Ridan The Devil And Other Stories, George Lewis Becke [best sci fi novels of all time txt] 📗

on board with a sense of dread, for they earnestly besought Hayes to let them come on deck, for, they said, 'the belly of the world was about to burst.'

To this, most fortunately for themselves, Hayes consented, and in a few minutes they swarmed up on deck, each man carrying his Snider and cutlass-knife, and the women and children loaded up with their sleeping-mats and other gear. Some of the women crawled under the long boat, which was lying on the port side, and made themselves comfortable; and the men brought their arms to me to stow in the trade room, for fear of their getting wet, and then returned to their white masters, who were grouped together on deck.

Then, quite suddenly, the jumping, tumbling sea began to subside, and through the darkness we heard the skipper of one of the American whalers hail us.

'What are you, going to do, Captain Hayes? I guess we're in a pretty tight place. I'd try to tow out if I could see the hole in the wall. We're going to get it mighty hot presently. It's coming on fast.'

'That's so,' Hayes replied, with a laugh; 'but we can't stop it. And, say, look here, captain, as you fellows are lying further out than I am, you might each start a cask of oil to run when the seas begin to break. It won't help you much, but it will me.'

The whale-ship captain laughed, and said that he was afraid that his six hundred barrels of oil would start themselves if the sea began to break--meaning that his ship would go ashore.

The previous heavy rolling of the brig had nearly made a wreck of my trade room, for everything had been jerked off the shelves, and cases of liquor, powder, cartridges, concertinas and women's hats, etc., were lying burst open on the floor; so, calling a couple of native sailors to help me, I was just going below, when I heard Captain Hayes's sharp tones calling out to our officers to stand by.

From the north-west there came a peculiar droning, humming sound, mingled with a subdued crashing and roaring of the mountain forest, which lay about a quarter of a mile astern of us--the noise one hears when a mighty bush fire is raging in Australia, and a sudden gust of wind adds to its devastation--and then in another half a minute the brig spun round like a top to the fury of the first blast, and we were enveloped in a blinding shower of leaves, twigs and salty spray. She brought up to her anchors with a jerk that nearly threw everyone off his feet, and then in an incredibly short time the sea again began to rise, and the brig to plunge and take water in over the bows and waist--not heavy seas, but sheets of water nipped off by the force of the wind and falling on the decks in drenching showers.

Just as I was hurrying below, Hayes stopped me.

'Don't bother about the trade room. Get all the arms and ammunition you can ready for the boats. I'm afraid that we won't see this through. The blubber-hunters are all right; but we are not. We have to ride short. I can't give her more than another ten fathoms of cable--there are a lot of coral boulders right aft. If the wind hauls round a couple of points we may clear them, but it isn't going to; and we'll get smothered in the seas in another ten minutes--if the cables don't part before then.'

Seldom was a ship sent to destruction in such a short time as the _Leonora_. I had not been five minutes in the main cabin before a heavy sea came over the bows with a crash, carried away the for'ard deckhouse, which it swept overboard, killed four people, and poured into the cabin. I heard Hayes call out to the mate to give her another ten fathoms of cable, and then, assisted by half a dozen native women and a young Easter Island half-caste girl named Lalia, wife to one of the five white traders, began packing our arms and ammunition into two or three strong trade boxes. In another chest we stowed the ship's chronometers, Hayes's instruments, and all the charts upon which we could lay hands, together with about six thousand silver dollars in bags, the ship's books and some silver plate. The women, who were the officers' and traders' wives, were fearfully terrified; all but Lalia, who was a fine, courageous girl. Taking a cutlass from the rack in the cabin she stood over them; and, cursing freely in French, English, Spanish and whalers' language, threatened to murder every one of them if they did not hurry. We got the first box of arms safely up the companion, and Hayes saw it lowered into one of the traders' whale-boats, which was standing by under the stern. Then, as a tremendous crashing sea came over the waist, all the women but Lalia bolted and left us alone. Lalia laughed.

'That's the long-boat gone, sir; and all those Pleasant Islands women are drown, I hope--the damned savage beasts, I hate them.'

* The _Leonora_ carried four guns.

I learnt afterwards that the crash was caused by the two guns on the starboard side taking a run to port, and carrying away the port ones with them over the side through the bulwarks.{*} The long-boat was washed overboard by the same sea, but half a dozen of our Rotumah Island sailors had jumped overboard after her, and, using canoe paddles, saved her from being dashed on the reef. She was soon brought alongside, fully manned, and awaiting Hayes's orders.

The captain now called to me to stand by to take charge of her, when a second fearful sea came over the waist, and fairly buried the ship, and Hung, the Chinese carpenter and myself were only saved from going overboard, by being entangled in the falls of one of the quarter-boats. As for the long-boat, it was swept away out of sight, but succeeded in reaching the shore safely, with the loss of one man.

By this time the seas were breaking over the brig with terrible force, and when they came over the bows they swept her flush decks like a torrent. Presently she gave such a terrible roll to port that we thought she was going over altogether, and the third mate reported that six four-hundred-gallon water tanks, which were stored in the 'tween decks amidships, had gone adrift to the port side. Then Hayes told the carpenter to cut away the masts. A few slashes at the rigging, and a couple of snicks at the spars themselves, sent the sticks over the side quick enough; the brig stood up again and rode easier.

Meanwhile, the boat of one of the traders named Terry--an old ex-man-of-war's man--had come off, manned by half a dozen of his stalwart half-caste sons, and although it was still pitch dark, and the din of the gale sounded like fifty railway locomotives whistling in unison, and the brig was only revealed to the brave fellows by the white light of the foam-whipped sea, they ran the boat under the counter, and stood by while a number of women and children jumped, or were pitched overboard, to them. These were quickly rescued, and then that boat, too, vanished.

Again the wind lulled for about five minutes, and Hayes and old Harry Terry urged the rest of the remaining women to jump overboard and make for the shore, as the brig's decks were now awash, and every third or fourth sea swept along her, fore and aft, with irresistible force. One woman--a stout, powerfully-built native of Ocean Island--whose infant child was lashed to her naked back with bands of coir cinnet, rushed up to the captain, and crying, 'Kapeni, ka mate a mate '--('Captain, if I die, I die')--put her arms round his neck, rubbed noses with him, and leaped over the stern rail into the seething surf. She was found the next morning lying dead on a little beach, having bled to death from the wounds she had received from the jagged coral rocks, but the baby was alive, for with her dying hands the poor creature had placed it under shelter, and covered it over with grass and leaves, where it was found, sleeping soundly, by a native sailor.

There was not now the slightest hope of saving the ship, unless the sea went down; and Hayes, who was as cool as if he were taking his morning coffee, told the rest of the crew, who were now all gathered together aft, to get ashore the best way they could. Three of the white traders were still aboard, awaiting the return of their boats, which, manned by their faithful Pleasant Islanders, we now and again could dimly discern, as they appeared on the summit of the heaving seas, waiting for a chance to pull up astern and rescue their masters.

There were still two chests full of valuables in the main cabin to be got on deck, and Lalia (sweet Lalia), the young woman of whom I have before spoken, although her husband had gone ashore, refused to jump to the boats, and said she would stay and help us to save them.

'Go, ashore, Lalia. Go to your husband,' said Hayes, sternly pushing her to the stern rail; 'he is an old man, and cannot come off again in his boat for you. Perhaps he is drowned.'

The girl laughed and said it was all the better--she would get another and a younger husband; she would stay with the _men_ on board and not swim ashore with the old women. Then she ran below. In a few minutes she reappeared, with a fine powerful Pleasant Island native named Karta, carrying our Chinese steward, who was paralysed with drink and terror. Hayes took the man up in his arms and, seeing one of the boats close to, threw him overboard without further ado. Then Lalia and I again went below for another of the boxes, and, aided by Karta, we had got it half-way up the companion ladder when the brig rose her stern high to a mountain sea, and then came down with a terrific crash on to a coral boulder, ripping her rudder from the stern post, and sending it clean through the deck. Lalia fell backwards into the cabin, and the heavy chest slipped down on the top of her, crushing her left foot cruelly against the companion lining, and jamming her slender body underneath. Karta and myself tried hard to free the poor tortured girl, but without avail, and then some of our Rotumah Island sailors, hearing our cries for help, ran down, and by our united exertions, we got her clear, put her in the steward's bunk--as she had fainted--and lugged the chest on deck.

One of the traders' whale-boats was lying close to, and the chest was, by the merest chance, dropped into her just as the brig came down again on the coral boulder with a thundering crash and smashed a big hole into her timbers under her starboard counter. In a few minutes she began to fill.

'It's all up with her, boys,' cried the philosophical 'Bully.' 'Jump for the boats all of you; but wait for a rising sea, or you'll get smashed up on the coral. Bo'sun, take a look round below, and see that there are no more women there. We must take care of the women, boys.'

Karta, the brave Pleasant Islander, a Manila man named Sarreo, and myself then went below for Lalia. She was sitting up in the steward's