In Which the “First Venture” All Ablaze Forward, Is Headed For the Rocks and Breakers of the Chunks, While Bill o’ Burnt Bay and His Crew Wait for the Explosion of the Powder in Her Hold. In Which, Also, a Rope Is Put to Good Use

“Fire!”

A cloud of smoke broke from the forecastle and was swept off by the wind. A tongue of red flame flashed upward and expired. Skipper Bill did not need the cries of terror and warning to inform him. The First Venture was afire! And she was not only afire; she was off the Chunks in a gale of wind and snow.

“Aft, here, one o’ you!”

When Billy Topsail took the wheel, the skipper plunged into the forecastle. It was a desperate intention. He was back in a moment, singed and gasping. But in that interval he had made out that the forecastle stove, in some violent lurch of the schooner, had broken loose, and had been bandied about, distributing red 103 coals in every part. He had made out, moreover, that the situation of the schooner was infinitely perilous, if not, indeed, quite beyond hope. The forecastle was all ablaze. In five minutes it would be a furnace.

“We’re lost!” Jimmie Grimm cried, staring at the frothy waves running past.

“Not yet,” Archie grimly replied.

They were all of heart and strength and ingenuity; and they worked with all their might. But the buckets of water, and the great seas, which Skipper Bill, in desperation, deliberately shipped, made little impression. It was soon evident that the little First Venture was doomed. Meantime, the skipper had brought her before the wind, and she was now flying towards the inhospitable Chunks. The skipper was less concerned for his schooner than for the lives of his crew. The ship was already lost; the crew––well, how could the crew survive the rocks and gigantic breakers of the Chunks?

It was the only hope. No small boat could for a moment live in the sea that was running. The schooner must be beached on the Chunks. There was no other refuge. But how beach her? It was a dark night, with the snow flying thick. 104 Was it possible to sight a black, low-lying rock? There was nothing for it but to drive with the wind in the hope of striking. There were many islands; she might strike one. But would it really be an island, whereon a man might crawl out of reach of the sea? or would it be a rock swept by the breakers? Chance would determine that. Skipper Bill was powerless.

But would she make the Chunks before she was ablaze from stem to stern? Again, the skipper was powerless; he could do no more than give her all the wind that blew.

So he ordered the reefs shaken out––and waited.

“Tom,” said the skipper, presently, to the first hand, “was it you stowed the cargo?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a pause. Archie Armstrong and Jimmie Grimm, aft near the wheel, wondered why the skipper had put the question.

“An’ where,” the skipper asked, quietly, “did you put the powder?”

“For’ard, sir.”

“How far for’ard?”

“Fair up against the forecastle bulkhead!”

The appalling significance of this was plain to 105 the crew. The bulkhead was a thin partition dividing the forecastle from the hold.

“Archie,” Skipper Bill drawled, “you better loose the stays’l sheet. She ought t’ do better than this.” He paused. “Fair against the forecastle bulkhead?” he continued. “Tom, you better get the hatch off, an’ see what you’re able t’ do about gettin’ them six kegs o’ powder out. No––bide here!” he added. “Take the wheel again, Billy. Get that hatch off, some o’ you.”

It was the skipper himself who dropped into the hold. The cargo was packed tight. Heavy barrels of flour, puncheons of molasses, casks of pork and beef, lay between the skipper and the powder. He crawled forward, wriggling in the narrow space between the freight and the deck. No fire had as yet entered the hold; but the place was full of stifling smoke. It was apparent that the removal of the powder would be the labour of hours; and there were no hours left for labour. The skipper could stand the smoke no longer. He retreated towards the hatch. How long it would be before the fire communicated itself to the cargo––how long it would be before the explosion of six kegs of powder would scatter the 106 wreck of the First Venture upon the surface of the sea––no man could tell. But the end was inevitable.

Anxious questions greeted the skipper when again he stood upon the wind-swept deck.

“Close the hatch,” said he.

“No chance, sir?” Archie asked.

“No, b’y.”

The forecastle was already closed. There was no gleam of fire anywhere to be seen. The bitter wind savoured of smoke; nothing else betrayed the schooner’s peril.

“Now, get you all back aft!” was the skipper’s command. “Keep her head as it points.”

When the crew had crept away to the place remotest from the danger point, Bill o’ Burnt Bay went forward to keep a lookout for the rocks and breakers. The burning forecastle was beneath his feet; he could hear the crackling of the fire; and the smoke, rising now more voluminously, troubled his nostrils and throat. It was pitch dark ahead. There was no blacker shadow of land, no white flash of water, to give him hope. It seemed as though an unbroken expanse of sea lay before the labouring First Venture. But the skipper knew to the contrary; 107 somewhere in the night into which he stared––somewhere near, and, momentarily, drawing nearer––lay the Chunks. He wondered if the First Venture would strike before the explosion occurred. It must be soon, he knew. The possibility of being off the course did not trouble him.

Soon the seams of the deck began to open. Smoke poured out in thickening clouds. Points of light, fast changing to lines of flame, warned the skipper that he must retreat. It was not, however, until heat and smoke and the certain prospect of collapse compelled him, that he joined the crew. He was not a spectacular hero; when common sense dictated return, he obeyed without delay, and without maudlin complaint. Without a word he took the wheel from Billy Topsail’s hands, and without a word he kept the schooner on her course. There was no need of command or advice; men and boys knew their situation and their duty.

“It can’t be long,” said the cook.

There was now a glow of red light above the forecastle. The fire was about to break through. It was not hard to surmise that the collapse of the bulkhead was imminent. 108

“No, sir!” the fidgety cook repeated. “It can’t be long, now.”

It seemed long. Minute after minute passed, each of incredible length, while the First Venture staggered forward, wildly pitching through the seas. At last, the flames broke out of the forecastle and illuminated the deck.

“Not long, now!” the cook whimpered. “It can’t be!”

Nor was it. The First Venture struck. She was upon the rocks before the skipper was well aware that breakers lay ahead. Her bow fell, struck, was lifted, fell again, and fastened itself. The next wave flung the schooner broadside. The third completed the turn. She lay with her head pointing into the wind. Her stern, where the crew stood waiting for the end, rose and fell on the verge of a great breaker. Beyond was a broken cliff, rising to unwashed heights, which the snow had begun to whiten. The bow was lifted clear of the waves; the stern was awash. A space of white water lay between the schooner and the shore.

Bill o’ Burnt Bay let go his grip on the wheel. There was but one thing to do. Many a skipper had done it before; but never before had there 109 been such desperate need of haste. The fire still burned lustily; and the forecastle was high out of the water.

“If I can’t do it,” the skipper shouted, “it’s the first hand’s turn next.”

He had fastened the end of a coil of rope about his waist. Now he stood swaying on the taffrail. By the light of the fire––uncertain and dull––he must act. He leaped a moment after the next wave had slipped under the stern––when, in the current, he should reach the rocks just after the wave had broken. The crew waited a long time. Many a glance was cast forward; it seemed to them all, such headway had the fire made, that the six kegs of powder must explode the very next instant. No sign came from the skipper; and no sight of him could be caught. They paid out the rope––and waited. The rope was for a long time loose in their hands.

“He’s landed!” cried Jimmie Grimm.

The rope was hauled taut. Upon the rocks, out of reach of the sea, the figure of the skipper could be seen.

“One at a time!” Skipper Bill shouted.

And one at a time they went––decently and in order, like true Newfoundland sailors, Tom 110 Rook, the first hand, the last of all. When they were all ashore, they scrambled like mad up the cliff; and they were no more than out of danger when the First Venture was blown to atoms. There was a flash, a deafening roar––and darkness; broken only by the spluttering splinters of the little craft.

That night, from Heart’s Harbour, the folk observed a ship afire, running in towards the Chunks. To the report they sent immediately to St. John’s––there happens fortunately to be a government telegraph station at Heart’s Harbour––they added, later, that she had blown up. But from St. John’s the salvage-tug Hurricane was dispatched into the stormy sea in search of the survivors; and on the second day following she picked up Skipper Bill o’ Burnt Bay and his crew.

Next day they were in St. John’s.

“Wisht I’d took your advice about the insurance, sir,” broken-hearted Bill o’ Burnt Bay said to Sir Archibald.

Sir Archibald laughed. “I took it for you,” said he.

“What?” Skipper Bill exploded. 111

“I insured the First Venture on my own responsibility,” Sir Archibald replied. “You shall build the Second Venture at Ruddy Cove next winter.”

Archie Armstrong and Bill o’ Burnt Bay, with the lads and men of the lost First Venture, went back to Ruddy Cove by rail and the mail-boat.