O'er Many Lands, on Many Seas, Gordon Stables [microsoft ebook reader TXT] 📗

CHAPTER ONE.

"And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy

I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me

Were a delight...

For I was, as it were, a child of thee."

 

Byron.

 

Not a breath of wind from any direction. Not a cloud in the sky, not a

ripple on the ocean's blue. Only when a bird alighted on the water,

quisling rings of silver formed all around it, and widened and widened,

but soon were lost to view. Or when a fish leaped up, or the dorsal fin

of some monster shark appeared above the surface, the sea about it

trembled for a time, trembled and sparkled as if a shower of diamonds

had suddenly fallen there.

 

And a broad low swell came rolling in from the Indian Ocean, as if the

bosom of the sea were moving in its sleep. But landwards, had you

looked, you might have seen it break in a long fringe of snowy foam on a

beach of yellow sand; and, had you listened, the distant hum and boom of

those breakers would have fallen on your ears in a kind of drowsy

long-drawn monotone.

 

The brave ship _Niobe_ [this word is pronounced as if spelt "Ni-o-bee"]

slowly rose and slowly fell, and gently rocked and rolled on this

heaving tide, and sometimes her great sails flapped with the vessel's

motion, but, alas! not with the rising wind.

 

No, not with the rising wind, but whenever they moved, the officer who

paced up and down the white-scoured quarter-deck, would glance above as

if in hope; then he would gaze seawards, and anon shorewards, wistfully,

wishfully, uneasily.

 

Uneasy, indeed, was the feeling on the minds of all on board.

 

The vessel was far too near the shore, the wind had been dead for hours,

but it had died away suddenly, and the glass had gone tumbling down.

That it would come on to blow again, and that before long, everyone from

the captain to the dark-skinned Kroo-boy was well aware. But from what

direction would the wind come? If from the east, strong though the

_Niobe_ was, close to the wind though she could sail, well-officered and

manned though she was, there was more than a probability she would be

dashed to pieces on that sandy beach.

 

And small mercy could the survivors, if any, expect from the savage

Somali Indians, and the still more cruel Arabs, who dwelt in the

wretched little towns and villages on the coast. For the ship was here

in the Indian Ocean for the avowed purpose of putting down slavery and

piracy, and by slavery and piracy those Arabs lived.

 

It was in the days before steam-power was generally adopted by our navy,

when sailors were sailors in reality, and not merely in name.

 

The crew of the _Niobe_ numbered about seventy, all told fore--and--aft.

She carried ten good guns, and an unlimited supply of small arms,

cutlasses, and boarding pikes. The timbers of this brave craft were of

the toughest teak, ay, and her men were hearts of oak. They feared

nothing, they hated nothing, save uncertainty and inaction. All that

they longed for was to be accomplishing the object of their cruise.

 

Had you been on board the _Niobe_ when the wind was blowing half a gale,

and the ship ripping through the waves with, maybe, green seas hitting

her awful thuds at times, and the foam dashing high over the main or

fore-tops, you would have found the men as merry and jolly as boys at

cricket. Had you been on board when the battle raged, and the cannon

roared, and balls crashed through her sides or rigging, when splinters

flew and men dropped bleeding to the deck, you would have found nought

save courage and daring in every eye, and calmness in every hand.

 

But to-day, at the time our story opens, there was neither laughing,

joking, nor singing to be heard. The men clustered quietly about bows

or fo'c'sle, or leaned lazily over the bulwarks watching the vessel

roll--for at one moment she would heel over till the cool clear water

could be touched with the hand, and the next she would raise her head or

side until a yard at least of her copper sheathing shone in the sunlight

like burnished gold.

 

There was no sound to break the stillness save the far-off boom of the

breakers; so quiet was it that the sound of even a rope's-end thrown on

deck grated harshly on the ear, and a whisper could be heard from one

end of the ship to the other.

 

"Bill," said one sailor to another, biting off the end of a chunk of

nigger-head tobacco, "I don't half like this state of affairs."

 

"And I don't like it either, Jack," was the reply, "but I suppose we

must put up with it."

 

"Do ye think it would be any good to whistle for the wind, Bill?"

 

"Whistle for your grandmother," replied Bill, derisively.

 

"Bill," persisted Jack, "they do tell me--older men, I mean, tell me--

that whistling for the wind is sure to bring it."

 

"Ay, lad, if you whistle long enough. Look here, Jack, don't be a

superstitious donkey. I've seen five hands at one time whistling for

the wind; but, Jack, they nearly whistled the whites o' their eyes out."

 

"And the wind didn't come?"

 

"Never a breath. Never a puff."

 

"Hand in sail!" This was an order from the quarter-deck.

 

"Ay, ay, sir." This was an answer from for'ard.

 

"Thank goodness," cried Jack and Bill both. "Better something than

nothing."

 

There was plenty of bustle and stir and din now, for a time at least,

and bawling of orders, and shrill shriek of boatswain's pipe. But when

all was done that could be done, silence once more settled down on the

ship--lethargy claimed her again as its own.

 

"I think, sir," said the boatswain, touching his cap to the officer on

watch, "I think, and I likewise hope, the wind'll come off the land when

it does come, sir. Anyhow, if it doesn't commence to blow for the next

ten hours we'll get away into the open sea."

 

"You're an old sailor, Mr Roberts, and know this coast better than I

do, so I like to hear you say what you do. Well, sure enough, the sun

will be down in three hours, then we may get a bit of a land breeze.

But the falling glass, Mr Roberts! I don't like the falling glass!"

 

"No more do I, sir, and I've seen a tornado in these same waters, and

the glass not much lower than it is now."

 

Leaving these two talking on the quarter-deck, let us take a look down

below.

 

Within a canvas screen, that formed a kind of a square tent on the main

deck, a cot was swung in which there lay, apparently asleep, the fragile

form of a young woman. A woman, a mother, and still to all appearance

but little more than a girl.

 

Presently the screen was gently lifted, and a young soldier, dressed in

the scarlet jacket of a sergeant of the line, glided in, dropped the

screen again, then silently seating himself on a camp stool beside the

cot, he began to smooth the delicate little snow-white hand that lay on

the coverlet. Then her eyelids lifted, and a pair of orbs of sad sweet

blue looked tenderly at the soldier by her side.

 

She smiled.

 

"Oh, Sandie!" she said, "I've had such a dear delightful dream. I

thought that our darling had grown up into such a beautiful child, and

that you, and he, and I, were back once more, wandering among the bonnie

hills, and over the gowany braes of bonnie Arrandale. I thought that

father had forgiven us, Sandie, and kissed and blessed our boy, and was

laughing to see him stringing gowans into garlands, and hanging them

around the neck of our old and faithful Collie."

 

"Cheer up, dear wife," said the young sergeant, kissing her pale brow.

"Oh! if you only knew how much good it does my heart to see you smiling

once again. Yes, dear, and I too have good hopes, brave hopes, that all

will yet be well with us. I was but a poor corporal when you fell in

love with me, Mary; when, despite the wishes of your father, who would

have wedded you to the surly old laird of Trona, and to lifelong misery,

I made you my wife. Your father knew I had come of gentle blood--that

Dunryan belongs by rights to me--but he saw before him only the humble

soldier of fortune; and he cursed me and spurned me.

 

"But see, dear, look at these stripes on my arm, behold the medal. I

carry already a sergeant's sword; that sword I hope to wave and wield on

many a field of battle, and with its aid alone, though friendless now, I

mean to earn both fame and glory, ay, and with it win my spurs. Then,

Mary, the day will come when your father will be glad to own me as a

son.

 

"But sleep now, dear; remember, the doctor says you are not to move.

Sleep; nay, you must not even talk. See, I have brought my guitar; I

will sit here and sing to you."

 

He touched a few chords as he spoke, then sang low, sweet, loving songs

to her, and ere long she was back once more in the land of dreams.

 

The sun sank lower and lower in the heavens, and at last leapt like a

fiery ball down behind the waves. A short, very short twilight

succeeded, a twilight of tints, tints of pink, and blue, and yellow.

Sky and ocean seemed to meet and kiss good-night. Then shadows fell,

and the stars shone out in the eastern sky, and twinkled down from

above, and finally glittered even over the distant hills of the western

horizon: then it got darker and darker.

 

But no breeze came off the shore, and this was in itself full ominous.

 

The captain was now on deck with his first lieutenant.

 

"We cannot be very many miles," he said, "off the river."

 

"Yes, sir," replied the lieutenant, "I reckon I know what you are

thinking about. If we cannot keep off from the shore in the event of

its coming on to blow, you would try to cross the bar."

 

"I would," replied the captain. "It would indeed be a forlorn hope, but

better that than certain destruction."

 

"I fear, sir, it would be but a choice of deaths."

 

"Better die fighting for life, though," said the captain, "than without

a struggle."

 

"Quite true," said the other, "and once over the bar we could get round

the point and shelter would be certain. But that terrible bar, sir!"

 

It was far on in the middle watch ere the storm that had been brewing

came on at last. It came from the east, as the captain had feared it

would. Clouds had first risen up and gradually obscured the stars.

Among these clouds the lightning flashed and played incessantly, but for

a long time no thunder was heard. This, at last, began to mutter, then

roll louder and louder, nearer and nearer, then a bank of white was seen

creeping along the sea's surface towards the ship, and almost

immediately after the wind was upon her, she was on her beam ends with

the sea dashing through her rigging, and the storm seeming to hold her

down, but gradually she righted and sprang forward like an arrow from a

bow, and apparently into the very teeth of the wind.

 

The ship had been battened down and made ready in every way hours before

the gale began, and well was it for all on board that preparations had

thus been made.

 

She was headed as near to the wind as she would sail, but for some time

it seemed impossible for her to keep off the shore. Gradually, however,

the wind veered more to the south, and she made a good offing. But the

storm increased rather than diminished; still the good ship struggled

onwards through darkness and danger.

 

The royal masts had been got down early on the previous afternoon so as

to reduce top-hamper to a minimum, but the pitching and rolling were

frightful, yet she made but little water.

 

Towards morning, however, fire and wind and waves appeared to combine

together for the destruction of the ship. The gale increased suddenly

to all the fury of a hurricane, the roaring of the wind drowned even the

rattle of the thunder, a ball of fire quivered for a moment over the

fore-top-mast, then rent it into fragments, ran along a stay and

splintered