Of course no one is under any obligation to believe this most reliable relation. At the same time I may be allowed to remind the sceptical that in the present case their credibility is subjected to no such strain as half the respectable advertisements of the day place upon it. However, I won’t press the point; here is the story, fay ce que vouldras.
Doubtless you have all heard of waterspouts, many of you have seen them in full spin, and not a few, amateurs of meteorology, have got their pet theories as to the genesis, evolution, and dissolution of these mysterious meteors. With just a touch of perhaps pardonable vanity I may say that, for an important section of society, my theory holds the field—is, in fact, unassailable. But I refrain from exposing it publicly at present, principally because such exposition involves a large use of the higher mathematics, in which I am, to be candid, somewhat shaky; and secondly, because the editor would see me farther before he would let me do it. But an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory, even such gilt-edged theory as mine—at least most of us work on the lines of this well-worn proverb. So my experience, which is herein set forth, must necessarily be considered as the most valuable contribution to our knowledge of waterspoutery or trombe-oonery that has ever yet appeared. I might claim more for it than this, but modesty was ever a failing of mine.
On 23rd August last, then, I was leaning over the taffrail of an ancient barque, of which I was “only” mate, homeward bound from Iquique to Falmouth for orders. We had reached the horse latitudes, those detestable regions embracing the debatable area between the limits of the north-east and south-east trade winds. Here you may have such an exhibition of what the skies are capable of in the matter of rain as nowhere else in the world. For days together the weather will consist of squalls—not much wind in them as a rule—from all points of the compass, but rain—well, one might almost as well be living beneath an ocean of which the bottom is given to falling out occasionally. And as all this tremendous rainfall comes from the sea, the replenishment of the supply upstairs keeps the pumping machinery going constantly. It is no uncommon sight to see forty or fifty waterspouts in various stages of their career at one time. On this particular afternoon there was quite a forest of them about, but as yet none of them had come within less than two or three miles of the ship. It was my watch below, and the air being stifling down in the murky little cabin, I was enjoying a pipe and a little cool breeze that had been blowing for about twenty minutes in the right direction. The old hooker was wriggling along about two or three knots—sufficiently fast to induce me to try whether some members of a sociable school of dolphins that were playing about us could be gulled into biting at a bit of white rag I was trailing, which concealed a formidable hook. The “old man” was below, seated at the cabin table, wrestling with his day’s reckoning not over-successfully, for his grumbling expletives were now and then audible through the wide-open skylight, the man at the wheel gazing skyward with a comical expression of innocence whenever he met my eye after an extra heavy blast from below. The antics of the fish beneath me so fully occupied my attention that the near approach of a waterspout along the starboard beam did not attract my notice. In any case, the weather was no affair of mine, the bo’sun being in charge, though, as usual in these undermanned vessels, up to his elbows in tar, away forward somewhere. But suddenly the gloom became so heavy and the chill in the air so evident, that I looked up wondering whence the squall had arrived at such short notice. At that moment a big dolphin who had been tantalising me for a long time seized my hook. I had only two or three fathoms of line out, and being balanced upon the taffrail, the jerk was sufficiently forceful to make me turn a back somersault overboard. The last thing I saw was the helmsman’s face blank with utter amazement at my sudden exit. I struck the water end-on, going pretty deep, but on returning to the surface was horrified to find myself the centre of a whirling, seething commotion, as if some unseen giant was stirring the sea with a mighty spoon. The gyrations I was compelled to perform made me quite giddy and sick, although my head kept so well above water that I was in no danger of drowning. Faster and faster yet I was whirled around, while a dense fog seemed to rise all round, shutting out everything from view behind an impenetrable white curtain.
I have often noticed that if you tuck a chicken’s head under its wing and give it a gentle circular motion it will “stay put,” in any position you like for an indefinite length of time, although the brightness of its eyes and its regular respiration shows that it is “all there.” Thus it was with me. I was certainly all there, but the spinning business had reduced me to a hypnotised or mesmerised condition, in which I was incapable of independent volition, while keenly conscious of all that was going on. I became aware of an upward movement, a sort of spiral ascension, as if I was attached to one of the threads of a gigantic vertical screw that was being withdrawn by a steady left-handed revolution. Also, it was very wet, though not with a solid wetness as of the sea—more like one of the usual tremendous showers we had lately been having, and in no sense was I conscious of floating. I began to get somewhat used to the spiral movement, the sensation being almost pleasant, since the nausea that troubled me was gone, but I wondered vaguely whither I was bound. It was getting very cold, and a muffled persistent roar, as of some infuriated bull uttering his grievances through a vast speaking-trumpet, worried me greatly, for I could imagine no reason for such a sound. However, in my passive condition I could only endure whatever came along, this being no time for protest or struggle.
Suddenly I felt myself emerge as if from a pipe up into an immense reservoir of the heaviest mist I ever felt. At that instant a terrible sensation of instability took possession of me, very like that one experiences in wandering over deep new-fallen snow, concealing Heaven knows what crevasses beneath, only more so. My heart worked like a pulsometer, and every nerve in my quivering corpus said as plain as print, “You’ll come an awful cropper directly.” And it was even so. All my lost power of independent movement came back to me at once, and frantically clutching at the fog wreaths around me I began to fall. Most of us know that ugly old dream where the bed plays see-saw over some unfathomable abyss, higher at every swing, till suddenly we wake snatching at the bed-clothes and bathed in sweat. In my case, unfortunately, the fall came too. It seemed to occupy hours. While I came hurtling from the heavens I remembered with satisfaction that the wife would get her half-pay right up to the end of the voyage, and I fervently hoped she had kept my insurance premiums paid up. Then the great solemn sea sprang up to meet me. There was a Number One splash, a rush of salt water in my ears, and the blessed daylight once more. Right close to me was the ship, all hands gaping over the side at me as if I was a spook and never a one offering to heave me a line. The manner of my reappearance seemed to have knocked them all silly. All except the old man, that is. He stooped deliberately, picked up the coil of the main topsail brace, and hove it at me. It fell all about me in a tangle, but I managed to get hold of the standing part, which I froze to tight, while the skipper hauled me alongside. Feeling numb and stupid, I yet managed to haul myself on board, and with all the chaps gaping at me with protruding eyes, staggered up on to the poop. The skipper met me with a scowl, saying grimly, “Looky here, Mr. Brown, the next time you quit this ship, with my leave or without, you’ll stay there.” I felt hurt, but disinclined to talk back, so I went below to change my dunnage and enter up my log-book.
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