CHAPTER IV.

MORNING

Environ’d with a wilderness of sea; Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave, Expecting ever when some envious surge Will in his brinish bowels swallow him. —Shakespeare.

It is, methinks, a morning full of fate! It riseth slowly, as her sullen car, Had all the weight of sleep and death hung at it! She is not rosy-fingered, but swollen black. —Jonson.

“We shall be more sheltered,” continued the captain, “if we change our places. The waves, I see, don’t sweep the deck further aft on the starboard side. Shall we try to get there? I doubt if you could hold out till morning here. Certainly your aunt could not. She is already more dead than alive.”

Kate saw, at once, the wisdom of the suggestion. The ship, before going on the bar, had been running nearly parallel to the breakers, her head being slightly inclined seaward; but when the main-topsail went, she had whirled around, and struck bard on, heeling to larboard: consequently she now lay almost at right angles with the surf. Along the inclined deck the waves continually washed. The stern, however, protected the after portion, especially the higher side; for the waters, even when they made a clean breach over the ship, parted right and left around this sheltered spot.

“But can we get there?” said Kate, in a whisper, glancing at her aunt, who, through fear and wet, was now almost incapable of moving.

“I think I can manage her,” was the reply, in the same low tone, “if you can hold on here till I return.”

“We will go, then?”

Captain Powell did not lose a moment. Putting one stalwart arm around Mrs. Warren, and holding on by the other, he watched his opportunity, and started on his perilous enterprise. Kate gazed upon them breathlessly. Once she feared that they would lose their footing, for a large billow, rushing in over the lower side, swept the decks through their whole length; but the captain fortunately had seen it coming, and had hurriedly told his companion to hold on with all her strength. When, therefore, the waters had subsided, Kate saw that the captain was already advancing again across the slippery decks; and the moment after she had the satisfaction of beholding him safely deposit his companion in the sheltered nook, under the high stern.

Kate had never intended that the captain should return for her, because she knew how much her aunt’s terror would be increased by being left alone; but she had said nothing of this purpose, in order to spare remonstrances. As it would not do to wait, she set out at once.

When Captain Powell, therefore, having arranged a seat for Mrs. Warren, turned to go for Kate, he saw the brave girl already more than half way on her route. He shouted to her to stop till he could come up, especially as he saw a roller advancing; but she paid no heed to his words; and the next moment, as he had feared, she was hurried from sight under the huge wave as it swept the deck.

Striking the ship a little to the larboard of where he stood, this mass of dark water, that glistened like solid glass, went rushing up the sloping deck, in front of him, till it struck the bulwarks on the higher side, when dashing to pieces, a part flew crackling over in shattered fragments and clouds of spray, while the remaining portion, now churned to a milk-white color, rushed forward with irresistible force, carrying everything before it, till it precipitated itself in cataracts over the bow, or found escape by spouting from the hawse-holes, as if driven through them by a force-pump.

Under this enormous volume of water Kate disappeared entirely from sight. Captain Powell feared that she had not seen the approaching peril, and that, having no firm hold, she had been swept from her feet. Mrs. Warren, even in her half exhausted state, uttered a faint scream, and would have rushed forward, if she could have broken away. The captain looked eagerly to see Kate’s white garments amid the foam, as the wave swept onward. It seemed, meantime, as if the waters would never subside from the deck. What was in reality not more than a few seconds, appeared to him interminable.

At last, the sight so eagerly desired greeted his eyes; and Kate was seen comparatively unharmed. Pausing only to recover breath, and watch that no more such surges were coming in, she darted forward with the swiftness of a deer, and reached his side, panting so that she could not, for a moment, answer his eager inquiries.

“Did I see it rolling in?” she said, at last. “Yes, and took a firm hold; but I thought it would never pass over me; I seemed to be an age beneath the water.”

“It was fortunate it was no worse. I would not have taken one to a thousand pounds on your escape.”

“Oh! you don’t know what a sailor I can be,” answered Kate, cheerfully. “Thank you,” she said, as Captain Powell arranged a seat for her. “We shall get along nicely till morning now. How fortunate it’s not winter, isn’t it, aunt?”

Seating herself at these words, she put her arm around her aunt, and drawing the head of the latter to her shoulder, began affectionately stroking the water from her aged relative’s head. The poor creature could only answer this caress by tears, which flowed heavily down her cheeks, and by grateful looks.

“Are you cold, aunt? You shake your head. Yet you must be chilly, wet through as you are.”

“If you please, Miss Aylesford,” said the captain, “I think I can make my way into the cabin, and bring up some cloaks and shawls for you and your aunt.” And without waiting for a reply, he left them.

In a few minutes he returned. The warmth of the dry over garments, gradually revived Mrs. Warren. But even when she regained the command of words, she could only deplore their situation, and repeat, again and again, that she knew they never would reach the shore alive.

Kate, in the meanwhile, did all she could to reassure her aunt, though far from feeling confident herself. Much of the time, when they were silent, she spent in inward prayer. And surely, if ever petitions could avert evil, those of that pure-minded, brave girl ought.

Slowly the night wore on. To those lonely watchers for the morning, the hours appeared almost an eternity. A hundred times they turned their longing eyes seaward, in hopes to see the horizon lighting up. Sometimes they were deceived into thinking the dawn at hand, by a temporary lifting of the clouds in the east; but the darkness soon closed in as profound as ever; and the disappointment was then all the more poignant from that momentary gleam of hope.

Low and wild the clouds continued to drift past; but the rain had now slackened. On the other hand, the waves ran higher than ever, so that the captain’s fear that the ship would break up before morning, increased momentarily. Already the wreck was badly logged, as even Kate could see; and at any instant the hull might be expected to part into two pieces, under the blow of some new roller, as powerful as the one which had so nearly carried her off.

“She holds together bravely,” said the captain, when several hours had passed. “The good craft is as tough as old junk. I begin to feel now that she’ll not go to pieces till next tide, at any rate. Have you noticed, Miss Aylesford, that the water is falling?”

“I had not,” answered Kate. “How can you tell in the darkness and storm?”

“Leave an old salt alone for that,” was the reply, with something of that professional pride which even peril cannot entirely subdue. “You see, Miss, the gale’s as high as ever, and the waves run as wild, yet the decks are not swept as often, or as deep, as they were. We haven’t had a surge to reach us since we changed our places. The ship heels over also more, which she would naturally do as the tide went out.”

“I understand,” said Kate. “But look,” she cried, suddenly, “isn’t that morning? Surely, we cannot be mistaken this time.”

She pointed to the east as she spoke, where indeed no streak of light was to be seen, as on ordinary dawns, but where a thinning away of the heavy vapors was quite perceptible. Overhead all was yet blank, and the forms of the clouds were undistinguishable; but in the eastern seaboard, the sky had a fleecy look, as when mists begin to break away on a mountain side.

“You are right,” answered Captain Powell; “it is morning, God be praised.”

“Didn’t I tell you so, aunt?” said Kate, cheerfully, turning to her relative. “You hear what the captain says. It is really daybreak. We shall soon be able to see the shore, and no doubt be succored.”

Oh! the blessed dawn! It comes to the weary invalid, and gives new life to his veins. It comes to the watchers by the bed of death, and inspires them with momentary hope. But never comes it more welcome than to those, who, like our shipwrecked group, expect it as their only reliance. It made even Mrs. Warren feel strong, almost gay again.

Gradually the darkness vanished. It was not by any sudden influx of light, but by an imperceptible growth, which could only be noticed by the changes which long intervals produced. The black curtains of gloom, which had hung like a pall close around, slowly receded, the light diffusing itself, as it were, reluctantly and warily.

All eyes were turned in the direction of the land, long before it was possible to distinguish objects, at a distance, with certainty. At first, nothing but a waste of white waters, of billows racing after each other into a boundless space ahead, could be discerned. But finally, what seemed a long, low sand-bank, was made out, a short cable’s length off. It was a mere bar, elevated a few feet above the ocean, which, in many places, appeared to be actually making breaches over it. Not a house, nor even tree was distinguishable, on this barren and inhospitable shore; but here and there a few bushes, around which the drifting sand had collected, offered some slight opposition to the advancing waters.

For some time no one spoke. Kate’s heart swelled within her, and she could not frame words; once or twice she attempted it, and choked. She saw that the ship had struck on one of those uninhabited beaches, which the captain had described in the night; and that there was no longer any hope, for probably not a farm-house, or human being existed within miles. As for Mrs. Warren, she gazed from the captain to her niece in speechless horror, wringing her hands, for she read in the face of each the despair that had succeeded to the momentary exhilaration produced by the dawn.

At last the master spoke. He had waited until the prospect brightened sufficiently landward to observe objects at some distance. But when he found that nothing was discernible, for miles on miles in that direction, through the drizzling mist—except salt marshes, against which even the partially protected waters inside the beach dashed fiercely, and over which the leaden-colored clouds swiftly drove,—he turned to Kate, and said, in a hoarse whisper.

“God help us, for there is none in man!”

Then, his thoughts reverting to his family, he ejaculated, “my poor wife!” and, completely unmanned, covered his face with his hands.