Fully two hours pa.s.sed by, and still Ben"s sharp eyes could not detect the land. We had been steering by the stars, and though they had for some time been obscured, we had reason to believe that the wind had not changed, and therefore, being directly before it, that we had kept the same course.
I asked Boxall how fast he thought we were going through the water.
"Considering the breeze we have got, I should say five or six knots an hour," he answered.
"Beg pardon, sir," said Ben, who overheard him; "you forget, I dare say, that this raft does not sail like a boat. I suspect that we don"t get much more than three or four knots out of her."
"I believe you are right, Ben," answered Boxall. "In that case, it will take us an hour or so more than I calculated on to gain the sh.o.r.e.
However, it may be to our advantage, for it will be far safer to land when it is calm than with so strong a breeze as is now blowing. At all events, unless the wind changes, we shall reach the sh.o.r.e at last."
Another hour went by. According to Boxall"s predictions, the weather was improving. The dark clouds which had obscured the sky cleared away, and the stars shone forth brightly as before; still the wind did not decrease, and the seas kept tumbling, foaming, and hissing around us as before. More than once we looked astern, thinking it possible that the large raft might be again within sight; but no sign of her could be seen. By degrees we had got accustomed to the tossing and the occasional breaking of the seas over us, and even had we expected to perform a much longer voyage we should not have complained; indeed, it now seems surprising to me how little concerned we all appeared to be.
We were running much as we had been doing for the last three hours, when Ben exclaimed, "Land! land!"--and directly afterwards, "Breakers ahead!"
We all looked out under the sail at what appeared to be the dark outline of a hilly country,--it seemed strange that we had not seen it before,-- while the intervening line of white foaming breakers stretched out parallel with the coast, and threatened our destruction before we could reach it.
"Do you see any opening through which we may pa.s.s, Ben?" asked Boxall.
"No, sir; none at all," answered Ben. "All we can do is to hold fast to the raft, and pray that we may be earned through the breakers."
"Had we not better lower the sail, then, and keep the raft off till daylight?" I asked.
"We may lower the sail; but all the strength we possess could not keep us out of the breakers," answered Boxall. "We had better do as Ben suggests--stand on, and hope to be carried safe through them. Hold fast, all of you!" cried Boxall; "here we are close upon them."
As he spoke, we saw the waters hissing and foaming and dancing up to a prodigious height, as it appeared, directly before us, while the land rose still more distinctly behind them. The next instant we were in their midst.
"Hold fast! hold fast!" again shouted Boxall, "and we shall be carried safely through."
The breakers did not appear so high as they had done a little way off, and we all had hopes that Boxall"s predictions would prove correct. But we had not much time for thinking; my head whirled and I felt giddy as I looked at the tumbling, foaming waters surrounding us. The raft lifted on the top of a sea, and came down with a fearful crash on a rock; and I felt myself torn from the grasp I had of the raft, and carried far away from it. I looked for my companions, and distinguished Halliday struggling near me. Striking out, I caught hold of him and urged him to endeavour to reach the sh.o.r.e, which appeared at no great distance before us. I then shouted to the rest of my companions, and was thankful to hear Boxall"s voice.
"Strike out ahead; we have not far to swim," he answered, and presently he was close up to us. Neither Ben nor Jose, however, replied to our shouts; but self-preservation compelled us to try and make the best of our way to the sh.o.r.e, without attempting to look for them.
We had not struck out far when I felt my feet touch something. For an instant the horrid thought occurred to me that it might be a shark; but I retained my presence of mind,--and directly afterwards, greatly to my astonishment, I felt my feet touching the ground. I told my companions; and soon we all found ourselves standing, with the water scarcely up to our armpits. Still, though we distinctly saw the sh.o.r.e, it appeared to be a long way off. We now stopped to look around us. Not far-off, on one side, rose a rock to a considerable height, as it seemed, above the water. Believing that we were on a sand-bank, and that we might possibly have to swim a considerable distance, we agreed to make for the rock and rest on it till daylight. Holding each other"s hands, we accordingly waded on, when suddenly we found that we had reached the rock,--on which we without difficulty climbed. The upper part of it, which was much lower than we expected, was perfectly dry; showing that the sea, in moderate weather, did not break over it. Boxall was of opinion that we had struck on a reef which extended parallel with the coast, and broke the force of the waves, and that we were in an intervening lagoon,--so that should it be now low water, which he thought probable, we could have no difficulty in reaching the sh.o.r.e.
We again shouted to Ben and Jose, but no reply came; and fearing that they must have been lost, we gave up calling to them and sat down.
The wind fell soon afterwards, and wet through as we were, by sheltering ourselves in a crevice of the rock we did not suffer much from the cold.
After waiting for some time, we found that the tide was ebbing.
"If we wait till the morning we shall have high-water again; and in my opinion we shall be wise to try and get on sh.o.r.e at once," said Boxall.
Halliday and I agreed with him; for, our strength being restored, we were anxious to find ourselves safe on dry ground. We could not, however, fail to grieve for the loss of Ben, who had been so faithful to us; and also for his companion, Jose, who seemed a truly honest fellow.
"Now," said Boxall, "let us start."
"We are ready," answered Halliday; and he and I following Boxall"s example by slipping off the rock, found ourselves in water scarcely up to our middle and once more began to wade towards the sh.o.r.e.
CHAPTER SIX.
A DECEPTIVE COAST--WHAT IS IT?--OUR DISAPPOINTMENT--A STRANGE APPARITION.
An attempt to cross an unknown expanse of water, such as seemed the lagoon stretching out before us, was a hazardous experiment. Still, the water was calm, and we concluded that it was shallow, so that we hoped by perseverance to gain the dry land at last. There was no time to be lost, however, as the tide might soon rise again, and make the undertaking more difficult. I felt like a person in a dream as we waded on, surrounded on all sides by water, over which hung a peculiar silvery mist, curiously deceiving the senses,--though perhaps I was not aware of it at the time. The appearance of the sh.o.r.e even seemed changed. It looked altogether very different from what we expected to find it.
Instead of a low sandy beach, with here and there hillocks of sand, it appeared to rise to a considerable height, with hills and intervening valleys, and lofty rocks springing directly out of the water. "We must have been further to the south than we supposed," I observed to Boxall.
"Surely we must be near the French settlements. The sh.o.r.e before us cannot be on the border of the great Desert of Sahara."
"I cannot make it out," he answered. "Still I am pretty certain as to our lat.i.tude. The country, however, is but little known, and we may have been thrown on a more fertile region than was supposed to exist."
"I hope, then, that we shall be able to find some food," said Halliday; "I am terribly hungry and thirsty. Don"t you think that we may by chance have got to the mouth of a river, and so may soon find fresh water?"
"This, at all events, is salt enough," said Boxall, lifting a handful to his lips. "No; it is merely a lagoon filled by the ocean."
We waded on and on, but the sh.o.r.e appeared no nearer.
"We may have a fearfully long way to swim, should the water grow deeper," observed Halliday.
"If it does, we can easily return to the rock and wait till the low tide during daylight, when we shall be better able to judge what course to take," I observed.
As I said this I turned round to look at the rock, and to see how far we were from it, when what was my astonishment to be unable to distinguish it! Behind us the lagoon appeared to stretch out to an illimitable distance, without a single object rising above the surface. To attempt to return would have been madness, as we should certainly have lost our way; we therefore could do nothing else than push boldly forward. The sand below our feet was smooth and even, but walking in water almost up to our middle was fatiguing work, and we made but slow progress. Still on and on we went, when suddenly we saw before us a high conical hill, and directly afterwards a bright light appeared beyond it. Presently the upper circle of the full moon rose behind the hill, though it seemed six times the size of any moon I ever saw; indeed, I could scarcely believe that it was the moon.
"I suppose that the African moons are much larger than those of any other part of the world. At all events, that is a whopper," exclaimed Halliday, without considering what he was saying.
"It will give us light to see our way," observed Boxall, "and we should be thankful for it. We had better keep to our right, however, where the sh.o.r.e seems somewhat lower."
He was turning aside, and I was about to follow him, when Halliday exclaimed--
"Look! look! what can that terrific creature be?"
We turned our eyes towards the summit of the hill, and to our horror saw an enormous animal with arched back and glaring eyes--so we pictured it--gazing down upon us, seemingly prepared to make a terrific leap right down on our heads. Such a creature I had never even read of; for it looked far larger than any ordinary elephant, and might have swallowed us all at a gulp.
"What is to be done?" cried Halliday. "If we run, it will certainly be after us."
"We cannot run, at all events," said Boxall with less anxiety in his tone than I should have supposed possible, though I knew him to be a dauntless fellow. "We will keep to our right, as I proposed, and perhaps the monster won"t follow us after all. It is not likely to come into the water to get at us."
We kept away to our right, and found the water growing shallower and shallower. It was now but a little above our knees. I confess that I turned my head very frequently, to see whether the monster was coming after us. There it stood, however, in the same att.i.tude as before-- which was some comfort, as it thus showed no inclination to act as we had dreaded.
"What can it be?" I asked of Boxall.
"A wild beast, certainly," he answered. "I might have supposed it a part of the rock, or some gigantic figure hewn out of it, but it is too much like a real creature for that; and I begin to think that the mist which hangs over the water must have given it its supernatural magnitude. I would have said, from its shape, that it was a hyena or jackal, but neither the one nor the other approaches to anything like it in size."
"Whatever it was or is, it has disappeared," I exclaimed; for on looking round once more, the monster was no longer to be seen on the top of the hill. The water was now but a very little way above our knees, while the ascent was much steeper than it had been.
"I only hope we shan"t see the creature again on sh.o.r.e," said Halliday.
"We have not much further to go to reach it," observed Boxall. The last few yards we had taken we had rapidly shoaled the water. "Thank Heaven, we are ash.o.r.e at last!" he added, as the light surf which rolled up slowly went hissing back and left our feet uncovered. A few paces more, and we were standing on dry sand.
"Halloa! what has become of the mountains?" exclaimed Halliday. "I thought we were going to land on a rocky country, but I see nothing but sand-hills around us."