Chapter VIII A Raging Sea
The boys rushed in exclaiming, “Audrey, Audrey! the ship is foundering! The men are getting off into the boat, and they can’t keep its head to the sea. She swings round broadside to the waves, and must be filling. Is there a rope about the hut—anywhere, anywhere; a long, strong rope, dear Audrey?”
How should she know what was in the hut? But she knew what was put in the cart: the ropes which tied the load were there. She had pulled them out of the shed with the harness herself.
Off went Edwin, shouting, “A rope! a rope! a kingdom for a rope!”
Cuthbert released himself from the leash, which was dragging him along too fast, and ran back to his sister.
“Did you hear the singing?” she asked. “Did you see the men ride past? They are gone to the rescue, Cuth; they are gone to father’s help. May God reward them all.”
“And will you come to ours?” he said. “Audrey, you could feed the fire. Edwin and I have got a lot of wood together. You have only to keep throwing it on; and then I can help Edwin.”
“‘What lads e’er did our lads will do;
Were I a lad I’d follow him too,’”
she answered, slipping her shawl from under Effie’s head and tying it once more over her own. They went out together. Cuthbert helped her up the rock, pulled a big root in to the front of the fire to make her a seat, and left her a willing stoker. He had pointed out the tiny cockle-shell of a boat—a small dark speck beyond the sheet of boiling foam, with the hungry, curling waves leaping after it.
Could it escape swamping in the outer line of breakers it could never hope to cross? It was running before them now. Edwin had put Beauty once more into the cart, and was carefully knotting the rope to the back of it.
He had learned to tie a safety-knot—a sailor’s knot—on their voyage out. Thank God for that! It whiled away an idle hour at the time; now it might prove the saving of human creatures’ lives. That the cart was heavy and lumbering and strong was cause for rejoicing.
“You and I, Cuth, could not pull a man through such a sea; but Beauty can. We know how well he crossed the ford. I shall back him into the water as far as ever I can, and then jump into the cart and throw the rope. You see my plan?”
“I do,” said Cuth; “but as soon as you leave go of Beauty’s head he’ll come splashing back again out of the water. You must have me in the cart to hold his reins.”
“I dare not,” protested Edwin. “A shrimp like you would be washed out to sea in no time; and I promised father to take care of you. No, Cuth, you are not yet ten years old.”
“I am sure I look a good bit older than that, in father’s coat,” urged Cuthbert, looking down upon himself with considerable satisfaction; but Edwin was inexorable. “Tie me in the cart, then,” cried Cuthbert.
“Where is the old leash?”
It was quickly found, and Edwin owned the thought was a good one.
When all was ready a sudden impulse prompted them to run back into the hut and look at Erne, and then up the rock for a final word with Audrey. They found her already wet with the salt sea spray, and almost torn to pieces by the wind, but, as Edwin said, “at it all the same.”
The final word was spoken, reiterated, shouted; who, alas! could hear it in the rage of the storm? So it came to a snatch of kiss, and away they ran, leaving Audrey with the impression that the moving lips were trying to repeat, “Keep us a jolly blaze.”
Voice being useless on such a morning, Audrey made answer by action, and flung her brands upon the fire with such rapidity that the column of flame rose higher and higher, flinging its fitful gleams across the sands, where the boys were busy.
The recent voyage had taken away all fear of the sea even from Cuthbert, who was already tied to the front of the cart, with Beauty’s reins in his hand, holding him in with all his might. Edwin, with his teeth set and a white look about his lips, had seized the horse’s head, and was backing him into the water. Splash, splash into the wall of wave, rising higher and higher at every step, and almost lifting Edwin off his feet. Then he swung himself into the cart by Cuthbert’s side. Beauty felt his firmer grasp as the reins changed hands, and turning his head with a look in his resolute eye that showed him a willing partner in the daring plan, he reversed the position, choosing rather to breast the opposing billows. Edwin let him have his way, and with a dash and a snort he plunged into their midst, carrying the boys full fifteen yards into the raging sea. The brothers clung to the cart as the waves dashed in their faces. Caps were gone in a moment. The cart was filling. Beauty held his head high above the water, and struggled on another yard or so. Then Edwin felt they must go no further, and turned the cart round.
It was no easy matter to make Beauty stand. His natural sense of danger, his high intelligence, his increasing love for the boys, all prompted him to bring them out of the water, not to stay in it. He was bent on rushing back to dry ground, as Cuthbert had predicted. The boys thundered “Whoa, whoa!” with all the endearing epithets they were wont to lavish upon him in his stable. He was brought to a stand at last, and Edwin, raising himself on the side of the cart, looked round for the boat.
It was nowhere. His heart sank cold within him.
“O Cuth, we are too late, too late!” he groaned.
Then Audrey’s fire sent up a brighter blaze, and hope leaped lightly into life once more, and he cried out joyfully, “I see it!” but stopped abruptly, almost drawing back his words with bated breath.
The momentary glimpse had shown him the luckless boat, blown along by the force of the wind, without the help of an oar, dash into the bursting crest of a giant roller. It flung the boat across the line of boiling foam. The men in it, finding their oars useless, were kicking off their boots, preparing for a swim. He knew it by their attitudes. He seized the pole they had put in the cart to use as a signal. It was a willow sapling, torn up by its roots, which they had found when they were gathering the firewood.
Cuthbert had peeled off the bark at the thin end, whilst Edwin had twisted its pliant boughs into a strong hoop, to tie at the end of his rope.
As Edwin raised it high above his head—a tall, white wand, which must be conspicuous in the surrounding darkness—he saw the boat turn over, the angry waves rush on, and all was gone. A cry of dismay broke from the brothers’ lips: “Lord help us, or they perish!”
“I could not have done this without you, Cuth. We are only two boys, but now is our hour.”
Edwin had learned a great deal from the sailors’ stories during their voyage, and he had been a crack kite-flier on the playground at his English school; so that he was quite alive to the importance of keeping his rope free from entanglement, which really is the vital point in throwing a rope at sea. He had laid it carefully on the bottom of the cart, fold upon fold, backwards and forwards, and Cuth had stood upon it to keep it in place. The hoop lay on the top of the coil, and to the hoop he had tied the plaid-scarf from his own neck, to serve it as a sail.
The paralyzing fear came over him now that whilst they were doing all this the time for help had gone by. “But we won’t stop trying,” he said, “if it seems ever so hopeless; God only knows.”
He took his brother’s place on the coil of rope, and unfolding a yard or two, flung the hoop from him, taking aim at the spot where the boat had capsized. The wind caught the scarf and bore the hoop aloft; Edwin let his rope go steadily, fold after fold. Would it carry it straight? Would the men see his scarf fluttering in the wind? He felt sure a hand might catch the hoop if they only saw it. But, alas, it was so small! He leaned against his brother back to back, and if the hot tears came it was because he was only a boy. Cuthbert put a hand behind him. There was comfort to him in the touch. One burning drop just trickled on his thumb.
“What, you crying!” he exclaimed; “is not praying better?”
“God have mercy on us!” burst from Edwin’s lips; and Cuthbert echoed back the gasping words. Had they ever prayed like that before? All, all that was in them seemed to pour itself forth in that moment of suspense, when God alone could hear.
The rope tightened in Edwin’s grasp; something had clutched it at last. The tug had come. Would his knots give way? He was faint with the fear that his work was not well done—not strong enough to stand the strain which he felt was increasing every moment. It seemed to him, as he watched with every sense alert and tried to its uttermost, that each successive earthquake shock, as it heaved the land, sent a corresponding wave across the sea. One of these had carried out his hoop, and he knew he must wait until it subsided to draw his rope in, or it might snap like pack-thread under the awful strain.
“O Edwin, I am getting so tired!” said little Cuth, in a tone of such utter exhaustion it went like a knife through his brother to hear him.
“Only another minute,” he replied; “just another minute—if we can hold on.”
The longed-for lull was coming. Edwin gave Beauty his head; but the poor horse was stiffened with standing, and almost refused to move. Then Edwin tied himself to the cart.
“O Beauty, if you fail us we are done!”
The despairing cry roused the torpid energies of the horse. With a stretch and a snort he tugged and strained, dragging his load a yard or two landwards. A man’s head appeared above the water. The joy of the sight brought back hope and capability. It was but a spasmodic effort; but Beauty caught the thrill of joy animating the boyish voices, cheering him on to renewed exertions. The wheels splashed round in the water; a cloud of muddy spray rose between Edwin and the rescued man. He could not see the sailor’s face. The fire was dying. Was all the wood they had gathered—all that great heap—burnt up at last?
Audrey raked the dying brands together, and a fresh flame shot upwards, and by its welcome radiance Edwin was aware of two hands working their way along the tightened rope, one over the other, towards the cart.
The tightened rope! Yes; that was proof that some one had grasped the hoop. In another moment that stranger hand was clasping Edwin’s in the darkness that was following fast upon those fitful flames.
“Hold hard!” shouted a stentorian voice, and a man got up into the cart beside him. A deep-drawn breath, a muttered prayer, and the strong, powerful hands clasped over Edwin’s, and began to draw in the rope.
Not a word was said, for the boys had no voice left to make themselves heard. The last shout of joy to Beauty had left them spent and faint. The stranger, surprised at the smallness and feebleness of the hand he now let go, gently pushed the boy aside and took his place. Edwin leaned against the front of the cart beside his brother, dead beat and scarcely conscious of anything but a halo of happiness radiating from the blessed consciousness which found expression in a murmured, “Cuth, old boy, we’ve done it.”
The reins fell slack on Beauty’s neck, but the good horse needed no guiding. He seemed aware that two more men got up into the cart, and when a pause followed he gave his proud head a triumphant toss, and brought them up out of the water. There were three men in the cart and twice as many more holding on by the rope.
Audrey ran down from the dying fire to meet them.
A strange, unnatural kind of twilight, a something weird and ghastly, belonging to neither day nor night, seemed to pervade the land, and shed a sepulchral gleam across the men’s pale faces. Audrey pushed open the door of the hut and beckoned to the sailors to enter.
They gathered round her, shaking the salt water from their dripping garments, and uttering broken exclamations of surprise and thankfulness. She saw a boy in the midst of the group limping painfully. As she hurried up to his assistance, she discovered that it was neither Edwin nor Cuthbert; but he grasped her outstretched hand so thankfully she could not withdraw it. There was a wildness in the alarm with which she began to ask them for her brothers the men could not mistake. They gave the forlorn girl an almost unanimous assurance that they knew nothing of her brothers. For the men clinging to the rope had not seen the boys in the cart. “But,” added one heartily, “we’ll protect you, for there is wild work afoot somewhere to-night. We have heard the cannonading, broadside after broadside, or we should not have gone rock-hunting in the dark. It is fool’s work—you can give it no better name—coasting along a dangerous shore, with a sky too black for moon or star to penetrate.”
“Yon’s the little maid who fed the beacon,” said another. “I saw her move across the front of the fire and throw her sticks upon it. God bless her! Every minute I thought we should see her blown over into the sea.”
“Not me, not me,” interposed poor Audrey.
Getting free in her desperation, and pressing between the sailors, she ran towards Beauty, who was slowly lagging round to the back of the hut.
“If my brothers are missing,” she cried, “they must have been washed out of the cart.” She clasped her hands before her eyes to shut out the sight of the drowning boys which imagination was picturing, and so failed to perceive the two weary heads leaning against the side of the cart. It was but a moment of agony, one of the unfounded alarms which always cluster round a real danger and follow the shock of dread like its shadow.
“Edwin, Edwin! where are you?” she cried.—“Cuthbert, Cuthbert! come to me!”
The rocks gave back the hollow echo, “Come to me!”
But she did not hear two faint voices feebly expostulating, “We tied ourselves to the cart, and we can’t undo the knots. We are here, like two galley-slaves chained to the oars, and we can’t get out.”
A shock of earthquake sent Beauty with a shiver of terror straight to the open. The men threw themselves on their faces, knowing how easily they might lose their footing on the reeling ground; whilst Audrey, neglecting this precaution, went over like a nine-pin.
The hut shook as if its carefully-piled walls were about to give way, and Audrey, who had seen their house go down in the beginning of this fearful night, shrieked out for Effie.
As the tremor subsided, and the sailors gathered from poor Audrey’s broken sentences some idea of the awful catastrophe on land, they turned from the hut, judging it safer to remain in the open.
Mates were looking out for mates. Were they all there? Captain, boatswain, cook—not one of the little coaster’s crew was missing. Passengers all right: a gold-digger from Otago, the schoolboy from Christchurch. Are all saved? Only the hand which threw the rope was missing.
Who backed the cart into the sea? they asked; and where was Oscott?
When they learned from Audrey’s frantic replies that every man had gone to the rescue, and the little fugitives had been left in the hut alone, the sailors’ desire to find the missing boys was as earnest as her own.
They pointed to the cart jogging steadily across the grassy plain, dotted with sheep, and shaded here and there by groups of stately trees.
“God bless the young heroes!” they exclaimed. “Why, there they are—off to the mansion to beg for tucker for us all.”
Audrey, set at rest from this last great fear, escaped from her questioners, and retreated to Effie and the empty hut, saying reproachfully,—
“How just like Edwin! But they might have told me what they were going to do.”
It seemed a moment’s reprieve. There was nothing more to be done. Audrey sank upon the bed of fern leaves, weary and wet and worn, unable any longer to resist the craving for a little sleep.
The sailors lit a fire on the open grass beyond the hut, and grouped themselves round it to talk and rest. The poor fellows who had been dragged to shore, clinging to the rope, found their shoeless feet cut and bleeding from the sharp edges of the oyster-shells with which the sands were studded. But when an hour or more passed by, the sunless noon brought with it sharper pangs of hunger to them all.
No cart had returned, no boundary rider had put in an appearance, and the men began to talk of a walk over the grass to find the mansion. They were all agreed as to the best course for them to pursue. They must turn “sundowners”—the up-country name for beggars—tramp across to the nearest port, begging their way from farm to farm. They knew very well no lonely settler dare refuse supper and a night’s lodging to a party of men strong enough to take by force what they wanted.
The embankment with its swinging fence, the shepherd’s hut where the girls were sleeping, told them where they were—on the confines of a great sheep-run. Their route must begin with the owner’s mansion, which could not be very far off, as there was no food in the hut, and no apparent means for cooking any, so Audrey had told them. But now the storm was dying, the captain rose to look round the hut for himself. He was wondering what to do with the Christchurch boy he had undertaken to land at another great sheep-run about twenty-five miles farther along the coast It was of no use to take him back with them, a hundred miles the other way. He hoped to leave him at the mansion. The owner must be a wealthy man, and would most likely undertake to put the boy on board the next steamer, which would pass that way in a week or ten days.
So he called to the boy to go with him, and explained his purpose as they went. They waked up Audrey, to ask the owner’s name.
“Feltham,” she answered, putting her hand to her head to recall her scattered senses; between rabbiters and sailors she was almost dazed.
To be left alone again in that empty hut, without food, without her brothers, was enough to dismay a stouter heart than hers. The captain spoke kindly.
“I want to see you all safe in this sheep-owner’s care before I leave you,” he said. “It was stupid in those brothers of yours to go off with the cart, for you are too exhausted to walk.”
“Did you ever hear the name of Bowen in these parts?” asked the Christchurch boy eagerly, nursing a bleeding foot the while.
Audrey thought of the kind old gentleman in Ottley’s coach, and answered, brightening.
“I am his grandson,” the boy replied. “I am Arthur Bowen.”