* The Leonora carried four guns.
I learnt afterwards that the crash was caused by the two guns on the starboard side taking a run to port, and carrying away the port ones with them over the side through the bulwarks.{*} The long-boat was washed overboard by the same sea, but half a dozen of our Rotumah Island sailors had jumped overboard after her, and, using canoe paddles, saved her from being dashed on the reef. She was soon brought alongside, fully manned, and awaiting Hayes's orders.
The captain now called to me to stand by to take charge of her, when a second fearful sea came over the waist, and fairly buried the ship, and Hung, the Chinese carpenter and myself were only saved from going overboard, by being entangled in the falls of one of the quarter-boats. As for the long-boat, it was swept away out of sight, but succeeded in reaching the shore safely, with the loss of one man.
By this time the seas were breaking over the brig with terrible force, and when they came over the bows they swept her flush decks like a torrent. Presently she gave such a terrible roll to port that we thought she was going over altogether, and the third mate reported that six four-hundred-gallon water tanks, which were stored in the 'tween decks amidships, had gone adrift to the port side. Then Hayes told the carpenter to cut away the masts. A few slashes at the rigging, and a couple of snicks at the spars themselves, sent the sticks over the side quick enough; the brig stood up again and rode easier.
Meanwhile, the boat of one of the traders named Terry—an old ex-man-of-war's man—had come off, manned by half a dozen of his stalwart half-caste sons, and although it was still pitch dark, and the din of the gale sounded like fifty railway locomotives whistling in unison, and the brig was only revealed to the brave fellows by the white light of the foam-whipped sea, they ran the boat under the counter, and stood by while a number of women and children jumped, or were pitched overboard, to them. These were quickly rescued, and then that boat, too, vanished.
Again the wind lulled for about five minutes, and Hayes and old Harry Terry urged the rest of the remaining women to jump overboard and make for the shore, as the brig's decks were now awash, and every third or fourth sea swept along her, fore and aft, with irresistible force. One woman—a stout, powerfully-built native of Ocean Island—whose infant child was lashed to her naked back with bands of coir cinnet, rushed up to the captain, and crying, 'Kâpeni, ka maté a maté '—('Captain, if I die, I die')—put her arms round his neck, rubbed noses with him, and leaped over the stern rail into the seething surf. She was found the next morning lying dead on a little beach, having bled to death from the wounds she had received from the jagged coral rocks, but the baby was alive, for with her dying hands the poor creature had placed it under shelter, and covered it over with grass and leaves, where it was found, sleeping soundly, by a native sailor.
There was not now the slightest hope of saving the ship, unless the sea went down; and Hayes, who was as cool as if he were taking his morning coffee, told the rest of the crew, who were now all gathered together aft, to get ashore the best way they could. Three of the white traders were still aboard, awaiting the return of their boats, which, manned by their faithful Pleasant Islanders, we now and again could dimly discern, as they appeared on the summit of the heaving seas, waiting for a chance to pull up astern and rescue their masters.
There were still two chests full of valuables in the main cabin to be got on deck, and Lalia (sweet Lalia), the young woman of whom I have before spoken, although her husband had gone ashore, refused to jump to the boats, and said she would stay and help us to save them.
'Go, ashore, Lalia. Go to your husband,' said Hayes, sternly pushing her to the stern rail; 'he is an old man, and cannot come off again in his boat for you. Perhaps he is drowned.'
The girl laughed and said it was all the better—she would get another and a younger husband; she would stay with the men on board and not swim ashore with the old women. Then she ran below. In a few minutes she reappeared, with a fine powerful Pleasant Island native named Karta, carrying our Chinese steward, who was paralysed with drink and terror. Hayes took the man up in his arms and, seeing one of the boats close to, threw him overboard without further ado. Then Lalia and I again went below for another of the boxes, and, aided by Karta, we had got it half-way up the companion ladder when the brig rose her stern high to a mountain sea, and then came down with a terrific crash on to a coral boulder, ripping her rudder from the stern post, and sending it clean through the deck. Lalia fell backwards into the cabin, and the heavy chest slipped down on the top of her, crushing her left foot cruelly against the companion lining, and jamming her slender body underneath. Karta and myself tried hard to free the poor tortured girl, but without avail, and then some of our Rotumah Island sailors, hearing our cries for help, ran down, and by our united exertions, we got her clear, put her in the steward's bunk—as she had fainted—and lugged the chest on deck.