The Island of Gold: A Sailor's Yarn
rising slowly up to the north and east.
"Have you noticed the glass lately, Tandy?" he said quietly.
"I'll jump down and see it now."
"Why," he said, on returning, "it is going tumbling down. I'll shortensail at once. We're going to have it out of that quarter."
There was little time to lose, for the wind was already blowing over thecold, dark sea in little uncertain puffs and squalls. Between eachthere was a lull; yet each, when it did come, lasted longer and blewstronger than those that had preceded it.
The barque was snug at last. Very little sail indeed was left on her;only just enough to steer by and a bit over, lest a sail or two shouldbe carried away.
Of the four trustworthy men, one was Chips the carpenter, the other oldCanvas the sailmaker. The latter kept a watch, the former had beenplaced in Tandy's.
It was hard times now with all. Watch and watch is bad enough intemperate zones, but here, with the temperature far belowfreezing-point, and dropping lower and lower every hour, with darknessand storm coming down upon them, and the dangers of the ice to beencountered, it was doubly, trebly hard.
It takes a deal to damp the courage of a true British sailor, however,and strange as it may seem, that very courage seems to rise to theoccasion, be that occasion what it may. But now, to quote the wondrouswords of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner--"
... "The storm-blast came, and he Was tyrannous and strong; He struck with his o'ertaking wings, And chased us south along.
"With sloping masts and dipping prow. As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe, And forward bends his head. The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward ay we fled.
"And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold; And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald.
"And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen: * * * * *.
"The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!"
Yes, the good barque _Sea Flower_ was driven far, far to the southward,far, far from her course; but happily, before they reached the icybarrier, the wind had gone down, so that the terrible noises in the mainpack which the poet so graphically describes had few terrors for them.
The wind fell, and went veering round, till it blew fair from the east.A very gentle wind, however, and hardly did the barque make five knotsan hour on her backward track.
Others might be impatient, but there was no such thing as impatienceabout Nelda, and little about Ransey Tansey either. Everything they sawor passed was as fresh and new to them as if they were sailing through asea of enchantment.
The cold affected neither. They were dressed to withstand it. Thekeen, frosty air was bracing rather than otherwise, and warm bloodcirculated more quickly through every vein as they trod the deckstogether. How strange, how weird-like at times were the snow-cladicebergs they often saw, their sides glittering and gleaming in thesunshine with every colour of the rainbow, and how black was the seathat lay between!
The smaller pieces through which the ship had often to steer were ofevery shape and size, all white, and some of them acting as rafts forseals asleep thereon--seals that were drifting, drifting away they knewnot, cared not whither.
Sometimes a great sea-elephant would raise his noble head and gazecuriously at the passing barque, then dive and be seen no more. Shoalsof whales of a small species afforded our little seafarers great delightto watch. But these went slowly on their way, dipping and ploughing,and looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. The porpoiseswere still more interesting, for they seemed to live but to romp andplay and chase each other, sometimes jumping right out of the water, sothat it is no wonder Nelda imagined they were playing at leap-frog.Nelda, when told that these were schools of porpoises, said,--
"Oh, well, and school is just let out, I suppose; no wonder they arehappy. And the big whales are their mothers! They are not happybecause they are all going to church, quiet and 'spectable like."
The myriads of birds seen everywhere it would be impossible here todescribe. Suffice it to say that they afforded Nelda great delight.
Bob was as merry as ever; but when one day the 'Ral walked solemnly aftwearing a pair of canvas stockings right up as far as his thighs, bothTandy and Halcott joined with the youngsters in a roar of heartylaughter. There was no more dance in that droll bird, and wouldn't befor many a long day. "A sail in sight, sah! A steamer, sah!" It waslittle Fritz who reported it from the mast-head one morning, some timeafter the _Sea Flower_ had regained her course, had doubled the Cape,and was steering north-west by west.
The stranger lay to on observing a flag of distress hoisted, and soon aboat was seen coming rapidly on towards the _Sea Flower_.
The steamer was the _Dun Avon_, homeward-bound from San Francisco, withpassengers and cargo.
The captain himself boarded her with one of his men, and to him wasrelated the whole sad story as we know it. "We have a clean bill ofhealth now though," added Halcott; "but we are short-handed--one man inirons, and five more that we cannot trust."
"Well," said the steamer captain, "I cannot relieve you of your blackhats, but I'll tell you what I can do: I shall let you have four goodhands if they'll volunteer, and if you'll pay them well. And I shouldadvise you to set your mutineers on shore at the entrance to the Straitof Magellan, and let them take their chance. You're not compelled tovoyage with mutineers, and risk the safety of yourselves and your ship.Now write your letters home, for my time is rather short."
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The four new hands were four hearties, as hard as a mainstay, as brownas bricks, and with merry faces that did one's heart good to behold.
Was it marooning, I wonder? Well, it doesn't matter a great deal, butjust ten days after this the mutineers were landed, bag and baggage, onthe north cape of Desolation Island, not far from the route through thefar-famed strait. With them were left provisions for six weeks, guns,ammunition, and tools.
I never heard what became of them. If they were picked up by somepassing ship, it was more than they deserved.
"At last," said Halcott, when the boat returned--"at last, friend Tandy,an incubus is lifted off my mind, and now let us make--
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"All Sail for the Island of Gold."
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End of Book Two.
Book 3--CHAPTER ONE.
"A SIGHT I SHALL REMEMBER TILL MY DYING DAY."
Captain Halcott sat on the skylight, and near him sat Tandy his mate,while between them--tacked down with pins to the painted canvas, so thatthe wind might not catch it--lay a chart of a portion of the SouthPacific Ocean.
At one particular spot was a blue cross.
"I marked it myself," said Halcott; "and here, on this piece ofcardboard, is the island, which I've shown you before--every creek andbay, every river and hill, so far as I know them, distinctly depicted."
"The exact longitude and latitude?" said Tandy.
"As near as I could make them, my friend."
"And yet we don't seem to be able to discover this island. Strangethings happen in these seas, Halcott; islands shift and islands sink,but one so large as this could do neither. Come, Halcott, we'll workout the reckoning again. It will be twelve o'clock in ten minutes."
"Everything correct," said Halcott, when they had finished, "as writtendown by me. Here we are on the very spot where the Island of Misfortuneshould be, and--the island is gone!"
There was a gentle breeze blowing, and the sky was clear, save here andthere a few fleecy clouds lying low on a hazy horizon.
Nothing in sight! nor had there been for days and days; for the islethey were in search of lies far out of the track of outward orhomeward-bo
und ships.
"Below there!"
It was a shout from one of the new hands, who was stationed at thefore-topgallant cross-trees.
"Hallo, Wilson!" cried Tandy running forward. "Here we are!"
"Something I can't make out on the lee bow, sir."
"Well, shall I come up and bring a bigger glass?"
"One minute, sir!"
"It's a steamer, I believe," he hailed now; "but I can't just raise herhull, only just the long trail of smoke along the horizon."
Tandy was beside the man in a few minutes' time. "This will raise it,"he said, "if I can focus aright. Why!" he cried next minute, "that isno steamer, Tom Wilson, but the smoke from a volcanic mountain or hill."
Down went Tandy quickly now.
"Had your island of gold a chimney to it?" he said, laughing. He couldafford to laugh, for he felt convinced this was _the_ island and noneother. "There wasn't a coal mine or a factory of any kind on it, wasthere? If not, we will soon be in sight of the land of gold. Volcanic,Halcott--volcanic!"
"Keep her away a point or two," he said to the man at the wheel.
"There were hills on the Island of Misfortune, but no signs of avolcano."
"Not then; but in this mystery of an ocean, Halcott, we know not what aday or an hour may bring forth.
"Let me see," he continued, glancing at the cardboard map; "we are onthe east side of the island, or we will be soon. Why, we ought soon toreach your Treachery Bay. Ominous name, though, Halcott; we must changeit."
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Nearer and nearer to the land sailed the _Sea Flower_. The hills camein sight; then dark, wild cliffs o'ertopped with green, with a fewwaving palm-trees and a fringe of banana here and there; and all betweenas blue a sea as ever sun shone on.
"It is strangely like my island," said Halcott; "but that hill, far tothe west yonder, from which the smoke is rising, I cannot recognise."
"It may not have been there before."
"True," said Halcott. But still he looked puzzled.
Then, after bearing round to the north side of the island, past themouth of a dark gully, and past a rocky promontory, the land all at oncebegan to recede. In other words, they had opened out the bay.
"But all the land in yonder used to be burned forest, Tandy."
Tandy quietly handed him the glass.
The forest he now looked upon was not composed of living trees, but ofskeletons, their weird shapes now covered entirely by a wealth oftrailing parasites and flowery climbing plants.
"I am satisfied now, and I think we may drop nearer shore, and let gothe anchor."
In an hour's time the _Sea Flower_ lay within two hundred yards of thebeach.
This position was by no means a safe one were a heavy storm to blow fromeither the north or the west. There would be nothing for it then but toget up anchor and put out to sea, or probably lie to under the shelterof rocks and cliffs to the southward of the island.
The bay itself was a somewhat curious one. The dark blue which was itscolour showed that it was deep, and the depth continued till withinseventy yards of the shore, when it rapidly shoaled, ending in asnow-white semicircle of coral sands. Then at the head of the bay, onlyon the east side, stretching seawards to that bold promontory, was aline of high, black, beetling cliffs, the home of those wheelingsea-birds. These cliffs were of solid rock of an igneous formationchiefly, but marked here and there with veins of what appeared to bequartz. They were, moreover, indented with many a cave: some of these,it was found out afterwards, were floored with stalagmites, while hugeicicle-like stalactites depended from their roofs.
Rising to the height of at least eight hundred feet above these cliffswas one solitary conical hill, green-wooded almost to its summit.
The western side of the bay, and, indeed, all this end of the island,was low, and fringed with green to the water's edge; but southwards, ifone turned his eye, a range of high hills was to be seen, addingmaterially to the beauty of the landscape.
The whole island--which was probably not more than sixteen miles inlength, by from eight to nine in width--was divided by the rivermentioned in Captain Halcott's narrative into highlands and lowlands.
The day was far advanced when the _Sea Flower_ dropped anchor in thislovely bay, and it was determined therefore not to attempt a landingthat night. Halcott considered it rather an ominous sign that nosavages were visible, and that not a single outrigger boat was drawn upon the beach.
Experience teaches fools, and it teaches savages also. Just a littleinland from the head of the bay the cover was very dense indeed; andthough, even with the aid of their glasses, neither Halcott nor Tandycould discover a sign of human life, still, for all they could tell tothe contrary, that green entanglement of bush might be peopled by wildmen who knew the _Sea Flower_ all too well, and would not dare toventure forth.
The wind went down with the sun, and for a time scarce a sound was to beheard. The stars were very bright, and seemed very near, the SouthernCross sparkling like a diamond pendant in the sky.
By-and-by a yellow glare shone above the shoulder of the adjacent hill,and a great round moon uprose and sailed up the firmament as clear andbright as a pearl.
It was just after this that strange noises began to be heard coming fromthe woods apparently. They were intermittent, however. There would bea chorus of plaintive cries and shrieks, dying away into a low,murmuring moan, which caused Nelda, who was on deck, to shiver with fearand cling close to her brother's arm.
"What on earth can it be?" said Tandy. "Can the place be haunted?"
"Haunted by birds of prey, doubtless. These are not the cries thatsavages utter, even during an orgie. But, strangely enough--whateveryour experience may be, Tandy--I have seldom found birds of prey on theinhabited islands of the South Pacific."
"Nor I," said Tandy. "Look yonder!" he added, pointing to aballoon-shaped cloud of smoke that hovered over a distant hill-top, litup every now and then by just such gleams of light as one sees at nightpenetrating the smoke from some village blacksmith's forge. But yonderwas Vulcan's forge, and Jupiter was his chief employer.
"Yes, Tandy, that is the volcano. But I can assure you there was nosuch fire-mountain, as savages say, when I was here last."
"To-morrow," said the mate, "will, I trust, make every thing more plainto us."
"To-morrow? Yes, I trust so, too," said Halcott, musingly. "Shall wego below and talk a little?"
"I confess, my friend," Halcott continued, after he had lit his pipe andsmoked some time in silence--"I confess, Tandy, that I don't quite likethe look of that hill. Have you ever experienced the effects of avolcanic eruption in any of these islands?"
"I have not had that pleasure, if pleasure it be," replied the mate.
"Pleasure, Tandy! I do not know of anything more hideous, more awful,in this world.
"When I say `any of these islands,' I refer to any one of the whole vastcolony of them that stud the South Pacific, and hundreds of these havenever yet been visited by white men.
"Years ago," he continued, "I was first mate of the _Sky-Raker_, asbonnie a brig as you could have clapped eyes upon. It afterwardsfoundered with all hands in a gale off the coast of Australia. When Itrod her decks, second in command, I was a bold young fellow of twenty,or thereabouts; and I may tell you at once we were engaged in theQueensland black labour trade. And black, indeed, and bloody, too, itmight often be called.
"We used to go cruising to the nor'ard and east, visiting islands hereand islands there, to engage hands for working in the far interior. Wearranged to pay every man well who would volunteer to go with us, and toland them again back home on their own islands, if they _did_ wish toreturn.
"On these expeditions we invariably employed `call-crows.'"
"What may a `call-crow' be, Halcott?"
"Well, you know what gamblers mean on shore by a `call-bird' or`decoy-duck.' Your `call-crow' is the same
, only he is a black who haslived and laboured in Queensland, who can talk `island,' who can spin agood yarn in an off-hand way, and tell as many lies as arecruiting-sergeant.
"These are the lures.
"No matter how unfriendly the blackamoors among whom we may land may be,our `call-rooks' nearly always make peace. Then bartering begins, andafter a few days we get volunteers enough."
"But they do attack you at times, these natives?"
"That's so, Tandy; and I believe I was a braver man in those days than Iam now, else I'd hardly have cared to make myself a target for poisonedarrows, or poisoned spears, so coolly as I used to do then."
Nelda, who had come quietly down the companion-way with her brother,seated herself as closely to Captain Halcott as she could. She dearlyloved a story, especially one of thrilling adventure.
"Go on, cap'n," she said, eagerly. "Never mind me. `Poisonedspears,'--that is the prompt-word."
"These black fellows were not of great height, Tandy," resumed Halcott.
"Savages," said Nelda. "Please say savages."
"Well, dear, savages I suppose I must call them. They were almostnaked, and many of the elder warriors were tattooed on cheeks, chest,and arms. All had bushy heads of hair, and were armed with bows andarrows, spears and clubs, and tomahawks.
"But," he added, "it was generally with the natives of those islandsfrom which we had already obtained volunteers that we had the greatesttrouble. The ship