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Updated: May 4, 2025
The Cape May men were vigorous and experienced, and they did wonders; nor were Rupert and I idle; but, as soon as the sea got up, it was as much as all four of us could do to keep steerage-way on the boat. There were ten minutes, during which I really think the boat was kept head to sea by means of the wash of the waves that drove past, as we barely held her stationary.
The broad smooth current of the Jhelum flowed steadily and calmly through a level plain, bearing us along at a comfortable four miles an hour, the crew doing little more than keep steerage-way with pole and paddle.
Our guns were also ready, but of no use, now that the schooner had not steerage-way. The boats were in sight, about a quarter of a mile astern, when Swinburne said, "There's a cat's-paw flying along the water, Mr Simple; if we could only have a little wind, how we would laugh at them; but I'm afraid there's no such luck. Shall we let them know that we are ready?"
The breeze was, after all, merely the gentlest of zephyrs, only just sufficient to give a ship steerage-way; but, very fortunately for us, the boats were provided, by a whim of poor Austin's, with a suit each of enormous lateen sails made of light duck, with yards of such a length that they had to be jointed in the middle to enable them to be stowed in the boats; they were just the thing for light airs, and under their persuasive influence we were soon gliding smoothly through the scarcely ruffled water quite as fast as the men could have propelled us with the oars.
The cable was down in 400 fathoms of water when the paying-out ceased, and nice management was required to keep the ship steady, as she had now no steerage-way; and oh! with what intense interest and curiosity and wonder did Robin Wright regard the varied and wonderful mechanical appliances, with which the whole affair was accomplished!
Moisture dripped from yards and canvas, and it was impossible for the eye to penetrate to either rail. Fortunately there was no weight of sea running, and the bark swung gently, still retaining steerage-way, but with not wind enough aloft to flap the sails. The silence and gloom was most depressing. "Is there a hand at the wheel, Watkins?" "No sir; it's lashed." "And the quarter-boat?"
Some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour after the second corposant had vanished we felt a faint movement in the atmosphere which caused our small spread of canvas to flap heavily once or twice; then came a puff of hot, damp air that lasted long enough to give the schooner steerage-way; and when this was on the point of dying, a scuffle of wind swept over us that careened the schooner to her bearings, and before she had recovered herself the true breeze was upon us, with a deep, weird, moaning sound that was inexpressibly dismal, and that somehow seemed to impart a feeling of dire foreboding to the listener.
As the day wore on the wind died away altogether, and by noon the schooner had lost steerage-way, her head boxing the compass as she floated on the glass-smooth undulations that alone remained to tell of the elemental fury that had raged over the spot but a few hours previously.
Jes' want to hang yeh, that's all, an' you a-messin' round an' rampagin' somethin' terrible. To think of travellin' trail together an' then bein' treated this-a way. Wouldn't 'bleeved it of yeh, Jan!" "He's got too much steerage-way. Grab holt his legs, Taylor, and heave'm over!" "Yes, suh, Mistah Lawson. Do you press youah weight above, after I give the word."
The craft was somewhat bigger than I had at first set her down to be, being of fully four hundred, or maybe four hundred and fifty, tons measurement. Looking for'ard to the swell of her bows, I saw that she must evidently be of a motherly build, which accorded well with the fact that she had lost steerage-way long before such had been the case with the brig.
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