CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PITCH OF THE CAPE.
Ere the calm had yet left us, a sail had been discerned from thefore-top-mast-head, at a great distance, probably three leagues ormore. At first it was a mere speck, altogether out of sight from thedeck. By the force of attraction, or something else equallyinscrutable, two ships in a calm, and equally affected by the currents,will always approximate, more or less. Though there was not a breath ofwind, it was not a great while before the strange sail was descriedfrom our bulwarks; gradually, it drew still nearer.
What was she, and whence? There is no object which so excites interestand conjecture, and, at the same time, baffles both, as a sail, seen asa mere speck on these remote seas off Cape Horn. A breeze! a breeze!for lo! the stranger is now perceptibly nearing the frigate; theofficer's spy-glass pronounces her a full-rigged ship, with all sailset, and coming right down to us, though in our own vicinity the calmstill reigns.
She is bringing the wind with her. Hurrah! Ay, there it is! Behold howmincingly it creeps over the sea, just ruffling and crisping it.
Our top-men were at once sent aloft to loose the sails, and presentlythey faintly began to distend. As yet we hardly had steerage-way.Toward sunset the stranger bore down before the wind, a completepyramid of canvas. Never before, I venture to say, was Cape Horn soaudaciously insulted. Stun'-sails alow and aloft; royals, moon-sails,and everything else. She glided under our stern, within hailingdistance, and the signal-quarter-master ran up our ensign to the gaff.
"Ship ahoy!" cried the Lieutenant of the Watch, through his trumpet.
"Halloa!" bawled an old fellow in a green jacket, clap-ping one hand tohis mouth, while he held on with the other to the mizzen-shrouds.
"What ship's that?"
"The Sultan, Indiaman, from New York, and bound to Callao and Canton,sixty days out, all well. What frigate's that?"
"The United States ship Neversink, homeward bound." "Hurrah! hurrah!hurrah!" yelled our enthusiastic countryman, transported withpatriotism.
By this time the Sultan had swept past, but the Lieutenant of the Watchcould not withhold a parting admonition.
"D'ye hear? You'd better take in some of your flying-kites there. Lookout for Cape Horn!"
But the friendly advice was lost in the now increasing wind. With asuddenness by no means unusual in these latitudes, the light breezesoon became a succession of sharp squalls, and our sail-proudbraggadacio of an India-man was observed to let everything go by therun, his t'-gallant stun'-sails and flying-jib taking quick leave ofthe spars; the flying-jib was swept into the air, rolled together for afew minutes, and tossed about in the squalls like a foot-ball. But thewind played no such pranks with the more prudently managed canvas ofthe Neversink, though before many hours it was stirring times with us.
About midnight, when the starboard watch, to which, I belonged, wasbelow, the boatswain's whistle was heard, followed by the shrill cry of"_All hands take in sail_! jump, men, and save ship!"
Springing from our hammocks, we found the frigate leaning over to it sosteeply, that it was with difficulty we could climb the ladders leadingto the upper deck.
Here the scene was awful. The vessel seemed to be sailing on her side.The main-deck guns had several days previous been run in and housed,and the port-holes closed, but the lee carronades on the quarter-deckand forecastle were plunging through the sea, which undulated over themin milk-white billows of foam. With every lurch to leeward theyard-arm-ends seemed to dip in the sea, while forward the spray dashedover the bows in cataracts, and drenched the men who were on thefore-yard. By this time the deck was alive with the whole strength ofthe ship's company, five hundred men, officers and all, mostly clingingto the weather bulwarks. The occasional phosphorescence of the yeastingsea cast a glare upon their uplifted faces, as a night fire in apopulous city lights up the panic-stricken crowd.
In a sudden gale, or when a large quantity of sail is suddenly to befurled, it is the custom for the First Lieutenant to take the trumpetfrom whoever happens then to be officer of the deck. But Mad Jack hadthe trumpet that watch; nor did the First Lieutenant now seek to wrestit from his hands. Every eye was upon him, as if we had chosen him fromamong us all, to decide this battle with the elements, by single combatwith the spirit of the Cape; for Mad Jack was the saving genius of theship, and so proved himself that night. I owe this right hand, that isthis moment flying over my sheet, and all my present being to Mad Jack.The ship's bows were now butting, battering, ramming, and thunderingover and upon the head seas, and with a horrible wallowing sound ourwhole hull was rolling in the trough of the foam. The gale came athwartthe deck, and every sail seemed bursting with its wild breath.
All the quarter-masters, and several of the forecastle-men, wereswarming round the double-wheel on the quarter-deck. Some jumping upand down, with their hands upon the spokes; for the whole helm andgalvanised keel were fiercely feverish, with the life imparted to themby the tempest.
"Hard _up_ the helm!" shouted Captain Claret, bursting from his cabinlike a ghost in his night-dress.
"Damn you!" raged Mad Jack to the quarter-masters; "hard down--hard_down_, I say, and be damned to you!"
Contrary orders! but Mad Jack's were obeyed. His object was to throwthe ship into the wind, so as the better to admit of close-reefing thetop-sails. But though the halyards were let go, it was impossible toclew down the yards, owing to the enormous horizontal strain on thecanvas. It now blew a hurricane. The spray flew over the ship infloods. The gigantic masts seemed about to snap under the world-widestrain of the three entire top-sails.
"Clew down! clew down!" shouted Mad Jack, husky with excitement, and ina frenzy, beating his trumpet against one of the shrouds. But, owing tothe slant of the ship, the thing could not be done. It was obvious thatbefore many minutes something must go--either sails, rigging, orsticks; perhaps the hull itself, and all hands.
Presently a voice from the top exclaimed that there was a rent in themain-top-sail. And instantly we heard a re-port like two or threemuskets discharged together; the vast sail was rent up and clown likethe Vail of the Temple. This saved the main-mast; for the yard was nowclewed down with comparative ease, and the top-men laid out to stow theshattered canvas. Soon, the two remaining top-sails were also cleweddown and close reefed.
Above all the roar of the tempest and the shouts of the crew, was heardthe dismal tolling of the ship's bell--almost as large as that of avillage church--which the violent rolling of the ship was occasioning.Imagination cannot conceive the horror of such a sound in anight-tempest at sea.
"Stop that ghost!" roared Mad Jack; "away, one of you, and wrench offthe clapper!"
But no sooner was this ghost gagged, than a still more appalling soundwas heard, the rolling to and fro of the heavy shot, which, on thegun-deck, had broken loose from the gun-racks, and converted that partof the ship into an immense bowling-alley. Some hands were sent down tosecure them; but it was as much as their lives were worth. Several weremaimed; and the midshipmen who were ordered to see the duty performedreported it impossible, until the storm abated.
The most terrific job of all was to furl the main-sail, which, at thecommencement of the squalls, had been clewed up, coaxed and quieted asmuch as possible with the bunt-lines and slab-lines. Mad Jack waitedsome time for a lull, ere he gave an order so perilous to be executed.For to furl this enormous sail, in such a gale, required at least fiftymen on the yard; whose weight, superadded to that of the ponderousstick itself, still further jeopardised their lives. But there was noprospect of a cessation of the gale, and the order was at last given.
At this time a hurricane of slanting sleet and hail was descending uponus; the rigging was coated with a thin glare of ice, formed within thehour.
"Aloft, main-yard-men! and all you main-top-men! and furl themain-sail!" cried Mad Jack.
I dashed down my hat, slipped out of my quilted jacket in an instant,kicked the shoes from my feet, and, with a crowd of others, sprang forthe rigging. Above th
e bulwarks (which in a frigate are so high as toafford much protection to those on deck) the gale was horrible. Thesheer force of the wind flattened us to the rigging as we ascended, andevery hand seemed congealing to the icy shrouds by which we held.
"Up--up, my brave hearties!" shouted Mad Jack; and up we got, some wayor other, all of us, and groped our way out on the yard-arms.
"Hold on, every mother's son!" cried an old quarter-gunner at my side.He was bawling at the top of his compass; but in the gale, he seemed tobe whispering; and I only heard him from his being right to windward ofme.
But his hint was unnecessary; I dug my nails into the _jack-stays_, andswore that nothing but death should part me and them until I was ableto turn round and look to windward. As yet, this was impossible; Icould scarcely hear the man to leeward at my elbow; the wind seemed tosnatch the words from his mouth and fly away with them to the SouthPole.
All this while the sail itself was flying about, sometimes catchingover our heads, and threatening to tear us from the yard in spite ofall our hugging. For about three quarters of an hour we thus hungsuspended right over the rampant billows, which curled their verycrests under the feet of some four or five of us clinging to thelee-yard-arm, as if to float us from our place.
Presently, the word passed along the yard from wind-ward, that we wereordered to come down and leave the sail to blow, since it could not befurled. A midshipman, it seemed, had been sent up by the officer of thedeck to give the order, as no trumpet could be heard where we were.
Those on the weather yard-arm managed to crawl upon the spar andscramble down the rigging; but with us, upon the extreme leeward side,this feat was out of the question; it was, literary, like climbing aprecipice to get to wind-ward in order to reach the shrouds: besides,the entire yard was now encased in ice, and our hands and feet were sonumb that we dared not trust our lives to them. Nevertheless, byassisting each other, we contrived to throw ourselves prostrate alongthe yard, and embrace it with our arms and legs. In this position, thestun'-sail-booms greatly assisted in securing our hold. Strange as itmay appear, I do not suppose that, at this moment, the slightestsensation of fear was felt by one man on that yard. We clung to it withmight and main; but this was instinct. The truth is, that, incircumstances like these, the sense of fear is annihilated in theunutterable sights that fill all the eye, and the sounds that fill allthe ear. You become identified with the tempest; your insignificance islost in the riot of the stormy universe around.
Below us, our noble frigate seemed thrice its real length--a vast blackwedge, opposing its widest end to the combined fury of the sea and wind.
At length the first fury of the gale began to abate, and we at oncefell to pounding our hands, as a preliminary operation to going towork; for a gang of men had now ascended to help secure what was leftof the sail; we somehow packed it away, at last, and came down.
About noon the next day, the gale so moderated that we shook two reefsout of the top-sails, set new courses, and stood due east, with thewind astern.
Thus, all the fine weather we encountered after first weighing anchoron the pleasant Spanish coast, was but the prelude to this one terrificnight; more especially, that treacherous calm immediately preceding it.But how could we reach our long-promised homes without encounteringCape Horn? by what possibility avoid it? And though some ships haveweathered it without these perils, yet by far the greater part mustencounter them. Lucky it is that it comes about midway in thehomeward-bound passage, so that the sailors have time to prepare forit, and time to recover from it after it is astern.
But, sailor or landsman, there is some sort of a Cape Horn for all.Boys! beware of it; prepare for it in time. Gray-beards! thank God itis passed. And ye lucky livers, to whom, by some rare fatality, yourCape Horns are placid as Lake Lemans, flatter not yourselves that goodluck is judgment and discretion; for all the yolk in your eggs, youmight have foundered and gone down, had the Spirit of the Cape said theword.