The sound was that of falling masts. A sailor of less experience than
Ransey could have told that.
The barque had been dashed stern-foremost upon the rocks. She had been
lifted by one of those mighty waves, or "bores," that during a storm
like this sometimes rise to the height of fifty feet or more, and
hurrying onwards sweep over islands, and pass, leaving in their wake
only death and destruction.
After the masts had gone clean by the board, there were loud grating
noises for a short time, then the motion of the ship ceased--and ceased
for ever and ay.
Nelda's voice, calling for her father, brought the boy to himself.
"I'm here, dear," he sang out. "It is all right; I'll go and get a
light; lie still."
"Oh, don't leave me. Tell me, tell me," wept the wee lass, "is the ship
at the bottom? And are we all drowned?"
Luckily, Janeira now managed to strike a light, and poor Nelda's mind
was calm once more.
Bob had slept on the sofa cushions all throughout this dreadful night;
but Ransey was now very much astonished, indeed, to see the stately 'Ral
walk solemnly in at the door, and gently lower his head and long neck
over Nelda, that she might scratch his chin.
"Oh, you dear, droll 'Rallie," cried the child, smiling through her
tears, "and so you're not drowned?"
But no one could tell where the 'Ral had spent the night.
Under the influence of great terror, the Admiral was in the habit of
"trussing" himself, as the sailors called it--that is, he close-reefed
his long neck till his head was on a level with his wings, and his long
bill lying downwards along his crop. Then he drew up his thighs, and
lowered himself down over his legs. He was a comical sight thus
trussed, and seemed sitting on his tail, and no taller than a barn-door
fowl. It was convenient for him, however, for he could thus stow
himself away into any corner, and be in nobody's way.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daylight came at last, and it was now found that the _Sea Flower_ had
been lifted by the mighty wave, and after being dashed into a gully in
the barrier of rocks that stretched along the eastern side of Treachery
Bay, had been left there high and dry.
The marvel is that, although several of the hands had been more or less
shaken and bruised, no one was killed.
The position of the wrecked barque was indeed a strange one. Luckily
for her the sea had risen when the tide was highest, so that she now lay
on an even keel upon the shelf of rocks, twenty feet above the bay at
low water.
The monster wave seemed to have made a clean breach of the lowland part
of the island, and gone surging in through the dead forest, smashing
thousands of the blackened trees to the ground, and quite denuding all
that were left of their beautiful drapery of foliage, climbing flowers,
and floral parasites.
At each side of the gully the black rocks towered like walls above the
hulk, but landwards, a green bank, of easy ascent, sloped up to the
well-wooded table-land above.
As speedily as possible the main part of the wreckage was cleared away.
This consisted of a terrible entanglement of ropes and rigging. But the
spars were sawn up into lengths that could be easily moved, and so, in a
few hours' time, the unfortunate _Sea Flower_ was simply a dismantled
hulk.
When the work was finally accomplished, the men were permitted to go
below, to cook breakfast, and sleep if they had a mind to.
But not till prayers were said, and thanks, fervent and heartfelt,
offered up to the God who, although He had seen fit to wreck the ship,
had so mercifully spared the lives of all.
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Strange, indeed, was now the position of these shipwrecked mariners, and
it was difficult for Halcott, Tandy, and James Malone to review it with
even forced calmness.
The three men walked up together to the table-land to hold a council,
taking no one with them.
The storm had gone down almost as quickly as it had arisen, and sea and
sky were blue and beautiful once again.