The Flag of Distress: A Story of the South Sea. Reid Mayne

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СКАЧАТЬ the tempest now raging there must be danger to the stranger craft, without counting that signalised by the reversed ensign – without thought of the mystery already enwrapping her. The heart of every one on board the warship is beating with humanity, as pulsing with pent-up fear. And while the waves are pitching her almost on her beam-ends – while winds are rattling loud amidst her rigging – a yet louder sound mingles with their monotone. It is given out at regularly measured intervals: for it is the minute-gun which the frigate has commenced firing – not as a signal of distress, asking for assistance, but one of counsel and cheer, seeking to give it. Every sixty seconds, amidst the wild surging of waves, and the hoarse howling of winds, the louder boom of cannon breaks their harsh continuity.

      The night comes down, adding to the darkness, though not much to the dilemma in which the frigate is placed. The fog and storm combined have already made her situation dangerous as might be; it could not well be worse.

      Both continue throughout the night. And on through it all she keeps discharging her signal-guns, though no one thinks of listening for a response. In all probability there is no cannon aboard the barque – nothing that could give it.

      Close upon the hour of morning, the storm begins to abate, and the clouds to dissipate. The fog seems to be lifting, or drifting off to some other part of the ocean.

      And with hope again dawning comes the dawn of day. The frigate’s people – every man of them, officers and tars – are upon deck. They stand along the ship’s sides, ranged in rows by the bulwarks, looking out across the sea. There is no fog now – not the thinnest film. The sky is clear as crystal, and blue as a boat-race ribbon fresh unfolded; the sea the same, its big waves no longer showing sharp white crests, but rounded, and rolling lazily along. Over these the sailors look, scanning the surface. Their gaze is sent to every quarter – every point of the compass. The officers sweep the horizon with their glasses, ranging around the circle where the two blues meet. But neither naked eye nor telescope can discover aught there. Only sea and sky; an albatross with pinions of grand spread, or a tropic bird, its long tail-feathers trailing train-like behind it. No barque, polacca-rigged or otherwise – no ship of any kind – no sign of sail – no canvas except a full set of “courses” which the frigate herself has now set. She is alone upon the ocean – in the mighty Pacific – a mere speck upon its far-stretching illimitable expanse.

      Every man upon the war-vessel is imbued with a strange sense of sadness. But all are silent – each inquiring of himself what has become of the barque, and what the fate of their shipmates.

      One alone is heard speaking aloud, giving expression to a thought, seeming common to all. It is the sailor who twice uttered the prediction, which, for the third time, he repeats, now as the assertion of a certainty. To the group gathered around him he says: —

      “Shipmates, we’ll never see that lieutenant again, nor the young reefer, nor the old cox – never!”

      Chapter Eight.

      A Fleet of many Flags

      Scene, San Francisco, the capital of California. Time, the autumn of 1849; several weeks anterior to the chase recounted.

      A singular city the San Francisco of 1849; very different from that it is to-day, and equally unlike what it was twelve months before the aforesaid date, when the obscure village of Yerba Buena yielded up its name, along with its site, entering on what may be termed a second genesis.

      The little pueblita, port of the Mission Dolores, built of sun-dried bricks – its petty commerce in hides and tallow represented by two or three small craft annually arriving and departing – wakes up one morning to behold whole fleets of ships sailing in through the “Golden Gate,” and dropping anchor in front of its shingly strand. They come from all parts of the Pacific, from all the other oceans, from the ends of the earth, carrying every kind of flag known to the nations. The whalesman, late harpooning “fish” in the Arctic ocean, with him who has been chasing “cachalot” in the Pacific or Indian; the merchantman standing towards Australia, China, or Japan the traders among the South Sea Islands; the coasters of Mexico, Chili, Peru; men-o’-war of every flag and fashion, frigates, corvettes, and double-deckers; even Chinese junks and Malayan prahus are seen setting into San Francisco Bay, and bringing to beside the wharfless beach of Yerba Buena.

      What has caused this grand spreading of canvas, and commingling of queer craft? What is still causing it; for still they come! The answer lies in a little word of four letters; the same that from the beginning of man’s activity on earth has moved him to many things – too oft to deeds of evil —gold. Some eighteen months before the Swiss emigrant Sutter, scouring out his mill-race on a tributary of the Sacramento River, observes shining particles among the mud. Taking them up, and holding them in the hollow of his hand, he feels that they are heavy, and sees them to be of golden sheen. And gold they prove, when submitted to the test of the alembic.

      The son of Helvetia discovered the precious metal in grains, and nuggets, interspersed with the drift of a fluvial deposit. They were not the first found in California, but the first coming under the eyes of European settlers – men imbued with the energy to collect, and carry them to the far-off outside world.

      Less than two years have elapsed since the digging of Sutter’s mill-race. Meantime, the specks that scintillated in its ooze have been transported over the ocean, and exhibited in great cities – in the windows of brokers, and bullion merchants. The sight has proved sufficient to thickly people the banks of the Sacramento – hitherto sparsely settled – and cover San Francisco Bay with ships from every quarter of the globe.

      Not only is the harbour of Yerba Buena crowded with strange craft, but its streets with queer characters – adventurers of every race and clime – among whom may be heard an exchange of tongues, the like never listened to since the abortive attempt at building the tower of Babel.

      The Mexican mud-walled dwellings soon disappear – swallowed up and lost amidst the modern surrounding of canvas tents, and weather-board houses, that rise as by magic around them. A like change takes place in their occupancy. No longer the tranquil interiors – the tertulia, with guests sipping aniseed, curacoa, and Canario – munching sweet cakes and confituras. Instead, the houses inside now ring with boisterous revelry, with a perfume of mint and Monongahela; and although the guitar still tinkles, it is almost inaudible amid the louder strains of clarionet, fiddle, and French horn.

      What a change in the traffic of the streets! No more silent, at certain hours deserted for the siesta, at others trodden by sandalled monks and shovel-hatted priests – both bold of gaze, when passing the dark-eyed damsels in high shell-combs and black silk mantillas; bolder still, saluting the brown-skinned daughters of the aboriginal wrapped in their blue-grey rebozos. No more trodden by garrison soldiers in uniforms of French cut and colour; by officers glittering in gold lace; by townsmen in cloaks of broadcloth; by country gentlemen (haciendados) on horseback; and herdsmen, or small farmers (rancheros) in their splendid Californian costume.

      True, some of these are still seen, but not as of yore, swaggering and conspicuous. Amid the concourse of new-comers they move timidly, jostled by rough men in red flannel shirts, buckskin and blanket coats, with pistols in their belts, and knives hanging handy along their hips. By others equally formidable, in Guernsey frocks, or wearing the dreadnought jacket of the sailor; not a few scarce clothed at all, shrouding their nakedness in such rags as remain after a long journey overland, or a longer voyage by sea.

      In all probability, since its beginning, the world never witnessed so motley an assemblage of men, tramping through the streets of a seaport town, as those seen in Yerba Buena, rebaptised San Francisco, in the year of our Lord 1849.

      And perhaps never a more varied display of bunting in one bay. In all certainty, harbour never held so large a fleet of ships with so few men to СКАЧАТЬ