my guitar; Iwill sit here and sing to you."
He touched a few chords as he spoke, then sang low, sweet, loving songsto 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 afiery ball down behind the waves. A short, very short twilightsucceeded, 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 fromabove, and finally glittered even over the distant hills of the westernhorizon: 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 arethinking about. If we cannot keep off from the shore in the event ofits coming on to blow, you would try to cross the bar."
"I would," replied the captain. "It would indeed be a forlorn hope, butbetter 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 withouta struggle."
"Quite true," said the other, "and once over the bar we could get roundthe 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 brewingcame on at last. It came from the east, as the captain had feared itwould. Clouds had first risen up and gradually obscured the stars.Among these clouds the lightning flashed and played incessantly, but fora long time no thunder was heard. This, at last, began to mutter, thenroll louder and louder, nearer and nearer, then a bank of white was seencreeping along the sea's surface towards the ship, and almostimmediately after the wind was upon her, she was on her beam ends withthe sea dashing through her rigging, and the storm seeming to hold herdown, but gradually she righted and sprang forward like an arrow from abow, and apparently into the very teeth of the wind.
The ship had been battened down and made ready in every way hours beforethe gale began, and well was it for all on board that preparations hadthus been made.
She was headed as near to the wind as she would sail, but for some timeit 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 thestorm increased rather than diminished; still the good ship struggledonwards through darkness and danger.
The royal masts had been got down early on the previous afternoon so asto reduce top-hamper to a minimum, but the pitching and rolling werefrightful, yet she made but little water.
Towards morning, however, fire and wind and waves appeared to combinetogether for the destruction of the ship. The gale increased suddenlyto all the fury of a hurricane, the roaring of the wind drowned even therattle of the thunder, a ball of fire quivered for a moment over thefore-top-mast, then rent it into fragments, ran along a stay andsplintered the bulwarks ere it reached the water, while at the samemoment the whole ship was engulphed by a solid sea that swept over herbows, and carried away almost everything it reached, bulwarks, boats,and men.
Then, as if it had done its worst, the gale moderated, the sea becameless furious, the thunder ceased to roll, the lightning to play, and inhalf an hour more the grey light of morning spread over the ocean, andon the eastern horizon a bank of lurid red showed where the sun wastrying to struggle through the clouds.
With bulwarks ripped away and boats gone, the _Niobe_ looked littlebetter than a wreck, while, sad to relate, when the roll was called fivemen failed to answer. Five men swept away during the darkness andtempest, five brave hearts for ever stilled, five firesides at home inmerrie England made to mourn for those whom their friends would sadlymiss, but never, never see again!
But see: the gale begins once more with redoubled fury, and to thehorror of that unhappy ship, the wind goes round to meet the sun.
"I fear, sir," said the lieutenant to the captain, "that nothing can nowsave us. We must die like men."
"That we will, I trust," replied the captain, "but we will die doing ourduty to the very last. Is there any one on board who knows this coastwell?"
"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 offBrava last night."
"I reckon, sir, we made up our leeway at times like, when there was abit of a shift of wind, and lost it again when it veered. But our onlychance 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 mademan, 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 savewhat sufficed to steer her, with four men at the wheel, and the sturdypilot guiding them with hand movements alone--for his voice could not beheard amid the raging of the storm and awful roar of the breakingbillows that were everywhere around them--the brave _Niobe_ was rushingstem on through the mountain seas that rolled shorewards over the mostdreaded bar on all the African coast.
It is impossible to describe the turmoil and strife of the waves whenthe vessel was once fairly on the bar; and to add to the terror of thescene more than once she struck the sandy bottom with a force that madeevery timber creak and groan. Next moment she would be swallowed upapparently in boiling, breaking, swirling water, but rising again on thecrest of a wave, she would shake herself free and rush headlong on oncemore.
But look at her now: she is on the very top of a curling avalanche, andspeeding shorewards with it, her jibboom and bowsprit, and even part ofher bows, hang clear over that awful precipice of water, and if the shipmoves 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 inshorter time than pen takes to describe it, the billow seems to sink andmelt beneath her; again she bumps on the sand, but next minute amidst achaos of snowy foam she is hurled into the deep water beyond.
An hour afterwards the _Niobe_ is lying snugly at anchor in a littlewooded bay, with all her sails furled, and nothing to tell of thedangers she has just come through, save the splintered mast, the raggedrigging, and sadly-torn bulwarks.
But the wind goes moaning through the mangrove forest, where birds andbeasts are crouching low for shelter among the gnarled boughs and roots,and although the water around the _Niobe_ is calm enough, the stormroars through her upper rigging, and she rocks and rolls as if out atsea.
The youthful sergeant is sitting beside the cot within the screen, buthis head is bowed down with grief, and a sorrow such as men feel butonce in a life-time is rending his heart. The little white hand of hiswife 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 arecrushed, his very soul seems dead within him.
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At the very time the gale was raging its fiercest, and the seathreatening every minute to engulph the ship, the lady's life had passedaway, 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 thedangers he has encountered and gone through.
As the sea on which he was born, so stormy has
been the life of him whotells this tale.
CHAPTER TWO.
"Majestic woods of every vigorous green, Stage above stage, high waving o'er the hills; Or to the far horizon wide diffused, A boundless deep immensity of shade."
Thomson's "Seasons."
"Hearts of oak!" our captain cried, "when each gun From its adamantine lips, Spread a death-shade round the ships, Like the hurricane eclipse of the sun."
Campbell.
There are two events in the history of a man, of which he himself inwriting his autobiography can hardly be expected to give any very clearaccount, namely, his birth and his death. To describe the former, hewould require to be born with his eyes very wide open indeed, andinstead of a silver spoon in his mouth, which they tell me some childrenare born with, a silver pencil-case behind his ear;