springing into
existence here and there about us in the most extraordinary way as the
timber ignited with the intense heat. There was consequently not a
moment to lose, and, as Captain Chesney very rightly insisted upon being
the last to leave the ship, I wasted no time in making my way down into
the gig, which I was to command, and into which I had already passed my
few traps and my sextant. The skipper, meanwhile, had gone into the
cuddy to take a final look round. He was absent nearly five minutes,
and I was growing so anxious about him that I was at the point of
leaving the boat again to hunt him up, when he appeared at the head of
the gangway. The poor fellow seemed to be dreadfully cut up as he
allowed his glances to wander fore and aft the noble ship, now ablaze
almost to the spot upon which he stood, and with thick jets of black
smoke and little tongues of flame forcing their way through the seams at
a hundred different points. He had commanded the vessel ever since she
left the stocks; he had conducted her safely to-and-fro over thousands
of miles of ocean, through fair weather and foul; he had studied her
until he had come to know every quality that she possessed, good or bad;
had taken pride in the first, and found ample excuses for the last; he
had grown to love her, almost as a man loves his wife or child, and now
the moment had come when he must abandon her to the devouring flames
that had already seared and destroyed her beauty, and were fast reducing
her to a charred, shapeless shell of blazing timber. Involuntarily, as
it seemed to me, he doffed his cap, as a man might do in the presence of
the dying, standing there in the gangway, with his figure in bold relief
against the glowing furnace of flame and the dense volumes of heavy,
wreathing, fire-illumined smoke, while his eyes seemed to wander hither
and thither about the burning ship as though unable to drag himself
away; but at length the fire burst through the deck close to where he
stood. Fiery flakes were falling thickly about him; the mainmast was
tottering ominously; it was obviously full time to be gone. Such hints
were not to be ignored, and replacing his cap upon his head with one
hand as he dashed the other across his eyes, he slowly descended the
ladder and gave the word to shove off. The men, who had latterly been
growing very anxious and fidgety, lost no time in obeying the order.
But we were none too soon, for the gig had barely le