Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands. Lever Charles James

we stood defenceless, and unarmed; a deadly roll of musketry swept our thick and trembling masses. The cutlass and the boarding-pike made fearful havoc among us, and an unresisted slaughter tore along our deck, till the heaps of dead and dying made the only barrier for the few remaining.

      “A chance word in French, and a sign of masonry, rescued me from the fate of my comrades, and my only injury was a slight sabre-wound in the fore-arm, which I received in warding off a cut intended for my head. The carnage lasted scarce fifteen minutes; but in that time, of all the crew that manned our craft – what between those who leaped overboard in wild despair, and those who fell beneath fire and steel – scarce twenty remained, appalled and trembling, the only ones rescued from this horrible slaughter.

      “A sudden cry of ‘she’s sinking!’ burst from the strange ship, and in a moment the Frenchmen clambered up their bulwarks, the grapples were cast off, the dark mass darted onwards on her course, and we, drifted away to leeward – a moving sepulchre!

      “As the clouds flew past, the moon shone out and threw a pale sickly light on the scene of slaughter, where the dead and dying lay in indiscriminate heaps together – so frightful a spectacle never did eye rest upon! The few who, like myself, survived, stood trembling, half stunned by the shock, not daring to assist the wretched men at they writhed in agony before us. I was the first to recover from this stupor, and turning to the others, I made signs to clear the decks of the dead bodies – speak I could not. It was some time before they could be made to understand me; unhappily, not a single sailor had escaped the carnage; a few raw recruits were the only survivors of that dreadful night.

      “After a little they rallied so far as to obey me, and I, taking the wheel, assumed the command of the vessel, and endeavoured to steer a course for any port on the west coast of England.

      “Day broke at length, but a wide waste of waters lay around us: the wind had abated considerably, but still the sea ran high; and although our foresail and trysail remained bent, as before the attack, we laboured heavily, and made little way through the water. Our decks were quite covered with the dying, whose heart-rending cries, mingled with the wilder shouts of madness, were too horrible to bear. But I cannot dwell on such a picture. Of the little party who survived, scarcely three were serviceable: some sat cold and speechless from terror, and seemed insensible to every threat or entreaty; some sternly refused to obey my orders, and prowled about between decks in search of spirits; and one, maddened by the horrors he beheld, sprang with a scream into the sea, and never was seen more.

      “Towards evening we heard a hail, and on looking put saw a pilot-boat making for us, and in a short time we were boarded by a pilot, who, with some of his crew, took the vessel into their hands, and before sunset we anchored in Milford.

      “Immediately on landing, I was sent up to London under a strong escort, to give an account of the whole affair to the Admiralty. For eight days my examination was continued during several hours every day, and at last I was dismissed, with promotion to the rank of sergeant, for my conduct in saving the ship, and appointed to the fortieth foot, then under orders for Quebec.

      “Once more at sea and in good spirits, I sailed for Quebec on a fine morning in April, on board the ‘Abercrombie.’ Nothing could be more delightful than the voyage: the weather was clear, with a fair fresh breeze and a smooth sea; and at the third week we dropped our lead on the green bank of Newfoundland, and brought up again a cod fish, every time we heaved it. We now entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and began anxiously to look for land.

      “On the third morning after we made the ‘Gulf,’ a heavy snow-storm came on, which prevented our seeing a cable’s length ahead of us. It was so cold too, that few remained on deck; for although the first of May, it was about as severe a day as I remember. Anxious to see something of the country, I remained with the lookout-a-head, straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of the land through the dense snow-drift. All I could distinguish, however, was the dim outline of distant mountains, apparently covered with snow; but, as the day wore on, we came in sight of the long low island of Anticosti, which, though considerably more than a hundred miles in length, is not, in any part, more than fifteen feet above the level of the water.

      “Towards evening the land became much clearer to view; and now I could perceive tall, peaked mountains some thousand feet in height, their bases clad with stunted pine-trees – their white summits stretching away into the clouds. As I looked, my astonishment was great, to find that the vast gulf, which at day-break was some sixty miles in width, seemed now diminished to about eight or ten, and continued to narrow rapidly, as we proceeded on our course.

      “The skipper, who had only made the voyage once before, seemed himself confused, and endeavoured to explain our apparent vicinity to the land, as some mere optical delusion – now, attributing it to something in the refraction of the light; now, the snow: but although he spoke with all the assurance of knowledge, it was evident to me, that he was by no means satisfied in his own mind, of the facts he presented to ours.

      “As the snow-storm abated, we could see that the mountains which lay on either side of us, met each other in front, forming a vast amphitheatre without any exit.

      “This surely is not the Gulf of St. Lawrence?’ said I to an old sailor who sat leisurely chewing tobacco with his back to the capstern.

      “‘No, that it ain’t,’ said he coolly; ‘it’s Gaspé Bay, and I shouldn’t wish to be in a worse place.’

      “What could have brought us here then? the skipper surely doesn’t know where we are?’

      “I’ll tell you what has brought us here. There’s a current from the Gulf stream sets in to this bay, at seven, or eight knots the hour, and brings in all the floating ice along with it-There, am I right? do you hear that?’

      “As he spoke, a tremendous crash, almost as loud as thunder, was heard at our bow; and as I rushed to the bulwark and looked over, I beheld vast fragments of ice more than a foot thick, encrusted with frozen snow, flying past us in circling eddies; while further on, the large flakes were mounting, one above the other, clattering, and crashing, as the waves broke among them. Heaven knows how much farther our mulish Cumberland skipper would have pursued his voyage of discovery, had not the soundings proclaimed but five fathom water. Our sails were now backed; but as the current continued to bear us along, a boat was got out, and an anchor put in readiness to warp us astern; but by an unhappy accident the anchor slipped in lowering over the side, stove in the boat, and of the four poor fellows who were under it, one was carried under the ice, and never seen again. This was a sad beginning, and matters now appeared each moment more threatening. As we still continued to drift with the current, a bower-anchor was dropped where we were, and the vessel afterwards swung round, head to wind, while the ice came crashing upon the cut-water, and on the sides, with a noise that made all else inaudible. It was found by this time that the water was shoaling, and this gave new cause for fear; for if the ship were to touch the ground; it was clear, all chance of saving her was at an end.

      “After a number of different opinions given and canvassed, it was determined that four men should be sent ashore in the yawl, to find out some one who knew the pilotage of the bay; for we could descry several log-huts along the shore, at short distances from each other. With my officer’s permission, I obtained leave to make one of this party, and I soon found myself tugging away at the bow-oar through a heavy surf, whose difficulty was tenfold increased by the fragments of ice that floated past. After rowing about an hour, the twilight began to fall, and we could but faintly perceive the outline of the ship, while the log-huts on shore seemed scarcely nearer than at the moment when we quitted the vessel. By this time, large fields of ice were about us on every side; rowing was no longer possible, and we groped along with our boat-hooks, finding a channel, where we could avoid the floating masses.

      “The peril of this proceeding grew with every moment; sometimes our frail boat would be struck with such force as threatened to stave in every plank; sometimes was she driven high upon a piece of ice, which took all our efforts to extricate her from, while, as we advanced, no passage presented itself before us, but flake upon flake of frozen matter, among which were fragments of wrecks, and branches of trees, mixed up together. The sailors, who had undertaken the enterprise against their will, now resolved they would venture no further, but make their way back to the