The Project Gutenberg EBook of Picked up at Sea, by J.C. Hutcheson
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Picked up at Sea
The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek
Author: J.C. Hutcheson
Release Date: January 13, 2008 [EBook #24267]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICKED UP AT SEA ***
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
JC Hutcheson
"Picked up at Sea"
Story 1\u2014Chapter I.
The Gold-Miners of Minturne Creek.
The \u201cSusan Jane.\u201d
\ue000Sail-ho on the weather-bow!\ue001
\ue002What do you make it?\ue003
Picked up at Sea, by JC Hutcheson
JC Hutcheson
1
\ue004Looks like a ship\u2019s mast, with the yard attached, and a man a-holding on to it and hailing us for
help\u2014leastways, that\ue005s what it seems to me!\ue006
\ue007Jerusalem! On the weather-bow, you say? Can we forereach him on this tack?\ue008
\ue009I reckon we can jist about do it, boss, if you put the helm up a bit kinder nearer the wind,\ue00a drawled out the
lookout from his post of observation in the main-top, where he had stopped a moment on catching sight of the
object floating in the water ahead of the vessel, as he was coming down from aloft after restowing the bunt of
the main-topgallantsail that had blown loose from its lashings.
The Susan Jane of and for Boston, Massachusetts, with a cargo from London, had been caught at the outset of
her passage across the Atlantic by what her American skipper termed \ue00ba pretty considerable gale of wind;\ue00c
and she now lay tossing about amid the broken waves of the boisterous Bay of Biscay, on the morning after
the tempest, the full force of which she had fortunately escaped, trying to make some headway under her jib,
close-reefed topsails, and storm staysails, with a bit of her mainsail set to steady her, half brailed
up\ue00dalthough the task was difficult, with a nasty chopping cross-sea and an adverse wind.
The vessel had recently passed a lot of wreckage, that betokened they were not far from the spot where some ship, less lucky than themselves, had been overwhelmed by the treacherous waters of the ill-fated bay; and the news that a waif was now in sight, supporting a stray survivor, affected all hearts on board, and roused their sympathies at once.
The captain of the New England barque had already adjusted the telescope, that he carried in true sailor
fashion tucked under his left arm, to his \ue00eweather-eye,\ue00f and was looking eagerly in the direction pointed out
by the seaman, before he received the answer from aloft to his second hail. But he could not as yet see what
the lookout had discovered, from the fact of the waves being still high and his place of outlook from the deck
lower than the other\ue010s.
\ue011Are you certain, Tom, you see some one?\ue012 he called out again, after a moment\ue013s pause, during which he
narrowly scanned the uneven surface of the sea.
\ue014Yes, sure,\ue015 was the confident reply. \ue016As sartain as there\ue017s snakes in Virginny!\ue018
\ue019Still in the same direction?\ue01a
“Ay, ay; a point or two to windward.”
“Ha! I see him at last!” exclaimed the skipper, clambering up from the deck, and supporting
himself by holding on to the mizzen-rigging as he stood on the taffrail and peered forward along the
ship’s side, to where he could now notice the floating object ahead, almost in the wind’s-eye.
“Luff, you beggar, luff!” he added, to the steersman, who, with both hands on the wheel, was
exerting all his strength to keep the vessel’s head up.
“She can’t do it, sir,” replied the sailor, hoarsely. “It’s all I can manage to
prevent her falling off now.”
“She must do it!” was the captain’s answer. “Watch, ahoy! Brace round those
topsail-yards a bit more! Cheerily, men, with a will!”
Picked up at Sea, by JC Hutcheson
The \u201cSusan Jane.\u201d
2
“Yo-ho-heave-oh-e! Yo-ho-heave!” rang out the chorussed cry of the crew pulling together at
the braces, until the topsails lay like boards almost fore and aft the ship. And yet her head could not be
induced to veer a fraction towards the desired point, but rather fell off if anything.
“Guess we shall have to put more sail on her,” said Seth Allport, mate of the Susan Jane, singing out from amidship, where he was on duty. “Guess so, Cap’en, if you want to fetch him.”
“It’s risky work, Seth,” rejoined the skipper, “for she’s now got as much
on her as she can carry. But I s’pose it must be done if we’re to pick up that poor fellow. Here,
boys,” he cried out suddenly to the crew, “we must shake a reef out of the mainsail. Look
smart, will ye!”
The effect of this sail was soon apparent. No sooner had the folds of canvas expanded to the wind than the
Susan Jane heeled over with a lurch as if she were going to capsize, bringing her bow so much round that her
jib shivered, causing several ominous creaks and cracks aloft from the quivering topmasts.
“She’ll do it now, sir,” said the mate, who had come aft, and with another of the crew lent a hand to assist the steersman, who found the wheel too much for him now unaided, with the additional sail there was on the ship.
“Steady! How’s the poor chap bearing now?” asked the skipper, hailing the lookout
once more, as he lost sight of the wreckage by the vessel’s change of position and the lifting of the
bow so much out of the water forward as she rose on the sea.
“Right ahead. Just a trifle to leeward, boss.”
“How far off?”
“A couple of cables’ lengths, I guess, Cap’en. Better send a hand forrud in the chains to
sling him a rope, or we’ll pass him by in a minnit.”
“Right you are,” was the reply of the good-hearted skipper, as he rushed along to the forecastle
himself with a coil over his arm, that he might fling it to the man in the water as soon as he floated within
reach.
It was a task that had to be deftly performed, for the ship was forging through the sea, and plunging her
bowsprit under water as she rose and fell in her progress, one minute describing a half-circle through the air
with her forefoot as she yawed to the heavy rolling waves, the next diving deep down into the billows and
tossing up tons of water over her forecastle, where the skipper stood, watching his opportunity, as the broken
spars, on which he could now plainly see that the figure of a man was lashed, swept nearer and nearer on the
crest of a wave that bore them triumphantly on high above the storm-wrack and foam.
While the wreckage was yet out of reach he could notice, too, that the figure was perfectly motionless and
still.
What the topman had taken to be an outstretched hand, waving a handkerchief or some fluttering object, was only the ragged end of a piece of the sail that was still attached to the yard and a part of the topmast of some vessel, which had been torn away by the violence of the gale and cast adrift, with the unfortunate seaman who was clinging to it.
Picked up at Sea, by JC Hutcheson
The \u201cSusan Jane.\u201d
3
of 00
Picked up at SeaThe Gold Miners of Minturne Creek by Hutcheson, J.C.
235 Reads
Info and Rating
| Category: | Uncategorized. |
| Rating: | |
| Upload Date: | 03/28/2008 |
| Copyright: | Attribution Non-commercial |
| Tags: |
Leave a Comment