Our next job was to man the port-braces and bring the ship to a westerly course. But before we went to this work the boatswain and I stood for some minutes looking at the appearance of the sky.
The range of cloud which had been but a low-lying and apparently a fugitive bank in the north-west at midnight, was now so far advanced as to project nearly over our heads, and what rendered its aspect more sinister was the steely colour of the sky, which it ruled with a line, here and there rugged, but for the most part singularly even, right from the confines of the north-eastern to the limits of the south-western horizon. All the central portion of this vast surface of cloud was of a livid hue, which, by a deception of the eye, made it appear convex, and at frequent intervals a sharp shower of arrowy lightning whizzed from that portion of it furthest away from us, but as yet we could hear no thunder.
"When the rain before the wind, then your topsail halliards mind," chaunted the boatswain. "There's rather more nor a quarter o' an inch o' rain there, and there's something worse nor rain astern of it."
The gloomiest feature of this approaching tempest, if such it were, was the slowness, at once mysterious and impressive, of its approach.
I was not, however, to be deceived by this into supposing that, because it had taken nearly all night to climb the horizon, there was no wind behind it. I had had experience of a storm of this kind, and remembered the observations of one of the officers of the ship, when speaking of it. "Those kind of storms," he said, "are not driven by wind, but create it. They keep a hurricane locked up in their insides, and wander across the sea, on the look-out for ships; when they come across something worth wrecking they let fly. Don't be deceived by their slow pace, and imagine them only thunderstorms. They'll burst like an earthquake in a dead calm over your head, and whenever you see one coming snug your ship right away down to the last reef in her, and keep your stern at it."
"I am debating, bo'sun," said I, "whether to bring the ship round or keep her before it. What do you think?"
"There's a gale of wind there. I can smell it," he replied; "but we're snug enough to lie close, aren't we?" looking up at the masts.
"That's to be proved," said I. "We'll bring her close if you like; but I'm pretty sure we shall have to run for it later on."
"It'll bowl us well away into mid-Atlantic, won't it, Mr. Royle?"
"Yes; I wish we were more to the norrard of Bermudas. However, we'll tackle the yards, and have a try for the tight little islands."
"They're pretty nigh all rocks, aren't they? I never sighted 'em."
"Nor I. But they've got a dockyard at Bermuda, I believe, where the Yankees refit sometimes, and that's about all I know of those islands."
I asked Miss Robertson to put the helm down and keep it there until the compass pointed west; but the ship had so little way upon her, owing to the small amount of canvas she carried now and the faintness of the wind, that it took her as long to come round as if we had been warping her head to the westwards by a buoy.
Having braced up the yards and steadied the helm, we could do no more; and resolving to profit as much as possible from the interval of rest before us, I directed Cornish to take the wheel, and ordered the steward to go forward and light the galley fire and boil some coffee for breakfast.
"Bo'sun," said I, "you might as well drop below and have a look at those plugs of yours. Take a hammer with you and this light," handing him the binnacle lamp, "and drive the plugs in hard, for if the ship should labour heavily, she might strain them out."
He started on his errand, and I then told Miss Robertson that there was nothing now to detain her on deck, and thanked her for the great services she had rendered us.
How well I remember her as she stood near the wheel, wearing my straw hat, her dress hitched up to allow freedom to her movements; her small hands with the delicate blue veins glowing through the white clear skin, her yellow hair looped up, though with many a tress straying like an amber-coloured feather; her marble face, her lips pale with fatigue, her beautiful blue eyes fired ever with the same brave spirit, though dim with the weariness of long and painful watching and the oppressive and numbing sense of ever-present danger.
On no consideration would I allow her to remain any longer on deck, and though she begged to stay, I took her hand firmly, and led her into the cuddy to her cabin door.
"You will faithfully promise me to lie down and sleep?" I said.
"I will lie down, and will sleep if I can," she answered, with a wan smile.
"We have succeeded in saving you so far," I continued, earnestly, "and it would be cruel, very cruel, and hard upon me, to see your health break down for the want of rest and sleep, when both are at your command, now that life is bright again, and when any hour may see us safe on the deck of another vessel."
"You shall not suffer through me," she replied. "I will obey you, indeed I will do anything you want."
I kissed her hand respectfully, and said that a single hour of sound sleep would do her a deal of good; by that time I would take care that breakfast should be ready for her and her father, and I then held open the cabin door for her to enter, and returned on deck.
A most extraordinary and wonderful sight saluted me when I reached the poop.
The sun had risen behind the vast embankment of cloud, and its glorious rays, the orb itself being invisible, projected in a thousand lines of silver beyond the margin of the bank to the right and overhead, jutting out in visible threads, each as defined as a sunbeam in a dark room.
But the effect of this wonderful light was to render the canopy of cloud more horribly livid; and weird and startling was the contrast of the mild and far-reaching sunshine, streaming in lines of silver brightness into the steely sky, with the blue lightning ripping up the belly of the cloud and suffering the eye to dwell for an instant on the titanic strata of gloom that stood ponderously behind.
Nor was the ocean at this moment a less sombre and majestical object than the heavens; for upon half of it rested a shadow deep as night, making the water sallow and thick, and most desolate to behold under the terrible curtain that lay close down to it upon the horizon; whilst all on the right the green sea sparkled in the sunbeams, heaving slowly under the calm that had fallen.
Looking far away on the weather beam, and where the shadow on the sea was deepest, I fancied that I discerned a black object, which might well be a ship with her sails darkened by her distance from the sun.
I pointed it out to Cornish, who saw it too, and I then fetched the telescope.
Judge of my surprise and consternation, when the outline of a boat with her sail low down on the mast, entered the field of the glass! I cried out, "It's the long-boat!"
Cornish turned hastily.
"My God!" he cried, "they're doomed men!"
I gazed at her intently, but could not be deceived, for I recognised the cut of the stu'nsail, lowered as it was in anticipation of the breaking of the storm, and I could also make out the minute dark figures of the men in her.
My surprise, however, was but momentary, for, considering the lightness of the wind that had prevailed all night, and the probability of her having stood to and fro in expectation of coming across us, or the quarter-boat which had attacked us, I had no reason to expect that they should have been far off.
The boatswain came along the quarterdeck singing out, "It's all right below! No fear of a leak there!"
"Come up here!" I cried. "There's the long-boat yonder!"
On hearing this, he ran aft as hard as he could and stared in the direction I indicated, but could not make her out until he had the glass to his eye, on which he exclaimed—
"Yes, it's her, sure enough. Why, we may have to make another fight for it. She's heading this way, and if she brings down any wind, by jingo she'll overhaul us."
"No, no," I answered. "They're not for fighting. They don't like the look of the weather, bo'sun, and would board us to save their lives, not to take ours."
"That's it, sir," exclaimed Cornish. "I reckon there's little enough mutineering among 'em now Stevens is gone. I'd lay my life they'd turn to and go to work just as I have if you'd lay by for 'em and take 'em in."
Neither the boatswain nor I made any reply to this.
For my own part, though we had been perishing for the want of more hands, I don't think I should have had trust enough in those rascals to allow them on board; for I could not doubt that when the storm was over, and they found themselves afloat in the Grosvenor once more, they would lay violent hands upon me and the boatswain, and treat us as they had treated Coxon and Duckling, revenging themselves in this way upon us for the death of Stevens and the other leaders of the mutiny, and likewise protecting themselves against their being carried to England and handed over to the authorities on shore as murderers.
The lightning was now growing very vivid, and for the first time I heard the sullen moan of thunder.
"That means," said the boatswain, "that it's a good bit off yet; and if that creature forrard 'll only bear a hand we shall be able to get something to eat and drink afore it comes down."
However, as he spoke, the steward came aft with a big coffee-pot. He set it on the skylight, and fetched from the pantry some good preserved meat, biscuit and butter, and we fell to the repast with great relish and hunger.
Being the first to finish, I took the wheel while Cornish breakfasted, and then ordered the steward to go and make some fresh coffee, and keep it hot in the galley, and prepare a good breakfast for the Robertsons ready to serve when the young lady should leave her cabin.
"Bo'sun," said I, as he came slowly towards me, filling his pipe, "I don't like the look of that mainsail. It 'll blow out and kick up a deuce of a shindy. You and Cornish had better lay aloft with some spare line and serve the sail with it."
"That's soon done," he answered, cheerfully. And Cornish left his breakfast, and they both went aloft.
I yawned repeatedly as I stood at the wheel, and my eyes were sore for want of sleep.
But there was something in the aspect of that tremendous, stooping, quarter-sphere of cloud abeam of us, throwing a darkness most sinister to behold on half the sea, and vomiting quick lances of blue fire from its caverns, while now and again the thunder rolled solemnly, which was formidable enough to keep me wide awake.
It was growing darker every moment: already the sun's beams were obscured, though that portion of the great canopy of cloud which lay nearest to the luminary carried still a flaming edge.
A dead calm had fallen, and the ship rested motionless on the water.
The two men remained for a short time on the main-yard, and then came down, leaving the sail much more secure than they had found it. Cornish despatched his breakfast, and the boatswain came to me.
"Do you see the long-boat now, sir?"
"No," I replied; "she's hidden in the rain yonder. By Heaven! it is coming down!"
I did not exaggerate; the horizon was grey with the rain: it looked like steam rising from a boiling sea.
"It 'll keep 'em busy bailing," said the boatswain.
"Hold on here," I cried, "till I get my oilskins."
I was back again in a few moments, and he went away to drape himself for the downfall, and to advise Cornish to do the same.
I left the wheel for a second or two to close one of the skylights, and as I did so a flash of lightning seemed to set the ship on fire, and immediately came a deafening crash of thunder. I think there is something more awful in the roar of thunder heard at sea than on shore, unless you are among mountains; you get the full intensity of it, the mighty outburst smiting the smooth surface of the water, which in itself is a wonderful vehicle of sound, and running onwards for leagues without meeting with any impediment to check or divert it.
I hastened to see if the lightning conductor ran clear to the water, and finding the end of the wire coiled up in the port main-chains, flung it overboard and resumed my place at the wheel.
Now that the vast surface of cloud was well forward of overhead, I observed that its front was an almost perfect semicircle, the extremities at either point of the horizon projecting like horns. There still remained, embraced by these horns, a clear expanse of steel-coloured sky. There the sea was light, but all to starboard it was black, and the terrible shadow was fast bearing down upon the ship.
Crack! the lightning whizzed, and turned the deck, spars, and rigging into a network of blue fire. The peal that followed was a sudden explosion—a great dead crash, as though some mighty ponderous orb had fallen from the highest heaven upon the flooring of the sky and riven it.
Then I heard the rain.
I scarcely know which was the more terrifying to see and hear—the rain, or the thunder and lightning.
It was a cataract of water falling from a prodigious elevation. It was a dense, impervious liquid veil, shutting out all sight of sea and sky. It tore the water into foam in striking it.
Then, boom! down it came upon us.
I held on by the wheel, and the boatswain jammed himself under the grating. It was not rain only—it was hail as big as eggs; and the rain drops were as big as eggs too.
There was not a breath of air. This terrific fall came down in perfectly perpendicular lines; and as the lightning rushed through it, it illuminated with its ghastly effulgence a broad sheet of water.
It was so dark that I could not see the card in the binnacle. The water rushed off our decks just as it would had we shipped a sea. And for the space of twenty minutes I stood stunned, deaf, blind, in the midst of a horrible and overpowering concert of pealing thunder and rushing rain, the awful gloom being rendered yet more dreadful by the dazzling flashes which passed through it.
It passed as suddenly as it had come, and left us still in a breathless calm, drenched, terrified, and motionless.
It grew lighter to windward, and I felt a small air blowing on my streaming face; lighter still, though to leeward the storm was raging and roaring, and passing with its darkness like some unearthly night.
I squeezed the water out of my eyes, and saw the wind come rushing towards us upon the sea, whilst all overhead the sky was a broad lead-coloured space.
"Now, bo'sun," I roared, "stand by!"
He came out from under the grating, and took a grip of the rail.
"Here it comes!" he cried; "and by the holy poker," he added, "here comes the long-boat atop of it!"
I could only cast one brief glance in the direction indicated, where, sure enough, I saw the long-boat flying towards us on a surface of foam. In an instant the gale struck the ship and over she heeled, laying her port bulwark close down upon the water. But there she stopped.
"Had we had whole topsails," I cried, "it would have been Amen!"
I waited a moment or two before deciding whether to put the helm up and run. If this was the worst of it, the ship would do as she was. But in that time the long-boat, urged furiously forward by the sail they still kept on her, passed close under our stern. Twice, before she reached us, I saw them try to bring her so as to come alongside, and each time I held my breath, for I knew that the moment they brought her broadside to the wind she would capsize.
May God forbid that ever I should behold such a sight again!
It was indescribably shocking to see them swept helplessly past within hail of us. There were seven men in her. Two of them cried out and raved furiously, entreating with dreadful, mad gesticulations as they whirled past. But the rest, some clinging to the mast, others seated with their arms folded, were silent, like dead men already, with fixed and staring eyes—a ghastly crew. I saw one of the two raving men spring on to the gunwale, but he was instantly pulled down by another.
But what was there to see? It was a moment's horror—quick-vanishing as some monstrous object leaping into sight under a flash of lightning, then instantaneously swallowed up in the devouring gloom.
Our ship had got way upon her, and was surging forward with her lee-channels under water. The long-boat dwindled away on our quarter, the spray veiling her as she fled, and in a few minutes was not to be distinguished upon the immeasurable bed of foam and wave, stretching down to the livid storm that still raged upon the far horizon.
"My God!" exclaimed Cornish, who stood near the wheel unnoticed by me. "I might ha' been in her! I might ha' been in her!"
And he covered his face with his hands, and sobbed and shook with the horror of the scene, and the agony of the thoughts it had conjured up.
I hardly knew what to make of the weather, for though it blew very hard the wind was not so violent as it had been during those three days which I have written of in another part of this story.
The ship managed to hold her own well, with her head at west; I mean that she went scraping through the water, making very little lee-way, and so far she could fairly well carry the three close-reefed topsails, though I believe that had another yard of canvas more than was already exposed been on her, she would have lain down and never righted again, so violent was the first clap and outfly of the wind.
Nevertheless, I got the boatswain to take the wheel, and sent Cornish forward to stand by the fore-topsail sheets, whilst I kept by the mizzen, for I was not at all sure that the terrific thunder-storm that had broken over us was not the precursor of a hurricane, to come down at any moment on the gale that was already blowing, and wreck the ship out of hand.
In this way twenty minutes passed, when finding the wind to remain steady, I sang out to Cornish that he might come aft again. As I never knew the moment when a vessel might heave in sight I bent on the small ensign and ran it half-way up at the gaff end, not thinking it judicious to exhibit a train of flag-signals in so much wind. I then took the telescope, and, setting it steady in the mizzen rigging, slowly and carefully swept the weather horizon, and afterwards transferred the glass to leeward, but no ship was to be seen.
"We ought to be in the track o' some sort o' wessels, too," exclaimed the boatswain, who had been awaiting the result of my inspections. "The steamers from Liverpool to New Orleans, and the West Indie mail-ships 'ud come right across this way, wouldn't they?"
"Not quite so far north," I answered. "But there ought to be no lack of sailing ships from all parts—from England to the southern ports of the United States and North America—from American ports to Rio and the eastern coast of South America. They cannot keep us long waiting. Something must heave in sight soon."
"Suppose we sight a wessel, what do you mean to do, sir?"
"Ask them to let me have a few men to work the ship to the nearest port."
"But suppose they're short-handed?"
"Then they won't oblige us."
"I can't see myself, sir," said he, "why, instead o' tryin' to fetch Bermuda, we shouldn't put the helm up and square away for England. How might the English Channel lie as we now are?"
"A trifle to the east'ard of north-east."
"Well, this here's a fair wind for it."
"That's true; but will you kindly remember that the ship's company consists of three men."
"Of four, countin' the steward, and five, countin' Miss Robertson."
"Of three men, I say, capable of working the vessel."
"Well, yes; you're right. Arter all, there's only three to go aloft."
"I suppose you know," I continued, "that it would take a sailing ship, properly manned, four or five weeks to make the English Channel."
"Well, sir."
"Neither you, nor I, nor Cornish could do without sleep for four or five weeks."
"We could keep regular watches, Mr. Royle."
"I dare say we could; but we should have to let the ship remain under reefed topsails. But instead of taking four or five weeks, we should take four or five months to reach England under close-reefed topsails, unless we could keep a gale of wind astern of us all the way. I'll tell you what it is, bo'sun, these exploits are very pretty, and appear very possible in books, and persons who take anything that is told them about the sea as likely and true, believe they can be accomplished. And on one or two occasions they have been accomplished. Also I have heard on one occasion a gentleman made a voyage from Timor to Bathurst Island on the back of a turtle. But the odds, in my unromantic opinion, are a thousand to one against our working the ship home as we are, unless we can ship a crew on the road, and very shortly. And how can we be sure of this? There is scarce a ship goes to sea now that is not short-handed. We may sight fifty vessels, and get no help from one of them. They may all be willing to take us on board if we abandon the Grosvenor; but they'll tell us that they can give us no assistance to work her. Depend upon it, our wisest course is to make Bermuda. There, perhaps, we may pick up some hands. But if we head for England in this trim—a deep ship, with heavy gear to work, and but two seamen to depend upon, if the third has to take the wheel, trusting to chance to help us, I repeat that the odds against our bringing the ship home are one thousand to one. We shall be at the mercy of every gale that rises, and end in becoming a kind of phantom ship, chased about the ocean just as the wind happens to blow us."
"Well, sir," said he, "I dare say you're right, and I'll say no more about it. Now, about turnin' in. I'll keep here if you like to go below for a couple of hours. Cornish can stand by to rouse you up."
I had another look to windward before making up my mind to go below. A strong sea was rising, and the wind blew hard enough to keep one leaning against it. There was no break in the sky, and the horizon was thick, but the look-out was not worse than it had been half an hour before.
We were, however, snug enough aloft, if not very neat; the bunt of the mainsail,