Crown and Anchor Part 28

So Commander Nesbitt evidently thought, I was sure, from the way in which he shrugged his shoulders and pointed in dumb show aloft and then to the sea, when the carpenter tried to press the claims of the topsail yard on his notice.

When the hands were sent down and the watch set at Eight Bells, to my inexperienced eyes the hurricane appeared to be at its height; the howling of the wind and angry roar of the clas.h.i.+ng waves being absolutely awful to listen to, drowning as they did every other sound on board the s.h.i.+p on deck.

Nor was it any the better below, the groaning of the timbers there, as of a lost soul crying out in its last agony, with the rattling of crockery and other mess gear, adding to the tumult without, made a perfect pandemonium of the gunroom.

A fellow could not hear what another said, though it were shouted in his ear as loudly as the speaker could bawl; albeit some of my messmates certainly had powerful lungs of their own--lungs which they were not chary of testing when occasion offered!

I turned in early; but, not being able to sleep for the racket that was going on, I returned to the deck, remaining there in the most sheltered corner I could find with Tom Mills, the two of us watching with spellbound attention until close on midnight the wonderful struggle between the spirits of the air and the demons of the deep--the pale-faced moon s.h.i.+ning out occasionally from the dark vault of the heavens overhead, lighting up the stormy sea that served as the battle-ground of the storm fiends with her sickly gleams and making it seem like a field of snow, its vast expanse being covered with yeasty foam as far as the eye could reach.

The gale lasted all that night and the following day; when, late in the evening, the weather commenced to moderate, the wind calming down finally towards the close of the middle watch next morning.

It had then been blowing for thirty-six hours, during the whole of which time neither Captain Farmer nor the commander had left the deck; while most of the officers and men also had remained up on duty, it being a case almost of "all hands" from the beginning of the tempest to its end!

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE SPANISH CAPTAIN'S STORY.

When I went up on deck that morning I could hardly believe my eyes, on seeing that the storm and all its wild surroundings had miraculously disappeared; for, the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly on a blue sea that seemed to ripple with laughter and the good old s.h.i.+p was speeding along under all plain sail, looking none the worse for the buffeting she had experienced only a few hours before!

"Rather a change from yesterday, ain't it, youngster?" observed Mr Gilham, who was officer of the watch, addressing me kindly, noticing the expression of astonishment on my face as I glanced up aloft and then over the side. "Things look a little more s.h.i.+p-shape than they were then."

"Yes, sir," I replied. "But what a fearful gale it was!"

"Pooh, nonsense, Vernon!" cried he, with a laugh. "Don't overlay your yarns like that. We've certainly had a bit of a blow, but I've seen it much worse crossing the bay!"

Of course, I could not contradict him; and, I may here mention that on narrating the circ.u.mstance to Dad on my return home some time afterwards, he said that he had never known a sailor acknowledge anything unusual about a storm at the immediate moment of its occurrence, or even shortly afterwards.

All those with whom he had ever been brought in contact, Dad told me, might possibly allow that the wind was "freshening," perhaps, or "blowing stiffly," or "inclined to be rough"; but, a gale or a hurricane they would never admit, in spite of the fact of its "blowing great guns and small-arms!"

Should anyone, Dad also said, incautiously hazard some definite opinion on the state of the weather, any seaman thus spoken to would invariably recall a previous occasion within his own experience when it was really bad enough to speak about--it being the rule with all true sons of the sea to minimise danger and laugh at the perils they have escaped, instead of making mountains out of molehills in the manner natural to most landsmen!

Besides thus upsetting my ideas as to the terrible ordeal we had gone through, concerning which, however, I held to my own view in spite of his protest to be contrary, although, of course, I did not tell him so, Mr Gilham informed me that we had suffered no serious damage beyond the injury to the topsail yard.

This, he said, too, was much less than Mr Cleete, the carpenter, had made out, that worthy being one of the sort of men who always take a despondent view of everything.

The spar, however, was sent down and replaced by a spare yard which we carried; and everything was all right aloft now.

We had lost something in another way, though; for, when Mr Quadrant took the sun at noon, with all of us youngsters standing round him with our s.e.xtants, like a parcel of chickens gathered about an old hen, which indeed the master greatly resembled with his shock head of hair and fussy manner, the s.h.i.+p was found to be in lat.i.tude 44 degrees 5 minutes north and longitude 7 degrees 50 minutes west.

She had been driven to the south-east by the gale, aided by the drift of the current setting in to the Bay of Biscay.

This was more than two hundred miles out of our proper track, and far too much to the eastward to be able to weather the northern extremity of the Spanish coast, which would soon be perilously near to us, running as we then were to the sou'-sou'-west.

Fortunately for us, though, the wind had now veered to the southward; and, as we were sailing on the port tack, by giving the s.h.i.+p a good deal of weather helm and bracing round the yards, we were able to bear up to the westward out of the ill-omened bay, steering west by south until we were in longitude 11 degrees 10 minutes west and well clear of Cape Finisterre, when we hauled our wind and shaped a course direct for Madeira.

This, however, was not until next day; and, I recollect, after we luffed up again and bore to the southward, a lot of talk went on in the gunroom at dinner-time about the probability of our stopping or not at that beautiful island, the gem of the Atlantic.

"I say, Jack Vernon," sang out Larkyns to me, across the table, "I suppose you know why it is called Madeira?"

"No," I replied. "Why?"

"Well," he began, "it is rather a romantic story--"

"Then, I shouldn't think it can be much in your line," interrupted Mr Stormc.o.c.k, who somehow or other was always down upon any chap for ever starting a yarn. "You tell very practical ones; only, instead of the term 'story' I would use a shorter and more expressive word."

"Say 'lie' if you like; I know you mean it," rejoined Larkyns, in no way put out by the rude insinuation and continuing his narrative quite composedly. "But, you're wrong in this case, old Stormy, for 'faix it's no lie I'm telling you now,' as the doctor's Irish marine would say.

It's the plain, unadulterated truth. I had the tale from a Portuguese monk at Funchal."

"Funchal," put in Mr Fortescue Jones, the a.s.sistant-paymaster, caressing his whiskers as usual and c.o.c.king his eye as if he were going to catch Larkyns tripping. "When were you there?"

"In the _Majestic_, when I was a cadet," promptly returned the mid, taking up the cudgels at once. "It was in the same year you were tried by court-martial for breaking your leave!"

This was a "settler" for poor Mr Jones.

"Go on, Larkyns," I said, at this point, to change the conversation and cover the paymaster's confusion as he bent his head over his plate. "I want to hear that yarn of yours about Madeira."

"All right, Johnny," he replied in his chaffy way; "only, you don't p.r.o.nounce the name right, my son. It should be called 'My-deary,' not 'Madeir-ah.' Hang it all, Stormc.o.c.k, stow that!"

"Don't apologise," said the master's mate, who just at that instant had thrown a biscuit at Larkyns, causing the violent interjection which he interpolated in his story. "I thought I would supply the proper accentuation for you, that's all."

"If you don't look out and leave me alone, I will pretty soon accentuate your nose, Stormy," retorted the other, all good humour again, as he always was; for he took a joke, even of the most practical sort, as freely as he perpetrated one. "Yes, Johnny Vernon, it should be called 'My-deary,' and I'll tell you why. The island, so the monk told me, owes its origin, or rather discovery, to two lovers who fled thither in the year fourteen hundred and something. One of these lovyers, my young friend, was a Scotchman named Robert Matchim, and the other was a Miss Anna D'Arfet, a young lady residing at Lisbon, whose parents objected to Robert and refused to match her with Matchim."

Mr Stormc.o.c.k pitched another biscuit immediately at Larkyns, crying out at the same time--

"That's for your bad pun!"

The wag, however, dodged it and proceeded with his yarn.

"Being a Scotchman, although poor, as few of the nation are," proceeded he, aiming this retaliatory shot at the master's mate, who, he knew, hailed from the North and hadn't a spare bawbee to bless himself with, "our friend, Robert Matchim, being as brave as he was bold, would not be done by a pitiful Portuguese laird. So, he p.a.w.ned the t.i.tle-deeds of his ancestral estates in Skye, where I forgot to mention he lived when at home; and, chartering a caravel, which happened luckily to be lying at anchor off the port at the time, smuggled his sweetheart on board and sailed away--with the intention of eloping to France, where her stern paryent would, he thought, be unable to follow him for certain political reasons."

"Very good so far," interposed Mr Stormc.o.c.k again at this point, in an ironical tone. "Pray go on; it is most interesting!"

"Glad you like it," said Larkyns, coolly, without turning a hair.

"Well, then, to finish the story. Very unfortunately for these fond lovyers, a storm arose, like that bit of breeze we had t'other day.

This blew them out of their course and they lost their reckoning, landing at this very island, of which we are speaking instead of at some French port as they expected. The spot they pitched on was called Machico Bay on the eastern side; and there they lived happy ever after, having the additional satisfaction after departing this life of being both buried in one grave. Their last resting-place was seen by a party of Spaniards who subsequently re-discovered the island; when these sentimental mariners, noting the names of the aforesaid lovyers on their joint tombstone, and the account there detailed of their strange adventures, very romantically and devoutly erected a chapel to their memory. This chapel exists to this very day and can be seen by you, Stormy, or any other unbeliever in the truthfulness of my yarn! It is for this reason, my worthy Johnny, that I insist that the island shall be properly styled 'My-deary'; for, as Robert loved Anna, he would naturally have addressed her as 'My-deary.' Do you twig, young 'un, eh?"

"Oh, yes," I answered with a sn.i.g.g.e.r, "I think, though, it's rather far-fetched."

"So it is," said he. "It came from Madeira; and that's some six hundred miles, more or less, from where we now are."

At that moment, Corporal Macan appeared at the door of the gunroom and walked up to where I was sitting.

"If you plaize, sor," he said, pulling his forelock, "the docthor would loike to say yez in the sick bay."

"Indeed, Macan," I cried. "Do you know what he wants me for?"