The Pirate
concerned; and yet it was not without a feeling of breathless awe that
Mordaunt and his father beheld the vessel--that rare masterpiece by
which human genius aspires to surmount the waves, and contend with the
winds, upon the point of falling a prey to them.
Onward she came, the large black hulk seeming larger at every fathom's
length. She came nearer, until she bestrode the summit of one tremendous
billow, which rolled on with her unbroken, till the wave and its burden
were precipitated against the rock, and then the triumph of the elements
over the work of human hands was at once completed. One wave, we have
said, made the wrecked vessel completely manifest in her whole bulk, as
it raised her, and bore her onward against the face of the precipice.
But when that wave receded from the foot of the rock, the ship had
ceased to exist; and the retiring billow only bore back a quantity of
beams, planks, casks, and similar objects, which swept out to the
offing, to be brought in again by the next wave, and again precipitated
upon the face of the rock.
It was at this moment that Mordaunt conceived he saw a man floating on a
plank or water-cask, which, drifting away from the main current, seemed
about to go ashore upon a small spot of sand, where the water was
shallow, and the waves broke more smoothly. To see the danger, and to
exclaim, "He lives, and may yet be saved!" was the first impulse of the
fearless Mordaunt. The next was, after one rapid glance at the front of
the cliff, to precipitate himself--such seemed the rapidity of his
movement--from the verge, and to commence, by means of slight fissures,
projections, and crevices in the rock, a descent, which, to a spectator,
appeared little else than an act of absolute insanity.
"Stop, I command you, rash boy!" said his father; "the attempt is death.
Stop, and take the safer path to the left." But Mordaunt was already
completely engaged in his perilous enterprise.
"Why should I prevent him?" said his father, checking his anxiety with
the stern and unfeeling philosophy whose principles he had adopted.
"Should he die now, full of generous and high feeling, eager in the
cause of humanity, happy in the exertion of his own conscious activity,
and youthful strength--should he die now, will he not escape
misanthropy, and remorse, and age, and the consciousness of decaying
powers, both of body and mind?--I will not look upon it however--I will
not--I cannot behold his young light so suddenly quenched."
He turned from the precipice accordingly, and hastening to the left for
more than a quarter of a mile, he proceeded towards a _riva_, or cleft
in the rock, containing a path, called Erick's Steps, neither safe,
indeed, nor easy, but the only one by which the inhabitants of Jarlshof
were wont, for any purpose, to seek access to the foot of the precipice.
But long ere Mertoun had reached even the upper end of the pass, his
adventurous and active son had accomplished his more desperate
enterprise. He had been in vain turned aside from the direct line of
descent, by the intervention of difficulties which he had not seen from
above--his route became only more circuitous, but could not be
interrupted. More than once, large fragments to which he was about to
intrust his weight, gave way before him, and thundered down into the
tormented ocean; and in one or two instances, such detached pieces of
rock rushed after him, as if to bear him headlong in their course. A
courageous heart, a steady eye, a tenacious hand, and a firm foot,
carried him through his desperate attempt; and in the space of seven
minutes, he stood at the bottom of the cliff, from the verge of which
he had achieved his perilous descent.
The place which he now occupied was the small projecting spot of stones,
sand, and gravel, that extended a little way into the sea, which on the
right hand lashed the very bottom of the precipice, and on the left, was
scarce divided from it by a small wave-worn portion of beach that
extended as far as the foot of the rent in the rocks called Erick's
Steps, by which Mordaunt's father proposed to descend.
When the vessel split and went to pieces, all was swallowed up in the
ocean, which had, after the first shock, been seen to float upon the
waves, excepting only a few pieces of wreck, casks, chests, and the
like, which a strong eddy, formed by the reflux of the waves, had
landed, or at least grounded, upon the shallow where Mordaunt now stood.
Amongst these, his eager eye discovered the object that had at first
engaged his attention, and which now, seen at nigher distance, proved to
be in truth a man, and in a most precarious state. His arms were still
wrapt with a close and convulsive grasp round the plank to which he had
clung in the moment of the shock, but sense and the power of motion were
fled; and, from the situation in which the plank lay, partly grounded
upon the beach, partly floating in the sea, there was every chance that
it might be again washed off shore, in which case death was inevitable.
Just as he had made himself aware of these circumstances, Mordaunt
beheld a huge wave advancing, and hastened to interpose his aid ere it
burst, aware that the reflux might probably sweep away the sufferer.
He rushed into the surf, and fastened on the body, with the same
tenacity, though under a different impulse, with that wherewith the
hound seizes his prey. The strength of the retiring wave proved even
greater than he had expected, and it was not without a struggle for his
own life, as well as for that of the stranger, that Mordaunt resisted
being swept off with the receding billow, when, though an adroit
swimmer, the strength of the tide must either have dashed him against
the rocks, or hurried him out to sea. He stood his ground, however, and
ere another such billow had returned, he drew up, upon the small slip of
dry sand, both the body of the stranger, and the plank to which he
continued firmly attached. But how to save and to recall the means of
ebbing life and strength, and how to remove into a place of greater
safety the sufferer, who was incapable of giving any assistance towards
his own preservation, were questions which Mordaunt asked himself
eagerly, but in vain.
He looked to the summit of the cliff on which he had left his father,
and shouted to him for his assistance; but his eye could not distinguish
his form, and his voice was only answered by the scream of the
sea-birds. He gazed again on the sufferer. A dress richly laced,
according to the fashion of the times, fine linen, and rings upon his
fingers, evinced he was a man of superior rank; and his features showed
youth and comeliness, notwithstanding they were pallid and disfigured.
He still breathed, but so feebly, that his respiration was almost
imperceptible, and life seemed to keep such slight hold of his frame,
that there was every reason to fear it would become altogether
extinguished, unless it were speedily reinforced. To loosen the
handkerchief from his neck, to raise him with his face towards the
breeze, to support him with his arms, was all that Mordaunt could do for
his assistance, whilst he anxiously looked for some one who might lend
his aid in dragging the unfortunate to a more safe situation.
At this moment he beheld a man advancing slowly and cautiously along the
beach. He was in hopes, at first, it was his father, but instantly
recollected that he had not had time to come round by the circuitous
descent, to which he must necessarily have recourse, and besides, he saw
that the man who approached him was shorter in stature.
As he came nearer, Mordaunt was at no loss to recognise the pedlar whom
the day before he had met with at Harfra, and who was known to him
before upon many occasions. He shouted as loud as he could, "Bryce,
hollo! Bryce, come hither!" But the merchant, intent upon picking up
some of the spoils of the wreck, and upon dragging them out of reach of
the tide, paid for some time little attention to his shouts.
When he did at length approach Mordaunt, it was not to lend him his aid,
but to remonstrate with him on his rashness in undertaking the
charitable office. "Are you mad?" said he; "you that have lived sae lang
in Zetland, to risk the saving of a drowning man? Wot ye not, if you
bring him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital
injury?[31]--Come, Master Mordaunt, bear a hand to what's mair to the
purpose. Help me to get ane or twa of these kists ashore before any body
else comes, and we shall share, like good Christians, what God sends us,
and be thankful."
Mordaunt was indeed no stranger to this inhuman superstition, current at
a former period among the lower orders of the Zetlanders, and the more
generally adopted, perhaps, that it served as an apology for refusing
assistance to the unfortunate victims of shipwreck, while they made
plunder of their goods. At any rate, the opinion, that to save a
drowning man was to run the risk of future injury from him, formed a
strange contradiction in the character of these islanders; who,
hospitable, generous, and disinterested, on all other occasions, were
sometimes, nevertheless, induced by this superstition, to refuse their
aid in those mortal emergencies, which were so common upon their rocky
and stormy coasts. We are happy to add, that the exhortation and example
of the proprietors have eradicated even the traces of this inhuman
belief, of which there might be some observed within the memory of those
now alive. It is strange that the minds of men should have ever been
hardened towards those involved in a distress to which they themselves
were so constantly exposed; but perhaps the frequent sight and
consciousness of such danger tends to blunt the feelings to its
consequences, whether affecting ourselves or others.
Bryce was remarkably tenacious of this ancient belief; the more so,
perhaps, that the mounting of his pack depended less upon the warehouses
of Lerwick or Kirkwall, than on the consequences of such a north-western
gale as that of the day preceding; for which (being a man who, in his
own way, professed great devotion) he seldom failed to express his
grateful thanks to Heaven. It was indeed said of him, that if he had
spent the same time in assisting the wrecked seamen, which he had
employed in rifling their bales and boxes, he would have saved many
lives, and lost much linen. He paid no sort of attention to the
repeated entreaties of Mordaunt, although he was now upon the same slip
of sand with him. It was well known to Bryce as a place on which the
eddy was likely to land such spoils as the ocean disgorged; and to
improve the favourable moment, he occupied himself exclusively in
securing and appropriating whatever seemed most portable and of greatest
value. At length Mordaunt saw the honest pedlar fix his views upon a
strong sea-chest, framed of some Indian wood, well secured by brass
plates, and seeming to be of a foreign construction. The stout lock
resisted all Bryce's efforts to open it, until, with great composure, he
plucked from his pocket a very neat hammer and chisel, and began forcing
the hinges.
Incensed beyond patience at his assurance, Mordaunt caught up a wooden
stretcher which lay near him, and laying his charge softly on the sand,
approached Bryce with a menacing gesture, and exclaimed, "You
cold-blooded, inhuman rascal! either get up instantly and lend me your
assistance to recover this man, and bear him out of danger from the
surf, or I will not only beat you to a mummy on the spot, but inform
Magnus Troil of your thievery, that he may have you flogged till your
bones are bare, and then banish you from the Mainland!"
The lid of the chest had just sprung open as this rough address saluted
Bryce's ears, and the inside presented a tempting view of wearing