Next morning the deck of the Ideal was all activity.
A strong northeasterly wind had sprung up, so that by a rare chance theywere able to sail up the current instead of employing a tug. Only thepaid hands and one or two others were on deck as they struggled up thestream till near Clayton. Here the channels opened out, the currentseemed to ease up, and they got the wind continuously as she boiled upto Kingston. The steward went ashore at the city, and there was a delaywhile he was getting in more ice for the refrigerator, and poultry, andother supplies. Then they went off again, flying before the wind, pastthe wharves of Kingston toward Snake Island lying hull down and showingnothing but its tree-tops.
Breakfast was very irregular that day--terribly so, the steward thought.He was preparing breakfast at any and all times up to twelve o'clock,and after that it was called luncheon. No troublesome bell awoke thetired sleepers, no colored man came to take away their beds as on thesleeping-cars. The dancers of the previous night tumbled up, more orless thirsty, just when the spirit moved them, and, as all had a fairquantum of sleep in this way, there were no bad tempers on board,except--well, the steward knew enough to look pleasant.
It was a fine start they made. But it did not last long. During thenight the heavy water-laden atmosphere began to break up into low cloudsthat went flying across the face of the moon, producing weird effects inalternate light and darkness. They were soon close-hauled on a wind fromthe southward, and before the port of Charlotte was reached they had along tussle with a stiff breeze from the west--topmast housed, two reefsdown, and the lee-scuppers busy.
At dawn, when they went into Charlotte, it was blowing a gale. Not aCape Horn gale, perhaps, but a good enough gale, and the water waslively around the pier-heads. Several vessels could be seen up the lake,running down to the harbor for shelter, and wallowing in the sea. Sothey ran the yacht far up into the harbor between the piers, and madefast as far away from the lake as they could get, to avoid being fouledby incoming vessels, and to escape the heavy swell that found its way infrom outside. An hour after the sailing vessels had made the port themail-line steamer Eleusinian came yawing in, with some of her windows inbad shape, and glad to get in out of the sea.
Next morning it was blowing harder than ever. Everything outside thecabins was disagreeable. The water they floated in seemed to beprincipally mud, and on land the mud seemed principally water. Some ofthe adventurous waded through the mire to see the works for smeltingiron in the neighborhood. But the only thing resembling fun outside theboat was trying to walk on the piers. Two figures, to which yellowoilskin suits lent their usual grace, would support a third figure, cladin a long water-proof, resembling a sausage. These three would make adash through the wind and seize a tall post or a spile for mooringvessels, and here they would pause, hold on, and recover their lostbreath. Then, slanting into the wind, they would make a sort of tack,partly to windward, till they reached the next spile, and so on, whileoccasionally they would be deluged with the top of a wave. The fun ofthis consisted in the endeavor to avoid being blown into the water.Certainly the sausage could not have gone alone. After several hours inthe cabin the element of change in this exercise made it quite apastime. It cooled the blood and took away the fidgets, and, onreturning, made the cabins seem a pleasant shelter instead of a prison.
So far there had been no chance to leave the harbor for the purpose ofreaching Toronto. The wind was dead ahead from that quarter. YoungDusenall was watching the weather continually, very anxious to get awayto be in time for the yacht race there on the 7th and 8th. He was overat the steamboat hobnobbing with the captain of the Eleusinian, who wasalso anxious to get on with his vessel. What with whisky and water,nautical magic, and one thing or another between the two of them theygot the wind to go down suddenly about five o'clock that evening.Charley came back in high good-humor. The captain had offered to tow theIdeal behind the steamer to Toronto, and nothing but a long, rollingsea, with no wind to speak of, could be noticed outside.
Jack did not like going to sea hitched up, Mazeppa-like, to a steamer,and he had misgivings as to the weather. The leaden-colored clouds,banked up in the west, were moving slowly down the lake like herdedelephants. They did not yet look pacific, and he feared that they wouldmake another stampede before the night was over. He declared it was onlylooking for another place to blow from. Charley answered that the racecame off on the day after to-morrow, and, as they had to get to Torontosomehow, why not behind the steamer? As Jack was unable to do any morethan say what he thought, he suggested "that, if the boat must go out inthis sort of way during bad weather, that the women had better take thetrain home." The trip in the yacht promised to be unpleasant, but whenMrs. Dusenall considered the long, dusty, and hot journey around thewestern end of the lake she decided to "stick to the ship."
At seven o'clock in the evening they were flying out of port behind thesteamer at the end of a long hawser. A heavy dead swell was rollingoutside, and the way the Ideal got jerked from one wave to another bodedill for the comfort of the passage. Charley hung on, however, thinkingthat this was the worst of it and that the sea would go down.
The night grew very dark, and two hours afterward the gale commencedagain, and blew harder than before from the same quarter. Every timethey plunged hard into a wave the decks would be swept from stem tostern, while a blinding spray covered everything. If they had cast offat this time they could have sailed back to Charlotte in safety, butCharley was bound to see Toronto, and held on.
Suddenly, in the wildness of the night, they heard a crack of breakingtimber, and the next moment the tall mast whipped back toward the sternlike a bending reed. A few anxious moments passed before those aft couldfind out what had happened. In the darkness, and the further obscuritycaused by the flying water, the bowsprit had fouled the towline. Thebowstays had at once parted and, perhaps assisted by the recoil of themast, the bowsprit had snapped off, like a carrot, close to the stem.
This large piece of timber was now in the water, acting like abattering-ram against the starboard bow, with the stowed staysail, andall the head gear, attached to it. There was no use trying to clear awaythe wreck by endeavoring to chop through all the wire rigging, chains,forestays, bowsprit shrouds, bobstays, and running gear, all adrift in amass that would have taken a long time to cut away or disentangle, evenin daylight and calm water. Besides this, one could not see his handheld before his face, except by lantern-light, and such was theunnatural pitching of the yacht that it was almost impossible to standwithout holding on to something. Charley, who was steering, asked of oneof the English hands, who was carefully crawling aft to take the wheel,"How's everything forward?" To Charley's mind the reply seemed toepitomize things as the man touched his hat and answered respectfully,"Gone to 'ell, sir." He spat on the watery deck, as he said this, whilea blast of wind and half a ton of water from the bows swept away soeffectually both the remark and the tobacco juice that Mr. Lemons couldnot help absurdly thinking of the tears of Sterne's recording angel. Thesailor was very much disgusted at the condition of things, and both heand his remark were so free from any appearance of timidity that theHon. M. T. Head felt like giving him five dollars. While on shore, thehonorable gentleman was accustomed to emphasize his language, but, inthe present crisis, no wild horses could have dragged from him aquestionable word.
Geoffrey's long arms and strength came in well that night. At the firstcrack of the timber he slid out of his oil-skins for work, and his wasone of those cool heads that alone are of use at such a time. On asailing vessel the first effect of a bad accident in the night-time isto paralyze thought. The danger and the damage are at first unknown. Theblackness of the night, the sounds of things smashing, the insecurity offoothold, the screaming of the wind, and the tumbling of the waters, alltend to kill that energy and concentration of thought which, to beuseful, must rise above these enervating influences.
Jack had had more experience than Geoffrey, and thus knew better what todo. But Geoffrey, for his part, was "all th
ere." When he was hangingdown over the side, and climbing about to get the floating, banging massof wreckage attached to the throat-halyards, the tops of the waves thatstruck him were unable to wash him away, and when he had succeeded inhis efforts, the wreckage was hoisted bodily inboard.
The fellows at the wheel were momentarily expecting the mast to snap andfall backward on their heads, as there was now no forestay on it. Theworst fault of the sloop-rig here became apparent. Unlike cutters,sloops have no forestay leading from the masthead down to the stem, butone leading only to the outer end of the bowsprit, and when the bowspritcarries away, as it frequently does, the mast then has nothing but itsown strength to save it from snapping in a sudden recoil.
What made the plunging of the mast worse was that the lower-mastbackstays had both carried away at the deck, as also had the topmastbackstays, after pulling the head off the housed topmast. All this heavywire rigging, with its blocks, immediately became lost to sight. It wasstreaming out aft on the gale from the masthead, together with everyother line that had a chance to get adrift. If a halyard got loose fromits belaying pin that night it was not seen again. It said good-by tothe deck and went to join the flying mass overhead, that afterward bydegrees wound itself round and round the topping-lifts andpeak-halyards, effectually preventing the hoisting of the mainsail. Thelong and heavy main-boom, which had long since kicked its supportingcrutch overboard, was now lowered down to rest on the cabin-top, so asto take the weight off the mast; and while the end of it dragged in theboiling caldron behind the counter, the middle part of it rose and fellwith every pitch, in spite of endeavors to lash it down, until it seemedthat the cabin-top would certainly give way. Had the top caved in, thechances of swamping were good.
Their power to sail by means of the canvas was now virtually gone.Nothing was left for them but to follow the huge "smoke-grinding" massthat yawed and pitched in front of them. One or two men were kept at thestern of the steamer during this part of the night, to report anysignals of distress and to aid the yacht's steering by showing brightlights. Near to these bright lights the figure of the captain could beseen from time to time through the night, anxiously watching the lightson the yacht, which told him that she still survived. Sometimes he wasapparently calling out to those on the yacht, but of course no soundcould be heard.
The ladies were in their cabins all this time, sorry enough that theyhad not taken the railway home.
When the mast was stayed forward, by setting up the staysail-halyards,etc., at the stem, there was nothing to do on deck but steer and keepwatch, and as nearly everything had been carried away except the whaleboat, Geoffrey went below for dry clothes and, feeling tired with hishard work, took a nap in one of the bunks in the after-cabin. As thesailors say, he "turned in all standing"--that is, with his clothes on.
The other men remained on deck. Most of them were drenched to the skinand were becoming gradually colder in the driving spray and heavyswashes of solid wave that swept the decks with clock-like regularity.They thought it better to remain where they could at least swim for awhile if the yacht went down, and they preferred exposure to the idea ofbeing drowned like rats in the cabin.
After some time Geoffrey awoke, feeling that a soft warm hand was beingpassed around his chin. He knew it was Margaret before he got his eyesopen. He peered at her for a moment without raising his head. She wassitting on the seat outside, looking very despairing.
"Oh, Geoffrey," she said, "I think we are going to the bottom."
Geoffrey listened, with his eyes shut, and heard both pumps clangingoutside. Margaret thought he was going off to sleep again. She was veryfrightened, and the fear seemed to draw her toward Geoffrey all the morefor protection. She put her hand half around his neck and urged him towake up.
"Oh, how can you go on sleeping at such a time? Do wake up, dearGeoffrey. I tell you the yacht is sinking. We are all going to thebottom. Do get up!"
Geoffrey was perfectly wide awake, but this was even pleasanter thanbeing waked by music, and her hand on his chin seemed like a caress.With his eyes shut, he reproached her sleepily: "No, no, don't make meget up. I like it. I like going to the bottom."
Margaret smiled through her fears. "But, Geoffrey, do look here! Thewater has risen up over the cabin floor."
He got up then. Certainly, things did seem a little threatening. Acouple of corks were dancing about in the water upon the carpet quitemerrily. This meant a good deal. He heard that peculiar sound of rushingwater inside the boat which can be easily recognized when once heard.Above the howling of wind and swash of waves, both pumps could be heardworking for all they were worth. The vessel was pitching terribly,mercilessly dragged as she was from one wave to another, without havingtime to ride them.
Geoffrey thought the time for bailing with the pails might be deferredfor a while. Without Margaret's knowledge he stuck a pen-knife into thewoodwork near the floor to define high-water mark, and thus detect anyincrease in the leakage over the pumps. Then he devoted some time towardendeavoring to calm Margaret's fears, chiefly by exhibiting a masterlyinaction in regard to the leak and in searching about for a lost pipe.By the time he had found it and was enjoying a quiet smoke, reclining onthe cushions to make the motion seem easier, her fears began to weaken.She did not at all object to the smoke of pipes, and Geoffrey's comfortbecame contagious. Although the clanging of the pumps outside recalledstories of shipwreck, she was, on the other hand, more influenced by theeasy-going indifference that he assumed. Twenty minutes passed in thisway, and then she felt sure that the danger was not so great as she hadthought. Geoffrey in the mean time was covertly watching his pen-knife,that marked the rise or fall of the water in the boat. At the end ofhalf an hour he could see, from where he lay, that half the blade of theknife was covered with water. So he knocked the ashes out of his pipeand said he would go and see the boys on deck, and that Margaret hadbetter go and comfort the others in the ladies' cabins, and tell them itwas all right.
When Margaret had staggered away, Geoffrey's manner was not that of onesatisfied with his surroundings. He ripped up the carpet and the planksunderneath to get at the well, and then skipped up the companion-way inthe liveliest manner. When on deck, he made out Jack at the wheel.
"How's the well?" Jack cried, in the wind. "Did you sound it?"
Geoffrey had to roar to make himself heard above the gale and noise ofwaters.
"Get your buckets!" he said; and Jack passed his order forward by amessenger, who crawled along by the main-boom carefully, lest he shouldgo overboard in the pitching.
"Why, the pumps were gaining on the leak a while ago!" Jack said toGeoffrey. "Did you examine the well?"
"There is no well left that I could see. It's all a lake on the cabinfloor. The leak gained on the pumps an inch in half an hour! I waitedand watched to make sure, and to quiet the women."
"Then it is only a question of time," said Jack. "The buckets and pumpswon't keep her afloat long. She is working the caulking out of herseams, and that will get worse every moment."
There were no loiterers on board after that. They all "turned to" andworked like machines. Even the steward and cook were on deck to taketheir trick at the pumps. Five men in soaking trousers and shirts workedfive buckets in the cabin, heaving the water out of the companion-way.Of these five, some dropped out from time to time exhausted, but theothers relieved them, and so kept the five buckets going as fast as theycould be worked. Some fell deadly sick with the heat, hard work, andterrible pitching and driving motion of the boat, but nobody said aword. If a man fell sick, he had something else to think of than hiscomfort, and he staggered around as well as he could. From thecompanion-way to the well, and from the well to the companion-way, fortwo hours more they kept up the incessant toil. At first some hadattempted to be pleasant by saying it was easy to get water enough forthe whisky, and by making other light remarks. But now it was changed.They said nothing on the exhausting and dreary round, but worked withtheir teeth clinched--while the sweat poured off them a
s if they, too,had started every seam and were leaking out their very lives.
Still the pitiless great mass of a steamer in front of the yacht plungedand yawed and dragged them without mercy through the black waters, wherea huge surge could now be occasionally discerned sweeping its foamingcrest past the little yacht, which was gradually succumbing to the wildforces about it.
Margaret was back again in the cabin now. She had wedged herself in,with her back against the bunks, and one foot up against the table as aprop to keep her in position. In one hand she held a bottle of brandyand in the other a glass. And when a man fell out sick and exhausted sheattended to him. There was no water asked for. They took the brandy"neat." She had succeeded in quieting the other women, and as they couldnot hear the bailing in the after-cabin they were in happy ignorance ofthe worst. Whatever fears she had had when the knowledge of danger firstcame to her, she showed no sign of them now--but only a compassion forthe exhausted workers that heartened them up and did them good.
A third hour had nearly expired since they began to use the buckets, andMargaret for a long time had been watching the water, in which thebailers worked, gradually creeping up over their feet as they spentthemselves on a dreary round, to which the toil of Sisyphus wassatisfactory. The water was rising steadily in spite of their bestefforts to keep the boat afloat. Margaret had quietly made up her mindthat they would never see the land again. There did not seem to be anychance left, and she was going, as men say, to "die game." Her courageand cheering words inspired the others to endless exertions. She waslike a big sister to them all. At times she was hilarious and almostboisterous, and when she waved the bottle in the air and declared thatthere was no Scott Act on board, her conduct can not be defended.Maurice Rankin tried to say he wished they could get a Scott Act on thewater, but the remark seemed to lack intrinsic energy, and he failedfrom exhaustion to utter it.
Another half-hour passed, and while the men trudged through theever-deepening water Margaret experienced new thoughts whenever shegazed at Geoffrey, who had worked almost incessantly. She looked at theknotted cords on his arms and on his forehead, at the long tenacious jawset as she had seen it in the hurdle race, and she knew from theswelling nostril and glittering eye that the idea of defeat in thisbattle with the waters was one which he spurned from him. His clotheswere dripping with water. The neck-button of his shirt had carried away,his trousers were rolled up at the bottom, and his face perspired freelywith the extraordinary strain, and yet in spite of his appearance shefelt as if she had never cared for him so much as when she now saw him.On through the night she sat there doing her woman's part beside thosewho fought with the water for their lives. She saw the treacherous enemygaining on them in spite of all their efforts, and in her heart feltfully convinced that she could not have more than two hours to live.The hot steam from men working frantically filled the cabin, the weakerones grew ill before her, and she looked after them without blenching.Hers was no place for a toy woman. She was there to help all those aboutto die; and to do this rightly, to force back her own nausea, and faceanxiety and death with a smile.
As for Geoffrey, life seemed sweet to him that night. For him, it wasMargaret or--nothing. To him, this facing of death did just one thing.It raised the tiger in him. He had what Shakespeare and prize-fighterscall "gall," that indomitable courage which women worship hereditarily,although better kinds of courage may exist.
Another long half-hour passed, and then Maurice fell over his bucket,keel-up. He had fainted from exhaustion, and was dosed by Margaret inthe usual way, and after this he was set on his pins and sent on deckfor the lighter work at the pumps. After that, the paid hands, having insome way purloined too much whisky, mutinied, and said they would beblanketty-blanketted if they would sling another bucket.
The others went on as steadily as before, while the crew went forward towait sulkily for the end.
Jack and Charley then consulted as to what was best to be done. To holdon in this way meant going to the bottom, without a shadow of doubt.They had tried to signal to the steamer, to get her to slow up and takeall hands on board. But the watchers at the stern of the steamer hadbeen taken off to work at the steamer's pumps; for, as was afterwardfound, she also was leaking badly and in a dangerous condition.
Ought they to cut the towline, throw out the inside ballast, and cutaway the mast to ease the straining at the seams? The wooden hull, minusthe inside ballast, might float in spite of the lead on the keel, whichwas not very heavy, and in this way they might drift about until pickedup the next day. But the ballast was covered with water. They could notget it out in time to save her. Yet the seas seemed somewhat lighterthan they had been. Would not the boat leak less while proceeding in anordinary way, instead of being dragged from wave to wave? No doubt itwould, but was it safe to let the steamer leave them? Ought they to cutthe towline, get up a bit of a sail, and endeavor to make the northshore of the lake?
While duly weighing these things, Jack was making a rough calculation inhis head, as he took a look at the clock. Then he walked forward, took ahalyard in his hands, and embracing the plunging mast with his legs, heswarmed up about twenty feet from the deck. Then, after a long look, hesuddenly slid down again, and running aft he called to the others, whilehe pointed over the bows.
"Toronto Light, ahoy!"
"Holy sailor!" cried Charley in delight. "Are you sure of it?"
"Betcherlife!" said Jack. "Can't fool me on Toronto Light. Go and seefor yourself."
Charley climbed up and took a look. Then he went down into theforecastle and told the men they would get no pay for the trip if theydid not help to bail the boat.
Seeing that not only life but good pay awaited them, they turned toagain and helped to keep the ship afloat.
In a few minutes more Jack called to Margaret to come on deck. When shehad ascended, she sat on the dripping cabin-top and watched a changingscene, impossible to forget. Soon after she appeared, there came aflicker in the air, as short as the pulling of a trigger, and all atonce she perceived that she began dimly to see the waves and thepitching boat. It was like a revelation, like an experience of Dante'sVirgil, to see at last some of that hell of waters in which they hadstruggled so long for existence.
As the first beginning of weird light, coming apparently from nowhere,began to spread over the weary waste of heaving, tumbling, mercilesswaters and to dilute the ink of the night, as if with only a memory ofday, a momentary chill went through Margaret, as she began to realize asmall part of what they had come through. But as the ragged sky in theeast paled faintly, rather than warmed, with an attempt at cheerfulness,like the tired smile of a dying man, it sufficed, although so deficientin warmth, to cheer her heart. The calm certainty of an almost immediatedeath that had settled like a pall upon her was dispelled by rays ofhope that seemed to be identical with the invading rays of light. "Hopecomes from the east," she thought, as a ray from that quarter made theatmosphere take another jump toward day, and as she fell into a tiredreverie she remembered, with a heart forced toward thanksgiving, thoseother early glad tidings from the East. Worn out, she yielded to earlyemotions, and thanked God for her deliverance. She arose and wentcarefully along the deck, holding to the wet boom, until she reached themast, where she stopped and gazed at the black mass of the great steamerstill plunging and yawing and swinging through the waters, with itslights looking yellow in the pale glimmer of dawn. After viewing thedisorder on decks she could form an idea of the work the men had hadduring the darkness of the night.
But, oh, what a broken-nosed nightmare of a yacht it was, in the drearymorning light, with all the dripping black-looking heap of wreckagepiled over the bows, the mast pitching back toward the stern with atangled mass of everything imaginable wound in a huge plait down thelifts. In this draggle-tailed thing, with a boom lying on deck andhanging over the counter and its canvas trailing in the water, Margaretcould not recognize the peerless swan that a short time ago poiseditself upon its pinions and swept so majestically out of
Toronto Bay.
The water, at every mile traversed, now grew calmer as the gale camepartly off the land. Soon the pitching ended altogether. The openedseams ceased to smile so invitingly to the death that lurks under everyboat's keel. The pumps and buckets had begun to gain upon the water inthe cabin, and by the time they had swept round the lighthouse andreached the wharf the flooring had been replaced, while the pumps werestill clanging at intervals.
When they made fast to the dock a drawn and haggard group of men--adrooping, speechless, and even ragged group of men--allowed themselvesto sleep. It did not matter where or how they slept. They just droppedanywhere; and for five hours Nature had all she could do to restorethese men to a semblance of themselves.
[Note.--If Captain Estes, of the Mail Line Steamer Abyssinian, should ever read this chapter, he will know a part of what took place at the other end of the hawser on the night of September 5, 1872.]