the carpets inthe corridors were as soft as moss itself.
"`Splendid mansion it looks in daylight, don't it?' whispered O'Brady.`What a noble corridor! Just look at those chandeliers, look at thestained windows, and those frescoes! Must have cost a power o' money,eh?'
"`Didn't cost _him_ much, I expect,' muttered his friend. `You forgetyou're not in a hotel, but in the house of a robber chief.'
"`Hush, hush, hush! not so loud, please; every whisper is heard in thisstrange place.'
"Black servants or slaves, with white garments, squatted here and therein the hall, pulling punkah strings, and rolling chalk-white eyes at thetwo officers as they passed. They came at length to an immensely talldoor. At each side of it stood a sentry, dressed in blue and scarlet--niggers both, savage-looking, armed to the teeth, and over six feethigh.
"They each pulled back a curtain, and our friends found themselves inthe breakfast-room.
"Three great windows looked out upon a noble park, in which were strangeand beautiful trees, marble figures, miniature lakes, gushing fountains,and many a lovely bird and curious quadruped.
"Dressed in a crimson gown, the folds of which he grasped in one handacross his chest, the count himself advanced to meet them. He stoppedhalfway and bowed low.
"`I hope my guests slept well?' he said.
"The breakfast was eaten in silence almost. Afterwards--
"`Gentlemen,' said the count, `let us understand each other. You are myprisoners--'
"`_Our_ time may come,' interrupted Brackenbury.
"`You are a bold man to talk thus. I have but to hold up a finger andyou would be dragged hence and strangled. But you are my guests as wellas prisoners. If ransomed you will leave this house unharmed. Ifnot--'
"`You will kill us, eh?'
"Dolosa shrugged his shoulders.
"`'Tis the fortune of war,' he said.
"An hour or two after dinner on the same night Dolosa was lounging onthe broad terrace along with his prisoner guests. A round moon wasmirrored in a lake some distance beneath them, where antlered deer couldbe seen drinking; stars were shining in the sky, and on earth as well,for fireflies flitted refulgent from bush to bush.
"Hidden somewhere behind the foliage of an upper balcony was a stringband that had been discoursing music of a strange, half-wild, but dreamynature that accorded well with scene and time. The music had just diedaway, and there was nothing to be heard but an occasional plash in thelake, the hum of insects, and the steady hiss of the gushing fountains.
"`'Pon my word,' said Brackenbury, who had dined well, `you have a verynice little place here. Pity you're such a rase--'
"`A what--eh?' said Dolosa, quietly, interrupting him.
"`A recluse, I mean.'
"Dolosa smiled, and resumed his cigar.
"`I feel sure,' continued Brackenbury, `that we will be ransomed, but ifnot you wouldn't hang us, would you? Eh, Count? No, no; I'm sure youwouldn't. You're much too good a fellow for that.'
"Dolosa laughed.
"`Oh, no!' he replied, `of course not. _You_ wouldn't hang _me_ at theyard-arm if you had me on the _Adelaide_, eh, captain? No, no; I'm sureyou wouldn't. You're _much_ too good a fellow for that.'
"`Ah, my friends,' he added, `business is business. Now if my fellowsreturn from your ship to-morrow with an unsatisfactory answer, I shallcut off both your ears, captain, and send them; then your nose. That'sbusiness. Have another cigar?'
"But poor Brackenbury was far too sick at heart to smoke any more.
"At bedtime that night two immensely tall negroes entered the roomsilently and stood waiting for orders.
"`Why don't you speak, eh?' said Brackenbury.
"Both suddenly knelt in front of Brackenbury and opened great, red,cavernous mouths.
"`Why,' cried O'Brady, aghast, `never a tongue have they between thepair of them! Horrible! Shut your mouths, ye sturgeons! Here, put usto bed. We come all in pieces, you know. You'll see.'
"And now Brackenbury pulled out his teeth. O'Brady did the same.
"The blackamoors looked scared.
"Then Brackenbury took off his wig and threw it on the bed.
"Both negroes glared at him.
"O'Brady quietly removed a glass eye and placed it on the table.
"The negroes edged towards the door.
"But it is the last straw that breaks the camel's back. The last strawin this case was O'Brady's cork leg. When he sat down and whipped thatoff, the blackamoors rushed headlong to the door and fled howling alongthe corridor.
"Then Marco came in, all smiles and politeness.
"`They will neever, neever come again,' said Marco, laughing, whenDolosa's guests explained what had happened.
"Two mornings after this the crisis came, for Marco politely informedthem that the first officer of the _Adelaide_ had refused to hand overthe specie to ransom his captain.
"`So,' said Marco, `one of you veel have de ears cut off dis morning.But neever mind, geentlemans, neever mind,' he added, consolingly.
"Dolosa was as polite as if nothing were about to happen. It was abreakfast fit for a king, but, singular to say, neither Brackenbury norO'Brady had the least bit of appetite. They felt sick at heart with theshadow of some coming evil.
"They retired soon after to their room, but hardly had they entered erethe urbane Marco glided in and tapped each on the shoulder.
"He pointed smilingly to his own ears with his two thumbs.
"`De time is coome, geentlemans,' he said; `but it is nodings,geentlemans. Neever mind, neever mind.'
"`But I do mind,' spluttered Brackenbury. `Confound it all, even if wedon't bleed to death right away, what will our wives say to us when wereturn to them with no more ears than an adder? I tell you, Marco, yourmaster is a diabolical scoundrel.'
"`Hush! hush! capitan,' cried Marco. `Do not speak so. De walls haveears.'
"`Yes, and I want to keep mine.'
"`See, see,' continued Marco, as two stalwart blacks opened the door andbeckoned to the unfortunate prisoners.
"The courtyard into which they were led was a gloomy one indeed,surrounded by high bare walls on three sides, with a cliff on the othergoing sheer down to the river's side black and dismal.
"Le Comte Pedro de Dolosa lifted his hat.
"`So sorry to trouble you, gentlemen,' he said, `but the case is urgent.Who comes first?'
"He pointed to the executioners as he spoke. They were the same negroeswho had led them to the yard.
"Brackenbury confessed afterwards that he now felt as pale as death. Itdid not tend to restore his equanimity to observe one hulking negroheating an iron to redness in a charcoal stove. This he knew was tocauterise the awful wound after the ear had been severed.
"`Who comes first?' repeated the count, sharply.
"`Captain Brackenbury, of course,' said O'Brady. `He has the honour tobe captain of the ship.'
"`No, no, no!' cried Brackenbury; `you first, O'Brady; honour be hanged,you're ten years older than I. Age before honour any day.'
"`Gentlemen,' said Dolosa, `as _you_ cannot agree, _I_ will solve thedifficulty. Captain Brackenbury, stand forw--'
"He never finished the sentence.
"Such a yell suddenly rang through and around his mansion, accompaniedby the clashing of swords and cracking of pistols. It was--
"`As if men fought upon the earth, And fiends in upper air.'
"`Hurrah!' cried Brackenbury. `Our ears are saved.'
"`Off with them--quick,' cried Dolosa, `to the dungeon, and garrote themboth.'
"He pulled a pistol from his belt as he spoke and rushed away to jointhe _melee_.
"Meanwhile the black giants--not the two whom they had so frightened intheir bedroom--hurried Brackenbury and O'Brady along a corridor.
"But little did they know the mettle that O'Brady was made of.
"All at once he stopped short. He quickly bent down, and, to the utterastonishment of his would-be executioners, he
undid a leg.
"That leg, Brackenbury said, was a good old-fashioned one, and ofconsiderable weight.
"Before the hulking negroes recovered their fright, one was felled tothe ground.
"`Poor old O'Brady,' said Brackenbury, while telling the story, `tumbledon top of him, but I got the leg, and with it I quickly smashed theother. In less than a minute both were senseless, and we bound themhand and foot with the very cords they would have strangled us with.'
"Dolosa was shot, his house was fired, for the _Adelaide's_ men had comein time.
"In two weeks more Brackenbury told me the _Adelaide_ had rounded theHorn, and was bearing merrily up for home, with a spanking breeze andstunsails set. For ships could sail in those days."
Everybody thanked the doctor for his story, and now, as it was wearinglate, as they had passed--
"The wee short hour ayout the twal."
Good-nights were said, and hands were shaken, and in half an hour allbut those on watch were sound asleep or dreaming of their far-off homes.
The southern stars were very bright; there was not a sound to be heardsave the lapping of the waves at the ship's side, the far-off beating ofthe eternal tom-toms, or the occasional shrill shriek of an Arabsentinel walking his rounds within the palace walls.
Book 2--CHAPTER SEVEN.
CAUGHT ABACK IN A WHITE SQUALL--ON A REEF IN MID OCEAN--THE LOST DHOW.
The _Bunting_ had orders to take dispatches for the East India stationbefore bearing up for England by way of the Cape, for the Suez Canal wasnot yet open.
To be sure they would much have preferred to turn southwards at once.
But after all a month or so more could make but little difference afterso long a commission--they had been away from England now nearly fivelong years.
On the very next day, however, after the dinner-party, steam was got up,and the _Bunting_ departed from Zanzibar.
How merrily the men worked now! How cheerfully they sang! Everybodyseemed in better temper than his neighbour. For were they not,virtually speaking, homeward bound.
"If we do happen to come across another prize you know," said CaptainWayland to Mr Dewar, "we won't say no to her, will we?"
"That we won't, sir," was the laughing reply; "the more the merrier, andit won't be my fault if a good outlook isn't kept both by night andday."
Sailors love the sea, and quite delight, as the old song tells us, in--
"A wet sheet and a flowing sail."
But there are times when even a sailor may feel weary on the ocean. Myexperience leads me to believe that so long as a ship is positivelydoing something, and going somewhere in particular, Jack-a-tar isperfectly contented and happy. In such a case--a sailing ship on a longvoyage, for example--if the wind blows dead ahead, dead in the goodchip's eye, Jack may feel thrown back a bit in his reckoning, but heeats and sleeps and doesn't say much, he has got to work to windward,and this brings out all the craft's good sailing capacity. If it blowsa gale in a wrong direction--well, she is laid to, and however rough theweather be, Jack comforts himself and his mates with the assurance thatit can't go on blowing in the same direction for ever. Neither it does;and no sooner is the vessel lying her course again, with her stemcleaving through the blue water, than Jack begins to sing, like ablackbird just let loose from a pie.
If the ship gets caught in a tornado, then there is so much to do thatthere is really no time for grumbling.
But what Jack can _not_ stand, with anything like equanimity, isinaction. Being in the doldrums, for instance, on or about the line.
"As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."
In such a case Jack does growl, and, in my humble opinion, no one has abetter right to do so.
The day after that joyful evening described in last chapter, when, bythis time, the men had not only read their letters o'er and o'er, buthad almost got them by heart, as the long row of white palatial-lookingbuildings that forms the frontage of that strange city, Zanzibar, wasleft behind, and the greenery of trees was presently lost to view, themen's spirits grew buoyant indeed. For fires were now ordered to bebanked, as a breeze sprang up--quickly, too, as breezes are wont to inthese latitudes.
Sail was set, pretty close hauled she had to be, but away went the_Bunting_ nevertheless, cutting through the bright sparkling water likea knife. It was a wind to make the heart of a true sailor jump for joy.It cut the pyramidal heads of the waves off, and the spray so formedglittered in the sunshine like showers of molten silver; it sang ratherthan roared through the rigging, it kept the vane extended like arailway signal arm, it kept the pennant in a constant state of flutter,it kept the sails all full and free from wrinkle, and every sheet astaut as a fiddle-string. It was a "ripping" breeze, a happy bracingbreeze, a breeze that gave one strength of nerve and muscle, and lightand joy of mind.
The officers were all on deck, from the captain to the clerk, walkingrapidly up and down as if doing a record or winning a bet.
The breeze continued for days till, indeed, the ship was degrees northof the line.
But one lovely night, with a clear sky and the moon shimmering on thewave crests, and dyeing the water with streaks like molten gold, it fellcalm. The wind went away as suddenly almost as it had sprung up.
There were men in the chains. Every now and then their voices rang upfrom near the bows in that mournful kind of chant that none can forgetwho have ever heard it "And a half fi--ive."
"And a quarter less six." And so on. They had just come over an uglybit of shoal water, and from the mast-head, where Harry himself--it washis watch--had gone to view the situation, he could notice that therewere patches of the same kind of coral shoals almost everywhere around.
It was an ugly situation. He could not help wishing that the wind hadcontinued but a little longer, or that it would again spring up from thesame quarter. But there were the sails flapping sometimes in onedirection, sometimes in another, and taking desperate pulls and jerks atthe sheets, causing the _Bunting_ to kick about in a manner that was farfrom agreeable.
Harry was just about to order sail to be taken in, for he knew not inwhat direction the wind would come from.
He had already taken the liberty of rousing the sleeping engineer, andtelling him to get up steam with all possible speed.
"Hands, shorten sail!"
"Ready about."
For the wind seemed now commencing to blow from off the land.
He ran up to the maintop once more to take a view of the situation.
Heavens! what was coming yonder? Away on the horizon a long bank ofsnow-white fog or foam, high as poplar trees it seemed; and as helistened for a moment spellbound, he could hear a distant roar like thatwhich breakers make on a sandy beach on a windless, frosty night inwinter, only more continuous. It was the scourge of the Indian Ocean.It was the dreaded white squall.
It came on in foam and fury, lightning even playing athwart and behindit.
"All hands on deck!" roared Harry. In his excitement he hardly knewwhat he was saying. "Stand by to let go everything! Hard a port!"
Everything indeed! Hardly had he spoken ere the squall was on them, thewind roaring like a den of wild beasts, the sea around them like amaelstrom, ropes snapped like worsted threads, sails in ribbons, andrattling like platoon fire, blocks adrift, sheets streaming likepennants, and the canvas that held out-bellying to the dreadful blastand carrying the vessel astern at the rate of knots.
Caught aback in a white squall! no situation can be more dangerous orappalling! Well for them was it that the _Bunting_ was long and low andrakish; a brig would have gone down stern first, giving those on boardhardly time to utter a prayer.
For five long minutes astern she sped. Two men were knocked downdangerously wounded, and washed into the lee scuppers, where they wouldhave been drowned, but for the almost superhuman exertions of thesurgeon and steward.
Five long minutes, but see, good seamanship has triumphed! She is roundat last, all sail off that cou
ld be got off. She is scudding almostunder bare poles--scudding whither?
Scudding straight apparently to destruction. Through the mist and therain that swallows the moonlight, they cannot make out a reef that liesright ahead of them, till she is on it, till she rasps and bumps, tillevery man is thrown flat on deck, and the man pitched over the wheel.
It is all up with the _Bunting_!
Ah! many a half-despairing prayer went heavenward then, many ahalf-smothered cry for mercy from Him to whom all things are possible,and who holds the sea in the hollow of His hand.
Bending over his bleeding patients down below in the steerage, thedoctor never ceases his work, albeit the ship has struck, and the seasare making a clear breach over, albeit he is up to the ankles in thewater that is pouring down green through the hatchway.
The steward is frantic.
Little Raggy in the captain's cabin, to whom Harry himself had takenpains to teach the things of a better life and a better world, is on hisknees.
"O! big Fader in heaven," he is saying, "don't let de ship sinkee fortrue. Dis chile no want to die to-night. De waves make plenty muchbobbery, de masts dey break and fall. Take us out ob de gulp (gulph).Lor, take us out ob de gulp, and save us for true."
It is all up with the _Bunting_, is it?
No, for even now from away to windward yonder, unseen by those on board,comes the bore, the hurricane wave. High as houses is it, fleet almostas the wind itself, onward it rolls, downward it comes; and now it is onthe