Chapter VIII

Florimond’s only hope was that the storm would be slight, for sometimes, threatening as they seem, these squalls have little force, and are soon over. He awaited impatiently the three waves which preceded it, in order to judge of the strength of those in their wake.

These three waves are often followed by a lull. There is generally a space of five minutes between the first alarm and the arrival of the wind; five minutes, which a good sailor utilizes in getting his ship ready to meet it.

What should he do? Should he keep the wind astern and run before it with all speed in the direction of his harbor? It was a hundred chances to one that he would strike on the Vergoyer.

Was there any other means of safety that he could try? Should he close reef her? Was not that still more risky?

When a boat is close reefed, she renders the tempest harmless by offering it no resistance. The sea has a malicious pleasure in hurling masses of water against an object which opposes it. So the boat uses a kind of strategy. She appears to be at the mercy of the waves, but all the while keeps a sharp watch against the rude play of her adversary. All sail is struck, so as to give the wind no hold except on the hull, and as the boat drifts, she forms with her hull a large wake, flat and solid, which resists the violence of the waves, stops them, and knocks them down, so that they die out on it.

The _Bon-Pêcheur_ was an old hand at this kind of work, and expert at it. It is usually so with good sailors; so that had she not been injured, Florimond would not have dreaded the squall in the least. He would have let his boat drift, and would have brought up at Treport or perhaps at Dieppe; but she was injured in precisely the parts which would be most under strain.

Only two sails are used; in the bow the stay-sail, and in the stern a little leg-of-mutton, which takes the place of the jigger-sail. In this way the two ends of the boat, which alone carry sail, feel the force of the wind. Consequently they must be very strong. Would the _Bon-Pêcheur_, wounded as she was, have strength to resist such a strain?

It seemed then to Florimond that to drift would end almost certainly in the boat’s breaking up. He was still hesitating when the three waves arrived, foaming and roaring, and swept the deck from end to end.

In order to withstand the shock, which he foresaw was to be tremendous, he had braced himself, with legs far apart; but the first sea lifted him off his feet, picked him up, shook him, knocked him senseless, and rolled him over and over, leaving him unconscious on the deck. The second wave would have carried him overboard, had not two sailors seized him just in time, and dropped him into a place of safety, through the open hatch by the capstan.

* * * * *

The three waves swept by in a fury of foam, showing that the wind was to be tremendous. They must act or die.

Who should take the helm?

“Lison--Lison!”

As with one voice the sailors called for the girl, showing involuntarily how they depended on her for their lives. It was a perilous honor which they forced upon her.

Injured in her dead works already, and full of water, the sloop quivered under the blows of the waves, while at this very moment she was close to the dangers of the shoals, with their shifting currents of eddying sand.

Elise did not hesitate. In her instinctive terror of the Vergoyer, she had but one thought--that was to fly from it, to shun, cost what it might, the place to which the wind was furiously hurrying them. Had it not already had enough victims, this gulf of the dead, that one should offer one’s self as a fresh sacrifice, with the certainty of not escaping?

Elise, by close reefing the boat, hoped to reach the pier at Treport. There was on the coast to the south-west a bad channel to pass through, down toward the black buoy, but they would do their best when they came to it. Between two dangerous courses ought not one to choose the less?

Without hesitation, without even surprise at their choosing her, she ran to the helm and quickly made herself fast to the end of a rope, so as not to be swept over by the enormous seas that were to come. She gave out her orders:

“Furl the jib and the main-sail! Rig the leg-of-mutton!”

She ordered ropes stretched at once from the mast to the gunwale, for the men to hold to. She assigned them their posts. Four sailors to the pumps, two to the lookout on the bow. Everything was ready when the first blast came, with furious waves heaped up on one another, as if to drown them under the deluge of foam and spray. The deck was under water from one end to the other. Quantities of it ran into the open hatchways. How had it happened that they could have forgotten to shut these mouths of the ship? Through them she was drinking enough water to sink her.

“Close the hatches! Nail them fast!” The covers were clapped on, and, in order that they should not yield to a sudden strain and open of themselves, were made secure by heavy blows of hammer and nails.

It was time. Great sweeping seas came aboard. Furious at finding the hatches closed, they crashed against the bulwarks, and ran off slowly through the scuppers.

All was ready. Heaven help them! Elise stood erect, conscious of her responsibility. Near her a sailor called out when the heaviest seas were going to break. She turned her back to them, bracing herself firmly, disappearing in the whirls of foam, but always reappearing on her feet, energetic and unconquerable.

Soon the blasts of the tempest were in mad chase, as if striving to see which could lash the hardest and most furiously.

With quivering plunges, with creakings and strainings, the _Bon-Pêcheur_ fell away across the shoals. Sometimes the waves were swifter than she, and swept by her; then, striking her on the stern, they drove her violently forward. Her bow groaned dolorously, the pumps clanked unceasingly, while the lookout shouted:

“To larboard a bell buoy!”

It was the buoy anchored on the shoals of Somme.

“To starboard a black buoy!”

The _Bon-Pêcheur_ entered the channel. This was a perilous spot, but Elise did not fear it any more than the shoal the bell buoy marked. Through these waters, so treacherous on account of their shifting sands, she had sailed with her father often enough to know all the dangers, and to shun them with the confidence of an old pilot.

Immovable and firm, she managed the helm rather with her nerves than with her muscles. Heavy as it seemed for her, she held it against the seas, and by a continual go and come of the tiller forced the boat’s head in such a way as to spare the bow, making the stern bear the brunt of the shocks. Now stumblingly, now with a rush forward, the _Bon-Pêcheur_ went on her crooked course, and buoys and beacons went by her as fast as if they were themselves running in an opposite direction.

Chap. 8.]

Hurrah! They see at last the light-house of Treport, which yonder to leeward stands out clear above the sombre cliffs, white as the emblem of hope. Courage! the wave is heavy, but the danger of the shoals is over. Before a half hour the _Bon-Pêcheur_ will be at the pier.

Alas, the wind stiffens! The heavens are black, the sea is black, the foam alone is white. The waves strike her more furiously. One of them, angry and irresistible, has nearly engulfed her in its whirling mass. She is entirely lost to sight. For twenty seconds there is no sign of her. Then she shakes herself free, but with a fresh rent in her bow. A little more, and she would have gone down forever. Heaven help them!

“Turn out a reef of the main-sail, two reefs of the jib!”

What are you thinking of, Elise! more sail to a wind so furious that it already nearly tears away the little that the boat is carrying. The _Bon-Pêcheur_ flies like a bird of the tempest. In less than a quarter of an hour she is just under the light-house. Courage! Alas! The cut-water opens, and the bow settles, until the deck is on a level with the sea. Are they to go down so near port? Heaven help them!

“Hoist the jib and the stay-sail!”

More sail still? It seems madness. The jib is hardly hoisted before it is torn away, dragging with it the makeshift bowsprit.

Its rags and the timber thrash about, threatening to destroy everything. Death and misery! The _Bon-Pêcheur_ digs her nose under water.

“Hoist the main-sail!”

It is a fearful task. Heaven help them! But while the boat floats there is hope. The sailors watch for a lull in the wind, and suddenly the sail hangs out in the teeth of the gale. The bow is full of water, but lifted by the pressure of the wind against the sail it rises again.

Courage! The light-house is close at hand. How the boat rolls and pitches! But now the _Bon-Pêcheur_ is not making headway. She lies low in the water, plunging heavily. She is like a wounded sea-gull beating with its wings in its last agonizing flight.

The mast cracks as if it would break. The sail is bellied out by the wind, but her hull is such a dead weight that she hardly moves.

“Hoist the top-sails! Heaven help us!”

Courage! The boat is under way again! The light-house is not more than twenty fathoms distant, but at the harbor mouth there is a frightful chopping sea.

Courage! Misery! The mast goes by the board.

“Cut her free!” The hatchets work busily. The mast and the sail drop into the sea. The boat rises lightly. She still floats.

Tossed from crest to crest, helpless now, she pitches and rolls fearfully. On the pier there is a frightful clamor. Hoo-o-o! Hoo-oo-oo!

The _Bon-Pêcheur_ whirls about aimlessly.

A wave strikes her on the side and drives her into the harbor. Courage! Misery! She will come to grief against the pier! No! With an effort which drives all the blood to her heart, Elise gives a mighty shift to the helm. The _Bon-Pêcheur_ lies over, her keel almost in air. Hoo-oo-oo! She has gone down in the yawning gulf. No! She rolls back. Is it for the last time? No! The helm brings her up. Ropes are thrown and seized. Two hundred hands make her fast.

“Furl all sail!” The only sail left, the little leg-of-mutton in the stern, is taken in.

And they are in port! Hurrah! Elise, your sloop and your men are safe!