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I was straining my sight near the cathead on one side, and the captain of the forecastle on the other, but we could discover nothing in the nearly palpable obscure. On she dashed, and our anxious eyes saw nothing, whilst our minds feared greatly; she is at her utmost speed.
I exclaimed at the same moment, drawing back hastily and tumbling over the boatswain, who with Adams was now busy hauling inboard the tackle of the disengaged cathead stopper. "I'm blinded!"
At the same moment, Tim Rooney giving the tumbler a smart stroke with a hammer which he had picked up from off the windlass, the cathead stopper was at once released and the anchor fell from the bows into the water with a great heavy splash, the chain cable jiggle-joggling along the deck after it, and rushing madly through the hawse-hole with a roaring, rattling noise like that of thunder! "Oh!"
A spring was also got on the cable, in case of requiring to slip, and a bow-rope for a slip-rope, while the spare anchor was shifted to the cathead, in lieu of the one carried away, that everything might be ready in case of necessity. The pilot, on discovering that the machinery had given way, looked grave. He had been accustomed to sailing vessels all his life, and had no love for steamers.
I was interrupted by the crashing report of Number 1, which, with the others, had already been most carefully trained upon the schooner; and as the smoke blew away we saw the vessel's port bulwark, all about the cathead, thickly dotted with white marks where the shot had struck, while the forecastle, which had been crowded with men a moment before, was now clear; not so much as a single head showed above the rail.
Under Webster's tuition I had become an excellent swimmer. I looked round; I was apparently not under notice, and there was no light near where I was. My mind was made up at once. I stole as far forward as I could, and watching my opportunity, and steadying myself by the cathead, I made a leap for the cable, intending to climb down it to the water.
It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the further end was the door often mentioned, opening under the cathead and chain that hoisted the sacks. He fixed the door open and looked over the sill.
Some one brought a pannikin of cold water, and after a little the man came to, by which time the watch below had returned to their hammocks, and the forecastle was comparatively clear. "When the mate was told the man had his senses and was sitting up, he went forward again and questioned him. He was sitting on the foot of a cathead, and was too weak to rise when the mate stood before him.
At daylight, therefore, on the 27th, a prize crew was sent on board of the Abby Bradford, with orders to proceed to New Orleans, and at six o'clock the Sumter was again outside of the inhospitable port of Puerto Caballo. The anchor was not fairly at the cathead when a sail was reported seaward, which on capture proved to be the barque Joseph Maxwell, of Philadelphia.
As the morning advanced the portents became more pronounced; the wind increased to such an extent that we first had to stow our topgallantsails again and then single-reef the topsails, and a very nasty short, choppy sea quickly got up, into which the frigate plunged viciously to the height of her figurehead, sending deluges of spray over her weather cathead and into the hollow of her foresail until the canvas was darkened with wet half-way up to the yard, while it thickened up away to windward until it became impossible to distinguish anything beyond the distance of a mile, and the wind backed on us until it was out from about North-North-West, with the result that, when at length we made the land, it stretched right athwart our hawse and reached away to windward, as far as the eye could penetrate the mist.
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