The Firm of Girdlestone
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
CHAPTER XLIX. Page 1
A VOYAGE IN A COFFIN SHIP.
The early part of the voyage of the _Black Eagle_ was extremely fortunate. The wind came round to the eastward, and wafted them steadily down Channel, until on the third day they saw the Isle of Ushant lying low upon the sky-line. No inquisitive gunboat or lurking police launch came within sight of them, though whenever any vessel's course brought her in their direction the heart of Ezra Girdlestone sank within him. On one occasion a small brig signalled to them, and the wretched fugitives, when they saw the flags run up, thought that all was lost. It proved, however, to be merely some trivial message, and the two owners breathed again.
The wind fell away on the day that they cleared the Channel, and the whole surface of the sea was like a great expanse of quicksilver, which shimmered in the rays of the wintry sun. There was still a considerable swell after the recent gale, and the _Black Eagle_ lay rolling about as though she had learned habits of inebriation from her skipper. The sky was very clear above, but all round the horizon a low haze lay upon the water. So silent was it that the creaking of the boats as they swung at the davits, and the straining of the shrouds as the ship rolled, sounded loud and clear, as did the raucous cries of a couple of gulls which hovered round the poop. Every now and then a rumbling noise ending in a thud down below showed that the swing of the ship had caused something to come down with a run. Underlying all other sounds, however, was a muffled clank, clank, which might almost make one forget that this was a sailing ship, it sounded so like the chipping of a propeller.
"What is that noise, Captain Miggs?" asked John Girdlestone as he stood leaning over the quarter rail, while the old sea-dog, sextant in hand, was taking his midday observations. The captain had been on his good behaviour since the unexpected advent of his employers, and he was now in a wonderful and unprecedented state of sobriety.
"Them's the pumps a-goin'," Miggs answered, packing his sextant away in its case.
"The pumps! I thought they were only used when a ship was in danger?"
Ezra came along the deck at this moment, and listened with interest to the conversation.
"This ship is in danger," Miggs remarked calmly.
"In danger!" cried Ezra, looking round the clear sky and placid sea. "Where is the danger? I did not think you were such an old woman, Miggs."
"We will see about that," the seaman answered angrily. "If a ship's got no bottom in her she's bound to be in danger, be the weather fair or foul."
"Do you mean to tell me this ship has no bottom?"
"I mean to tell you that there are places where you could put your fingers through her seams. It's only the pumpin' that keeps afloat."
"This is a pretty state of things," said Girdlestone. "How is it that I have not been informed of it before! It is most dangerous."
"Informed!" cried Miggs. "Informed of it! Has there been a v'yage yet that I haven't come to ye, Muster Girdlestone, and told ye I was surprised ever to find myself back in Lunnon? A year agone I told ye how this ship was, and ye laughed at me, ye did. It's only when ye find yourselves on her in the middle o' the broad sea that ye understan' what it is that sailor folk have to put up wi'."
Girdlestone was about to make some angry reply to this address, but his son put his hand on his arm to restrain him. It would never do to quarrel with Hamilton Miggs before they reached their port of refuge. They were too completely in his power.
"What the captain says has a great deal of truth in it," he remarked, with a laugh. "You don't realize a thing until you've had to experience it. The _Black Eagle_ shall certainly have an overhauling next time, and we'll see if we can't give her captain an increase at the same time."
Miggs gave a grunt which, might be taken as expressing thanks or as signifying doubt. Perhaps there was a mixture of both in his mind.
"I presume," Girdlestone said, in a conciliatory voice, "that there would be no real danger as long as the weather was fine?"
"It won't be fine long," the captain answered gruffly. "The glass was well under thirty when I come up, and it is fallin' fast. I've been about here before at this time o' year in a calm, with a ground swell and a sinkin' glass. No good ever came of it. Look there at the norrard. What d'ye make o' that, Sandy?"
"In conjunction wi' the descending glass, it has an ominous appairance," the Scotchman answered, with much stress on the first syllable of the adjective.
The phenomenon which had attracted their professional attention did not appear to either of the Girdlestones to be a very important one. The haze on the horizon to the north was rather thicker than elsewhere, and a few thin streaky clouds straggled upwards across the clear cold heaven, like the feelers of some giant octopus which lay behind the fog bank. At the same time the sea changed in places from the appearance of quicksilver to that of grained glass.
"There's the wind," Miggs said confidently. "I'd furl the top-gallant sails and get her stay-sails down, Mr. McPherson." Whenever he gave an order he was careful to give the mate his full title, though at other times he called him indiscriminately Sandy or Mac.
The mate gave the necessary commands, while Miggs dived down into the cabin. He came up again looking even graver than when he left the deck.
"The glass is nearly down to twenty-eight," he said. "I never seed it as low since I've been at sea. Take in the mains'l, Mr. McPherson, and have the topsails reefed down!"
"Ay, ay, sir."
There was no lack of noise now as the men hauled at the halliards with their shrill strange cries, which sounded like the piping of innumerable sea-birds. Half a dozen lay out on the yard above, tucking away the great sail and making all snug.
"Take a reef in the fores'l!" the mate roared, "and look alive about it!"
"Hurry up, ye swabs!" Miggs bellowed. "You'll be blown away, every mother's son of ye, if you don't stir yourselves!"
"This may be the same gale as was on some days ago," Miggs remarked. "They travel in circles very often, and come back to where they start from."
"We are all snug aloft, but this ship won't stand much knocking about, an' that's a fact," observed the mate gloomily.
It was blowing now in short frequent puffs, which ruffled the surface of the water, and caused the _Black Eagle_ to surge slowly forward over the rollers. A few drops of rain came pattering down upon the deck. The great bank of cloud was above the ship, still hurrying wildly across the heavens.
"Look out!" cried an old quartermaster. "Here she comes!"
As he spoke the storm burst with a shriek, as though all the demons of the air had been suddenly unchained and were rejoicing in their freedom. The force of the blast was so great that Girdlestone could almost have believed that he had been struck by some solid object. The barque heeled over until her lee rail touched the water, and lay so for a minute or more in a smother of foam. Her deck was at such an angle that it seemed as though she never could right herself. Gradually, however, she rose a little, staggered and trembled like a living thing, and then plunged away through the storm, as a piece of paper is whirled before the wind.
By evening the gale was at its height. The _Black Eagle_ was running under maintopsail and foretopmast staysail. The sea had risen very quickly, as it will when wind comes upon a swell. As far as the eye could see from the summit of a wave there was a vista of dark towering ridges with their threatening crests of foam. When the barque sank in the hollow these gleaming summits rose as high as her mainyard, and the two fugitives, clinging to the weather-shrouds, looked up in terror and amazement at the masses of water which hung above them. Once or twice waves actually broke over the vessel, crashing and roaring down the deck, and washing hither and thither until gradually absorbed between the planks or drained away through the scupper-holes. On each of these occasions the poor rotten vessel would lurch and shiver in every plank, as if with a foreknowledge of her fate.
It was a dreary night for all on board. As long as there was light they could at least see what danger was to be faced, but now the barque was plunging and tossing through an inky obscurity. With a wild scooping motion she was hurled up on the summit of a great wave, and thence she shot down into the black gulf beyond such force that when checked by meeting the next billow her whole fabric jarred from truck to keelson. There were two seamen at the wheel and two at the relieving tackles, yet it was all that they could do among the wild commotion to keep her steady.
No one thought of going below. It was better to see and know the worst than to be shut up in a coffin where one could not stretch out a hand to help one's self. Once Captain Hamilton Miggs clawed his way along the rail to where the Girdlestones were standing.
"Look there!" he roared, pointing to windward.
It was difficult to turn one's face straight to the wild rush of wind and spray and hail. Shading their eyes, they peered into the storm. Right in the heart of it, and apparently not more than a couple of hundred yards from the barque, was a lurid glare of ruddy light, rising and falling with the sea, but advancing rapidly through it. There was a bright central glowing spot, with smaller lights glimmering above and beside it. The effect of the single glare of light against the inky darkness of the sea and sky would have made a study for a Turner.
"What's that?"
"It's a steamer," the captain shouted. It was only by great exertions that he could make himself audible above the shrieking of the wind and the dash of the waves.
"What do you think of it all?" Ezra asked.
"Very bad," Miggs answered. "Couldn't be worse;" and with that he clawed his way aft again, grasping every stanchion or shroud on his way, like a parroquet in a cage.
The clouds above broke somewhat towards morning, but there was no sign of abatement in the tempest. Here and there through the rifts the glimmer of the stars might be seen, and once the pale moon gleamed through the storm wreath. The dawn broke cheerless and dreary, disclosing the great turmoil of endless slate-coloured waves and the solitary little barque, with her rag of canvas, like a broken-winged seabird, staggering to the south.
Even the Girdlestones had noticed that, whereas towards the commencement of the storm it had been a rare occurrence for a wave to break over the ship, the decks were now continually knee-deep in water, and there was a constant splashing and crashing as the seas curled over the weather bulwark. Miggs had already observed it, and conferred gravely with his mate on the point.
"I don't like the looks of her, Mac," he shouted. "She don't rise to them."
"She's near water-logged, I'm thinkin'," the mate responded gravely.
"No wonder," said Miggs, "when she's takin' in water above and below too. The men are weary wi' pumpin', and it still gains."
"I doot it's our last v'yage thgither," the mate remarked, his Scottish accent waxing broader under the influence of emotion.
"What d'ye say to heavin' her to?"
"I'd let her run on. She would na rise tae the waves, I'm fearin'. We canna be vera fa' frae the Spanish coast, accordin' to my surmisation. That wud gie us a chance o' savin' oorsels, though I'm a feared na boat would live in siccan a sea."
"You're right. We have a better chance so than if we let her ride. She'd founder as sure as eggs are eggs. Damn it, Mac, I could almost be glad this has happened now we've got them two aboard. We'll teach 'em what coffin ships is like in a gale o' wind." The rough seaman laughed hoarsely as he spoke.
The carpenter came aft at this moment, balancing himself as best he could, for the deck was only a few degrees off the perpendicular.
"The leak is gaining fast," he said. "The hands are clean done up. There's land on the port bow."
"We'd best run towards it," the mate said. "We've na chance o' saving the ship, but we might run her ashore."
"The ship will go down before you reach it," the carpenter remarked gloomily.
"Keep your heart up!" Miggs shouted, and then crawled along to the Girdlestones. "There is no hope for the ship but we may save ourselves," he said. "You'll have to take your turn at the pumps."
They followed him forward without a word. The crew, listless and weary, were grouped about the pumps. The feeble clanking sounded like the ticking of a watch amid the horrible uproar which filled the air.
"Buckle to again, boys!" cried Miggs. "These two will help you and the carpenter and mate."
Ezra and his father, the old man's grizzled locks flying wildly from his head, seized the rope and worked with the crew, hardly able to retain their foothold upon the slippery sloping decks. Miggs went down into the cabin. His behaviour during the gale had been most exemplary, but he recognized now that there was nothing more to be done, and, having thrown off his public responsibilities, he renewed his private peculiarities. He filled out nearly a tumblerful of raw rum and took it off at a gulp. Then he began to sing and made his way on deck in a very hilarious and reckless mood.