The White Squall Part 22

I was whirled round and round in an eddy of the sea; and soon my efforts ceased.

Then, all at once, when almost the sense of suffocation had pa.s.sed, I felt a hand grasp my collar at the back of my neck; and, oh, gracious heaven! I was dragged above the surface and drew once more a breath of air. I took in a gulp of water with this; but, in spite of the water, the air was the sweet essence of life and I breathed again!

I had been in a dream before--a terrible dream; now I came to myself, and my recollection returned.

The buzzing sounds that had previously echoed through my brain resolved themselves into the hoa.r.s.e shouts of the crew of the _Josephine_; the exclamations of the sailors being mingled with the roaring, cras.h.i.+ng break of the waves as they washed over the wreck, and the creaking and rending of the timbers of the poor s.h.i.+p, while, nearer yet to me, I could distinguish the cheering cry of faithful Jake:

"Hole up, Ma.s.s' Tom, um got um safe now. Hole up an' take good breff; we'se all right, an' ebberybody safe!"

At the same moment that he spoke Jake lifted me up on something which I could feel with my feet, and I opened my eyes.

At first, I was almost blinded by the sea-water which had got into them, and the salt spray which continually dashed over my head; but, in a minute or two, I was able to see where I was and grasp the situation.

The s.h.i.+p was lying over on her starboard side, with her decks submerged up to the hatches, and her masts horizontal on the surface of the sea; but, the whole of her port side was clear out of the water, and, although the waves were breaking over this, still the major part of the quarter and a portion of the p.o.o.p were almost high and dry in the intervals between the following rollers that ever and anon swept up to their level.

On this after part of the s.h.i.+p, Jake had managed to clamber up, lugging me along with him; and, as I looked round, I could recognise Captain Miles and Mr Marline, as well as several others of the hands, who had sought such a vantage-ground of safety.

Away forwards, the _Josephine_ was completely buried in the huge billows that were constantly surging over her; but here, too, clinging on to the main-chains was another group of sailors, amongst whom I could make out the tall figure of Jackson, with Cuffee and Davis close beside him.

Captain Miles perceived me almost as soon as I saw him.

"Ah, there you are, Tom!" he cried. "Thank G.o.d you are not lost! I made a hard grab at you when the s.h.i.+p heeled over, but missed you; and thought that the skylight hatch carried you away overboard when it lifted."

"Me watchee him sharp, sah," explained Jake. "I'se see de squall comin'

an' run aft for tell, an' den I clutch hole Ma.s.s' Tom, an' here we is!"

"You've saved your young master then," exclaimed the captain; "so, Tom, you've got to thank the darkey instead of me! But, how many of us have escaped?"

As he said this, Captain Miles glanced about and appeared to be reckoning up the list of the crew on his fingers, for I could see his lips move.

"Marline, you're all right, eh?" he went on presently, speaking out aloud.

"Oh, yes, I'm here, thanks to Providence," said the first mate with almost a sob in his voice. It told better than words his grat.i.tude to the power on high that had preserved him.

"And Jackson, I see, with Davis and Cuffee," continued the captain, running through the names of the survivors as far as he could make them out.

"There's Adze, the carpenter, too, in the main-chains, with those two German sailors, Hermann and Gottlieb; while there are five more of the hands alongside me," said Mr Marline looking round, too, and taking stock.

"But, where's Moggridge?" asked Captain Miles, missing the boatswain at that moment and not seeing him anywhere. I felt my heart sink at the thought that he was gone.

"Here I am, your honour," however, sang out the old fellow, climbing up over the stern gallery. "I almost lost the number of my mess; but I've managed to cheat Davy Jones this time."

"That makes, with Master Tom here, just sixteen souls, out of eighteen we had on board, all told," said the captain. "Anybody seen the steward?"

"No, he isn't here, poor fellow," replied Mr Marline. "He was below in his pantry at the time the squall struck us, and must have been drowned before he could scramble out."

"There's only one other, then, missing," said the captain. "Count the hands again, Marline."

The first mate did this; and, then, it was found, on hailing Jackson in the main-chains--the sea at present making a breach between us and dividing our forces--that the other sailor was a man named Briggs, who had been ailing for some days past. He had been in his bunk in the forecastle when the s.h.i.+p capsized, so his fate was almost as certain as that of Harry, the mulatto steward.

All things considered, though, it was a great mercy, from the sudden nature of the calamity, that so many of us should have been saved. But for the fact of the accident having occurred in the afternoon, when the majority of the hands were fortunately on deck aft, many more lives would undoubtedly have been lost.

However, albeit temporarily preserved from the peril of a watery grave, our outlook, cl.u.s.tered there together on the outside of the partly- submerged vessel, was a very sorry one; for, the sea was still running high, and the waves were breaking over us in sheets of foam, and, although the sun was s.h.i.+ning down and the air was comparatively warm, this made us feel most uncomfortable. Besides, the continual onslaught of the rolling billows necessitated our holding on to everything we could get a grip of, to prevent ourselves from being washed away.

We had to lie along the side of the s.h.i.+p, grasping the mizzen rigging, which att.i.tude was a very wearying one; for, the sea would lift us up as the swell surged by, and then, we had to take a fresh grip, our feet sliding down the hull as the billow retired and the vessel sunk down in the hollow.

"I say, Marline," called out the captain presently, "as you are nearest the signal halliards, do you think you can manage to run them clear?"

"I'll try, sir," answered the other; and Moggridge, who had now crept alongside the mate, helping him, the two contrived to haul out the rope in question.

"Now, who's got a knife handy?" next inquired Captain Miles.

There was half a dozen replies to this question; but, ere the article wanted could be pa.s.sed along, the old boatswain had drawn out his from his waistband by means of the lanyard slung round his neck, and was busily employed in cutting up the signal halliards into short lengths of about a fathom each.

"Ah, I see you guessed what I was after," said the captain noticing this. "If we lash ourselves to the rigging here, it will save us a world of exertion and trouble, besides leaving our hands free for other purposes."

"Aye, aye, sir, I know'd what you want," responded Moggridge, and pa.s.sing down the pieces of rope as he cut them off, all of us were pretty soon well secured from being washed away, each man helping to tie up his neighbour in turn.

"Golly, ma.s.sa, dis am a purdicafirment!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jake, grinning as usual, and with his ebony face s.h.i.+ning with the spray; "I'se 'gin feel want grub--um precious hungry."

"I am afraid that'll not be our only want, my poor fellow," said Captain Miles in a melancholy voice; but rousing himself a minute afterwards he added more cheerfully, "Wait till the sea gets down, and then we'll try to improve our condition. I wonder, though, how these other fellows are getting on in the chains amids.h.i.+ps? Jackson, ahoy!"

"Hullo, sir," came a faint hail in answer, from amid the breaking seas further on ahead of us, where only a black spot of a head could be seen occasionally emerging from the ma.s.s of encircling foam.

"Are you all right there?" sang out the captain.

"We're alive, sir; but nearly tired out," replied Jackson in a low weak tone.

"Can't you try, man, to work your way aft and join us," urged Captain Miles, comprehending how exhausted the young seaman and his companions there must be. "There's plenty of room here for all of us, and you'll not be so much worked about by the sea."

"The waves are too strong for us, sir," cried out the other, but his voice now seeming to have a little more courage in it, for he added after a bit, "I think we can manage it, though, if you will make fast the bight of the topsail sheet and heave the end to us. It will serve us to hold on by as we pa.s.s along the bulwarks."

"All right, my hearty," answered Captain Miles, he and a couple of the sailors beside him doing as Jackson had suggested.

Then, the captain himself, undoing his las.h.i.+ngs, seized one of the brief intervals in which the after part of the hull rose above the sea; when, standing on his feet, while his legs were held by the two sailors, he hove the end of the rope towards Jackson, who, clutching hold of it, secured it to the main-shrouds, whence it was stretched taut to the mizzen rigging, thus serving as a sort of life-line by which the men could pa.s.s aft.

When this was done, the men with Jackson in the main-chains crept cautiously along the bulwarks, half in and half out of the water, clutching on to the topsail sheet hand over hand, soon joined us on the quarter galley--the young second mate being the last to leave, waiting until his comrades were in safety.

The pa.s.sage from the one place to the other was perilous in the extreme; for, the waves surged up sometimes completely over the poor fellows'

heads, when they had once abandoned their footing and had only the frail swaying rope to support them against the wash of the water. They were roughly oscillated to and fro, hove up out of the sea one minute and lowered down again into it the next.

It was a wonder some of them did not fall off, getting sucked under the keel of the s.h.i.+p; but, gripping the life-line with a clutch of desperation, their pa.s.sage across the perilous bridge was at last safely accomplished, when the entire sixteen of us, including my own humble self, were at length gathered together in one group on the counter-rail below the bend of the p.o.o.p. The new-comers were then lashed to the mizzen rigging like the rest of us, and we all waited with what hope and patience we could for the sea to calm down.

By this time, it was late in the afternoon; and, presently, the sun sank down away to the west in his ocean bed, surrounded by a radiant glow of crimson and gold that flashed upward from the horizon to the zenith.

The wind had died away too, the last violent squall which had been so disastrous to the _Josephine_, having been the expiring blast of the hurricane; so, although, as I've said, the sea still continued to run high, the waves rolled by more regularly and with an equal pulsation, as if Father Neptune was rocking himself gradually to sleep. The old tyrant was evidently; exhausted with the mad rioting in which he had recently been indulging, and the thras.h.i.+ng which the gale had given him!

There was no sleep for us, however, excepting such hasty little droppings off into brief forgetfulness that our worn-out bodies gave way to for an instant; for we were constantly being roused up, almost as soon as our wearied eyelids had closed, by the sudden rush of the spent wash of some broken wave wetting our already wet garments. This banished all thoughts of repose; and, when the darkness of night came on, it was cold and dreary in the extreme, the hours seeming to drag out to the length of a lifetime.