yards from the boat, change its position, and come end on towards where
he was seated; and his eyes were fixed so firmly on this that he quite
started, as he saw before it, and very close to where he sat, a
dark-looking body, with a rounded snout and two pig-like eyes.
"Don't know what to make on us, Mr Mark, sir," said Billy Widgeon,
grinning. "See his old shovel nose?"
"Yes," said Mark, "but I can't see his mouth. I thought they had great
gaping mouths, full of sharp teeth."
"He keeps his rat-trap down underneath him, sir, so as not to frighten
the fishes."
"Hand me that gun, Mark," said the mate.
Mark passed it along; and as he did so the shark glided round the stern,
and came along the other side.
"You don't think he'll attack us, do you?" said the captain.
"There's no knowing what a jack-shark will do," said the mate, quietly
cocking both barrels, and making the muzzle of the gun follow the
movements of the great fish, whose elongated form was perfectly plain
now in the clear water as he slowly glided on. The long unequally-lobed
tail waved softly to and fro like a peculiarly-formed paddle, and the
motion of the fish seemed to be peculiarly effortless as he went on
right past the gig, and continued his course a dozen yards ahead.
"Off!" said the captain laconically; but as he spoke the shark turned,
and the fin came toward them again, always at the same distance above
the water, and again on their starboard side, by which it glided, went
astern, and turned, to come back once more.
"Hadn't we two better pull, sir?" said Billy. "He means mischief, that
he do."
"Think he'll attack?" said the captain again.
"I'm beginning to think he will," said Mr Gregory.
He had hardly spoken when the shark turned, and there was an eddying
swirl in the water where his tail gave a vigorous stroke or two, and
almost simultaneously a long glistening cruel-looking head rose out of
the water.
The monkey uttered a shriek, and would have leaped overboard in his
fright, but for Billy Widgeon's restraining hand, when the poor little
animal took refuge beneath his legs, while Bruff set up a furious bark,
his hair ruffling up about his neck, and his eyes glistening with anger.
But shriek or yell had no influence upon the hungry shark, which seemed
to glide like a glistening curve or arch of shark right over the bows of
the boat, striking her side in the descent as the fish passed into the
sea again; but so heavy was the blow, and so great the creature's
weight, that the gig was extremely near being capsized.
"Pass me the other gun, Mark," cried the captain. "Look out, Gregory,
whatever you do. Another attack like that, and the brute will have us
over, and--"
He left his sentence unfinished, while Mark passed the gun, and then
resumed his grasp of the thwart upon which he was seated, holding on
with both hands, while in the agony of dread he suffered the great drops
of perspiration stood out upon his forehead, and ran together, and
trickled down the sides of his nose, as his breath came thick and fast.
Some very heroic lads would, no doubt, have drawn a knife, or seized an
oar, or done something else very brave in defence, but in those brief
moments Mark was recalling stories he had read about sharks seizing
struggling people as they were swimming, and that the water was stained
with blood, and one way and another he was as thoroughly frightened as
ever he had been in his life.
"Now, then!" said the captain, as the shark completed another circuit of
the boat, and was about to repeat his evolution. "Both together at his
head, and fire low as he rises."
It was a quick shot on the part of both, delivered just as the shark
rose from the water again to leap at the boat, which probably
represented to him an eatable fish swimming on the surface, while, as
the two puffs of smoke darted from the guns and the loud reports rang
out, the great fish fell short, but struck its nose against the side of
the gig, and sank down in the water, the back fin disappearing, and
coming up again fifty yards away.
"I think we'll be contented," said the captain, closing the breech of
his piece, and passing it to Mark. "Let's make a masterly retreat,
Gregory."
"Think he'll come back?"
"I should say no," replied the captain. "The brute has evidently had
quite as much as he requires for the present."
"Will it kill him?" asked Mark.
"Can't say. I should think not. He must be badly wounded though, to
sheer off like that."
"Look at that," shouted Billy Widgeon excitedly, as all of a sudden the
shark was seen to leap clear out of the water, and fall back with a
tremendous splash, not head first, so as to dive down, but on its flank,
sending the water flying, while directly after the sea in that direction
became tremendously agitated, sending waves toward them sufficiently big
to make the boat rise and fall.
"He's in his flurry, Mr Mark, sir," said Billy Widgeon gleefully. "I
can't abear sharks."
"Pull hard, Gregory," said the captain; "the sooner we are away from
here the better."
He spoke in a low voice, and exchanged meaning glances with the mate,
who at once bent to his oar.
"No, no: don't go," cried Mark. "I should like to see him when he's
dead."
"I'm afraid there will be no shark to see," said the captain grimly, as
the gig surged through the water.
"Why, there's his back fin, and there it is again and again," cried
Mark. "How he keeps curving out of the water and dashing about! I say,
father, row back and put him out of his misery."
"I daresay he is out of it by this time, my boy," said the captain,
rowing hard.
"But there he is again, swimming round and beating the water."
"Why, Mark, can't you see that the water there is alive with sharks, and
that they are devouring their wounded brother--fighting for the choice
morsels, I dare say. This is a warning never to bathe except in some
pool."
"What! do you think? Oh, I see now! How horrible!" said Mark.
"Horrible, eh?" grunted Gregory. "I wish they'd make a day of it, and
eat one another all up. We could get on very well without sharks."
Mark said no more about putting their enemy out of his misery, but sat
watching till, at the end of a few minutes, the surface of the lagoon
grew calm; but until they had turned a low spit of sand, the black fins
of at least a dozen sharks could be seen cruising round and round, and
to and fro, in search of something more to satisfy their ravenous
hunger.
"We are getting some experience of the dangers we shall have to
encounter," said the captain, as the scene of their late conflict with
the shark passed completely out of their sight, and they rowed on
steadily. "That's your first shark, Mark, eh?"
"Yes," said Mark, thoughtfully, "I shall know what a shark is now."
"I think we'll give them a turn now, Gregory," said the captain. "No,
no, one at a time," he cried angrily, as the men sprang up together.
"We must not capsize the boat here. Now you, my man," he continued,
sitting fast, as the sailor stepped across and took the mate's place
before Mr Gregory rose. "Now you, Widgeon."
Billy crept very softly into the captain's place, and the latter seated
himself on the thwart in front of Mark, to be joined directly by
Gregory.
"There," cried Mark, as the oars dipped, "I heard it. There."
"What?" said his father.
"That roaring which Mr Gregory heard."
"It was the creaking and groaning of the oars in the tholes."
"No, no, father. It was that deep savage roar heard ever so far off."
They ceased rowing again and again, but the sound was heard no more, and
the captain began to talk rather anxiously to Mr Gregory as the sun
grew low in the west, and it became evident that they had a long way yet
to row.
"Tired, Mark?" cried the captain.
"No, father," he replied, laughing; "but if you'll say hungry, I'll tell
you: Yes, very."
"Ah, well, I keep hoping that every headland we pass may bring us in
sight of the camp! It cannot be very far now."
"But suppose it isn't an island," said Mark; "we might be rowing right
away."
"Come, come," cried the captain cheerily; "you the son of a navigator,
and talking like this. Now, then, which way did we row when we
started?"
"North-east," said Mark.
"And then?"
"North."
"Yes, go on."
"Then I think we went north-west."
"Well, and after that?"
"West, father."
"Then as we ran from the shark we went south, didn't we?"
"I don't know," said Mark. "I was too intent on the way in which they
were tearing him to pieces."
"Well, you might have said you were too frightened to notice," said the
captain, smiling. "You need not have been ashamed. But come now, which
way are we going now?"
"Away from the sun," replied Mark, who felt no inclination to show that
he had felt too much alarmed to take any notice of the direction they
rowed. "I suppose we must be going east."
"Well, then, if you started by going east, and kept on rowing till you
are going east again, I think you may conclude that you have gone nearly
round a piece of land, and that the said piece is an island. It might
not be, for we may be going right into some gulf; but this place looks
as much like an island as is possible, and I don't think it can be
anything else."
"Island," said Gregory, gruffly, "volcanic, and the coral has risen up
round it, and kept it from being washed away."
"But could an island like this have been washed away?" said Mark.
"To be sure it could, my boy," said the captain. "From what I have seen
a great deal of it is loose scoria. You saw plenty of big stones lying
about?"
"Yes," replied Mark, "but they were huge stones. Some of them must
weigh half a ton."
Mark knew that half a ton meant ten hundredweight; but his comparison
was a shot at a venture, for he had no idea how big, or rather how
small, a rock is which weighs half a ton.
"I don't think the sea would make much of a rock weighing half a ton,
Mark," said the captain, smiling. "Why, in one of our great storms it
would move that almost as easily as if it were a pebble. Mr Gregory is
quite right. Volcanic islands have before now been formed, and been in
eruption for a long time, and then been slowly swept away by the action
of the sea."
"How long to sundown, sir?" said Mr Gregory.
"Half an hour," said the captain, after a glance at the slowly
descending orb.
"And then it will be dark directly. What do you say, sir, give it up,
land and set up camp, or keep on?"
"Keep on, Gregory," said the captain, quietly. "There is a headland
away yonder. Once we get round that we may see home. Tired, my lads?"
"Tidy, sir," said Billy Widgeon. "But if it's all the same to you, we'd
rather keep on as long as we can."
"Why, Billy?" asked Mark.
"Well, sir, since you put it like that," said the little sailor, smiling
sheepishly, "it is that."
"Is what, Billy?"
"Why, what you mean, sir. You meant wittles. That's what you was
a-thinking about. You see if we goes ashore we shall have to pick they
fowls, and make a fire, and wait till they're cooked afore we can eat
'em, and to men as hungry as we, sir, that's a deal wuss than rowing a
few miles; eh, mate?"
This was to the man at the oar forward. The response was an affirmatory
grunt.
"There, Gregory," said the captain, "what do you say now?"
"Keep on," replied Gregory, shortly. "Widgeon is right."
The island never seemed more beautiful to them than now as the sun went
down lower and lower till, like a great fiery globe, it nearly touched
the sea: for rock, jungle, and the central mountainous clump, with the
conical volcano dominating all, was seen through a glorious golden haze,
while the sea was first purple and gold, and then orange, changing
slowly into crimson.
The sun disappeared just as they rounded the point for which they had
been making; but still there was no sign of the camp. Nothing but the
purple lagoon stretching on and on, with the creamy line of surf on one
side, the fringe of cocoa-nut trees right down to the sand on the other.
"A good clear row at all events," said the captain. "Here, Gregory,
let's take the oars and pull till we can't see."
The mate changed places with the sailor in front, the captain took Billy
Widgeon's oar, and the boat began to travel more rapidly, but still
there was no sign of the camp. The stars came out, the water seemed to
turn black, and in a very short time all was darkness; but there was no
difficulty in keeping on, for the light-coloured sands on the one side
acted as a guide, and the roar of the breakers on the reef kept them
away on the other.
There was something very awe-inspiring though in the journey in the
dark; and in spite of himself Mark could not help feeling that it was
rather uncanny to be riding over the black water with what seemed to be
golden serpents rushing away in undulating fashion on either side.
Then, too, there was a curious quivering glow, something like an aurora,
playing about the top of the mountain on their left; while all at once,
plainly heard now by all, there came the distant roar of the creature
which had so far remained undiscovered.
"We must be getting near home now," said the captain quietly, "for that
sound comes always from the north-west of the camp."
He spoke calmly enough, but Mark detected a peculiarity in his voice
which he had noted before when his father was anxious, and this finally
gave place to words.
"I hope the women have not been alarmed by that sound, Gregory," he said
at last.
"I hope so too," said the mate quietly. "It may be a timid creature
after all. I believe it's one of those great orang-outangs. I've never
heard one, but I've read that they can roar terribly."
"I hope it's nothing worse," said the captain in a low tone.
"Keep on, of course?" whispered Gregory.
"I think so, as long as we can see. We must have nearly circumnavigated
the island, and it will have been a splendid day's work to have
discovered the ship and done that too."
"I've got two hours' more row in me," said Gregory quietly. "By that
time the men will have another hour in them, and at the worst we could
manage another hour afterwards. Before then we must have reached camp."
"Ah, what's that?" cried the captain as the boat struck something.
"Bock," cried Gregory. "No, too soft."
"Row! row!" said Mark. "It was a monstrous fish--a shark."
"You could not see it?" cried the captain hoarsely, as he bent to his
oar, Gregory following his example, so that the boat surged through the
water.
"I saw something dark amongst these golden eel things, and they all
seemed to rush away like lightning."
There was a dead silence in the boat for the next quarter of an hour,
during which the rowers pulled with all their might. No one spoke for
fear of giving vent to his thoughts--thoughts suggested by the adventure
early in the day; but every one sat there fully expecting to see the
savage-looking head of some shark thrust from the water and come over
into the boat.
The suffering was for a time intense, but no further shock was felt, and
as the minutes glided away their hopes rose that if this last were an
enemy they were rapidly leaving it behind.
All at once Mark half rose from his place.
"Is that the light over the mountain?" he exclaimed.
"Nay," cried Billy, "that's a fire. You can see it gleam on the water."
"Hurrah!" cried Gregory, "then that means home, and they are keeping it
up as a guide."
Another quarter of an hour's rowing proved this, for a big fire was
blazing upon the sand, and before long they were able to make out moving
figures and the fire being replenished, the leaping up of the flames and
the ruddy smoke ascending high in the air.
"Now, then, give a hail," said the captain, "to let them know we're
safe. They'll think we are coming from the other direction."
Billy Widgeon uttered a loud "Ahoy!" and then putting two fingers in his
mouth, brought forth an ear-piercing whistle.
A distant "Ahoy!" came back, and a whistle so like Billy Widgeon's that
it might have been its echo, while directly after there was a flash and
then a report.
"A signal from the major," said the captain. "There, Mark, a chance for
you. Fire in the air."
Mark caught up the gun, held the butt on the thwart, and drew trigger,
when the flash and report cut the air and echoed from the wood.
Another ten minutes' hard pull and the boat touched the sands close to
the fire, where all were gathered in eager expectancy of the lost
voyagers, who had, to meet the complaints about dread and anxiety, the
news of their discoveries.
"But you have not been much alarmed, I hope?" said the captain, drawing
his wife's hand through his arm.
"But we have, captain," cried the major; "for Morgan and I have been in
momentary expectation of an attack from that terrible wild beast."
"But there, you are tired and starving," said Mrs Strong. "We have
food waiting. Sit down and rest, and we'll tell you all the while."
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.
HOW THE CIRCUMNAVIGATORS RESTED AND HEARD NEWS.
"This here's just what I like, mates," said Billy Widgeon, as he sat on
the sand in the full light of the blazing fire with his fellow-sailor
opposite to him, and a large piece of palm-leaf for a table-cloth. Jack
was on his right munching fruit, and Bruff on his left, sitting up,
patiently attentive, waiting for bones from the hissing, hot maleo bird
that had been kept for the sailors' dinner.
Small and the other men were close by smoking, and Jimpny, with his head
neatly and cleanly bandaged, was lying upon his chest, resting his
elbows on the sand and his chin in his hands, kicking up his heels as he
stared at Billy Widgeon and listened to his adventures.
Billy was hungry, and so was his mate, and when Billy carved he prepared
so to do by opening his jack-knife and whetting it on his boot, after
which he seized the bird, which was double the size of a large fowl, by
one leg.
"Now, shipmet," he said to his companion, "lay holt o' t'other
understanding with both hands, and when I say haul! you put your back
into it."
The sailor took hold of the leg, Billy held on by the other, and placed
the blade of the knife between two of the fingers of the left hand while
he made believe to spit in his right. Then seizing the knife firmly, he
plunged the point right into the breast of the fat, juicy bird, a gush
of gravy came oozing out, and he began to cut so as to divide the food
into two equal portions.
"My hye! he is a joosty one," cried Billy. "It's worth waiting till now
to get a treat like this, mates. Can't you smell him? Anyone going to
jyne in?"
"No," said Small; "we've all had plenty, my hearty. So go on, and tell
us all about what you've done to-day."
"All right!" cried Billy. "Now, then, messmet, she's nearly through.
Now haul, my son. Hauly, hi, ho!"
Billy's fellow-traveller hauled at the bird's leg; but that bird was
rather overdone. Mrs Strong, aided by Mary O'Halloran as cook and
kitchen-maid, had done their best in the rock kitchen with a fire of
cocoa-nut shells and barks; but some piled-up pieces of coral and
basalt, though they are great helps, do not form a patent prize
kitchener; and though the result was very tempting to hungry men, there
was a want of perfection in the browning of that bird. In fact here and
there it was a bit burned, notably in its right leg--the one Billy's
companion held--and that leg was so horribly charred that when the man
hauled it snapped off like a burned stick, and the bird, by the recoil
and drag, came right into Billy's lap.
"What are you up to now?" cried the latter. "Well, you are a chap,
playing your larks when we're so hungry! Don't you want none?"
As he spoke, he worked his knife to and fro, and ended by making a
division of the bird that could hardly be called a fair one.
"Look at that," he said. "You've got first pick, as I'm carver; and
though I feels a deal o' respect for you, matey, I don't think as how as
you'd pick out the smallest bit, and hang me if I would, so here goes
for another try."
Billy made another cut at the bird, hewing off a good slice of the plump
breast, which he laid on to the smaller side, giving it a flap with his
blade to make it stick, and then passed it over.
"There," he said, "that's fair; so here goes to begin. Hullo, matey,
won't you bite?" he continued to the dog. "There, then, you can amoose
yourself with them till your betters is done."
He hacked off the bird's head and neck; and after slicing off a portion
of the meat, added the drumstick to Bruff's share. He then began eating
voraciously, giving his messmates a version of their "adventers," as he
called them, since the morning.
Billy would have made a splendid writer of fiction--a most exciting
narrator, for he forgot nothing, and he added thereto in a wonderful
manner. He threw in, with his mouth full, touches of description that
made his companion stare, and his eloquence about the blackened hull of
the vessel was wonderful.
"Talk about charkle fires," he cried; "why, if my old mother was here
she'd nail the lot and save it, to use up the fruit off some of these
here trees and make jam."
"Why, you can't make jam out of a burnt ship," said the stowaway.
"Who ever said you could, Davy Jimpny?" cried Billy. "But you wants
charkle to make it with, don't yer?"
"Yes, if you can't get coke," said the stowaway sadly.
"Well, I aren't seen no gasworks on those here shores nowheres, and so
you can't get no coke, can you?"
"Course not."
"Well, then, charkle it is. The whole deck's charkle, and so's the
bulwarks, and the chunk end o' the bowsprit?"
"And the masts, Billy?" said Small.
"Dessay they are, but they're floated away. The whole ship's a reg'lar
cellar."
Billy then got on about the length of time they stopped, about the
wonderful nature of the crater bay, and the depth of the water.
"Why, when you was rowing acrost it you could feel as it must go right
through to the other side, it was so deep. No water couldn't be so
black as that was without being hundreds o' knots deep."
"I say, Billy, ain't you getting hundreds o' knots into your yarn?" said
Small.
"Not I, bosun. It's all fact; you ask my mate here if it aren't. I
suppose you don't want to know about that there shark?" he continued, as
he picked a bone in a very ungentlemanly manner, taking his hands to it,
and once leaving it stuck across his mouth like a horse's bit, while he
altered his position.
"Oh yes, we do! Let's hear about the shark," cried all present.
"Well," said Billy, "there aren't much to tell, only that as we was
going along I says to the skipper, I says, `There's a whacking great
shark along yonder.'
"`Ay, Billy,' he says, `that's a thumper, and no mistake.'
"There he was, going round and round us with his back fin above water,
just like a steam launch, and before you knew where you was he puts his
head out o' water, gives a squint at us to see which was the best
looking to swaller--"
"And he chose you, Billy, because you've got such short legs as wouldn't
kick about much when you was down."
"Wrong, Mr Small, sir," said Billy, handing the remains of his half of
the bird to the dog and cleaning his knife by sticking it in and out of
the sand; "wrong, sir. I think he meant Jack here; but the monkey
squeals out and hops under my legs in no time, and Mr Jack-shark alters
his mind and goes for Muster Gregory, shoots out o' the water, he does,
and he was aboard of us afore we knowed where we was."
"Get out!" said Small.
"It's a fact, Mr Small, sir; ask my mate if it aren't. He didn't stop
aboard cause he come crostwise over the bows; but there he was aboard
for a moment afore he slips off, and when he comes round to try it again
the skipper and Mr Greg lets him have it out o' their guns, and scared
him off; and, bless your 'arts, I have seen a few rum games in the sea,
but the way his mates chawed him up arterwards beat everything. Why,
the lagoon, as they calls it, was chock full o' sharks--millions of
'em."
"Were there now, Billy?" said Small, smiling.
"Well, of course I can't say to a few, for we was a good ways off; but
what I do say is that it seemed the sharkiest spot I ever see; and, if
they'd only have stood still, you might have walked on their backs for
miles."
"Give Billy Widgeon a cocoa-nut to stop his talk," said the boatswain;
"and there's a bit o' 'bacco for you, Billy, to clear your memory, my
lad."
"Oh, my memory's clear enough, Mr Small, sir," said Billy, who was
eating something all the time; "but thanky all the same. And now, how
have you got on?"
"Oh," said the boatswain, "we've had a bit of a scare!"
But a narration of this was being given where the other occupants of the
boat were partaking of their evening meal.