O'er Many Lands, on Many Seas, Gordon Stables [microsoft ebook reader TXT] 📗

had neither the need nor the

desire to follow him, I threw myself on the sofa, at the risk even of

offending my good friend and companion, Pussy.

 

"The storm was now raging with terrible fury.

 

"Two watches were called to shorten sail, and the din and noise of

voices could be distinctly heard rising high over the dashing of the

waves, and the whistling of the wind among the rigging and shrouds.

Every timber was stretched, every plank seemed to creak and wail in

agony; yet the good ship bore it well.

 

"Tired of the sofa I turned into bed, hoping to have a few hours of

sleep; but was very soon obliged to turn out again, having been awakened

from a pleasant dream of green fields, pine-clad hills, and a broad,

quiet river, where ferns and water-lilies grew, by the crashing of

crockery in the steward's pantry. It sounded as if bottles, dishes,

plates, and cups were all in a heap in the middle of the floor breaking

each other to infinitesimal pieces. And that is precisely what they

were doing.

 

"Things in the saloon were fast verging into a state of chaos, and

appeared to be making very merry in my absence. The fender and

fire-irons presided over the musical department.

 

"The captain's big chair was dancing very emphatically, but rather

clumsily, with the coal-scuttle as a partner; the table was bowing to

the sofa, but the sofa begged to be excused from getting up. The only

reasonable-looking article of furniture in the room was a chair, which

was merely staggering around with my coat on, while the cat had gone to

sleep in my sou'-wester; and while endeavouring to restore quiet and

order, I was thrown below the table like a pair of old boots, where, for

the want of ability to do anything better, I was fain to remain.

 

"`Clear away the wreck!' I could now hear the captain's voice bawling,

for our fore-mast had gone by the board.

 

"_His_ voice was not the only one I heard. On passing the man at the

wheel, I heard the captain ask, `What! are you getting afraid, man?'

And the brave British voice that so firmly replied `Not at all, sir!'

explained better than printed volumes could have done the secret of all

our naval greatness; for to hearts like his, and hands like his, in many

a dark and stormy night, Britannia entrusts her honour, and bravely is

it kept and guarded.

 

"Musing on this fact, I fell soundly to sleep beneath the table, and

when I awoke the storm had ceased.

 

"There are few situations in which a healthy man can be placed that are

more full of discomfort than that of being at sea in a small ship during

a storm. I do not refer to a mere `capful of wind;' I mean a great-gun

gale. There is, literally speaking, no rest for the sole of the foot.

Tossed about in all directions, in vain do you seek to exchange your

chair for the sofa. Probably you are sent rolling off on to the deck,

and thankful you ought to be if the cushions are the only things that

follow you. Flesh-sore and weary, perhaps you seek for solace in a cup

of tea: thankful you may be again if the steward succeeds in pouring it

into your cup, instead of spilling it down your neck. Then, if you so

far forget the rules of the sea as to place it for a moment on the table

without a hand to guard it, you are instantly treated to a gratuitous

shower-bath.

 

"Still the ocean has its pleasures and its charms as well as the land.

My mind, even now, carries me back and away to a scene very different

from that which I have just been describing.

 

"I am sitting in my little cabin. It is a summer's evening, and all is

peace within and around my barque. Yonder is my bed, and the little

port close by my snow-white pillow is open, and through it steals the

soft, cool breeze of evening, and wantonly lifts and flutters the little

blue silken hangers. Not far off I can catch glimpses of the wooded

hills and flowery valleys of a sunny land. And night after night the

light wind that blows from it is laden with the sweet breath of its

flowers; and between there lies the ocean, asleep and quiet and still,

and beautiful with the tints of reflected clouds.

 

"Often in the cool night that succeeds a day of heat have I lain awake

for hours, fanned by the breath of the sea, gazing on the watery world

beneath and beyond me, and the silvery moon and tiny stars, that make

one think of home, till sleep stole gently down on a moonbeam, and

wafted me off to dreamland.

 

"But in witnessing even the war of the elements at sea, a sailor often

finds a strange, wild pleasure. Enveloped in the thundercloud you mount

with every wave to meet the lightning's flash, or descend, like an

arrow, into the gulf below--down, down, down, till the sun, lurid and

red, is hidden at last from view by the wall of black waters around you.

 

"Or fancy the picture, which no artist could depict, of a ship far away

in ocean's midst by night in a thunderstorm. Dimly through the murky

night behold that tumbling sea, lighted only by its own foam and the

occasional flash from the storm-cloud. See that dark spot on the sea;

it is a ship, and living souls are there--human beings, each with his

own world of cares and loves and thoughts that are even now far away,

all in that little spot. Whish! now by the pale lightning's flash you

can see it all. The black ship, with her bare poles, her slippery,

shining deck and wet cordage, hanging by the bows to the crest of that

great inky wave. What a little thing she looks, and what a mighty ocean

all around her; and see how pale appear the faces of the crew that

`cling to slippery shrouds,' lest the next wave bear them into eternity.

 

"Whoever has been to prayers at sea during a storm has had a solemn

experience he will never forget."

 

"Perhaps there is no more impressive ocean-scene ever beheld by the

sailor," said Captain Ben Roberts, "than the phosphorescent seas

witnessed at times in the tropics." But though far more common in these

regions than in the temperate zones, this extraordinary luminosity of

the water is sometimes observed around our own coasts.

 

"I shall always remember," he continues, "the first time I witnessed the

phenomenon, though I've often seen it since.

 

"What a happy day we had had, to be sure! We were a party of five--I

but a schoolboy, my comrades little more. It was the first time I had

been to that most bewitching of western islands called Skye. We had

started off one morning early on a ramble. We simply meant to go

somewhere--anywhere, so long as we did not come back again for a night

or two. Not that we were not happy enough in the old-fashioned manse of

K--. But we wanted change, we wanted adventure if we could find any,

and if we did not, then probably we should be able to make some. There

was, at all events, the wild mountain peak of Quiraing to be climbed,

with its strange top--the extinct crater of a burning mountain. Ah! but

long before we came anywhere near it, there was a deal to be done.

 

"We had started from the beautiful little bay of Nigg, keeping a

northerly course over a broad Highland upland.

 

"It was the month of June; the heather was not purple yet, but it was

long and rank and green, and it was inhabited by many a curious wild

bird, whose nests we hunted for, but did not rob; we saw some snakes,

too, and one of us killed a very long one, and we all thought that boy a

very hero, though I know now it was no more dangerous or deadly than a

tallow candle.

 

"But the best fun we got was when we took to horse-catching. There was

not much harm in this after all. There were dozens of ponies roaming

wild over the green moor, and if they allowed themselves to be caught

and ridden for miles through the heather, why, it did not hurt them;

they soon danced back again.

 

"We laughed, and screamed, and whooped, loud enough to scare even the

curlews, and that is saying a good deal. I'm not sure, indeed, that we

didn't scare the eagles from their eeries; at all events we thought we

did. Then we began to ascend Quiraing, a stiff climb and somewhat

hazardous; and light-hearted though we were, I believe we were all

impressed with the grandeur of the view we caught from between the

needle-like rocks that form one side.

 

"We went down to the plains below more quickly than we came up.

 

"Presently we came to a little Highland village close to the sea, and

there, to our joy, we found that a large fishing-boat was going round

the northernmost and east part of the island to Portree, the capital.

For a trifle we managed to take a passage. We had lots of bread and

cheese in our wallets, and we had some money in our pockets, good

sticks, and stout young hearts; so that we should not be badly off even

although we should have to trudge on foot back again to the old manse.

Which, by the way, we had to.

 

"Our voyage was a far longer one in time than we had expected it would

be, because the wind fell. But the beauty of the scenery, the hills,

the strange-shaped mountains, the rocks and cliffs, with waterfalls

tumbling sheer over them and falling into the sea; the sea itself, so

calm and blue, and the distant mainland, enshrouded in the purple mist

of distance, repaid us for all, and made the day seem like one long,

happy dream.

 

"But daylight faded at last, and just as the gloaming star peeped out

there came down upon our boat a very large shoal of porpoises, which the

boatman gravely assured us at first was the great sea-serpent. These

creatures were in chase of herrings, but they were so reckless in their

rush and so headlong, that we were fain to scream to frighten them off,

and even to arm ourselves with stones from the ballast, and throw at

those that came too near.

 

"Night fell at last, and we were still at sea, and the stars came out

above us. But if there were stars above us there were stars beneath us

too; nay, not only beneath us, but everywhere about and around us. The

sea was alive with phosphorescent animalculae; the wake of the boat was

a broad belt of light behind us, every ripple sparkled and shone, and

the water that dripped from the oars looked like molten silver."

 

"Ah!" said I, "that was one of your first experiences of the open sea,

wasn't it, Ben?"

 

"I was only a boy, Nie," replied my friend. "I've had many a sleep in

the cradle of the deep since then."

 

"I was reading this morning," I said, "of that terrible shipwreck in the

Atlantic. It puts me in mind of the loss of the _London_. I was in the

Bay of Biscay in that very gale, Ben; our vessel unmanageable, wallowing

in the trough of the seas, the waves making a clean breach over us; and,

Ben, at the very darkest hour of midnight, we saw, by the lightning's

gleam, a great ship stagger past us. We were so close that we could

have pitched a coil of rope on board. There were no men on her decks;

her masts were carried away, and her bulwarks gone, and it was evident

she was foundering fast. There were more ships lost, Ben, that night in

the Bay of Biscay than ever we shall know of--

 

"`Till the sea gives up its dead.'"

CHAPTER TEN.