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CHAPTER III - HOW ROBERT CAME ASHORE
In place of the /Zanzibar/ a great pit on the face of the ocean, in
which the waters boiled and black objects appeared and disappeared.
"Sit still, for your lives' sake," said the officer in a quiet voice;
"the suck is coming."
In another minute it came, dragging them downward till the water
trickled over the sides of the boat, and backward towards the pit. But
before ever they reached it the deep had digested its prey, and, save
for the great air-bubbles which burst about them and a mixed,
unnatural swell, was calm again. For the moment they were safe.
"Passengers," said the officer, "I am going to put out to sea--at any
rate, till daylight. We may meet a vessel there, and if we try to row
ashore we shall certainly be swamped in the breakers."
No one objected; they seemed too stunned to speak, but Robert thought
to himself that the man was wise. They began to move, but before they
had gone a dozen yards something dark rose beside them. It was a piece
of wreckage, and clinging to it a woman, who clasped a bundle to her
breast. More, she was alive, for she began to cry to them to take her
in.
"Save me and my child!" she cried. "For God's sake save me!"
Robert recognized the choking voice; it was that of a young married
lady with whom he had been very friendly, who was going out with her
baby to join her husband in Natal. He stretched out his hand and
caught hold of her, whereon the officer said, heavily:
"The boat is already overladen. I must warn you that to take more
aboard is not safe."
Thereon the passengers awoke from their stupor.
"Push her off," cried a voice; "she must take her chance." And there
was a murmur of approval at the dreadful words.
"For Christ's sake--for Christ's sake!" wailed the drowning woman, who
clung desperately to Robert's hand.
"If you try to pull her in, we will throw you overboard," said the
voice again, and a knife was lifted as though to hack at his arm. Then
the officer spoke once more.
"This lady cannot come into the boat unless someone goes out of it. I
would myself, but it is my duty to stay. Is there any man here who
will make place for her?"
But all the men there--seven of them, besides the crew--hung their
heads and were silent.
"Give way," said the officer in the same heavy voice; "she will drop
off presently."
While the words passed his lips Robert seemed to live a year. Here was
an opportunity of atonement for his idle and luxurious life. An hour
ago he would have taken it gladly, but now--now, with Benita senseless
on his breast, and that answer still locked in her sleeping heart? Yet
Benita would approve of such a death as this, and even if she loved
him not in life, would learn to love his memory. In an instant his
mind was made up, and he was speaking rapidly.
"Thompson," he said to the officer, "if I go, will you swear to take
her in and her child?"
"Certainly, Mr. Seymour."
"Then lay to; I am going. If any of you live, tell this lady how I
died," and he pointed to Benita, "and say I thought that she would
wish it."
"She shall be told," said the officer again, "and saved, too, if I can
do it."
"Hold Mrs. Jeffreys, then, till I am out of this. I'll leave my coat
to cover her."
A sailor obeyed, and with difficulty Robert wrenched free his hand.
Very deliberately he pressed Benita to his breast and kissed her on
the forehead, then let her gently slide on to the bottom of the boat.
Next he slipped off his overcoat and slowly rolled himself over the
gunwale into the sea.
"Now," he said, "pull Mrs. Jeffreys in."
"God bless you; you are a brave man," said Thompson. "I shall remember
you if I live a hundred years."
But no one else said anything; perhaps they were all too much ashamed,
even then.
"I have only done my duty," Seymour answered from the water. "How far
is it to the shore?"
"About three miles," shouted Thompson. "But keep on that plank, or you
will never live through the rollers. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," answered Robert.
Then the boat passed away from him and soon vanished in the misty face
of the deep.
Resting on the plank which had saved the life of Mrs. Jeffreys, Robert
Seymour looked about him and listened. Now and again he heard a faint,
choking scream uttered by some drowning wretch, and a few hundred
yards away caught sight of a black object which he thought might be a
boat. If so, he reflected that it must be full. Moreover, he could not
overtake it. No; his only chance was to make for the shore. He was a
strong swimmer, and happily the water was almost as warm as milk.
There seemed to be no reason why he should not reach it, supported as
he was by a lifebelt, if the sharks would leave him alone, which they
might, as there was plenty for them to feed on. The direction he knew
well enough, for now in the great silence of the sea he could hear the
boom of the mighty rollers breaking on the beach.
Ah, those rollers! He remembered how that very afternoon Benita and he
had watched them through his field glass sprouting up against the
cruel walls of rock, and wondered that when the ocean was so calm they
had still such power. Now, should he live to reach them, he was doomed
to match himself against that power. Well, the sooner he did so the
sooner it would be over, one way or the other. This was in his favour:
the tide had turned, and was flowing shorewards. Indeed, he had little
to do but to rest upon his plank, which he placed crosswise beneath
his breast, and steered himself with his feet. Even thus he made good
progress, nearly a mile an hour perhaps. He could have gone faster had
he swum, but he was saving his strength.
It was a strange journey upon that silent sea beneath those silent
stars, and strange thoughts came into Robert's soul. He wondered
whether Benita would live and what she would say. Perhaps, however,
she was already dead, and he would meet her presently. He wondered if
he were doomed to die, and whether this sacrifice of his would be
allowed to atone for his past errors. He hoped so, and put up a
petition to that effect, for himself and for Benita, and for all the
poor people who had gone before, hurled from their pleasure into the
halls of Death.
So he floated on while the boom of the breakers grew ever nearer,
companioned by his wild, fretful thoughts, till at length what he took
to be a shark appeared quite close to him, and in the urgency of the
moment he gave up wondering. It proved to be only a piece of wood, but
later on a real shark did come, for he saw its back fin. However, this
cruel creature was either gorged or timid, for when he splashed upon
the water and shouted, it went away, to return no more.
Now, at length, Robert entered upon the deep hill and valley swell
which preceded the field of the rollers. Suddenly he shot down a
smooth slope, and without effort of his own found himself borne up an
opposing steep, from the crest of which he had a view of white lines
of foam, and beyond them of a dim and rocky shore. At one spot, a
little to his right, the foam seemed thinner and the line of cliff to
be broken, as though here there was a cleft. For this cleft, then, he
steered his plank, taking the swell obliquely, which by good fortune
the set of the tide enabled him to do without any great exertion.
The valleys grew deeper, and the tops of the opposing ridges were
crested with foam. He had entered the rollers, and the struggle for
life began. Before him they rushed solemn and mighty. Viewed from some
safe place even the sight of these combers is terrible, as any who
have watched them from this coast, or from that of the Island of
Ascension, can bear witness. What their aspect was to this shipwrecked
man, supported by a single plank, may therefore be imagined, seen, as
he saw them, in the mysterious moonlight and in utter loneliness. Yet
his spirit rose to meet the dread emergency; if he were to die, he
would die fighting. He had grown cold and tired, but now the chill and
weariness left him; he felt warm and strong. From the crest of one of
the high rollers he thought he saw that about half a mile away from
him a little river ran down the centre of the gorge, and for the mouth
of this river he laid his course.
At first all went well. He was borne up the seas; he slid down the
seas in a lather of white foam. Presently the rise and fall grew
steeper, and the foam began to break over his head. Robert could no
longer guide himself; he must go as he was carried. Then in an instant
he was carried into a hell of waters where, had it not been for his
lifebelt and the plank, he must have been beaten down and have
perished. As it was, now he was driven into the depths, and now he
emerged upon their surface to hear their seething hiss around him, and
above it all a continuous boom as of great guns--the boom of the
breaking seas.
The plank was almost twisted from his grasp, but he clung to it
desperately, although its edges tore his arms. When the rollers broke
over him he held his breath, and when he was tossed skywards on their
curves, drew it again in quick, sweet gasps. Now he sat upon the very
brow of one of them as a merman might; now he dived like a dolphin,
and now, just as his senses were leaving him, his feet touched bottom.
Another moment and Robert was being rolled along that bottom with a
weight on him like the weight of mountains. The plank was rent from
him, but his cork jacket brought him up. The backwash drew him with it
into deeper water, where he lay helpless and despairing, for he no
longer had any strength to struggle against his doom.
Then it was that there came a mighty roller, bigger than any that he
had seen--such a one as on that coast the Kaffirs call "a father of
waves." It caught him in the embrace of its vast green curve. It bore
him forward as though he were but a straw, far forward over the
stretch of cruel rocks. It broke in thunder, dashing him again upon
the stones and sand of the little river bar, rolling him along with
its resistless might, till even that might was exhausted, and its foam
began to return seawards, sucking him with it.
Robert's mind was almost gone, but enough of it remained to tell him
that if once more he was dragged into the deep water he must be lost.
As the current haled him along he gripped at the bottom with his
hands, and by the mercy of Heaven they closed on something. It may
have been a tree-stump embedded there, or a rock--he never knew. At
least, it was firm, and to it he hung despairingly. Would that rush
never cease? His lungs were bursting; he must let go! Oh! the foam was
thinning; his head was above it now; now it had departed, leaving him
like a stranded fish upon the shingle. For half a minute or more he
lay there gasping, then looked behind him to see another comber
approaching through the gloom. He struggled to his feet, fell, rose
again, and ran, or rather, staggered forward with that tigerish water
hissing at his heels. Forward, still forward, till he was beyond its
reach--yes, on dry sand. Then his vital forces failed him; one of his
legs gave way, and, bleeding from a hundred hurts, he fell heavily
onto his face, and there was still.
The boat in which Benita lay, being so deep in the water, proved very
hard to row against the tide, for the number of its passengers
encumbered the oarsmen. After a while a light off land breeze sprang
up, as here it often does towards morning; and the officer, Thompson,
determined to risk hoisting the sail. Accordingly this was done--with
some difficulty, for the mast had to be drawn out and shipped--
although the women screamed as the weight of the air bent their frail
craft over till the gunwale was almost level with the water.
"Anyone who moves shall be thrown overboard!" said the officer, who
steered, after which they were quiet.
Now they made good progress seawards, but the anxieties of those who
knew were very great, since the wind showed signs of rising, and if
any swell should spring up that crowded cutter could scarcely hope to
live. In fact, two hours later they were forced to lower the sail
again and drift, waiting for the dawn. Mr. Thompson strove to cheer
them, saying that now they were in the track of vessels, and if they
could see none when the light came, he would run along the shore in
the hope of finding a place free of breakers where they might land. If
they did not inspire hope, at least his words calmed them, and they
sat in heavy silence, watching the sky.
At length it grew grey, and then, with a sudden glory peculiar to
South Africa, the great red sun arose and began to dispel the mist
from the surface of the sea. Half an hour more and this was gone, and
now the bright rays brought life back into their chilled frames as
they stared at each other to see which of their company were still
left alive. They even asked for food, and biscuit was given to them
with water.
All this while Benita remained unconscious. Indeed, one callous
fellow, who had been using her body as a footstool, said that she must
be dead, and had better be thrown overboard, as it would lighten the
boat.
"If you throw that lady into the sea, living or dead," said Mr.
Thompson, with an ominous lift of his eye, "you go with her, Mr.
Batten. Remember who brought her here and how he died."
Then Mr. Batten held his peace, while Thompson stood up and scanned
the wide expanse of sea. Presently he whispered to a sailor near him,
who also stood up, looked, and nodded.
"That will be the other Line's intermediate boat," he said, and the
passengers, craning their heads round, saw far away to the right a
streak of smoke upon the horizon. Orders were given, a little corner
of sail was hoisted, with a white cloth of some sort tied above it,
and the oars were got out. Once more the cutter moved forward, bearing
to the left in the hope of intercepting the steamer.
She came on with terrible swiftness, and they who had miles of water
to cover, dared hoist no more sail in that breeze. In half an hour she
was nearly opposite to them, and they were still far away. A little
more sail was let out, driving them through the water at as quick a
rate as they could venture to go. The steamer was passing three miles
or so away, and black despair took hold of them. Now the resourceful
Thompson, without apologies, undressed, and removing the white shirt
that he had worn at the dance, bade a sailor to tie it to an oar and
wave it to and fro.
Still the steamer went on, until presently they heard her siren going,
and saw that she was putting about.
"She has seen us," said Thompson. "Thank God, all of you, for there is
wind coming up. Pull down that sail; we shan't need it any more."
Half an hour later, with many precautions, for the wind he prophesied
was already troubling the sea and sending little splashes of water
over the stern of their deeply laden boat, they were fast to a line
thrown from the deck of the three thousand ton steamer /Castle/, bound
for Natal. Then, with a rattle, down came the accommodation ladder,
and strong-armed men, standing on its grating, dragged them one by one
from the death to which they had been so near. The last to be lifted
up, except Thompson, was Benita, round whom it was necessary to reeve
a rope.
"Any use?" asked the officer on the grating as he glanced at her quiet
form.
"Can't say; I hope so," answered Thompson. "Call your doctor." And
gently enough she was borne up the ship's side.
They wanted to cast off the boat, but Thompson remonstrated, and in
the end that also was dragged to deck. Meanwhile the news had spread,
and the awakened passengers of the /Castle/, clad in pyjamas,
dressing-gowns, and even blankets, were crowding round the poor
castaways or helping them to their cabins.
"I am a teetotaller," said second officer Thompson when he had made a
brief report to the captain of the /Castle/, "but if anyone will stand
me a whiskey and soda I shall be obliged to him."
Content of CHAPTER III - HOW ROBERT CAME ASHORE [H. Rider Haggard's novel: Benita]
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Read next: CHAPTER IV - MR. CLIFFORD
Read previous: CHAPTER II - THE END OF THE "ZANZIBAR."
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