A STRANGE STORY.
When we had breakfasted Captain Greaves said: “Will you smoke a pipe
with me in my cabin?”
“With much pleasure,” I answered.
“First, let me go on deck,” said he, “to take a look around. It is Yan
Bol’s watch and I cannot trust Van Laar to see that the deck is relieved
even when it is his own turn to come below. Bol is my carpenter, bo’sun,
and sailmaker. He stands a watch; but that sort of men who live in the
forecastle and eat and drink with the sailors are seldom useful on the
quarter-deck. Yet here am I talking gravely on such matters to a man who
knows more about the sea than I do.”
With that he stepped on deck. I kept my chair and talked with Galloon
until Greaves returned. He then conducted me to his cabin. It was a
large cabin, at least three times the size of the berth I had occupied
during the night. It was on the starboard quarter, well lighted and
cozily furnished. Here was to be felt at its fullest the heave of the
brig as she swept pitching over the high seas. Whenever she stooped her
stern the roaring waters outside foamed about our ears. The kick of the
rudder thrilled in small shocks through this part of the fabric, and you
heard the hard grind of the straining wheel ropes in their leading
blocks as the steersman put his helm up or down.
Captain Greaves took a canister of tobacco from a shelf and handed me a
pipe. We filled and smoked. He bade me lay upon a locker and himself sat
in his sleeping shelf or bunk, which, being without a top and standing
at the height of a knee from the deck, provided a comfortable seat. We
discoursed awhile on divers matters relating to the profession of the
sea. He asked me to examine his quadrant, his chronometer (which he said
was the work of the maker who had manufactured the watch that Captain
Cook had taken with him on his last voyage), his charts, of which he had
about a score in a canvas bag, and certain volumes on navigation. These
things I examined with considerable professional interest. While I
looked his eye was never off me. He appeared to be deeply ruminating,
and he smoked with an odd motion of his jaw as though he talked to
himself. When I was once more seated upon the locker he said:
“I shall cease to call you mister. What need is there for formality
between two men who have saved each other’s life?”
“No need whatever.”
“Fielding,” said he, looking and speaking very gravely, “you have
greatly occupied my thoughts since you returned to consciousness
yesterday, and since I discovered that you were not a half-hanged pirate
or smuggler, but a gentleman and an English sailor after my own heart. I
mean to tell you a very curious story, and when I have told you that
story I intend to make a proposal to you. You shall hear what errand
this brig is bound on. You shall learn to what part of the world I am
carrying her, and I believe you will say that you have never heard of a
more romantic nor of a more promising undertaking.”
He opened the door of his berth and looked out. Van Laar was seated at
the table, eating his breakfast. Greaves closed the door and seated
himself on his bed.
“Last year,” said he, “I was in command of a small vessel named the
_Hero_. It matters not how it happened that I came to be at the
Philippines. There I took in a small lading for Guayaquil. When about
sixty leagues to the south’ard of the Galapagos Islands we made land,
and hove into view an island of which no mention was made in any of the
charts of those seas which I possessed. There was nothing in _that_.
There is much land yet to be discovered in that ocean. I have no faith
in any of the charts of the Western American seaboard, and trust to
nothing but a good lookout. We hove this island into view, and I steered
for it with a leadsman in the chains on either hand. I hoped to be of
some humble service to the navigator by obtaining the correct bearings
of the island; but I had no mind to delay my voyage by sounding, saving
only for the security of my own ship.
“We sighted the island soon after sunrise, and at noon were abreast of
it. It was a very remarkable heap of rock, much after the pattern of the
Galapagos, gloomy with black lava, and the land consisted of masses of
broken lava, compacted into cliffs and small conical hills, that
reminded me somewhat of the Island of Ascension. I examined it very
carefully with a telescope and beheld trees and vegetation in one place,
but no signs of human life--no signs of any sort of life, if it were not
for a number of turtle or tortoises crawling upon the beach and looking
like ladybirds in the distance. But, as we slowly drew past the island,
we opened a sort of natural harbor formed by two long lines of reef,
one of them incurving as though it was a pier and the handiwork of man.
The front of cliff that overlooked this natural harbor was very lofty,
and in the middle of it was a tremendous fissure--a colossal cave--the
shape of the mouth like the sides of a roughly-drawn letter A. Inside
this cave ’twas as dark as evening; yet I seemed with my glass to
obscurely behold something within. I looked and looked, and then handed
the telescope to the mate, who said there was something inside the cave.
It resembled to his fancy the scaffolding of a building, but what it
exactly was neither of us could make out.
“The weather was very quiet; the breeze off the island, as its bearings
then were at this time of sighting the cave, and the water within the
natural harbor was as sheet-calm as polished steel. I said to the mate:
“‘We must find time to examine what is inside that cave. Call away four
hands and get the boat over. Keep a bright lookout as you approach.
There is nothing living that is visible outside, but who knows what may
be astir within the darkness of that tremendous yawn? At the first hint
of danger pull like the devil for the ship, and I will take care to
cover your retreat.’
“To tell you the truth, Fielding, the sight of that extraordinary cave
and the obscure thing within it, along with the natural harbor, as I
call it, had put a notion into my head fit, to be sure, to be laughed at
only; but the notion was in my head, and it governed me. It was this:
suppose that huge cave, I thought to myself, should prove to be a secret
dock used by picaroons for repairing their vessels or for concealing
their ships under certain conditions of hot search? Because, you see, it
was a cave vast enough to comfortably berth a number of small craft, and
their people would keep a lookout; and who under the skies would suspect
a piratic settlement in a heap of cinders?--So I, as a good, easy,
ambling merchantman--a type of scores--come sliding close in to have a
look, and then out spring the sea wolves from their lair, storming down
upon their quarry to the impulse of sweeps three times as long as that
oar upon which Galloon saw you floating.”
He paused to draw breath. I smiled at his high-flown language.
“Do you find anything absurd in the notion that entered my head?” said
he.
“Nothing absurd whatever. You sight a big cave. There is something
inside which you can’t make out. Why should not that cave be a pirates’
lair of the fine old, but almost extinct, type, capable of vomiting
cut-throats at an instant’s notice, just as any volcanic cone of your
island might heave up smoke and redden a league or so of land to the
beach with lava?”
“Good. Fill your pipe. There is plenty of tobacco in this brig. I
brought my ship to the wind and stopped her without touching a brace,
that I might have her under instant command, and the boat, with my mate
and four men, pulled to the island. While she was on the road we put
ourselves into a posture of defense. I watched the boat approach the
entrance to the lines of reef. She hung on her oars, warily advanced,
halted, and again advanced; and then I lost sight of her. She was a long
while gone--a long while to my impatience. She was gone in all about
half an hour; and I was in the act of ordering one of the men to fire a
musket as a signal of recall, when she appeared in that part of the
natural harbor that was visible from the deck. The mate came over the
side; his face was purple with heat and all a-twitch with astonishment.
“‘The most wonderful thing, sir!’ he cried.
“‘What is it?’ said I.
“‘There’s a ship of seven hundred tons at the very least, hard and fast
in that big hole, everything standing but the topgallant masts, which
look to me as if they’d been crushed away by the roof of the cave. Her
jib boom is gone and the end of her bowsprit is about three fathoms
distant inside from the entrance.’
“‘Anybody aboard?’ I asked.
“‘I heard and saw nothing, sir,’ said he.
“‘Did you sing out?’
“‘I sang out loudly. I hailed her five times. All hands of us hailed,
and nothing but our own voices answered us.’
“‘How the deuce comes a ship of seven hundred tons burthen to be lying
in that hole?’ said I.
“My mate was a Yorkshireman. His head fell on one side and he answered
me not.
“‘Are her anchors down?’ I asked.
“‘Her anchors have been let go,’ he answered. ‘The starboard cable
appears to have parted inboard. I saw nothing of it in the hawse-pipe.
There are a few feet of her larboard cable hanging up and down.’
“‘Swing your topsail,’ said I. ‘She will lie quiet. There is nothing to
be afraid of upon that island.’
“I then got into the boat, and my men pulled me to the mouth of the
piers of reef.
“I was greatly impressed by the appearance of these reefs on approaching
them. They looked like admirably wrought breakwaters, which had fallen
into decay but were still extraordinarily strong, very rugged, imposing,
and serviceable. The width of the entrance was about five hundred feet.
The water was smooth as glass, clear as crystal, and when I looked over
the side I could see here and there the cloudy sheen of the bottom,
whether coral or not I do not know--I should say not. And now, right in
front of me, was the great face of gloomy-looking cliff, and in the
center the mighty rift, shaped like that,” said he, bringing the points
of his two forefingers together and then separating his hands to the
extent of the width of his two thumbs. “No doubt the wonderful cave was
a volcanic rupture. The height of the entrance was, I reckoned, about
two hundred feet, and the breadth of it at its base about fifty. It
stood at the third of a mile from the mouth of the natural harbor. I
could see but little of the ship until I was close to, so gloomy was the
interior; but as the men rowed, features of the extraordinarily housed
craft stole out, and presently we were lying upon our oars and I was
viewing her, the whole picture clear to my gaze as an oil painting set
in the frame of the cavern entrance.
“She was a lump of a vessel painted yellow, with a snake-like curl of
cutwater at the head of the stem, and a great deal of gilt work about
her headboards and figurehead. I knew her for a Spaniard the instant I
had her fair. She had heavy channels and a wide spread of lower rigging.
Her yards were across, but pointed as though she had ridden to a gale,
and the canvas was clumsily furled as if rolled up hurriedly and in a
time of confusion. But I need not tease you with a minute description of
her,” said he. “It was easy to guess how it happened that she was in
this amazing situation. Perfectly clear it was to me that she had
sighted this island at night, or in dirty weather, when the land was too
close aboard for a shift of the helm to send her clear. Once in the
harbor her commander, in the teeth of a dead inshore wind, could not get
out. What, then, was to be done? Here was a place of shelter in which he
might ride until a shift of wind permitted him to proceed on his voyage.
So, as I make the story run to my own satisfaction, he let go his
anchor; but scarcely was this done when it came on to blow, the canvas
was hastily furled to save the strain, but she dragged nevertheless. A
second anchor was let go, and still she dragged--and why? Because, as a
cast of the lead would have told the Spanish captain, the ground was as
hard as rock and as smooth as marble, and there was nothing for the
anchors to grip. Dragging with her head to sea and her stern at the
cliff’s huge front, the ship floats foot by foot toward the cave,
threading it with mathematical precision. The roof of the cave slants
rearward, and as she drifts into the big hole her royal-mastheads graze
and take the roof; the masts are crushed away at the crosstrees,
otherwise all is well with the ship. She strands gently, and is steadied
by her topmast heads pressing against the roof. Thus is she held in a
vise of her own manufacture, and so she lies snug as live callipee and
callipash in their top and bottom armor. That must be the solution,
Fielding.”
“Did the water shoal rapidly in the cave?” said I.
“Yes; the ship lies cradled to her midship section; forward she may be
afloat. But there she lies hard and fast for all that, motionless as the
mass of rock in whose heart she sleeps.”
“You boarded her, I suppose?”
“Certainly I boarded her,” continued Greaves. “It is by no means so
dusky inside the cave as it appeared to be when viewed from the outside.
I left a hand to attend the boat and took three men aboard. I believe I
should not have had the spirit to enter that ship alone. By Isten! but
she did show very ghastly in that gloom--very ghastly and cold and
silent, with the appalling silence of entombment. No noise--I mean that
faint, thunderous noise of distant surf--no noise of breakers
penetrated. Well, to be sure, by listening you might now and again catch
a drowning, bubbling, gasping sound, stealthily washing through the
black water in the cave along the sides of the ship; but I tell you that
I found the stillness inside that cave heart-shaking. I went right aft
and looked over the stern, and _there_ it was like gazing into a tunnel.
How far did the cavern extend abaft? There would be one and an easy way
of finding that out--by rowing into the blackness and burning a flare in
the boat. This I thought I would do if I could make time.
“The ship was a broad, handsome vessel, her scantling that of a
second-rate; she mounted a few carronades and swivels: clearly a
merchantman, and, as I supposed, a plate-ship. She had a large
roundhouse, and steered by a very beautifully and curiously wrought
wheel, situated a little forward of the entrance to the roundhouse. It
did not occur to me that she might be a rich ship until I looked into
the roundhouse; _then_ I found myself in a marine palace in its way.
Enough of that. The sight of the furniture determined me upon attempting
a brief search of her hold. The impulse was idle curiosity--I should
have believed it so anyway. I had not a fancy in my head of any sort
beyond a swift glance of curiosity at what might be under hatches. Yet,
somehow, before I had fairly made up my mind to look into the hold, a
singular hope, a singular resolution had formed, flushing me from head
to foot as though I had drained a bottle of wine. ‘Look if that lamp be
trimmed,’ said I to a man, pointing to one of a row of small,
wonderfully handsome brass lamps, hanging from the upper deck of the
roundhouse. No, it was not trimmed. The rest of them were untrimmed. We
searched about for oil, for wicks, for candles, for anything that would
show a light. Then said I to two of the men, ‘Jump into the boat and
fetch me a lantern and candle. Tell the mate that I am stopping to
overhaul this ship for her papers, to get her story.’
“While the boat was gone I walked about the decks of the vessel, hardly
knowing what I might stumble on in the shape of human remains, but there
was nothing in that way. The boats were gone, the people had long ago
cleared out. Small blame to them. Good thunder!” cried he, shuddering or
counterfeiting a shudder; “who would willingly pass a night in such a
cave as that? The boat came alongside with the lantern. We then lifted
the hatches, and I went below. Life there was here, a hideous sort of
life, too. Lean rats bigger than kittens, living skeletons horrible with
famine. They shrieked, they squeaked, they fled in big shadows. There
was not much cargo in the main hold, but cargo there was. I will tell
you exactly the contents of the main hold of _La Perfecta Casada_,” he
exclaimed, coming out of his bed, opening a drawer, and taking out a
small book clasped by an elastic band. He read aloud.
“Five thousand serons of cocoa--”
“A minute,” said I. “Do I understand you to mean that you counted five
thousand serons of cocoa while you looked into the hold of that ship,
the hour being about two o’clock--I have been following you
critically--and your own ship hove to close in with the land?”
“Patience,” said he; “it is a reasonable objection, but as a rule I do
not like to be interrupted when I am telling a story. Five thousand
serons of cocoa--” he repeated.
“Pray,” said I, forgetting that he did not like to be interrupted, “what
is a seron?”
“A seron is a crate.”
“Well, sir?”
“Sixty arobes of alpaca wool----”
“What is an arobe?”
“An arobe is twenty-five pounds.” He continued to read: “One thousand
quintals of tin at one hundred pounds per quintal; four casks of
tortoiseshell, eight thousand hides in the hair, four thousand tanned
hides, and a quantity of cedar planks.”
He now looked at me as though he expected me to speak. I addressed him
as follows: “What I am listening to is a very interesting story. It is
an adventure, and I love adventures. It is said that the charm of the
sailor’s life lies in its being made up of adventures. That is a lie.
Men pass many years at sea and meet with no adventures worth speaking
of. A sailors life is a very mechanical, monotonous routine.”
“What do you think of the cargo of _La Perfecta Casada_?”
“_La Perfecta Casada_ is the name of the ship in the cave?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“It is a very good cargo so far as it goes, but there is very little of
it.”
“There is enough,” said he, with a gesture of his hand. “I should be
very pleased to be able to pay the value of that cargo into my banking
account.”
I made no remark, and he proceeded: “When I had taken a peep into the
main hold I caused the after hatch under the roundhouse to be raised,
and here I found a number of cases. They were stowed one on top of
another, with pieces of timber betwixt them and the ship’s lining--an
awkward looking job of stevedoring, but good enough, no doubt, to
satisfy a Spanish sailor. I left my men above, and descended alone into
this part of the hold, and stood looking for a short time around me,
roughly calculating the number of these cases, the contents of which I
could not be perfectly sure of, though one of two things I knew those
contents must consist of. I called up through the hatch to the men to
hunt about the ship and find me a chopper or saw, and presently one of
them handed me down an ax. I put down the lantern, and letting fly at
the first of the cases, with much trouble split open a part of the lid.
I would not satisfy myself that all those cases were full until I had
split the lids of five as tests or samples of the lot. Then finding
that those five cases were full, I concluded that the rest were full. To
make sure, however, I beat upon many of them, and the sound returned
satisfied me that the cases were heavily full.”
“Of what?” said I.
“My men,” he continued, taking no notice of my interruption, “were, no
doubt, considerably astonished to observe me hacking at the cargo with a
heavy ax, as though I had fallen mad, and splintering and smashing up
what I saw through sheer lunatic wantonness. I did not care what they
thought so long as they did not form correct conclusions. I regained the
deck, and bid the fellows put the hatches on while I explored the cabins
for the ship’s papers. There was a number of cabins under the
roundhouse, and in one of them, which had, undoubtedly, been occupied by
the captain, I found a stout tin box, locked; but I had a bunch of keys
in my pocket, and, strangely enough, the key of a tin box in which I
kept my own papers on board the _Hero_ fitted this box. I opened it, and
seeing at once that the contents were the ship’s papers, I put them into
my pocket and called to my men to bring the boat alongside. But I had
not yet completed my explorations. I threw the ax into the boat, entered
her, and pulled into the harbor to look at the weather and to see where
the _Hero_ was. The _Hero_ lay at the distance of a mile, hove-to. The
weather was wonderfully fine and calm. We pulled into the cave again to
the bows of the ship, and cut off a short length of the hemp cable that
was hanging up and down from the hawse-pipe, having parted at about two
feet above the edge of the water. The cable was perfectly dry. We unlaid
the strands and worked them up into torches and set fire to three of
them--that is to say, I and two of the men held aloft these blazing
torches, while the other two pulled us slowly into the cave past the
ship. There was not much to see after all. The cavern ended abruptly at
about a hundred yards astern of the ship. The roof sloped, as I had
supposed, almost to the wash of the water, it and the walls working
into the shape of a wedge. I had thought to see some fine
formations--stalactites, natural columns, extraordinary incrustations,
and so forth. There was nothing of the sort. The cave was as like the
tunneling of a coal mine as anything I can think of to compare it with;
but how gigantic, to comfortably house a vessel of at least seven
hundred tons, finding room for her aloft to the height of her topmast
head! It was more like a nightmare than a reality, to look from the
black extremity of the cave toward the entrance, and see there the dim
green of the day--for the light showed in a faint green--with the
upright fabric of the ship black as ink against that veil of green
faintness. The water brimmed with a gleam as of black oil to the black
walls. One of my men said:
“‘Suppose it was to come on to blow hard, dead inshore how would it fare
with that ship, sir?’
“‘What could happen to hurt her?’ I answered. ‘Never could a great sea
run within the barriers of reefs, and no swell to stir the ship can come
out of that sheltered space of water, and keep its weight inside.’
“In truth, I talked to satisfy myself, and satisfied I was. Not the
worst hurricane that sweeps those seas can stir or imperil that vessel
as she lies. She is as safe as a live toad in a rock, and will perish
only from decay.”
“But do her people mean to leave her there?” said I.
“We may assume so,” he answered, “seeing that she was encaved, as far as
I can reckon from the dates of her papers, in or about the month of
August, 1810.”