Perils in the Transvaal and Zululand. Adams Henry Cadwallader

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the mark was now more difficult to hit. In a few minutes the mutineers had found refuge, as the captain had anticipated, on the outer side of the barricade, which the besieged, if they may so be called, had run up for their own protection.

      The riflemen were now called down from the rocks, and joined their companions in the shed. The fire not having been returned from either the boat or the raft, no injuries had been sustained. But the situation of Captain Ranken and his companions still appeared to be almost hopeless; as the fight would now be carried on on almost equal terms, and the mutineers still outnumbered them in the proportion of four to one. It seemed most likely now that they would try to surround the shed on all four sides, firing through the crevices, which were as available to them as to those within, and so soon pick off all the defenders. But for this light was necessary, and they were therefore waiting for the moon to rise.

      While they were still waiting in anxious suspense, a stone with a paper wrapped round it was thrown through the open window. The captain picked it up and read it. It had no name attached to it, but professed to come from the whole of the crew, except those with Captain Ranken. It stated that the hut was completely surrounded, and that the assailants had the lives of all those within at their mercy. But they wished to avoid further bloodshed. If the five thousand pounds which had been removed from Mr Whittaker’s cabin should be given up, together with all the arms in the possession of the besieged party, they would go quietly away without hurting any one. But if this was refused, an attack would be made as soon as the moon rose, and no man’s life would be spared. It was added, that if no answer was sent before moonrise, that would be regarded as a refusal.

      When the captain had finished reading, no one spoke for a while. At last McCarthy broke the silence, —

      “Have you any idea, sir, of complying with their demand? You see they do not ask – what we could not have agreed to – the surrender of Miss Vander Heyden.”

      “No,” said Mr Whittaker; “and I do not think my employers would blame you, if you did comply. I daresay we should all agree to bear some portion of the ransom.”

      Several of the others broke in together, declaring their willingness to pay any portion in their power.

      “What do you say, Mr Rivers?” asked the captain, observing that he had not spoken.

      “I would pay my share, sir,” answered George; “anything that is in my power. But I fear it would be useless. The best hope these men have in escaping the penalty of their mutiny lies in our death. If we were to surrender ourselves to them, as this letter proposes, I think they would murder us in cold blood – all except – ”

      “You need not mention her name, sir,” interposed Vander Heyden. “But you say well. I know the villain who leads these men; he is quite capable of that, or any other atrocity. We had better die sword in hand, like men, than be stabbed like sheep.”

      “You speak only too truly, sir,” said the captain. “Our choice lies between one kind of death or another; and I, for one, choose that of a brave man, who will have no trafficking with villains.”

      He looked round him, and read approval in every eye. “You are right, sir,” said McCarthy briefly, and the others echoed the sentiment.

      No one spoke for the next ten minutes. Each was busy with his own thoughts; such as are likely to fill men’s minds when on the verge of eternity. The time seemed painfully protracted, and all wished that the trial was over. Suspense was worse than death itself. At last a sudden burst of yellow light streaming through the window warned them that their time had come. The next moment the door was burst in, and a crowd of men, armed with cutlasses and pistols, endeavoured to force an entrance. They were met by a general volley, which killed or wounded nearly all the foremost assailants. But the rush from behind was kept up. Several forced themselves into the hut, and a hand-to-hand struggle ensued. Miss Vander Heyden had been placed behind the screen which Rivers had strengthened for her; and he shouted to her, when the attack began, to throw herself on the ground, as the best chance there was of her escaping injury. The screen caught the eye of Bostock as he entered in the rush, and he and Van Ryk instantly made for it. Vander Heyden threw himself in Bostock’s way, and a fierce encounter began between them; while, George in like manner interposing between Van Ryk and the screen, they were soon engaged in deadly combat.

      By this time the hut was nearly filled with the mutineers. The captain, with McCarthy on one side of him and Redgy on the other, was desperately defending himself against two or three assailants. The third mate, Whittaker, and Walters, had been all struck down, and several of the men were mortally wounded, when suddenly there came from the sea a strange and unexpected sound – the boom of a cannon!

      The strife was instantly suspended. Each man looked in doubt and wonder upon his opponent’s face. Then the captain’s voice was once more heard, —

      “Throw down your arms, you mutinous dogs, and yield yourselves prisoners, or every man among you shall swing at the yard-arm before another hour has passed!”

      Chapter Six

      About a week had elapsed. George and Redgy were standing on the deck of the Government steamer Wasp, leaning over the bulwarks and contemplating the appearance of the harbour of Port Natal; which lay immediately in front of them, with the town of Durban in the middle distance, and the Natal country in the background. The ship could proceed no farther. The bar across the harbour mouth, on which seething masses of foam were breaking, presented an insuperable obstacle.

      “How are we ever to get in, George?” asked Redgy. “I suppose ships do get in somehow. Indeed it is plain they do, for there is a lot of them lying off the quays yonder. But how they surmounted that bar, it is beyond me to imagine. I should think even the Yankee captain, who declared he could run his ship anywhere where there had been a heavy dew, would be puzzled here.”

      “I don’t suppose Captain Deedes will take his ship in,” answered George. “He has only to deliver and take back despatches to Cape Town, and these can be brought to him out here.”

      “What, in a boat, I suppose?” suggested Margetts; “and that is the way we shall go in, then? Well, every man knows his own business best; but I should have thought there was a very comfortable chance of any boat being swamped!”

      “Wait, and you’ll see, Redgy. Captain Deedes told me we should be safe ashore before twelve o’clock.”

      “Did he tell you anything about what is going on at Mossel Bay?” asked Margetts. “I know he has had letters from thence. I saw them brought aboard half an hour ago.”

      “Yes, a good deal. I am sorry to say Rolfe is dead; that is the fifth of our party that was killed. Walters and three of the sailors were dead before we sailed, you know.”

      “I am sorry for Rolfe. How are McCarthy and the captain and Whittaker?”

      “They are all doing well. The captain’s was only a slight cut across the hand. He was much more hurt by Bostock’s and Van Ryk’s escape than by that wound.”

      “I don’t wonder. It is certainly a pity that they were not run up to the yard-arm, as half a dozen others may be, who were less guilty than they were. I can’t think how they managed to get off.”

      “Well, I can understand it. Van Ryk and I were having a desperate tussle, and we had been driven close to the door of the shed. When I heard the gun from the Wasp, our encounter was broken off, and I thought nothing more of my antagonist for the next ten minutes. As for Bostock, who was, I noticed, a first-rate swordsman, he had disarmed Vander Heyden, and would, I daresay, have run him through, if the cannon hadn’t been fired at that moment. I judge both СКАЧАТЬ