"You can see for yourself that we are drifting equally as much to the south as we are sailing towards the coast, and making about the same progress each way. From this circumstance I have little doubt that there is a considerable current running southwards; and if so, it may carry us round the cape--especially should the wind shift to the northward."
"Aye, if it should!" said Captain Dinks sarcastically.
"I do not really see why it should not," persisted Mr Meldrum, "it has already veered about a good deal this morning; and, if you remember, both yesterday afternoon and on the previous day it shifted shortly after sunset to that very direction."
"Yes, I recollect," said the other with grim humour, "and the shift brought a snowstorm and a fog with it on each occasion! I hope, really, with all my heart, Mr Meldrum," he added more heartily, "that the weather may be as accommodating as you seem to fancy; but, as a matter of precaution, I will go and see that the boats may be ready, in case we have to abandon the ship soon, which I think will be the end of it all.
They are both patched up now, so as to be pretty serviceable; and fortunately, there'll be no difficulty in getting them over the side, as the bulwarks have been swept away, and all we'll have to do will be to launch them into the water. I am just going to superintend the stowage of the provisions and water casks. They are piled on the main-deck quite handy; and I will see, too, that the oars and sails are not forgotten."
"Very good," answered Mr Meldrum. "But I hope we sha'n't want them after all; and, while you are down there, I'll remain here and look after the pilotage of the ship--that is, if you'll send some one below in my place to see to my daughters and their arrangements. I have told Kate already that she must only take the barest necessaries with her, in case we have to embark in the boats, and above all, not to forget warm clothing for herself and Florry; so you'd better advise whoever you send down, to see that Mrs Major Negus does the same. Mr Lathrope is smart enough to look after himself."
"Aye, aye," said Captain Dinks, as he turned to descend to the main- deck, "I think I'll send down Frank Harness. He's the most of a ladies'
man on board the ship, and I imagine that he and Miss Kate will get on pretty well together, eh, Mr Meldrum?"
But the other made no reply to this remark. He was too busily engaged just then in looking out across the rolling sea astern, and watching a haze which appeared to be creeping up over the water to the northward, with a dark line of cloud hovering over it, both coming rapidly towards the ship.
"Hurrah!" he exclaimed at last in an ecstasy of joy, when his faint hope became confirmed into a certainty; "the wind's shifting, and chopping round to the north in our favour!"
"You don't say so?" said Captain Dinks equally excited, abandoning the provisioning of the boats and skipping up the poop-ladder like a young two-year-old; "why, yes, really! It's the best piece of news I ever heard! Put the helm amidships!" he added to the man at the wheel.
"We'll have to ease her round and run before it a bit for the last time; and if the wind only holds to the northward for a short spell, we'll get round the point yet and lay her old bones ashore decently. Steady, Boltrope, steady!"
"Steady it is!" laconically answered the carpenter, whose trick it was at the wheel, obeying the captain's directions implicitly.
"Look alive, McCarthy, and square the yards," was the captain's next command; "but do it gingerly, my man, do it gingerly! If we lose the jury-masts now it will be all up with us."
"Aye, aye, sorr," was the response of the chief mate, as he aided himself in carrying out the order; and the vessel's head coming round south by west, under the impulse of the helm and the shifting of the sails, she began to exhibit some of her old powers and claw off the land, bringing the cape now to bear upon her port bow well to leeward.
In addition to this, it was perceived that she made much better way through the water than when she had been steering direct for the shore, as, from the breeze being now well abeam, it made her heel over on her side, thus elevating her broken bows somewhat and preventing her from dipping her head so frequently in the waves.
It was a moment of intense interest and suspense, everybody being on deck to witness the struggle the ship was making against the odds opposed to her.
If she got round the point, they would be comparatively safe--at least they thought so; whereas, if the wind failed, or a brace started, or the rudder proved powerless to guide her at a critical period, the vessel would be driven against the iron-bound cliff they were approaching in an oblique line--against whose base the heavy rollers were now thundering with a crashing roar that each instant became louder as they neared the point, throwing their spray high up its precipitous face; and then--Why, they were lost!
Frank Harness was at this time standing by the side of Kate and Florry on the poop; but nearer to the former, who had just asked him to save her little sister should the ship strike.
"I will," said he in a whisper close to her ear, "God helping me! and you, too; but call me 'Frank' again, Miss Meldrum. You did so once, you know, when you caught me that time I was nearly washed overboard, and saved me!"
"Do you remember that?" asked Kate.
"I do," said he; "how could I forget it? Do not fear, I'll save you and Florry too!"
"Thank you, 'Frank,' then for your promise," whispered she--in accents so low that they were almost drowned by the noise of the waves dashing against the cliff; but he heard her, and his face lightened up as brightly as if he had been redeemed from all peril and saw heaven before him.
Onward the ship sped, ever drawing closer to that terrible wall of rock and yet gaining at the same time inch by inch on the promontory, that jutted out into the sea like an arm stretched forth to stay her progress; while, as the anxious moments flew by, the northerly wind which had come so opportunely to their rescue gradually rose into a gale, threatening to destroy them--the _Nancy Bell_ approaching the cliff so closely, as she skirted by, that it seemed to those on board that they might have touched it by merely stretching out their hands over the side. The sky, too, was growing darker and darker every moment.
They were now quite near the southerly point of the cape, and within half a cable's length of its precipitous face: five minutes--three minutes--one minute--would settle the question.
"Luff, man, luff!" shouted the captain, as all held their breath with excitement.
It was a case of touch and go!
"Hurrah! down with the helm! she's done it!" called out Captain Dinks again, as the vessel glided by the last spur of the promontory, and, rounding to on the other side, she seemed to get into smoother water--a fine beach stretching out in the distance a few miles away and no rocks being apparent--"the old ship has conquered, and won the race after all."
His triumph, however, was as short-lived as it was premature.
Hardly had the _Nancy Bell_ rounded the cape, than the air grew dense around them, and snow began to fall heavily; while a thick fog rising, shut out the shore and every object from view. Then, as Captain Dinks and Mr Meldrum were deliberating whether it would be better under the circumstances to run the ship straight for the beach--which they had calculated to be some five miles in front of them to the south-east or the cape they had just passed--or else to continue pumping until the weather got lighter and they could see better where they were going, the matter was settled for them, in a very unexpected manner, by the ship running on to a sunken ridge of rock immediately under her forefoot; and, in a moment, there she stuck hard and fast, bumping and scraping her bottom, with a harsh, grating sound and a quivering and rending of her timbers, as if every plank below the water-line was being torn out of her piecemeal.
The _Nancy Bell_ had struck on some barrier reef, which guarded at a distance the desolate and inhospitable shore, just at the very moment everything was deemed secure and all danger past! And, as she stranded, the thick-falling white snow which had already covered the decks seemed to be busy wreathing a shroud for the ill-fated ship, while the surges sang her requiem in their dull, heart-breaking roar--the sea-fog hanging over the scene of the calamity the while like a sombre pall.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
A FOUL BLOW!
Every one was on deck at the time--the crew, the officers, the passengers; but, with the exception of a slight scream from Mrs Major Negus, which passed unnoticed, not a single exclamation of terror or alarm was uttered. All seemed completely stupefied by the unexpected shock, their consternation being too great for words--they stood as if spell-bound!
Captain Dinks was the first to break the silence.
"God forgive me!" he cried out to everybody's surprise. "It is all my fault!"
"Your fault!" repeated Mr Meldrum; "how--why?"
"I should have had a man forward, sounding with the lead, but I quite forgot it--quite forgot it; and this has happened."
"Nonsense, man!" said the other to cheer him up--the captain appearing to be more concerned at his own neglect, as he regarded it, than he was at the actual fact of the ship's striking on the reef--"such a precaution would have been utterly useless! We were probably in deep water a minute before; and even if a man had been stationed in the chains, he could scarcely have had time to have swung the lead and sang out the marks, before she was on the rocks! It is one of those unforeseen calamities that are inevitable and which can never be prevented by any human foresight. I for one, and I've no doubt every one else here agrees with me, entirely exonerate you from all blame."
The captain was endeavouring to make some broken reply, as far as his deep emotion would allow, when Mrs Major Negus interrupted him.
"Speak for yourself, please, Mr Meldrum," she exclaimed, elbowing herself forwards in front of the group, her shrill high-pitched voice sounding almost like another scream, as she waved her arms wildly about and addressed Mr Meldrum and Captain Dinks alternately. "Speak for yourself, please, for I don't agree with you at all! I say it is the captain's fault; and he knows it, though it's rather late in the day for him to acknowledge it! And I'd like to know, sir, how I and my darling boy are going to get on shore now in this blinding snowstorm--in such a bleak and dreary outlandish place, too! A nice captain you are; and you bargained to take us safe to New Zealand when you took our passage- money. My poor Maurice, oh my dear boy, you'll never, never see your father now, for we'll all be drowned, and Captain Dinks is the cause of it!"
So shrieking, she proceeded to weep and wail in a way that made Mr Meldrum lose all patience with her.
"Peace, woman!" cried he indignantly. "This is no time for hysterics and such violent displays: you'd better keep them till the fine weather comes, and remain quiet now! The best thing you can do if you hope to escape, is to allow the captain to see about getting the boats ready to take us off, for the ship will probably break up soon."
His latter remark, while it reduced "the Major" to a state of limp collapse that made her silent and subdued, had the effect he intended, of rousing the captain to action--thus causing him to forget for a time his grief at the _Nancy Bell's_ disaster in having to exert himself so as to provide for the safety of those on board.
"Main-deck ahoy there!" he shouted.
"Aye, aye, sorr," answered the first mate, who had remained there, looking to the trimming of the sails while the ship was working up to the cape.
"Have the men finished storing those things in the boats yet?"
"They're jist at it now, sorr. We were all a bit flabbergasted when the poor crathur struck; but we're working hard now, sorr, and the boats will soon be ready to launch into the wather."
"That's right, McCarthy, we've no time to lose. Send one of the hands forwards to see how her head lies."
"Aye, aye, sorr. Mr Adams has gone already sure: an' I've sint the carpenter, Boltrope, to sound the well."
"He'd better by far sound alongside, to see what depth of water we're in and which would be the best side for launching the boats off!" replied Captain Dinks. "But stay, Harness," he added, "you can do that. Heave the lead aft here, and then amidships, telling me what soundings you get."