UNDER THE ROCK.
For a while the power of the lightning seemed to quench the wind almost,
and one continuous roar of thunder rang around the darkness. Then, with
a bellow, the wind sprang forth (like a wild bull out of a mountain),
and shattered the rain and drowned the thunder, and was lord of
everything. Under its weight the flat sea quivered, and the crests flew
into foam, and the scourge upon the waters seemed to beat them all
together. The whirlwinds now were past and done with, and a violent gale
begun, and in the burst and change of movement there appeared a helpless
ship.
She was bearing towards Pool Tavan, as poor Bardie's boat had done, but
without the summer glory and the golden wealth of waves. All was smooth
and soft and gentle, as the moonlight in a glass, when the little boat
came gliding with its baby captain. All was rough and hard and furious
as a fight of devils, when that ship came staggering with its load of
sin and woe. And yet there had not been so much as twenty-four hours
between the two.
Not one of our little coasting vessels, but a full-rigged ship she
loomed, of foreign build, although at present carrying no colours. I saw
at once what her business was, to bring from the West Indies sugar, rum,
and suchlike freight, to Bristol, or to the Dutchmen. This was in her
clearance-bill; but behind that she had other import not so clearly
entered. In a word, she carried negroes from the overstocked
plantations, not to be quite slaves (at least in the opinion of their
masters), but to be distributed, for their own Christian benefit, at a
certain sum per head, among the Bristol or Dutch merchants, or wherever
it might be. And it serves them right, I always say; for the fuss that
we now make about those black men must bring down the anger of the
Creator, who made them black, upon us.
As the gale set to its work, and the sea arose in earnest, and the
lightning drifted off into the scud of clouds, I saw, as plain as a
pikestaff, that the ship must come ashore, and go to pieces very likely,
before one could say "Jack Robinson." She had been on the Sker-weather
sands already, and lost her rudder and some of her sternpost, as the
lift of the water showed; and now there was nothing left on board her of
courage or common seamanship. The truth of it was, although of course I
could not know it then, that nearly all the ship's company acted as was
to be expected from a lot of foreigners; that is to say, if such they
were. They took to the boats in a kind of panic when first she struck
among the sands in the whirlwind which began the storm. There could have
been then no great sea running, only quiet rollers; and being but two
miles off the shore, they hoped, no doubt, to land well enough, after
leaving the stupid negroes and the helpless passengers to the will of
Providence.
However, before they had rowed a mile, with the flood-tide making
eastward, one of the boats was struck by lightning, and the other caught
in a whirl vorago (as the Spaniards call it), and not a soul ever came
to land, and scarcely any bodies. Both these accidents were seen from
Porthcawl Point by Sandy Macraw through a telescope: and much as he was
mine enemy, I do him the justice to believe it; partly because he could
look for no money from any lies in the matter, and still more because I
have heard that some people said that they saw him see it.
But to come back to this poor ship: the wind, though blowing madly
enough (as a summer gale is often hotter for a while than a winter one),
had not time and sweep as yet to raise any very big rollers. The sea was
sometimes beaten flat and then cast up in hillocks; but the mighty march
of waters fetched by a tempest from the Atlantic was not come, and would
not come in a veering storm like this. For it takes a gale of at least
three tides, such as we never have in summer, to deliver the true buffet
of the vast Atlantic.
Nevertheless the sea was nasty and exceeding vicious; and the wind more
madly wild, perhaps, than when it has full time to blow; in short, the
want of depth and power was made up by rage and spite. And for a ship
not thoroughly sound and stanch in all her timbers it had been better,
perhaps, to rise and fall upon long billows, with a chance of casting
high and dry, than to be twirled round and plucked at, thrown on
beam-ends, and taken aback, as this hapless craft was being, in the lash
of rocky waters and the drift of gale and scud.
By this time she was close ashore, and not a man (except myself) to help
or even pity her. All around her was wind and rocks, and a mad sea
rushing under her. The negroes, crouching in the scuppers, or clinging
to the masts and rails, or rolling over one another in their want of
pluck and skill, seemed to shed their blackness on the snowy spray and
curdled foam, like cuttle-fish in a lump of froth. Poor things! they are
grieved to die as much, perhaps, as any white man; and my heart was
overcome, in spite of all I know of them.
The ship had no canvas left, except some tatters of the fore-topsail,
and a piece of the main-royals; but she drifted broadside on, I daresay
five or six knots an hour. She drew too much water, unluckily, to come
into Pool Tavan at that time of the tide, even if the mouth had been
wide enough; but crash she went on a ledge of rocks thoroughly well
known to me, every shelf of which was a razor. Half a cable's length
below the entrance to Pool Tavan, it had the finest steps and stairs for
congers and for lobsters, whenever one could get at it in a low
spring-tide; but the worst of beaks and barbs for a vessel to strike
upon at half-flow, and with a violent sea, and a wind as wild as Bedlam.
With the pressure of these, she lay so much to leeward before striking
(and perhaps her cargo had shifted), that the poor blackies rolled down
the deck like pickling walnuts on a tray; and they had not even the
chance of dying each in his own direction.
I was forced to shut my eyes; till a grey squall came, and caught her
up, as if she had been a humming-top, and flung her (as we drown a
kitten) into the mashing waters.
Now I hope no man who knows me would ever take me for such a fool as to
dream for a moment--after all I have seen of them--that a negro is "our
own flesh and blood, and a brother immortal," as the parsons begin to
prate, under some dark infection. They differ from us a great deal more
than an ass does from a horse; but for all that I was right down
glad--as a man of loving-kindness--that such a pelt of rain came up as
saved me from the discomfort--or pain, if you must have the truth--of
beholding several score, no doubt, of unfortunate blacks a-drowning.
If it had pleased Providence to drown any white men with them, and to
let me know it, beyond a doubt I had rushed in, though without so much
as a rope to help me; and as it was, I was ready to do my very best to
save them if they had only shown some readiness to be hawled ashore by a
man of proper colour. But being, as negroes always are, of a most
contrary nature, no doubt they preferred to drift out to sea rather than
Christian burial. At any rate, none of them came near me, kindly
disposed as I felt myself, and ready to tuck up my Sunday trousers at
the very first sight of a woolly head. But several came ashore next
tide--when it could be no comfort at all to them. And such, as I have
always found, is the nature of black people.
But for me it was a sad, and, as I thought, severe, visitation to be
forced on a Sabbath-day--my only holiday of the week--to meditate over a
scene like this. As a truly consistent and truth-seeking Christian
(especially when I go round with fish on a Monday morning among
Nonconformists), it was a bitter trial for me to reflect upon those
poor negroes, gone without any sense at all, except of good Christians'
wickedness, to the judgment we decree for all, except ourselves and
families.
But there was worse than this behind; for after waiting as long as there
seemed good chance of anything coming ashore, which might go into my
pocket, without risk of my pension, and would truly be mine in all
honesty--and after seeing that the wreck would not break up till the
tide rose higher, though all on board were swept away--suddenly it came
into my head about poor Bardie and Bunny. They were worth all the
niggers that ever made coal look the colour of pipeclay; and with a
depth of self-reproach which I never deserved to feel, having truly done
my utmost--for who could walk in such weather?--forth I set, resolved to
face whatever came out of the heavens. Verily nothing could come much
worse than what was come already. Rheumatics, I mean, which had struck
me there, under the rock, as a snake might. Three hours ago all the
world was sweat, and now all the air was shivers. Such is the climate of
our parts, and many good people rail at it, who have not been under
discipline. But all who have felt that gnawing anguish, or that fiery
freezing, burning at once and benumbing (like a dead bone put into the
live ones, with a train of powder down it)--all these will have pity for
a man who had crouched beneath a rock for at least three hours, with
dripping clothes, at the age of two-and-fifty.
For a hero I never set up to be, and never came across one until my old
age in the navy, as hereafter to be related. And though I had served on
board of one in my early years, off La Hague and Cape Grisnez, they told
me she was only a woman that used to hold a lantern. Hero, however, or
no hero, in spite of all discouragement and the aching of my bones,
resolved I was to follow out the fate of those two children. There
seemed to be faint hope, indeed, concerning the little stranger; but
Bunny might be all alive and strong, as was right and natural for a
child of her age and substance. But I was sore downcast about it when I
looked around and saw the effect of the storm that had been over them.
For the alteration of everything was nothing less than amazing.
It is out of my power to tell you how my heart went up to God, and all
my spirit and soul was lifted into something purer, when of a sudden, in
a scoop of sand, with the rushes overhanging, I came on those two little
dears, fast asleep in innocence. A perfect nest of peace they had, as if
beneath their Father's eye, and by His own hand made for them. The fury
of the earth and sky was all around and over them; the deep revenge of
the sea was rolling, not a hundred yards away; and here those two little
dots were asleep, with their angels trying to make them dream.
Bunny, being the elder and much the stronger child, had thrown the skirt
of her frock across poor little Bardie's naked shoulders; while Bardie,
finding it nice and warm, had nestled her delicate head into the lap of
her young nurse, and had tried (as it seemed), before dropping off, to
tell her gratitude by pressing Bunny's red hands to her lips. In a word,
you might go a long way and scarcely see a prettier or more moving
picture, or more apt to lead a man who seldom thinks of his Maker. As
for me, I became so proud of my own granddaughter's goodness, and of the
little lady's trust and pure repose therein, that my heart went back at
once to my dead boy Harry, and I do believe that I must have wept, if I
could have stopped to look at them.
But although I was truly loath to spoil this pretty picture, the poor
things must be partly wet, even in that nest of rushes, which the
whirlwinds had not touched. So I awoke them very gently, and shook off
the sand, while they rubbed their eyes, and gaped, and knew no more of
their danger than if they had been in their own dear beds. Then, with
Bardie in my arms, and Bunny trotting stoutly with her thumb spliced
into my trousers, I shaped a course for Sker farmhouse, having a strong
gale still abaft, but the weather slightly moderating.