Don José was quite dumbfounded by this suggestion and for a minute did not know what to say, but his inexhaustible imagination did not desert him for long and he answered, but somewhat crossly:
“And who said, impertinent boy, that I should be such a fool as to divulge the secret so that the English might learn it? These ships would be constructed in perfect secrecy without a word being whispered even to anyone. Suppose a fresh war were to break out. We should defy the English: ‘Come on, gentlemen,’ we should say, ‘we are ready, quite ready.’ The common ships would put out to sea and begin the action when lo and behold! out come two or three of these iron monsters into the thick of the fight, vomiting steam and smoke and turning here and there without troubling themselves about the wind; they go wherever they are wanted, splintering the wooden sides of the enemy’s ships by the blows of their sharp bows, and then with a broadside or two. … It would all be over in a quarter of an hour.”
I did not care to raise any further difficulties for the conviction that our vessel was in the greatest danger quite kept my mind from dwelling on ideas so inappropriate to our critical situation. In fact, I never thought again of the monster ship of the old man’s fancy till thirty years after when we first heard of the application of steam to purposes of navigation; and again when, halfway through the century, our fine frigate the Numancia actually realized the extravagant dreams of the braggart of Trafalgar.
Half a century later I remembered Don José María Malespina and I said: “He seemed to us a bombastic liar; but conceptions which are extravagant in one place and time, when born in due season become marvellous realities! And since living to see this particular instance of the fact, I have ceased to think any Utopia impossible, and the greatest visionaries seem to me possible men of genius.”
I left Don José in the cabin and ascended the companionway, to see what was going forward, and as soon as I was on deck I understood the dangerous situation of the Rayo. The gale not only prevented her getting into Cádiz, but was driving her towards the coast where she must inevitably be wrecked on the rocky shore. Melancholy as was the fate of the abandoned Santa Ana it could not be more desperate than ours. I looked with dismay into the faces of the officers and crew to see if I could read hope in any one of them, but despair was written in all. I glanced at the sky—it was black and awful; I gazed at the sea—it was raging with fury. God was our only hope—and He had shown us no mercy since the fatal 21st!
The Rayo was running northwards. I could understand, from what I heard the men about me saying, that we were driving past the reef of Marajotes—past Hazte Afuera—Juan Bola—Torregorda, and at last past the entrance to Cádiz. In vain was every effort made to put her head round to enter the bay. The old ship, like a frightened horse, refused to obey; the wind and waves carried her on, due north, with irresistible fury and science could do nothing to prevent it.
We flew past the bay, and could make out to our right, Rota, Punta Candor, Punta de Meca, Regla and Chipiona. There was not a doubt that the Rayo must be driven on shore, close to the mouth of the Guadalquivir. I need hardly say that the sails were close reefed and that as this proved insufficient in such a furious tempest the topmasts were lowered; at last it was even thought necessary to cut away the masts to prevent her from foundering. In great storms a ship has to humble herself, to shrink from a stately tree to a lowly plant; and as her masts will no more yield than the branches of an oak, she is under the sad necessity of seeing them amputated and losing her limbs to save her life.
The loss of the ship was now inevitable. The main and mizzenmasts were cut through and sent overboard, and our only hope was that we might be able to cast anchor near the coast. The anchors were got ready and the chains and cables strengthened. We were now running right on shore, and two cannon were fired as a signal that we wanted help; for as we could clearly distinguish fires we kept up our hope that there must be someone to come to our rescue. Some were of opinion that a Spanish or English ship had already been wrecked here and that the fires we saw had been lighted by the destitute crew. Our anxiety increased every instant, and as for myself I firmly believed that I was face to face with a cruel death. I paid no attention to what was doing on board, being much too agitated to think of anything but my end, which seemed inevitable. If the vessel ran on a rock, what man could swim through the breakers that still divided us from the coast? The most dangerous spot in a storm is just where the waves are hurled revolving against the shore, as if they were trying to scoop it out and drag away whole tracts of earth into the gulfs below. The blow of a wave as it dashes forward and its gluttonous fury as it rushes back again, is such as no human strength can stand against.
At last, after some hours of mortal anguish, the keel of the Rayo came upon a sand bank and there she stuck. The hull and the remaining masts shivered as she struck; she seemed to be trying to cut her way through the obstacle; but it was too much for her; after heaving violently for a
