Whatever of beauty the sea possesses it owes primarily to the winds—to the free breath of heaven which sweeps joyously over those vast lonely breadths, ruffling them with tiniest ripples by its zephyrs, and hurling them in headlong fury for thousands of miles by its hurricanes. It may be said that the term “ocean” cannot rightly be applied to winds at all, since they are common to the whole globe, and are not, like waves and currents, confined to the sea. But a little consideration will surely convince that it is just and right to speak of distinctive ocean winds which by contact with the great, pure plains of the sea acquire a character which a land wind never has or can have. In fact, it may be said with perfect truth that but for the health-bearing winds from the sea, landward folk would soon sicken and die, for our land winds are laden with disease germs, or, as in the mistral, the puña, the sirocco, and the simoom, to mention only a few of these terrible enemies to life, are still more deadly in their blasting effect upon mankind. From all these evil qualities ocean winds are free, and he who lives remote from the land, inhaling only their pure breath, knows truly what health is, feels the[261] blood dance joyously through his arteries, aerated indeed.
As a factor in sea traffic ocean winds are popularly supposed to have become negligible. Indeed, the remark is often heard (on shore) that the steamship has made man independent of wind and tide. It is just the kind of statement that would emanate from some of our pseudo-authorities upon marine matters, and akin to the oft-quoted opinion that the advent of the steamship has driven romance from the sea. In the first place, seamen know how tremendously the wind affects even the highest-powered steamship, and although some sailors will talk about an ocean liner ploughing her way through the teeth of an opposing gale at full speed, it is only from their love of the marvellous and desire to make the landsman stare. They know that such a statement is ridiculously untrue. Leaving the steamship out of the question, however, there are still very large numbers of vessels at sea which are entirely dependent upon the winds for their propulsion, their transit between port and port. They grow fewer and fewer every year, of course, as they are lost or broken up, because they are not replaced, yet in certain trades they are so useful and economical that it is difficult to see why they should be allowed to disappear. Masters of such ships are considered to be smart or the reverse in proportion to their knowledge of ocean winds, where to steer in order to get the full benefit of their incidence, what latitudes to avoid because there winds rarely blow, and how best to[262] manœuvre their huge-winged craft in the truly infernal whirl of an advancing or receding cyclone. For such purposes ocean winds may roughly be divided into two classes—the settled and the adventitious: those winds that may fairly be depended upon for regularity both as to force and direction, and those whose coming and going is so aptly used in Scripture allegory. Taking as the former class the Trade winds of the globe, it is found that they are also subject to much mutability, especially those to the northward of the Equator known as the “North-East Trades.” Old seamen speak of them as do farmers of the weather ashore—complain that neither in steadiness of direction nor in constancy of force are they to be depended upon as of old. Of course they vary somewhat with the seasons, but that is not what is complained of by the mariner; it is their capricious variation from year to year, whereby you shall actually find a strong wind well to the southward of east in what should be the heart of the North-East Trades, or at another time fall upon a stark calm prevailing where you had every right to expect a fresh favouring breeze.
Still, with all their failure to maintain the reputation of former times in the estimation of sailors (as distinguished from steamship crews), even the much maligned North-East Trade winds are fairly dependable. The South-East Trades, again, are almost as sure in their operation as is the recurrence of day and night. The homeward-bound sailing ship,[263] once having been swept round the Cape of Good Hope in spite of adverse winds by the irresistible Agulhas current, usually finds awaiting her a southerly wind. Sailors refuse to call it the first of the Trades, considering that any wind blowing without the Tropics has no claim to be called a “Trade.” This fancy matters little. The great thing is that these helpful breezes await the homeward-bounder close down to the southern limit of his passage, await him with arms outspread in welcome, and coincidently with the pleasant turning of his ship’s head homeward, permit the yards to be squared, and the course to be set as desired. And the ship—like a docile horse who, after a long day’s journey, finds his head pointing stablewards and settles steadily down to a clinking pace—gathers way in stately fashion and glides northward at a uniform rate without any further need of interference from her crew. Throughout the long bright days, with the sea wearing one vast many-dimpled smile, and the stainless blue above quivering in light uninterrupted by the passage of a single cloud, the white-winged ship sweeps serenely on. All around in the paling blue of the sky near the horizon float the sleepy, fleecy cumuli peculiar to the “Trades,” without perceptible motion or change of form. When day steps abruptly into night, and the myriad glories of the sunless hours reveal themselves shyly to an unheeding ocean, the silent ship still passes ghost-like upon her placid way, the steadfast wind rounding[264] her canvas into the softest of curves, without a wrinkle or a shake. Before her stealthy approach the glittering waters part, making no sound save a cool rippling as of a fern-shadowed brooklet hurrying through some rocky dell in Devon. The sweet night’s cool splendours reign supreme. The watch, with the exception of the officer, the helmsman, and the look-out man, coil themselves in corners and sleep, for they are not needed, and during the day much work is adoing in making their ship smart for home. And thus they will go without a break of any kind for over two thousand miles.
Next to the Trades in dependability, and fairly entitled to be called sub-permanent, are the west winds of the regions north and south of the Tropics, or about the parallels of 40° north or south. Without the steadiness of these winds in the great Southern Sea, the passage of sailing ships to Australasia or India would indeed be a tedious business. But they can be reckoned upon so certainly that in many cases the duration of passages of ships outward and homeward can be predicted within a week, which speaks volumes for the wonderful average steadiness of the great wind-currents. Although these winds bear no resemblance to the beautiful Trades. Turbulent, boisterous, and cruel, they try human endurance to its utmost limits, and on board of a weak ship, fleeing for many days before their furious onslaught, anxiety rises to a most painful pitch with the never-ceasing strain[265] upon the mind. They have also a way of winding themselves up anew, as it were, at intervals. They grow stronger and fiercer by successive blasts until the culminating blow compels even the strongest ships to reduce canvas greatly unless they would have it carried away like autumn leaves. Then the wind will begin to shift round by the south gradually and with decreasing force until, as if impatient, it will jump a couple of points at a time. Then, in the “old” sea, the baffled, tormented ship staggers blindly, making misery for her crew and testing severely her sturdy frame. Farther and farther round swings the wind, necessitating much labour aloft for the shipmen, until in the space of, say, twenty-four hours from its first giving way, it has described a complete circle and is back again in its old quarter, blowing fiercely as ever. Not that this peculiar evolution is always made. There are times when to sailors’ chagrin the brave west wind fails them in its proper latitudes, being succeeded by baffling easterlies, dirty weather of all kinds, and a general feeling of instability, since to expect fine weather in the sense of light wind and blue sky for any length of time in those stern regions is to reveal ignorance of their character. Yet it is only in such occasional lapses from force and course of the west wind of the south that the hapless seaman seeking to double Cape Horn from the east can hope to slip round. So that while his fellows farther east are fleeing to their goal at highest speed, he is being remorselessly battered by the[266] same gale, driven farther and farther south, and ill-used generally, and only by taking advantage of the brief respite can he effect his purpose.
The monsoon winds of the Indian seas are most important and unique in their seasonal changing. For six months of the year the wind in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea will be north-easterly and the weather fine. Over the land, however, this fine wind is bearing no moisture, and its longer persistence than usual means famine with all its attendant horrors. “Fine weather” grows to be a term of awful dread, and men’s eyes turn ever imploringly to the south-west, hoping, with an intensity of eagerness that is only felt where life is at stake, for the darkening of those skies of steely blue, until one day a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand arises from the sharply defined horizon. Swiftly it expands into ominous-looking masses, but the omens are of blessing, of relief from drought and death. The howling wind hurls before it those leaden water-bearers until, one by one, they burst over the iron-bound earth, and from station to station throughout the length and breadth of Hindostan is flashed the glad message, “The monsoon has burst.” Out at sea the great steamships emerging from the Gulf of Aden are met by the turbulent south-wester, and have need of all their power to stem its force, force which is quite equal to that of a severe Atlantic gale at times. And all sailors dread the season, bringing as it does to their sorely tried bodies the maximum[267] of physical discomfort possible at sea in warm climates.
Of the varying forces of winds, from the zephyr to the hurricane, it would be easy to write another page, but this subject is not strictly within the scope of the present article, and must therefore be left untouched.
Remembering gratefully, as all students should do, the immense literary value of the Bible, it is not without a pang of regret that we are obliged to confess that its pages are so meagre of allusions to the grandest of all the Almighty’s works—the encircling sea. Of course we cannot be surprised at this, seeing how scanty was the acquaintance with the sea enjoyed by ancient civilised peoples, to whom that exaggerated lake, the Mediterranean, was the “Great Sea,” and for whom the River Oceanus was the margin of a boundless outer darkness. Yet in spite of this drawback, Old Testament allusions to the sea then known, few as they are, remain unsurpassable in literature, needing not to withdraw their claims to pre-eminence before such gems as “Ocean’s many-dimpled smile” or the “Wine-dark main” of the pagan poets. In number, too, though sparsely sprinkled, they far surpass those of the New Testament, which, were it not for one splendid exception, might almost be neglected as non-existent.
Our Lord’s connection with the sea and its toilers was confined to those petty Syrian lakes which to-day excite the traveller’s wonder as he recalls the historical accounts of hundreds of Roman galleys floating thereupon; and all his childish dreams of[269] the great sea upon which the Lord was sailing and sleeping when that memorable storm arose which He stilled with a word suffer much by being brought face to face with the realities of little lake and tiny boat. St. John and St. James show by their almost terror-stricken words about the sea what they felt, and from want of a due consideration of proportion their allusions have been much misunderstood. No man who knew the sea could have written as one of the blissful conditions of the renewed heaven and earth that there should “be no more sea,” any more than he could have spoken of the limpid ocean wave as casting up “mire and dirt.”
But by one incomparable piece of writing Paul, the Apostle born out of due time, has rescued the New Testament from this reproach of neglect, and at the same time has placed himself easily in the front rank of those who have essayed to depict the awful majesty of wind and wave as well as the feebleness, allied to almost presumptuous daring, of those who do business in great waters. Wonder and admiration must also be greatly heightened if we do but remember the circumstances under which this description was written. The writer had, by the sheer force of his eloquence, by his daring to await the precise moment in which to assert his citizenship, escaped what might at any moment have become martyrdom. Weary with a terrible journey, faint from many privations, he was hurried on board a ship of Adramyttium bound to the coast of Asia (places not specified). What sort of accommodation[270] and treatment awaited him there under even the most favourable circumstances we know very well. For on the East African coast even to this day we find precisely the same kind of vessels, the same primitive ideas of navigation, the same absence of even the most elementary notions of comfort, the same touching faith in its being always fine weather as evinced by the absence of any precautions against a storm.
Such a vessel as this carried one huge sail bent to a yard resembling a gigantic fishing-rod whose butt when the sail was set came nearly down to the deck, while the tapering end soared many feet above the masthead. As it was the work of all hands to hoist it, and the operation took a long time, when once it was hoisted it was kept so if possible, and the nimble sailors with their almost prehensile toes climbed up the scanty rigging, and clinging to the yard gave the sail a bungling furl. The hull was just that of an exaggerated boat, sometimes undecked altogether, and sometimes covered in with loose planks, excepting a hut-like erection aft which was of a little more permanent character. Large oars were used in weather that admitted of this mode of propulsion, and the anchors were usually made of heavy forked pieces of wood, whereto big stones were lashed. There was a rudder, but no compass, so that the crossing of even so narrow a piece of water as separated Syria from Cyprus was quite a hazardous voyage. Tacking was unknown or almost so, and once the mariners got hold of the land they were so reluctant to lose[271] sight of it that they heeded not how much time the voyage took or what distances they travelled.
The nameless ship of Adramyttium then at last ventured from Sidon and fetched Cyprus, sailing under its lee. How salt that word tastes, and what visions it opens up of these infant navigators creeping cautiously from point to point along that rugged coast, heeding not at all the unnecessary distance so long as they were sheltered from the stormy autumn weather. Another perilous voyage across “the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia” (another purely maritime term) and the harbour of Myra was gained. Great were the rejoicings of the voyagers, but premature, for every day that passed brought them nearer to the time of tempest, and consequently of utmost danger. In fact the memorable voyage of St. Paul may be said to begin here. The crossing of the Great Sea had been accomplished without incident, although doubtless occupying so many days that the landsmen were by this time somewhat accustomed to the misery of life at sea in those days, when in coarse weather sea-sickness was one of the least of their woes.
The shipment by the centurion of his prisoners on board of the Alexandrian wheat-ship marked the commencement of a series of troubles. In the first place, for such a ship and such a voyage the number of people on board was far too great, even if we accept the lower estimate—seventy-six—which is placed on her complement by some ancient authorities. If she carried two hundred and seventy-six she must have been like an Arab dhow running[272] a full cargo of slaves, and it is difficult to see how, even taking into consideration the way in which both mariners and passengers were inured to hardship, she could have carried them all through the wild weather and weary days following without some deaths. “And when we had sailed slowly many days” (what a world of suffering can be read into those few pathetic words), they fetched under the lee of Crete with all the thankfulness that might be expected from men who had been so pitilessly exposed to the fury of the open sea. With difficulty they crept along the coast until they got into the Fair Havens and refreshed their weary hearts.
No wonder they were reluctant to put again to sea, even though they knew that every day brought wilder weather, and their chance of wintering in their present harbour safely was poor, from its exposed position. And now we find St. Paul taking the risky step of advising seafarers as to the proper conduct of their own business—risky because while no man likes to be interfered with at his work by one whom he considers an outsider, sailors are perhaps more touchy upon this matter than most people. True, the science of navigation and seamanship was in its infancy, and no such gulf of knowledge separated landsmen from seamen in those days as existed afterwards, but one can easily picture the indignation of the commander of the ship (curiously enough here called the owner, the very same slang title given to the Captain of a man-of-war by his officers and crew to-day) when he heard this presumptuous passenger-prisoner thus daring to give his unasked advice.[273] Besides, Paul’s motive for wishing to remain in port was one easily misconstrued.
Therefore the centurion’s refusal to listen to Paul’s suggestion was quite natural; nay, it was inevitable. Still, there was evidently no intention of persevering with the voyage upon getting under way, only of entering the nearest harbour that might afford sufficient shelter against the fury of the winter gales. With a gentle southerly breeze they left Fair Havens, and moved along the shore. But presently down from the Cretan mountains Euraquilo came rushing, the furious Levanter, which is not surpassed in the world for ferocity, hurling their helpless cockle-shell off shore. Their fear of the storm was far greater than their fear of the land, for unlike the sailors of to-day, to whom the vicinity of land in a gale is far more dreaded than the gale itself, they hugged the small island, Clauda, and succeeded in their favourite manœuvre, that of getting under the lee of the land once more. It was high time. The buffeting of the ship had weakened her to such an extent that she must have threatened to fall asunder, since they were driven actually to “frap” her together, that is, bind their cable round and round her and heave it taut—a parlous state of things, but one to which sailors have often been brought with a crazy ship in a heavy gale.
In this dangerous state they feared the proximity of hungry rocks, but instead of reducing sail and endeavouring to get along in some definite direction, they lowered down the big yard and let the ship drive whithersoever she would. The storm continued, the[274] poor, bandaged hull was leaking at every seam, a portion of the cargo, called by St. Paul by its true nautical name “freight,” was jettisoned. But that did not satisfy them, and they proceeded to the desperate extremity of casting overboard the “tackling,” the great sail and yard, and all movable gear from the upper works except the anchors.
Then in misery, with death yawning before them, already half drowned, foodless, and hopeless, they drifted for many days into the unknown void under that heavy-laden sky before the insatiable gale. In the midst of all this horror of great darkness, the dauntless prisoner comforted them, even while unable to forbear reminding them that had they listened to him, this misery would have been spared them. His personality never shone brighter than on this occasion; the little ascetic figure must have appeared Godlike to those poor, ignorant sufferers.
At the expiration of a fortnight, the sailors surmised that land was near, although it was midnight. How characteristic is that flash of insight into the sea-faring instinct, and how true! They sounded and got twenty fathoms, and in a little while found the water had shoaled to fifteen. Then they performed a piece of seamanship which may be continually seen in execution on the East African coast to-day—they let the anchors down to their full scope of cable and prayed for daylight. The Arabs do it in fair weather or foul—lower the sail, slack down the anchor, and go to sleep. She will bring up before she hits anything.
Unfortunately, space will not admit of further[275] dealing with this great story of the sea, so familiar and yet so little understood. The sailors’ cowardly attempt at escape, the discipline of the soldiers foiling it, the arrangements for beaching her by the aid of what is here called a foresail, but was probably only a rag of sail rigged up temporarily to get the ship before the wind, and the escape of all as foretold by St. Paul, need much more space for dealing with than can be spared.
But the one thing which makes this story go to the heart of every seaman is its absolute fidelity to the facts of sea-life; its log-like accuracy of detail; its correct use of all nautical terms. In fact, some old seamen go so far as to aver that St. Paul, having kept an accurate record of the facts, got the captain of the ship to edit them for him, as in no other way could a landsman such as Paul was have obtained so seaman-like a grip of the story, both in detail and language.
Note.—It will of course be noted that while the general opinion is in favour of assigning to Luke the authorship of the narrative commented upon above, I have credited Paul with it. I have my reasons, but because of controversy I refrain from stating them.
Among the many interesting features of life at sea, few afford studies more fruitful in valuable thought than the internal economy of that latest development of human ingenuity—a modern battleship. It is not by any means easy for a visitor from the shore, upon coming alongside one of these gigantic vessels, to realise its bulk; the first effect is one of disappointment. Everything on board is upon a scale so massive, while the limpid space whereon she floats is so capacious that the mind refuses to take in her majestic proportions. And a hurried scamper around the various points of chief interest on board leaves the mind like a palimpsest where one impression is superimposed upon another so swiftly that the general effect is but a blur and no detail is clear. Besides, in such a flying visit the guide naturally makes the most of those wonders with which he himself is associated in his official capacity, and thus the visitor is apt to get a very one-sided view of things. Again, in the course of a hurried visit in harbour the mind gets so clogged with wonders of machinery and design, that the human side, always apt to keep itself in the background, receives no portion of that attention which is its due. From all of which causes it naturally follows that the only way in which to obtain anything[277] like a comprehensive notion of the polity of a battleship is to spend at least a month on board, both at sea and in harbour, and waste no opportunity of observation of every part of the ship’s daily life that may be presented. Such opportunities, naturally, fall to the lot of but few outside the Service, and from the well-known modesty of sailors, it is next to hopeless to expect them to enlighten the public upon the most interesting details of their daily lives.
The mere statement of the figures which belong to a modern battleship like the Mars, for instance, is apt to have a benumbing effect upon the mind. She displaces 14,900 tons at load draught, is 391 ft. long, 75 ft. wide, and nearly 50 ft. deep from the upper deck to the bottom. She is divided into 232 compartments by means of water-tight bulkheads, is protected by 1802 tons of armour, is lit by 900 electric lights, steams 16½ knots, carries 82 independent sets of engines, mounts 54 different cannon and 5 torpedo tubes, and is manned by 759 men.
Now it is only fair to say that such a hurried recapitulation of statistics like these gives no real hint as to the magnitude of the ship as she reveals herself to one after a few days’ intimate acquaintance. And that being so, what is to be said of the men, the population of this floating cosmos, the 759 British entities ruled over by the Captain with a completeness of knowledge and a freedom from difficulty that an Emperor might well envy? As in a town, we have here men of all sorts and[278] professions, we find all manner of human interests cropping up here in times of leisure, and yet the whole company have one feeling, one interest in common—their ship, and through her their Navy.
First of all, of course, comes the Captain, who, in spite of the dignity and grandeur of his position, must at times feel very lonely. He lives in awful state, a sentry (of Marines) continually guarding his door, and although he does unbend at stated times as far as inviting a few officers to dine with him, or accepting the officers’ invitation to dine in the ward-room, this relaxation must not come too often. The Commander, who is the chief executive officer, is in a far better position as regards comfort. He comes between the Captain and the actual direction of affairs, he has a spacious cabin to himself, but he takes his meals at the ward-room table among all the officers above the rank of Sub-Lieutenant, and shares their merriment; the only subtle distinction made between him and everybody else at such times being in the little word “Sir,” which is dropped adroitly in when he is being addressed. For the rest, naval nous is so keen that amidst the wildest fun when off duty no officer can feel that his dignity is tampered with, and they pass from sociability to cast-iron discipline and back again with an ease that is amazing to a landsman. The ward-room of a battleship is a pleasant place. It is a spacious apartment, taking in the whole width of the ship, handsomely decorated, and lit by electricity. There is usually a piano, a good library, and some handsome plate for the table. It is[279] available not only for meals, but as a drawing-room, a common meeting-ground for Lieutenants, Marine officers, surgeons, chaplain, and senior engineers, where they may unbend and exchange views, as well as enjoy one another’s society free from the grip of the collar. A little lower down in the scale of authority, as well as actually in the hull of the ship, comes the gun-room, the affix being a survival, and having no actual significance now. In this respect both ward-room and gun-room have the advantage over the Captain’s cabin, in which there are a couple of quick-firing guns, causing those sacred precincts to be invaded by a small host of men at “general quarters,” who manipulate those guns as if they were on deck. The gun-room is the ward-room over again, only more so—that is, more wildly hilarious, more given to outbursts of melody and rough play. Here meet the Sub-Lieutenants, the assistant-engineers and other junior officers, and the midshipmen. With these latter Admirals in embryo we find a state of things existing that is of the highest service to them in after life. Taking their meals as gentlemen, with a senior at the head of the table, meeting round that same table at other times for social enjoyment, once they are outside of the gun-room door they have no more privacy than the humblest bluejacket. They sleep and dress and bathe—live, in fact—coram publico, which is one of the healthiest things, when you come to think of it, for a youngster of any class. Although they are now officers in H.M. Navy, they are still schoolboys,[280] and their education goes steadily on at stated hours in a well-appointed schoolroom, keeping pace with that sterner training they are receiving on deck. The most grizzled old seaman on board must “Sir” them, but there are plenty of correctives all around to hinder the growth in them of any false pride.
On the same deck is to be found the common room of the warrant officers, such as bo’sun, carpenter, gunner; those sages who have worked their difficult way up from the bottom of the sailor’s ladder through all the grades, and are, with the petty officers, the mainstay of the service. Each of them has a cabin of his own, as is only fitting; but here they meet as do their superiors overhead, and air their opinions freely. But, like the ward-room officers, they mostly talk “shop,” for they have only one great object in life, the efficiency of their charge, and it leaves them little room for any other topics. Around this, the after part of the ship, cluster also another little body of men and lads, the domestics, as they are termed, who do their duty of attendance upon officers and waiting at table under all circumstances with that neatness and celerity that is inseparable from all work performed in a ship-of-war. Body-servants of officers are usually Marines, but the domestics are a class apart, strictly non-combatant, yet under naval law and discipline. Going “forrard,” the chief petty officers will be found to make some attempt at shutting themselves apart from the general, by arrangements of curtains, &c., all liable and ready to be flung into oblivion at the first[281] note of a bugle. For the rest, their lives are absolutely public. No one has a corner that he may call his own, unless perhaps it is his “ditty box,” that little case of needles, thread, and etceteras that he needs so often, and is therefore allowed to keep on a shelf near the spot where he eats. Each man’s clothes are kept in a bag, which has its allotted place in a rack, far away from the spot where his hammock and bed are spirited off to every morning at 5 a.m., to lie concealed until the pipe “down hammocks” at night. And yet by the arrangement of “messes” each man has, in common with a few others, a settled spot where they meet at a common table, even though it be not shut in, and is liable to sudden disappearance during an evolution. So that a man’s mess becomes his rallying-point; it is there that the young bluejacket or Marine learns worldly wisdom, and many other things. The practice of keeping all bedding on the move as it were, having no permanent sleeping-places, requires getting used to, but it is a most healthy one, and even if it were not it is difficult to see how, within the limited space of a warship, any other arrangement would be possible. Order among belongings is kept by a carefully graduated system of fines payable in soap—any article found astray by the ever-watchful naval police being immediately impounded and held to ransom. And as every man’s kit is subject to a periodical overhaul by officers any deficiency cannot escape notice.
Every man’s time is at the disposal of the Service whenever it is wanted, but in practice much leisure is allowed for rest, recreation, and mental improvement.[282] Physical development is fully looked after by the rules of the Service, but all are encouraged to make the best of themselves, and no efforts on the part of any man to better his position are made in vain. Nowhere, perhaps, is vice punished or virtue rewarded with greater promptitude, and since all punishments and rewards are fully public, the lessons they convey are never lost. But apart from the Service routine, the civil life of this little world is a curious and most interesting study. The industrious man who, having bought a sewing-machine, earns substantial addition to his pay by making every item of his less energetic messmates’ clothes (except boots) for a consideration, the far-seeing man who makes his leisure fit him for the time when he shall have left the Navy, the active temperance man who seeks to bring one after the other of his shipmates into line with the ever-growing body of teetotalers that are fast altering completely the moral condition of our sailors, the religious man who gets permission to hold his prayer-meeting in some torpedo-flat or casemate surrounded by lethal weapons—all these go to make up the multifarious life of a big battleship.
And not the least strange to an outsider is the way in which all these various private pursuits and varied industries are carried on in complete independence of each other, often in complete ignorance of what is going on in other parts of the ship. News flies quickly, of course, but since every man has his part in the ship’s economy allotted to him, it naturally follows that he declines to bother his head about[283] what the other fellows are doing. Sufficient for him that his particular item is to hand when required, and that he does it as well and as swiftly as he is able. If he be slack or uninterested in what concerns himself many influences are brought to bear upon him. First his messmates, then his petty officer, and so on right up to the Captain. And through all he is made to feel that his laches affects first the smartness of his ship, then the reputation of the great British Navy. So the naval spirit is fostered, so the glorious traditions are kept up, and it continues to be the fact that the slackest mobilised ship we can send to sea is able to show any foreign vessel-of-war a lesson in smartness that they none of them are able to learn. And in the naval battle of the future it will be the few minutes quicker that will win.
Whether expressed or implied, there is certainly a deep-rooted idea in the minds of shore-dwellers that the vast fenceless fields of ocean are in these latter days well, not to say thickly, populated by ships; that, sail or steam whither you will, you cannot get away from the white glint of a sailing ship or the black smear along the clean sky of a steamship’s smoke. There is every excuse for such an attitude of mind on the part of landward folk. Having no standard of comparison against which to range the vast lonely breadths of water which make up the universal highway, and being mightily impressed by the statistics of shipping owned by maritime nations, they can hardly be blamed for supposing that the privacy of the sea is a thing of the past. One voyage in a sailing ship to the Australasian Colonies or to India, if the opportunities it afforded were rightly used, would do far more to convince them of the utterly wrong notion possessing them than any quantity of writing upon the subject could effect. But unhappily, few people to-day have the leisure or the inclination to spend voluntarily three months upon a sea passage that can be performed in little more than one. Even those, who by reason of poverty or for their health’s sake do take such[285] passages, almost invariably show signs of utter weariness and boredom. As day after day passes, and the beautiful fabric in which they live glides gently and leisurely forward, their impatience grows until in some it almost amounts to a disease. This condition of mind is not favourable, to say the least, to a calm study of the characteristic features of ocean itself. Few indeed are the passengers, and fewer still are the sailors who will for the delight of the thing spend hour after hour perched upon some commanding point in wide-eyed, sight-strengthening gaze out upon the face of the sea.
Upon those who do there grows steadily a sense of the most complete privacy, a solemn aloofness belonging to the seas. The infrequent vessel, gentle though her progress may be through the calm waters of the tropics, still strikes them as an intruder upon this realm of silence and loneliness. The voices of the crew grate harshly upon the ear as with a sense of desecration such as one feels upon hearing loud conversation in the sacred peace of some huge cathedral. And when a vessel heaves in sight, a tiny mark against the skyline, she but punctuates the loneliness, as it were—affords a point from which the eye can faintly calculate the immensity of her surroundings.
Quite differently, yet with its own distinctive privacy, do the stormy regions of the ocean impress the beholder. In the fine zones the wind’s presence is suggested rather than felt, so quiet and placid are its manifestations. Its majestic voice is hushed[286] into a murmur undistinguishable from the musical rippling of the wavelets into which it ruffles the shining sea-surface. But when beyond those regions of perpetual summer the great giant Boreas asserts himself and challenges his ancient colleague and competitor to a renewal of the eternal conflict for supremacy, there is an overwhelming sense of duality which is entirely absent in calmer seas. As the furious tempest rages unappeasable, and the solemn ocean wakes in mighty wrath, men must feel that to be present at such a quarrel is to be like some puny mortal eavesdropping in full Sanhedrim of the High Gods. Apart altogether from the imminent danger of annihilation, there is that sense of intrusion which is almost sacrilege, of daring thus to witness what should surely be hidden from the profane eyes of the sons of men. All thoughtful minds are thus impressed by the combat of gale and sea, although their impressions are for the most part so elusive and shadowy that any definite fixing thereof is hopeless. Especially is this form of the solemn privacy of the sea noticeable in the Southern Ocean. Along the line, untraced by mortal hand except upon a Mercator’s Chart, favoured by the swift sailing ships between South America and Australasia, the vastest stretch of ocean known is dotted only at enormous intervals by the fleets of civilisation. Day succeeds day, lengthening into weeks, during which the brave intruder is hurled upon her headlong way at the rate of eight or nine degrees of longitude in the twenty-four hours[287] without a companion, with no visible environment but sea and sky. And do what the intelligent novice will, he cannot divest himself of the notion, when drawing near the confines of New Zealand, seeing how minute that beautiful cluster of islands appears upon the chart, that it would be so easy to miss them altogether, to rush past them under compulsion of the mighty west wind, and waste long painful days struggling against its power to get back again to the overrun port.
Once in the writer’s own experience an incident occurred that seemed almost to justify such a fear. Only sixty days had elapsed since leaving Plymouth with four hundred emigrants on board, and during the last fortnight the west wind had blown with terrific violence (to a landsman). But the master, in calmest satisfaction, with fullest confidence in the power of his ship, had steadfastly refused to shorten sail. He seldom left the deck, the spectacle of his beautiful command in her maddened rush to the east being to him apparently sufficient recompense for loss of rest. At last we flew past the Snares, those grim outliers of the Britain of the South, and it became necessary to “haul up” for Port Lyttelton. To do this we must needs bring that great wind full upon our broadside, and that, with the canvas we were carrying, would have meant instant destruction. So all hands were called, and the work of shortening her down commenced. Several of the lighter sails, at the first slackening from their previously rigid tension, gave one despairing flap[288] and vanished to join the clouds. But furious toil and careful skill through long hours of that dense night succeeded in reducing the previously great sail area down to three lower-topsails, reefed fore-sail, and fore-topmast staysail. Then after much careful watching of the waves that came fatefully thundering on astern until a lull momentarily intervened, the helm was suddenly put down, and the gallant vessel swung up into the wind. Nobly done, but as she wheeled there arose out of the blackness ahead a mountainous shape with a voice that made itself heard above the gale. Higher and higher it soared until smiting the bluff of the bow it broke on board, a wave hundreds of tons in solid weight. The stout steel ship trembled to her keelson, but she rose a conqueror, while the avalanche of white-topped water rushed aft dismantling the decks, and leaving them, when it had subsided, in forlorn ruin. But she was safe. Justifying the faithfulness and skill of her builders, she had survived where a weaker ship would have disappeared, beaten out of the upper air like a paper boat under a stone flung from the bank. Slowly and laboriously we fore-reached to the northward, until under the lee of the land the wind changed, and we entered port in triumph.
This sense of solitude induced by contemplation of the ocean is exceedingly marked even on the best frequented routes and the most crowded (?) waters. To enter into it fully, however, it is necessary to sail either in a cable ship, a whaler, or an old slow-going merchant sailor that gets drifted out of the[289] track of vessels. Even in the English Channel one cannot but feel how much room there is. In spite of our knowledge of the numbers of ships that pass and repass without ceasing along what may truthfully be termed the most frequented highway in the watery world, there is an undoubtedly reasonable sense induced by its contemplation that however much the dry land may become overcrowded the sea will always be equal to whatever demands may be made upon it for space. There are many harbours in the world, at any rate landlocked bays that may rightly be called harbours, wherein the fleets of all the nations might lie in comfort. And their disappearance from the open sea would leave no sense of loss. So wide is Old Ocean’s bosom. Perhaps this is even now more strongly marked than it was fifty years ago. The wonderful exactitude with which the steam fleets of the world keep to certain well-defined tracks leaves the intermediate breadths unvisited from year to year. They are private places whither he who should desire to hide himself from the eyes of men might hie and be certain that but for the host of heaven, the viewless wind, and the silent myriads beneath, he would indeed be alone. They are of the secret places of the Almighty.
Occasionally the great steamships that lay for us the connecting nerves of civilisation penetrate these arcana, for their path must be made on the shortest line between two continents, heedless of surface tracks. And the wise men who handle these wonderful handmaids of science know how private are[290] the realms through which they steadily steam, leaving behind them the thin black line along which shall presently flash at lightning speed the thought-essence of mankind. The whaler, alas! is gone; the old leisurely South Seaman to whom time was a thing of no moment. Her ruler knew that his best prospect of finding the prey he sought was where no keel disturbed the sensitive natural vibrations of the wave. So these vessels saw more of sea solitude than any others. Saw those weird spaces unvisited even by wind, great areas of silky surface into whose peaceful glades hardly rolled a gently undulating swell bearing silent evidence of storms raging half a world away. So too upon occasion did, and does, a belated sailing-ship, such as one we met in the Southern Seas bound from the United Kingdom to Auckland, that had been then nine months on her passage. Into what dread sea-solitudes she had intruded. How many, many days had elapsed during which she was the solitary point rising from the shining plain into the upper air. Her crew had a wistful look upon their faces, as of men whose contact with the world they dimly remembered had been effectually cut off. And truly to many, news of her safety came in the nature of a message of resurrection. Books of account concerning her had to be reopened, mourning garments laid aside. She had returned from the silences, had rejoined the world of men.
All the tracks along which ships travel are but threads traversing these private waters, just little[291] spaces like a trail across an illimitable desert. And even there the simile fails because the track across the ocean plain is imaginary. It is traced by the passing keel and immediately it is gone. And the tiny portion of the sea-surface thus furrowed is but the minutest fraction of the immeasurable spaces wherein is enthroned the privacy of the sea.
Not the least of the many charms exercised by the deep and wide sea upon its bond-servants are the varied voices by which it makes known its ever-changing moods. They are not for all ears to hear. Many a sailor spends the greater part of a long life in closest intercourse with the ocean, yet to its myriad beauties he is blind; no realised sense of his intimacy with the immensity of the Universe ever makes the hair of his flesh stand up, and to the majestic music of the unresting deep his ears of appreciation are closely sealed. Not that unto any one of the sons of men is it ever given to be conversant with all the countless phases of delight belonging to the sea. For some cannot endure the call of deep answering unto deep, the terrible thundering of the untrammelled ocean in harmony with the uttermost diapason of the storm-wind. All their finer perceptions are benumbed by fear. And other some, who are yet unable to rejoice in the sombre glory of the tempest-tones, are intolerant of the lightsome glee born of zephyrs and sunlight when the sweet murmur of the radiant breaths is like the contented cooing of care-free infancy, and every dancing wavelet wears a many-dimpled smile. For them there must be a breeze of strength with[293] a strident, swaggering sea through which the well-found ship ploughs her steady way at utmost speed with every rounded sail distent like a cherub’s cheek, and every rope and stay humming a merry tune. Least of all in number are those who can enjoy a perfect calm. Indeed, in these bustling, strenuous days of ours opportunities of so doing are daily becoming fewer. The panting steamship tears up the silken veil of the slumbering sea like some envious monster in a garden of sleep making havoc of its beauty. She makes her own wind by her swift thrust through the restful atmosphere, although there be in reality none astir even sufficient to ruffle the shining surface before her.
Still, the fact must not be overlooked that many sea-farers do verily enjoy to the full all sea-sights and sea-sounds, but of their pleasures they cannot speak. Deep silent content is theirs, a perfect complacency of delight that length of acquaintanceship only makes richer and more satisfying, until, as the very structure of the Stradivarius is saturated with music, so the mariner’s whole being absorbs, and becomes imbued with, the magic of wind and wave. This incommunicable joy a monarch might well envy its possessor, for it is independent of environment, so that although the seafarer may grow old and feeble, be far away from his well-beloved sea, even blind and deaf, yet within his soul will still vibrate those resounding harmonies, and with inward eyes he can feast a farther-reaching vision than ever over those glorious fenceless fields.
The voices of the sea are many, but their speech is one. Naturally, perhaps, the thought turns first to the tremendous chorus uplifted in the hurricane, that swells and swells until even the tropical thunder’s deafening cannonade is unheard, drowned deep beneath the exultant flood of song poured forth by the rejoicing sea. Many epithets have been chosen to characterise the storm-song of the ocean. None of them can ever hope to satisfy completely, for all must bear some definite reflex of the minds of their utterers, according as they have been impressed by their experiences or imaginings. But to my mind most of the terms used are out of place and misleading. They generally endeavour to describe the tempestuous sea as a ravenous monster, a howling destroyer of unthinking ferocity, and the like. Alas, it is very natural so to do. For when this feeble frame must needs confront the resounding main in the plenitude of its power, our mortal part must perforce feel and acknowledge its insignificance, must dwindle and shake with fear, although that part of us which is akin to the Infinite may vainly desire to rejoice with all seas and floods that praise Him and magnify Him for ever. Not in the presence of ocean shouting his hymn of praise may we satisfy our desire to join in the triumphant lay, although we know how full of benefits to our race are the forces made vocal in that majestic Lobgesang. As the all-conquering flood of sound, with a volume as if God were smiting the sapphire globe of the universe, rolls on, we may hear the cry, “Life and[295] strength and joy do I bring. Before my resistless march darkness, disease, and death must flee. When beneath my reverberating chariot-wheels man is overwhelmed, not mine the blame. I do but fulfil mine appointed way, scattering health, refreshment, and well-being over every living thing.”
But when as yet the sky is serene above and the surface of the slumbering depths is just ruffled by a gentle air, there may often be heard another voice, as if some gigantic orchestra in another star was preparing for the signal to burst forth into such music as belongs not to our little planet. Fitful wailing notes in many keys, long sustained and all minor, encompass the voyager without and within. Now high, now low, but ever tending to deepen and become more massive in tone, this unearthly symphony is full of warning. It bids the watchful seaman make ready against the advent of the fast approaching storm, that, still some hundreds of leagues distant, is sending its pursuivants before its face. Nor are these spirit-stirring chords due to the harp-like obstruction offered by the web of rigging spread about the masts of a ship to the rising wind. It may be heard even more definitely in an open boat far from any ship or shore, although there, perhaps because of the great loneliness of the situation, it always seems to take a tone of deeper melancholy, as if in sympathy with the helplessness of the human creatures thus isolated from their fellows. It belongs, almost exclusively, to the extra-tropical regions where storms are many. And within a certain compass,[296] its intimates find little variation of its scale. Always beginning in the treble clef and by regular melodic waves gradually descending until with the incidence of the storm it blends into the grand triumphal march spoken of before. But when it is heard within the tropics let the mariner beware. None can ever mistake its weird lament, sharpening every little while into a shrill scream as if impatient that its warning should be heeded without delay. It searches the very marrow of the bones, and beasts as well as men look up and are much afraid. For it is the precursor of the hurricane, before which the bravest seaman blanches, when sea and sky seem to meet and mingle, the waters that are above the firmament with the waters that are under the firmament, as in the days before God said “Let there be light.”
Far different again is the cheerful voice of the Trade wind over the laughing happy sea of those pleasant latitudes. No note of sadness or melancholy is to be detected there. Brisk and bright, confident and gay, it bids the sailor be glad in his life. Bids him mark anew how beautiful is the bright blue sea, how snowy are the billowy clouds piled peacefully around the horizon, while between them and the glittering edge of the vast circle shows a tender band of greyish green of a lucent clearness that lets the rising stars peep through as soon as they are above the horizon. Overhead through all the infinite fleckless dome eddy the friendly tones. Yet so diffused are they, so vast in their area that if one listen for them he cannot hear aright—they[297] must be felt rather than heard. Well may their song be of content and good cheer. For they course about their ordained orbits as the healthful life tides through the human body, keeping sweet all adjacent shores and preventing by their beneficent agitation a baleful stagnation of the sea. By day the golden sun soars on his splendid road from horizon to zenith until he casts no shadow, and all the air quivers with living light, then in stately grandeur sinks through the pure serenity of that perfect scene, the guardian cumuli clustering round his goal melting apart so that, visible to the last of his blazing verge, he may go as he came, unshadowed by haze or cloud. Then, as the radiant train of lovely rays fade reluctantly from the blue concave above, all the untellable splendours of the night come forth in their changeless order, their scintillating lustre undimmed by the filmiest veil of haze. One incandescent constellation after another is revealed until, as the last faint sheen of the departing day disappears from the western horizon, the double girdle of the galaxy is flung across the darkling dome in all its wondrous beauty. And unceasingly through all the succeeding beauties of the day and night that flood of happy harmony rolls on.
How shall I speak of the voice of the calm? How describe that sound which mortal ear cannot hear? The pen of the inspired writers alone might successfully undertake such a task, so closely in touch as they were with the Master Mind. “When the morning stars sang together, and all the Sons[298] of God shouted for joy.” Something akin to this sublime daring of language is needed to convey a just idea of what floods the soul when alone upon the face of the deep in a perfect calm. The scale of that heavenly harmony is out of our range. We can only by some subtle alchemy of the brain distil from that celestial silence the voices of angels and archangels and all the glorious company of heaven. Between us and them is but a step, but it is the threshold of the timeless dimension. Again and again I have seen men, racked through and through with a very agony of delight, dash aside the thralls that held them, sometimes with passionate tears, more often with raging words that grated harshly upon the velvet stillness. They felt the burden of the flesh grievous, since it shut them out from what they dimly felt must be bliss unutterable, not to be contained in any earthen vessel. On land a thousand things, even in a desert, distract the attention, loose the mind’s tension even when utterly alone. But at sea, the centre of one vast glassy circle, shut in on every hand by a perfect demi-globe as flawless as the mirror whereon you float, with even the softest undulation imperceptible, and no more motion of the atmosphere than there is in a perfect vacuum, there is absolutely nothing to come between the Soul of Man and the Infinite Silences of Creation. There and there only is it possible to realise what underlies that mighty line, “There was silence in Heaven for the space of half-an-hour.” Few indeed are the[299] men, however rough and unthinking, that are not quieted and impressed by the marvel of a perfect calm. But the tension is too great to be borne long with patience. Men feel that this majestic environment is too redolent of the coming paradise to be supportable by flesh and blood. They long with intense desire for a breeze, for motion, for a change of any sort. So much so that long-continued calm is dreaded by seamen more than any other phase of sea-experience. And yet it is for a time lovely beyond description, soothing the jarring nerves and solemnising every faculty as if one were to be shut in before the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies. It is like the Peace of God.
Thus far I have feebly attempted to deal with some of the sea-voices untinctured by any contact with the land. But although the interposition of rock and beach, cliff and sand-bank introduces fresh changes with every variation of weather, new combinations of sound that do not belong solely to the sea, any description of the sea-music that should take no account of them would be manifestly one-sided and incomplete. And yet the mutabilities are so many, the gamut is so extended that it is impossible to do more than just take a passing note of a few characteristic impressions. For every lonely reef, every steep-to shore has an infinite variety of responses that it gives back to the besieging waves. Some of them are terrible beyond the power of words to convey. When the sailor in a crippled craft, his reckoning unreliable, and his vigour[300] almost gone by a long-sustained struggle with the storm, hears to leeward the crashing impact of mountainous waves against the towering buttresses of granite protecting a sea-beset land, it is to him a veritable knell of doom. Or when through the close-drawn curtains of fog comes the hissing tumult of breaking seas over an invisible bank, interpolated with the hoarse bellowing of the advancing flood checked in its free onward sweep, bold and high indeed must be the courage that does not fail. The lonely lighthouse-keeper on the Bishop Rock during the utmost stress of an Atlantic gale notes with quickening pulse the change of tone as the oncoming sea, rolling in from freedom, first feels beneath it the outlying skirts of the solitary mountain. Nearer and deeper and fiercer it roars until, with a shock that makes the deep-rooted foundations of the rocks tremble, and the marvellous fabric of dovetailed stone sway like a giant tree, it breaks, hurling its crest high through the flying spindrift over the very finial of the faithful tower.
But on the other hand, on some golden afternoon among the sunny islands of summer seas, hear the soft soothing murmur of the gliding swell upon the slumbering shore. It fills the mind with rest. Sweeter than lowest lullaby, it comforts and composes, and even in dreams it laps the sleeper in Elysium. The charm of that music is chief among all the influences that bind the memory to those Enchanted Isles. It returns again and again under[301] sterner skies, filling the heart with almost passionate longing to hear it, to feel it in all its mystery once again. Still when all has been said, every dweller on the sea-shore knows the voice of his own coast best. For him it has its special charm, whether it shriek around ice-laden rocks, roar against iron-bound cliffs, thunder over jagged reefs, or babble among fairy islets. And yet all these many voices are but one.
When two whale-ships meet during a cruise, if there are no signs of whales near, an exchange of visits always takes place. The two captains foregather on board one ship, the two chief mates on board the other. While the officers are thus enjoying themselves, it is usual for the boats’ crews to go forrard and while away the time as best they can, such visitors being always welcome. This practice is called “gamming,” and is fruitful of some of the queerest yarns imaginable, as these sea-wanderers ransack their memories for tales wherewith to make the time pass pleasantly.
On the occasion of which I am writing, our ship had met the Coral of Martha’s Vineyard off Nieuwe, and gamming had set in immediately. One of the group among whom I sat was a sturdy little native of Guam, in the Ladrone Islands, the picture of good-humour, but as ugly as a Joss. Being called upon for a song, he laughingly excused himself on the ground that his songs were calculated to give a white man collywobbles; but if we didn’t mind he would spin a “cuffer” (yarn) instead. Carried unanimously—and we lit fresh pipes as we composed ourselves to hear of “The Calling of Captain Ramirez.” I reproduce the story in a slightly more intelligible form than I heard it,[303] the mixture of Spanish, Kanaka, &c., being a gibberish not to be understood by any but those who have lived among the polyglot crowd in a whaler.
“About fifteen years ago now, as near as I can reckon (for we don’t keep much account of time except we’re on monthly wage), I was cruising the Kingsmills in the old Salem, Captain Ramirez. They told me her name meant ‘Peace,’ and that may be; but if so, all I can say is that never was a ship worse named. Why, there wasn’t ever any peace aboard of her. Quiet there was, when the old man was asleep, for nobody wanted him wakened; but peace—well, I tell ye, boys, she was jest hell afloat. I’ve been fishing now a good many years in Yankee spouters, and there’s some blood-boats among ’em, but never was I so unlucky as when I first set foot aboard the Salem. Skipper was a Portugee from Flores, come over to the States as a nipper and brung up in Rhode Island. Don’t know and don’t care how he got to be skipper, but I guess Jemmy Squarefoot was his schoolmaster, for some of his tricks wouldn’t, couldn’t, have been thought of anywheres else but down below. I ain’t a-goin’ to make ye all miserable by telling you how he hazed us round and starved us and tortured us, but you can let your imagination loose if you want to, and then you won’t overhaul the facts of his daily amusements.
“Well, I’d been with him about a year when, as I said at first, we was cruising the Kingsmills, never going too close in, because at that time the natives[304] were very savage, always fighting with each other, but very glad of the chance to go for a ship and kill and eat all hands. Then again we had some Kanakas aboard, and the skipper knew that if they got half a chance they would be overboard and off to the shore.
“Sperm whales were very plentiful, in fact they had been so all the cruise, which was another proof to all of us who the skipper was in co. with, for in nearly every ship we gammed the crowd were heart-broken at their bad luck. However, we’d only been a few days on the ground when one morning we lowered for a thundering big school of middling-size whales. We sailed in full butt, and all boats got fast. But no sooner was a strain put on the lines than they all parted like as if they was burnt. Nobody there ever seen or heard of such a thing before. It fairly scared us all, for we thought it was witchcraft, and some of ’em said the skipper’s time was up and his boss was rounding on him. Well, we bent on again, second irons, as the whales were all running anyhow, not trying to get away, and we all got fast again. ’Twas no good at all; all parted just the same as before. Well, we was about the worst gallied lot of men you ever see. We was that close to the ship that we knew the old man could see with his glasses everything that was going on. Every one of us knew just about how he was bearing it, but what could we do? Well, boys, we didn’t have much time to serlilerquise, for before you could say ‘knife’ here he comes,[305] jumping, howling mad. Right in among us he busted, and oh! he did look like his old father Satan on the rampage. He was in the bow of his boat, and he let drive at the first whale he ran up against. Down went the fish and pop went the line same as before. Well, I’ve seen folks get mad more’n a little, but never in all my fishing did ever I see anything like he showed us then. I thought he’d a sploded all into little pieces. He snatched off his hat and tore it into ribbons with his teeth; the rattle of Portugee blasphemion was like our old mincing-machine going full kelter, and the foam flew from between his teeth like soapsuds.
“Suddenly he cooled down, all in a minute like, and said very quiet, ‘All aboard.’ We were all pretty well prepared for the worst by this time, but I do think we liked him less now than we did when he was ramping around—he looked a sight more dangerous. However, we obeyed orders smart, as usual, but he was aboard first. My! how that boat of his just flew. ’Twas like a race for life.
“We were no sooner on board than we hoisted boats and made them fast. Then the skipper yelled, ‘All hands lay aft.’ Aft we come prompt, and ranged ourselves across the quarter-deck in front of where he was prowling back and forth like a breeding tigress. As soon as we were all aft he stopped, facing us, and spoke. ‘Somebody aboard this ship’s been trying to work a jolt off on me by pisonin’ my lines. Now I want that man, so’s I can kill him, slow; ’n I’m going to have him too[306] ’thout waiting too long. Now I think this ship’s been too easy a berth for all of you, but from this out until I have my rights on the man I want she’s agoing to be a patent hell. Make up yer mines quick, fer I tell yer no ship’s crew ever suffered what you’re agoin’ to suffer till I get that man under my hands. Now go.’
“When we got forrard we found the fo’c’s’le scuttle screwed up so’s we couldn’t get below. There was no shelter on deck from the blazing sun, the hatches was battened so we couldn’t get into the fore-hold, so we had to just bear it. One man went aft to the scuttle butt for a drink of water, and found the spigot gone. The skipper saw him, and says to him, ‘You’ll fine plenty to drink in the bar’l forrard,’ and you know the sort of liquor that’s full of. Some of us flung ourselves down on deck, being dog tired as well as hungry and thirsty, but he was forrard in a minute with both his shooting-irons cocked. ‘Up, ye spawn, ’n git some exercise; ye’r gettin’ too fat ’n lazy,’ says he. So we trudged about praying that he might drop dead, but none of us willing as yet to face certain death by defying him. The blessed night came at last, and we were able to get a little rest, he having gone below, and the officers, though willing enough to keep in with him at our expense, not being bad enough to drive us all night unless he was around to see it done. Along about eight bells came the steward, with a biscuit apiece for us and a bucket of water—about half a pint each. We were so starved and thirsty that the bite and sup was a godsend. What made[307] things worse for us was the suspicion we had one of the other. As I said, we was, as usual, a mixed crowd and ready to sell one another for a trifle. He knew that, curse him, and reckoned with considerable certainty on getting hold of the victim he wanted. Well, the night passed somehow, and when morning came he was around again making us work, scouring iron-work bright, holy-stoning decks, scrubbing overside, as if our very lives depended on the jobs being done full pelt.
“We was drawing in pretty close to a small group of islands, closer than we had been yet in those waters, and we all wondered what was in the wind. Suddenly he gave orders to back the mainyard and have the dinghy lowered. She was a tiny tub of a craft, such as I never saw carried in a whaler before, only about big enough for three. A little Scotchman and myself was ordered into her, then to our amazement the old man got in, shoved off, and headed her for the opening through the reef surrounding the biggest island of the group. It was fairly well wooded with cocoa-nut trees and low bushes, while, unlike any of the other islets, there were several big rocks showing up through the vegetation in the middle of it. We weren’t long getting to the beach, where we jumped out and ran her up a piece so’s he could step out dry. We waited for a minute or two while he sat thinking, and looking straight ahead of him at nothing. Presently he jumped out and said to me, ‘Come,’ and to Sandy, ‘Stay here.’ Off he went up the beach and straight[308] into the little wood, just as if somebody was calling him and he had to go. Apparently there wasn’t a living soul on the whole island except just us three. We had only got a few yards into the bush when we came to a little dip in the ground: a sort of valley. Just as we got to the bottom, we suddenly found ourselves in the grip of two Kanakas, the one that had hold of the skipper being the biggest man I ever saw. I made one wriggle, but my man, who was holding my two arms behind my back, gave them a twist that nearly wrenched them out of their sockets and quieted me good. As for the skipper, he was trying to call or speak, but although his mouth worked no sound came, and he looked like death. The giant that had him flung him on his face and lashed his wrists behind him with a bit of native fish-line, then served his ankles the same. I was tied next, but not so cruel as the skipper, indeed they didn’t seem to want to hurt me. The two Kanakas now had a sort of a consultation by signs, neither of them speaking a word. While they was at it I noticed the big one was horribly scarred all over his back and loins (they was both naked except for a bit of a grass belt) as well as crippled in his gait. Presently they ceased their dumb motions and came over to me. The big one opened his mouth and pointed to where his tongue had been, also to his right eye-socket, which was empty. Then he touched the big white scars on his body, and finally pointed to the skipper. Whole books couldn’t have explained his meaning better than I[309] understood it then. But what was coming? I declare I didn’t feel glad a bit at the thought that Captain Ramirez was going to get his deserts at last.
“Suddenly the giant histed the skipper on his shoulder as if he had been a baby, and strode off across the valley towards the massive heap of rocks, followed by his comrade and myself. We turned sharply round a sort of gate, composed of three or four huge coral blocks balanced upon each other, and entered a grotto or cave with a descending floor. Over the pieces of rock with which the ground was strewed we stumbled onward in the dim light until we entered water and splashed on through it for some distance. Then, our eyes being by this time used to the darkness, the general features of the place could be made out. Communication with the sea was evident, for the signs of high-water mark could be seen on the walls of the cave just above our heads. For a minute or so we remained perfectly still in the midst of that dead silence, so deep that I fancied I could hear the shell-fish crawling on the bottom. Then I was brought a few paces nearer the Captain, as he hung upon the great Kanaka’s shoulder. Taking my eyes from his death-like face I cast them down, and there, almost at my feet, was one of those enormous clams such as you see the shells of thrown up on all these beaches, big as a child’s bath. Hardly had the horrible truth dawned on me of what was going to happen than it took place. Lifting the skipper into an upright position, the giant dropped him feet first between the gaping[310] shells of the big clam, which, the moment it felt the touch, shut them with a smash that must have broken the skipper’s legs. An awful wail burst from him, the first sound he had yet made. I have said he was brave, and he was, too, although such a cruel villain, but now he broke down and begged hard for life. It may have been that the Kanakas were deaf as well as dumb; at any rate, for all sign of hearing they showed, they were. He appealed to me, but I was as helpless as he, and my turn was apparently now to come. But evidently the Kanakas were only carrying out what they considered to be payment of a due debt, for after looking at him fixedly for awhile, during which I felt the water rising round my knees, they turned their backs on him and led me away. I was glad to go, for his shrieks and prayers were awful to hear, and I couldn’t do anything.
“They led me to where they had first caught us, made me fast to a tree, and left me. Overcome with fatigue and hunger I must have fainted, for when I come to I found myself loose, lying on the sand, and two or three of my shipmates attending to me. As soon as I was able to speak they asked me what had become of the skipper. Then it all rushed back on me at once, and I told them the dreadful story. They heard me in utter silence, the mate saying at last, ‘Wall, sonny, it’s a good job fer yew the Kanakers made ye fast, or yew’d have had a job ter clear yersef of murder.’ And so I thought now. However, as soon as I was a bit rested and had something to eat, I led them to the[311] cave, keeping a bright look-out meanwhile for a possible attack by the Kanakas. None appeared though, and the tide having fallen again we had no difficulty in finding the skipper. All that was left of him, that is, for the sea-scavengers had been busy with him, so that he was a sight to remember with a crawling at your stomach till your dying day. He was still fast in the grip of the clam, so it was decided to leave him there and get on board again at once.
“We did so unmolested, getting sail on the ship as soon as we reached her, so as to lose sight of that infernal spot. But it’s no use denying the fact that we all felt glad the skipper was dead; some rejoiced at the manner of his death, although none could understand who called him ashore or why he obeyed. Those who had whispered the theory of the finish of his contract with Jemmy Squarefoot chuckled at their prescience, as fully justified by the sequel, declaring that the big Kanaka whom I had seen was none other than Satan himself come for his bargain.
“Matters went on now in quite a different fashion. The relief was so great that we hardly knew ourselves for the same men, and it affected all hands alike, fore and aft. The secret of the breaking line was discovered when Mr. Peck, the mate, took the skipper’s berth over. In a locker beneath the bunk he found the pieces of a big bottle, what they call a ‘carboy,’ I think, and in hunting up the why of this a leakage through the deck was found into the store-room where the cordage was kept. Only[312] two other coils were affected by the stuff that had run down, and of course they were useless, but the rest of the stock was all right. Now, I don’t know what it was, nor how it came there, nor any more about it, and if you ain’t tired of listening I’m mighty tired of talking. Pass that ‘switchel’this way.”