CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST RESOURCE.
There was a hole in the keel. A leak had been sprung. When it happenedno one could have said. Was it when they touched the Caskets? Was it offOrtach? Was it when they were whirled about the shallows west ofAurigny? It was most probable that they had touched some rock there.They had struck against some hidden buttress which they had not felt inthe midst of the convulsive fury of the wind which was tossing them. Intetanus who would feel a prick?
The other sailor, the southern Basque, whose name was Ave Maria, wentdown into the hold, too, came on deck again, and said,--
"There are two varas of water in the hold."
About six feet.
Ave Maria added, "In less than forty minutes we shall sink."
Where was the leak? They couldn't find it. It was hidden by the waterwhich was filling up the hold. The vessel had a hole in her hullsomewhere under the water-line, quite forward in the keel. Impossible tofind it--impossible to check it. They had a wound which they could notstanch. The water, however, was not rising very fast.
The chief called out,
"We must work the pump."
Galdeazun replied, "We have no pump left."
"Then," said the chief, "we must make for land."
"Where is the land?"
"I don't know."
"Nor I."
"But it must be somewhere."
"True enough."
"Let some one steer for it."
"We have no pilot."
"Stand to the tiller yourself."
"We have lost the tiller."
"Let's rig one out of the first beam we can lay hands on. Nails--ahammer--quick--some tools."
"The carpenter's box is overboard, we have no tools."
"We'll steer all the same, no matter where."
"The rudder is lost."
"Where is the boat? We'll get in and row."
"The boat is lost."
"We'll row the wreck."
"We have lost the oars."
"We'll sail."
"We have lost the sails and the mast."
"We'll rig one up with a pole and a tarpaulin for sail Let's get clearof this and trust in the wind."
"There is no wind."
The wind, indeed, had left them, the storm had fled; and its departure,which they had believed to mean safety, meant, in fact, destruction. Hadthe sou'-wester continued it might have driven them wildly on someshore--might have beaten the leak in speed--might, perhaps, have carriedthem to some propitious sandbank, and cast them on it before the hookerfoundered. The swiftness of the storm, bearing them away, might haveenabled them to reach land; but no more wind, no more hope. They weregoing to die because the hurricane was over.
The end was near!
Wind, hail, the hurricane, the whirlwind--these are wild combatants thatmay be overcome; the storm can be taken in the weak point of its armour;there are resources against the violence which continually lays itselfopen, is off its guard, and often hits wide. But nothing is to be doneagainst a calm; it offers nothing to the grasp of which you can layhold.
The winds are a charge of Cossacks: stand your ground and they disperse.Calms are the pincers of the executioner.
The water, deliberate and sure, irrepressible and heavy, rose in thehold, and as it rose the vessel sank--it was happening slowly.
Those on board the wreck of the _Matutina_ felt that most hopeless ofcatastrophes--an inert catastrophe undermining them. The still andsinister certainty of their fate petrified them. No stir in the air, nomovement on the sea. The motionless is the inexorable. Absorption wassucking them down silently. Through the depths of the dumbwaters--without anger, without passion, not willing, not knowing, notcaring--the fatal centre of the globe was attracting them downwards.Horror in repose amalgamating them with itself. It was no longer thewide open mouth of the sea, the double jaw of the wind and the wave,vicious in its threat, the grin of the waterspout, the foaming appetiteof the breakers--it was as if the wretched beings had under them theblack yawn of the infinite.
They felt themselves sinking into Death's peaceful depths. The heightbetween the vessel and the water was lessening--that was all. They couldcalculate her disappearance to the moment. It was the exact reverse ofsubmersion by the rising tide. The water was not rising towards them;they were sinking towards it. They were digging their own grave. Theirown weight was their sexton.
They were being executed, not by the law of man, but by the law ofthings.
The snow was falling, and as the wreck was now motionless, this whitelint made a cloth over the deck and covered the vessel as with awinding-sheet.
The hold was becoming fuller and deeper--no means of getting at theleak. They struck a light and fixed three or four torches in holes asbest they could. Galdeazun brought some old leathern buckets, and theytried to bale the hold out, standing in a row to pass them from hand tohand; but the buckets were past use, the leather of some was unstitched,there were holes in the bottoms of the others, and the buckets emptiedthemselves on the way. The difference in quantity between the waterwhich was making its way in and that which they returned to the sea wasludicrous--for a ton that entered a glassful was baled out; they did notimprove their condition. It was like the expenditure of a miser, tryingto exhaust a million, halfpenny by halfpenny.
The chief said, "Let us lighten the wreck."
During the storm they had lashed together the few chests which were ondeck. These remained tied to the stump of the mast. They undid thelashings and rolled the chests overboard through a breach in thegunwale. One of these trunks belonged to the Basque woman, who could notrepress a sigh.
"Oh, my new cloak lined with scarlet! Oh, my poor stockings ofbirchen-bark lace! Oh, my silver ear-rings to wear at mass on May Day!"
The deck cleared, there remained the cabin to be seen to. It was greatlyencumbered; in it were, as may be remembered, the luggage belonging tothe passengers, and the bales belonging to the sailors. They took theluggage, and threw it over the gunwale. They carried up the bales andcast them into the sea.
Thus they emptied the cabin. The lantern, the cap, the barrels, thesacks, the bales, and the water-butts, the pot of soup, all went overinto the waves.
They unscrewed the nuts of the iron stove, long since extinguished:they pulled it out, hoisted it on deck, dragged it to the side, andthrew it out of the vessel.
They cast overboard everything they could pull out of the deck--chains,shrouds, and torn rigging.
From time to time the chief took a torch, and throwing its light on thefigures painted on the prow to show the draught of water, looked to seehow deep the wreck had settled down.