Read Ebook: Utvandrarehistorier by Zilliacus Konni

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Ebook has 635 lines and 39766 words, and 13 pages

But see: the gale begins once more with redoubled fury, and to the horror of that unhappy ship, the wind goes round to meet the sun.

"I fear, sir," said the lieutenant to the captain, "that nothing can now save us. We must die like men."

"That we will, I trust," replied the captain, "but we will die doing our duty to the very last. Is there any one on board who knows this coast well?"

"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 off Brava last night."

"I reckon, sir, we made up our leeway at times like, when there was a bit of a shift of wind, and lost it again when it veered. But our only chance now is to head for that bar, sir."

"You've been over it?"

"Very well, Mr Roberts, you shall try; if you succeed, you are a made man, if you fail--"

"All," said the boatswain, "I knows what failure'll mean, sir."

It is impossible to describe the turmoil and strife of the waves when the vessel was once fairly on the bar; and to add to the terror of the scene more than once she struck the sandy bottom with a force that made every timber creak and groan. Next moment she would be swallowed up apparently in boiling, breaking, swirling water, but rising again on the crest of a wave, she would shake herself free and rush headlong on once more.

But look at her now: she is on the very top of a curling avalanche, and speeding shorewards with it, her jibboom and bowsprit, and even part of her bows, hang clear over that awful precipice of water, and if the ship moves 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 in shorter time than pen takes to describe it, the billow seems to sink and melt beneath her; again she bumps on the sand, but next minute amidst a chaos of snowy foam she is hurled into the deep water beyond.

The youthful sergeant is sitting beside the cot within the screen, but his head is bowed down with grief, and a sorrow such as men feel but once in a life-time is rending his heart. The little white hand of his wife 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 are crushed, his very soul seems dead within him.

At the very time the gale was raging its fiercest, and the sea threatening every minute to engulph the ship, the lady's life had passed away, 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 the dangers he has encountered and gone through.

As the sea on which he was born, so stormy has been the life of him who tells this tale.

"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 in writing his autobiography can hardly be expected to give any very clear account, namely, his birth and his death. To describe the former, he would require to be born with his eyes very wide open indeed, and instead of a silver spoon in his mouth, which they tell me some children are born with, a silver pencil-case behind his ear; to describe the latter, a man would need to be a prophet in reality. How is it then, it may be asked, that I, Niobe Radnor, am able with truthfulness and accuracy to give an account of the occurrences that were taking place around me when I first made my appearance on "the stage of life." For the ability to do so, I am indebted to the only father I ever knew, my true and trusty old friend Captain Ben Roberts, who supplies me with the facts.

Ah! dear old Ben! he is getting old, wearing up towards the threescore years and ten--

"--That form That short allotted span. That binds the few and weary years Of pilgrimage to man."

Yes, Ben is getting old. As oaks get old, so is my faithful friend getting old. As oaks in age are hard and tough, and defiant of the gales that rage through the forest, uprooting mighty trees, so is Ben my friend; and for all the storms he has weathered, I trust I shall have him by me yet for years and years to come. Ben is so buoyant and fresh, it always instils new blood into my veins merely to talk to him. "Ben, my boy," I often say, "you are, by your own confession, some twenty years my senior, and yet I believe you feel as young and even younger than I do."

"Well, Nie," he replies, "I believe it's the heart that does it, you know.

"For old as I am, and old as I seem, My heart is full of youth.

"Eye hath not seen, tongue hath not told, And ear hath not heard it sung, How buoyant and bold, though it seem to grow old, Is the heart for ever young.

"For ever young--though life's old age Hath every nerve unstrung; The heart, the heart, is a heritage That keeps the old man young."

He always calls me "Nie" for short, "because," he added once, by way of explanation, "your name is a heathenish kind of one at best, but a person is bound to make the most of it."

I never knew a father's love or a mother's tender care, for the gentle lady who gave me birth lived but a little after that event; but she bequeathed me all she had--her blessing--and died. In a glade in the gloomy depths of an African forest my mother is sleeping, in the shade of a banian tree. I stood by that lonely grave one morning not many years ago. The ground, I remember, was all chequered with sunshine and with shade from the tree above; little star-like primulas grew here and there. Among these and the fallen leaves sea-green lizards were creeping; high overhead bright-winged birds sang soft lullabies, and every time the wind moved the boughs a whole shower of sparkling drops fell down, like tears.

And my father? He never seemed to rally after my mother's death until one hour before his own, just a fortnight and a day from that on which he had followed her to her grave in the forest like one dazed. He did not appear in his mess-place after this. He took no food, he spoke to no one, he spent his time mostly within the screen by the empty cot where my mother had been--in grief.

About the tenth day he suffered my friend Roberts to lead him like a child to the spare cabin where his baby boy was sleeping; and in a daze he had seen her loved remains laid to rest beneath the tree. He bent over the grave for a moment, and then for the first time he burst into tears.

It was a very quiet spot in which she lay, a kind of bay or bight, as the sailors called it, with mangrove trees growing all around it close down to the water's edge, except at the one side where the great river stole silently away seaward, its current seeming hardly to affect in any degree the waters in the bay itself.

But the breeze seemed in no hurry to come. During the day those dull dreamy woods and forests lay asleep in the sunshine, and stirred not leaf or twig, and the creatures that dwelt therein were as silent as the woods around them. Had you landed on that still shore, and wandered inland through the trees, you would have seen great lizards enjoying themselves in patches of sunlight, an occasional monkey enjoying a nap at a tree foot or squatting on a bough blinking at the birds that-- open-beaked as if gasping for more air--sat among the branches too languid to hop or fly. But except a startled cry at your presence emitted by some of these, hardly any other sound would have fallen on your ears.

The only creatures that seemed to be busy were the beetles on the ground and the bees, the latter long, dark, dangerous-looking hornets that flew in clouds about the lime and orange-trees, and behaved as if all the forest belonged to them, the former of all shapes and sizes, and of colours more brilliant than the rainbow. No doubt they knew exactly what they were about and had their ideas carefully arranged, but what their business was in particular would have puzzled any human being to tell--why they dug pits and rolled little pieces of stones down them, or why they pulled pieces of sticks along bigger than themselves, dropped them, apparently without reason, and went in search of others. There was, one would have thought, no method in the madness of these strange but lovely creatures: it looked as though they were doomed to keep moving, doomed to keep on working, and doing something, no matter what.

In the great river itself sometimes small herds of hippopotami would appear, especially in parts where the water was shallow. They came but to enjoy a sunshine bath and siesta.

But at night both forest and river seemed to awaken from their slumbers.

The river cows now came on shore to feed, and their grunting and bellowing, that often ended in a kind of shriek, mingled .

"Well, my friend, how much for your bananas, and that bottle of honey, and those eggs, and fowls? Come, I'll buy the lot," said the boatswain.

"De Arab chief come in big ship, two three week ago. De ship he hide in de bush. He come to-night when de moon am shine. He come on board you big ship, plenty knife, plenty spear, plenty gun, killee you all for true. Den he take all de money and all de chow-chow. Plenty much bobbery he makee, plenty much blood he spillee, plenty much murder. Sweeba tell you for true."

While this conversation was going on the fruit, eggs, and fowls were being handed on board and money thrown into the boat, which was quickly concealed by the natives in their cummerbunds.

They found themselves richer than they had ever been before in their lives.

"But why do you come and tell us?" then inquired Roberts.

"What for I come and tellee you?" he replied. "English have been good to me many time 'fore now. Arab chief he bad man. He come to my house, he tie me to a tree by de neck. He think I dead. Den he takee my poor wife away, and all de poor piccaninnies. My poor ole mudder she berry bad. She not fit to trabbel away to de bush, so he cut her head off, and trow her in de blaze. He burn all my hut, all my house. I not lub dat Arab chief berry berry much."

"I shouldn't think you did," was the reply; "but now, my friend, if all goes well come back to-morrow, and we will reward you."

About eight o'clock that same night, the full moon rose slowly up over the woods, bathing the trees in a soft blue haze, but changing the river, 'twixt the ship and the distant shore, into a broad pathway of light that shimmered and shone like molten gold. There was hardly a cloud in the heaven's dark blue, and the stars shone with unusual brilliancy.

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