“We are in the hands of God,” continued the captain. “If He does not himself guide the Duncan over the bar, we are lost.”
“It is high tide now, captain; perhaps we may do it.”
“But see the fury of those waves! What ship could resist them? God help us, my friend!”
Meantime the Duncan dashed towards the shore with terrible swiftness. Soon she was only two miles from the sandbars. The mists still continued to conceal the land. Nevertheless Captain Mangles thought he perceived, beyond this foaming barrier, a tranquil haven, where the Duncan would be in comparative safety. But how to reach it?
He called the passengers on deck, for he did not wish, when the hour of shipwreck had come, that they should be confined in the cabin. Glenarvan and his companions gazed at the awful sea. Mary Grant grew pale.
“John,” said Glenarvan in a low tone to the young captain, “I will try to save my wife, or will perish with her. Do you take charge of Miss Grant.”
“Yes, your lordship,” was the prompt reply.
The Duncan was now only a few cable-lengths from the sandbars. As it was high tide, there would doubtless have been sufficient water to enable the yacht to cross these dangerous shoals; but the enormous waves upon which she rose and fell would infallibly have wrecked her. Was there then any means of allaying these billows, of calming this tumultuous sea?
A sudden idea occurred to the captain.
“The oil!” cried he; “pour on oil, men, pour on oil!”
These words were quickly understood by all the crew. They were about to employ a method that sometimes succeeds. The fury of the sea can often be appeased by covering it with a sheet of oil, which floats on the surface and destroys the shock of the waters. The effect is instantaneous, but transient. As soon as a ship has crossed this treacherous sea, it redoubles its fury; and woe to those who would venture to follow.
The barrels containing the supply of seal-oil were hoisted into the forecastle by the crew, to whom the danger gave new strength. Here they were stove in with a blow of the hatchet, and suspended over the starboard rattlings.
“Hold on!” cried the captain, waiting for the favorable moment.
In a few seconds the yacht reached the entrance to the pass, which was barred by a terrible line of foam.
“Let go!” cried the young captain.
The barrels were inverted, and from their sides streamed floods of oil. Immediately the unctuous liquid leveled the foaming surface of the sea, and the Duncan sailed on calm waters, and was soon in a quiet harbor beyond the terrible sandbars; and then the ocean, released from its fetters, bounded after its escaped prey with indescribable fury.
XXX
A Hospitable Colonist
The captain’s first care was to secure anchorage. He moored the vessel in five fathoms of water. The bottom was good, a hard gravel, affording an excellent hold. There was no danger of drifting, or of stranding at low tide. The Duncan, after so many hours of peril, was now in a sort of creek sheltered by a high promontory from the fury of the wind.
Lord Glenarvan shook the hand of the young captain, saying—
“Thanks, John!”
And Captain Mangles felt himself fully rewarded by these simple words. Glenarvan kept to himself the secret of his anguish, and neither Lady Helena, Mary Grant, nor Robert suspected the magnitude of the perils they had just escaped.
One important point remained to be settled. On what part of the coast had the Duncan been cast by the storm? How could she regain her prescribed course? How far were they from Cape Bernouilli? Such were the first questions addressed to the captain, who at once took his bearings and noted his observations on the map. The Duncan had not deviated very far from her route. She was at Cape Catastrophe, on the southern coast of Australia, not three hundred miles from Cape Bernouilli.
But could the Duncan’s injuries be repaired? This was the question to decide. The captain wished to know the extent of the damage. It was discovered, by diving, that a flange of the screw was bent and came in contact with the sternpost. Hence it was impossible for the screw to rotate. This injury was considered serious enough to necessitate going into dry-dock, which of course could not be done in their present locality.
Glenarvan and the captain, after mature reflection, resolved that the Duncan should follow the western shore, seeking traces of the Britannia, should stop at Cape Bernouilli, where further information could be obtained, and then continue southward to Melbourne, where her injuries could be repaired; and, as soon as this was done, that she should cruise along the eastern shores to finish the search.
This arrangement was approved, and Captain Mangles resolved to take advantage of the first favorable wind. He did not have to wait long. Towards evening the hurricane had entirely subsided, and a moderate breeze was blowing from the southwest. Preparations were made for getting under way; new sails were set, and at four o’clock in the morning the sailors heaved at the capstan, the anchor was weighed, and the Duncan, with all sails set, cruised close to windward along the coast.
They arrived at Cape Bernouilli without finding the least trace of the lost vessel. But this failure proved nothing. Indeed, during the two years since the shipwreck, the sea might have scattered or destroyed the fragments of the brig. Besides, the natives, who scent shipwrecks as a vulture does a corpse, might have carried away every vestige of it. Harry Grant and his two companions, therefore, without doubt, had been taken prisoners the moment the waves cast them ashore, and been carried into the interior of the country.
But here one of Paganel’s ingenious suppositions failed. So long as they were in the Argentine territory, the geographer could rightly maintain that the latitude
