 | CHAPTER VI. The pilot |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
Have sunk the sea within the earth, ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed.”
Tempest.
The arms of Dillon were released from their
confinement, by the cockswain, as a measure of
humane caution against accidents, when they entered
the surf, and the captive now availed himself
of the circumstance, to bury his features in
the folds of his attire, where he brooded over the
events of the last few hours with that mixture of
malignant passion and pusillanimous dread of the
future, that formed the chief ingredients in his
character. From this state of apparent quietude,
neither Barnstable nor Tom seemed disposed
to rouse him by their remarks, for both were
too much engaged with their own gloomy forebodings,
to indulge in any unnecessary words. An
occasional ejaculation from the former, as if to
propitiate the spirit of the storm, as he gazed on
the troubled appearance of the elements, or a
cheering cry from the latter, to animate his crew,
were alone heard amid the sullen roaring of the
waters, and the mournful whistling of the winds,
that swept heavily across the broad waste of the
consumed thus, in a vigorous struggle between
the seamen and the growing billows, when the boat
doubled the northern headland of the desired
haven, and shot, at once, from its boisterous passage
along the margin of the breakers, into the
placid waters of the sequestered bay. The passing
blasts were still heard rushing above the highlands
that surrounded, and, in fact, formed the
estuary, but the profound stillness of deep night,
pervaded the secret recesses, along the unruffled
surface of its waters. The shadows of the hills
seemed to have accumulated, like a mass of
gloom, in the centre of the basin, and though
every eye involuntarily turned to search, it was
in vain that the anxious seamen endeavoured to
discover their little vessel, through its density.
While the boat glided into this quiet scene, Barnstable
observed—
“Every thing is as still as death.”
“God send it is not the stillness of death!”
ejaculated the cockswain; “here, here,” he continued,
speaking in a lower tone, as if fearful of
being overheard, “here she lies, sir, more to-port;
look into the streak of clear sky above the
marsh, on the starboard hand of the wood, there;
that long black line is her main-top-mast; I
know it by the rake; and there is her night-pennant
fluttering about that bright star; ay, ay,
sir, there go our own stars aloft yet, dancing
among the stars in the heavens! God bless her!
God bless her! she rides as easy and as quiet as
a gull asleep!”
“I believe all in her sleep too,” returned his
commander; “ha! by heaven, we have arrived
in good time; the soldiers are moving!”
The quick eye of Barnstable had detected the
glimmering of passing lanterns, as they flitted
across the embrasures of the battery, and, at the
next moment, the guarded but distinct sounds of
an active bustle, on the decks of the schooner,
were plainly audible. The lieutenant was rubbing
his hands together, with a sort of ecstacy, that
probably will not be understood by the great majority
of our readers, while long-Tom was actually
indulging in a paroxysm of his low, spiritless
laughter, as these certain intimations of the safety
of the Ariel, and of the vigilance of her crew, were
conveyed to their ears; when the whole hull and
taper spars of their floating home, became unexpectedly
visible, and the sky, the placid basin, and
the adjacent hills, were illuminated by a flash as
sudden and as vivid as the keenest lightning.
Both Barnstable and his cockswain, seemed instinctively
to strain their eyes towards the schooner,
with an effort to surpass human vision, but
ere the rolling reverberations of the report of a
heavy piece of ordnance, from the heights, had
commenced, the dull, whistling rush of the shot
swept over their heads, like the moaning of a
hurricane, and was succeeded by the plash of the
waters, which was followed, in a breath, by the
rattling of the mass of iron, as it bounded with
violent fury from rock to rock, shivering and
tearing the fragments that lined the margin of the
bay.
“A bad aim with the first gun, generally leaves
your enemy clean decks,” said the cockswain,
with his deliberate sort of philosophy; “smoke
makes but dim spectacles; besides, the night always
grows darkest, as you call off the morning
watch.”
“That boy is a miracle for his years!” rejoined
the delighted lieutenant; “see, Tom, the
younker has shifted his birth in the dark, and the
Englishmen have fired by the day-range they
must have taken, for we left him in a direct line
between the battery and yon hommoc! what
would have become of us, if that heavy fellow
had plunged upon our decks, and gone out below
the water-line!”
“We should have sunk into English mud, for
eternity, as sure as our metal and kentledge
would have taken us down,” responded Tom;
“such a point-blanker would have torn off a
streak of our wales, outboard, and not even left
the marines time to say a prayer! tend bow
there!”
It is not to be supposed that the crew of the
whale-boat continued idle, during this interchange
of opinions between the lieutenant and his cockswain;
on the contrary, the sight of their vessel
acted on them like a charm, and, believing that
all necessity for caution was now over, they had
expended their utmost strength in efforts, that had
already brought them, as the last words of Tom
indicated, to the side of the Ariel. Though every
nerve of Barnstable was thrilling with the
excitement produced, by his feelings passing
from a state of the most doubtful apprehension,
to that of a revived and almost confident hope of
effecting his escape, he assumed the command of
his vessel, with all that stern but calm authority,
that seamen find it most necessary to exert, in the
moments of extremest danger. Any one of
the heavy shot that their enemies continued to
hurl from their heights into the darkness of the
haven, he well knew must prove fatal to them,
as it would, unavoidably, pass through the slight
that no means he possessed could remedy.
His mandates were, therefore, issued, with a full
perception of the critical nature of the emergency,
but with that collectedness of manner, and
intonation of voice, that were best adapted to enforce
a ready and animated obedience. Under
this impulse, the crew of the schooner soon got
their anchor freed from the bottom, and, seizing
their sweeps, they forced her, by their united efforts,
directly in the face of the battery, under
that shore, whose summit was now crowned with
a canopy of smoke, that every discharge of the
ordnance tinged with dim colours, like the faintest
tints that are reflected from the clouds toward a
setting sun. So long as the seamen were enabled
to keep their little bark under the cover of the
hill, they were, of course, safe; but Barnstable
perceived, as they emerged from its shadow, and
were drawing nigh to the passage which led into
the ocean, that the action of his sweeps would
no longer avail them, against the currents of air
they encountered, neither would the darkness
conceal their movements from his enemy, who
had already employed men on the shore to discern
the position of the schooner. Throwing off
at once, therefore, all appearance of disguise, he
gave forth the word to spread the canvass of his
vessel, in his ordinary cheerful manner.
“Let them do their worst now, Merry,” he
added; “we have brought them to a distance
that I think will keep their iron above water, and
we have no dodge about us, younker!”
“It must be keener marksmen than the militia,
or volunteers, or fencibles, or whatever they
call themselves, behind yon grass-bank, to frighten
the saucy Ariel from the wind,” returned the
aboard us again, sir? look at him, by the light
of the cabin lamp; he winks at every gun, as if
he expected the shot would hull his own ugly,
yellow physiognomy. And what tidings have
we, sir, from Mr. Griffith, and the marine?”
“Name him not,” said Barnstable, pressing
the shoulder on which he lightly leaned, with a
convulsive grasp, that caused the boy to yield
with pain; “name him not, Merry; I want my
temper and my faculties at this moment undisturbed,
and thinking of the wretch unfits me
for my duty. But, there will come a time! go
forward, sir; we feel the wind, and have a narrow
passage to work through.”
The boy obeyed a mandate which was given
in the usual prompt manner of their profession,
and which, he well understood, was intended to
intimate, that the distance which years and rank
had created between them, but which Barnstable
often chose to forget while communing with
Merry, was now to be resumed. The sails had
been loosened and set; and, as the vessel approached
the throat of the passage, the gale, which
was blowing with increasing violence, began to
make a very sensible impression on the light
bark. The cockswain, who, in the absence of
most of the inferior officers, had been acting, on
the forecastle, the part of one who felt, from his
years and experience, that he had some right to
advise, if not to command, at such a juncture,
now walked to the station which his commander
had taken, near the helmsman, as if willing to
place himself in the way of being seen.
“Well, Master Coffin,” said Barnstable, who
well understood the propensity his old shipmate
had to commune with him, on all important occasions,
Those gentlemen on the hill make a great noise,
but I have lost even the whistling of their shot;
one would think they could see our sails against
the broad band of light which is opening to
seaward.”
“Ay, ay, sir, they see us, and mean to hit us,
too, but we are running across their fire, and that
with a ten-knot breeze; but when we heave in
stays, and get in a line with their guns, we shall
see, and, it may be, feel, more of their work than
we do now; a thirty-two an't trained as easily
as a fowling-piece or a ducking gun.”
Barnstable was struck with the truth of this
observation, but as there existed an immediate
necessity for placing the schooner in the very
situation to which the other alluded, he gave his
orders at once, and the vessel came about, and
ran with her head pointing towards the sea, in as
short a time as we have taken to record it.
“There, they have us now, or never,” cried
the lieutenant, when the evolution was completed;
“if we fetch to windward of the northern
point, we shall lay out into the offing, and in
ten minutes we might laugh at Queen Anne's
pocket-piece; which, you know, old boy, sent a
ball from Dover to Calais.”
“Ay, sir, I've heard of the gun,” returned the
grave seaman, “and a lively piece it must have
been, if the streights were always of the same
width they are now. But I see that, Captain
Barnstable, which is more dangerous than a
dozen of the heaviest cannon that were ever cast,
could be at half a league's distance. The water
is bubbling through our lee-scuppers, already,
sir.”
“And what of that? haven't I buried her guns
crack or a splinter?”
“Ay, ay, sir, you have done it, and can do it
again, where there is sea-room, which is all that a
man wants for comfort in this life. But when we
are out of these chops, we shall be embayed, with
a heavy north-easter setting dead into the bight;
it is that which I fear, Captain Barnstable, more
than all the powder and ball in the whole island.”
“And yet, Tom, the balls are not to be despised,
either; those fellows have found out their range,
and send their iron within hail, again; we walk
pretty fast, Master Coffin, but a thirty-two can
out-travel us, with the best wind that ever blew.”
Tom threw a cursory glance towards the battery,
which had renewed its fire with a spirit that
denoted they saw their object, as he answered—
“It is never worth a man's while to strive to
dodge a shot, for they are all commissioned to
do their work, the same as a ship is commissioned
to cruise in certain latitudes; but for the winds
and the weather, they are given for a seafaring
man to guard against, by making or shortening
sail, as the case may be. Now, the headland to
the southward stretches full three leagues to windward,
and the shoals lie to the north; among
which God keep us from ever running this craft
again!”
“We will beat her out of the bight, old fellow,”
cried the lieutenant; “we shall have a leg
of three leagues in length to do it in.”
“I've known longer legs too short,” returned
the cockswain, with a deep sigh; “a tumbling
sea, with a lee-tide, on a lee-shore, make a sad
lee-way.”
The lieutenant was in the act of replying to
this saying, with a cheerful laugh, when the
by the crash of splintered wood, and at
the next moment the head of the main-mast, after
tottering for an instant in the gale, fell toward
the deck, bringing with it the main-sail, and the
long line of top-mast, that had been bearing the
emblems of America, as the cockswain had expressed
it, among the stars of the heavens.
“That was a most unlucky hit!” Barnstable
suffered to escape him, in the concern of the moment;
then, instantly resuming all his collectedness
of manner and voice, he gave his orders
to clear the wreck, and secure the fluttering
canvass.
The mournful forebodings of Tom seemed to
vanish, at the appearance of a necessity for his
exertions, and he was foremost among the crew
in executing the orders of their commander.
The loss of all the sail on the main-mast forced
the Ariel so much from her course, as to render
it difficult to weather the point, that jutted, under
her lee, for some distance into the ocean. This
desirable object was, however, effected, by the
skill of Barnstable, aided by the excellent properties
of his vessel; and the schooner, borne
down by the power of the gale, from whose fury
she had now no protection, passed heavily along
the land, heading, as far as possible, from the
breakers, while the seamen were engaged in
making their preparations to display as much of
the canvass of their most important sail, as the
stump of their mast would allow them to spread.
The firing from the battery ceased, as the Ariel
rounded the little promontory; but Barnstable,
whose gaze was now bent intently on the ocean,
soon perceived that, as his cockswain had predicted,
he had a much more threatening danger
were repaired, so far as circumstances
would permit, the cockswain returned to his
wonted station near the lieutenant, and after a
momentary pause, during which his eyes roved
over the rigging, with a seaman's scrutiny, he
resumed the discourse.
“It would have been better for us that the
best man in the schooner had lost a limb, by that
shot, than that the Ariel should have lost her
best leg; a main-sail, close-reefed, may be
prudent canvass, as the wind blows, but it carries
a poor luff to keep a craft to windward.”
“What would you have, Tom Coffin!” retorted
his commander; “you see she draws
ahead, and off-shore; do you expect a vessel to
fly in the very teeth of a gale, or would you
have me ware and beach her, at once?”
“I would have nothing, nothing, Captain
Barnstable,” returned the old seaman, sensibly
touched at his commander's displeasure; “you
are as able as any man who ever trod a plank to
work her into an offing; but, sir, when that soldier-officer
told me of the scheme to sink the
Ariel at her anchor, there were such feelings
come athwart me as never crossed me afore. I
thought I saw her a wrack, as plainly, ay, as
plainly as you may see the stump of that mast;
and, I will own it, for it's as natural to love the
craft you sail in, as it is to love one's self, I will
own that my manhood fetched a heavy lee-lurch
at the sight.”
“Away with ye, ye old sea-croaker! forward
with ye, and see that the head-sheets are trimmed
flat. But hold! come hither, Tom; if you
have sights of wrecks, and sharks, and other
silly brain; don't make a ghost-parlour of my
forecastle. The lads begin to look to leeward,
now, oftener than I would have them. Go, sirrah,
go, and take example from Mr. Merry, who
is seated on your namesake there, and is singing
as if he were a chorister in his father's church.”
“Ah! Captain Barnstable, Mr. Merry is a
boy, and knows nothing, so fears nothing. But
I shall obey your orders, sir; and if the men fall
astern, this gale, it shan't be for any thing they'll
hear from old Tom Coffin.”
The cockswain lingered a moment, notwithstanding
his promised obedience, and then ventured
to request, that—
“Captain Barnstable would please to call Mr.
Merry from the gun; for I know, from having
followed the seas my natural life, that singing
in a gale is sure to bring the wind down upon a
vessel the heavier; for He who rules the tempests
is displeased that man's voice shall be heard,
when He chooses to send His own breath on the
water.”
Barnstable was at a loss, whether to laugh at
his cockswain's infirmity, or to yield to the impression
which his earnest and solemn manner
had a powerful tendency to produce, amid such a
scene. But, making an effort to shake off the
superstitious awe that he felt creeping around
his own heart, the lieutenant relieved the mind
of the worthy seaman so far as to call the careless
boy from his perch, to his own side; where
respect for the sacred character of the quarter-deck,
instantly put an end to the lively air he had
been humming. Tom walked slowly forward,
apparently much relieved by the reflection that
he had effected so important an object.
The Ariel continued to struggle against the
winds and ocean for several hours longer, before
the day broke on the tempestuous scene, and the
anxious mariners were enabled to form a more
accurate estimate of their real danger. As the
violence of the gale increased, the canvass of the
schooner had been gradually reduced, until she
was unable to show more than was absolutely
necessary to prevent her driving, helplessly, on the
land. Barnstable watched the appearance of the
weather, as the light slowly opened upon them,
with an intensity of anxiety, which denoted, that
the presentiments of the cockswain were no longer
deemed idle. On looking to windward, he
beheld the green masses of water that were rolling
in towards the land, with a violence that
seemed irresistible, crowned with ridges of
foam; and there were moments when the air appeared
filled with sparkling gems, as the rays of
the rising sun fell upon the spray that was swept
from wave to wave. Towards the land, the view
was still more appalling. The cliffs, but a short
half-league under the lee of the schooner, were,
at times, nearly hid from the eye by the pyramids
of water, which the furious element, so suddenly
restrained in its violence, cast high into the air,
as if seeking to overstep the boundaries that nature
had affixed to its dominion. The whole
coast, from the distant head-land at the south, to
the well known shoals that stretched far beyond
their course, in the opposite direction, displayed
a broad belt of foam, into which, it would have
been certain destruction, for the proudest ship
that swam, to have entered. Still the Ariel
floated on the billows, lightly and in safety,
though yielding to the impulses of the waters,
and, at times, appearing to be engulphed in the
her to receive the little fabric. The low
rumour of acknowledged danger, had found its
way through the schooner, and the seamen, after
fastening their hopeless looks on the small spot of
canvass that they were enabled to show to the
tempest, would turn to view the dreary line of
coast, that seemed to offer so gloomy an alternative.
Even Dillon, to whom the report of their
danger had found its way, crept from his place of
concealment in the cabin, and moved about the
decks, unheeded, devouring, with greedy ears,
such opinions as fell from the lips of the sullen
mariners.
At this moment of appalling apprehension, the
cockswain exhibited the most calm resignation.
He knew that all had been done, that lay in
the power of man, to urge their little vessel
from the land, and it was now too evident to his
experienced eyes, that it had been done in vain;
but, considering himself as a sort of fixture in
the schooner, he was quite prepared to abide her
fate, be it for better or for worse. The settled
look of gloom that gathered around the frank
brow of Barnstable, was, in no degree, connected
with any considerations of himself, but proceeded
from that sort of parental responsibility, from
which the sea-commander is never exempt. The
discipline of the crew, however, still continued
perfect and unyielding. There had, it is true,
been a slight movement made by two of the oldest
seamen, which indicated an intention to drown
the apprehensions of death in ebriety; but
Barnstable had called for his pistols, in a tone
that checked the procedure instantly, and, although
the fatal weapons were untouched by him,
but were left to lie exposed on the capstern,
another symptom of insubordination appeared
among the devoted crew. There was even, what
to a landsman might seem, a dreadful affectation
of attention to the most trifling duties of the vessel;
and the men, who, it should seem, ought to
be devoting the brief moments of their existence
to the mighty business of the hour, were constantly
called to attend to the most trivial details
of their profession. Ropes were coiled, and the
slightest damages occasioned by the waves, that at
short intervals, swept across the low decks of the
Ariel, were repaired, with the same precision and
order, as if she yet lay embayed in the haven
from which she had just been driven. In this
manner, the arm of authority was kept extended
over the silent crew, not with the vain desire to
preserve a lingering, though useless exercise of
power, but with a view to maintain that unity of
action, that now could alone afford them even a
ray of hope.
“She can make no head against this sea, under
that rag of canvass,” said Barnstable, gloomily;
addressing the cockswain, who, with folded
arms, and an air of cool resignation, was balancing
his body on the verge of the quarter-deck,
while the schooner was plunging madly into
waves that nearly buried her in their bosom;
“the poor little thing trembles like a frightened
child, as she meets the water.”
Tom sighed heavily, and shook his head, before
he answered—
“If we could have kept the head of the main-mast
an hour longer, we might have got an offing,
and fetched to windward of the shoals; but, as
it is, sir, mortal man can't drive a craft to windward—she
sets bodily in to land, and will be in
wills that the winds shall cease to blow.”
“We have no hope left us, but to anchor; our
ground tackle may yet bring her up.”
Tom turned to his commander, and replied,
solemnly, and with that assurance of manner,
that long experience only can give a man in moments
of great danger—
“If our sheet-cable was bent to our heaviest
anchor, this sea would bring it home, though nothing
but her launch was riding by it. A north-easter
in the German ocean must and will blow
itself out; nor shall we get the crown of the gale
until the sun falls over the land. Then, indeed,
it may lull; for the winds do often seem to reverence
the glory of the heavens, too much to blow
their might in its very face!”
“We must do our duty to ourselves and the
country,” returned Barnstable; “go, get the
two bowers spliced, and have a kedge bent to a
hawser; we'll back our two anchors together,
and veer to the better end of two hundred and
forty fathoms; it may yet bring her up. See all
clear there for anchoring, and cutting away the
masts—we'll leave the wind nothing but a naked
hull to whistle over.”
“Ay, if there was nothing but the wind, we
might yet live to see the sun sink behind them
hills,” said the cockswain; “but what hemp can
stand the strain of a craft that is buried, half the
time, to her foremast in the water!”
The order was, however, executed by the crew,
with a sort of desperate submission to the will of
their commander; and when the preparations
were completed, the anchors and kedge were
dropped to the bottom, and the instant that the
Ariel tended to the wind, the axe was applied to
The crash of the falling spars, as they came,
in succession, across the decks of the vessel,
appeared to produce no sensation amid that
scene of complicated danger, but the seamen
proceeded in silence, in their hopeless duty, of
clearing the wrecks. Every eye followed the
floating timbers, as the waves swept them away
from the vessel, with a sort of feverish curiosity,
to witness the effect produced by their collision
with those rocks that lay so fearfully near them;
but long before the spars entered the wide border
of foam, they were hid from view by the furious
element in which they floated. It was, now, felt
by the whole crew of the Ariel, that their last
means of safety had been adopted, and, at each
desperate and headlong plunge the vessel took,
into the bosom of the seas that rolled upon her
forecastle, the anxious seamen thought they could
perceive the yielding of the iron that yet clung
to the bottom, or could hear the violent surge of
the parting strands of the cable, that still held
them to their anchors. While the minds of the
sailors were agitated with the faint hopes that
had been excited, by the movements of their
schooner, Dillon had been permitted to wander
about the vessel, unnoticed; his rolling eyes, hard
breathing, and clenched hands, exciting no observation
among the men, whose thoughts were yet
dwelling on the means of safety. But, now, when,
with a sort of frenzied desperation, he would follow
the retiring waters along the decks, and venture
his person nigh the group that had collected
around and on the gun of the cockswain, glances
of fierce or of sullen vengeance were cast at him,
that conveyed threats of a nature that he was
too much agitated to understand.
“If ye are tired of this world, though your
time, like my own, is probably but short in it,”
said Tom to him, as he passed the cockswain in
one of his turns, “you can go forward among
the men; but if ye have need of the moments to
foot up the reck'ning of your doings among men,
afore ye're brought to face your maker, and
hear the log-book of heaven, I would advise you
to keep as nigh as possible to Captain Barnstable
or myself.”
“Will you promise to save me, if the vessel
is wrecked!” exclaimed Dillon, catching at the
first sounds of friendly interest that had reached
his ears, since he had been recaptured; “Oh! if
you will, I can secure you future ease; yes,
wealth, for the remainder of your days!”
“Your promises have been too ill kept, afore
this, for the peace of your soul,” returned the
cockswain, without bitterness, though sternly;
“but it is not in me to strike even a whale, that is
already spouting blood.”
The intercessions of Dillon were interrupted
by a dreadful cry, that arose among the men forward,
and which sounded with increased horror,
amid the roaring of the tempest. The schooner
rose on the breast of a wave at the same instant,
and, falling off with her broad side to the sea, she
drove in towards the cliffs, like a bubble on the
rapids of a cataract.
“Our ground tackle has parted,” said Tom,
with his resigned patience of manner undisturbed;
“she shall die as easy as man can make
her!” While he yet spoke, he seized the tiller,
and gave to the vessel such a direction, as would
be most likely to cause her to strike the rocks
with her bows foremost.
There was, for one moment, an expression of
exquisite anguish, betrayed in the dark countenance
of Barnstable; but at the next, it passed
away, and he spoke cheerfully to his men—
“Be steady, my lads, be calm; there is yet a
hope of life for you—our light draught will let
us run in close to the cliffs, and it is still falling
water—see your boats clear, and be steady.”
The crew of the whale-boat, aroused, by this
speech, from a sort of stupor, sprang into their
light vessel, which was quickly lowered into the
sea, and kept riding on the foam, free from the
sides of the schooner, by the powerful exertions of
the men. The cry for the cockswain was earnest
and repeated, but Tom shook his head, without
replying, still grasping the tiller, and keeping
his eyes steadily bent on the chaos of waters, into
which they were driving. The launch, the largest
boat of the two, was cut loose from the
“gripes,” and the bustle and exertion of the
moment rendered the crew insensible to the horror
of the scene that surrounded them. But the
loud, hoarse call of the cockswain, to “look
out—secure yourselves!” suspended even their
efforts, and at that instant the Ariel settled on a
wave that melted from under her, heavily on the
rocks. The shock was so violent, as to throw all
who disregarded the warning cry, from their feet,
and the universal quiver that pervaded the
vessel was like the last shudder of animated nature.
For a time long enough to breathe, the
least experienced among the men supposed the
danger to be past; but a wave of great height
followed the one that had deserted them, and
raising the vessel again, threw her roughly
still further on her bed of rocks, and at the
same time its crest broke over her quarter,
was almost resistless. The shuddering seamen
beheld their loosened boat, driven from their
grasp, and dashed against the base of the cliffs,
where no fragment of her wreck could be traced,
at the receding of the waters. But the passing
wave had thrown the vessel into a position which,
in some measure, protected her decks from the
violence of those that succeeded it.
“Go, my boys, go,” said Barnstable, as the
moment of dreadful uncertainty passed; “you
have still the whale-boat, and she, at least, will
take you nigh the shore; go into her, my boys;
God bless you, God bless you all; you have
been faithful and honest fellows, and I believe
he will not yet desert you; go, my friends, while
there is a lull.”
The seamen threw themselves, in a mass of
human bodies, into the light vessel, which nearly
sunk under the unusual burthen; but when they
looked around them, Barnstable, and Merry,
Dillon, and the cockswain, were yet to be seen
on the decks of the Ariel. The former was
pacing, in deep, and perhaps bitter melancholy,
the wet planks of the schooner, while the boy
hung, unheeded, on his arm, uttering disregarded
petitions to his commander, to desert
the wreck. Dillon approached the side
where the boat lay, again and again, but the
threatening countenances of the seamen as often
drove him back in despair. Tom had seated
himself on the heel of the bowsprit; where he
continued, in an attitude of quiet resignation,
returning no other answers to the loud and repeated
calls of his shipmates, than by waving
his hand toward the shore.
“Now hear me,” said the boy, urging his request,
own sake, Mr. Barnstable, or for the hopes of
God's mercy; go into the boat, for the love of
my cousin Katherine.”
The young lieutenant paused in his troubled
walk, and for a moment, he cast a glance of hesitation
at the cliffs; but, at the next instant, his
eyes fell on the ruin of his vessel, and he answered—
“Never, boy, never; if my hour has come, I
will not shrink from my fate.”
“Listen to the men, dear sir; the boat will
be swamped along-side the wreck, and their cry
is, that without you they will not let her go.”
Barnstable motioned to the boat, to bid the
boy enter it, and turned away in silence.
“Well,” said Merry, with firmness, “if it be
right that a lieutenant shall stay by a wreck, it
must also be right for a midshipman; “shove off;
neither Mr. Barnstable nor myself will quit the
vessel.”
“Boy, your life has been intrusted to my keeping,
and at my hands will it be required,” said
his commander, lifting the struggling youth, and
tossing him into the arms of the seamen. “Away
with ye, and God be with you; there is more
weight in you, now, than can go safe to land.”
Still, the seamen hesitated, for they perceived
the cockswain moving, with a steady tread, along
the deck, and they hoped he had relented, and
would yet persuade the lieutenant to join his
crew. But Tom, imitating the example of his
commander, seized the latter, suddenly, in his
powerful grasp, and threw him over the bulwarks,
with an irresistible force. At the same moment,
he cast the fast of the boat from the pin that held
his voice was heard in the tempest.
“God's will be done with me,” he cried; “I
saw the first timber of the Ariel laid, and shall
live just long enough to see it torn out of her
bottom; after which I wish to live no longer.”
But his shipmates were swept far beyond the
sounds of his voice, before half these words were
uttered. All command of the boat was rendered
impossible, by the numbers it contained, as
well as the raging of the surf; and, as it rose on
the white crest of a wave, Tom saw his beloved
little craft for the last time; it fell into a trough
of the sea, and in a few moments more its fragments
were ground into splinters on the adjacent
rocks. The cockswain still remained where he
had cast off the rope, and beheld the numerous
heads and arms that appeared rising, at short intervals,
on the waves; some making powerful and
well-directed efforts to gain the sands, that were
becoming visible as the tide fell, and others
wildly tossed, in the frantic movements of helpless
despair. The honest old seaman gave a cry of
joy, as he saw Barnstable issue from the surf,
bearing the form of Merry in safety to the sands,
where, one by one, several seamen soon appeared
also, dripping and exhausted. Many others of
the crew were carried, in a similar manner, to
places of safety; though, as Tom returned to his
seat on the bowsprit, he could not conceal, from
his reluctant eyes, the lifeless forms that were,
in other spots, driven against the rocks, with a
fury that soon left them but few of the outward
vestiges of humanity.
Dillon and the cockswain were now the sole
occupants of their dreadful station. The former
stood, in a kind of stupid despair, a witness
blood began again to flow more warmly
through his heart, he crept close to the side of
Tom, with that sort of selfish feeling that makes
even hopeless misery more tolerable, when endured
in participation with another.
“When the tide falls,” he said, in a voice that
betrayed the agony of fear, though his words
expressed the renewal of hope, “we shall be
able to walk to land.”
“There was One, and only One, to whose
feet the waters were the same as a dry deck,”
returned the cockswain; “and none but such
as have his power will ever be able to walk
from these rocks to the sands.” The old seaman
paused, and turning his eyes, which exhibited
a mingled expression of disgust and compassion,
on his companion, he added, with reverence—“Had
you thought more of him in fair
weather, your case would be less to be pitied in
this tempest.”
“Do you still think there is much danger?”
asked Dillon.
“To them that have reason to fear death;
listen! do you hear that hollow noise beneath
ye?”
“'Tis the wind, driving by the vessel!”
“'Tis the poor thing herself,” said the affected
cockswain, “giving her last groans. The water
is breaking up her decks, and in a few minutes
more, the handsomest model that ever cut a
wave, will be like the chips that fell from her
timbers in framing!”
“Why, then, did you remain here!” cried
Dillon, wildly.
“To die in my coffin, if it should be the will
of God,” returned Tom; “these waves, to me,
and I have always meant that they should be my
grave.”
“But I—I,” shrieked Dillon, “I am not ready
to die!—I cannot die!—I will not die!”
“Poor wretch!” muttered his companion;
“you must go, like the rest of us; when the
death-watch is called, none can skulk from the
muster.”
“I can swim,” Dillon continued, rushing, with
frantic eagerness, to the side of the wreck. “Is
there no billet of wood, no rope, that I can take
with me?”
“None; every thing has been cut away, or
carried off by the sea. If ye are about to strive
for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a
clean conscience, and trust the rest to God!”
“God!” echoed Dillon, in the madness of his
frenzy; “I know no God! there is no God that
knows me!”
“Peace!” said the deep tones of the cockswain,
in a voice that seemed to speak in the elements;
“blasphemer, peace!”
The heavy groaning, produced by the water,
in the timbers of the Ariel, at that moment,
added its impulse to the raging feelings of Dillon,
and he cast himself headlong into the sea.
The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf
on the beach, was necessarily returned to the
ocean, in eddies, in different places, favourable to
such an action of the element. Into the edge of
one of these counter-currents, that was produced
by the very rocks on which the schooner lay, and
which the watermen call the “under-tow,” Dillon
had, unknowingly, thrown his person, and
when the waves had driven him a short distance
from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his
was a light and powerful swimmer, and the struggle
was hard and protracted. With the shore
immediately before his eyes, and at no great distance,
he was led, as by a false phantom, to continue
his efforts, although they did not advance
him a foot. The old seaman, who, at first, had
watched his motions with careless indifference, understood
the danger of his situation at a glance,
and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud,
in a voice that was driven over the struggling
victim, to the ears of his shipmates on the sands—
“Sheer to-port, and clear the under-tow!
sheer to the southward!”
Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties
were too much obscured by terror, to distinguish
their object; he, however, blindly yielded
to the call, and gradually changed his direction,
until his face was once more turned towards
the vessel. The current swept him diagonally by
the rocks, and he was forced into an eddy, where
he had nothing to contend against but the waves,
whose violence was much broken by the wreck.
In this state, he continued still to struggle, but
with a force that was too much weakened, to
overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked
around him for a rope, but not one presented
itself to his hands; all had gone over with the
spars, or been swept away by the waves. At
this moment of disappointment, his eyes met
those of the desperate Dillon. Calm, and inured
to horrors, as was the veteran seaman, he involuntarily
passed his hand before his brow, as if
to exclude the look of despair he encountered;
and when, a moment afterwards, he removed
the rigid member, he beheld the sinking
form of the victim, as it gradually settled
impotent strokes of the arms and feet, to gain
the wreck, and to preserve an existence that had
been so much abused in its hour of allotted
probation.
“He will soon know his God, and learn that
his God knows him!” murmured the cockswain
to himself. As he yet spoke, the wreck of
the Ariel yielded to an overwhelming sea, and,
after an universal shudder, her timbers and
planks gave way, and were swept towards the
cliffs, bearing the body of the simple-hearted
cockswain among the ruins.
| CHAPTER VI. The pilot | |