CHAPTER XIII
THE LOSS OF THE BRIG
It was already late at night, and as dark as it ever would be at thatseason of the year (and that is to say, it was still pretty bright),when Hoseason clapped his head into the round-house door.
"Here," said he, "come out and see if ye can pilot."
"Is this one of your tricks?" asked Alan.
"Do I look like tricks?" cries the captain. "I have other things tothink of--my brig's in danger!"
By the concerned look of his face, and above all by the sharp tones inwhich he spoke of his brig, it was plain to both of us he was in deadlyearnest; and so Alan and I, with no great fear of treachery, stepped ondeck.
The sky was clear; it blew hard, and was bitter cold; a great deal ofdaylight lingered; and the moon, which was nearly full, shone brightly.The brig was close-hauled, so as to round the south-west corner of theIsland of Mull, the hills of which (and Ben More above them all, with awisp of mist upon the top of it) lay full upon the larboard bow. Thoughit was no good point of sailing for the _Covenant_, she tore through theseas at a great rate, pitching and straining, and pursued by thewesterly swell.
Altogether it was no such ill night to keep the seas in; and I had begunto wonder what it was that sat so heavily upon the captain, when, thebrig rising suddenly on the top of a high swell, he pointed and cried tous to look. Away on the lee bow, a thing like a fountain rose out of themoonlit sea, and immediately after we heard a low sound of roaring.
"What do ye call that?" asked the captain gloomily.
"The sea breaking on a reef," said Alan. "And now ye ken where it is;and what better would ye have?"
"Ay," said Hoseason, "if it was the only one."
And sure enough, just as he spoke there came a second fountain fartherto the south.
"There!" said Hoseason. "Ye see for yourself. If I had kennt of thesereefs, if I had had a chart, or if Shuan had been spared, it's not sixtyguineas, no, nor six hundred, would have made me risk my brig in sic astoneyard! But you, sir, that was to pilot us, have ye never a word?"
"I'm thinking," said Alan, "these'll be what they call the TorranRocks."
"Are there many of them?" says the captain.
"Truly, sir, I am nae pilot," said Alan; "but it sticks in my mind thereare ten miles of them."
Mr. Riach and the captain looked at each other.
"There's a way through them, I suppose?" said the captain.
"Doubtless," said Alan, "but where? But it somehow runs in my mind oncemore that it is clearer under the land."
"So?" said Hoseason. "We'll have to haul our wind then, Mr. Riach; we'llhave to come as near in about the end of Mull as we can take her, sir;and even then we'll have the land to kep the wind off us, and thatstoneyard on our lee. Well, we're in for it now, and may as well crackon."
With that he gave an order to the steersman, and sent Riach to theforetop. There were only five men on deck, counting the officers; thesebeing all that were fit (or, at least, both fit and willing) for theirwork. So, as I say, it fell to Mr. Riach to go aloft, and he sat therelooking out and hailing the deck with news of all he saw.
"The sea to the south is thick," he cried; and then, after a while, "itdoes seem clearer in by the land."
"Well, sir," said Hoseason to Alan, "we'll try your way of it. But Ithink I might as well trust to a blind fiddler. Pray God you're right."
"Pray God I am!" says Alan to me. "But where did I hear it? Well, well,it will be as it must."
As we got nearer to the turn of the land the reefs began to be sown hereand there on our very path; and Mr. Riach sometimes cried down to us tochange the course. Sometimes, indeed, none too soon; for one reef was soclose on the brig's weather-board that when a sea burst upon it thelighter sprays fell upon her deck and wetted us like rain.
The brightness of the night showed us these perils as clearly as by day,which was, perhaps, the more alarming. It showed me, too, the face ofthe captain as he stood by the steersman, now on one foot, now on theother, and sometimes blowing in his hands, but still listening andlooking and as steady as steel. Neither he nor Mr. Riach had shown wellin the fighting, but I saw they were brave in their own trade, andadmired them all the more because I found Alan very white.
"Ochone, David," says he, "this is no' the kind of death I fancy!"
"What, Alan!" I cried, "you're not afraid?"
"No," said he, wetting his lips, "but you'll allow yourself it's a coldending."
By this time, now and then sheering to one side or the other to avoid areef, but still hugging the wind and the land, we had got round Iona andbegun to come alongside Mull. The tide at the tail of the land ran verystrong, and threw the brig about. Two hands were put to the helm, andHoseason himself would sometimes lend a help; and it was strange to seethree strong men throw their weight upon the tiller, and it (like aliving thing) struggle against and drive them back. This would have beenthe greater danger had not the sea been for some while free ofobstacles. Mr. Riach, besides, announced from the top that he saw clearwater ahead.
"Ye were right," said Hoseason to Alan. "Ye have saved the brig, sir;I'll mind that when we come to clear accounts," and I believe he notonly meant what he said, but would have done it; so high a place didthe _Covenant_ hold in his affections.
But this is matter only for conjecture, things having gone otherwisethan he forecast.
"Keep her away a point," sings out Mr. Riach. "Reef to windward!"
And just at the same time the tide caught the brig, and threw the windout of her sails. She came round into the wind like a top, and the nextmoment struck the reef with such a dunch as threw us all flat upon thedeck, and came near to shake Mr. Riach from his place upon the mast.
I was on my feet in a minute. The reef on which we had struck was closein under the south-west end of Mull, off a little isle they callEarraid, which lay low and black upon the larboard. Sometimes the swellbroke clean over us; sometimes it only ground the poor brig upon thereef, so that we could hear her beat herself to pieces; and what withthe great noise of the sails, and the singing of the wind, and theflying of the spray in the moonlight, and the sense of danger, I thinkmy head must have been partly turned, for I could scarcely understandthe things I saw.
Presently I observed Mr. Riach and the seamen busy round the skiff, and,still in the same blank, ran over to assist them; and as soon as I setmy hand to work, my mind came clear again. It was no very easy task, forthe skiff lay amidships and was full of hamper, and the breaking of theheavier seas continually forced us to give over and hold on; but we allwrought like horses while we could.
Meanwhile such of the wounded as could move came clambering out of thefore-scuttle and began to help; while the rest that lay helpless intheir bunks harrowed me with screaming and begging to be saved.
The captain took no part. It seemed he was struck stupid. He stoodholding by the shrouds, talking to himself and groaning out aloudwhenever the ship hammered on the rock. His brig was like wife and childto him; he had looked on, day by day, at the mishandling of poorRansome; but, when it came to the brig, he seemed to suffer along withher.
All the time of our working at the boat, I remember only one otherthing: that I asked Alan, looking across at the shore, what country itwas; and he answered, it was the worst possible for him, for it was theland of the Campbells.
We had one of the wounded men told off to keep a watch upon the seas andcry us warning. Well, we had the boat about ready to be launched, whenthis man sang out pretty shrill: "For God's sake, hold on!" We knew byhis tone that it was something more than ordinary; and sure enough,there followed a sea so huge that it lifted the brig right up and cantedher over on her beam. Whether the cry came too late, or my hold was tooweak, I know not; but at the sudden tilting of the ship I was cast cleanover the bulwarks into the sea.
I went down, and drank my fill, and then came up, and got a blink of themoon, and then down again. They say a man sinks a third time for good. Icannot be made like other f
olk, then; for I would not like to write howoften I went down, or how often I came up again. All the while, I wasbeing hurled along, and beaten upon and choked, and then swallowedwhole; and the thing was so distracting to my wits that I was neithersorry nor afraid.
Presently I found I was holding to a spar, which helped me somewhat. Andthen all of a sudden I was in quiet water, and began to come to myself.
It was the spare yard I had got hold of, and I was amazed to see how farI had travelled from the brig. I hailed her, indeed; but it was plainshe was already out of cry. She was still holding together; but whetheror not they had yet launched the boat, I was too far off and too lowdown to see.
While I was hailing the brig, I spied a tract of water lying between uswhere no great waves came, but which yet boiled white all over andbristled in the moon with rings and bubbles. Sometimes the whole tractswung to one side, like the tail of a live serpent; sometimes, for aglimpse, it would all disappear and then boil up again. What it was Ihad no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it; but I now knowit must have been the roost or tide race, which had carried me away sofast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of thatplay, had flung out me and the spare yard upon its landward margin.
I now lay quite becalmed, and began to feel that a man can die of coldas well as of drowning. The shores of Earraid were close in; I could seein the moonlight the dots of heather and the sparkling of the mica inthe rocks.
"Well," thought I to myself, "if I cannot get as far as that, it'sstrange!"
I had no skill of swimming, Essen Water being small in ourneighbourhood; but when I laid hold upon the yard with both arms, andkicked out with both feet, I soon began to find that I was moving. Hardwork it was, and mortally slow; but in about an hour of kicking andsplashing, I had got well in between the points of a sandy baysurrounded by low hills.
The sea was here quite quiet; there was no sound of any surf; the moonshone clear; and I thought in my heart I had never seen a place sodesert and desolate. But it was dry land; and when at last it grew soshallow that I could leave the yard and wade ashore upon my feet, Icannot tell if I was more tired or more grateful. Both at least, I was:tired as I never was before that night; and grateful to God as I trust Ihave been often, though never with more cause.