The Ruined Cities of Zululand Part 39

"'Away with him,' cried the priest, and a score of blades leaped from their scabbards.

"'Silence, gentlemen,' said the baronet, no way dismayed, his voice sounding clear and sonorous above the tumult, 'the place is surrounded.

I have but to raise my voice, and the soldiers enter. Disperse while there is yet time.'

"The conspirators looked into each other's faces with blank amazement.

Some moved towards the door of the chapel and, returning, told that men wearing the Royal uniform were outside.

"'It shall not be said that we, the last remnants of the faithful in this land, put our hands to the plough and turned back,' exclaimed Robert Pugh of Penrhyn. 'Philip Wynn, fall in our men. Forward, gentlemen.'"

"Is that the star you mean, Enrico?" asked Isabel, interrupting the tale, as she pointed to the westward; "it does not set, and seems larger than it was. Can it be on land?"

Midnight, the hour fixed for the outbreak, had long pa.s.sed, and all was as yet quiet on board. The voices of the speakers ceased as both concentrated their gaze on what seemed a red star, for Hughes did not like to wake the sleepers for nothing.

A form moved at the far end of the raft. It was the man Gough, who raised himself gently on his elbow, listening cautiously. Hearing no noise save the swish of the waves, he pushed one or two of the men who, wrapped in their coats, were fast asleep, and then throwing the covering from him, he rose. The starlight gleamed from the blade of his long knife as he stole his way round the cases which formed the sea wall of the cabin. Step by step he advanced, but just as he rounded them, Hughes rose, his back turned towards the man.

"I will wake the captain, Isabel. I know not what it is."

With a loud curse, the ruffian raised his arm, and the blow fell, with such force, that it precipitated Hughes, who was wholly off his guard, into the sea.

With a loud shriek, which aroused every one on the raft, Isabel rushed forward. Seizing her with his iron grasp by the hair, the murderer's knife once more gleamed in the starlight, when a straightforward blow from Morris the carpenter struck him full between the eyes, knocking him overboard; while shriek after shriek from Isabel rang out on the air.

The men had now formed, and came on with their knives gleaming in the starlight, and a savage determination on their faces.

"Lay down your arms, my lads," shouted Weber; "your plot is known, and we are armed."

For a second the crew seemed disposed to obey the voice whose tones of command had so often rang in their ears.

"Come on, my lads," shouted a burly sailor; "follow Jack Smith, and we'll soon have the gold."

A wild shout rang out, a pistol shot, and the speaker, struck right on the bridge of the nose by a ball from the captain's pistol, gave a fearful scream as he spun round in his intense agony; dropping the knife, he uttered a volley of hideous imprecations, then came an appalling yell, and he fell dead.

The men were startled, two of their leaders were gone, while opposed to them, and fully armed, stood the captain and his party.

Isabel lay senseless on the planking of the cabin, and the seamen held a hurried consultation together.

Meanwhile, in the sea, a fierce struggle had been going on. His left arm pierced by the knife, which had sought his heart, but in the darkness missed its aim, Hughes had risen to the surface after his first plunge, the body of his antagonist Gough falling on him as he did so, both instantly grappling.

The soldier's arm was powerless, as with a savage shout, and deep guttural oath, Gough pinned his enemy by the throat; das.h.i.+ng back his head against the rough planking of the raft, while with his clenched fist he dealt him blow after blow.

Clutching wildly and impotently at his aggressor, Hughes felt his strength failing. Soon his head was below the water again, he struggled to the surface, his senses were rapidly leaving him, and the fierce exulting shout of his enemy rang vaguely in his ears. Down came the sledge-hammer blows on his defenceless head, the man Gough fighting like a fiend, roaring in his fury, and biting like a wild beast at his foe, as he once more tore away his victim's hold and pressed his head below the raft. The water gurgled in his ears, the savage shout mixed with the noise of the waves as he went down, when suddenly the grip on his throat ceased, his antagonist's eyes rolled wildly; with a yell of agony, he seemed to leap half his height from out of the wave, and then all around it became reddened with his blood.

A violent struggle followed, making the sea boil for a moment, as a monstrous shark disappeared with its prey, and the strong arm of the carpenter seizing the drowning man by the collar, drew him from the ocean crimsoned with the blood of his antagonist, and cast him, stunned and senseless, on to the planking of the raft.

Volume 2, Chapter X.

THE RESCUE.

Isabel, recovered from the state of insensibility into which she had fallen, on seeing all at once the quiet of the night turned into a scene of murder and of bloodshed, had taken refuge in the cabin. She paid no attention to what was going on around her, but sat on a pile of sails, rocking herself to and fro, and moaning as she did so. Several b.a.l.l.s pa.s.sed through the canvas screen, but she paid no attention to them.

She had seen her husband, the last friend left her, stabbed as she believed to the heart, and thrown into the sea. What was the result of the fight now to her, and yet, as she saw even in her misery the helpless body drawn from the ocean, and cast on to the raft, she rose, and threw herself beside it, sobbing bitterly in her anguish of heart.

A few minutes' pause had ensued after the fearful death scream of the mutineer, Smith, had rung forth on the night air, for the seamen consulted together, and the result was soon seen.

On they came with a fierce shout, but this time, taught by experience, they divided into two parties; one, attacking the captain and his men in front, received their fire and were soon beaten back, losing one of their number, the uncertain light alone saving them. The second, under cover of the diversion, dashed into the cabin, and rifled the arm-chest, which they broke open.

"Now, my lads, it's our turn," shouted one of the men as he loaded and fired, hitting the carpenter Morris, who fell uttering a deep groan.

Three of Captain Weber's small party were _hors de combat_. The carpenter was fast bleeding to death. Hughes was lying senseless on the planking of the raft, while Adams, whose wound had broken out again, was in a helpless condition. The ultimate result of the struggle seemed no longer doubtful.

"It's but a question of time, Lowe," said the captain. "I've always been kind to the lubbers. Let the scoundrels have the gold--I'll tell them so."

"Let me go among them, sir."

"No; it is my duty, and Andrew Weber is not the man to s.h.i.+rk it."

Holding up his hand, and putting down the revolver he had in his grasp, he walked quietly towards the end of the raft where the men were gathered together.

He saw at once what he had not known before, namely, that through some negligence they had got at the cases of spirit, and had been drinking heavily, and he felt all hope was gone. Had they been sober an appeal to their better sense might have availed--as it was he knew it to be useless; still there was no other chance left.

"My lads, we've been too long together to be murdering each other this way. I've never done you wrong. Tell me what ye want," he said.

"We want the gold, you old porpoise, and we'll have it; and we want the raft, and we will have that, too," was the reply.

"I don't care about the gold, Phillips," replied the old seaman. "It's all that remains to me, and I had hoped to fit out another craft with it; but the moan's soon made. Take it."

"Too late! Too late, d.a.m.n ye!" howled the drunken seaman. "Back to your quarter-deck, or take the consequences. I say, aft there, look out for squalls!"

"Phillips, do you remember when I took you on board at Saint Helena?

You were half starved, and in rags. If I go back, we will fight it out to the last man. All you can get is the gold, and I say ye may have it."

"Your quarter-deck speeches won't do here, my hearty. Back to your people, I say!" The man's eyes were blazing with drink and fury.

Captain Weber was turning away. "Phillips," he said, as he did so, "you have a wife and children over yonder--what do you think they will say when they hear of your being hung as a mutineer?"

The taunt was too much for him. With a howl of rage, the drunken sailor raised his pistol, and the muzzle was within a foot of the old seaman's head, as he pulled the trigger. Standing tall and erect, with a smile of withering scorn on his features as the report rang out, Captain Weber seemed for a moment unhurt; then, with a reel like that of a drunken man, he fell, close to the spot where Hughes lay, Isabel kneeling beside him. The ball had struck him on the temple, and he was dead before he touched the planks, his head hanging over the side, and his long white hair was.h.i.+ng to and fro in the sea as the raft rose on the swell.

Uttering a wild savage shout, the drunken sailor sprang over the corpse, followed by his comrades in crime. The rubicon of blood was indeed past. Another instant, and the scanty band, now greatly reduced in numbers, would be swept from the raft. The shouts and execrations of the seamen, maddened as they were with fiery spirit, rang over the calm, quiet sea, as, swinging his clubbed musket round his head, Mr Lowe, now the senior officer present, met the mutineers half way. Phillips, with a deep oath, again fired, as the mate struck the ruffian with all the power rage could give to a muscular arm, knocking him off the raft with the force of the blow. Once more the swish of the water was heard, as the sea around boiled into foam. The senseless body was tossed to and fro like a cork, half a dozen huge fins appearing above the water.

Suddenly it was drawn down, reappeared, and then the wave was red with blood, as the sharks tore their prey piecemeal.

"Come on, ye ruffians, and meet your doom!" yelled the triumphant mate; but hardly had the words pa.s.sed his lips when a dull heavy report came booming over the ocean.

A deep dead silence ensued, then a wild cheer burst from the mate's breast.

"Hurrah!" he shouted. "We are saved, my lads,--saved at last!" as he drew back from his exposed situation, and joined the rest.

A distant flash was now seen, and then once more the boom of the gun came over the ocean, this time replied to by the successive reports of the guns and pistols of the mate's little party, fired one after another into the air, sending each a spirt of flame into the darkness of the night, while far away a small fiery star rose and fell to the motion of the waves, the same which had so engaged Hughes's attention at the moment he received the treacherous blow from the mutineer Gough. It was a whaler's light.

The men, now frightened and partially sobered, attempted no further violence. They seemed thoroughly cowed, saying not a word, even when the mate walked unarmed among them, and commenced throwing overboard deliberately, one after another, bottle after bottle of the fiery spirit they had stolen, and which had caused all the mischief. Without it, the pernicious counsels of the man Gough, and his almost as black hearted ally, Phillips, had never been listened to.

"I say, Mr Lowe, you'll let us poor beggars down mild, won't you? It was that d.a.m.ned rum did it all," said one of the now humbled seamen.