Part 17

It annoyed me, even at that terrible moment, to hear our condition made a question of pounds, shillings, and pence. I felt angry, too, with him, when I reflected that we had been brought to this predicament simply by his clumsiness. I so far gave way to anger as to tell him that, if we got safe to land I never would go sailing with him again, nor trust myself on salt water with a watch-mate who didn't know what "luff" meant, and who wanted to sail in the wind's eye under a jib. Poor Hamilton, who now seemed fully to appreciate our peril, contented himself with assuring me that I might rest quiet, for I never should go sailing again with him, or with anybody else.

A growing and abiding sense of the truth of this probability soon checked the spirit of squabbling within each of us. We were every moment drifting out farther and farther. So long as the lights of the island had been visible, they had imparted some degree of comfort. They at least showed whither our course would lay in case matters should so far mend as to enable us to choose our own course. But our distance was each moment increasing, and the night was waxing darker continually. A few more minutes, and the lights were hidden from us; and we were left simply and literally without any knowledge of our position, on the Indian Ocean. The sea had got up, prodigiously, the wind blew harder than ever, and the night was as dark as pitch. Though she was flying before the wind, we could not keep the sea out of her,--it washed in over her quarter every few minutes, and it was all that we could do to keep her free by baling. Happily we had a couple of buckets with us, that served the turn well.

I shudder when I look back to this part of that fearful night. Later on in the season of our peril we did not feel so acutely the horrors of our position, because our sensibilities had been then pretty well exhausted by the struggle for existence. So little hope remained at last that our spirits scarcely retained the vitality necessary for suffering. We were as though already dead, and already taken away from living pains and feelings. But with the earlier part of the evening are connected associations of far more active pain--I mean during that part when I had not resigned hope. I know that there is a theory current that the living spirit never resigns hope; that a man sinking alone in the midst of the Atlantic, or bowed down for the stroke of the descending guillotine, never believes it to be impossible that he shall escape. I cannot pledge my own experience to the truth of this theory. The spirit of man is so firmly wedded to hope, that it is in extremity only that this blessing can be torn from us. But the divorce may be effected at last, even while the tide of life beats in the veins. I am quite sure that, during some hours of this night, we both felt perfectly devoid of hope, and that we could not have felt more certain of death had we actually passed the gloomy portals. But this was only latterly, when our physical energies had succumbed under protracted exertion, when every expedient we could devise for prolonging our chance seemed to have failed. At first I could not make up my mind that our case was hopeless, nor familiarise myself with the idea of approaching death. No rational ground remained of expecting any thing that could rescue us; and yet I could not forego the expectation that something would turn up. Our perishing seemed too bad a thing to be true. It could not be that our jocund morning should have such an issue; that we, so recent from the companionship of youth and grace, should be hurried to the contact of death. And yet all the while that I thus yielded to the promptings of natural instinct, I felt that we were drifting on each moment rapidly to the catastrophe.

While any room for activity remains, there is to be found some relief in exertion. The full bitterness of our condition was not felt till we had tried every device that we could think of, and had been reduced to inaction--without resignation. Our last resource was one on which I had been sanguine enough to build up some hope. It occurred to me that if we were to let go her anchor, the weight of that, together with her eighteen fathom of chain, might bring her bodily up. I only regretted that we had no spare spars wherewith to form a sort of breakwater, for I have great faith in the powers of a boat to ride out a gale and heavy sea under the lee of such a defence. Still I thought that we might manage to check her way effectually before we had driven too far out to sea; and then in the morning we might still find ourselves in sight of the island. There are circumstances under which one learns to make much of a very little hope, and I had made the most I could of this. We watched till we got into a smooth place, and then "let go." The extremity of peril had been reserved for this moment. The sudden check certainly brought her up as we expected, but other effects of our manœuvre followed which were beyond our calculation. She rounded to abruptly, and swung head to wind. But the weight of her anchor and chain hanging at her bows seemed as if they would pull her under water. The depression was so great that we saw that not a minute was to be lost, and that our only chance lay in heaving up again as quickly as possible. In our haste we both ran forward to the windlass, and by so doing nearly completed our destruction, for the additional weight had a most alarming effect on her immersion. It became evident that we must at once get rid of the weight, and that it must be done without any additional strain. Our only plan was to slip the cable, and let both it and the anchor go by the run. This I accordingly did; but not even in this extreme peril without a pang of regret. Being relieved, she rose instantly, and in a moment was before the wind again. It had been a narrow escape for us, and, but that we had chosen a smooth place, we must have been swamped there and then. She had shipped a great deal of water, and we had hard work to clear her; and then once more all our work to begin again, for she shipped seas almost as quickly as we could bale them out.

For some little time we worked like men, and as if we really thought that we might work to good purpose. But soon it became quite manifest that we must be beaten. Our utmost exertion barely sufficed to keep her clear; and any little respite that we allowed to ourselves begat a terrible accumulation of water. This could not go on long. Hamilton was the first to admit this conclusion, and to give up the struggle for existence. I observed the particular moment when hope died within him, and noted it by the token of his sinking listlessly on the locker, and expressing in his countenance no sign of interest in our proceedings. To him there remained no more of the interest of speculation; there was for him but one idea, that of death, present and painful. I cannot say that I considered it all over with us yet. I am far from laying claim to any superior degree of courage, or thinking myself a braver man than was my companion. Perhaps my love of life was greater--at any rate I did not yet give in, and by after inquiry I know that Hamilton did. I am thankful that it was so; for my experience made me afterwards acquainted with this state of feeling, and taught how paralysing are its effects. It may be that, had I earlier shared my friend's despondency, we neither should have survived to tell the tale. What I contrived to do, though little enough, was yet sufficient probably to make the difference of some hour or so in our foundering, and this respite proved our salvation.

Each moment that passed was bearing us out continually farther into the waste of waters. The gale howled, the waters foamed in rage, and washed over our gunwale; my shipmate had resigned himself to his fate, and replied not by word or sign to any consolation that I tried to suggest. All ground of hope seemed stricken from us; and yet, by a sort of perversity, I would not consent to the verdict that seemed to have gone forth against us. Such a struggle against adverse circumstance, where it is according to the habitual tone of a man's spirit, entitles him to the name of magnanimous; with me, it was rather a particular phase of obstinacy. One single chance yet remained to us--scarcely enough for rational hope; but yet enough to justify resistance to actual despair. As the wind then blew, it was just possible that we should drift off the Island of Bourbon, or, at any rate, come near enough to be picked up by some of her vessels. It was, indeed, a slender chance, but being our all, I made the most of it; so much, indeed, did I make of it, that I verily believe I should have felt quite confident of making the port, if I had had the means of steering. As it was, we drifted along, without any sail set, and without any compass to point us our whereabout. But the time was coming for me when I was to experience the pangs that attend the death of hope within us. This I regard as the painful part of this night's history. In the earlier stage, there was the relief of exertion; in the later stages there was the insensibility of apathy. The time of sharp anguish was during the transition from the one state to the other.

The _coup-de-grace_ came thus. Some half hour or so after the affair of the anchor, while we were drifting before the sea, we perceived a light ahead. Of course, this must be a vessel, most probably a _chasse marée_ belonging to the island. It was scarcely possible that we should reach this vessel, but of course we were violently agitated, at sight of her, with new-born hope. Hamilton even roused up and did what he could to help in keeping us afloat; which condition it was very doubtful whether we should be able to preserve long enough to enable us to come up with the stranger. She proved to be beating to windward, and we saw presently that one of her tacks would bring her within hail of us. To see this was to pass at once from despair to confidence. We regarded ourselves as saved, and scarcely heeded the time that must pass before she could come up with us; a time, every minute of which was fraught with peril, that might shut out from us the prospective help. As she drew near, one only fear remained, lest she might pass us unobserved in the obscurity of night; and so diminutive, an object were we, and so little to be expected in that place, that there was some room for the fear. As she neared us we shouted loudly, but the din of the elements was not to be overcome by our puny voices. But on a night like that, it was necessary to keep a good look-out, and we knew that she must have watchful eyes peering into the darkness. I had on board a brace of pistols ready charged, which having been stowed away in the locker had been kept dry. We fired one after the other, when quite close to the vessel, and succeeded in attracting their notice. We even made out in the murky air, to which our eyes were becoming accustomed, one or two figures of men, who ran forward to see what was the matter. But the _chasse marée_ held on her way, unheeding. When almost under her bows, we called out to them in agony, to heave to, and take us on board. But to our utter horror they held on their way, taking no notice of us except by some unintelligible cries. The _chasse marée_ passed on, as if she thought it matter of little heed that two human beings were left to perish in the elemental strife of that dark night.

To this moment I cannot understand this adventure. It is scarcely possible to believe that any ship's crew of men could have the horrid barbarity to leave unsuccoured a boat perishing in that wild night. And yet it is, perhaps, quite impossible to believe that they could have thought us sea-worthy and safe. Our signal, our cries, the dismantled condition of our boat, all spoke for themselves. Bitter, surely, must be the recollections of that vessel's company! dark must be the character of that life, in which such an act of barbarism was an unobserved passage. That skipper's worst enemy might wish for him that he might have the knowledge of our escape; that so the pillow of his death may be spared the visitation of that terrible reminiscence.

We looked a moment at each other aghast. We could not believe that the promised succour had eluded us; that we were deserted by brother man on the wide ocean. But wind and water raging around us howled into our very souls the fact. From that time I may say that I gave up hope, that I became as dead; and when at last safety sprang up, it was as from the grave that I rose to grasp it.

From this time I have little more to speak of than a dull and stupid endurance. A period of pain there was to go through, when my mind was bewildered with thoughts of home, and of those I loved in my present abode. There was a bitter pang to think that I must resign my young existence, and there was a realising of the pains of suffocation. I thought it was a horrid death to drown. I remembered the popular idea of death by drowning as coming easily; but I _felt_ this to be wrong, and knew by anticipation that I should have a cruel struggle when the water occupied my nose and mouth. Both my companion and myself seemed reduced at last to apathy. We neither spoke nor moved; and both, evidently, thought it vain to continue any longer the struggle for existence. We bade each other farewell, and then uttered no more words. What remained to us of life was given to inward discipline, and to that communing of which the wise man speaks not lightly.

The events that I have been describing, with I fear but little distinctness of arrangement, had carried us on to about midnight. It is difficult to estimate properly the duration of time under such circumstances; but so nearly as I can guess, it must have been about ten o'clock when the _chasse marée_ passed us. It must have been little less than two hours that intervened between this time and the happy turn for the better that was awaiting us. My wonder is that we lasted so long; I cannot conceive how it was that the boat kept above water. The sea washed in continually, and we did nothing to oppose its progress. Certain it is that nothing in the history of escapes, with which I am acquainted, was ever more narrow than my own escape; nor ever did a boat float so exactly up to the indispensable point.

From the stupor of despair I was aroused by the report of a musket; it was enough to break the spell and re-awaken the love of life within us. Somebody was near, and we might yet be saved. Another, and another report followed, and a blue light blazed forth. We then distinctly saw, and not very far from us, a brig hove to, and, as we had not the least doubt, making signals to us. Joyously we sprang to renewed life and hope. We again loaded our pistols and answered the signals of our unexpected deliverer. To our unspeakable joy these were perceived, and soon we saw the brig fill her sails and bear away after us. Our plight was yet bad enough. We certainly were above water, and in sight of succour; but it was very doubtful whether we should be able to last long enough to avail ourselves of the assistance that approached. Our gunwale was nearly level with the water, and in a few more minutes would be submerged. Oh! how did we long to be able to throw overboard every weighty article, and yet we feared to stir lest we should farther disturb the equilibrium. We sat still and motionless on the stern locker, measuring with our eyes the decreasing distance between us and the brig, and calculating the chances which each moment increased in our favour. We feared that the brig might run us down; but we did wrong to her skilful master. They ranged up nearly alongside of us, with main-topsail aback, and threw us out a rope. Hamilton was first, and easily drawn on board, at the expense of little more than an ordinary ducking. My turn came next; and I might have escaped as well as he did, but my worldly feelings had wonderfully revived, and I was no longer content to come off with the mere saving of life; I wanted also to save the boat, which, be it remembered, I had sold, but for which I had not received the purchase-money. I thought that if I could manage to make fast a rope to the step of her mast we might hoist her in bodily, and save her after all. The rescue would then be complete of the whole party. I sang out to them to stand by to haul us in, and rope in hand ran forward to make fast to the mast. But it was not to be. The gallant little boat had done her utmost; and now her time was come. She had saved our lives, but was herself to go down to the abyss of waters. She gave a heavy lurch, and I felt that she was settling. With scarcely the warning of a moment, she dipped her bows under, and sank at once and suddenly like a stone. In that moment the waters were boiling around me, the greedy waves sucked me under; but I held fast the friendly rope. I was drawn on board, but not without some difficulty; for my prolonged exertions had severely tried my powers of endurance, and I could hardly hold on long enough. But saved we were. As I trod the schooner's deck,--as I saw her make sail, and brave the elements which had so nearly wrought our destruction, I felt as though I had seen an angel's arm stretched forth to pluck us from the gulf of waters. I wanted no explanation of the causes which had led her forth; she had met us in extremity, and was to me the arm of Providence. The rescue is as providential in cases where the peril is over in a moment. But there does not seem to be room for such deep impression, where peril merely flashes as the lightning across one's path. The bitterness of death must be tasted by him who is to appreciate the sweetness of deliverance.

On board, we found ourselves in familiar company. Several of our friends were there, and gave us the history of our rescue. At the time when the squall had come on, the other boats had been, as I have said, well ahead of us, and clear of the reef. Some of them had had a little trouble in getting to their moorings, but all were present at muster except ourselves. This would not perhaps have alarmed them, had not the hours continued to pass away without our appearance. By and by their fears were fully excited by the arrival of a man who from the point had seen the accident. He declared that he had seen us blown out to sea, and his report was corroborated by our non-appearance. On this a regular alarm had been sounded in the island. The good old governor had despatched his tender to look out for us, and I know not how many volunteers had started on the same errand. Many were the good fellows who had braved the horrors of that stormy night, that they might have the hope of helping us. The brig was a merchant craft, whose skipper and owner had been induced to start on the cruise. She had been throwing out signals for an hour and a half, and was nearly giving up the search as a bad job. Well for us that she did not!

It was gray morning when the good skipper set us on shore; and I might very well end my yarn, with telling how we heartily shook each other by the hand, and how then I betook myself to those quarters which I had so little expected ever to revisit. But circumstances deeply affecting my after life came as sequels to this adventure, and I think the account of them should come here also. I reached my room without having met a single individual; and tired, wet, and worn out with mental agitation, I threw myself on my bed and slept soundly. My dreams naturally followed in the train of what had been my waking thoughts. Again I was afloat, and again underwent the terrors of foundering at sea. The phantasy of a dreaming spirit presented to my ear the lamentations of my friends. As waking, I had thought in the hour of peril of some one or two who would lament my sad doom; so in my sleep I went yet a step beyond this, and seemed to hear the utterance of the lamentations. These waxed more and more distinct, till the reality of them broke the spell of dreams. I awoke, and yet heard the same conversation.

"Poor fellow! what a dreadful thing!" said one voice.

"Shocking!" said another, which I knew to be that of my old boating antagonist, the first lieutenant of the Bucephalus. "Shocking! I always prophesied that that craft would be his coffin, but little did I think my words would come true."

The good fellow actually wept as he spoke.

"And that poor fellow, Hamilton, who scarcely ever set foot afloat?"

"Well, they're both gone, but not without our doing, all we could to give them a chance--that's one comfort."

I was now fully awake to the consciousness that I was alive and well--and to the understanding that these mates of mine were lamenting my loss. I did not waste any words in endeavouring to convince them that they were mistaken, but, jumping out of bed, I stood before them. The men stared as if they had seen a veritable ghost, but, recovering themselves in a moment, almost wrung my arm off in congratulatory shaking. Intense astonishment was mingled with their delight, and they were perfectly vociferous in demanding an explanation of the phenomenon I presented in my own living person. It turned out that they had been cruising about pretty nearly the whole night, in the hope of falling in with me. They had full confidence in my resolution; and knew that I would not give in while a chance remained, and so they hoped I would manage to keep afloat, till some one of the numerous boats that were out should fall in with me. I have no doubt that they would have prolonged their search throughout the night, had they not fallen in with a craft, (by the description, I doubt not the identical _chasse marée_ that so cruelly deserted us,) which gave them to understand that they had seen us go down. "_Fin, fin, allés_,"[46] with expressive pointing to the depths of ocean, was the answer they had received to their inquiries. With heavy hearts they had returned home; and without meeting any but those whose search had been as ineffectual as their own.

"And now, Jack," said my friend the lieutenant, "now that we have got you within hail once more, safe and sound, who do you suppose it was that sent me here this morning?"

"To tell you the truth, I thought it was a little sentimental excursion on your own account."

"Not a bit of it. A cleverer head than mine or yours either ordered the expedition. Virginie would have it that any intelligence about you would be in one's way here."

"Then you told her nothing of the authentic account of our foundering?"

"Indeed but I did--but she would not believe it. Depend upon it, instinct is a fine thing. Her instinct has proved better than our reason,--for she would have it that you were not drowned, and that news would find its way here."

Then we entered into a sort of _resumé_ of the shore-going events of the last night; of all that the governor had done, and the good fellows who had volunteered to row guard all night with lights. Then it was told me that the ladies had been deeply affected, but none so deeply as Virginie. She had taken no rest all night; but with tearful eyes had looked out for concerted signals of intelligence, and breathlessly questioned every messenger. My sailor friend had been in the same boat with her, and had won from her expressions of gratitude, by his determination to pass the whole night, if necessary, in the search for me. At that moment when we stood speaking, she did not know of my safety.