A BREAK-DOWN.
Time went on, and the boys began to grow visibly fatter. It was Tuesday
evening, and we hoped, putting on all steam as we were doing, to reach
Tanaki by the small hours of Wednesday morning, in good season to
relieve the four unhappy souls still, as we believed, detained there in
captivity. We were strained on the very rack of excitement, indeed, with
our efforts to arrive before the savages could take any further step;
and the boys' anxiety for their parents' and their sister's safety had
naturally communicated itself to us, as we listened to their story. Why,
it was that very evening that Martin had told us the rest of his strange
tale--how his father and mother, with his younger brother Calvin and his
sister Miriam, had been confined by the savages in the grass-hut temple,
while he and Jack were put to lie in an open out-house hard by, guarded
only by a single half-intoxicated Kanaka. Well, in the middle of the
night, those two brave boys had silently gnawed their ropes asunder, and
creeping past their guard had stolen away to the beach in the desperate
effort to escape in search of assistance. There, they luckily found the
mission boat hauled down on the shore; and waiting only to take a can of
water from the spring close by, and a bunch of half-ripe bananas from a
garden on the harbor, they had put forth alone on their wild and
adventurous voyage across the lone Pacific. I can tell you, it brought
the tears to our eyes more than once, rough sailors as we were, to hear
the strange story of their hopeless sail, and it made our blood boil to
learn how these ungrateful savages had repaid the earnest and devoted
life-labor of the unhappy missionaries.
"No wonder him hungry," that young monkey Nassaline said, with profound
condolence, "if him don't hab nuffin to eat for ten day long but unripe
banana." Anything that concerned the human stomach always touched a most
tender and responsive chord in Nassaline's sympathies.
At eight bells when my watch was up, I went off for a quiet snooze to my
cabin. I knew I should be wanted for hot work about three in the
morning, for I didn't expect to effect the rescue without a hard fight
for it; so I thought it best to get what sleep I could before arriving
at the islands. So I lay in my berth, with my eyes shut, and a thin
sheet spread over me (for it was broiling hot tropical weather), and I
was just beginning to doze off in comfort, when suddenly I felt
something move under me like a young earthquake. Next minute I was
jolted clean out of my bed, with such a jerk that I thought at first we
were all going to sleep on the bed of the ocean.
"Halloo," I cried out to Jim up atop, rushing out of my cabin. "What's
up? Anything wrong? What's happened?"
"Grazed a reef, I guess," Jim shouted back, calmly. "No land in sight,
but shoal water and breakers ahead. We seem to be in danger."
Cool chap, Jim, under no matter what circumstances. But this looked
serious. In a second I was up, and peering out over the bows into the
dark black water. The _Albatross_ had slowed, and was reversing engines.
All round us we could see great heaving breakers.
"No land hereabouts," Jim sung out, consulting the chart once more. "We
ought to be at least five miles to suth'ard of the Great Caycos Band
Reef."
As he spoke, I saw Martin's white face appearing suddenly at the top of
the companion-ladder. He flung up his hands in an agony of despair. "Oh,
how terrible!" the poor lad blurted out in his misery. "I ought to have
remembered! I ought to have told you! Father says the charts hereabouts
are all many miles wrong in their bearings. The Caycos Reef lies six or
seven knots south by west of the point it's marked at!"
In a ferment of anxiety I turned up our other Sydney charts at once to
test his statement. Sure enough there was a discrepancy, a considerable
discrepancy, both in latitude and longitude, between the two maps. At
the margin of one I read this vague and uncomfortable note--"These
islands are reported by certain navigators to lie further south and west
than here laid down, and have never been accurately surveyed by good
authorities. Careful navigation by day alone is recommended to master
mariners."
Jim looked at me, and I looked at Jim. What on earth could we do in such
a fix as this? To go on in the dark, with unknown reefs before us, was
to imperil the _Albatross_ and all on board; to cast anchor where we
stood and hold back till daylight was to risk not arriving in time to
rescue the unfortunate missionary with his wife and family. I glanced at
the boy's white face as he stood by the companion-ladder, and made up my
mind at once. Come what might, I must push forward and save them.
"Slow engines," I called down the pipe, "and proceed half-speed till
further orders. Jim, go for'ard, and keep a sharp eye on the breakers.
As soon as we're clear, we'll steam ahead full pelt again, and risk
going ashore sooner than leave these poor folks on the island to be
cruelly massacred."
"Thank you," the boy said, with an ashy face, and lay down upon the
deck, unmanned and trembling. His lips were as white, I give you my
word, as this sheet of paper I'm this moment writing upon.
For a hundred yards or so we slowed, and went ahead without coming to
any further stop; then suddenly, a sharp thud--a dull sound of
grating--a thrill through the ship; and Jim, looking up from in front,
with a cool face as usual, called out at the top of his voice, but with
considerable annoyance, "By Jove, we're aground again!"
And so we were, this time with a vengeance.
"Back her," I called out, "back her hard, Jenkins!" and they backed her
as hard as the engines could spurt; but nothing came of it. We were
jammed on the reef about as tight as a ship could stick, and no power on
earth could ever have got us off till the tide rose again.
Well, we tried our very hardest, reversing engines first, and then
putting them forward again to see if we could run through it by main
force; but it was all in vain. Aground we were, and aground we must
remain till there was depth of water enough on the reef to float us.
Fortunately the tide was rising fast, and three hours more would see us
out of our difficulties. Three hours was a very serious delay; but I
calculated if we got off the reef by two in the morning, we should still
have time to reach Tanaki pretty comfortably before seven. We must enter
the harbor by daylight, no doubt, which would perhaps be dangerous;
because when the savages saw us arrive, they might make haste to cut the
white people's throats before we could get up to rescue them. But I
thought it more likely they would try to save them, to prevent our
opening fire upon them by way of punishment; so with what comfort we
could, we stuck on upon the reef, and waited for the inevitable tide to
come and float us.
Waiting for the tide is always slow business.
At about half-past one, however, the water began to deepen under the
ship, and we could feel her rise and fall--bump, bump, bump--with each
onslaught of the breakers. Now bumping on a reef isn't exactly wholesome
for a ship's bottom, so I gave the word to Jenkins for the engines to go
to work again; and presently, after two or three unsuccessful attempts,
we got her safe off, by energetic reversing, and found to our great
delight that the _Albatross_, like a tight little craft that she was,
had sprung no leak, and was making no water. Her sound old timbers had
just grazed the surface of that flat-topped reef without suffering any
serious internal injury.
As soon as we were free, and had examined our hold, I shouted down once
more, "Now forward, boys, as hard as you can go, and mind, Jenkins, you
make her travel!"
To my immense surprise, instead of obeying my orders, the _Albatross_
suddenly stood stock-still in the trough of a wave, drifting helplessly
about like a log on the ocean.
"Now then," I shouted down again, half angry and half alarmed. "What are
you doing there, Jenkins? Didn't you hear what I said? Stir your stumps,
my friend! Double time, and forward!"
Imagine my horror when the engineer shouted back in a voice of blank
dismay, "I can't, sir. She won't work. Don't answer to the valve. We've
injured something in backing her off the reef there."
This was an awkward job. And at such a crisis, too! In a minute I was
down in the engine-room myself, inspecting all the valves and bearings
with lamp in hand, and with the closest scrutiny. Before long we had
ascertained the extent of the injury. A piece of the engine was broken
that would certainly take us six or eight hours to repair. And it was
already two o'clock on the Wednesday morning!
But that wasn't all, either. Another serious difficulty beset us in our
work. We were beating about in the angry sea off the Caycos Reef, with
the breakers dashing in, and the surf running high. If we tried to mend
the broken engine where we stood, we should infallibly be dashed to
pieces on the dangerous shallows. You can't go to work like that on a
lee shore, with no engine to fall back upon, and the wind blowing half a
gale. The only thing possible for us was to hoist sail and make for the
open sea to southward under all canvas. That was taking us further away
from Tanaki, of course; but it was our one chance of getting our engine
repaired in peace and quiet.
So we hoisted sail and stood out to sea once more, leaving the dim long
line of surf gradually behind us on the lee, and beating by constant
tacks against the wind, which had now veered to the southeast, and was
blowing us straight on to the Caycos shallows.
By four o'clock we'd got so far out that we thought we might lie to a
bit and take a few hands off navigating duty to assist the engineer in
repairing his engine.
But it proved a much more difficult and lengthy task to retrieve the
mischief than we had at first sight at all anticipated. The minutes went
by with appalling rapidity. Five o'clock came, and the smith was only
just getting his iron well hammered into shape. Six o'clock, and the
engineer was still fitting the place it came from. Seven
o'clock--something wrong, surely, with the ship's time! Before this hour
I had hoped to be anchored off the harbor of Tanaki.
Seven o'clock on Wednesday morning; and by twelve at noon, so the boys
assured us, the ovens would be made hot at Taranaka's tomb for those
unfortunate prisoners on the remote island!
Oh, how frantically we worked for the next two hours! and how
remorselessly everything seemed to turn against us! How is it that
whenever one's in the greatest hurry all nature seems to conspire to
defeat one's purpose? I won't attempt to explain to you all the petty
mishaps and unfortunate failures that attended our efforts. It seemed as
if iron, wood, and coal--all inanimate matter itself--was banded
together to make our further approach to Tanaki impossible. By nine
o'clock I knew the worst myself. The breakdown to the engine was far
more serious than we had at first imagined. I felt sure that before noon
at earliest, with all our skill and toil, we couldn't possibly repair
it.
But I shrank from telling those two poor trembling lads that there was
no hope now left of saving their parents.
Gradually, however, as the day wore on, they discovered it
themselves--they saw that the golden opportunity had been lost for us.
As each hour passed by they told us with ever redoubled horror what they
knew must at that moment be passing on the island. Now the savages would
be bringing their father out before the prison hut, and sacrificing him
with their tomahawks by the hideous blood-stained altar of their great
dead chieftain. Now their poor mother would be crouching on the ground,
trying in vain to protect their helpless little brother. Now Miriam
herself, little golden-haired, three-year-old, innocent Miriam--but at
that last horror they broke down in tears, and could say no more. They
could only sob and hide their faces in their hands with speechless agony
at that unspeakable picture.
By noon we knew the worst must be over. They were at rest now, poor
souls, from their month-long misery. The afternoon dragged on and we
still worked hard on the mere chance of some respite which might enable
us to rescue them. But we felt sure the end had come for all that. We
worked away by the mere force of pure aimless energy. It distracted us
from thinking of the awful events which we nevertheless in our hearts
felt certain must have happened.
It was eight at night before we got the _Albatross_ fairly under way
again; and even then she lumbered slowly, slowly on, the engine being
only somehow repaired, in the most clumsy fashion, till we could reach
harbor once more, and quietly overhaul her.
So we steamed ahead, feebly and cautiously, all night long, keeping a
sharp lookout for land across our bows, and with Martin on deck almost
all the time, to aid us by his close personal knowledge of the island
approaches.
Wednesday the tenth was over now. The terrible day had come and gone. We
didn't doubt that the massacre was completed long before the clock
struck one on Thursday morning.