'Gentlemen! gentlemen!' cried he, 'turn out—breakers are ahead! Mac Innon—-Mac Pherson—Major, on deck—on deck, for heaven's sake; the ship will strike in ten minutes!'
The appalling announcement brought every officer from his cabin in such garments as he could grasp and don on the instant; and we hurried to the poop. It was only by clinging to the rail and stanchions that we could retain our footing on the lofty poop, over which the white foam was sweeping. The waist seemed full of water; the strong cordage bent or snapped, and streamed about like whipcord; the foresail, main-topsail, and gib strained and flapped like thunder, for the ship would not obey her helm; four men stood by the wheel, and a chaos of darkness, water, foam, noise, and uproar, were around me; and I had no distinct impression of anything, but that our large ship, borne by the stormy wind and furious current, with all her deck crowded by human beings, was drifting, at the rate of nine knots an hour, towards a line of foam ahead, that marked where the breakers curled on the beach. But what beach—whether it was the classic shore of Roumelia, of Asia Minor, the Isle of Marmora, or the rocks of Coudouri, we knew not, for the binnacle, with its compasses, had been swept away by a wave which made a clean breach over the ship about midnight, sweeping three men away, with the poor middy of the watch.
The black sky was moonless and starless.
I looked upon Major Catanagh, who stood near me shivering, half clad and clinging to a timber-head, his grey hair matted to his face by the drifting spray. Old Duncan was brave as a lion; but he was a husband—he was a father, and from the wild black tumult of the waves that boiled around us—
'His eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away,'
in a little cottage half buried among roses and woodbine, on the western bank of Loch Lomond, where, at that hour so terrible to him, his poor wife lay perhaps sleepless on her pillow, listening to the wind that soughed round the craigs of Ross Dhu, and thinking of him, with their little ones hushed in dreamless slumber around her. Poor Duncan's softer soul was stirred within him. His face was pale; his eyes were stern and sad; and if his spirit quailed in that awful hour, it was not with fear, for he had faced death on many a field.
Those and those only who have been in such a place, where every wave swept some brave soul into eternity, and where every gust of wind bore the cry of despair and the knell of death, can tell what Catanagh felt; and I read his thoughts rightly, for he turned to me abruptly, and warmly pressing my hand, said,—
'Thank heaven, Allan, that you have none left behind you to love or to regret—none to weep for you! no wife to leave to the starvation of a widow's pension—no puir wee ones to cast upon a cold and faithless world!'
I thought more of Laura than of this thankfulness; and as my heart swelled with the bitter knowledge that my fate might never be regretted, all fear and anxiety died away within it. I became totally indifferent, and felt myself really the only unconcerned spectator present.
Callum Dhu having sprung to my side, threw his strong arm round me, as if to break the force of the waves which every instant flooded the deck; several soldiers followed him, and came crowding on the poop, for as death seemed before us, discipline and etiquette seemed alike to be forgotten.