Chapter IV: The Squall

How different is the scene that I have now to tell from that
which has just been told! Gone are the quiet college rooms, gone
the wind-swayed English elms, the cawing rooks, and the familiar
volumes on the shelves, and in their place there rises a vision
of the great calm ocean gleaming in shaded silver lights beneath
the beams of the full African moon. A gentle breeze fills the
huge sail of our dhow, and draws us through the water that
ripples musically against her sides. Most of the men are sleeping
forward, for it is near midnight, but a stout swarthy Arab,
Mahomed by name, stands at the tiller, lazily steering by the
stars. Three miles or more to our starboard is a low dim line. It
is the Eastern shore of Central Africa. We are running to the
southward, before the North East Monsoon, between the mainland
and the reef that for hundreds of miles fringes this perilous
coast. The night is quiet, so quiet that a whisper can be heard
fore and aft the dhow; so quiet that a faint booming sound rolls
across the water to us from the distant land.

The Arab at the tiller holds up his hand, and says one
word:—“_Simba_ (lion)!”

We all sit up and listen. Then it comes again, a slow, majestic
sound, that thrills us to the marrow.

“To-morrow by ten o’clock,” I say, “we ought, if the Captain is
not out in his reckoning, which I think very probable, to make
this mysterious rock with a man’s head, and begin our shooting.”

“And begin our search for the ruined city and the Fire of Life,”
corrected Leo, taking his pipe from his mouth, and laughing a
little.

“Nonsense!” I answered. “You were airing your Arabic with that
man at the tiller this afternoon. What did he tell you? He has
been trading (slave-trading, probably) up and down these
latitudes for half of his iniquitous life, and once landed on
this very ‘man’ rock. Did he ever hear anything of the ruined
city or the caves?”

“No,” answered Leo. “He says that the country is all swamp
behind, and full of snakes, especially pythons, and game, and
that no man lives there. But then there is a belt of swamp all
along the East African coast, so that does not go for much.”

“Yes,” I said, “it does—it goes for malaria. You see what sort of
an opinion these gentry have of the country. Not one of them will
go with us. They think that we are mad, and upon my word I
believe that they are right. If ever we see old England again I
shall be astonished. However, it does not greatly matter to me at
my age, but I am anxious for you, Leo, and for Job. It’s a Tom
Fool’s business, my boy.”

“All right, Uncle Horace. So far as I am concerned, I am willing
to take my chance. Look! What is that cloud?” and he pointed to a
dark blotch upon the starry sky, some miles astern of us.

“Go and ask the man at the tiller,” I said.

He rose, stretched his arms, and went. Presently he returned.

“He says it is a squall, but it will pass far on one side of us.”

Just then Job came up, looking very stout and English in his
shooting-suit of brown flannel, and with a sort of perplexed
appearance upon his honest round face that had been very common
with him since he got into these strange waters.

“Please, sir,” he said, touching his sun hat, which was stuck on
to the back of his head in a somewhat ludicrous fashion, “as we
have got all those guns and things in the whale-boat astern, to
say nothing of the provisions in the lockers, I think it would be
best if I got down and slept in her. I don’t like the looks”
(here he dropped his voice to a portentous whisper) “of these
black gentry; they have such a wonderful thievish way about them.
Supposing now that some of them were to slip into the boat at
night and cut the cable, and make off with her? That would be a
pretty go, that would.”

The whale-boat, I may explain, was one specially built for us at
Dundee, in Scotland. We had brought it with us, as we knew that
this coast was a network of creeks, and that we might require
something to navigate them with. She was a beautiful boat,
thirty-feet in length, with a centre-board for sailing,
copper-bottomed to keep the worm out of her, and full of
water-tight compartments. The Captain of the dhow had told us
that when we reached the rock, which he knew, and which appeared
to be identical with the one described upon the sherd and by
Leo’s father, he would probably not be able to run up to it on
account of the shallows and breakers. Therefore we had employed
three hours that very morning, whilst we were totally becalmed,
the wind having dropped at sunrise, in transferring most of our
goods and chattels to the whale-boat, and placing the guns,
ammunition, and preserved provisions in the water-tight lockers
specially prepared for them, so that when we did sight the fabled
rock we should have nothing to do but step into the boat, and run
her ashore. Another reason that induced us to take this
precautionary step was that Arab captains are apt to run past the
point that they are making, either from carelessness or owing to
a mistake in its identity. Now, as sailors know, it is quite
impossible for a dhow which is only rigged to run before the
monsoon to beat back against it. Therefore we got our boat ready
to row for the rock at any moment.

“Well, Job,” I said, “perhaps it would be as well. There are lots
of blankets there, only be careful to keep out of the moon, or it
may turn your head or blind you.”

“Lord, sir! I don’t think it would much matter if it did; it is
that turned already with the sight of these blackamoors and their
filthy, thieving ways. They are only fit for muck, they are; and
they smell bad enough for it already.”

Job, it will be perceived, was no admirer of the manners and
customs of our dark-skinned brothers.

Accordingly we hauled up the boat by the tow-rope till it was
right under the stern of the dhow, and Job bundled into her with
all the grace of a falling sack of potatoes. Then we returned and
sat down on the deck again, and smoked and talked in little gusts
and jerks. The night was so lovely, and our brains were so full
of suppressed excitement of one sort and another, that we did not
feel inclined to turn in. For nearly an hour we sat thus, and
then, I think, we both dozed off. At least I have a faint
recollection of Leo sleepily explaining that the head was not a
bad place to hit a buffalo, if you could catch him exactly
between the horns, or send your bullet down his throat, or some
nonsense of the sort.

Then I remember no more; till suddenly—a frightful roar of wind,
a shriek of terror from the awakening crew, and a whip-like sting
of water in our faces. Some of the men ran to let go the
haulyards and lower the sail, but the parrel jammed and the yard
would not come down. I sprang to my feet and hung on to a rope.
The sky aft was dark as pitch, but the moon still shone brightly
ahead of us and lit up the blackness. Beneath its sheen a huge
white-topped breaker, twenty feet high or more, was rushing on to
us. It was on the break—the moon shone on its crest and tipped
its foam with light. On it rushed beneath the inky sky, driven by
the awful squall behind it. Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye,
I saw the black shape of the whale-boat cast high into the air on
the crest of the breaking wave. Then—a shock of water, a wild
rush of boiling foam, and I was clinging for my life to the
shroud, ay, swept straight out from it like a flag in a gale.

We were pooped.

The wave passed. It seemed to me that I was under water for
minutes—really it was seconds. I looked forward. The blast had
torn out the great sail, and high in the air it was fluttering
away to leeward like a huge wounded bird. Then for a moment there
was comparative calm, and in it I heard Job’s voice yelling
wildly, “Come here to the boat.”

Bewildered and half-drowned as I was, I had the sense to rush
aft. I felt the dhow sinking under me—she was full of water.
Under her counter the whale-boat was tossing furiously, and I saw
the Arab Mahomed, who had been steering, leap into her. I gave
one desperate pull at the tow-rope to bring the boat alongside.
Wildly I sprang also, Job caught me by the arm and I rolled into
the bottom of the boat. Down went the dhow bodily, and as she did
so Mahomed drew his curved knife and severed the fibre-rope by
which we were fast to her, and in another second we were driving
before the storm over the place where the dhow had been.

“Great God!” I shrieked, “where is Leo? _Leo! Leo!_”

“He’s gone, sir, God help him!” roared Job into my ear; and such
was the fury of the squall that his voice sounded like a whisper.

I wrung my hands in agony. Leo was drowned, and I was left alive
to mourn him.

“Look out,” yelled Job; “here comes another.”

I turned; a second huge wave was overtaking us. I half hoped that
it would drown me. With a curious fascination I watched its awful
advent. The moon was nearly hidden now by the wreaths of the
rushing storm, but a little light still caught the crest of the
devouring breaker. There was something dark on it—a piece of
wreckage. It was on us now, and the boat was nearly full of
water. But she was built in air-tight compartments—Heaven bless
the man who invented them!—and lifted up through it like a swan.
Through the foam and turmoil I saw the black thing on the wave
hurrying right at me. I put out my right arm to ward it from me,
and my hand closed on another arm, the wrist of which my fingers
gripped like a vice. I am a very strong man, and had something to
hold to, but my arm was nearly torn from its socket by the strain
and weight of the floating body. Had the rush lasted another two
seconds I might either have let go or gone with it. But it
passed, leaving us up to our knees in water.

“Bail out! bail out!” shouted Job, suiting the action to the
word.

But I could not bail just then, for as the moon went out and left
us in total darkness, one faint, flying ray of light lit upon the
face of the man I had gripped, who was now half lying, half
floating in the bottom of the boat.

It was Leo. Leo brought back by the wave—back, dead or alive,
from the very jaws of Death.

“Bail out! bail out!” yelled Job, “or we shall founder.”

I seized a large tin bowl with a handle to it, which was fixed
under one of the seats, and the three of us bailed away for dear
life. The furious tempest drove over and round us, flinging the
boat this way and that, the wind and the storm wreaths and the
sheets of stinging spray blinded and bewildered us, but through
it all we worked like demons with the wild exhilaration of
despair, for even despair can exhilarate. One minute! three
minutes! six minutes! The boat began to lighten, and no fresh
wave swamped us. Five minutes more, and she was fairly clear.
Then, suddenly, above the awful shriekings of the hurricane came
a duller, deeper roar. Great Heavens! It was the voice of
breakers!

At that moment the moon began to shine forth again—this time
behind the path of the squall. Out far across the torn bosom of
the ocean shot the ragged arrows of her light, and there, half a
mile ahead of us, was a white line of foam, then a little space
of open-mouthed blackness, and then another line of white. It was
the breakers, and their roar grew clearer and yet more clear as
we sped down upon them like a swallow. There they were, boiling
up in snowy spouts of spray, smiting and gnashing together like
the gleaming teeth of hell.

“Take the tiller, Mahomed!” I roared in Arabic. “We must try and
shoot them.” At the same moment I seized an oar, and got it out,
motioning to Job to do likewise.

Mahomed clambered aft, and got hold of the tiller, and with some
difficulty Job, who had sometimes pulled a tub upon the homely
Cam, got out his oar. In another minute the boat’s head was
straight on to the ever-nearing foam, towards which she plunged
and tore with the speed of a racehorse. Just in front of us the
first line of breakers seemed a little thinner than to the right
or left—there was a cap of rather deeper water. I turned and
pointed to it.

“Steer for your life, Mahomed!” I yelled. He was a skilful
steersman, and well acquainted with the dangers of this most
perilous coast, and I saw him grip the tiller, bend his heavy
frame forward, and stare at the foaming terror till his big round
eyes looked as though they would start out of his head. The send
of the sea was driving the boat’s head round to starboard. If we
struck the line of breakers fifty yards to starboard of the gap
we must sink. It was a great field of twisting, spouting waves.
Mahomed planted his foot against the seat before him, and,
glancing at him, I saw his brown toes spread out like a hand with
the weight he put upon them as he took the strain of the tiller.
She came round a bit, but not enough. I roared to Job to back
water, whilst I dragged and laboured at my oar. She answered now,
and none too soon.

Heavens, we were in them! And then followed a couple of minutes
of heart-breaking excitement such as I cannot hope to describe.
All that I remember is a shrieking sea of foam, out of which the
billows rose here, there, and everywhere like avenging ghosts
from their ocean grave. Once we were turned right round, but
either by chance, or through Mahomed’s skilful steering, the
boat’s head came straight again before a breaker filled us. One
more—a monster. We were through it or over it—more through than
over—and then, with a wild yell of exultation from the Arab, we
shot out into the comparative smooth water of the mouth of sea
between the teeth-like lines of gnashing waves.

But we were nearly full of water again, and not more than half a
mile ahead was the second line of breakers. Again we set to and
bailed furiously. Fortunately the storm had now quite gone by,
and the moon shone brightly, revealing a rocky headland running
half a mile or more out into the sea, of which this second line
of breakers appeared to be a continuation. At any rate, they
boiled around its foot. Probably the ridge that formed the
headland ran out into the ocean, only at a lower level, and made
the reef also. This headland was terminated by a curious peak
that seemed not to be more than a mile away from us. Just as we
got the boat pretty clear for the second time, Leo, to my immense
relief, opened his eyes and remarked that the clothes had tumbled
off the bed, and that he supposed it was time to get up for
chapel. I told him to shut his eyes and keep quiet, which he did
without in the slightest degree realizing the position. As for
myself, his reference to chapel made me reflect, with a sort of
sick longing, on my comfortable rooms at Cambridge. Why had I
been such a fool as to leave them? This is a reflection that has
several times recurred to me since, and with an ever-increasing
force.

But now again we were drifting down on the breakers, though with
lessened speed, for the wind had fallen, and only the current or
the tide (it afterwards turned out to be the tide) was driving
us.

Another minute, and with a sort of howl to Allah from the Arab, a
pious ejaculation from myself, and something that was not pious
from Job, we were in them. And then the whole scene, down to our
final escape, repeated itself, only not quite so violently.
Mahomed’s skilful steering and the air-tight compartments saved
our lives. In five minutes we were through, and drifting—for we
were too exhausted to do anything to help ourselves except keep
her head straight—with the most startling rapidity round the
headland which I have described.

Round we went with the tide, until we got well under the lee of
the point, and then suddenly the speed slackened, we ceased to
make way, and finally appeared to be in dead water. The storm had
entirely passed, leaving a clean-washed sky behind it; the
headland intercepted the heavy sea that had been occasioned by
the squall, and the tide, which had been running so fiercely up
the river (for we were now in the mouth of a river), was sluggish
before it turned, so we floated quietly, and before the moon went
down managed to bail out the boat thoroughly and get her a little
ship-shape. Leo was sleeping profoundly, and on the whole I
thought it wise not to wake him. It was true he was sleeping in
wet clothes, but the night was now so warm that I thought (and so
did Job) that they were not likely to injure a man of his
unusually vigorous constitution. Besides, we had no dry ones at
hand.

Presently the moon went down, and left us floating on the waters,
now only heaving like some troubled woman’s breast, with leisure
to reflect upon all that we had gone through and all that we had
escaped. Job stationed himself at the bow, Mahomed kept his post
at the tiller, and I sat on a seat in the middle of the boat
close to where Leo was lying.

The moon went slowly down in chastened loveliness; she departed
like some sweet bride into her chamber, and long veil-like
shadows crept up the sky through which the stars peeped shyly
out. Soon, however, they too began to pale before a splendour in
the east, and then the quivering footsteps of the dawn came
rushing across the new-born blue, and shook the high stars from
their places. Quieter and yet more quiet grew the sea, quiet as
the soft mist that brooded on her bosom, and covered up her
troubling, as the illusive wreaths of sleep brood upon a
pain-racked mind, causing it to forget its sorrow. From the east
to the west sped the angels of the Dawn, from sea to sea, from
mountain-top to mountain-top, scattering light with both their
hands. On they sped out of the darkness, perfect, glorious, like
spirits of the just breaking from the tomb; on, over the quiet
sea, over the low coastline, and the swamps beyond, and the
mountains above them; over those who slept in peace and those who
woke in sorrow; over the evil and the good; over the living and
the dead; over the wide world and all that breathes or has
breathed thereon.

It was a wonderfully beautiful sight, and yet sad, perhaps, from
the very excess of its beauty. The arising sun; the setting sun!
There we have the symbol and the type of humanity, and all things
with which humanity has to do. The symbol and the type, yes, and
the earthly beginning, and the end also. And on that morning this
came home to me with a peculiar force. The sun that rose to-day
for us had set last night for eighteen of our
fellow-voyagers!—had set everlastingly for eighteen whom we knew!

The dhow had gone down with them, they were tossing about among
the rocks and seaweed, so much human drift on the great ocean of
Death! And we four were saved. But one day a sunrise will come
when we shall be among those who are lost, and then others will
watch those glorious rays, and grow sad in the midst of beauty,
and dream of Death in the full glow of arising Life!

For this is the lot of man.