Kitabı oku: «Within the Capes», sayfa 4

He spoke in a low tone, and very slowly, but his voice trembled with the weight of his anger. “Mr. Baldwin,” said he, “I don’t know where you have sailed, or what discipline you have seen, that has taught you to allow yourself to question your captain’s intentions to your captain’s self. Understand me, sir, once and for all: I am the chief officer of this ship, and I will not have you, nor any man aboard, question me. You hear me? That will do, sir; go to your room.”

The two men looked at one another for a moment. Tom held his breath, expecting to hear Jack blaze out with something that would get him into more trouble than ever. However, he said nothing, but swung on his heel and went below.

Captain Knight stood beside Tom, in silence, his breath coming and going quickly; suddenly, he too turned and walked hastily to the cabin, banging the door behind him.

Tom leaned on the rail, sick at heart; he felt miserable about the whole matter. Here he was, embarked on a cruise for which he had no liking, in the stormy season of the year, in a ship which he believed to be unfit for sailing, with a crew that had no discipline, and the captain and the first mate at loggerheads before they were out of harbor. He would have given an eye to be safe ashore again.

And yet, that Sunday morning was not a day to breed troubled thoughts. Tom had rarely seen a lovelier one; the air seemed more like June than April. The last few days of rain had washed the air until it was as clear as crystal. One could see every window pane in the little town of Lewes. There was a sentry walking up and down on the newly-made earthworks in front of the town, and at every turn that he took at the end of his beat, his bayonet flashed like a star. The ship rose and fell lazily on the heaving of the ground swell that rolled in around the Capes. Down to the southward the white sands stretched away into the looming of the distance, rimmed with a whiter line of foam until all was lost in the misty haze cast up by the tumbling surf.

The pilot boat had now run up near to them, and was launching a dory from her deck. Tom stood leaning on the rail, looking at her, and presently the pilot came and stood beside him. He was a short, powerful man, bull-necked and long-armed. A shock of hair and a grizzled beard seemed to make a sort of frame around his face. Even he felt uncomfortable at that which had just passed.

“A nasty row, wasn’t it, sir?” said he to Tom, jerking his head toward the captain’s cabin.

Tom made no answer; in fact, he did not look at the man, for it was none of the fellow’s business.

Presently the dory came alongside, and the pilot slid down the man-ropes and stepped cleverly into her.

By noon the Nancy Hazlewood had dropped Cape May astern. The captain had sent for Jack to come upon deck again, to take his watch at eight bells. Captain Knight had directed her course to be laid S. E. by E., by which Tom supposed that he intended to run well out, so as to escape the chance of falling in with any of the British cruisers that were at that time hanging about the coast, more especially off the mouth of the Chesapeake. The wind was nearly astern, every inch of cloth was spread, and the way in which the Nancy Hazlewood boomed along showed Tom Granger that he had not overrated her sailing qualities. The log showed that she was running at a little over eleven knots.

All of the afternoon Tom was in the forward part of the vessel, looking to the clearing away of a lot of stores, for they were getting things to rights as well as they could, and taking advantage of the fair weather to do it.

And it was very needful, too, for, beside spare suits of sails and spars, lashed to nothing, there was a great litter of miscellaneous stores, – barrels of salt pork, junk, hard-tack, and flour, kegs, chests, crates, yeoman’s and purser’s stores, and a hundred and one things – too many to tell of.

Tom could not help wondering, as he looked at this mass of stores, what they should do if it should be needful to man the guns for a fight, or work the ship in a sudden squall. However, no craft of any sort was in sight, and there was no sign of foul weather.

One of the worst features of the whole matter was the slowness with which they got along with the business of clearing up all this hamper; the work seemed to gather on them instead of growing less.

About the middle of the afternoon, Jack came to where Tom stood overseeing the men at this work. He stood beside him for some time without saying a word, looking moodily at them. Presently he spoke all of a sudden: “What do you say to it all, Tom?”

“I have nothing to say, Jack,” said Tom.

“You may have nothing to say,” said Jack, “but I have. Mark my words, Tom, if we’re caught in any sort of heavy weather we’ll founder as sure as my name’s Jack Baldwin!” So saying, he turned on his heel and walked quickly away. Tom could easily see that Jack felt touched at him because he did not show more feeling in the matter. But though Tom did not show it, his thoughts were uncomfortable enough in all conscience.

That day (the twenty-second), was as good a day as one could have wished for, and so was the next, – and that was the last, for then the trouble began.

CHAPTER VI

SO the 23d was the last fair day that they had on that short cruise. During the forenoon the wind held from nearly the same quarter – that is, northerly and westerly.

The air was mild and pleasant; the day, like the day before, seemed more like June than the middle of April.

Toward noon, however, the wind shifted around to the southward and eastward, and the glass had a downward bearing. Tom saw, with a troubled feeling, that the weather began to take an ugly sort of a look. About nine o’clock Captain Knight gave orders to have the vessel’s course altered to nearly due south.

At noon the observation showed their position to be about 35° 40′ north, by 71° west, with Hatteras about 210 miles distant, W. by S. on the starboard beam.

A little before eight bells, Captain Knight came up on deck again, and Tom, feeling anxious himself, looked out of the corners of his eyes, to see if he could gather what the captain thought of the situation. It seemed to Tom that he was not quite easy in his mind. He cast his eyes aloft, and then looked around. He took a turn or two up and down the deck, and then looked at the glass, which, as had been said, was falling. Whatever he might have thought about the looks of things, he said nothing. Tom had half expected an order to shorten sail, but Captain Knight gave none such, and presently went to his cabin again.

Shortly after noon the wind was blowing from the northeast. It became a great deal colder, and by four o’clock the sky was overcast by a gathering haze, which, at last, shut out the sun altogether.

About this time they fell in with shifting banks of fog, blowing before the wind, the like of which Tom had never seen before. They seemed to drift in belts, and were no doubt raised by cold currents of air, for a chill could be felt the minute the ship would run into one of them. Every now and then the wind would sweep these banks away, rolling them up before it, and for a little while there would be a clear space around the ship for maybe a couple of miles or more.

At that time they were under all plain sail to top gallant sails, and were booming along at a rate that could not have been less than ten knots. Tom thought that the Nancy Hazlewood might even have done better than she was then doing, were it not that she labored in a most unusual way for a vessel, in a wind no heavier than that in which she was then sailing. There is no doubt that this came from the heaviness of her spars as well as the ill stowage of her provisions and stores; still she was doing well, and any one could see with half an eye that it would be an uncommonly swift cruiser to whom the Nancy Hazlewood would not be able to show a clean pair of heels, if the need should arise for her doing so.

It was a little before the middle of the first dog watch, when there happened one of the closest misses that Tom ever had of losing his life. I most firmly believe that if any one beside Jack Baldwin had been the officer of the deck, Tom Granger’s story would never have had to have been told.

Jack was walking up and down on the poop in a restless sort of a way. It was plain that he was anxious at the fog, as well he might be. At one time the ship would be surging away across what seemed to be a lake, with dull banks of snow all around, at another she would plunge headforemost into whirling clouds of mist, so thick that the leaden sea alongside could barely be seen; heaving as though it were something alive, and the fog was smothering it.

Jack came to the break of the poop and looked over to where Tom was standing, on the deck below. His black hair and beard were covered with the dampness, so that he looked as though he had turned gray.

“Tom,” said he, “I wish you’d slip foreward and see that those men are keeping a bright lookout ahead. Keep your weather eye lifted too, Tom, till we’re out of the worst of this infernally thick fog.”

So Tom went foreward, as Jack had asked him to do, and found that the two men who had been placed there since they had run into the fog were keeping as sharp a lookout as could be wished for.

Just as Tom climbed up on the forecastle, they surged out into a clear space, that was maybe two miles or two miles and a quarter from side to side.

They had run pretty nearly across this stretch, and I recollect that Tom was just lighting his pipe under the lee of the foremast. As he raised his head and looked over the port bow, he saw a sight that made the blood stand still in his veins.

It was a man-of-war in full sail, looming up like a mountain.

It came out of the fog so suddenly, that it seemed as though the mist had taken form from itself. It was bearing straight down across the port bow of the Nancy Hazlewood, plunging forward as solemnly as death. It could not have been more than six or seven ships’ lengths distant, and the great sails bellying out like big clouds, shadowed over the Nancy Hazlewood as she might have shadowed over a fishing smack.

Ten seconds more and she would have been down upon them, and would have crushed the little craft as though she had been made of paper. There was a moment of silence as great as though every man aboard of the Nancy Hazlewood had been turned to stone. I remember that Tom Granger stood with his newly-lighted pipe in his hand, never moving a hair.

The silence was only for an instant, though, for the next moment a voice roared like a trumpet:

“Hard a starboard! Let go, head sheets and lee head braces!”

It was Jack Baldwin’s voice, and never did Tom hear it ring as it did at that moment. It not only was heard through the ship, but it pealed through it like a clap of thunder. Those below came tumbling up helter-skelter, and the captain came running out of his cabin, for there was a ring in Jack’s voice that told every man aboard of the ship that great danger was down upon them. It seemed to break the stillness around just as a stone dropped into a well might break the stillness below. In an instant the braces were flung from the belaying-pins, and the ship came up toward the wind without a second to lose. Before those aboard of the frigate had gathered their wits she had passed alongside, and so close that a child could easily have pitched a biscuit aboard of the Nancy Hazlewood from the decks that loomed twenty feet above her.

The whole thing was over in a dozen seconds, but those dozen seconds are stamped on Tom Granger’s mind as clearly as though they were chiseled in marble. Even now, though he is over eighty years old, he can see that great frigate rising higher and higher as she surges forward, towering over the little ship, while a hundred faces pop up above the rail and stare down upon her decks. It was only a moment – a thread of time – on which hung the chance as to whether she would clear or not. There was a thunderous roar of the waters under the bow, flung back in an echo from the wooden walls of the frigate; there was a vision of open ports rushing by, and of scared faces crowded at them, in spite of discipline; then the frigate was astern and the danger gone past with her. But in that short moment of passing they saw enough to make them know that she was a British cruiser.

I say again that if Jack Baldwin had not had the deck at that time there would never have been any story to tell of Tom Granger, for if Jack had hesitated only so much as two seconds, as I am afraid that Tom would have done in his case, the Nancy Hazlewood would have been run down just as sure as that there is a sun in the heavens.

So the danger went by, and all was over in a quarter of the time that it takes to tell it. The head-yards were braced up, the head-sheets were gathered aft, the Nancy Hazlewood stood away on her course again, and the next moment plunged into the fog and was gone.

But, in the meantime, they had wakened up aboard of the frigate, and just as the Nancy Hazlewood ran into the bank they heard an order shouted aboard of the man-of-war, sounding faint because of the distance that the two vessels had now run:

“Weather head, and main; lee cro’ jack braces!”

That meant that the frigate was about to wear, follow down in their wake and do that which she had so nearly missed doing a minute before – finish up the Yankee.

Tom came aft, and, though he would have felt like knocking the man down that would have said so at the time, his hands were cold and trembling nervously. For the matter of that, Jack Baldwin’s face was whiter than it was used to be. “A close shave, sir,” said he to Captain Knight, who stood beside him; but there was a nervous tremor in his voice in spite of the boldness that he assumed. Indeed, the only perfectly cool man aboard was Captain Knight. He stood looking aft, as though he would pierce the fog and make out what the vessel astern of him was about.

Presently he turned to Jack. “Did you not understand from that order that he was about to ware ship, Mr. Baldwin?” said he.

“I think that I understood them to give such an order, sir,” said Jack.

Captain Knight drew out his snuff box and took a pinch of snuff. “I understood it so,” said he, shutting the lid of the box with a snap and sliding it into his pocket again. He stood for about a couple of minutes looking, now up at the sails and now straight ahead; presently he turned to Jack again.

“Bring her by the wind on the starboard tack, Mr. Baldwin,” said he. “We’ll slip out of this neighborhood on somewhat the same course that the Englishman held a few minutes ago, and leave him groping about here in this infernal blindness for us.”

It seemed to Tom that Captain Knight had done a wise thing in taking the course that he did to get away from the Englishman. If the fog should lift, and they should find that the frigate had the weather gauge, they might get into a nasty pickle, whereas this course would give them the weather gauge and every chance to get away.

After a while Captain Knight told Jack to set the fore-topmast stay sail, and then, after some hesitation, to set the royals. It was quite plain that he had made up his mind to crack on sail, so as to gain as much to the windward of the frigate as he could.

The Nancy Hazlewood was now sailing close-hauled, and was as pretty a sight as one could wish to see. The wind was blowing stiffly, as it had done for some time. It had not increased to any account, though the scud was beginning to fly across the sky, and there was every prospect of its blowing heavily before morning. So the Nancy Hazlewood went bowling along on this wind, her bows every now and then flinging a roaring sea from her in an ocean of foam. She was careened over so that the sea eddied around the lee scuppers, and her copper bottom showed red in the green waters. On she went, bouncing from sea to sea, as a ball bounces when it is rolled across the ground. The top-gallant masts were bent like a bow, and the weather backstays were as taut as the bow-string, those on the lee bowing out gracefully before the wind. The cloud of sails were bellied big and round, and were as hard as iron, and altogether, as was said, the Nancy Hazlewood was as pretty a sight as one could wish to see.

About two bells in the first watch Captain Knight gave orders that the ship should be put about, and running two points free on the starboard tack, stood off to the S.E.

This, as has been said, was one of the narrowest shaves that Tom Granger ever had for his life, and as long as he shall remember anything he will never forget that half-minute when the British frigate was coming down upon them under full sail, with death at the helm.

CHAPTER VII

THE next morning, when Tom came upon deck, he found that the wind had increased to half a gale. It was a dreary sight. The sky was heavy and leaden, and the sea was like liquid lead, for, when the sky is dull, like it was that morning, it seems as though one could almost walk over the surface of the ocean, so hard does it look, and so lacking of depth, excepting where the crest of the wave sharpens just before it breaks.

The Nancy Hazlewood showed that she was a very wet ship, for her decks were covered with water, that ran swashing from side to side. She would roll well over on her side, like a log, and scoop in the top of a wave, that would rush backward and forward across the deck until it had run out of the scupper holes; but before it was fairly gone another sea would come, so that the decks were never free of water. Not only was the ship laboring strangely, but she was yawing so that two men at the wheel could hardly keep her to her course.

Jack was standing on the poop, anxious and troubled. Tom stood beside him, but neither of them spoke for a while, both being sunk in deep thought.

“Tom,” said Jack, at last, in a low voice, “I’ve sailed in a many ships in my time, but I never saw one behave like this. She bothers me; I don’t know what to make of her.” He paused for a moment, and then he clapped his hand to his thigh. “D – n it,” said he, “she ain’t either equipped or stowed in a fit way. She ought never to have put out from Lewestown Harbor in her condition, and, without I’m much mistaken, we’ll find that out long before we reach Key West.”

Then he turned over the orders and went below to get his breakfast, leaving Tom in charge of the deck.

The day passed without especial event, and that night at the mid-watch Tom turned in to get a little sleep. It seemed to him that he had hardly closed his eyes when he was aroused by the sound of the boatswain’s voice ringing, as it were, in his very ears:

“All hands reef topsails!”

Tom tumbled out of his bunk and stood on the cabin floor. There was a noise of pounding and grinding alongside, and the decks were careened, so that the first thought that occurred to him was that the ship was foundering. He ran up on deck without stopping a moment, for there was a vibration in the boatswain’s voice that told him that something serious had befallen.

The gale had increased with a sudden and heavy squall, and the maintop-gallant-mast had gone by the board. It was hanging alongside, a tangled wreck, and it was the thumping and grinding of this that Tom had heard when he had first opened his eyes. A dozen men were at work cutting away the wreck, and Tom jumped to help them. At last it drifted away astern, a tangled mass on the surface of grey foam.

All around them were seas, ten or fifteen feet high, shining with phosphorescent crests, moving solemnly forward with their black weight of thousands of tons of solid water. Amongst these the little ship labored like a living thing in pain. The men ran up aloft, and Jack, trumpet to mouth, bellowed orders that rang above all the thunder of the gale. Presently the sails were clapping and thundering in the darkness above, as the men wrestled with them. Now and then voices were to be heard through all the roaring of the waters and the howling of the wind: “Haul out to windward!” and “Light out to leeward!” – an uproar of noises that one never hears excepting on shipboard, and at such a time.

Day broke with the storm blowing as furiously as ever. Tom was officer of the deck, when, about ten o’clock, Maul, the carpenter, came aft to where he was standing. He was a fine-looking fellow, broad-shouldered and deep-chested. He chucked his thumb up to his forehead, and, shifting the quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other, told Tom that which sent a thrill shivering through him:

“Ten inches of water in the well, sir.”

The pumps sucked at five inches, so the Nancy Hazlewood had made five inches of water in the last hour.

“I was afraid it would come,” said Tom to himself, and then he went and reported it to the captain, for, though the leak was not of much account as regarded size, it was as dangerous as it was sudden.

“Man the pumps, sir,” was all that the captain said.

Before very long the pumps sucked, and the men gave a cheer. So far all was well enough. But an hour afterward the carpenter came aft and reported that there was a little less than thirteen inches of water in the well. Captain Knight, and Tom, and Jack were standing near together on the poop at the time.

“Man the pumps,” was all that the captain said, and then he moved away.

“Jack,” said Tom, in a low voice, “this looks ugly.”

“You’re right; it does,” said Jack.

There was a cold, dull rain blowing slantwise across the ocean at that time, which shut in everything to within a mile or two of the ship. The gale had moderated but little, but now, through all the roaring, you could hear the regular thump, thump of the pumps, where two lines of men were working at the brakes. Every now and then the sound of the pumping would stop with the sucking of water, but presently it would begin again – thump! thump! thump! thump! When evening came the sound was unceasing, for at that time they were not pumping the water out of the ship as fast as she was making it.

The last thing that Tom heard that night was the continuous thumping, and it was the first thing that met his ears when he opened his eyes again. He went up on deck, and when he looked around him his heart fell within him. Half of the maintop-sail was blown away, the shreds standing straight out with the force of the wind. There was a great deal of water on the deck – perhaps never less than three feet on the lee side.

She was not taking much water over the weather rail, but she would take it to leeward, and then roll to windward, and the sea would go rushing across the deck, carrying everything before it.

That afternoon he stood on the poop deck looking over the side of the vessel. She was rolling with a dull, heavy motion from side to side; it was just such a motion as a log in a mill pond will take if you give it a push with your foot. He looked first astern, and then forward, and he saw that the stern was deeper in the water than the bows. Just then he felt a hand on his shoulder; he looked up and saw that it was Jack Baldwin.

“Tom,” said he, in a low voice.

“What is it, Jack?”

“I’ve been looking too; do you know that the ship’s foundering?”

Tom nodded his head, for he did not feel like speaking.

“Tom,” said Jack, after a moment of silence; “what do you suppose is the reason that Captain Knight don’t give orders to have the boats cleared away, ready for lowering.”

“Perhaps he don’t think it’s time; the ship’ll last a good while longer yet, Jack.”

“Do you think that’s his reason, Tom?” said Jack.

Tom did not answer.

“I see you don’t. Look here, Tom; do you want to know what I’m beginning to think? It’s this, —that he don’t intend to let a man leave this ship, if he can’t bring her to Key West!”

“For God’s sake, don’t breathe a word of that in the men’s hearing, Jack. You can’t believe what you say.”

“What did Captain Sedgwick do last November?”

Tom did not answer; he knew that story only too well. Captain Sedgwick, of the privateersman Mirabel, had fallen in with a British cruiser off Barnegat; had been crippled by her, and had blown up his ship and all hands on board, so that she might not fall into the Englishman’s hands. Three men out of one hundred and eighteen had come off with their lives.

“For heaven’s sake, Jack, don’t breathe a word of this to the crew!” said Tom again, and then he turned away.

As the day wore along, things looked more and more gloomy.

About three o’clock in the afternoon a sound fell on their ears, that thrilled through every man on board. It was the voice of the lookout, roaring, – “Sail ho!”

“Where away?” sang out Jack.

“Two points on the port bow,” came the answer.

Most of the crew ran to the side of the vessel, as did the men at the brakes. Tom did not order them back, for he saw that there would be no use in doing so.

As the day had worn along, the discipline of the ship had begun to go pretty much to pieces, and there had been great difficulty in keeping the men at the brakes. I think that they, like Jack and Tom, had gotten a notion that the ship was doomed, for, though they worked when they were ordered, it was in a dull, stolid way, as though they had no interest in it one way or another. Tom had tried to do all that lay in him to keep them going, and I think that it was only through his urging that they were kept at it at all.

So now they all left the pumps and ran to the side of the vessel to get a look at the sail.

At first it was seen like a flickering speck in the dull, grey distance, but it presently rose higher and higher as the Nancy Hazlewood held on her course. Jack Baldwin was on the poop when the vessel was first sighted; he did not lose a moment, but went straightway and reported it to the captain, who presently came upon deck from his cabin. He had wound a red scarf about his waist, and had thrust a brace of large pistols in it. There was an odd look about him, that at first led Tom to think that he had been drinking, but he soon found that he was wrong. Whatever it was that had led him to rig himself up in this style, it was not drink.

He stood silently with the glass at his eye, looking at the distant sail that the Nancy Hazlewood was slowly raising above the horizon. He did not seem to notice that the men had left the pumps; at least he made no remark upon it. Minute after minute passed, until at last the hull of the vessel hove in sight and showed her to be a large barque – apparently, from the cut of her sails, an English merchantman. She came within about three miles of them, but Captain Knight neither gave orders to have the course of the Hazlewood altered, or signals of distress run up. Every moment Tom expected to hear such an order, but none passed the captain’s lips. Presently, he shut the tube of the glass sharply, and then he spoke.

“She’s too large for us to tackle in our present condition,” said he.

“Tackle!” burst out Jack. “My G – d! You didn’t think of fighting that vessel, did you?”

Captain Knight turned sharply upon him, as though he were about to say something; but he seemed to think better of it, for he swung on his heel, as though to enter his cabin again.

Then Jack Baldwin strode directly up to him. “Captain Knight,” said he, and he did not so much as touch his hat, “a’n’t you going to signal that vessel?”

His voice rang like a bell, and every man aboard of the sinking ship heard it, and listened eagerly for the captain’s answer. Captain Knight stood where he was, and looked Jack from top to toe, and back again.

“No, sir,” said he, coldly, “I am not going to signal that vessel.”

“Do you mean to say that you’re going to drown every man aboard this ship, as you might a cage full of rats, just because you’re too proud to signal an Englishman.”

Captain Knight made no answer; he only looked at Jack and smiled, and Tom Granger thought that it was as wicked a smile as he had ever seen in all of his life.

“Now, by the eternal,” roared Jack, “I’ll run the signals up myself!”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Captain Knight. He spoke very quietly, but his face was as white as the other’s was red.

“Won’t I? That you’ll see,” said Jack, passionately, and he made a movement to turn.

“Wait a moment, sir,” said the captain, in his quiet voice. But the words were hardly out of his mouth, when, as quick as a flash, a pistol was leveled at Jack’s head, with a pair of wicked grey eyes behind it.

There was a dead pause for about as long as you could count ten; the captain’s finger lay on the trigger, and every instant Tom expected to see the flash that was to come. He held his breath, for there was death in the captain’s eyes, but he did not draw the trigger.

It was Tom that broke the silence. “For God’s sake, don’t shoot, captain,” cried he, from where he stood. The captain did not seem to hear him.

“You mutinous scoundrel,” said he at last, “down on your knees and ask pardon!”

Jack did not move.

“You hear me? Down on your knees and ask pardon, or you’re a dead man!”

He spoke as quietly as ever, but there was a deadly ring in his voice for all that.

“I’ll give you till I count three,” said he, at last, and then he began to count, “one, – two – ”

Jack looked around, with despair in his eyes. The captain smiled. “Stand where you are,” said he, and then his teeth and tongue began to form the “th – ”

Jack Baldwin was no coward; but would you yourself have stood still and be shot down like a dog? It would have been a brave man indeed – a foolishly brave man – that would have done such a thing. I will not tell the rest. It is enough to say that Jack did do that which the captain ordered him, and that before the whole ship’s company.

“You are wise,” said Captain Knight, dryly, and then he thrust the pistol back again into his belt, and, turning on his heel, went into his cabin.

Jack got up slowly from his knees. His face was haggard and drawn. He looked at no one, but went to the side of the ship and stood gazing into the water. Tom saw him a half an hour afterward, standing just in the same way, and in the same place.