CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
THE WRECK.
Meantime the French privateer sped onward to her doom.
The force with which the French commander fell when Ruby cast him off,had stunned him so severely that it was a considerable time before herecovered. The rest of the crew were therefore in absolute ignorance ofhow to steer.
In this dilemma they lay-to for a short time, after getting away to asufficient distance from the dangerous rock, and consulted what was tobe done. Some advised one course, and some another, but it was finallysuggested that one of the English prisoners should be brought up andcommanded to steer out to sea.
This advice was acted on, and the sailor who was brought up chanced tobe one who had a partial knowledge of the surrounding coasts. One ofthe Frenchmen who could speak a few words of English, did his best toconvey his wishes to the sailor, and wound up by producing a pistol,which he cocked significantly.
"All right," said the sailor, "I knows the coast, and can run yestraight out to sea. That's the Bell Rock Light on the weather-bow, Is'pose."
"Oui, dat is de Bell Roke."
"Wery good; our course is due nor'west."
So saying, the man took the wheel and laid the ship's courseaccordingly.
Now, he knew quite well that this course would carry the vessel towardsthe harbour of Arbroath, into which he resolved to run at all hazards,trusting to the harbour-lights to guide him when he should draw near.He knew that he ran the strongest possible risk of getting himself shotwhen the Frenchmen should find out his faithlessness, but he hoped toprevail on them to believe the harbour-lights were only anotherlighthouse, which they should have to pass on their way out to sea, andthen it would be too late to put the vessel about and attempt to escape.
But all his calculations were useless, as it turned out, for in half anhour the men at the bow shouted that there were breakers ahead, andbefore the helm could be put down, they struck with such force that thetopmasts went overboard at once, and the sails, bursting their sheetsand tackling, were blown to ribbons.
Just then a gleam of moonlight struggled through the wrack of clouds,and revealed the dark cliffs of the Forfar coast, towering high abovethem. The vessel had struck on the rocks at the entrance to one ofthose rugged bays with which that coast is everywhere indented.
At the first glance, the steersman knew that the doom of all on boardwas fixed, for the bay was one of those which are surrounded by almostperpendicular cliffs; and although, during calm weather, there was asmall space between the cliffs and the sea, which might be termed abeach, yet during a storm the waves lashed with terrific fury againstthe rocks, so that no human being might land there.
It chanced at the time that Captain Ogilvy, who took great delight invisiting the cliffs in stormy weather, had gone out there for a midnightwalk with a young friend, and when the privateer struck, he was standingon the top of the cliffs.
He knew at once that the fate of the unfortunate people on board wasalmost certain, but, with his wonted energy, he did his best to preventthe catastrophe.
"Run, lad, and fetch men, and ropes, and ladders. Alarm the whole town,and use your legs well. Lives depend on your speed," said the captain,in great excitement.
The lad required no second bidding. He turned and fled like agreyhound.
The lieges of Arbroath were not slow to answer the summons. There wereneither lifeboats nor mortar-apparatus in those days, but there were thesame willing hearts and stout arms then as now, and in a marvellouslyshort space of time, hundreds of the able-bodied men of the town, gentleand semple, were assembled on these wild cliffs, with torches, rope,etcetera; in short, with all the appliances for saving life that thephilanthropy of the times had invented or discovered.
But, alas! these appliances were of no avail. The vessel went to pieceson the outer point of rocks, and part of the wreck, with the crewclinging to it, drifted into the bay.
The horrified people on the cliffs looked down into that dreadful abyssof churning water and foam, into which no one could descend. Ropes werethrown again and again, but without avail. Either it was too dark tosee, or the wrecked men were paralysed. An occasional shriek was heardabove the roar of the tempest, as, one after another, the exhausted menfell into the water, or were wrenched from their hold of the piece ofwreck.
At last one man succeeded in catching hold of a rope, and was carefullyhauled up to the top of the cliff.
It was found that this was one of the English sailors. He had taken theprecaution to tie the rope under his arms, poor fellow, having nostrength left to hold on to it; but he was so badly bruised as to be ina dying state when laid on the grass.
"Keep back and give him air," said Captain Ogilvy, who had taken aprominent part in the futile efforts to save the crew, and who nowkneeled at the sailor's side, and moistened his lips with a littlebrandy.
The poor man gave a confused and rambling account of the circumstancesof the wreck, but it was sufficiently intelligible to make the captainacquainted with the leading particulars.
"Were there many of your comrades aboard?" he enquired. The dying manlooked up with a vacant expression. It was evident that he did notquite understand the question, but he began again to mutter in a partlyincoherent manner.
"They're all gone," said he, "every man of 'em but me! All tiedtogether in the hold. They cast us loose, though, after she struck.All gone! all gone!"
After a moment he seemed to try to recollect something.
"No," said he, "we weren't all together. They took Ruby on deck, and Inever saw _him_ again. I wonder what they did--"
Here he paused.
"Who, did you say?" enquired the captain with deep anxiety.
"Ruby--Ruby Brand," replied the man.
"What became of him, said you?"
"Don't know."
"Was _he_ drowned?"
"Don't know," repeated the man.
The captain could get no other answer from him, so he was compelled torest content, for the poor man appeared to be sinking.
A sort of couch had been prepared for him, on which he was carried intothe town, but before he reached it he was dead. Nothing more could bedone that night, but next day, when the tide was out, men were lowereddown the precipitous sides of the fatal bay, and the bodies of theunfortunate seamen were sent up to the top of the cliffs by means ofropes. These ropes cut deep grooves in the turf, as the bodies werehauled up one by one and laid upon the grass, after which they wereconveyed to the town, and decently interred.
The spot where this melancholy wreck occurred is now pointed out to thevisitor as "The Seamen's Grave", and the young folk of the town have,from the time of the wreck, annually recut the grooves in the turf,above referred to, in commemoration of the event, so that these groovesmay be seen there at the present day.
It may easily be imagined that poor Captain Ogilvy returned to Arbroaththat night with dark forebodings in his breast.
He could not, however, imagine how Ruby came to be among the men onboard of the French prize; and tried to comfort himself with the thoughtthat the dying sailor had perhaps been a comrade of Ruby's at some timeor other, and was, in his wandering state of mind, mixing him up withthe recent wreck.
As, however, he could come to no certain conclusion on this point, heresolved not to tell what he had heard either to his sister or Minnie,but to confine his anxieties, at least for the present, to his ownbreast.
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