Читать книгу The Death Ship (Musaicum Adventure Classics) - William Clark Russell - Страница 9

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But though, after this piece of severe reality, Captain Skevington had very little to say about such elusive and visionary matters as had before engaged us, it was clear from some words which he let fall that he regarded our meeting with the Dutch battleship as a sort of reflected ill-luck from the snow that had passed the Phantom Dutchman, and the idea possessing him—as indeed it had seized upon me—that the Lovely Nancy was sure to meet with misadventure, and might have the power of injuring the fortune of any vessel that spoke with her intimately, as we had, caused him to navigate the ship with extraordinary wariness. A man was constantly kept aloft to watch the horizon, and repeatedly hailed from the deck that we might know he was awake to his work; other sharp-eyed seamen were stationed on the forecastle; at night every light was screened, so that we moved along like a blot of liquid pitch upon the darkness. On several occasions I heard Captain Skevington say that he would sooner have parted with twenty guineas than have boarded, or had anything to do with, the snow. Happily, the adventure with the Dutchman led the seamen to suppose that the master's anxiety wholly concerned the ships of the enemy; for had it got forward that the Lovely Nancy had sighted Vanderdecken's craft off the Agulhas, I don't question that they would have concluded our meeting with the snow boded no good to us, that we were likely ourselves to encounter the spectral ship—if indeed she were a phantasm, and not a substantial fabric, as I myself deemed—and so perhaps have refused to work the Saracen beyond Table Bay.

At that Settlement it was necessary we should call for water, fresh provisions and the like; and on the sixth of July, in the year 1796, we safely entered the Bay and let go our anchor, nothing of the least consequence to us having happened since we were chased, the weather being fine with light winds ever since the strong breeze before which we had run, died away.

After eighty-one days of sea and sky the meanest land would have offered a noble refreshment to our gaze; judge then of the delight we found in beholding the royal and ample scenery of as fair and spacious a haven as this globe has to offer. But as Captain George Shelvocke, in the capital account he wrote of his voyage round the world in 1718, there points out, the Cape of Good Hope, by which he must intend Table Bay, has been so often described, that, says he, "I can say nothing of it that has not been said by most who have been here before."

We lay very quietly for a fortnight, feeling perfectly secure, as you may conclude when I tell you that just round the corner, that is to say, in Simon's Bay, there were anchored no less than fourteen British ships of war, in command of Vice-Admiral Sir George Elphinstone, of which two were seventy-fours, whilst five mounted sixty-four guns each. Meeting one of the captains of this squadron, Captain Skevington told him how we had been chased by a Dutch liner, and he replied he did not doubt it was one of the vessels who were coming to retake—if they could—the settlement we had captured from the nation that had established the place. But I do not think the notion probable, as the Dutch ships did not show themselves off Saldanha Bay for some weeks after we had sailed.

This, however, is a matter of no moment whatever.

We filled our water casks, laid in a plentiful stock of tobacco, vegetables, hogs, poultry, and such produce as the country yielded, and on the morning of the eighteenth of July hove short, with a crew diminished by the loss of one man only, a boatswain's mate, named Turner, who, because we suffered none of the men to go ashore for dread of their deserting the ship, slipped down the cable on the night of our departure, and swam to the beach naked with some silver pieces tied round him in a handkerchief. Behold the character of the sailor! For a few hours of such drunken jollity as he may obtain in the tavern and amid low company, he will be content to forfeit all he has in the world. It was known that this man Turner had a wife and two children at home dependent upon his earnings; yet no thoughts of them could suppress his deplorable, restless spirit. But I afterwards heard he was punished even beyond his deserts; for being pretty near spent by his swim, he lay down to sleep, but was presently awakened by something crawling over him that proved a venomous snake called a puff-adder, which, on his moving, stung him, whereof he died.

It was the stormy season of the year off South Africa; but, then, a few days of westerly winds would blow us into mild and quiet zones, and, come what might, the ship we stood on was stout and honest, all things right and true aloft, the provision-space hospitably stocked, and the health of the crew of the best.

'Twas a perfectly quiet, cheerful morning when we manned the capstan; the waters of the bay stretched in an exquisite blue calm to the sandy wastes on the Blaawberg side, and thence to where the town stands; the atmosphere had the purity of the object-lens of a perspective glass, and the far distant Hottentot Holland Mountains, with summits so mighty that the sky appeared to rest upon them, gathered to their giant slopes such a mellowness and richness of blue, that they showed as a dark atmospheric dye which had run and stained before being stanched, that part of the heavens, rather than as prodigious masses of land of the usual complexion of mountains when viewed closely. That imperial height called Table Mountain, guarded by the amber-tinted couchant lion, reared a marvellously clear sky-line, and there the firmament appeared as a flowing sea of blue, flushing its full cerulean bosom to the flat altitude as though it would overflow it. But I noticed a shred of crawling vapour gather up there whilst the crew were chorussing at the capstan, and by the time our topsails were sheeted home there was a mass of white vapour some hundred feet in depth, foaming and churning atop, with delicate wings of it circling out into the blue, where they gyrated like butterflies and melted. The air was full of the moaning noises of the south-east wind flying out of that cloud down the steep abrupt full of gorges, scars, and ravines; and what was just now a picture of May-day peace became, on a sudden, a scene of whipped and creaming ripples; and the flashing on shore of the glass of shaken window-casements through spiral spirtings of reddish dust; hands aloft on the various ships at anchor, hastily furling the canvas that had been loosed to hang idly to the sun; flags, quite recently languid as streaks of paint, now pulling fiercely at their halliards; and Malay fishing-boats, darting across the bay in a gem-like glittering of water sliced out by their sharp stems and slung to the strong wind.

Under small sail we stormed out toward the ocean, with a desperate screaming of wind in the rigging; but there was no sea, for the gale was off the land; and after passing some noble and enchanting bays on whose shores the breakers as tall as our ship flung their resounding Atlantic thunder, whilst behind stood ranges of mountains putting a quality of solemn magnificence into the cheerful yellow clothing of the sunshine, with here and there a small house of an almond whiteness against the leaves of the silver trees and sundry rich growths thereabouts, in a moment we ran sheer out of the gale into a light wind, blowing from the north-west.

I don't say we were astonished, since some-while before reaching the calm part we could see it clearly defined by the line where the froth and angry blueness and the fiery agitation of the wind ended. Still, it was impossible not to feel surprised as the ship slipped out of the enraged and yelling belt into a peaceful sea and a weak new wind which obliged us to handle the braces and make sail.

Here happened an extraordinary thing. As we passed Green Point, where the weather was placid and the strife waged in the bay no longer to be seen, a large ship of six hundred tons, that we supposed was to call at Cape Town, passed us, her yards braced up and all plain sail set. She had some soldiers aboard, showed several guns, had the English colours flying and offered a very brave and handsome show, being sheathed with copper that glowed ruddy to the soft laving of the glass-bright swell, and her canvas had the hue of the cotton cloths which the Spaniards of the South American main used to spread, and which in these days form a distinguishing mark of the Yankee ships. Having not the least suspicion of the turmoil that awaited her round Mouille Point, she slipped along jauntily, ready to make a free wind of the breeze then blowing. But all on a sudden, on opening the bay, she met the whole strength of the fierce south-easter. Down she lay to it, all aback—stopped dead. Her ports being open, I feared if she were not promptly recovered, she must founder. They might let go the halliards, but the yards being jammed would not travel. It swept the heart into the throat to witness this thing! We brought our ship to the wind to render help with our boats; but happily her mizzen topmast broke, and immediately after, her main topgallant-mast snapped short off, close to the cross-trees; then—though it must have been wild work on those sloping decks—they managed to bring the main and topsail yards square; whereupon she paid off, righting as her head swung from the gale, and with lightened hearts, as may be supposed, they went to work to let go and clew up and haul down, whilst you saw how severe was the need of the pumps they had manned, by the bright streams of water which sluiced from her sides.

It was a cruel thing to witness, this sudden wrecking of the beauty of a truly stately ship, quietly swinging along over the mild heave of the swell, like a full-robed, handsome princess seized and torn by some loathsome monster, as we read of such matters in old romances. It was like the blighting breath of pestilence upon some fair form, converting into little better than a carcase what was just now a proud and regal shape, made beauteous by all that art could give her of apparel, and all that nature could impart of colour and lustre.