During the forenoon watch, the deck was in charge of Mr Adams, the second mate--a plain, steady-going, matter-of-fact sort of man, with none of that buoyant spirit and keen sense of humour which characterised hid senior shipmate McCarthy, although he was a thorough sailor to the backbone, and believed the human race to be divided into two classes, those who were seamen and those who weren't. The wind now took a more favourable turn, settling itself in the south-east quarter as if it meant to remain there, thus enabling the ship to steer a better course; and, meanwhile, the sky clearing up a bit, the threatening clouds drifted to leeward and the sun shone out again just as it did when the captain first came on deck in the early morning.
Taking advantage of the change, the reefs were shaken out of the topsails, the courses let fall again, the jib and flying-jib hoisted, and the topgallants set; and soon, with her head steering south-west and a half south, the _Nancy Bell_ was bounding over the waves under all plain sail, as if anxious to make up for the time she had lost in tacking about against the head-wind that had barred her southward progress ever since she took her departure from the Lizard Point on the previous day when she hauled out from the Channel.
The breeze was freshening, and there was a nasty sort of chopping sea, when the captain came on the poop at noon to take the sun, in order to ascertain his longitude--an operation which would have been much more difficult in the hazy weather that had prevailed some few hours previous, with the zenith every now and then overcast by the fleecy storm wrack and flying scud that came drifting across the sky as the wind veered; but the ship was making good running, and everything bade fair for her soon crossing the boisterous Bay of Biscay, on whose troubled waters she had now entered.
"She's slipping along!" said Captain Dinks to Adams, rubbing his hands together gleefully, as he put down his sextant on the top of the saloon skylight for a moment and gave a glance aloft and then over the side to windward.
"Yes, sir," replied the second mate. "Going fine--eleven knots last heave of the lead."
"Ah, nothing can beat her on a bowline!" said the captain triumphantly.
"She's a clipper and no mistake when she has the wind abeam: bears her canvas well, too, for a little un!" he added, with another glance aloft, where the sails could be seen distended to their utmost extent and tugging at the bolt-ropes, while the topgallant-masts were bent almost into a curve with the strain upon them and the stays aft were stretched as tight as fiddle-strings.
"Yes, sir; she does," agreed Adams; "but, don't you think, sir, she's carrying on too much now that the wind has got up? I was just going to call the hands to take in sail when you came on deck."
"Certainly not," replied Captain Dinks, struck aghast by the very suggestion of such a thing. "I won't have a stitch off her! Why, man alive, you wouldn't want me to lose this breeze with such a lot of leeway as we have to make up?"
"No, sir; but--"
"Hang your 'buts'!" interrupted the captain with some heat. "You are a bit too cautious, Adams. When you have sailed the _Nancy Bell_ as long as I have you'll know what she's able to carry and what she isn't!"
With these pregnant words of wisdom, the captain resumed possession of his sextant and proceeded to take the altitude of the sun, shouting out occasional unintelligible directions the while through the skylight to Mr McCarthy, who was in his cabin below, so that he might compare the position of the solar orb with Greenwich time as marked by the chronometer. Then telling Adams at the end of the operation to "make it eight bells," whereupon the tinkling sounds denoting twelve o'clock were heard through the ship, he himself also hurried below, to "work out his reckoning."
On Captain Dinks coming up again, he reported that the _Nancy Bell_ had done better than he expected for her "first day out," considering the adverse circumstances she had had to contend with, for she had logged more than a hundred and fifty miles; but he did not look quite so jubilant as he had done before going below, nor did McCarthy, who now accompanied him on deck to relieve the second mate, whose watch had expired.
"What's the matter, captain?" asked Mr Meldrum, with a smile, "are you not satisfied; or, did you expect the ship to have done more?"
The passenger was patrolling the poop, in company with his two daughters, Kate and Florry--the latter a rompish little girl, some twelve years old, with long golden-brown hair which the wind was making wild havoc of, dashing it across her face as she turned, and streaming it out to leeward behind her in picturesque confusion. The girls had some little difficulty in walking along the deck, as it was inclined to a considerable angle from the vessel's heeling over; but, by dint of clutching hold of their father, which they did with much joking and merriment and silvery laughter, each taking an arm on either side, they managed to preserve their equilibrium, keeping pace in regular quarter- deck fashion.
"No," replied Captain Dinks to Mr Meldrum's chaffing question, "I can't say that I am satisfied, for I'm sorry to tell you that the barometer is going down."
"Indeed!" said the other, "and with the wind from the south-east! I'd advise you, captain, to take in sail at once."
"Why, you're as bad as Adams," returned Captain Dinks rather huffily; "I suppose you'd like me to strip the ship just when we're getting the first fair breeze we've had since leaving Plymouth! Excuse me, Mr Meldrum, I know my business; and, I presume, you'll allow a sailor to be better acquainted with his duties than any landsman can possibly be."
"Oh, certainly, Captain Dinks," said Mr Meldrum with a bow, "and I'm sure I beg your pardon for interfering! Of course, as you say, a landsman has no knowledge of these things and has no right to speak."
"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Kate Meldrum reproachfully, "how could you say that?" while Florry pinched his arm and seemed convulsed with laughter, which she endeavoured to choke down in vain, at some secret joke or other; but Captain Dinks, quite restored to his usual good-humour and politeness by Mr Meldrum's apology, did not notice the girls, and presently all were chatting together with the utmost cordiality, the captain enlarging on the excellent run he hoped to make to New Zealand, and promising the young ladies that they should see Madeira ere the week was out, for he anticipated that the south-easterly breeze they now had would carry them well past the Spanish coast and into the north-east trades, when their voyage would be all plain sailing down to the Equator.
How true, however, is the old adage, "Man proposes and God disposes!"
While the captain was chatting gaily with his passengers, another change was taking place in the appearance of the heavens. The heavy, threatening clouds, which had risen up after breakfast and been swept away to leeward by the south-east wind as it got up, were now slowly being banked up along the horizon to the northward and westward, the haze extending down to the south right ahead of the vessel's track, while a lot of scud began to be seen flying aloft at a very considerable rate--not from but towards the point from which the breeze was blowing, a sign that betokened not merely another shift of the wind, but a squall, and one not to be trifled with either!
The obscuring of the sun by the drift was the first thing that called the captain's attention to the altered state of the weather, and he at once gave the order--"All hands shorten sail!" the mate rushing forwards to see the details properly carried out.
The order did not come an instant too soon.
All at once, in a moment, the wind, which had previously been blowing strongly from the south-east, died away and it was dead calm; while the sea--already rough enough with the short chopping waves of the morning-- began to run with those huge billows that seem to get up almost without preparation on the advent of a gale, every second growing more mountainous.
At the captain's word of command, re-echoed by Mr McCarthy, the crew had sprung aloft immediately; and, working with a will, had furled the topgallant-sails, taken in the flying-jib, hauled up the mainsail and mizzen-trysail and squared the after yards, when the ship resembled a gladiator, entering the arena of the prize-ring stripped for a fight, as she thus awaited the approach of the storm.
In the south-east the sky was clear and cloudless, but in the opposite direction dark heavy purple masses of vapour rolled over each other, more unnatural in appearance owing to a lighter cloud covering the curling, wreathing fluid as if with a veil. Shooting from this dark pile of clouds, some few were detached and became separated, rising to a higher region of the air, in which they were dissipated and blown out like mares'-tails that passed rapidly across the zenith; whilst on the water, and about a mile or so from the vessel, the sea appeared covered with a thick white mist, before which ran a dark line of black.
Mr Meldrum had sent the girls below the moment Captain Dinks had given his orders to shorten sail, in spite of their entreaties to be allowed to remain on deck with him and "see the storm;" so, being now alone, he stationed himself near the binnacle close to the captain.
As he stood watching the lull before the break of the squall, he felt a hand touching his shoulder; and looking round he found his fellow passenger, Mr Zachariah Lathrope, by his side.
"Jee-hosophat! mister," said the American; "I guess we're goin' to have a blizzard, and no mistake!"
"What's a blizzard?" said Mr Meldrum, smiling at the other's nasal intonation, which was more marked than usual, even for a citizen of the land of the setting sun.
"Why, darn my moccasins, deon't yew know what a blizzard is?"
Mr Meldrum shook his head in the negative: he felt that he should laugh outright in the other's face if he opened his mouth to speak, and he did not wish to appear wanting in politeness.
"Waal," said the American, drawing himself up, as if proud of his superior knowledge and ability in being able to enlighten a backward Britisher. "A blizzard's a hurricane and a tornader and a cyclone, all biled inter one all fired smash and let loose to sweep creation. We have 'em to rights out Minnesota way; and let me tell you, mister, when you've ten through the mill in one, you wouldn't kinder like to hev a share in another. Snakes and alligators! Why, a blizzard will shave you as clean as the best barber in Boston, and then friz the marrow in your bones an' blow you to Jericho. It's sarten death to be caught out on the prairie in one of 'em: your friends won't find your body till the snow melts in the spring. I guess you wouldn't like to try one, streenger!"
"No, I think not," said Mr Meldrum, shivering at the description, for he had heard before of these "Northers" of the Far West; but, the next moment, the thoughts of blizzards and all belonging to them were banished from his mind by what he saw, for the storm was upon them.
It came with a blast that shook the ship from truck to keelson and almost turned her over, the wind being accompanied by a shower of hail and rain that pelted those on deck like grape-shot and completely took their breath away.
"Let go everything!" shouted the captain. Fortunately, the halliards being cast off in time, the ship was not taken aback; and the steersman putting the helm down, she paid off from the wind and ran off for sometime directly before it, tearing through the water at the rate of twenty knots an hour, with everything flying by the run.
"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr Meldrum, in heartfelt thanksgiving to Him who controls the winds and storms, as he sprang to aid the man at the wheel, seeing that he had a hard task to keep the helm over.
"Ya-as, I guess that were a narrow squeak," said the American; "and I kalkerlate I'll make tracks down south fore another of them snorters come!" So saying, Mr Lathrope dived down the companion-way, his departure being accelerated by a heavy sea which washed over the quarter and floated him below.
"Way aloft there!" shouted the captain; and, although his words could not be heard from the howling of the wind, which shrieked and raved like pandemonium broken loose as it tore through the rigging, the men knew what was wanted and scrambled up the shrouds as well as they could, sometimes stopping for breath as a stronger blast than usual pinned them to the ratlines, where they stuck as if spread-eagled for sport.
After a good half-hour's hard work, the courses were clewed up and furled, the jib hauled down, and the topsails close-reefed, a staysail being set to steady her, when the men came down from aloft pretty well worn out with their exertions.
Hardly had they got below, however, than the captain, seeing a second squall coming, ordered them up again, to strip the ship of her remaining sail.
But, he was too late this time.
Before the men could ascend the shrouds the wind struck the vessel, like an avalanche, on her starboard broadside, heeling her over to port as if she had been canted by the caulkers in dock. Then, another following sea pooped her and cleared the decks fore and aft, sweeping everything loose overboard, the maintopsail being split to pieces at the same time; while the foretop-mast stay-sail was blown clean away to leeward, floating in the air like a white kite against the dark background of the sky. Finally, the foretop-gallant mast was carried by the board to complete the ruin, leaving the ship rolling like a wreck upon the waters, though, happily, no lives as yet were lost.
CHAPTER FOUR.
SAVED!
While all this turmoil and confusion was going on above on deck--with the ship labouring and straining through the heavy seas that raced after her as she ran before the wind, one every now and then outstripping its fellows and breaking over her quarter or stern-rail with a force that made her quiver from end to end, and "stagger like a drunken man," as the Psalmist has so aptly described it, the thud of the heavy waves playing a sort of deep bass accompaniment to the shrieking treble of the wind as it whistled and wailed through the shrouds and cordage, and the ragged remnants of the torn topsail flapping against the yard, with the sound of a stock-driver's whip, in a series of short, sharp reports-- those below in the cuddy were far from having a pleasant time of it; for, they were almost in the dark, the captain having caused the companion-hatch to be battened down, and a heavy tarpaulin thrown across the skylight to prevent the tons of water that came over the poop at intervals from flooding the saloon as the waves swept forward in a cascade of foam.
This was just after Mr Zachariah Lathrope, the American passenger, had so well illustrated Virgil's line, _facilus descensus averni_, in coming down the stairway by the run, on the top of a "comber;" and, although the steward had lit one of the swinging lamps over the cuddy table, it only served, with its feeble flickering light, to "make the darkness visible" and render the scene more sombre.
The _Nancy Bell was_ a wooden ship, clipper built and designed for the passenger trade; but, being only of some nine hundred tons or so burthen, she had not that wealth of accommodation below that some of the first-class liners running to Australia and New Zealand possess, especially in these days of high-pressure steamers and auxiliary screws, which make the passage in half the time that the old-fashioned sailing vessels used to occupy.