Hair-Breadth Escapes Part 32

The captain's voice was husky, and no one spoke for a minute or two; then Warley broke the silence.

"Well, I should quite have believed that they intended to do it from all I heard from Jennings and others about Duncan and O'Hara, as well as from the well-known character of these pirates. But then, if that was their intention, why did they allow you to leave the ship unhurt?"

"Ah, why indeed," repeated the captain. "I can't blame you for entertaining that notion, my lad; for I, old hand as I am, did not suspect their infernal treachery and cunning. You see, when the pirate ship came up, we were just preparing to blow up the hatches and rush on deck. No doubt they would have got the better of us, and killed us to a man; but before they had managed that they would have suffered considerably themselves. That wily villain, Andy Duncan--I have been told since it was he, and I have no doubt it was--devised a scheme by which they would be enabled to get rid of us quite as easily as if they had blown out all our brains, but without incurring any risks themselves. We discovered, when we had been an hour or two on board the boats, that some trick had been played with them, and they were very slowly but surely filling."

"The merciless wretches!" exclaimed Ernest; "and you were some hundreds of miles from sh.o.r.e?"

"Yes, quite five hundred from Ascension, which was the nearest land."

"How did you escape, sir?" exclaimed De Walden.

"Only by G.o.d's mercy. The discovery was first made in the launch which Grey commanded. The night, you will remember, was very dark, or it probably would have been made before; but they did not find it out till it was too late to keep it afloat even for a time. They shouted to us for help, but she had sunk before we could reach them, and there was a strong current just where she went down, which swept them all away-- except one of the mates, who managed to keep afloat until we picked him up. On hearing his story, we contrived to strike a light, and examined our own boat. There was a leak in her too, but providentially only just below the waterline. I suppose whoever did the job, thought the boat floated deeper than she did; but by lightening her as much as possible, and throwing all the weight that remained on the other side, we raised the damaged part out of water, and then baled her out. When day broke we were enabled to examine her more carefully. The injury was beyond our power to repair effectually. All we could do was just to keep her afloat, and if the sea had not been exceptionally calm we could not have done even that. Moreover, we had been obliged to throw overboard nearly all our provisions and water. In short, we should not only have never reached Ascension, but must have perished of hunger and thirst very speedily, if on the morning of the third day, shortly after dawn, a vessel had not appeared on our lee beam, apparently running before the light breeze which rippled the sea.

"We tried to attract her attention, but without effect. She was so near to us that we thought she must have seen us; but she did not alter her course, or in any way acknowledge our signals. Finding that she took no heed, we resolved, as a last chance, to reach her by rowing, though this obliged us to right our boat, and the water poured in so fast that incessant baling would not keep it down. At last, when we had got quite close to the ship, the boat was so water-logged that she could not have been kept afloat ten minutes more. We hailed again and again, but there was no answer, nor was any one to be seen on deck. We came to the conclusion that she had been deserted by her crew for some reason, or that they had all died on board, and that she was drifting aimlessly over the deep. Fortunately there was a rope hanging over her bows, up which one of the sailors climbed, and was followed by the others in succession. The last of us was hardly out of the cutter when she went down."

"Had she been deserted?" inquired Ernest. "Well, yes, by the survivors of her crew, that is. She was evidently a Portuguese trader running, I apprehend, between the West India Islands and Lisbon, and had probably twenty or twenty-five men on board. She must have been attacked by one of the terrible fevers prevalent in the hot climates, the action of which is sometimes so rapid that all attempts to stay it are useless.

Several, I suppose, must have died, and the rest were so terrified by the fear of infection, that they had left her. Any way, there were no human remains on board, and all the ship's boats were gone."

"I should think the danger into which you ran was worse than the one from which you had escaped," observed Queen Laura.

"We were of the same opinion, madam," observed Captain Wilmore. "If we could have repaired our own boat, or if a single one of the ship's boats had been left, we should have preferred continuing our own voyage in it.

But as that was impossible, we were obliged to remain in the vessel.

But after consulting with Captain Renton, I resolved to run, not for Ascension, but for the Cape de Verdes, though they were considerably further off. I don't know whether any of you have ever been at Ascension?"

"We sighted it once, sir," said Lavie; "but I never went ash.o.r.e there."

"There is not much to see if you do land," said the sailor. "It is little better than a great heap of cinders, except just in the interior, where there is some land capable of cultivation. It was for a long time believed that there wasn't a drop of fresh water to be found on it.

That is a mistake. There are a few springs--enough to support life, and there are some goats, and plenty of turtle. But there are no inhabitants, and I reckoned that if the fever should break out on board we should find no doctors there, or any means of nursing the sick. We shaped our course for the Cape de Verdes, therefore. We took all possible precautions, sleeping on deck throughout the voyage, and never going below unless it was absolutely necessary to bring up food and water. Whether it was that these precautions were successful, or whether it was that I was mistaken in my conjecture as to the reason why the barque had been deserted, I cannot say. But we certainly escaped without any sickness, and reached the Cape de Verdes without the loss of a man.

"I need not tell you how welcome was the sight of Porto Prayo to us all.

But I had an especial reason for rejoicing at it. You will remember, Ernest, the circ.u.mstances under which we left Porto Prayo?"

"Yes, sir," said Warley, colouring, "I remember we had behaved very ill.

I have often wished to ask your pardon for it."

"Well, my lad, it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, I expect," said the captain. "We may share the blame between us. I had often reproached myself for the haste with which I acted; though, at the same time, I could not help being glad that you were safe, as I imagined, at Porto Prayo, instead of being exposed to the sufferings and dangers which had befallen us. I had no sooner landed than I made inquiries concerning you; but to my surprise and disappointment I could learn nothing. I inst.i.tuted a most careful search, and offered a large reward. But it was all in vain. n.o.body knew anything about you, except that three foreign-looking lads had been seen about the streets of the town one day several weeks before. But no one had fallen in with them, or had heard anything about them since that date. I was still prosecuting my inquiries, when the British fleet, under Sir Home Popham, on its way, as I learned, to make an attack on the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope, sailed into the harbour.

"Fortunately for me, I was an old messmate of the Admiral's, and he was interested in my story. Moreover, I knew the Cape well, as was the case, I found, with very few of the officers of the squadron. Sir Home offered me the command of the _Celaeno_, a fine frigate, the captain of which had died suddenly. I, of course, gladly accepted it, and was enabled to render some service."

"Ah, you were present at the taking of the Cape," said Mr De Walden.

"Did the Dutch offer a determined resistance?"

"No," said Captain Wilmore. "I suppose the experience of the last campaign disheartened them. But certainly it was a very hollow affair.

Governor Jansens seemed to me to have given it up as a bad job from the first. There was hardly enough resistance to make it any fight at all.

But something did happen to me, nevertheless, in Simon's Bay which was exciting enough."

"What was that, sir?" asked Ernest. "You did not encounter the _Hooghly_, I suppose?"

"Ah, but I did though," said Captain Wilmore, "the _Hooghly_ herself, as large as life. The scoundrels had knocked away her figure-head, and painted her, name and all, anew; but I knew her in a moment, as well as I know my own face. We hailed her, and the moment they saw me on the quarter-deck, they cut their cable, and tried to run for it. But we were just entering the harbour, prepared for action, and sent such a broadside into her as knocked all the mischief out of her in a jiffey.

O'Hara was killed, and White mortally wounded, and as for Andy Duncan, he was run up to the yardarm and hanged the next morning. The others were put into irons, and received various sentences. Some had seven dozen. Others were simply dismissed and sent home."

"Did you learn on board the _Hooghly_ what had befallen us?" asked Warley.

"Yes, my lad, to my great satisfaction I did. One of the sailors came to me on the morning of Duncan's execution, and told me all that had happened, so far that is, as he knew it. But he could tell me nothing, of course, as to what had become of you after your escape from the ship.

All he knew was that you had appeared suddenly on deck two days after we had left, and it was conjectured by the crew that you had been concealed somewhere by old Jennings. Mr Lavie, it also appeared, had gone off with you, and none of the party appeared to have been hurt.

That comforted me a little, but still I was very anxious and uneasy--the more so because all inquiries at the Cape for a long time were wholly fruitless."

"Ah, I was afraid you would be at fault there," said Warley. "I suppose you simply heard nothing at all?"

"Very nearly that," said the captain. "Some of the messengers whom I sent out did come back with a story that some white men with guns had been seen in the neighbourhood of Elephant's kloof; but the Hottentots living near about there denied, one and all, the truth of the rumour."

"The rascals!" exclaimed Ernest. "When you heard the truth of the matter, sir, you must have been amused at their denial."

"Yes, afterwards," said Captain Wilmore; "but not at the time. I was, in fact, almost in despair when Lavie here arrived all of a moment one day, looking like a ghost returned from the grave."

"Ay, I am afraid you must have had a trying time of it, Charles," said De Walden. "I have sometimes reproached myself for allowing you to go, considering what the danger and exhaustion must needs be."

"You have no need to do so," said Lavie. "Whatever I may have undergone has been more than compensated by our meeting to-day, not to speak of the appointment which my kind friend has obtained for me. In fact, if I had not undertaken the journey, we must have remained in hopeless captivity."

"Did your Bechuana guide play false?" asked the missionary.

"No, I have no right to say so. Whether he would have been as faithful as he was, had matters fallen out differently, may be a matter of doubt.

I half fancy he had received some private instructions from Chuma, which he did not carry out, for what may seem a very strange reason. He was frightened out of his senses by our dog, Lion!"

"Lion!" exclaimed Warley. "Why, he has been dead for weeks and months, hasn't he?"

"Not he! He is as much alive as you or I. He is at one of the huts along with Kama and Kobo at this moment."

"I thought I saw him swept away by the flood during that night on the Gariep."

"So you did, I dare say; but he must have contrived to swim ash.o.r.e.

Anyhow, we met him two days' journey from the Bechuana village, tracking us, I fancy, by his instinct, and he would have joined us there before long, if I had not fallen in with him; but he would not leave me, when we had once met, and I thought the best thing under the circ.u.mstances would be to take him with me to Cape Town. But Kama, who had never seen an animal like him, and who had heard of his having been swept away by the torrent, believed, I am convinced, that he was a sort of tutelary spirit, who would be sure to detect any knavery and avenge any false dealing on his part. It amused me, I must say, a good deal; but any way, from the day Lion joined our company to that on which we reached Cape Town, he never attempted any tricks."

"And then you and Captain Wilmore resolved to go in quest of us," said De Walden. "I understand that But how did you find out where we were?

Did you go to the Bechuanas, and hear it from Chuma?"

"No; we were making our way to the village, when we fell in with a man who was known to Kama, and who, it seemed, knew me too, though I had quite forgotten him."

"What! Kobo, I suppose?" exclaimed Warley.

"Yes, that, I believe, is his name. He told us that you all had escaped in his company from Chuma, who had quarrelled with you, or with Mr De Walden. He said he had left you on an island on the Yellow River awaiting his return, and we had better accompany him to the place. So we did, but there was no trace of you to be found."

"No," said Warley. "We didn't stay twenty-four hours on the island after Kobo's departure. We have been playing at cross purposes with him. How did you find out at last where we were?"

"We met your messenger returning from his errand to the Bechuanas, and learned that the quarrel had been made up. Nevertheless, all things considered, it is quite as well that we didn't go there."

"All's well that ends well," said the Queen, who had sat listening to the discourse of her English guests with the deepest interest, recalling, as it did, so many varied a.s.sociations.

"I trust it will end well, madam," observed Captain Wilmore. "But until I find my nephew, and young Gilbert, and bring them back safely, I cannot consider that there is an end to my anxieties."