CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE LAST OF THE FELUCCA.
I was awakened, some five hours later, by the sound water washingheavily to and fro, and upon looking over the edge of the bunk Idiscovered that the cabin was all afloat, the floor being covered to adepth of nearly a foot, so that I looked down upon a miniature sea,violently agitated by the furious leaping and plunging and rolling ofthe felucca. I could tell, by the roar of the wind and the hissing ofthe sea, with the frequent heavy fall of water on deck, that it wasstill blowing heavily, and my first impression was that the water hadcome down through the companion,--the slide of which I had left open,--but a few minutes of patient observation convinced me that, although aslight sprinkling of spray rained down occasionally, it was not nearlysufficient to account for the quantity that surged and splashed aboutthe cabin. The only other explanation I could think of was that thefelucca had sprung a leak; and, leaping out of the bunk, I made my wayon deck to ascertain the truth of this conjecture.
It was a dismal and dreary scene that presented itself when I swungmyself out on deck through the companion top. It was still blowing withthe force of a whole gale; the sky to windward was as black andthreatening as ever; and the sea was running so high and breaking soheavily that, as every succeeding comber came sweeping down upon thefelucca, with its foaming, hissing crest towering above her to nearlythe height of her masthead, it appeared to me--new to the scene as Iwas--that the next sea must inevitably overwhelm her. Yet, deep in thewater as I instantly noticed her to be, the little craft still retainedbuoyancy enough to climb somehow up the steep slope of each advancingwave, though not to carry her fairly over its crest, every one of whichbroke aboard her--usually well forward, as luck would have it; with theresult that while I had been sleeping below the whole of the leebulwarks and the forward half of them on the weather side had been sweptaway, leaving her deck open to the sea, which had swept away everymovable thing, leaving nothing but the mast and the splintered ends ofthe stanchions standing.
This constant sweeping of the deck by green seas rendered the task ofmoving about extremely dangerous, for the rush of water over the forepart of the deck was quite heavy enough to lift a man off his feet andcarry him overboard. But I wanted to sound the well; so, securing thepump-rod, which, for convenience, was hung in beckets in the companion,I watched my opportunity, and, rushing forward, succeeded in droppingthe rod down the well and getting a firm grip upon the fall of the mainhalliard before the next sea broke aboard. Then, as the water pouredoff the deck, I quickly drew the rod out of the well and dashed aft withit to the shelter of the companion in time to escape the next sea. Aninspection of the rod then sufficed to realise my worst fears; thelittle craft had upwards of three feet of water in her hold! Evidentlyshe was leaking badly, and the sooner I could devise some means ofrelieving her of the weight of water in her the better it would be forme. Had I made this discovery half a dozen hours earlier I shouldprobably have regarded it with perfect indifference; but those fivehours of death--like sleep had so greatly refreshed me that I now felt anew man. My state of indifference had passed away with the intensity ofmy fatigue, and the instinct of self-preservation was once moreasserting itself.
My first idea was to rig the pump; but this was instantly discarded, forI had but to stand in the companion-way for a couple of minutes, andwatch the heavy rush of water athwart the deck, to be convinced of theabsolute impossibility of maintaining my position at the pump; for, evenif lashed there, my utmost efforts would barely suffice to preventmyself from being swept overboard, while to work the pump would be quiteout of the question. Then I remembered that the lazarette hatch wassituated immediately at the foot of the companion ladder; and I thoughtthat, by raising the cover, I might get a sort of well from which tobale, and in this way at least keep the leak from gaining upon me, evenif I found it impossible to reduce it. For _time_ was what I nowwanted. I had a conviction that the felucca's seams were opening,through the violent straining of her in the heavy sea and through thetremendous pressure of the wind upon her sail; and I felt tolerablyconfident that, if I could succeed in keeping her afloat until the galehad blown itself out, all would be well.
But at this point of my meditations it suddenly occurred to me that Iwas hungry and thirsty; so I descended the companion ladder and made myway to the small pantry, in search of something to eat and drink. Itwas a small place, scarcely larger than a cupboard, and very imperfectlylighted by a single bull's-eye let into the deck; but it had one merit,it was well provided with good wide shelves, upon which everything thatcould possibly spoil was stowed; and here I was lucky enough to find anabundance of food--such as it was--and several bottles of the thin, sourwine which Dominguez and his crew drank instead of coffee. I ate anddrank there in the pantry, standing up to my knees in water, and when Ihad finished, went to work with a bucket and rope to bail the water outof the lazarette, standing out on deck, on the lee side of thecompanion, and drawing the water out of the lazarette as out of a well.I stuck doggedly to this work throughout the whole afternoon and well oninto the night, until I could bail no longer for very weariness; andthen--having convinced myself that I had succeeded in checking the riseof the water--I took a final look round to ascertain whether anythinghappened to be in sight, but could see nothing, the night being againdark as pitch, came to the conclusion that it was blowing a trifle lesshard than it had been, and that the felucca would live through the nighteven though I should cease to bale; and so descended to the cabin andagain flung myself into my bunk, where I dropped sound asleep as my headtouched the pillow.
When I next returned to consciousness my awakening was brought aboutthrough the agency of water splashing in over the side of my bunk, thefelucca having steadily filled during the period of my sleep until thecabin was fully three feet deep in water. It was broad day, and oh,blessed change! the sun was shining brilliantly down through theskylight, while the wind had evidently dropped to a pleasant breeze. Aheavy sea, however, was still running,--as I could tell by the movementsof the felucca,--and I could hear the water well and gurgle up the sideof the little craft and go pouring across her deck from time to time,although not so frequently as before I turned in.
I rolled reluctantly out of my bunk--for I seemed to be aching in everyjoint of my body, and my head was burning and throbbing with a dull painlike what would be occasioned by the strokes of a small hammer--andwaded, waist deep in water, to the companion ladder, up which I crawled,and so out on deck.
The gale had blown itself out, the wind having subsided to a very gentlebreeze, that I soon discovered was fast dying away to a calm--althoughwhat little wind there was still came breathing out from the westward.The sky was perfectly clear, of a rich, deep, pure blue colour, withouta shred of cloud to be seen in the whole of the vast vault; and in themidst of it, about two hours high, hung the morning sun, a dazzlingglobe of brilliance and heat. The sea, I now found, had subsided almostentirely, but a very heavy swell was still running, over which thefelucca rode laboriously, the water in her interior occasionally pinningher down to such an extent that the quick-running swell would brim upover her bows and pour in a perfect cataract athwart her deck. This,however, I was not surprised at, for--as nearly as I could judge--thefelucca showed barely nine inches of freeboard! Still the little hookerseemed surprisingly buoyant, considering her water-logged condition, andnow that the seas no longer broke over her, there seemed to be no reasonwhy, given enough time, I should not be able to pump her dry, and resumemy voyage to Barbadoes.
So I rigged the pump and went to work, hoping that, as the gale had nowabated and the sea had gone down, the straining of the hull and theopening of the seams had ceased, and that consequently the felucca wasno longer in a leaky condition. I toiled on throughout the whole ofthat roasting morning, with the sun beating mercilessly down upon me,while the water swirled athwart the deck and about my legs, until noon,and then, utterly exhausted with my labour, my skin burning with feverand my hands raw and bleeding, I
was fain to cry "spell ho!" and give upfor a time, while I sought somewhat to eat and drink. I had worked witha good will, sanguinely hoping that when I felt myself compelled toknock off I should discover that I had sensibly diminished the amount ofwater in the felucca's interior; but this hope was cruelly disappointed,for when I reached the companion, on my way below, I found that therewas no perceptible difference in the height of the water in the cabinfrom what it had been before I turned to; indeed the water seemed tohave _risen_ rather than diminished, a sure indication that the hull wasstill leaking, and that by no effort of mine could I hope to keep thecraft much longer afloat.
And now, as I descended to the cabin, and noted the violence with whichthe water surged hither and thither with the rolling and pitching of thelittle vessel, a wild fear seized upon me that I might find all theprovisions in the pantry spoiled. A moment later and my surmise waschanged to certainty, for as I opened the door of the small, cupboard-like apartment, a recoiling wave surged out through the doorway, itssurface bestrewed with the hard, coarse biscuits that sailors speak ofas "bread." The water had risen high enough to flood the shelf uponwhich the eatables had been stowed, and everything was washed off andutterly spoiled. Worse still, there was no possibility of obtaining afurther supply, for the lazarette, or storehouse, was beneath the cabinfloor and had been flooded for hours. Moreover, it was unapproachable.Fortunately I did not feel very hungry; I was, however, consumed with aburning thirst which--all the water-casks having been washed overboard--I quenched by draining a whole bottle of the thin, sour wine of which Ihave before spoken. Then I went to work to collect all the biscuit Icould secure, and carried it up on deck to dry in the sun, spreading itout on a cloth on the top of the companion; and while engaged upon thistask, and also in removing my small stock of wine to the deck--for thecabin was by this time uninhabitable--I began to consider what I coulddo to save my life when the felucca should founder, as founder she must,now that I had demonstrated my inability to keep the leaks under. Thequestion was not a very knotty one, or one demanding very profoundconsideration; obviously there was but one thing to do, and that was tobuild a raft with such materials as offered themselves to my hand. Andjust at this point the first difficulty presented itself in the shape ofthe question: what available materials were there? For, as I havealready mentioned, the deck had been swept of every movable thing,including the big lateen yard, which had doubtless gone overboard whenthe bulwarks were carried away. There seemed to be absolutely_nothing_, unless I set to work to break up the felucca herself! Yetstay, there was the mast, the yard that spread and supported the lug-sail, the tiller--a good, stout, serviceable stick of timber--and--yes,certainly, the hatches--which could now be safely taken off, as the seano longer swept over the deck heavily enough to pour over the coamings.Surely with those materials I ought to be able to construct a raftbuoyant enough to support me, even although it would be obviouslynecessary for me to construct it on the deck, and then patiently waituntil the felucca sank and floated it off--for it would be quiteimpossible for me to launch it.
So to work I went, my first task being to descend into the floodedforecastle and grope about for an axe that I knew was kept theresomewhere; and I was fortunate enough to find it almost at once. Then,returning to the deck, I lowered away the lug-sail and cut the canvasadrift from the yard, carefully lashing the latter, that it might notroll or be washed overboard. Then I began to cut away the mast,chopping a deep notch in it close to the deck, and when I heard itbeginning to complain, I cut the lanyards of the weather rigging, whenaway it went over the side with a crash. This gave me a good deal oftrouble, for I wanted the spar on deck, not overboard; so I had to go towork to parbuckle it up the side, which I managed pretty well bywatching the lift of the seas. Then I cut the mast in halves, laid thetwo halves parallel athwart the deck, and secured the yard and thetiller to them, as cross-pieces, with good stout lashings. And finally,to these last I firmly lashed four of the main hatch covers, when I hada platform of some twelve feet long and eight feet wide to support me.All that now remained to be done was to secure my provisions and wine,which I did by stowing the whole in a double thickness of tarpaulin, theedges of which I gathered together and tightly lashed with spun-yarn,finally securing the bundle to the raft by a short end of rope, so thatit might not be washed away when the felucca should take her finalplunge; and I had then done everything that it was possible for me todo.
By the time that my task was finished the sun had sunk to within ahand's breadth of the western horizon, while the wind had dwindled awayuntil it had become the faintest zephyr, scarcely to be distinguishedsave by the slight ruffling of the water here and there where ittouched, it being so nearly a flat calm that already great oily-lookingpatches of gleaming smoothness had appeared and were spreadingmomentarily through the faint blue ripplings that still betrayed amovement in the air. As for me, I was utterly exhausted with my longday's toil under the roasting sun; every bone in my body was aching; Iwas in a burning fever, and was sick with the smart of my raw andbleeding hands. The old feeling of callousness and indifference to myfate was once more upon me, and as I gazed at the crazy-looking raftwhich I had constructed with such a lavish expenditure of painful toil,I smiled in grim irony of myself that I should have done so much topreserve that life which now seemed of such little worth, and whichpromised soon to become an unendurable burden to me. A reaction fromthe excitement that had sustained me during my labours had set in, and Iam persuaded that had any further exertion been necessary for thepreservation of my life I should not have undertaken it.
Meanwhile the felucca had sunk nearly to her covering-board, and mightbe expected to founder at any moment. I climbed laboriously upon thetop of the closed skylight and took a last, long look round to ascertainwhether anything had drifted into my range of view while I had beenengaged upon the raft, but there was nothing; the horizon was barethroughout its entire circumference; so I climbed down again, and,staggering to the raft, flung myself down upon it, with my bundle ofprovision as a pillow, and patiently awaited the evanishment of thefelucca.
Poor little craft! what a forlorn, weather-beaten, sea-washed wreck shelooked, as she lay there wallowing wearily and--as it seemed to me--painfully upon the long, creeping, glassy undulations of the swell! Howdifferent from the trim, sturdy little hooker that had sailed seaward soconfidently and saucily out of Kingston harbour a few years--no, not_years_, it must be months, or--was it only _days_--a few _days_ ago?It seemed more like years than days to me, and yet--why, of course it_could_ only be days. Heaven, how my head ached! how my brain seemed tothrob and boil within my skull! and surely it was not blood--it must befire that was coursing through my veins and causing my body to glow likewhite-hot steel! A big, glassy mound of swell came creeping alongtoward the felucca, and, as she rolled toward it, curled in over hercovering-board and poured in a heavy torrent across her deck, swirlinground my raft and shifting it a foot or two nearer the side; and as itswept past I dabbled one of my hands in it, and was dully surprised thatthe contact did not cause the water to hiss and boil! Another mountainof water came brimming over the deck of the shuddering craft and shiftedthe raft so far that it fairly overhung the covering-board, so that whenthe felucca rolled in the opposite direction the end of the raft notonly dipped in the water but actually lifted and floated, the heave ofthe water sucking it perhaps another foot off the deck. The next two orthree undulations passed harmlessly by,--the swing and roll of thefelucca was such that she just happened to meet them at the rightmoment, though lagging a little at the last,--and then came anothergreat liquid hill, towering high above the horizon, until the sinkingsun was utterly obscured. On it swept toward the felucca, which had nowslewed so that she faced the coming swell nearly stem-on, the water inher meanwhile rushing forward as she sank down into the trough until herstem-head was completely buried. Now she was meeting the breast of theon-coming swell, her bows still pinned down by the rush of water in herinterior, and now the glisteni
ng green wave was upon her, sweeping aftalong and athwart her deck, mounting over the coamings of the mainhatchway and pouring down the opening in a smooth, hissing, four-sidedcataract, snatching up the raft in its embrace and shooting it half adozen fathoms clear of the doomed craft, and rushing along the deckuntil even the companion and the skylight were submerged. By that timethe hull was full, the curious rectangular hollow in the surface of thewater that marked the position of the main hatchway was filled, the hullwas completely hidden save for a splintered stanchion that projectedabove water here and there. Then, as the wave passed, the bows of thefelucca emerged, gleaming and dripping with snowy, foaming cascades,that poured off the uncovered portion of the deck. Higher and higherrose the bows out of the water, until some ten feet in length of thefelucca was revealed, the deck gradually sloping until it assumed analmost perpendicular inclination, when slowly, silently, and glidingly,without a sob or gurgle of escaping air, the wreck slid backward anddownward until it vanished beneath the waters, now gleaming in gold andcrimson with the last rays of the setting sun. A few seconds later thegreat luminary also vanished, a sudden grey pallor overspread the ocean,and I found myself alone indeed, swaying upon that vast, heavingexpanse, with nothing between me and death save the clumsy structurethat I had so laboriously put together, and which now looked soinsignificantly small that I caught myself wondering why my weight didnot sink it.
But it did not; on the contrary, the raft proved to be surprisinglybuoyant, riding over the great, glassy, round-backed hills of swell asdry as a bone, with a gentle, swaying movement that somehow seemed tosoothe my fever-racked frame, so that the condition of semi-deliriumthat had possessed me just before the felucca foundered passed away andleft me sufficiently self-possessed to recognise the necessity foreating and drinking, if I was to survive and get the better of mymisfortunes. So I carefully opened my bundle and extracted from it asmall quantity of sun-dried biscuit--which, thanks to the curiouslygentle manner in which the raft had been launched, had received nofurther wetting--and proceeded to make such a meal as I could, washingit down with a sparing draught of wine. But although the biscuit haddried superficially, it was still wet and pasty in the middle, andhorribly nauseous to the palate, so that I made but a poor meal; afterwhich I stretched myself at full length upon the raft, and endeavouredto find relief in sleep. But, exhausted though I was, sleep would notcome to me; on the contrary, my memory and imagination rapidly becamepainfully excited. I thought of Dominguez, and wondered whether he andhis companions had escaped the hurricane; then I thought of Morillo andhis fiendish hatred of me; and so my thoughts and fancies chased oneanother until they became all mingled together in an inextricablejumble; and through it all I heard myself singing, shouting, laughing,arguing upon impossible subjects with wholly imaginary persons, andperforming I know not what other mad vagaries, until finally, I suppose,I must have become so utterly exhausted as to have subsided into arestless, feverish sleep.