In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER IV THE WRECK OF THE “MACQUARIE”

STILL this weari­some voy­age dragged on. On the 2d of Febru­ary, six days from start­ing, the MAC­QUAR­IE had not yet made a near­er ac­quain­tance with the shores of Auck­land. The wind was fair, nev­er­the­less, and blew steadi­ly from the south­west; but the cur­rents were against the ship’s course, and she scarce­ly made any way. The heavy, lumpy sea strained her cordage, her tim­bers creaked, and she la­bored painful­ly in the trough of the sea. Her stand­ing rig­ging was so out of or­der that it al­lowed play to the masts, which were vi­olent­ly shak­en at ev­ery roll of the sea.

For­tu­nate­ly, Will Hal­ley was not a man in a hur­ry, and did not use a press of can­vas, or his masts would in­evitably have come down. John Man­gles there­fore hoped that the wretched hull would reach port with­out ac­ci­dent; but it grieved him that his com­pan­ions should have to suf­fer so much dis­com­fort from the de­fec­tive ar­range­ments of the brig.

But nei­ther La­dy He­le­na nor Mary Grant ut­tered a word of com­plaint, though the con­tin­uous rain obliged them to stay be­low, where the want of air and the vi­olence of the mo­tion were painful­ly felt. They of­ten braved the weath­er, and went on the poop till driv­en down again by the force of a sud­den squall. Then they re­turned to the nar­row space, fit­ter for stow­ing car­go than ac­com­mo­dat­ing pas­sen­gers, es­pe­cial­ly ladies.

Their friends did their best to amuse them. Pa­ganel tried to be­guile the time with his sto­ries, but it was a hope­less case. Their minds were so dis­tract­ed at this change of route as to be quite un­hinged. Much as they had been in­ter­est­ed in his dis­ser­ta­tion on the Pam­pas, or Aus­tralia, his lec­tures on New Zealand fell on cold and in­dif­fer­ent ears. Be­sides, they were go­ing to this new and ill-​re­put­ed coun­try with­out en­thu­si­asm, with­out con­vic­tion, not even of their own free will, but sole­ly at the bid­ding of des­tiny.

Of all the pas­sen­gers on board the MAC­QUAR­IE, the most to be pitied was Lord Gle­nar­van. He was rarely to be seen be­low. He could not stay in one place. His ner­vous or­ga­ni­za­tion, high­ly ex­cit­ed, could not sub­mit to con­fine­ment be­tween four nar­row bulk­heads. All day long, even all night, re­gard­less of the tor­rents of rain and the dash­ing waves, he stayed on the poop, some­times lean­ing on the rail, some­times walk­ing to and fro in fever­ish ag­ita­tion. His eyes wan­dered cease­less­ly over the blank hori­zon. He scanned it ea­ger­ly dur­ing ev­ery short in­ter­val of clear weath­er. It seemed as if he sought to ques­tion the voice­less wa­ters; he longed to tear away the veil of fog and va­por that ob­scured his view. He could not be re­signed, and his fea­tures ex­pressed the bit­ter­ness of his grief. He was a man of en­er­gy, till now hap­py and pow­er­ful, and de­prived in a mo­ment of pow­er and hap­pi­ness. John Man­gles bore him com­pa­ny, and en­dured with him the in­clemen­cy of the weath­er. On this day Gle­nar­van looked more anx­ious­ly than ev­er at each point where a break in the mist en­abled him to do so. John came up to him and said, “Your Lord­ship is look­ing out for land?”

Gle­nar­van shook his head in dis­sent.

“And yet,” said the young cap­tain, “you must be long­ing to quit this ves­sel. We ought to have seen the lights of Auck­land thir­ty-​six hours ago.”

Gle­nar­van made no re­ply. He still looked, and for a mo­ment his glass was point­ed to­ward the hori­zon to wind­ward.

“The land is not on that side, my Lord,” said John Man­gles. “Look more to star­board.”

“Why, John?” replied Gle­nar­van. “I am not look­ing for the land.”

“What then, my Lord?”

“My yacht! the DUN­CAN,” said Gle­nar­van, hot­ly. “It must be here on these coasts, skim­ming these very waves, play­ing the vile part of a pi­rate! It is here, John; I am cer­tain of it, on the track of ves­sels be­tween Aus­tralia and New Zealand; and I have a pre­sen­ti­ment that we shall fall in with her.”

“God keep us from such a meet­ing!”

“Why, John?”

“Your Lord­ship for­gets our po­si­tion. What could we do in this ship if the DUN­CAN gave chase. We could not even fly!”

“Fly, John?”

“Yes, my Lord; we should try in vain! We should be tak­en, de­liv­ered up to the mer­cy of those wretch­es, and Ben Joyce has shown us that he does not stop at a crime! Our lives would be worth lit­tle. We would fight to the death, of course, but af­ter that! Think of La­dy Gle­nar­van; think of Mary Grant!”

“Poor girls!” mur­mured Gle­nar­van. “John, my heart is bro­ken; and some­times de­spair near­ly mas­ters me. I feel as if fresh mis­for­tunes await­ed us, and that Heav­en it­self is against us. It ter­ri­fies me!”

“You, my Lord?”

“Not for my­self, John, but for those I love–whom you love, al­so.”

“Keep up your heart, my Lord,” said the young cap­tain. “We must not look out for trou­bles. The MAC­QUAR­IE sails bad­ly, but she makes some way nev­er­the­less. Will Hal­ley is a brute, but I am keep­ing my eyes open, and if the coast looks dan­ger­ous, I will put the ship’s head to sea again. So that, on that score, there is lit­tle or no dan­ger. But as to get­ting along­side the DUN­CAN! God for­bid! And if your Lord­ship is bent on look­ing out for her, let it be in or­der to give her a wide berth.”

John Man­gles was right. An en­counter with the DUN­CAN would have been fa­tal to the MAC­QUAR­IE. There was ev­ery rea­son to fear such an en­gage­ment in these nar­row seas, in which pi­rates could ply their trade with­out risk. How­ev­er, for that day at least, the yacht did not ap­pear, and the sixth night from their de­par­ture from Twofold Bay came, with­out the fears of John Man­gles be­ing re­al­ized.

But that night was to be a night of ter­rors. Dark­ness came on al­most sud­den­ly at sev­en o’clock in the evening;

V. IV Verne

[il­lus­tra­tion omit­ted] [page in­ten­tion­al­ly blank] the sky was very threat­en­ing. The sailor in­stinct rose above the stu­pe­fac­tion of the drunk­ard and roused Will Hal­ley. He left his cab­in, rubbed his eyes, and shook his great red head. Then he drew a great deep breath of air, as oth­er peo­ple swal­low a draught of wa­ter to re­vive them­selves. He ex­am­ined the masts. The wind fresh­ened, and veer­ing a point more to the west­ward, blew right for the New Zealand coast.

Will Hal­ley, with many an oath, called his men, tight­ened his top­mast cordage, and made all snug for the night. John Man­gles ap­proved in si­lence. He had ceased to hold any con­ver­sa­tion with the coarse sea­man; but nei­ther Gle­nar­van nor he left the poop. Two hours af­ter a stiff breeze came on. Will Hal­ley took in the low­er reef of his top­sails. The ma­neu­ver would have been a dif­fi­cult job for five men if the MAC­QUAR­IE had not car­ried a dou­ble yard, on the Amer­ican plan. In fact, they had on­ly to low­er the up­per yard to bring the sail to its small­est size.

Two hours passed; the sea was ris­ing. The MAC­QUAR­IE was struck so vi­olent­ly that it seemed as if her keel had touched the rocks. There was no re­al dan­ger, but the heavy ves­sel did not rise eas­ily to the waves. By and by the re­turn­ing waves would break over the deck in great mass­es. The boat was washed out of the davits by the force of the wa­ter.

John Man­gles nev­er re­leased his watch. Any oth­er ship would have made no ac­count of a sea like this; but with this heavy craft there was a dan­ger of sink­ing by the bow, for the deck was filled at ev­ery lurch, and the sheet of wa­ter not be­ing able to es­cape quick­ly by the scup­pers, might sub­merge the ship. It would have been the wis­est plan to pre­pare for emer­gen­cy by knock­ing out the bul­warks with an ax to fa­cil­itate their es­cape, but Hal­ley re­fused to take this pre­cau­tion.

But a greater dan­ger was at hand, and one that it was too late to pre­vent. About half-​past eleven, John Man­gles and Wil­son, who stayed on deck through­out the gale, were sud­den­ly struck by an un­usu­al noise. Their nau­ti­cal in­stincts awoke. John seized the sailor’s hand. “The reef!” said he.

“Yes,” said Wil­son; “the waves break­ing on the bank.”

“Not more than two ca­bles’ length off?”

“At far­thest? The land is there!”

John leaned over the side, gazed in­to the dark wa­ter, and called out, “Wil­son, the lead!”

The mas­ter, post­ed for­ward, seemed to have no idea of his po­si­tion. Wil­son seized the lead-​line, sprang to the fore-​chains, and threw the lead; the rope ran out be­tween his fin­gers, at the third knot the lead stopped.

“Three fath­oms,” cried Wil­son.

“Cap­tain,” said John, run­ning to Will Hal­ley, “we are on the break­ers.”

Whether or not he saw Hal­ley shrug his shoul­ders is of very lit­tle im­por­tance. But he hur­ried to the helm, put it hard down, while Wil­son, leav­ing the line, hauled at the main-​top­sail brace to bring the ship to the wind. The man who was steer­ing re­ceived a smart blow, and could not com­pre­hend the sud­den at­tack.

“Let her go! Let her go!” said the young cap­tain, work­ing her to get away from the reefs.

For half a minute the star­board side of the ves­sel was turned to­ward them, and, in spite of the dark­ness, John could dis­cern a line of foam which moaned and gleamed four fath­oms away.

At this mo­ment, Will Hal­ley, com­pre­hend­ing the dan­ger, lost his head. His sailors, hard­ly sobered, could not un­der­stand his or­ders. His in­co­her­ent words, his con­tra­dic­to­ry or­ders showed that this stupid sot had quite lost his self-​con­trol. He was tak­en by sur­prise at the prox­im­ity of the land, which was eight miles off, when he thought it was thir­ty or forty miles off. The cur­rents had thrown him out of his ha­bit­ual track, and this mis­er­able slave of rou­tine was left quite help­less.

Still the prompt ma­neu­ver of John Man­gles suc­ceed­ed in keep­ing the MAC­QUAR­IE off the break­ers. But John did not know the po­si­tion. For any­thing he could tell he was gir­dled in by reefs. The wind blew them strong­ly to­ward the east, and at ev­ery lurch they might strike.

In fact, the sound of the reef soon re­dou­bled on the star­board side of the bow. They must luff again. John put the helm down again and brought her up. The break­ers in­creased un­der the bow of the ves­sel, and it was nec­es­sary to put her about to re­gain the open sea. Whether she would be able to go about un­der short­ened sail, and bad­ly trimmed as she was, re­mained to be seen, but there was noth­ing else to be done.

“Helm hard down!” cried Man­gles to Wil­son.

The MAC­QUAR­IE be­gan to near the new line of reefs: in an­oth­er mo­ment the waves were seen dash­ing on sub­merged rocks. It was a mo­ment of in­ex­press­ible anx­iety. The spray was lu­mi­nous, just as if lit up by sud­den phos­pho­res­cence. The roar­ing of the sea was like the voice of those an­cient Tri­tons whom po­et­ic mythol­ogy en­dowed with life. Wil­son and Mul­rady hung to the wheel with all their weight. Some cordage gave way, which en­dan­gered the fore­mast. It seemed doubt­ful whether she would go about with­out fur­ther dam­age.

Sud­den­ly the wind fell and the ves­sel fell back, and turn­ing her be­came hope­less. A high wave caught her be­low, car­ried her up on the reefs, where she struck with great vi­olence. The fore­mast came down with all the fore-​rig­ging. The brig rose twice, and then lay mo­tion­less, heeled over on her port side at an an­gle of 30 de­grees.

The glass of the sky­light had been smashed to pow­der. The pas­sen­gers rushed out. But the waves were sweep­ing the deck from one side to the oth­er, and they dared not stay there. John Man­gles, know­ing the ship to be safe­ly lodged in the sand, begged them to re­turn to their own quar­ters.

“Tell me the truth, John,” said Gle­nar­van, calm­ly.

“The truth, my Lord, is that we are at a stand­still. Whether the sea will de­vour us is an­oth­er ques­tion; but we have time to con­sid­er.”

“It is mid­night?”

“Yes, my Lord, and we must wait for the day.”

“Can we not low­er the boat?”

“In such a sea, and in the dark, it is im­pos­si­ble. And, be­sides, where could we land?”

“Well, then, John, let us wait for the day­light.”

Will Hal­ley, how­ev­er, ran up and down the deck like a ma­ni­ac. His crew had re­cov­ered their sens­es, and now broached a cask of brandy, and be­gan to drink. John fore­saw that if they be­came drunk, ter­ri­ble scenes would en­sue.

The cap­tain could not be re­lied on to re­strain them; the wretched man tore his hair and wrung his hands. His whole thought was his unin­sured car­go. “I am ru­ined! I am lost!” he would cry, as he ran from side to side.

John Man­gles did not waste time on him. He armed his two com­pan­ions, and they all held them­selves in readi­ness to re­sist the sailors who were fill­ing them­selves with brandy, sea­soned with fear­ful blas­phemies.

“The first of these wretch­es that comes near the ladies, I will shoot like a dog,” said the Ma­jor, qui­et­ly.

The sailors doubt­less saw that the pas­sen­gers were de­ter­mined to hold their own, for af­ter some at­tempts at pil­lage, they dis­ap­peared to their own quar­ters. John Man­gles thought no more of these drunk­en ras­cals, and wait­ed im­pa­tient­ly for the dawn. The ship was now quite mo­tion­less. The sea be­came grad­ual­ly calmer. The wind fell. The hull would be safe for some hours yet. At day­break John ex­am­ined the land­ing-​place; the yawl, which was now their on­ly boat, would car­ry the crew and the pas­sen­gers. It would have to make three trips at least, as it could on­ly hold four.

As he was lean­ing on the sky­light, think­ing over the sit­ua­tion of af­fairs, John Man­gles could hear the roar­ing of the surf. He tried to pierce the dark­ness. He won­dered how far it was to the land they longed for no less than dread­ed. A reef some­times ex­tends for miles along the coast. Could their frag­ile boat hold out on a long trip?

While John was thus ru­mi­nat­ing and long­ing for a lit­tle light from the murky sky, the ladies, re­ly­ing on him, slept in their lit­tle berths. The sta­tion­ary at­ti­tude of the brig in­sured them some hours of re­pose. Gle­nar­van, John, and their com­pan­ions, no longer dis­turbed by the noise of the crew who were now wrapped in a drunk­en sleep, al­so re­freshed them­selves by a short nap, and a pro­found si­lence reigned on board the ship, her­self slum­ber­ing peace­ful­ly on her bed of sand.

To­ward four o’clock the first peep of dawn ap­peared in the east. The clouds were dim­ly de­fined by the pale light of the dawn. John re­turned to the deck. The hori­zon was veiled with a cur­tain of fog. Some faint out­lines were shad­owed in the mist, but at a con­sid­er­able height. A slight swell still ag­itat­ed the sea, but the more dis­tant waves were undis­tin­guish­able in a mo­tion­less bank of clouds.

John wait­ed. The light grad­ual­ly in­creased, and the hori­zon ac­quired a rosy hue. The cur­tain slow­ly rose over the vast wa­tery stage. Black reefs rose out of the wa­ters. Then a line be­came de­fined on the belt of foam, and there gleamed a lu­mi­nous bea­con-​light point be­hind a low hill which con­cealed the scarce­ly risen sun. There was the land, less than nine miles off.

“Land ho!” cried John Man­gles.

His com­pan­ions, aroused by his voice, rushed to the poop, and gazed in si­lence at the coast whose out­line lay on the hori­zon. Whether they were re­ceived as friends or en­emies, that coast must be their refuge.

“Where is Hal­ley?” asked Gle­nar­van.

“I do not know, my Lord,” replied John Man­gles.

“Where are the sailors?”

“In­vis­ible, like him­self.”

“Prob­ably dead drunk, like him­self,” added Mc­Nabbs.

“Let them be called,” said Gle­nar­van, “we can­not leave them on the ship.”

Mul­rady and Wil­son went down to the fore­cas­tle, and two min­utes af­ter they re­turned. The place was emp­ty! They then searched be­tween decks, and then the hold. But found no trace of Will Hal­ley nor his sailors.

“What! no one?” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van.

“Could they have fall­en in­to the sea?” asked Pa­ganel.

“Ev­ery­thing is pos­si­ble,” replied John Man­gles, who was get­ting un­easy. Then turn­ing to­ward the stern: “To the boat!” said he.

Wil­son and Mul­rady fol­lowed to launch the yawl. The yawl was gone.