Part 2 (1/2)
”Well, Job,” I said, ”perhaps it would be as well There are lots of blankets there, only be careful to keep out of the moon, or it may turn your head or blind you”
”Lord, sir! I don't think it would ht of these blacka ways They are only fit for h for it already”
Job, it will be perceived, was no admirer of the manners and custoly we hauled up the boat by the tow-rope till it was right under the stern of the dhow, and Job bundled into her with all the grace of a falling sack of potatoes Then we returned and sat down on the deck again, and sht was so lovely, and our brains were so full of suppressed excitement of one sort and another, that we did not feel inclined to turn in For nearly an hour we sat thus, and then, I think, we both dozed off At least I have a faint recollection of Leo sleepily explaining that the head was not a bad place to hit a buffalo, if you could catch him exactly between the horns, or send your bullet down his throat, or some nonsense of the sort
Then I rehtful roar of wind, a shriek of terror fro of water in our faces Soo the haulyards and lower the sail, but the parrel ja toon to a rope The sky aft was dark as pitch, but the htly ahead of us and lit up the blackness Beneath its sheen a huge white-topped breaker, twenty feet high oron to us It was on the break--the ht On it rushed beneath the inky sky, driven by the awful squall behind it Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, I saw the black shape of the whale-boat cast high into the air on the crest of the breaking wave Then--a shock of water, a wild rush of boiling foa for ht out froale
We were pooped
The wave passed It seemed to me that I was under water for minutes-- really it was seconds I looked forward The blast had torn out the great sail, and high in the air it was fluttering away to leeward like a huge wounded bird Then for a moment there was co wildly, ”Come here to the boat”
Bewildered and half-drowned as I was, I had the sense to rush aft I felt the dhow sinking under me--she was full of water Under her counter the whale-boat was tossing furiously, and I saw the Arab Mahoave one desperate pull at the tow-rope to bring the boat alongside Wildly I sprang also, Job caught me by the arm and I rolled into the bottom of the boat Doent the dhow bodily, and as she did so Mahomed drew his curved knife and severed the fibre-rope by which ere fast to her, and in another second ere driving before the storm over the place where the dhow had been
”Great God!” I shrieked, ”where is Leo? Leo! Leo!”
”He's gone, sir, God help him!” roared Job into my ear; and such was the fury of the squall that his voice sounded like a whisper
I wrung ony Leo was drowned, and I was left alive to mourn him
”Look out,” yelled Job; ”here coe as overtaking us I half hoped that it would drown me With a curious fascination I watched its awful advent Thestor breaker There was soe It was on us now, and the boat was nearly full of water But she was built in air-tight compartments--Heaven bless the h it like a swan Through the foaht at ht arm to ward it from me, and ripped like a vice I a to hold to, but ht of the floating body Had the rush lasted another two seconds I one with it But it passed, leaving us up to our knees in water
”Bail out! bail out!” shouted Job, suiting the action to the word
But I could not bail just then, for as theray of light lit upon the face of thein the bottoht back by the wave--back, dead or alive, from the very jaws of Death
”Bail out! bail out!” yelled Job, ”or we shall founder”
I seized a large tin boith a handle to it, which was fixed under one of the seats, and the three of us bailed away for dear life The furious te the boat this way and that, the wind and the stor spray blinded and bewildered us, but through it all orked like demons with the wild exhilaration of despair, for even despair can exhilarate One hten, and no fresh wave swamped us Five minutes more, and she was fairly clear Then, suddenly, above the awful shriekings of the hurricane came a duller, deeper roar Great Heavens! It was the voice of breakers!
At that ain--this time behind the path of the squall Out far across the torn bosoht, and there, half a mile ahead of us, was a white line of foam, then a little space of open-mouthed blackness, and then another line of white It was the breakers, and their roar grew clearer and yet more clear as we sped down upon the up in snowy spouts of spray, s teeth of hell
”Take the tiller, Mahomed!” I roared in Arabic ”We must try and shoot theot it out,to Job to do likewise
Mahoot hold of the tiller, and with some difficulty Job, who had soot out his oar In anotherfoaed and tore with the speed of a racehorse Just in front of us the first line of breakers seeht or left--there was a cap of rather deeper water I turned and pointed to it
”Steer for your life, Mahomed!” I yelled He was a skilful steersers of this rip the tiller, bend his heavy fra round eyes looked as though they would start out of his head The send of the sea was driving the boat's head round to starboard If we struck the line of breakers fifty yards to starboard of the gap wewaves Maholancing at hiht he put upon them as he took the strain of the tiller She cah I roared to Job to back water, whilst I dragged and laboured at my oar She answered now, and none too soon
Heavens, ere in the excitement such as I cannot hope to describe All that I re sea of foam, out of which the billows rose here, there, and everywhere like avenging ghosts froht round, but either by chance, or through Mahoain before a breaker filled us One h than over--and then, with a wild yell of exultation from the Arab, we shot out into the comparative smooth water of thewaves
But ere nearly full of water again, and not more than half a ain we set to and bailed furiously Fortunately the storhtly, revealing a rocky headland running half a mile or more out into the sea, of which this second line of breakers appeared to be a continuation At any rate, they boiled around its foot Probably the ridge that formed the headland ran out into the ocean, only at a lower level, and made the reef also This headland was terminated by a curious peak that seeot the boat pretty clear for the second time, Leo, to my immense relief, opened his eyes and remarked that the clothes had tuet up for chapel I told him to shut his eyes and keep quiet, which he did without in the slightest degree realizing the position As for myself, his reference to chapel , on e Why had I been such a fool as to leave them? This is a reflection that has several ti force
But now again ere drifting down on the breakers, though with lessened speed, for the wind had fallen, and only the current or the tide (it afterwards turned out to be the tide) was driving us
Another minute, and with a sort of howl to Allah from the Arab, a pious ejaculation fro that was not pious from Job, ere in them And then the whole scene, down to our final escape, repeated itself, only not quite so violently Mahoht coh, and drifting--for ere too exhausted to do anything to help ourselves except keep her head straight--with therapidity round the headland which I have described
Round ith the tide, until we got well under the lee of the point, and then suddenly the speed slackened, we ceased to make way, and finally appeared to be in dead water The stor a clean-washed sky behind it; the headland intercepted the heavy sea that had been occasioned by the squall, and the tide, which had been running so fiercely up the river (for ere now in the ish before it turned, so we floated quietly, and before the et her a little shi+p-shape Leo was sleeping profoundly, and on the whole I thought it wise not to wake hiht was noarht (and so did Job) that they were not likely to injure a orous constitution Besides, we had no dry ones at hand
Presently theon the waters, now only heaving like some troubled woone through and all that we had escaped Job stationed himself at the bow, Mahomed kept his post at the tiller, and I sat on a seat in the
The moon went slowly down in chastened loveliness; she departed like so veil-like shadows crept up the sky through which the stars peeped shyly out Soon, however, they too began to pale before a splendour in the east, and then the quivering footsteps of the dawn cah stars frorew the sea, quiet as the soft , as the illusive wreaths of sleep brood upon a pain-racked et its sorrow Froels of the Dawn, fro light with both their hands On they sped out of the darkness, perfect, glorious, like spirits of the just breaking from the tomb; on, over the quiet sea, over the low coastline, and the swamps beyond, and the mountains above them; over those who slept in peace and those oke in sorrow; over the evil and the good; over the living and the dead; over the orld and all that breathes or has breathed thereon
It was a wonderfully beautiful sight, and yet sad, perhaps, fro sun! There we have the sys hich humanity has to do The sy, and the end also And on thatthis came home to me with a peculiar force The sun that rose to-day for us had set last night for eighteen of our fellow-voyagers!--had set everlastingly for eighteen e knew!
The dhow had gone doith the the rocks and seaweed, so reat ocean of Death! And we four were saved But one day a sunrise will co those who are lost, and then others atch those glorious rays, and grow sad in the low of arising Life!
For this is the lot of th the heralds and forerunners of the royal sun had done their work, and, searching out the shadows, had caused thelory froht I sat there in the boat listening to the gentle lapping of the water and watched hiht the odd-shaped rock, or peak, at the end of the promontory which we had weathered with so ht, and blotted it from my view I still continued, however, to stare at the rock, absently enough, till presently it becaht behind it, and then I started, as well I ht, for I perceived that the top of the peak, which was about eighty feet high by one hundred and fifty feet thick at its base, was shaped like a negro's head and face, whereon was sta expression There was no doubt about it; there were the thick lips, the fat cheeks, and the squat nose standing out with startling clearness against the flaround There, too, was the round skull, washed into shape perhaps by thousands of years of wind and weather, and, to corowth of weeds or lichen upon it, which against the sun looked for all the world like the wool on a colossal negro's head It certainly was very odd; so odd that now I believe it is not a antic yptian Sphinx, by a forgotten people out of a pile of rock that lent itself to their design, perhaps as an e and defiance to any enemies who approached the harbour Unfortunately ere never able to ascertain whether or not this was the case, inasmuch as the rock was difficult of access both fros to attend to Myself, considering the ht of e afterwards saw, I believe that it was fashi+oned by man, but whether or not this is so, there it stands, and sullenly stares fro sea--there it stood two thousand years and yptian princess, and the wife of Leo's reazed upon its devilish face--and there I have no doubt it will still stand when as many centuries as are numbered between her day and our own are added to the year that bore us to oblivion
”What do you think of that, Job?” I asked of our retainer, as sitting on the edge of the boat, trying to get asuncommonly wretched, and I pointed to the fiery and demonical head
”Oh Lord, sir,” answered Job, who now perceived the object for the first ti for his portrait on theh woke up Leo
”Hullo,” he said, ”what's the matter with me? I am all stiff--where is the dhow? Give me some brandy, please”
”You may be thankful that you are not stiffer, my boy,” I answered ”The dhow is sunk, everybody on board her is droith the exception of us four, and your own life was only saved by a h, searched about in a locker for the brandy for which Leo asked, I told hiht's adventure
”Great Heavens!” he said faintly; ”and to think that we should have been chosen to live through it!”
By this tiood pull at it, and thankful enough ere for it Also the sun was beginning to get strength, and warh for five hours or asp as he put down the brandy bottle, ”there is the head the writing talks of, the 'rock carven like the head of an Ethiopian'”
”Yes,” I said, ”there it is”
”Well, then,” he answered, ”the whole thing is true”
”I don't see at all that that follows,” I answered ”We knew this head was here: your father saw it Very likely it is not the sa talks of; or if it is, it proves nothing”
Leo s Jew, Uncle Horace,” he said ”Those who live will see”