Ward - Jasper Lyle

“ Trek !” 1 2 There can be no literal translation of this word of command, but the oxen understand it well,—to them it means “advance,” “on.” —what a shout!—“ Trek !” the slash of the long whip echoes many times, backwards, forwards, above, around, behind the mountains and through the kloofs (ravines). May is waiting at the turn of the winding road, half a mile off. The train of men and waggons, horses and dogs, moves slowly on, and the sportsmen ride gently ahead. But May keeps steadily in advance of all, and the dogs raise a cry of joy as they catch sight of him when he pauses at the angle of a hill, and stands there a minute or two, whistling as gleefully as though he were “monarch of all he surveyed.”

We must now turn from the inland valley, with its homestead, its cornfields, and flocks, to a very different scene,—a scene at sea.

On the day when our friends Frankfort and Ormsby were introduced to my reader with the tempest warring round them, as they stood shelterless with May upon the open plain, a solitary ship neared the south-eastern coast of the great continent of Africa. The hurricane blew there with frenzied violence; the fiends of the storm were howling aloft among the shrouds, the canvass cracked and rattled till it split into ribbons, and was whirled away to the winds; the rudder had been torn from its place, the masts groaned and shrieked, the waters frothed up in fountains of spray, and at intervals the heavy surges swept the decks like clouds, enveloping the vessel, and bearing it down with a force it could ill resist.

The sailors were hanging about the ship, but there were few on deck, and none in the shrouds, for there they could not keep their footing.

There were troops on board; the dull roll of the drum made itself audible at times, when there was a lull, and volleys of musketry mingled their signals of distress with the screams of affrighted women and children,—and, alas! alas!—with the oaths of terrible men,—for it was a convict-ship.

There were but momentary glimpses of the shore as the lightning flashes rent in twain the dark masses of vapour hanging about the gloomy rock-bound coast. The captain could only guess where he was, for the vessel had been driving all the night, and the character of the cliffs was his only guide now. He saw there was no help for them if the ship continued to lie with her head to the shore, and he believed that a sand-bank at the yawning mouth of a river would engulph them, unless the hand of Providence cast them to the westward of this, where, as he supposed, the sands sloped from the cliffs, on the summit of which stood a small fortified barrack, occupied by a slender garrison of British troops, who would render such assistance as their means permitted in saving the lives of such as might be fortunate enough to be cast adrift upon the coast, or be enabled to reach it by rafts, or in the launch.

The convicts had all been freed from their shackles in the early part of the night—as soon, in fact, as the desperate situation of the ship was ascertained; but they were kept between decks till some plan of possible relief could be devised. Some sat moodily in the corners of the ship, awaiting the day, in sullen, gloomy despondency. Some blasphemed; some laughed in bitterness of heart, exulting in the idea, that man’s vengeance had been set at nought by a stronger power;—whether for good or evil, they did not consider. Some jeered at the soldiers, who bore the jeers with unswerving spirit; and some of the women, God help them! jeered the loudest! One, indeed,—who had deeply considered her position, and repented,—prayed aloud, and some drew round her to listen, but these were few; others cursed their doom. One soldier’s wife, a young creature with an infant in her arms, leaned against a riven mast, crying bitterly, while her husband tried in vain to comfort her. Immovable as images were most of those iron soldiers, except as they answered to the voice of command; true, even in the jaws of death, to their country and their profession, they heard the blasphemy and the jeers and the ribaldry of the wretched beings they guarded, without evincing the slightest emotion. Between the volleys of musketry, a heavy gun occasionally boomed out its signal of distress, but it was only echoed back from the gaping rocks of the dangerous coast; again the small-arms awakened no answer.

Silence,—a voice of command from the poop, and all hands are called to lower the launch. The ship had struck several times against the sand, shivering, as though terrified at being so assailed. The gangways were guarded, and the convicts not permitted to pass. Few, indeed, attempted it, though all had been unmanacled; but discipline, in hours of difficulty and danger, is generally more than a match for strength.

The launch was lowered with a will, by those who would have no right to enter it. It was appropriated, of course, to the women and children, and those who were to have the charge of it were appointed by lot.

There was no confusion; those who drew planks turned calmly away, and went to other duties, while the guardians of the launch marshalled its passengers in funeral order, and they were cautiously lowered into it.

There were two officers in command of the convict guard; the elder was married; his wife looked quite a child, she was barely eighteen. Melancholy it was to see her clinging to her husband, and begging to be left with him on that deck, which began already to open its seams, and show the water boiling below. She threw herself on her knees at last, and implored him to let her die there with him.

“Marmaduke, my love, my husband, do not send me from you;” and, turning to the captain, who gently implored her, for the sake of her unborn infant, to endeavour to save herself, she replied, in a voice of indescribable calmness, “Sir, those whom God has joined, let no man put asunder; I will not leave my husband.”

Then a boy midshipman came forward, and begged the officer to take his place in the launch, but Captain Dorian would not leave his men; and now everything was prepared to cut away the boat from the ship, and Mrs Dorian stood firmly by her husband.

I have alluded to the knowledge, such as it was, that the captain had of the coast they had been nearing for so considerable a time. He was not mistaken in his conjectures that they were within gun-range of a part of the shore guarded by a garrison of British soldiers.

See a signal!—the clouds have been lifted by the merciful hand of Providence; and, though the answering gun from the tower of the little fort cannot be heard, in consequence of the wind setting in-shore, and the elements outvying each other in noise at sea, the flash is distinctly visible. Captain Dorian persuades the poor young creature that there is help close at hand; appeals to her in the character of a soldier, who expects his wife to assist him in setting an example of firmness; points out to her the selfishness of her wish to remain thus unmanning him in his military duties; and, passive, stupified, at last, she suffers him to carry her to the ship’s side, and she takes her place in the launch.

Dorian looked at her as she lifted her eyes in a wild way to him. She stretched out her hands, as if imploring him to call her back. A white-crested wave sweeps over her, and throws her down; she tries to rise; she sees her husband with clasped hands praying for her; she waves hers in reply, and Dorian is called away on duty.

He speaks coolly and decidedly; he gives the necessary orders to an old sergeant, but is stopped by the screams of the unhappy women on the deck, who are hoping that the launch may come back for them. A strong rope had been affixed to the ship, and it had been decided that this, being also connected with the launch, should be fastened ashore by any means that the will of Providence might offer. The rope was strong, but the rottenness of the ship’s timbers was proved in a sudden and appalling manner. The poor soldiers had congregated in that part of the vessel to which the rope had been made last. I have already said that the seams of the deck had opened, leaving here and there a large space; still the captain, officers, and crew were in hopes that she would hold together till she was driven on the sands, and by that time they anticipated further help by means of the launch, the rope, and perhaps some surf-boats, if the detachment possessed any, as was probable, from the garrison being a dépôt for stores brought thither by coasters.