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Barnstable, gloomily; addressing the cockswain, who, with folded arms, and an
air of cool resignation, was balancing his body on the verge of the
quarter-deck, while the schooner was plunging madly into waves that nearly
buried her in their bosom; the poor little thing trembles like a frightened
child, as she meets the water.
Tom sighed heavily, and shook his head, before he answered--
If we could have kept the head of the main-mast an hour longer, we might
have got an offing, and fetched to windward of the shoals; but, as it is, sir,
mortal man can t drive a craft to windward--she sets bodily in to land, and
will be in the breakers in less than an hour, unless God wills that the winds
shall cease to blow.
We have no hope left us, but to anchor; our ground tackle may yet bring her
up.
Tom turned to his commander, and replied, solemnly, and with that assurance
of manner, that long experience only can give a man in moments of great
danger--
If our sheet-cable was bent to our heaviest anchor, this sea would bring it
home, though nothing but her launch was riding by it. A north-easter in the
German ocean must and will blow itself out; nor shall we get the crown of the
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gale until the sun falls over the land. Then, indeed, it may lull; for the
winds do often seem to reverence the glory of the heavens, too much to blow
their might in its very face!
We must do our duty to ourselves and the country, returned Barnstable; go,
get the two bowers spliced, and have a kedge bent to a hawser; we ll back our
two anchors together, and veer to the better end of two hundred and forty
fathoms; it may yet bring her up. See all clear there for anchoring, and
cutting away the masts--we ll leave the wind nothing but a naked hull to
whistle over.
Ay, if there was nothing but the wind, we might yet live to see the sun sink
behind them hills, said the cockswain; but what hemp can stand the strain of
a craft that is buried, half the time, to her foremast in the water!
The order was, however, executed by the crew, with a sort of desperate
submission to the will of their commander; and when the preparations were
completed, the anchors and kedge were dropped to the bottom, and the instant
that the Ariel tended to the wind, the axe was applied to the little that was
left of her long, raking masts. The crash of the falling spars, as they came,
in succession, across the decks of the vessel, appeared to produce no
sensation amid that scene of complicated danger, but the seamen proceeded in
silence, in their hopeless duty, of clearing the wrecks. Every eye followed
the floating timbers, as the waves swept them away from the vessel, with a
sort of feverish curiosity, to witness the effect produced by their collision
with those rocks that lay so fearfully near them; but long before the spars
entered the wide border of foam, they were hid from view by the furious
element in which they floated. It was, now, felt by the whole crew of the
Ariel, that their last means of safety had been adopted, and, at each
desperate and headlong plunge the vessel took, into the bosom of the seas that
rolled upon her forecastle, the anxious seamen thought they could perceive the
yielding of the iron that yet clung to the bottom, or could hear the violent
surge of the parting strands of the cable, that still held them to their
anchors. While the minds of the sailors were agitated with the faint hopes
that had been excited, by the movements of their schooner, Dillon had been
permitted to wander about the vessel, unnoticed; his rolling eyes, hard
breathing, and clenched hands, exciting no observation among the men, whose
thoughts were yet dwelling on the means of safety. But, now, when, with a sort
of frenzied desperation, he would follow the retiring waters along the decks,
and venture his person nigh the group that had collected around and on the gun
of the cockswain, glances of fierce or of sullen vengeance were cast at him,
that conveyed threats of a nature that he was too much agitated to understand.
If ye are tired of this world, though your time, like my own, is probably
but short in it, said Tom to him, as he passed the cockswain in one of his
turns, you can go forward among the men; but if ye have need of the moments
to foot up the reck ning of your doings among men, afore ye re brought to face
your maker, and hear the log-book of heaven, I would advise you to keep as
nigh as possible to Captain Barnstable or myself.
Will you promise to save me, if the vessel is wrecked! exclaimed Dillon,
catching at the first sounds of friendly interest that had reached his ears,
since he had been recaptured; Oh! if you will, I can secure you future ease;
yes, wealth, for the remainder of your days!
Your promises have been too ill kept, afore this, for the peace of your
soul, returned the cockswain, without bitterness, though sternly; but it is
not in me to strike even a whale, that is already spouting blood.
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The intercessions of Dillon were interrupted by a dreadful cry, that arose
among the men forward, and which sounded with increased horror, amid the
roaring of the tempest. The schooner rose on the breast of a wave at the same
instant, and, falling off with her broad side to the sea, she drove in towards
the cliffs, like a bubble on the rapids of a cataract.
Our ground tackle has parted, said Tom, with his resigned patience of
manner undisturbed; she shall die as easy as man can make her! While he yet
spoke, he seized the tiller, and gave to the vessel such a direction, as would
be most likely to cause her to strike the rocks with her bows foremost.
There was, for one moment, an expression of exquisite anguish, betrayed in
the dark countenance of Barnstable; but at the next, it passed away, and he
spoke cheerfully to his men--
Be steady, my lads, be calm; there is yet a hope of life foryou --our light
draught will let us run in close to the cliffs, and it is still falling
water--see your boats clear, and be steady.
The crew of the whale-boat, aroused, by this speech, from a sort of stupor,
sprang into their light vessel, which was quickly lowered into the sea, and
kept riding on the foam, free from the sides of the schooner, by the powerful
exertions of the men. The cry for the cockswain was earnest and repeated, but
Tom shook his head, without replying, still grasping the tiller, and keeping
his eyes steadily bent on the chaos of waters, into which they were driving.
The launch, the largest boat of the two, was cut loose from the gripes, and
the bustle and exertion of the moment rendered the crew insensible to the
horror of the scene that surrounded them. But the loud, hoarse call of the
cockswain, to look out--secure yourselves! suspended even their efforts, and
at that instant the Ariel settled on a wave that melted from under her,
heavily on the rocks. The shock was so violent, as to throw all who
disregarded the warning cry, from their feet, and the universal quiver that
pervaded the vessel was like the last shudder of animated nature. For a time
long enough to breathe, the least experienced among the men supposed the
danger to be past; but a wave of great height followed the one that had
deserted them, and raising the vessel again, threw her roughly still further [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
