Robert Michael Ballantyne - Sunk at Sea

Will Osten reclined against the top of the mainmast, to which he had ascended in order to enjoy, undisturbed, the quiet of a magnificent evening.

The sun was setting in a world of clouds, which took the form of mountains fringed with glittering gold and with shadows of pearly grey.

Oh what castles young Osten did build on these mountains, to be sure! Structures so magnificent that Eastern architects, had they seen them, would have hung their heads and confessed themselves outdone. But you must not imagine, reader, that the magnificence of all of these depended on their magnitude or richness. On the contrary, one of them was a mere cottage—but then, it was a pattern cottage. It stood in a palm-wood, on a coral island near the sea-shore, with a stream trickling at its side, and a lake full of wild fowl behind, and the most gorgeous tropical plants clustering round its open windows and door, while inside, seated on a couch, was a beautiful girl of fifteen (whom Will had often imagined, but had not yet seen), whose auburn hair shone like gold in the sun, contrasting well with her lovely complexion, and enhancing the sweetness of a smile which conveyed to the beholder only one idea—love. Many other castles were built in the clouds at that time by Will, but the cottage made the most lasting impression on his mind.

“Sleepin’?” inquired Cupples, the mate, thrusting his head through that orifice in the main-top which is technically called the “lubber’s hole.”

“No, meditating,” answered Will; “I’ve been thinking of the coral islands.”

“Humph,” ejaculated the mate contemptuously, for Cupples, although a kind-hearted man, was somewhat cynical and had not a particle of sentiment in his soul. Indeed he showed so little of this that Larry was wont to say he “didn’t belave he had a sowl at all, but was only a koorious specimen of an animated body.”

“It’s my opinion, doctor, that you’d as well come down, for it’s goin’ to blow hard.”

Will looked in the direction in which the mate pointed, and saw a bank of black clouds rising on the horizon. At the same moment the captain’s voice was heard below shouting— “Stand by there to reef topsails!” This was followed by the command to close-reef. Then, as the squall drew rapidly nearer, a hurried order was giving to take in all sail. The squall was evidently a worse one than had at first been expected.

On it came, hissing and curling up the sea before it.

“Mind your helm!—port a little, port!”

“Port it is, sir,” answered the man at the wheel, in the deep quiet voice of a well-disciplined sailor, whose only concern is to do his duty.

“Steady!” cried the captain.

The words had barely left his lips, and the men who had been furling the sails had just gained the deck, when the squall struck them, and the Foam was laid on her beam-ends, hurling all her crew into the scuppers. At the same time terrible darkness overspread the sky like a pall. When the men regained their footing, some of them stood bewildered, not knowing what to do; others, whose presence of mind never deserted them, sprang to where the axes were kept, in order to be ready to cut away the masts if necessary. But the order was not given.

Captain Dall and Will, who had been standing near the binnacle, seized and clung to the wheel.

“She will right herself,” said the former, as he observed that the masts rose a little out of the sea.

Fortunately the good ship did so, and then, although there was scarcely a rag of canvas upon her, she sprang away before the hurricane like a sea-gull.

Terrible indeed is the situation of those who are compelled to “scud under bare poles,” when He who formed the great deep, puts forth His mighty power, causing them to “stagger and be at their wits’ end.” For hours the Foam rushed wildly over the sea, now rising like a cork on the crest of the billows, anon sinking like lead into the valleys between. She was exposed to double danger; that of being cast upon one of the numerous coral reefs with which the Pacific in some parts abounds, or being “pooped” and overwhelmed by the seas which followed her.

During this anxious period little was said or done except in reference to the working of the ship. Men snatched sleep and food at intervals as they best might. At length, after two days, the gale began to abate, and the sea to go down.

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