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Updated: May 21, 2025
It is said that within a few years Sable Island has been reduced from forty miles in length to twenty, and that of three lighthouses built on it since 1880, two have been washed away and the third will soon be engulfed. On the evening of July 5 the Spray, after having steered all day over a lumpy sea, took it into her head to go without the helmsman's aid.
As soon as he had prayed he began to sing to cheer himself all through the lonely night. But first he prayed, praying the helmsman's prayer. And this is what I remember of it, rendered into English with a very feeble equivalent of the rhythm that seemed so resonant in those tropic nights. To whatever god may hear.
"But it is better than slavery," replied Dan, firmly, though he was scarcely less agitated than his gentle companion. "Mind your helm, Cyd, and go to windward of that little island ahead," he continued; for the helmsman's ideas had been considerably shaken up by the stirring events which had just transpired.
The merchant sailor will drawl the blackguard "I'll go no more a-roving" to an air like a prolonged wail; the fisherman sings "Home, beautiful home" as a lovely waltz. Blair always encouraged the men to sing a great deal, and therein he showed the same discretion as good merchant mates. I cannot describe Freeman's ecstasies, and I wish I could only give an idea of the helmsman's musical method.
Jean had a devoted sailor in Penellan the Breton, who had long been his fellow-voyager. In times gone by, little Marie was wont to pass the long winter evenings in the helmsman's arms, when he was on shore. He felt a fatherly friendship for her, and she had for him ah affection quite filial.
However, guided by Morton, the corvette stood on, though even Hilda, who had the most perfect confidence in the pilot, as she saw the fierce, foaming waves dashing high up with a loud roar over the rocks to the very summit of the cliffs, could scarcely persuade herself that the ship was not rushing on destruction. The captain stood by the helmsman's side to repeat the pilot's orders.
And I thought of the danger that had menaced us all alike outside Perdóndaris, a danger that, as things have happened, was very real. And I thought too of the helmsman's cheery song in the cold and lonely night, and how he had held our lives in his careful hands.
The steam gear clattered, stopped, clattered again; and the helmsman's eyeballs seemed to project out of a hungry face as if the compass card behind the binnacle glass had been meat. God knows how long he had been left there to steer, as if forgotten by all his shipmates.
At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard from aft, "Man the mast-heads!" and all through the day, till after sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking of the helmsman's bell, was heard "What d'ye see? sharp! sharp! sharp!"
While he fumbled with the halliards, a storm of musketry burst and swept the quarter-deck. He flung up both hands, spun round upon his heel, and pitched backwards at the helmsman's feet, and the loosened ensign dropped slowly and fell across him, as if to cover his shame. Instantly the firing ceased.
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