Chapter 22

THE HIGHLANDER PASSES A WRECK

We were still on the Banks, when a terrific storm came down upon us, the
like of which I had never before beheld, or imagined. The rain poured
down in sheets and cascades; the scupper holes could hardly carry it off
the decks; and in bracing the yards we waded about almost up to our
knees; every thing floating about, like chips in a dock.

This violent rain was the precursor of a hard squall, for which we duly
prepared, taking in our canvas to double-reefed-top-sails.

The tornado came rushing along at last, like a troop of wild horses
before the flaming rush of a burning prairie. But after bowing and
cringing to it awhile, the good Highlander was put off before it; and
with her nose in the water, went wallowing on, ploughing milk-white
waves, and leaving a streak of illuminated foam in her wake.

It was an awful scene. It made me catch my breath as I gazed. I could
hardly stand on my feet, so violent was the motion of the ship. But
while I reeled to and fro, the sailors only laughed at me; and bade me
look out that the ship did not fall overboard; and advised me to get a
handspike, and hold it down hard in the weather-scuppers, to steady her
wild motions. But I was now getting a little too wise for this foolish
kind of talk; though all through the voyage, they never gave it over.

This storm past, we had fair weather until we got into the Irish Sea.

The morning following the storm, when the sea and sky had become blue
again, the man aloft sung out that there was a wreck on the lee-beam. We
bore away for it, all hands looking eagerly toward it, and the captain
in the mizzen-top with his spy-glass. Presently, we slowly passed
alongside of it.

It was a dismantled, water-logged schooner, a most dismal sight, that
must have been drifting about for several long weeks. The bulwarks were
pretty much gone; and here and there the bare stanchions, or posts, were
left standing, splitting in two the waves which broke clear over the
deck, lying almost even with the sea. The foremast was snapt off less
than four feet from its base; and the shattered and splintered remnant
looked like the stump of a pine tree thrown over in the woods. Every
time she rolled in the trough of the sea, her open main-hatchway yawned
into view; but was as quickly filled, and submerged again, with a
rushing, gurgling sound, as the water ran into it with the lee-roll.

At the head of the stump of the mainmast, about ten feet above the deck,
something like a sleeve seemed nailed; it was supposed to be the relic
of a jacket, which must have been fastened there by the crew for a
signal, and been frayed out and blown away by the wind.

Lashed, and leaning over sideways against the