CHAPTER VI.

THE GALE ON GEORGE’S.

“Look out, Breeze! Let him run a bit!” shouted the skipper. “Don’t try to snub him yet, or he’ll snap your line like a thread.”

Whish-hiss-s-s goes the stout line as the fish at the other end takes a downward plunge. Now he runs upward, and the slack is hastily gathered in. “There, he is off again! My, what a rush! There is evidently some serious work on hand here,” said the skipper, as he went to the young fisherman’s assistance. It took fifteen minutes of steady, patient, and skilful work to tire the powerful fish. During this time general attention was directed to the struggle, and the men almost neglected their own lines in their curiosity to see what sort of a creature Breeze had hooked.

Finally the exhausted fish gave up the fight and allowed itself to be drawn to the surface. Now was seen the great white head of a halibut, that looked to Breeze, who had never before caught a fish of this kind, large enough to be a whale. Two men with gaffs[D] in their hands sprang to his assistance, but the fish was so huge that not until two more had also got gaffs into him was he lifted from the water and got on deck. Here he was despatched by a few smart taps on the head from the “halibut killer,” which is a short wooden club kept ready for this especial purpose.

Footnote D:

Gaffs are iron hooks securely fastened to strong wooden handles four or five feet long.

Breeze was wild with delight over his capture, while the whole crew were more or less excited, as well they might be, for no such fish had been taken from George’s by any one else that season. It weighed three hundred and twenty-six pounds, and though larger halibut than this have been caught, they are few and far between. One of the men said that he was worth at least twenty dollars, and all admitted that he would create a sensation when they took him into port.

“Put your mark on him, Breeze,” said the skipper, “so that you will be able to pick him out when we get home. He might get lost, you know, among the really big ones that the rest of us are going to catch.”

The boy laughed, but felt very proud of his first fish, as with his sharp sheath-knife he cut a rude B like this, B, in the thick skin on its head, and inscribed the same mark near its tail.

Old Mateo was as delighted at the success of his protégé as the boy himself, and in honor of the event brought him a cup of hot coffee and an extra nice Joe-flogger spread with butter and sugar.

“Me tell ’em so ven you lit babee, an’ eat ze harda tack. Me tell ’em you catch ze feesh bimeby plentee, plentee! Now zey find out, eh?” he exclaimed, in a tone of self-satisfied pride. It was as much as to say that if they would only bring all the babies to him, he could tell whether they would make successful fishermen or not. The men laughed at him, and made many jokes concerning his wisdom; but he only laughed back good-naturedly, and shook his head at them as he again disappeared in the depths of his own domain.

For the rest of the day the fishing went on so merrily, and halibut and cod were piled up on deck so rapidly, that nobody found time to stop for dinner; but snatched hurried mouthfuls of food as they tended their lines. It was lively and exciting work; but when it was time to knock off, and begin to clear and pack the day’s catch, Breeze, for one, found himself aching in every joint, while his hands were raw and water-soaked from handling the hard, wet lines.

He would have gladly turned in at once, but the fish must be cleaned first, and after that it was his turn to stand a two hours’ watch on deck. Thus it was late in the evening before the exhausted lad tumbled into his bunk, where he dreamed of monstrous fish with twenty-dollar gold-pieces in their mouths, that turned into Joe-floggers as he reached for them.

The fishing was good for three days longer, and all hands were light-hearted and happy over their success. Songs and jokes were heard on all sides, and the yarns told at night in the cabin were all of big fares and quick trips to the Banks. It had been a stormy winter, and March had come in like an angry, roaring lion; but now it seemed to be anxious to prove the truth of the old saying, and to be about to go out like the meekest of lambs. Three days more of such luck as they had had would pull up their anchor and see them homeward bound. But March is a fickle month.

The fourth day broke cloudy and threatening. The sky was gray and the air was filled with a penetrating chill. The schooner rode uneasily, straining and surging at her cable in the heavy swell that rolled in from the eastward. The previous day had been what old sailors would call “a weather-breeder,” with the wind light and puffy from the south-west. The mercury in the barometer had stood about 30.7, which indicated a change, and something to be expected from off the sea.

As the day wore on there was a feeling of snow in the atmosphere, and the barometer fell steadily. The fish continued to bite eagerly, and every man did his best to swell the sum total of his catch while he had the chance. The luck of the _Albatross_ had been noticed, and several other vessels were anchored near her, both ahead and astern.

By noon angry spurts of snow were driving in the faces of her crew, the wind was moaning drearily through the rigging, and an occasional dash of spray wet the deck. About this time all hands were ordered to “knock off” fishing, dress the morning’s catch, stow all light articles below, and “snug ship.” Twenty more fathoms of cable were paid out. The foresail was loosed and three reefs were tied in it, so that it might be ready for instant use in case the vessel broke adrift. Then it was again furled, and securely tied.

The storm came on rapidly after that, until at four o’clock, when supper was served, the schooner was pitching furiously, and bringing up with vicious jerks on its straining cable. It was already quite dark, and the snow drove in horizontal lines, tingling against a bare face like cuts from a whip-lash. The wind howled through the taut rigging, and the spray, torn from the crests of the racing seas, was blown in blinding sheets above the slippery decks.

Breeze had never experienced anything like this. To him it was already a frightful gale, and, as he almost pitched down the forward companion-ladder in answer to the supper call, he was surprised to find how calmly the men were taking it. In spite of the tumult on deck, the creaking and groaning of the vessel’s timbers, and her mad pitching, several of them were seated at the mess-table eating as unconcernedly as though nothing unusual were happening. Another lay in his bunk, smoking and exchanging jokes with those who were eating.

After the storm-swept deck, the forecastle seemed warm, light, and cheerful. As Breeze sat down to the table, from which, in spite of the storm-racks, the dishes were every now and then flung to the floor, he wondered that he had never before noticed what a cosey and comfortable place it was.

“Vel, Breeza!” shouted old Mateo, whose entire energies were devoted to keeping the coffee-pot from sliding off the stove. “How you lak him? Pret good, eh?”

“I lak him very much better down here than I do on deck,” answered the boy between his mouthfuls of hot coffee and biscuit. “But, I say, Mateo, don’t you call this a pretty stiff sort of a gale?”

“No,” replied the old cook, scornfully; “zis only one-a lit Georgy shake-up. For ze gale you mus’ go to ze Gran’ Bank. Ah, zat ze place!”

With this the others chimed in, and began to tell of their experiences in real gales, to which this one was but a March zephyr.

For all this, a little later, when the crew were gathered in the cabin, where, around the little red-hot stove, wet clothing and boots were sending up clouds of steam, the skipper, after looking out of the companion-way, said,

“Boys, we are in for a regular ‘rip-snorter.’ I never saw a nastier night. You’d better get a nap if you can now, for after midnight there won’t be any chance for sleep aboard this craft. I want the watch on deck to keep the sharpest kind of a lookout, and to call me the moment a light is seen in any direction.”

The great danger of the night lay either in getting adrift, through the parting of their cable or the dragging of their anchor, and rushing into collision with some anchored vessel, or in being run down. In either case the result would probably be the almost instant death of all on board.

Following the skipper’s advice, Breeze crept into his bunk for a nap, but for a long time found it impossible to sleep. The violence of the pitching and the roar of the gale seemed to increase with each moment, and it was only by the strongest effort of will that he could restrain himself from springing up and rushing on deck. At last he did sleep, but was only aware of it when a dash of icy water in his face awakened him. Forgetting where he was, he sprang up, and struck his head violently against the low ceiling above him.

A great sea of solid water had broken over the schooner’s bows, and swept aft in such a volume that it must have flooded the cabin had not the skipper, who stood in the companion-way, pulled the slide. As it was, about a bucketful had made its way in, and a portion of it had fallen on Breeze.

Scrambling from the bunk, he found his companions clad in their oil-skins and prepared to hurry on deck at the first notice that their presence was needed. Several of them were picking themselves up from the floor, to which they had been flung by the shock of the big wave, and one was lamenting a broken pipe. They were much more sober now than at supper-time, and their conversation, which was entirely of wreck and disaster, was not calculated to fill the boy with cheerful thoughts. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was past midnight, and the skipper’s warning that there would be no sleep for them after that hour flashed into his mind.

Following the example of the others, he pulled on his oil-skins, and sat down to wait, he knew not what for. A few minutes later the summons came. It was an unintelligible cry from the watch on deck, but its meaning was clear to the practised ears of those below, and as the skipper sprang up the steps, the others followed.

When Breeze reached the deck and felt the full force of the blast, it seemed to drive the breath from his body. The wind was shrieking through the strained rigging like a hundred steam-whistles. The snow had turned into fine particles of ice that pricked like needles. The billows hissed and seethed as, with streaming manes of glistening white, they galloped past the quivering vessel. Now she was poised on the crest of a gigantic wave, and the next instant buried in a yawning depth, beneath a smother of broken waters that leaped high up on her masts.

By the rays of the riding-light, that still burned steadily just abaft the foremast, Breeze could make out the several members of the crew clinging to whatever seemed to promise the greatest safety, the fife-rail, halyards, or rigging. Away forward, beside the groaning windlass, was a figure which he knew to be that of the skipper, crouching, axe in hand, ready to cut the cable.

All this had been taken in at one glance, the next revealed the cause of the outcry from the watch on deck. A light dead ahead was bearing swiftly down upon them. It was that of a fishing schooner torn from her anchorage, and being hurled by the storm giant, like a bolt of destruction, through the helpless fleet.

During the fearful suspense of the next minute the boy did not breathe, and his very heart seemed to cease its beating. Twice the gleaming axe in the skipper’s hand was raised to strike. Each time he thought of the vessels anchored astern of the _Albatross_, upon which she must drive in turn if cut adrift, and the blow was withheld.

Now the threatening light rose high above them, and then it swooped down and rushed past so close that they could almost have sprung aboard the drifting schooner. They caught a momentary glimpse of white faces, heard one wild cry, and felt the dragging of the broken cable as it was drawn across their own. Then all was again swallowed up in the furious blackness astern, and for them that danger was past.

The night was bitterly cold, but the first sensation of which Breeze was aware, when it was all over, was that of the profuse perspiration in which he was bathed.

There being no longer any need of their presence on deck, the members of the crew, after a fresh watch was set, again sought the shelter of the cabin. Here Breeze was advised to try and get some more sleep, as it would be his turn to go on watch at four o’clock. He lay down, but felt as though he should never sleep again; for he could not close his eyes without seeing, once more, the drifting phantom of destruction that had just swept past them. He started fearfully at each lurch of the reeling vessel, and fancied that he heard cries in the shriek of the blast overhead. Although he dreaded to go on deck, it seemed as though he should prefer it to remaining in the cabin, and it was a relief when he was called to go on watch.

The lad’s watchmate was much older than he, a weather-beaten sailor who had witnessed a hundred such gales, and felt that so long as the cable held, there was not much to fear. He helped Breeze up on the foregaff, where he would escape the worst of the great seas that continually broke over the schooner’s bows, sweeping her from stem to stern, and bade him keep a sharp lookout from there.

At last, faint and uncertain, the prayed-for, long-deferred, and anxiously awaited light of day began to creep over the wild scene, and the white foam-crests stretched away farther and farther. The snow ceased to fall, and there was some promise of a cessation of the gale. One of the first things they distinguished in the early light was the huge dim form of a square-rigged vessel that, under bare poles, drove past them, less than a quarter of a mile away, and vanished almost as soon as she was seen. Nothing was said, for only a shout close to the ear could be heard amid the tumult; but Breeze shuddered to think how powerless their little schooner would have been to resist that driving mass had they chanced to lie in its course.

They next saw a schooner plunging at her anchor, a short distance ahead of them, and noted how she had dragged during the night, for they had seen her the day before, but then much farther away. Her anchors had only caught just in time to save both her and them, and again Breeze realized the narrowness of their escape from the night’s perils.

As the daylight revealed her sad plight, they turned their attention to their own craft. The seas no longer broke over her so furiously as they had, but crushed bulwarks, and the deck swept clear of boat, gurry-kids, and everything not absolutely built into it told of their awful force.

All at once Breeze, from his slight elevation, noted a commotion on the deck of the schooner ahead of them. The men on watch seemed to be heaving lines at something in the water. It was evidently drifting past them, and their lines plainly failed to reach it. They were motioning, as though to attract his attention towards it, and the thought flashed into his mind that perhaps they had discovered a survivor of some wreck floating in the angry waters, and had tried unsuccessfully to save him. He told his companion of what he had seen, and they both watched eagerly in the hope that if it was indeed a man he might drift within their reach. They procured a couple of long light lines, made one end fast, and coiled them carefully, in readiness to be flung at a moment’s notice.

“I see him!” cried Breeze at length. “There, see! off our port bow; but he is going to drift clear of us.”

It was the figure of a man, clad in oil-skins, the yellow gleam of which had caught the boy’s eye as they showed for a moment on the crest of a wave.

As he came near they saw that he was apparently clinging to the bottom of an overturned dory. At the same time it was evident that he was going to drift far beyond their reach, and they doubted if their lines even could be made to reach him. They shouted again and again, but he gave no sign of hearing them.

Breeze began to tear off his oil-skins, then his jacket and boots, and to knot the end of a line about his waist.

“What are you going to do?” shouted his companion. “Not try and swim to him?”

“Yes, I am,” shouted Breeze, in reply. “It would be a pity if the best swimmer in Gloucester should let a man drown before his eyes for want of trying to save him.”

“But you’re crazy, lad! You can’t live a minute in such a sea!” and the man took hold of the boy’s arm to restrain him from the rash attempt.

With a single violent wrench Breeze freed himself from the other’s grasp, and just as some of the crew, who had been attracted by the shouts on deck, came up from the cabin, he plunged headlong into the raging waters.