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Kitabı oku: «Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune», sayfa 23

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CHAPTER XXX. SCENE IN THE ROYAL BARRACKS

It would afford me little pleasure to write, and doubtless my readers less to read, my lucubrations as I journeyed along towards Dublin. My thoughts seldom turned from myself and my own fortunes, nor were they cheered by the scene through which I travelled. The season was a backward and wet one, and the fields, partly from this cause, and partly from the people being engaged in the late struggle, lay untilled and neglected. Groups of idle, lounging peasants stood in the villages, or loitered on the highroads as we passed, sad, ragged-looking, and wretched. They seemed as if they had no heart to resume their wonted life of labour, but were waiting for some calamity to close their miserable existence. Strongly in contrast with this were the air and bearing of the yeomanry and militia detachments with whom we occasionally came up. Quite forgetting how little creditable to some of them, at least, were the events of the late campaign, they gave themselves the most intolerable airs of heroism, and in their drunken jollity, and reckless abandonment, threatened, I know not what – utter ruin to France and all Frenchmen. Bonaparte was the great mark of their sarcasms, and, from some cause or other, seemed to enjoy a most disproportioned share of their dislike and derision.

At first it required some effort of constraint on my part to listen to this ribaldry in silence; but prudence, and a little sense, taught me the safer lesson of ‘never minding,’ and so I affected to understand nothing that was said in a spirit of insult or offence.

On the night of the 7th of November we drew nigh to Dublin; but instead of entering the capital, we halted at a small village outside of it, called Ghapelizod. Here a house had been fitted up for the reception of French prisoners, and I found myself, if not in company, at least under the same roof, with my countrymen.

Nearer intercourse than this, however, I was not destined to enjoy, for early on the following morning I was ordered to set out for the Royal Barracks, to be tried before a court-martial. It was on a cold, raw morning, with a thin, drizzly rain falling, that we drove into the barrack-yard, and drew up at the mess-room, then used for the purposes of a court. As yet none of the members had assembled, and two or three mess-waiters were engaged in removing the signs of last night’s debauch, and restoring a semblance of decorum to a very rackety-looking apartment. The walls were scrawled over with absurd caricatures, in charcoal or ink, of notorious characters of the capital, and a very striking ‘battle-piece’ commemorated the ‘Races of Castlebar,’ as that memorable action was called, in a spirit, I am bound to say, of little flattery to the British arms. There were, to be sure, little compensatory illustrations here and there of French cavalry in Egypt, mounted on donkeys, or revolutionary troops on parade, ragged as scarecrows, and ill-looking as highwaymen; but a most liberal justice characterised all these frescoes, and they treated both Trojan and Tyrian alike.

I had abundant time given me to admire them, for although summoned for seven o’clock, it was nine before the first officer of the court-martial made his appearance, and he having popped in his head, and perceiving the room empty, sauntered out again, and disappeared. At last a very noisy jaunting-car rattled into the square, and a short, red-faced man was assisted down from it, and entered the mess-room. This was Mr. Peters, the Deputy Judge Advocate, whose presence was the immediate signal for the others, who now came dropping in from every side, the President, a Colonel Daly, arriving the last.

A few tradespeople, loungers, it seemed to me, of the barracks, and some half-dozen non-commissioned officers off duty, made up the public; and I could not but feel a sense of my insignificance in the utter absence of interest my fate excited. The listless indolence and informality, too, offended and insulted me; and when the President politely told me to be seated, for they were obliged to wait for some books or papers left behind at his quarters, I actually was indignant at his coolness.

As we thus waited, the officers gathered round the fireplace, chatting and laughing pleasantly together, discussing the social events of the capital, and the gossip of the day; everything, in fact, but the case of the individual on whose future fate they were about to decide.

At length the long-expected books made their appearance, and a few well-thumbed volumes were spread over the table, behind which the Court took their places, Colonel Daly in the centre, with the judge upon his left.

The members being sworn, the Judge Advocate arose, and in a hurried, humdrum kind of voice, read out what purported to be the commission under which I was to be tried; the charge being, whether I had or had not acted treacherously and hostilely to his Majesty, whose natural-born subject I was, being born in that kingdom, and, consequently, owing to him all allegiance and fidelity. ‘Guilty or not guilty, sir?’

‘The charge is a falsehood; I am a Frenchman,’ was my answer.

‘Have respect for the Court, sir,’ said Peters; ‘you mean that you are a French officer, but by birth an Irishman.’

‘I mean no such thing – that I am French by birth, as I am in feeling – that I never saw Ireland till within a few months back, and heartily wish I had never seen it.’

‘So would General Humbert, too, perhaps,’ said Daly, laughing; and the Court seemed to relish the jest.

‘Where were you born, then, Tiernay?’

‘In Paris, I believe.’

‘And your mother’s name, what was it?’

‘I never knew; I was left an orphan when a mere infant, and can tell little of my family.’

‘Your father was Irish, then?’

‘Only by descent. I have heard that we came from a family who bore the title of “Timmahoo” – Lord Tiernay of Timmahoo.’

‘There was such a title,’ interposed Peters; ‘it was one of King James’s last creations after his flight from the Boyne. Some, indeed, assert that it was conferred before the battle. What a strange coincidence, to find the descendant, if he be such, labouring in something like the same cause as his ancestor.’

‘What’s your rank, sir?’ asked a sharp, severe-looking man, called Major Flood.

‘First Lieutenant of Hussars.’

‘And is it usual for a boy of your years to hold that rank; or was there anything peculiar in your case that obtained the promotion?’

‘I served in two campaigns, and gained my grade regularly.’

‘Your Irish blood, then, had no share in your advancement?’ asked he again.

‘I am a Frenchman, as I said before,’ was my answer.

‘A Frenchman, who lays claim to an Irish estate and an Irish title,’ replied Flood. ‘Let us hear Dowall’s statement.’

And now, to my utter confusion, a man made his way to the table, and, taking the book from the Judge Advocate, kissed it in token of an oath.

‘Inform the Court of anything you know in connection with the prisoner,’ said the judge.

And the fellow, not daring even to look towards me, began a long, rambling, unconnected narrative of his first meeting with me at Killala, affecting that a close intimacy had subsisted between us, and that, in the faith of a confidence, I had told him how, being an Irishman by birth, I had joined the expedition in the hope that with the expulsion of the English I should be able to re-establish my claim to my family rank and fortune. There was little coherence in his story, and more than one discrepant statement occurred in it; but the fellow’s natural stupidity imparted a wonderful air of truth to the narrative, and I was surprised how naturally it sounded even to my own ears, little circumstances of truth being interspersed through the recital, as though to season the falsehood into a semblance of fact.

‘What have you to reply to this, Tiernay?’ asked the colonel.

‘Simply, sir, that such a witness, were his assertions even more consistent and probable, is utterly unworthy of credit. This fellow was one of the greatest marauders of the rebel army; and the last exercise of authority I ever witnessed by General Humbert was an order to drive him out of the town of Castlebar.’

‘Is this the notorious Town-major Dowall?’ asked an officer of artillery.

‘The same, sir.’

‘I can answer, then, for his being one of the greatest rascals unhanged,’ rejoined he.

‘This is all very irregular, gentlemen,’ interposed the Judge Advocate; ‘the character of a witness cannot be impugned by what is mere desultory conversation. Let Dowall withdraw.’

The man retired, and now a whispered conversation was kept up at the table for about a quarter of an hour, in which I could distinctly separate those who befriended from those who opposed me, the major being the chief of the latter party. One speech of his which I overheard made a slight impression on me, and for the first time suggested uneasiness regarding the event.

‘Whatever you do with this lad must have an immense influence on Tone’s trial. Don’t forget that if you acquit him, you’ll be sorely puzzled to convict the other.’

The colonel promptly overruled this unjust suggestion, and maintained that in my accent, manner, and appearance, there was every evidence of my French origin.

‘Let Wolfe Tone stand upon his own merits,’ said he, ‘but let us not mix this case with his.’

‘I’d have treated every man who landed to a rope,’ exclaimed the major, ‘Humbert himself among the rest. It was pure “brigandage,” and nothing less.’

‘I hope if I escape, sir, that it will never be my fortune to see you a prisoner of France,’ said I, forgetting all in my indignation.

‘If my voice have any influence, young man, that opportunity is not likely to occur to you,’ was the reply.

This ungenerous speech found no sympathy with the rest, and I soon saw that the major represented a small minority in the Court.

The want of my commission, or of any document suitable to my rank or position in the service, was a great drawback; for I had given all my papers to Humbert, and had nothing to substantiate my account of myself. I saw how unfavourably this acknowledgment was taken by the Court; and when I was ordered to withdraw that they might deliberate, I own that I felt great misgivings as to the result.

The deliberation was a long, and, as I could overhear, a strongly disputed one. Dowall was twice called in for examination, and when he retired on the last occasion the discussion grew almost stormy.

As I stood thus awaiting my fate, the public, now removed from the court, pressed eagerly to look at me; and while some thronged the doorway, and even pressed against the sentry, others crowded at the window to peep in. Among these faces, over which my eye ranged in half vacancy, one face struck me, for the expression of sincere sympathy and interest it bore. It was that of a middle-aged man of a humble walk in life, whose dress bespoke him from the country. There was nothing in his appearance to have called for attention or notice, and at any other time I should have passed him over without remark; but now, as his features betokened a feeling almost verging on anxiety, I could not regard him without interest.

Whichever way my eyes turned, however my thoughts might take me off, whenever I looked towards him I was sure to find his gaze steadily bent upon me, and with an expression quite distinct from mere curiosity. At last came the summons for me to reappear before the Court, and the crowd opened to let me pass in.

The noise, the anxiety of the moment, and the movement of the people confused me at first; and when I recovered self-possession, I found that the Judge Advocate was reciting the charge under which I was tried. There were three distinct counts, on each of which the Court pronounced me ‘Not Guilty,’ but at the same time qualifying the finding by the additional words – ‘by a majority of two’; thus showing me that my escape had been a narrow one.

‘As a prisoner of war,’ said the President, ‘you will now receive the same treatment as your comrades of the same rank. Some have been already exchanged, and some have given bail for their appearance to answer any future charges against them.’

‘I am quite ready, sir, to accept my freedom on parole,’ said I; ‘of course, in a country where I am an utter stranger, bail is out of the question.’

‘I’m willing to bail him, your worship; I’ll take it on me to be surety for him,’ cried a coarse, husky voice from the body of the court; and at the same time a man dressed in a greatcoat of dark frieze pressed through the crowd and approached the table.

‘And who are you, my good fellow, so ready to impose yourself on the Court?’ asked Peters.

‘I’m a farmer of eighty acres of land, from the Black Pits, near Baldoyle, and the adjutant there, Mr. Moore, knows me well.’

‘Yes,’ said the adjutant, ‘I have known you some years, as supplying forage to the cavalry, and always heard you spoken of as honest and trustworthy.’

‘Thank you, Mr. Moore; that’s as much as I want.’

‘Yes; but it’s not as much as we want, my worthy man,’ said Peters; ‘we require to know that you are a solvent and respectable person.’

‘Come out and see my place, then; ride over the land and look at my stock; ask my neighbours my character; find out if there’s anything against me.’

‘We prefer to leave all that trouble on your shoulders,’ said Peters; ‘show us that we may accept your surety, and we ‘ll entertain the question at once.’

‘How much is it?’ asked he eagerly.

‘We demanded five hundred pounds for a major on the staff; suppose we say two, colonel, is that sufficient?’ asked Peters of the President.

‘I should say quite enough,’ was the reply.

‘There’s eighty of it, anyway,’ said the farmer, producing a dirty roll of bank-notes, and throwing them on the table; ‘I got them from Mr. Murphy in Smithfield this morning, and I’ll get twice as much more from him for asking; so if your honours will wait till I come back, I’ll not be twenty minutes away.’

‘But we can’t take your money, my man; we have no right to touch it.’

‘Then what are ye talking about two hundred pounds for?’ asked he sternly.

‘We want your promise to pay in the event of this bail being broken.’

‘Oh, I see, it’s all the same thing in the end; I’ll do it either way.’

‘We’ll accept Mr. Murphy’s guarantee for your solvency,’ said Peters; ‘obtain that, and you can sign the bond at once.’

‘‘Faith, I’ll get it, sure enough, and be here before you’ve the writing drawn out,’ said he, buttoning up his coat.

‘What name are we to insert in the bond?’ ‘Tiernay, sir.’

‘That’s the prisoner’s name, but we want yours.’ ‘Mine’s Tiernay, too, sir; Pat Tiernay of the Black Pits.’

Before I could recover from my surprise at this announcement he had left the court, which in a few minutes afterwards broke up, a clerk alone remaining to fill up the necessary documents and complete the bail-bond.

The colonel, as well as two others of his officers, pressed me to join them at breakfast, but I declined, resolving to wait for my namesake’s return, and partake of no other hospitality than his.

It was near one o’clock when he returned, almost worn out with fatigue, since he had been in pursuit of Mr. Murphy for several hours, and only came upon him by chance at last. His business, however, he had fully accomplished; the bail-bond was duly drawn out and signed, and I left the barrack in a state of mind very different from the feeling with which I had entered it that day.

CHAPTER XXXI. A BRIEF CHANGE OF LIFE AND COUNTRY

My new acquaintance never ceased to congratulate himself on what he called the lucky accident that had led him to the barracks that morning, and thus brought about our meeting. ‘Little as you think of me, my dear,’ said he, ‘I’m one of the Tiernays of Timmahoo myself; faix, until I saw you, I thought I was the last of them! There are eight generations of us in the churchyard at Kells, and I was looking to the time when they’d lay my bones there as the last of the race, but I see there’s better fortune before us.’

‘But you have a family, I hope?’

‘Sorrow one belonging to me. I might have married when I was young, but there was a pride in me to look for something higher than I had any right – except from blood I mean, for a better stock than our own isn’t to be found; and that’s the way years went over and I lost the opportunity, and here I am now an old bachelor, without one to stand to me, barrin’ it be yourself.’

The last words were uttered with a tremulous emotion, and, on turning towards him, I saw his eyes swimming with tears, and perceived that some strong feeling was working within him.

‘You can’t suppose I can ever forget what I owe you, Mr. Tiernay.’

‘Call me Pat, Pat Tiernay,’ interrupted he roughly.

‘I ‘ll call you what you please,’ said I, ‘if you let me add friend to it.’

‘That’senough; we understand one another now – no more need be said. You’ll come home and live with me It’s not long, maybe, you’ll have to do that same; but when I go you ‘ll be heir to what I have. ‘Tis more, perhaps, than many supposes, looking at the coat and the gaiters I am wearin’. Mind, Maurice, I don’t want you, nor I don’t expect you, to turn farmer like myself. You need never turn a hand to anything. You ‘ll have your horse to ride – two, if you like it. Your time will be all your own, so that you spend a little of it now and then with me, and as much divarsion as ever you care for.’

I have condensed into a few words the substance of a conversation which lasted till we reached Baldoyle; and passing through that not over-imposing village, gained the neighbourhood of the sea-shore, along which stretched the farm of the ‘Black Pits,’ a name derived, I was told, from certain black holes that were dug in the sands by fishermen in former times, when the salt tide washed over the pleasant fields where corn was now growing. A long, low, thatched cabin, with far more indications of room and comfort than pretension to the picturesque, stood facing the sea. There were neither trees nor shrubs around it, and the aspect of the spot was bleak and cheerless enough, a colouring a dark November day did nothing to dispel.

It possessed one charm, however; and had it been a hundred times inferior to what it was, that one would have compensated for all else – a hearty welcome met me at the door, and the words, ‘This is your home, Maurice,’ filled my heart with happiness.

Were I to suffer myself to dwell even in thought on this period of my life, I feel how insensibly I should be led away into an inexcusable prolixity. The little meaningless incidents of my daily life, all so engraven on my memory still, occupied me pleasantly from day till night. Not only the master of myself and my own time, I was master of everything around me. Uncle Pat, as he loved to call himself, treated me with a degree of respect that was almost painful to me, and only when we were alone together did he relapse into the intimacy of equality. Two first-rate hunters stood in my stable; a stout-built half-deck boat lay at my command beside the quay; I had my gun and my greyhounds; books, journals; everything, in short, that a liberal purse and a kind spirit could confer – all but acquaintance. Of these I possessed absolutely none. Too proud to descend to intimacy with the farmers and small shopkeepers of the neighbourhood, my position excluded me from acquaintance with the gentry; and thus I stood between both, unknown to either.

For a while my new career was too absorbing to suffer me to dwell on this circumstance. The excitement of field-sports sufficed me when abroad, and I came home usually so tired at night that I could barely keep awake to amuse Uncle Pat with those narratives of war and campaigning he was so fond of hearing. To the hunting-field succeeded the Bay of Dublin, and I passed days, even weeks, exploring every creek and inlet of the coast – now cruising under the dark cliffs of the Welsh shore, or, while my boat lay at anchor, wandering among the solitary valleys of Lambay, my life, like a dream full of its own imaginings, and unbroken by the thoughts or feelings of others! I will not go the length of saying that I was self-free from all reproach on the inglorious indolence in which my days were passed, or that my thoughts never strayed away to that land where my first dreams of ambition were felt. But a strange fatuous kind of languor had grown upon me, and the more I retired within myself, the less did I wish for a return to that struggle with the world which every active life engenders. Perhaps – I cannot now say if it were so – perhaps I resented the disdainful distance with which the gentry treated me, as we met in the hunting-field or the coursing-ground. Some of the isolation I preferred may have had this origin, but choice had the greater share in it, until at last my greatest pleasure was to absent myself for weeks on a cruise, fancying that I was exploring tracts never visited by man, and landing on spots where no human foot had ever been known to tread.

If Uncle Pat would occasionally remonstrate on the score of these long absences, he never ceased to supply means for them; and my sea-store and a well-filled purse were never wanting, when the blue-peter floated from La Hoche, as in my ardour I had named my cutter. Perhaps at heart he was not sorry to see me avoid the capital and its society. The bitterness which had succeeded the struggle for independence was now at its highest point, and there was what, to my thinking at least, appeared something like the cruelty of revenge in the sentences which followed the state trials. I will not suffer myself to stray into the debatable ground of politics, nor dare I give an opinion on matters, where, with all the experience of fifty years superadded, the wisest heads are puzzled how to decide; but my impression at the time was that lenity would have been a safer and a better policy than severity, and that in the momentary prostration of the country, lay the precise conjuncture for those measures of grace and favour which were afterwards rather wrung from than conceded by the English Government. Be this as it may, Dublin offered a strange spectacle at that period. The triumphant joy of one party – the discomfiture and depression of the other. All the exuberant delight of success here, all the bitterness of failure there. On one side, festivities, rejoicings, and public demonstrations; on the other, confinement, banishment, or the scaffold.

The excitement was almost madness. The passion for pleasure, restrained by the terrible contingencies of the time, now broke forth with redoubled force, and the capital was thronged with all its rank, riches, and fashion, when its gaols were crowded, and the heaviest sentences of the law were in daily execution. The state-trials were crowded by all the fashion of the metropolis; and the heart-moving eloquence of Curran was succeeded by the strains of a merry concert. It was just then, too, that the great lyric poet of Ireland began to appear in society, and those songs which were to be known afterwards as ‘The Melodies,’ par excellence, were first heard in all the witching enchantment which his own taste and voice could lend them. To such as were indifferent to or could forget the past, it was a brilliant period. It was the last flickering blaze of Irish nationality, before the lamp was extinguished for ever.

Of this society I myself saw nothing. But even in the retirement of my humble life the sounds of its mirth and pleasure penetrated, and I often wished to witness the scenes which even in vague description were fascinating. It was, then, in a kind of discontent at my exclusion, that I grew from day to day more disposed to solitude, and fonder of those excursions which led me out of all reach of companionship or acquaintance. In this spirit I planned a long cruise down channel, resolving to visit the island of Valentia, or, if the wind and weather favoured, to creep around the south-west coast as far as Bantry or Kenmare. A man and his son, a boy of about sixteen, formed all my crew, and were quite sufficient for the light tackle and easy rig of my craft. Uncle Pat was already mounted on his pony, and ready to set out for market, as we prepared to start. It was a bright spring morning – such a one as now and then the changeful climate of Ireland brings forth in a brilliancy of colour and softness of atmosphere that are rare in even more favoured lands.

‘You have a fine day of it, Maurice, and just enough wind,’ said he, looking at the point from whence it came. ‘I almost wish I was going with you.’

‘And why not come, then?’ asked I. ‘You never will give yourself a holiday. Do so for once, now.’

‘Not to-day, anyhow,’ said he, half sighing at his self-denial. ‘I have a great deal of business on my hands to-day, but the next time – the very next you’re up to a long cruise, I’ll go with you.’

‘That’s a bargain, then?’

‘A bargain. Here’s my hand on it.’

We shook hands cordially on the compact. Little knew I it was to be for the last time, and that we were never to meet again!

I was soon aboard, and with a free mainsail skimming rapidly over the bright waters of the bay. The wind freshened as the day wore on, and we quickly passed the Kish light-ship, and held our course boldly down channel. The height of my enjoyment in these excursions consisted in the unbroken quietude of mind I felt, when removed from all chance interruption, and left free to follow out my own fancies and indulge my dreamy conceptions to my heart’s content. It was then I used to revel in imaginings which sometimes soared into the boldest realms of ambition, and at others strayed contemplatively in the humblest walks of obscure fortune. My crew never broke in upon these musings; indeed, old Tom Finerty’s low crooning song rather aided than interrupted them. He was not much given to talking, and a chance allusion to some vessel afar off, or some headland we were passing, were about the extent of his communicativeness, and even these often fell on my ear unnoticed.

It was thus, at night, we made the Hook Tower, and on the next day passed, in a spanking breeze, under the bold cliffs of Tramore, just catching, as the sun was sinking, the sight of Youghal Bay and the tall headlands beyond it.

‘The wind is drawing more to the nor’ard,’ said old Tom, as night closed in, ‘and the clouds look dirty.’

‘Bear her up a point or two,’ said I, ‘and let us stand in for Cork Harbour if it comes on to blow.’

He muttered something in reply, but I did not catch the words, nor, indeed, cared I to hear them, for I had just wrapped myself in my boat-cloak, and, stretched at full length on the shingle ballast of the yawl, was gazing in rapture at the brilliancy of the starry sky above me. Light skiffs of feathery cloud would now and then flit past, and a peculiar hissing sound of the sea told, at the same time, that the breeze was freshening. But old Tom had done his duty in mentioning this once, and thus having disburthened his conscience, he closehauled his mainsail, shifted the ballast a little to midships, and, putting up the collar of his pilot-coat, screwed himself tighter into the corner beside the tiller, and chewed his quid in quietness. The boy slept soundly in the bow, and I, lulled by the motion and the plashing waves, fell into a dreamy stupor, like a pleasant sleep. The pitching of the boat continued to increase, and twice or thrice struck by a heavy sea, she lay over, till the white waves came tumbling in over her gunwale. I heard Tom call to his boy something about the head-sail, but for the life of me I could not or would not arouse myself from a train of thought that I was following.

‘She’s a stout boat to stand this,’ said Tom, as he rounded her off at a coming wave, which, even thus escaped, splashed over us like a cataract. ‘I know many a bigger craft wouldn’t hold up her canvas under such a gale.’

‘Here it comes, father. Here’s a squall!’ cried the boy; and with a crash like thunder, the wind struck the sail, and laid the boat half under.

‘She’d float if she was full of water,’ said the old man, as the craft ‘righted.’

‘But maybe the spars wouldn’t stand,’ said the boy anxiously.

‘‘Tis what I ‘m thinking,’ rejoined the father. ‘There’s a shake in the mast, below the caps.’

‘Tell him it’s better to bear up, and go before it,’ whispered the lad, with a gesture towards where I was lying.

‘Troth, it’s little he’d care,’ said the other; ‘besides, he’s never plazed to be woke up.’

‘Here it comes again!’ cried the boy. But this time the squall swept past ahead of us, and the craft only reeled to the swollen waves, as they tore by.

‘We ‘d better go about, sir,’ said Tom to me; ‘there’s a heavy sea outside, and it’s blowing hard now.’

‘And there’s a split in the mast as long as my arm,’ cried the boy.

‘I thought she’d live through any sea, Tom!’ said I, laughing, for it was his constant boast that no weather could harm her.

‘There goes the spar!’ shouted he, while with a loud snap the mast gave way, and fell with a crash over the side. The boat immediately came head to wind, and sea after sea broke upon her bow, and fell in great floods over us.

‘Out away the stays – clear the wreck,’ cried Tom, ‘before the squall catches her!’

And although we now laboured like men whose lives depended on the exertion, the trailing sail and heavy rigging, shifting the ballast as they fell, laid her completely over; and when the first sea struck her, over she went. The violence of the gale sent me a considerable distance out, and for several seconds I felt as though I should never reach the surface again. Wave after wave rolled over me, and seemed bearing me downwards with their weight. At last I grasped something; it was a rope – a broken halyard; but by its means I gained the mast, which floated alongside of the yawl as she now lay keel uppermost. With what energy did I struggle to reach her! The space was scarcely a dozen feet, and yet it cost me what seemed an age to traverse. Through all the roaring of the breakers, and the crashing sounds of storm, I thought I could hear my comrades’ voices shouting and screaming; but this was in all likelihood a mere deception, for I never saw them more!

Yaş sınırı:
12+
Litres'teki yayın tarihi:
27 eylül 2017
Hacim:
710 s. 1 illüstrasyon
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