А Pirate of the Caribbees. Harry Collingwood

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and bearing down upon us with frightful speed; the moan grew into a deep, thunderous, howling roar, and from that to a yell which might have issued from the throats of a million fiends in torment; the white wall of foam and the yelling fury of wind struck us at the same instant; and the next thing I knew was that I was lying flat in the stern-sheets, hatless, and with my face stinging as though it had been cut with a whip; while the boat trembled and quivered from stem to stern with the scourging of wind and water, and the spray blew in a continuous sheet over the opening above me and into the sea astern, not a drop falling into the boat. The long-expected hurricane was upon us; and now all that remained was to see how long our frail craft could withstand the onslaught of the terrific forces arrayed against her.

      Chapter Four.

      We fall in with and capture a schooner.

      The air was thick with scud-water, so thick, indeed, that it was like fog, it being impossible to see farther than some twenty fathoms from the boat. This scud-water swept horizontally along in a perfect deluge, and stung like shot when, by way of experiment, I exposed one of my hands to it. As for the wind, it was like an invisible wall driving along; it was simply impossible to stand up against it; it scourged the surface of the ocean into a level plain of white froth, which was torn away and hurled along like a shower of bullets. Our sea anchor fortunately maintained a sufficient hold upon the water to keep the gig riding head to wind, but that was as much as it could do; with the painter strained taut for its whole length, the boat was driving away to leeward, stern-first, at a speed of—according to my estimate—fully seven miles an hour! And it was, perhaps, a fortunate thing for us that such was the case; for had we been riding to a sea anchor powerful enough, and sunk deep enough in the water to have held us nearly stationary, I believe we should have been swamped within five minutes of the outburst of the hurricane. Even as it was, and despite all the precautions that we had taken to make our canvas covering perfectly secure, the wind tugged at it and beat upon it with such vehement fury that I momentarily expected to see it torn bodily off the boat and go driving away to leeward in tatters. Probably the thorough soaking that it almost instantly received—and which caused the fabric to shrink up and strain still tighter than it was before—may have had something to do with the stubborn resistance that it offered to the gale. Be that as it may, it held intact; and to that circumstance I attribute the fact that the gig was not instantly swamped. But no woven fabric, however stout,—scarcely wood itself,—could long withstand such a furious pelting of scud-water as our sails were now enduring, and in about ten minutes the water began to drip through, first in single drops, here and there, then in a few small streams, that rapidly increased in number until there seemed in the thick darkness to be hundreds of them; for in endeavouring to avoid one stream we only succeeded in encountering two or three more. To add to the unpleasantness of the situation, it was impossible for us to light the lantern; for although we were sheltered from the direct violence of the gale by the canvas, the wind somehow managed to penetrate beneath, creating quite a formidable little scuffle there, and easily frustrating all our efforts to obtain a light. And very soon we had another annoyance to contend with, in the shape of a gradual accumulation of water in the boat, whether caused by a leak in the hull, or by the drainage of the water through the canvas we knew not; but it obliged us to have recourse to baling, which proved to be a singularly awkward operation in such cramped quarters and such pitchy darkness.

      The first mad fury of the outburst lasted for about three-quarters of an hour,—it seemed a perfect eternity to us, in our condition of overpowering suspense, but I do not believe it was longer than three-quarters of an hour at the utmost,—and then it subsided into a heavy gale of wind, and the sea began to get up so rapidly that within another hour we were being flung hither and thither with such terrific violence that in a very short time our bodies were covered with bruises, while some of the men actually became sea-sick! And now, too, a new danger threatened us; for as the sea rose it commenced to break, and it was not long ere we had the seas washing, in rapidly increasing volume, over the boat, and pouring down through the opening over the stern-sheets. This kept us baling in good earnest, not only with our solitary bucket but with hats and boots as well, to save the boat from being swamped. And the bitterest hardship of it all was that there was no relief, not a moment’s intermission throughout the whole of that dreadful, interminable night. We were in continuous peril of death with every breath that we drew; every second saw us trembling upon the verge of eternity, and escaping destruction as by a constantly recurring succession of miracles. It was a frightful experience, so frightful that language is utterly powerless to describe it; the most eloquent pen could do no more than convey a poor, feeble, and miserably inadequate idea of the terror and suffering of it. No one who has not undergone such an experience can form the remotest conception of its horrors.

      All things mundane have an end, however, sooner or later; and at length the welcome light of day once more made its appearance, piercing slowly and with seeming reluctance through the dense canopy of black, storm-torn cloud and flying scud that overhung us. And then we almost wished that it had remained night, so dreary and awe-inspiring was the scene that met our aching gaze. The heavens gave no sign of relenting, the sky looked wild as ever,—although the awful ruddy glow had long since faded out from the clouds,—while the ocean seemed to be lashed and goaded by the furious wind into an endless succession of rushing mountain waves, every one of which, as it swept with hissing, foam-white crest down upon us, seemed mercilessly bent upon our destruction. As I stood up and gazed about me,—for I could do so now, by leaning well forward against the wind,—it seemed a marvellous thing to me that the gig continued to live through it; for, light and buoyant though she was, every sea she met swept her from stem to stern; and it was plain enough to us all now that it was nothing but the canvas covering that saved her. As it was, we shipped so much water that it was as much as three of us could do—that being all who could work in the opening at one time—to keep her from filling. To add still further to our misery, we were one and all by this time dead tired, worn out, in fact, with the terror and anxiety of the past night; yet we dared not yet attempt to seek the comfort and refreshment of sleep, for our critical situation continued to demand our utmost watchfulness and our unremitting exertions; and when at length we sought to renew our strength by means of a meal, the grievous discovery was made that the whole of our small stock of ship’s bread was spoiled and rendered uneatable by the salt water. And, as though this misfortune was not in itself sufficiently serious, when we sought to quench our thirst we discovered that the bung of the water-breaker had somehow got out of the bung-hole, allowing so much salt water to mingle with our small stock of fresh that the latter had been rendered almost undrinkable.

      Our first gleam of hope and encouragement came to us about half an hour before noon that day, when our anxious watching was rewarded by the appearance of a small, momentary break in the sky, low down toward the horizon to windward; it showed but for a moment, and then was lost again. But presently a wider and more pronounced break appeared which did not vanish; on the contrary, it widened, until presently a fitful gleam of wan and watery sunshine pierced through it and lighted up the bleak, desolate expanse of raging ocean for a few seconds. And almost simultaneously with the welcome appearance of this transient but welcome gleam of pallid sunshine, we became aware of a slight but unmistakable diminution in the fury of the gale; a change productive of such profound relief to us, worn out as we all were by long-protracted toil and anxiety, that we actually greeted it with a feeble cheer! Nor was the hope thus aroused fallacious; for from this moment the sky began to clear, until within a couple of hours the storm-clouds had all swept away to leeward, leaving the sky a clear, pure blue, streaked here and there, it is true, with a tattered, trailing streamer of pinky grey, that, however, soon vanished; and once more we revelled in the glorious warmth and radiance of the unclouded sunlight, while the wind dropped so rapidly that, but for the sea, which still ran with dangerous weight, we might have made sail again by sunset. As it was, we were all so completely worn out that I think we were really thankful for an excuse to leave the boat riding to her sea anchor a few hours longer, while we sought and obtained what was even more necessary to us than food and drink—sleep.

      All actual danger was by this time past, so we arranged that each of us should keep a look out for an hour while the rest slept, there being СКАЧАТЬ