Harry Collingwood

“ The silence of night lay heavy upon the breast of the placid deep, and seemed to be emphasised rather than broken by the faint sigh of the breeze through the maze of spars and rigging that towered aloft, the soft seething and plash of water along the bends, the light creak or cheep of some parral or sheave up in the velvet darkness, and the occasional clank of the tiller chains as the watchful helmsman, with his eye upon some star peering past the weather leach of the main-royal, found it necessary to give the ship a spoke of the wheel one way or the other. ”

“ And all through that interminable day we toiled on and on at the oars, with not a shred of cloud to be seen in any direction, the blazing sun scorching us remorselessly, and the sea all round us a polished, shining, gently undulating, colourless plain, unbroken by so much as a solitary ripple, save those created by our oar blades, the passage of the gig through the water, the occasional dash of half a dozen flying-fish out of the sea under the boat’s stem, and once or twice the thin wake cut by the dorsal fin of a cruising shark. ”

“ Such were the words which fell upon George Leicester’s ear as he once more became feebly conscious of the fact of his own existence. The words came to him mingled with other sounds, to wit—the creaking of bulkheads, the rattling of cabin doors hooked back to allow the free passage of fresh air, the grinding of a rudder and the clank of rudder-chains, the sonorous hum of the wind through a ship’s rigging, the flapping of a sail, the distant subdued murmur of men’s voices, and the soft plashing of water. ”

“ The man’s sallow visage grew black with fury, his eyes blazed lightnings down upon the head of the girl who was smilingly erasing his name, his fists clenched until the knuckles showed white, and his beard and moustache bristled like the mane of an angry lion. Indeed, so menacing was his aspect that Dick Cavendish, with a single stride, interposed his own bulky form between that of the queen and the infuriated Sachar, into whose flashing eyes he stared so threateningly that the noble suddenly found a new object for the vials of his wrath. ”

“ The most perfect silence reigned outside the ship, but on board there was quite a small Babel of sound storming about us; the creaking of yard-parrels and trusses aloft, mingled with the loud flap of the canvas to the roll of the ship, the “cheep” of block-sheaves, the sharp “slatting” of suddenly tautened gear, and the pattering of reef-points; while on deck there was the monotonous swish of water washing athwart the planks from side to side, with the choking gurgle of the water spouting up through the scuppers, and the heavy splashing sound of the brine as it poured in over the bulwarks ”

“ As these thoughts passed through my mind, my gaze fixed itself contemplatively on the broad path of silver—now imperceptibly changing to liquid gold—cast upon the surface of the sea by the setting moon; and, as I gazed, I gradually became aware of a tiny black object, about a mile away, on our port bow, rising and falling with the lazy heave of the swell. In that mine-strewn sea the smallest and least conspicuous floating object demanded one’s instant and most careful attention, and whipping my binoculars out of the case, strapped to the bridge rail, I quickly focused them upon it. ”

“ The schooner, being but a small craft, too, was extraordinarily lively; leaping and plunging, rolling and pitching to such an extent and with so quick a motion that it was quite impossible to keep one’s footing without holding on to something; while to secure a meal demanded a series of feats of dexterity that would have turned a professional acrobat green with envy. And all this discomfort was emphasised, as it were, by the yelling and hooting and shrieking of the wind aloft, the roar of the angry sea, and the heavy, perpetual swish of spray upon the deck. ”

“ The change was so gradual that it was impossible to say just when it began, but within half an hour of our first perception of it the light had grown so strong that not only were we able to move about freely without running foul of things but, standing aft by the useless wheel and looking forward, every detail of the ship’s hull, spars, sails, and rigging stood out clearly and sharply, like a silhouette cut out of black paper, against a background of shining oil-smooth water and dense masses of twisting and writhing cloud-shapes all reflecting the weird, mysterious ruddy light. ”

“ A bullet must have passed in advance of the launch and struck the torpedo itself, for the onlookers saw a dazzling burst of whitish-blue flame, which was followed by a deafening, stunning explosion, and the launch seemed to disappear, as if by magic, in a tornado of flame, for not even a fragment of her appeared on the water afterwards. The roar of the machine-guns at once ceased, and every man on board the ship wiped away the cold sweat of fear which had burst out on his forehead at the prospect of being torpedoed; for there is no arm in the naval service so dreaded by the sailor. ”

“ Needless to say, we kept a sharp lookout for a sail all through the day, but saw nothing; the flying-fish that sparkled out from the ridges of the swell and went skimming away to port and starboard, gleaming as brilliantly in the strong sunlight as a handful of new silver dollars, being the only objects to break the solitude that environed us. By sunset that day the wind had died completely out, leaving the ocean a vast surface of slow-moving, glassy undulations, and I was reluctantly compelled to order the canvas to be taken in, the masts to be struck, and the oars to be thrown out. ”

“ A roaring as of a thousand thunders is in his ears; stars innumerable dance before his eyes; he sees as in a dream the yawning gulf in the floor; a broad glare of fierce white light reels madly to and fro before him; a confused sound of hoarse voices strikes upon his ear; he feels that the end is come—that he is dying; but with a last supreme effort he staggers up the saloon staircase to the deck, turns instinctively to windward out of the smoke, and with his precious burden still tightly clasped in his arms, falls prostrate and senseless to the deck. ”

“ Here, there, and everywhere could be heard the explosions of ammunition as the flames reached the loose piles of cartridges which each man had placed beside himself while firing on the fort; and, with the continuous flash and explosion of the shells as they plunged into the earth, the black silhouettes of the men and guns upon that background of smoke and flame, and the deep, orange glow of the reflected flames in the sky, the scene so indelibly impressed itself upon Frobisher’s memory that he is not likely to forget it as long as he lives. ”

“ Nor did our own ship present a less gallant spectacle as she careered madly forward through the hissing brine, now burying her bows deep in a fringe of yeasty foam, and next moment soaring aloft as though she meant to forsake the ocean altogether; her steeply-inclined deck knee-deep with the rushing cataracts of water which poured over her to windward, her canvas tugging at the stout spars until they bent and sprang like fishing-rods, and the wind singing through her tautly-strained rigging as through the strings of a gigantic Aeolian harp. ”

“ Jocularity and laughter pervaded the little craft from end to end; and throughout the second dog-watch dancing, singing, and skylarking—all, of course, within the limits of proper discipline—were the order of the evening. As the sun disappeared in the west, the full, round orb of the moon floated majestically up over the purple rim of the horizon to leeward; and the swift yet imperceptible change from the golden glory of sunset to the silvery radiance of a clear, moonlit night was a sight of beauty that must be left to the imagination, for no mortal pen could possibly do justice to it. ”

“ Around on every hand stretched a brilliant, sun-kissed picture of rugged mountain slopes, scored deeply by the storms of ages; deep kloofs, precipitous of side, shaggy with their vesture of dense bush, and mysterious with their broad masses of dark shadow; rolling uplands, dotted here and there with clumps of timber and bush or with our grazing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and horses, sweeping gently down toward the wide-stretching, bush-clad plains, through which wound tiny spruits, like threads of silver, hurrying to lose themselves in the broader waters of the Great Fish River. ”

“ The travellers, safely shut up in that impregnable fortress, the hull of the Flying Fish, passed the night in peaceful slumber, undisturbed, in the confidence begotten of a sense of perfect security, by the weird cries of the night birds, the incessant howling of the jackals, the maniacal laugh of the prowling hyena, the occasional roar of the lion, the loud whirr of myriads of insects, the croaking of bull-frogs, and the other multitudinous nocturnal sounds which floated in through the open windows of their state-rooms. ”

“ The Flying Fish came to earth on, as von Schalckenberg asserted, the identical spot upon which she had rested on the occasion of their former visit, in the very midst of the vast ruined city, and the little company of travellers on board her spent a never-to-be-forgotten hour on her deck watching, in an ecstasy of delight, the constantly changing and magical effects of light, shade, and colour as the sun went down in a blaze of glory, lighting up with his departing beams the stupendously imposing and marvellous remains of ancient Ophir. ”

“ Yet with every fathom that the boat advanced, the shadow grew more palpable, expanded, and approximated more closely to the appearance of a vessel hove-to under bare poles. And at length, after several anxious minutes of alternating hope and doubt, there arrived a moment when doubt became no longer possible, for the shadow had finally resolved itself into the silhouette of a brig under bare poles; even the thin lines of the masts—which, by the way, looked stumpy, as though her topgallant-masts were gone—were perceptible to my practised eye. ”

“ Yet, despite the agony of horror that froze my blood, I instinctively thrust my helm hard down and flattened in the sheets fore and aft; for the thought came to me that, perchance, a few fathoms out there, veiled from sight in the soft, velvet blackness of the night, some poor wretch—a victim, like myself, to the fury of the late gale—clinging desperately to a fragment of wreckage, might have caught a glimpse of the longboat’s sails, sliding blackly along against the stars, and have emitted those terrible cries as a last despairing appeal for help and succour. ”

“ The swell which lingered, to remind us of the recent breeze, was subsiding fast, and the ocean presented one vast surface of long, solemn-sweeping undulations of the deepest, purest sapphire, gently ruffled by the breathing of the languid breeze, and ablaze in the wake of the sun with a dazzle that brought tears to the eye that attempted to gaze upon it. The ship’s morning toilet had been completed, and the decks, darkened by the sluicing to which they had been lavishly subjected by the acting second mate and his watch, were drying fast and recovering their sand-white colour in the process. ”

“ The breeze gradually freshened, the water hissed and sparkled away from our sharp bows, and the swirling eddies in our wake told a cheering tale as to the speed with which we were flying over the surface of the now crisply-ruffled ocean; and before my watch was out, I had the satisfaction of seeing that we were certainly drawing away from our persevering enemy, the broad, flat model of the Lily being as favourable to her sailing powers before the wind as her deep keel was when close-hauled. ”

“ And, truly, it was a grand and exhilarating scene that met their gaze; for the wind, though it still blew with the force of a whole gale, had so far moderated its fury as to permit the sea to rise; and now the staunch little ship, heeling to her covering-board, was gallantly breasting the huge billows of the mid-Atlantic; each wave a deep blue liquid hill, half as high as our fore-yard, crested with a ridge of snow-white foam that, caught up and blown into spray by the gale, produced an endless procession of mimic rainbows past the ship. ”

“ At a signal, made by the waving of a lantern, the guns of the Cliff Battery above us suddenly became mute, as though the artillerymen had given up for the night; and a calm and tranquil silence ensued, broken only by the gentle rustle of the fitful breeze through the foliage of some firs which were dotted here and there along the precipitous sides of the ravine, the chirping of insects, the occasional twitter of a sleeping bird, or a low murmur here and there in the serried ranks of armed men which stood awaiting the order to rush forth to death or victory. ”

“ A long line of milk-white foam appears upon the horizon, spreading and advancing with awful rapidity; the roar swells in volume until it becomes absolutely deafening; the air grows thick with vapour; a sudden whirl of wind rushes past lashing the skipper’s face with rain-drops as it goes—rain-drops? no; they are salt, salt as the brine alongside—and then, with a wild burst and babel of hideous sound and a shock as though the raft had collided with something solid, the hurricane strikes her. ”