“Whether Spanish or any other ship, we’ll try what brave hearts and stout hands can do to help the unfortunates on board her,” said the fine old seaman, Captain Maitland, as he hurried out of the house. “Here, Sandy Neill, Davie Borthwick,—here, lads!” he shouted, and two stout seafaring-looking men employed on his farm came running up. “There’s a ship ashore, or likely soon to be, and you’ll be ready to follow me, not to wreck and to plunder, but to save life, if so we can.”
Both Sandy and Davie agreed to do whatever the captain wished, and Morton’s own crew were also quickly collected. Before setting out they provided themselves with such coils of rope and long spars as the captain’s store could provide. Morton and his friend, armed with stout sticks and coats buttoned up, followed by their men, set out with the fierce gale blowing in their teeth, on their errand of mercy.
Chapter Nine.
Navie Grind described—The Wreck on shore—The Ship Dashed to Pieces—The Rescued.
Navis Grind, or Navie Grind, the point towards which Morton and his friend directed their steps, is a high cliff forming the extreme western point of that part of Shetland called North Maven, and thus stands out prominently into the Atlantic Ocean, some way to the south of Ronas Hill. A short way off from it, due west, like the advanced sentry of an outpost, is the small rocky islet of Ossa Skerry, but this in no way breaks the force of the seas as they rush impetuously onward from far far away across the ocean. It seems, on the contrary, to have the effect of uniting the strength of two seas in one, and of impelling them with double vehemence against the bold cliff which confronts their fury. Solid as is the rock of which the cliff is composed, it has in the course of ages been rent away, quarried out as it were; huge blocks, many of several tons weight, being cast far away inland, while the whole ground, for two or three hundred yards from the edge of the cliff, is strewed with fragments of lesser size, so that the rocks present more the appearance of the ruins of some vast edifice, than, as they really are, masses hove there by the operation of one of nature’s most potent agents. At length the sea has worked a deep chasm in the cliff, and each successive storm seems to dig out and force upward a fresh layer of rock. As the party approached this spot, so wild and desolate at all times, but doubly so now, the seas, dark, towering, and topped with crests of foam, came rolling onward in quick succession, with a fierceness which seemed irresistible, till, meeting the cliff, they rushed upwards in dense masses, making the very ground shake with the concussion. Now a sea, fiercer than its forerunners, would tear away a huge fragment of rock, and throw it into the air as if it had been projected from the mouth of a volcano, or send it rolling along the down, making it dangerous to approach the spot; and, while dense sheets of spray obscured the view seaward, the great body of water was thrown back in a continuous cascade, increasing the tumult of the foaming caldron which raged below.
“It was near this wild place that Lawrence Brindister obtained that strange dog of his,” said Captain Maitland to Morton. “It was the only living creature washed ashore from the wreck of a large ship—a foreigner, we could not ascertain of what nation. While others were engaged in picking up the treasures they could find, he, at no little risk to his own life, assisted the poor animal, who was sadly battered by the fragments of wreck, and exhausted by swimming to land. The creature looked up into his face, licked his hand, and, from that moment, claimed him as his master, and would follow no one else. See, there he stands; I fear he is to-day in one of his maddest fits.”
The captain pointed, as he spoke, to the top of a high rocky mount which overlooked the sea. Lawrence Brindister, with his two dumb animals by his side, was there seen gesticulating wildly, waving his hand towards the ocean, and shouting apparently with his utmost strength. The roar of the waters, however, as they were hurled against the cliff, added to the howling of the tempest, created a noise so deafening that even the two seamen, accustomed even in the hurricane to make their voices heard, could with difficulty hear each other speak.
Their first glance, as they came in sight of the sea, was in search of the ship of which Lawrence had told them.