“How was it that the captain didn’t take it with him?” asked Gilbert.
“Because they wouldn’t let him,” said the surgeon. “He asked to be allowed to fetch it, and looked as savage as he dared to look, when they swore they’d allow no firearms to be taken.”
“I don’t wonder at their not permitting it,” observed Wilmore.
“Nor I, Frank. The wonder to me has always been that they let the officers and passengers go at all. But it seems that such of our men as agreed to join these Congo pirates would not do so, except on the express condition that the lives of all on board were to be spared; and the pirates daren’t cross them. But we mustn’t dawdle here talking. There’s plenty to be done by all of us, and more than we can do, too.”
Warley and Nick accordingly set off in opposite directions, and Lavie and Frank began their work. They first took an axe from their stores, and choosing from among the drift-wood three of the longest spars, resolved to fix two of them in the ground, and lash the third to their upper ends. They selected for this purpose a hollow between two high sand hills, about a hundred yards above high-water mark. Then they were to cut six more poles, and lay them on either side against the ridge piece, burying the other ends in the sand. Over this frame-work the tarpaulin was to be stretched, and kept in its place by laying some heavy pieces of wood on the lower ends. Thus a small tent would be formed, at the bottom of which the boat’s sail was to be spread, forming a convenient place on which to lay their stores, and make up their beds.
Plainly it would occupy a considerable time to complete these arrangements, but they had not advanced half-way, when Nick came hurrying back in a state of the greatest excitement, declaring that he had seen, at a short distance, the roofs of what was evidently a town of considerable size; and on a flat piece of ground adjoining it, a number of men – soldiers they seemed to be – in red and white uniforms, drawn out in long lines, as if on parade.
“A large town, Nick! soldiers in uniform!” repeated Wilmore in great astonishment. “You must be dreaming.”
“I assure you I am not,” replied Gilbert, whose demeanour showed that he was thoroughly in earnest. “I could see, quite distinctly above the fog, the towers of a church, apparently, and a long row of battlements, evidently part of a line of fortifications; and, through openings in the mist, the red caps and jackets of the soldiers were as plain as anything I ever beheld in my life.”
“But it can’t be, doctor, can it?” asked Frank. “I am sure I should be glad enough to think we were near any inhabited spot, let alone a large city. But you’re pretty certain of our whereabouts, ain’t you?”
“Yes; I don’t think I can be mistaken very much, and I must be out of all reckoning wrong, if this is true. There is no town, that I know of, on this coast, between the Portuguese settlements, which are something like eight hundred miles to the north of where I suppose we now are, and Cape Town, which is almost as far to the south.”
“Well, just come and look for yourself, doctor,” said Nick. “It won’t take you long. The place is not above two or three miles off at the outside.”
“Of course I will go – we’ll all go, Nick – Lion and all I am sure I hope with all my heart that you may be right. It will save us a very long and dangerous journey if you are.”
He caught up a fowling-piece which had belonged to his friend the purser, and handed Frank the fourth gun, an ordinary seaman’s carbine. “Now then, Nick, lead the way.”
Gilbert complied, and the whole party stepped out briskly, their curiosity, as well as their interest, being strongly awakened. They toiled through the heavy sand, which was only varied by heaps of drift-wood flung up by the sea, and the rotten carcasses of mud fish, which had been carried too far inland by the tide to be able to recover their native element. The stench, under the burning sun, was almost insupportable, and the three adventurers were greatly relieved, when, after a walk of three-quarters of an hour, the desert of sand was passed, and they ascended a rocky plateau, where some crags, twelve or fifteen feet in height, afforded at least some shelter from the rapidly increasing heat. “We are getting near the place now,” observed Nick, as they reached the last of a long chain of rocks, and came upon a wide and apparently level plain, but so much enveloped in mist as to be very imperfectly discerned.
“There it is, I declare,” exclaimed Frank, who was the first of the party to turn the corner of the limestone shelf. “There it all is – houses, fortifications, and soldiers, just as Nick said!”
There, indeed, it was. At the distance, as it seemed, of scarcely more than three hundred feet, were seen distinctly the battlemented walls of a city of great size and strength. There were the gateways, the flanking towers, and the embrasures; while behind them rose domes and cupolas, and the sharp-peaked roofs of numberless houses, intermingled with lofty trees. Under the walls ran a broad river, the waters of which rippled brightly in the sunshine, and upon its banks long lines of infantry were drawn up, or what appeared to be infantry, all standing silent and motionless as so many statues.
The two boys gazed in the utmost bewilderment at this spectacle, while Lion bounded forward, evidently meditating a plunge into the cool and sparkling waters. The astonishment of the party was in no way diminished, when the doctor, raising his gun to his shoulder, fired directly at the nearest platoon of soldiers, one of whom was seen to fall. The next moment the whole of his companions rose with loud screams into the air, and dispersed themselves in all directions. Almost at the same moment the walls and battlements of the fortress and ridges of roof behind them wavered and shook, and finally vanished from the scene, as the smoke of a wood fire is lost in the surrounding atmosphere. In their place appeared a low serrated ridge of rock, on which a few stunted shrubs were growing, while in front and behind alike extended the interminable waste of sand.
“Here is your soldier, Nick,” said the doctor, as he picked up the carcass of a large flamingo, which his shot had brought down. “Here’s his red cap and jacket – his beak and wings, that is to say – and here are his white facings – his neck and chest. You are not the first by a good many that has made that mistake!”
“This is what is called a mirage, then?” said Frank. “I’ve often heard of it, and longed to see it; and it is a more extraordinary delusion than I could have supposed possible. Why that low line of rock there, and those dwarf shrubs looked as if they were at least sixty feet high. How in the world do you account for it, Mr Lavie? Why even Lion was taken in!”
“I am afraid I cannot give you an explanation, which you will understand very clearly, Frank. It is caused by the inequality of the temperature in the lower strata of the air; which again is the result of the reflected heat of the sun’s rays on the barren, sandy plain. While the strata are unequally heated, these curious reflections, which are like those seen in broken mirrors, continue to deceive the eye. Objects appear to be raised high into the air, which in reality are to be found on the surface of the earth, often too they are immensely magnified, as indeed you saw just now; a single stone will seem the size of a house, and an insignificant shrub look as big as a forest tree. But when the sun gains sufficient power to raise all the strata to a uniform heat, the mirage melts away.”
“But your shot seemed to disperse it just now.”
“So it did. But my shot only disturbed the strata; and if the mirage had not been nearly on the point of vanishing, from the increasing solar heat, I doubt whether the same effect would have followed. But it is time for us to go back to our hut and finish our work. Nick, I suppose you will join us? We may see pretty plainly for ourselves that there are no fishermen’s huts in this quarter.”
Nick assented, and the three, after a short rest under the shade of the rocks, returned to the spot whence they had set out, and resumed their work. By two o’clock the two uprights were fixed in the sand, and in two hours afterwards the tent was complete. All the stores were then carefully conveyed inside, the keg of gunpowder being buried in the sand to prevent the possibility of accident. Then the two lads set about preparations for supper, which