Willis the Pilot | Page 5

a hurricane, I mean a downright reefer, all square and
close-hauled, that is a very different affair; but, after all, this begins to
look very like the real article."
Now came a succession of gusts, each succeeding one more powerful
than its predecessor, till every beam of the gallery bent and quivered;
dense copper-colored clouds appeared in the atmosphere, rolling
against each other, and disengaging by their shock, the thunder and
lightnings. Then fell, not the slender needles of water we call rain, but
veritable floods, that were to our heaviest European showers what the
cataracts of the Rhine, at Staubach, or the falls of Niagara, are to the
gushings of a sylvan rivulet. In a few minutes the Jackal river had
converted the valley into a lake, in which the plantations and buildings
appeared to be afloat, and rendering egress from Rockhouse nearly
impossible.
However much of a colorist Willis might be, he could not have painted
a storm with the eloquence of the elements that had cut short his
observation.
"You will not attempt to embark in weather like this?" inquired Mrs.
Becker anxiously.
"My duty it is to be on board," replied the Pilot.
"The craft that ventures to take you there will get swamped twenty
times on the way," observed Becker.
"The worst of it is, the wind is from the east, and evidently carries
waterspouts with it. These waterspouts strike a ship without the

slightest warning, play amongst the rigging, whirl the sails about like
feathers--sometimes carry them off bodily, or, if they do not do that,
tear them to shreds and shiver the masts. In either case, the
consequences are disagreeable."
"A reason for you to be thankful you are safe on shore with us!"
remarked Mrs. Wolston.
"It is all very well for you, Mrs. Wolston, and you, Mrs. Becker, to talk
in that way; your business in life is that of wives and mothers. But what
will the Lords of the Admiralty say, when they hear that the sloop
Nelson was wrecked whilst Master Willis, the boatswain, was skulking
on shore like a land-rat?"
"Oh, they would only say there was one useful man more, and a victim
the less," replied Fritz.
"Why, not exactly, Master Fritz; they would say that Willis was a
poltroon or a deserter, whichever he likes; they would very likely
condemn him to the yard-arm by default, and carry out the operation
when they get hold of him. But I will not endanger any one else; all I
want is the use of your canoe."
"What! brave this storm in a wretched seal-skin cockle-shell like that?"
"Would it not be offending Providence," hazarded Mary Wolston, "for
one of God's creatures to abandon himself to certain death?"
"It would, indeed," added Mrs. Wolston; "true courage consists in
facing danger when it is inevitable, but not in uselessly imperiling one's
life; there stops courage, and temerity begins."
"If it is not pride or folly. I do not mean that with reference to you,
Willis," hastily added Wolston; "I know that you are open as day, and
that all your impulses arise from the heart."
"That is all very fine--but I must act; let me have the canoe. I want the
canoe: that is my idea."

"Having lived fifteen years cut off from society," gravely observed
Becker, "it may be that I have forgotten some of the laws it imposes;
nevertheless, I declare upon my honor and conscience--"
"Let me have the canoe, otherwise I must swim to the ship."
"I declare," continued Becker, "that Willis exaggerates the
requirements of his duty. There are stronger forces to which the human
will must yield. It is one thing to desert one's post in the hour of danger,
and another to have come on shore at the express desire of a superior
officer, when the weather was fine, and nothing presaged a storm."
"If there is danger," continued the obstinate sailor, whom the united
strength of the four men could scarcely restrain, "I ought to share it;
that is my duty and I must."
"But," said Wolston, "all the boatswains and pilots in the world can do
nothing against hurricanes and waterspouts; their duty consists in
steering the ship clear of reefs and quicksands, and not in fighting with
the elements."
"There is one thing you forget, Mr. Wolston."
"And what is that, Willis?"
"It is to be side by side with your comrades in the hour of calamity, to
aid them if you can, and to perish with them if such be the will of Fate.
At this moment, poor Littlestone may be on the point of taking up his
winter quarters in the body of a shark. But there, if the sloop is lost
while I am here on shore, I will