Masterman Ready; Or, The Wreck of the Pacific

by Frederick Marryat

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

  The construction of the fish-pond proceeded rapidly, and on the thirdday it was nearly complete. As soon as all the walls were finished,Ready threw out sand and shingle, so as to make the part next to thebeach nearly as deep as the other; so that there might be sufficientwater to prevent the gulls and man-of-war birds from darting down, andstriking the fish. While Ready was thus employed, Mr Seagrave andWilliam collected more rocks, so as to divide the pond into four parts,at the same time allowing a communication between each part. Theseinside walls, as well as the outside, were made of sufficient width towalk upon; by which means they would have all the fish within reach ofthe spear, in case they wished to take them out. The day after the pondwas completed the weather changed. The rain poured down with greatforce, but it was not accompanied with such terrific thunder andlightning, nor were the storms of so long continuance, as at thecommencement of the rainy season. In the intervals of fine weather theycaught a great many fish, which they put into the pond, so that it waswell stocked. But a circumstance occurred, which was the occasion ofgreat alarm to them all; which was, that one evening William was takenwith a shivering, and complained very much of a pain in his head. Readyhad promised to continue his narrative on that evening, but William wastoo ill to sit up. He was put into bed, and the next morning he was ina violent fever. Mr Seagrave was much alarmed, as the symptoms wereworse every hour; and Ready, who had sat up with him during the night,called Mr Seagrave out of the house, and said, "This is a bad case,sir: William was working yesterday with his hat off, and I fear that hehas been struck by the sun."

  The poor boy was for many days in great danger; and the cheerful housewas now one of gloom and silence. How fervent were now the morning andevening prayers; how often during the day did his parents offer up apetition to heaven for their dear boy's recovery. The weather becamefiner every day, and it was almost impossible to keep Tommy quiet: Junowent out with him and Albert every morning, and kept them with her whileshe cooked; and, fortunately, Vixen had some young ones, and when Junocould no longer amuse them, she brought them two of the puppies to playwith. As for the quiet, meek little Caroline, she would remain duringthe whole day holding her mother's hand, and watching her brother, orworking with her needle by the side of his bed.

  Ready, who could not be idle, had taken the hammer and cold chisel tomake the salt-pan, at which he worked during those portions of the dayin which his services were not required indoors; and as he sat chippingaway the rock, his thoughts were ever upon William, for he dearly lovedthe boy for his amiable disposition and his cleverness; and many a timeduring the day would he stop his work, and the tears would run down hischeeks as he offered up his petition to the Almighty that the boy mightbe spared to his afflicted parents. And those prayers were heard, foron the ninth day William was pronounced by Ready and Mr Seagrave tohave much less fever, and shortly afterwards it left him altogether; buthe was so weak that he could not raise himself in his bed for two orthree days; and it was not till more than a fortnight after the feverhad left him that he could go out of the house. The joy that wasexpressed by them all when the change took place may be imagined: norwere the thanksgivings less fervent than had been the prayers.

  During his convalescence, as there was nothing else to do, Mr Seagraveand Ready, who now went gladly to their work, determined, as thesalt-pan was finished, that they would make a bathing-place. Juno cameto their assistance, and was very useful in assisting to drag the wheelswhich brought the rocks and stones; and Tommy was also brought down,that he might be out of the way while Mrs Seagrave and Caroline watchedthe invalid. By the time that William was able to go out of the house,the bathing-place was finished, and there was no longer any fear of thesharks. William came down to the beach with his mother, and looked atthe work which had been done; he was much pleased with it, and said,"Now, Ready, we have finished everything at home for the present; all wehave to do is to explore the island, and to go to the cove and examineour collection from the wreck."

  "Very true, William; and the weather has been so fine, that I think wemay venture upon one or the other in a few days more; but not till youare stronger."

  "I shall soon be strong again, Ready."

  "I have no doubt of it, William; and we have good reason to thank God,for we could ill spare you."

  "It's a long while since you have gone on with your story, Ready," saidWilliam, after they had taken their supper; "I wish you would do so now,as I am sure I shall not be tired."

  "With pleasure, William," replied Ready; "but can you remember where Ileft off, for my memory is none of the best?"

  "Oh, yes; if you recollect, you had just arrived at a Dutch farmer'shouse, in company with the savages, at a place called Graaff Reinet, Ithink."

  "Well then, the Dutch farmer came out when he saw us coming, and askedus who we were. We told him that we were English prisoners, and that wewished to give ourselves up to the authorities. He took away our armsand ammunition, and said that he was the authority in that part, whichwas true enough; and then he said, `You'll not run away without arms andammunition, that's certain. As for sending you to the Cape, that I maynot be able to do for months; so if you wish to be fed well, you mustwork well while you're here.' We replied, that we should be very gladto make ourselves useful, and then he sent us some dinner by a Hottentotgirl. But we soon found out that we had to deal with an ill-tempered,brutal fellow; and that he gave us plenty of hard work, but by no meansplenty of food. He would not trust us with guns, so the Hottentots wentout with the cattle, but he gave us plenty of work to do about thehouse; and at last he treated us very cruelly. When he was short ofprovisions for the Hottentots and other slaves, of whom he had a goodmany, he would go out with the other farmers who lived near him, andshoot quaggas for them to eat. Nobody but a Hottentot could live uponsuch flesh."

  "What is quagga?"

  "A wild ass, partly covered with stripes, but not so much as the zebra;a pretty animal to look at, but the flesh is very bad. At last he wouldgive us nothing to eat but quaggas, the same as the Hottentots, while heand his family--for he had a wife and five children--lived upon muttonand the flesh of the antelope, which is very excellent eating. We askedhim to allow us a gun to procure better food, and he kicked Romer sounmercifully, that he could not work for two days afterwards. Our livesbecame quite a burden to us; we were employed all day on the farm, andevery day he was more brutal towards us. At last we agreed that wewould stand it no longer, and one evening Hastings told him so. Thisput him into a great rage, and he called two of the slaves, and orderedthem to tie him to the waggon wheel, swearing that he would cut everybit of skin off his body, and he went into his house to get his whip.The slaves had hold of Hastings, and were tying him up, for they darednot disobey their master, when he said to us, `If I am flogged this way,it will be all over with us. Now's your time; run back behind thehouse, and when he comes out with the whip, do you go in and seize themuskets, which are always ready loaded. Hold him at bay till I getclear, and then we will get away somehow or other. You must do it, forI am sure he will flog me till I am dead, and he will shoot you, asrunaway prisoners, as he did his two Hottentots the other day.' AsRomer and I thought this very probable, we did as Hastings told us; andwhen the Dutchman had gone towards him where he was tied up, about fiftyyards from the house, we went in. The farmer's wife was in bed, havingjust had an addition to her family, and the children we cared not for.We seized two muskets and a large knife, and came out just as theDutchman had struck the first blow with the rhinoceros whip, which wasso severe, that it took away poor Hastings' breath. We went up; heturned round and saw us: we levelled our muskets at him, and he stopped.`Another blow, and we'll shoot you,' cried Romer. `Yes,' cried I; `weare only boys, but you've Englishmen to deal with.' When we came up,Romer kept his piece levelled at the Dutchman, while I passed him, andwith the knife cut the thongs which bound Hastings. The Dutchman turnedpale and did not speak, he was so frightened,
and the slaves ran away.As soon as Hastings was free, he seized a large wooden mallet, used fordriving in stakes, and struck the Dutchman down to the earth, cryingout, `That for flogging an Englishman, you rascal!'

  "While the man lay senseless or dead--I didn't know which at the time--we tied him to the waggon wheels, and returning to the house, seizedsome ammunition and other articles which might be useful. We then wentto the stables, and took the three best horses which the Dutchman had,put some corn in a sack for each of them, took some cord for halters,mounted, and rode away as fast as we could. As we knew that we shouldbe pursued, we first galloped away as if we were going eastward to theCape; and then, as soon as we were on ground which would not show thetracks of our horses' hoofs, we turned round to the northward, in thedirection of the Bushman country. It was dark soon after we had alteredour course; but we travelled all night, and although we heard theroaring of the lions at a distance, we met with no accident. Atdaylight we rested our horses, and gave them some corn, and then satdown to eat some of the provision we had brought with us."

  "How long were you with the farmer at Graaff Reinet?"

  "Nearly eight months, sir; and during that time we could not only speakDutch, but we could make ourselves understood by the Hottentots andother natives. While we were eating we held a consultation how weshould proceed. We were aware that the Dutchmen would shoot us if theycame up with us, and that they would come out in strong force againstus; and we were afraid that we had killed the man, and if so, they wouldhang us as soon as we got to the Cape; so we were at a great loss toknow how to act. At last we decided that we would cross the country ofthe Bushmen, and get to the sea-side, to the northward of the Cape. Wedetermined that it would be better to travel at night, as there would beless fear of the wild beasts, or of being seen; so we went fast asleepfor many hours. Towards the evening, we found water for the horses, andthen we fed them again, and proceeded on our journey. I won't tell whatpassed every day for a fortnight, by which time we had pretty wellkilled our horses, and we were compelled to stop among a tribe ofGorraguas, a very mild, inoffensive people, who supplied us with milk,and treated us very kindly. We had some adventures, nevertheless. Oneday as we were passing by a tuft of small trees, a rhinoceros chargedupon my horse, which very narrowly escaped by wheeling short round andgetting behind him; the beast then made off without meddling with us anymore. Every day we used to shoot some animal or other, for provision:sometimes it was a gnu, something between an antelope and a bull; atother times it was one of the antelope kind.

  "Well, we stayed for three weeks with these people, and gave our horsestime to refresh themselves; and then we set off again, keeping moretowards the coast as we went southward, for the Gorraguas told us thatthere was a fierce native tribe, called Kaffers, to the northward, whowould certainly kill us if we went there. The fact is, we did not knowwhat to do. We had left the Cape without any exact idea where we shouldgo to, like foolish boys as we were, and we became more entangled withdifficulties every day. At last we decided that it would be better tofind our way back to the Cape, and deliver ourselves up as prisoners,for we were tired out with fatigue and constant danger. All that wewere afraid of was that we had killed the Dutch farmer at Graaff Reinet,who had treated us so brutally; but Hastings said he did not care; thatwas his business, and he would take his chance: so when we bade adieu tothe Gorraguas, we turned our horses' heads to the south-east, so as tomake the sea and go to the southward at the same time.

  "I have now to mention a most melancholy event which occurred. Two daysafter we had recommenced our travels, in passing through some highgrass, we stumbled on a lion, which was devouring a gnu. Romer, whohappened to be some ten yards foremost of the three, was so alarmed thathe fired at the animal, which we had agreed never to do, as it was follyto enrage so powerful a beast, when our party was so small. The lionwas slightly wounded; he gave a roar that might have been heard for amile, sprang upon Romer, and with one blow of his paw knocked him offthe saddle into the bushes. Our horses, which were frightened, wheeledround and fled, for the animal was evidently about to attack us. As itwas, he did make one bound in our direction; we could not pull up untilwe had gone half a mile; and when we did, we saw the lion had torn downthe horse which Romer had ridden, and was dragging away the carcass tothe right at a sort of a canter, without any apparent effort on hispart. We waited till he was well off, and then rode back to the spotwhere Romer had fallen: we soon found him, but he was quite dead; theblow with the lion's paw had fractured his skull.

  "I ought to have said that the Gorraguas told us not to travel by night,but by day; and we had done so in consequence of their advice. Ibelieve it was very good advice, notwithstanding this unfortunateaccident, for we found that when we had travelled all night the lionshad more than once followed us the whole time; and indeed I have oftenthought since that we were altogether indebted to his mercy who orderethall things, both in heaven and earth, that we escaped so well as we did.Three days after poor Romer's death we first saw the wide ocean again.We kept near the coast, but we soon found that we could not obtain thesupply of game, or fuel for our fires at night, so well as we could inthe interior, and we agreed to get away from the coast again. We had adreary plain to pass over, and we were quite faint for want of food--forwe had been without any for nearly two days--when we came upon anostrich. Hastings put his horse to his speed, but it was of no use--theostrich ran much faster than the horse could. I remained behind, and,to my great joy, discovered his nest, with thirteen large eggs in it.Hastings soon came back, with his horse panting and out of wind. We satdown, lighted a fire, and roasted two of the eggs: we made a good dinnerof them, and having put four more on our saddle-bows, we continued ourjourney. At last, one forenoon, we saw the Table Mountain, and were asglad to see it as if we had seen the white cliffs of Old England. Wepushed on our horses with the hopes of being once more comfortably inprison before night; when, as we neared the bay, we noticed that Englishcolours were flying on board of the vessels in the road. This surprisedus very much; but soon after that we met an English soldier, who told usthat the Cape had been taken by our forces more than six months ago.This was a joyful surprise, as you may suppose. We rode into the town,and reported ourselves to the main guard; the governor sent for us,heard our story, and sent us to the admiral, who took us on board of hisown ship."