About eight o’clock in the evening, Curtis mounted to the main-top, but he seemed preoccupied and anxious, and did not speak to anyone. He remained for a quarter of an hour, then after silently pressing my hand, he returned to his old post.
I laid myself down in the narrow space at my disposal, and tried to sleep; but my mind was filled with strange forebodings, and sleep was impossible. The very calmness of the atmosphere was oppressive; scarcely a breath of air vibrated through the metal rigging, and yet the sea rose with a heavy swell as though it felt the warnings of a coming tempest.
All at once, at about eleven o’clock, the moon burst brightly forth through a rift in the clouds, and the waves sparkled again as if illuminated by a submarine glimmer. I start up and look around me. Is it merely imagination? or do I really see a black speck floating, on the dazzling whiteness of the waters, a speck that cannot be a rock, because it rises and falls with the heaving motion of the billows? But the moon once again becomes overclouded; the sea is darkened, and I return to my uneasy couch close to the larboard shrouds.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE WHALE-BOAT MISSING
DECEMBER 6. — I must have fallen asleep for a few hours, when, at four o’clock in the morning, I was rudely aroused by the roaring of the wind, and could distinguish Curtis’s voice as he shouted in the brief intervals between the heavy gusts.
I got up, and holding tightly to the purlin — for the waves made the masts tremble with their violence — I tried to look around and below me. The sea was literally raging beneath, and great masses of livid-looking foam were dashing between the masts, which were oscillating terrifically. It was still dark, and I could only faintly distinguish two figures in the stern, whom, by the sound of their voices, that I caught occasionally above the tumult, I made out to be Curtis and the boatswain.
Just at that moment a sailor, who had mounted to the main-top to do something to the rigging, passed close behind me.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“The wind has changed,” he answered, adding something which I could not hear distinctly, but which sounded like “dead against us.”
Dead against us! then, thought I, the wind had shifted to the southwest, and my last night’s forebodings had been correct.
When daylight at length appeared, I found the wind, although not blowing actually from the southwest, had veered round to the northwest, a change which was equally disastrous to us, inasmuch as it was carrying us away from land. Moreover, the ship had sunk considerably during the night, and there were now five feet of water above deck; the side netting had completely disappeared, and the forecastle and the poop were now all but on a level with the sea, which washed over them incessantly. With all possible expedition Curtis and his crew were laboring away at their raft, but the violence of the swell materially impeded their operations, and it became a matter of doubt as to whether the woodwork would not fall asunder before it could be properly fastened together.
As I watched the men at their work, M. Letourneur, with one arm supporting his son, came out and stood by my side.
“Don’t you think this main-top will soon give way?” he said, as the narrow platform on which we stood creaked and groaned with the swaying of the masts.
Miss Herbey heard his words and pointing toward Mrs. Kear, who was lying prostrate at her feet, asked what we thought ought to be done.
“We can do nothing but stay where we are,” I replied.
“No,” said Andre, “this is our best refuge; I hope you are not afraid.”
“Not for myself,” said the young girl quietly, “only for those to whom life is precious.”
At a quarter to eight we heard the boatswain calling to the sailors in the bows.
“Ay, ay, sir,” said one of the men — O’Ready, I think.
“Where’s the whale-boat?” shouted the boatswain in a loud voice.
“I don’t know, sir. Not with us,” was the reply.