CASTAWAYS ON OONIMAK
“You see, boys,” began Jalap Coombs, after it was certain that the
_Seamew_ had been captured, “as my friend old Kite Roberson uster say,
‘I ain’t no pig in a poke.’ Not that I’ve ever got onto the exact
bearings of a ‘poke’; but nigh as I can make out, it’s some turrible
dark place like a ship’s hold with the hatches battened down, or
maybe a tomb. Anyhow, I haven’t been in the dark all this time so
much as Cap’n Duff thought I was. He ’lowed he was the only navigator
’boardship, while I ’lowed there was two of us. So, while he kep’ his
log, I likewise kep’ mine. Now, ’cording to my reckoning, we are not,
at this blessed minute, more’n fifty mile from the island of Oonimak,
with a breeze that’s coming on a gale blowing dead for it. If we
choose, we can make it inside of six hours, and I reckon we’ll make it
anyway, sooner or later, whether we choose or no, ef this wind holds.
There is water there and maybe something to eat, both of which is
wanting with us at the present time.”
“There are seal-skins there too,” interrupted Serge.
“Sartain there is, lad, and I was meaning to have fetched ’em on the
next tack. Now the question is, who owns them seal-skins, and what
shall be did with ’em? Ef they is left where they be too long, they’ll
spile. Ef the natyves finds ’em they’ll be stole. Ef they stays there
till Cap’n Duff can come for them, they’ll be spiled. Ef the gover’ment
finds ’em, they’ll be confiskercated, though being took in the open
sea they ain’t in no ways liable. Ef we find ’em, we’ll save ’em and
make good use of ’em. A part of ’em belongs to us, anyway, and the
rest would naturally be ours by the right of salvage ef we saved ’em
from destruction. So now I leaves it to you two ef our best plan ain’t
to clap sail onto this little packet, head her for Oonimak Island, do
the best we can with our seal-skins, and afterwards shape our course
’cording to sarcumstances?”
Both lads agreed that they could suggest no better plan of action than
this, whereupon the mate remarked that “them was his sentiments and
likewise old Kite Roberson’s, who uster say, ‘When ye sight a good
thing, keep your eye on it; if not, what’s the use of eyes?’”
So the whale-boat’s sail was hoisted, she was got before the wind, and
on the fierce breath of the rising gale she was whirled away like an
autumn leaf in the direction of Oonimak Island.
So strongly did the gale blow by the time the day was half spent, and
with such prodigious leapings did the light boat spring from crest to
crest of the leaden seas, that every ounce of Jalap Coombs’s strength
and every atom of his skill were necessary to her safe steering and
to keeping her from being swamped. While he stood up in the stern in
order to get a better purchase on his long steering-oar, the lads,
crouched in the boat’s bottom amidship in order to steady her as much
as possible, were obliged to devote most of their time to bailing. In
spite of their thick clothing and oil-skins, the damp chill of the wind
penetrated to the bone, and they were drenched by incessant showers of
flying spray.
After six hours of this terribly exciting and arduous sailing, all
hands began to look anxiously for a break in the fog, and strained
their eyes for some glimpse of the land they felt sure must be near at
hand. At length, in a momentary lift, they caught sight of Shishaldin’s
snowy cone, and knew that Jalap Coombs had indeed brought them to
Oonimak. Now they heard the roar of breakers, though they could see
nothing of the coast against which these were so furiously thundering.
To keep on seemed suicidal; while to either halt or retreat in the face
of the furious gale now raging was impossible.
A warning cry from Phil, a mighty sweep of Jalap Coombs’s steering-oar,
and their cockle-shell swerved from a jagged rock against which the
hissing waves were churned to a yeasty froth. Their tremendous speed
was apparent as they swept by this mark so swiftly that in a moment it
was again swallowed by the mist, and had vanished behind them.
“If we can only have the luck to strike a beach,” said Serge, though
his words were unheard save by himself.
“Hold hard! and stand by!” shouted Jalap Coombs, as with set face and
unflinching gaze he stared through the gray thickness at a line of
leaping white, behind which was a dim background of land. “We’re close
in now, and she’ll strike in another minute! When she does, then jump
and run for your lives. Look out!”
Even as he spoke the whale-boat was lifted high in the air, poised
for a moment like a bird in mid-flight, and then hurled forward amid
a smother of foam and a roar of rushing waters. An instant later she
struck with a crash that left her occupants bruised and breathless.
There was no time, however, to consider bruises or aches, and almost
with the shock itself they had gained their feet and leaped into water
up to their knees.
Phil had grasped both shot-gun and rifle with the hope that he might
save them from the wreck. Whether or not he was overbalanced by their
weight he never knew; but with his first step into the water he slipped
on the kelp-covered rocks, fell face downward, and would have been
swept away by the outward rush of the sea had not the mate seized his
collar. With a single movement of the sinewy arm Phil was lifted to
his feet, and in another minute had been dragged beyond reach of the
breakers that chafed and roared in impotent rage at this escape of the
prey they had deemed so surely their own.
The next sea sprang upon the boat, rolled it over and over, bit at it
with savage teeth, and finally tossed it, hopelessly shattered, at the
feet of its recent occupants.
Serge could have cried at this wanton destruction of that upon which
they had so much depended, while Phil was equally disconsolate over the
loss of his guns. To Jalap Coombs, however, these successive disasters
seemed only to lend an access of cheerfulness and activity. Rushing
into the ravenous waters, he snatched from them the boat’s mast and
sail, the long-handled gaff, a couple of oars, a coil of line, and some
loose bits of rope.
“Don’t ye be cast down, lads!” he cried, cheerily, after this had been
accomplished, and the three stood together on the beach. “We’ve more to
be thankful for than to grieve over. We’ve lost our boat, to be sure;
but it’s a marcy it brung us safe to shore as it did. There’s no use in
crying over it now; for, as old Kite uster say, ‘What can’t be mended
had best stay broke.’”
“But what are we going to do for a living now that our guns are gone?”
asked Phil.
“Guns?” cried Mr. Coombs, contemptuously. “Ef we hadn’t nothing but
guns to depend on in this world, I reckon there’d be a-many of us
wouldn’t make no living. I know I wouldn’t, nor do I think Kite
Roberson would have; for, good soul as he was, he never could a-bear
the sight of a gun. Said his daddy uster lick him with a ramrod from
the time he was broiling age till he run away to sea. What are we going
to do for a living? Go fishing for one thing; develop the resources of
this here island for another. When we’re tired of developing we can go
into the fur business, and take to trading seal-skins. You’ve forgot
the wealth we’ve got stowed away up yonder, haven’t ye, and that we
come here a-purpose to look after?”
“Yes, I had,” answered Phil, soberly, “and I had forgotten our
many other mercies as well. I had almost forgotten the miraculous
preservation of our lives; but I shall remember, and be thankful for it
from this time on.”
“We are fortunate to be cast away on this particular island,” broke in
Serge, “for, from what I have heard, it has plenty of water, which some
of them have not, plenty of food, such as it is, plenty of material for
making a fire, plenty of old houses in which we can find shelter, and,
above all, it is located right in the track of all vessels going into
or out of Bering Sea, as well as up and down the coast.”
“If food, drink, fire, and shelter are awaiting us, let’s go to them,
and not keep them waiting any longer,” cried Phil, “for I am hungry,
thirsty, wet, cold, and tired, and if you two are not all of those
things you ought to be.”
“Speaking of fire,” remarked Jalap Coombs, as he ruefully withdrew the
shattered remains of what had been a water-tight match-box from his
pocket, “I hope you boys have got some dry matches with ye, for mine
are all spiled.”
As neither of them had any matches, the mate’s face grew very sober;
but he brightened as Serge remarked, confidently, “If you will provide
food, Mr. Coombs, I will promise you the fire to cook it with, unless
all the stories I have heard of this island are false.”
“Good for you, lad! Fire’s one of the most important things; but I must
say I don’t see how you’re going to get it, unless ye mean to climb to
the top of yon smoking mountain.”
“I don’t believe I shall have to go quite as far as that,” replied
Serge, “but I’ll get it, and the question is where will you have it
put. Do you know what part of the island we have landed on, or where
the seal-skin cache is?”
“I do,” answered Phil; “for I recognize that far point with the
ugly-looking water just beyond.”
“Right you are, lad,” said Jalap Coombs. “It was just to the east’ard
of this very place we landed the skins, and the cache isn’t more’n half
a mile away from where we stand. You’re right in calling that ‘ugly’
water too, for it’s the beginning of Krenitzin Strait, as nasty a bit
of roaring tide-rip and eddy, rock and reef, as ye’ll find on the
coast. It’s God’s marcy that we warn’t flung in there instead of on to
this beach. Ef we had been, we wouldn’t have stood no more show than a
butterfly in a whirlwind.”