This was written on the 4th of June; on the 8th their fishing-net was torn to pieces by blocks of drifting ice. On the 28th Badcock died, begging his comrades to sing a hymn to him in
his last moments. In August, Gardiner, hitherto the healthiest, was obliged to take to his bed in the Pioneer, and there heard of the death of Erwin on the 23rd of August, and of Bryant on the 27th. Maidment buried them both, and came back to Captain Gardiner, who, as he lay in bed, had continued his journal, and written his farewell letters to his wife and children. Hitherto, the stores of food had been eked out by mussels and wild celery, but there was now no one to search for them. Gardiner, wishing to save Maidment the journeys to and fro, determined to try to reach the Speedwell, and Maidment cut two forked sticks to serve as crutches, but the Captain found himself too weak for the walk, and had to return. This was on the 30th of August. On Sunday, the 31st, there is no record in the diary, but the markers stand in his Prayer-book at the Psalms for the day and the Collect for the Sunday. On the 3rd of September, Maidment was so much exhausted that he could not leave his bed till noon, and Gardiner never saw him again. He must have died in the Pioneer cavern, being unable to return. The diary continues five days longer. A little peppermint-water had been left by the solitary sufferer’s bed, and a little fresh water he also managed to scoop up from the sides of the boat in an india-rubber shoe. This was all the sustenance he had. On the 6th of September he wrote—“Yet a little while, and through grace we may join that blessed throng to sing the praises of Christ throughout eternity. I neither hunger nor thirst, though five days without food! Marvellous loving-kindness to me, a sinner. Your affectionate brother in Christ,—Allen F. Gardiner.”
These last words were in a letter to Williams. He must afterwards have left the boat, perhaps to catch more water, and have been too weak to climb back into it, for his remains were on the beach. Williams lost the power of writing sooner, and no more is known of his end, though probably he died first, and Pearce must have been trying to prepare his grave when he, too, sank.
What words can befit this piteous history better than “This is the patience of the saints”?
The memorial to Allen Gardiner has been a mission-ship bearing his name, with her head-quarters at the Falkland Isles. We believe that these isles are to become a Bishop’s See. Assuredly a branch of the Church should spring up where the seed of so patient and devoted a martyrdom has been sown.
CHAPTER XI. CHARLES FREDERICK MACKENZIE, THE MARTYR OF THE ZAMBESI.
That Zulu country where poor Allen Gardiner had made his first attempt became doubly interesting to the English when the adjoining district of Natal became a British colony. It fell under the superintendence of Bishop Robert Gray, of Capetown, who still lives and labours, and therefore cannot be here spoken of; and mainly by his exertions it was formed into a separate Episcopal See in the year 1853. Most of the actors in the founding of the Church of Natal are still living, but there are some of whom it can truly be said that—
“Death hath moulded into calm completeness
The statue of their life.”
Charles Frederick Mackenzie was born in 1825 of an old Scottish Tory family, members from the first of the Scottish Church in the days of her persecution. His father, Colin Mackenzie, was one of Walter Scott’s fellow-Clerks of Session, and is commemorated by one of the Introductions to “Marmion,” as—
“He whose absence we deplore,
Who breathes the gales of Devon’s shore;
The longer missed, bewailed the more.”