Old Jack | Page 8

till I was
awoken one morning by a loud, roaring, dashing, creaking sound, or

rather, I might say, of a mixture of such sounds; and as I began to rub
my eyes, I thought that I should have been hove out of the narrow crib
in which I was stowed away in the very bows of the vessel. Sometimes
I felt the head of the brig lifted up, and then down it came like a
sledge-hammer into the water; now I felt myself rolled on one side,
now on the other. I fully thought that the vessel must be on the rocks.
Not a gleam of light reached me, nor could I hear the sound of a human
voice. I wanted to be out of the place; but when I tried to get up, I felt
so sick and wretched, that I lay down again with an idea that it would
be more comfortable to die where I was. At last, however, Barney
Bogle came below and discovered me.
"Turn out, you young skulker; turn out!" he exclaimed, belabouring me
with a rope's end. "Didn't you hear all hands called to shorten sail an
hour ago?"
I had no help for it, so on deck I crawled, where the grey light of
morning was streaming from beneath a dark mass of clouds which
hung overhead, and a gale was blowing which sent the foam flying
from the tops of the seas, deluging us fore and aft. Now the brig was
lifted up to the summit of a wave, and now down she sank into the
trough of the sea, with a liquid wall on one side which, as it came
curling on, looked as if it must inevitably overwhelm her. She was
under close-reefed topsails and storm-jib, and two of the best hands
were at the helm. Peter was one of them. I managed to climb up to
windward, and to hold on by the weather-fore-rigging, where the rest of
the crew were collected.
I shall never forget the dark, dreary, and terrific scene which the ocean
presented to my unaccustomed sight. At first, too, I felt very sick and
miserable, and I thought that I would far rather have been starving on
shore than going to be drowned, as I fancied, and being tossed about by
the rough ocean. Barney, who was on deck before me, abused me as I
crawled up near him, and contrived to give me a kick, which, had I let
go my hold, as it was calculated to make me do, would probably have
been the cause of my immediate destruction. At that moment a huge
sea came rolling up towards the brig, topping high above our deck. I

saw Peter Poplar and the other man at the helm looking out anxiously
at it. They grasped tighter hold of the spokes of the wheel, and planted
their feet firmer on the deck. Captain Helfrich and his mates were
standing by the main-rigging.
"Hold on, hold on for your lives, my men!" he sung out. The crew did
not neglect to obey him, and I clung to a rope like a monkey. Most of
the passengers were below, sick in their berths. Down came the huge
sea upon us like the wall of a city overwhelming its inhabitants. Over
our deck it rushed with terrific force. I thought to a certainty that we
were sinking. What a horrible noise there was!--wrenching and tearing,
and the roar and dashing sound of the waves, and the howling of the
wind! All contributed to confuse my senses, so that I forgot altogether
where I was. I had an idea, I believe, that the end of the world was
come. Still my shipmates did not shriek out, and I was very much
surprised to find the brig rise again out of the water, and to see them
standing where they were before, employed in shaking the wet off their
jackets. The deck of the brig, however, presented a scene of no little
confusion and havoc. Part of her weather-bulwarks forward had been
stove in, the long-boat on the booms had been almost knocked to pieces,
and a considerable portion of the after-part of the lee-bulwarks had
been washed away, showing the course the sea had taken over us.
"We must not allow that trick to be played us again," said the captain to
the mates. I had crept as far aft as I dared go, for I did not like the look
of the sea through the broken bulwark, so I could hear him. "Stand by
to heave the ship to!" he shouted, and his voice was easily heard above
the sounds of the tempest. "Down with the helm!--In with the
jib!--Hand the maintopsail!" The officers and men, who were at