|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 94
The distant, droning sound drew gradually nearer, swelling in volume,
and by degrees splitting into innumerable component parts. One began to
distinguish the various notes that contributed to its volume--a sharp,
quick volley of inarticulate shouts or a cadenced cheer or a hoarse
salvo of steam whistles. Bells began to ring in different quarters of
the City.
Then all at once the advancing wave of sound swept down like the rush of
a great storm. A roar as of the unchained wind leaped upward from those
banked and crowding masses. It swelled louder and louder, deafening,
inarticulate. A vast bellow of exultation split the gray, low-hanging
heavens. Erect plumes of steam shot upward from the ferry and excursion
boats, but the noise of their whistles was lost and drowned in the
reverberation of that mighty and prolonged clamour. But suddenly the
indeterminate thunder was pierced and dominated by a sharp and
deep-toned report, and a jet of white smoke shot out from the flanks of
the battleship. Her guns had spoken. Instantly and from another quarter
of her hull came another jet of white smoke, stabbed through with its
thin, yellow flash, and another abrupt clap of thunder shook the windows
of the City.
The boats that all the morning had been moving toward the upper bay were
returning. They came slowly, a veritable fleet, steaming down the bay,
headed for the open sea, beyond the entrance of the harbour, each
crowded and careening to the very gunwales, each whistling with might
and main.
And in their midst--the storm-centre round which this tempest of
acclamation surged, the object on which so many eyes were focussed, the
hope of an entire nation--one ship.
She was small and seemingly pitifully inadequate for the great adventure
on which she was bound; her lines were short and ungraceful. From her
clumsy iron-shod bow to her high, round stern, from her bulging sides to
the summit of her short, powerful masts there was scant beauty in her.
She was broad, blunt, evidently slow in her movements, and in the smooth
waters of the bay seemed out of her element. But, for all that, she
imparted an impression of compactness, the compactness of things dwarfed
and stunted. Vast, indeed, would be the force that would crush those
bulging flanks, so cunningly built, moreover, that the ship must slip
and rise to any too great lateral pressure. Far above her waist rose her
smokestack. Overhead upon the mainmast was affixed the crow's nest.
Whaleboats and cutters swung from her davits, while all her decks were
cumbered with barrels, with crates, with boxes and strangely shaped
bales and cases.
She drew nearer, continuing that slow, proud progress down the bay,
honoured as no visiting sovereign had ever been. The great white
man-of-war dressed ship as she passed, and the ensign at her
fighting-top dipped and rose again. At once there was a movement aboard
the little outbound ship; one of her crew ran aft and hauled sharply at
the halyards, and then at her peak there was broken out not the
brilliant tri-coloured banner, gay and brave and clean, but a little
length of bunting, tattered and soiled, a faded breadth of stars and
bars, a veritable battle-flag, eloquent of strenuous endeavour, of
fighting without quarter, and of hardship borne without flinching and
without complaining.
The ship with her crowding escorts held onward. By degrees the City was
passed; the bay narrowed oceanwards little by little. The throng of
people, the boom of cannon, and the noise of shouting dropped astern.
One by one the boats of the escorting squadron halted, drew off, and,
turning with a parting blast of their whistles, headed back to the City.
Only the larger, heavier steamers and the sea-going tugs still kept on
their way. On either shore of the bay the houses began to dwindle,
giving place to open fields, brown and sear under the scudding sea-fog,
for now a wind was building up from out the east, and the surface of the
bay had begun to ruffle.
Half a mile farther on the slow, huge, groundswells began to come in; a
lighthouse was passed. Full in view, on ahead, stretched the open, empty
waste of ocean. Another steamer turned back, then another, then another,
then the last of the newspaper tugs. The fleet, reduced now to half a
dozen craft, ploughed on through and over the groundswells, the ship
they were escorting leading the way, her ragged little ensign straining
stiff in the ocean wind. At the entrance of the bay, where the enclosing
shores drew together and trailed off to surf-beaten sand-spits, three
more of the escort halted, and, unwilling to face the tumbling expanse
of the ocean, bleak and gray, turned homeward. Then just beyond the bar
two more of the remaining boats fell off and headed Cityward; a third
immediately did likewise. The outbound ship was left with only one
companion.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|