Part 3 (1/2)
Note 1. There can be no literal translation of this word of command, but the oxen understand it well,--to them it means ”advance,” ”on.”
CHAPTER THREE.
THE s.h.i.+PWRECK.
We must now turn from the inland valley, with its homestead, its cornfields, and flocks, to a very different scene,--a scene at sea.
On the day when our friends Frankfort and Ormsby were introduced to my reader with the tempest warring round them, as they stood shelterless with May upon the open plain, a solitary s.h.i.+p neared the south-eastern coast of the great continent of Africa. The hurricane blew there with frenzied violence; the fiends of the storm were howling aloft among the shrouds, the canva.s.s cracked and rattled till it split into ribbons, and was whirled away to the winds; the rudder had been torn from its place, the masts groaned and shrieked, the waters frothed up in fountains of spray, and at intervals the heavy surges swept the decks like clouds, enveloping the vessel, and bearing it down with a force it could ill resist.
The sailors were hanging about the s.h.i.+p, but there were few on deck, and none in the shrouds, for there they could not keep their footing.
There were troops on board; the dull roll of the drum made itself audible at times, when there was a lull, and volleys of musketry mingled their signals of distress with the screams of affrighted women and children,--and, alas! alas!--with the oaths of terrible men,--for it was a convict-s.h.i.+p.
There were but momentary glimpses of the sh.o.r.e as the lightning flashes rent in twain the dark ma.s.ses of vapour hanging about the gloomy rock-bound coast. The captain could only guess where he was, for the vessel had been driving all the night, and the character of the cliffs was his only guide now. He saw there was no help for them if the s.h.i.+p continued to lie with her head to the sh.o.r.e, and he believed that a sand-bank at the yawning mouth of a river would engulph them, unless the hand of Providence cast them to the westward of this, where, as he supposed, the sands sloped from the cliffs, on the summit of which stood a small fortified barrack, occupied by a slender garrison of British troops, who would render such a.s.sistance as their means permitted in saving the lives of such as might be fortunate enough to be cast adrift upon the coast, or be enabled to reach it by rafts, or in the launch.
The convicts had all been freed from their shackles in the early part of the night--as soon, in fact, as the desperate situation of the s.h.i.+p was ascertained; but they were kept between decks till some plan of possible relief could be devised. Some sat moodily in the corners of the s.h.i.+p, awaiting the day, in sullen, gloomy despondency. Some blasphemed; some laughed in bitterness of heart, exulting in the idea, that man's vengeance had been set at nought by a stronger power;--whether for good or evil, they did not consider. Some jeered at the soldiers, who bore the jeers with unswerving spirit; and some of the women, G.o.d help them!
jeered the loudest! One, indeed,--who had deeply considered her position, and repented,--prayed aloud, and some drew round her to listen, but these were few; others cursed their doom. One soldier's wife, a young creature with an infant in her arms, leaned against a riven mast, crying bitterly, while her husband tried in vain to comfort her. Immovable as images were most of those iron soldiers, except as they answered to the voice of command; true, even in the jaws of death, to their country and their profession, they heard the blasphemy and the jeers and the ribaldry of the wretched beings they guarded, without evincing the slightest emotion. Between the volleys of musketry, a heavy gun occasionally boomed out its signal of distress, but it was only echoed back from the gaping rocks of the dangerous coast; again the small-arms awakened no answer.
Silence,--a voice of command from the p.o.o.p, and all hands are called to lower the launch. The s.h.i.+p had struck several times against the sand, s.h.i.+vering, as though terrified at being so a.s.sailed. The gangways were guarded, and the convicts not permitted to pa.s.s. Few, indeed, attempted it, though all had been unmanacled; but discipline, in hours of difficulty and danger, is generally more than a match for strength.
The launch was lowered with a will, by those who would have no right to enter it. It was appropriated, of course, to the women and children, and those who were to have the charge of it were appointed by lot.
There was no confusion; those who drew planks turned calmly away, and went to other duties, while the guardians of the launch marshalled its pa.s.sengers in funeral order, and they were cautiously lowered into it.
There were two officers in command of the convict guard; the elder was married; his wife looked quite a child, she was barely eighteen.
Melancholy it was to see her clinging to her husband, and begging to be left with him on that deck, which began already to open its seams, and show the water boiling below. She threw herself on her knees at last, and implored him to let her die there with him.
”Marmaduke, my love, my husband, do not send me from you;” and, turning to the captain, who gently implored her, for the sake of her unborn infant, to endeavour to save herself, she replied, in a voice of indescribable calmness, ”Sir, those whom G.o.d has joined, let no man put asunder; I will not leave my husband.”
Then a boy mids.h.i.+pman came forward, and begged the officer to take _his_ place in the launch, but Captain Dorian would not leave his men; and now everything was prepared to cut away the boat from the s.h.i.+p, and Mrs Dorian stood firmly by her husband.
I have alluded to the knowledge, such as it was, that the captain had of the coast they had been nearing for so considerable a time. He was not mistaken in his conjectures that they were within gun-range of a part of the sh.o.r.e guarded by a garrison of British soldiers.
See a signal!--the clouds have been lifted by the merciful hand of Providence; and, though the answering gun from the tower of the little fort cannot be heard, in consequence of the wind setting in-sh.o.r.e, and the elements outvying each other in noise at sea, the flash is distinctly visible. Captain Dorian persuades the poor young creature that there is help close at hand; appeals to her in the character of a soldier, who expects his wife to a.s.sist him in setting an example of firmness; points out to her the selfishness of her wish to remain thus unmanning him in his military duties; and, pa.s.sive, stupified, at last, she suffers him to carry her to the s.h.i.+p's side, and she takes her place in the launch.
Dorian looked at her as she lifted her eyes in a wild way to him. She stretched out her hands, as if imploring him to call her back. A white-crested wave sweeps over her, and throws her down; she tries to rise; she sees her husband with clasped hands praying for her; she waves hers in reply, and Dorian is called away on duty.
He speaks coolly and decidedly; he gives the necessary orders to an old sergeant, but is stopped by the screams of the unhappy women on the deck, who are hoping that the launch may come back for them. A strong rope had been affixed to the s.h.i.+p, and it had been decided that this, being also connected with the launch, should be fastened ash.o.r.e by any means that the will of Providence might offer. The rope was strong, but the rottenness of the s.h.i.+p's timbers was proved in a sudden and appalling manner. The poor soldiers had congregated in that part of the vessel to which the rope had been made last. I have already said that the seams of the deck had opened, leaving here and there a large s.p.a.ce; still the captain, officers, and crew were in hopes that she would hold together till she was driven on the sands, and by that time they antic.i.p.ated further help by means of the launch, the rope, and perhaps some surf-boats, if the detachment possessed any, as was probable, from the garrison being a depot for stores brought thither by coasters.
An awful crash took place; the great s.h.i.+p parted, and the poor anxious watchers of the launch were precipitated into the foaming ocean.
The miserable convicts rushed upon what remained of the deck. They shouted, they sang, they chattered, they uttered ribald jests; they climbed the rigging, and swung aloft. It gave way under their feet.
Some seemed to revel in the freedom of the unchained air; they cl.u.s.tered along the yards like bees. Now the s.h.i.+p's bows are drawn into the surge; now the shattered p.o.o.p sinks beneath the waves; now the sea overwhelms the decks, sweeping living aid inanimate things in its vortex; and now, oh G.o.d! the great beams gape and yawn and part asunder, and see the wretches are jammed in between; a mast is s.h.i.+vered, a block falls, and strikes an old man down; his eyes burst from their sockets, his head is bruised and battered, his limbs quiver, and his fingers are convulsed. The deck opens again; the bounding: sea bursts up, and draws into its relentless jaws more than one victim!
The s.h.i.+p was fairly breaking up. Some rushed to the forecastle, some looked despairingly from the p.o.o.p--Between the fore and after part there was soon an impa.s.sable gulf.
At the scream, which drew the attention of Dorian and his sergeant from the arrangements they were making, the former rushed to the p.o.o.p. He saw the brave fellows who had been swept off struggling in the waters, trying to regain the shattered vessel. They perished every one of them!
At any other time he would have been stunned by the sight, but his eyes are strained beyond it; fixed in an aching gaze upon the launch, he can distinguish no one in her now; her pa.s.sengers seem all huddled together: he turns round on hearing the mast cras.h.i.+ng over the s.h.i.+p's side; he is shocked at the sight of the mutilated old man. Again he turns; his eyes seek the rocks, above which he has seen the flash of the signal-gun; he fancies he hears the echoes rolling along the cliffs; he distinguishes another momentary light; the launch is hidden between two watery mountains, but she rises; he would give worlds to use a spy-gla.s.s, but it is impossible; but he needs it not; he sees the launch again with terrible distinctness. She has turned over, she goes down! He sees no more; many of his gallant soldiers have perished in the boiling element beneath him, and he springs forward in his despair to join his flair and child-like wife.