CHAPTER XXVII.

THE THUNDERBOLT.

An emotion of mingled freedom and satisfaction possessed the whole crew on being rid of our tormentor, and Lambourne now took charge of the brig, which he was perfectly able to handle and work, though ignorant of navigation as a science, and having but a vague idea of the course to steer for the Cape of Good Hope.

She was hove in the wind, while in the moonlight, about two hours after the exciting scene which closes the last chapter, we committed to the deep the body of Antonio's last victim, the poor apprentice, whom the sailmaker sewed up in his hammock, to which, being without shot or other suitable weights, we tied a sack of coals to sink the corpse.

The head-yards were filled again, and as if anxious to leave that portion of the sea as far as possible astern, we hauled up for the Cape. Tom Lambourne ordered every stitch of canvas that the spars would hold, to be spread upon the _Eugenie_, that she might, as he said, "walk through the water in her own style."

All he could do, at first, was to keep her in the course we had been steering on the night these disasters began, for as yet we knew not to what degree of latitude, south or north, we might have been drifting; however, we calculated that Hislop, weak as he was, might be able to take a solar observation, and prick off our place on the chart, in the course of six or seven days.

We had the usually snug little cabin cleansed and cleared from the _débris_ created by the outrageous proceedings of Antonio, who must have gone to the bottom with all Weston's valuables and money about him, as we could find neither; and the sweet expression of the poor widow's face, as it seemed to smile on us from the miniature on the after-bulkhead, contrasted strangely with all the wild work that had so lately taken place on board.

Hislop and I were restored to our former berths, and then more than once in my dreams the pale olive-green visage and glaring eyes of the Cubano came before me, and again I seemed to see him clinging unpitied, and in desperation, to the slender boom which swung above the seething sea,--for his death and all its concomitant horrors haunted me and made me unhappy.

The intensity of the heat in that season suggested the idea that we could not have drifted far south of the line.

So great was it, that the upper spars of the _Eugenie_ appeared to wriggle or vibrate like serpents aloft in the sunshine; while so hot, so clear, and so rarefied was the atmosphere between decks, that it was suffocating, especially in the lullings of the faint breeze. A white heat seemed to make sea and sky grow pale, and the former cast upward a reflection from its glassy surface and long smooth swells, that was hot,--hot beyond all description.

Though ever and anon the upper deck was drenched with salt water, it dried immediately, emitting a strong odor of wet wood, while the skids over the side failed to keep the paint, tar, and rosin from rising in large burnt blisters.

About the time when we hoped that Hislop would have been well enough to make an observation, even by being placed in a chair on deck, the weather became so rough that he was unable to leave his berth, and during all that day the brig drove before a heavy gale, with her courses hauled close up, the fore and main-topsail yards lowered on the caps, and their canvas close reefed.

After the heat we had endured, the reader may imagine this gale would be refreshing and a relief. Not so. The atmosphere, as it became dark with gathering clouds, increased in density, closeness, and heat; thus about the time we should have had clear twilight, the hour was gloomy as a northern midnight,--so dark that the men in the tops, or those lying out along the foot-ropes at the yard-arms, when under close-reefed topsails, could not be seen from the deck, while the breeze that swept over the ocean was breathless,--hot as the simoom of the desert; and our men knew not whether they were most drenched by perspiration or the spoondrift torn from the warm wave tops by the increasing blast.

The peculiar appearance of this black gale alarmed and bewildered Tattooed Tom, who could make nothing of it, while poor Marc Hislop, whose skill would have been invaluable to us, when he heard the singing out on deck, the thunder of the bellying courses struggling with their brails, the roar of the wind through the half-bared masts and rigging, the clatter of blocks and feet overhead, writhed in his bed, and mourned his own inactivity, or rather incapacity; but he sent me to tell Lambourne to cover up the anchors with wetted canvas, as it was not improbable, by the state of the atmosphere, that it was full of electricity, and thus we might be in a dangerous way.

"Tell Tom," he whispered, "it is a trade-wind gale,--I know it to be so."

"How?" I asked, "when you are lying here below."

"By the barometer, which remains high, while the wind is steady," replied Hislop in a low voice, for he was still very weak; "if the barometer _fall_, be sure it will become a typhoon, and then, with a short-handed craft, heaven help us! But assure Tom it is only as yet a trade-wind gale,--to take as much canvas off her as he can, and to make all snug aloft. We'll have thunder directly, Dick,--such thunder as you can only hear in the tropics."

He sank back, exhausted even by these few words, while I hurried on deck with his orders.

I had scarcely conveyed them to Lambourne, who was keeping a look-out forward, when, amid the dusky obscurity of sea and sky, there burst a sudden gleam of wondrous light.

The men, who were spreading some old wetted sails over the sheet and working anchors; the steersman at the wheel; the watch, and all hands who were crouching to leeward, or holding on by ropes and belaying-pins to windward, seemed for a moment to become white-visaged spectres, amid a sea of pale-blue flame,--a sea whereon the flying brig with her brailed courses and reefed topsails, her half naked masts and black cordage, were all distinctly visible as at noonday, while the polished brass on funnel, binnacle, and skylight, all flashed and shone, as ship and crew, with all their details of form and feature,

"Were instant seen and instant lost."

For a broad and blinding sheet of electric flame burst upon the darkness of the night, and passed away as rapidly, when the livid brand burst in the welkin or in the wave, we knew not which.

Then came the roar of thunder--the stunning and appalling thunder of the tropics, every explosion of which seemed to rend earth, sea, and sky, as they rolled like a palpable thing, or like the united salvo of a thousand cannon overhead, to die away in rumbling echoes at the far horizon.

After a sound so mighty and bewildering, the bellowing of the wind through the rigging, the hiss and roar of the sea as wave broke against wave, the flapping of the brailed courses, the creaking and straining of the timbers, seemed as nothing--the very silence of death--while the _Eugenie_ tore on, through mist and spray, through darkness and obscurity, with the foam flying white as winter drift over her bows and martingale.

Again there was a pale-green gleam overhead, right above the truck of the mainmast, where the chambers of the sky seemed to open. The clouds divided in the darkness of heaven, and out of that opening came the forked lightning, zigzag, green, and ghastly.

There was a dreadful shock, which knocked every man down, except Carlton, who was at the wheel, and an exclamation of terror escaped us all.

A thunderbolt had struck the _Eugenie_!

With all its wondrous speed--instantaneous as electric light could be--it glided down the maintop gallant mast, rending the topmast-cap and the framed grating of the top to pieces; thence it ran down the mainmast, burst through the deck, and spent its fury in the hold.

At that moment the main-topmast, with all its yards, gear, and canvas, fell about the deck in burning brands, and the brig was hove right in the wind's eye, while the sea twitched the helm out of the hands of Ned Carlton, who became bewildered on finding the compasses lose all their polarity, by the influence of the electric fluid, the north point of one heading south-east, and of the other south-west.

Almost immediately after this there was a cry of "Fire!"--that cry so terrible, so appalling on board ship; and then thick white smoke was seen to issue from the crevices of the battened main-hatchway.

All hands rushed to this point. The long-boat was unshipped from its chocks and dragged aft; some stood by with buckets of water, while others struck off the padlocks and iron bars; the tarpaulin was torn away--the hatch lifted--and lo!

A column of fire ascended in a straight line from the body of the hold, lurid, red, and scorching, as the casks of molasses and bales of cotton burned and blazed together. A column that rose up between the masts, scorched through the main-stay, all the braces of the fore yards, and filled the whole vessel with light, announced that all was over!

"It is a doomed ship!" cried Tom Lambourne; "we must leave her at last. Clear away the longboat. Be cool, lads; be cool and steady! Your lives depend upon your conduct now, and your obedience to orders!"