these three days of storm brought me into a tolerably close acquaintance with some of the hardships of the sailor’s life. our cabin did not leak, yet somehow or other the deck of it was always damp, with a noise as of the bubbling of water under the bunks. the scuttles were incessantly under water, and all the light we had was imparted by the dingy flare of our malodorous coffee-pot-shaped lamp.

the food was perhaps the hardest part to my young stomach. every midshipman’s father had been called upon to pay ten guineas mess money; yet i do not know that this ninety guineas obtained any stores for us, if it were not a cask or two of flour, a cask of sugar, a few dozens of pickles, and some cases of “preserved spuds,” as potatoes are called at sea. we were therefore thrown upon the ship’s stores, and fed as the sailors forward did. this i say was the hardest part to me, since, though[60] my sickness had passed, my appetite had not recovered its old strength, and for a long time i was never hungry enough to eat with the least relish the greenish masses of salt pork, and the iron-hearted rounds and squares and cubes of salt horse, and the pans of lukewarm slush-flavoured water, at the bottom of which rolled a handful of peas, as digestible as musket-balls, and the dark-skinned puddings, compounded of the coarsest flour and the skimmings of the greasy water of the cook’s copper, which the lad who waited upon us would come staggering with from the galley, and place upon the narrow slip of table, scarce visible in our twilight.

i believe i should have starved but for the biscuit, which was crisp and good, though kennet, the long-nosed midshipman, endeavoured to cheer me by saying—

“thtoph a bit, rockafellah—wait till we’re a fortnight out, and then ththand by! they’ll be broaching the regular provithionth then, and if there don’t go a thcore of wormth to every chap’th bithcuith i’m a lobthter.”

the crying of children outside, the growling of men, and the shrill complaining of women combined with the crazy creaking and groaning of the fabric, so that it was very hard to get any sleep.

it was on the night of the day of my adventure in the mizzen-top that i stood my first watch. it[61] was eight o’clock in the evening, and the moment after the last of the chimes of the bell on deck had been swept away by the gale, the four midshipmen who were in the starboard, or second mate’s watch, came bundling below. their oilskins were streaming wet, and they blew upon their fingers’-ends as they entered the berth.

“still raining, is it?” asked a fellow named poole.

“ay, murderously,” was the answer; “but the wind’s quartering us, and you’ll be making sail, i allow, before we turn out.”

“what’s been doing?”

“nothing. but talk of the bay of biscay! why, the straits of magellan might be close aboard. that’s right, my sweet and lively hearty! on with your boots, my noble fellow! one, two, buckle my shoe; three, four, open the door; five, six, cut all your sticks!”

and the youth who had thus spoken, and whose closing observations were levelled at me, thrust a short black length of clay pipe into the flame of the lamp, and sprang into his bed to refresh himself with a smoke before going to sleep.

i got into my sea-boots, which were very new and creaked noisily, wrapped my body in an oiled coat, wedged a sou’wester securely upon my little head, and followed the others on deck. the night seemed very black after the lamplight, dim as it[62] was, in the cabin. it was the darker at that moment for a heavy squall of rain that was blowing with a note of shrieking in it over the bulwark rail, and splitting in shouts and whistlings through the masts and rigging. i clambered on to the poop, and stood holding on to the brass rail staring about me in a blind way, for there was a deal to daze a raw-head like me coming new to the scene, i assure you. the ship was tearing through the water under three-reefed topsails and foresail. she made a great swirling and roaring of white water all round her, and the snow of it put an illumination into the black air till you seemed able to see a mile away. there was a high sea running, but it had quartered us along with the wind, and the lady violet sank and rose very nobly and easily upon the long black seething coils of brine which chased her thundering to her counter, and expiring there in foam.

the other midshipmen hung about the quarter-deck, under the shelter of the break of the poop. now and again they showed themselves, but at long intervals. the shadowy figure of the chief mate paced the weather-deck. through the glass of the skylights i could see the people sitting in the cuddy below. some played at chess or cards; others lolled in a sickly posture upon sofas; the captain, with his face burnished by weather, conversed with two ladies; a small chart lay before him, and he[63] was explaining something to them, running his forefinger over the paper, and smiling into their puzzled faces. it was more like a fancy than a reality to witness that shining interior set in the black frame of the night—that handsome cuddy, with its soft carpets, its brilliant lamps, its gleaming swinging trays, its globes of gold fish, its ferns and richly-painted panels, in which the lustre of the oil flames rippled; the whole showing, as it were, like a picture flung by some magic-lantern upon an atmosphere of sooty blackness.

i crept aft, and stood looking a little while at the man that steered. the light in the binnacle touched his face and figure, and threw him into relief. his sou’wester came low over his brow, and the rest of him, saving a knob of a nose and a pair of cheeks compounded of warts, freckles, and wrinkles, was formed of an oilskin coat, oiled leggings, and huge sea-boots. he grasped the wheel with hands of iron, often bending a reddish glittering eye upon the compass-card that swung in the bowl, and i watched him thrusting the spokes first a little way up and then a little way down, and wondered why he did not keep the wheel steady. but i did not like to speak to him, for what little of his face was visible looked very sour; and then, again, i was certain that he must be in a bad temper, through having to stand exposed to the lashing wet and strong cold wind of the night.

[64]

i went to the taffrail, and looked down over the stern of the ship at the frothing cataract of water that boiled out from round about her rudder, and streamed away pale and paler yet into the darkness, where i could see the dim line of it rising and falling upon the black surges. it resembled a footpath passing over a hilly country. the ocean looked a dreadfully desolate immense surface in that darkness, wider than the sky, it seemed to me, for the reason of the fancy of prodigious measureless distance coming to one out of the obscurity that lay in ink upon it, with the fitful flashings of the heads of seas showing in the heart of the murkiness. i shuddered as i thought how cold a death drowning must be. i shuddered again at the imagination of being alone in an open boat upon the vast surface of weltering gloom. i recalled what i had read of the sufferings of shipwrecked people, of fire at sea, of leaks which gained upon the pumps and sunk the vessel deeper and deeper, of sudden fierce storms which tore the masts out of ships, and left them helpless as logs of wood to slowly drown.

[65]

“‘what d’ye see, my lad?’ said he.”

[66]

whilst my little brains were thus busy, my eye was taken by what appeared to be a sort of smudge far away astern in the windy shadow of the night. if i looked straight at it, it vanished, but on gazing a little away from it i could see it very clearly. i continued to peer for some time, and was quite sure that the blotch—whatever it might be—was hardening,[67] so to speak, and enlarging. i turned my head to see if the mate observed it, but was sure he had not by his manner of walking the deck. i stepped up to him, and said:

“if you please, sir, i think there’s something catching us up out there!” and i levelled my small arm at the ocean over the stern.

“why, what d’ye see, my lad?” said he, very kindly; “you must have gimblet-like eyes to be able to bore a hole into such a night as this. it’s master rockafellar, isn’t it?” stooping to get a sight of my face. “overtaking us, do you say?”

he walked right aft, i following him, and stood staring a moment or two, then with a start cried, “by george, the flying dutchman, i do believe! a big ship coming through the air it looks, and overhauling us as though she were a roll of smoke. jump below, my lad, and fetch me my night-glass.”

he told me where his cabin was, and where i should find the glass, and off i rushed, proud to be employed. his cabin window overlooked the quarter-deck, and against the bulkhead the four middies of our watch were grouped, smoking and yarning in the shelter there.

“why, what are you up to?” shouted one of them; “that’s the chief mate’s cabin. he’ll hang you up by the neck at that yard-arm, you young rockafellar, if he catches you in his berth.”

[68]

“he has sent me for his night-glass,” answered; “there is a big ship coming up astern.”

“o-ho!” cried they, and emptying the bowls of their pipes, they fled like startled deer on to the poop.

i found the glass—a binocular—and ran with all my might with it to the mate, who, as he took it from me, said, “that’s right. you’re a smart boy!” a piece of commendation which so inspirited me that, i believe, had he told me to go up to the main-royal-yard, i should have promptly and comfortably have made my way to that great height.

the sight i had been the first to descry was, indeed, well worth watching. the speed of our own ship through the water, though she was under very small canvas, could not have been less than nine knots in the hour, yet the vessel astern grew upon us as though we were in tow of one of our own quarter-boats, and scarcely moving. she showed pale as the watery moon dimly glancing through a body of vapour.

“she is dead in our wake,” the chief mate said, as though talking to himself. “does she see us, i wonder? heavens alive! what is she under—skysails can it be? it’s enough to make one think oneself in a dream.”

i saw him send a glance towards the companion-hatch, as though he had a mind to call the captain.

[69]

“the vessel astern grew upon us.”

[70]

“here, one of you,” he shouted to the midshipmen,[71] who were grouped on the other side of the wheel, staring with all their eyes at the approaching ship, “whip that binnacle lamp out and show it.”

kennet sprang to the compass-stand, unshipped the light, vaulted on to the grating, and there stood holding, at the height of his arm, the will-o’-the-wisp spark of flame.

the pursuing vessel was doubtless much closer to us when i first perceived her than i should have supposed by the pallid shadow she made on the troubled darkness of the waters. i think it must have been in less than half-an-hour’s time from the moment of my sighting her that she became a huge, easy-distinguishable shape in the heart of our wake. you saw sail upon sail towering upon her in pale spaces, which glimmered as though she reflected a strong starlight. by this time the news had reached the cuddy, and the captain had come on deck, together with most of the passengers, and we stood in a crowd, watching, and waiting, and wondering; for not yet had the tall and rushing phantom astern of us offered to shift her helm, and to my young eyes it seemed as though she was bound to steer right into us, cleaving us to amidships, like splitting a log with the blow of a hatchet.

“what does he mean to do? there seems no look-out on board!” called the captain to the mate. “show more lights, mr. johnson, and let it be done quickly.”

[72]

the officer delivered some orders in a sharp, eager voice, and in a few minutes three or four sailors came running aft with large lanterns swinging in their hands.

“she has the cut of a yankee,” i heard the captain say to the mate; “her high bows and crowd of canvas forward screen us from her quarter-deck. great thunder! is she in a madman’s hands? she will be into us, sir. fire a rocket!”

these signals were kept somewhere below. a midshipman shot away like an arrow, and returned, and then up soared the thing, the fire of it hissing as it sped javelin-like into the flying thickness on high, where it burst like a flash of lightning, flinging a green radiance far and wide, and sailing in a ball of flame slowly over our mizzen-mast-head on to the lee-bow.

almost simultaneously with the detonation it made, like the blast of a blunderbuss, we saw the head of the vessel astern falling off. as she rose foaming to the head of a sea, her flying jibboom went majestically rounding away to leeward of us, opening out the fabric behind into a ship of some fifteen hundred tons, with high black sides and cotton-white canvas of the yankee swelling from the water-ways to the trucks. a sort of groan of astonishment and admiration, mingled with a deep note of the fear that had been excited, arose from amongst the crowd of us. indeed, but for her[73] putting her helm over, her long bowsprit and tapering jibbooms must have been spearing our rigging in another five minutes, and her sharp clipper stem grinding into our counter.

a voice hailed us from her; our captain sprang on to the grating abaft the wheel, and roared back, “what d’ye say?” but no response was made to this. she swept past to leeward, within a musket-shot. you could hear the thunder of the wind in her canvas, and the roaring of the water crushed into yeast at her stem. it was like hearkening to the beating of surf on a stormy night on the sea-coast. she showed no light of any kind, not a spot of brightness on her deck or in her side to relieve the deep dye of blackness her hull made upon the obscurity. in a few minutes she had forged ahead, and a little later she had melted out upon the gloom over the port bow.