Part 70 (1/2)
A cloudless sky and a sailless sea. Far beneath them they heard but saw not the eternal surges gnawing at the mountain. A few white albatrosses skimmed and sailed below, and before, seaward, the sheets of turf, falling away, stretched into a sh.o.r.eless headland, fringed with black rock and snow-white surf.
She stood there, flushed and excited with the exercise, her bright hair dishevelled, waving in the free sea-breeze, the most beautiful object in that glorious landscape, her n.o.ble mate beside her. Awe, wonder, and admiration kept both of them silent for a few moments, and then she spoke.
”Do you know any of the choruses in the 'Messiah'?” asked she.
”No, I do not,” said Sam.
”I am rather sorry for it,” she said, ”because this is so very like some of them.”
”I can quite imagine that,” said Sam. ”I can quite imagine music which expresses what we see now. Something infinitely BROAD I should say. Is that nonsense now?”
”Not to me,” said Alice.
”I imagined,” said Sam, ”that the sea would be much rougher than this.
In spite of the ceaseless thunder below there, it is very calm.”
”Calm, eh?” said the Doctor's voice behind them. ”G.o.d help the s.h.i.+p that should touch that reef this day, though a nautilus might float in safety! See, how the groundswell is tearing away at those rocks; you can just distinguish the long heave of the water, before it breaks.
There is the most dangerous groundswell in the world off this coast.
Should this country ever have a large coast-trade, they will find it out, in calm weather with no anchorage.”
A great coasting trade has arisen; and the Doctor's remark has proved terribly true. Let the Monumental City and the Schomberg, the Duncan Dunbar and the Catherine Adamson bear witness to it. Let the drowning cries of hundreds of good sailors, who have been missed and never more heard of, bear witness that this is the most pitiless and unprotected, and, even in calm weather, the most dangerous coast in the world.
But Jim came panting up, and, throwing himself on the short turf, said--
”So this is the great Southern Ocean; eh! How far can one see, now, Halbert?”
”About thirty miles.”
”And how far to India; eh?”
”About seven thousand.”
”A long way,” said Jim. ”However, not so far as to England.”
”Fancy,” said Halbert, ”one of those old Dutch voyagers driving on this unknown coast on a dark night. What a sudden end to their voyage! Yet that must have happened to many s.h.i.+ps which have never come home.
Perhaps when they come to explore this coast a little more they may find some old s.h.i.+p's ribs jammed on a reef; the ribs of some s.h.i.+p whose name and memory has perished.”
”The very thing you mention is the case,” said the Doctor. ”Down the coast here, under a hopeless, black basaltic cliff, is to be seen the wreck of a very, very old s.h.i.+p, now covered with coral and seaweed. I waited down there for a spring tide, to examine her, but could determine nothing, save that she was very old; whether Dutch or Spanish I know not. You English should never sneer at those two nations: they were before you everywhere.”
”And the Chinese before any of us in Australia,” replied Halbert.
”If you will just come here,” said Alice, ”where those black rocks are hid by the bend of the hill, you get only three colours in your landscape; blue sky, grey gra.s.s, and purple sea. But look, there is a man standing on the promontory. He makes quite an eyesore there. I wish he would go away.”
”I suppose he has as good a right there as any of us,” answered the Doctor. ”But he certainly does not harmonise very well with the rest of the colouring. What a strange place he has chosen to stand in, looking out over the sea, as though he were a s.h.i.+pwrecked mariner--the last of the crew.”
”A s.h.i.+pwrecked mariner would hardly wear breeches and boots, my dear Doctor,” said Jim. ”That man is a stockman.”
”Not one of ours, however,” said George Barker; ”even at this distance I can see that. See, he's gone! Strange! I know of no way down the cliff thereabouts. Would you like to come down to the sh.o.r.e?”