Hawaii - James Michener [123]
"Do you keep your eye upon the Evangelists, Mister Collins?" Captain Janders shouted above the fury.
"I do, sir."
"Can we take more seas, Mister Collins?"
"We cannot, sir."
"We'll turn and run."
"Mind the rocks, sir."
And the Thetis, whipping around, slashed into the violent seas coming from the Atlantic, and sped like a wounded sea animal back to Desolation Island. Below, the missionaries prayed. Not even the sick were able to remain in their berths, so violent the shaking and pitching had been.
Suddenly it was calm, and Captain Janders hid his little craft in a snug harbor whose shoreline was shaped like a fishhook. And each morning for the next week, Abner Hale, John Whipple, two other missionaries and four stout sailors rowed ashore with long rope attached to the prow of the Thetis. Running around to the tip of the fishhook, they would strain and dig into the sand, pulling until the brig began to move. Slowly, slowly, they would tow it out to the entrance of the main passage, and then run back to the rowboat and overtake it.
And each day for a week the Thetis nosed its way carefully into the meeting ground of the oceans, tested them, tried, valiantly probed, and courted destruction. The turbulence was so majestic that there seemed no possibility of subduing it, and the sailors lashed to the masts wondered if the captain would turn and head back through the strait for Good Hope. But each evening Captain Janders swore, "Tomorrow we'll break the spell. Tomorrow we'll be free." In his log he wrote: "Tuesday, January 29. Tried again. Gigantic swells from Pacific clashing with choppy sea from Atlantic caused scenes of most frightful violence. Surges so high no ship could master them. Ran for same harbor."
On the thirtieth day of January the winds veered to the west, which in the long run was a good thing in that they would now stop supporting the Atlantic choppiness and turn to stabilizing the unhampered Pacific; but their immediate effect was to prohibit any further assault on the exit. Therefore, the Thetis remained tied to shore in her snug fishhook harbor while Captain Janders, Mister Collins, Abner and John Whipple climbed a small hill to survey the wild confluence of the oceans. They could not see the Four Evangelists, but they knew where they were, and as they studied the pattern of the giant waves, Abner said, "Have you thought, sir, that perhaps you are being held back by God's will?"
Captain Janders did not growl at the young man. "I am willing to consider anything, if only we can breast that damned mile of ocean."
"It occurred to me last night," Abner said, "that your insane refusal to dispose of your worldly novels has cursed this ship."
Mister Collins looked at the young minister with blank astonishment and was about to make an obscene expostulation when Janders silenced him. "What did you have in mind, Reverend Hale?" "If we missionaries can pray, and if we can get this ship through the barrier, will you then dispose of your worldly literature, and as the captain of a ship that needs God, accept books from me?" "I will," Janders said solemnly. And the four men, standing on a hill at the end of the world, entered into a compact, and when the missionaries were gone, Janders justified himself to his first mate: "I am determined to pass this point. I've never seen such seas as we encountered at Cape Horn. Now this. Call me superstitious if you will, but it's bad luck for a ship to carry a minister. We've got eleven of 'em. If they're the cause of the bad luck, maybe they can also be the cause of good luck. I'll try anything."
That night Abner assembled the missionaries and told them of the compact. "God has been holding this ship back to teach us a lesson," he assured them, "but our prayers will lift the curse." To John Whipple and others, this seemed like medievalism, and they would not pray, but the majority did, and at the end of the prayer Whipple asked if he