Part 2 (2/2)
The wind rose, and came rus.h.i.+ng across the waters, taking up the little waves in spin-drift, and indicating a bad quarter of an hour for any craft caught unprepared. The boat's head was necessarily put more west, and so, with the wind more on the beam, the rate of sailing increased. The clouds came up steadily, the wind began to bl.u.s.ter suddenly, and to roughen the edges of the waves more and more.
The old fisherman hauled on the sheet, and sat over more to the weather side. He made no remark for a few minutes, then he cried--
”Get in under the hatch there, forward, and haul a tarpaulin over ye.
The rain's a-comin' thick. Hear that!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THE RAIN'S A-COMIN' THICK”]
A tremendous burst of thunder came cras.h.i.+ng upon our bowed heads as it seemed. Tim routed out a tarpaulin, and he and I rolled each other in it. It was a covering for the sails, which the old man used at times much to his friends' amus.e.m.e.nt. However, on this occasion we did not complain, for the rain, and, I fancied, even hail, came down with fearful force, and ran out of the lee scuppers, though with difficulty it escaped.
Notwithstanding all our protection we were getting wet. The wind rose, the thunder roared, the lightning flashed past us, the little yacht bounded and dipped. At length a fearful burst of flame struck us, and we actually screamed in terror.
Then the next moment the wind caught the sail, and flapped it with a terrible noise which mingled with the thunder. The boat careened over, righted, and flew before the wind like a frightened gull. I felt Tim rise, and go astern; I heard a cry of pain and anguish. Then I subsided upon the seething deck blinded and helpless!
CHAPTER II
A TERRIBLE POSITION--A PROPHETIC VISION--SINKING!
When I had rubbed my eyes, and began to take in the surroundings, I felt drenched by the rain and sea. My hands were sticky, and cold and damp. My clothes clung to my limbs, which were stiff under me. My straw hat, with the ribbon of which I had been so proud--a yacht-club ribbon--was sopped, out of shape, and off-colour like my drenched face.
The squall was still pa.s.sing, but the thunder had ceased.
The sea was very lively, and the wind boisterous. We were running close-hauled and fast, dipping and slapping; the mainsail stretched stiffly over the boat, reefed still, and the jib was as taut as a board. Daddy, I thought, was steering splendidly in such a sea, but I at once perceived that the cliffs had sunk deep into the water behind us, and that the line of the horizon was continually broken with the rolling waves. A change, indeed, and in a few moments! A great change!
I sat up, feeling a peculiar sensation of dizziness, and a breathlessness, a desire to gasp for breath--a taste, moreover, of something unpleasant, almost sulphurous, but not of sulphur. Something had happened! I looked around me; astern I saw Tim gripping the sheet in one hand, the tiller in the other, and dragging at the sail, half in the boat, half out.
”What's the matter, Tim? Is the skipper asleep?”
I often called Murry the ”skipper” for fun, as he called me his ”young gentleman,” meaning mids.h.i.+pman.
Tim made no reply. Perhaps my voice had not reached him, so I shouted at him--
”Tim, ahoy! Whither bound? What s.h.i.+p's this, anyhow?”
”The Dead-s.h.i.+p,” replied the young sailor. ”Come aft, if ye can, and bear a hand. I can't manage the sail and steer this way.”
Feeling alarmed, I scrambled up, and in an instant I saw that some fearful accident had occurred. The mainsail was lying half in and half out of the boat, dipping and las.h.i.+ng the waves, and bringing the _Osprey_ down by the quarter and stern, deeply. No wonder I felt drenched, no wonder the boat was uneasy; and Tim had need of all his nerve and skill to keep his course.
I clambered astern and hauled in the sail which had come down full, with the gaff, upon the stern-sheets, and nearly swamped us. I recollected the cry I had heard. What had happened?
My cheerfulness was quenched in a second. I was face to face with death for the first time! I could not credit it!
Yet I knew it I could see nothing but the sail, the blackened spar, the tangled ropes, the mainsheet still gripped in Tim's hand, held, too, I fancied, _by another hand--the hand of his dead father_!
This impression suddenly seized me, and the idea burned into my brain like a dart--a hot nerve-thrill. Murry had been struck by that fearful flash, and I must have been laid out senseless. The peculiar feeling and sensation caused by the ”electric fluid” I still remember, and do not wish to experience them again.
I felt afraid as I seated myself silently and with carefulness beside Tim. I questioned him with a look; he replied with a nod. Neither of us made an attempt to speak. He kept the boat's head close to the wind as possible, but we drifted out farther and farther all the time. We had no grapnel, and had we s.h.i.+pped an anchor we had not line to hold the boat there. All Tim could do was to keep up until a fis.h.i.+ng-smack or some other craft could a.s.sist us.
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