Chapter XXXIX: The Shipwreck

Two vessels,—one steering eastward toward the ocean, one bearing west,—passed each other on the Long Island Sound. That going toward the ocean was a staunch brig, thoroughly prepared for a long sea-voyage. The other was one of those small coasters that ran up and down the Connecticut shore at stated intervals. It was a beautiful little craft, but altogether unfitted for the rough weather and sweeping storms that the brig was likely to encounter.

The morning had been a pleasant one, and the little coaster had ventured nearer the middle of the sound than was usual to its cautious commander. Just then he was getting a little anxious, for a sudden and rather fierce breeze had sprung up, dead against him. The strong wind that baffled him swelled the sails of the brig, and drove it forward at a dashing rate. It plunged on, ploughing up reefs of silver from the deep and flinging them back to the sunshine, which broke in fitful gleams from a pile of gray clouds that were rolling and heaving in the depths of the sky.

As the two vessels met,—the larger one careering proudly through the waters that had already began to lash themselves into a tumult, the little craft struggling like a half-drowned bird in the teeth of the wind,—two figures appeared almost opposite each other on the separate decks. That on the brig was a tall man, whose hair, taken by the wind and scattered back from the forehead, revealed a face that seen once could never be forgotten. It was the man whose sermon cast a whole audience into tears, in that little church in New Haven.

The other figure was crowded close to the bulwarks of the coaster, and held to them with both hands, while her eyes were bent on the brig. The wind had lifted her hood, and, seizing upon her beautiful hair, swept it back from her face, which was kindled with wild enthusiasm. The two vessels rushed close together,—so close that there was great danger of collision. The man at the helm of the coaster strove to veer his craft, but the wind and the billows heaved against it too fearfully for that. It struggled and pitched violently in the water, and must have been swept away had the brig turned a dozen feet from its course. As it was, the two vessels passed each other so closely that spray from the rushing prow of the brig fell in showers over the coaster’s deck, and dashed the streaming hair of Amy Leonard in wet masses to her shoulders.

That moment the man upon the brig saw her and uttered a faint cry, as if a ghost had just drifted up to his feet from the waves. He knew the face instantly; never could he mistake those eyes; the same frightened look was in them now that he had seen when she took that solemn oath to Arnold. It was she,—the woman whose death had been so coarsely proclaimed to him only a week before,—there, and alone.

But the minister had scarcely time to utter a single cry and fling out his arm, insanely challenging the coaster to stop, when his vessel made a plunge and rushed away, leaving the coaster struggling in the teeth of the wind. The poor little vessel at last fought its way to the main shore, and folded its sails safely in one of the numerous coves that such crafts are apt to fly to in a tempest.

But the brig went boldly out to sea with her sails set,—as it were defying the tempest that was looming in its path. Still, the minister stayed upon deck, walking up and down, in a sort of frenzy. The ship plunged and reeled, and threatened to cast him headlong, as he walked; but that mattered nothing. He did not heed the storm, or care that it threatened him with danger. The thought that he had been betrayed into another sin,—that an innocent human creature might suffer by it, while he was locked up in that reeling prison, drove him wild. He looked at the clouds—lead-colored and heavy, that broke, and formed, and mustered again, making the very sky tumultuous—in dreary dismay.

He was willing to be buffeted by the waves, tossed against rocks, hurled from breaker to breaker, if one would cast him ashore at last, with just enough of life to right the wrong he had done,—and die.

Osborne knew, well enough, that all this was madness, that nothing could release him from those hated planks till they had borne him to the tropics: then it would be too late; still the impossibility did not seem real. He was in sight of land. The waters which tossed him onward were buffeting the oceanward shores of Long Island. The sea was not so rough but that a boat might live to reach the nearest point.

Osborne went to the captain, who was a kind man in his way, and asked with eagerness that a boat might be lowered to set him on shore. He did not care in what place, only that his feet might touch the dry land again. The captain laughed, and told him that ministers were always cowards,—that the sight of a black cloud in the sky was sure to drive them into a panic. As for a boat, nothing of the kind that he had on board would live half an hour in a sea like that. He being a minister and never having sailed before, did not understand the meaning of those great blue-black clouds mustering up from the northeast, or the foam that rose ominously on each wave, like an upheaving of snow from the angry waters. A boat! Why he, Captain Hale, was beginning to question if his good ship would weather the tempest that threatened. It had arisen already far beyond all thoughts of a boat; besides, every hand would be wanted to work the ship.

The minister saw how mad his project was, and abandoned it in despair; but the heart in his bosom was heavy as granite. He was being dragged off, without power of resistance, that some great crime might be perpetrated in his absence. He began to suspect what that issue was. Once he had seen Arnold and the young French lady together. He had not thought much of it at the time, but now he remembered vividly the happy look of her face.

Osborne was a singularly good man. The reader must not judge of him by Arnold’s words, or by the weakness he had exhibited in leaving the country. But he carried about in his confused memory a vague consciousness that he had done the great wrong which Arnold accused him of; but this seemed of minor importance to him now. If the consequence of his own misdeeds could by any possibility injure an innocent person, he stood ready to bring condemnation on himself, rather than ruin on another. But how could this be accomplished? The ship rushed on, inexorable as fate. No power of man could have stopped it; for even then it was tempest-driven, and rushed through the waves with a force that filled every one on board with dread.

Osborne was brave enough then. He was not afraid to die. Death had never been the evil, above all others, from which he would have shrunk. To a nature like his, any thing that destroyed his usefulness, and took away his people’s love, was ten thousand times worse than a transit, however painful, from one life to another. But, when he reflected that his safety might be the salvation of others, he, too, watched the mustering storm with keen anxiety. If the wind and waves would only go down, the captain might be persuaded to set him on shore. He had money, and that he was ready to give,—leaving himself penniless,—if it would only accomplish his deliverance. But, while his soul was torn with impatience, the tempest threatened them more and more fiercely. So far as it was possible, the sails had been taken in; but one, streaming in fragments overhead, was rent off piece by piece, and given in rags to the wind. But for this the brig would have been scudding under bare poles. The wind had changed, and set in shorewards, where a line of breakers sent the turbulent whiteness upwards in masses, and hurled this scudding foam into the deep gray of the horizon.

At sunset the whole force of the tempest was upon them. The waves rose and swelled in black, heaving grandeur, crowned with great drifts of foam, sweeping the ship as if its hull, masts, and the cordage that thrilled and quivered like human nerves strained to breaking, were but a handful of driftwood, over which they leaped with scarcely a break, and dashed themselves into a whirlwind of foam among the breakers.

When the sun set, a wonderful change came upon the sky. The great dome, which bent like solid lead above the ocean, broke up into tumultuous black clouds, which rolled through the troubled atmosphere, and piled themselves along the west in huge mountains, black and gray, through which lakes of lurid crimson came out like seas of blood, buried deep down among the barren rocks of a desert.

These pools of red light gave a little hope to the anxious souls on board that brig. They might be a signal that the wind was about to change again, or be checked in its violence.

The captain said this, turning his rugged face in white terror from the breakers, whose thunder boomed nearer and nearer, to cast a look of terrible anxiety upon the west.

“If not, the God of heaven only knows what will become of us,” he muttered In hoarse anguish, addressing Osborne, who stood near him at the helm.

Osborne lifted his forehead to the sky, and his lips moved. The expression of that face gave the captain courage. With one hand grasping the almost useless helm, he seized upon the minister’s garments with the other.

“You have no fear,” he said. “You believe that we shall be saved?”

“Yes. I believe.”

As he spoke, the wind, which had lulled for a moment, came raving over them again. The waves, fierce, shorter, and ravenous as wild animals, seized upon the brig, and heaved it shorewards; leaped over it, wrenched at its quaking timbers, hurled it down into black watery chasms, spurned it upwards to the ridge of an outheaving wave; tore its masts up, and hurled them overboard, dragging the tortured craft down with a new burden; and then a great swell of the sea sent her quivering like a human soul on the verge of the breakers. Another looming rush sent her forward with a long sweep, and clinched her between the jaws of two rocks, which showed themselves awfully through the hissing whiteness of the foam.

A desperate lurch, a horrible crushing sound, as if the brig were a living thing in its death throes, and the great waves left it quivering in those rocky jaws, and retreated, gathering strength for a new onset.

The captain had kept faithful to his helm. It was useless, still he could not forsake his post. But now, with the timbers grinding to atoms under his feet, and the boiling whiteness of the breakers all around him, the stout man gave way, and would have fallen on his knees in despair; but Osborne held him up by the great moral force which the close presence of death had awakened in his own soul.

“Arouse yourself,” he said; “so long as one timber is bolted to another, all is not lost. These rocks, that seemed our worst enemies, will hold the ship together a few minutes longer. Thank God, there are neither women nor little ones on board.”

The crew gathered around him. His sacred character was a forlorn hope, to which they clung like children. They expected only prayers; but while his heart rose to God, his lips urged the men to action.

“Before another wave is upon us, and the planks are torn away from under our feet, seize upon such fragments of the wreck as may help you in the water.”

The men gave a forlorn cheer, and went to work gathering up wet ropes, and securing themselves to broken fragments, of the masts and yards.

“And you,” said the captain, stretching out his brawny arms to Osborne: “minister, I am strong; I can swim; hold fast to me. If we sink, I will go first.”

“Yes,” answered Osborne, with a wan smile. “I am needed: my life must not be lost. God will give us both strength, my friend. The danger is terrible, but we shall not die.”

The awful blackness of an outheaving wave was upon them. The captain flung one iron arm around the minister; the other he held firmly to the splintered stump of his mainmast.

It came on, a huge column of waters, arching grimly black in the red light, which was almost quenched in the west. Huge windrows and curtains of spray foamed over it like banners from a battlement. It plunged upon them with a terrific shock, driving the wreck half-a-ship’s length further into the breakers, with its open ribs crushed, and the sea boiling through its hold. When the wave surged back not a living soul was upon the wreck; but many dark objects were battling for life with the breakers. One or two, wounded by the rocks, were overwhelmed; but when the rest were about to sink, another watery monster gathered them up like straws and hurled them upon the shore.

Among these was the minister. The sailors, hardy and powerful men, knew that not to struggle was to die, and dragged themselves beyond the retreating wave. With the breath beaten from his body, Osborne seized upon a tuft of salt grass with blind instinct, and clung to it desperately. The suction of the water dragged at him like a pack of wolves, straining his limbs, and half-up rooting the grass. Another wave would have found him helpless, but as it is looming upon the beach a pair of great strong arms seized upon the minister and dragged him into safety.