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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
“Yes, nose, Master Miles. Haven’t you remarked how far we
smelt the Injees, as we went through the islands?”
“It is true, sir, the Spice Islands, and all land, they say – ”
“What the devil’s that?” asked the mate, evidently startled
at something he heard, though he appeared to smell nothing,
unless indeed it might be a rat.
“It sounds like water washing on rocks, sir, as much as anything I ever heard in my life!”
“Ready about!” shouted the mate. “Run down and call the
captain, Miles – hard a-lee – start everybody up, forward.”
A scene of confusion followed, in the midst of which the
captain, second-mate, and the watch below, appeared on deck.
Captain Robbins took command, of course, and was in time to
haul the after-yards, the ship coming round slowly in so light
a wind. Come round she did, however, and, when her head was
fairly to the southward and eastward, the captain demanded
an explanation. Mr. Marble did not feel disposed to trust his
nose any longer, but he invited the captain to use his ears. This
all hands did, and, if sounds could be trusted, we had a pretty
lot of breakers seemingly all around us.
“We surely can go out the way we came in, Mr. Marble?”
said the captain, anxiously.
“Yes, sir, if there were no current; but one never knows
where a bloody current will carry him in the dark.”
“Stand by to let go the anchor!” cried the captain. “Let run
and clew up, forward and aft. Let go as soon as you’re ready,
Mr. Kite.”
Luckily, we had kept a cable bent as we came through the
Straits, and, not knowing but we might touch at the Isle of
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
France, it was still bent, with the anchor fished. We had talked
of stowing the latter in-board, but, having land in sight, it was
not done. In two minutes it was a-cock-bill, and, in two more,
let go. None knew whether we should find a bottom; but Kite
soon sang out to “snub,” the anchor being down, with only six
fathoms out. The lead corroborated this, and we had the comfortable assurance of being not only among breakers, but just
near the coast. The holding-ground, however, was reported
good, and we went to work and rolled up all our rags. In half
an hour the ship was snug, riding by the stream, with a strong
current, or tide, setting exactly north-east, or directly opposite to the captain’s theory. As soon as Mr. Marble had ascertained this fact, I overheard him grumbling about something,
of which I could distinctly understand nothing but the words
“Bloody cape – bloody current.”
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CHAPTER V
“They hurried us aboard a bark;
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg’d,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats
Instinctively had girt us – ”
Tempest.
The hour that succeeded in the calm of expectation, was
one of the most disquieting of my life. As soon as the ship
was secured, and there no longer remained anything to do,
the stillness of death reigned among us; the faculties of every
man and boy appearing to be absorbed in the single sense of
hearing – the best, and indeed the only, means we then possessed of judging of our situation. It was now apparent that we
were near some place or places where the surf was breaking
on land; and the hollow, not-to-be-mistaken bellowings of the
element, too plainly indicated that cavities in rocks frequently
received, and as often rejected, the washing waters. Nor did
these portentous sounds come from one quarter only, but they
seemed to surround us; now reaching our ears from the known
direction of the land, now from the south, the north-east, and,
in fact, from every direction. There were instances when these
moanings of the ocean sounded as if close under our stern,
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
and then again they came from some point within a fearful
proximity to the bows.
Happily the wind was light, and the ship rode with a moderate strain on the cable, so as to relieve us from the apprehension of immediate destruction. There was a long, heavy
ground-swell rolling in from, the south-west, but, the lead giving us, eight fathoms, the sea did not break exactly where we
lay; though the sullen washing that came to our ears, from time
to time, gave unerring notice that it was doing so quite near
us, independently of the places where it broke upon rocks. At
one time the captain’s impatience was so goading, that he had
determined to pull round the anchorage in a boat, in order
to anticipate the approach of light; but a suggestion from Mr.
Marble that he might unconsciously pull into a roller, and
capsize, induced him to wait for day.
The dawn appeared at last, after two or three of the longest
hours I remember ever to have passed. Never shall I forget the
species of furious eagerness with which we gazed about us. In
the first place, we got an outline of the adjacent land; then, as
light diffused itself more and more into the atmosphere, we
caught glimpses of its details. It was soon certain we were within a cable’s length of perpendicular cliffs of several hundred
feet in height, into whose caverns the sea poured at times, producing those frightful, hollow moanings, that an experienced
ear can never mistake. This cliff extended for leagues in both
directions, rendering drowning nearly inevitable to the shipwrecked mariner on that inhospitable coast. Ahead, astern,
outside of us, and I might almost say all around us, became visible, one after another, detached ledges, breakers and ripples;
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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
so many proofs of the manner in which Providence had guided
us through the hours of darkness.
By the time the sun appeared, for, happily, the day proved
bright and clear, we had obtained pretty tolerable notions of
the critical situation in which we were placed by means of the
captain’s theory of currents. The very cape that we were to
drift past, lay some ten leagues nearly dead to windward, as the
breeze then was; while to leeward, far as the eye could reach,
stretched the same inhospitable, barrier of rock as that which
lay on our starboard quarter and beam. Such was my first introduction to the island of Madagascar; a portion of the world,
of which, considering its position, magnitude and productions,
the mariners of Christendom probably know less than of any
other. At the time of which I am writing, far less had been
learned of this vast country than is known to-day, though the
knowledge of even our own immediate contemporaries is of
an exceedingly limited character.
Now that the day had returned, the sun was shining on
us cheerfully, and the sea looked tranquil and assuring, the
captain became more pacified. He had discretion enough to
understand that time and examination were indispensable to
moving the ship with safety; and he took the wise course of
ordering the people to get their breakfasts, before he set us at
work. The hour that was thus employed forward, was passed aft
in examining the appearance of the water, and the positions of
the reefs around the ship. By the time we were through, the
captain had swallowed his cup of coffee and eaten his biscuit;
and, calling away four of the most athletic oarsmen, he got
into the jolly-boat, and set out on the all-important duty of
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
discovering a channel sea-ward. The lead was kept moving,
and I shall leave the party thus employed for an hour or more,
while we turn our attention in-board.
Marble beckoned me aft, as soon as Captain Robbins was in
the boat, apparently with a desire to say something in private.
I understood the meaning of his eye, and followed him down
into the steerage, where all that was left of the ship’s water was
now stowed, that on deck having been already used. The mate
had a certain consciousness about him that induced great caution, and he would not open his lips until he had rummaged
about below some time, affecting to look for a set of blocks that
might be wanted for some purpose or other, on deck. When
this had lasted a little time, he turned short round to me, and
let out the secret of the whole manoeuvre.
“I’ll tell you what, Master Miles,” he said, making a sign
with a finger to be cautious, “I look upon this ship’s berth as
worse than that of a city scavenger. We’ve plenty of water all
round us, and plenty of rocks, too. If we knew the way back,
there is no wind to carry us through it, among these bloody
currents, and there’s no harm in getting ready for the worst.
So do you get Neb and the gentleman” – Rupert was generally
thus styled in the ship – “and clear away the launch first. Get
everything out of it that don’t belong there; after which, do
you put these breakers in, and wait for further orders. Make no
fuss, putting all upon orders, and leave the rest to me.”
I complied, of course, and in a few minutes the launch was
clear. While busy, however, Mr. Kite came past, and desired to
know “what are you at there?” I told him ‘twas Mr. Marble’s
orders, and the latter gave his own explanation of the matter.
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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
“The launch may be wanted,” he said, “for I’ve no notion
that jolly-boat will do to go out as far as we shall find it necessary to sound. So I am about to ballast the launch, and get her
sails ready; there’s no use in mincing matters in such a berth
as this.”
Kite approved of the idea, and even went so far as to suggest
that it might be well enough to get the launch into the water at
once, by way of saving time. The proposition was too agreeable
to be rejected, and, to own the truth, all hands went to work to
get up the tackles with a will, as it is called. In half an hour the
boat was floating alongside the ship. Some said she would certainly be wanted to carry out the stream-anchor, if for nothing else; others observed that half a dozen boats would not be
enough to find all the channel we wanted; while Marble kept
his eye, though always in an underhand way, on his main object. The breakers we got in and stowed, filled with fresh water,
by way of ballast. The masts were stepped, the oars were put
on board, and a spare compass was passed dawn, lest the ship
might be lost in the thick weather, of which there was so much,
just in that quarter of the world. All this wars said and done so
quietly, that nobody took the alarm; and when the mate called
out, in a loud voice, “Miles, pass a bread-bag filled and some
cold grub into that launch – the men may be hungry before
they get back,” no one seemed to think more was meant than
was thus openly expressed. I had my private orders, however,
and managed to get quite a hundred-weight of good cabin biscuit into the launch, while the cook was directed to fill his
coppers with pork. I got some of the latter rawinto the boat,
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
too; raw pork being food that sailors in no manner disdain.
They say it eats like chestnuts.
In the mean time, the captain was busy in his exploring
expedition, on the return from which he appeared to think
he was better rewarded than has certainly fallen to the lot of
others employed on another expedition which bears the same
name. He was absent near two hours, and, when he got back, it
was to renew his theory of what Mr. Marble called his “bloody
currents.”
“I’ve got behind the curtain, Mr. Marble,” commenced Captain Robbins, before he was fairly alongside of the ship again,
whereupon Marble muttered “ay! ay! you’ve got behind the
rocks, too!” “It’s all owing to an eddy that is made in-shore by
the main current, and we have stretched a leetle too far in.”
Even I thought to myself, what would have become of us
had we stretched a leetle further in! The captain, however,
seemed satisfied that he could carry the ship out, and, as this
was all we wanted, no one was disposed to be very critical. A
word was said about the launch, which the mate had ordered to
be dropped astern, out of the way, and the explanation seemed
to mystify the captain. In the meanwhile, the pork was boiling
furiously in the coppers.
All hands were now called to get the anchor up. Rupert and
I went aloft to loosen sails, and we staid there until the royals
were mast-headed. In a very few minutes the cable was up and
down, and then came the critical part of the whole affair. The
wind was still very light, and it was a question whether the
ship could be carried past a reef of rocks that now began to
show itself above water, and on which the long, heavy rollers,
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AFLOAT AND ASHORE
that came undulating from the south-western Atlantic, broke
with a sullen violence that betrayed how powerful was the
ocean, even in its moments of slumbering peacefulness. The
rising and falling of its surface was like that of some monster’s
chest, as he respired heavily in sleep.
Even the captain hesitated about letting go his hold of the
bottom, with so strong a set of the water to leeward, and in so
light a breeze. There was a sort of bight on our starboard bow,
however, and Mr. Marble suggested it might be well to sound
in that direction, as the water appeared smooth and deep. To
him it looked as if there were really an eddy in-shore, which
might hawse the ship up to windward six or eight times her
length, and thus more than meet the loss that must infallibly
occur in first casting her head to seaward. The captain admitted the justice of this suggestion, and I was one of those who
were told to go in the jolly-boat on this occasion. We pulled in
towards the cliffs, and had not gone fifty yards before we struck
an eddy, sure enough, which was quite as strong as the current
in which the ship lay. This was a great advantage, and so much
the more, because the water was of sufficient depth, quite up
to the edge of the reef which formed the bight, and thus produced the change in the direction of the set. There was plenty
of room, too, to handle the ship in, and, all things considered,
the discovery was extremely fortunate. In the bottom of the
bight we should have gone ashore the previous night, had not
our ears been so much better than our noses.
As soon as certain of the facts, the captain pulled back to
the ship, and gladdened the hearts of all on board with the
tidings. We now manned the handspikes cheerily, and began
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
to heave. I shall never forget the impression made on me by
the rapid drift of the ship, as soon as the anchor was off the
bottom, and her bows were cast in-shore, in order to fill the
sails. The land was so near that I noted this drift by the rocks,
and my heart was fairly in my mouth for a few seconds. But
the John worked beautifully, and soon gathered way. Her
bows did not not strike the eddy, however, until we got fearful
evidence of the strength of the true current, which had set us
down nearly as low as the reef outside, to windward of which
it was indispensable for us to pass. Marble saw all this, and he
whispered me to tell the cook to pass the pork into the launch
at once – hot to mind whether it were particularly well done,
or not. I obeyed, and had to tend the fore-sheet myself, for my
pains, when the order was given to “ready about.”
The eddy proved a true friend, but it did not carry us up
much higher than the place where we had anchored, when it
became necessary to tack. This was done in season, on account
of our ignorance of all the soundings, and we had soon got the
John’s head off-shore again. Drawing a short distance ahead,
the main-top-sail was thrown aback, and the ship allowed to
drift. In proper time, it was filled, and we got round once more,
looking into the bight. The manoeuvre was repeated, and this
brought us up fairly under the lee of the reef, and just in the
position we desired to be. It was a nervous instant, I make no
doubt, when Captain Robbins determined to trust the ship in
the true current, and run the gauntlet of the rocks. The passage across which we had to steer, before we could possibly
weather the nearest reef was about a cable’s length in width,
and the wind would barely let us lay high enough to take it at
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