Foxholme Hall Part 23

"The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when an answer was given back which fully accounted for her presence. Right astern there appeared, where a moment before the sky had been of beautiful blue, a cloud black as ink, spreading across the whole eastern horizon. We all saw what was coming--the men instinctively sprang to the brails.

"`Clew up, haul down, let fly everything!' shouted the captain.

"It was too late: before a tack could be let go, or a brail hauled on, the fierce hurricane struck us. In a moment, ere we could look round, the stout ship heeled over, and trembled in every timber. Crash upon crash was heard, mingled with the shrieks of the seamen, and she was left without a mast standing, a mere hull upon the water. Derick was the most undaunted, though he must have felt on whose account all these disasters were happening. He sprang up with an axe in his hand, and summoning the crew, set to work to cut away the shrouds to clear the shattered spars from the ship. It was done, and the ship drove furiously on before the howling blast.

"`We shall ride it out and disappoint the accursed old hag; so never mind, my boys!' he shouted, as he worked away.

"`Land right ahead,' sang out a man forward.

"`Land on the starboard bow,' cried another.

"`Land on the larboard bow,' exclaimed a third.

"`Then we are lost!' shrieked out many voices, in an agony of despair.

"Onward we drove before the hurricane. `Breakers on the starboard and larboard bows,' cried the first mate, who had rushed forward to look out for any pa.s.sage among the reefs through which to steer the ship, while I, with the third mate and another hand, went to the helm.

"The darkness of the night came down, and added to the horrors of the scene. `Breakers right ahead!' he shouted; `all's lost!' He had scarcely uttered the words when the ship struck with tremendous violence on some rocks; the sea lifted her, but it was to let her fall with still greater force, amid a foaming caldron of waters. The surges fiercely broke over us, and washed man after man from his hold. Shrieks and cries rose on every side from the manly bosoms which had never before felt fear.

"The captain stood firm, clasping his wife in his arms, for she had from the first refused to go below. His countenance, as the lightning flashed brightly round him, looked deadly pale; she had fainted, and was happily senseless. A third time the ship lifted, and down she came with a tremendous crash, every timber in her parting at the instant. Two things I saw at that awful moment: the despairing countenance of the captain as the foaming waves whirled him and her he loved away in their wild embrace, his starting eyeb.a.l.l.s to the last fixed on the malignant features of the fearful witch, whom I beheld sailing round us in her skiff, unharmed, among the breakers, her loud shrieks of triumphant laughter sounding high above the roaring of the tempest.

"Notwithstanding the horrors of the scene, the principle of self-preservation prompted me to seize a plank, and supported by it, I found myself, I scarcely know how, carried by the waves on to a sandy beach. A rock was near. I climbed to its summit, and from thence I beheld, amid successive flashes of lightning, the old witch whirling her staff in triumph over her head, while her skiff scudded at lightning speed in the direction of Cape Horn. I was on an uninhabited island. I searched anxiously on every side to see if any of my shipmates had escaped, but alas! none appeared, and I discovered with sorrow that I was the sole survivor of the _Chameleon's_ gallant crew.

"After living some months on the island, I was taken off, and in two years found my way back to Liverpool. I had the curiosity to make inquiries for old Dame Kirby, and learned that she had been for months absent from home, and that n.o.body knew what had become of her, but that at length she returned, and was heard to boast that she had been doing a deed much to her satisfaction, but would tell no one what it was. I inquired the date of her return; it was exactly five days after our shipwreck, so that although she must have made a quick pa.s.sage, there could be no longer any doubt on the mind of a reasonable man that she had been the cause of all the disasters which had happened to us, and of the destruction of the Doomed Ship."