The Ruined Cities of Zululand Part 40

The mate spoke never a word, but pointed silently to the body of the captain, as it lay on the planking, the long white hair moving in the wash of the sea, and the blood slowly welling from the shattered forehead. It was a ghastly sight, as the faint starlight revealed it to the sobered crew.

"It was that lubber Gough," muttered the man; "Phillips and he have gone to Davy Jones. I say, Mr Lowe, you'll log it down to them, not to us; we were all three sheets in the wind."

"It's not for me to decide," replied the mate; "you'll all have justice, and that looks to me like a rope rove through a block at the fore-yard arm. What had he done to you that he should lie there, you d.a.m.ned mutinous scoundrels?"

"I say, my lads," replied the still half-drunken man, "what's the use of this kind of thing? If as how we are to blame for the skipper's death, when we was as drunk as lords--if so be as we are to be yard-armed for what Gough and Phillips did, why let's go overboard, says I."

"I say, Mr Lowe," humbly interposed another and more sober man, "we had nothing to do with this here matter. Them two b.l.o.o.d.y-minded villains promised us rum and gold. We deserve all we'll get, but you'll not be down on us too hard, will ye?"

"No, I'll not," replied the officer. "Collect the arms, Forest, and return them to the chest."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the man, obeying at once.

Every half-hour a gun from the whaler boomed over the sea, telling of her presence; but it was evident that not understanding the firing, her crew thought it safer to wait for daylight.

Isabel seemed stupefied with grief. Her senses were stunned by this last crowning misfortune. The missionary had now joined her, and by the feeble light had soon found that life was not quite extinct in his friend's battered frame.

With the help of two of the mutineers, Hughes had been carried into the cabin, and laid on the spare sails; some weak brandy-and-water had been given him, and the blood washed from the pale face and clotted hair.

"It comes too late," muttered Isabel, as she bent over her husband's body. "It comes too late. What to me is yonder ship? Father and husband, father and husband gone!" she moaned.

"Hush!" said the missionary, as he sponged away the blood with a handkerchief; "hush! he is not dead, only half drowned, and stunned."

The sailor Gough had, in his drunken fury, beaten his antagonist's head against the jagged ends of the spars. The yielding water had softened the shock, but as the two leaned over him, and the grey dawn stole across the ocean, his head presented a terrible spectacle. They poured more spirit and water down his throat, and gradually the colour came back to his face. He opened his eyes, looking wildly around, and as he did so, the light of returning consciousness came back to them.

At this moment, the boom of the whaler's forecastle gun was again heard, as her men, who had in the darkness of the night seen only the flash of the pistols, now caught sight of the raft, her head yards being at once braced round, and her bows brought as near the wind as possible. The sound struck the injured man's ear.

"It is help, it is safety," whispered Isabel. "Enrico, it is a ship!"

The soldier's eyes closed, his lips moved, and the blood mounted slowly to his cheeks. "My Isabel, my beloved!" he murmured. A flood of tears poured from Isabel's eyes as she threw herself into his arms; and the missionary left the cabin, drawing down the sail as he did so over the opening.

The raft did not show such proofs of the deadly fight which had taken place on board of her as might have been imagined. The dead body of the old captain was carefully placed amidships, near his boxes of gold dust; that of the carpenter, Morris, beside it, for he too was dead. Adams, whose splinter wound had broken out once more with the excitement of the fray, was looked to. The mutineers who had fallen had been disposed of by the sharks, whose large fins could yet be seen from, time to time, as they moved slowly round and round the raft, seeking for more prey.

"We might have knowed what 'ud come on it," said one of the now humble seamen, as he dashed a bucket of water over a large red patch of blood; "I never seed them chaps, but I knowed as Davy Jones a wanted some on us."

And so the morning dawned over the ocean, and the diminished crew on board the raft; the wind still light from the westward, and the sail yet dragging her almost imperceptibly through the water. Slowly the first streaks of light spread over the waste of ocean, as the haggard, worn-out men, pale from excitement and from the effects of drink, looked out eagerly for the ship, which they knew was near them.

"There she is, right to leeward," said one of the seamen; and as the light every moment became more intense, there she lay sure enough.

"A full-rigged ship hove-to under two topsails, fore-topmast-staysail, and driver," said Mr Lowe.

"Look, she sees us," cried Wyzinski, as the main-topsail yard was rounded in, the sail filled, and the ship gathered way--the Union Jack being run up to the gaff, and a white puff of smoke from her bows preceding the thud of the gun.

The studding sail was gently raised, and Hughes, leaning on Isabel's arm, joined the group. A few buckets of cold sea water had done wonders for him, though his head was still swollen and contused, and as he sat down on the spot where his tale had been so terribly broken off, the sun's higher limb emerged from the waste of waters to the eastward, and tipped the waves of the Indian Ocean with its rays.

"There is hope dawning on us at last, Isabel," said he, pointing first to the rising sun, then to the white canvas of the ship, as the first beams shone on it.

"There goes her foresail and mainsail. By Jove!" exclaimed Mr Lowe, "she must be strong handed, for they're away aloft."

Sail after sail was shown on board the ship until she was standing on close hauled, with everything set to her royals.

"There's down with the helm!" muttered one of the men, as the ship's bows came sweeping up to the wind, her canvas shivering, then filling once more as her yards swung round, and she stood on the other tack.

"Ay, ay," replied the man Forest, "she'll work dead to windward, and then bear down on us. Why the devil didn't she find herself here away yesterday?"

"What a store of memories the last few weeks have given us, Enrico,"

remarked Isabel, as she tore a strip of canvas to make a sling for the wounded arm, which was becoming painful.

"So it ever is with our lives," answered Hughes, as the arm was made as comfortable as possible. "Shadowy memories of sunshine and storm, ever driving over the mirror in which we see the past; but the future, dearest," and he pointed towards the pyramid of white canvas, "the future will be our own."

"May G.o.d grant it, for we have been cruelly tried," answered Isabel.

Slipping slowly through the water, the whaler did exactly as the man Forest predicted.

She was a dull sailer, and the time seemed long and weary to those who watched her on board the raft with intense anxiety. So precarious had been their late position, so changeable the events of their life, that they could not believe in safety until they should actually feel its existence.

The whaler was now dead to windward, and the raft still going slowly through the water before the breeze. The two bodies, namely, those of Captain Weber and the carpenter Morris, lay side by side amidships.

"Take the sail off her, my lads," said the mate, and he was obeyed with ready alacrity, the canvas being stripped from the stump of a mast, and thrown over the two corpses.

Paying round, the whaler wore, and slowly handling her loftier canvas, her huge hull came rolling along, heading straight for the raft, her crew shortening sail as they came on.

Slowly she neared it, and a score or more of men might be seen cl.u.s.tering in her rigging, or gazing over her bulwarks at the strange sight presented by the spars drifting along on the waves of the ocean.

"Raft, ahoy!" shouted a man, who was holding on in the mizen rigging of the ship, "what raft is that?"

"The wreck of the brig 'Halcyon,' lost in the late gale," replied the mate, using his two hands as a trumpet.

"What was the meaning of the firing?" again shouted Captain Hawkins, master of the whaler the "Dolphin," still mis...o...b..ing, for in those days pirates were not unknown off the coast of Madagascar.

"Mutiny and murder," returned the mate, at the top of his voice, for all reply.

"Avast, there! Mr Lowe," grumbled Forest. "Remember what ye promised us, sir."

"I'll heave-to and send a boat," was the shout that came across the waters, and the next moment the necessary orders were given, and so close were the ship and raft, that the words of command were heard distinctly on board the latter, as the "Dolphin" came to the wind, and under her two topsails, jib, and spanker, lay hove-to. A boat was lowered, and half an hour later the mate of the "Halcyon" was telling his sad tale in the cabin of the "Dolphin." Her late crew were in irons forward, her pa.s.sengers cared for, the ship working her way for Port Natal, and the deserted raft, stripped to the spars themselves, floating miles astern.

The evil time at last seemed to have ended, for that afternoon the westerly breeze died away, and the "Dolphin," with a fair wind, lay her course, dropping her anchor in the almost land-locked harbour, without an accident, landing her pa.s.sengers and prisoners, and sailing again on her whaling voyage.

Six weeks had elapsed since her departure. The Bishop of Cape Town, who had chanced to be at Durban at the time, had, at the missionary's request, again performed the marriage ceremony, which had so hastily been solemnised on board the sinking brig. The remains of the tough British seaman, Captain Weber, had been buried with all honour in the cemetery of the town, and the same slab covered him, his carpenter Morris, and old Adams. Mr Lowe, in charge of the gold dust, had left for England, as second officer of the barque "The Flying Fish," which had put into Port Natal disabled by the gale which had so ill-treated the unfortunate "Halcyon."

One afternoon, about six weeks after the sailing of the "Dolphin," a small party of three stood on the beach at Port Natal.

A large steamer, with the blue peter flying at the fore, the union jack at her mizen peak, and a cloud of dense black smoke rising from her funnel, could be seen off the bar, while a boat, manned by four powerful men, rose and fell on the rollers close by the beach.

"Even at this last moment, Wyzinski, it is not too late. There are plenty of empty berths on board the 'Saxon.'"

Hughes seemed greatly moved, and the missionary's usually impa.s.sive face showed signs of deep emotion, which, it was evident, he suppressed with difficulty.