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In Search of Mademoiselle

<h2>CHAPTER X. THE HERICANO.</h2> We were sailing toward the shore again, but the wind had gone down and the Trinity moved sluggishly enough through the heavy swells, making scarce a league an hour. But this was a humor of the elements and meant nothing—or everything. In those latitudes a ship-master should ever be in a plague and torment. It was three weeks that we had been upon the sea, when one night, at the beginning of October, four of the ships still being in company, there broke a storm, the equal of which I have never had the ill-fortune to behold. And it was afterwards told me by Indians of Emola that never had there been known such a tempest upon that coast. The Lieutenant Bachasse had the watch on deck. I was standing by his side. Suddenly far down on the starboard quarter we heard a roaring like that of the surf upon the shore; only it was a hundred times greater and had in it something more ominous and[125] terrible. The sky was black as soot in that direction, and though we peered through the darkness we could see nothing there. More and more distinct it grew, and then we could make out a line of white growing more plain with each second. Bachasse was giving some hoarse orders to have the sails and yards lowered, when the Admiral rushed from his cabin clad only in shirt and breeches. “Dieu nous bénisse!” he shouted. “It is the hericano! Set her stern to it, mes gars, for your lives!” I knew what he meant and rushing to the starboard tiller rope, caught the slack from the hand of the man who stood there and ran it through the pulley with all the strength and quickness I could muster. I jammed it far over and hung on like death. Amid the deafening noise, with the ripping and slatting of the sails, the threshing of the ropes and pollys, and the roaring of the sea above it all, I could not think. I hung blindly to the tackle, loosing and easing her as she felt the helm. I saw the main topsail which had been reefed down, torn out of its ropes and go flying entire like a great bird in the air, where it vanished in the wrack and mist. Then the faces blew out of the lanthorns, hitting and cutting us like needles, and we were in darkness. I could dimly make out the figures of the Admiral, Bourdelais, and several others as they hung to the tackling at the[126] mizzen. I saw them put hand to mouth as though shouting, but could hear no sound other than the thundering of wind and sea. The first shock had caught the ship fairly upon her stern. Her nose had gone well down into the smother, for I felt the poop rise high in the air as though she were going all way over. Then she fell back into the depths with a blow that seemed to shake loose every joint and elbow in her hull. A wave many feet high dashed over, washing forward into the waist the man at my side and carrying overboard everything that was not lashed to the rail or mast. One of the lanthorns came down with a crash, just missing me where I swung to the tiller-polly, and swept down the slant of the after-castle, carrying away the hand-rail of the mounting ladder and vanishing into the quarter-deck. The ship swayed and yawed frightfully from this side to that. It was a moment fraught with dreadful anxiety. The great tiller was smashing into the bulwarks and pounding back against the tackle, and it seemed for a moment as though the ship would fall into the trough. With great difficulty I reached the larboard tackle and hand over hand gathered the slack of it in until both gearings pulled alternately so that she seemed to be going aright. These tackles I passed through a ring-bolt to ease the strain, which pulled me this way and[127] that like a rope yarn. It was desperate work keeping the feet; for with the great seas coming aboard over the quarter and the swaying of the top hamper from side to side I should have been thrown overboard a dozen times but for the gripe upon the tiller tackle. From the trough, the ship with a sickening motion rose high into the air as though shot from a saker; and then the deck fell away under the feet as she was thrust forward by the mighty rush of wind and wave behind her. Those great leaps were twice the length of the Trinity herself, for we could not have been going at a less rate than fifteen leagues an hour. Before long there was a great crash up aloft and the fore topmast was carried away, bringing down the fore and main top gallant yards. There came a pounding that jarred the ship grievously, but by God’s Providence the wreckage tore away and went by the board. And yet it was most wonderful! I strained and sweated at the tiller, all hot with the work, though the spray was cutting my face like hail and I could feel the sting of the rain-drops even through my doublet. We were going to the westward now—to Fort Caroline perhaps, and I cared not how hard it blew. The spirit of the storm entered into me and I was drunk—drunk with the speed and motion, and mad with the struggle. The strain upon endurance was great; but there came a[128] feeling of the glory of it, and as I fought on I prayed that no one might reach me. I set my teeth till my jaws throbbed and throbbed again, while my eyes watched the glow of the mass of foam forward as the water dashed up and over the bows, at times completely hiding the forward part of the ship. I do not know how long I struggled there alone. It may have been ten minutes—it may have been an hour. But by and by I made out several figures crawling along the larboard bulwarks, seizing hold upon any rigging that came within their reach. They were the Admiral, Job Goddard and one other. When they could stand upright, Goddard and a seaman took hold upon the tackles, thus relieving me of a part of the strain. Then, in a while, Bachasse came up from below, saying that the ship was taking water both forward and aft and was creaking piteously. Matters were bad enough, for we could not be far from the coast. Unless the wind veered to the north, nothing could save us from the breakers. The topsails had been blown to ribbons and the seas would have set us on our beam ends or the wind would have overset us completely had we tried to put the ship on the wind. And so we flew on, the Trinity leaping every moment nearer to her death, the waves dashing over and around her, sure of their prey. [129] Goddard swinging to his tackle leaned over till his mouth was next my ear shouting, “Tis a fine speed for enterin’ Paradise, Master Sydney!” All the night long we stood there, having now and then a relief of four men upon the tackles, the officers for the most part moving at their places of duty and saying what they could of good cheer to the men. The Sieur de la Notte came up toward dawn and asked Captain Bourdelais what the chances were. He being a person of few words replied shortly, “The ship will be upon the beach in three hours.” Never had I seen the ocean wear so frightful a mien as when the long night came at last to an end. There was a gray waste about us and one could see no color anywhere; the ocean was like the dead ashes of a fire. At night we had not been able to see; we could only feel the great motion, and accustom ourselves. But by light of day the Trinity seemed but a speck upon those waves. At one moment, high as our top-hamper was, upon all sides we could see nothing but great walls of water, tumbling down upon us; the next we would look over abysses which were bottomless, out across a waste of foam which seemed to mingle and war with the cloud flakes that fell down upon it. Among the soldiers there was great fear; for they[130] had no stomach for such business as this. Even the seamen, many of them hardy in service, had lost their wits completely. Once when a wave had come aboard an old boatswain dashed terror-stricken into the half-deck and fore-castle shouting, “The cabin is stove in,—we are sinking!” and three arquebusiers crazy with fear jumped overboard. One of the fine gentry of the cabin, with a satin coat, came running wild-eyed from below and falling upon his knees threw his hands in the air raving that should he reach land he would be no more a Lutheran, but a good Catholic, as he always was. Providence intervened, for a sea struck him fairly in the face and he, having no hold—by reason of his hands being up—was overset backwards and vanished with a shriek. Salvation Smith disappeared, and came upon deck again dressed in a suit of black which he had taken from some half-dead gentleman in the cabin, “to go before the Holy Trinity in a fitting manner,” as he solemnly said. Another seaman, getting most drunk upon eau de vie ran amuck with a pike, maiming and hurting several. It was about two hours of the morning watch when the waves seemed to grow suddenly less in length; and though the wind still roared as fiercely as ever, and the foam flew by us in scattering flakes or lashed furiously against the masts and shrouds, it was plain to be seen we were coming into the shallows.[131] The Trinity moved more steadily, and that showed the better the great speed at which we were making for the beach. The wrack and the spume hid everything ahead, but I thought in a moment I could mark a white jet here and there which showed where the breakers were. Bourdelais saw them too, for he rushed to the tiller-tackles. The Admiral stood at the break of the poop, calm and quiet as though at a sailing drill, ready to set the bows straight for the beach when the end was near. The tackle crew were straining at the tiller watching the yawing of the ship and the motions of the hands of Bourdelais as he gave the course. Suddenly out of the mist ahead I saw a line of white, leaping and writhing as far as the eye could reach to starboard and larboard; and then another beyond it, rolling onward. We came up to them and were soon in the midst of the seething, churning mass of white as the Trinity went pounding over the outer bar. She hung there a moment, reluctant; and then dashed forward again like a poor desperate creature hunted by the hounds, with a great straining leap. Everything was white about us now, and we had barely time to note the yellow strip of the beach under the bows, when with pitiful tremble and a quiver that went through her, bow and stern, the poor ship took her death blow with a dreadful crash and brought up hard and fast upon the sands. [132] The white tongues of surf licked her sides greedily, and sea after sea made clean breaches over bows and waist as though impatient to engulf her. So fairly and fast had we struck that the waves which followed us did not at first swing her broadside to the beach. But at last the drag of the wreck of the spars to larboard, added to the stress of the wind, pulled her around and we swung high up completely wrecked. We were in bad case. Now we could plainly see the line of the beach with its backing of brown sand grasses and here and there a patch of dark where the gnarled firs and bay trees grew sparsely in the dunes. The wrack and spray were flying thick, and the great waves behind drove completely over the vessel, wedging her farther up and making her destruction more certain. Yet one thing we noted. There were no rocks or reefs; only the long line of gently shelving beach. It seemed that with care we might all be saved; but there was not a moment to be lost. Bachasse went below again, with a carpenter, and found the hold turned into a small sea, which had flowed over the provision lockers and buried them under six feet of water. The surges were washing this way and that and seemed like to rend the timbers apart. Already a sea, larger than the others, had torn off one of the quarter galleries, and this wreckage[133] had floated up on the beach, where it lay in the drift of the spent sea. No boats could swim in that surf. So a most fearless young Frenchman, called Brunel, sprang into the waves with a rope about his body and struck out for the shore. It was not far to the shallows, and but for the anger of the waves it would have been an easy passage. We watched the swimmer borne along; now he was carried ahead shoreward in the very cap of a wave, and then he was swept back in the hollow toward the ship. It was a fine struggle. Twice he disappeared, and we thought he must have gone; but in a moment a great wave took him and bore him well onward in its topping of foam. Then he was up to his shoulders in the brine, fighting desperately for a foothold. Soon we saw him rise and work his way to the dry beach, where he fell and lay exhausted. But after a little space he rose, waving his hands, and ropes were attached to his line. These Brunel hauled ashore and made fast to trees among the sand hills. Over these other men went, hand over hand; and soon two pollys with their tackling were traveling back and forth carrying the company ashore, many of them bearing their armor and accoutrements. The work had been done none too speedily. A dozen or so of the company remained on the ship[134] when we heard below decks the creaking of the timbers as the bolts pulled out and split them apart. Captain Bourdelais now urged the Admiral to go ashore; he would not, saying that none should leave after him,—a matter which Bourdelais and Bachasse disputed. There they stood with their hands on their hearts, all three bowing to one another as though at some fine levee of the Court. I had no humor for this business, for ’twas no place for foot-scraping. I was minded to get ashore without further ado, and so sprang to the tackle, which I hitched about my body. I had no more than done so when there was a great crashing and the deck suddenly fell away under my feet, throwing me into the sea. <hr class="chap" /> [135] </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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