THE SECOND NIGHT.
The dim hectic that was lingering in the atmosphere when we entered
the hold was now gone; the evening had fallen on a sudden as dark as
midnight: it was all as black as factory smoke away west and overhead,
but a star still shone weak as a glow-worm in the east. A second flash
of lightning, but this time afar, glanced out the figure of Lady Monson
standing on the forecastle and calling to Laura.
‘She is not hurt!’ I exclaimed.
‘I am coming, Henrietta,’ said Laura.
‘I shall die if I am left alone here!’ cried Lady Monson. ‘I believed
that that flash just now had struck me blind.’
‘Keep hold of my arm, Laura,’ said I, ‘and walk as if the deck were
filled with snakes.’
We cautiously stepped the wild growths of the planks, rendered as
dangerous as the holes outside of the rocks by the dusk, and approached
Lady Monson.
‘May I conduct you to the cabin?’ said I.
‘I would rather remain here,’ she answered; but there was no longer the
old note of imperious determination in her voice. In fact it was easy
to see that she did not care to be alone when the lightning was fierce
and when a heavy storm of wet and wind was threatened.
‘Shall we take in this here sail, sir?’ cried Finn from the other side
of the deck, ‘before it’s blown away?’
‘No; keep all fast, Finn,’ said I; ‘her ladyship desires to remain
here.’
‘Are you going to stop with me, Laura?’ said Lady Monson.
‘Suffer me to answer for Miss Jennings,’ I exclaimed. ‘I make myself
answerable for her health and comfort. I could not endure that she
should be exposed when there is a safe and dry shelter within a
biscuit-toss of us.’
Just then was a blinding leap of lightning; the electric spark seemed
to flash sheer from the western confines to the eastern star, scoring
the black firmament with a line of fire that was like the splitting of
it. A mighty blast of thunder followed.
‘Hark!’ I cried, as the echoes of it went roaring and rolling into the
distance. My ear had caught a rushing and hissing noise, and looking
into the direction of the sea, over which the thick of the tempest was
hanging, I saw what seemed a line of light approaching us.
‘Rain!’ I shouted, ‘flashing the phosphorescent water up into flame.’
‘No, sir, no!’ roared Cutbill; ‘it’s wind, sir, wind! ’Tis the boiling
of the water that looks like fire.’
He was right. An instant’s listening enabled me to catch the yell of
the squall sounding in the distance like a moaning sort of whistling
through the seething of the ploughed and lacerated waters.
‘Laura, give me your hand,’ I cried. ‘Lady Monson, if you are
coming----’
‘I will accompany you,’ she answered, and very nimbly, and much to my
astonishment, she slipped her hand under my arm and clung to me. So!
There was yet a little of the true woman remaining in her, and it would
necessarily discover itself soonest in moments of terror.
The illuminated square of hatchway not only enabled us to avoid the
ugly gap down which it was mighty easy to plump by mistake in the
confusion of the blackness and in the bewilderment following upon the
blinding playing of the lightning; it threw out a faint haze of light
that went sifting into a considerable area over the main deck, so that
we were able to make haste without risk; and after a few minutes of
floundering, with an interval of groping when we came to the incline
of shells which conducted to the quarter-deck, I succeeded in lodging
the two ladies fairly in the shelter of the cabin, and not a moment too
soon. We were scarce entered when a squall of terrific violence burst
upon the little island. It took the galleon with a glare of lightning
of noontide brilliance, a roar of thunder, and such a hurricane
howling of wind that no tornado ever shrieked under the heavens
more deafeningly. One by one the men arrived. The lightning was so
continuous that I could see their figures stealing along the deck, and
they made for the cabin door by it as directly as though guided by a
stretched hand-line.
‘Did you get in the sail?’ I cried to Finn.
‘Lord love ’ee, sir,’ he roared, ‘it fled to the first blast like a
puff of baccy smoke.’
‘Hark to the sea a-getting up!’ said Dowling. ‘Here’s a breeze to start
this old waggin. Stand by for a slide, says I. I wish them holes was
plugged.’
‘Belay, you old owl,’ grumbled Cutbill hoarsely; ‘ain’t there blue
lights enough here without you hanging of more out? There’ll be no
sliding with this here hulk onless it’s to the bottom when it’s time
for her to go.’
Nevertheless the sea had risen as if by magic. The swift heaping up
of it was the stranger because there had been no preceding swell. The
first of the squall had swept over a sheet of water polished as any
mirror without a heave, as might have been seen by a glance at the
island beach, where the edge of the ocean was scarce breathing. _Now_
the shrilling and screaming of the wind was filled with the noise of
ploughed and coiling surges dissolving in masses upon the rocks from
which they recoiled with a horrible hissing and ringing sound. The
continual electric play filled the cabin with light as it glittered
upon the sail over the skylight above, or coloured the black square
of the door with violet and green and golden brilliance. It was
true tropic lightning, a heaven of racing flames, and the thunder a
continuous roll, one burst following another till the explosions seemed
blent into a uniform roar.
Lady Monson had seated herself on Laura’s mattress. My dear girl and
I reposed upon a roll of the sail; the men had flung themselves down,
one leaning his head upon his elbow, another Lascar fashion, a third
sitting upright with his arms folded. There were no wonders in this
cabin as in the hold, no marvellous and beautiful conformations,
self-luminous as one might say, and making a greenish moonlight
radiance of their own. Yet the interior seemed the wilder to the
imagination for its very nakedness, for the austere desolation of it
as it glanced out to the levin brand to its castle-shaped confines.
It forced fancy to do its own work, to revitalise it with the ghostly
shapes of beings that in life had filled it, to regarnish it with the
feudal furniture of its age. I was heartily thankful that the two
skeletons had been turned out. By every flash I could see Lady Monson’s
black eyes roaming wildly, and though I might have counted upon Laura’s
spirit whilst I was by her side and held her hand, I could have
reckoned with equal assurance upon some wretched distracting display in
her sister, had the two embracing skeletons remained in yonder corner
to serve as a moral for the motive of this voyage, to be witnessed by
the illumination of the lightning, and to add a horror of their own to
the sound of the thunder, to the fierce crying of the wind, and to the
boiling of the beating seas.
‘I say, Finn,’ I shouted to him, ‘here’s the wind before the rain, my
friend--you were mistaken.’
‘My sight ain’t what it was, sir,’ he answered.
‘It’s a commotion to blow something along in sight of us,’ said Cutbill.
‘Wonder if that there hold’s lighted up every night like that?’ said
Head; ‘enough to make a man think that there must be sperrits aboard
who trims their inwisible lamps when it comes on dark.’
‘Sorry I ain’t got my green spectacles with me,’ said Cutbill; ‘if you
was to put them on, mate, you’d see them sperrits dancing.’
‘Proper sort of ball-room, though, ain’t it, miss?’ exclaimed Finn,
addressing Laura.
‘How touching,’ said Dowling, who I could see by the lightning pulling
out his whiskers as if trimming himself, ‘for them skellingtons to go
on a-loving of one another for all these years! Supposing they was
husband and wife: then if they was living they’d ha’ given up clinging
to each other a long time ago.’
Cutbill hove a curse at him under his breath, but the man did not seem
to hear.
‘It’s curious,’ continued this sea philosopher in a salt, thick voice
that seemed not a little appropriate to the strong fish-like, marine,
_drowned_ smell of this interior, ‘they should go on a-showing of
affection which they’d sicken at if they was coated with flesh.’
‘Pray hold your tongue!’ said Lady Monson. ‘Captain Finn, please
request that sailor to be silent.’
‘Told ’ee so,’ I heard Cutbill growl; ‘always a-sticking of that hoof
of yourn into the wrong biling.’
Scarce had this been muttered when all on a sudden the squall ceased;
there fell a black, dead calm; no more lightning played, not a murmur
of thunder sounded; there was nothing to be heard but the roar of the
near surf upon the beach and the creaming of seas off the huge area of
the angry waters. In its way this sudden cessation, this abrupt, this
instant hush on high, was more terrifying than the wildest outbreak
of tempest. The lightning had been so continuous that in a manner we
had grown used to it, and we had been able to see one another’s faces
by it whilst we conversed as though by some lamp that waned and then
waxed brilliant to its revolutions. Now we sat plunged in impenetrable
blackness, whilst we sat hearkening, to use an Irishism, to the
incredible silence of the atmosphere. Not the faintest loom of the
galleon could be distinguished through the open door; yet the sheen of
the mystic illumination in her hold hovered like a faint green mist
over the hatch and dimly touched a little space of the marine growths
round about.
‘What’s a-going to happen now?’ cried Finn; but I did not know that he
had left the cabin until I heard him calling from the outside, ‘My eye,
your honour, here it comes; a _shower_ this time.’
I groped my way out, feeling down with my outstretched hands one of the
men who was groping to the door also. The stagnant air was as thick as
the fumes of brimstone and oppressively hot. It made one gasp after
coming out of the cabin, where it was kept almost cool somehow by the
strong weedy and salt-water smell that haunted it. I looked over the
rail and saw the sea at the distance of about half a mile away from
us, flaming as though it were an ocean of brandy on fire, only that
the head of the luminous appearance had as straight a line to the eye
as the horizon. But I could now observe how phosphorescent was the sea
that, whilst tranquil, had hung a lustreless shadow by marking the
vivid flashes of light in the white smother of the froth down in the
gloom of the beach and the sharp darting gleams beyond.
I groped back to the cabin, followed by the others, found Laura by the
shadow her figure made upon the dim glimmer of the sail and seated
myself beside her. Then plump fell the rain. It was just a sheet of
descending water, and spite of the fossilised decks being thickened
by marine verdure, the hull echoed to the downpour with a noise as
distracting and deafening as a goods train passing at full speed close
alongside. But the wonder of that rain lay not so much in its weight as
in its being electric. It came down black, but it sparkled on striking
the decks as though every drop exploded in a blaze. I never witnessed
such a sight before, and confess that I was never so frightened by
anything in all my life.
‘Why, it’s raining lightning!’ called Head.
‘The vessel will be set on fire!’ cried Lady Monson.
‘Nothen to be afraid of, my lady,’ shouted Cutbill; ‘these fiery falls
are common down here. I’ve been rolling up the maintop-garnsail in rain
of this sort in the Bay of Bengal when ye’d ha’ thought that the ship
had been put together out of lighted brimstone; every rope a streak of
flame, and the ocean below as if old Davy Jones was entertaining his
friends with a game of snapdragon.’
It was, no doubt, as Cutbill had said; but then there was not only
the sight of the fire flashing out along the length of the vessel
as far as the doorway permitted the eye to follow the deck, to the
roaring, ebony, perpendicular discharge of the clouds; there was the
tremendous thought of our being perched on the head of a newly-formed
volcanic rock, that had leapt into existence on such another night as
this. Suppose it sank under us! Here were all necessary conditions
of atmosphere, at least, to justify dread of such a thing. Would the
ship float? Was she buoyant enough to tear her keel from the rock
and outlive the whirlpool or gulf which might follow the descent of
a mountain of lava of whose dimensions it was impossible to form a
conception? But she had six holes in her; and then, again, there was
still plenty of water in the hold, whose volume must already have been
further increased--rapidly and greatly increased--by the cataract that
fell in a straight line to the broad yawn of the uprooted hatch.
My consternation was, indeed, so great that I could not speak. I felt
Laura press my hand, as though the dew in the palm of it and the tremor
of my fingers were hints sufficient to her of the sudden desperate
fit of nervousness that possessed me; but I could not find my tongue.
Figure being out in a horrible thunderstorm, miles from all shelter,
and seized by an overmastering apprehension that the next or the next
flash will strike you dead! My torment of mind was of this sort. I
philosophised to myself in vain. There was nothing in the consideration
that others shared my danger--most often a source of wonderful comfort
to a person in peril--that I could but die once, that there were harder
deaths than drowning, and the like, to restore me my self-possession.
I was unnerved and in a panic of terror, fired afresh by the fearful
fancy that had entered my brain on the preceding night of this head of
rock gaping and letting us down to God knows what depth. All the time
I was feeling with a hideous, nervous intensity with feet, fibres,
and instincts for any faint premonitory jar or thrill in the hull to
announce that this island was getting under way for the bottom again.
I believe that the electric rain had a deal to do with the insufferable
distress of my mind at that time, for when it ceased--with the same
startling suddenness that had marked the drop of the wind--I rallied as
though to a huge bumper of brandy. My hands were wringing wet, yet cold
as though lifted from a bucket of water; the perspiration poured down
my face, but my nerves had returned to me.
‘What now is to be the next act of this wild play?’ said I.
‘A breeze of wind, your honour,’ cried Finn out of the black gap of the
door; and sure enough I felt the grateful blowing of air cooled by the
wet.
The weight of rain had wonderfully deadened the sea, and the surf that
a little while ago broke with passion and fury now beat the rocks with
a subdued and sulky roaring sound. It had clarified to the westwards
somewhat, the dusk was of a thinner and finer sort there, with a look
of wind in the texture of the darkness; but it continued a black night,
with no other relief to the eye than the pale preternatural haze of
light in the square of the main-hatch and the occasional vivid flash
of phosphor out at sea. But the wind swept up rapidly, and within
a quarter of an hour of the first of its breezing it was blowing
hard upon a whole gale; the old galleon hummed to it as though she
had all her rigging aloft. In an incredibly short time the sea was
making clean breaches over the island, rendering the blackness hoary
with a look of snow squalls as it slung its sheets of thrilling and
throbbing and hissing spume high into the dark sweep of the gale.
One saw the difference between this sort of weather and the night on
which the ‘Bride’ had struck. Then the heaviest of the surf left a
clear space of rock; but there were times now when the smother came
boiling to the very bends of the galleon, striking her till you felt
her tremble with huge quivering upheavals of froth over and into her;
and it was like being at sea to look over the side and witness the
white madness of water raging and beating on either hand. Every now and
again a prodigious height of steam-like spray would go yelling up with
the sound of a giantess’s scream into the flying darkness from some
pipe-like conduit in the porous rock. These columns of water were so
luminous with fire, so white with the crystalline smoke into which they
were converted by the incalculable weight of the sea sweeping into the
apertures, that, dark as it was, one saw them instantly and clearly.
They soared with hurricane speed in a straight line, then were arched
by the gale like a palm; and if ever the wind brought the falling
torrent to our decks the stonified ship shook to the mighty discharge
as though the point of land on which she lay were being rent by the
force of flame and thunder which created it.
We sat in the cabin in total darkness. It made our condition
unspeakably dreadful to be without light. We had tinder-boxes, but
there was nothing to set fire to, nothing that would steadily flame and
enable us to see; nor was there any prospect now of our being able to
make a flare should we catch a glimpse of a ship, for what before would
have made a fine bonfire was soaked through. It was up to a man’s knees
on the main-deck, and the cabin would have been flooded but for the
sharp spring or rise of the planks from the poop front to the stern.
Such darkness as we sat in was like being blind. There was nothing to
be seen through the door but pale clouds of spray flying through the
air. Just the faintest outline of our figures upon the white ground
of the sail was visible, but so dim, so indeterminable as to seem but
a mere cheat of the fancy. A lamp or a candle would have rendered our
condition less intolerable. The men could then have made shift to bring
some sherry and provisions from the forecastle; the mere toying with
food would have served to kill the time. We could have looked upon one
another as we conversed, but the blackness of that interior was so
profound that it weighed down upon us like the very spirit of dumbness
itself. I have often since wondered whether men who are trapped in
the bottom of a mine and lie waiting in the blackness there for
deliverance--I have often wondered, I say, how long such poor fellows
continue to talk to one another. The intervals of silence, I am sure,
must rapidly grow greater and greater. There is something in intense
darkness in a time of peril that seems to eat all the heart and courage
out of a man. The voice appears to fall dead in the opacity as a stone
vanishes when hurled at snow.
Cutbill and Finn did their best to keep up our hearts. They spoke of
the certainty of this wind bringing a ship along with it. What should
we have done without this galleon? they asked; but for the shelter it
provided us with we should have been swept like smoke by the seas off
the rocks. There was no fear, they said, of the old hooker not holding
together. She was bound into one piece by the brine that had made a
stone of her, and by the coating of shells, and if all ships afloat
were as staunch as she was there would be an end of underwriting and
drowned sailors would be few.
I helped in such talk and did my best, but our spirits could not
continue to make headway against the blackness that was rendered yet
more subduing by the uproar without, and by our being unable to imagine
from moment to moment what was next to happen.
By-and-by the men stretched themselves upon the sail and slept. I
passed my arm round Laura’s waist and brought her head to my shoulder,
and after a little her regular breathing let me know that she was
asleep. Lady Monson was close to us, but she might have been on the
forecastle for all that I could distinguish of her. Whether she sat or
reclined, whether she slumbered or was wide awake throughout, I could
not imagine. She never once spoke. At times my head would nod, but as
regularly would I start into wakefulness afresh to the heavy fall of a
sheet of water splashing into the main-deck, or to some sudden shock of
the blow of a sea either against the galleon’s side or upon the near
rock. Nobody had suggested keeping a look-out. Indeed, had ships been
passing us every five minutes we could have done nothing.
It was probably about two o’clock in the morning when the gale abated.
The wind fell swiftly, as it mostly does in those parallels; a star
shone in the black square of the door; the pouring and boiling of
waters about us ceased, and the sounds of the sea sank away into the
distance of the beach. I should have stepped on deck to take a look
round but for Laura, who slumbered stirlessly and most reposefully upon
my shoulder, supported by my arm, and I had not the heart to disturb
the sweet girl by quitting her. Added to this, I could guess by looking
through the doorway that it was still too black to see anything spite
of the glance of starlight, and even though I should discern some
pallid vision of a running ship, there was nothing dry enough to signal
her with. So, being dog-tired, I let drop my chin, and was presently in
as deep a sleep as the soundest slumberer of them all.
Deep and deathlike indeed must have been my repose, for somehow I was
sensible of being stormily shaken even whilst my wits were still locked
up in sleep.
‘Why, Mr. Monson, sir,’ roared Finn in my ear, ‘ye ain’t so sleepy, I
hope, as not to care to git away. Hallo, I say, hallo!’
‘Father of mercy, what is it now?’ I cried, terrified in my dazed
condition by his bull-like voice.
‘Why, sir,’ he answered, ‘there’s a barque just off the island. She’s
seen our signals, and ’s slipping close in with hands at the maintops’l
brace.’
‘Ha!’ said I, and I sprang to my feet.
Finn rushed out again. I had been the last of the sleepers apparently,
and was the only occupant of the cabin. The sun was risen, but, as
I might suppose by his light, he had scarce floated yet to three or
four times the height of his diameter. The doorway framed a silvery
blue heaven, and the wondrous vegetation of the deck sparkled in
fifty gorgeous dyes, streaming wet after the night, and every blob of
moisture was jewel-coloured by the particular splendour it rested upon.
I darted on to the quarter-deck, looked wildly towards the forecastle,
then perceived that my companions had gathered upon the poop. Laura
came running to me, heedless of the perilous deck, pointing and
speechless, her eyes radiant. There was a long swell washing from the
westwards, but to the eastwards of the island the water ran away smooth
like the short wake of a great ship, till the shouldering welter swept
to it again; and there where the blue heave was, with the sun’s dazzle
a little away to the right, was a small barque slightly leaning from
the pleasant morning breeze, and sliding slowly but crisply through
it with a delicate lift of foam to the ruddy gleam of her sheathing,
and her canvas glistening sunwards, bright as the cloths of a pleasure
vessel.
‘_That’s_ what we’ve been awaiting for!’ shouted Finn.
I came to a dead halt, looking at the barque with Laura hanging on my
arm. There was a fellow in the mainchains swinging a leadline, but it
was plain that the weight fell to the full scope without result. Then
on a sudden round came the maintopsail yard to us with a flattening in
of the cotton white cloths from the folds of the course to the airy
film of the tiny sky-sail.
‘Forward, Head! forward, Dowling, as if the devil were in chase of
’ee,’ bawled Finn, ‘and get that whip rove and the chair made fast.’
The men ran to the work. Cutbill was following them.
‘No, William,’ cried Finn; ‘stop where ’ee are a minute. The shipwreck
t’other night ain’t left me my old woice. Hist! there’s a chap hailing
us.’
‘What island’s that, and who are you and what manner of craft is that
you’re aboard of?’ came from the rail of the barque’s quarter-deck in a
thin, reed-like, but distinctly audible voice.
Cutbill roared back, ‘We’re the surwiwors of the schooner-yacht
‘Bride,’ cast away three nights ago. Will you take us off, sir?’
‘How many are there of you?’
‘Seven, including two ladies.’
‘Five, Mr. Cutbill, tell ’em,’ shouted Dowling from the forecastle; ‘me
and Head stops here.’
‘Have you a boat?’ came from the barque.
‘No, sir,’ roared Cutbill.
‘I’ll send one. Make ready to come along.’
Lady Monson was the first of us to press forward to the forecastle.
The main-deck was ankle deep, but we splashed through it like a pack
of racing children and gained the fore-end of the galleon without
misadventure. I was mad with impatience, and all being ready with the
whip and chair I plumped Laura most unceremoniously into the seat,
caught hold of the line over her head, and down we were lowered. Up
then soared the empty chair and out swung her ladyship, who plunged
into my arms and came very near to throwing me in her eagerness to leap
out before the rocks were within reach of her feet.
‘Now,’ said I, ‘the men can manage for themselves,’ and with that I
seized hold of Lady Monson’s hand, grasped Laura by the arm, and away
we trudged to the beach off which the barque was lying. I was still so
newly awakened from a very stupor of slumber that I moved and thought
as though in a dream. Yet my wits were sufficiently collected to enable
me to keep a bright look-out for holes. Again and again I secretly
heaped curses upon the hindrance of this porous surface, for it
forced us into deviations which seemed to make a league of a distance
that would have been but a few minutes’ walk on reasonable soil. The
energy of our strides forbade speech; we could only breathe, and what
little mind this sudden chance of deliverance had left us we had to
exclusively devote to the pitfalls.
They had lowered a boat aboard the barque by the time that we arrived
at the water’s edge, breathless, and the three of us staring with a
feverish greediness, a thirsty, frantic desire, I may say, which ocean
peril, of all earthly dangers, paints with most perfection upon the
eye. She was a good-sized boat of a whaling pattern, sharp at both
ends, pulled by three men who peered continuously over their shoulders
as they rowed, and steered by a small man in a blue jacket and a
broad-brimmed straw hat. By the time she was close in the others had
joined us. I had heard much heated talk amongst them as they came down
from the galleon, springing over the holes and wells, and Finn at once
said to me:
‘What d’ee think, your honour? here’s Head and Dowling gone mad! They
say there’s bullion to be met with in that hulk up there, and they mean
to stop with her till they’ve got it.’
‘Nonsense!’ I exclaimed.
‘By the ’Tarnal, then, Mr. Monson,’ cried Dowling, ‘there’s no leaving
with me yet. Here’s a chance that ain’t going to happen more’n once to
a sailor-man.’
‘Ashore there!’ came from the little chap at the tiller of the boat;
‘what sort of beach have you got for grounding?’
‘Pumice-stone, sir,’ answered Finn.
‘Don’t like it,’ said the little fellow with a shake of his head. ‘Is
it steep to?’
‘He ought to be able to see by looking over the side,’ grumbled Finn;
then aloud, ‘Slopes as gradual as the calf of a man’s leg.’
‘Well, then, you won’t mind wading,’ said the little fellow.
‘Cutbill, Finn,’ I cried, ‘carry her ladyship, will you? Dowling or
Head, come and lend me a hand to convey Miss Jennings.’
The little fool obliged us to wade waist high by keeping off, so
confoundedly anxious was he to keep his keel clear of the ground.
However, we easily got the ladies into the boat; then Cutbill, Finn,
and I gripped the gunwale and rolled inboards; but Dowling coolly waded
shorewards again to where Head was standing.
‘Aren’t you two men coming?’ cried the little fellow, who afterwards
proved to be the second mate of the barque, a doll of a man with bright
eyes, diminutive features, red beard, and hands and feet of the size of
a boy of ten.
‘No, sir,’ answered Dowling; ‘there’s treasure in that there craft, and
my mate and me’s going to stop to overhaul the cargo.’
The three seamen belonging to the boat stared on hearing this,
instantly pricking up their ears with sailors’ sympathy and fastening
devouring eyes on the galleon.
‘They have no reason to believe there is treasure,’ I cried; ‘it is a
mere idle hope on their part. Exhort them to come, sir. They stand to
perish if they are left here.’
‘Now, then, don’t keep us waiting, my lads,’ exclaimed the second mate.
‘We mean to stop here,’ responded Head decisively.
‘But have you any provisions?’
‘Enough washed out of the yacht to sarve our tarn,’ answered Dowling;
‘but we should be glad of another cask of fresh water.’
‘Well, you’ll not get that,’ answered the second mate; ‘our own stock’s
not over-plentiful. Now, once more, are ye coming?’
They shook their heads, and in a careless, reckless manner Head
half-swung his back upon us.
‘Give way!’ cried the second mate.
‘But it’s like helping them to commit suicide, Finn,’ I exclaimed.
‘They ought to be seized and forced into the boat,’ said Lady Monson,
looking with a shudder at the galleon.
‘They’ve got a notion there’s money in that there hulk,’ exclaimed
Finn, ‘and they’ll stick to her till they satisfies themselves one way
or the other.’
‘Small fear of them not being taken off when they’re ready to go,’ said
the mate, staring hard at Lady Monson and then at Laura; ‘that island’s
a novelty which’ll bring every ship that heaves her masthead within
sight of it running down to have a look at. Volcanic, eh? And that
shell-covered arrangement up there rose along with it?’
‘Ay,’ said Finn.
‘Well,’ said the little second mate, ‘why shouldn’t she have treasure,
aboard? She has the look of one of them plate ships you read of.’
‘I’d take my chance with them two sailors,’ said the fellow who was
pulling the bow oar.
‘So would I,’ said the man next to him.
The stroke gazed yearningly through the hair over his eyes.
The sea of the preceding night had cleared the beach of every vestige
of the yacht; all the fragments which had littered the rocks were
gone. As we drew out from the island it took in the brilliant sunshine
the complexion of marble, and the wondrous old galleon lying on top
sparkled delicately with many tints as our point of view was varied by
the stroke of the oars. The resolution of the two men vexed and grieved
me beyond all expression; but what was to be done? My spirit shrank at
the mere thought of their determination when I reflected upon the damp,
dark, ocean-smelling cabin, the luminous hold, the two skeletons, the
vegetation and shells, whose novelty, wonder, glory seemed to carry the
structure out of all human sympathy, as though it were the product of
a form of existence whose creations were not to be met with under the
stars. We drew rapidly to the barque. She was an exceedingly handsome
model, painted green, rigged with a masterly eye to accurate adjustment
down to the most trivial detail.
‘What’s her name, sir?’ asked Finn.
‘The “Star of Peace,”’ answered the second mate.
‘Homeward bound, I hope, sir?’ says Cutbill.
‘Ay,’ said the little man, grinning, ‘and long enough about it too.
Sixty-one days from Melbourne as it is.’
Finn whistled; Laura looked at the mate on hearing him say that the
ship was from Melbourne.
‘Oars!’ A boathook caught the accommodation ladder and we gained the
deck. The captain of the barque stood in the gangway to receive us;
he was a Scotchman with a slow, kind, thoughtful face, grey hair that
showed like wire on end with thickness and stubbornness as he lifted
his straw hat to the ladies. His grey, keen, seawardly eye rapidly took
stock of us. I briefly related our story.
‘I remember the “Bride,” sir,’ he said. ‘She was owned by Sir Wilfrid
Monson, who married Miss Jennings of Melbourne.’
‘This is Lady Monson,’ I said; ‘her sister, too, Miss Jennings.’
‘Indeed!’ he exclaimed, with a sort of slow surprise giving a little
animation to his speech. ‘I have the honour of being acquainted with
Mr. Jennings. He came on board this vessel three days before we sailed
along with a gentleman, Mr. Hanbury’--Laura slightly nodded--‘to whom
a portion of the freight belongs. I see the likeness now,’ he added,
looking with admiration at Lady Monson.
She glowed crimson, and turned with a haughty step to the rail to
conceal her face.
‘I have always heard this world was a small one, captain,’ said I,
‘small enough, thank God, to enable your ship to fall in with that rock
there. To what port are you bound?’
‘London, sir. There are a couple of cabins at your service. There are
no females aboard,’ looking at Laura and running his eye over her dress
with a glance on to Lady Monson; ‘I judge ye were cast away in little
more than what you stood up in?’
‘By the way, Laura,’ said I, ‘we ought not to leave your box of odds
and ends behind us.’
‘Oh, no; bring off everything,’ exclaimed the captain. ‘I’ll send the
boat ashore.’
It was arranged that Finn should fetch the box and make a final effort
to persuade the two men to come off. The captain of the barque laughed
when I told him of the fellows’ resolution, and seemed to make little
of it. ‘If they’ve got a notion there’s treasure there, sir,’ he
exclaimed, ‘you’ll not move ’em. I know Jack’s nature. He’d follow old
Nick if he believed he’d take him to where there were dollars. Ships
enough’ll be coming in sight of that rock. I don’t fear for the men’s
safety.’
‘But it is a volcanic creation, captain. It may vanish just as it rose,
in a flash.’
‘Ha!’ cried he, sucking in his breath, ‘my word! But I should never
have thought of that. Better try and coax those men off,’ he exclaimed,
walking to the rail and putting his head over and addressing Finn who
had entered the boat.
‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ answered Finn, and shoved off.
‘Now, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the captain, returning to us, ‘will
you step below that we may see how you’re to be made comfortable?’
After the galleon the cabin of a smack would have been sheer Paradise.
Here was a breezy, plain, substantial homely interior. The sunshine
brilliantly flooded it, the eastern splendour of water rippled in lines
of light upon the bulkheads; the hot morning breeze gushed humming
through the skylight into it. The captain led us to a couple of berths
forward of the state cabin, and the first object I witnessed was my
face reflected in a looking-glass. Heavens! what a contrast to the
Pall Mall exquisite of a few months before! Unshaven, sunblackened,
unbrushed, unwashed; my linen dark, my clothes expressing every
feature of shipwreck in rents, stains, and the like; I needed but
a few further grimy embellishments to have passed to admiration as
a back alley sailor. The captain’s name was Richardson; he seemed
fascinated by Lady Monson, called for his servant or steward, bade him
procure at once every convenience of hot water, towels, hair-brushes
and the like; continued to congratulate himself upon having been the
means of delivering the daughters of Mr. Jennings of Melbourne from a
situation of distress and peril, and so warmed up to the occasion, but
slowly as the kettle boils, that I easily saw there was small fear of
Laura and her sister not being made as thoroughly comfortable as the
accommodation supplied by the barque would permit.
I was too anxious, however, about the fellows on the island to linger
below, and went on deck, leaving Captain Richardson talking to the
ladies, protesting in hearty Scotch accents his anxiety to serve them
to the utmost of his ability, questioning the steward about sheets
and blankets, bidding him likewise tell the cook to make haste with
the breakfast, asking Lady Monson if she drank tea or coffee, and so
on and so on. The boat was off the island and Finn ashore, coming
down from the galleon to the beach with Laura’s box slung betwixt him
and Dowling, whilst Head trudged close behind. Then there was a long
talk; I could see Finn pointing to the hulk and then to the barque,
flourishing his arms and emphatically nodding at one or the other as he
addressed them. Cutbill stood in the gangway looking on.
‘I hope the captain will prevail upon them to leave that place,’ said I
to him.
‘He won’t, sir,’ answered Cutbill; ‘and blowed if I don’t feel now, Mr.
Monson, as if I’d made a mistake in leaving it myself!’
Here the mate of the barque stepped up to me--an immense man, even
bigger than Cutbill, in a long white coat with side pockets so vast
that one might have thought that he could have stowed the little second
mate away in one of them.
‘Do those chaps think that there’s plunder to be found aboard that
effigy?’ he asked in a voice rendered unutterably hoarse and harsh by
probably years of roaring out in foul weather, supplemented by rum and
the natural gift of a deep note.
‘Don’t know about plunder, sir,’ answered Cutbill, ‘but they reckon
there may be chests of plate and bullion stowed away aft.’
‘Stowed away in their eye!’ growled the mate. ‘Where did she come from?’
‘The bottom of the sea, sir.’
‘An old galleon,’ said he, cocking his eye at her, ‘and a volcanic
burst up,’ he continued. ‘Well, I don’t know, if so be she’s a galleon,
likely as not those chaps are right. Why, they thought nothing in the
days she belonged to in stowing a matter of six or seven millions of
dollars in the lazarettes of craft of that kind.’
‘By the Lord, Mr. Monson,’ burst out Cutbill, ‘I must go ashore, sir! I
feel I’m a-doing wrong in being here!’
‘You’ll have to swim then,’ said the mate drily, ‘for that boat is
meant for our davits when she comes alongside, and it will then be time
to trim sail.’
At that moment I observed Finn shaking the two sailors by the hand. He
then entered the boat and made for the barque, whilst Head and Dowling
walked slowly up to the galleon and sat down in the shade of her under
her counter, whence they continued to watch us.
‘It’s no good, Mr. Monson, sir,’ said Finn, as he came clambering
and panting over the side; ‘they call it a gold mine, and there’s no
persuading of ’em to leave it.’
‘Up with this boat,’ roared the mate; ‘stand by to round in on those
topsail braces.’
The boat soared to her davits, the milk-white squares of canvas on the
main went floating onwards into full bosoms; the barque, bowing to the
swell, broke the flashing water into trembling lines; slowly, almost
imperceptibly, that marble-looking hump of rock with its glittering
centre-piece stole away upon the quarter, its solitude somehow making
the ocean look as wide again as it was. Laura came on deck and stood by
my side.
‘Oh, Charles!’ she exclaimed, ‘we have left the poor fellows behind,
then?’
‘They refuse to leave. Observe Cutbill,’ said I, pointing to the huge
figure of the honest tar as he lay over the rail, his face knotted up
with conflicting emotions, whilst his expression was rendered spasmodic
by his manner of gnawing upon a quid that stood in his cheek. ‘He is
lamenting the loss of a princely income, and would have returned to the
island could he have got a boat. Mark Finn, too; with what a mixture of
thirstiness and misgiving does he stare!’
‘The poor creatures are waving to us,’ said Laura.
Instantly throughout the barque there was a general flourishing of arms
and Scotch caps and straw hats. We lingered watching them till the
island looked to be no more than a small blue cloud floating low upon
the water.
‘Poor Wilfrid!’ suddenly exclaimed Laura, and her eyes dimmed with
tears.
‘It has been a hard time for you, dear one!’ I exclaimed, ‘but the end
of the black chapter is reached, let us believe. See! here comes the
captain’s man with a tray of good things. But I must positively shave
before I can sit down to breakfast, if there is a razor on board to
borrow.’
We walked together to the companion hatch, but even there we lingered a
little with our eyes dwelling upon that distant azure film which seemed
now to be fainting out as though it were a wreath of sea-mist that was
being fast devoured by the sun.