Part 8 (1/2)
In the cuddy up forward, with my provisions, there were a saw and hammer, and other tools. I could no more get at them than I could get out of the cabin. And although I might be able to do nothing to help myself or my boat if I was free from my prison, I would have felt a whole lot safer just then to have been upon her deck!
The door being nailed so fast, and the deck-hatch bolted tight, it was plain that I would have to smash something in order to get out of the cabin. Had I had anything to use as a battering ram, I would have begun on the door. But there seemed nothing to hand that would help me in that way. I examined the crack where the top of the door and the deck-hatch came together. Had I something to pry with I might tear the bolts holding the hatch out of the wood.
Such a thing as a bar was out of the question. But after a few minutes'
cogitation, I remembered that my bunks on either side of the cabin could be turned up against the bulkhead, and at each end of the bunks was a flat piece of steel fifteen or eighteen inches long which held the berth-bench when it was let down. Two screws at each end held these steel straps in place.
I had no screw driver; but I had the knife that I had taken away from my cousin when he attacked me the evening before. I thrust the point of its heavy blade into a crack and snapped the steel square off. It made a fairly usable screw-driver, and I quickly had one of the steel straps out of its fastenings.
The piece of steel was stiff and made as good a bar for prying as I could have found. With some difficulty I thrust one end up between the top of the cabin door and the edge of the hatch, close to one side. I slipped the closed knife up between the bar and the door for a block against which to prize, caught the end of the bar with both hands, and threw all my force against it. The hatch squeaked; there was a splintering sound of wood. I was badly marring the top of the door, but the bolt which held the hatch at that side was giving.
I repeated the process at the other side of the hatch, and gradually, by working first at one side, and then the other, I splintered the woodwork around the bolts, and bent the bolts themselves, so that the hatch began to shove back. As soon as possible I shoved it back far enough for my body to pa.s.s through the aperture.
The rain beat down upon my face as I worked my way out of the cabin in my oilskins; I left my hat behind. The Wavecrest was pitching and yawing pretty badly now and before I cast a single glance around I was sure that she was already going through the inlet.
Yes! there was the beacon at the extreme point of Bolderhead Neck--it was just abreast of me as I stood at last upon the sloop's unsteady deck. I leaped down into the c.o.c.kpit and quickly lowered the centerboard. Almost at once the Wavecrest began to ride more evenly. I could see little but the beacon, the night was so black; but I ran to the tiller and found that the sloop was under good steerage way and answered her helm nicely.
Like all sloops, the Wavecrest was very broad of beam for her depth of keel, and the standing-room, or c.o.c.kpit, was roomy. She was well rigged, too, having a staysail and gafftopsail. Really, to sail her properly there should have been a crew of two aboard; but under the present circ.u.mstances I felt that one person aboard the Wavecrest was one too many! With a rising gale behind her the craft was being driven to sea at express speed, and it was utterly impossible to r.e.t.a.r.d her course.
For an hour I sat there in the driving rain, hatless and s.h.i.+vering, hanging to the tiller and letting the sloop drive. Letting her drive!
why, there wasn't a thing I could do to change her course. She was rus.h.i.+ng on through the foaming seas like a projectile shot from some huge gun, and every moment the howling wind seemed to increase!
The beacon on the Neck was behind me now. There was nothing ahead of the sloop's fixed bowsprit. We were driving into a curtain of blackness that had been let down from the sky to the sea. It is seldom that there is not some little light playing over the surface of the water. This night a palpable cloud had settled upon the face of the waters and I could not even see the foam on the crests of the waves, save where they ran past the sloop's freeboard.
I had left the broken slide open, however, and the rain was beating down into the cabin. This began to worry me and finally I lashed the tiller--fastening it in the bights of two ropes prepared for that purpose, and crept back into the cabin again. It was little use to remain outside, save that if the sloop was flung upon a rock, I might have a little better chance to escape.
At the speed she was traveling, however, I knew very well that we were already beyond the reefs and little islets that mask the entrance to Bolderhead Harbor. It was a veritable hurricane behind us. The wind was actually blowing so hard that the waves were scarcely of medium height.
I had seen a mere afternoon squall kick up a heavier sea.
It was awkward getting in and out of the cabin by way of the hatch; but I did not take the time then to open the door. I fixed the hatch so that it would slide back and forth properly, however. Then I lit my spirit lamp and made some coffee. I was pretty well chilled through, for the rain and wind seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of my bones.
I was sure that this was the beginning of the equinoctial gale. It might be a week before the storm would break. And where would the Wavecrest be in a week's time?
Not that I really believed the sloop would hold together, or still be on top of the sea, when this gale blew itself out. She was a mere speck on the agitated surface of the sea. My only hope then was that I might be rescued by some larger vessel--and how I should get from the Wavecrest craft to another was beyond the power of my imaginings.
I could not be content to remain below--nor was that unnatural. Aside from the fear I had of the sloop's yawing and possibly turning turtle, and so imprisoning me in the cabin with no hope of escape therefrom, I felt that I should be more on the alert to seize any opportunity for escape were I at the tiller. So I carried a Mexican poncho which I wound to the stern, draped it about me over the oilskins, and with the sou'wester tied under my chin I could defy the rain, nor did the keen wind search my vitals.
But thus bundled up I would have stood little show had the sloop capsized. Afterward I realized that I might as well have remained in the cabin.
However, to sleep in either place, was impossible. Sometimes the rain beat down upon the decked over portion of the boat with the sound of a drumstick beaten upon taut calfskin. Again the wind blew in such sharp gusts that the rain seemed to be swept over the face of the sea and then, if I chanced to glance over my shoulder, the drops stung like hail.
Altogether I have never pa.s.sed a more uncomfortable night--perhaps never one during which I was in greater peril. The wind was s.h.i.+fting bit by bit, too. My compa.s.s told me that the Wavecrest was now being driven straight out to sea, instead of running parallel with the Ma.s.sachusetts coast as had been at first the fact.
How fast I was traveling I could not guess. There was a patent log aboard; but I did not rig it. Indeed, it was much safer to remain in the stern of the sloop than to move about at all. I knew we were traveling much faster than I had ever traveled by water before and I had something beside the speed of my involuntary voyage to think about.
It had not crossed my mind at the time, but when I had slipped out to the Wavecrest that evening, giving my mother and the servants the impression that I had gone to my room as usual, I had done a very foolish--if not wrong--thing. The sloop might not be the only craft in Bolderhead Harbor to break away from moorings and go on an involuntary cruise. Other wandering craft might not escape the rocks about the beach, as the Wavecrest had. It might be supposed that my sloop was among the wreckage that would be cast ash.o.r.e along our rocky coast, and my absence might not be connected with the disappearance of the sloop.
My mother and friends would not suspect the reason or cause for my absence. If I had taken a soul into my confidence, in the morning my mother would be informed immediately of my accident. Perhaps, after all, it was not a bad thing that some uncertainty must of necessity attach itself to my disappearance.