CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
HEAVY WEATHER.
The provisions, water, and the mast and sail were all successfullysecured by the occupants of the boat, after which Dominguez, to my greatsatisfaction, made sail to the southward, and in another hour his tinyspeck of canvas had vanished beyond the horizon. This left me free toattend to my own necessities without further anxiety on the score ofbeing boarded; I therefore once more lashed the tiller in such aposition that the felucca would practically steer herself, and then,having first taken a good look round, to see if anything was in sight,proceeded below, found the chart which Dominguez had been using, andascertained the bearing and distance of the island of Barbadoes. Acareful study of this chart revealed the rather disconcerting fact that,taking into consideration the circumstance that Barbadoes was towindward, while Jamaica lay well to leeward of me, it would be almost asquick to return to the latter as it would be to beat out to the former.On the other hand, however, there was this to be taken intoconsideration, that, on a wind, the felucca might be made to practicallysteer herself, as I had already ascertained by experiment, while it wasquite certain that she could not be persuaded to do any such thing whilerunning _off_ the wind. Moreover, by ratching far enough to thenorthward to enable the felucca to fetch Barbadoes on the next tack, Ishould be stretching away in a fairly promising direction for beingpicked up by one of the many British cruisers that were watching theprincipal outlets from the Caribbean to the Atlantic. After maturedeliberation, therefore, I arrived at the conclusion that I could not dobetter than adhere to my original determination of trying for Barbadoes.
The next question was, how I was to dispose of my time, or rather, whatportion of my time it would be best to devote to sleep. One fact staredme in the face at the outset, namely, that until I was once more safeashore I should have to make shift with the smallest possible amount ofsleep, the care of the felucca calling for my almost constant attention;consequently, I should have to so arrange my periods of rest that theywould coincide with the times when the felucca could best be left totake care of herself. These periods would obviously occur during thehours of daylight, when it would be possible to take a good look round,and if nothing was in sight, or likely to approach within dangerousproximity for an hour or two, lie down on deck in the shadow of thesail, snatch a short nap, and then take another look round; repeatingthe process as often as possible throughout the day, in order that Imight be fresh and lively for an unbroken watch through the hours ofdarkness. Having arrived at this conclusion, I forthwith proceeded tocarry out my plan, and found it to act fairly well; the only drawbackbeing, that, for want of watching, the felucca evinced a tendency to runa little off the wind, while, when I attempted to remedy this by lashingthe helm an inch or two less a-weather, she erred to about the sameextent in the other direction by gradually coming-to until her sail wasall shaking, and I had to jump hurriedly to my feet and jam the helmhard up to prevent her from coming round upon the other tack. Little bylittle, however, I remedied both these defects, so that by sunset I hadher going along just "full and by," almost as steadily as though I hadbeen standing at the tiller and steering her.
Meanwhile, the wind, which had been very moderate all day, with adistinctly perceptible disposition to become still lighter, hadgradually softened down until the little hooker was barely doing herthree knots per hour, while the sea had dwindled away until only thelong, regular undulations of the swell were left, these being overrun bya wrinkling of those small, uncrested wavelets that frequently precedethe setting-in of a calm. Yet there was no reason why a calm should beanticipated, for I was in a region where the trade wind blows all theyear round, except when, for a few hours, it gives place to one of thehurricanes that occasionally sweep over the Caribbean with devastatingeffect. Could it be possible that such a phenomenon was about tohappen? There was no especial reason why it might not be so, for it wasthe "hurricane season." But there was no sign in the heavens of anyapproaching atmospheric disturbance--unless, indeed, that faint,scarcely perceptible, hazy appearance up aloft had a sinister meaning!
When the sun had declined to within a few minutes of his setting, Ishinned up the mast and took a good look round; but there was nothing insight. Waiting, therefore, until the sun had sunk below the horizon,--which he did in the midst of a thin, smoky haze, through which therayless luminary glowed like a ball of red-hot iron,--I descended to thedeck and forthwith set to work to prepare myself such a supper as themeagre resources of the felucca permitted; after discussing which, asthe stars were shining brilliantly overhead, and the little craft wassteering herself, I again stretched myself out on deck to snatch anothernap.
I this time slept for several hours, for when I was at length awakenedby the rustling of the sail it was close upon midnight. Starting to myfeet, I first glanced aloft and then around me; but there was nothing tobe seen, the darkness being so profound that it needed but a very smallstretch of the imagination to persuade me that it might absolutely befelt! It was the thick, opaque darkness that I remembered having onceexperienced when, as a boy, I went exploring some Devonshire caverns andclumsily allowed my candle to fall and become extinguished in a pool ofwater. It seemed to press upon me, to become palpable to the touch, toso closely wrap me about that my very breathing became impeded. And oh,how frightfully hot and close it was! The air was absolutely stagnant,and the slight draught created by the uneasy motion of the feluccaseemed to positively scorch the skin. Moreover, there was no dew; thedeck-planks, the rail, everything that my hand came into contact with,was dry and warm. I groped my way to the rail and looked abroad overthe surface of the ocean, and it will perhaps convey--at all events tothose who have used the sea--some idea of the intensity of the darknesswhen I say that not the faintest glimmer of reflected light came to mefrom the polished undulations of the slow-creeping swell. The water,however, was highly phosphorescent, for alongside the felucca, and allround her as she rolled and pitched with a quick, jerky, uneasy motion,there extended a narrow band or cloud of faint greenish-blue sea-fire,in the midst of which flashed and glittered millions of tiny stars,interspersed here and there with less luminous patches, in the forms ofrings and discs, that vanished and grew into view again at quickintervals in the most weird and uncanny manner.
I groped my way to the companion, and from thence below into the littlecabin, where I lighted the lamp and seated myself at the table, wellunder its cheerful if somewhat smoky beams; for the grave-like darknessof the deck had oppressed me with a feeling very nearly akin to horror,and even the dull yellow light of the lamp seemed inexpressibly cheerfulin comparison with it. There was no barometer aboard the felucca, so Ihad nothing to guide me to the meaning of the weather portents, but Iwas convinced that something out of the common--something more than amere thunder-squall--was brewing; and, if so, I should probably have myhands full in taking care of the felucca, with nobody to help me.Still, so awkward a condition of affairs was preferable to that of beingdelivered over to Morillo, for him to work his fiendish will upon me.
The cabin was much too hot to be comfortable, so, having quicklyconquered the feeling of depression produced by the darkness that hadpreceded the lighting of the cabin lamp, I helped myself to one ofDominguez' excellent cigars, and, lighting it, went on deck, where thedull gleam of the lamp, issuing from the small glazed skylight, now madequite a pleasant little patch of yellow radiance on the deck andbulwarks immediately adjacent. I was by this time broad awake, havingsecured all the rest and sleep I just then needed; so I fell to pacingto and fro over the small patch of illuminated deck, determined to watchthe matter out.
I might have been thus engaged for about an hour, when I became awarethat the darkness was no longer so densely and oppressively profound asit had been; there was just the faintest imaginable gleam of light inthe sky, whereby it was possible to barely distinguish that thefirmament was packed with vast, piling masses of heavy, menacing cloud.Very gradually the light strengthened, assuming, as it did so, aloweri
ng, ruddy tint, until in the course of half an hour the whole skyhad the appearance that is seen when it reflects a great but distantconflagration. And now I knew of a surety that a hurricane was brewing;for that fearful ruddy light in the sky was the self-same appearancethat I had once before beheld when in the _Althea's_ gig I had beenattempting to make my way to Bermuda. There was no mistaking the sign,for it was one that, once seen, could never be forgotten.
And now, the storm-fiend having unfurled his fiery banner, and thusgiven warning of impending war, my time of inaction was over; for therewas plenty to do before the felucca could be considered as prepared toengage in the coming struggle. And, at the best, the preparation couldonly be a partial one; for the craft was not only small, she was old,crazy, and miserably weak for the ordeal that lay before her; and it wasnot in my power to remedy so serious a defect as tint. All that I coulddo was to take in the great lateen sail and secure it, and substitutefor it, if I could, some very much smaller piece of canvas, that, whilesufficient to save her from being overrun by the furious sea, would notbe too big for the felucca to carry. Fortunately, there was such a sailon board,--a small lug-sail made of stout canvas, and nearly new,--whichwas intended to be substituted for the lateen on those rare occasionswhen the little craft might be caught in heavy weather; and this sail Inow proceeded to drag up from below and bend to its yard; after which Ilowered away the lateen, laid it fore and aft the deck, and made it up,securing it as well as I could by passing innumerable turns of a lightwarp round it; after which I firmly lashed it to the bulwarks with asmany lashings as I could find pins or cleats for. My next job was toclose-reef and set the lug, which I did with the aid of the winch; andthis done, I went forward, and, beginning with the fore-scuttle,proceeded to carefully batten down every opening in the deck, bringingthe cabin lamp on deck in order that I might have a sufficiency of lightto work by. The skylight I secured as well as I could by passinglashings over the cover to a couple of ring-bolts conveniently placed inthe deck, and I finished up by backing the companion doors with a coupleof stout pieces of timber, which I sawed to the proper length and wedgedin between the uprights, rendering it practically impossible for thedoors to be forced open by a sea, while, by drawing over the slide, Icould at the last moment effectually close all access to the cabin.This completed my labours, with which I was fairly well satisfied, theonly portion of my defences about which I had any serious doubt beingthe skylight, the glazed panels of which might easily be smashed by asea; but I was obliged to take my chance of that, being unable to findanything with which to protect them.
And now, all that remained was to watch and wait. Nor had I to waitvery long; for when, having completed my preparations, I found time toagain glance aloft at the frowning sky, I observed that the heavy massesof fiery cloud, that had hitherto seemed to be practically motionless,so stealthy were their movements, were now working with a restless,writhing motion, while ever and anon some small detached fragment ofvapour would come sweeping rapidly out from the westward athwart thetwisting masses, as though caught and torn off from the main body bysome sudden, momentary, partial, but violent movement in the atmosphere.These small, scurrying fragments of cloud, the vanguard of theapproaching tempest, rapidly increased in size and in number, while thetwisting and writhing of the great cloud masses momentarily grew morerapid and convulsive, until it appeared as though the entire firmamentwere in the throes of mortal agony, the suggestion soon becomingintensified by the arising in the atmosphere of low, weird, moaningsounds, that at intervals rose and strengthened into a wail as of thespirits of drowned sailors lamenting the coming havoc. And as thewailing sounds arose and grew in volume, sudden stirrings in thestagnant air became apparent, first in the form of exaggerated cats'-paws, that smote savagely upon the glassy surface of the water,scourging it into a sudden flurry of foam, and then dying away again,and then in sudden gusts that swept screaming past the felucca hitherand thither, sometimes high enough aloft to leave the water undisturbed,at other times striking it and, as it were, rebounding from the surface,leaving in its path streaks and patches of ruffled water that hadscarcely time to subside ere another gust went howling past, to leavethem more disturbed than before. These sudden scurryings of wind werethe forerunners of the hurricane itself, and only sprang up a short fiveminutes before the low, hoarse murmur of the gale itself became audible.As this sound arose I looked away to the westward,--the quarter fromwhich it came,--and saw, by the faint, sombre, ruddy light of theunnaturally glowing sky, a thin white line appear upon the horizon,lengthening and thickening as I watched, until it became a rushing wallof foam, bearing down upon the felucca at terrific speed, while behindit the heavens grew pitchy black, and the murmur became a low, deeproar, and the roar grew in volume to a bellow, and the bellow rose to anunearthly howl, and the howl to a yelling shriek, as the hurricane leaptat the felucca--which, happily, was lying stern-on to it--and seized herin its grip, causing the stout, close-reefed lug-sail to fill with areport like that of a cannon, and burying her bows deep in the creamy,hissing smother ere she gathered way, while the scud-water flew over herin blinding, drenching sheets. For a moment, as I gripped the tillerconvulsively, I thought the little hooker was about to founder bowsfirst, but after a shuddering pause of a few breathless seconds ofhorrible suspense, she gathered way, and in another instant was flyingbefore the gale like a frightened thing, at a speed which I dare ventureto say she had never before attained.
It was a wild scene in the midst of which I now found myself. With theoutburst of the gale the supernatural, ruddy glow of the sky hadsuddenly faded, to be succeeded by a frightful gloom, which yet was notactual darkness, for the whole surface of the sea had in a few briefseconds become a level sheet of boiling foam, so strongly phosphorescentthat it emitted light enough for me to see, with tolerable distinctness,the hull, mast, and sail of the felucca, and to make out the positionand character of the principal objects about her deck; and this sameweird, ghostly light it probably was that, reflected from the clouds,enabled me also to discern their forms and to distinguish that they wereno longer the rounded, swelling masses that they had hitherto been, butwere now rent and tattered and ragged with the mad fury of the wind thathad seized upon them and was dragging them at headlong speed athwart thearch of heaven. The air, too, was full of spindrift, to perhaps doublethe height of the felucca's mast, and that too was luminous with afaint, green, misty light that imparted a weird, unreal aspect toeverything it shone upon; an effect which was further heightened by theunearthly screaming and howling of the gale.
There was nothing for it but to keep the felucca running dead before thegale; and, fortunately for me, this was by no means a difficult feat, asthe craft steered as is easily as a boat,--indeed she almost steeredherself. For the first half-hour or so nothing special occurred, thehurricane continuing to blow as furiously as at its first mad outfly,while the felucca sped before it as smoothly and steadily as thoughmounted on wheels and running upon a perfectly smooth and level road; myonly fear just then being that the mast would go over the bows, or thesail be blown out of its bolt-ropes. The spar, however, was a good one,and well stayed, while the sail was practically new, and the gear wasgood; everything therefore held, although I could _feel_ that the littlecraft was straining to an alarming extent. But about half an hour, orthereabout, after the gale first struck us, a movement of the hull--gentle and easy at first, but rapidly increasing--told me that the seawas beginning to rise; and soon after that my troubles commenced inearnest, for the sea got up with astounding rapidity, and as it did sothe steering became increasingly difficult, especially when the stern ofthe little hooker was thrown up on the crest of a sea, at which periods,for a few breathless seconds, the rudder seemed to lose its grip on thewater, and the felucca was hurled irresistibly forward, with her bowsburied deep in the boiling foam, while she seemed hesitating whether tobroach-to to starboard or to port, either alternative of which wouldhave been equally disastrous, since in either case she must haveassure
dly capsized and gone down. But, by what seemed nothing short ofa series of interpositions on the part of a merciful Providence, inevery case, just at the moment when a broach-to seemed imminent andinevitable, I felt the rudder take a fresh grip on the water, and wewere again safe until the next sea overtook us. And so it continuedthroughout the remaining hours of that dreadful night, with grim Deaththreatening me at every upward heave of the little craft, until atlength--after what seemed to have been a very eternity of anxiety--theday broke slowly and sullenly ahead, by which time I had grownabsolutely callous and indifferent. My nerves had been kept in a stateof acute tension so long that they seemed to have become incapable ofany further feeling of any kind, and I had ceased to care whether Isurvived or not; or rather, I had become so thoroughly convinced of theabsolute impossibility of ultimate escape, that there seemed to benothing left worth worrying about. Moreover, I was by this time utterlyexhausted with the tremendous exertion of keeping the little craftrunning straight for so long a time; for at the critical moments ofwhich I have spoken, the helm seemed to so nearly lose its power that itbecame necessary to jam the tiller hard over, first to this side andthen to that, as the felucca seemed actually starting on a wild sheerthat must have flung her broadside-on to the sea, and so have abruptlyfinished her career and mine at the same moment.
Thus was it with me when the dull and sullen dawn at length came oozingthrough the mirky blackness ahead, gradually spreading along thehorizon, grey, dismal, and lowering, bringing the tattered shapes andsooty hues of the wildly flying clouds into stronger relief, andrevealing a horizon serrated with the frenzied leapings of the angrywaters that hissed and roared around the straining felucca, chasing herlike angry wolves about to leap upon their prey. At first I thought Iwas alone in this scene of mad turmoil; but presently, when the lightgrew stronger, as the felucca hung poised for an instant upon the crestof a foaming comber, that boiled in over both rails amidships andflooded the deck knee-deep, I caught a momentary glimpse of a largecraft, some nine miles away on the larboard bow, running, like myself,before the gale. She was hull down, of course, and very probably in thehollow of a sea when first I caught sight of her; for I saw only theheads of her lower masts, with the three topmasts rising above them, thetopgallant masts either struck or carried away. She was running under aclose-reefed maintopsail and goose-winged foresail, and I took her to bea frigate, though whether one of our own or an enemy, she was too faroff for me to be enabled to judge; but, of whatever nationality she mayhave been, she was undoubtedly a fast vessel, for she soon ran out ofsight, although I estimated the speed of the felucca to be quite nineknots.
About an hour later I became sensible of a distinct abatement in thefury of the hurricane, which, in the course of another hour, had stillfurther moderated, until it had become no more than an ordinary heavygale. Yet so callous had I now become that the change afforded mescarcely any satisfaction; I had grown so utterly indifferent that I hadlong ceased to care what happened. But I was worn out with fatigue; mylimbs ached as though I had been severely beaten, my hands wereblistered and raw with the chafe of the tiller, and my eyes weresmarting for want of sleep. Rest I felt that I _must_ have, and thatsoon, come what might of it. So, as the gale had moderated somewhat, Idetermined to heave-to. I believed the felucca would now bear theweight of her small, close-reefed lug even when brought to the wind, andif she did not--well, it did not matter. _Nothing_ mattered just then,except that I _must_ have rest. So, the sail being set on the starboardside of the mast, I watched my opportunity, and, availing myself of a"smooth," brought the felucca to on the starboard tack, with no worsemishap than the shipping of a sea over the weather bow--as she came upwith her head pointing to windward--that swept away the whole of theport bulwarks, from abreast the windlass to the wake of the companion.As she came to, the little craft laid over until the water was up to thelee coamings of her main hatchway, and for a second or two I thought shewas going to turn turtle with me; but, once fairly round and head-on tothe sea, she rode wonderfully well, especially after I had lashed thehelm a-lee and got the mainsheet aft. The latter was a heavy job, but Imanaged it in about half an hour, with the assistance of the watch-tackle, and, that done, the craft could take care of herself. Itherefore slid back the top of the companion, swung myself heavily inthrough the opening, stumbled down the ladder, staggered across thelittle cabin, and flung myself, wet to the skin as I was, into my bunk,where I instantly lost consciousness, whether in a swoon or only in aprofound sleep I never knew.