Chapter Fifty Five.
Thou art perfect, then, that our ship hath touched upon the deserts of Bohemia?
Ay, my lord and fear we have landed in ill time.
Winter’s Tale.
About midnight the moon burst through the clouds, which gradually rolled away to the western horizon, as if they had been furled by some invisible spirits in the air. The wind, after several feeble gusts, like the last breathings of some expiring creature unwilling to loosen the “silver cord,” subsided to a calm. It then shifted round to the eastward. The waves relaxed in their force until they did little more than play upon the side of the wreck, so lately the object of their fury. The dark shadows of the rocks were no longer relieved by the white foam of the surf, which had raged among them with such violence. Before morning all was calm, and the survivors, as they shrunk and shivered in their wet garments, encouraged each other with the prospect of a speedy termination to their sufferings on the reappearance of daylight. The sun rose in splendour, and seemed, as he darted his searching rays through the cloudless expanse, to exclaim in his pride, “Behold how I bring light and heat, joy and salvation, to you, late despairing creatures!” The rocks of the reef above water, which had previously been a source of horror, and had been contemplated as the sure engines of their destruction, were now joyfully reckoned as so many resting-spots for those who were about to attempt to reach the land.
The most daring and expert swimmers launched themselves into the water, and made for the nearest cluster of rocks, with difficulty gaining a footing on them, after clinging by the dark and slippery sea-weed which covered their tops, like shaggy hair on the heads of so many emerging giants. The waving of the hands of the party who had succeeded in gaining the rocks, encouraged a second to follow; while others, who could not swim, were busily employed in searching for the means of supporting themselves in the water, and floating themselves on shore. Self, that had predominated, now lost its ground. Those who had allowed their shipmates to perish in attempting to gain the same place of security as themselves, without an effort in their favour, or one sigh for their unlucky fate, now that hope was revived almost to a certainty of deliverance, showed as much interest in the preservation of others lying in a state of exhaustion, as they did for their own. The remaining officers recovered their authority, which had been disregarded, and the shattered fragment of the Aspasia reassumed their rights of discipline and obedience to the last. In a few hours, sick, disabled, and wounded were all safely landed, and the raft which had been constructed returned to the wreck, to bring on shore whatever might be useful.
Our hero, who was the only officer who had been saved, with the exception of the boatswain, had taken upon himself the command, and occupied himself with the arrangements necessary for the shelter and sustenance of his men. A range of barren hills, abruptly rising from the iron-bound coast, covered with large fragments and detached pieces of rock, without any symptom of cultivation, or any domesticated animal in sight which might imply that human aid was not far distant, met the eye of Seymour, as he directed it to every point, in hopes of succour for his wounded and exhausted companions. One of the men, whom he had sent to reconnoitre, returned in a few minutes, stating, that behind a jutting rock, which he pointed to with his finger, not two hundred yards distant, he had discovered a hut, or what in Ireland is termed a shealing, and that there appeared to be a bridle road from it leading over the mountain. To this shelter our hero determined to remove his disabled men, and in company with the boatswain and the man who had returned with the intelligence, set off to examine the spot. Passing the rock, he perceived that the hut, which bore every sign, from its smokeless chimney and air of negligence and decay, to have been some time deserted, stood upon a piece of ground, about an acre in extent, which had once been cultivated, but was now luxuriant with a spontaneous crop of weeds and thistles. He approached the entrance, and as the rude door creaked upon its hinges when he threw it open, was saluted by a faint voice, which cried, “Qui va là?”
“Why there’s Irishmen inside,” observed the sailor.
“Frenchmen rather, I should imagine,” replied our hero, as he entered and discovered seven or eight of the unfortunate survivors of the French line-of-battle ship, who had crawled there, bruised, cut, and apparently in the last state of exhaustion.
“Bonjour, camarade,” said one of them, with difficulty raising himself on his elbow—“As-tu d’eau-de-vie?”
“I am afraid not,” replied Seymour, looking with compassion on the group, all of which had their eyes directed towards him, although, from their wounds and bruises, they were not able to turn their bodies. “We are shipwrecked as well as you.”
“What! did you belong to that cursed frigate?”
“We did,” replied Seymour, “and there are but few of us alive to tell the tale.”
“Vive la France!” cried the Frenchman; “puisqu’elle n’a pas échappée—je n’ai plus des regrets.”
“Viva, viva!” repeated the rest of the French party, in faint accents.
“Et moi, je meurs content!” murmured one, who, in a few seconds afterwards expired.
“Are you the only survivors?” demanded Seymour.
“All that are left,” replied the spokesman of the party, “out of eight hundred and fifty men. Sacristie—as-tu d’eau-de-vie?”
“I hardly know what we have—something has been saved from the wreck,” replied Seymour, “and shall cheerfully be shared with you with all the assistance we can afford. We were enemies, but we are now brothers in affliction. I must quit you to bring up our wounded men; there is sufficient room, I perceive, for all of us. Adieu, pour le moment!”
“Savez-vous que c’est un brave garçon ce lieutenant-là?” observed the Frenchman to his companions, as Seymour and his party quitted the hut.
Seymour returned to the beach, and, collecting his men, found the survivors to consist of forty-four seamen and marines, the boatswain and himself. Of these, fifteen were helpless, from wounds and fractured limbs. The articles which had been collected were a variety of spars and fragments of wood, some of the small sails which had been triced up in the rigging, one or two casks of beef and pork, and a puncheon of rum, which had miraculously steered its course between the breakers, and had been landed without injury. The sails which had been spread out to dry, were first carried up to form a bed for the sick and wounded, who, in the space of an hour, were all made as comfortable as circumstances would admit, a general bed having been made on the floor of the hut, upon which they and the wounded Frenchmen shared the sails between them. The spars and fragments were then brought up, and a fire made in the long deserted hearth, while another was lighted outside for the men to dry their clothes. The cask of rum was rolled up to the door, and a portion, mixed with the water from a rill that trickled down the sides of the adjacent mountain, served out to the exhausted parties. The seamen, stripping off their clothes, and spreading them out to dry before the fire which had been made outside, collected into the hut to shield their naked bodies from the inclemency of the weather.
The spirits, which had been supplied with caution to the survivors of the French vessel, had been eagerly seized by the one who had first addressed our hero, and in half an hour he seemed to be quite revived. He rose, and after trying his limbs, by moving slowly to and fro, gradually recovered the entire use of them; and by the time that the circulation of his blood had been thoroughly restored by a second dose of spirits, appeared to have little to complain of. He was a powerful, well-looking man, with a large head, covered with a profusion of shaggy hair. Seymour looked at him earnestly, and thought he could not well be mistaken, long as it was since they had been in company.
“Excuse me—but I think we once met at Cherbourg. Is not your name Debriseau?”
“Sacristie!” replied the Frenchman, seizing himself by the hair, “je suis connu! And who are you?”
“Oh! now I’m sure it’s you,” replied Seymour, laughing—“that’s your old trick—do you not recollect the boy that Captain McElvina took off the wreck?”
“Ah mon ami—Seymour, I believe—midshipman, I believe,” cried Debriseau. “Est-ce donc vous? Mais, mon Dieu, que c’est drôle” (again pulling his hair as he grinded his teeth) “Un diable de rencontre!”
“And how is it that you have been on board of a French man-of-war?”
“How! oh, I was unlucky after McElvina went away, and I thought, on reflection, notwithstanding his arguments, that it was a dishonest sort of concern. Being pretty well acquainted with the coasts, I shipped on board as pilot.”
“But, Debriseau, are you not a native of Guernsey, which is part of the British dominions?”
“Bah! it’s all one, mon ami; we islanders are like the bat in the fable—beast or bird, as it suits us—we belong to either country. For my own part, I have a strong national affection for both.”
The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of the boatswain, who had remained outside, in charge of the cask of rum, upon which he had seated himself occupied with his Bible. “Here’s assistance coming, Mr Seymour. There’s at least twenty or thirty men descending the hill.”
“Hurrah for old Ireland! they are the boys that will look after a friend in distress,” shouted Conolly, one of the seamen, who thus eulogised his own countrymen, as he hung naked over the fire.