The Penang Pirate Part 8

"Still, she didn't long keep on that course. The first message from our seven-pounder did not bring her to, nor did a second, but when a third went unpleasantly close, right through her broad lug-sail, we could see her come up to the wind sharp, while a fourth shot, which we now sent to show those on board that we meant business and would be obeyed, caused her heavy yard to be dropped by the run in token of surrender.

"We had a long pull yet to come near her; but on getting alongside we found it had been all labour for nothing. There was not the ghost of a slave aboard, nor any signs neither of her having carried any recently.

She was only a trading dhow with a lot of Banians taking goods from the mainland to the islands; and so we had had all our chase for nothing.

Well, the men were so vexed that they would have liked to have scuttled her. I was glad I hadn't suggested their taking to the oars, or perhaps they might have turned on me for making them toil so when it wasn't necessary; but of course I wasn't to blame, and they knew that.

"Having no authority to stop her, I was obliged to let the dhow proceed on her way, while we lay-to for the night in a sheltered creek under the lee of Saint Juan; for it was now getting dark, and the navigation being rather treacherous with a lot of coral reefs about, I thought it best to wait for daylight before we did any more cruising.

"On the wind rising again, towards midnight, I anch.o.r.ed the pinnace about a cable's-length off the beach, where we were pretty secure from drifting ash.o.r.e on account of the tide setting the other way. Towards morning, however, it came on to blow more strongly, and as the boat rocked uneasily I hauled up the kedge again, for it was bad holding ground, the tackle chafing against the coral banks and sawing away in a manner that promised to make it part if it remained down much longer, the boat's head bobbing down and up every wave with a jerk that must snap our painter in time.

"Setting the mainsail reefed, and a small storm-staysail forwards, we ran before the wind, which had now increased to a gale, blowing stiffly, as it had done in the early part of the day before, from the south-west.

It was of no use trying to lay-to in the open sea, for the rollers were too heavy for the boat to ride over, so we bore right away across the channel towards the north part of Madagascar, having a clear s.p.a.ce of water in front of us with no chance of running ash.o.r.e, for the next twenty-four hours or so at all events, if we kept on to the same point of the compa.s.s that the wind was now carrying us to. The pinnace being a good sea-boat, we were all right otherwise, that was, unless the gale shifted, when we would be driven back on to the rocky reef which encircled the Comoro Islands, and no doubt go to pieces there.

"'Let her drive,' said I to the men, whom I kept baling out the occasional seas that came in over the weather gunwale. 'As long as she keeps on running like this we can come to no harm, but you mustn't stop baling, for if she once gets waterlogged she'll founder and then we'll all be lost.'

"This made them stick to it, although most of them were tired out with the long pull they had had in the afternoon after the dhow, and when morning broke we were still all right and buoyant, although the tornado showed no appearance of slackening, and we were quite out of sight of land, nothing but sky and sea being around us, and the waves rolling that high as they followed in our wake that if we had not scudded on we would have been swamped in an instant.

"All that day we continued driving ahead, for we could not stop, or wear the boat round, or do anything but simply let her go where the wind chose to take her. We could not even lower the mainsail, as if we had done so it might have capsized her, besides which, as long as it held out without being blown away, although it almost made the pinnace bury her nose in the waves in front, it prevented the following rollers behind from coming too close, just keeping way enough on her to be out of their reach. But, it was a perilous run of it, and every big comber that raced after us looked as if it would overtake our tiny craft and swamp her!

"By about four o'clock in the afternoon, as near as we could reckon, we sighted the highlands of Madagascar, for it couldn't be any other coast from the direction we had been sailing in ever since midnight. The land was right ahead and some distance off yet; but approaching it rapidly as we did, it made us tremble, for unless we could manage to steer inside the reef that lay outside the sh.o.r.e of the island, the same as at Saint Juan, we must be dashed against the cliffs. It was wonderful to think we had run all that distance in less than twenty-four hours.

"How we did it I'm sure I can't tell, but I believe in addition to the force of the wind, that must have driven us at the rate of twenty knots an hour, more or less, there was a strong easterly current in the Mozambique Channel with the south-west monsoon, and this must have carried us so speedily across from the Comoro Islands. I can't account for it otherwise.

"Be that as it may, sir, there was Madagascar now before us, with the pinnace closing in with the land every second, seeming as if she were flying towards it rather than sailing; soon, too, we could distinguish the noise of breakers, which grew every minute more distinct. We were rushing rapidly to destruction, and it looked as if no earthly power could save the boat from being dashed to pieces.

"However, there was a power above watching over us.

"Presently I noticed from the contour of the land that we were near Cape Tangan, which I well knew from a coasting voyage I had made round the island in a cruiser the year before when I came out to join the _London_, and I recollected that this headland ran out into the sea in a north-westerly point, so that, if we could contrive to get the boat to leeward of the cape, we would soon be in comparatively still water and protected alike from the force of the wind and the rolling waves.

"I sang out to the men therefore to get their oars out ready, and, watching my opportunity when we were just almost abreast of Cape Tangan, I told Adams, who was in the centre of the boat now, to lower away the mainsail, directing the others at the same time to pull with a will, as their lives depended on our rounding the promontory, against which it looked as if we were going to be hurled as we came up to it--it was so terribly near and frowning over us!

"This plan fortunately succeeded, for in another minute, during which I held my breath in suspense, we were round the cape and in still water, although close to a coral reef that girdled the land, which was still some three miles off. We really were safe for the time and dropped our anchor, glad enough at our escape; but I saw that the haven could only be of temporary a.s.sistance to us, for should the wind shift more to the northwards we would even be in a worse position than when scudding before the gale, as the reef would then be immediately to leeward of us and the gale in our face.

"It would serve no good, however, to meet evil half-way, so as the men were all dead tired out and exhausted with hunger, having eaten nothing since dinner the day before the storm set in, I ordered the provisions to be served out, telling them after that to lie down and have a good sleep in the bottom of the boat while I remained on the watch till morning, having had less exertion than any of them.

"But the poor fellows did not have half so long a rest as that. Towards midnight--it seemed indeed as if all our misfortunes came at that time-- the pinnace dragged her anchor and drifted on to the reef, when I had to rouse all hands to jump out in the darkness and shove her off again before she knocked a hole in her bottom. Then, no sooner were we afloat again than the wind veered round, just as I had fancied it would do, without the slightest warning, to the northward.

"This of course rendered it impossible for us to remain any longer under the lee of the cliff, our anchorage there being now untenable; and, putting out to sea again, we bravely endeavoured to ride out the gale in the offing under a close-reefed mainsail and fore-staysail, so as not to be in too close proximity to the reef, which was doubly dangerous to us now.

"Fortune favoured us in the attempt to weather the worst of the storm, until shortly after daybreak; when, the rollers coming rolling in heavier and more heavily each hour, the poor pinnace sank below the surface of the sea in twenty-five fathoms of water, leaving thirteen of us struggling for our lives some seven miles away from sh.o.r.e."

"That must have been awful!" said I sympathisingly.

"It was awful," replied Ben gravely. "I can hardly bear to tell of it now."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOUR.

A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.

"The only things left floating in the water after the pinnace sank down under us," resumed Ben after a lengthened pause, during which he puffed vigorously at his pipe as if to make up for lost time as well as to restore his equanimity, "were, the rain awning, a sort of long tarpaulin; the sun awning, which was of lighter stuff, and soon got saturated by the sea, making it go to the bottom too; a couple of oars that had become, somehow or other, unfastened from the rowlocks and went adrift; a pork breaker or barrel; and two water barricoes, one of which was empty, while the other contained only about a couple of gallons of the precious fluid which in a short time would be worth more to us than gold--but, I'm antic.i.p.ating matters.

"Five of the boat's crew went down almost as soon as the pinnace, thus leaving only eight of us to battle against the waves and try to swim ash.o.r.e if we could; although I, for one, didn't believe a soul would ever live to set foot on land again, that is if I gave any thought to it at all!

"What the others did at the moment I can't say; for with that selfish instinct of self-preservation which makes a man in the instant of danger grasp anything, regardless of what his comrades in distress might be doing, I grappled hold of one of the oars and the pork breaker, besides the stern-sheet grating, which I forgot to say also floated from the wreck. These I lashed together into a sort of raft with a long woollen comforter, which I had fortunately wound round my neck the night before while keeping watch to protect me from the damp dew, and now took off for the purpose. I was treading water all the time I was doing this, and the sea being very buoyant in the Indian Ocean on account of its extra saltness, I managed to rig up my raft pretty well. Then, when I had finished it to my satisfaction, I looked around me, being too busy to do that before; and, seeing Bellamy, one of the crew who I knew could not swim, holding on to the other oar, and Russell, another chap in the same predicament, clutching tight to the gaskets of one of the barricoes, I helped them both on to my little platform, keeping them and myself afloat as well as I was able by swimming alongside and pushing it; for neither of the poor fellows could aid me--they seemed perfectly helpless.

"By this time the sun was high in the heavens and blazing right down upon our heads with an intensity of heat that almost seemed to shrivel up our hair, making us feel as if a red-hot cinder was laid on top of it. There was not much wind, that having died away soon after daybreak, the tornado having spent all its force and blown itself out; but the sea was still rough, the heavy rolling waves washing over us every now and then as they broke against the raft. Perhaps this moisture was good for us, the rapid evaporation of the water under the burning heat keeping us cool; but, what with the exposure and the fright he had sustained at our sudden upset, poor Russell went clean out of his mind, becoming as mad as a March hare. Although I was trying all I could to keep him on the raft to preserve his life, he thought I was struggling to prevent his holding on; and he commenced fighting with me, clutching hold of my neck and trying to force me under the water. I stood this for some time; when, seeing he only got worse instead of better, and that I had no means of fastening him down to the raft, I thought the best thing I could do for my own safety, as well as to give the other two a chance for their lives, was to trust to my own unaided strength and strike out for the sh.o.r.e, leaving the two on the raft to look after themselves.

Before abandoning that frail support, however, I adopted the precaution of taking off every st.i.tch of clothing I had on--my boots I had chucked away when in the boat, preparing even then for the worst. Had I not done this, I'm certain I would never have reached land or be now telling you this tale."

"I'm sure I'm very glad you took the precaution," I observed, "it was a sensible one."

"Yes," said Ben, "there's no use a man attempting to swim any distance with his things on. A fellow can do it in a bath, as a sort of exhibition like; but when he comes to battle for his life against the sea, the only chance he has is when he's stripped; for his clothes suck in the water and weigh him down so as to take all the buoyancy out of him and cripple his efforts to keep afloat--that's my opinion from painful experience.

"Soon after I quitted the raft," continued Ben, proceeding again with his narrative after my interruption, "I saw on looking back that Russell had clutched hold of Bellamy the same as he had done with me. But Bellamy hadn't half my strength, for the other soon got the better of him, and although I tried to swim back against the rollers so as to prevent the mishap, I couldn't make headway in spite of all my efforts, so in a minute or so I saw both tumble off the raft into the sea, and go down locked together in an embrace of death. Poor fellows, the madman had caused both to perish, when, by keeping quiet, they might have been washed safely ash.o.r.e in time. I tried myself to regain the raft then, it being now vacant and ample enough to support me alone comfortably; but the waves were too much for me, so I had to give up that hope and strike out once more for the sh.o.r.e, although the latter was so far off and low down too in the water that I couldn't even get a glimpse of it now to cheer me up and lead me on. I could only judge the direction of it by the set of the tide and the sun; and although I swam as manfully as I could, the thought occurred to me more than once that I might be making for the open ocean instead of the land after all, and was only prolonging my last agony!

"However, a little way on, the sight of one of my lost shipmates gave me fresh courage, for I had believed up till then, when Bellamy and Russell sank under water, that I was the only one of the pinnace's crew left alive.

"His name was Magellan, one of the smartest topmen of the old _Dolphin_, and he seemed now to rival the reputation of the fish after which our vessel was named, as he was swimming ahead of me with a proper breast stroke, and going well through the waves. I first saw him as he rose on top of a roller; and he, looking back at the same moment, when turning his head to avoid the wash of the wave, caught sight of me.

"'Hullo, Campion!' he sang out, 'where are you bound for?'

"'For the sh.o.r.e, you lubber,' I retorted jokingly, for seeing him put such fresh life in me that I felt almost inclined to laugh out aloud with joy!

"'Have you got anything to support you in the water?' he asked with surprise.

"'No,' said I, 'nothing but my own carca.s.s and the use of my hands and legs.'

"'The same with me, old ship,' he replied, 'let's see who'll get to land first.'

"'All right!' I cried, 'start away!' and we both of us struck out hard; but he was a far better swimmer than I was, and I soon lost sight of him although I followed in the same track as well as I could steer.

"About noontide, when the sun had got vertical in the sky overhead and blazed down with even greater power than it had done before, I had another cheer up; for, as I rose on the send of the sea I could faintly discover the tops of two trees in the distance standing out amidst the waste of waters. This put additional pluck into me, and made me exert myself to the utmost, as before then I could not see any sign of land at all; but, after swimming on for some time I began to lose heart again and became a.s.sailed by all manner of miserable fancies that almost made me despair!

"I thought it was strange that I could not see Magellan, if he were still in front of me, in the same way that I could observe the two trees. He must have gone down at last and got drowned like the others, I said to myself; or else a shark has snapped him up and made an end of him, so that I alone was left out of all the thirteen of the pinnace's crew. What was I reserved for?--a worse fate perhaps than the others-- possibly to reach a desolate sh.o.r.e, where I would starve to death in solitude without a single soul to share my misery! The idea of sharks, however, haunted me more than any other thought, for I knew that there were plenty of these sea monsters in the Mozambique Channel, and I dreaded more being caught by one of them than the mere fear of drowning, which now seemed to lose all its terrors, although I still swam on mechanically. Every time a wave broke over me, or when I splashed up the water with my own feet, the haunting horror seized me that the wide capacious maw and gaping saw-like teeth of a shark were ready to close upon me, paralysing my heart nerves, and making my blood run cold right through me. I never wish to pa.s.s through such a terrible time again, sir--not for the mere peril I was in from the sea and the long distance of water I had to traverse before I could hope to reach the end, so much as from the thought that my shipmates were all drowned, and the nervous dread I suffered on account of those devils of the deep, although all the while I actually never saw one. This was fortunate for me, as I'm sure only the sight of one in my then state of mind would have taken all the fight out of me and made me an easy prey!

"My fear of the sharks indeed grew so strong upon me that I absolutely tried to drown myself, but I could not keep myself down below the surface of the water long enough to carry out my intention. The attempt, however, did one good thing for me, as, seeing that I could not sink, try as hard as I could, it appeared to me that I wasn't born to be drowned--sailors,--you know, are rather superst.i.tious sometimes--so, thinking this, and a.s.sured that I was certain now to get to land, if only the sharks left me alone, I struck again towards the direction of the two trees that I saw every now and then to encourage me as I rose up on the crest of each alternate wave, determined to persevere to the last as long as the breath was left in me.

"Why, sir, it was a swim that beat poor Captain Webb's exploit in crossing the Channel, for the pinnace had gone down soon after daybreak, and I had been swimming ever since, while now the sun was sinking in the west, looking as if it were going to dip in another hour at the most.

Yet, I seemed as far off from the land as ever, those two trees that I watched so earnestly, and shaped my course by never appearing to rise out of the water or come nearer to me than two miles off--for, whether the tide had turned or there was a current carrying me along in a parallel direction with the sh.o.r.e, or some other cause, for ever so long a time I never got any closer than that. It was very hard, I thought, with the land so near to me now, and I unable to reach it, strive how I may! Perhaps, I fancied, those trees are a mere fanciful dream like the fairy-like mirage of the desert that tortures poor lost wanderers with pictures of cool lakes and rivers, while they are really in the middle of burning sandy plains. I began to doubt they were real trees at all, for I should have got up to them long since; and so, hara.s.sed again with despair, I tried a second time to drown myself, clenching my hands tightly to my side and making no effort to swim--but it was all in vain, I could not keep down. I must have been delirious I think then, and perhaps imagined it all, going out of my senses as poor Russell had done previously, and wandering in my mind, for I can recollect perfectly seeing the faces of people I knew in England--my father and mother and my young wife--beckoning to me and holding out their hands to drag me out of the water, when I knew all the while that I saw them that I was swimming for my life in the Mozambique Channel, and that they were safe at home in the old country! I suppose in my delirium two different trains of thought were running through my head?

"After that, I forget what happened. I must have become insensible, for I don't remember what occurred between. I seemed to wake up to consciousness all at once, and then I found myself lying on a low sandy beach, where I must have been washed up and left by the retreating tide.

"Although the sun had now set--which showed that I must have been unconscious for some time, as the last thing I recollected was its scorching my back, for of course as I was swimming in an easterly direction towards Madagascar, as it sank down the horizon it got behind me,--it was still light; and, looking about me, I perceived that I was on a small island or sand-bank, some distance still off the mainland, from which it was separated by a wide channel of water. I tried to get up on my feet to notice better how wide this channel-way was; but I was so weak from my long immersion in the sea, having stopped all circulation, that I fell back again flat on my back like a dead man.

The exertion of trying to rise, however, made me bring up a considerable quant.i.ty of sea-water, some two gallons or more, which I must have swallowed when insensible, for I certainly never took down half that quant.i.ty while swimming, having carefully avoided letting any get into my mouth for fear of its increasing my thirst; but, however it got into me, the emetic did me good, and I felt much better after thus disgorging it from my inside.

"Resting a bit, stretched out on the sand-bank, I could not help thanking the merciful Providence that had thus preserved my life when I had abandoned myself to despair, and had been powerless to aid myself; and I wondered whether any of my comrades had been saved too, or if I were the sole survivor of the ill-fated boat's crew?

"The evening growing darker my mind was soon brought back to thoughts of action, especially as the tide rising on the beach where I was lying began to lap against my body. Crawling on my hands and knees, for I was still unable to rise to my feet and walk, my limbs being perfectly numb from the thighs downward, I managed to get out of the way of the water for a while; but as it yet continued to rise, and I thought it might possibly cover the whole sand-bank at high tide, I determined to attempt to swim across the intervening channel that lay between the little islet I was on and the main coast--although the latter in the evening gloom seemed more than a mile away, and I felt utterly feeble and worn out.