Morgan watched, mesmerized as the shipboard drama unfolded directly underneath him. Another sailor came to Icelander’s defense, a small dark-haired man who spoke little English named Luis Ochoa. He was known as the Spaniard. He was a man near thirty, thin and bronze-skinned with a drooping black moustache and heavily tattooed arms. Morgan had already heard about his reputation of being quick with a knife. Some of the other sailors claimed he had once been a pirate sailing out of Havana. The ship’s officers didn’t like these two foreigners. Some of the river men took a special dislike to sailors who weren’t from New England.
The second mate was striking both men now. Morgan could see the flat top of his hat and the thrashing motion of the belaying pin. Suddenly, the Spaniard drew his sheath knife and was about to lunge at Mr. Brown. Morgan held his breath and began to panic as he felt the rope holding the slush bucket slipping out of his grasp. Hiram had warned him that this could happen. He tried in vain to wrap it around his wrist, but his hands and arms were thick with grease and the rope kept slipping. He knew he couldn’t hold it any longer.
“Hiram, help me!” Morgan cried out. “It’s slipping! The bucket, it’s falling!”
Hiram was on the other side of the mast, but he was quick to react as he saw the impending disaster unfolding. He stepped over to Morgan’s side and sidled toward him, being careful to keep one hand on the shrouds. Morgan reached for the rope with his other hand, but he lost his balance, and started to fall backward. Hiram was close enough to grab him by his belt while he held onto the rigging with the other hand. Morgan was now precariously hanging in the air, his hands frantically trying to grab the shrouds, his feet barely touching the ratlines. By this time, the bucket with its foul and greasy contents was in free fall. The slobbery mess landed on top of the unsuspecting second mate’s head like generous dollops of pig fat on a skillet. The bucket hit the mate squarely on the shoulder. The blow was enough to knock him down onto the deck.
Hiram called out for help. His hand on Morgan’s belt was beginning to slip.
“Hurry!” Hiram yelled. “I can’t hold on much longer.”
Like a nimble monkey, the wiry Spaniard was the first up the mast, climbing around the futtock shrouds for speed and then up the rope ladder to the topsail area where the boys were dangling. The taller Icelander was right behind him, carrying a thick hemp rope. Morgan’s head was now facing downward, his hands clutching at thin air. He was attempting to grip the ratlines with his feet and legs, but to no avail. The Spaniard climbed up above the two boys, wrapped his legs around the topsail yard’s foot rope, and then like a monkey swung upside down to grab one of Morgan’s feet with both his hands, allowing Hiram to let go of his belt. At the same time, Icelander tied a bowline at one end of the rope and tossed the knotted loop to Morgan’s outstretched hands. He then passed the other end of the rope over the topsail yard and wrapped the line two or three times around the mast to secure it.
“Put both your hands through the loop and hold,” he yelled. Morgan did as he was told and wrapped his wrist in and around the loop, grabbing the area above the bulging bowline knot. At a signal from Icelander, the Spaniard let go of his hold on Morgan’s foot, and his body catapulted downward toward the deck. His free fall was quickly arrested by the rope, leaving him dangling, swinging back and forth, hanging by his wrists and hands, but safe. Icelander slowly lowered him to the safety of the deck to the cheers of the onlookers down below.
Captain Champlin came over to check on the condition of his second officer. Jack Brown’s pride was the gravest injury. He made sure that Morgan not only holystoned the decks but scrubbed the pigpen. This punishment went on for days until Brown’s wrath was eventually redirected to another greenhand.
Because of Morgan’s miraculous escape from almost certain death, some of the more superstitious men now saw him as a lucky sailor. Sighting a pod of dolphins was considered a harbinger of good fortune. A black cat on board ship was good luck, and now young Morgan was finding himself accepted as a member of the crew because he was viewed as a good omen.
Days later, Ely and Hiram were down on their knees, holystoning the cold decks late one morning when the cry came out from aloft that land was in sight. Earlier they’d already seen some black-and-white seabirds, their stiff wingtips dipping from one side to another as they skimmed the water in search of schools of herring or other small fish. They had been twenty-five days at sea.
“Can’t be long now to Mizen Head,” cried out one old sailor who was pointing to the northeast. The man was tall and skinny, his bony shoulders drooping like the broken wings of a bird. Morgan couldn’t see anything but a white haze on the horizon. He looked at the man’s craggy features. His long, gray beard hung down like strands of Spanish moss from the limbs of a tree. The scarred and furrowed face and well-defined crow’s-feet at the corners of his light blue eyes were all a testament to a man who had been at sea for most of his life. His name was Jeremiah Watkins. Most of the sailors just called him Old Jeremiah. He was one of the veteran sailors on board who was both superstitious and religious. In his youth, he had attained the rank of a harpooner on one of the Nantucket whalers. He had traveled as far as China and Bombay. At night, when some of the men were off watch and spinning yarn in the forecastle, he would tell tales about the East India trade and “them Oriental monkeys in Bombay who don’t wear no togs, nothing but a white bandana around their privates.” Because of his knowledge of Scripture and legends, good and bad omens, the sailors on board the Hudson looked to him for guidance.