We must now turn from the inland valley, with its homestead, its
cornfields, and flocks, to a very different scene,--a scene at sea.
On the day when our friends Frankfort and Ormsby were introduced to my
reader with the tempest warring round them, as they stood shelterless
with May upon the open plain, a solitary ship neared the south-eastern
coast of the great continent of Africa. The hurricane blew there with
frenzied violence; the fiends of the storm were howling aloft among the
shrouds, the canvass cracked and rattled till it split into ribbons, and
was whirled away to the winds; the rudder had been torn from its place,
the masts groaned and shrieked, the waters frothed up in fountains of
spray, and at intervals the heavy surges swept the decks like clouds,
enveloping the vessel, and bearing it down with a force it could ill
resist.
The sailors were hanging about the ship, but there were few on deck, and
none in the shrouds, for there they could not keep their footing.
There were troops on board; the dull roll of the drum made itself
audible at times, when there was a lull, and volleys of musketry mingled
their signals of distress with the screams of affrighted women and
children,--and, alas! alas!--with the oaths of terrible men,--for it was
a convict-ship.
There were but momentary glimpses of the shore as the lightning flashes
rent in twain the dark masses of vapour hanging about the gloomy
rock-bound coast. The captain could only guess where he was, for the
vessel had been driving all the night, and the character of the cliffs
was his only guide now. He saw there was no help for them if the ship
continued to lie with her head to the shore, and he believed that a
sand-bank at the yawning mouth of a river would engulph them, unless the
hand of Providence cast them to the westward of this, where, as he
supposed, the sands sloped from the cliffs, on the summit of which stood
a small fortified barrack, occupied by a slender garrison of British
troops, who would render such assistance as their means permitted in
saving the lives of such as might be fortunate enough to be cast adrift
upon the coast, or be enabled to reach it by rafts, or in the launch.
The convicts had all been freed from their shackles in the early part of
the night--as soon, in fact, as the desperate situation of the ship was
ascertained; but they were kept between decks till some plan of possible
relief could be devised. Some sat moodily in the corners of the ship,
awaiting the day, in sullen, gloomy despondency. Some blasphemed; some
laughed in bitterness of heart, exulting in the idea, that man's
vengeance had been set at nought by a stronger power;--whether for good
or evil, they did not consider. Some jeered at the soldiers, who bore
the jeers with unswerving spirit; and some of the women, God help them!
jeered the loudest! One, indeed,--who had deeply considered her
position, and repented,--prayed aloud, and some drew round her to
listen, but these were few; others cursed their doom. One soldier's
wife, a young creature with an infant in her arms, leaned against a
riven mast, crying bitterly, while her husband tried in vain to comfort
her. Immovable as images were most of those iron soldiers, except as
they answered to the voice of command; true, even in the jaws of death,
to their country and their profession, they heard the blasphemy and the
jeers and the ribaldry of the wretched beings they guarded, without
evincing the slightest emotion. Between the volleys of musketry, a
heavy gun occasionally boomed out its signal of distress, but it was
only echoed back from the gaping rocks of the dangerous coast; again the
small-arms awakened no answer.
Silence,--a voice of command from the poop, and all hands are called to
lower the launch. The ship had struck several times against the sand,
shivering, as though terrified at being so assailed. The gangways were
guarded, and the convicts not permitted to pass. Few, indeed, attempted
it, though all had been unmanacled; but discipline, in hours of
difficulty and danger, is generally more than a match for strength.
The launch was lowered with a will, by those who would have no right to
enter it. It was appropriated, of course, to the women and children,
and those who were to have the charge of it were appointed by lot.
There was no confusion; those who drew planks turned calmly away, and
went to other duties, while the guardians of the launch marshalled its
passengers in funeral order, and they were cautiously lowered into it.
There were two officers in command of the convict guard; the elder was
married; his wife looked quite a child, she was barely eighteen.
Melancholy it was to see her clinging to her husband, and begging to be
left with him on that deck, which began already to open its seams, and
show the water boiling below. She threw herself on her knees at last,
and implored him to let her die there with him.
"Marmaduke, my love, my husband, do not send me from you;" and, turning
to the captain, who gently implored her, for the sake of her unborn
infant, to endeavour to save herself, she replied, in a voice of
indescribable calmness, "Sir, those whom God has joined, let no man put
asunder; I will not leave my husband."
Then a boy midshipman came forward, and begged the officer to take _his_
place in the launch, but Captain Dorian would not leave his men; and now
everything was prepared to cut away the boat from the ship, and Mrs
Dorian stood firmly by her husband.
I have alluded to the knowledge, such as it was, that the captain had of
the coast they had been nearing for so considerable a time. He was not
mistaken in his conjectures that they were within gun-range of a part of
the shore guarded by a garrison of British soldiers.
See a signal!--the clouds have been lifted by the merciful hand of
Providence; and, though the answering gun from the tower of the little
fort cannot be heard, in consequence of the wind setting in-shore, and
the elements outvying each other in noise at sea, the flash is
distinctly visible. Captain Dorian persuades the poor young creature
that there is help close at hand; appeals to her in the character of a
soldier, who expects his wife to assist him in setting an example of
firmness; points out to her the selfishness of her wish to remain thus
unmanning him in his military duties; and, passive, stupified, at last,
she suffers him to carry her to the ship's side, and she takes her place
in the launch.
Dorian looked at her as she lifted her eyes in a wild way to him. She
stretched out her hands, as if imploring him to call her back. A
white-crested wave sweeps over her, and throws her down; she tries to
rise; she sees her husband with clasped hands praying for her; she waves
hers in reply, and Dorian is called away on duty.
He speaks coolly and decidedly; he gives the necessary orders to an old
sergeant, but is stopped by the screams of the unhappy women on the
deck, who are hoping that the launch may come back for them. A strong
rope had been affixed to the ship, and it had been decided that this,
being also connected with the launch, should be fastened ashore by any
means that the will of Providence might offer. The rope was strong, but
the rottenness of the ship's timbers was proved in a sudden and
appalling manner. The poor soldiers had congregated in that part of the
vessel to which the rope had been made last. I have already said that
the seams of the deck had opened, leaving here and there a large space;
still the captain, officers, and crew were in hopes that she would hold
together till she was driven on the sands, and by that time they
anticipated further help by means of the launch, the rope, and perhaps
some surf-boats, if the detachment possessed any, as was probable, from
the garrison being a depot for stores brought thither by coasters.
An awful crash took place; the great ship parted, and the poor anxious
watchers of the launch were precipitated into the foaming ocean.
The miserable convicts rushed upon what remained of the deck. They
shouted, they sang, they chattered, they uttered ribald jests; they
climbed the rigging, and swung aloft. It gave way under their feet.
Some seemed to revel in the freedom of the unchained air; they clustered
along the yards like bees. Now the ship's bows are drawn into the
surge; now the shattered poop sinks beneath the waves; now the sea
overwhelms the decks, sweeping living aid inanimate things in its
vortex; and now, oh God! the great beams gape and yawn and part asunder,
and see the wretches are jammed in between; a mast is shivered, a block
falls, and strikes an old man down; his eyes burst from their sockets,
his head is bruised and battered, his limbs quiver, and his fingers are
convulsed. The deck opens again; the bounding: sea bursts up, and draws
into its relentless jaws more than one victim!
The ship was fairly breaking up. Some rushed to the forecastle, some
looked despairingly from the poop--Between the fore and after part there
was soon an impassable gulf.
At the scream, which drew the attention of Dorian and his sergeant from
the arrangements they were making, the former rushed to the poop. He
saw the brave fellows who had been swept off struggling in the waters,
trying to regain the shattered vessel. They perished every one of them!
At any other time he would have been stunned by the sight, but his eyes
are strained beyond it; fixed in an aching gaze upon the launch, he can
distinguish no one in her now; her passengers seem all huddled together:
he turns round on hearing the mast crashing over the ship's side; he is
shocked at the sight of the mutilated old man. Again he turns; his eyes
seek the rocks, above which he has seen the flash of the signal-gun; he
fancies he hears the echoes rolling along the cliffs; he distinguishes
another momentary light; the launch is hidden between two watery
mountains, but she rises; he would give worlds to use a spy-glass, but
it is impossible; but he needs it not; he sees the launch again with
terrible distinctness. She has turned over, she goes down! He sees no
more; many of his gallant soldiers have perished in the boiling element
beneath him, and he springs forward in his despair to join his flair and
child-like wife.
They were found afterwards cast ashore, strange to say, not far from
each other; and the captain of the detachment, as commandant of the
fortress, read the funeral service over them with a faltering voice;
they sleep together in a grove of oaks. The spot was chosen because the
trees that flourished there reminded passers-by of England.
Signals were now distinctly heard from the heights, and soldiers were
gathered on the cliffs watching the ill-starred convict-ship. Oh, to
see the arms of the maddened wretches stretched towards the shore!
Some, like Captain Dorian, cast themselves in a frenzy upon the angry
waters; some strive to lash themselves to spars; another boat is
lowered, with provisions hastily thrown into it; three or four bold
spirits tempt the surges in the fragile bark, and it is swept towards
the river's mouth, is whirled round in the sparkling eddies, and
disappears.
It is of one of these "bold spirits" I have to speak.
I have said that the convicts were relieved from their fetters as soon
as the vessel became unmanageable.
Sternly awaiting his fate in a dark corner of the labouring and bunting
ship, sat a man of some eight-and-twenty years of age; his arms were
clasped round a gun, and thus he steadied himself as well as he could.
Strangely indifferent he seemed to the howling of the winds, the
rattling of the cordage, the falling of spars, the crash of timbers, and
the imprecations of his fellow-convicts amid the scream of frightened
women. At times he sneered at the frantic gestures of a soldier's wife,
who was sitting on the deck, with a baby on her lap, rocking herself to
and fro and bemoaning her hard fate, and that of her family, most
bitterly, at the same time directing her husband and children in certain
preparations for leaving the ship, if they should be so fortunate as to
succeed in doing so. Her advice and admonitions were interlarded with
various expressions of terror, sorrow, affection, and anxiety.
"Oh, Micky O'Toole! Och, wirasthrue, my darlint; sure when we played at
the same door-step as childer, I didn't think we'd come to this. Och,
Larry, my child, the mother that owns you is breaking her heart. Alice,
say your prayers, fast--say them fast, allannan; true for ye, my
darlints, this day we'll be in glory; pray up, Ally, pray up, Larry, the
saints be wid us. Micky O'Toole, what did you do wid the little bundle
of cloth I put up to go ashore wid? Oh, the vanity of me; sure didn't
the priest tell me I'd be punished for setting myself up wid a sunshade
(parasol), when you were made a corpular. Ochon a rhee, my heart is
broke!
"They'll be missing us at the harvest, Micky; they'll be dancing widout
us, and we drowned--drowned. Oh, Micky!" A wailing cry from the baby
made its mother weep more bitterly, but still she occasionally recalled
her scattered wits to console her children.
Not far from Lee, the convict, was stretched, in a listless attitude, a
young man, who seemed little more than twenty years of age. He also was
one of the condemned; but no one could have recognised him as a criminal
by his appearance, which was exceedingly prepossessing. His thoughts
were apparently wandering; for though his countenance expressed awe,
there was resignation also. He was looking for a better life than the
career mapped out before him as a felon. In the great crisis taking
place, there was hope for him somewhere. The wretched welcome any
change. He awaited it passively.
But his heart was touched at sight of a penitent creature, who bewailed
her past errors in an agony of self-reproach, as she uttered the names
of father, mother, brothers, and sisters; at times exclaiming, "Oh
Jamie, Jamie, ye'll be sorry when ye hear of poor Jessie's end."
"Mother, mother!" was the last appeal of the unhappy young woman, as she
was washed away by the booming waves through a gap in the wreck.
But Lee saw not this; he was smiling at the scene between Mrs O'Toole
and her family.
Ere long he had unlashed the boat, assisted in throwing in provisions,
and, casting himself into the frail vessel with two other comrades,
committed himself to what he called chance.
At length the muskets ceased their roll, the drum its sullen round. The
ship had struggled bravely; the fore and after parts sometimes jamming
each other, and then parting. Both were now engulphed. The death-cry
rose above the roar of the foam, and the noise of falling spars and
blocks; and sea-chests, ship furniture, all that had been carefully
gathered together by the hand of man, were cast into the ocean.
Now a man, lifted on the crest of a wave, saw his wife, and struggled to
reach her; but she was swept past him with her eyes glaring madly. Now
a woman, with features all convulsed, snatched up some passing child,
and cast it from her when she found it was not her own. Now the prow
neared the shore, and a young officer sprang from the bowsprit into the
sea; dizzy with the leap, he closed his eyes--and opened them--oh,
blessed hour!--in a tent pitched on the cliff for the reception of those
cast on the strand.
The detachment of English soldiers had assembled on the cliff at the
first signal of distress fired from the convict-ship. They had waited
there from midnight until dawn, knowing by the nearer sound of the guns
and small-arms that she must be driving towards the shore; but they
could give no aid; they could only abide the issue patiently, and
meanwhile make such preparations as might possibly be useful.
The barrack they occupied was situated on the western bank of a river,
the entrance to which, in the present agitated state of the open ocean,
formed almost a Maelstrom. As day dawned, and the convict-ship was seen
driven in-shore, it was evident to the lookers-on that she must go to
pieces; for fringing the shore was a narrow line of sharp and jagged
rock, and at the very edge of this the ship's bows were already beating.
Still it was doubtful on which side of the river she might be cast
ashore, or whether, indeed, she might pass the whirlpool foaming at its
mouth; for the ledge or shelf, over which the breakers burst with
increased violence every hour, extended across the opening, and made a
bar, which rendered it unnavigable. On either side of the stream the
sands stretched for miles, and the ocean washed the shore with a hoarse
and endless roar; but not with such destructive powers as it did above
or below the river's mouth. On the western side, especially, there was
more chance for the poor creatures struggling for their lives, inasmuch
as the sands beneath the cliffs were not of that shifting nature which
rendered anchorage impossible on the eastern limits; besides which,
whoever escaped drowning, by being flung upon the eastern bank, stood a
chance of having his brains dashed out by detached masses of rock that
had rolled from the cliffs, and were embedded in the shore. Near the
mouth of the stream, indeed, many an incautious rider, on his way from
Kafirland, had been well-nigh overwhelmed by the quicksands.
Fortunately for those who had outlived the storm so far, the tide drew
the two divisions of the wreck, partially submerged as they were, on the
safer bank of the stream; the colonial side, in feet, of a river
dividing the territory of the British settlers from the "neutral ground"
of the savage inhabitants of the north-east. It was found afterwards
that the two portions of the ill-fated ship had been connected by means
of various spars and cordage interlaced beneath the waters; but she had
not been many minutes fairly among the breakers ere she literally
crumbled to pieces, and scattered her timbers on the waters.
Out of three hundred souls, not more than eighty were saved. Some swam
till their strength was exhausted, some gave themselves up to their fate
like the young soldier, who spread out his arms, closed his eyes, and
plunged from the poop to the sea; some clung to spars, boxes, tables,
hencoops, anything that came in their way. All who reached the shore
received the hospitable care of the kind soldiers of the fort, and
afterwards pursued their different routes and destinies as Providence
directed, after preserving them for the fulfilment of its own wise and
grand purposes.
The boat which had been disengaged almost unperceived by Lee, and the
two other convicts, continued to buffet the waves most gallantly. It
reached the entrance of the river--here the rowers used their strong
arms for a time in vain, and there seemed no other prospect than that of
being engulphed, when suddenly the boat rose, as if lifted in air, over
the bar of rocks I have described, and, shot into the stream, was sucked
into a kind of whirlpool, where it spun round like a top, filled and
went down for a few minutes, but came back to the surface empty. Lee
was drawn down with his fellows; his eyes and ears filled, and his
senses failed him: he had an indistinct vision of the convulsed features
of the other two struggling below him, and of a gurgling sound from one
who tried to scream; but all afterwards was blank till he came to his
recollection stretched on a bed of sand, which ran inland from a creek
overhung with bush.
It was a considerable time before he could bring himself to understand
the reality of his position; but at length he rallied his intellect, and
sat up to look around him.
The storm still raged--not a vestige of the wreck was to be seen, and
the boat, broken in pieces, was lying high and dry between the rocks,
with which the bush was intersected; the body of one poor drowned wretch
was floating, all swollen and disfigured, in the creek. Jasper Lee rose
by a sudden impulse, and scrambled as far from the sight as his cramped
and aching limbs would allow him; the stunted bush or scrub, by which he
tried to climb the cliffs, gave way in his hands, his feet slipped on
the streaming and slippery weeds; but he reached a ledge at last, and
taking "heart of grace," he scanned the prospect before him.
Evening was advancing, though as to when the sun was likely to withdraw
his influence from that hemisphere, it was impossible to say. Sky and
ocean were blended together in a hue of lead, and the glancing wings of
sea-birds looked like gleams of silver light between the angry heavens
and the warring sea. His eye fell only on the void expanse. He had
cast himself down on an angle of the cliffs which jutted far out, and
during a momentary lull, the wind brought the sound of drums from the
garrison on the opposite shore. He looked down immediately below, he
perceived some rotten pieces of timber floating by; he expected to see
some human creature still living, for many had lashed themselves to
spars and masts, and might yet be tossing about at the mercy of the
waves. He stretched himself as far forward as he could, and looking to
the westward, where the light of day was lingering longer than
elsewhere, he distinctly saw groups of soldiers, engaged in assisting
those who had been cast ashore below the fort.
He fancied he heard voices, he looked down. Immediately under his feet
there were, as it seemed, phantoms floating by; some dead, some with
agonised faces and beseeching hands lifted out of the white foam, and
one saw him--she was young and fair, with long tresses, all unbound,
clinging round her white throat and bosom; she seemed to give a gasp of
hope; he leaned over; hardened man as he was, he would have given much
to have saved her; the swell brought her nearer, she saw him; still she
herself tried with desperate energy to catch a ridge of rocks,--she
reached it, the heavy waters swung her forward with terrific violence,
the sweet face was lifted up again. Lee was about to cast himself at
all hazards from his position, when a stream of blood darkened the white
spray, and the head of a shark came up, its huge jaws were filled with
the mangled and bleeding limbs of its victim, and the horrible
sea-monster drew its prey into an inlet where it had been driven by the
storm.
He buried his face in his hands, turned sick, and almost fainted; after
this he looked no more towards the sea, and ere long found himself
obliged, for safety's sake, to reconnoitre the locality in which he had
awoke to consciousness after so narrow an escape.
His condition was forlorn enough; his clothes hung in shreds upon him,
his hair was matted with brine, his body was sorely bruised, his hands
and feet lacerated; but it must be confessed, that, in spite of the
horrors he had witnessed, his spirits rose fresh and buoyant, as he
remembered that he was at liberty; though houseless, naked, cold,
hungry, and bleeding, it was not in his nature to despair.
He turned his eyes again to the westward, and on climbing higher, he
discovered the wall of the fort, with its tower in the angle and its
looped parapet. Soldiers were still straggling up and down the cliff,
intent, as they had been for hours, on their humane efforts in saving
life, and the remnant of property which had been thrown ashore with the
tide.
"Ha!" muttered the convict, "I am on the right side of the river;
they've had their glasses out at the fort, no doubt; but they cannot
pass this, frothing as it does at the mouth, like a wild beast, for a
week to come. Well, some will fancy themselves in luck when they get
within those four tall walls, and some may have their chains dangling
about their heels again; but this way of escaping death is not to my
taste. I have work before me, I know; but what would life be without
any difficulties! What a stupid life would Adam and Eve have led
without sin! A true woman, Eve; disobedience gave the flavour to the
fruit! Well, I have no objection to difficulties, and although I don't
abide by the trash that gives chapter and verse about first causes, I
know I have not been planted on this continent again for nothing. It
must be owned, though, that I have had a precious welcome;" and, wiping
the blood from his temple, he sat down again, for he was somewhat
exhausted in body, though untiring in spirit.
The clouds fell lower and lower, and shed no more reflected light; a
pitchy darkness followed. Lee gathered himself up between the bush and
the wet and slippery bank, and lay down to dream of a surging sea, of
pale beseeching faces and mangled bodies of young and beautiful women.
The tide was again rising, and he dared not descend, so he determined on
waiting till the dawn, and then commencing a search for the provisions
which had been put into the boat, and which he hoped he might find
attached to some fragment of her wreck, for they had been securely
lashed to one of the seats.
Towards midnight, as the tide receded, the fury of the tempest seemed to
abate, and just as day peeped with affrighted eye from the east, our
convict ventured from the shelf on which he had been uneasily stretched
during the hours of darkness.
A dense fog hung over the river; the wind came in gusts from the ocean,
and some of the trees above the cliffs were torn up by the roots and
cast midway among the stones and scrub. The solitude was perfect to a
man in Lee's position, and the tide having left a spacious strand, he
let himself down from his covert, and began to make a search for the
necessaries of life.
The wreck of the boat was lying where he had seen it the preceding
evening, and, after a patient search, the hungry man discovered the
bundle of provisions. It was saturated with wet, the rain fell around
in torrents, there was not a spot of ground on which real repose could
be sought; but Lee sat down and satisfied his wants with a relish
indescribably keen.
Let us take a view of him, resting on the dreary strand, having
refreshed himself with a moderate meal of biscuit and salt pork, the
latter, of course, uncooked, but to him most savoury.
In the prime of life, highly favoured in personal appearance, with the
spirit of intelligence lighting his clear grey eye, and with the stamp
of the better class upon his frame and countenance, how came he there--a
convict?
At this moment he was intent chiefly on one point: he was determined to
avoid all chance of further captivity or restraint.
As the fog was lifted from the river by the evening breeze, he felt the
necessity of keeping out of sight of any stragglers about the opposite
heights. He inspected the bulky package of provisions: a bag of damaged
biscuits, some lumps of salt pork, a case of dried fruit--cabin
property--a canister of cocoa, and various other articles, which had
been hastily thrown into a bundle, and now adhered together like glue.
These stores were exceedingly precious to one in our adventurer's
condition.
But the clouds began to gather again; floods of rain poured their
torrents down the channels in the cliffs, and he determined without
delay, and unmindful of his fatigue, which he felt the more after his
meal, to seek a hiding-place which would be secure from intruders,
although there appeared little chance of any one intruding on his
territory.
All along that riverside deep indentations had been made below the
cliffs by the encroachments of the sea, and Lee was not long in
discovering a cave which penetrated far under them. There was not much
time to lose in conveying the provisions to this covert ere the path was
rendered soft, and therefore dangerous, by the swell of the tide as it
turned again, and Lee was beginning to doubt the safety of the shelter,
when, on drawing his bag of provisions to seek stowage for it at the
furthest limits of the recess, he discovered that the chasm was deep and
wide, and lighted slantwise by an aperture many feet above the level of
the river. His thirst had been heretofore allayed by the channel of
rain-water rippling down the face of the cliffs, and he was beginning to
doubt how he should be supplied in his retreat it compelled to remain
there anytime after such supplies should cease; when, to his
satisfaction, he convinced himself that a little stream, which trickled
into the cave through a crevice, had its source in one of those
bountiful and sweet springs so often discovered near the sea-shore, and
which, in spite of their brackish taste, are so exquisitely refreshing
to the exhausted traveller.
This was just one of those pieces of luck which often seem to rise in
aid of the vicious,--but we may not question the decrees of Providence.
God has his own reasons for letting the tares thrive for a time, though
the harvest of wheat be thin.
On the whole, Lee had reason to rejoice in having discovered such a
retreat for the present. He had sufficient stores to support life for
some days; he was free, after his own ideas of freedom; space before
him, above, around, with nothing to guide him but his own free will; he
thought not of check or hazard, for no man held authority over him.
Misty, vague, dark, dreary, was his future; but it was not so utterly
lost in the darkness as it would have been to a stranger on that great
continent of Africa.
Contented at first with the comparative shelter he had so opportunely
discovered, he had seated himself on a stone, and surveyed the interior
of his domicile; but the various plans which floated about his busy
brain wanted gathering together and arranging, and he found himself ere
long overshadowed by the gloom of night. Though his wits were sharp,
his body was weary, and growing stiff with cold. The river murmured
hoarsely past the cave; the wind came in gusts through the crevices of
the rocks, and penetrated to the very marrow of his bones. The outline
of the opposite bluff looked like the frowning profile of a giant, when
at intervals the clouds were parted by the broad flashes of lightning;
for the storm at times still wreaked its fury against the rugged coast.
Having collected the damp leaves of fallen trees together in a heap, the
convict made a very tolerable bed, throwing over them a long strip of
green baize, the table-cover of the cuddy, which had been appropriated
as a wrapper to the provisions.
The wind still kept up its "sound of mournful wailing," and whistled
through the gaps in the cave; the spray foamed within fifty yards of the
entrance; the thunder came back at times with a mutter frill of wrath,
and his clothes were still wet; but our convict was lulled to sleep by
the roaring of the mighty elements, which held their strife around his
place of refuge.
Now and then he started up, as livid faces rose before him in his sleep;
and at last the excessive cold roused him, and he was thoroughly
awakened. Darkness was around him, and the stream, flowing down its
channel, dripped over on to the stones, and plashed upon his almost
benumbed feet. He crawled towards the aperture; there was a little
light, just enough to watch the tide, till, by its retrograde movement,
he was able to make a random guess at the "time o' night," or rather
morning. Shivering and melancholy, he crouched, with his head upon his
knees, and, as his eye got accustomed to the outer atmosphere, he began
to see stars. A body of clouds floated seawards, the wind veered about,
and he again perambulated the shore in search of something for fuel.
Day advanced, and he stumbled over a few cask-hoops; they were soaked
with wet; but with the help of a remnant of a well-pitched spar from the
wrecked boat, he determined on tiring to kindle a fire. Flints were
searched for, and again Providence provided for his present wants.
He re-entered the recess; but, on consideration, deemed it prudent to
take some further steps for insuring his concealment.
The rocks had been so washed, while the tide was up, by the spray of the
surging river, that some of those which hung over the cave were
loosened. It was a matter of skill and difficulty to separate even the
smaller ones from the earth in which they had been imbedded; but Lee was
a man of great personal strength, and, one block giving way, it bore
down with it a heap of sand and a tree, which had been uprooted, thus
undermining all that immediately surrounded it. The whole mass fell in
front of the cavern.
There was not much time to lose, as the daylight might betray the
refugee; so making a passage for himself through the stones and rubbish
forming his barrier of defence, he re-entered his hiding-place, and set
to work to light a fire.
This was not easy; at one moment a stick would catch the flame, blaze
up, and disappoint him by dying so gradually away as to keep him hoping
to the last; at length the pitch grew hot. He had uttered oaths enough
to bring the spirits of fire to his aid. The smoke rose in little
columns, and made his eyes smart with pain; but he persevered till the
light danced upon the steaming and jagged walls, showing him his shadow,
monstrous and undefined. The vapour found vent in the aperture opening
to seaward, through which the spray had ceased to drift; and ere long
some slices of ship's pork hissed on the glowing billets. A soldier's
tin served as a kettle and drinking-cup, and Lee contrived to make
something like a cup of cocoa. After such refreshment his blood flowed
more freely in his veins, and he once more lay down to rest, intending
to keep his wits about him though sleeping, and to replenish his fire,
with a cautious observance of the outer atmosphere from time to time;
for, although a turbid and swollen river intervened between him and the
colonial side of the country, he had no mind to be tracked, by the smoke
of his bivouac, by any wanderers, whether Europeans or natives.
He felt, indeed, tolerably secure; rightly judging that the Europeans on
the western bank would have enough to do on their own ground, and that
the few _whom he knew_ to be scattered to the north-eastward would be as
unlikely as the natives to hear of the wreck while the heavy rains
filled the rivers to overflowing and rendered the ground dangerous and
toilsome alike to riders and pedestrians. If Kafirs did venture out on
foot, he knew enough of them to satisfy himself that their journeys
would be undertaken to some better purpose than loitering on the coast
without sure prospects of plunder.
He again lay down, and enjoyed that species of repose which gives ease
to the body without completely deadening the powers of the mind; and it
must be owned that his conscience was by no means so harassed by trouble
or remorse, as from his outward position one would think it must be. In
his own estimation Lee was an ill-used, unfortunate man; and, as to the
latter, truth to tell, his reasons for thinking so were not altogether
fallacious.
He is a felon; but the circumstances which have brought him to his
present condition have met with extenuation from some: of this,
by-and-by.
Hush! the earth is loosened without; Lee hears it faffing about the
entrance. Some small stones come clattering down, and then there is
silence.
The strong man's heart beats, and he clutches the clasp-knife hanging
round his neck, and tries to open it, but his hand trembles; a strong
current of air rushes in, the fire flickers up, and the shadow of a
man's face is for an instant traced on the rocky side of the cave.
It is suddenly withdrawn.
Lee revolved the circumstances of his case in a few seconds. He felt
sure it was a white man's shadow, even at that momentary glance; the
outline of the loose cap and prominent nose was unmistakeable. It might
be a mend--a fellow-convict--a sailor; if the latter, Jack would die
rather than betray the fugitive. But if it were any who might, after
all, turn informer, he would doubtless report that the cave was
tenanted, and bring down a file of soldiers upon him, unless the
clasp-knife settled the question, which it was not likely to do in its
rusty condition. Lee's powers of body were a little impaired by the
perils he had undergone, and the exertions he had been obliged to make
in screening his hiding-place, as he hoped, from all observers.
But he was discovered, that was certain.
"Who comes there?" he cried, in a voice that shook more than he wished
to confess to himself. "Enter, I am armed."
"Lee," hoarsely whispered a voice, issuing from lips within which the
teeth chattered audibly,--"It is I, Martin Gray."
"And where the devil did _you_ cast up from?" asked Lee, in no very
gracious voice, and sitting up with ears and eyes now wide open.
"I am starved, and miserable, and hungry," was Gray's reply, as he
scrambled through all impediments in his path, and crawling into the
cave, began unceremoniously to draw together the embers of the fire.
"Are there any more of you?" inquired Lee, hastily.
"Not one. I have been skewered up in a hole ever since I was flung
ashore. I got hitched on to the rudder of the boat when it broke away,
and except a few bumps, I was all right when I got driven in between the
rocks, and there I have been wedged for hours, for I dared not stir,
except in the dark, when I could find nothing. I had no mind to be
caught by the soldiers up there on the hill, so I have been creeping
along under the rocks looking for luck in some shape or another, and
what should I see, but a glimpse of light from this quarter? Friend or
foe, it was all the same to me; I resolved to take my chance, and here I
am."
Martin Gray was the young man I have alluded to as lying passively on
the deck of the staggering ship--he had, like others, sprung into the
sea, to take his chance, and clinging to a spar, had been providentially
washed ashore.
Lee had had much opportunity of judging of Gray's character, which,
though not without good, wanted strength and resolution; he was less
wicked than unfortunate. There was this difference between the two: Lee
would most probably, under any circumstances, have been ambitious,
selfish, and unsound in principle, while Gray, with better fortunes,
would have made a respectable member of society: warm of temperament, he
was docile of disposition; he was, in fact, the very person to be
influenced by a strong and determined mind, under circumstances like
those in which he was now cast.
In Lee's forlorn condition, he felt there was comfort in fellowship,
with so "safe a fellow as poor Gray," and he therefore set about
proffering hospitality to his guest with a good grace, especially
considering the limited extent of his larder. The meat again hissed
upon the coals, the batch of damp biscuits was re-toasted, and Gray
brewed another cup of cocoa--what a treat it was!
If you have been shipwrecked, reader, as I have been, you will
understand this.
Gray having dried his torn clothes, and satisfied the inward cravings of
nature, not without warnings from Lee on the dangers of indigestion from
too hurried a meal after a long fast, which warnings were entirely
self-interested, recommended that the fire should be extinguished, lest
its smoke should betray their hiding-place at sunrise; "though, to tell
the truth," the young man added, "I am much more inclined to surrender
myself than to take my chance; for what is to become of us?"
"Surrender!" cried Lee; "what, with such a country before us as I know
this to be? No, no, my lad, you'll not surrender; trust to me, there is
nothing to lose by taking our freedom, and what prospects are there
before us, if we give ourselves up? You, for one, would be packed off
to New South Wales by the first opportunity. As for me--I have said it
before--I had rather fall into the hands of God than those of man: here
is space enough for even my free spirit, and with a little caution, and
patience, and perseverance, I will take you into safe quarters for
life!"
Gray was too weary to enter upon further discussion, and the two
convicts stretching themselves side by side, the former was soon dead
asleep, while Lee lay meditating an infinite variety of plans.
"This youth is safe," soliloquised the host of the the cave; "he must be
taught to keep my counsel and his own, for although hereafter he may be
rather an incumbrance to me than of use, it will not do to let him go,--
he would betray me, to a certainty. He has roughed it and seen service;
though he is not clever, he has lots of pluck; on the whole, perhaps, I
may make him useful, and it would be deuced lonely work to find my way
across the country without any help. We must look about for arms; I saw
large pieces of the wreck drifting this way after the crazy old craft
went to pieces.
"I wish I had not seen that girl, though. I cannot forget her; how the
blood bubbled up with the foam!
"The wind has changed, I suspect, but the river will be impassable to
those red-jackets for days to come; we must collect our traps together
without loss of time, and make ready for a start; I must do the amiable
to this lad; he is a soft-hearted youth, I know.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"That fellow Tanner, I wonder if he is still trafficking up there in the
kloof; he is an infernal rogue; I hope he won't turn informer--I think
not, though, for I could betray him, and he knows it."
He rapidly chalked out in his mind's eye a map of his plans, and as he
heard the wind again veering about to all points of the compass, and at
last return to its deadly quarter, from which it had breathed its fury
on the hapless ship, he rubbed his hands cheerfully together. "Blow,
gentle gales," said he, and as Gray answered the apostrophe with a loud
snore, Lee laughed and lay down, taking care to appropriate to himself a
goodly portion of the green baize coverlet. Ere long he, too, was in a
dreamless sleep.