The Two Whalers | Page 9

like a mere cockle-shell
amid the mighty billows, which in huge watery walls rose half-way up
the masts, threatening every instant to overwhelm her. Though I tried to
conceal my fears Medley detected them, but he did not laugh at me.
"I once should have felt as you do, Jack, but I know that we are as safe
here in God's hands as on shore," he observed. "Our ship is well-built,
well found, and well manned, and I trust that we shall weather this gale,
and any others we may have to encounter."
We did weather it without carrying away a rope-yarn, and having
sighted Madeira steered for the Cape de Verde Islands, at one of which,
Brava, we called to obtain fresh provisions and to ship several tall
Kroomen to pull the midship oars in the whale boats. Very fine fellows
they were, with gentle, happy dispositions, never grumbling or
complaining, and they were consequently much liked by the officers
and all the best men of the crew.
After crossing the line "Sail ho!" was shouted from the masthead. We
steered towards her. The stranger proved to be an English brig bound
from Brazil to Liverpool. The wind being light our captains exchanged
visits, and Medley, I, and others wrote home by her. When in the
latitude of the River Plate preparations were made for bad weather, as
the winter of that region was approaching. The long royal-masts were
sent down and replaced by stump topgallant masts, the flying jib-boom,

and the studding-sail booms were also sent down, and all the boats,
except one, were got in and secured, and the hatches were battened
down, and everything else was done to make the ship light aloft. Some
of the men thought the captain over careful, but it was soon shown that
he was right.
"We shall have it before long, thick and strong," I heard him remark to
the first mate, though at the time there was scarcely a breath of wind.
"We'll stow the mainsail, and close reef the topsails."
"Ay, ay, sir," answered the mate, and the hands were sent aloft to
perform the operation. Still an hour or more passed away, and we
continued on our course.
"The old man is croaking again," growled out Dan Hogan.
"Belay the slack there, mate. The captain keeps his weather eye open,
which is more than some aboard this ship do," said Eben Dredge.
"What do you think of those black clouds out there?"
"Maybe there's a little wind in them," answered Hogan.
"A little do you say!" exclaimed Dredge. "See, here it comes to show
us whether there's a little or not."
As he spoke the wind struck the ship like the blow of a mighty hammer
right ahead. She gathered stern way and some of the after dead-lights
being open the cabin was half filled with water. Had we been under
more sail, the ship might possibly have gone down or her masts would
have been carried away. I rushed forward to call the carpenter and his
mate, and we soon had the dead-lights closed. While I was afterwards
engaged with the steward in swabbing up the cabin and putting things
to rights we felt the ship give some tremendous rolls.
"Hillo! what for come ober her now?" exclaimed Domingo, my
companion, who was a black.
On going on deck I found that she had fallen off into the trough of the

sea, and was being sent from side to side in away which seemed
sufficient to jerk the masts out of her. The rigging was well set up, or
they would have gone to a certainty. We had not seen the worst of it.
The gale blew harder and harder, and presently down came the rain in a
way I had never seen it fall before, in regular torrents, as if some huge
reservoirs had been emptied out on us in a moment, flooding the decks,
and wetting us through our pea-coats to the skin.
Though several accidents happened we weathered this our first real
gale, and I found that the one we had encountered in the Bay of Biscay
was scarcely worthy of the name of a gale. Sail being again made, we
stood southward, till at the end of April we sighted Cape Horn, and the
hopes of all were raised that we should soon be round it; but not half an
hour afterwards, the wind shifting to the west and blowing with
tremendous force, a mountainous sea getting up drove us back into the
South Atlantic.
The moment the wind abated we again made sail, and endeavoured to
regain our lost ground. It was trying work. The weather was bitterly
cold-- the days little more than seven hours long--we scarcely ever had
a dry rag