The Pilot (41 page)

The mournful forebodings of Tom seemed to vanish with the appearance of
a necessity for his exertions, and he was foremost among the crew in
executing the orders of their commander. The loss of all the sail on the
mainmast forced the Ariel so much from her course, as to render it
difficult to weather the point, that jutted, under her lee, for some
distance into the ocean. This desirable object was, however, effected by
the skill of Barnstable, aided by the excellent properties of his
vessel; and the schooner, borne down by the power of the gale, from
whose fury she had now no protection, passed heavily along the land,
heading as far as possible from the breakers, while the seamen were
engaged in making their preparations to display as much of their
mainsail as the stump of the mast would allow them to spread. The firing
from the battery ceased, as the Ariel rounded the little promontory; but
Barnstable, whose gaze was now bent intently on the ocean, soon
perceived that, as his cockswain had predicted, he had a much more
threatening danger to encounter, in the elements. When their damages
were repaired, so far as circumstances would permit, the cockswain
returned to his wonted station near the lieutenant; and after a
momentary pause, during which his eyes roved over the rigging with a
seaman's scrutiny, he resumed the discourse.

"It would have been better for us that the best man in the schooner
should have been dubb'd of a limb, by that shot, than that the Ariel
should have lost her best leg; a mainsail close-reefed may be prudent
canvas as the wind blows, but it holds a poor luff to keep a craft to
windward."

"What would you have, Tom Coffin?" retorted his commander. "You see she
draws ahead, and off-shore; do you expect a vessel to fly in the very
teeth of the gale? or would you have me ware and beach her at once?"

"I would have nothing, nothing, Captain Barnstable," returned the old
seaman, sensibly touched at his commander's displeasure; "you are as
able as any man that ever trod a plank to work her into an offing; but,
sir, when that soldier-officer told me of the scheme to sink the Ariel
at her anchor, there were such feelings come athwart my philosophy as
never crossed it afore. I thought I saw her a wrack, as plainly, ay, as
plainly as you may see the stump of that mast; and, I will own it, for
it's as natural to love the craft you sail in as it is to love one's
self, I will own that my manhood fetched a heavy lee-lurch at the
sight."

"Away with ye, ye old sea-croaker! forward with ye, and see that the
head-sheets are trimmed flat. But hold! Come hither, Tom; if you have
sights of wrecks, and sharks, and other beautiful objects, keep them
stowed in your own silly brain; don't make a ghost-parlor of my
forecastle. The lads begin to look to leeward, now, oftener than I would
have them. Go, sirrah, go, and take example from Mr. Merry, who is
seated on your namesake there, and is singing as if he were a chorister
in his father's church."

"Ah, Captain Barnstable, Mr. Merry is a boy, and knows nothing, so fears
nothing. But I shall obey your orders, sir; and if the men fall astarn
this gale, it sha'n't be for anything they'll hear from old Tom Coffin."

The cockswain lingered a moment, notwithstanding his promised obedience,
and then ventured to request that:

"Captain Barnstable would please call Mr. Merry from the gun; for I
know, from having followed the seas my natural life, that singing in a
gale is sure to bring the wind down upon a vessel the heavier; for He
who rules the tempests is displeased that man's voice shall be heard
when he chooses to send his own breath on the water."

Barnstable was at a loss whether to laugh at his cockswain's infirmity,
or to yield to the impression which his earnest and solemn manner had a
powerful tendency to produce, amid such a scene. But making an effort to
shake off the superstitious awe that he felt creeping around his own
heart, the lieutenant relieved the mind of the worthy old seaman so far
as to call the careless boy from his perch, to his own side; where
respect for the sacred character of the quarter-deck instantly put an
end to the lively air he had been humming. Tom walked slowly forward,
apparently much relieved by the reflection that he had effected so
important an object.

The Ariel continued to struggle against the winds and ocean for several
hours longer, before the day broke on the tempestuous scene, and the
anxious mariners were enabled to form a more accurate estimate of their
real danger. As the violence of the gale increased, the canvas of the
schooner had been gradually reduced, until she was unable to show more
than was absolutely necessary to prevent her driving helplessly on the
land. Barnstable watched the appearance of the weather, as the light
slowly opened upon them, with an intense anxiety, which denoted that the
presentiments of the cockswain were no longer deemed idle. On looking to
windward, he beheld the green masses of water that were rolling in
towards the land, with a violence that seemed irresistible, crowned with
ridges of foam; and there were moments when the air appeared filled with
sparkling gems, as the rays of the rising sun fell upon the spray that
was swept from wave to wave. Towards the land the view was still more
appalling. The cliffs, but a short half-league under the lee of the
schooner, were, at all times, nearly hid from the eye by the pyramids of
water, which the furious element, so suddenly restrained in its
violence, cast high into the air, as if seeking to overleap the
boundaries that nature had fixed to its dominion. The whole coast, from
the distant headland at the south to the well-known shoals that
stretched far beyond their course in the opposite direction, displayed a
broad belt of foam, into which it would have been certain destruction
for the proudest ship that ever swam to enter. Still the Ariel floated
on the billows, lightly and in safety, though yielding to the impulses
of the waters, and, at times, appearing to be engulfed in the yawning
chasm which apparently opened beneath her to receive the little fabric.
The low rumor of acknowledged danger had found its way through the
schooner, and the seamen, after fastening their hopeless looks on the
small spot of canvas that they were still able to show to the tempest,
would turn to view the dreary line of coast, that seemed to offer so
gloomy an alternative. Even Dillon, to whom the report of their danger
had found its way, crept from his place of concealment in the cabin, and
moved about the decks unheeded, devouring, with greedy ears, such
opinions as fell from the lips of the sullen mariners.

At this moment of appalling apprehension, the cockswain exhibited the
calmest resignation. He knew all had been done that lay in the power of
man, to urge their little vessel from the land, and it was now too
evident to his experienced eyes that it had been done in vain; but,
considering himself as a sort of fixture in the schooner, he was quite
prepared to abide her fate, be it for better or for worse. The settled
look of gloom that gathered around the frank brow of Barnstable was in
no degree connected with any considerations of himself; but proceeded
from that sort of parental responsibility, from which the sea-commander
is never exempt. The discipline of the crew, however, still continued
perfect and unyielding. There had, it is true, been a slight movement
made by one or two of the older seamen, which indicated an intention to
drown the apprehensions of death in ebriety; but Barnstable had called
for his pistols, in a tone that checked the procedure instantly, and,
although the fatal weapons were, untouched by him, left to lie exposed
on the capstan, where they had been placed by his servant, not another
symptom of insubordination appeared among the devoted crew. There was
even what to a landsman might seem an appalling affectation of attention
to the most trifling duties of the vessel; and the men who, it should
seem, ought to be devoting the brief moments of their existence to the
mighty business of the hour, were constantly called to attend to the
most trivial details of their profession. Ropes were coiled, and the
slightest damages occasioned by the waves, which, at short intervals,
swept across the low decks of the Ariel, were repaired, with the same
precision and order as if she yet lay embayed in the haven from which
she had just been driven. In this manner the arm of authority was kept
extended over the silent crew, not with the vain desire to preserve a
lingering though useless exercise of power, but with a view to maintain
that unity of action that now could alone afford them even a ray of
hope.

"She can make no head against this sea, under that rag of canvas," said
Barnstable, gloomily, addressing the cockswain, who, with folded arms
and an air of cool resignation, was balancing his body on the verge of
the quarter-deck, while the schooner was plunging madly into waves that
nearly buried her in their bosom: "the poor little thing trembles like a
frightened child, as she meets the water."

Tom sighed heavily, and shook his head, before he answered:

"If we could have kept the head of the mainmast an hour longer, we might
have got an offing, and fetched to windward of the shoals; but as it is,
sir, mortal man can't drive a craft to windward—she sets bodily in to
land, and will be in the breakers in less than an hour, unless God wills
that the wind shall cease to blow."

"We have no hope left us, but to anchor; our ground tackle may yet bring
her up."

Tom turned to his commander, and replied, solemnly, and with that
assurance of manner that long experience only can give a man in moments
of great danger:

"If our sheet-cable was bent to our heaviest anchor, this sea would
bring it home, though nothing but her launch was riding by it. A
northeaster in the German Ocean must and will blow itself out; nor shall
we get the crown of the gale until the sun falls over the land. Then,
indeed, it may lull; for the winds do often seem to reverence the glory
of the heavens too much to blow their might in its very face!"

"We must do our duty to ourselves and the country," returned Barnstable.
"Go, get the two bowers spliced, and have a kedge bent to a hawser:
we'll back our two anchors together, and veer to the better end of two
hundred and forty fathoms; it may yet bring her up. See all clear there
for anchoring and cutting away the mast! we'll leave the wind nothing
but a naked hull to whistle over."

"Ay, if there was nothing but the wind, we might yet live to see the sun
sink behind them hills," said the cockswain; "but what hemp can stand
the strain of a craft that is buried, half the time, to her foremast in
the water?"

The order was, however, executed by the crew, with a sort of desperate
submission to the will of their commander; and when the preparations
were completed, the anchors and kedge were dropped to the bottom, and
the instant that the Ariel tended to the wind, the axe was applied to
the little that was left of her long, raking masts. The crash of the
falling spars, as they came, in succession, across the decks of the
vessel, appeared to produce no sensation amid that scene of complicated
danger; but the seamen proceeded in silence to their hopeless duty of
clearing the wrecks. Every eye followed the floating timbers, as the
waves swept them away from the vessel, with a sort of feverish
curiosity, to witness the effect produced by their collision with those
rocks that lay so fearfully near them; but long before the spars entered
the wide border of foam, they were hid from view by the furious element
in which they floated. It was now felt by the whole crew of the Ariel,
that their last means of safety had been adopted; and, at each desperate
and headlong plunge the vessel took into the bosom of the seas that
rolled upon her forecastle, the anxious seamen thought that they could
perceive the yielding of the iron that yet clung to the bottom, or could
hear the violent surge of the parting strands of the cable, that still
held them to their anchors. While the minds of the sailors were agitated
with the faint hopes that had been excited by the movements of their
schooner, Dillon had been permitted to wander about the deck unnoticed:
his rolling eyes, hard breathing, and clenched hands excited no
observation among the men, whose thoughts were yet dwelling on the means
of safety. But now, when, with a sort of frenzied desperation, he would
follow the retiring waters along the decks, and venture his person nigh
the group that had collected around and on the gun of the cockswain,
glances of fierce or of sullen vengeance were cast at him, that conveyed
threats of a nature that he was too much agitated to understand.

"If ye are tired of this world, though your time, like my own, is
probably but short in it," said Tom to him, as he passed the cockswain
in one of his turns, "you can go forward among the men; but if ye have
need of the moments to foot up the reck'ning of your doings among men,
afore ye're brought to face your Maker, and hear the log-book of Heaven,
I would advise you to keep as nigh as possible to Captain Barnstable or
myself."

"Will you promise to save me if the vessel is wrecked?" exclaimed
Dillon, catching at the first sounds of friendly interest that had
reached his ears since he had been recaptured; "Oh! If you will, I can
secure your future ease, yes, wealth, for the remainder of your days!"

"Your promises have been too ill kept afore this, for the peace of your
soul," returned the cockswain, without bitterness, though sternly; "but
it is not in me to strike even a whale that is already spouting blood."

The intercessions of Dillon were interrupted by a dreadful cry, that
arose among the men forward, and which sounded with increased horror,
amid the roarings of the tempest. The schooner rose on the breast of a
wave at the same instant, and, falling off with her broadside to the
sea, she drove in towards the cliffs, like a bubble on the rapids of a
cataract.