CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
A TERRIBLE ADVENTURE.
With the disappearance of the corposant there was nothing whatever tobetray the presence of a strange sail in our vicinity; for now, strainmy eyes as I would, I could not be at all certain that I saw anything,although there were times when the same vague, shapeless blot of deeperdarkness that had previously attracted my attention seemed to loom upmomentarily out of the Stygian murkiness ahead. There were times alsowhen, the water being highly phosphorescent, it appeared to me that,among the ghostly gleamings of the breaking surges, I could faintlydiscern a more symmetrical space of luminosity, corresponding to thefoaming track of a ship moving at a high rate of speed through thewater. But, to make sure of the matter, I ordered the reef to be shakenout of the foresail, and also set the mainsail, close-reefed, with theboom topped well up. This increased the speed of the schooner quite asmuch as I thought desirable, more, indeed, than was at all prudent; for,let me tell you, it is risky work to be flying along before a gale ofwind at a speed of fully nine knots an hour on a pitch-black night, witha suspicion, amounting almost to absolute certainty, that there isanother vessel directly ahead, and close aboard of you for aught thatyou can tell to the contrary. And, indeed, we soon had evidence ofthis; for, feeling uneasy upon the matter, I had started to go forwardwith the intention of warning the look-out men that I had reason tobelieve there was a ship close ahead of us, and that they must thereforekeep an extra bright look-out, when, as I arrived abreast the fore-rigging, my eyes still straining into the darkness ahead, the schoonerwas hove up on the breast of a heavy, following sea, and as she toppedit with the ghostly sea-fire of its fiercely-hissing crest brimmingalmost to the rail, a black shape seemed to suddenly solidify out of thegloom ahead, apparently within biscuit-toss of our jib-boom end, with anunmistakable wake of boiling foam on each side of it, and the two look-out men yelled, as with one voice, and in the high-pitched accents ofsudden alarm.
"Hard-a-port! hard a-port! There's a ship right under our bows, sir!"
The helm was promptly put over, the schooner sheered out of the wake ofthe black mass ahead--apparently a craft of considerable size,--and weranged up on her starboard quarter. It will convey some idea of thecloseness of the shave we made of it when I say that, even above thehowling of the gale, the fierce hiss of the rapidly rising sea, and theroar of our bow-wave, we caught the sound of an unintelligible hail fromthe stranger, which almost immediately displayed a lantern over hertaffrail for a few seconds, as a warning to us, her people beingdoubtless under the impression that our encounter had been accidental,and that we had only that moment seen her for the first time.
Having now established beyond all question the fact of the stranger'sproximity to us, I ordered our mainsail to be hauled down, balance-reefed, and reset, by which means we presently found that the strangerwas gradually drawing ahead of us again; and the danger of collisionbeing thus averted, I began to ask myself whether it was advisable tocontinue the chase any longer. The fact is, I had followed this craftinstinctively, for I knew that there were so few vessels flying Britishcolours in that precise part of the world that the presumption wasstrongly in favour of this one being either a Spaniard or a Dutchman,and in either case an enemy. But assuming her to be one or the other,she was just as likely to be a man-o'-war as a merchantman--she hadappeared to be quite large enough to be the former, in that brief,indistinct glance that we had caught of her,--and if she happened to bea man-o'-war we should probably find ourselves in the wrong box whendaylight broke. On the other hand she had not appeared to be so largeas to preclude the possibility of her being a merchantman--a Spanish orDutch West Indiaman; and should she prove to be either of these, shewould be well worth fighting for. I considered the question carefully,and at length came to the conclusion that the risk of following her wasquite worth taking, and we accordingly held all on as we were.
Meanwhile the gale was steadily growing fiercer, and the sea risinghigher and becoming more dangerous with every mile that we traversed inour blind, headlong flight before it; and it appeared to me that theoption whether I should continue the pursuit of the stranger would soonbe taken from me by the imperative necessity to heave-to if I wouldavoid the almost momentarily increasing danger of the schooner beingpooped, when a piercing cry of "Breakers ahead?" burst from the two menon the look-out forward, instantly followed by the still more startlingcry of "Breakers on the port bow!"
"Breakers on the starboard bow!"
I sprang to the rail and looked ahead. Merciful Heaven! it was true,right athwart our path, as far as the eye could penetrate the gloom oneither bow, there stretched a barrier of wildly-leaping breakers andspouting foam, gleaming spectrally against the midnight blackness of themurky heavens; and even as I gazed, spell-bound, at the dreadfulspectacle I saw the black bulk of the strange ship outlined against theghostly whiteness, and in another instant she had swung broadside-on;and as a perfect mountain of white foam leaped upon her, enfolding herin its snowy embrace, her masts fell, and methought that, mingled withthe sudden, deafening roar of the trampling breakers, I caught the soundof a despairing wail borne toward us against the wind.
Oh! the horror of that moment! I shall never forget it. There wasnothing to be done, no means of escape; for the walls of white water hadseemed to leap at us out of the darkness so suddenly that they were nosooner seen than we were upon them; and the only choice left us waswhether we would plunge into them stem-on, or be hove in among thembroadside-on, as had been the case of the strange ship. With thelightning-like celerity of decision that seems to be instinct in momentsof sudden, awful peril, I determined to drive the schooner ashore stem-on; hoping that, aided by our light draught of water, we might be hoveup high enough on the beach, or whatever it was, to permit of the escapeof at least a few of us with our lives; and I shouted to the helmsman tosteady his helm, the breakers right ahead of us seeming to be less highand furious than those on either bow. There was no time for more; notime to order all hands on deck; no time even to utter a warning cry tothose already on deck to grasp the nearest thing to hand and cling fortheir lives, for my cry to the helmsman was still on my lips when theschooner seemed to leap down upon the barrier of madly-plungingbreakers, and in an instant we were hemmed about with a crashing fury ofwhite water that boiled and leaped about us, smiting the schooner in allparts of her hull at once, foaming in over the rail here, there, andeverywhere like a pack of hungry wolves, spouting high in air and flyingover us in blinding deluges of spray until the poor little craft seemedto be buried; while I, without knowing how I got there, found myself onthe wheel-grating, assisting the helmsman, with the yeasty waterswirling about our knees as it boiled in over the taffrail. I caught amomentary glimpse of the strange ship as we swept athwart her stern at adistance of less than a hundred fathoms. Her black bulk was sharplyoutlined against the luminous loam as a whelming breaker passed inshoreof her, and left her, for a second, up-hove on the breast of the nextone; and I could see that she was on her beam-ends--a large ship ofprobably twelve hundred tons. I could see no sign of people on boardher, but that was not surprising; they had probably been all sweptoverboard by the first mountain--wall of water that swept over her aftershe had broached-to.
And such was to be our fate also. My only wonder was that it had notcome already; but come it must, and I braced myself for the shock,already feeling in imagination the terrific grinding concussion, thesickening jar, the awful upheaval of the schooner's quivering frame, andthe wrenching of her timbers asunder. But second after second sped, andthe shock did not come; and half-buried in the boiling swirl of maddenedwaters, the schooner swept ahead, now up-hove on the breast of a fierybreaker that swept her from stem to stern as it flung her forward like acork, now struggling and staggering in a hollow of seething, yeastyfoam. At length, as the schooner settled down into one of theseswirling hollows, she actually did strike, but the blow was a light one,only just sufficient to swear by and not enough to check her headlongrus
h for the smallest fraction of a second; and shortly afterwards Ibecame aware that the breakers were perceptibly less weighty, so much sothat in about another minute they ceased to break inboard.
It now dawned upon me that we must be passing over a submerged reef ofconsiderable extent, and my hopes began to revive; for since we hadtraversed it thus far in safety, there was just the ghost of a chancethat we might manage to blunder across the remainder of it withoutserious damage. As my thoughts took this direction my eyes fell upon afigure clinging to the main rigging, and I made it out to be Saunders,my chief mate. I shouted to him, and by good luck my voice reached him,and he came staggering aft to me. Without relaxing my grip on thewheel, I hurriedly explained to him my impression with regard to oursituation, and directed him to go forward and see both anchors clear forletting go; for I had determined that, should my supposition provecorrect, and should we be so extremely fortunate as to traverse theremaining portion of the reef in safety, I would anchor immediately thatwe should emerge into clear water. Fortunately for us all in ourpresent strait, our cables were always kept bent, so that there was notvery much to be done; and in a few minutes Saunders returned aft withthe intelligence that all was ready for anchoring at any moment.
And now I really began to hope in earnest that we might perchanceescape, for the sea was not breaking nearly so heavily around us; indeedI could distinguish, at no great distance ahead, small patches ofunbroken water, with wider patches beyond; and, best of all, we had onlytouched the reef once, and that but lightly. Presently the schoonershot into a patch of unbroken water that appeared to communicate at onepoint with a larger patch, and I at once steered for the point ofjunction, at the same time singing out to the mate to get in themainsail, and for the hands to stand by the fore and staysail halliards.A line of breakers still extended for some distance ahead of us, butthey were now detached, with clear water between them, and if we couldonly contrive to keep the schooner in the unbroken water all might yetbe well. We were still rushing along at a great pace, for the gale wasblowing, if possible, more fiercely than ever; but the water was smooth,and I was consequently hopeful that, by letting go both anchors andgiving the schooner the full scope of her cables, we might manage toride it out without dragging. At length we brought the last of thevisible breakers fair on our quarter, and I was in the act of puttingthe helm over, singing out at the same time to haul down the staysailand foresail, when the mate, who was on the forecastle ready to attendto the letting go of the anchors, shouted that he thought he could makeout something like a large rock or small islet a short distance ahead.Hurriedly instructing the helmsman to keep the schooner as she wasgoing, I ran forward, and immediately made out the object, which lookedamply large enough to give us a lee to anchor under. We were prettyclose to it; so without further ado the schooner was stripped of herremaining canvas and conned into a berth close under the lee of the hugemass, when both anchors were let go, the port anchor first and thestarboard anchor half a minute later; and in less than five minutes wehad the supreme satisfaction of finding the _Sword Fish_ riding snugly,and in smooth water, with some three fathoms between her keel and thesandy bottom.
I was by this time pretty well fagged out, for the hour was drawing wellon toward daybreak. Nevertheless my curiosity was so powerfully excitedwith regard to the spot which we had stumbled upon that, afterthoroughly satisfying myself that the schooner was safe, and beforeturning in, I got out my chart and spread it open upon the cabin table.Our position at noon on the previous day was of course laid down uponit, and it needed but a few moments' consideration of the courses anddistances that we had subsequently steered to demonstrate that we hadblundered right into the heart of Los Roques, or the Roccas, the mostdangerous group of islets, without exception, in the whole of theCaribbean Sea. They are situated some seventy-five miles due north ofLa Guayra, and extend over an area of ocean measuring about twenty-fivemiles from east to west, and about half that distance from north tosouth. The group consists of two islands proper, Cayo Grande and Cayode Sal, the first being triangular in shape, and measuring some six anda half miles each way along the perpendicular and base of the triangle,while Cayo de Sal is about seven and a half miles long by perhaps half amile broad.
There are about thirty other islets in the group, all of them very muchsmaller than the two above named, and some of them so small as todeserve rather the name of _rocks_ than islets. But the peculiarityabout the group which renders it so exceedingly dangerous to strangersis that it forms part of an extensive reef, roughly of quadrangularform, the belt of reef being about three miles wide, with a fine openspace inside divided into two fairly good anchorages by a reefstretching across it in a north-westerly direction, from the westerlyextremity of Cayo Grande to the main reef. There are several passagesleading through the main reef into these anchorages, notably one on thenorthern side of the reef, but the difficulties of the navigation are sogreat to strangers that, if report is to be believed, it was, up to acomparatively recent date, a favourite resort of pirates, who, oncethrough the reef, were practically safe from pursuit. Such was the spotinto which the _Sword Fish_ had rushed, blindfold as it were. And I canonly account for our escape from destruction by supposing that we hadprovidentially hit off one of the channels through the reef, or elsethat the gale had heaped the water upon the reef to such an extent that,with our light draught, we were able to pass over it. However, I hadonly to look at the group, as portrayed upon the chart, to feelthoroughly assured as to the safety of the schooner and ourselves; so Iturned into my bunk with an easy mind and a grateful heart at our trulymiraculous escape, and fell asleep the moment that my head touched thepillow.
When the steward came to call me at seven bells the gale was stillraging furiously; but about four bells in the forenoon watch a break inthe sky appeared to windward, and shortly afterwards there was anoticeable decrease in the strength of the wind. Meanwhile the break inthe clouds widened, patches of blue sky appeared here and there,extending rapidly, and when noon arrived I was able to get a meridianaltitude of the sun, which conclusively demonstrated the truth of mysurmise that we were anchored in the Rocca group. The rock thatsheltered us was some forty feet high, and about twenty acres in extent,situate nearly in the middle of the northern anchorage; and astern ofus, at a distance of four miles, lay Cayo Grande, with Cayo de Sal aboutthe same distance on our larboard beam. Now that it was daylight it wasa perfectly simple and easy matter to identify our surroundings with theaid of the chart.
By the time that dinner was over the gale had so far moderated that, inour sheltered position, it had become perfectly safe to lower a boat. Itherefore ordered away the gig, and, taking the ship's telescope withme, landed upon the rock which had afforded us so welcome and timely ashelter, and climbed to its summit to see whether any portion of thewreck of the unfortunate stranger that had been in company with usduring the preceding night still hung together. To my surprise I foundthat quite a considerable portion of her was visible; indeed at times itappeared to me that I could see almost if not quite the whole of herhull; but as she was some eight miles distant I could not be at allcertain of this. The sea appeared to be still breaking heavily over herat times, but she seemed to have beaten almost entirely across the reef,there being but little broken water between us and her; and to thiscircumstance I attributed the fact that she was still in existence. Ispent quite half an hour upon the summit of the rock, gazing upon thestrange, wild scene by which I was surrounded; and when at length Irejoined the boat the wind had moderated to such an extent that,although it was still rather too strong for an eight-mile pull towindward, there was no reason why we should not sail as far out as thewreck, to see whether any of her crew still survived. I thereforereturned to the schooner, and, procuring the boat's mast and sails,started upon our expedition. But we were rather late in getting away;so that it took us until within half an hour of sunset to work up to thewreck, and even then we could not approach her nearer than within acable's length because o
f the broken water; but we got near enough toenable us to make out that she was an armed ship--she had all the lookof a small frigate--and I took her to be Spanish. But although her hullwas not nearly so much battered about as I had expected it would be,there was no sign of life aboard her, at which I was not surprised whenI looked at the broad belt of still angry surf through which she hadbeaten. But I saw enough to determine me to pay the wreck a visitbefore leaving the group, and accordingly, when I got back to theschooner, which Saunders had made all ataunto once more during myabsence, I made arrangements to weigh and beat up to the wreckimmediately after breakfast next morning.
By daylight the wind had dwindled away to a gentle breeze, while the seahad gone down to such an extent that I anticipated no difficultywhatever in boarding the wreck. Nor was I disappointed, for when wereached the craft, shortly after six bells in the forenoon, the sea wasno longer breaking over her, or even round her, the breakers now beingconfined to the outer fringe of the reef. But imagine, if you can, myastonishment at seeing a man--a wretched, ragged, scarecrow of a fellowhe looked to be--on the poop, who, as we drew near, began to wave andsignal to us with frantic energy. He appeared to be desperately afraidthat we had not seen him, or that, having seen him, we should still nottrouble to take him off, for he was waving a large, dark cloth when wefirst made him out, and he continued to do so until the boat was almostalongside. We bumped against the wreck in the wake of her mizzenchains--her main and fore chains were under water--and, the instant thatthe bowman hooked on, this man, who seemed to be the only survivor ofthe wreck, came slipping and sliding down the steeply inclined deckuntil he stood just above us, when he stood for a few seconds staringdown upon us in silence. Then he cried, in a piercing voice: "Say, forthe love of God, are you English?"
"Ay, ay, my hearty; you have guessed right the first time," I answered."But, pray, who in the name of fortune are you? And what ship is this?"
For answer the fellow plumped down upon his knees, clasped his handsbefore him, lifted up his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of hislips I supposed him to be engaged either in prayer or thanksgiving. Oneor two of the men in the boat with me laughed, and a third must needsdisplay his wit by calling out a profane jest; but I silenced themsharply, for there was an intense abandonment in this strange man'smanner and behaviour that showed him to be under the influence ofextraordinary emotion. Presently he rose to his feet, and, scramblingdown into the boat with the most astonishing activity, grasped my handand pressed it to his lips fervently. Then he looked me in the face andsaid:
"Oh, sir, I thank God most humbly and heartily for this His great mercyto me, a poor, miserable sinner. But you'll take me away with you, sir;you'll not leave me aboard here to fall into the hands of my enemiesagain? Sir, sir, you are an Englishman, you say, and your tongue isEnglish. You have a kind, good face. Sir, take me with you, and makeme your slave if you will, but let me not fall into the hands of thoseincarnate fiends the Spaniards again."
"Have no fear, my good fellow," answered I. "Of course we will take youwith us, not as a slave, but as a shipmate if you will. But you havenot yet answered the question I asked you. Who are you? And what shipis this?"
"Who am I?" he repeated, staring wildly at me. "Why, I used to becalled Isaac Hoard to home in Exmouth, and among my shipmates, but forthe last five years, ever since I've been in the hands of the accursedSpaniards, I've known no other name than `heretico'."
"And the ship," I reiterated; "is she Spanish?"
"Yes, sir; she is Spanish," answered the poor fellow, who looked half-mad as well as haggard, and thin almost like a skeleton. "She was afine frigate forty-eight hours ago, named the _Magdalena_; now thevengeance of God has fallen upon her and her crew, and she lies a wreck,while every one of them has perished and gone to his own place."
"And how happens it that you survive while all the rest of the crew haveperished?" I demanded.
"By the mercy of God and the inhumanity of the Spaniards," he answered."They made me a slave of the crew, at whose every beck and call I wasfrom the beginning of the morning watch until four bells in the firstwatch; and when my day's work was over they used to lock me into a cellunder the forecastle. So that when the ship struck I was unable to rushon deck with the rest of them, and so my life was saved."
"Well," said I, "it appears that you have a story to tell that may bewell worth listening to at some future time. Now, tell me, do you knowwhere this frigate was last from, and whither she was bound?"
"Yes," answered Hoard, "I can tell you that, sir. She sailed fromCartagena five days ago, and was bound to Cadiz with despatches; atleast such was the talk among the crew."
"With despatches!" I ejaculated. "Good! Now, do you happen to knowwhere those despatches are to be found?"
"No, sir; that I don't," answered Hoard. "I've never been abaft themainmast until to-day, if you'll believe me; and I don't even know thecap'n's name. But I expect his despatches will be in his cabin, alongwith any other papers of value that he may have had in his possession."
"Quite so; most likely they are," I remarked. "I'll go on board andgive the craft an overhaul. Jump on deck, a couple of you, to lend me ahand in case I should need you; and catch a turn with the paintersomewhere."
So saying, I climbed up on the ship's poop, and with considerabledifficulty--owing to the exceedingly steep slope of the deck--made myway to the companion, which I descended. At the foot of the ladder, Ifound myself confronted by a bulkhead which, as I soon found,partitioned off the captain's quarters from the other part of the ship.Opening a door that faced me, I entered a fine, handsome cabin,magnificently fitted up, and very little damaged, except that the twoguns which had evidently been in it seemed to have broken adrift andgone through the vessel's side, the gun on the weather side havingsmashed a handsome mahogany table to smithereens in its passage athwartthe cabin. There were stains of wet on the sofas on the lee side and onthe carpeted deck, showing that the water had entered through the breachin the ship's side: but that, with the smashed table and the hole in theside, constituted all the visible damage in the cabin. There wasanother bulkhead in front of me, with an open door in it, through whichI caught a glimpse of stern windows, together with certain indicationsthat the cabin into which I was looking was in all probability thecaptain's state-room. Here, if anywhere, I thought I should be mostlikely to find the despatches which constituted the chief object of mysearch; and I accordingly made my way into the after-cabin. A handsomeand roomy cot, slung on the starboard side, confirmed my impression thatthis must be the captain's private sanctum; and I at once looked roundfor a likely receptacle for papers of importance and other articles ofvalue. I had not far to look. Close to the door, against the bulkhead,stood a massive and handsome cabinet writing-table, so placed that thelight from the stern windows would fall over a sitter's shoulders on tothe table. Right up against the starboard side of the ship stood alarge chest of drawers, with the top arranged as a dressing-table: andagainst the port side was a book-case with glazed doors, three or fourof the panes of glass being smashed so completely that several of thevolumes had tumbled out on to the floor. I took up one or two of thebooks and opened them, but could make nothing of their contents, theybeing in Spanish, which was all but a sealed language to me. The book-case was full of books from top to bottom, so it was clear that it wasuseless to look there for the documents I desired to find; I thereforeturned to the next nearest object, which was the writing-table. Thiswas fitted with a sloping top that evidently lifted, and a nest ofcapacious drawers occupied the back of the affair, above the writing-desk, while a large cupboard on each side formed the base, with room fora man's legs between the two. I tried the top, the cupboards, and thedrawers, but all were locked; and the article was so solidly constructedthat I at once saw it would be useless to think of breaking it openwithout proper tools. I therefore sang out to the two men on deck totake the boat and return to the schooner for the carpenter, bidding himbring with him e
verything necessary to pick a number of locks, orotherwise open some drawers and cupboards. And while the boat was goneI turned my attention to the dressing-table.