Part 19 (2/2)
”There she is!” shouted Sandford. ”We're close on her!”
The bark was pitching furiously to her anchors, and as we drifted rapidly down upon her we could hear the hoa.r.s.e roar of the gale through her rigging, and see a pale gleam of foam as the sea broke in sheets of spray against her bluff bows.
”Shall I try to round to abreast of her?” cried Heck to me, ”or shall I go bang down on her?”
”Don't take any chances,” I shouted. ”Better strike her, and go to pieces alongside, than miss her and drift past. Make ready now to hail her--all together--one,--two,--three! Bark aho-o-y! Stand by to throw us a line!”
But no sound came from the huge black shadow under the pitching lantern save the deep ba.s.s roar of the storm through the cordage.
We gave one more fierce, inarticulate cry as the dark outline of the bark rose on a sea high above our heads; and then, with a staggering shock and a great crash, the boat struck the s.h.i.+p's bow.
What happened in the next minute I hardly know. I have a confused recollection of being thrown violently across a thwart in a white smother of foam; of struggling to my feet and clutching frantically at a wet, black wall, and of hearing some one shout in a wild, despairing voice: ”Watch ahoy! We're sinking! For G.o.d's sake throw us a line!”--but that is all.
The water-logged sloop seesawed up and down past the bark's side, one moment rising on a huge comber until I could almost grasp the rail, and the next sinking into a deep hollow between the surges, far below the line of the copper sheathing. We tore the ends of our finger-nails off against the s.h.i.+p's side in trying to stop the boat's drift, and shouted despairingly again and again for help and a line; but our voices were drowned in the roar of the gale, there was no response, and the next sea carried us under the bark's counter. I made one last clutch at the smooth, wet planks; and then, as we drifted astern past the s.h.i.+p, I abandoned hope.
The sloop was sinking rapidly,--I was already standing up to my knees in water,--and in thirty seconds more we should be out of sight of the bark, in the dark, tumbling sea to leeward, with no more chance of rescue than if we were drowning in mid-Atlantic. Suddenly a dark figure in the boat beside me,--I learned afterward that it was Bowsher,--tore off his coat and waistcoat and made a bold leap into the sea to windward. He knew that it was certain death to drift out of sight of the bark in that sinking sloop, and he hoped to be able to swim alongside until he should be picked up. I myself had not thought of this before, but I saw instantly that it offered a forlorn hope of escape, and I was just poised in the act of following his example when on the quarter-deck of the bark, already twenty feet away, a white ghost-like figure appeared with uplifted arm, and a hoa.r.s.e voice shouted, ”Stand by to catch a line!”
It was the _Onward's_ second mate. He had heard our cries in his state-room as we drifted under the s.h.i.+p's counter, and had instantly sprung from his berth and rushed on deck in his night-s.h.i.+rt.
By the dim light of the binnacle I could just see the coil of rope unwind as it left his hand; but I could not see where it fell; I knew that there would be no time for another throw; and it seemed to me that my heart did not beat again until I heard from the bow of the sloop a cheery shout of ”All right! I've got the line! Slack off till I make it fast!”
In thirty seconds more we were safe. The second mate roused the watch, who had apparently taken refuge in the forecastle from the storm; the sloop was hauled up under the bark's stern; a second line was thrown to Bowsher, and one by one we were hoisted, in a sort of improvised breeches-buoy, to the _Onward's_ quarterdeck. As I came aboard, coatless, hatless, and s.h.i.+vering from cold and excitement, the captain stared at me in amazement for a moment, and then exclaimed: ”Good G.o.d!
Mr. Kennan, is that you? What possessed you to come off to the s.h.i.+p such a night as this?”
”Well, Captain,” I replied, trying to force a smile, ”it didn't blow in this way when we started; and we had an accident--carried our mast away.”
”But,” he remonstrated, ”it has been blowing great guns ever since dark. We've got two anchors down, and we've been dragging them both. I finally had them buoyed, and told the mate that if they dragged again we'd slip the cables and run out to sea. You might not have found us here at all, and then where would you have been?”
”Probably at the bottom of the gulf,” I replied. ”I haven't expected anything else for the last three hours.”
The ill-fated sloop from which we made this narrow escape was so crushed in her collision with the bark that the sea battered her to pieces in the course of the night, and when I went on deck the next morning, a few ribs and shattered planks, floating awash at the end of the line astern, were all of her that remained.
[Ill.u.s.tration: War and Hunting Knives.
s...o...b..aters used for beating snow from the clothing.]
CHAPTER x.x.xIX
START FOR ST. PETERSBURG ROUTE TO YAKUTSK--A TUNGUSE ENCAMPMENT-- CROSSING THE STANAVOI MOUNTAINS--SEVERE COLD--FIRE-LIGHTED SMOKE PILLARS--ARRIVAL IN YAKUTSK
When we reached Okhotsk, about the middle of September, I found a letter from Major Abaza, brought by special courier from Yakutsk, directing me to come to St. Petersburg by the first winter road. The _Onward_ sailed for San Francisco at once, carrying back to home and civilisation all of our employees except four, viz., Price, Schwartz, Malchanski, and myself. Price intended to accompany me to St.
Petersburg, while Schwartz and Malchanski, who were Russians, decided to go with us as far as Irkutsk, the east-Siberian capital.
Snow fell in sufficient quant.i.ties to make good sledging about the 8th of October; but the rivers did not freeze over so that they could be crossed until two weeks later. On the 21st of the month, Schwartz and Malchanski started with three or four light dog-sledges to break a road through the deep, freshly fallen snow, in the direction of the Stanavoi Mountains, and on the 24th Price and I followed with the heavier baggage and provisions. The whole population of the village turned out to see us off. The long-haired priest, with his ca.s.sock flapping about his legs in the keen wind of a wintry morning, stood bareheaded in the street and gave us his farewell blessing; the women, whose hearts we had made glad with American baking-powder and telegraph teacups, waved bright-coloured handkerchiefs to us from their open doors; cries of ”Good-bye!” ”G.o.d grant you a fortunate journey!” came to us from the group of fur-clad men who surrounded our sledges; and the air trembled with the incessant howls of a hundred wolfish dogs, as they strained impatiently against their broad sealskin collars.
<script>