HOW WE EXPLORE THE WONDROUS SHORE
“Thanks to you, Master Hampdon,” she began, reassured by my glance, “I
am now clothed and shod comfortably and in my right mind.”
“You are always in that, Mistress,” said I quickly.
“You did not think so in the cabin of the ship,” she laughed, and
giving me no time to answer, for I am not quick at speech on some
occasions, as you who read must have noticed, she ran on, pointing to
the barrier reef as she spoke, and staring at the breakers smashing
against it, “but shoemaking and dressmaking are small things after what
you did out there.”
“It was nothing,” said I.
“I watched you. I was not too frightened to do that, and there is
not another man on earth who could have brought me over the fearful
maelstrom of water to safety here.”
Well, that is true, why not admit it? I thought.
“Not many white men,” I replied, glad for her praise, “but natives in
their canoes aplenty.”
“But a canoe is light and easily managed, not like this heavy boat.”
“No, I admit there is a difference”--as indeed there was--“but now we
must think on the future,” I added.
“And what is to be done next?” she asked.
The next thing to be done, I decided, was to overhaul the boat. I
pulled the plug out, drained the water from her, hauled her up on the
sand above high water mark, my lady helping me as if she had been a
man. I remonstrated with her about it, I begged her not to do it,
finally I even ventured on a command to which she paid not the least
heed.
The precious powder and shot we found dry and safe in the flasks in the
air-tight lockers. From the same safe place, we got some hard bread,
some cold salt beef, and with water from a brook that gushed out from
under the rocky wall and ran across the beach we broke our fast again
on this plain rough fare. It was not yet near noon, but we had gone
through much since that early breakfast, and were healthily hungry
again--and so we made our meal. Dry, hard eating to be sure, but we
were thankful to God that we had it.
Finishing, and feeling much refreshed, we decided that our first duty
was to explore the island to see if there was any break in the cliff
wall, and if there was any access to the inward parts in which I hoped
to find vegetation, trees, and the delicious fruits with which I knew
the tropics abounded. My lady was heartily in favor of such a course,
and we at once set about carrying it out.
A hasty survey assured me that the cliff was of coral formation, jagged
and broken into many a crevice and cranny. If we were hard put to it,
I was sure we could find a cave in which to pass the night if it were
necessary. After we had made out what we could, I suggested to Mistress
Lucy that we start at once exploring, proposing that we follow the
course of the sandy strip and find out what we could of our island
refuge. And, so, taking with us some provisions, for we might have to
go clear round the island, and our arms, we presently started out.
My mistress professed herself well rested and ready for anything. My
own endurance was not yet at its limit, and I felt the necessity of
discovering the lay of the land at once, in view of the presence of
Pimball and the ship in those waters.
Yet I felt very easy in my mind regarding any present peril from the
ship, for I knew that no boat she possessed could run the reef as I had
done, and even if she had had another like the dinghy I was confident
that there was no man aboard her that had the strength and skill, to
say nothing of the courage, to bring her through. Indeed, for all my
skill and ability we ourselves had only got through by the favor of
God. If there were no natives or wild animals to be feared we were at
least safe for the time being. I explained this to my companion as we
trudged along the hard, white sand, whereat she was greatly relieved
and her quick mind being freed of apprehension turned to other things.
“Think you, Master Hampdon,” she said, “this is the island of which my
ancestor wrote?”
“I am sure of it,” I replied.
“He referred to it, if I remember right as ‘_Ye Islande of ye
Staires_,’ did he not?”
“Yes,” was my answer. “You remember he indicated a stairway about the
middle of the island.”
“Surely, if we are to get to the top of yonder wall it must be by
stairs of some sort.”
“It would not be difficult to climb it,” I assented, “for a man, that
is, save for one thing.”
“And what is that?”
“Those pinnacles of rock are as sharp as needles. It would be like
climbing broken glass. The climber would be cut to pieces before he had
gone halfway. See,” we approached the wall closely and I pointed out to
her how sharp the edges were. “If it were granite rock these ridges and
splinters would be weatherworn and smooth, but this coral formation is
of a different quality.”
“Then if we find no stairs we are in a bad situation,” she said
thoughtfully, examining the towering wall.
“There must be stairs,” I answered, “or there must be some other way.
The latitude and longitude agree with your ancestor’s description, and
I make no doubt we shall chance upon them.”
“But if there are none?” she persisted.
“Doubtless we’ll find some break to let us up or in,” I answered
easily, evasively it may be, but hopefully, not being minded to pass
our existence on the narrow strip of sand on which we were walking.
So we tramped along, searching the shore and sea and finding nothing.
After perhaps an hour’s monotonous going, when we had traversed about
a third of the distance of the island, we rounded a projection of the
cliff and there before us--rose the stairs!
Now I know that you who read will accuse me of fond invention, yet I
have not the wit or the imagination of the romancer. I can only relate
the facts as they were. What we saw was a gigantic stairway, irregular,
but made of huge blocks of roughhewn stone--not coral rock, but harder
stone of firmer texture, like granite almost. I was not familiar with
the stone either. There was no symmetry about the stairs. Some of
the stones rose perhaps three feet, and others not more than as many
inches, but stairs they certainly were, and they surely had been made
by man. The stones were most carefully fitted, being laid up without
mortar, the joints so close that I could scarce thrust a knife blade
between. The huge blocks were of monstrous size, too; much too great
in bulk and weight to be handled by any but mechanical means. I never
could conceive how natives or primitive men could have shaped them,
moved them, and finally laid them up in the form of stairs. I have
since made inquiries of learned men and find that for all their study
they, too, are at sea as to who were those mighty builders and how they
builded.
Nor did the stairs alone awaken our amazement and quicken our
curiosity. They ended in the circling belt of sand, here a little wider
than elsewhere. At the bottom on either side, two gigantic statues,
or busts, of stone had been erected. Their bases were buried in the
sand and they rose to quite twice my height above, and I am good six
feet tall and more. These stones were carved into the rough yet not
unreal likenesses of human faces. The carving had been done with
marvelous skill considering, and the faces were not of the native
type either. They were of our type, only distorted and exaggerated.
The carving included the breast; one was a man, the other a woman.
They were made of the same hard pinkish rock as the stairs, and the
angles and projections upon them apparently had been softened and
smoothed by hundreds of years of exposure to the weather. They were not
unfamiliar to us either, for they were, making due allowance for size,
just like the little image Sir Philip had brought back. They had the
same enormous sightless eyes, the same long protruding jaws, the same
hideous fang-like teeth, the same repulsive features. We looked at them
both, experiencing a perfectly natural and understandable feeling of
horror and disgust. One had lost his crown, but the other was intact as
he had left the carver’s hands.
The very size of them intensified our disquiet. They were caricatures
of course, but withal they were intensely natural and lifelike and not
less wonderful than the stairs, over which for centuries they had been
the silent watchers and guardians.
Certain I am that you will find it difficult to credit these marvels,
and will dismiss them perhaps as a traveler’s idle tale, yet I have
given you the latitude and longitude of the island and you may go there
and see them for yourself if you desire, and you may perhaps find what
treasure we left there, too, for a reward! When you return you can
testify that I lie not, but speak the sober truth.
Why we had not discovered these stairs from seaward was because they
did not come squarely down to the water’s edge at right angles to the
wall, but instead lay, as it were, parallel to it in a niche within the
wall, so that they were somewhat sheltered from observation from the
sea.
As we broke upon them suddenly, therefore, Mistress Lucy clutched my
arm. We naturally drew together at the sight of such gods, or devils,
in stone.
“The giant stairway!” she cried in thrilled amazement.
“It is indeed,” I said triumphantly, as I realized what our discovery
meant, “just as it was stated in the parchment.”
“And the great stone faces,” she added in a voice in which there was a
note of horror.
“They, too, were mentioned, you remember,” I said, striving to speak
cheerfully, though I was deeply impressed myself.
“And just like the little one back in the ship.”
“The very same,” was my reply.
“They were very old two hundred years ago,” she commented.
“Aye, it appears to me that they must have been old a thousand years
ago, or more,” I assented.
“Could those stairs have just happened that way? Or did someone build
them, think you?”
“Yes,” I replied, “those are the work of men, skilled men, too, for
they are too regularly laid up to be by chance.”
“Yes, of course, and the images could never have come there by chance,”
she admitted.
“Certainly not, but let us go nearer and ascend them,” I said, taking
her hand and leading the way, and she was so preoccupied that she did
not notice.
I observed, as we approached the stairs that the rock had been worn
smooth by the wind and weather, or maybe by the passing of many feet,
and the steps were quite practicable for ascent. The angle at which
they rose was sharp, too.
“What is on top, think you?”
“I know not.”
“Wild men or savage beasts?” she faltered.
“The parchment said naught of animals or permanent inhabitants of this
island,” I reassured her.
“No, that it did not,” she assented.
“Well, then, let’s chance it.”
I had thrust the pistols in my belt, save for the one she carried, and
had the musket in my hand. I looked to the priming of them so that I
could depend upon them in case of an emergency, although I confess I
did not expect anything to happen. Save for the sound of the wind and
waves and our own voices the place was pervaded by that sort of deadly
stillness which indicated the absence of humanity, or even the larger
forms of animal life. Except for the birds of gorgeous plumage and the
gulls and other sea fliers I believed we were absolutely alone on the
island.
Then we began the ascent. It was easy enough for me, but hard for her,
and several times I made bold to lift her up the higher steps, which
she suffered without comment or resistance. She told me long afterward
that my manner toward her then and thereafter had been perfect. I had
determined in my heart to show her that although I could snatch a kiss
on the quarter-deck of a crowded ship, on an island, alone, I could
treat her with all the courtesy and consideration of the very finest
gentleman of her acquaintance.
When we at last reached the top, before us lay a broad pathway rudely
paved with the same hard stone. This road led straight across the top
of the wall toward the interior of the island, of which we could see
as yet nothing, because the wall hereabouts was covered with dense,
luxurious vegetation and seemed of great thickness, perhaps a mile
or more, as we found as we traversed the way. Progress was difficult
even in the pathway. It would have been impossible in some places
but for my heavy cutlass with which I cut a path where the place had
become overgrown by trees and bushes which had forced their way
through the cracks, overturning and breaking the heavy flagstones and
blocking up the path, which, it was evident, had not been traversed for
generations; perhaps not since the old buccaneer himself had walked
along it beneath the spreading trees.
There was naught for it but to continue along the rude paved way, for
it was impossible to penetrate the jungle on either side, even if we
had desired it, and once more looking to my weapons, one of which I
kept in hand, although I was sure now we should not need them, and had
indeed nothing to fear, we followed the ancient way. For perhaps a mile
we pursued our journey across the top of the wall, winding in and out
among the trees, through the jungle, the path evidently seeking the
most level direction, for the top of the wall was very much broken and
irregular.
At last we came to an open spot on the inner edge overlooking the
whole island, and before us lay such a picture as few eyes, at least
of our race, had ever looked upon. The wall ended abruptly and fell
downward, on the inner or landward side, as precipitously as it rose
outwardly and to seaward. Before us lay a most entrancing valley,
perhaps three or four miles across, and maybe half as long again in
the other direction, and which was walled about in every direction.
It was sunk beneath this wall crest for perhaps one hundred feet or
more. In the center of the valley the land rose a little higher than
the island wall, making a very considerable hill, tree crowned on the
slopes, but largely bare save for more images, on the crest. Through
the valley ran a brook which ended in a little lake, which I suspected
had some subterranean connection with the ocean. As far as we could
see, and the whole circuit of the island was now clearly visible to us,
the enclosing wall was unbroken. The valley was filled with clusters
of trees and alternating stretches of grassy meadow. Why it was not
completely overgrown with trees I could not imagine. Perhaps the ground
was too shallow in places for trees to grow.
We would have been hard put to it to descend the wall to the valley,
but for the fact that the same people who built the stairs that gave
access to the wall from the sea had also built a similar flight
which made the descent to the valley possible, indeed easy. Before we
essayed the descent of the stairs, we drank our fill of the beauty
and mysterious charm of it all. Indeed, there was no sound that came
to us except the twittering of the birds, of which there were many
brilliantly plumaged flitting in the trees. All else was still, lonely,
deserted, oppressively so in fact.
I was constrained to think of our situation as we scanned the lonely
prospect in silence. A man and a maid cast away upon an absolutely
deserted island rising from the most unknown and unfrequented seas
on the globe, seemingly with no chance on earth of escape therefrom.
The one possibility of getting away, _The Rose of Devon_, worse than
useless to us because of her evil crew. What were we to do? What could
we expect? Suppose we found the treasure, of what value would it be to
us?
I cursed myself for my weakness in allowing my lady to come upon
this voyage of death and disaster. I wished that I had destroyed Sir
Geoffrey’s letter. And yet as my glance fell upon her my thoughts
changed. A man and a maid, I have said. Distinctions of rank did not
exist in the Garden of Eden. This was the world’s first morning again,
and by my side, dependent utterly upon me, stood--Eve! My heart beat,
my face flamed at the thought. Here, if nowhere else, she might--
“What think you of this?” my lady broke the silence, and she broke more
than the silence, for her words recalled me to my better sense again.
“I do not know,” I answered, shamed in my soul at my imaginings.
“Is it not like the crater of an ancient extinct volcano?” she ventured.
“No,” said I, “these are coral rocks and there is no sign of lava about
them, yet it has somewhat of the appearance, especially that flattened
hillock in the center.”
I have since talked with many men and studied the writings of the most
learned geologists, and from what I have been able to glean from them,
and the suggestions I have been able to give, it has been fancied that
perhaps the rocky projection in the middle of the valley, where later
on we saw the great altar of sacrifice with its attendant idols, was
the original island which was once surrounded by a coral reef now
become a wall, and that some great upheaval had lifted the whole up
out of the water in ages gone by, and that the barrier reef over which
we had passed was the second attempt of the busy little insects to
surround the island again. And indeed, though I know but little about
such things, the theory may well be true, although it gives no solution
of stairs or images or altars. It seems easier to explain nature than
man, you see. But these things, naturally, did not occur to us then.
“What is to be done now?” asked my little mistress.
“I hardly know,” I answered, staring at the green cup of the island,
encircled by the white walls, like a great emerald wreathed in pearls.
I should not have thought of that comparison, myself, but it occurred
to my lady later, and she told me, so I have put it in to embellish
this rather dry narrative of mine. “I see no signs of human life or
of animals, except birds,” I continued, “I firmly believe that we are
absolutely alone on the island.”
Involuntarily, I looked at her as I spoke, whereat she came instantly
toward me without hesitation.
“We are alone,” she said, as if divining my thought, “and I am in your
power. I am weak and you are strong, but--”
“Madam,” said I, with all the formality I could infuse in voice and
bearing, “you are as safe with me as if you were in your late father’s
arms, and surrounded by all the people you love.”
“I know it and I trust you,” she answered. “Indeed, indeed, Master
Hampdon, I am glad to be here, to be away from that awful ship of death
and I believe this is the island which we have been seeking. Where else
in the world is there such a wall and such a flight of stairs? I am
sure the treasure will be here and when we search for it we shall find
it.”
“Very likely,” I answered, “but what is exercising me most now is,
first of all, what is going on in that same mutinous ship, and next how
we shall finally get away from here.”
“You are impatient,” returned my lady, smiling.
“Impatient for you, madam,” I interrupted, checking myself from
further self-revealing speech just in time.
“One thing at a time,” she continued. “By the favor of God, we have
escaped from the murderers and mutineers and by His providence we have
come safe across the reef. We shall not starve upon this island, and I
have no doubt that sooner or later you will devise some means for our
escape. You have done so well so far that I feel quite confident; in
fact, if Captain Matthews were with us, I should feel almost happy.”
This was rating my power very highly I knew, and I felt that I might
not be able to justify her confidence, but if I failed it would not
be for lack of trying. It was long past noon by this time. I made
sure of it by looking at the sun and confirming it by my watch which
I most carefully kept running during all our sojourn on the island,
which indicated close on six bells, three o’clock. Our talk of the ship
recalled me to myself.
“I think,” said I, “that we had better postpone the exploration of
the island until another day, and go back to our landing place. If I
know the men on that ship they will guess that we have escaped to this
island, and they will bring her round to this side, where we may have
them under view and they us. And I shall feel safer and more confident
and comfortable in my mind about your future if my present doubts as to
her whereabouts be settled.”
“Think you that they can come at us?” she asked, in sudden alarm.
“I think not,” I answered confidently, “but still, to make sure, I
should like to have them under observation.”
Well, to make a long story short, we retraced our steps over the broken
path until we reached the stairs on the other side. The descent of them
was much easier than the ascent, and by four of the clock we stepped on
the sand again. There before us in the offing was the ship.
We saw her people quite plainly and I doubt not they caught sight of us
immediately also. They were scarcely a third of a mile away from the
reef, perilously near, I thought, and we could mark them crowding the
rail and staring landward. We could see them brandishing their weapons
and we could imagine the yells which must have arisen from the decks
when they caught sight of us.
I stared at them indifferently enough, but not so my little mistress.
She shrank closer to me, her face paled and I had all I could do to
keep from throwing my arm about her shoulders. I blessed God that she
was here on the island and that I was by her side, and that neither of
us was on the deck of the ship.