Ravenshoe. Henry Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ hove in sight so rapidly that, almost as soon as they could be sure of a dark object, they saw that it was a ship—a great ship about 900 tons; that she was dismasted, and that her decks were crowded. They could see that she was unmanageable, turning her head hither and thither as the sea struck her, and that her people had seen the cliff at the same moment, for they were hurrying aft, and crowding on to the bulwarks.

      Charles and his guardians crept up to his father's party. Densil was standing silent, looking on the lamentable sight; and, as Charles looked at him, he saw a tear run down his cheek, and heard him say, "Poor fellows!" Cuthbert stood staring intently at the ship, with his lips slightly parted. Mackworth, like one who studies a picture, held his elbow in one hand, and kept the other over his mouth; and the agent cried out, "A troop-ship, by gad. Dear! dear!"

      It is a sad sight to see a fine ship beyond control. It is like seeing one one loves gone mad. Sad under any circumstances; how terrible it is when she is bearing on with her, in her mad Bacchante's dance, a freight of living human creatures to untimely destruction!

      As each terrible feature and circumstance of the catastrophe became apparent to the lookers-on, the excitement became more intense. Forward, and in the waist, there was a considerable body of seamen clustered about under the bulwarks—some half-stripped. In front of the cuddy door, between the poop and the mainmast, about forty soldiers were drawn up, with whom were three officers, to be distinguished by their blue coats and swords. On the quarter-deck were seven or eight women, two apparently ladies, one of whom carried a baby. A well-dressed man, evidently the captain, was with them; but the cynosure of all eyes was a tall man in white trousers, at once and correctly judged to be the mate, who carried in his arms a little girl.

      The ship was going straight upon the rock, now only marked as a whiter spot upon the whitened sea, and she was fearfully near it, rolling and pitching, turning her head hither and thither, fighting for her life. She had taken comparatively little water on board as yet; but now a great sea struck her forward, and she swung with her bow towards the rock, from which she was distant not a hundred yards. The end was coming. Charles saw the mate slip off his coat and shirt, and take the little girl again. He saw the lady with the baby rise very quietly and look forward; he saw the sailors climbing on the bulwarks; he saw the soldiers standing steady in two scarlet lines across the deck; he saw the officers wave their hands to one another; and then he hid his face in his hands, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

      They told him after how the end had come: she had lifted up her bows defiantly, and brought them crashing down upon the pitiless rock as though in despair. Then her stem had swung round, and a merciful sea broke over her, and hid her from their view, though above the storm they plainly heard her brave old timbers crack; then she floated off, with bulwarks gone, sinking, and drifted out of sight round the headland, and, though they raced across the headland, and waited a few breathless minutes for her to float round into sight again, they never saw her any more. The Warren Hastings had gone down in fifteen fathoms. And now there was a new passion introduced into the tragedy to which it had hitherto been a stranger—Hope. The wreck of part of the mainmast and half the main-topmast, which they had seen, before she struck, lumbering the deck, had floated off, and there were three, four, five men clinging to the futtock shrouds; and then they saw the mate with the child hoist himself on to the spar, and part his dripping hair from his eyes.

      The spar had floated into the bay, into which they were looking, into much calmer water; but, directly too leeward, the swell was tearing at the black slate rocks, and in ten minutes it would be on them. Every man saw the danger, and Densil, running down to the water's edge, cried—

      "Fifty pounds to any one who will take 'em a rope! Fifty gold sovereigns down to-night! Who's going?"

      Jim Matthews was going, and had been going before he heard of the fifty pounds—that was evident; for he was stripped, and out on the rocks, with the rope round his waist. He stepped from the bank of slippery seaweed into the heaving water, and then his magnificent limbs were in full battle with the tide. A roar announced his success. As he was seen clambering on to the spar, a stouter rope was paid out; and very soon it and its burden were high and dry upon the little half-moon of land which ended the bay.

      Five sailors, the first mate, and a bright-eyed little girl, were their precious prize. The sailors lay about upon the sand, and the mate, untying the shawl that bound her to him, put the silent and frightened child into the hands of a woman that stood close by.

      The poor little thing was trembling in every limb. "If you please," she said to the woman, "I should like to go to mamma. She is standing with baby on the quarter-deck. Mr. Archer, will you take me back to mamma, please? She will be frightened if we stay away."

      "Well, a-deary me," said the honest woman, "she'll break my heart, a darling; mamma's in heaven, my tender, and baby too."

      "No, indeed," said the child eagerly; "she's on the quarter-deck. Mr. Archer, Mr. Archer!"

      The mate, a tall, brawny, whiskerless, hard-faced man, about six-and-twenty, who had been thrust into a pea-coat, now approached.

      "Where's mamma, Mr. Archer?" said the child.

      "Where's mamma, my lady-bird? Oh, dear! oh, dear!"

      "And where's the ship, and Captain Dixon, and the soldiers?"

      "The ship, my pretty love?" said the mate, putting his rough hand on the child's wet hair; "why the good ship, Warren Hastings, Dixon master, is a-sunk beneath the briny waves, my darling; and all on board of her, being good sailors and brave soldiers, is doubtless at this moment in glory."

      The poor little thing set up a low wailing cry, which went to the hearts of all present; then the women carried her away, and the mate, walking between Mackworth and Densil, headed the procession homeward to the hall.

      "She was the Warren Hastings, of 900 tons," he said, "from Calcutta, with a detachment of the 120th on board. The old story—dismasted, both anchors down, cables parted, and so on. And now I expect you know as much as I do. This little girl is daughter to Captain Corby, in command of the troops. She was always a favourite of mine, and I determined to get her through. How steady those sojers stood, by jingo, as though they were on parade! Well, I always thought something was going to happen, for we had never a quarrel the whole voyage, and that's curious with troops. Capital crew, too. Ah, well, they are comfortable enough now, eh, Sir?"

      That night the mate arose from his bed like a giant refreshed with wine, and posted off to Bristol to "her owners," followed by a letter from Densil, and another from Lloyd's agent of such a nature that he found himself in command of a ship in less than a month. Periodically, unto this day, there arrive at Ravenshoe, bows and arrows (supposed to be poisoned), paddles, punkahs, rice-paper screens; a malignant kind of pickle, which causeth the bowels of him that eateth of it to burn; wicked-looking old gods of wood and stone; models of Juggernaut's car; brown earthenware moonshees, translating glazed porcelain Bibles; and many other Indian curiosities, all of which are imported and presented by the kind-hearted Archer.

      In a fortnight the sailors were gone, and, save a dozen or so of new graves in the churchyard, nothing remained to tell of the Warren Hastings but the little girl saved so miraculously—little Mary Corby.

      She had been handed over at once to the care of the kind-hearted Norah, Charles's nurse, who instantaneously loved her with all her great warm heart, and about three weeks after the wreck gave Charles these particulars about her, when he went to pay her a visit in the cottage behind the kennels.

      After having hugged him violently, and kissed him till he laughingly refused to let her do it again till she had told him the news, she began—"The СКАЧАТЬ