CHAPTER ELEVEN.
A CATASTROPHE.
THE WHIRLING COLUMNS--A STUPENDOUS SPECTACLE--WE LOSE OUR NEW FRIENDS.
"Still round and round the fluid vortex flies, Scattering dun night, and horror through the skies, The swift volution and the enormous train Let sages versed in Nature's lore explain; The horrid apparition still draws nigh, And white with foam the whirling surges fly."
The breeze was now steady, though gentle, and Max and Morton set to workrigging the sail, which for the last two days had served as an awning.
During our mutual inquiries and explanations, the Frenchman had kept thecanoe close alongside of us; he now braced round the yard of histriangular sail, which had been shaking in the wind, and began to drawahead. The young native who had interfered so effectually in Max'sbehalf, observing the eagerness with which we had devoured the doughymass of pounded bread-fruit, tossed another cake of the same substanceinto the boat as we separated, which, when distributed, afforded amorsel or two to each of us. I had particularly observed this boy onthe first approach of the canoe, from the circumstance of his occupyinga small raised platform, or dais, of wicker-work, covered with mats.
As our sail had been entirely disengaged from the mast and gaff, it wasquite a piece of work to rig it again for service, and by the time thiswas effected, the canoe was some distance ahead of us: though she wasfar better adapted than the yawl for sailing with a light breeze, yet wenearly held our own with her, after once getting fairly under way.
When the wind first sprang up, the sky had become slightly overcast withbroken masses of clouds, of a peculiar and unusual appearance. From themost considerable of these masses, radiated, as from a centre, longlines, like pencils of light, running in straight, regularly divergingrays, to the ocean.
We had been sailing in the wake of the canoe, perhaps half an hour, whenI observed in the south-west a singularly shaped cloud, to which a darkcolumn, extending downward to the sea, appeared to be attached. Thiscolumn was quite narrow at the base, but enlarged as it rose, until justbelow the point of union with the cloud, it spread outward like a gothicpillar, diverging into arches as it meets the roof. I surveyed thisstrange spectacle for several minutes before its true character occurredto me. It was already observed by those in the canoe, and from theirexclamations and gestures, they evidently viewed it with apprehensionand dread.
It was moving slowly towards us, and we also watched, with feelings inwhich alarm began to predominate over curiosity and interest, themajestic approach of this vast body of water, (as we now perceived it tobe), held by some secret power suspended between heaven and earth.
"It appears to be moving north before the wind," said Arthur, at length;"if it keeps on its present course, it will pass by, at a safe distanceon our left."
This seemed probable; but we felt disposed to give it a still widerberth, and shifting the sail, we steered in a north-easterly direction.Scarcely had our sail filled on the new tack, when a cry of terror againdrew attention to the canoe, and the natives were seen pointing toanother water-spout, moving slowly round from the east to the north, andthreatening to intercept us in the course we were pursuing. This,unlike the first, was a cylindrical column of water, of about the samediameter throughout its entire length, extending in a straight andunbroken line from the ocean to the heavens. Its upper extremity waslost amid a mass of clouds, in which I fancied I could perceive theeffects of the gradual diffusion of the water drawn from the sea, as itwound its way upward with a rapid spiral motion, and poured into thatelevated reservoir. As the process went on, the cloud grew darker, andseemed to stoop with its accumulating weight of waters.
Our position was fast becoming embarrassing and dangerous. We hadchanged our course to avoid the first water-spout and now we wereconfronted by another still nearer at hand.
For a moment all was confusion, indecision, and dismay.
"Quick! round with her head, and let her go right before the wind!"shouted Max hurriedly.
"That would be running directly into the danger," cried Morton, "theyare both moving north, and approaching each other."
"Then let's pull down the sail, until they are at a safe distance."
"I would rather keep her under headway," said Arthur, "or how could weescape, if one of them should move down upon us!"
"What can we do, then?" exclaimed Max; "we can't sail in the teeth ofthe wind."
"I am for going about to the left again, and steering as near the windas possible," said Arthur; "the one on that side is farthest north."
This was the course which the natives had already adopted, and they werenow steering nearly south-west. We immediately followed their example,and the fore and aft rig of the yawl enabled us to sail nearer the windthan they could do.
In a few moments the funnel-shaped water-spout, which we had first seen,had passed off northward, and was at such a distance as to remove allapprehensions on account of it. Not so, however, with the second; forhardly had we tacked again, when, notwithstanding that we were towindward of it, it began to move rapidly towards us.
Its course was not direct and uniform, but it veered now to the rightand now to the left, rendering it difficult for us to decide which wayto steer in order to avoid it.
Arthur sat at the helm, pale, but quite calm and collected, his eyessteadfastly fixed on the advancing column, while Johnny crouched at hisside, holding fast one of his hands in both his own. Morton held thesheet and stood ready to shift the sail, as the emergency might require.
Onward it came, towering to the skies, and darkening the ocean with itsimpending bulk; soon we could perceive the powerful agitation of thewater far around its base, and within the vortex of its influence: adense cloud of spray, thrown off in its rapid revolutions, enveloped itslower extremity: the rushing sound of the water as it was drawn upward,was also distinctly audible. And now it seemed to take a straightcourse for the canoe. The natives, with the exception of the boy, threwthemselves down in the bottom of the boat in abject terror; it was,indeed, an appalling spectacle, and calculated to shake the stoutestheart, to see that vast mass of water, enough as it seemed, to swamp thenavies of the world, suspended so strangely over them.
The Frenchman appeared to be endeavouring to get the natives to makesome exertion, but in vain. He and the boy then seized a couple ofpaddles, and made a frantic effort to escape the threatened danger; butthe whirling pillar was almost upon them, and it seemed as though theywere devoted to certain destruction. The Frenchman now threw down hispaddle, and sat with his hands folded on his breast, awaiting his fate.The boy, after speaking earnestly to his companion, who merely shook hishead, stood up in the prow of the canoe, and casting one shuddering lookat the dark column, he joined his hands above his head, and plunged intothe sea. In a moment he came to the surface, and struck out vigorouslytowards us.
The canoe seemed already within the influence of the water-spout, andwas drawn towards it with the violently agitated waters around its base.The Frenchman, unable longer to endure the awful sight bowed his headupon his hands; another moment, and he was lost to sight in the circleof mist and spray that enveloped the foot of the column; then a strongoscillation began to be visible in the body of the water-spout; itswayed heavily to and fro; the cloud at its apex seemed to stoop, andthe whole mass broke and fell, with a noise that might have been heardfor miles. The sea, far around, was crushed into smoothness by theshock; immediately where the vast pillar had stood, it boiled like acaldron; then a succession of waves, white with foam, came circlingoutward from the spot, extending even to us.
The native boy, who swam faster than we sailed, was already within fortyor fifty yards of us, and we put about and steered for him: in a momenthe was alongside, and Arthur, reaching out his hand, helped him into theboat.
The sea had now resumed its usual appearance, and every trace of thewater-spout was gone, so that it was impossible to fix the spot where ithad broken. Not a vestige of the canoe, or of her ill-fated compan
y,was anywhere to be seen. We sailed backward and forward in theneighbourhood of the place, carefully scrutinising the surface in everydirection, and traversing several times the spot, as nearly as we coulddetermine it, where the canoe had last been seen: but our search wasfruitless: the long billows swelled and subsided with their wontedregularity, and their rippled summits glittered as brightly in thesunshine as ever, but they revealed no trace of those whom they had sosuddenly and remorselessly engulfed.
The water-spout which had first been seen, had disappeared, and a fewheavy clouds in the zenith alone remained, as evidences of the terrificphenomenon which we had just witnessed.
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