Across the Spanish Main - Harry Collingwood (best novels for beginners TXT) 📗

But the warning came too late, for the vessel had taken the ground, which evidently shoaled up with great abruptness. Her fore, main, and mizzen topmasts snapped like carrots with the sudden check to her speed, and came tumbling down with their attendant wreckage, thus adding to the already great confusion on deck, and, what was worse, killing two men, whom they could ill spare, and badly injuring five others.

“You were right, Roger!” shouted the captain as he ran past the lad to the stern of the vessel, with intent to warn the other ships from a similar mishap. But the warning was needless, for they had been on the lookout, and, observing the accident to their consort, had at once hauled their wind and gone off on another tack in time to avoid a similar fate. When at a safe distance they luffed into the wind and, furling their canvas, came to anchor.

Cavendish, seeing that the remainder of his little squadron was safe, ordered the wreckage to be cut adrift and the decks cleared for further operations.

“Work away with a will, lads!” he cried encouragingly.

“The ship has taken a soft berth; she lies on the sand, and there is no present danger of her sinking; indeed we are in much too shoal water for that. Mr Leigh, we must get the wreckage cleared away first of all, after which we will get out kedge anchors astern; and if these fail us we will run out cables to the other vessels. Perchance we may thus get ourselves off by our own hauling and the others towing. But we must all work with a will; for, as all may see, there is in the look of the sky every prospect of ill weather very shortly, and if it take us ashore like this we shall lose the ship! Now, Roger, take you two hands in the gig—I cannot spare more—and bring off that poor fellow. I would that we had earlier understood what he meant; it would have saved us this disaster. And hasten, lad, for I cannot spare even three of you for a single moment longer than is absolutely necessary. Yet must I have that man, for he may possess information of untold worth to us. And you, Mr Leigh, will take two hands also, and go off to the other vessels. You will acquaint them with our condition, and give them their orders to prepare for towing, and to be ready by the moment when we can avail ourselves of their help, for we have no time to waste.”

Roger soon found his two men, and the boat was got ready and over the side in a very few minutes; yet, quick as he had been, he perceived as he pushed off that Mr Leigh’s boat was already some distance on her way to the other ships.

“Now, give way, men, with a will!” cried the lad, encouragingly. “You heard what Mr Cavendish said—there is not a moment to lose if we are to get that man off, and the ship too, ere the gale breaks. And indeed I like not the look of the weather at all. It fast grows more threatening, and we shall be lucky if we get back to the fleet in time. Furthermore, I fear much that there will not be time to save the poor old Stag Royal: she is, to my mind, hopelessly lost, for, if appearance belie it not, the gale will be down on us ere they can hope to move her off the sand; and I pray God that the poor fellows on board her may be able to get away from her in time. Ah, the wind comes away even now! Pull, lads, pull, or we shall be swamped ere we can get ashore!”

As he spoke, the whole sky seemed to darken in a moment all round them; the sea took on the appearance of dull metal and became of a livid hue. Away on the north-western horizon the sky was black as ink, and below that, between sky and wave, was a line of white extending athwart the horizon, showing the forefront of the advancing gale.

“Pull, lads, pull!” again shouted Roger, raising his voice above the deep moaning sound that filled the air everywhere about them. “Unless we can contrive to reach the shore before that line of white, you know what our fate will be. We shall have to wait until the gale blows over before we can return to the ships, if indeed they survive it.”

The seamen saw that what Roger said was only too true, and pulled for dear life; but the boat was a heavy one, her full complement of oarsmen being eight. Now, however, she had only two men pulling; they therefore made painfully slow progress, and the white line of water seemed to be overtaking them at a speed that filled them with despair.

Meanwhile Roger noticed that the solitary watcher on the beach had now left the water, and was lying at full-length on the sand as though overcome by his exertions, weakened as perhaps he was by long exposure and privation.

The lad felt extremely anxious as to the fate of the ships, and frequently turned his head to snatch a glimpse of what was happening behind him. He was able to see, during his brief observations, that boats had been lowered from the stranded ship, and from her consorts, and were plying at their utmost speed between the wreck and the other vessels of the squadron. It was evident to Roger that the captain, observing the extraordinarily rapid approach of the gale, and foreseeing that, unless a miracle were to take place, the stranded ship must be lost, had not delayed a moment, but was transferring her crew to the other ships as fast as he possibly could. Roger fervently prayed that this operation of transfer might be completed ere the storm burst upon them; but he was very doubtful, for that fatal white line of foam was driving down upon the fleet with appalling rapidity.

But he could not relax his attention from the matter that he himself had in hand. He could not watch what was going on behind him and also steer the boat; so he set his teeth and gripped the tiller hard, looking straight ahead of him in search of the best and safest spot on which to beach his boat, for the sea was rising fast. He would have given much to have had his bosom friend and more than brother, Harry, in the boat with him at that moment. He could always rely on Harry’s coolness and sound clear-headed advice, and he would have felt much less anxious had his chum been with him then.

The man on shore was now seen to stagger to his feet and to support himself with a stick, alternately pointing out to sea and beckoning them on. But neither Roger nor the men with him now needed anyone to remind them of the peril in which they stood.

They were nearing the beach now, but meanwhile the sea had been rising with almost incredible rapidity. When they left the ship the sea had been calm, with not even a ripple lapping the beach. There had been the proverbial calm before the storm. But now, although the gale had not yet reached the boat, the waves were leaping up the beach in foam, and their back-wash gave forth a roar like that of distant thunder. Roger yearned to look behind him again, to ascertain how far away the white squall still was, but he dared not turn his head; all his nerve and skill and courage were now needed to enable him to beach the boat without capsizing her. One glance at the faces of the men pulling, who of course were sitting looking aft in the direction from which the storm was coming, was enough to convince him that it could not be by this time very far distant. They were now within a few fathoms of the beach, and Roger, for the first time, dared to hope that they would reach the shore without any mishap, when he observed his two seamen redouble their exertions, with a look of terror on their countenances, although they were very nearly “gastados” as the Dons say, or used up, and the next moment, with a fearful shriek, the white squall burst in all its fury upon the unhappy trio. The boat seemed suddenly to take wings; she was propelled with fearful velocity towards the beach; the spindrift whistled about them and blinded them; the shriek and roar of the wind deafened them, and its fearful force stunned them. The seamen were blown bodily from the thwarts into the bottom of the boat; but Roger, clinging desperately to the gunwale with one hand, and fiercely gripping the tiller with the other, contrived to retain his seat, and strove to pierce the dense mist of scud-water with his eyes, that he might see to beach the boat safely. But he could perceive nothing, and the next moment a wave descended full upon his back, dashing him forward and out over the bows. The tiller thus released, the boat broached to, filled, and capsized, and her three occupants were left struggling in the water and fighting for their lives, while the craft was flung bottom-upward on the beach and dashed into staves by the violence of the shock. Tossed hither and thither, to and fro, Roger strove to get his breath; but he could not, for he seemed buried in salt water; and he was suffering all the agonies of suffocation when his head emerged for a moment from the water and he drew a hasty breath that seemed to put fresh strength into his fast-failing limbs. Yet, strive against it as he would, although he felt the beach under his feet, they were fast being dragged from under him; he was in the clutch of the fatal undertow, and he knew that, exhausted as he was, if he were once swept back again into deep water he would drown, for his strength was now at an end. Summoning up all his energy, therefore, he gave vent to a loud shout for help—although help seemed to be the last thing he might expect at that moment—and made one last struggle for life. But, even as his senses failed him, and he was sinking backward in that fatal embrace, a pair of strong hands clutched his hair and arm, and for a few seconds he felt as though, between the sea on the one hand and a sturdy British seaman on the other, he were being torn asunder. Presently, however, the wave receded; the awful feeling of being sucked back left him, and, opening his eyes, he saw that he was on terra firma, with the sea behind him. “Now run,” shouted the seaman—one Jake Irwin, who had been in the boat with him,—“run, Master Trevose, before the next sea catches ye.” At the same time he dragged the lad up the beach with all his strength, and they reached safety as another wave came rolling hungrily after them, to retire again with an angry snarl, as though cheated of its lawful prey. Roger stood up and wiped the wet from his eyes and ears, and wrung the water out of his clothes as well as he could, and looked about him. He saw the two seamen—one of whom had rescued him, only just in the nick of time, from a watery grave—standing close by; and not far from them he perceived the figure of the man whom they had come to rescue, and for whom they had so nearly met disaster. The seamen who had rowed in the boat seemed none the worse for their adventure, and asked the lad how he