The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant

  CHAPTER XXX

  "I woke up in the tent perhaps an hour before midnight, as I judged onlooking through the opening at the stars that shone in the dark skythrough the north-east end of the valley above the sea. At the otherend, being higher, you just saw the scattered heads of the bushesagainst a pale floating glimmer of air, with a pale streak of horizon.Behind us was the height where we had the look-out, and in front theflat top of the crag drawn somehow or other as distinct as possible uponthe faint starlight in that quarter, roughening away down on both sidesinto the brushwood and dwarf cocoa-nut trees. With the stillness of theplace all round, the bare sight of that particular point gave me adreamy, desolate, ghastly sort of feeling, beyond aught I ever saw in mylife before: it was choking hot and heavy inside, and seeminglythroughout the hollow, though a good deal of dew began to fall,glistening on the dark-green bushes nearest us, and standing in drops onthe fern-like cocoa-leaves which Jacobs and the other men had roofedthemselves with. They were sound asleep; and the glimpse of the soles oftheir shoes and their knees, sticking out of the shadow you saw theirrough faces in, with the sight of their cutlass-hilts, served to giveone a still wilder notion of the place. One felt scarce sure of beingable to wake them, in case of anything turning up; and, at any rate, adread came over you of its being possibly somewhat unnatural enough tomake the thing useless.

  "On the other hand, the planter kept up such a confounded snoring insidethe canvas close by me, that although there was no doubt of his beingalive, the sound of it put stranger thoughts into your head. Sometimeshis breath would be jogging on like that of a tolerably ordinary mortal,then get by degrees perfectly quiet; and then all of a sudden go risingand rising, faster and faster, as if some terrible dream had hold ofhim, or there was some devilish monster hard in chase of his soul, tillout it broke into a fearful snort that made your very heartjump--whereupon he'd lie as if he were finished, then go through thewhole story again. I can't tell you how that cursed noise troubled me;'twas no use shoving and speaking to him, and all the time the old boywas evidently quite comfortable, by something he said at last about'indigo being up.' The best I could do was to get out and leave him tohimself; in fact, where Jones had gone at the time I didn't know, tillsuddenly I caught sight of his dark figure standing on the rise at theback of our post, and went up to him. Jones was certainly a strangemixture, for here had he been all round the low side of the island byhimself, yet I found him leaning bareheaded on the barrel of his musket,listening like a deer. He assured me solemnly he thought he had heardvoices for the last hour on the other side, where he hadn't been, andasked me if I would go with him to see. Then down came our look-out fromthe peak, rolling through the bushes like a sea-crow, to report his nothaving seen anything, and to say they'd forgot to relieve him aloft; sorousing up Jacobs, I sent them both back together, while Jones and Iheld the opposite way for the other height.

  "The moment we had got to it, _there_ was the same faint blotted-outhorizon as we had had all astern of us the night before, the samestrange unnatural paleness cast off the face of the sea, making it lookblack by contrast to north-eastward and east, against the blue shadowwith the bright stars in it, where the sea rippled as usual; while thekeenest glare in the middle seemed to stream right to the breast of theisland, like the reflection of daylight down a long break in theice--only it was dead and ghastly to behold. The white water washedround under the black edge of the rocks before us, to the bare slopingbeach, where it came up fairly like a wide plash of milk, glimmering andsparkling back amongst the little sea-creatures you fancied you sawmoving and crawling out or in: till it ran along by where the reefswere, and turned off to the dim sky again. Everything else was still,and Jones drew a breath like one relieved: 'Nothing after all, I think,sir!' said he. But to my mind there was something a long sight moreawful in the look of that unaccountable white water bearing down likesnow upon the island, as it were, with the wrinkles and eddies to beseen faintly in it here and there back toward the glaring breadth of it,and the floating streaks in the sky above; especially when he told me hethought it was owing to millions upon millions of living things in it,that made the same show there at two different seasons in the year, fora week or so at a time--the appearance of it getting less distinct everynight.

  "However, I had begun to grow uneasy again about the Indiaman, and theschooner too, as well as doubtful of the fellows coming to the island atall; on the contrary, as I said to Jones, if they saw the schooner, andWestwood didn't manage as I told him, why both she, the ship, andourselves might possibly get the finishing-stroke altogether. 'The moreI think of it,' said I, 'the more foolish it seems to be here instead ofaboard!' 'Why it is, Mr Collins, I don't know,' replied Jones, 'yet Ifeel as sure these men will land here as if I heard them in the woods;and if I wasn't aware how one crime breeds another, for my part Ishouldn't be here at present, sir. Many a night afloat has the thoughtof this place weighed on me, lest there was something new doing in it;but what's buried here I'm resolved no man shall stir up, if I can helpit, sir!' A little after, as we got up and went down to the beach, allof a sudden--like a thing he couldn't avoid--Jones began to give me somesnatches of what had happened here some years before, which, accordingto him, he had got from a shipmate of his that died; and I must say itmade the blood creep in me to listen to it.

  "'At the beginning of the war,' he said, 'the island had been a nest ofregular pirates, who had taken pains to make it, from a mere muddy headof a reef with some cocoas upon it, probably into a resort onoccasions--especially as even the wild Maldive natives to southward hadsomehow a dislike to it. The whole gang being taken by some cruiser orother at sea, however, too far off to leave any clue to their harbouragehereabouts, they were all hanged, and the place lost sight of, till, agood many years after, a country Arab craft, bound for Dacca up theGanges, was driven in a gale upon the reefs some way off, without seeingthe island at all till the sea went down, and she was going to pieces.

  "'There were only two Europeans aboard, both having turned Mussulmans,and the youngest of them was mate. There was a passenger, a nativeIndian merchant, and his servants, with, as was believed, his harembelow in the after-cabins, for nobody ever had seen them; but the Arab_rais_ of the vessel and several more being washed off when she struck,the other Mussulmans took to the only boat they had, and got ashore,leaving the two Englishmen with the passenger. Next day the two men hadcontrived a raft of the spars, whereupon the Hindoo at last brought uphis three women, veiled from head to foot, and the whole got safe to theisland. Here all the Mahometans herded together amongst themselves,forcing the two Englishmen to keep on the other side of the island, asthey had no firearms, while the old Hindoo merchant and his nativeservant got a tent pitched on the highest point for the women, wherethey were no more seen than before, and a flag hoisted on a stick allthe time for a signal to ships--poor simple devil!' as Jones said with alaugh. 'Every day he offered the Arab crew more of the gold and jewelshe had with him, to make for India and get him brought of, till at lastsome of the Arabs came round to the mate and his companion, wanting themto take the boat and go instead, otherwise they would kill both of themat once. The two men accordingly had provisions given them, and hoistedsail on the boat before the breeze to eastward; they had almost droppedthe island, when all at once the one in the boat's bows stepped aft tohim that had the tiller, and said it struck him the Arabs couldn't meanwell to the Hindoo and his wives, in trying to get clear of others.

  "'All his companion did,' Jones said, 'was to ask if he was man enoughto go back, face them boldly, and offer to take the passenger and hisharem too, when some craft or other might come back for the Arabs, sincethey weren't seamen enough to venture first in the boat. "I tell youwhat," said the first, '"try the two largest breakers of water there!"The water for use next after the open one was tasted, and it was _salt_.'"Will you stand by me?" the second man said, after awhile. The otherhad a dog with him of his own, that had swam ashore from the vesselafter the raft he landed upon, and it was
sleeping in the boat's bow atthe moment, near him; the dog lifted its head as they spoke, eyed thetwo, and lay down again with a low sort of growl. "Ay," answered theother, "to the last I will--as long as you stick by _me_!" They hauledover the sheet, laid the boat sharp on a wind, and as soon as it wasdusk began to pull back toward the island, where they got ashore in thedark before morning.'

  "Here Jones stopped, turned suddenly round to the glare of the whitewater plashing upon the beach, and said no more. 'Why, Jones,' said I,'is that all you've to tell? What came of them? For God's sake,yes--what was the upshot?' ''Tis enough to show how one bad thing breedsanother, as I said, sir,' answered he. 'Probably in the end, though--atany rate I only fancy the rest--'tis a horrible dream to me, fora--a--squall came on when that shipmate of mine got so far, and we hadto reef topsails. He went overboard off the yard that very night,' saidJones wildly.

  "'The man must have been _there_,' said I, in a pointed way, 'to giveall the particulars--_he_ was the mate himself, Mr Jones!' He made noanswer, but kept gazing out to sea. 'And how long was this ago?' Iasked. 'Oh,' answered he, 'years enough ago, no doubt, sir, for both ofus to be children, if _you_ were born, Mr Collins'--and he turned hisface to me as ghastly as the water toward the horizon he was looking atbefore--'at least I hope to God it was so--the man was a poor creature,sir, bless you, and old, as it seems to me--twice my own age at thetime, Lieutenant Collins! At all events, though,' he went on, ramblingin a strange way that made me think he was going out of his mind, 'heremembered well enough the first time he saw the white water coming downupon the island. He was hunting--_hunting_--through the bushes and upand down, and came up upon the crag.' 'Hunting?' I said. 'Yes, youdidn't know how it lived, or where it kept, but every night it was onthe look-out there. There was no one else, save the girl sleeping overbeyond in the hut, and the man almost fancied the water of the sea wascoming down to the rocks and the beach, like the Almighty himself, toshow He was clear of all that had happened--if he could but havefinished that brute, testifying like the very devil, he'd have beenhappy, he felt! Harkye,' said he, sinking his voice to a whisper, 'whenhe went back at daylight the woman was dying--she had borne a--what wasas innocent as she was, poor, sweet, young heathen!'

  "And if I hadn't guessed pretty well before that Jones was the man he'dbeen speaking of, his glittering eye and his stride from the beach wouldhave shown it; apparently he forgot everything besides at that moment,till you'd have thought his mind gloated on this piece of his history.'The woman!' I couldn't help saying, 'what woman? Had the rest left youin the boat, then?'

  "Jones looked upon me fiercely, then turned away; when all of a suddensuch a long unearthly quaver of a cry came down through the stillness,from somewhere aloft in the island, that at first I didn't know what tothink, unless one of our look-out men had met with an accident, andtumbled down. 'Twas so dark where they were, however, there was noseeing them. Without looking for himself, Jones faced me, shivering allover. 'What is that, Mr Collins?' whispered he, catching my arm with aclutch like death; '_is_ there anything yonder--behind--behind--sir?' Onthe flat head of the crag north-westward, black against the pale glimmerover the very spot where we had stood half-an-hour before, to my utterhorror, there was some creature or other sitting as if it looked towardthe sea; and just then another wild, quivering, eddying sound cameevidently enough from it, like a thing that would never end. It wasn't ahuman voice, that! my brain spun with it, as I glanced to Jones. 'Goodheavens!' I said, '_what_? But, by Jove! now I think of it; yes--'tisthe howl of a _dog_--nothing else!' 'Eight--ten years!' said Jones,hoarsely, 'without food, too, and enough in that well to have poisonedwhole gangs of men for twenty years--_can_ it be an earthly being, sir?'The stare he gave me at the moment was more frightful than aught else,but I mentioned what Westwood and I had observed the day before.

  "Before I well knew what he meant, Jones was stealing swiftly up therising ground to the shoulder of it. I saw him get suddenly on a levelwith the creature, his musket aiming for it--there was a flash and ashot that left the height as bare as before--and next minute, with ashort whimpering howl, the animal flew down the hill, while I heardJones crashing through the bushes after it, till he was lost in thedark. Such a terrible notion it gave me of his strange story being true,whereas before I had almost fancied it partly a craze of his, fromhaving lived here alone--that for a moment or two it seemed to my mindwe were still in the midst of it. I hurried back to our post, and closeupon morning Jones came over and lay down by himself, without a word,haggard and covered with sweat.

  "All next day the horizon on every side was clear of a single speck; nosigns either of ship or schooner, till I began to wish we were out ofit, hoping the _Seringapatam_ had, after all, kept the old course forBombay, in spite of us. I found Jones had warned the men not to get ourwater out of the tank; it being poisoned in a way fit to last for years,as the pirates knew how to do. For our parts, we had to amuse ourselvesthe best way we could, waiting for the schooner to come down again forus, which was the only thing I looked for now. That night the whiteappearance of the water to north and windward seemed a good deal gone,save where it hung like a haze in the direction it took off the island:the stars shone out, and in two or three nights more I found from Jonesthere would be nothing of it, which I hoped I should have to take on hisword.

  "At daybreak, however, our look-out could all of a sudden be seenhoisting the signal for a sail in sight, and waving his hat for us tocome. No sooner had we hurried up, accordingly, than a sail could bemade out in the south-east, hull down; and the schooner not being likelythereaway, a certain flutter in me at once set it down for the Indiamanat last, on her way far past the island for the open channel. Beingbroad daylight, too, with a fresh breeze blowing, we saw that Foster andhis party, if they carried out their scheme, would have to wait till shewas a long way to windward at night-time, in order to get clear off. Infact, I had everyone kept down off the height, lest the ship's glassesmight possibly notice something; while, at the same time, we hadn't evena fire kindled to cook our victuals. I was watching her over the brow ofthe hill, through the telescope, when she evidently stood round on theother tack to get up to windward, which brought her gradually nearer.She was a large ship, under full canvas; and at last she rose her hullto the white streak below the bulwarks, till I began to think theyintended passing the island to eastward to make the channel. I went downfor Jones, and asked him how far the reefs actually ran out, when hetold me there would probably be signs enough of them in such a strongbreeze; besides, as he reminded me, if she was the Indiaman, it was thecaptain himself that had a chart of them; in which, from the particularnature of it--being an old buccaneering chart, as he thought--they wouldbe laid down quite plainly.

  "Indeed, when we both returned to the height, there were lines of surfto be noticed here and there, more than three miles out; and seeing herby that time so distinctly, a new uneasiness began to enter my head.There were no signals we could make, even if they didn't serve the otherway; and, to tell the truth, I didn't much like the idea of being foundthere. Still, it was terrible to see her getting nearer and nearer,without the power of doing the least thing to warn her off; spreadingand heightening before you, till you counted her sails, and saw thelight betwixt them, with the breeze always strengthening off that sidethe island, and of course making it the safer for her to pass it toleeward. The blue surges rose longer to the foam at their crests, tillone's eye got confused between them and the spots of surf ripplinggreenish over the tongues of reef; in fact, it wasn't far off beinglow-water at the time, and the whole was to be seen better from theheight than elsewhere, stretched out like a floor that the breeze wassweeping across, raising a white dust where the blue melted into thelight-brown tint of the sea to leeward. The breeze came so fresh thatshe even hauled down her sky-sails and fore-royal, railing off to go toleeward of the island. At the same moment, I made out with the glassthat she was actually the _Seringapatam_, and also that she'd got aleadsman at work in the chains. Five min
utes more, and she'd have gonetime enough into the distinct brown-coloured swells to stand past thedeep end: without help from the glass, I saw the sun sparkle in thespray from her black bows; she made a sliding forge ahead with her wholebeam on to us; when, next moment, as if she had taken a sudden yaw andbroached-to in the wind, she came fairly end on, showing the three pilesof canvas in one. A wild boding of the truth crept on me as I sprang onthe peak, waving my arms and stamping like a lunatic, as if they couldhear me.

  "The next instant she had fallen a little over, her foretopmast andmain-to'gallantmast gone out of their places at the shock, and the heavyblue swells running to her highest side in a perfect heap of foam; whilethe spray rose in white jets across her weather bulwarks at every burstof them. The Indiaman had struck on a rib of reef, or else a spit ofsand, near the very edge of the whole bank: had it been onlyhigh-water--as I had reason to believe afterwards--she'd have gone clearover it. As soon as the first horror of the thing was a little past, Ilooked, without a word, to Jones, and he to me. 'The fellows have comeat last, certainly!' said he, in a serious enough tone. 'Mr Collins,' headded, 'the moment I set foot on ground here, I felt sure somethingwould come out of it!' 'Get the men down at once, sir,' I said, 'andlet's pull out to the ship!' 'Why, sir,' answered he, 'the breeze islikely to keep for some time as it is, and if she's completely gone,they'll be able to bring all hands safe ashore. If you take my advice,Mr Collins, you'll hold all fast, and show no signs of our being here atall, in case of having something or other to manage yet that may cost usharder!' It didn't need much thought to see this, in fact; and in placeof going down, ten minutes after we were all close amongst the bushes onthe slope, watching the wreck. What was at the bottom of all this Ididn't know; whether Captain Finch had really got wind of Foster'sscheme, and been playing with some hellish notion his heart failed himto carry out, or how it was; but what he was to make of _this_ was thequestion.

  "Well, toward afternoon, the wreck seemed pretty much in the same state,though by that time they had evidently given her up, for the boats werebeginning to be hoisted out to leeward. We couldn't see what went onthere, till one of them suddenly appeared, pulling out for the island,about three miles off; then the large launch after it. There wereladies' dresses to be made out in both, their cloaks and shawlsfluttering bright to the breeze as the boats dipped in the short swells;and they were full an hour ere they got out of our sight, near the broadbeach, on the level side, where the tide was ebbing fast again, makingit a hard matter to pull the distance. Two more boats came off the ship,filled full of casks and other matters, save the crews; the rest of thepassengers and men no doubt waiting for the launch and jolly-boat to goback and take them ashore--for, soon after, they both could be seenrounding the point on their way out. On coming within hail of the freshboats, however, they apparently gave in, since we could see the two ofthem, to our great surprise, strike round, and make for the beach againwith their shipmates, spite of signals from the wreck, and shots evenfired after them. The breeze by that time flagged, leaving less of a seaagainst the ship's hull in the dead water from the other reefs, and shehad fallen over again to leeward--a proof of her sticking fast whereshe struck, without much fear of parting very soon in such weather; butthe sun was going down, and this being the first sign of foul play wehad observed, it was plain at all events we should have to look sharpabout us. We kept close up the height, bolted our cold junk and biscuit,washing down with a stiff caulker, and looked every man to his tools.

  "To my great satisfaction, the planter, who had watched everythingseemingly in pure bewilderment, woke up out of it when he knew howmatters stood, and handled his double-barrel as cool as a cucumber,putting in two bullets above the small shot he had got for the birds,and ramming down with the air of a man summing up a couple of billsagainst a rascally debtor. For my own part, I must say I was longer ofcoming to feel it wasn't some sort of a dream, owing to Jones's brokenstory; till the thought of _who_ was to all likelihood on the veryisland below, with the rest of the ladies, amongst a set of all sorts offoremast-men thrown loose from command--half of them probably ruffians,with some hand in the matter--it came on me like fire at one's vitals.Meantime we sat there patiently enough for want of knowing what was todo first, or which way we had best keep to avoid bringing matters to ahead, worse than they yet were.