“Full and by,” was his reiterated command. “Keep her a good full—a rap-full; but don’t let her fall away. Hold her to it, and drive her.”
He took no notice whatever of me, although I, on my way to the lee of the chart-house, stood at his shoulder a full minute, offering him a chance to speak. He knew I was there, for his big shoulder brushed my arm as he swayed and turned to warn the helmsmen in the one breath to hold her up to it but to keep her full. He had neither time nor courtesy for a passenger in such a moment.
Sheltering by the chart-house, I saw the moon appear. It grew brighter and brighter, and I saw the land, dead to leeward of us, not three hundred yards away. It was a cruel sight—black rock and bitter snow, with cliffs so perpendicular that the Elsinore could have laid alongside of them in deep water, with great gashes and fissures, and with great surges thundering and spouting along all the length of it.
Our predicament was now clear to me. We had to weather the bight of land and islands into which we had drifted, and sea and wind worked directly on shore. The only way out was to drive through the water, to drive fast and hard, and this was borne in upon me by Mr. Pike bounding past to the break of the poop, where I heard him shout to Mr. Mellaire to set the mainsail.
Evidently the second mate was dubious, for the next cry of Mr. Pike’s was:
“Damn the reef! You’d be in hell first! Full mainsail! All hands to it!”
The difference was appreciable at once when that huge spread of canvas opposed the wind. The Elsinore fairly leaped and quivered as she sprang to it, and I could feel her eat to windward as she at the same time drove faster ahead. Also, in the rolls and gusts, she was forced down till her lee-rail buried and the sea foamed level across to her hatches. Mr. Pike watched her like a hawk, and like certain death he watched the Maltese Cockney and Tom Spink at the wheel.
“Land on the lee bow!” came a cry from for’ard, that was carried on from mouth to mouth along the bridge to the poop.
I saw Mr. Pike nod his head grimly and sarcastically. He had already seen it from the lee-poop, and what he had not seen he had guessed. A score of times I saw him test the weight of the gusts on his cheek and with all the brain of him study the Elsinore’s behaviour. And I knew what was in his mind. Could she carry what she had? Could she carry more?
Small wonder, in this tense passage of time, that I had forgotten the Samurai. Nor did I remember him until the chart-house door swung open and I caught him by the arm. He steadied and swayed beside me, while he watched that cruel picture of rock and snow and spouting surf.
“A good full!” Mr. Pike snarled. “Or I’ll eat your heart out. God damn you for the farmer’s hound you are, Tom Spink! Ease her! Ease her! Ease her into the big ones, damn you! Don’t let her head fall off! Steady! Where in hell did you learn to steer? What cow-farm was you raised on?”
Here he bounded for’ard past us with those incredible leaps of his.
“It would be good to set the mizzen-topgallant,” I heard Captain West mutter in a weak, quavery voice. “Mr. Pathurst, will you please tell Mr. Pike to set the mizzen-topgallant?”
And at that very instant Mr. Pike’s voice rang out from the break of the poop:
“Mr. Mellaire!—the mizzen-topgallant!”
Captain West’s head drooped until his chin rested on his breast, and so low did he mutter that I leaned to hear.
“A very good officer,” he said. “An excellent officer. Mr. Pathurst, if you will kindly favour me, I should like to go in. I . . . I haven’t got on my boots.”
The muscular feat was to open the heavy iron door and hold it open in the rolls and plunges. This I accomplished; but when I had helped Captain West across the high threshold he thanked me and waived further services. And I did not know even then he was dying.
Never was a Blackwood ship driven as was the Elsinore during the next half-hour. The full-jib was also set, and, as it departed in shreds, the fore-topmast staysail was being hoisted. For’ard of the ’midship-house it was made unlivable by the bursting seas. Mr. Mellaire, with half the crew, clung on somehow on top the ’midship-house, while the rest of the crew was with us in the comparative safety of the poop. Even Charles Davis, drenched and shivering, hung on beside me to the brass ring-handle of the chart-house door.
Such sailing! It was a madness of speed and motion, for the Elsinore drove over and through and under those huge graybeards that thundered shore-ward. There were times, when rolls and gusts worked against her at the same moment, when I could have sworn the ends of her lower-yardarms swept the sea.
It was one chance in ten that we could claw off. All knew it, and all knew there was nothing more to do but await the issue. And we waited in silence. The only voice was that of the mate, intermittently cursing, threatening, and ordering Tom Spink and the Maltese Cockney at the wheel. Between whiles, and all the while, he gauged the gusts, and ever his eyes lifted to the main-topgallant-yard. He wanted to set that one more sail. A dozen times I saw him half-open his mouth to give the order he dared not give. And as I watched him, so all watched him. Hard-bitten, bitter-natured, sour-featured and snarling-mouthed, he was the one man, the henchman of the race, the master of the moment. “And where,” was my thought, “O where was the Samurai?”
One chance in ten? It was one in a hundred as we fought to weather the last bold tooth of rock that gashed into sea and tempest between us and open ocean. So close were we that I looked to see our far-reeling skysail-yards strike the face of the rock. So close were we, no more than a biscuit toss from its iron buttress, that as we sank down into the last great trough between two seas I can swear every one of us held breath and waited for the Elsinore to strike.
Instead we drove free. And as if in very rage at our escape, the storm took that moment to deal us the mightiest buffet of all. The mate felt that monster sea coming, for he sprang to the wheel ere the blow fell. I looked for’ard, and I saw all for’ard blotted out by the mountain of water that fell aboard. The Elsinore righted from the shock and reappeared to the eye, full of water from rail to rail. Then a gust caught her sails and heeled her over, spilling half the enormous burden outboard again.
Along the bridge came the relayed cry of “Man overboard!”
I glanced at the mate, who had just released the wheel to the helmsmen. He shook his head, as if irritated by so trivial a happening, walked to the corner of the half-wheelhouse, and stared at the coast he had escaped, white and black and cold in the moonlight.
Mr. Mellaire came aft, and they met beside me in the lee of the chart-house.
“All hands, Mr. Mellaire,” the mate said, “and get the mainsail off of her. After that, the mizzen-topgallant.”
“Yes, sir,” said the second.
“Who was it?” the mate asked, as Mr. Mellaire was turning away.
“Boney—he was no good, anyway,” came the answer.
That was all. Boney the Splinter was gone, and all hands were answering the command of Mr. Mellaire to take in the mainsail. But they never took it in; for at that moment it started to blow away out of the bolt-ropes, and in but few moments all that was left of it was a few short, slatting ribbons.
“Mizzen-topgallant-sail!” Mr. Pike ordered. Then, and for the first time, he recognized my existence.
“Well rid of it,” he growled. “It never did set properly. I was always aching to get my hands on the sail-maker that made it.”
On my way below a glance into the chart-room gave me the cue to the Samurai’s blunder—if blunder it can be called, for no one will ever know. He lay on the floor in a loose heap, rolling willy-nilly with every roll of the Elsinore .