The Pilot and his Wife: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Juno arrived in due course at Boston, where Salv� invested a
considerable portion of his wages in the material for a dress, a couple
of silk handkerchiefs, and two massive rings with his own and
Elizabeth's initials on them.

From Boston she proceeded to Grimsby with a Canadian cargo; then on a
short trip to Liverpool; then back to Quebec; and some ten or eleven
months after leaving Arendal, they were on a voyage from Memel in the
Baltic to New York, with a cargo of timber, planks, and pipe-staves--the
intention being to call in at the home port, for which she had some
general cargo, to take in provisions.

During these voyages Salv�, as one may say, had completed his
apprenticeship to the sea; and in his blue shirt loosely knotted round
the throat, his leather belt and canvas trousers, he had such a look of
smartness and energy that it required no very great amount of
discernment to perceive in him a sailor from top to toe. He had, sooner
than most, risen superior to the dangers and temptations to which young
sailor lads are exposed during the years of their novitiate, and with a
break-neck recklessness of disposition he combined such a perfectly
cat-like activity, that his superior smartness was recognised even among
his comrades. His bearing, it is true, was rather arrogant, and his
tongue not the most good-natured; but he was generally liked
nevertheless, for he was kind-hearted, if he was only taken on the right
side, and it did not seem to be his sailor-like qualities upon which he
prided himself so much as upon the superior acuteness of his
understanding, which he delighted to display in discussions with the
red-bearded and somewhat consequential sailmaker, who had the reputation
of being a well-read man, and who affected a proportionate importance.

Up at Memel they had had great difficulties to contend with, owing to
the condition of the ice; and their bad luck seemed to be going to
follow them, for in the Skager Rack they found themselves suddenly
wedged into a field of drift-ice, with the prospect of having to remain
where they were for weeks perhaps. The cold had been unusually severe
that winter in the Baltic, and out over the plain of ice by which they
were surrounded they could see flags of all nations sharing a similar
fate. There was nothing for it but to wait and hope; and if the ice did
not break up soon, short rations would become the order of the day.

It was wearisome; and to Salv� above all, who was feverishly longing to
get home, and whose temperament was little suited for the endurance of
such agonies of Tantalus. He became the very embodiment of restlessness.
A hundred times a-day he went aloft to look out for some prospect of a
change, and to strain his eyes after the streak of land to the north
which was to be made out on clear days from the maintop-gallant
mast-head, and which of course would be the coast of Norway. The dress,
the silk handkerchiefs, the rings, and what he should say to
Elizabeth--whether he should formally request a private interview with
her, or wait till an opportunity offered--were running incessantly in
his head. And particularly what he should say to her seemed now, often
as he had thought it over during the long voyage and settled it to his
satisfaction, to present many points of difficulty. He must go down then
to his seaman's chest and see if the things were still there all right,
and whether the moths might not have got into them; the last inspection,
when he unfolded the stuff in his bunk, being conducted with uncommon
precautions.

At last there came a prospect of release in the shape of thick weather,
and a southerly gale setting on the Norwegian coast. The ice too had for
a day or two previously begun to show blue patches of water here and
there, and when it was dark that evening they felt themselves free once
more.

In spite of the salt water and the rain, which he had to wipe off his
face every minute, Salv� went to his look-out post forward that night,
and stood there humming to himself, whilst the rest of the crew who were
on duty slopped up and down on the deck-cargo below, in sea-boots and
dripping oilskins, or sheltered themselves, as best they could, under
the lee of the round-house or forecastle. They had been hard at work all
day, making openings in the ice; and now the groaning and whistling
among the blocks and ropes, that were increasing every minute, gave
little promise of rest for the night.

The captain stood upon the poop in his thick overcoat and drenched fur
cap, with his trumpet under his arm, looking anxiously through the
night-glass from time to time, and his voice sounded unusually stern.
There lay before him in the dark, blustering, winter night a veritable
David's choice. The strong southerly current, aided by the gale, was
fast carrying him in under the Norwegian coast; while on the other hand,
if he tried to beat to windward, he risked coming into collision with
the ice-floes. Added to that, he was not very clear as to his position;
and as the gale increased, he began to pace restlessly backwards and
forwards, addressing, every now and then, a word down to one of the
helmsmen, whose forms could be seen by the gleam from the binnacle.

"How's her head, Jens?"

"Sou'-west, sir; she'll lay no higher."

"H'm! more and more on land!" he muttered, the perspiration coming out
upon his forehead under his fur cap, which, in spite of the rain, he had
to push back to get air. Both life and ship would soon be at stake.

"What says the look-out-man, mate?" he asked of the latter, who came up
the steps at this moment from taking a turn forward.

"Black as pitch. If we stuck a lantern out on the flying jib-boom, we
should see that far at any rate. But the lead gives deep water."

"Does it?" was the rather scornful rejoinder.

"The blockhead doesn't seem to know yet," growled the captain, as the
other turned away, "that the lead will give you deep water here until
your vessel has her nose upon the cliff."

There was no chance of a pilot on such a night as this promised to be;
but still, in the hope that the wind might carry the sound in under
land, a few shots were fired from the signal-gun.

At last there was no longer any choice left. If they were not to end
upon the rocks that night, they must crowd on more sail, and try at all
hazards to haul off the coast.

The order was accordingly given to shake a reef out, followed by "Haul
in the topsail bow-lines--clap on the topsail halyards, and hoist away!"
and in the darkness might be heard occasionally "halimen-oh!-oh hoi!" as
the sailors worked at the tough and heavy sail, with the cordage all
stiff and swollen with ice and slippery with the rain, the spray driving
in their faces, and the vessel rolling so that sometimes they were
hanging on by the ropes only, when the deck went from under their feet.

Under the fresh weight of sail the vessel careened over, and shot
foaming forward with new life for a moment. The next, the topsail had
burst away from the bolt-ropes with a report as of a cannon-shot, and
she had fallen away into the trough of the sea. The mainstay-sail sheet
parted at the same time, and a deluge of water carried overboard, with
part of the bulwarks, a large portion of the deck cargo, which consisted
of heavy timber, leaving the remainder tossed about in the wildest
confusion, and much of it standing on end against the railings and
capstan.

It was some time before she could be brought up in the wind again, and
the old Juno had then to go through a trial such as her joints even in
her younger days had never been equal to. She was like many another
vessel that is a good sailor enough, a little broken-backed from the
weight of the cargo amidships; and as she gave to the strain, the ladder
that stood in the hold began to saw up and down in the coaming forward,
while the water came oozing in through the staring bow timbers, and the
pumps had to be kept continually going. The hatches were all battened
down, and many of the crew had lashed themselves to the lower rigging as
preferable now to the deck.

"Ready about!--tacks and sheets!" &c.; "luff now, and keep her close to
the wind!"--the same monotonous words of command all through the night
every time they lay over upon a new tack, while at the same time they
would generally ship a heavy sea, and the vessel would shake through all
her frame.

Day broke and passed in a fog, that left them in much the same
uncertainty as before about their position. For one moment it had
lifted, and they fancied they had seen "Homborgsund's Fald," a high
landmark up the country above Arendal, and from its lowness and dimness
on the horizon, they had been encouraged to hope that they had
appreciably increased their distance from the coast. About noon they
passed an English brig that had been through the same struggle as the
Juno was now engaged upon, whose signals of distress they had already
occasionally heard faintly upon the wind, and which now seemed on the
point of foundering. The crew had climbed into the after-rigging, which
was all that now remained standing, and they made despairing signs for
help; but it was impossible to render any. They had enough to do to keep
themselves afloat.

The gale showed no signs of moderating, and that night, as Salv�
Kristiansen and another were taking their turn at the wheel, there
gleamed suddenly out of the pitchy darkness to leeward of the
fore-rigging the white crest of a tremendous eddy wave, which a moment
after came crashing down upon the deck, carrying clean away the
round-house, binnacle, and long-boat, damaging the wheel, and leaving
many of the drenched and half--suffocated sailors deposited in the most
unexpected places, and only glad to find that they still had the deck
under them.

"Ugly sea on the lee-bow!" was heard again from forward, and all in that
direction seemed suddenly to have become a mass of white.

"Ready about!--hard a-lee!" and with a great lurch the old craft went
about once more, the renewed shrieking in every kind of pitch in the
rigging, and the blinding dash of spray, showing to what a hurricane the
gale had risen.

Salv� had been too much occupied with the damaged wheel at first to have
a thought to spare for anything else; but it recurred to him very soon
that when that first dark sea had broken over them so unexpectedly from
leeward, he had seen for a moment the glimmer of two lights on its
crest, and a world of associations was at once aroused in his mind: it
seemed to the lad's romantic fancy that he was keeping an appointment
with Elizabeth Raklev. As he glanced hurriedly back, the two light-dots
again appeared. He had seen them too often before to be mistaken, and he
shouted over his shoulder to the captain, who noticed them now for the
first time, "Those lights behind to leeward are from old Jacob's hearth
on Torungen!"

"Are you sure of that?" muttered Beck, coming nearer to him at the same
time over the sloping deck with the help of a rope. "If they are, it
will not be long before we are dashed to atoms on the rocks."

A conversation ensued between them, in which Salv� declared that he had
known the water under Torungen from childhood as well as he did his
father's garden; and the upshot was that Beck, pale and hesitating,
determined to go in under land with him as pilot.

"It is much that is being intrusted this night to two young shoulders,"
said he; "and see you think twice, young man, both for your own life's
sake and ours."

They kept away then, and stood in under land with the least sail they
could carry in the tremendous sea that was now breaking in their wake,
and soon the thunder of the breakers became audible.

Salv� was pale, but perfectly calm, as he stood there with the
speaking-trumpet, after having taken over the command, and with the
captain and mate by his side. But all of a sudden great beads of
perspiration came out on his forehead. There was something curiously
irregular about the light. It had become dim and red, and then seemed to
go out altogether. Had he by any possibility made a mistake? and was he
now sailing the Juno with all on board straight for the rocks?

The uncertainty lasted for a quarter of an hour, and never in his life
had Salv� seen so heavy a countenance as that with which Beck, whose
expression discovered a trace of doubt, looked at him, evidently
hesitating whether he should not take the command again himself.

But in the mean time the gleam of light shone forth again--whatever
might have been the cause of its obscuration--and that night Salv�
Kristiansen brought the Juno safely into Merd�.

Back to chapter list of: The Pilot and his Wife