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 the bulwarks ere it reached the water, while at the same moment the whole ship was engulphed by a solid sea that swept over her bows, and carried away almost everything it reached, bulwarks, boats, and men.

Then, as if it had done its worst, the gale moderated, the sea became less furious, the thunder ceased to roll, the lightning to play, and in half an hour more the grey light of morning spread over the ocean, and on the eastern horizon a bank of lurid red showed where the sun was trying to struggle through the clouds.

With bulwarks ripped away and boats gone, the Niobe looked little better than a wreck, while, sad to relate, when the roll was called five men failed to answer. Five men swept away during the darkness and tempest, five brave hearts for ever stilled, five firesides at home in merrie England made to mourn for those whom their friends would sadly miss, but never, never see again!

But see: the gale begins once more with redoubled fury, and to the horror of that unhappy ship, the wind goes round to meet the sun.

“I fear, sir,” said the lieutenant to the captain, “that nothing can now save us. We must die like men.”

“That we will, I trust,” replied the captain, “but we will die doing our duty to the very last. Is there any one on board who knows this coast well?”

“The boatswain, sir, Mr Roberts.”

“Send for him.”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Mr Roberts, what think you of the outlook?”

“A very poor one, captain. But I have been looking at the land, sir, and hazy though it is I find we are right off the bar of Lamoo.”

“Why, then, we must have been driven back many many miles; we were off Brava last night.”

“I reckon, sir, we made up our leeway at times like, when there was a bit of a shift of wind, and lost it again when it veered. But our only chance now is to head for that bar, sir.”

“You’ve been over it?”

“I have, sir, many is the time; and I’ll try to pilot the good Niobe over it now.”

“Very well, Mr Roberts, you shall try; if you succeed, you are a made man, if you fail – ”

“All,” said the boatswain, “I knows what failure’ll mean, sir.”

Half an hour afterwards, stripped of nearly every inch of canvas save what sufficed to steer her, with four men at the wheel, and the sturdy pilot guiding them with hand movements alone – for his voice could not be heard amid the raging of the storm and awful roar of the breaking billows that were everywhere around them – the brave Niobe was rushing stem on through the mountain seas that rolled shorewards over the most dreaded bar on all the African coast.

It is impossible to describe the turmoil and strife of the waves when the vessel was once fairly on the bar; and to add to the terror of the scene more than once she struck the sandy bottom with a force that made every timber creak and groan. Next moment she would be swallowed up apparently in boiling, breaking, swirling water, but rising again on the crest of a wave, she would shake herself free and rush headlong on once more.

But look at her now: she is on the very top of a curling avalanche, and speeding shorewards with it, her jibboom and bowsprit, and even part of her bows, hang clear over that awful precipice of water, and if the ship moves faster than the breaker beneath her then her time is come.

It is a moment of awful suspense, but it is only a moment, for in shorter time than pen takes to describe it, the billow seems to sink and melt beneath her; again she bumps on the sand, but next minute amidst a chaos of snowy foam she is hurled into the deep water beyond.

An hour afterwards the Niobe is lying snugly at anchor in a little wooded bay, with all her sails furled, and nothing to tell of the dangers she has just come through, save the splintered mast, the ragged rigging, and sadly-torn bulwarks.

But the wind goes moaning through the mangrove forest, where birds and beasts are crouching low for shelter among the gnarled boughs and roots, and although the water around the Niobe is calm enough, the storm roars through her upper rigging, and she rocks and rolls as if out at sea.

The youthful sergeant is sitting beside the cot within the screen, but his head is bowed down with grief, and a sorrow such as men feel but once in a life-time is rending his heart. The little white hand of his wife still lies on the coverlet, but it is cold now as well as white. The heart that loved him had ceased to beat —

 
“And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on him sae fondly.”
 

All his bright visions of yesterday have fled away, all his hopes are crushed, his very soul seems dead within him.

At the very time the gale was raging its fiercest, and the sea threatening every minute to engulph the ship, the lady’s life had passed away, and he who sits here pen in hand was left without a mother’s care. Born on the stormy ocean, rocked in infancy on the cradle of the deep, no wonder he loves the sea, and can look back with pleasure even to the dangers he has encountered and gone through.

As the sea on which he was born, so stormy has been the life of him who tells this tale.