INSIDE THE REEF WHICH WAS AT ONCE PROTECTION AND PRISON
The ruffians aboard the ship did not content themselves with simply
staring at us, for presently they assembled on the port quarter, the
ship was under all plain sail on the starboard tack at the time, the
wind having fallen to a gentle breeze during the day, and clambered
into the cutter swinging at the davits. As she was lowered into the
water fully manned, Mistress Lucy drew even closer to my side, seizing
my arm with both hands.
“Let us fly, they are coming to take us!” she cried in great alarm.
“But they are on a vain errand,” I reassured her calmly.
“But why? How can you know that? Oh, Master Hampdon, let us hasten
away.”
“We have a protector,” I answered confidently enough.
“God?” asked she.
“His handiwork,” I replied, as I indicated with a gesture the barrier
reef over which the waves were breaking.
“But we passed it.”
“Yes, in a light dinghy and you remember the difficulty and danger.
They will never surmount it in that heavy cutter. They will not even
attempt it, when they have seen it nearer, trust me.”
“But if there should be an opening?”
“I don’t believe there is one,” was my reassuring reply. “We know that
there is not one on this side, since we examined it ourselves, and my
careful inspection yesterday did not reveal any on the other, and with
that conclusion the chart agrees, you remember. No, I have no fear that
the crew of _The Rose of Devon_ can get at us.”
“And we can’t get to them,” she answered more composedly.
“I have no wish so to do,” I laughed.
“You don’t understand me,” she persisted, “what keeps them out, keeps
us in.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “that is true, but for the present I don’t mind
being kept in, so long as they are kept out.”
She looked at me quickly and confessed afterward that my words begot
some quick suspicion which she admitted was unworthy of her and
unwarranted by any act of mine, but I looked so placid that it soon
passed from her mind. As a matter of fact, I had not appreciated the
significance of my words. I should have been perfectly willing, I
should be still, to pass the rest of my life alone on that island, or
anywhere else with my lady only. She was company enough for me and
although we have ruffled it bravely together since then, and have even
borne our part with dignity at the King’s court, I am happiest when
she is by my side and no one else is near. I was happy then. I had got
her to myself; my little mistress must look to me for everything. The
haughty queen of the quarter-deck was now the humble dependent of the
lonely island.
I did not know what dangers lay before us, what perils encompassed
us. I could not foresee how we were to escape from the Island of the
Stairs, for so we had named it. Those thoughts did not trouble me
much. I had brought her safely from a ship filled with mutineers,
pirates, and murderers; I had landed her safely on the island despite
circling reefs and raging seas; the future could take care of itself.
Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof--aye, and the good, too!
We trudged along the sand parallel to the course of the boat which was
following the outward edge of the barrier reef seeking what I knew they
would not find, an entrance to the lagoon and thence to the island.
The lagoon narrowed in places, until, had it not been for the roar of
the waves on the barrier reef, a hail could easily have carried. I am
ashamed to say that I used insulting gestures on occasion, whereat some
of them stood up in the boat and shook their fists in our direction.
I shall confess to having taken much delight in irritating them until
Mistress Lucy implored me to cease. Thereafter we watched them in grim
silence and contempt. Although I was sure they could not reach us,
their presence was nevertheless a menace and a barrier to us. After
they had rowed the length of the island they gave it up and went back
to the ship, which had followed their course.
By this time the day was far spent and night was at hand. We retraced
our steps and came to the place where I had hauled up the dinghy. I now
observed with some pride that both the shoes and the dress I had made
for my lady would serve their purpose. Meanwhile we both were hungry.
The provisions we had taken with us we had eaten during the journey.
The next business was supper. I had noticed some cocoanut trees and
other strange tropical fruits, so I had no fear of starvation. We
could live on the island indefinitely, therefore I was not sparing
with the provisions. Feeling need of something warming we kindled a
fire with flint, steel, and tinder from their case in the locker, and
made shift to boil some coffee. We had neither milk nor sugar, but the
taste of civilization did us good, and our refreshment added to our
encouragement.
For the night I capsized the boat and drew it close against the coral
wall, spread a spare sail I found in the after locker and her boat
cloak which had drifted ashore and dried out during the afternoon,
upon the clean, dry sand, and bade her take her rest. It was snug, dry
and comfortable.
“But you?” she asked.
“I shall do very well here with my heavy jacket and I shall lie across
the stern of the boat, between it and the cliff, out of sight but
within touch or call if you need me.”
“I am afraid,” she said softly.
“Nothing can come to you except over my body and I am a light sleeper.
A touch, a word will arouse me,” I said reassuringly.
“I would not have you harmed, either,” she persisted.
“I shall not be.”
“There may be wild beasts.”
“I do not think there is an animal on this island,” I laughed, “and we
have seen no signs of man. The ship certainly would have attracted the
attention of someone had not the island been deserted.”
“But those men out there?”
“You forget the rampart that God has flung about us. Now, madam, you
can go to sleep in safety, I assure you.”
“Before that,” she said, dropping down on her knees in the sand and
motioning me to follow her example, which I did awkwardly enough--I
hope I was not a mocker or disbeliever, but I confess that I did not
often bend the knee then--“we will have a prayer together.”
She had slipped a little prayer book within her bodice and she now
drew it forth from her canvas tunic and by the light of the fire read
the Psalm of David which begins, “_Out of the deep have I called unto
thee, O Lord, Lord hear my voice_.” And then she prayed, using some of
the old collects of the Church and adding one of her own making, in
which she besought God to care for us further, while she thanked Him
for having raised up a defense for her in my poor presence, I listening
very humbly and saying a heart-felt “Amen” at the end.
I shall never forget that scene; the gray cliff towering high above us,
its crest lost in the darkness, the overturned boat, the white-clad
woman kneeling by the fire, its light playing upon her until her face
looked like the face of an angel, myself further back in the shadow.
It was a dark, moonless night but the stars shone with tropical
brilliance and in our ears echoed and reëchoed the crash of the mighty
waves upon the barrier which was at once our prison and our fortress.
There was a silence for a little space when she had finished and in
that silence I devoted myself before God to her service again, and then
we rose and she gave me her hand.
“You have been a true knight and gentleman,” she said softly, her eyes
shining, “and I thank you.”
I could only take it dumbly and stare at her, whereat she smiled
brightly, although her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“And now,” she added, “God keep you. Good-night.”
I then kissed her extended hand, which she suffered without resistance.
“I will leave you for a little space,” said I, “and so good-night and
God bless you, too.”
When I came back she was snug in her place under the boat. I sat for a
long time before the fire, thinking and making plans for our escape.
The ship did not give me much concern because I was sure she could not
come at us, and in the end she must go away and leave us alone with
the treasure, maddening as that might be.
It was a strange fortune that had brought us here. How mysteriously
things had worked out. The marriage of her father and mother, the last
representatives of the two lines that had come from the same ancestor
but had been separated for a hundred and fifty years, which had brought
together again the old story of the island, which had been handed down
from father to son, and now to only daughter, during those many years,
with the tradition explaining it; the indifference with which her
father, Sir Geoffrey, had received it, his leaving the parchment and
the image to her after his death, the discovery that her mother years
before had given her the other part of the chart; the saving of the two
thousand pounds by worthy Master Ficklin from the great estate which
had been dissipated by her father; my own opportune appearance on the
scene--I had returned from an American voyage a short time before his
death--her consultation with me; her determination to take the money
she had and charter a ship; our securing _The Rose of Devon_, the
enlisting of the crew and the starting off on this wild goose chase,
and what had happened since--I recalled them all.
At first believing, I had come latterly to scoff at the whole matter,
and had at last laughed to myself at the prospect of finding an island
or treasure, and had discredited the story of the old rover buccaneer
who had captured the Spanish treasure ship, his own having been sunk in
the encounter. Now I could reconstruct the whole scene. He had manned
the galleon with his own crew and they had been wrecked on this island
reef--if this were the island--but the sea had subsided, and filling
the boats with the treasure they had hidden it in a cave on the other
side of the wall. The sailors had lived there for some years, but had
finally been attacked by some natives, probably from the islands I
could see dimly on the horizon, and they had all been killed except
Captain Wilberforce, who had feigned madness and become tabooed.
He had escaped in a canoe from the other islands, whither he had been
carried, and had fallen in with a Spanish trader, after what voyaging
and suffering who could say? He had been trans-shipped from one vessel
to another and finally reached his home, a harmless madman on that
subject his friends and neighbors and even his family thought, with
the parchment, the image, and the tradition which he bequeathed to
his two children after he recovered his wits before he died. They had
quarreled, married apart, and lost sight of each other. And here we
were, a hundred and fifty years or more after the death of the old
Elizabethan buccaneer, on his very island. Was the treasure there
still, where the tradition said he had placed it? We should see. I now
believed that it was.
A long time I sat there until I finally threw myself down and fell fast
asleep. I must have slept a long time and soundly for I was wearied. It
was she who awakened me. When I opened my eyes and saw her sweet face
bending over me and heard her dear voice calling me, I declare I almost
felt as if I had died and gone to heaven, and was being welcomed by an
angel. But that was only for the moment. I realized everything at once.
She herself had but just arisen.
Our first waking thought was for the ship. She was still there in the
offing. She had been hove to during the night. I could imagine what
fierce debate and wrangling there had been aboard her. The fact that we
had landed would convince them that the island contained the treasure
for which they had committed murder, and which they could now by no
means come at. And that we had escaped them, cozened them, and now
could be seen on the beach braving them, in no way diminished their
anger. Even if there were no treasure, they would be anxious to get
possession of us and wreak their vengeance upon us.
The day that passed was much like the afternoon before. Although we
were by this time persuaded that the reef was an absolute protection, a
vague possibility that they could devise means to pass it in some way,
kept us uneasy on the sand. We must have them under observation. We
were eager to explore the beautiful vale enclosed by the huge rampart,
but we did not dare to be where we could not watch the ship. We did
walk along the shore and ascend the giant stairs in the afternoon. Then
while she watched the sea within calling distance of me, I managed to
penetrate the jungle with axe in hand, so that finally I made shift
to cut down a cocoa palm tree and we gathered as many delicious nuts
as we could carry and returned to the shore. And we made plenty of
conversation easily during the hours of watching.
On the ship we had conversed mainly about business. Now we had no
business and my lady was pleased to look at me in some surprise as I
told her what I guessed about the formation of the island and displayed
unthinkingly the knowledge of the South Seas and other parts of the
globe which I had acquired in my long studying and wide cruising.
“Why, Master Hampdon,” she exclaimed, opening wide her beautiful eyes,
after I had explained to her something of the nature of the island and
how I thought it had been made and the use of the great quantities of
fruits thereof, “you seem to know more than any of the finest gentlemen
I have ever been thrown with.”
Whereat I was flattered beyond measure and showed it, but she was kind
enough not to rebuke me for my foolish vanity. And indeed there were
not many--perhaps even none at all--among her acquaintance who could
have done for her what I had; they were men of spirit, in truth, but
they lacked my experience and my strength.
That night the sun set amid lowering clouds. With a sailor’s weather
sense, I was sure that we should have a storm. Pimball and Glibby
sensed it too. We could see them making things snug alow and aloft
on _The Rose of Devon_. They were good enough seamen, as far as that
goes. The wind, if it came, would be offshore, and there would be no
danger of the ship being driven upon our reef, but there were islands
to leeward which they seemed to have forgot but which I remembered. If
it came to blow hard I would not want to be in the position of _The
Rose of Devon_, even if I do prefer a ship to the shore in a storm, but
I want plenty of sea room and that the poor little _Rose of Devon_ had
not. I surmised that the attention of the crew had been so persistently
fixed upon us that they had scarcely ever glanced to leeward even.
I explained all this to Mistress Wilberforce as I made things snug
for the night. She would be perfectly protected by the overhang of
the cliff and the overturned boat, and I showed her, before I left
her alone beneath the boat, that the same overhang of the cliff would
protect me from the wind and the rain if the storm broke. And so after
prayers again and a long look seaward we went to sleep.
About midnight, so far as I could judge, I was awakened. The storm
broke with all the suddenness and intensity of the tropics. Such
peals of thunder and such flashes of lightning I have never witnessed
although I had been in many storms throughout the world. To sleep
further was impossible. Mistress Lucy came out from her boat and
stood beside me as we leaned against the cliff while the storm drove
harmlessly over our heads.
We could see the ship at intervals by the vivid flashes of lightning.
She was making fearful weather of it. She was always a wet ship and
the huge waves fairly rolled over her. Once she went over nearly on
her beam ends and I thought she was gone. I did not view her position
with a great deal of regret, either. Although she could not come at
us, she was a terrible menace. But the next flash of lightning showed
that her main topmast had gone by the board, or had been cut away, so
she righted. Presently she drove off before the wind with a rag of her
foretops’l still showing, and that was the last we were to see of her,
we thought.
Praise God, that was not true after all!