by Lord Dunsany
A Story of Land and Sea
It is written in the first Book of Wonder how Captain Shard of the badship Desperate Lark, having looted the sea-coast city Bombasharna,retired from active life; and resigning piracy to younger men, withthe good will of the North and South Atlantic, settled down with acaptured queen on his floating island.
Sometimes he sank a ship for the sake of old times but he no longerhovered along the trade-routes; and timid merchants watched for othermen.
It was not age that caused him to leave his romantic profession; norunworthiness of its traditions, nor gun-shot wound, nor drink; butgrim necessity and force majeure. Five navies were after him. How hegave them the slip one day in the Mediterranean, how he fought withthe Arabs, how a ship's broadside was heard in Lat. 23 N. Long. 4 E.for the first time and the last, with other things unknown toAdmiralties, I shall proceed to tell.
He had had his fling, had Shard, captain of pirates, and all his merrymen wore pearls in their ear-rings; and now the English fleet wasafter him under full sail along the coast of Spain with a good Northwind behind them. They were not gaining much on Shard's rakish craft,the bad ship Desperate Lark, yet they were closer than was to hisliking, and they interfered with business.
For a day and a night they had chased him, when off Cape St. Vincentat about six a.m. Shard took that step that decided his retirementfrom active life, he turned for the Mediterranean. Had he held onSouthwards down the African coast it is doubtful whether in face ofthe interference of England, Russia, France, Denmark and Spain, hecould have made piracy pay; but in turning for the Mediterranean hetook what we may call the penultimate step of his life which meant forhim settling down. There were three great courses of action inventedby Shard in his youth, upon which he pondered by day and brooded bynight, consolations in all his dangers, secret even from his men,three means of escape as he hoped from any peril that might meet himon the sea. One of these was the floating island that the Book ofWonder tells of, another was so fantastic that we may doubt if eventhe brilliant audacity of Shard could ever have found it practicable,at least he never tried it so far as is known in that tavern by thesea in which I glean my news, and the third he determined on carryingout as he turned that morning for the Mediterranean. True he might yethave practised piracy in spite of the step that he took, a littlelater when the seas grew quiet, but that penultimate step was likethat small house in the country that the business man has his eye on,like some snug investment put away for old age, there are certainfinal courses in men's lives which after taking they never go back tobusiness.
He turned then for the Mediterranean with the English fleet behindhim, and his men wondered.
What madness was this,--muttered Bill the Boatswain in Old Frank'sonly ear, with the French fleet waiting in the Gulf of Lyons and theSpaniards all the way between Sardinia and Tunis: for they knew theSpaniards' ways. And they made a deputation and waited upon CaptainShard, all of them sober and wearing their costly clothes, and theysaid that the Mediterranean was a trap, and all he said was that theNorth wind should hold. And the crew said they were done.
So they entered the Mediterranean and the English fleet came up andclosed the straits. And Shard went tacking along the Moroccan coastwith a dozen frigates behind him. And the North wind grew in strength.And not till evening did he speak to his crew, and then he gatheredthem all together except the man at the helm, and politely asked themto come down to the hold. And there he showed them six immense steelaxles and a dozen low iron wheels of enormous width which none hadseen before; and he told his crew how all unknown to the world hiskeel had been specially fitted for these same axles and wheels, andhow he meant soon to sail to the wide Atlantic again, though not bythe way of the straits. And when they heard the name of the Atlanticall his merry men cheered, for they looked on the Atlantic as a widesafe sea.
And night came down and Captain Shard sent for his diver. With the seagetting up it was hard work for the diver, but by midnight things weredone to Shard's satisfaction, and the diver said that of all the jobshe had done--but finding no apt comparison, and being in need of adrink, silence fell on him and soon sleep, and his comrades carriedhim away to his hammock. All the next day the chase went on with theEnglish well in sight, for Shard had lost time overnight with hiswheels and axles, and the danger of meeting the Spaniards increasedevery hour; and evening came when every minute seemed dangerous, yetthey still went tacking on towards the East where they knew theSpaniards must be.
And at last they sighted their topsails right ahead, and still Shardwent on. It was a close thing, but night was coming on, and the UnionJack which he hoisted helped Shard with the Spaniards for the last fewanxious minutes, though it seemed to anger the English, but as Shardsaid, "There's no pleasing everyone," and then the twilight shiveredinto darkness.
"Hard to starboard," said Captain Shard.
The North wind which had risen all day was now blowing a gale. I donot know what part of the coast Shard steered for, but Shard knew, forthe coasts of the world were to him what Margate is to some of us.
At a place where the desert rolling up from mystery and from death,yea, from the heart of Africa, emerges upon the sea, no less grandthan her, no less terrible, even there they sighted the land quiteclose, almost in darkness. Shard ordered every man to the hinder partof the ship and all the ballast too; and soon the Desperate Lark, herprow a little high out of the water, doing her eighteen knots beforethe wind, struck a sandy beach and shuddered, she heeled over alittle, then righted herself, and slowly headed into the interior ofAfrica.
The men would have given three cheers, but after the first Shardsilenced them and, steering the ship himself, he made them a shortspeech while the broad wheels pounded slowly over the African sand,doing barely five knots in a gale. The perils of the sea he said hadbeen greatly exaggerated. Ships had been sailing the sea for hundredsof years and at sea you knew what to do, but on land this wasdifferent. They were on land now and they were not to forget it. Atsea you might make as much noise as you pleased and no harm was done,but on land anything might happen. One of the perils of the land thathe instanced was that of hanging. For every hundred men that they hungon land, he said, not more than twenty would be hung at sea. The menwere to sleep at their guns. They would not go far that night; for therisk of being wrecked at night was another danger peculiar to theland, while at sea you might sail from set of sun till dawn: yet itwas essential to get out of sight of the sea for if anyone knew theywere there they'd have cavalry after them. And he had sent backSmerdrak (a young lieutenant of pirates) to cover their tracks wherethey came up from the sea. And the merry men vigorously nodded theirheads though they did not dare to cheer, and presently Smerdrak camerunning up and they threw him a rope by the stern. And when they haddone fifteen knots they anchored, and Captain Shard gathered his menabout him and, standing by the land-wheel in the bows, under the largeand clear Algerian stars, he explained his system of steering. Therewas not much to be said for it, he had with considerable ingenuitydetached and pivoted the portion of the keel that held the leadingaxle and could move it by chains which were controlled from theland-wheel, thus the front pair of wheels could be deflected at will,but only very slightly, and they afterwards found that in a hundredyards they could only turn their ship four yards from her course. Butlet not captains of comfortable battleships, or owners even of yachts,criticise too harshly a man who was not of their time and who knew notmodern contrivances; it should be remembered also that Shard was nolonger at sea. His steering may have been clumsy but he did what hecould.
When the use and limitations of his land-wheel had been made clear tohis men, Shard bade them all turn in except those on watch. Longbefore dawn he woke them and by the very first gleam of light they gottheir ship under way, so that when those two fleets that had made sosure of Shard closed in like a great crescent on the Algerian coastthere was no sign to see of the Desperate Lark either on sea or land;and the flags of the Admiral's ship broke out into a hearty Englisho
ath.
The gale blew for three days and, Shard using more sail by daylight,they scudded over the sands at little less than ten knots, though onthe report of rough water ahead (as the lookout man called rocks, lowhills or uneven surface before he adapted himself to his newsurroundings) the rate was much decreased. Those were long summer daysand Shard who was anxious while the wind held good to outpace therumour of his own appearance sailed for nineteen hours a day, lying toat ten in the evening and hoisting sail again at three a.m. when itfirst began to be light.
In those three days he did five hundred miles; then the wind droppedto a breeze though it still blew from the North, and for a week theydid no more than two knots an hour. The merry men began to murmurthen. Luck had distinctly favoured Shard at first for it sent him atten knots through the only populous districts well ahead of crowdsexcept those who chose to run, and the cavalry were away on a localraid. As for the runners they soon dropped off when Shard pointed hiscannon though he did not dare to fire, up there near the coast; formuch as he jeered at the intelligence of the English and SpanishAdmirals in not suspecting his manoeuvre, the only one as he said thatwas possible in the circumstances, yet he knew that cannon had anobvious sound which would give his secret away to the weakest mind.Certainly luck had befriended him, and when it did so no longer hemade out of the occasion all that could be made; for instance whilethe wind held good he had never missed opportunities to revictual, ifhe passed by a village its pigs and poultry were his, and whenever hepassed by water he filled his tanks to the brim, and now that he couldonly do two knots he sailed all night with a man and a lantern beforehim: thus in that week he did close on four hundred miles whileanother man would have anchored at night and have missed five or sixhours out of the twenty-four. Yet his men murmured. Did he think thewind would last for ever, they said. And Shard only smoked. It wasclear that he was thinking, and thinking hard. "But what is hethinking about?" said Bill to Bad Jack. And Bad Jack answered: "He maythink as hard as he likes but thinking won't get us out of the Saharaif this wind were to drop."
And towards the end of that week Shard went to his chart-room and laida new course for his ship a little to the East and towardscultivation. And one day towards evening they sighted a village, andtwilight came and the wind dropped altogether. Then the murmurs of themerry men grew to oaths and nearly to mutiny. "Where were they now?"they asked, and were they being treated like poor honest men?
Shard quieted them by asking what they wished to do themselves andwhen no one had any better plan than going to the villagers and sayingthat they had been blown out of their course by a storm, Shardunfolded his scheme to them. Long ago he had heard how they drovecarts with oxen in Africa, oxen were very numerous in these partswherever there was any cultivation, and for this reason when the windhad begun to drop he had laid his course for the village: that nightthe moment it was dark they were to drive off fifty yoke of oxen; bymidnight they must all be yoked to the bows and then away they wouldgo at a good round gallop.
So fine a plan as this astonished the men and they all apologised fortheir want of faith in Shard, shaking hands with him every one andspitting on their hands before they did so in token of good will.
The raid that night succeeded admirably, but ingenious as Shard was onland, and a past-master at sea, yet it must be admitted that lack ofexperience in this class of seamanship led him to make a mistake, aslight one it is true, and one that a little practice would haveprevented altogether: the oxen could not gallop. Shard swore at them,threatened them with his pistol, said they should have no food, andall to no avail: that night and as long as they pulled the bad shipDesperate Lark they did one knot an hour and no more. Shard's failureslike everything that came his way were used as stones in the edificeof his future success, he went at once to his chart-room and workedout all his calculations anew.
The matter of the oxen's pace made pursuit impossible to avoid. Shardtherefore countermanded his order to his lieutenant to cover thetracks in the sand, and the Desperate Lark plodded on into the Saharaon her new course trusting to her guns.
The village was not a large one and the little crowd that was sightedastern next morning disappeared after the first shot from the cannonin the stern. At first Shard made the oxen wear rough iron bits,another of his mistakes, and strong bits too. "For if they run away,"he had said, "we might as well be driving before a gale and there's nosaying where we'd find ourselves," but after a day or two he foundthat the bits were no good and, like the practical man he was,immediately corrected his mistake.
And now the crew sang merry songs all day bringing out mandolins andclarionets and cheering Captain Shard. All were jolly except thecaptain himself whose face was moody and perplexed; he alone expectedto hear more of those villagers; and the oxen were drinking up thewater every day, he alone feared that there was no more to be had, anda very unpleasant fear that is when your ship is becalmed in a desert.For over a week they went on like this doing ten knots a day and themusic and singing got on the captain's nerves, but he dared not tellhis men what the trouble was. And then one day the oxen drank up thelast of the water. And Lieutenant Smerdrak came and reported the fact.
"Give them rum," said Shard, and he cursed the oxen. "What is goodenough for me," he said, "should be good enough for them," and heswore that they should have rum.
"Aye, aye, sir," said the young lieutenant of pirates.
Shard should not be judged by the orders he gave that day, for nearlya fortnight he had watched the doom that was coming slowly towardshim, discipline cut him off from anyone that might have shared hisfear and discussed it, and all the while he had had to navigate hisship, which even at sea is an arduous responsibility. These things hadfretted the calm of that clear judgment that had once baffled fivenavies. Therefore he cursed the oxen and ordered them rum, andSmerdrak had said "Aye, aye, sir," and gone below.
Towards sunset Shard was standing on the poop, thinking of death; itwould not come to him by thirst; mutiny first, he thought. The oxenwere refusing rum for the last time, and the men were beginning to eyeCaptain Shard in a very ominous way, not muttering, but each manlooking at him with a sidelong look of the eye as though there wereonly one thought among them all that had no need of words. A score ofgeese like a long letter "V" were crossing the evening sky, theyslanted their necks and all went twisting downwards somewhere aboutthe horizon. Captain Shard rushed to his chart-room, and presently themen came in at the door with Old Frank in front looking awkward andtwisting his cap in his hand.
"What is it?" said Shard as though nothing were wrong.
Then Old Frank said what he had come to say: "We want to know what yoube going to do."
And the men nodded grimly.
"Get water for the oxen," said Captain Shard, "as the swine won't haverum, and they'll have to work for it, the lazy beasts. Up anchor!"
And at the word water a look came into their faces like when somewanderer suddenly thinks of home.
"Water!" they said.
"Why not?" said Captain Shard. And none of them ever knew that but forthose geese, that slanted their necks and suddenly twisted downwards,they would have found no water that night nor ever after, and theSahara would have taken them as she has taken so many and shall takeso many more. All that night they followed their new course: at dawnthey found an oasis and the oxen drank.
And here, on this green acre or so with its palm-trees and its well,beleaguered by thousands of miles of desert and holding out throughthe ages, here they decided to stay: for those who have been withoutwater for a while in one of Africa's deserts come to have for thatsimple fluid such a regard as you, O reader, might not easily credit.And here each man chose a site where he would build his hut, andsettle down, and marry perhaps, and even forget the sea; when CaptainShard having filled his tanks and barrels peremptorily ordered them toweigh anchor. There was much dissatisfaction, even some grumbling, butwhen a man has twice saved his fellows from death by the sheerfreshness of his mind they come to have a respect
for his judgmentthat is not shaken by trifles. It must be remembered that in theaffair of the dropping of the wind and again when they ran out ofwater these men were at their wits' end: so was Shard on the lastoccasion, but that they did not know. All this Shard knew, and hechose this occasion to strengthen the reputation that he had in theminds of the men of that bad ship by explaining to them his motives,which usually he kept secret. The oasis he said must be a port of callfor all the travellers within hundreds of miles: how many men did yousee gathered together in any part of the world where there was a dropof whiskey to be had! And water here was rarer than whiskey in decentcountries and, such was the peculiarity of the Arabs, even moreprecious. Another thing he pointed out to them, the Arabs were asingularly inquisitive people and if they came upon a ship in thedesert they would probably talk about it; and the world having awickedly malicious tongue would never construe in its proper lighttheir difference with the English and Spanish fleets, but would merelyside with the strong against the weak.
And the men sighed, and sang the capstan song and hoisted the anchorand yoked the oxen up, and away they went doing their steady knot,which nothing could increase. It may be thought strange that with allsail furled in dead calm and while the oxen rested they should havecast anchor at all. But custom is not easily overcome and longsurvives its use. Rather enquire how many such useless customs weourselves preserve: the flaps for instance to pull up the tops ofhunting-boots though the tops no longer pull up, the bows on ourevening shoes that neither tie nor untie. They said they felt saferthat way and there was an end of it.
Shard lay a course of South by West and they did ten knots that day,the next day they did seven or eight and Shard hove to. Here heintended to stop, they had huge supplies of fodder on board for theoxen, for his men he had a pig or so, plenty of poultry, several sacksof biscuits and ninety-eight oxen (for two were already eaten), andthey were only twenty miles from water. Here he said they would staytill folks forgot their past, someone would invent something or somenew thing would turn up to take folks' minds off them and the ships hehad sunk: he forgot that there are men who are well paid to remember.
Half way between him and the oasis he established a little depot wherehe buried his water-barrels. As soon as a barrel was empty he senthalf a dozen men to roll it by turns to the depot. This they would doat night, keeping hid by day, and next night they would push on to theoasis, fill the barrel and roll it back. Thus only ten miles away hesoon had a store of water, unknown to the thirstiest native of Africa,from which he could safely replenish his tanks at will. He allowed hismen to sing and even within reason to light fires. Those were jollynights while the rum held out; sometimes they saw gazelles watchingthem curiously, sometimes a lion went by over the sand, the sound ofhis roar added to their sense of the security of their ship; all roundthem level, immense lay the Sahara: "This is better than an Englishprison," said Captain Shard.
And still the dead calm lasted, not even the sand whispered at nightto little winds; and when the rum gave out and it looked like trouble,Shard reminded them what little use it had been to them when it wasall they had and the oxen wouldn't look at it.
And the days wore on with singing, and even dancing at times, and atnights round a cautious fire in a hollow of sand with only one man onwatch they told tales of the sea. It was all a relief after arduouswatches and sleeping by the guns, a rest to strained nerves and eyes;and all agreed, for all that they missed their rum, that the bestplace for a ship like theirs was the land.
This was in Latitude 23 North, Longitude 4 East, where, as I havesaid, a ship's broadside was heard for the first time and the last. Ithappened this way.
They had been there several weeks and had eaten perhaps ten or a dozenoxen and all that while there had been no breath of wind and they hadseen no one: when one morning about two bells when the crew were atbreakfast the lookout man reported cavalry on the port side. Shard whohad already surrounded his ship with sharpened stakes ordered all hismen on board, the young trumpeter who prided himself on having pickedup the ways of the land, sounded "Prepare to receive cavalry". Shardsent a few men below with pikes to the lower port-holes, two morealoft with muskets, the rest to the guns, he changed the "grape" or"canister" with which the guns were loaded in case of surprise, forshot, cleared the decks, drew in ladders, and before the cavalry camewithin range everything was ready for them. The oxen were always yokedin order that Shard could manoeuvre his ship at a moment's notice.
When first sighted the cavalry were trotting but they were coming onnow at a slow canter. Arabs in white robes on good horses. Shardestimated that there were two or three hundred of them. At sixty yardsShard opened with one gun, he had had the distance measured, but hadnever practised for fear of being heard at the oasis: the shot wenthigh. The next one fell short and ricochetted over the Arabs' heads.Shard had the range then and by the time the ten remaining guns of hisbroadside were given the same elevation as that of his second gun theArabs had come to the spot where the last shot pitched. The broadsidehit the horses, mostly low, and ricochetted on amongst them; onecannon-ball striking a rock at the horses' feet shattered it and sentfragments flying amongst the Arabs with the peculiar scream of thingsset free by projectiles from their motionless harmless state, and thecannon-ball went on with them with a great howl, this shot alonekilled three men.
"Very satisfactory," said Shard rubbing his chin. "Load with grape,"he added sharply.
The broadside did not stop the Arabs nor even reduce their speed butthey crowded in closer together as though for company in their time ofdanger, which they should not have done. They were four hundred yardsoff now, three hundred and fifty; and then the muskets began, for thetwo men in the crow's-nest had thirty loaded muskets besides a fewpistols, the muskets all stood round them leaning against the rail;they picked them up and fired them one by one. Every shot told, butstill the Arabs came on. They were galloping now. It took some time toload the guns in those days. Three hundred yards, two hundred andfifty, men dropping all the way, two hundred yards; Old Frank for allhis one ear had terrible eyes; it was pistols now, they had fired alltheir muskets; a hundred and fifty; Shard had marked the fifties withlittle white stones. Old Frank and Bad Jack up aloft felt prettyuneasy when they saw the Arabs had come to that little white stone,they both missed their shots.
"All ready?" said Captain Shard.
"Aye, aye, sir," said Smerdrak.
"Right," said Captain Shard raising a finger.
A hundred and fifty yards is a bad range at which to be caught bygrape (or "case" as we call it now), the gunners can hardly miss andthe charge has time to spread. Shard estimated afterwards that he gotthirty Arabs by that broadside alone and as many horses.
There were close on two hundred of them still on their horses, yet thebroadside of grape had unsettled them, they surged round the ship butseemed doubtful what to do. They carried swords and scimitars in theirhands, though most had strange long muskets slung behind them, a fewunslung them and began firing wildly. They could not reach Shard'smerry men with their swords. Had it not been for that broadside thattook them when it did they might have climbed up from their horses andcarried the bad ship by sheer force of numbers, but they would havehad to have been very steady, and the broadside spoiled all that.Their best course was to have concentrated all their efforts insetting fire to the ship but this they did not attempt. Part of themswarmed all round the ship brandishing their swords and looking vainlyfor an easy entrance; perhaps they expected a door, they were notsea-faring people; but their leaders were evidently set on driving offthe oxen not dreaming that the Desperate Lark had other means oftravelling. And this to some extent they succeeded in doing. Thirtythey drove off, cutting the traces, twenty they killed on the spotwith their scimitars though the bow gun caught them twice as they didtheir work, and ten more were unluckily killed by Shard's bow gun.Before they could fire a third time from the bows they all gallopedaway, firing back at the oxen with their muskets and killing threemore, and what
troubled Shard more than the loss of his oxen was theway that they manoeuvred, galloping off just when the bow gun wasready and riding off by the port bow where the broadside could not getthem, which seemed to him to show more knowledge of guns than theycould have learned on that bright morning. What, thought Shard tohimself, if they should bring big guns against the Desperate Lark! Andthe mere thought of it made him rail at Fate. But the merry men allcheered when they rode away. Shard had only twenty-two oxen left, andthen a score or so of the Arabs dismounted while the rest rode furtheron leading their horses. And the dismounted men lay down on the portbow behind some rocks two hundred yards away and began to shoot at theoxen. Shard had just enough of them left to manoeuvre his ship with aneffort and he turned his ship a few points to the starboard so as toget a broadside at the rocks. But grape was of no use here as the onlyway he could get an Arab was by hitting one of the rocks with shotbehind which an Arab was lying, and the rocks were not easy to hitexcept by chance, and as often as he manoeuvred his ship the Arabschanged their ground. This went on all day while the mounted Arabshovered out of range watching what Shard would do; and all the whilethe oxen were growing fewer, so good a mark were they, until only tenwere left, and the ship could manoeuvre no longer. But then they allrode off.
The merry men were delighted, they calculated that one way and anotherthey had unhorsed a hundred Arabs and on board there had been no morethan one man wounded: Bad Jack had been hit in the wrist; probably bya bullet meant for the men at the guns, for the Arabs were firinghigh. They had captured a horse and had found quaint weapons on thebodies of the dead Arabs and an interesting kind of tobacco. It wasevening now and they talked over the fight, made jokes about theirluckier shots, smoked their new tobacco and sang; altogether it wasthe jolliest evening they'd had. But Shard alone on the quarter-deckpaced to and fro pondering, brooding and wondering. He had chopped offBad Jack's wounded hand and given him a hook out of store, for captaindoes doctor upon these occasions and Shard, who was ready for mostthings, kept half a dozen or so of neat new limbs, and of course achopper. Bad Jack had gone below swearing a little and said he'd liedown for a bit, the men were smoking and singing on the sand, andShard was there alone. The thought that troubled Shard was: what wouldthe Arabs do? They did not look like men to go away for nothing. Andat back of all his thoughts was one that reiterated guns, guns, guns.He argued with himself that they could not drag them all that way onthe sand, that the Desperate Lark was not worth it, that they hadgiven it up. Yet he knew in his heart that that was what they woulddo. He knew there were fortified towns in Africa, and as for its beingworth it, he knew that there was no pleasant thing left now to thosedefeated men except revenge, and if the Desperate Lark had come overthe sand why not guns? He knew that the ship could never hold outagainst guns and cavalry, a week perhaps, two weeks, even three: whatdifference did it make how long it was, and the men sang:
Away we go, Oho, Oho, Oho, A drop of rum for you and me And the world's as round as the letter O And round it runs the sea.
A melancholy settled down on Shard.
About sunset Lieutenant Smerdrak came up for orders. Shard ordered atrench to be dug along the port side of the ship. The men wanted tosing and grumbled at having to dig, especially as Shard nevermentioned his fear of guns, but he fingered his pistols and in the endShard had his way. No one on board could shoot like Captain Shard.That is often the way with captains of pirate ships, it is a difficultposition to hold. Discipline is essential to those that have the rightto fly the skull-and-cross-bones, and Shard was the man to enforce it.It was starlight by the time the trench was dug to the captain'ssatisfaction and the men that it was to protect when the worst came tothe worst swore all the time as they dug. And when it was finishedthey clamoured to make a feast on some of the killed oxen, and thisShard let them do. And they lit a huge fire for the first time,burning abundant scrub, they thinking that Arabs daren't return, Shardknowing that concealment was now useless. All that night they feastedand sang, and Shard sat up in his chart-room making his plans.
When morning came they rigged up the cutter as they called thecaptured horse and told off her crew. As there were only two men thatcould ride at all these became the crew of the cutter. Spanish Dickand Bill the Boatswain were the two.
Shard's orders were that turn and turn about they should take commandof the cutter and cruise about five miles off to the North East allthe day but at night they were to come in. And they fitted the horseup with a flagstaff in front of the saddle so that they could signalfrom her, and carried an anchor behind for fear she should run away.
And as soon as Spanish Dick had ridden off Shard sent some men to rollall the barrels back from the depot where they were buried in thesand, with orders to watch the cutter all the time and, if shesignalled, to return as fast as they could.
They buried the Arabs that day, removing their water-bottles and anyprovisions they had, and that night they got all the water-barrels in,and for days nothing happened. One event of extraordinary importancedid indeed occur, the wind got up one day, but it was due South, andas the oasis lay to the North of them and beyond that they might pickup the camel track Shard decided to stay where he was. If it hadlooked to him like lasting Shard might have hoisted sail but it itdropped at evening as he knew it would, and in any case it was not thewind he wanted. And more days went by, two weeks without a breeze. Thedead oxen would not keep and they had had to kill three more, therewere only seven left now.
Never before had the men been so long without rum. And Captain Shardhad doubled the watch besides making two more men sleep at the guns.They had tired of their simple games, and most of their songs, andtheir tales that were never true were no longer new. And then one daythe monotony of the desert came down upon them.
There is a fascination in the Sahara, a day there is delightful, aweek is pleasant, a fortnight is a matter of opinion, but it wasrunning into months. The men were perfectly polite but the boatswainwanted to know when Shard thought of moving on. It was an unreasonablequestion to ask of the captain of any ship in a dead calm in a desert,but Shard said he would set a course and let him know in a day or two.And a day or two went by over the monotony of the Sahara, who formonotony is unequalled by all the parts of the earth. Great marshescannot equal it, nor plains of grass nor the sea, the Sahara alonelies unaltered by the seasons, she has no altering surface, no flowersto fade or grow, year in year out she is changeless for hundreds andhundreds of miles. And the boatswain came again and took off his capand asked Captain Shard to be so kind as to tell them about his newcourse. Shard said he meant to stay until they had eaten three more ofthe oxen as they could only take three of them in the hold, there wereonly six left now. But what if there was no wind, the boatswain said.And at that moment the faintest breeze from the North ruffled theboatswain's forelock as he stood with his cap in his hand.
"Don't talk about the wind to _me_," said Captain Shard: and Bill wasa little frightened for Shard's mother had been a gipsy.
But it was only a breeze astray, a trick of the Sahara. And anotherweek went by and they ate two more oxen.
They obeyed Captain Shard ostentatiously now but they wore ominouslooks. Bill came again and Shard answered him in Romany.
Things were like this one hot Sahara morning when the cuttersignalled. The lookout man told Shard and Shard read the message,"Cavalry astern" it read, and then a little later she signalled, "Withguns."
"Ah," said Captain Shard.
One ray of hope Shard had; the flags on the cutter fluttered. For thefirst time for five weeks a light breeze blew from the North, verylight, you hardly felt it. Spanish Dick rode in and anchored his horseto starboard and the cavalry came on slowly from the port.
Not till the afternoon did they come in sight, and all the while thatlittle breeze was blowing.
"One knot," said Shard at noon. "Two knots," he said at six bells andstill it grew and the Arabs trotted nearer. By five o'clock the merrymen of the bad ship Desperate Lark c
ould make out twelve longold-fashioned guns on low wheeled carts dragged by horses and whatlooked like lighter guns carried on camels. The wind was blowing alittle stronger now. "Shall we hoist sail, sir?" said Bill.
"Not yet," said Shard.
By six o'clock the Arabs were just outside the range of cannon andthere they halted. Then followed an anxious hour or so, but the Arabscame no nearer. They evidently meant to wait till dark to bring theirguns up. Probably they intended to dig a gun epaulment from which theycould safely pound away at the ship.
"We could do three knots," said Shard half to himself as he waswalking up and down his quarter-deck with very fast short paces. Andthen the sun set and they heard the Arabs praying and Shard's merrymen cursed at the top of their voices to show that they were as goodmen as they.
The Arabs had come no nearer, waiting for night. They did not know howShard was longing for it too, he was gritting his teeth and sighingfor it, he even would have prayed, but that he feared that it mightremind Heaven of him and his merry men.
Night came and the stars. "Hoist sail," said Shard. The men sprang totheir places, they had had enough of that silent lonely spot. Theytook the oxen on board and let the great sails down, and like a lovercoming from over sea, long dreamed of, long expected, like a lostfriend seen again after many years, the North wind came into thepirates' sails. And before Shard could stop it a ringing English cheerwent away to the wondering Arabs.
They started off at three knots and soon they might have done four butShard would not risk it at night. All night the wind held good, anddoing three knots from ten to four they were far out of sight of theArabs when daylight came. And then Shard hoisted more sail and theydid four knots and by eight bells they were doing four and a half. Thespirits of those volatile men rose high, and discipline becameperfect. So long as there was wind in the sails and water in the tanksCaptain Shard felt safe at least from mutiny. Great men can only beoverthrown while their fortunes are at their lowest. Having failed todepose Shard when his plans were open to criticism and he himselfscarce knew what to do next it was hardly likely they could do it now;and whatever we think of his past and his way of living we cannot denythat Shard was among the great men of the world.
Of defeat by the Arabs he did not feel so sure. It was useless to tryto cover his tracks even if he had had time, the Arab cavalry couldhave picked them up anywhere. And he was afraid of their camels withthose light guns on board, he had heard they could do seven knots andkeep it up most of the day and if as much as one shot struck themainmast... and Shard taking his mind off useless fears worked out onhis chart when the Arabs were likely to overtake them. He told his menthat the wind would hold good for a week, and, gipsy or no, hecertainly knew as much about the wind as is good for a sailor to know.
Alone in his chart-room he worked it out like this, mark two hours tothe good for surprise and finding the tracks and delay in starting,say three hours if the guns were mounted in their epaulments, then theArabs should start at seven. Supposing the camels go twelve hours aday at seven knots they would do eighty-four knots a day, while Sharddoing three knots from ten to four, and four knots the rest of thetime, was doing ninety and actually gaining. But when it came to it hewouldn't risk more than two knots at night while the enemy were out ofsight, for he rightly regarded anything more than that as dangerouswhen sailing on land at night, so he too did eighty-four knots a day.It was a pretty race. I have not troubled to see if Shard added up hisfigures wrongly or if he under-rated the pace of camels, but whateverit was the Arabs gained slightly, for on the fourth day Spanish Jack,five knots astern on what they called the cutter, sighted the camels avery long way off and signalled the fact to Shard. They had left theircavalry behind as Shard supposed they would. The wind held good, theyhad still two oxen left and could always eat their "cutter", and theyhad a fair, though not ample, supply of water, but the appearance ofthe Arabs was a blow to Shard for it showed him that there was nogetting away from them, and of all things he dreaded guns. He madelight of it to the men: said they would sink the lot before they hadbeen in action half an hour: yet he feared that once the guns came upit was only a question of time before his rigging was cut or hissteering gear disabled.
One point the Desperate Lark scored over the Arabs and a very good onetoo, darkness fell just before they could have sighted her and nowShard used the lantern ahead as he dared not do on the first nightwhen the Arabs were close, and with the help of it managed to do threeknots. The Arabs encamped in the evening and the Desperate Lark gainedtwenty knots. But the next evening they appeared again and this timethey saw the sails of the Desperate Lark.
On the sixth day they were close. On the seventh they were closer. Andthen, a line of verdure across their bows, Shard saw the Niger River.
Whether he knew that for a thousand miles it rolled its course throughforest, whether he even knew that it was there at all; what his planswere, or whether he lived from day to day like a man whose days arenumbered he never told his men. Nor can I get an indication on thispoint from the talk that I hear from sailors in their cups in acertain tavern I know of. His face was expressionless, his mouth shut,and he held his ship to her course. That evening they were up to theedge of the tree trunks and the Arabs camped and waited ten knotsastern and the wind had sunk a little.
There Shard anchored a little before sunset and landed at once. Atfirst he explored the forest a little on foot. Then he sent forSpanish Dick. They had slung the cutter on board some days ago whenthey found she could not keep up. Shard could not ride but he sent forSpanish Dick and told him he must take him as a passenger. So SpanishDick slung him in front of the saddle "before the mast" as Shardcalled it, for they still carried a mast on the front of the saddle,and away they galloped together. "Rough weather," said Shard, but hesurveyed the forest as he went and the long and short of it was hefound a place where the forest was less than half a mile thick and theDesperate Lark might get through: but twenty trees must be cut. Shardmarked the trees himself, sent Spanish Dick right back to watch theArabs and turned the whole of his crew on to those twenty trees. Itwas a frightful risk, the Desperate Lark was empty, with an enemy nomore than ten knots astern, but it was a moment for bold measures andShard took the chance of being left without his ship in the heart ofAfrica in the hope of being repaid by escaping altogether.
The men worked all night on those twenty trees, those that had no axesbored with bradawls and blasted, and then relieved those that had.
Shard was indefatigable, he went from tree to tree showing exactlywhat way every one was to fall, and what was to be done with them whenthey were down. Some had to be cut down because their branches wouldget in the way of the masts, others because their trunks would be inthe way of the wheels; in the case of the last the stumps had to bemade smooth and low with saws and perhaps a bit of the trunk sawn offand rolled away. This was the hardest work they had. And they were alllarge trees, on the other hand had they been small there would havebeen many more of them and they could not have sailed in and out,sometimes for hundreds of yards, without cutting any at all: and allthis Shard calculated on doing if only there was time.
The light before dawn came and it looked as if they would never do itat all. And then dawn came and it was all done but one tree, the hardpart of the work had all been done in the night and a sort of finalrush cleared everything up except that one huge tree. And then thecutter signalled the Arabs were moving. At dawn they had prayed, andnow they had struck their camp. Shard at once ordered all his men tothe ship except ten whom he left at the tree, they had some way to goand the Arabs had been moving some ten minutes before they got there.Shard took in the cutter which wasted five minutes, hoisted sailshort-handed and that took five minutes more, and slowly got underway.
The wind was dropping still and by the time the Desperate Lark hadcome to the edge of that part of the forest through which Shard hadlaid his course the Arabs were no more than five knots away. He hadsailed East half a mile, which he ought to have done overnig
ht so asto be ready, but he could not spare time or thought or men away fromthose twenty trees. Then Shard turned into the forest and the Arabswere dead astern. They hurried when they saw the Desperate Lark enterthe forest.
"Doing ten knots," said Shard as he watched them from the deck. TheDesperate Lark was doing no more than a knot and a half for the windwas weak under the lee of the trees. Yet all went well for a while.The big tree had just come down some way ahead, and the ten men weresawing bits off the trunk.
And then Shard saw a branch that he had not marked on the chart, itwould just catch the top of the mainmast. He anchored at once and senta hand aloft who sawed it half way through and did the rest with apistol, and now the Arabs were only three knots astern. For a quarterof a mile Shard steered them through the forest till they came to theten men and that bad big tree, another foot had yet to come off onecorner of the stump for the wheels had to pass over it. Shard turnedall hands on to the stump and it was then that the Arabs came withinshot. But they had to unpack their gun. And before they had it mountedShard was away. If they had charged things might have been different.When they saw the Desperate Lark under way again the Arabs came on towithin three hundred yards and there they mounted two guns. Shardwatched them along his stern gun but would not fire. They were sixhundred yards away before the Arabs could fire and then they fired toosoon and both guns missed. And Shard and his merry men saw clear wateronly ten fathoms ahead. Then Shard loaded his stern gun with canisterinstead of shot and at the same moment the Arabs charged on theircamels; they came galloping down through the forest waving longlances. Shard left the steering to Smerdrak and stood by the sterngun, the Arabs were within fifty yards and still Shard did not fire;he had most of his men in the stern with muskets beside him. Thoselances carried on camels were altogether different from swords in thehands of horsemen, they could reach the men on deck. The men could seethe horrible barbs on the lanceheads, they were almost at their faceswhen Shard fired, and at the same moment the Desperate Lark with herdry and suncracked keel in air on the high bank of the Niger fellforward like a diver. The gun went off through the tree-tops, a wavecame over the bows and swept the stern, the Desperate Lark wriggledand righted herself, she was back in her element.
The merry men looked at the wet decks and at their drippingclothes. "Water," they said almost wonderingly.
The Arabs followed a little way through the forest but when they sawthat they had to face a broadside instead of one stern gun andperceived that a ship afloat is less vulnerable to cavalry even thanwhen on shore, they abandoned ideas of revenge, and comfortedthemselves with a text out of their sacred book which tells how inother days and other places our enemies shall suffer even as wedesire.
For a thousand miles with the flow of the Niger and the help ofoccasional winds, the Desperate Lark moved seawards. At first hesweeps East a little and then Southwards, till you come to Akassa andthe open sea.
I will not tell you how they caught fish and ducks, raided a villagehere and there and at last came to Akassa, for I have said muchalready of Captain Shard. Imagine them drawing nearer and nearer thesea, bad men all, and yet with a feeling for something where we feelfor our king, our country or our home, a feeling for something thatburned in them not less ardently than our feelings in us, and thatsomething the sea. Imagine them nearing it till sea birds appeared andthey fancied they felt sea breezes and all sang songs again that theyhad not sung for weeks. Imagine them heaving at last on the saltAtlantic again.
I have said much already of Captain Shard and I fear lest I shallweary you, O my reader, if I tell you any more of so bad a man. I tooat the top of a tower all alone am weary.
And yet it is right that such a tale should be told. A journey almostdue South from near Algiers to Akassa in a ship that we should call nomore than a yacht. Let it be a stimulus to younger men.
Guarantee To The Reader
Since writing down for your benefit, O my reader, all this long talethat I heard in the tavern by the sea I have travelled in Algeria andTunisia as well as in the Desert. Much that I saw in those countriesseems to throw doubt on the tale that the sailor told me. To beginwith the Desert does not come within hundreds of miles of the coastand there are more mountains to cross than you would suppose, theAtlas mountains in particular. It is just possible Shard might havegot through by El Cantara, following the camel road which is manycenturies old; or he may have gone by Algiers and Bou Saada andthrough the mountain pass El Finita Dem, though that is a bad enoughway for camels to go (let alone bullocks with a ship) for which reasonthe Arabs call it Finita Dem--the Path of Blood.
I should not have ventured to give this story the publicity of printhad the sailor been sober when he told it, for fear that he I shouldhave deceived you, O my reader; but this was never the case with himas I took good care to ensure: "in vino veritas" is a sound oldproverb, and I never had cause to doubt his word unless that proverblies.
If it should prove that he has deceived me, let it pass; but if he hasbeen the means of deceiving you there are little things about him thatI know, the common gossip of that ancient tavern whose leadedbottle-glass windows watch the sea, which I will tell at once to everyjudge of my acquaintance, and it will be a pretty race to see which ofthem will hang him.
Meanwhile, O my reader, believe the story, resting assured that if youare taken in the thing shall be a matter for the hangman.
