The Ruined Cities of Zululand

“We shall near her rapidly then?” inquired the soldier.

“We are running on two converging lines, which at a given point must meet, and if yonder craft wishes to speak us, she will have it in her power to do so,” replied the precise old man. “Here’s the steward to announce dinner. The wind seems falling, Mr Blount. Shake out the reefs in our topsails, and join us. Come, Captain Hughes, if your appetite is as sharp as your eyes, you won’t be sorry to go below.”

The momentary bustle consequent on the making sail followed; the deck was then handed over to the second mate, Mr Lowe (for Captain Weber, contrary to the usual rules of the merchant service, had a first and second mate), and all relapsed into the usual silence; the soughing of the wind through the spars and rigging, and the splash of the waves as they struck against the brig’s bows, alone breaking the silence. The stars peeped out, the wind falling with the setting sun, while, as the brig was running free, the motion was slight. Now and then the ship’s bell rang out on the still night air, marking the passing hours, and the monotonous tread of the officer in charge as he paced the deck, with occasionally a loud laugh from the men forward, was heard.

Mr Lowe’s watch was just ending, and the clear silver tones of the bell had rang out eight times, when the first mate stopped in his walk, looking at the binnacle light, “Have you remarked that red star yonder, Mr Lowe?” asked the old salt at the helm.

“No, Adams; what do you make of it?” replied the officer, turning towards the point indicated.

“Leastways, I don’t think it’s a star. Shouldn’t that whaling chap be down yonder away, sir?”

The second mate took the night-glass, and was in the act of adjusting it, when a bright vivid flame shot up from the sea, and the black hull and spars of a large ship were distinctly seen vomiting forth a volcano of flame; then a low smothered thud came booming over the ocean, and for an instant all was dark and silent. It was but for a few seconds, however, for then a small quivering point of flame danced on the waves; it spread, increasing rapidly in volume; the red light ran up the ropes and rigging of the ship, which was only a few miles to leeward of the “Halcyon.” Her sails, one by one, caught fire, while explosion after explosion followed, and by the lurid glare the crew of the doomed craft might be seen moving about in helpless confusion.

“Starboard—starboard, you may, Adams.” It was Captain Weber who spoke. “Lay her head straight for the wreck. Take a pull at the weather-sheets and haulyards, my lads. Cheerily, so—steady, Adams—steady. Get the royals on her, Mr Lowe. Watch and idlers, make sail.”

It was a splendid but a terrible sight, as the “Halcyon,” under her additional sail, plunged through the long seas, straight for the burning ship. Soon the cries of the men on board her could be heard, and the mainmast fell. The flames rose some two hundred feet into the air, the sea being lighted up all round, while slowly surging through the ocean came the dark hull of the “Halcyon,” all possible sail set, on her mission of mercy.

Nearer and nearer came the brig.

“See,” said Captain Weber, pointing with his hand, “the boats have been blown away, and the poor fellows have no means of leaving the wreck.”

“Ay, and she must have powder on board, for the hatchways are blown off, and the solid timbers of her decks forced up.”

At this moment a fresh and fiercer burst of flame shot up into the air, and the crew of the burning vessel could be seen jumping into the waves. It was but a choice of deaths, the fierce volcano under foot, or the surging waves around. Captain Weber stamped with impatience; his clipper brig had never seemed to him to move so slowly, and yet every sail drew, and the green water swirled under her counter as she cut her way through the seas.

The ship was a complete wreck, her cargo was on fire, there were not any boats; and a few men, clinging to some spare spars, which had been thrown overboard evidently with the intention of making a raft, were now all that were left to be saved.

Suddenly she gave one heavy lurch, and went down head foremost, leaving what remained of her crew floating on the waste of waters. “See the boats all clear, Mr Lowe; burn a blue light on the forecastle, and have every man at his post ready to hand the royals and heave the brig to.”

Hardly had the words been spoken by Captain Weber when a shriek of anguish rose from the ocean. The cargo of the doomed ship had been composed of naphtha, and now all at once it rose to the surface, spreading over the waves and burning furiously. The sailors on the spars were floating in a sea of fire, and a wail of anguish was given out by the perishing men. It was a fearful sight as the brig rapidly neared the fiery spot on the black ocean, the sharp death-cries ceasing as the fierce flame circled round the unhappy crew. Minutes seemed hours; and discipline was for the moment lost on board, her crew crowding the gangways, and shouting to the perishing men words of encouragement. The oldest sailor there had never before witnessed such a sight as that presented by this red seething sea of flame, with the writhing forms of the crew of the lost ship perishing miserably before their eyes.

“Silence, fore and aft!” shouted Captain Weber. “Heave to, Mr Blount. Stand by to lower away the cutter. Hold on with the blue light, Mr Lowe, until the boat is lowered.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the mate; and then his voice was heard over the creaking of the tackles, the soughing of the breeze, giving the necessary words of command, and before the cutter was ready to be lowered the bows of the “Halcyon” sheered up into the wind, her royals were let fly, her fore and mainsail hung flapping in the brails, and the brig was rising and falling on the waves under her foretopsail, jib, and boom-mainsail.

“Hush,” said the captain, after the cutter had pulled some distance from the brig’s sides, “hush, I thought I heard a hail.”

The men lay on their oars, the blazing light had gone out as suddenly as it had been kindled, and the long swell of the ocean tossed the small boat to and fro under the starlight as though she were a plaything. The blue light was burning on the “Halcyon’s” forecastle, giving her a ghastly and spectrelike appearance, lighting up her spars, sails, and rigging, and casting a strange glare on the sea around.

“Brig ahoy! brig ahoy!” came from out the darkness.

“Hallo! give way, my lads,” and on went the cutter, the stout ash staves bending as the men forced her through the water.

“Brig ahoy!” came the feeble shout, and giving the cutter a yaw to port her bows, grazed a large spar, while the bowman holding on with his boat-hook, the forms of two men were seen lashed to it. They were soon hauled on board, and the cutter again in motion. For fully an hour did Captain Weber row over the spot, but uselessly. There were remains of wreck, of broken, half-charred planks and shattered timbers; but, with the exception of these, and the two men first met with, not a vestige of the stately ship remained.

“Fill and make sail, Mr Blount,” said the captain, as he once more put his foot on the quarter-deck; “send those two poor fellows below, and let my steward see to their comfort. We will hear their tale presently.”

“Had we not better lie to till morning; may there not yet be some other survivor?”

“Not a chance. I have pulled round the whole spot over and over again. We have done all we can do. Lay her head again for Delagoa Bay,” replied Captain Weber, as he went below, and so the yards were braced round, the courses sheeted home, the royals once more set, and with a fair wind the brig found herself, when morning dawned, seventy miles from the scene of the late disaster. The horizon was clear, not a sail being in sight; the whistling of the wind, the scream of the gulls, which were now wheeling round the brig, showing the proximity to land, those and the whish of the breaking wave being the only noises heard. The decks had been holystoned, the sailors were busy coiling down spare ropes or cleaning the brasswork, which was already as bright as could be, and the regular step of the officer of the watch could be heard as he paced the quarter-deck by those below.

The party in the cabin consisted of Captain Weber, his first officer, his passenger, and the master of the “Argonaut,” the ship which had been burned at sea the previous night. Of the whole crew the captain and one seaman only had been saved.

Sad enough he looked as he sat at the well-furnished breakfast-table, his hair singed with fire, and his right arm in a sling.

“We were bound for England, and our cargo consisted of five hundred barrels of naphtha,” he said, in reply to a question addressed to him by the first officer of the “Halcyon.”

“Why were you lying to when we first sighted you?” asked Captain Weber, “I thought our cargo had shifted a little in the late gale, and I had been overhauling it. That night I was seated with my first mate in the cabin when a furious explosion shook the ship. I was thrown down, and how long I remained insensible I don’t know. When I did come to I found myself surrounded with wreck, everything smashed, the bulkheads driven in, and the ship split in her waterway. Hardly had I realised the extent of the misfortune when the cry of fire was heard. In a moment the remainder of the naphtha was in flames, and I had hardly time to get on deck.”

“And the boats?” asked Captain Hughes.

“Blown to chips,” was the reply. “I ordered the mainmast to be cut away, but the flames were too quick for us, and all we could do was to cut adrift the mainboom. I and Miller managed to reach it. The ship was now burning fore and aft, and presently, as you saw, went down bodily, the whole of the naphtha rising to the surface in a sea of flame. I saw many of my poor fellows swim in this bath of fire. My mate and steward went down beside me. The cook had lashed himself to a piece of wreck, and for a quarter of an hour I heard his cries, then they ceased suddenly. The rest you know.”

A bustle on deck, a loud shout, and then a voice repeating the welcome words, “Land ho!” disturbed the breakfast party, who hurried up the hatchway, the poor, spirit-broken master of the “Argonaut” alone remaining below. What to him was land? He had no ship, no crew to care for. The fierce flame and the seething ocean had brought him ruin.

The wind was now well abaft the beam, and even to those on deck the long cloud-like outline of land was soon, visible, as, every sail set that would draw, the brig worked her way on, rising and falling on the long seas, now rolling heavily to leeward as she sank in the green trough, now lifting on the surging wave and heeling over as her loftier canvas felt the full force of the breeze, until she showed her bright clean copper nearly to her keel, only the next moment to dash her wedge-like bows into the foam, sending the glittering particles high into the air, deluging the forecastle with green water, as she drove onward towards land. Above, the bright clear sky of an African day; the gulls and the Mother Carey’s chickens wheeling and circling round the masts. Captain Weber, proud of his brig, felt she was doing her best, while by his side walked the captain of the “Argonaut,” sad and dispirited, his one hand thrust deeply into his pocket, the other supported by a sling, his burned hair and scorched face looking melancholy even beneath the bright sunshine. To Captain Hughes, the long cloud-like line of the coast was a promised land, where the mighty elephant, the lordly lion, and the fierce rhinoceros waited him; and so the day wore on, and afternoon came.

“Watch and idlers, shorten sail! In royals, start tacks and sheets!” and soon the fore and main-royals were flying loosely in the wind, and the ready seamen busy securing the flapping canvas.

Broad on the port bow the high land of Cape Colato could be seen, as well as a lower bluff stretching away as it were to meet it, but failing in its object, leaving an opening between the two headlands, thus forming the harbour called Delagoa Bay, for which port the “Halcyon” was bound.

On she flew, the wind freshening and the green waves seeming to lift the brig forward on her ocean path. “Let fly the top-gallant sheets,” and soon the yards slowly settled down. “Take the foresail off her, Mr Blount. Forward there, see the anchor all clear.” The cheerful “Ay, ay, sir,” came back in reply to the loud tone of command from the quarter-deck; for much as a sailor loves his ship, he is always pleased at the sight of the port for which that ship is bound; and now the small island of Inyak, nestled within the bay, and the houses of the town, with their light verandahs and white walls, were seen plainer and plainer, seeming to rise like a mirage from the sea, as the entrance to the bay was opened. The brig’s helm being jammed hard down, the graceful craft flew up into the wind with a broad sheer, and soon she rose and fell on the waves under her main-topsail, jib, and boom-mainsail, her foresail hanging in the brails, and her foretopsail still flying loose. A puff of white smoke from her bows followed, and a small flag run up in the shape of a ball, and only breaking when it reached its position aloft, was the signal for the pilot, which was soon answered: a minute black speck, now mounting on the seas, now disappearing in the deep trough, telling of the signal being seen and complied with.

Glad to reach the land he had so long looked forward to, and yet at the same time sorry to leave companions whose life, perils, and pleasures he had shared for two months, Captain Hughes stood watching the shore-boat as it pulled towards the ship.

“You’ll be glad to land, Captain,” said a voice by his side, and as he turned, he saw close to him, leaning over the bulwarks, the melancholy-looking master of the burned ship.

“Well, yesterday I would have said ‘Yes,’ and somehow to-day I must say ‘No’,” replied Hughes.

“Ay, ay,” struck in Captain Weber, as he passed in his quarter-deck walk, taking off his seaman’s cap and pushing back the long white hair from his weather-tanned forehead, “you are as much a sailor as you are a soldier. Well, I shall work the old bark up the coast, trading here and there, I have still some months to spare, for mine is a three-year voyage, and if you are for a passage home before we leave, look out for the ‘Halcyon.’”

“I’ll land here, and work my way to London,” said the captain of the “Argonaut.”

“No, no, old fellow, we must not part so, I picked you up floating on a loose spar, and I am not going to cut you adrift. Take share and share with me, and our return voyage will be all the merrier.”

The old man shook his head, for the loss of his ship and the fearful fate of his crew, who had perished before his eyes by a death so terrible and so totally unforeseen, had shaken his intellects, and from a bold, daring seaman, he had in one night become completely changed.

Captain Weber saw this, and with his usual kindness of heart pitied his less fortunate brother, as, taking his arm, he led him away, the two diving below to seek consolation in the seaman’s universal panacea—a glass of grog, leaving Captain Hughes gazing over the sea, and wondering why he was not pleased to land.

The creaking of the oars in the rowlocks was soon heard, as the shore-boat, impelled by the efforts of four powerful men, came sweeping up on the brig’s quarter. A rope was hove, and a half-naked Malay catching at the lee shrouds, as the “Halcyon” heeled over, swung himself on board, losing as he did so his high conical hat, which, with a scanty covering round the waist, formed his only clothing.

“Up with the helm, ease off the jib sheets, fill the main-topsail,” were the words of command given the moment the Malay pilot touched the deck and walked aft. The brig’s head paid off, her sails filled, and, gathering headway, she once more surged through the seas, running slowly into the bay, and ultimately dropping her anchor not more than fifty yards from the town, where she was quickly surrounded by a whole fleet of shore-boats, eager to sell fresh vegetables, bread, or anything else saleable.