 | CHAPTER XIV. The doomed chief, or, Two hundred years ago |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night;—Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! Let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,—
A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea!
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again 'tis black,—And now, the glee
Of the glad hills shakes with its mountain mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.”
Ours is a life of change and contrast. And as we are constituted,
it is well that it is so. We owe half our happiness
to its contrast to our misery. So great is the effect of change
and contrast, indeed, that the very absence of pain, after its
severe trials, produces a positive pleasure. And when pleasure
palls by continuance, its loss can only be justly appreciated
and its possession only regained, through a season of pain
and deprivation. The woes incident to humanity, therefore,
seem necessary to prepare us for the enjoyment of the highest
happiness, and may be regarded as performing the same office
in the moral, as storms in the physical world, that of opening
the way to bright and happy days to come. By change,
called into action. Every change brings a new experience,
and every new experience adds to the amount of our knowledge
and wisdom. It would seem, then, that these violent
changes and striking contrasts in the affairs of life, which are
so constantly occurring, and of which we are so prone to complain,
are alike wanted for the consummation of human happiness
and the best and fullest development of human character.
It was sunset; and the perilous strife of the day was over.
Imagination could scarcely conceive a greater change than
that which had occurred within the last hour in the situation
and circumstances of the heroic young officer and his brave
little band of rangers, whose fortunes we have been following.
One hour ago, parched with thirst, nearly overcome by the
intense heat of the broiling summer sun, and half suffocated
by the sulphureous smoke, with which the constant discharge
of their guns had kept them enveloped, they were engaged in
the deadly strife with a merciless foe with no rational hope
of escaping the destruction which stared them in the face.
Now relieved, alike from their danger, their terrible sufferings
of thirst and the scorching rays of the sun, they were quietly reposing
around the decks of the sloop, deeply enjoying the
physical contrast, rejoicing in the consciousness of safety,
and devoutly grateful for their deliverance from the fearful
perils from which they had so unexpectedly and so strangely
escaped. With them, indeed, it was one of those rare and
sudden transitions from darkness to light, which of themselves
make the most purely happy moments of our lives.
“Captain Willis,” said the hardy looking, free-spoken
skipper, who, having been busy with ship duties since the
embarkation of the imperiled company, now came forward for
a more leisurely greeting to the young officer, as the latter
was reclining on the gunwale near the stern of the vessel,
“Captain Willis, you must have been born to good fortune.”
“Do you call it good fortune for a military leader to be
compelled to beat a retreat, and leave his enemies masters of
the battle field?” said Willis, with a bantering smile, as he
turned to the skipper.
“Yes, in your circumstances. Hemmed in as you were by
four times your own numbers, it was good fortune for you to
escape at all. And now I cannot, for the life of me, see why
they did not close in upon your company with knife and
tomahawk, and annihilate the whole of you. I had supposed
the Wampanoogs had both more cunning and courage.”
“Aye, but my assailants were not Wampanoogs.”
“Not King Philip's forces?”
“His forces now, but not his tribe. They were his allies,
the Pocassets, who, with their queen, Wetamoo, entered into
an alliance with him this very morning, as I personally know.
And as these new recruits of Philip were loud in their boasts
of the services they were about to perform, he probably, by
way of testing them, entrusted the pursuit and intended
destruction of my band wholly to them. At all events, I
soon discovered, to my relief, they were all Pocassets, who,
not having the courage to make the open assault, by which
they must have soon overpowered us, were waiting for night,
that they might attack us under cover of darkness, without loss
to themselves and quite as much certainty of success.”
“They didn't expect I should come up with my sloop, to
snatch the game out of their hands?”
“No, nor I either. As I saw the sun beginning to touch
the western hills, and beheld my best men yielding to despair,
I felt myself, I confess, in a strait in which I hope never to
be placed again; and I was casting about for some expedient
to save ourselves, when my eye caught sight of your vessel.
I need not say, I presume, how that sight gladdened my
gallant service you rendered us.”
“Don't burden yourself much about that, captain. We
are involved in a common danger, and you appear to be
drawing the brunt on your own head by your brave attempts
for the benefit of us all. Your mate — leftenant, I should
say—has just been telling me something about your exploits
and personal risks to-day, besides what I partly witnessed
myself; and if I had not decided to do my best to reach you,
I should have deserved the rope's end from the meanest
sailor in the ship.”
“Then your coming up at the time was not wholly accidental?”
“Oh, no. As I came down the river this forenoon, I
learned that your company had crossed over yesterday for an
expedition down the eastern shore, and I beat down the bay
slowly, with the view of being at hand for just such an
emergency as occurred to you.”
“That was a kind and patriotic thought in you, surely;
but where was you when the battle commenced?”
“A pertinent question, I admit; and I should be ashamed
if I could not meet the inference that flows from it. I was
lying four or five miles above here; and when I first heard
your firing, and for hours after, I was utterly becalmed, and
instead of coming downward, I found myself actually drifting
up with the inrolling tide. I knew from the direction of the
firing, and the cloud of smoke that soon rose and stood over
the spot, that you must have taken position near the point of
the neck; while from the incessant roar of the scattered volleys,
I judged the battle to be a hot one, and I would have
given a hundred pounds for a breeze to take us to the
spot.”
“And yet you could make no headway?”
“Not a mile—for hours, not a mile. Not the slightest
dead water. We manned our boat, and by turns tugged at
the oars in trying to tow the vessel, till we were nearly overcome
by the suffocating heat of the afternoon. But with all
our efforts, we could but little more than counterbalance the
tide drift; so we threw down onr anchor to save what we had
gained, and wait for a breeze.”
“Which you got at last.”
“Yes, after laying there all the afternoon, broiling and
panting in the sun, and chafing like tied mastiffs in our impatience
to be in motion, a smart breeze, about sun an hour
high, came unexpectedly puffing out of the northeast, and as
if sent on purpose, lasted, you see, only just long enough to
reach and take you away. And that was one of the items I
had in mind when I said you must have been born to good
fortune. For after having been saved by miracle all day, on
land, and found yourself at last, without the least apparent
hope of further escape, this breeze seemed to spring up for no
other purpose than to snatch you away from death, by water.”
“Providence, skipper—the hand of Providence that ordered
all that.”
“I suppose it is so; but we sailors call it luck, which some
appear never to have, others always, even in all small matters
which I had somehow got a notion Providence would not be
likely to meddle with. But however that may be, you are
evidently, under one name or the other, one of the fortunate,
and I am glad to have such a man aboard my vessel, especially
to-night.”
“Why particularly to-night, skipper?”
“Well, I've my reasons. You have noticed, perhaps, that
I've been looking pretty close to get everything in trim about
the sloop?”
“I have; and but for the very fair evening we are having
I should have supposed you were preparing for a blow.”
“If you had supposed so, even as it is, you would not have
been very far out of the way.”
“Why, skipper, what indications of foul weather can you
possibly see in such a clear sky, and such perfect calm as
this.”
“Several, which I have both felt and seen for some
hours.”
“Felt?”
“Yes. When a boy, I used to be perfectly unnerved on
the approach and during the continuance of thunder storms.
And although I got over that as I grew up, and my nerves
became firmer, yet I have always had enough of the same kind
of sensations, when the elements were preparing for any unusual
battle, to make my feelings the best weather glass I have
ever found. The same kind of sensations have been creeping
over me now for hours. And besides, there are certain visible
things which seemed to point in the same direction. We
have had, this afternoon, an unusual degree of heat, and, with
the exception of half an hour, just one of those oppressive,
dead calms which breed the worst kind of thunder gusts.”
“But there are no signs of anything of the kind visible in
the heavens now, are there?”
“Yes, I think so. You see those thin, whitish, dingy
streaks of cloud that have shot up fan-wise from the western
horizon?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they are what we call a mare's tail. And when
you see them shooting up in that fashion, after such a day as
this, you may count on something that will kick, not far off
in that direction. Yes, though I hope to be mistaken, I
have made up my mind for something more than a mere capfull
of wind to-night; and I am the more anxious about it, as
this narrow East-Bay is not a very pretty place to be caught
in when there is much of a gale. Had the breeze continued
could have safely scudded out, when the gust struck us,
where there is plenty of sea-room. But as we are not making
a rod of progress, and as I have no anchor and cable that
would hold the sloop in a gale, I must take it as it comes,
and get to Newport as I best can.”
“Are you bound any further up the bay than Newport, so
that you could land my company near the new fortress they
are beginning to throw up at Mount Hope?”
“I can't tell you, Captain Willis. It will depend on directions
I expect to receive when I reach Newport, whether
I proceed on to Providence or return this way to Taunton
river.”
“You are going to Newport, I suppose, for freight, which
may not be made up without going on to the Providence
plantations?”
“No,—nothing of the kind,—I am going to receive a passenger
or two who are to be landed to-night, it is expected.”
“What! a voyage this distance with a vessel and crew, to
take away one or two passengers?”
“I see, you think it strange; but I can't explain. I was
not very cunning to say what I did about the object of my
voyage; but I am so apt to talk out. The fact is, Captain
Willis, I am bound on a sort of secret expedition,
with what I consider a perfectly lawful object. And I must
drop the matter where it is, and hope you will be content to
do the same among the men, both here on board, and when
we get to port, where I will land you, if we are permitted to
reach there.”
“Oh, that you will probably do before morning,” replied
Willis, after a thoughtful pause, in which he was evidently
revolving the mysterious words of the other. “Even by any
course you will be likely to take, it cannot be only about
twenty miles round to Newport. A breeze, I think, will soon
that the wind will prove anything more than we shall need
for our purpose.
“Ah, I have much less faith in your weather wisdom than
in your good fortune, which makes me feel that I shall, at
least, have no Jonah aboard to-night,” replied the persistent
skipper, abruptly turning away and leaving the other alone
to his reflections.
It had been, as already intimated, a day throughout of unusual
heat and sultriness. And the heat, and especially the closeness
of the arid atmosphere, had been growing, as the eventful day
wore away, every hour more intense and oppressive. Even the
shades of evening, instead of bringing the usual relief to those
who have been suffering from a hot day, seemed, in the present
instance, but to add to the deadness of the air, and render
the undiminished heat the more insupportable. Not the
semblance of a breeze fanned the waveless waters of the bay,
and the appearance of its dark and dismal expanse, as it lay
hushed as if in the sleep of death, was varied only by the
visible calorific exhalations which rose in quivering undulations
along its heated surface. The sloop, though all her
sails were set in readiness to catch the first breath of moving
air, lay as moveless on the waters as a dead duck on the face
of a mill-pond. The sailors, having done all that was required
of them until some change should occur, and feeling too listless
for motion or conversation, had dropped down in silence
at their respective stations; while the rescued rangers lay reclining
on coils of rope or other different objects scattered
around the deck, and still more overcome from their greater
previous exertions and exposures through the day, seemed
drenched with the spontaneous, outstarting perspiration, and
literally panting for breath. The skipper, still too much
exercised with his apprehensions of perils in store for his
charge, to permit him to take any attitude of repose, stood by
tarpauling, and anxiously scanning the slowly, but
now visibly changing aspects of the heavens. Our heroic
young leader, also, too full of his own deep and varied reflections,
to suffer him to feel any inclination to give himself up
to rest, still retained his place, now running, in thought, over
the wild and perilous adventures he had that day so unexpectedly
encountered, and so strangely survived, and now
reverting to the singular intimations which the skipper had
thrown out respecting the purpose of his little voyage, and
which he somehow felt might involve the object of his own
peculiar solicitude. How this could be, however, he could
not tell; and after wearying his mind with fruitless conjectures
on that subject, he naturally turned his thoughts to the
prognostics of the weather, which seemed to have made so
deep an impression on the mind of the skipper, and for the
first time he seriously fell to noting the appearance of the
clouds, in search of indications going to justify the latter's
predictions. Widely spanning the southeastern horizon, and
magnificently arching up nearly half way to the zenith, lay
quiescently reposing, a single, enormous thunder-pillar, whose
thousand vari-form, encircling folds, each beautifully marked
and distinguished with their delicately tinted edgings of pink
and gold, swelled gorgeously up, one over another, in snowy
whiteness, like flower-clad battlements engirding some huge
dome, bathed and glittering in the contrasted light of the setting
sun. After gazing admiringly awhile on this splendid
semblant edifice of the heavens, in which, however, he read
naught except its display of mingled beauty and grandeur, he
turned to the west, where the alleged indications of a storm
were more particularly visible. The pale, thin, upshooting
streaks of cloud, before pointed out to him, had thickened up
and run together, now forming the ragged border of a long,
and stretching far along the darkening horizon.
Faint, but quick and fast coming electric flashes, at first
scarcely more perceptible than the earliest suffusions of the
morning, but growing brighter and broader with each returning
flash, soon began to quiver and play over the whole extent
of the vapory parapet.
Being now satisfied that the skipper's predictions, of which
he had been so faithless, were to some extent, at least, likely
to be fulfilled, he turned back to the great bright cloud in the
southeast, which a few minutes before had attracted his attention.
All its bright and gorgeous hues had faded away,
and in their place a broad leaden mass of vapor, rolled heavily
together like a scroll, was darkly brooding over that part of the
horizon. Once more he turned to the ominous cloud rising
in the west. As slowly as it had appeared in the distance to
be rising, it had made such rapid advances that it now extended
and hung like some vast black pall over nearly a third
part of the visible heavens. The lightning, every instant
flashing out from some part of the portentous rack, had now
become so vivid and continuous as to leave no room for the
encroaches of night, which had otherwise, by this time, enshrouded
the earth with darkness. And the thunder, till now
inaudible, began to reach the ear in low, broken, but quickly
repeating sounds, like the rapid discharge of artillery on some
far distant field of battle. Thus far the cloud, except the
long, narrow, rifted belt that seemed to lead the van of the
mustering forces, had exhibited only one smooth, even, uniform
appearance over the whole extent of its dark, lurid surface.
But soon its face became ominously varied by several
small masses of wild, angry looking cloud now seen rapidly
pouring up from behind the horizon athwart its lower border
in columns of inky blackness. The opposite cloud also, seemingly
thrown into sympathetic commotion, was undergoing,
all its adjunct, floating vapors, doubling and darkening,
as if passing through a series of hurried evolutions preparatory
to taking part in the elemental conflict now so evidently at
hand.
“Do you see that, and that, sir?” exclaimed the excited
skipper, again approaching the young officer, and pointing to
first one and then the other of the opposite clouds.
“I do—but you don't anticipate much trouble from that
cloud in the southeast, do you, skipper?”
“Yes, it may be. At any rate I had rather it was away.
I have sometimes known two clouds so situated play the very
mischief with the winds. You see it is thickening up, and
the best we can hope of it is, that it will turn into the same
current and prove merely an addition to the great one now
rolling down upon us in the opposite direction.”
“How far off do you judge the storm to be from us, now?”
“The sound of the thunder, which, when heavy, as that
probably is, can be heard about thirty miles, and which has
but just reached us, will give the distance of the storm from
us now. And if I judge rightly of its speed, it will strike us
in just about that number of minutes.”
“So soon? Why, you don't seem in much haste to reef
your sails.”
“No—I have got everything so arranged that I can take
in and make all fast in ten minutes; and I want to improve
the other twenty in getting down into wider water as far as
possible before I yield the sloop to the mercy of the blast.”
“I see—we are evidently moving at last.”
“Yes, and have been, though slowly, for the last ten
minutes. You perceive, the air is freshening fast. There is
a low, heavy rush of air from the northeast towards the path
of the storm, as often happens under such circumstances.
See! it is bearing us along bravely now. We may be able to
go forward and see to making the most of it, as the distance
gained may be the turning point of our salvation.”
Like half-dead men rescued from a coal damp, and reviving
in a stream of fresh air, the hitherto listless and dormant crew
now began to rouse up from their different lounges, rise to
their feet, and send inquiring glances abroad over the heavens,
when their looks of apathy and unconcern were instantly
changed to those of surprise and alarm at the
unmistakable portents of the storm which there stared them
in the face. The broad and fearfully black rack of cloud
wheeling up from the west had now almost reached the
zenith, while its face was becoming rapidly changed and
broken by the low, pitchy volumes of the under-cloud that
was spreading and sweeping in wild convolutions towards
them. Nearer and nearer burst the thunders, and brighter
and broader flashed the lightnings; and the deep, dull roar,
the herald of an approaching tornado, was already borne to
the ear on the undulations of the troubled air. The little
craft, in the meanwhile, had been steadily plowing her way
down the bay under the strong press of the side-wind, skillfully
appropriated for the purpose by the anxious skipper, who
stood silent at the helm, now intently bending his gaze
forward, during each of the brighter flashes of lightning, at
the promontories along the shore ahead, by which he was
directing his course, and now throwing hurried glances back
over his shoulder to note the progress of the tempest behind.
But suddenly the wind died away, and the ominous calm
which usually precedes the bursting of the storm again fell
on the face of the deep. This did not occur, however, until
the gratified skipper saw his vessel shooting past the last
headland of the narrows, and safely emerging out into the
wide waters of the now rapidly expanding bay, when, quickly
calling his mate to take his place at the helm, and throwing
forward towards his anxiously expectant men, and exclaimed—
“Now, into the rigging, boys! Every man of you into
the rigging aloft! Take in, clew, and make double fast every
stitch of canvas to the yards, so that not a rag shall be left
loose, from deck to top-gallant! Bare poles may even be too
much to stand what is coming. Lively there! I tell ye,
there is not a moment to lose.”
The sailors sprang to their task like men working for their
lives; and, thanks to their captain's previous arrangements,
they, even quicker than he had predicted, had put every
thing in the closest trim, and came, one after another, quickly
dropping to the deck.
“Now, mate, lash me to the helm, and then yourself to
some object near,” resumed the skipper. “All the rest make
yourselves fast to something, or go below. Hear that roar!
See that black, boiling mass of cloud rolling down upon us!
In three minutes more we are in the whirl of a tornado.
Heaven be merciful!”
At that instant, as if dropping down in its attempt to leap
the narrowing space of clear sky between the greater and
lesser racks of the two upper clouds, now about to join their
forces, swiftly descended, within pistol shot of the sloop, a
blinding stream of electric fire, and, with a crash that shook
the rent heavens and reeling earth for miles around, drove its
terrific bolts directly into the boiling waters beneath. Scarcely
had the stunned and blinded crew sufficiently recovered from
the fearful shock to be conscious of what had happened, before
the black, curling van of the swiftly advancing volumes of
the nether cloud, now fallen down nearly to the face of the
deep, came wildly whirling over their heads, enveloping them
in a darkness so intense and impenetrable, that the brightest
flashes of lightning from the great upper cloud but barely
almost at the same instant, a furious blast, with a roar that
completely drowned the loudest thunder peals, struck the
devoted sloop with a force which made her shake and tremble
in every joint and timber, from keel to mast-head, and sent
her madly plunging onward like some suddenly smitten victim
fleeing before the blows of the avenger. Another and another
followed in quick succession, and at lessening intervals, till
they mingled into one continued on-rushing blast, before which
the stoutest of human fabrics had been but as feathers on the
towering wave, filling the blent heavens and earth with its
wild uproar, and forcing the groaning vessel forward through
the agitated deep with an impetus that sent jets of foam and
spray over the whole length of her drenched decks below, and
half way up to the dancing yard-arms above. And thus, with
unabated fury, on swept the howling blast, and with it, on flew
the brave little craft, now diving like a sea fowl beneath the
tops of the crested waves, and now riding high and vibrating
on the summits of the rolling billows, with her head turbaned
by the storm cloud, her mast and yards wildly tossing
from side to side, and her pathway marked by the long line
of white foam which her perilous speed had raised from the
cloven waters. On she flew, under the best guidance her
drenched and dripping skipper could give her by the feeble
glimmerings of the lightning that struggled through the
black chaos of vapors that so deeply enshrouded her. On she
flew, for a full half hour; when the gale suddenly lulled,
stopped, and the next moment its fast receding roar was heard
dying away in the distance.
The low, and swiftly flying black, angry scud which accompanied,
and, indeed, seemed to have formed a part of the tornado,
had now passed away, leaving the upper racks of the
two encountering clouds deeply brooding over the earth, and
apparently struggling for the mastery in the counter currents
The deafening roar of the wind also had ceased, but
in its stead, along with the deluging torrents of rain, the most
terrific peals of thunder, like the rapid discharges of some
hotly worked battery of artillery, were continually bursting
midway in the rent heavens, shaking the solid earth beneath
the waves with their fearful concussions, and reverberating in
long, bellowing echoes on the distant shores of the bay; while
the now unobstructed lightnings flashed fiercely forth in every
direction—now shooting perpendicularly down to the face of
the startled deep, and now, like the fiery serpents of the fabled
Tartarus, crinkling and leaping from wave to wave over the
wide arena of their frightful gambols, till the whole bay was
kindled into light, and seemingly converted into one vast
phlegethon of flames.
“See! see there!” exclaimed the mate, as he came hurrying
from the fore deck towards the skipper and the two officers
of the rangers, who stood grouped round the helm, witnessing,
in mute amazement, the awful electric display going
on around them. “What is that? God of mercy, what is
it?” he added, wildly pointing down the bay.
The eyes of the group were instantly turned in the direction
indicated by the excited speaker; when they beheld,
about a mile to the south, and nearly abreast of the outermost
headland separating the bay from the broad ocean, a huge
black, spiral column standing up out of the waves, and rising
perpendicularly till its shafted head became buried in the
agitated and seemingly stooping cloud high in the heavens
above.
“It is a water spout,” responded the skipper, with an air
of lively concern, after bending his gaze a moment on the
strange and fearfully magnificent spectacle.
“A water spout!” said Captain Willis, in surprise. “I
thought they never occurred in these latitudes.”
“They do not often. But this is one, and as formidable a
looking one, too, as I ever saw in a tropical sea. It is the result
of the extraordinary state of the air this evening, and the
meeting of the two counter moving clouds we noticed, which
have probably by this time got doubled over, and become
nearly suspended above. You know I was uneasy about their
appearance, from the first, and was looking for something out
of the way—even of a more dangerous character than the
frightful blow we have already passed through.”
“But, are these water spouts dangerous to a ship?”
“Dangerous? Why, that in this case will be as our luck
is. If we had a wind, we might tack and avoid it. But here
we are again, without a breath of a breeze; and if it moves
up and catches us in this helpless situation, it would either
whirl us up into its vortex with a crash that wouldn't leave
two planks of the ship together, or send us down to the bottom
like a nest of small reptiles beat into the earth by the heel of
your boot.”
While the skipper was yet speaking, the water spout slightly
veered, and disclosed to the startled spectators, what, owing
to its direct course, they had not before noticed, that the object
of their dread was not only in violent motion, but rapidly
approaching that part of the bay where their vessel was slowly
floating down towards it, under the spending impetus of the
departed gale.
Sometimes veering to the right or left, and sometimes moving
in a direct line—sometimes bearing itself perfectly upright,
extending upwards from the water in the likeness of
some mighty, straight, smooth, black shaft, till it entered the
capping cloud above, and sometimes swaying to and fro, and
undulating spirally, like a huge serpent suspended in the air,
it steadily bore up towards the seemingly doomed vessel, on
whose deck stood the appalled crew mutely watching its awful
approach. On, on it still came, presenting, as it neared them
lightnings, and causing the ocean beneath to boil like a pot
along its fearful path through the agitated waters.
With one accord, the affrighted crew now called wildly to
the skipper to make some attempt to escape the destruction
which appeared so near and so inevitable, to the ship and every
soul on board.
“Peace!” responded the skipper, who stood with folded
arms calmly and collectedly viewing the terrific spectacle—
“Peace! you should all know that if I could have done anything,
it would have been done before this last minute of our
crisis. Peace! and fall to your prayers, as I am doing. If
Providence and Captain Willis's good star don't interpose to
prevent, our time is come, that is all.”
But Providence did interpose to save the despairing mariners.
When the frightful column had reached a point in its
direct course towards them, within a furlong of the sloop, it
again veered a little to one side, and, moving on in a semicircular
path, passed by them with the deafening roar of a
cataract, so near as to throw a shower of spray over their
rocking ship, and send it whirling into the foaming wake behind.
If ever the hearts of men gushed out vocally in gratitude,
it was those of the men who now, after having given themselves
up for lost, had thus escaped the awful death that so
nearly threatened them. But their dangers were not over.
While they were yet indulging in their thanksgivings and
mutual congratulations, there rose a cry that the waterspout
was returning. The eyes of all were instantly turned in the
direction, and but to behold with new horror the meteoric
monster slowly sweeping round and coming back in a shortened
circle whose curve would bring it directly upon the luckless
vessel.
“Now Heaven forefend!” exclaimed the sorely exercised
way. Pray again—pray all ye who can, and not depend on
me. I feel so worked up, my own prayers won't be worth a
rope's end to you, this time.”
But the skipper's want of faith was the next moment,
signally rebuked by a strange and unforeseen instrumentality.
As the waterspout came thundering on, and while getting into
fearful proximity with the ship, a large round ball of electric
fire, vying with a noon-day sun in apparent size and brilliancy,
came majestically sailing through the air and struck the
watery shaft midway between the clouds and ocean. A stunning
detonation instantly succeeded the contact; when, with
a deafening sound of rushing and tumbling waters, a dense
cloud of mist suddenly expanded outward from the spot and
veiled every thing from view. Within a minute, the misty
cloud had dispersed, and the waterspout was nowhere to be
seen.
“Surely the devil is abroad to night!” exclaimed the
amazed skipper, gazing into the empty space where the waterspout
was last seen. “But I think he must have taken himself
off with the explosion of that strange fire ball; for I smell
sulphur as plain as old cheese, and besides here comes a
natural breeze,” he added, as a smart blast of wind from the
northwest struck the sloop.
“Another gale I fear,” responded the mate springing to
the helm.
“No matter if it is—I can understand that, and there is
plenty of sea-room before us now. But what is that crossing
our beam outside the capes there, a half mile or so, ahead?”
continued the speaker pointing in a lingering flash of lightning
to the dark hulk of a mastless vessel tossing about at the
mercy of the waves. “It is some unlucky craft that has
been dismantled in the gale. And good heavens! She looks
like the very one. Up with the trysail, boys. She is in
we can reach her and save the crew.”
“The very one, said you, skipper?” eagerly asked our
hero, rushing forward. “What one? What vessel do you
suspect it to be?”
“The one I was expecting to meet, I have too much reason
to fear. May God help her in her peril!”
“But can't you tell me who are aboard?”
“No—not to a brother.”
“One word more—is there a lady among them?”
“See! you can now see the deck—look for yourself.”
The young officer now earnestly bent his gaze in the direction,
and, during the next bright flash of lightning, could distinctly
discern the fluttering garb of a female, who appeared
to be clinging to a man, as they stood holding on to one of
the shrouds on the canted deck of the wildly rolling wreck.
“God of mercy protect them!” he exclaimed in tones that
betrayed his peculiar anxiety—“But faster—faster! skipper
—more sail, or we shall be too late for the rescue.”
“Yes, boys, up with more sail. The sloop will bear it,”
cried the equally anxious skipper—“There, that will do!”
he added bending to the helm as the goaded craft went singing
through the waves towards the endangered vessel.
| CHAPTER XIV. The doomed chief, or, Two hundred years ago | |