Part Five: My Sea Adventure - Chapter 23: The Ebb-tide Runs

by Robert Louis Stevenson

　　The coracle--as I had ample reason to know before I wasdone with her--was a very safe boat for a person of myheight and weight, both buoyant and clever in a sea-way; but she was the most cross-grained, lop-sidedcraft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always mademore leeway than anything else, and turning round andround was the manoeuvre she was best at. Even Ben Gunnhimself has admitted that she was "queer to handle tillyou knew her way."

　　Certainly I did not know her way. She turned in everydirection but the one I was bound to go; the most partof the time we were broadside on, and I am very sure Inever should have made the ship at all but for thetide. By good fortune, paddle as I pleased, the tidewas still sweeping me down; and there lay theHispaniola right in the fairway, hardly to be missed.

　　First she loomed before me like a blot of something yetblacker than darkness, then her spars and hull began totake shape, and the next moment, as it seemed (for, thefarther I went, the brisker grew the current of theebb), I was alongside of her hawser and had laid hold.

　　The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and the currentso strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round thehull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbledand chattered like a little mountain stream. One cutwith my sea-gully and the Hispaniola would gohumming down the tide.

　　So far so good, but it next occurred to my recollectionthat a taut hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerousas a kicking horse. Ten to one, if I were so foolhardyas to cut the Hispaniola from her anchor, I and the coraclewould be knocked clean out of the water.

　　This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had notagain particularly favoured me, I should have had toabandon my design. But the light airs which had begunblowing from the south-east and south had hauled roundafter nightfall into the south-west. Just while I wasmeditating, a puff came, caught the Hispaniola, andforced her up into the current; and to my great joy, Ifelt the hawser slacken in my grasp, and the hand bywhich I held it dip for a second under water.

　　With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, openedit with my teeth, and cut one strand after another,till the vessel swung only by two. Then I lay quiet,waiting to sever these last when the strain should beonce more lightened by a breath of wind.

　　All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices fromthe cabin, but to say truth, my mind had been soentirely taken up with other thoughts that I hadscarcely given ear. Now, however, when I had nothingelse to do, I began to pay more heed.

　　One I recognized for the coxswain's, Israel Hands, thathad been Flint's gunner in former days. The other was,of course, my friend of the red night-cap. Both menwere plainly the worse of drink, and they were stilldrinking, for even while I was listening, one of them,with a drunken cry, opened the stern window and threwout something, which I divined to be an empty bottle.But they were not only tipsy; it was plain that theywere furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, andevery now and then there came forth such an explosionas I thought was sure to end in blows. But each timethe quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled lowerfor a while, until the next crisis came and in its turnpassed away without result.

　　On shore, I could see the glow of the great camp-fireburning warmly through the shore-side trees. Someonewas singing, a dull, old, droning sailor's song, with adroop and a quaver at the end of every verse, andseemingly no end to it at all but the patience of thesinger. I had heard it on the voyage more than onceand remembered these words:

　　"But one man of her crew alive, What put to sea with seventy-five."And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefullyappropriate for a company that had met such cruellosses in the morning. But, indeed, from what I saw,all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea theysailed on.

　　At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled and drewnearer in the dark; I felt the hawser slacken oncemore, and with a good, tough effort, cut the lastfibres through.

　　The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and Iwas almost instantly swept against the bows of theHispaniola. At the same time, the schooner began toturn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end,across the current.

　　I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment tobe swamped; and since I found I could not push thecoracle directly off, I now shoved straight astern. Atlength I was clear of my dangerous neighbour, and justas I gave the last impulsion, my hands came across alight cord that was trailing overboard across the sternbulwarks. Instantly I grasped it.

　　Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It was atfirst mere instinct, but once I had it in my hands andfound it fast, curiosity began to get the upper hand,and I determined I should have one look through thecabin window.

　　I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and when Ijudged myself near enough, rose at infinite risk toabout half my height and thus commanded the roof and aslice of the interior of the cabin.

　　By this time the schooner and her little consort weregliding pretty swiftly through the water; indeed, we hadalready fetched up level with the camp-fire. The ship wastalking, as sailors say, loudly, treading the innumerableripples with an incessant weltering splash; and until I gotmy eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why thewatchmen had taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient;and it was only one glance that I durst take from that unsteadyskiff. It showed me Hands and his companion locked together indeadly wrestle, each with a hand upon the other's throat.

　　I dropped upon the thwart again, none too soon, for Iwas near overboard. I could see nothing for the momentbut these two furious, encrimsoned faces swayingtogether under the smoky lamp, and I shut my eyes tolet them grow once more familiar with the darkness.

　　The endless ballad had come to an end at last, and thewhole diminished company about the camp-fire had brokeninto the chorus I had heard so often:

　　"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"I was just thinking how busy drink and the devil wereat that very moment in the cabin of the Hispaniola,when I was surprised by a sudden lurch of the coracle.At the same moment, she yawed sharply and seemed tochange her course. The speed in the meantime hadstrangely increased.

　　I opened my eyes at once. All round me were littleripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound andslightly phosphorescent. The Hispaniola herself, afew yards in whose wake I was still being whirledalong, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw herspars toss a little against the blackness of the night;nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she also waswheeling to the southward.

　　I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped againstmy ribs. There, right behind me, was the glow of thecamp-fire. The current had turned at right angles,sweeping round along with it the tall schooner and thelittle dancing coracle; ever quickening, ever bubblinghigher, ever muttering louder, it went spinning throughthe narrows for the open sea.

　　Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave a violentyaw, turning, perhaps, through twenty degrees; andalmost at the same moment one shout followed anotherfrom on board; I could hear feet pounding on thecompanion ladder and I knew that the two drunkards hadat last been interrupted in their quarrel and awakenedto a sense of their disaster.

　　I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched skiff anddevoutly recommended my spirit to its Maker. At the endof the straits, I made sure we must fall into some barof raging breakers, where all my troubles would be endedspeedily; and though I could, perhaps, bear to die, I couldnot bear to look upon my fate as it approached.

　　So I must have lain for hours, continually beaten toand fro upon the billows, now and again wetted withflying sprays, and never ceasing to expect death at thenext plunge. Gradually weariness grew upon me; anumbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon my mind evenin the midst of my terrors, until sleep at lastsupervened and in my sea-tossed coracle I lay anddreamed of home and the old Admiral Benbow.