FullReads

“I’m blind, too,” he groaned. “Angel, it’s the moon. We’re moonstruck–moon-blind. And we’re adrift in a squall. Steward,” he said as he made his way toward the stairs, “light the binnacle, and stop that whining. Maybe some one can see a little.”

When he reached the deck he called to the men, growling, cursing, and complaining on the poop. “Down below with you all!” he ordered. “Pass through and out the forrard door. If any man sees the light on the cabin table, let that man sing out.”

They obeyed him. Twenty men passed through the cabin and again climbed the poop stairs, their lamentations still troubling the night. But not one had seen the lantern. Some said that they could not open their eyes at all; some complained that their faces were swollen; others that their mouths were twisted up to where their ears should be; and one man averred that he could not breathe through his nose.

“It’ll only last a few days, boys,” said the captain, bravely; “we shouldn’t have slept in the moonlight in these latitudes. Drop the lead over, one of you–weather side. The devil knows where we’re drifting, and the small anchor won’t hold now; we’ll save it.” Captain Swarth was himself again.

But not so his men. They had become children, with children’s fear of the dark. Even the doughty Angel Todd was oppressed by the first horror of the situation, speaking only when spoken to. Above the rushing sound of wind and the smacking of short seas could be heard the voice of the steward in the cabin, while an occasional heart-borne malediction or groan–according to temperament–added to the distraction on deck. One man, more self-possessed than the rest, had dropped the lead over the side. An able seaman needs no eyes to heave the lead.

“A quarter six,” he sang out, and then, plaintively: “We’ll fetch up on the Barrier, capt’n. S’pose we try an’ get the other hook over.”

“Yes, yes,” chorused some of the braver spirits. “It may hold. We don’t want to drown on the reef. Let’s get it over. Chain’s overhauled.”

“Let the anchor alone,” roared the captain. “No anchor-chain’ll hold in this. Keep that lead a-going, Tom Plate, if it’s you. What bottom do you find?”

“Quarter less six,” called the leadsman. “Soft bottom. We’re shoaling.”

“Angel,” said the captain to his mate, who stood close to him, “we’re blowing out the south channel. We’ve been drifting long enough to fetch up on the reef if it was in our way. There’s hard bottom in the north channel, and the twenty-fathom lead wouldn’t reach it half a length from the rocks.”

The mate had nothing to say.

“And the south channel lay due southeast from our moorings,” continued the captain. “Wind’s nor’west, I should say, right down from the hilltops; and I’ve known these blasted West India squalls to last three days, blowing straight and hard. This has the smell of a gale in it already. Keep that lead a-going, there.”

“No bottom,” answered the leadsman.

“Good enough,” said the captain, cheerfully.

“No bottom,” was called repeatedly, until the captain sang out: “That’ll do the lead.” Then the leadsman coiled up the line, and they heard his rasping, unpleasant voice, cursing softly but fiercely to himself. Captain Swarth descended the stairs, silenced the steward with a blow, felt of the clock hands, secured his pistols, and returned to the deck.

“We’re at sea,” he said. “Two hands to the wheel. Loose and set the foretopmast-staysails and the foretopsail. Staysail first. Let a man stay in the slings to square the yard by the feel as it goes up.”

“What for?” they answered complainingly. “What ye goin’ to do? We can’t see. Why didn’t you bring to when you had bottom under you?”

“No arguments!” yelled Swarth. “Forrard with you. What are you doing on the poop, anyway? If you can’t see, you can feel, and what more do you want? Jump, now. Set that head-sail and get her ‘fore the wind–quick, or I’ll drop some of you.”