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قراءة كتاب The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Volume 3 of 3 An account of the mutiny of the crew and the loss of the ship when trying to make the Bermudas

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‏اللغة: English
The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Volume 3 of 3
An account of the mutiny of the crew and the loss of the
ship when trying to make the Bermudas

The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Volume 3 of 3 An account of the mutiny of the crew and the loss of the ship when trying to make the Bermudas

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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could four men do—one of the four being almost useless, and all four exhausted not by the perils and labour of the storm only, but by the fight they had had to make for their lives against fellow-beings?

Alone on deck, with the heavy seas splashing and thundering, and precipitating their volumes of water over the ship's side, with the gale howling and roaring through the skies, I grew bitterly despondent. It seemed as if God Himself were against me, that I was the sport of some remorseless fate, whereby I was led from one peril to another, from one suffering to another, and no mercy to be shown me until death gave me rest.

And yet I was sensible of no revolt and inward rage against what I deemed my destiny. My being and individuality were absorbed and swallowed up in the power and immensity of the tempest, like a rain-drop in the sea. I was overwhelmed by the vastness of the dangers which surrounded me, by the sense of the littleness and insignificance of myself and my companions in the midst of this spacious theatre of warring winds, and raging seas, and far-reaching sky of pouring cloud. I felt as though all the forces of nature were directed against my life; and those cries which my heart would have sent up in the presence of dangers less tumultuous and immense were silenced by a kind of dull amazement, of heavy passive bewilderment, which numbed my mind and forced upon me an indifference to the issue without depriving me of the will and energy to avert it.

I held my post at the wheel, being anxious that the boatswain and Cornish should recruit their strength by sleep, for if one or the other of them broke down, then, indeed, our case would be deplorable.

The force of the wind was stupendous, and yet the brave main-topsail stood it; but not an hour had passed since the two men went below when a monster wave took the ship on the starboard bow and threw her up, rolling at the same time an immense body of water on to the decks; her stern, where I was crouching, sank in the hollow level with the sea, then as the leviathan wave rolled under her counter, the ship's bows fell into a prodigious trough with a sickening, whirling swoop. Ere she could recover, another great sea rolled right upon her, burying her forecastle, and rushing with the fury of a cataract along the main-deck.

Another wave of that kind, and our fate was sealed.

But happily these were exceptional seas; smaller waves succeeded, and the struggling, straining ship showed herself alive still.

Alive, but maimed. That tremendous swoop had carried away the jibboom, and the fore top-gallant mast—the one close against the bowsprit head, the other a few inches above the top-gallant yard. The mast, with the royal yard upon it, hung all in a heap against the fore-topmast, but fortunately kept steady, owing to the yard-arm having jammed itself into the fore-topmast rigging. The jibboom was clean gone adrift and was washing away to leeward.

This was no formidable accident, though it gave the ship a wrecked and broken look. I should have been well-pleased to see all three top-gallant masts go over the side, for the weight of the yards, swaying to and fro at great angles, was too much for the lower-masts, and not only strained the decks, but the planking to which the chain-plates were bolted.

My great anxiety now was for the fore-topmast, which was sustaining the weight of the broken mast and yard, in addition to the top-gallant yard, still standing, and the heavy pulling of the fore-topmast staysail.

Dreading the consequences that might follow the loss of this sail, I called to the steward at the top of my voice, and on his thrusting his head up the companion, I bade him rouse up Cornish and the boatswain, and send them on deck.

In a very short time they both arrived, and the boatswain, on looking forward, immediately comprehended our position and anticipated my order.

"The topmast 'll go!" he roared in my ear. "Better let go the staysail-halliards, and make a short job o' it."

"Turn to and do it at once," I replied. Away they skurried. I lost sight of them when they were once off the poop, and it seemed an eternity before they showed themselves again on the forecastle.

No wonder! They had to wade and struggle through a rough sea on the main-deck, which obliged them to hold on, for minutes at a time, to whatever they could put their hands to.

I wanted them to bear a hand in getting rid of the staysail, for, with the wheel hard down, the ship showed a tendency to fall off. But it was impossible for me to make my voice heard; I could only wave my hand; the boatswain understood the gesture, and I saw him motion to Cornish to clear off the forecastle. He then ran over to leeward and let go the fore-topmast staysail sheet and halliards, and, this done, he could do no more but take to his heels.

The hullabaloo was frightful—the thundering of the sails, the snapping and cracking of the sheets.

Boom! I knew it must follow. It was a choice of two evils—to poop the ship or lose a mast.

Down came the topmast, splintering and crashing with a sound that rose above the roar of the gale, and in a minute was swinging against the shrouds—an awful wreck to behold in such a scene of raging sea and buried decks.

I knew well now what ought to be done, and done without delay; for the staysail was in the water, ballooning out to every wave, and dragging the ship's head round more effectually than had the sail been set.

But I had a wonderful ally in the boatswain—keen, unerring, and intrepid, a consummate sailor. I should never have had the heart to give him the order; and yet there he was, and Cornish by his side, at work, knife in hand, cutting and hacking away for dear life.

A long and perilous job indeed!—now up aloft, now down, soaked by the incessant seas that thundered over the ship's bows, tripping over the raffle that encumbered the deck, actually swarming out on the bowsprit with their knives between their teeth, at moments plunged deep in the sea, yet busy again as they were lifted high in the air.

I draw my breath as I write. I have the scene before me: I see the ropes parting under the knives of the men. I close my eyes as I behold once more the boiling wave that buries them, and dare not look, lest I should find them gone. I hear the hooting of the hurricane, the groaning of the over-loaded vessel, and over all the faint hurrah those brave spirits utter as the last rope is severed and the unwieldly wreck of spars and cordage falls overboard and glides away upon a running sea, and the ship comes to again under my hand, and braves, with her bows almost at them, the merciless onslaught of the huge green waves.

Only the day before, one of these men was a mutineer, blood-stained already, and prepared for new murders!

Strange translation! from base villainy to actions heroical! But those who know sailors best will least doubt their capacity of gauging extremes.


CHAPTER IV.

By the loss of the fore-topmast the ship was greatly eased. In almost every sea that we had encountered since leaving England, I had observed the immense leverage exerted over the deep-lying hull by the weight of her lofty spars; and by the effect which the carrying away of the fore-topmast had produced, I had no doubt that our position would be rendered far less critical, while the vessel would rise to the waves with much greater

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