Down to the Sea/The Helix

E get up a jury mainmast, easy enough," said Captain Swarth, as he glanced around at his shattered deck; "but how'll we keep it up? Both main channels shot away, and not a ring-bolt, cleat, bitt, or cavil left abaft the mainmast. What d'ye make of it, Yank?"

Yank Tate, the carpenter, an expert in makeshifts, and the most valuable man in that pirate crew, answered, slowly:

"I've been thinkin', capt'n—thinkin' hard. If I had tools I could work, for we have the material; but a big round shot's gone clean through my tool-chest, and I can't find anything but the broad-axe and the saw. We'll have to stay the mainmast aft by a cat-stay, and forward by two to the 'midship moorin' bitts; then rig a leg-o'-mutton on the main, for we can't sling a gaff."

"But what'll we set up the cat-stay to?" asked Angel Todd, the mate, his long and solemn face more solemn than usual at the problem. "There's nothing intact but the wheel and binnacle, and they won't stand the strain."

"Pass a rope around under the stern," answered Yank, "long enough to clear the wheel and binnacle and set it up to that."

"Right," said the captain. "Yank, you're a genius. Get to work, Angel."

"How'll we splice wire rope?" asked the mate. "She's wire-rigged everywhere. I never spliced it—never saw it before."

"Nor I," said Swarth, "nor heard of it; but it can be spliced; it's got to be."

They were taking stock after the running fight. Five miles to the north, rolling heavily in the trough with all canvas furled, lay the English war-brig that had chased them. It had been a stern chase and a long one, dead before the wind, during which Swarth, unwilling to luff and lose headway, had held his fire but for an occasional shot from a small stern gun, and had watched his craft being slowly disintegrated by the well-aimed fire of the Englishman. The after part had suffered most; the taffrail and the quarter rails to nearly amidships were ripped and shattered, while the cabin resembled nothing so much as a pile of kindling-wood; the main channels were gone, and with no support from the rigging a solid shot imbedded in the mainmast just above the deck had been enough to send it crashing down forward, springing the fore lower and topsail yards as it met them, and breaking squarely in two just below the crosstrees as it struck the rail. Then, when the submerging canvas pulled the two fragments overboard, Swarth might have given up. But the pursuing war-craft did not bear away after firing this shot; on the contrary, she luffed still farther, and as she rolled in the trough of the sea her shaking canvas began to come in, while smoke arose from amidships. So, surmising that she was suffering from internal disorder, he went on, dragging the fallen spars in his wake.

She was a brigantine, acquired by Swarth in the usual manner, and, as Angel had said, wire-rigged everywhere—one of the experiments that ship-builders are ever ready to turn out with each new invention. Not only were shrouds, stays, and backstays of this newly devised wire rope, but also the running-gear—halyards, braces, lifts, sheets, and tacks—in all its turnings and doublings down to the last part for hauling and belaying, was of the refractory material; and not only was it wire rope, but steel-wire rope that, when slackened, curled into the spiral of the original coil. In all her maze of cordage there was not a piece of hemp or manila larger than a halter, nor longer than twenty-five fathoms—about the length of the fore brace.

Splicing wire—like chemistry and materia medica—is an experimental science. As Swarth had declared, it can be done by men who have spliced soft rope; but not at the first attempt. Those very able able-seamen of that crew got the heavy wreck of the mainmast aboard with but little trouble, trimmed it, and disconnected the topmast. They sent down the fore royal-yard, sawed it lengthwise into battens to mend the damaged lower and topsail yards, and used up most of the soft royal running-gear in the lashing thereof. With the lighter main topmast for a derrick, they up-ended the shortened mainmast, and lashed the new heel to the stump with more of the hemp and manila; then, with the urgent necessity of properly securing this jury mainmast, they found themselves confronted with the problem of wire-splicing.

They avoided it in setting up the two mainstays. Seamanship, which to a seaman is the will of Providence, decrees that masts shall first be secured from forward; and they found that two still intact and opposing legs of the main rigging would just reach from the masthead to the mooring-bitts amidships, and these they tautened in the ordinary way with lanyards through the dead-eyes; but the rest of the main rigging was broken or stranded, too short to reach anywhere; and to steady the mast from aft they had only the main topmast backstays, the fore royal backstays, and the fore royal-stay—five long pieces of steel-wire rope about the size of clothes-line, equal in tensile strength to six-inch hemp or manila, but, in the judgment of these old-school seamen, very weak to hold the strain of a heavy lower mast. They would need to double it many times.

So they would first splice a collar, or loop, in one end to slip over the masthead and rest on the cleat that Yank Tate had placed there for the purpose; and they tried it, one man after another. It looked simple—just the tucking of six ends under six strands, and tucking again, and once more. But, oh, the bloodshed and suffering, the groans and maledictions attending that job! Men who, a few hours before, had calmly faced gun-fire, who had seen some of their number shattered and dismembered by solid shot, who were accustomed to hand-to-hand combats with knife or cutlass, winced and complained as the refractory ends of steel sliced their hands and wrists.

But at last the splice was done—looking much like a bundle of fagots—and the collar sent aloft to slip over the masthead. But now, in view of the plenitude of wire rope and its uncompromising stiffness, Swarth decided, first, that it would only be practicable to set up the kinky cat-stay through pulley blocks, one for each doubling; next, that with the small number of strong blocks still serviceable—the upper peak and throat halyard blocks, six sheaves in all—it would be advisable to conserve these up aloft and pass the lower turns around under the stern. This obviated the long rope suggested by Yank, but involved the splicing, end to end, of all the rope, with long splices.

Painfully the blood-weary cutthroats went at it, and it required the moral suasion of Swarth, Angel, and Yank, each equipped with an iron belaying-pin, to keep them at it. And when it is known that a long splice in a steel-wire rope represents the acme of modern seamanship, it can be imagined what a task it was for these sore-fingered tyros to join the five pieces into one long rope with junctures small enough to travel through the blocks. Long before it was done Yank Tate had slung these blocks to the masthead just below the collar, and, by means of a staging rigged under the stern, had nailed a succession of cleats to the counter to keep each turn of the rope in place, clear of its neighbors. It was a wet job for Yank, as the craft was still charging along through a lumpy sea, and every now and then he went under as the stern sank. But not being troubled with the sores and sorrows of the others, he did not repine—even remaining to grease the cleats and planking.

Nor did he repine when, at mid-day of the third day of work, the wind having died away coincident with the finishing of the splices, the craft rolled both rails under and made his place on the staging a place of danger. His task now was to straighten out those kinky coils of steel wire and lay each turn in its bed between the cleats as those on deck passed it around; but Yank had the born mechanic's love of a good job.

The final setting-up of that cat-stay was easy; a tackle clapped onto each part, as it led downward from its block above, tautened it, and a spun-yarn racking held it while they shifted the tackle to the next part. A fathom or two of end remained when the job was done, and this, after nailing the part to the side, they allowed to trail overboard, as Yank emphatically and consistently had refused to cut steel wire with his broad-axe. There was a curious resemblance to shrouds without ratlines in the six parts of wire rope leading up from each side; and this, in fact, was just about what they were.

A little sail-making reduced the torn mainsail to a three-cornered "mutton-leg," and they hoisted it at once. Swarth would now have gone further, and sent up the topmast, to which they could have set a jib, upside-down; but the inflamed condition of his men's hands made such a step unwise at present; their hands hurt them more than did the impact on their heads of belaying-pins, and under stress their line of least resistance would be mutiny. So he waited, while the hot afternoon wore on, and whistled for a wind to blow them on their way—due south to their island retreat, where they could properly refit and recuperate.

They had dropped the smoking English war-brig below the horizon late in the first day of flight, and now calculated that, unless she had conquered the fire and resumed the chase, there were fully one hundred and fifty miles between them when the wind had failed.

The brigantine, with canvas flapping as she rolled, swung slowly around the compass, heading any way that she was thrown by the varying heave of an ugly cross sea, the dominant motion of which seemed to be, not from the direction the wind had last come from, but out of the west. And a filmy mist arising on the western horizon at about four o'clock indicated to Swarth that wind would follow the sea from here.

He ceased his whistling, ordered the flying-jib taken in, and the men obeyed him painfully, grumbling over their sores and making hard work of an easy job. There must have been some kind of poison from the wire, for their hands were swelling.

The filmy mist spread rapidly toward them, blotting out the western sun and eventually the eastern sky. Yet it presented a curious seeming of transparency—the horizon on all sides was distinct, and the sky above still looked blue. But it was an unnatural blue, and there was a closeness to the air that made breathing difficult.

The men lounged and shuffled nervously about the deck. Angel and Yank conversed in low tones near the poop steps, and the captain often consulted a new-fangled instrument called a barometer, which, though it showed a very low reading, gave him little light.

It suddenly grew darker. Overhead the blue had become gray, and a condensation of the filmy mist was forming a cloud. It became smaller and blacker, with tints of purple in the creases and a glistening rim on its western edge. It hovered directly over the rolling craft and descended until it seemed that the fore royal pole had almost punctured it. Here it remained, and a puff of hot wind filled the sails, then died away.

How are you heading now?" asked Swarth, quietly, to the helmsman.

"South an' by east, sir," answered the man.

"Bring her due south when the wind comes. It's our course, but the Lord knows where it'll hit us from. Angel," he called, "haul down the jib and clew up the foresail and fore topgallant-sail."

As he spoke a white light blinded them, and deafening report shook the whole fabric of hull, spar, and cordage. For a time not a man aboard could see or hear, though they could feel a warm deluge of rain and a furious blast of wind which seemingly came from all directions. Angel Todd groped his way to the jib and fore topgallant halyards, casting them off; then he called to the men to man clewlines and down-haul, and a few, who heard faintly before their sight returned, responded in the darkness. But they knew by the feel of the ropes they pulled that the jib was in ribbons and the topgallant-sail aback. Then, as the darkness and dullness cleared from eyes and ears, they saw that the craft had sternway and heard their captain's thundering roar coming to them against the wind:

"Lay aft here two hands to the wheel! Swanson's struck dead."

Two came and found Swarth at the wheel, with a prostrate figure at his feet. There was a curious, pungent odor in the air, which lasted but a moment, then was blown away. The lightning had dodged the taller foremast and sought the best conductor—the wire that led overboard.

"Wheel's hard aport," said Swarth, releasing it to them. "Due south when the canvas fills. This wind's out o' the north, and it's dead fair again." Then he called forward to furl the topgallant-sail, but to leave the foresail as it was.

Slowly the craft backed around, and, as the forward canvas flapped and filled, forged ahead and settled down to the course Swarth had given. The squall was pressing the seas to a flat surface of suds, but it was much lighter now, as though the lightning stroke had cleared the air; yet the sun was still hidden.

The jury mainmast had stood the pressure well; but as the mutton-leg made steering before that furious wind too difficult for safety, Swarth took it in—an awful job for those puffed and lacerated hands—and the craft sped on under her foresail, topsail, and fore topmast staysail. Then they lifted the dead man forward, but had not got him off the shattered poop before he wriggled and spoke, and they laid him down and questioned him. He knew nothing of the lightning stroke, he said, but complained of a prickly sensation all through him. Soon he could walk, and, later on, work.

The squall steadied to a gray gale, and mountain seas pursued the crippled vessel; but she rode, them well, her only danger being the risk of broaching-to from the almost helpless condition of the helmsman; but, as night came down, Yank and Angel stationed themselves, ready to help should their hands give out, and thus equipped they steered on through the darkness by the compass alone, there being neither star nor cloud to range by. With a sore-handed man to hold the reel, Swarth hove and hauled in the log every two hours until daylight. Ten knots even she had made, he said, all through the night, and before that good fair gale died out they would be many hundred miles away from their enemy, even should she still be afloat.

The two men who came to the wheel at six that morning made such bad work of it that Swarth profanely rebuked them and called for two others; but there was no improvement in the steering, and he examined the hands of his crew. They were swollen out of all proportion, painful to the extreme, and they were unable to close their fingers around spokes or ropes. So he placed Angel and Yank at the wheel and sent them forward with poultices. In half an hour they all looked as though they had donned boxing-gloves; and, conscious of their utter uselessness at working ship, they essayed the next best thing—they climbed to the forecastle deck to keep lookout. Soon one of them called out:

"Sail ho!" and Swarth, looking where he pointed, observed a craft hove to on the starboard bow, not a mile away, and heading across their course. Her yards were braced nearly in the line of sight, which had prevented their seeing her before.

Swarth reached for his glasses, but as he brought them to bear another shout came from forward, followed by cries of amazement, and he looked where they now pointed. There on the starboard beam, just above the horizon, glowing faintly through the storm-cloud, was the sun—rising in the west.

There was no mistaking it for the moon, even though the moon had been full at the time and could rise at seven in the morning; nothing but the sun could penetrate that thick sky. Swarth involuntarily looked at the compass, but it told him nothing; the brigantine was heading south.

The men came running aft, and tremulously asked questions which neither Swarth, Angel, nor Yank could answer. While they watched the luminary it rose higher—unmistakably so. It was the sun, rising in the west; but why?

What human mind can remain tranquil before such a violation of the laws of nature? Wonder and perplexity grew to terror. They clutched one another, and crouched down, with elbows raised, as though to ward off a blow. Swarth, pale and silent, stared at the rising orb; Yank Tate's face was a picture of childish fright as he helped Angel steer; Angel, doughty ex-missionary, steered a seamanly course, but cast the burden upon the Lord. With his eyes on the compass, his lips moved in prayer.

A hail came from over to starboard.

"Shorten down and round to, or I'll sink you!"

Not two lengths away was a black brig squaring away to a parallel course. She was under whole topsails, but the fore topgallant-sail was going up and her port battery was manned—the crews in position and the black muzzles protruding from the open ports. There was no escape. They had left that brig three hundred miles to the north. How could she have pursued them, missed them, and waited for them here? It meant a détour and twenty knots of speed, which is beyond the power of sailing craft. It was a mystery equal to that of the western sun.

"I've got you under my guns, Swarth!" roared an officer through a trumpet. "Heave to or I'll give you a broadside!"

"My men are all crippled," answered the pale but self-contained Swarth, "and we cannot handle sail. If I round to the spars will go."

"Round to and let them go!"

"Down with the wheel, Angel!" said Swarth. "The game's up!"

Swarth was but partly right. The craft rolled her fore topmast out in three rolls, but the well-stayed jury mast remained in place.

Three hours later, moored to stanchions in the man-of-war's 'tween-deck by leg-irons, Swarth and his crew received a visit from the captain. He was a blunt and candid soul, and greeted Swarth pleasantly.

"I've called you all kinds of a damned scoundrel, Swarth," he said, "since I've hunted you; but I never called you a damned fool. What did you come back for? Did you think I couldn't put out the fire in the galley and mend my steering-gear?"

"Come back?" queried the pirate. "I don't know—how did you get ahead of us?"

"I didn't," chuckled the captain. "If you'd only known you could have sunk me. I'm bound to port now to get more powder and get you hanged. The fire threatened the magazine and we doused it. By the way, your wheel and binnacle are just what I need to replace mine, that you knocked endways with the same shot that hit the galley stove. So I took them out before scuttling your old tub. But where did you get that compass? The needle points south."

"It does?" queried Swarth. "It never did with me—wait, yes, by Gawd. We steered due south by it, and fetched back here. That's why the sun rose in the west. But what—why, the lightning! It must have changed it—somehow!"

"Somehow, yes," repeated the captain, with a grin. "We figured it out before we scuttled her. That was a fine jury main rigging you put up—a coil of wire insulated by wood, around a magnet, with one end up above the coils and the other over the side. A little science is a dangerous thing, Swarth."