PART II
CHAPTER XI
THE ISLAND
“Childer!” shouted Paddy. He was at the cross-trees in the full dawn,whilst the children standing beneath on deck were craning their facesup to him. “There’s an island forenint us.”
“Hurrah!” cried Dick. He was not quite sure what an island might belike in the concrete, but it was something fresh, and Paddy’s voice wasjubilant.
“Land ho! it is,” said he, coming down to the deck. “Come for’ard tothe bows, and I’ll show it you.”
He stood on the timber in the bows and lifted Emmeline up in his arms;and even at that humble elevation from the water she could seesomething of an undecided colour—green for choice—on the horizon.
It was not directly ahead, but on the starboard bow—or, as she wouldhave expressed it, to the right. When Dick had looked and expressed hisdisappointment at there being so little to see, Paddy began to makepreparations for leaving the ship.
It was only just now, with land in sight, that he recognised in somefashion the horror of the position from which they were about to escape.
He fed the children hurriedly with some biscuits and tinned meat, andthen, with a biscuit in his hand, eating as he went, he trotted aboutthe decks, collecting things and stowing them in the dinghy. The boltof striped flannel, all the old clothes, a housewife full of needlesand thread, such as seamen sometimes carry, the half-sack of potatoes,a saw which he found in the caboose, the precious coil of tobacco, anda lot of other odds and ends he transhipped, sinking the little dinghyseveral strakes in the process. Also, of course, he took the breaker ofwater, and the remains of the biscuit and tinned stuff they had broughton board. These being stowed, and the dinghy ready, he went forwardwith the children to the bow, to see how the island was bearing.
It had loomed up nearer during the hour or so in which he had beencollecting and storing the things—nearer, and more to the right, whichmeant that the brig was being borne by a fairly swift current, and thatshe would pass it, leaving it two or three miles to starboard. It waswell they had command of the dinghy.
“The sea’s all round it,” said Emmeline, who was seated on Paddy’sshoulder, holding on tight to him, and gazing upon the island, thegreen of whose trees was now visible, an oasis of verdure in thesparkling and seraphic blue.
“Are we going there, Paddy?” asked Dick, holding on to a stay, andstraining his eyes towards the land.
“Ay, are we,” said Mr Button. “Hot foot—five knots, if we’re makin’wan; and it’s ashore we’ll be by noon, and maybe sooner.”
The breeze had freshened up, and was blowing dead from the island, asthough the island were making a weak attempt to blow them away from it.
Oh, what a fresh and perfumed breeze it was! All sorts of tropicalgrowing things had joined their scent in one bouquet.
“Smell it,” said Emmeline, expanding her small nostrils. “That’s what Ismelt last night, only it’s stronger now.”
The last reckoning taken on board the _Northumberland_ had proved theship to be south by east of the Marquesas; this was evidently one ofthose small, lost islands that lie here and there south by east of theMarquesas. Islands the most lonely and beautiful in the world.
As they gazed it grew before them, and shifted still more to the right.It was hilly and green now, though the trees could not be clearly madeout; here, the green was lighter in colour, and there, darker. A rim ofpure white marble seemed to surround its base. It was foam breaking onthe barrier reef.
In another hour the feathery foliage of the cocoa-nut palms could bemade out, and the old sailor judged it time to take to the boat.
He lifted Emmeline, who was clasping her luggage, over the rail on tothe channel, and deposited her in the stern-sheets; then Dick.
In a moment the boat was adrift, the mast stepped, and the _Shenandoah_left to pursue her mysterious voyage at the will of the currents of thesea.
“You’re not going to the island, Paddy,” cried Dick, as the old man putthe boat on the port tack.
“You be aisy,” replied the other, “and don’t be larnin’ yourgran’mother. How the divil d’ye think I’d fetch the land sailin’ deadin the wind’s eye?”
“Has the wind eyes?”
Mr Button did not answer the question. He was troubled in his mind.What if the island were inhabited? He had spent several years in theSouth Seas. He knew the people of the Marquesas and Samoa, and likedthem. But here he was out of his bearings.
However, all the troubling in the world was of no use. It was a case ofthe island or the deep sea, and, putting the boat on the starboardtack, he lit his pipe and leaned back with the tiller in the crook ofhis arm. His keen eyes had made out from the deck of the brig anopening in the reef, and he was making to run the dinghy abreast of theopening, and then take to the sculls and row her through.
Now, as they drew nearer a sound came on the breeze, a sound faint andsonorous and dreamy. It was the sound of the breakers on the reef. Thesea just here was heaving to a deeper swell, as if vexed in its sleepat the resistance to it of the land.
Emmeline, sitting with her bundle in her lap, stared without speakingat the sight before her. Even in the bright, glorious sunshine, anddespite the greenery that showed beyond, it was a desolate sight seenfrom her place in the dinghy. A white, forlorn beach, over which thebreakers raced and tumbled, sea-gulls wheeling and screaming, and overall the thunder of the surf.
Suddenly the break became visible, and a glimpse of smooth, blue waterbeyond. Mr Button unshipped the tiller, unstepped the mast, and took tothe sculls.
As they drew nearer, the sea became more active, savage, and alive; thethunder of the surf became louder, the breakers more fierce andthreatening, the opening broader.
One could see the water swirling round the coral piers, for the tidewas flooding into the lagoon it had seized the little dinghy and wasbearing it along far swifter than the sculls could have driven it.Sea-gulls screamed around them, the boat rocked and swayed. Dickshouted with excitement, and Emmeline shut her eyes _tight_.
Then, as though a door had been swiftly and silently closed, the soundof the surf became suddenly less. The boat floated on an even keel; sheopened her eyes and found herself in Wonderland.