Pausing only long enough to hoist the boat to the davits, the
adventurous sailor descended to one of the bathrooms, where the
professor awaited him with a medicated bath already prepared, which was
to remove from his person every germ of infection that he might
perchance have brought with him from the ship. And the moment that he
was safely immersed in this, and further seen to be vigorously applying
it to his face, hair, and beard, von Schalckenberg made the rejected
clothing into a bundle--which he carefully wrapped in a cloth saturated
with disinfectant--and, carrying it up on deck, dropped it overboard.
The result of these somewhat drastic, but perfectly justifiable
precautions was, that when Mildmay emerged, fully clothed, from the
bathroom, the professor announced him to be as clean and wholesome as
any of the others of the party.
Meanwhile, Sir Reginald, having noted Mildmay's return, and waited until
he was safely in the bathroom, at once proceeded to the pilot-house, and
starting the engines, put the _Flying Fish_ again on her course. Thus,
when at length "the skipper" made his appearance on deck--exhaling a
powerful odour of disinfectants--the ship that he had visited was on the
horizon, and in flames from stem to stern.
"You did your work pretty effectually," said Sir Reginald to him,
nodding towards the blazing ship. "I suppose it was the proper thing to
do, eh?"
"Undoubtedly," answered Mildmay. "We could not salve her, you see; and
to leave her drifting about, derelict, would only be to expose other
ships to a very serious danger--not necessarily the danger of infection,
but the peril of a disastrous collision. There is not the slightest
doubt in my mind that many a good ship has gone to the bottom, taking
her crew with her, as the result of collision with a derelict in the
dark hours of a dirty, windy night; and if a derelict is fallen in with
under circumstances which render the salving of her impossible, she
certainly ought to be destroyed. Yet, in the case of yonder ship--
which, by the way, is the _Linschoten_, of Rotterdam, Dirk Dirkzwager,
master, bound from Batavia to Amsterdam--the necessity was rather a
regrettable one; for she carried a valuable cargo, consisting chiefly of
coffee, indigo, and tobacco. Her logbook shows that she sailed for home
nearly three months ago, and was becalmed on her fourth day out, her
present position seeming to indicate that she has remained becalmed ever
since--at least, her logbook makes it clear that she met with no wind
for seven full weeks after running into the calm. And about that time
it appears that sickness of some virulent and deadly kind broke out
aboard her--the log does not specify what it was, possibly because the
skipper did not know--and within twenty-four hours all hands were down
with it. The entry conveying this information is the last in the book,
and the rest can only be guessed at; but it must have been pretty bad,
for there were nineteen corpses on board her, which is clear enough
evidence that the living were too ill to dispose of the dead. And that,
I think, is all I need tell you. I will not attempt to describe to you
what I saw aboard her; for, in the first place, no language of mine
could do justice to it, and, in the second place, there is no good to be
done by attempting to harrow your feelings. In accordance with your
wish, I brought nothing in the shape of documents or otherwise away with
me; so, having told you all that there is to tell, I will now go below,
and write a full account of the affair in my diary while everything is
fresh in my memory."
When the party assembled on deck after dinner that evening, somebody
suggested that, as there was now a good moon coming on, rendering the
nights light and beautiful, the remainder of the voyage should be
proceeded with on the surface of the sea, by night as well as by day,
for the sake of securing a full measure of enjoyment of the delightful
weather then prevailing. It was true that such a method of progression
would entail upon the men--or at least the four of them who understood
how to work the ship--the necessity to keep a watch; but they were
unanimous in declaring that this would be no hardship at all, but a
pleasure rather than otherwise, if only on account of the novelty of the
thing. The new arrangement was therefore adopted that same night. The
route chosen was through the Straits of Sunda, the Java Sea, the Straits
of Macassar, and the Sea of Celebes, into the Pacific, this route taking
them past many small islands, and perhaps affording them a few novel and
interesting sights. The speed was, under ordinary circumstances, to be
the exceedingly moderate one of fifteen knots.
Java Head (the westernmost of the three headlands so named) was sighted
shortly after noon on the following day; and the ship entered the
Straits--at that point about forty miles wide--as the party sat down to
lunch, which Sir Reginald had ordered to be served on deck. There were
several craft in sight, native and otherwise, under steam and sail, and
as the _Flying Fish_ drew farther into the Straits, and the waterway
narrowed, the scene became very animated. They passed Krakatoa, and
gazed with interest and amazement at the evidences of the awful havoc
and ruin that had been wrought by the terrific eruption of '83; and
emerged into open water again in time to witness a magnificent sunset
behind the mountain of Radja Bassa, on the island of Sumatra.
It took them sixty hours to traverse the Java Sea, the helm being
shifted for the passage through the Macassar Strait at sunrise on the
third morning out from the Straits of Sunda. The Balabalongan Islands
were safely passed that same evening, ere darkness fell; and twenty-four
hours later they emerged into the open Sea of Celebes, and again shifted
their helm.
Thus far nothing of importance had happened; they had enjoyed glorious
weather, and found almost constant entertainment in watching the various
craft fallen in with, and the beautiful pictures offered to their gaze
by the islands that they had passed. But on the evening that witnessed
their entrance into the Sea of Celebes there were indications that a
change of weather was impending. A somewhat rapid decline of the
mercury in the tube of the barometer was the first symptom, and this was
quickly followed by a dimming of the hitherto crystalline blue of the
sky that produced a wild, fiery, smoky sunset, suggestive of a whole
continent ablaze away down there to the westward. As the darkness
closed in there were but few stars to be seen, and they quickly vanished
in the mistiness that gradually obscured the heavens. The moon, now
near the full, appeared for a short time as a shapeless film of hazy
light, and then she also vanished. The north-east monsoon, which had
been blowing fresh and steadily for the last few days, died away, and
the stagnant air became close and suffocatingly hot.
"Phew!" exclaimed Sir Reginald, as the party stepped out on deck; "this
is the hottest night we have had this trip, and stark calm. What does
it mean, skipper? I thought that we were now in the monsoon region."
"So we are; but, as you see, the wind has fallen calm," answered
Mildmay. "Moreover, the mercury is dropping a good deal faster than I
like; and this thickening up of the atmosphere means bad weather; I am
sure of it."
"_Very_ bad weather, do you mean, Mildmay, or merely a bit of a breeze?"
questioned Sir Reginald.
"Something very much worse than `a bit of a breeze,' I imagine," was the
reply. "Indeed, it would not greatly surprise me to find that we are in
for a regular typhoon."
"A typhoon!" ejaculated Lethbridge, who was standing close by; "that
means something pretty bad, doesn't it?"
"Well, about the same sort of thing as we encountered upon the memorable
occasion when we saved the life of the lady who is now our charming and
gracious hostess," answered Mildmay.
"What is that? Are you talking about me?" demanded Lady Olivia, who, a
few feet away, had happened to catch the word "hostess."
"Mildmay has just been telling us, my dear, that appearances point to
the approach of a gale of somewhat similar character to that which
occurred in the Bay of Bengal on a certain memorable occasion,"
explained her husband.
"Oh dear, how dreadful!" exclaimed Lady Olivia. "I shall never forget
that time,"--with a shudder--"it comes to me, even now, sometimes, in my
dreams. Shall we be in any danger, Captain?"
"Danger! in such a ship as this?" cried Mildmay. "None whatever. But,
of course, if you feel nervous, we can go up aloft, and avoid it by the
simple process of rising above it; or we can descend one or two hundred
feet below the surface, and ride it out there."
"Oh, but I do not think I should like that; at least, certainly not the
last. It is one thing to go down to the bottom in fine weather, as we
did when you were examining the wreck, and quite another to do the same
when a hurricane is blowing. And, of the three alternatives, I really
think I should prefer to remain on the surface of the sea, and watch all
the wild commotion, if I could feel assured that we were quite safe."
"You certainly may feel assured of that, my Lady," exclaimed von
Schalckenberg. "With this ship afloat and in the open sea, you may
laugh to scorn the fiercest gale. The wind may smite her in its wildest
fury, the waves sweep her from end to end, and she will still go
unharmed and undeterred on her way."
"Then let us stay on the surface and risk it. I should love to witness
a really furious storm, with the feeling that I was perfectly safe,"
said the lady. And so it was settled.
But when Lady Olivia retired to her cabin that night the air was still
calm, and the only difference perceptible to her was that, whereas
earlier in the evening the sea had been almost perfectly smooth, her
swinging bedstead was now swaying with a very perceptible movement due
to the fact that a heavy westerly swell had arisen, and was now
following the ship.
It was not until close upon midnight that any very decided change
occurred; and then came a shower that burst upon the ship with true
tropical suddenness and violence, and in the midst of the shower the
wind came away strong out of the westward, blowing in fierce, sudden
gusts that quickly hardened down to a strong and rapidly increasing
gale. When daylight laggingly came upon the scene the wind was blowing
with true hurricane force, and a very high, steep sea was running, which
would undoubtedly have been still higher had not the wind taken the
crests of the seas, torn them off, and sent them flying away to leeward
in blinding torrents of scud-water that lashed the walls of the _Flying
Fish's_ pilot-house with a sound like that of the continuous crash of
hail. Although the ship's engines were set for a speed of only fifteen
knots, she was going through the water at something more than twenty;
yet, despite the fact that she was being swept from end to end by the
wildly breaking seas that followed her, her movements were so easy and
comfortable that Mildmay became quite enthusiastic upon the subject.
Shortly before noon they sighted and passed, within a quarter of a mile,
a big battleship. She was riding head to wind, and apparently steaming
ahead dead slow, or, at all events, merely at a speed sufficient to give
her steerage-way. She was making positively frightful weather of it,
diving deeply into every sea, as it met her, and literally burying
herself in a perfect smother of whiteness which had no time to flow off
her decks ere she plunged into the next sea. And, strangely enough,
within the hour they fell in with and passed a small gun-boat,
undoubtedly British. She was rigged as a barquentine. Her three
topmasts were housed, and she was hove-to under the lee clew of her
close-reefed topsail and a small storm-trysail. She was being flung
about in a manner that was absolutely appalling to look at, at one
moment standing almost upright, and anon thrown down on her beam-ends at
such an extreme angle that, to the onlookers, her decks seemed to be
almost vertical. Yet, with it all, she was making better weather of it
than her bigger sister, for though the spray flew over her in heavy
clouds, she seemed to be shipping very little green water. Still later,
they passed something that had the appearance of being a capsized junk,
after which they sighted nothing more; and on the following morning,
with sunrise, the gale broke, the sky cleared, the wind softened down
and finally shifted; and by the afternoon the north-east monsoon was
again blowing, and nothing remained of the gale save the turbulent sea
that it had knocked up. The same evening saw them abreast and about ten
miles to the north of the island of Tagulanda, and twenty-four hours
later they sighted and passed North Cape, on the island of Moro, and
swept into the great Pacific ocean.
The weather had by this time again become all that the voyagers could
desire. The sky was of a beautifully clear, rich blue tint, flecked
here and there with thin, fleecy, fine weather clouds; the monsoon swept
down upon their port bow in a cool gush, redolent of the exhilarating
smell of the open ocean, a very life-giving tonic; and the long, low
mounds of the Pacific swell, wrinkled with the sweep of the breeze, just
sufficed to give life in a long, easy plunging movement to the hull of
the _Flying Fish_, at one moment lifting her sharp-pointed nose and some
twenty feet of her fore-body clear out of the blue, sparkling brine, and
anon causing her to dive into the on-coming undulation until she was
buried nearly midway to her superstructure.
About mid-afternoon they passed a small island that lay some half a
dozen miles to the northward of their course, and about half an hour
before sunset another and still smaller one was sighted, almost directly
ahead.
As usual, every glass in the ship was at once brought to bear upon it;
for, despite the ever-fresh and ever-changing beauty of sea and sky, a
break in the monotony of it is always welcome, and even such an object
as a barren rock becomes interesting.
"Mildmay, do you notice anything peculiar about that island ahead?"
asked Sir Reginald, when he had been peering through his binocular for a
minute or so.
"Looks to me, very much like a wreck of some sort upon it," remarked
Lethbridge.
"It is a wreck," said Mildmay; "the wreck of a small craft--apparently a
schooner. I have just been looking at her."
"Uncommonly awkward spot to be cast away upon," said Sir Reginald.
"Why, it is a mere rock, by the look of it. And yet not quite a rock,
either, for there is grass on it, and a few stunted bushes. But the
whole place cannot be much more than ten acres in extent. And, as I
live, there are people upon it. I can see smoke, and the flicker of a
fire."
"You are right, Elphinstone. There is a fire there; I have just caught
sight of it," said Lethbridge.
"Well," said Sir Reginald, "we must stop and take them off, although I
don't much like the idea of admitting strangers to this ship, and so
`giving our show away' to a certain extent. But, of course, we can't
allow any considerations of that sort to weigh with us where the
question is one of saving life. And nobody could contrive to sustain
life for any length of time on that little patch of earth. Why, if
another gale should spring up, they would be washed off, for a dead
certainty."
"Ay, that is a fact that there is no disputing," agreed Mildmay. "And,
after all, you know, Elphinstone, there is no need for us to make those
people acquainted with the fact that we are on an aerial and submarine,
as well as an ordinary ship; they need know very little more about us
than those people of the _Baroda_ know. And we can trans-ship them into
the next craft belonging to a civilised nation that we fall in with."
"Yes, of course we can," assented Sir Reginald. "Their fuel seems to be
pretty damp, poor chaps; there is a good deal more smoke than fire
there, to my thinking."
"That, I take it, is intentional," said Mildmay. "They have probably
seen us, and are making that big smoke to attract our attention. With
your permission, Elphinstone, I will hoist our ensign, to let them know
that we have seen them, and will get one of the boats ready for
lowering."
"Right, skipper; I will come and lend you a hand with the boat. Perhaps
it would be as well to get both boats to the quarters, wouldn't it, as
we are henceforth going to remain on the surface until we can say
good-bye to those people."
Mildmay agreed that it would; and in a few minutes both boats were
hanging from their davits over the ship's two quarters, and the ensign
flying from the staff. By this time the ship was within two miles of
the island, and the interested watchers had caught sight of a man
standing upon the highest point of his mere hand's-breadth of territory,
waving his arms, as though still doubtful whether he had succeeded in
attracting their attention.
"There seems to be but one man there," observed Lethbridge, as the two
men joined him. "If so, he must have had a pretty bad time of it. How
long will he have been there, I wonder!"
"Not very long, I suspect," answered Mildmay. "He probably got cast
away in the gale that we had two days ago."
Five minutes later the engines of the _Flying Fish_ were stopped; and
presently, when she had sufficiently lost her way, one of the boats was
lowered, and Sir Reginald and Mildmay went away in her. There was no
beach to speak of on the island, and it was so exceedingly small that
the swell ran right round it, making the beaching of the boat both a
difficult and a dangerous matter. The castaway, however--there was but
one--solved the difficulty by watching his opportunity and rushing down
into the water after a retreating wave and flinging himself and a bundle
into the boat before the on-rush of the next sea came.
He was an elderly man, rather tall, slim of build, and somewhat
cadaverous of feature, with light straw-coloured hair and goatee beard
that was fast changing to white. He appeared to be about fifty years of
age, and was a Yankee from the crown of his hatless head to the soles of
his salt-stiffened boots.
"Thank 'e, strangers," he gasped, as he scrambled in over the bows of
the boat and recovered possession of the bundle that he had flung in
ahead of him. "That's all right. I guess you can shove off now."
"Are you alone, then?" demanded Sir Reginald, as he sent the boat's
engines astern.
"Yes, sirree, I'm as much alone as I ever want to be. I, Silas Barker,
am the sole survivor of the wreck of the fore-and-aft schooner _Amy
Pelham_, of which I was owner and master. My crew consisted of seven
hands besides myself, and every one of 'em is gone to his long home.
How I managed to escape is a solemn mystery; for when the schooner
struck I was knocked down and stunned by the first sea that broke over
her, and I knew no more until I woke up and found myself lyin' on the
shore of that lonely spot, clutchin' the grass with both hands, and the
water washin' up round me and tryin' to claw me off ag'in."
"And when did this happen, Mr Barker?" demanded Mildmay.
"Two days ago," answered Barker. "And I don't mind admittin' to you
gentlemen that they have been the longest two days I ever spent. Seems
to me a good deal nearer like two months. To be two days alone, ashore
in the country, is nothin' more than a mere pleasant change; but to be
two days alone on a bit of earth hardly big enough to build a house
upon--whew! I don't want no more of 'em!"
"And did you see nothing more of any of your crew when you came to
yourself after being washed ashore?" asked Sir Reginald.
"Nary one of 'em," answered Barker. "Sharks got 'em, most likely; and I
only wonder they didn't get me, too. But, I say, mister, what sort of a
steamer do you call this of yourn? Darn my ugly buttons, but she's the
all-firedest queer-lookin' packet that I ever set eyes on. And what may
you be doin' down in these here latitoods?"
"We are yachting, for the benefit of my little daughter's health,"
answered Sir Reginald, briefly, as the boat ranged up alongside the
gangway-ladder, and the baronet waved his not altogether welcome guest
to precede him to the deck, where the rest of the party awaited his
arrival.
"Evenin', ladies and gents," remarked Barker, affably, as he passed in
through the gangway, and gazed about him inquisitively. "Fine weather,
ain't it, after the shindy that `rude Boreas' kicked up two days ago?"
"Allow me," interposed Sir Reginald, who had closely followed the
castaway in on deck. "My dear,"--to Lady Olivia--"this is Captain Silas
Barker, the only survivor of the wreck of his schooner, _Amy Pelham_,
which was cast away two days ago. My wife, Lady Elphinstone; Mlle.
Sziszkinski, Colonel Sziszkinski, Colonel Lethbridge, Professor von
Schalckenberg, and the gentleman who was in the boat with me is Captain
Mildmay."
"Je-ru-salem!" exclaimed Barker, as he insisted on shaking hands with
each of the persons named; "seems to me that at last the great ambition
of my life is bein' gratified by my gettin' on intimate terms with the
nobs. Quite a distinguished comp'ny, I'm sure. And you, sir, I
_presume_, are Lord Elphinstone?"
"Oh dear no," answered the individual addressed, with a smile, despite
himself; "I am merely Sir Reginald."
"Sir Reginald!" commented Barker. "Well, I guess it amounts to pretty
much the same thing. But, where's your crew, Sir Reginald? I don't see
no hands about your decks."
"We do not need any," answered Sir Reginald. "We work the ship
ourselves--so far as she needs working. And now, if you would like to
go below, Mr Barker, and have a wash and brush-up, my servant shall
show you to your cabin. And if you are hard up for linen and a change
of clothes, we can perhaps fit you out, amongst us."
"Well, that's uncommon handsome of you, Sir Reginald, I'm sure,"
answered Barker. "The fact is that I've got here,"--regarding his
bundle somewhat doubtfully--"a shift of clothes that I got out of the
cabin of the schooner this morning; but I guess they're pretty damp,
and--"
"Quite so; I understand," returned Sir Reginald. "You shall have a suit
of mine. You will probably be able to get into them without much
difficulty."
"I guess I shall be able to git into 'em, and turn round and come out
again," remarked Barker, eyeing his host's splendid proportions with
undisguised admiration. "All the same, sir, if you don't mind, I'll
have 'em; for they'll be dry, and I'm most awful subject to rheumatism."
At this juncture George appeared, and in obedience to Sir Reginald's
instructions, conducted the new guest to a vacant cabin, indicated to
him the whereabouts of the bathrooms, and laid out one of Sir Reginald's
blue serge suits for him, together with such other necessaries as the
exigencies of his condition demanded.
"What an extraordinary creature!" exclaimed Lady Olivia, with a laugh,
as soon as the man was safely out of earshot.
"A distinctly queer fish," commented Lethbridge.
"Very much so," agreed Sir Reginald. "Yet, no doubt, a very worthy
fellow in his own peculiar way. It would not surprise me if we find his
conversation rather entertaining. But, all the same, I shall be glad of
a decent opportunity to trans-ship him. And now, what about those
pearls? Are we to take him with us to the island, and let him see what
we are about; give the secret away to him, in fact?"
"I am afraid that we shall be obliged to take him with us," observed
Mildmay, "unless, indeed, something comes along between now and then,
into which we can transfer him. But we need not give away the secret of
the position of the island, I think. These Yankees are very inquisitive
and very cute; but I can work a traverse that will effectually puzzle
him, I think."
"How?" inquired Sir Reginald.
"Simply by steering one course during the day, when he is up and about,
and another course at night--a _true_ course for the island--after he
has turned in."
"Then we had better do that," said Sir Reginald. "The secret of the
position of this pearl-island is von Schalckenberg's, we must remember,
and the fact that he is kindly permitting us to share in and profit by
his knowledge ought to make us especially careful not to betray that
knowledge to a total stranger who, for aught that we know to the
contrary, might perhaps return to the spot and clear every oyster off
it."
"Yes," concurred the professor, "that is so, my friend; what you say is
very true. At the same time we must remember that this poor man has
just met with what, to him, is no doubt a very heavy loss. I think,
therefore, that we must contrive to fish up for him a small parcel of
pearls of sufficient value to recoup him his loss."