CHAPTER THREE.
WE RESCUE THE CREW OF A FRENCH BARQUE.
We were now drawing close down upon the barque, steering a course that,if persisted in, would have resulted in our striking her fair amidshipson her starboard broadside, but which, by attention to the helm at theproper moment, with a due allowance for our own heavy lee drift, wasintended to take us close enough to the sinking craft to enable us tospeak her. Presently, at a word from the skipper, the third mate--whowas acting as the captain's _aide_--sang out for some men to lay aft andback the main-topsail; and at the same moment the helm was eased gentlyup, with the result that our bows fell off just sufficiently to clearthe barque's starboard quarter.
I shall never forget the sight that the unfortunate craft presented atthat moment. Her foremast and jib-boom were under the bows, with allattached, and were hanging, a tangled mass of raffle, by the shrouds andstays, leaving about twenty feet of naked, jagged, and splintered stumpof the lower-mast standing above the deck; and her main-topmast was alsogone; but the wreckage of this had been cut away and had gone adrift,leaving only the heel in the cap, and the ragged ends of the topmastshrouds streaming from the rim of the top. She had been a verysmart-looking little vessel in her time, painted black with false ports,and under her bowsprit she sported a handsomely-carved half-lengthfigure of a crowned woman, elaborately painted and gilded. She carrieda short topgallant forecastle forward, and a full poop aft, reaching towithin about twenty-five feet from the mainmast; and between these twostructures the bulwarks had been completely swept away, leaving only ajagged stump of a stanchion here and there protruding above thecovering-board. She was sunk so low in the water that her channels wereburied; and the water that was in her, making its way slowly and withdifficulty through the interstices of her cargo, had at this timecollected forward, and was pinning her head down to such an extent thather bows were unable to lift to the 'scend of the sea, with the resultthat every sea broke, hissing white, over her topgallant forecastle, andswept right aft to the poop, against the front of which it dasheditself, as against the vertical face of a rock, throwing blinding anddrenching clouds of spray over the little group of cowering people whocrouched as closely as they could huddle behind the meagre andinadequate shelter of the skylight.
I counted fourteen of these poor souls, and in the midst of them,occupying the most sheltered spot on the whole deck, I noticed what atfirst looked like a bundle of tarpaulin, but as we swept up on thebarque's starboard quarter I saw one of the men gently pull a corner ofthe tarpaulin aside with one hand, while he pointed at the _City ofCawnpore_ with the other, and, to my amazement, the head and face of awoman--a young woman--looked out at us with an expression of mingledhope and despair that was dreadful to see.
"Good God, there's a woman among them!" exclaimed Dacre. "We must saveher--we must save them all, if we can; but it looks as if we shall notbe given much time to do it in. I suppose they want to be taken off?They'll never be mad enough to wish to stick to that wreck, eh? Hailthem, Mr Conyers; you know what to say!"
"Barque ahoy!" I hailed, in French, as, with main-topsail aback, wesurged and wallowed slowly athwart the stern of the stranger, "do youwish to be taken off?"
At the first sound of my voice, the man who had pointed us out to thewoman rose stiffly to his feet and staggered aft to the taffrail, withhis hand to his ear.
"But yes," he shouted back, in the same language; "our ship is sinking,and--"
"All right," I interrupted--for time was precious--"we will endeavour toget the end of a hawser aboard you. Have you any light heaving-linethat you can veer down to us by means of a float? If so, get it ready,and we will try to pick it up on our return. We are now about to standon and take room to wear, when we will come back and endeavour toestablish a connection between the two craft. Have the line ready andveered well away to leeward at once."
"But, monsieur," replied the man, wringing his hands, "we have _no_line--no anything--you see all that we have,"--indicating the bare poopwith a frantic gesture.
"You have a lot of small stuff among the gear upon your mizenmast," Iretorted; but although I pointed to the mast in question, and the manglanced aloft as I did so, I very much doubted whether he comprehendedmy meaning, for our lee drift was so rapid that we were by this timealmost beyond hailing distance.
"Fill the main-topsail," shouted the skipper. "What have you arranged?"he demanded, turning to me.
I told him. He stamped on the rail with impatience. "It is clear thatit will not do to trust overmuch to them for help; we shall have to doeverything ourselves. Mr Murgatroyd!" he shouted.
The mate came aft.
"Is that hawser nearly ready?" demanded the skipper.
"All but, sir," answered the mate. "Another five minutes will do it."
"Then," said the skipper, "your next job, sir, will be to muster all thelight line you can lay your hands upon, and range it along the larboardrail--which will be our weather rail, presently, when we have got theship round--and station half a dozen men, or more, all along the weatherrail, each with a coil, and let them stand by to heave as we cross thebarque's stern. My object is to get a line aboard her as quickly aspossible, by means of which we may send the hawser to them. For theyappear to be a pretty helpless lot aboard there, and, if they are to besaved, there is very little time to lose."
"Ay, ay, sir," responded Murgatroyd; and away he went to perform thisadditional duty.
Captain Dacre now showed the stuff of which he was made, handling hisship with the most consummate skill and judgment, wearing her round uponthe port tack the moment that he could do so with the certainty of againfetching the barque, and ranging up under her stern as closely as hedared approach. Eight of the strongest and most skilful seamen in theship were ranged along the weather rail, and as we drew up on thebarque's starboard quarter--with our main-topsail once more thrownaback--man after man hurled his coil of light, pliant line with all hisstrength, in the endeavour to get the end of it aboard the barque. Butsuch was the strength of the gale that line after line fell short--checked as effectually in its career as though it had been dashedagainst a solid wall--and although, after his first failure, each manhauled in his line and, re-coiling it with the utmost rapidity,attempted another cast, all were unsuccessful, and we had themortification of feeling that at least twenty minutes of priceless timehad been expended to no purpose. And what made it all the worse wasthat during that twenty minutes absolutely nothing had been done by theFrenchmen toward the preparation of a line to veer down to us. Withinthree minutes of the moment when the first line had been hove we wereonce more out of hailing distance, and the main yards were again beingswung.
"We will have another try," said the skipper; "but if we fail again itwill be all up with them--if, indeed, it is not already too late. Thatbarque cannot possibly live another half-hour!"
There seemed to be no room to regard this otherwise than as a plain,literal statement of an incontrovertible fact; we were all agreed thatthe unfortunate craft had settled perceptibly in the water since we hadfirst sighted her; and at the same rate another half-hour would sufficeto annihilate the very small margin of buoyancy that appeared to bestill remaining to her, even if she escaped being earlier sunk out ofhand by some more than usually heavy sea. But this seemed to have beentemporarily lost sight of by the little crowd of onlookers thatclustered closely round us on the poop, in the absorbing interestattendant upon our endeavours to get a line on board the barque, and wasonly recalled to them--and that, too, in a very abrupt and startlingmanner--by the significance of the skipper's last remark. The imminenceand deadly nature of the Frenchmen's peril was brought home to themanew; and now they seemed to realise, for the first time, thepossibility that they might be called upon to witness at close quartersthe appalling spectacle not only of a foundering ship but also of thedrowning of all her people. Instantly quite a little hubbub arose amongthe excited passengers, General O'Brien and some half a dozen other menamong them pres
sing about poor Dacre with suggestions and proposals ofthe most impossible character. And in the midst of it all I heard MissOnslow's clear, rich voice exclaiming bitterly:
"Cruel! cruel! To think that we are so near, and yet it seemsimpossible to bridge the few remaining yards of space that intervenebetween those poor creatures and the safety that we enjoy! Surely it_can_ be done, if only anyone were clever enough to think of the way!"
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," remonstrated the skipper, "please don'tconsider me rude if I say that none of you know what you are talkingabout. There are only two ways of getting a line aboard that wreck; oneway is, to _carry_ it, and the other, to _heave_ it. The former isimpossible, with the sea that is now running; and the latter we havealready tried once, unsuccessfully, and are now about to try again. Ifany of you can think of any other _practicable_ way, I shall be glad tolisten to you; but, if not, please leave me alone, and let me give mywhole mind to the job!"
Meanwhile I had been watching the run of the sea, at first idly, andwith no other feeling than that of wonder that any vessel in thewater-logged condition of the barque could continue to live in it, forit was as high and as steep a sea as I had ever beheld, and it brokeincessantly over the barque with a fury that rendered her continuedexistence above water a constantly-recurring marvel. Heavy as it was,however, it was not so bad as the surf that everlastingly beat upon thesandy shores of the West Coast; and as I realised this fact I alsoremembered that upon more than one occasion it had been necessary for meto swim through that surf to save my life! "Surely," thought I, "theman who has fought his way through the triple line of a West Africansurf ought to be able to swim twenty or thirty fathoms in this sea!"The idea seemed to come to me as an inspiration; and, undeterred by thethought that the individual who should essay the feat of swimming fromthe one ship to the other would be seriously hampered by being compelledto drag a lengthening trail of light rope behind him, I turned to theskipper and said:
"Captain Dacre, there appears to be but one sure way of getting a lineaboard that wreck, and that is for someone to swim with it--Stop amoment--I know that you are about to pronounce the feat impossible; butI believe I can do it, and, at all events, I am perfectly willing tomake the attempt. Give me something light--such as a pair of signalhalliards--to drag after me, and let a good hand have the paying of itout, so that I may neither be checked by having it paid out too slowly,nor hampered on the other hand by having to drag a heavy bight after me;and I think I shall be able to manage it. And if I succeed, bend theend of a heaving-line on to the other directly you see that I have gothold, and we will soon get the hawser aboard and the end made fastsomewhere."
The skipper looked at me fixedly for several seconds, as though mentallymeasuring my ability to execute the task I had offered to undertake.Then he answered:
"Upon my word, Mr Conyers, I scarcely know what to say to yourextraordinarily plucky proposal. If you had been a landsman I shouldnot have entertained the idea for a moment; and, even as it is, I am byno means sure that I should be justified in permitting you to make theattempt. But you are a sailor of considerable experience; you fullyunderstand all the difficulty and the danger of the service you haveoffered to undertake; and I suppose you have some hope of beingsuccessful, or you would not have volunteered. And upon my word I ambeginning to think, with you, that the course you suggest is the onlyone likely to be of any service to those poor souls yonder--so Isuppose--I must say--Yes, and God be with you!"
The little crowd round about us, who had been listening with breathlessinterest, cheered and clapped their hands at this pronouncement of theskipper's--the cheer being taken up by the crowd of miners gathered inthe waist--and General O'Brien, who was standing at my elbow, seized myhand and shook it enthusiastically as he exclaimed:
"God bless you, Conyers; God bless you, my boy; every man and womanamong us will pray for your safety and success!"
"Thanks, General," answered I. "The knowledge that I have the sympathyand good wishes of you all will add strength to my arm and courage to myheart; but the issue is in God's hands, and if it be His will, I shallsucceed." Then, turning to the skipper, I said:
"I propose that you shall take the ship up as close as possible to thewreck, precisely as you did at first; and I will dive from theflying-jib-boom-end--which will approach the wreck more closely than ourhull; and it will be for you to watch and so manoeuvre the ship--eitherby easing up the fore-topmast staysail sheet, or in any other way thatyou may think best--that she shall be kept fair abreast of and dead toleeward of the wreck until we can get the end of the hawser aboard andmade fast. After that I think we may trust to the difference in therate of the drift of the two craft to keep the hawser taut."
"Yes, yes," answered the skipper; "you may trust to me to do my part,Mr Conyers. If you can only manage to get the end of the hawser aboardand fast to the wreck, I will attend to the other part of the job. Andnow, you had better go and get ready for your swim; for I am about towear ship."
I hurried away to my cabin and shifted into ordinary bathing attire; andwhile thus engaged I became aware that Dacre was wearing ship andgetting her round upon the starboard tack once more. By the time thatmy preparations were completed and I had made my way out on the maindeck, the ship was round, and heading up for the wreck again. As Iappeared, threading my way forward among the great burly miners who wereclustering thick in the waist, they raised a cheer, and the cuddy partyagain clapped their hands, some of them shouting an encouraging word ortwo after me.
On the forecastle I encountered Murgatroyd, the chief mate, who held acoil of small thin line in his hand.
"Here you are, Mr Conyers," he exclaimed, as I joined him. "This coilis the main signal halliards, which I have unrove for the purpose--theyare better than new, for they have been stretched and have had the kinkstaken out of them. And if they are not enough, here are the forehalliards, all ready for bending on at a second's notice. I shall payout for you, so you may depend upon having the line properly tended.Now, how will you have the end? will you have it round your waist,or--?"
"No," said I. "Give it me as a standing bowline, which I can pass overmy shoulder and under my arm. So; that will do. Is the hawser fitted,and all ready for paying out?"
"Yes," answered the mate, "everything is quite ready. I've left aboutfive fathoms of bare end for bending on; and I think you can't do muchbetter than take a turn with it round the mizenmast, under thespider-band."
"That is exactly what I thought of doing," said I. "In fact it is aboutthe only suitable place."
I stood talking with Murgatroyd until we were once more almost withinhail of the barque, when, with the bowline at the end of the line overmy left shoulder and under my right arm, I laid out to theflying-jib-boom-end, upon which I took my stand, steadying myself bygrasping the royal stay in my left hand. The motion away out there, atthe far extremity of that long spar, was tremendous; so much so, indeed,that seasoned as I was to the wild and erratic movements of a ship inheavy weather, the sinkings and soarings and flourishings of thatboom-end, as the vessel plunged and staggered down toward the wreck,made me feel distinctly giddy. The wait was not a very long one,however, and in less than five minutes I found myself abreast thebarque's starboard quarter, and within a hundred feet of it. I was nowas close to the wreck as Captain Dacre dared put me; so, as the ship meta heavy sea and flung me high aloft above the white water that seethedand swirled about the stern of the sinking craft, I let go my hold uponthe stay and, poising myself for an instant upon the up-hove extremityof the boom, raised my hands above my head as I bent my body toward thewater, and took off for a deep dive, my conviction being that I shoulddo far better by swimming under water than on the surface. As I rusheddownward I heard Dacre shout: "There he goes! God be with him!" andthen I struck the water, head downward, almost perpendicularly, and theonly sound I heard was the hissing of the water in my ears as theblue-green light about me grew gradually more and more dim. With mybody slightly
curved, and my back a trifle hollowed, I knew that evenwhile plunging downward I was also rushing toward the barque, andpresently I struck out strongly, arms and legs, as I caught sight,through the water, of a huge dark body, at no great distance, that Iknew to be the swaying hull for which I was making. At length, gaspingfor breath, I rose to the surface, and found that I was within twentyfeet of the barque's stern, with the whole of her crew upon their feet,anxiously watching me, while a man stood at her taffrail, holding a coilof rope in his hand. The instant he saw me he shouted: "Look out,monsieur; I am about to heave!"
"All right; heave!" I shouted in return, gasping in the midst of thewild popple that leaped about the labouring craft; and the next instanta flake of the uncoiling end of the line hit me sharply across the face.I seized it tightly, and sang out:
"Haul me to the starboard mizen chains!" The man flung up his hand inreply and, holding on to the rope, started _at a run_ along the deck,dragging me after him. It was a good job that I had thought of taking aturn round one arm, or in his eagerness he would have dragged the ropeout of my grasp; as it was, the strain he brought to bear, added to thatof the long length of line trailing behind me, almost tore my arms outof their sockets. Moreover, I was half suffocated by the deluge ofwater that came crashing down upon me like a cataract off the deck ofthe wreck every time that she rolled toward me. Luckily, this conditionof affairs was of but brief duration; and presently I found myself inthe wake of the mizen chains, and in imminent danger of being struck anddriven under by the overhanging channel piece; I watched my opportunity,however, and, as the barque rolled toward me I seized the lanyards ofone of the shrouds, got a footing, somehow, and dragged myself in overthe rail. I felt terribly exhausted by the brief but fierce buffeting Ihad received alongside; but time was precious--the _City of Cawnpore_was still square athwart the stern of the wreck, but driving away toleeward at a terrible rate, and I knew that unless we were very smart weshould still fail to get the hawser from her--so I flung up one arm as asignal to Murgatroyd to pay out and, crying out to the Frenchmen to comeand help me, began to haul upon the line I had brought aboard with me.By dint of exhortation so earnest that it almost amounted to bullying Isucceeded in awaking the Frenchmen to a sense of the urgency of thecase, and persuaded them to put some liveliness into their movements, bywhich means we quickly hauled in the whole of the signal halliards, tothe other end of which a light heaving-line was bent. This also wedragged away upon for dear life, and presently I had the satisfaction ofseeing the end of the _City of Cawnpore's_ towing-hawser being lightedout over her bows. This was a heavy piece of cordage for us to handle,but we dragged away at it breathlessly, and at length, when I had almostbegun to despair of getting it aboard in time, we hauled the end in overthe taffrail and, all hands of us seizing it, led it to the mizenmast,round the foot of which I had the satisfaction of passing a couple ofturns and securing it. So far, so good; the most difficult part of mytask was now accomplished; for I knew that Murgatroyd would attend tothe work at his end of the hawser, and do everything that was necessary;so I turned to the Frenchman who had assisted me aboard, and said:
"Are you the master of this barque, monsieur?"
"At your service, monsieur," he answered, bowing with all the grace of adancing-master.
"Very good," said I. "You have a lady on board, I think?"
"But yes, monsieur: my wife!" and he flourished his arm toward thebundle of tarpaulin that still remained huddled up under the shelter ofthe skylight.
"She will of course have to go first," I said. "Are there anypreparations she would wish to make before being transferred to theother vessel?"
Without replying to my question, the man hurried away to the heap and,unwrapping the tarpaulin, extricated a young, and rather pretty butterribly frightened woman from its folds. As he did so, I saw that sheheld a baby in her arms!
"What!" exclaimed I, as I joined the little group, "a baby also?"
"Yes, monsieur," answered the man. "You see we wrapped them both up ina tarpaulin, to protect them as much as possible from the cruel sea."
"A very wise precaution," I commented. "But this increases ourdifficulties somewhat: I greatly doubt whether mother and child will beable to make the passage together. Madame will scarcely have thestrength to hold herself and the baby safely at the same time; thelittle one might be washed out of her arms and lost."
"Oh, monsieur, what shall I do?" wailed the poor, terrified creature."Have we to cross by that rope?"
"I fear there is no other way," I replied gently.
"I can never do it! I can never do it!" she ejaculated despairingly."The sea will drag me and my little Mimi off, and we shall be drowned!"
"Under the circumstances, monsieur, there seems to be only one thing forit," said I; "you must go first, carrying the child, and as soon as youare safe, I will follow with madame. Is that arrangement to yourliking?"
The man intimated that it was; and forthwith we commenced thepreparations necessary to secure for the poor little wailing mite ofhumanity a chance of surviving the fearful journey. And a fearfuljourney it certainly was, even for a strong man; how much more so, then,for a weak, terrified woman, or a helpless child, less than a year old?
The arrangement was this: The _City of Cawnpore's_ to wing-hawser wasnow stretched between the two vessels, one end being made fast to thebarque's mizenmast, while the other end led in over the _City ofCawnpore's_ bows, through a warping chock, and was secured somewhereinboard, probably to the windlass bitts--it would have been much moreconvenient had the hawser been made fast to the foremast, about fifteenor twenty feet from the deck; but a very heavy intermittent strain wasbeing thrown upon it, and I imagined that Dacre did not care to run therisk of springing so important a spar. The effect of this was that the_City of Cawnpore_, with both topsails thrown flat aback, was nowactually riding by her hawser to the barque, as to a sea anchor, thedeeply-submerged hull of the French craft offering sufficient resistanceto the drift of the _City of Cawnpore_ to keep the hawser taut, exceptat the rather frequent intervals when the heave of the sea flung thebarque far enough to leeward to temporarily slacken it. And it was bymeans of this hawser--at one moment taut as a bar, and, at the next,sagging slack enough to dip into the water--that the Frenchmen were tobe hauled from their ship to ours.
Meanwhile, the work of securing the hawser aboard the _City ofCawnpore_, and the clearing away of the travelling-gear, had been goingbriskly forward, and at the moment when the Frenchman and I came to anunderstanding I saw the slung bosun's chair hove over the _City's_ bowsand come sliding along the hawser toward us. The French skipper saw it,too; and tenderly taking the child from the arms of his almost swooningwife, he carefully wrapped it in his jacket, which he removed for thepurpose, and then, with my assistance, securely lashed the bundle to hisbody. The bosun's chair had by this time arrived at the barque'staffrail, and was awaiting its first freight; so, as there was no timeto lose, I hustled the poor fellow away from his wife, assisted him intothe chair, saw that he had a good grip with both hands, and waved forMurgatroyd to haul away, which he instantly did. I next turned to thelady, and begged her to once more shelter herself temporarily in thetarpaulin, my object being to spare her the sight of the terriblepassage of her husband and child over and through that narrow stretch ofravening sea. But, as it happened, there was no need for my solicitude;she cast one glance at the swaying, dangling figure of her husband, andthen, with a wild, wailing shriek, flung herself upon her knees, withher hands clasped over her eyes.
And truly a terrible sight it was for a woman to contemplate, especiallywith the knowledge that she would presently be obliged to herselfundertake the dreadful journey. The sea was running so high that, closeto each other as we were, when the crest of a wave interposed between usand the _City of Cawnpore_ the latter was hidden half-way to the heightof her tops; and the headlong fury with which each wave came sweepingdown upon us, foam-capped, and with arching crest, was alone enough tostrike t
error to the stoutest heart. That, however, was not the worstof it; for although Murgatroyd might safely be trusted to exercise theutmost judgment in the manipulation of the hauling-line, there weremoments when--the two craft being upon the opposite slopes of a hugesurge, with the hawser strained taut from one to the other--any lucklessindividual who might be so unfortunate as to be caught half-way betweenthe two vessels would be momentarily buried some thirty feet deep in theheart of the rushing hill of water, and about equally exposed to the twodangers of suffocation or of being swept off beyond the reach of rescue,and drowned out of hand. This double danger overtook the unfortunateFrench skipper and his baby, but they got through all right, the childescaping suffocation mainly in consequence of the careful and securemanner in which she had been enveloped in her father's coat.
Then came madame's turn. It was impossible to so effectually enwrap heras had been the case with the child, but I did the best I could with astrip of the tarpaulin over her head and shoulders, well secured roundher body with a length of the main-topgallant brace, and then, lashingher firmly to my own body, I took my place in the bosun's chair,wrapping my arms tightly round my quaking companion, and then taking afirm grip upon the lanyards of the chair. The next instant I waswhirled off the barque's taffrail, and found myself dangling close overthe seething white water between the two vessels. Then, while I was inthe very act of shouting a few encouraging words through the tarpaulinto my companion, I heard the roaring crash of a heavy sea as it struckand swept over the unfortunate barque from stem to stern, and the nextinstant I felt the water envelop me and whirl and drag me hither andthither with a strength that it seemed impossible to resist; then assuddenly I found myself in the air again, with the great wave-crestrushing and roaring away from me toward the ship, the topmast-heads onlyof which were visible above the foaming ridge of water that had justswept past me. In another second or two, however, the end of herflying-jib-boom reared itself high above the seething wave-crest, hersharp bows, smothered in spray, quickly followed, and then the entirehull of the ship hung balanced for an instant upon the top of the waveere her bows dipped, revealing the full length of her deck crowded withpeople, every one of them with their faces turned in my direction. Afew more jerks and swings, every one of which seemed imbued with adevilish desire to unseat and hurl myself and my companion todestruction, and we were hauled safely up on to the rail of the _City ofCawnpore_--to an accompaniment of triumphant cheers from thespectators--and quickly released.
Before I could recover breath to say a word, the bosun's chair wasswiftly sliding along the hawser, on its way back to the barque; andpresently, after some apparent delay and hesitation on the part of thoseaboard the doomed vessel, it swung off her taffrail, on its returnjourney, with a man seated in it. Swiftly the chair traversed about athird of the distance between the two vessels, and then it was overtakenby and deeply buried in the heart of an oncoming sea, even as I hadbeen. For a few breathless seconds the chair and its occupant were lostto view; then, as the ship surmounted the wave, the chair againappeared; _but it was empty_; its late occupant had vanished! There wasa cry of dismay as this became manifest, and with one consent everybodycraned over the rail and peered down into the leaping water, in the hopeof discovering the missing man, while a few of the smarter hands on theforecastle sprang for rope's-ends, which they quickly coiled and stoodby to heave to him, should he reappear. But he never did; and afterwatching for a full two minutes he was given up, and the chair was againhauled aboard the barque. A further delay now took place, no oneseeming to have the courage to undertake the short but terrible passage;at length, however, a man stepped forward and placed himself in thechair, and the journey began. Half the passage was accomplished ere hewas overtaken, when, like the rest of us, he was submerged for a fewawful seconds; and when next we saw him he was just in the very act offalling from the chair, having apparently been dragged out of it by thefierce, sweeping rush of the sea. Shouts of horror at this freshdisaster, and of encouragement to the man, at once arose, in the midstof which I seized the end of a good long coil of line which a man washolding ready to throw, and, quickly tying a bowline therein, threw thebight over my shoulder, poised myself for a dive, waiting, with one footon the topgallant rail, to see just exactly what was happening, beforetaking the leap. The unfortunate man sank, upon striking the water; butpresently the man beside me sang out "There he is!" pointing at the sametime down at the water about thirty feet from our bows; and, peeringdown, I at length caught sight, indistinctly, of what looked like ahuman form, twisting and writhing a few feet below the surface. Iinstantly dived, and the next moment found myself within arm's reach ofthe man, whom I seized by the hair and dragged to the surface, when allthat I had to do was to fling my arms about his body, and hold on likegrim death, Murgatroyd and his people at once undertaking the ratherdelicate task of getting us both safely inboard. This was soonaccomplished; but meanwhile the bosun's chair hung stationary midwaybetween the two vessels, our people seeming doubtful of the utility ofproceeding further.
But there was no time to lose if the remaining Frenchmen were to berescued--for it was perfectly evident to everybody that the barque couldnot possibly float much longer--so, shrewdly guessing at the source ofthe inaction, I requested Murgatroyd to haul the chair aboard; and, thisbeing done, I seated myself in it and requested them to haul me acrossto the barque. Twice was I caught by the sea during this journey, andeach time it seemed that I emerged at the precise moment when, it wouldhave been impossible to resist the drag for even another second; but Ireached the barque safely and, at once scrambling out of the chair,proceeded to despatch the Frenchmen in rotation: the task proving lessdifficult than I had expected, my voluntary journey to them seeming tohave inspired them with fresh courage.
At length, by dint of lashing the weaker men into the chair, andearnestly cautioning the strong ones to hold on with all their might, Isucceeded in securing the passage of the entire remainder of theFrenchmen to the _City of Cawnpore_; and then came the task of effectingmy own retreat. Of course this could have been accomplished by means ofthe hawser and the bosun's chair; but this would have involved the lossof the hawser and all the hauling-gear attached--which it would havebeen necessary to cut away. I thought it a pity to inflict this lossupon the ship, merely to save myself the discomfort of being hauledthrough the water from one ship to the other, so as soon as the lastFrenchman was safely aboard the _City of Cawnpore_ I proceeded to cutand cast adrift the hawser from the barque's mizenmast, and a fewminutes later the massive rope's-end flew overboard, quickly followed bythe heaving-line, in the end of which I had knotted a bowline for my ownaccommodation. I had just thrown this bowline over my shoulder, and waswatching the coils of the line go leaping overboard, one after theother, as the rescuing ship went drifting rapidly to leeward, when aperfect mountain of a sea came roaring down upon the wreck, sweepingunbroken in over her bows and right aft until it reached the front ofthe poop, against which it broke with terrific violence, smashing in theentire front of the structure, as I judged by the tremendous crashing oftimber that instantly followed. Checked for the fraction of an instantby its impact with the poop, the sea piled itself up in a sort of wall,and then came surging and foaming along the deck toward me. I saw thatit would inevitably sweep me off my feet, so, to avoid being dashedagainst the poop rail, I unhesitatingly leapt overboard, and, whilestill under water, felt the weight of the sea falling upon me that I hadjumped overboard to avoid. The pressure was as that of a mountain, andit drove me downward until the light dwindled to a sombre greentwilight, while the whirling water seemed to clasp me about as with athousand arms, flinging and dragging me hither and thither but everdownward, until I could hold my breath no longer, when with a greatirresistible gasp my lungs filled with water, darkness and silenceprofound and impenetrable shut me in, a thousand quaint, fantasticfancies thronged my brain, and--I knew no more.