Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/763

1885.] which they were hard and fast by any means reassuring. Low and rugged, and covered with slimy brown and green sea-weed, it looked very like the slippery back of the fabulous kraken, and nearly as likely to be submerged at any moment, Assuredly it was sunk far out of sight in spring-tides; probably the seas washed over it in such a gale as was coming on.

The captain, although comparatively sobered by the catastrophe, was dazed, and disposed to take gloomy views, as he well might be, considering that under the most favourable circumstances his certificate was sure to be suspended by the Board of Trade. So he declared that as the vessel might break up at any moment, the passengers had better take refuge on the reef, which might be trusted not to go to pieces, though it was quite on the cards that it might be swamped.

Had an unimaginative artist sought materials for the illustration of 'Robinson Crusoe,' assuredly he might have found them in the scene on the reef, which was locally known as the "Kittiwake's neb." The steerage passengers began by saving their personal property, and piled bags and blankets and wooden "kists" about them. Then, for sheer want of occupation, and by the offer of free rations of "Tallisker," they were persuaded by the mate and the steward to unload the live cargo. We can't say that humanity had much to do with it. So half-wild cattle that had the strength and suppleness of the famous Chillingham herd, were persuaded to leap from the deck into the water. The sheep followed their leaders, when one or two had been caught up and pitched over bodily. And then there was a scene, such as might have been witnessed when the ark brought up, after its seven months' cruise, on Mount Ararat. The cattle crowded together, as is their custom, with stooping heads and staring coats, playfully goring each other in the ribs with their tremendous horns, till the melancholy ocean resounded with their bellowing. The sheep, that jostled up against the oxen, although confining themselves to plaintive protests against their bad luck, were scarcely in the sum total less vociferous. We daresay the rats left the stranded ship, though, had they foreseen the fate that must befall them, they would have stuck by her so long as she floated. But the old cabin cat, which had slipped over the side when his betters set him the example, was perhaps more to be felt for than any person. He lowered himself over the side, from a natural instinct of self-preservation; but really he cared very little what became of him. He was too miserable, as he picked his way among pools of sea-water, and set down his feet gingerly on rocks that were slimy with trailing sea-weed. His principles and his instincts denied him the resource of suicide – for we believe that, among all the memorabilia of remarkable cats, no one instance has been recorded of an animal that drowned itself. But he strolled recklessly under the very noses of collies who, in ordinary circumstances, would have made but a couple of mouthfuls of him. As it was, in the presence of a common danger, they saw him pass with an indifference as appalling as his own, to any one who had leisure to remark the phenomenon. And so the desponding Thomas went on, till he ran up against a gentleman seated in a chair, when the domestic instincts asserted themselves, the more decidedly for the delightful surprise.