atthe compass.
Then came a word or two of command, given in a quiet, ordinary tone ofvoice--there was no occasion to howl on this particular morning. Andafter this a rush of feet, and next the song, and the bo'sun's pipe.Thus:--
_Song_.--"La la lee ah, lay la le lo-O."
_Spoken_.--"Hoy!"
_Boatswain's Pipe_.--"Whee-e, weet weet weet, wee-e."
_Song_.--"La la lee ah, lay la le lo-O."
_Spoken_.--"Belay!"
_Boatswain's Pipe_.--"Wee wee weet weet weet weet, wee-e."
_Spoken_.--"Now lads."
_Song_.--"Lo ah o ee."
_Pipe_.--"Weet weet!"
Then a hurry-scurrying away forward, a trampling of feet enough toawaken Rip van Winkle, then the bo'sun's pipe _encore_.
Allan straightens his back in his easy-chair--he has been bending overthe table, reading the "Noctes Ambrosianae"--straightens his back,stretches his arms, and says "Heigho!" Rory is busy arranging somebeautiful transparent specimens of animalculae, not bigger than midges,on a piece of black cardboard; he had caught them overnight in a gauzenet dragged astern. He doesn't look up. Ralph is lying "tandem" on asofa, reading "Ivanhoe." He won't take his eyes off the book, nor moveas much as one drowsy eyelid, but he manages to say,--
"What are they about on deck, Rory?"
"Don't know even a tiny bit," says Rory.
"Rory," continues Ralph, in a slightly louder key; "you're a young man;run up and see."
"Rory won't then," says Rory, intent on his work; "fag for yourself, mylazy boy."
"Oh!" says Ralph, "won't you have your ears pulled when I do get up!"
"Ha! ha!" laughed Rory, "you'll have forgotten all about it long beforethen."
"Freezing Powders!" roared Ralph.
The bright-faced though bullet-headed nigger boy introduced in lastchapter appeared instantly. He was dressed in white flannel, braidedwith blue. Had he been a sprite, or a djin, he couldn't have popped upwith more startling rapidity. Truth is, the young rascal had beenasleep under the table.
"Off on deck with you, Freezing Powders, and see what's up."
Freezing Powders was down again in a moment.
"Take in all sail, sah! and square de yard; no wind, sah! nebber apuff."
It was just as Freezing Powders said, but there was noise enoughpresently, and puffing too, for steam was got up, and the great screwwas churning the waters of the dark northern ocean into creamish foam,as the vessel went steadily ahead at about ten knots an hour. There wasno occasion to hurry. When Rory and Allan went on deck, they found thecaptain in consultation with the mates, Mitchell and Stevenson.
"I must admit," McBain was remarking, "that I can't make it out at all."
"No more can we," said Stevenson with a puzzled smile. "The wind hasfailed us all at once, and the sea gone down, and the glass seems tohave taken leave of its senses entirely. It is up one moment highenough for anything, and down the next to 28 degrees. There, just lookat that sea and look at that sky."
There was certainly something most appalling in the appearance of both.The ocean was calm and unruffled as glass, with only a long low heave onit; not a ripple on it big enough to swamp a fly; but over it all astrange, glassy lustre that--so you would have thought--could have beenskimmed off. The sky was one mass of dark purple-black clouds inmasses. It seemed no distance overhead, and the horizon looked hardly amile away on either side. Only in the north it was one unbroken bluishblack, as dark seemingly as night, from the midst of which every now andthen, and every here and there, would come quickly a little puff ofcloud of a lightish grey colour, as if a gun had been fired. Only therewas no sound.
There was something awe-inspiring in the strange, ominous look of seaand sky, and in the silence broken only by the grind and gride of screwand engine.
"No," said McBain, "I don't know what we are going to have. Perhaps atornado. Anyhow, Mr Stevenson, let us be ready. Get down topgallantmasts, it will be a bit of exercise for the men; let us have all thesteam we can command, and--"
"Batten down, sir?"
"Yes, Mr Stevenson, batten down, and lash the boats inboard."
The good ship _Arrandoon_ was at the time of which I write about fiftymiles south of the Faroes, and a long way to the east. The weather hadbeen dark and somewhat gloomy, from the very time they lost sight of thesnow-clad hills around Oban, but it now seemed to culminate in adarkness that could be felt.
The men were well drilled on board this steam yacht. McBain delightedto have them smart, and it was with surprising celerity that thetopgallant masts were lowered, the hatches battened down, and the goodship prepared for any emergency. None too soon; the darkness grew moreintense, especially did the clouds look threatening ahead of them. Andnow here and there all round them the sea began to get ruffled withsmall whirlwinds, that sent the water wheeling round and round likeminiature maelstroms, and raised it up into cones in the centre.
"How is the glass now, Mr Stevenson?" asked McBain.
"Stands very low, sir," was the reply, "but keeps steadily down."
"All right," said McBain; "now get two guns loaded with ball cartridge;have no more hands on deck than we want. No idlers, d'ye hear?"
"Ay, ay, sir."
"Send Magnus Bolt here."
"Now, Magnus, old man," continued McBain, "d'ye mind the time, someyears ago in the _Snowbird_, when you rid us of that troublesomepirate?"
"Ay, that I do right well, sir," said this little old weasened specimenof humanity, rubbing his hands with delight. "It were a fine shot that.He! he! he! Mercy on us, to see his masts and sails come topplingdown, sir,--he! he! he!"
"Well, I want you again, Magnus; I'd rather trust to your old eye in anemergency than to any in the ship."
"But where is the foe, sir?"
"Look ahead, Magnus."
Magnus did as he was told; it was a strange, and to one who understoodit, a dreadful sight. Apparently a thousand balloons were afloat in theblue, murky air, each one trailing its car in the sea, balloons ofterrible size, flat as to their tops, which seemed to join or merge intoone another, forming a black and ominous cloud. The cars that trailedon the sea were snowy white.
"Heaven help us?" said Magnus, clasping his hands for just a moment,while his cheeks assumed an ashen hue. "Heaven help us, sir; this isworse than the pirate."
"They are all coming this way," said McBain; "fire only at those thatthreaten us, and fire while they are still some distance ahead."
Meanwhile Ralph had come on deck, and joined his companions. I do notthink that through all the long terrible hour that followed, either ofthem spoke one word; although there was no sea on, and for the most partno motion, they clutched with one hand rigging or shroud, and gazedterror-struck at the awful scene ahead and around them.
They were soon in the very centre of what appeared an interminableforest of waterspouts. Few indeed have ever seen such a sight orencountered so pressing a danger and lived to tell it.
The balloon-shaped heads of these waterspouts looked dark as midnight;their shafts, I can call them nothing else, were immense pillars risingout of gigantic feet of seething foam. So close did they pass to someof these that the yardarms seemed almost to touch them. Our heroesnoticed then, and they marvelled at it afterwards, the strangemonotonous roaring sound they emitted,--a sound that drowned even thenoise of the troubled waters around their shafts.
[Such a phenomenon as this has rarely been witnessed in the NorthernOcean. It is somewhat strange that on the self-same year this happened,an earthquake was felt in Ireland, and shocks even near Perth, inScotland.]
Old Magnus made good use of his guns on those that threatened the goodship with destruction; one shot broke always one, and sometimes more,probably with the vibration; but the thundering sound of the fallingwaters, and the turmoil of the sea that followed, what pen can describe?
But, good shot as he is, Magnus is not infallible, else McBain would notnow have to grasp his speaking-trumpet
and shout,--
"Stand by, men, stand by."
A waterspout had wholly, or partially at least, broken on board of them.It was as though the splendid ship had suddenly been blown to atoms bya terrible explosion, and every timber of her engulfed in the ocean!
For long moments thus, then her crew, half drowned, half dead, couldonce more look around. The _Arrandoon_ was afloat, but her decks wereswept. Hundreds of tons of water still filled her decks, and poured outinto the sea in cataracts through her broken bulwarks; ay, and it pouredbelow too, at the fore and main hatchways, which had been smashed openwith the violence and force of the