Part 8

"Mr. Dixon, I think we had better snug her down a bit before it gets dark, so clew up the t'gallan's'ls, and then we'll take the mainsail off her. And after that you can reef the foresail. While the breeze holds in the nor'-east we'll make all we can. But I reckon we'll be hove to by the morning."

There wasn't much doubt of that to those who knew something of Cape weather. The Cape pigeons as they wheeled and whistled about the _Ocean Wave_ said 'clew up and clew down.' At anyrate, the crew for'ard said so as they turned out to shorten sail. Mr. Ruddle went below to encourage his companions and his wife. By the time it was as dark as the bottom of a tar-barrel they wanted encouragement, for the _Wave_ began to pitch in a manner that the _Nantucket_ had not accustomed them to, and as the wind increased the song of the gale in the rigging got on their nerves sadly.

"What do you think of it, Brother Ruddle?" asked his friend Chadwick, a little butter-tub of a man with the courage of a lion among the heathen or the denizens of a New York slum, but without as much spirit when the wind blew as would enable a school-girl to face a cow in a lane. "What does Brother Ruddle think of it?"

Ruddle said that he did not think much of it, for he thought the skipper was not frightened.

"Although the sea threatens to rage, my friends," said the chief, "he shows no signs of unseemly terror, but with calm confidence bids his brave crew haste up aloft and reduce the mighty spread of canvas. They are even now engaged in the task. Hear with what strange music, which somehow begins to have a familiar ring in my ears, they encourage each other in their arduous duties. Oh, my friends, we little think when we are safe in the heart of Africa, or in the back parts of the Bowery, how seamen encounter dangers on our behalf."

"Ah, and you were a sailor once, Tom," said his wife.

"I do not praise myself, dear, in praising them, for now I dare not face those dangers with which at one time I must have been familiar. It is wonderful, all life is wonderful. If I had not been smitten upon the head by a shearpole, whatever a shearpole may be, I might never have known any of you, my dear friends; and I might never have married you, my dear. Ah, it is a wonderful world, and they are making a very remarkable noise upstairs."

They certainly were making a noise, and so was the wind, and Mr. Dixon was saying very unorthodox things, and so was Smith the second mate. And every now and again the skipper could be heard in exhortation, so that Susan Ruddle snugged up alongside her husband, and said that she was glad he was not a seaman, though that she was sure that if he were one now he would never employ such language. Ruddle comforted her, and said it would fill him with horror to know that he had ever used any of that kind of talk. He felt sure in his mind that the report of his having ever done so must have been a malicious invention of some enemy. Since he had borne up for the Church he had been, as all men knew, of a scrupulousness which was extra Puritanical even for a minister. He never said 'damn' unless he had to in the course of his duty.

Presently the _Ocean Wave_ began to behave herself a little better under shortened canvas, and the old skipper came into the cabin with his face shining with spray, and a good-natured grin on him which would have encouraged the biggest coward at sea in a cyclone. Little Mrs. Ruddle cheered up on sight of him, and so did all but the Reverend Mr. Blithers, who was in a state of terror that was sheer lunacy.

"Is it a great storm? Are we going down?" asked Blithers. He was so far encouraged that he could speak.

"Bless my heart," replied the skipper, "what are you thinking of, in a nice breeze like this, and in a sailin' ship too? If you was in an old smokestack like the one I took you gents out of you might howl, but here you are in a fine tight ship, the real genuine article, and are a deal safer than if you was ashore."

"Oh, do you say so?" asked Blithers. "Oh, is it possible that you can say so with the wind howling like this?"

And indeed the gale began to pipe as if it meant business.

"Hold your tongue, Blithers," said Ruddle; "be a man and a missionary, and do not howl."

Blithers said his brother was unkind, and ought to be more gentle with a weak vessel. And at that the skipper put in his oar, and suggested that so weak a vessel should not carry sail but retire to his cabin. At this Ruddle laughed jovially, and Blithers said he was hard and cruel, and devoid of all real religious feelings.

"Don't be a fool, my dear man," said Ruddle, "but go to bed. It is perhaps natural to be upset by the strange uproar, and the noise of the wind, and the trampling of the men on deck, but that is no reason why you should say I am not religious. If I were not I should be angry with you and say regrettable things, such as I am informed, on very good authority, that I said when I was a seaman."

"I don't believe you ever were one," said the sad and angry Blithers. "And if you were, it is a pity you did not stay one, for you are a very unkind man, and not good to me in my sad state of mind."

It took five missionaries to get Blithers into bed, but he went at last, and when he was gone Ruddle beamed on the rest, and said--

"Our poor brother is sadly upset by the weather. It is difficult to understand how he can be such a coward on the water when he is a real hero on the dry land, and has an especial gift of management with backsliding cannibals. But anything can be believed when you remember that I was once in the position of Mr. Dixon, whose voice I now hear saying something about the lee-braces, and knew all about everything on board a ship. And now, my friends, all things here are mystery to me, and I do not know what the lee-braces are, and cannot distinguish with accuracy between a binnacle and a bull-whanger, if indeed there is such a thing as I was told by one of the seamen on the _Nantucket_. Ah, hold tight, dear, she is rocking to and fro with ever increasing velocity. I fear that Blithers will never forget this night."

And they all had supper. The 'old man' sat it out with them, and put on his oilskins again and went on the poop. There was no mistake about it now. The _Ocean Wave_ was in for a Cape stinger, and Gray, who was of the old-fashioned, bull-headed sort, rammed her along on the very path the cyclonic disturbance was taking. If he had been thoroughly acquainted with the nature of all cyclones wherever they are bred, he would have turned tail to the blast, and have run into fairer weather towards the south; or, as the _Wave_ was in the southern semi-circle of the storm, he might have hove her to on the coming up or starboard tack. Instead of that he hung on all through the night. When the dawn came it was a fair howler and no mistake. Mr. Blithers and not a few of the others stayed in their bunks. It was blowing hard enough to make almost anyone ill, and the sea was very high. But Thomas Ruddle and his wife and Chadwick turned out to breakfast.

If Ruddle trusted to Providence, Susan Ruddle trusted to him, and hardly thought it possible that any disaster could happen to her while he was to the fore. Mr. Chadwick was brave enough to hide his terror, though he was in a horrid funk. They hung on to the tables and ate some breakfast as best they could, and after eating, Ruddle and Mrs. Ruddle and Chadwick ventured on deck, in time to see the reefed foresail taken off her. Just as they got the weather clew-garnet chock up, the gale came screaming across the waste of grey sea to such a tune that the skipper altered his mind there and then.

"Hold on with the lee gear of the foresail, Mr. Dixon," he bellowed, and then he signed to the mate to come aft.

"We'll wear her now and heave her to on the starboard tack," said the 'old man.' "This is going to be a fair perisher."

As Dixon had been throwing out hints all night that he ought to do that or run, he was glad to hear it. They waited for a smooth, and put the helm up.

"Square the after yards!" roared the skipper; and they squared away, keeping the sails lifting.

"Isn't it wonderful?" said Ruddle. "I do wish I understood it. I wonder what they are doing it for?"

"Square the foreyard!" yelled the captain; and they did so, and got the staysail sheet over, and by proper management she came up on the other tack with her nose pointing N.N.E. They hauled up what was now the weather clew of the foresail, and the second mate and the men jumped aloft and furled it.

"Oh, dear," said Mr. Ruddle, "how dreadful to see them up there! I can't believe that I ever did it, Chadwick."

But the _Wave_ was carrying her topsails, and though they were reefed she was scooting with her lee-rail awash. As soon as the foresail was stowed, both topsail halliards were let go and the sails partly smothered by the spilling lines. When they were furled, the lower foretopsail was clewed up, and Ruddle, who got much excited, went down on the main-deck in spite of the seas which came over right for'ard by the galley. Mrs. Ruddle said, 'Oh, don't,' but Ruddle said, 'My dear, it is so interesting, and I must.' And there he was staring up at the crowd on the topsail-yard who were fighting the bellying canvas like heroes.

"Bless my soul, how very remarkable, and even terrible," said Ruddle. "How very extraordinary. I wonder if I ever did that, I'll ask Mr. Dixon if the manoeuvre is often performed."

He fell upon the busy and very cross mate with this inquiry, and though Dixon had heard the tale about him he did not credit it, and put it down to some hallucination.

"Do I do it often? Do what often?" asked Dixon scornfully.

"Why, tie those sails up like that when it blows so hard?" asked Ruddle innocently. "Why don't you tie them up when it is fine? It would be much easier I should think."

"Oh, go home and die," said the mate savagely.

"That's very rude," said Ruddle, "and I don't like it."

"If you don't like it you can lump it," said the mate. "Haven't you more sense than to come worrying here in a gale of wind?"

"Is it a real gale?" asked Ruddle. "A very hard one?"

It certainly looked like one, for every squall came harder and harder, so that the topsail when it was once smothered was blown out of the men's grip, and was all abroad and bellying once more.

"Damn your eyes, hold on to it or you'll lose the sail after all!" yelled Dixon. But no one heard him on the yard, they were at grips with the canvas again, and the second mate and the bo'son at the bunt were doing all the cursing that was necessary for a task like that.

"They seem to be working very courageously, and I think it wrong of you to swear at them," said Ruddle severely; and then Dixon turned on him as if he were going to hit him. At that moment a fresh squall struck the _Wave_ and almost laid her on her beam ends, though she was practically hove to under the lower maintopsail.

"I never swear," said Ruddle, as the mate lifted his fist. Then the squall shrieked, and as the _Wave_ laid over to it both Ruddle and the mate lost their footing, and slid between the fo'castle and the fore part of the deck-house as if they were on an ice toboggan run. The mate said some awful things, and Ruddle gasped, 'You shouldn't, oh, you really shouldn't.' And then they fetched up against the lee-rail with a thump that caused a common accident and wrought a very uncommon miracle. Mr. Dixon snapped his arm like a carrot, and let a yell out of him that reached the crowd on the yard.

"By crimes!" said the men up aloft, "when old Dickie squeals like that he means comin' aloft himself to talk to hus like a father. Now then, boys, grab again and 'old 'er!"

As they tackled the topsail for the third time the cook came out of the lee door of the galley and picked the mate out of the swamped scuppers.

"Easy, easy, you swab," said Dixon. "My arm's broke."

With the cook's help he got aft, and when he did he promptly sat down in the cabin and fainted right off with the pain. And Ruddle still wallowed in the scuppers, for he had hit the rail with his head and given it a most tremendous and effectual thump. After a minute or two he stirred and spat out a mouthful of salt water. He also shook his head and rubbed it. Then he sat up and said--

"Well, I'm damned! What has happened?"

He shook his head again, and suddenly jumped to his feet. The miracle happened, and they all heard it. Tom Ruddle in the old days had the very finest foretopsail-yard ahoy voice that ever rang across the wastes of ocean. It came back to him now.

"Ain't you dogs got that topsail stowed yet?" he roared in accents that made the second mate on the yard shake in his rubber boots. "Oh, you slabsided gang of loafers, oh, you sojers, dig in and do somethin', or before you know I'll be up there and boot you off the yard."

The entire crowd on the yard was so paralysed by what they heard that they turned and looked at him, and very promptly lost all that they had gained the last bout. To see a minister suddenly become a seaman and use such language was enough to scare them into loosing the jack-stay and tumbling overboard.

"Jehoshaphat!" said they, "what's gone wrong with him?"

And the second greaser was just as much surprised as any of them; so much so, indeed, that he could not swear. Ruddle did it for him, and his language was awful, full, abundant, brilliant and biting. He told the second mate what he thought of him, and what he thought of all his relations; and he confided to the storm what his opinion of the crew was and always had been; and of a sudden he made a bound, and jumping on the rail ran up the rigging like a monkey, and before they could gasp he was right in among them at the bunt, exhorting them as if they were impenitent mules.

"Now, now, up with it, you no sailors, you!" he roared, as his long black coat flapped in the wind like Irish pennants. He dug into the bellying canvas with the clutch of a devil's claw, and the crew sighed and were subdued to the strange facts, and did as he told them like the best. There was now a sudden scream from aft. Mrs. Ruddle caught sight of him on the yard, and Chadwick cried out--

"Oh, it was your husband that was swearing so."

"Oh, Tom, Tom," screamed his wife, "come down, come down!"

And she screamed again, and Ruddle heard it and swore vigorously.

"What's a woman doin' on deck in such weather?" he cried, as he clawed at the sail and held it with his stomach, and yelled in unison with the second mate, who now began to see the joke of it.

"Where does he think he is?" he said; and at that moment the last great fold of the top-sail rose in the air like a breaking wave, and with one yell of triumph the whole of the crowd threw themselves on it and smothered its life out.

"Sock it to her!" roared Ruddle triumphantly, as he dropped the gathered bunt into the skin of the sail and reached for the bunt gasket.

"There you are," said Ruddle; and then for the first time he looked at the second mate, and an expression of the blankest amazement passed across his face.

"Who the devil are you?" he asked. "I never saw you before."

It was almost impossible to make one's self heard in the howl of the gale, but Ruddle did it, and the crowd, with a grin on all their weather-beaten and hairy countenances, waited to hear Mr. Smith's answering yell.

"Who the devil do you think you are?" he asked.

"I'm the mate of this ship," said Ruddle, "but, but I don't think I ever saw any of you before?"

"How do you come to be togged up like you are, if you are mate?" asked Smith, as he made the bunt gasket fast. "Don't you think you look a hell of a sailor in that rig?"

"I don't understand it," said Ruddle blankly. "Where did I get these clothes?"

"You'd better ask the 'old man,'" said the second mate. "You're a clergyman, and you ain't a sailor at all."

"You're a liar," said Ruddle. "But I don't understand it. I don't know any of you. Where are we?"

"Off the Cape, to be sure," said Smith.

Ruddle shook his head.

"There is something very horrid about this," he said, with an awe-stricken expression of countenance, "for when we clewed up this topsail we were off the Head of Kinsale."

"Holy Moses," said the crowd, "'ow she must have scooted in 'alf a watch!"

"Well, we're off the Cape now," said Smith impatiently; "and if you don't believe it, you can ask the captain."

And they all came down on deck. Ruddle walked like a man in a dream, and as he walked he rubbed the spot that had been bruised. When his wife saw him coming she screamed again, and called out to him--

"Oh, Tom, Tom! how could you do it?"

And Tom grasped the second mate by the arm.

"Who's that woman calling 'Tom'?"

The second mate stopped as if he had been shot, and whistled.

"D'ye mean to say you don't know?" he asked.

"Confound you, I wouldn't ask if I did," said Ruddle savagely. "It ain't me, surely?"

It was Smith's turn to grab hold of him.

"Don't you know her?" he asked in tones of positive alarm.

"No!" roared the unfortunate Ruddle. "No more than I know you or any of 'em."

Smith nearly fell down.

"Man, she's your wife," said Smith; and once more Susan Ruddle said--

"Oh, Tom, how could you do it and me here?"

Then Chadwick spoke and rebuked Ruddle very strongly for having done it, and Ruddle shook his head and scratched it and shook it again, and then burst out with dreadful language against Chadwick for interfering with a stranger.

"He don't know any of you," said Smith, as Chadwick fell into a cold perspiration to hear his chief use such awful language. "He don't know any of you. And he lets on that he is the mate of this ship, and that we are off the Old Head of Kinsale."

And Susan Ruddle fainted dead away.

"Take the poor silly woman down below," said Ruddle. "She must be mad. I don't know where I am, or how I got here, but I do know jolly well that I ain't married, and that a girl in London that I ain't by no means stuck on thinks I'm going to marry her this very year. But I ain't goin' to, by a dern sight. Not me."

They carried her down below just as the 'old man' came on deck after setting the mate's arm. Smith told him what had happened.

The skipper shook his head.

"This is very remarkable and tryin'," said the skipper. "For Mr. Dixon's arm is broken through this Ruddle barrackin' him and askin' him why he did not take in sail when it was calm, as it would be easier. Oh, this is very wonderful, and I makes very little of it. And now he says he ain't married. He brought her here as his wife, and you are all witnesses to that. Oh, it is very remarkable, and I make nothin' of it in spite of his havin' been a sailor before, as looks likely as he went aloft. Is it true he swore?"

"Most awful and hair-raisin' and blasphemous," replied the second mate, who was a very good judge of swearing.

"Did he now, and him a minister? It's very remarkable, and I makes nothin' of it," said the skipper, and he ran up the poop and right into the arms of Ruddle.

"Who are you? Are you the captain? I want to see the captain before I go ragin' luny," said Ruddle.

"Steady," said the old skipper, grasping him tightly by the arm, "steady, my son. Don't you know me?"

"Never saw you before that I know of," groaned Ruddle. "And there's no one here that I know; and I don't know where I am or what I am, or where I got these disgusting clothes from, or where we are, or anything about anythin' whatsoever."

The skipper gasped.

"You don't remember bein' a minister, and tellin' me that you had been a seaman and had had a bash on the crust with a shearpole from aloft that laid you out stiff, and when you come to you didn't rek'lect havin' bin a sailor at all, and that you then bore up for the Church and became a missionary? Oh, say you rek'lect, for if you don't I makes nothin' of it, and am most confused; and there is your wife in a dead faint down below."

But Ruddle shook his head.

"I don't believe I ever was a missionary, for I always allowed they were a scaly lot. And I ain't married, and the girl that thinks I'll marry her is away off her true course by points. But I say, how long do you reckon I was minister?"

He held on to the 'old man' as if he was holding on to sanity, and implored an answer.

"We'll ask your pal," said Gray, and he bellowed down the companion for Chadwick, who came on deck with his eyes bolting.

"Is that my pal?" asked Ruddle in great disappointment. "Why, I never saw him either."

Poor Chadwick burst into tears.

"Oh, this is dreadful, this is very dreadful," said poor Chadwick. "What shall we do? Our chief stay and strength is gone from us, and doesn't know even me that married him."

Ruddle stared, and then rushed at him and held him in the grip of a bear.

"Steady, mister, are you speakin' truth or are you gettin' at me?"

"It's the truth," said Chadwick.

"Then how long was I in your business? Tell me straight, or I'll sling you overboard right now."

"Eight years," squealed Chadwick; "and there's all of us downstairs can testify to the same."

Ruddle sighed, and looked at the raging sea and at the skipper and at Chadwick, and up aloft. After a long silence he spoke.

"If I'm right the year's eighteen-ninety, and if you are right it must be ninety-eight or more, accordin' to the time it took me to get my certificate as missionary. What year is it?"

"Nineteen hundred, so 'elp me," said the skipper; "and I'll have up the Nautical Almanac to show you."

But Ruddle took their word for it, and sniffed a little, and then remarked--

"I do think my beard wants trimmin'. And am I mad now?"

"No, no," said the faithful Chadwick, "you aren't mad, and in a little while it will all come back to you, and you will come back to us, and we'll all be happy, even Blithers."

"Who's Blithers?" asked Ruddle sadly. Yet he did not wait for an answer. Though the _Wave_ was now hove to under her main-topsail, with the fore-yards checked in, and was fairly comfortable, the gale instead of moderating let another reef out, so to speak, and was a regular sizzler.

"I should like to see that main-topsail goose-winged, sir," said Ruddle suddenly, "for if we are off the Cape, as you all seem to think, this is by no means the worst of it, and it will be a real old-fashioned scorcher."

The 'old man' looked at him.

"Do you know the mate's arm is broke?"

"No," said Ruddle.

"Well, it is, and he ain't fit to do a thing, naturally, and that means I haven't a mate."

Ruddle looked pleased for the first time since he came back to his old sea-self.

"You don't say so. Well, that is fortunate," he said with a happy smile. "This is what I call real luck. I'll be the mate, sir, till you can get another."

"Right," said the skipper. "And if you like you can goose-wing the topsail, Mr. Ruddle. I reckon you're right about the weather. We have enough parsons aboard to make old Davy Jones do his best."

And Ruddle, with a happy flush on his face, bellowed from the break of the poop for the watch to lay aft. They heard his voice with amazement and came very lively.

"Haul up the lee clew of the lower main-topsail," said the new mate, and going down on the main-deck he saw the gear manned, and started the sheet, and then lent his gigantic strength to get the clew chock up.

"Jump aloft and goose-wing it," said Ruddle to the bo'son, and the men jumped and did as they were told with extraordinary agility. They said it was a miracle, and so it was. But Ruddle was quite happy for a moment, and when they were down on deck again he turned to the skipper and laughed, positively laughed.

But the 'old man' did not even smile.

"I'm thinking of the poor little lady down below, Mr. Ruddle," he said with a sigh. "What are you goin' to do about her?"