The Ruined Cities of Zululand

“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, damn 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 washing 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 passed 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 damned rum did it all,” said one of the now humbled seamen.

The mate spoke never a word, but pointed silently to the body of the captain, as it lay on the planking, the long white hair moving in the wash of the sea, and the blood slowly welling from the shattered forehead. It was a ghastly sight, as the faint starlight revealed it to the sobered crew.

“It was that lubber Gough,” muttered the man; “Phillips and he have gone to Davy Jones. I say, Mr Lowe, you’ll log it down to them, not to us; we were all three sheets in the wind.”

“It’s not for me to decide,” replied the mate; “you’ll all have justice, and that looks to me like a rope rove through a block at the fore-yard arm. What had he done to you that he should lie there, you damned mutinous scoundrels?”

“I say, my lads,” replied the still half-drunken man, “what’s the use of this kind of thing? If as how we are to blame for the skipper’s death, when we was as drunk as lords—if so be as we are to be yard-armed for what Gough and Phillips did, why let’s go overboard, says I.”

“I say, Mr Lowe,” humbly interposed another and more sober man, “we had nothing to do with this here matter. Them two bloody-minded villains promised us rum and gold. We deserve all we’ll get, but you’ll not be down on us too hard, will ye?”

“No, I’ll not,” replied the officer. “Collect the arms, Forest, and return them to the chest.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the man, obeying at once.

Every half-hour a gun from the whaler boomed over the sea, telling of her presence; but it was evident that not understanding the firing, her crew thought it safer to wait for daylight.

Isabel seemed stupefied with grief. Her senses were stunned by this last crowning misfortune. The missionary had now joined her, and by the feeble light had soon found that life was not quite extinct in his friend’s battered frame.

With the help of two of the mutineers, Hughes had been carried into the cabin, and laid on the spare sails; some weak brandy-and-water had been given him, and the blood washed from the pale face and clotted hair.

“It comes too late,” muttered Isabel, as she bent over her husband’s body. “It comes too late. What to me is yonder ship? Father and husband, father and husband gone!” she moaned.

“Hush!” said the missionary, as he sponged away the blood with a handkerchief; “hush! he is not dead, only half drowned, and stunned.”

The sailor Gough had, in his drunken fury, beaten his antagonist’s head against the jagged ends of the spars. The yielding water had softened the shock, but as the two leaned over him, and the grey dawn stole across the ocean, his head presented a terrible spectacle. They poured more spirit and water down his throat, and gradually the colour came back to his face. He opened his eyes, looking wildly around, and as he did so, the light of returning consciousness came back to them.

At this moment, the boom of the whaler’s forecastle gun was again heard, as her men, who had in the darkness of the night seen only the flash of the pistols, now caught sight of the raft, her head yards being at once braced round, and her bows brought as near the wind as possible. The sound struck the injured man’s ear.

“It is help, it is safety,” whispered Isabel. “Enrico, it is a ship!”

The soldier’s eyes closed, his lips moved, and the blood mounted slowly to his cheeks. “My Isabel, my beloved!” he murmured. A flood of tears poured from Isabel’s eyes as she threw herself into his arms; and the missionary left the cabin, drawing down the sail as he did so over the opening.

The raft did not show such proofs of the deadly fight which had taken place on board of her as might have been imagined. The dead body of the old captain was carefully placed amidships, near his boxes of gold dust; that of the carpenter, Morris, beside it, for he too was dead. Adams, whose splinter wound had broken out once more with the excitement of the fray, was looked to. The mutineers who had fallen had been disposed of by the sharks, whose large fins could yet be seen from, time to time, as they moved slowly round and round the raft, seeking for more prey.

“We might have knowed what ’ud come on it,” said one of the now humble seamen, as he dashed a bucket of water over a large red patch of blood; “I never seed them chaps, but I knowed as Davy Jones a wanted some on us.”

And so the morning dawned over the ocean, and the diminished crew on board the raft; the wind still light from the westward, and the sail yet dragging her almost imperceptibly through the water. Slowly the first streaks of light spread over the waste of ocean, as the haggard, worn-out men, pale from excitement and from the effects of drink, looked out eagerly for the ship, which they knew was near them.

“There she is, right to leeward,” said one of the seamen; and as the light every moment became more intense, there she lay sure enough.

“A full-rigged ship hove-to under two topsails, fore-topmast-staysail, and driver,” said Mr Lowe.

“Look, she sees us,” cried Wyzinski, as the main-topsail yard was rounded in, the sail filled, and the ship gathered way—the Union Jack being run up to the gaff, and a white puff of smoke from her bows preceding the thud of the gun.

The studding sail was gently raised, and Hughes, leaning on Isabel’s arm, joined the group. A few buckets of cold sea water had done wonders for him, though his head was still swollen and contused, and as he sat down on the spot where his tale had been so terribly broken off, the sun’s higher limb emerged from the waste of waters to the eastward, and tipped the waves of the Indian Ocean with its rays.

“There is hope dawning on us at last, Isabel,” said he, pointing first to the rising sun, then to the white canvas of the ship, as the first beams shone on it.

“There goes her foresail and mainsail. By Jove!” exclaimed Mr Lowe, “she must be strong handed, for they’re away aloft.”

Sail after sail was shown on board the ship until she was standing on close hauled, with everything set to her royals.

“There’s down with the helm!” muttered one of the men, as the ship’s bows came sweeping up to the wind, her canvas shivering, then filling once more as her yards swung round, and she stood on the other tack.

“Ay, ay,” replied the man Forest, “she’ll work dead to windward, and then bear down on us. Why the devil didn’t she find herself here away yesterday?”

“What a store of memories the last few weeks have given us, Enrico,” remarked Isabel, as she tore a strip of canvas to make a sling for the wounded arm, which was becoming painful.

“So it ever is with our lives,” answered Hughes, as the arm was made as comfortable as possible. “Shadowy memories of sunshine and storm, ever driving over the mirror in which we see the past; but the future, dearest,” and he pointed towards the pyramid of white canvas, “the future will be our own.”

“May God grant it, for we have been cruelly tried,” answered Isabel.

Slipping slowly through the water, the whaler did exactly as the man Forest predicted.

She was a dull sailer, and the time seemed long and weary to those who watched her on board the raft with intense anxiety. So precarious had been their late position, so changeable the events of their life, that they could not believe in safety until they should actually feel its existence.

The whaler was now dead to windward, and the raft still going slowly through the water before the breeze. The two bodies, namely, those of Captain Weber and the carpenter Morris, lay side by side amidships.

“Take the sail off her, my lads,” said the mate, and he was obeyed with ready alacrity, the canvas being stripped from the stump of a mast, and thrown over the two corpses.

Paying round, the whaler wore, and slowly handling her loftier canvas, her huge hull came rolling along, heading straight for the raft, her crew shortening sail as they came on.

Slowly she neared it, and a score or more of men might be seen clustering in her rigging, or gazing over her bulwarks at the strange sight presented by the spars drifting along on the waves of the ocean.

“Raft, ahoy!” shouted a man, who was holding on in the mizen rigging of the ship, “what raft is that?”

“The wreck of the brig ‘Halcyon,’ lost in the late gale,” replied the mate, using his two hands as a trumpet.

“What was the meaning of the firing?” again shouted Captain Hawkins, master of the whaler the “Dolphin,” still misdoubting, for in those days pirates were not unknown off the coast of Madagascar.

“Mutiny and murder,” returned the mate, at the top of his voice, for all reply.

“Avast, there! Mr Lowe,” grumbled Forest. “Remember what ye promised us, sir.”

“I’ll heave-to and send a boat,” was the shout that came across the waters, and the next moment the necessary orders were given, and so close were the ship and raft, that the words of command were heard distinctly on board the latter, as the “Dolphin” came to the wind, and under her two topsails, jib, and spanker, lay hove-to. A boat was lowered, and half an hour later the mate of the “Halcyon” was telling his sad tale in the cabin of the “Dolphin.” Her late crew were in irons forward, her passengers cared for, the ship working her way for Port Natal, and the deserted raft, stripped to the spars themselves, floating miles astern.

The evil time at last seemed to have ended, for that afternoon the westerly breeze died away, and the “Dolphin,” with a fair wind, lay her course, dropping her anchor in the almost land-locked harbour, without an accident, landing her passengers and prisoners, and sailing again on her whaling voyage.

Six weeks had elapsed since her departure. The Bishop of Cape Town, who had chanced to be at Durban at the time, had, at the missionary’s request, again performed the marriage ceremony, which had so hastily been solemnised on board the sinking brig. The remains of the tough British seaman, Captain Weber, had been buried with all honour in the cemetery of the town, and the same slab covered him, his carpenter Morris, and old Adams. Mr Lowe, in charge of the gold dust, had left for England, as second officer of the barque “The Flying Fish,” which had put into Port Natal disabled by the gale which had so ill-treated the unfortunate “Halcyon.”

One afternoon, about six weeks after the sailing of the “Dolphin,” a small party of three stood on the beach at Port Natal.

A large steamer, with the blue peter flying at the fore, the union jack at her mizen peak, and a cloud of dense black smoke rising from her funnel, could be seen off the bar, while a boat, manned by four powerful men, rose and fell on the rollers close by the beach.

“Even at this last moment, Wyzinski, it is not too late. There are plenty of empty berths on board the ‘Saxon.’”

Hughes seemed greatly moved, and the missionary’s usually impassive face showed signs of deep emotion, which, it was evident, he suppressed with difficulty.

“No, old friend. No, it must not be,” he replied, his thin lips quivering as he spoke. “The work we have begun together, I will finish if I live. The ‘Ruined Cities of Zulu Land’ exist, and the dangers we have gone through have but opened out the way. Noti’s life lost on the banks of the Golden River, Luji’s sacrificed to save ours on the plains of Manica, must not have been given in vain.”

A deep silence ensued as Isabel, leaning on her husband’s arm, looked pensively over the sea. The sound of the steam-whistle was heard, warning the loiterers on the beach that their time was short.

“I go from this to depose on oath as to our discoveries,” continued the enthusiastic speaker. “I am sure of a welcome at Chantilly, and that shall be my starting point.”

“Well, well,” returned Hughes, sorrowfully, “you won’t forget the presents for Masheesh. How he wanted to come with us, poor fellow.”

“There goes a gun from the ‘Saxon,’ sir,” said the coxswain in charge of the boat, as the report of a light piece came to their ears, and a wisp of white smoke rose curling over the point.

“Good-bye, Wyzinski, good-bye,” said Hughes, as he grasped the other’s hand. “May God bless you! And remember, while we have a home it’s yours. You must eventually tire of your wanderings.”

“Shall I?” returned the other, as a slight smile curled his lip, though the unbidden tears were standing in his eyes, kept back only by his iron will “Hark my words: you will tire first of a life of inaction.” And the missionary touched Isabel’s cheek with his lips as he handed her into the boat.

One more grasp of the hand as the two men stood looking into each other’s eyes; one more deep “good-bye!” and Hughes sat by her side.

“Give way, my lads! give way, with a will!” exclaimed the coxswain, as the sound of a second gun came booming over the point.

“You will tire of the water-melons, Hughes,” shouted the missionary, as the boat shot away from land, “and when you do so, think of the Ruined Cities of Zulu Land, and your old comrade working alone.”

A wave of the hand came back for all reply, as Hughes passed his arm round Isabel’s slender waist.

With the calm serenity which so characterised the man, the missionary turned, and, instead of remaining to watch the boat, walked firmly though slowly away, never once faltering. The tears were still standing in his eyes, but no one marked them, as he moved with his firm springy step through the busy streets of Durban. The smoke of the mail steamer “Saxon” was yet to be seen, a black inky spot on the horizon, as he took his way from the town, bound for the banks of the Nonoti. He reached Chantilly in safety, and passed on thence, after a short halt, to the station at Santa Lucia Bay, there to organise a party destined to win once more from the forest growth the Ruined Cities of Zulu Land.

The Massacres of Cawnpore

Anyone who has been at the Cape, will remember the lofty height of the Lion’s Mountain, looking over the bay. It presents a striking object as the ship stands in, and the Table Mountain, without its fleecy covering, rises with its flattened summit cut clearly against the line of blue sky. Without has been purposely written; for if the fog hangs heavily on its top, or, in the words of the sailor, if the table-cloth be spread, then a blow is quite certain, and the very best thing to be done by the passenger is to leave the ship to pitch and roll at her anchors until the gale blows itself out, or, better still, to charter a horse, as the Jack Tars have it, for a ride to Wynebergh, where the vineyards lie, producing the famed Constantia grape.

Winding along by the sea side, and giving the most delicious little peeps over the ocean, the road to Wynebergh is exquisitely beautiful. Many take it for the romantic loveliness of its land and ocean views; others, because their business leads them in that direction; and not a few, because of the little road-side public-house, which lies about half way, and where the click of the billiard balls never seems to cease night or day.

Long before the traveller comes to that hotel, he will pass on his left hand a small house, embowered in trees, standing in its own grounds, sweeping down nearly to the sea. It is a pretty spot, with its white façade, its green shutters, and broad verandah, the wood-work nearly hidden by the clustering creepers and vines.

Bright flowers and green plots of grass, carefully mowed and watered, speak of European taste; and, in point of fact, the lovely little spot on the Wynebergh road, belonged to an English merchant, Mr Chichester, who, being absent in England was glad to let it.

It was a fine August day of the year 1857. The sun was shining brightly, and the breeze came from the sea. A fountain of water was playing in the sunlight, and the birds were singing; while the splash of the waves, as they broke on the beach, could be distinctly heard.

“Are you tired of our quiet life at the Cape, Enrico?” asked Isabel, who, seated on a rustic bench, was busy with some embroidery, Hughes lying on the grass at her feet, an open book near.

“Well, no,” answered he, yawning; “but I don’t see why we should wait the reply to all that mass of papers sent to Portugal.”

“I don’t speak English well enough yet,” said Isabel, laughing; but this was not exactly true, for she was using that tongue, and that her three months’ residence at the Cape had not been lost in this particular, was fully evident.

“We had trouble enough with that box of papers,” said Hughes, musing; “and as your interests are concerned, and your succession to your father’s property at stake, I suppose we must submit.”

“Submit,” replied Isabel, brightly; “it’s no very hard task, methinks. Suppose you tell me the rest of the tale you left unfinished that fearful night on the raft; or shall we ride to Wynebergh?”

“Not the ride, certainly; I’m not equal to the exertion,” replied the soldier.

Isabel laughed heartily; and, as the bright silvery tone rang out Hughes, for the life of him, could not help joining though the missionary’s parting words came back to him.

“You will tire of the water-melons, Hughes, and when you do so, think of the ‘Ruined Cities of Zulu Land,’ and your old comrade working alone.”

The words had proved prophetic. Accustomed to a life of activity and exercise, his present existence seemed monotonous, do what he could to think otherwise. The pleasant life had no object.

“Well, then, finish me the tale, Enrico mio, and this time you may talk as much as you choose of birds and trees.”

“I don’t exactly remember where I left off, Isabel,” replied Hughes, once more yawning heavily. “A stab in the arm, and to find oneself suddenly knocked into an ocean peopled with sharks, in the middle of a quiet tale, does not conduce to the general comfort of the historian; however, I’ll try. Lend me that cushion.”

Placing his elbow on it, and looking up into the beautiful face bent over the embroidery, Hughes remained silent. Truth to say, as he watched the long black silken lashes, and traced the blue veins under the clear olive skin, he began to think himself the most dissatisfied of mortals.

“Well, Enrico,—and my tale?” asked Isabel, looking up.

“Let me see. The little chapel of Penrhyn was filled with the conspirators, and Father Guy had just made his appeal to them, pointing out Sir Roger Mostyn as their first victim. Mine is a true tale, and it happened there what always happens. They melted away like snow before the sun, as the trembling notes of a trumpet were heard outside the house—chapel and outbuildings being surrounded by the royal troops.

“Sir Roger had no wish to make prisoners, his only desire was to break up the plot; so in the confusion all made their escape except one, and that was my ancestor, the master of Penrhyn, who scorned to fly.

“Even the old priest was hustled away, still vomiting excommunications and threats. The chapel was dismantled, and the master of Penrhyn so heavily fined, that one by one his broad lands melted away, and were lost by his attachment to the Catholic faith.”

“And Lucy?” asked Isabel; “your tale is worth nothing without her.”

“Oh, Lucy was our saviour. She married the young heir of Penrhyn, inherited the estates of Coetmore, and they passed to us.”

“And the old priest—what was Father Guy’s fate, Enrico? Do you know?”

“Indeed, yes. His was a curious one. The country I speak of is now a populous neighbourhood. A large watering place has sprung up there, and the white houses and terraces of Llandudno replace the fishermen’s huts of St Tudno’s time; but few who go there now either know of or care for the curious deeds of the past.

“The ‘Wyvern,’ the cutter which had brought the Irish Catholics from the Isle of Man, still lay in the bay under the shelter of the little Orme.

“It is a curious spot, Isabel, and has a beautiful pebbly beach; the water is deep, and the Orme falls in one sheer sweep into the sea there, so that when the wind is from the north and east, the waves strike its base, and the foam flies scores of yards up its sides. A mass of rock has tumbled down, and lies in picturesque confusion in the centre of the bay. There are strange caves and holes in the rocks, and when the cutter sailed all supposed the priest had gone too.

“Days passed, and quiet crept again over the grand old land of Creuddyn.”

“You speak as if you like the country, Enrico?”

“And so I do,” replied Hughes, warmly. “I was born among its fine old mountains, and I love its old-fashioned, brave, honest-hearted race; but to continue. Days had passed when some fishermen at sea noticed a spiral wreath of smoke issuing from the face of the lesser Orme.