled and spat endless blasphemies into the flying air.
”What's the matter?” I asked.
”Two watches on a single yardarm and unable to put a reef in a handkerchief like that!” he snorted. ”What'll it be if we're off here a month?”
”A month!” I cried.
”A month isn't anything for Cape Stiff,” he said grimly. ”I've been off here seven weeks and then turned tail and run around the other way.”
”Around the world?” I gasped.
”It was the only way to get to 'Frisco,” he answered. ”The Horn's the Horn, and there's no summer seas that I've ever noticed in this neighbourhood.”
My fingers were numb and I was chilled through when I took a last look at the wretched men on the fore-yard and went below to warm up.