22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE HIGHLANDER PASSES A WRECK.
We were still on the Banks, when a terrific storm came
down upon us, the like of which I had never before beheld,
or imagined. The rain poured down in sheets and cascades;
the scupper holes could hardly carry it off the decks; and
in bracing the yards we waded about almost up to our
knees; every thing floating about, like chips in a dock.
This violent rain was the precursor of a hard squall, for
which we duly prepared, taking in our canvas to double-reefed-top-sails.
The tornado came rushing along at last, like a troop of
wild horse before the flaming rush of a burning prairie.
But after bowing and cringing to it awhile, the good Highlander
was put off before it; and with her nose in the
water, went wallowing on, ploughing milk-white waves, and
leaving a streak of illuminated foam in her wake.
It was an awful scene. It made me catch my breath as
I gazed. I could hardly stand on my feet, so violent was
the motion of the ship. But while I reeled to and fro, the
sailors only laughed at me; and bade me look out that the
ship did not fall overboard; and advised me to get a handspike,
and hold it down hard in the weather-scuppers, to
steady her wild motions. But I was now getting a little
too wise for this foolish kind of talk; though all through the
voyage, they never gave it over.
This storm past, we had fair weather until we got into
the Irish Sea.
The morning following the storm, when the sea and sky
had become blue again, the man aloft sung out that there
was a wreck on the lee-beam. We bore away for it, all
hands looking eagerly toward it, and the captain in the
mizzen-top with his spy-glass. Presently, we slowly passed
alongside of it.
It was a dismantled, water-logged schooner, a most dismal
sight, that must have been drifting about for several
long weeks. The bulwarks were pretty much gone; and
here and there the bare stanchions, or posts, were left standing,
splitting in two the waves which broke clear over the
deck, lying almost even with the sea. The foremast was
snapt off less than four feet from its base; and the shattered
and splintered remnant looked like the stump of a pine tree
thrown over in the woods. Every time she rolled in the trough
of the sea, her open main-hatchway yawned into view; but
was as quickly filled, and submerged again, with a rushing,
gurgling sound, as the water ran into it with the lee-roll.
At the head of the stump of the mainmast, about ten
feet above the deck, something like a sleeve seemed nailed;
it was supposed to be the relic of a jacket, which must have
been fastened there by the crew for a signal, and been frayed
out and blown away by the wind.
Lashed, and leaning over sideways against the taffrail,
were three dark, green, grassy objects, that slowly swayed
with every roll, but otherwise were motionless. I saw the
captain's glass directed toward them, and heard him say at
last, “They must have been dead a long time.” These
were sailors, who long ago had lashed themselves to the taffrail
for safety; but must have famished.
Full of the awful interest of the scene, I surely thought
the captain would lower a boat to bury the bodies, and find
out something about the schooner. But we did not stop at
all; passing on our course, without so much as learning the
schooner's name, though every one supposed her to be a New
Brunswick lumberman.
On the part of the sailors, no surprise was shown that our
captain did not send off a boat to the wreck; but the steerage
passengers were indignant at what they called his barbarity.
For me, I could not but feel amazed and shocked
at his indifference; but my subsequent sea experiences have
shown me, that such conduct as this is very common, though
not, of course, when human life can be saved.
So away we sailed, and left her; drifting, drifting on; a
garden spot for barnacles, and a playhouse for the sharks.
“Look there,” said Jackson, hanging over the rail and
coughing—“look there; that's a sailor's coffin. Ha! ha!
Buttons,” turning round to me—“how do you like that,
Buttons? Wouldn't you like to take a sail with them 'ere
dead men? Wouldn't it be nice?” And then he tried to
laugh, but only coughed again.
“Don't laugh at dem poor fellows,” said Max, looking
grave; “do' you see dar bodies, dar souls are farder off dan
de Cape of Dood Hope.”
“Dood Hope, Dood Hope,” shrieked Jackson, with a horrid
grin, mimicking the Dutchman, “dare is no dood hope
for dem, old boy; dey are drowned and d.... d, as you and
I will be, Red Max, one of dese dark nights.”
“No, no,” said Blunt, “all sailors are saved; they have
plenty of squalls here below, but fair weather aloft.”
“And did you get that out of your silly Dream Book, you
Greek?” howled Jackson through a cough. “Don't talk of
heaven to me—it's a lie—I know it—and they are all fools
that believe in it. Do you think, you Greek, that there's
any heaven for you? Will they let you in there, with that
tarry hand, and that oily head of hair? Avast! when some
shark gulps you down his hatchway one of these days, you'll
find, that by dying, you'll only go from one gale of wind to
another; mind that, you Irish cockney! Yes, you'll be bolted
down like one of your own pills: and I should like to see
the whole ship swallowed down in the Norway maelstrom,
like a box on 'em. That would be a dose of salts for ye!”
And so saying, he went off, holding his hands to his chest,
and coughing, as if his last hour was come.
Every day this Jackson seemed to grow worse and worse,
both in body and mind. He seldom spoke, but to contradict,
deride, or curse; and all the time, though his face grew
thinner and thinner, his eyes seemed to kindle more and more,
as if he were going to die out at last, and leave them burning
like tapers before a corpse.
Though he had never attended churches, and knew nothing
about Christianity; no more than a Malay pirate; and though
he could not read a word, yet he was spontaneously an atheist
and an infidel; and during the long night watches, would
enter into arguments, to prove that there was nothing to be
believed; nothing to be loved, and nothing worth living for;
but every thing to be hated, in the wide world. He was a
horrid desperado; and like a wild Indian, whom he resembled
in his tawny skin and high cheek bones, he seemed to run
a muck at heaven and earth. He was a Cain afloat;
branded on his yellow brow with some inscrutable curse;
and going about corrupting and searing every heart that
beat near him.
But there seemed even more woe than wickedness about
the man; and his wickedness seemed to spring from his
woe; and for all his hideousness, there was that in his eye
at times, that was ineffably pitiable and touching; and
though there were moments when I almost hated this Jackson,
yet I have pitied no man as I have pitied him.
