Chapter IV: Part 4

No answer could, however, be given before the yielding forms of both fell to the deck, where they lay helpless, amid the din of the battle and the wild confusion of the eager combatants.

Notwithstanding the furious struggle they had witnessed, the elements did not cease their functions; and, urged by the breeze, and lifted irresistibly on a wave, the American ship was forced through the water still farther across the bows of her enemy. The idle fastenings of hemp and iron were snapped asunder like strings of tow, and Griffith saw his own ship borne away from the Englishman at the instant that the bowsprit of the latter was torn from its lashings and tumbled into the sea, followed by spar after spar, until nothing of all her proud tackling was remaining, but the few parted and useless ropes that were left dangling along the stumps of her lower masts. As his own stately vessel moved from the confusion she had caused, and left the dense cloud of smoke in which her helpless antagonist lay, the eye of the young man glanced anxiously towards the horizon, where he now remembered he had more foes to contend against.

“We have shaken off the thirty-two most happily!” he said to the Pilot, who followed his motions with singular interest; “but here is another fellow sheering in for us, who shows as many ports as ourselves, and who appears inclined for a closer interview; besides, the hull of the ninety is rising again, and I fear she will be down but too soon!”

“We must keep the use of our braces and sails,” returned the Pilot, “and on no account close with the other frigate; we must play a double game, sir, and fight this new adversary with our heels as well as with our guns.”

“’Tis time then that we were busy, for he is shortening sail; and as he nears so fast, we may expect to hear from him every minute; what do you propose, sir?”

“Let him gather in his canvas,” returned the Pilot; “and when he thinks himself snug, we can throw out a hundred men at once upon our yards, and spread everything alow and aloft; we may then draw ahead of him by surprise; if we can once get him in our wake, I have no fears of dropping them all.”

“A stern chase is a long chase,” cried Griffith, “and the thing may do! Clear up the decks, here, and carry down the wounded; and, as we have our hands full, the poor fellows who have done with us must go overboard at once.”

This melancholy duty was instantly attended to, while the young seaman who commanded the frigate returned to his duty, with the absorbed air of one who felt its high responsibility. These occupations, however, did not prevent his hearing the sounds of Barnstable’s voice calling eagerly to young Merry. Bending his head towards the sound, Griffith beheld his friend, looking anxiously up the main hatch, with a face grimed with smoke, his coat off, and his shirt bespattered with human blood. “Tell me, boy,” he said, “is Mr. Griffith untouched? They say that a shot came in upon the quarter-deck that tripped up the heels of half a dozen.”

Before Merry could answer, the eyes of Barnstable which even while he spoke were scanning the state of the vessel’s rigging, encountered the kind looks of Griffith, and from that moment perfect harmony was restored between the friends.

“Ah! you are there, Griff, and with a whole skin, I see,” cried Barnstable, smiling with pleasure; “they have passed poor Boltrope down into one of his own store-rooms! If that fellow’s bowsprit had held on ten minutes longer, what a mark I should have made on his face and eyes!”

“’Tis perhaps best as it is,” returned Griffith; “but what have you done with those whom we are most bound to protect?”

Barnstable made a significant gesture towards the depths of the vessel, as he answered,—

“On the cables; safe as wood, iron, and water can keep them—though Katherine has had her head up three times to—”

A summons from the Pilot drew Griffith away; and the young officers were compelled to forget their individual feelings, in the pressing duties of their stations.

The ship which the American frigate had now to oppose was a vessel of near her own size and equipage; and when Griffith looked at her again, he perceived that she had made her preparations to assert her equality in manful fight.

Her sails had been gradually reduced to the usual quantity, and, by certain movements on her decks, the lieutenant and his constant attendant, the Pilot, well understood that she only wanted to lessen her distance a few hundred yards to begin the action.

“Now spread everything,” whispered the stranger.

Griffith applied the trumpet to his mouth, and shouted in a voice that was carried even to the enemy, “Let fall—out with your booms—sheet home—hoist away of everything!”

The inspiring cry was answered by a universal bustle; fifty men flew out on the dizzy heights of the different spars, while broad sheets of canvas rose as suddenly along the masts, as if some mighty bird were spreading its wings. The Englishman instantly perceived his mistake, and he answered the artifice by a roar of artillery. Griffith watched the effects of the broadside with an absorbing interest, as the shot whistled above his head; but when he perceived his masts untouched, and the few unimportant ropes only that were cut, he replied to the uproar with a burst of pleasure. A few men were, however, seen clinging with wild frenzy to the cordage, dropping from rope to rope like wounded birds fluttering through a tree, until they fell heavily into the ocean, the sullen ship sweeping by them in cold indifference. At the next instant the spars and masts of their enemy exhibited a display of men similar to their own, when Griffith again placed the trumpet to his mouth, and shouted aloud—

“Give it to them; drive them from their yards, boys, scatter them with your grape—unreeve their rigging!”

The crew of the American wanted but little encouragement to enter on this experiment with hearty good-will, and the close of his cheering words were uttered amid the deafening roar of his own cannon. The Pilot had, however, mistaken the skill and readiness of their foe; for, notwithstanding the disadvantageous circumstances under which the Englishman increased his sail, the duty was steadily and dexterously performed.

The two ships were now running rapidly on parallel lines, hurling at each other their instruments of destruction with furious industry, and with severe and certain loss to both, though with no manifest advantage in favor of either. Both Griffith and the Pilot witnessed with deep concern this unexpected defeat of their hopes; for they could not conceal from themselves, that each moment lessened their velocity through the water, as the shot of their enemy stripped the canvas from the yards, or dashed aside the lighter spars in their terrible progress.

“We find our equal here!” said Griffith to the stranger. “The ninety is heaving up again like a mountain; and if we continue to shorten sail at this rate, she will soon be down upon us!”

“You say true, sir,” returned the Pilot, musing; “the man shows judgment as well as spirit: but—”

He was interrupted by Merry, who rushed from the forward part of the vessel, his whole face betokening the eagerness of his spirit, and the importance of his intelligence.

“The breakers!” he cried, when nigh enough to be heard amid the din: “we are running dead on a ripple, and the sea is white not two hundred yards ahead.”

The Pilot jumped on a gun, and bending to catch a glimpse through the smoke, he shouted, in those clear, piercing tones, that could be even heard among the roaring of the cannon, “Port, port your helm! we are on the Devil’s Grip! pass up the trumpet, sir; port your helm, fellow; give it them, boys—give it to the proud English dogs!”

Griffith unhesitatingly relinquished the symbol of his rank, fastening his own firm look on the calm but quick eye of the Pilot, and gathering assurance from the high confidence he read in the countenance of the stranger. The seamen were too busy with their cannon and their rigging to regard the new danger; and the frigate entered one of the dangerous passes of the shoals, in the heat of a severely contested battle. The wondering looks of a few of the older sailors glanced at the sheets of foam that flew by them, in doubt whether the wild gambols of the waves were occasioned by the shot of the enemy, when suddenly the noise of cannon was succeeded by the sullen wash of the disturbed element, and presently the vessel glided out of her smoky shroud, and was boldly steering in the centre of the narrow passages. For ten breathless minutes longer the Pilot continued to hold an uninterrupted sway, during which the vessel ran swiftly by ripples and breakers, by streaks of foam and darker passages of deep water, when he threw down his trumpet and exclaimed—

“What threatened to be our destruction has proved our salvation! Keep yonder hill crowned with wood, one point open from the church tower at its base, and steer east by north; you will run through these shoals on that course in an hour, and by so doing you will gain five leagues of your enemy, who will have to double their tail.”

The moment he stepped from the gun, the Pilot lost the air of authority that had so singularly distinguished his animated form, and even the close interest he had manifested in the incidents of the day became lost in the cold, settled reserve he had affected during his intercourse with his present associates. Every officer in the ship, after the breathless suspense of uncertainty had passed, rushed to those places where a view might be taken of their enemies. The ninety was still steering boldly onward, and had already approached the two-and-thirty, which lay a helpless wreck, rolling on the unruly seas that were rudely tossing her on their wanton billows. The frigate last engaged was running along the edge of the ripple, with her torn sails flying loosely in the air, her ragged spars tottering in the breeze, and everything above her hull exhibiting the confusion of a sudden and unlooked-for check to her progress. The exulting taunts and mirthful congratulations of the seamen, as they gazed at the English ships, were, however, soon forgotten in the attention that was required to their own vessel. The drums beat the retreat, the guns were lashed, the wounded again removed, and every individual able to keep the deck was required to lend his assistance in repairing the damages of the frigate and securing her masts.

The promised hour carried the ship safely through all the dangers, which were much lessened by daylight; and by the time the sun had begun to fall over the land, Griffith, who had not quitted the deck during the day, beheld his vessel once more cleared of the confusion of the chase and battle, and ready to meet another foe. At this period he was summoned to the cabin, at the request of the ship’s chaplain. Delivering the charge of the frigate to Barnstable, who had been his active assistant, no less in their subsequent labors than in the combat, he hastily divested himself of the vestiges of the fight, and proceeded to obey the repeated and earnest call.

AMONG THE ICE FLOES

(From the Sea Lions.)

By J. FENIMORE COOPER.

“Keep her a good full, Mr. Hazard,” said Roswell, as he was leaving the deck to take the first sleep in which he had indulged for four-and-twenty hours, “and let her go through the water. We are behind our time, and must keep in motion. Give me a call if anything like ice appears in a serious way.”

Hazard “ay-ay’d” this order, as usual, buttoned his pea-jacket tighter than ever, and saw his young superior—the transcendental delicacy of the day is causing the difference in rank to be termed “senior and junior”—but Hazard saw his superior go below with a feeling allied to envy, so heavy were his eyelids with the want of rest. Stimson was in the first mate’s watch, and the latter approached that old sea-dog with a wish to keep himself awake by conversing.

“You seem as wide awake, King Stephen,” the mate remarked, “as if you never felt drowsy.”

“This is not a part of the world for hammocks and berths, Mr. Hazard,” was the reply. “I can get along, and must get along, with a quarter part of the sleep in these seas as would serve me in a low latitude.”

“And I feel as if I wanted all I can get. Them fellows look up well into our wake, Stephen.”

“They do indeed, sir, and they ought to do it; for we have been longer than is for our good in their’n.”

“Well, now we have got a fresh start, I hope we may make a clear run of it. I saw no ice worth speaking of, to the nor’ard here, before we made sail.”

“Because you see’d none, Mr. Hazard, is no proof there is none. Floe-ice can’t be seen at any great distance, though its blink may. But, it seems to me, it’s all blink in these here seas!”

“There you’re quite right, Stephen, for turn which way you will the horizon has a show of that sort”—

“Starboard!” called out the lookout forward. “Keep her away—keep her away—there is ice ahead!”

“Ice in here!” exclaimed Hazard springing forward; “that is more than we bargained for. Where away is your ice, Smith?”

“Off here, sir, on our weather bow, and a mortal big field of it; jist sich a chap as nipp’d the Vineyard Lion when she first came in to join us. Sich a fellow as that would take the sap out of our bends, as a squeezer takes the juice from a lemon.”

Smith was a carpenter by trade, which was probably the reason why he introduced this figure. Hazard saw the ice with regret, for he had hoped to work the schooner fairly out to sea in his watch; but the field was getting down through the passage in a way that threatened to cut off the exit of the two schooners from the bay. Daggett kept close in his wake, a proof that this experienced navigator in such waters saw no means to turn farther to windward. As the wind was now abeam, both vessels drove rapidly ahead; and in half an hour the northern point of the land they had so lately left came into view close aboard of them. Just then the moon rose, and objects became more clearly visible.

Hazard hailed the Vineyard Lion, and demanded what was to be done. It was possible by hauling close on a wind to pass the cape a short distance to windward of it; and seemingly thus clear the floe. Unless this were done, both vessels would be compelled to wear, and run for the southern passage, which would carry them many miles to leeward, and might place them a long distance on the wrong side of the group.

“Is Captain Gar’ner on deck?” asked Daggett, who had now drawn close up on the lee quarter of his consort, Hazard having brailed his foresail and laid his topsail sharp aback to enable him to do so, “if he isn’t, I’d advise you to give him a call at once.”

This was done immediately; and while it was doing, the Vineyard Lion swept past the Oyster Pond schooner. Roswell announced his presence on deck just as the other vessel cleared his bows.

“There’s no time to consult, Gar’ner,” answered Daggett. “There’s our road before us. Go through it we must, or stay where we are until that field-ice gives us a jam down yonder in the crescent. I will lead, and you can follow as soon as your eyes are open.”

One glance let Roswell into the secret of his situation. He liked it little, but he did not hesitate.

“Fill the topsail, and haul aft the foresheet,” were the quiet orders that proclaimed what he intended to do.

Both vessels stood on. By some secret process, every man on board the two crafts became aware of what was going on, and appeared on deck. All hands were not called, nor was there any particular noise to attract attention, but the word had been whispered below that there was a great risk to run. A risk it was, of a verity! It was necessary to stand close along that iron-bound coast where the seals had so lately resorted, for a distance of several miles. The wind would not admit of the schooners steering much more than a cable’s length from the rock for quite a league; after which the shore tended to the southward, and a little sea-room would be gained. But on those rocks the waves were then beating heavily, and their bellowings as they rolled into the cavities were at almost all times terrific. There was some relief, however, in the knowledge obtained of the shore, by having frequently passed up and down it in the boats. It was known that the water was deep close to the visible rocks, and that there was no danger as long as a vessel could keep off them.

No one spoke. Every eye was strained to discern objects ahead, or was looking astern to trace the expected collision between the floe-ice and the low promontory of the cape. The ear soon gave notice that this meeting had already taken place; for the frightful sound that attended the cracking and rending of the field might have been heard fully a league. Now it was that each schooner did her best: yards were braced up, sheets flattened, and the helm tended. The close proximity of the rocks on the one side, and the secret presentiment of there being more field-ice on the other, kept every one wide awake. The two masters, in particular, were all eyes and ears. It was getting to be very cold; and the sort of shelter aloft that goes by the queer name of “crow’s-nest” had been fitted up in each vessel. A mate was now sent into each, to ascertain what might be discovered to windward. Almost at the same instant, these young seamen hailed their respective decks, and gave notice that a wide field was coming in upon them, and must eventually crush them, unless avoided. This startling intelligence reached the two commanders in the very same moment. The emergency demanded decision, and each man acted for himself. Roswell ordered his helm put down, and his schooner tacked. The water was not rough enough to prevent the success of the manœuvre. On the other hand, Daggett kept a rap full and stood on. Roswell manifested the more judgment and seamanship. He was now far enough away from the cape to beat to windward; and, by going nearer to the enemy, he might always run along its southern boundary, profit by any opening, and would be by as much as he could thus gain, to windward of the coast. Daggett had one advantage: by standing on, in the event of a return becoming necessary, he could gain in time. In ten minutes the two schooners were a mile asunder. We shall first follow that of Roswell Gardiner’s in his attempt to escape.

The first floe, which was ripping and tearing one of its angles into fragments, as it came grinding down on the cape, soon compelled the vessel to tack. Making short reaches, Roswell ere long found himself fully a mile to windward of the rocks, and sufficiently near to the new floe to discern its shape, drift, and general character. Its eastern end had lodged upon the field that first came in, and was adding to the first momentum with which that enormous floe was pressing down upon the cape. Large as was that first visitor to the bay, this was of at least twice if not of thrice its dimensions. What gave Roswell the most concern was the great distance that this field extended to the westward. He went up into the crow’s-nest himself, and, aided by the light of a most brilliant moon, and a sky without a cloud, he could perceive the blink of ice in that direction, as he fancied, for fully two leagues. What was unusual, perhaps, at that early season of the year, these floes did not consist of a vast collection of numberless cakes of ice, but the whole field, so far as could then be ascertained, was firm and united. The nights were now so cold that ice made fast wherever there was water; and it occurred to our young master that, possibly, fragments that had once been separated and broken by the waves, might have become reunited by the agency of the frost. Roswell descended from the crow’s-nest half chilled by the cutting wind, though it blew from a warm quarter. Summoning his mates, he asked their advice.

“It seems to me, Captain Gar’ner,” Hazard replied, “there’s very little choice. Here we are, so far as I can make it out, embayed, and we have only to box about until daylight comes, when some chance may turn up to help us. If so, we must turn it to account; if not, we must make up our minds to winter here.”

This was coolly and calmly said; though it was clear enough that Hazard was quite in earnest.

“You forget there may be an open passage to the westward, Mr. Hazard,” Roswell rejoined, “and that we may yet pass out to sea by it. Captain Daggett is already out of sight in the western board, and we may do well to stand on after him.”

“Ay, ay, sir—I know all that, Captain Gar’ner, and it may be as you say, but when I was aloft, half an hour since, if there wasn’t the blink of ice in that direction, quite round to the back of the island, there wasn’t the blink of ice nowhere hereabouts. I’m used to the sight of it, and can’t well be mistaken.”

“There is always ice on that side of the land, Hazard, and you may have seen the blink of the bergs which have hugged the cliffs in that quarter all summer. Still, that is not proving we shall find no outlet. This craft can go through a very small passage, and we must take care and find one in proper time. Wintering here is out of the question. A hundred reasons tell us not to think of such a thing, besides the interests of our owners. We are walking along this floe pretty fast, though I think the vessel is too much by the head; don’t it strike you so, Hazard?”

“Lord, sir, it’s nothing but the ice that has made, and is making for’ard! Before we got so near the field as to find a better lee, the little lipper that came athwart our bows froze almost as soon as it wet us. I do suppose, sir, there are now several tons of ice on our bows, counting from channel to channel, forward.”

On examination this proved to be true, and the knowledge of the circumstance did not at all contribute to Gardiner’s feeling of security. He saw there was no time to be lost, and he crowded sail with a view of forcing the vessel past the dangers if possible, and of getting her into a milder climate. But even a fast-sailing schooner will scarcely equal our wishes under such circumstances. There was no doubt that the Sea Lion’s speed was getting to be affected by the manner in which her bows were weighed down by ice, in addition to the discomfort produced by cold, damp, and the presence of a slippery substance on the deck and rigging. Fortunately there was not much spray flying, or matters would have been much worse. As it was, they were bad enough, and very ominous of future evil.

While the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond was running along the margin of the ice in the manner just described, and after the blink to the westward had changed to a visible field, making it very uncertain whether any egress was to be found in that quarter or not, an opening suddenly appeared trending to the northward, and sufficiently wide, as Roswell thought, to enable him to beat through it. Putting his helm down, his schooner came heavily round, and was filled on a course that soon carried her half a mile into this passage. At first, everything seemed propitious, the channel rather opening than otherwise, while the course was such—north-northwest—as enabled the vessel to make very long legs on one tack, and that the best. After going about four or five times, however, all these flattering symptoms suddenly changed, by the passage terminating in a _cul de sac_. Almost at the same instant the ice closed rapidly in the schooner’s wake. An effort was made to run back, but it failed in consequence of an enormous floe’s turning on its centre, having met resistance from a field closer in, that was, in its turn, stopped by the rocks. Roswell saw at once that nothing could be done at the moment. He took in all his canvas, as well as the frozen cloth could be handled, got out ice-anchors, and hauled his vessel into a species of cove where there would be the least danger of a nip, should the fields continue to close.

All this time Daggett was as busy as a bee. He rounded the headland, and flattered himself that he was about to slip past all the rocks, and get out into open water, when the vast fields of which the blink had been seen even by those in the other vessel, suddenly stretched themselves across his course in a way that set at defiance all attempts to go any farther in that direction. Daggett wore round, and endeavored to return. This was by no means as easy as it was to go down before the wind, and his bows were also much encumbered with ice; more so, indeed, than those of the other schooner. Once or twice his craft missed stays in consequence of getting so much by the head, and it was deemed necessary to heave-to, and take to the axes. A great deal of extra and cumbrous weight was gotten rid of, but an hour of most precious time was lost.

By the time Daggett was ready to make sail again, he found his return round the headland was entirely cut off, by the field’s having come in absolute contact with the rocks.

It was now midnight, and the men on board both vessels required rest. A watch was set in each, and most of the people were permitted to turn in. Of course, proper lookouts were had, but the light of the moon was not sufficiently distinct to render it safe to make any final efforts under its favor. No great alarm was felt, there being nothing unusual in a vessel’s being embayed in the ice; and so long as she was not nipped or pressed upon by actual contact, the position was thought safe rather than the reverse. It was desirable, moreover, for the schooners to communicate with each other; for some advantage might be known to one of the masters that was concealed by distance from his companion. Without concert, therefore, Roswell and Daggett came to the same conclusions, and waited patiently.

The day came at last, cold and dreary, though not altogether without the relief of an air that blew from regions far warmer than the ocean over which it was now travelling. Then the two schooners became visible from each other, and Roswell saw the jeopardy of Daggett, and Daggett saw the jeopardy of Roswell. The vessels were little more than a mile apart, but the situation of the Vineyard Lion was much the more critical. She had made fast to the floe, but her support itself was in a steady and most imposing motion. As soon as Roswell saw the manner in which his consort was surrounded, and the very threatening aspect of the danger that pressed upon him, his first impulse was to hasten to him, with a party of his own people, to offer any assistance he could give. After looking at the ice immediately around his own craft, where all seemed to be right, he called over the names of six of his men, ordered them to eat a warm breakfast, and to prepare to accompany him.

In twenty minutes Roswell was leading his little party across the ice, each man carrying an axe, or some other implement that it was supposed might be of use. It was by no means difficult to proceed; for the surface of the floe, one seemingly more than a league in extent, was quite smooth, and the snow on it was crusted to a strength that would have borne a team.

“The water between the ice and the rocks is a much narrower strip than I had thought,” said Roswell to his constant attendant, Stimson. “Here, it does not appear to be a hundred yards in width!”

“Nor is it, sir,—whew—this trotting in so cold a climate makes a man puff like a whale blowing—but, Captain Gar’ner, that schooner will be cut in two before we can get to her. Look, sir! the floe has reached the rocks already, quite near her; and it does not stop the drift at all, seemingly.”

Roswell made no reply; the state of the Vineyard Lion did appear to be much more critical than he had previously imagined. Until he came nearer to the land, he had formed no notion of the steady power with which the field was setting down on the rocks on which the broken fragments were now creeping like creatures endowed with life. Occasionally there would be loud disruptions, and the movement of the floe would become more rapid; then, again, a sort of pause would succeed, and for a moment the approaching party felt a gleam of hope. But all expectations of this sort were doomed to be disappointed.

“Look, sir!” exclaimed Stimson; “she went down afore it twenty fathoms at that one set. She must be awful near the rocks, sir!”

All the men now stopped. They knew they were powerless; and intense anxiety rendered them averse to move. Attention appeared to interfere with their walking on the ice; and each held his breath in expectation. They saw that the schooner, then less than a cable’s length from them, was close to the rocks; and the next shock, if anything like the last, must overwhelm her. To their astonishment, instead of being nipped, the schooner rose by a stately movement that was not without grandeur, upheld by broken cakes that had got beneath her bottom, and fairly reached the shelf of rocks almost unharmed. Not a man had left her; but there she was, placed on the shore, some twenty feet above the surface of the sea, on rocks worn smooth by the action of the waves! Had the season been propitious, and did the injury stop here, it might have been possible to get the craft into the water again, and still carry her to America.

But the floe was not yet arrested. Cake succeeded cake, one riding another, until a wall of ice rose along the shore, that Roswell and his companions, with all their activity and courage, had great difficulty in crossing. They succeeded in getting over it, however; but when they reached the unfortunate schooner, she was literally buried. The masts were broken, the sails torn, rigging scattered, and sides stove. The Sea Lion of Martha’s Vineyard was a worthless wreck—worthless as to all purposes but that of being converted into materials for a smaller craft, or to be used as fuel.

All this had been done in ten minutes! Then it was that the vast superiority of nature over the resources of man made itself apparent. The people of the two vessels stood aghast with this sad picture of their own insignificance before their eyes. The crew of the wreck, it is true, had escaped without difficulty; the movement having been as slow and steady as it was irresistible. But there they were, in the clothes they had on, with all their effects buried under piles of ice that were already thirty or forty feet in height.

“She looks as if she was built there, Gar’ner!” Daggett coolly observed, as he stood regarding the scene with eyes as intently riveted on the wreck as human organs were ever fixed on any object. “Had a man told me this could happen, I would not have believed him!”

“Had she been a three-decker, this ice would have treated her in the same way. There is a force in such a field that walls of stone could not withstand.”

“Captain Gar’ner—Captain Gar’ner,” called out Stimson, hastily; “we’d better go back, sir; our own craft is in danger. She is drifting fast in towards the cape, and may reach it afore we can get to her!”

Sure enough, it was so. In one of the changes that are so unaccountable among the ice, the floe had taken a sudden and powerful direction towards the entrance of the Great Bay. It was probably owing to the circumstance that the inner field had forced its way past the cape, and made room for its neighbor to follow. A few of Daggett’s people, with Daggett himself, remained to see what might yet be saved from the wreck; but all the rest of the men started for the cape, towards which the Oyster Pond craft was now directly setting. The distance was less than a league; and, as yet, there was not much snow on the rocks. By taking an upper shelf, it was possible to make pretty good progress; and such was the manner of Roswell’s present march.

It was an extraordinary sight to see the coast along which our party was hastening, just at that moment. As the cakes of ice were broken from the field, they were driven upward by the vast pressure from without, and the whole line of the shore seemed as if alive with creatures that were issuing from the ocean to clamber on the rocks. Roswell had often seen that very coast peopled with seals, as it now appeared to be in activity with fragments of ice, that were writhing and turning, and rising, one upon another, as if possessed of the vital principle.

In half an hour Roswell and his party reached the house. The schooner was then less than half a mile from the spot, still setting in, along with the outer field, but not nipped. So far from being in danger of such a calamity, the little basin in which she lay had expanded, instead of closing; and it would have been possible to handle a quick-working craft in it, under her canvas. An exit, however, was quite out of the question; there being no sign of any passage to or from that icy dock. There the craft still lay, anchored to the weather-floe, while the portion of her crew which remained on board was as anxiously watching the coast as those who were on the coast watched her. At first, Roswell gave his schooner up; but on closer examination found reason to hope that she might pass the rocks, and enter the inner, rather than the Great Bay.

A TORNADO AT SEA

(From The Green Hand.)

By GEORGE CUPPLES.

“What was my horror when I saw the quicksilver had sunk so far below the mark, probably fixed there that morning, as to be almost shrunk in the ball! Whatever the merchant service might know about the instrument in those days, the African coast was the place to teach its right use to us in the old Iris. I laid down my knife and fork as carelessly as I could, and went straight on deck.

“Here I sought out the mate, who was forward, watching the land—and at once took him aside to tell him the fact. ‘Well, sir,’ said he, coolly, ‘and what of that? A sign of wind, certainly, before very long; but in the meantime we’re _sure_ to have it off the land.’ ‘That’s one of the very reasons,’ said I, ‘for thinking _this_ will be from seaward—since towards evening the land’ll have plenty of air without it! But more than that, sir,’ said I, ‘I tell you, Mr. Finch, I know the west coast of Africa pretty well—and so far south as this, the glass falling so low as _twenty-seven_, is always the sign of a nor’westerly blow! If you’re a wise man, sir, you’ll not only get your upper spars down on deck, but you’ll see your anchors clear!’ Finch had plainly got furious at my meddling again, and said he, ‘Instead of that, sir, I shall hold on _everything_ aloft, to stand out when I get the breeze!’ ‘D’ye really think, then,’ said I, pointing to the farthest-off streak of land, trending away by this time astern of us, faint as it was, ‘_do_ you think you could ever weather that point, with anything like a strong nor’wester, besides a current heading you in, as you got fair hold of it again?’ ‘Perhaps not,’ said he, wincing a little as he glanced at it; ‘but you happen always to suppose what there’s a thousand to one against, sir. Why, sir, you might as well take the command at once. But, sir, if it _did_ come to that, I’d rather—I’d rather see the ship _lost_—I’d rather go to the bottom with all in her, after handling her as I know well how, than I’d see the chance given to _you_!’ The young fellow fairly shouted this last word into my very ear—he was in a regular furious passion. ‘You’d _better_ let me alone, that’s all I’ve got to say to you, sir!’ growled he, as he turned away; so I thought it no use to say more, and leaned over the bulwarks, resolved to see it out.

“The fact was, the farther we got off the land _now_, the worse, seeing that if what I dreaded should prove true, why, we were probably in thirty or forty fathoms of water, where no anchor could hold for ten minutes’ time—if it ever caught ground. My way would have been to get every boat out at once, and tow in till you could see the color of some shoal or other from aloft, then take my chance there to ride out whatever might come, to the last cable aboard of us. Accordingly, I wasn’t sorry to see that by this time the whole bight of the coast was slowly rising off our beam betwixt the high land far astern and the broad bluffs upon her starboard bow; which last came out already of a sandy reddish tint, and the lower part of a clear blue, as the sun got westward on our other side. What struck me was, that the face of the water, which was all over wrinkles and winding lines, with here and there a quick ripple, when I went below, had got on a sudden quite smooth as far as you could see, as if they’d sunk down like so many eels; a long uneasy ground-swell was beginning to heave in from seaward, on which the ship rose; once or twice I fancied I could observe the color different away towards the land, like the muddy chocolate spreading out near a river-mouth at ebb-tide—then again it was green, rather; and as for the look of the coast, I had no knowledge of it. I thought again, certainly, of the old quartermaster’s account in the Iris, but there was neither anything like to be seen, nor any sign of a break in the coast at all, though high headlands enough.

“The ship might have been about twelve or fourteen miles from the northeast point upon her starboard bow, a high rocky range of bluffs—and rather less from the nearest of what lay away off her beam; but after this you could mark nothing more, except it were that she edged farther from the point, by the way its bearings shifted or got blurred together: either she stood still, or she’d caught some eddy or underdrift, and the mate walked about quite lively once more. The matter was how to breathe, or bear your clothes—when all of a sudden I heard the second mate sing out from the forecastle—‘Stand by the braces, there! Look out for the tops’l hawl-yards!’

“He came shuffling aft the next moment as fast as his foundered old shanks could carry him, and told Mr. Finch there was a squall coming off the land. The mate sprang up on the bulwarks, and so did I—catching a glance from him, as much as to say, ‘There’s your gale from seaward, you pretentious lubber!’ The lowest streak of coast bore at present before our starboard quarter, betwixt east and south-east’ard, with some pretty high land running away up from it, and a sort of dim blue haze hanging beyond, as ’twere. Just as Macleod spoke, I could see a dusky dark vapor thickening and spreading in the haze, till it rose black along the flat, out of the sky behind it; whitened and then darkened again, like a heavy smoke floating up into the air. All was confusion on deck for a minute or two—off went all the awnings—and every hand was ready at his station, fisting the ropes; when I looked again at the cloud, and then at the mates. ‘By George!’ said I, noticing a pale wreath of it go curling up on the pale clear sky over it, as to a puff of air, ‘it _is_ smoke! Some niggers, as they often do, burning the bush!’

“So it was; and as soon as Finch gave in, all hands quietly coiled up the ropes. It was scarce five minutes after, that Jacobs, who was coiling up a rope beside me, gave me a quiet touch with one finger. ‘Mr. Collins, sir,’ said he, in a low voice, looking almost right up, high over toward the ship’s larboard bow, which he couldn’t have done before, for the awnings so lately above us, ‘look, sir—there’s an _ox-eye_!’ I followed his gaze, but it wasn’t for a few seconds that I found what it pointed to, in the hot far-off-like blue dimness of the sky overhead, compared with the white glare of which to westward our canvas aloft was but dirty gray and yellow.

“’Twas what none but a seaman would have observed, and many a seaman wouldn’t have done so—but a man-o-war’s-man is used to look out at all hours, in all latitudes—and to a man that knew its meaning, _this_ would have been no joke, even out of sight of land; as it was, the thing gave me a perfect thrill of dread. High aloft in the heavens northward, where they were freest from the sun—now standing over the open horizon amidst a wide bright pool of light—you managed to discern a small silvery speck, growing slowly, as it were, out of the faint blue hollow, like a star in the daytime, till you felt as if it _looked_ at you, from God knows what distance away. One eye after another amongst the mates and crew joined Jacobs’ and mine, with the same sort of dumb fellowship to be seen when a man in London streets watches the top of a steeple; and however hard to make out at first, ere long none of them could miss seeing it, as it got slowly larger, sinking by degrees till the sky close about it seemed to thicken like a dusky ring round the white, and the sunlight upon our seaward quarter blazed out doubly strong—as if it came dazzling off a brass bell, with the bright tongue swinging in it far off to one side, where the hush made you think of a stroke back upon us, with some terrific sound to boot.

“The glassy water by this time was beginning to rise under the ship with a struggling kind of unequal heave, as if a giant you couldn’t see kept shoving it down here and there with both hands, and it came swelling up elsewhere.

“To north-westward or thereabouts, betwixt the sun and this ill-boding token aloft, the far line of open sea still lay shining motionless and smooth; next time you looked, it had got even brighter than before, seeming to leave the horizon visibly; then the streak of air just above it had grown gray, and a long hedge of hazy vapor was creeping as it were over from beyond—the white speck all the while travelling down towards it slantwise from nor’ard, and spreading its dark ring slowly out into a circle of cloud, till the keen eye of it at last sank in, and below, as well as aloft, the whole north-western quarter got blurred together in one gloomy mass. If there was a question at first whether the wind mightn’t come from so far nor’ard as to give her a chance of running out to sea before it, there was none now—our sole recourse lay either in getting nearer the land meanwhile, to let go our anchors ere it came on, with her head to it—or we might make a desperate trial to weather the lee-point now far astern. The fact was, we were going to have a regular tornado, and that of the worst kind, which wouldn’t soon blow itself out; though near an hour’s notice would probably pass ere it was on.

“The three mates laid their heads gravely together over the capstan for a minute or two, after which Finch seemed to perceive that the first of the two ways was the safer; though, of course, the nearer we should get to the land, the less chance there was of clearing it afterwards, should her cables part, or the anchors drag. The two boats still alongside, and two others dropped from the davits, were manned at once and set to towing the Indiaman ahead, in-shore; while the bower and sheet anchors were got out to the cat-heads ready for letting go, cables overhauled, ranged, and clinched as quickly as possible, and the deep-sea lead passed along to take soundings every few minutes.

“On we crept, slow as death, and almost as still, except the jerk of the oars from the heaving waters at her bows, and the loud flap of the big topsails now and then, everything aloft save them and the brailed foresail being already close furled; the clouds all the while rising away along our larboard beam nor’west and north, over the gray bank on the horizon, till once more you could scarce say which point the wind would come from, unless by the huge purple heap of vapor in the midst. The sun had got low, and he shivered his dazzling spokes of light behind one edge of it, as if ’twere a mountain you saw over some coast or other; indeed, you’d have thought the ship almost shut in by land on both sides of her, which was what seemed to terrify the passengers most, as they gathered about the poop-stairs and watched it—_which_ was the true land and which the clouds, ’twas hard to say—and the sea gloomed writhing between them like a huge lake in the mountains.

“I saw Sir Charles Hyde walk out of the round-house and in again, glancing uneasily about; his daughter was standing with another young lady, gazing at the land; and at sight of her sweet, curious face, I’d have given worlds to be able to do something that might save it from the chance, possibly, of being that very night dashed amongst the breakers on a lee shore in the dark—or at best, suppose the Almighty favored any of us so far, perhaps landed in the wilds of Africa. Had there been aught man could do more, why, though I never should get a smile for it, I’d have compassed it, mate or no mate; but all was done that could be done, and I had nothing to say. Westwood came near her, too, apparently seeing our bad case at last to some extent, and both trying to break it to her, and to assure her mind; so I folded my arms again, and kept my eyes fixed hard upon the bank of cloud, as some new weather-mark stole out in it, and the sea stretched breathlessly away below, like new melted lead.

“The air was like to choke you—or rather there was none—as if water, sky, and everything else wanted _life_, and one would fain have caught the first rush of the tornado into his mouth—the men emptying the dipper on deck from the cask, from sheer loathing. As for the land, it seemed to draw nearer of itself, till every point and wrinkle in the headland off our bow came out in a red coppery gleam—one saw the white line of surf round it, and some blue country beyond like indigo; then back it darkened again, and all aloft was getting livid-like over the bare royal mast-heads.

“Suddenly, a faint air was felt to flutter from landward; it half lifted the topsails, and a heavy earthy smell came into your nostrils—the first of the land breeze, at last; but by this time it was no more than a sort of mockery, while a minute after you might catch a low, sullen, moaning sound far off through the emptiness, from the strong surf the Atlantic sends in upon the west coast before a squall. If ever landsmen found out what land on the wrong side is, the passengers of the Seringapatam did, that moment; the shudder of the topsails aloft seemed to pass into every one’s shoulders, and a few quietly walked below, as if they were safer in their cabins. I saw Violet Hyde look round and round with a startled expression, and from one place to another, till her eye lighted on me, and I fancied for a moment it was like putting some question to me. I couldn’t bear it!—’twas the first time I’d felt powerless to offer anything; though the thought ran through me again till I almost felt myself buffeting among the breakers with her in my arms. I looked to the land, where the smoke we had seen three-quarters of an hour ago, rose again with the puff of air, a slight flicker of flame in it, as it wreathed off the low ground toward the higher point—when all at once I gave a start, for something in the shape of the whole struck me as if I’d seen it before.

“Next moment I was thinking of old Bob Martin’s particular landmarks at the river-mouth he spoke of, and the notion of its possibly being hereabouts glanced on me like a godsend. In the unsure dusky sight I had of it, certainly, it wore somewhat of that look, and it lay fair to leeward of the weather; while, as for the dead shut-in appearance of it, old Bob had specially said you’d never think it was a river; but then again it was more like a desperate fancy owing to our hard case, and to run the ship straight for it would be the trick of a Bedlamite. At any rate, a quick cry from aft turned me round, and I saw a blue flare of lightning streak out betwixt the bank of gray haze and the cloud that hung over it—then another, and the clouds were beginning to rise slowly in the midst, leaving a white glare between, as if you could see through it towards what was coming. The men could pull no longer, but ahead of the ship there was now only about eight or ten fathoms of water, with a soft bottom. The boats were hoisted in, and the men had begun to clew up and hand the topsails, which were lowered on the caps, when, just in the midst of the hubbub and confusion, as I stood listening to every order the mate gave, the steward came up hastily from below to tell him that the captain had woke up, and, being much better, wanted to see him immediately. Mr. Pinch looked surprised, but he turned at once, and hurried down the hatchway.