The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane

by Frank Barrett

  CHAPTER XI.

  I AM EXCELLENTLY SERVED BY MY FAMOUS INVENTION, AND COME TO ENGLAND NOTMUCH THE WORSE FOR IT.

  By making vigorous employment of my paddle, first on one side and thenon the other, I continued to keep well in the midst of the river, andthe tide then ebbing fast, I was quickly swept across the shallows atthe mouth, and so out to sea.

  And now I thought it proper to hoist my sail; so, laying aside mypaddle, I drew up the lateen between my two masts till it was taut, andthen making fast the liana found it acted well enough, for at once itfilled out very full and fair to the breeze, which was blowing prettybrisk from the southeast.

  But now my difficulties and troubles began, for I had no experience inthe governing of a sailing boat, and ere I had got to work at my paddle,my raft veered round before the gale, the sail flapping to and frobetween the masts, and I had all the pain in the world to get her headround and my sail full again. And when this was achieved, I found afresh fault, and this was that my buoys were nothing near sufficient toresist the pressure of the sail, so that they dipped deep into thewater, the poles to which they were fastened bending to such a degreethat I expected nothing less every moment but that they would snap underthe strain, and the raft capsize utterly, to my final undoing. WhereforeI was fain to abandon my paddle, and reef the lower part of the sail tolessen the pressure, in which time I again lost the wind, so back to mypaddle and more labor to bring me round once more before the breeze.

  By this time I perceived that the current of the sea and my bunglingtogether had swept me far from the coast, and rather to the south thanto the north. And to my great perplexity I found that I could not getthe wind in my sail without drifting still further from the shore to thewest, for if I steered to the north, then would the wind go out of mysail, and the craft, losing way would drift with the current to thesouth, so that if I did nothing matters could be no worse. At last I wasconstrained to lower my sail altogether and seek to make head againstthe current by vigorous use of my paddle, first on one side and then onthe other, as I say, And, lord! no man could be more encompassed withtroubles than I was, or sweat more to overcome them than I did at thistime. At length, from sheer exhaustion, I was fain to give over, and letmy raft, without sail or oar, go whither it might. I set me down on mydeck of rushes, and casting my eyes toward the land was dismayed to findit but an indistinct line on the horizon (I have been out to sea nowfour hours or more), and to the best of my belief I stood further fromTrinidado, after all my trouble than ere I started forth. And let thisbe a warning to all men that they put not to sea ere they have learnedto sail.

  When I had refreshed myself with some water and one of my dried porksteaks (which, that they might not be perished by the sea water, I hadhanged conveniently high on one of my masts), I rose up, and with a kindof desperate fury essayed again to make a proper course. First, I wentat my sail once more, and when I found that of no avail but rather thecontrary, I seized my paddle, and worked at it like any galley slave,and though I could see no improvement, yet did I persevere diligently.Then, fancying the breeze was a little abated and blew from anotherquarter, I went (with a prayer) and once more lifted my sail, but thatwould not do, and so (with a curse) I dropped it and back to my paddle.In fine, to cut a long story short, I wasted my pains all that day, andhad the mortification as I sat down once more to rest my aching limbs,to find the land no longer in sight; nor anything else but the water allaround me.

  Seeing it was useless to work when I could no longer see for want oflight (though not more useless than before, may be), I lay me down on myreeds (the sea, God be praised! having subsided when the wind dropped toan agreeable calm), and presently fell asleep.

  The next day there was no need to experiment with my sail, for not abreath of air stirred; so I worked steadily at my paddle pretty nearlythe whole day, but I was forced to desist in the noon for some timebecause of the great heat of the sun, and that while I sheltered myselfunder the sail, which was, God knows, all the use it ever served me. Allthat day I heard not a sound but such as I made with my paddles, and thesea was like so much glass extended about me, and a mist all around thehorizon caused by the sun sucking up with his great heat the vapors fromthe water. When the sun set, this mist settled over the whole sea, sothat I could see never a star to cheer me, and this made me very sad andprayerful, for it seemed as if a death-pall were being spread over myunhappy being. Then would I gladly have been back with Sir Harry on theisland; and thinking of him and our miserable estate, both alone, andlike to perish without ever again hearing the sound of a cheerful voice,the tears began to flow from my eyes as from a woman's; and I do think Ifell asleep weeping.

  About midnight (as I reckon) I was awakened by the freshening of thebreeze; yet nothing could I see. I groped my way along very carefully tomy masts, that I might have them to hold by, for already the sea wasrising; and it was well that I did so, for in an amazingly short spaceof time the breeze quickened to a gale, and beat the waters so high thatI was like to have been swept away by the waves as they burst. I willnot dwell on the increasing terrors of that night, for no words candescribe the fury of that hurricane, or my dread lest the binding of mylogs should be rent asunder and my frail resting-place part under me.And here let me observe that, no matter how a man may desire death atother times, yet in the hour of peril will he ever cling desperately tolife.

  When morning broke, my case was no better than in the night; and lookingaround me at the billows that threatened every moment to engulf me, Iwas appalled, and could but say, over and over again, "God be mercifulto me!" For a long while I experienced neither hunger nor thirst butonly great fear and terror; but when nature began to crave within me,and I looked to see if I could get at my water vessels, I perceived thatthey had been washed away in the night, for I had taken no precaution tolash them to the raft for safety. And also I noticed that my deck ofrushes was clean gone and my outriggers broken. My only comfort was thatthe bonds of my raft still, for the most part held good, though thestraining of the timbers had loosened them, and it was clear they couldsupport the rubbing of the logs and the wrenching of them but a littlelonger. I saw that if one or two at the end went, then all must go;therefore, as I crouched between the masts I watched these bonds as aman may watch the preparing of a gallows from which he is in the end tobe swung off into eternity. And after my raft had been shot down into agreat hollow, and thence rising up, met the fearful buffet of anotherhuge wave, I saw that the end liana was burst asunder. "God be mercifulto me!" says I again, and with the greater earnestness that I felt Imight the next moment be in his presence.

  At this moment, above the bustle and rush of the waves and wind, I hearda report like the firing of a small piece of ordnance, and, casting myeye in that direction, I saw, to my great amazement, a great shipbearing down upon me, and not two fathoms off. And that noise I heardwas made by the splitting of her topmast and its striking the side ofthe vessel as it fell. Scarce had I seen this when the ship, riding downon the wave, ground its foreside against the end of my raft, and thenext instant I found myself entangled in the wreck of the broken mastwith its yard, which still hung to the ship by its cordage. Some of thiscordage passing right athwart me, I sprang up and clasped it; then,though as how I can not tell, but as I best might, I climbed like anymonkey upwards, getting no more than a dozen or so good thumps againstthe ship's side, and knocking the skin off my knuckles, by the way,until I got my head above the bulwarks, where already two stout seamenwere severing the wreck from the cordage with hatchets. When these twosaw me rise as it were out of the grave over the bulwarks, I say, theywere stricken with greater terror than the fury of the tempest hadinspired, and fell back from their business with gaping mouths andstarting eyes; but as I tumbled over the side and threw myself on thedeck, they perceived I was no ghost, but only a poor shipwrecked wretch,they picked me up and bore me into the roundhouse to their captain, forI had no power even to stand, being quite spent with my exertion andtrouble of mind.

 
The captain spoke to me, but I could not understand him, for, as Iafterwards found, he was from Holland and spoke Dutch, and I spoke tohim with no better effect, for he knew no word of English. Nor did anyman on that ship speak anything but Dutch, or understand our tongue. Itried to make him comprehend by signs that I ventured to sea on twologs, but he could make nothing of me till we got to Schiedam (which wedid, thanks be to God, in a little over eight weeks), where was a manwho spoke English.

  The captain was very humane and kind to me, and for my serving him onthe voyage, which I did to the best of my ability and cheerfully, hepaid me at the same rate he paid his other seamen, besides giving me adecent suit of clothes, of which I stood much in need. Through this goodman's generosity was I enabled to pay my passage in a galliot toYarmouth in England, where, by the good help of Providence, I arrivedfull safe and sound.

  And there had I yet some pieces to spare for my sustenance and to helpme onward to Falmouth.