Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata

THE FATE OF THE “SUNSHINE.”

Stunned at first, for a few minutes, by the extreme violence of the explosion, no one on board the Sunshine spoke, though each man stood at his post ready to act.

“Strange,” said the captain at last.  “There seems to be no big wave this time.”

“That only shows that we are not as near the island as we thought.  But it won’t be long of——­See!  There it comes,” said the hermit.  “Now, Winnie, cling to my arm and put your trust in God.”

Nigel, who had secured a life-buoy, moved close to the girl’s side, and looking anxiously out ahead saw a faint line of foam in the thick darkness which had succeeded the explosion.  Already the distant roar of the billow was heard, proving that it had begun to break.

“The wind comes with it,” said Van der Kemp.

“Stand by!” cried the captain, gazing intently over the side.  Next moment came the sharp order to hoist the foretopsail and jib, soon followed by “Cut the cable!”

There was breeze enough to swing the vessel quickly round.  In a few seconds her stern was presented to the coming wave, and her bow cleft the water as she rushed upon what every one now knew was her doom.

To escape the great wave was no part of the captain’s plan.  To have reached the shore before the wave would have been fatal to all.  Their only hope lay in the possibility of riding in on the top of it, and the great danger was that they should be unable to rise to it stern first when it came up, or that they should turn broadside on and be rolled over.

They had not long to wait.  The size of the wave, before it came near enough to be seen, was indicated by its solemn, deep-toned, ever-increasing roar.  The captain stood at the wheel himself, guiding the brig and glancing back from time to time uneasily.

Suddenly the volcano gave vent to its fourth and final explosion.  It was not so violent as its predecessors had been, though more so than any that had occurred on the day before, and the light of it showed them the full terrors of their situation, for it revealed the mountains of Java—­apparently quite close in front, though in reality at a considerable distance—­with a line of breakers beating white on the shore.  But astern of them was the most appalling sight, for there, rushing on with awful speed and a sort of hissing roar, came the monstrous wave, emerging, as it were, out of thick darkness, like a mighty wall of water with a foaming white crest, not much less—­according to an average of the most reliable estimates—­than 100 feet high.

Well might the seamen blanch, for never before in all their varied experience had they seen the like of that.

On it came with the unwavering force of Fate.  To the eye of Captain Roy it appeared that up its huge towering side no vessel made by mortal man could climb.  But the captain had too often stared death in the face to be unmanned by the prospect now.  Steadily he steered the vessel straight on, and in a quiet voice said—­

“Lay hold of something firm—­every man!”

The warning was well timed.  In the amazement, if not fear, caused by the unwonted sight, some had neglected the needful precaution.

As the billow came on, the bubbling, leaping, and seething of its crest was apparent both to eye and ear.  Then the roar became tremendous.

“Darling Winnie,” said Nigel at that moment.  “I will die for you or with you!”

The poor girl heard, but no sign of appreciation moved her pale face as she gazed up at the approaching chaos of waters.

Next moment the brig seemed to stand on its bows.  Van der Kemp had placed his daughter against the mast, and, throwing his long arms round both, held on.  Nigel, close to them, had grasped a handful of ropes, and every one else was holding on for life.  Another moment and the brig rose as if it were being tossed up to the heavens.  Immediately thereafter it resumed its natural position in a perfect wilderness of foam.  They were on the summit of the great wave, which was so large that its crest seemed like a broad, rounded mass of tumbling snow with blackness before and behind, while the roar of the tumult was deafening.  The brig rushed onward at a speed which she had never before equalled even in the fiercest gale—­tossed hither and thither by the leaping foam, yet always kept going straight onward by the expert steering of her captain.

“Come aft—­all of you!” he shouted, when it was evident that the vessel was being borne surely forward on the wave’s crest.  “The masts will go for certain when we strike.”

The danger of being entangled in the falling spars and cordage was so obvious that every one except the hermit and Nigel obeyed.

“Here, Nigel,” gasped the former.  “I—­I’ve—­lost blood—­faint!——­”

Our hero at once saw that Van der Kemp, fainting from previous loss of blood, coupled with exertion, was unable to do anything but hold on.  Indeed, he failed even in that, and would have fallen to the deck had Nigel not caught him by the arm.

“Can you run aft, Winnie?” said Nigel anxiously.

“Yes!” said the girl, at once understanding the situation and darting to the wheel, of which and of Captain Roy she laid firm hold, while Nigel lifted the hermit in his arms and staggered to the same spot.  Winnie knelt beside him immediately, and, forgetting for the moment all the horrors around her, busied herself in replacing the bandage which had been loosened from his head.

“Oh!  Mr. Roy, save him!—­save him!” cried the poor child, appealing in an agony to Nigel, for she felt instinctively that when the crash came her father would be utterly helpless even to save himself.

Nigel had barely time to answer when a wild shout from the crew caused him to start up and look round.  A flare from the volcano had cast a red light over the bewildering scene, and revealed the fact that the brig was no longer above the ocean’s bed, but was passing in its wild career right through, or rather over, the demolished town of Anjer.  A few of the houses that had been left standing by the previous waves were being swept—­hurled—­away by this one, but the mass of rolling, rushing, spouting water was so deep, that the vessel had as yet struck nothing save the tops of some palm-trees which bent their heads like straws before the flood.

Even in the midst of the amazement, alarm, and anxiety caused by the situation, Nigel could not help wondering that in this final and complete destruction of the town no sign of struggling human beings should be visible.  He forgot at the moment, what was terribly proved afterwards, that the first waves had swallowed up men, women, and children by hundreds, and that the few who survived had fled to the hills, leaving nothing for the larger wave to do but complete the work of devastation on inanimate objects.  Ere the situation had been well realised the volcanic fires went down again, and left the world, for over a hundred surrounding miles, in opaque darkness.  Only the humble flicker of the binnacle light, like a trusty sentinel on duty, continued to shed its feeble rays on a few feet of the deck, and showed that the compass at least was still faithful to the pole!

Then another volcanic outburst revealed the fact that the wave which carried them was thundering on in the direction of a considerable cliff or precipice—­not indeed quite straight towards it, but sufficiently so to render escape doubtful.

At the same time a swarm of terror-stricken people were seen flying towards this cliff and clambering up its steep sides.  They were probably some of the more courageous of the inhabitants who had summoned courage to return to their homes after the passage of the second wave.  Their shrieks and cries could be heard above even the roaring of the water and the detonations of the volcano.

“God spare us!” exclaimed poor Winnie, whose trembling form was now partially supported by Nigel.

As she spoke darkness again obscured everything, and they could do naught but listen to the terrible sounds—­and pray.

On—­on went the Sunshine, in the midst of wreck and ruin, on this strange voyage over land and water, until a check was felt.  It was not a crash as had been anticipated, and as might have naturally been expected, neither was it an abrupt stoppage.  There was first a hissing, scraping sound against the vessel’s sides, then a steady checking—­we might almost say a hindrance to progress—­not violent, yet so very decided that the rigging could not bear the strain.  One and another of the back-stays parted, the foretopsail burst with a cannon-like report, after which a terrible rending sound, followed by an indescribable crash, told that both masts had gone by the board.

Then all was comparatively still—­comparatively we say, for water still hissed and leaped beneath them like a rushing river, though it no longer roared, and the wind blew in unfamiliar strains and laden with unwonted odours.

At that moment another outburst of Krakatoa revealed the fact that the great wave had borne the brig inland for upwards of a mile, and left her imbedded in a thick grove of cocoa-nut palms!