CHAPTER VII
In Which Is Pictured a Race in Mid-Ocean
There was a snapping and crackling in the air over the laboring ship. It sounded as though the taut stays were giving way, one after another. For the moment, what Bob said about “corpse lights” I did not understand; I was mainly giving my attention to the wheel.
But the ship came to an even keel for a minute and I was able to hold her on her course, and get my breath. Then I beheld the strange lights shining here, there, and everywhere about the rigging, and I was amazed. Not that I was frightened, as Bob and some of the others of the watch appeared to be. The sailor is a very superstitious person; and let him tell it, there are enough strange things happen at sea to convince a most philosophical mind that there is a spirit world very, very close to our own mundane sphere. There’s a very thin veil between the two, and at times that veil is torn away.
But I knew in a minute that what Bob meant by “corpse lights” were corposant lights and were an electric display better known as “St. Elmo’s fire.” The lights were globular in shape, and about four inches in diameter. There were apparently a score of them all through the rigging, and they appeared at intervals of a minute, or two. The driving sleet could not hide them, and the fires illuminated the ship and the sea for some distance around her.
It certainly was a queer sight, and the brilliance of the corposant lights was very marked. I heard Mr. Barney shouting from his station:
“Keep your shirts on, you hardshells! They won’t bite—nor none o’ you ain’t got to go aloft to put ’em out. There’s one sure thing about them lights—they won’t set the rigging afire.”
“Get up and take hold of this wheel, Bob,” I exclaimed, “or I’ll yell for help. I can’t handle her proper if she plunges again.”
He got up shakingly and took hold. When the sea was sucked away from the bow of the Gullwing next time we held her on her course. But my companion was still frightened and looked at the glowing lights askance.
“Holding your own there at the wheel, boys?” demanded Mr. Barney.
“Aye, aye, sir!” I replied, but Bob didn’t even whisper.
Suddenly the last light disappeared—as suddenly as the first had appeared—and immediately there was a loud explosion over our heads and Mr. Barney pitched down the ladder to the deck. Several of the other men were flung to the deck, too, and Bob gave another frightened yell and started forward on a dead run.
He collided with Captain Bowditch, who had just shot up through the companionway.
“What’s this, you swab?” yelled the skipper, grabbing Bob by the collar with one hand and seizing a rope with the other, as the ship staggered again. “What d’ye mean?”
Then he saw Mr. Barney just scrambling to his feet.
“What’s this mutinous swab been doing, sir?” added the captain.
The second mate explained in a moment. But Bob suffered. The old man was in a towering rage because he had left his post.
“You flat-footed son of a sea-cook!” he bawled, shaking Promise, big as he was, like a drowned kitten. “What d’ye mean by leaving the wheel? That boy yonder kept his place didn’t he? Scared of a light, be ye? Why, if a sea-sarpint came aboard that wouldn’t be no excuse for your leaving the helm. Git back there!”
And when he started Bob aft again he accelerated his motions with a vigorous kick in the broad of the seaman’s back. Bob grabbed the spokes of the wheel, and braced himself, with a face like a thundercloud. I crowded down my amusement and perhaps it is well I did. The fellow was in no mood for enduring chaffing. When a man is both angry and scared a joke doesn’t appeal to him—much.
I am reminded that this is a sorry scene to depict. Yet Captain Bowditch was a kindly man and not given to unjust punishments. And I believe that Bob got only what he deserved. Even terror cannot excuse a man for neglecting his duty, especially at sea. It is like a private in the ranks enduring the natural fear of a first charge against the enemy. No matter what he may feel in his trembling soul, for the sake of the example he sets the man next to him, he must crowd down that fear and press on!
The storm had broken, however. At daylight we found that four feet of the fore-topmast had been snapped off short, whether by the electrical explosion, or by the wind, we could not tell. But that was the end of that bad spell of weather, thanks be! The Gullwing sailed through it, we spliced on a new spar, trimmed our sails, and tore on, under a goodly press of canvas, for the Horn.
But several of the crew remained gloomy because of the “corpse lights.” Something was bound to happen—of course, something unlucky. The lights had foretold it. And Stronson, with Tom Thornton and other of the old salts, told weird tales in the dog-watch.
In spite of the hurricane we had made good time in this run from Valparaiso. As far as I could see, however, nothing momentous happened at once; and the next important incident that went down in the ship’s log was the sighting of the Seamew.
We really saw her this time—“in the flesh,” not a ghostly mirage. She came out of the murk of fog to the south’ard at dawn and, far away as she was, the lookout identified her.
“Seamew, ahoy!” he yelled.
It brought all hands upon deck—even the mate himself who had just turned in, and the captain, too. There the sister of the Gullwing sailed, her canvas spread to the freshening morning breeze, her prow throwing off two high foamy waves as she tacked toward us.
She was on one tack; we were on the other. Therefore we were approaching each other rapidly. And what a sight! If a marine artist could have painted the picture of that beautiful ship, with her glistening paint, and pearl-tinted sails, and her lithe masts and taut cordage, he would have had a picture worth looking at. And from her deck the Gullwing must have seemed quite as beautiful to those aboard the Seamew.
The two ships were the best of their class—more trimly modeled than most. I had not realized before what a beautiful ship the Gullwing was. I saw her reflected in the Seamew.
She carried an open rail amidships; and her white painted stations, carved in the shape of hour-glasses, with the painted flat handrail atop, stood clearly and sharply defined above her black lower sides and the pale green seas.
Not that either ship showed much lower planking, saving when they rolled; they were heavily laden. With all her jibs and all her whole sails on the four lower spars, and most of the small sails spread above, our sister ship certainly was a beautiful picture.
But the old man wasn’t satisfied. Through his glass he saw something that spurred him to emulation.
“She’s got all her t’gallant-sails set, by Pollox!” he bawled. “Mr. Gates! what are you moonin’ about? Get them men up there in short order, or I’ll be after them myself.” And as we jumped into the rigging, I heard him growling away on the quarter: “That’s the way Cap’n Si beats us. He crowds on sail, he does. Why, I bet he never furled a rag durin’ that four-day breeze we just struck, and like enough had the crew pin their shirts on the wash line inter the bargain.”
Two vessels may be rigged alike and built alike, but that doesn’t mean that they will sail exactly alike. The Seamew was a shade faster in reaching and running than the Gullwing. Mr. Barney told me that.
“But to windward we have the best of her. And that’s not because of our sailing qualities. The difference is in the two masters,” the second mate said. “Captain Joe can always get more out of his ship than Captain Si can out of his when the going is bad. In fair weather the Seamew will beat us a little every reach. But it isn’t all fair weather in a voyage of ten thousand miles, or so,” and he smiled—I thought—rather nastily.
I was reminded of the hint Bob Promise had given me that there was bad blood and no pleasant rivalry between our second mate and the twin who held the same berth on our sister ship. Mr. Barney was in the tops studying the Seamew a good deal through the glass that day, too. I wondered if he was trying to see if his brother was on deck.
For we did not run near enough to her that day for figures to be descried very clearly either on her deck or in her rigging.