Jules Verne (14 page)

During the thirteen days which elapsed, from the 24th of February to
the 9th of March, the state of the atmosphere did not change in any
perceptible manner. The sky was always loaded with heavy fogs. For a
few hours the wind went down, then it began to blow again with the same
force. Two or three times the barometer rose again, but its
oscillation, comprising a dozen lines, was too sudden to announce a
change of weather and a return of more manageable winds. Besides the
barometrical column fell again almost immediately, and nothing could
inspire any hope of the end of that bad weather within a short period.

Terrible storms burst forth also, which very seriously disturbed Dick
Sand. Two or three times the lightning struck the waves only a few
cable-lengths from the ship. Then the rain fell in torrents, and made
those whirlpools of half condensed vapors, which surrounded the
"Pilgrim" with a thick mist.

For entire hours the man at the lookout saw nothing, and the ship
sailed at random.

Even though the ship, although resting firmly on the waves, was
horribly shaken, Mrs. Weldon, fortunately, supported this rolling and
pitching without being incommoded. But her little boy was very much
tried, and she was obliged to give him all her care.

As to Cousin Benedict, he was no more sick than the American
cockroaches which he made his society, and he passed his time in
studying, as if he were quietly settled in his study in San Francisco.

Very fortunately, also, Tom and his companions found themselves little
sensitive to sea-sickness, and they could continue to come to the young
novice's aid—well accustomed, himself, to all those excessive
movements of a ship which flies before the weather.

The "Pilgrim" ran rapidly under this reduced sail, and already Dick
Sand foresaw that he would be obliged to reduce it again. But he wished
to hold out as long as it would be possible to do so without danger.
According to his reckoning, the coast ought to be no longer distant. So
they watched with care. All the time the novice could hardly trust his
companions' eyes to discover the first indications of land. In fact, no
matter what good sight he may have, he who is not accustomed to
interrogating the sea horizons is not skilful in distinguishing the
first contours of a coast, above all in the middle of fogs. So Dick
Sand must watch himself, and he often climbed as far as the spars to
see better. But no sign yet of the American coast.

This astonished him, and Mrs. Weldon, by some words which escaped him,
understood that astonishment.

It was the 9th of March. The novice kept at the prow, sometimes
observing the sea and the sky, sometimes looking at the "Pilgrim's"
masting, which began to strain under the force of the wind.

"You see nothing yet, Dick?" she asked him, at a moment when he had
just left the long lookout.

"Nothing, Mrs. Weldon, nothing," replied the novice; and meanwhile, the
horizon seems to clear a little under this violent wind, which is going
to blow still harder."

"And, according to you, Dick, the American coast ought not to be
distant now."

"It cannot be, Mrs. Weldon, and if anything astonishes me, it is not
having made it yet."

"Meanwhile," continued Mrs. Weldon, "the ship has always followed the
right course."

"Always, since the wind settled in the northwest," replied Dick Sand;
"that is to say, since the day when we lost our unfortunate captain and
his crew. That was the 10th of February. We are now on the 9th of
March. There have been then, twenty-seven since that."

"But at that period what distance were we from the coast?" asked Mrs.
Weldon.

"About four thousand five hundred miles, Mrs. Weldon. If there are
things about which I have more than a doubt, I can at least guarantee
this figure within about twenty miles."

"And what has been the ship's speed?"

"On an average, a hundred and eighty miles a day since the wind
freshened," replied the novice. "So, I am surprised at not being in
sight of land. And, what is still more extraordinary, is that we do not
meet even a single one of those vessels which generally frequent these
parts!"

"Could you not be deceived, Dick," returned Mrs. Weldon, "in estimating
the 'Pilgrim's' speed?"

"No, Mrs. Weldon. On that point I could not be mistaken. The log has
been thrown every half hour, and I have taken its indications very
accurately. Wait, I am going to have it thrown anew, and you will see
that we are sailing at this moment at the rate of ten miles an hour,
which would give us more than two hundred miles a day."

Dick Sand called Tom, and gave him the order to throw the log, an
operation to which the old black was now quite accustomed.

The log, firmly fastened to the end of the line, was brought and sent
out.

Twenty-five fathoms were hardly unrolled, when the rope suddenly
slackened between Tom's hands.

"Ah! Mr. Dick!" cried he.

"Well, Tom?"

"The rope has broken!"

"Broken!" cried Dick Sand. "And the log is lost!"

Old Tom showed the end of the rope which remained in his hand.

It was only too true. It was not the fastening which had failed. The
rope had broken in the middle. And, nevertheless, that rope was of the
first quality. It must have been, then, that the strands of the rope at
the point of rupture were singularly worn! They were, in fact, and Dick
Sand could tell that when he had the end of the rope in his hands! But
had they become so by use? was what the novice, become suspicious,
asked himself.

However that was, the log was now lost, and Dick Sand had no longer any
means of telling exactly the speed of his ship. In the way of
instruments, he only possessed one compass, and he did not know that
its indications were false.

Mrs. Weldon saw him so saddened by this accident, that she did not wish
to insist, and, with a very heavy heart, she retired into her cabin.

But if the "Pilgrim's" speed and consequently the way sailed over could
no longer be estimated, it was easy to tell that the ship's headway was
not diminishing.

In fact, the next day, March 10th, the barometer fell to twenty-eight
and two-tenths inches. It was the announcement of one of those blasts
of wind which travel as much as sixty miles an hour.

It became urgent to change once more the state of the sails, so as not
to risk the security of the vessel.

Dick Sand resolved to bring down his top-gallant mast and his
fore-staff, and to furl his low sails, so as to sail under his
foretop-mast stay-sail and the low reef of his top-sail.

He called Tom and his companions to help him in that difficult
operation, which, unfortunately, could not be executed with rapidity.

And meanwhile time pressed, for the tempest already declared itself
with violence.

Dick Sands, Austin, Acteon, and Bat climbed into the masting, while Tom
remained at the wheel, and Hercules on the deck, so as to slacken the
ropes, as soon as he was commanded.

After numerous efforts, the fore-staff and the top-gallant mast were
gotten down upon the deck, not without these honest men having a
hundred times risked being precipitated into the sea, the rolling shook
the masting to such an extent. Then, the top-sail having been lessened
and the foresail furled, the schooner carried only her foretop-mast
stay-sail and the low reef of the top-sail.

Even though her sails were then extremely reduced, the "Pilgrim"
continued, none the less, to sail with excessive velocity.

The 12th the weather took a still worse appearance. On that day, at
dawn, Dick Sand saw, not without terror, the barometer fall to
twenty-seven and nine-tenths inches. It was a real tempest which was
raging, and such that the "Pilgrim" could not carry even the little
sail she had left.

Dick Sand, seeing that his top-sail was going to be torn, gave the
order to furl. But it was in vain. A more violent gust struck the ship
at that moment, and tore off the sail. Austin, who was on the yard of
the foretop-sail, was struck by the larboard sheet-rope. Wounded, but
rather slightly, he could climb down again to the deck.

Dick Sand, extremely anxious, had but one thought. It was that the
ship, urged with such fury, was going to be dashed to pieces every
moment; for, according to his calculation, the rocks of the coast could
not be distant. He then returned to the prow, but he saw nothing which
had the appearance of land, and then, came back to the wheel.

A moment after Negoro came on deck. There, suddenly, as if in spite of
himself, his arm was extended toward a point of the horizon. One would
say that he recognized some high land in the fogs!

Still, once more he smiled wickedly, and without saying anything of
what he had been able to see, he returned to his post.

At that date the tempest took its most terrible form, that of the
hurricane. The wind had set in from the southwest. The air moved with a
velocity of ninety miles an hour. It was indeed a hurricane, in fact,
one of those terrible windstorms which wrecks all the ships of a
roadstead, and which, even on land, the most solid structures cannot
resist. Such was the one which, on the 25th of July, 1825, devastated
Guadaloupe. When heavy cannons, carrying balls of twenty-four pounds,
are raised from their carriages, one may imagine what would become of a
ship which has no other point of support than an unsteady sea? And
meanwhile, it is to its mobility alone that she may owe her salvation.
She yields to the wind, and, provided she is strongly built, she is in
a condition to brave the most violent surges. That was the case with
the "Pilgrim."

A few minutes after the top-sail had been torn in pieces, the
foretop-mast stay-sail was in its turn torn off. Dick Sand must then
give up the idea of setting even a storm-jib—a small sail of strong
linen, which would make the ship easier to govern.

The "Pilgrim" then ran without canvas, but the wind took effect on her
hull, her masts, her rigging, and nothing more was needed to impart to
her an excessive velocity. Sometimes even she seemed to emerge from the
waves, and it was to be believed that she hardly grazed them. Under
these circumstances, the rolling of the ship, tossed about on the
enormous billows raised by the tempest, was frightful. There was danger
of receiving some monstrous surge aft. Those mountains of water ran
faster than the schooner, threatening to strike her stern if she did
not rise pretty fast. That is extreme danger for every ship which scuds
before the tempest. But what could be done to ward off that
contingency? Greater speed could not be imparted to the "Pilgrim,"
because she would not have kept the smallest piece of canvas. She must
then be managed as much as possible by means of the helm, whose action
was often powerless.

Dick Sand no longer left the helm. He was lashed by the waist, so as
not to be carried away by some surge. Tom and Bat, fastened also, stood
near to help him. Hercules and Acteon, bound to the bitts, watched
forward. As to Mrs. Weldon, to Little Jack, to Cousin Benedict, to Nan,
they remained, by order of the novice, in the aft cabins. Mrs. Weldon
would have preferred to have remained on deck, but Dick Sand was
strongly opposed to it; it would be exposing herself uselessly.

All the scuttles had been hermetically nailed up. It was hoped that
they would resist if some formidable billow should fall on the ship.
If, by any mischance, they should yield under the weight of these
avalanches, the ship might fill and sink. Very fortunately, also, the
stowage had been well attended to, so that, notwithstanding the
terrible tossing of the vessel, her cargo was not moved about.

Dick Sand had again reduced the number of hours which he gave to sleep.
So Mrs. Weldon began to fear that he would take sick. She made him
consent to take some repose.

Now, it was while he was still lying down, during the night of the 13th
to the 14th of March, that a new incident took place.

Tom and Bat were aft, when Negoro, who rarely appeared on that part of
the deck, drew near, and even seemed to wish to enter into conversation
with them; but Tom and his son did not reply to him.

Suddenly, in a violent rolling of the ship, Negoro fell, and he would,
doubtless, have been thrown into the sea if he had not held on to the
binnacle.

Tom gave a cry, fearing the compass would be broken.

Dick Sand, in a moment of wakefulness, heard that cry, and rushing out
of his quarters, he ran aft.

Negoro had already risen, but he held in his hand the piece of iron
which he had just taken from under the binnacle, and he hid it before
Dick Sand could see it.

Was it, then, Negoro's interest for the magnetic needle to return to
its true direction? Yes, for these southwest winds served him now!

"What's the matter?" asked the novice.

"It's that cook of misfortune, who has just fallen on the compass!"
replied Tom.

At those words Dick Sand, in the greatest anxiety, leaned over the
binnacle. It was in good condition; the compass, lighted by two lamps,
rested as usual on its concentric circles.

The young novice was greatly affected. The breaking of the only compass
on board would be an irreparable misfortune.

But what Dick Sand could not observe was that, since the taking away of
the piece of iron, the needle had returned to its normal position, and
indicated exactly the magnetic north as it ought to be under that
meridian.

Meanwhile, if Negoro could not be made responsible for a fall which
seemed to be involuntary, Dick Sand had reason to be astonished that he
was, at that hour, aft in the ship.

"What are you doing there?" he asked him.

"What I please," replied Negoro.

"You say—" cried Dick Sand, who could not restrain his anger.