CORONATION ISLAND
But it was not till next day that we had the land in view, and then
it was ten o'clock on February morning, making it a few days above a
month since we had sailed out of Table Bay. As on the previous day,
so on this, the sun shone brightly, with even some comfort of warmth
in its light. Many great clouds of a milk-white softness were sailing
into the east; the wind was fresh out of the west, but though the
sea ran briskly, with a shrewd vapour of salt in the shrill fling of
the frothing curls, it was not a hollow sea; it rolled the brig in
stately measures, but she was now under small sail, the ice being very
plentiful and the sea crowded with bergs of all sizes, whilst right
ahead were tall cliffs of ice backed by a blue shadow of mountain
rising into a silver faintness where the eternal snows upon it sparkled
and died out from the sight in the deep blue.
I was beside myself with excitement and wretched with distress of
expectation, dread, and hope. That height of white cliff right ahead,
broken in the foreground by pale floating islands, its face discoloured
in places as though the ice that masked the rock had broken from the
black and savage rampart, was Coronation Island, and on the port bow,
looming distant but immense, were the mountains of Laurie Island.
Our anchors were at the cathead, ready for letting go in case of sudden
need; the men hung about on the look-out for ice, ready in an instant
to trim sail. We were sailing towards the island through an avenue of
bergs: clear water sparkled from the thrust of our stem to the very
wash of the distant surf, with no other obstructions than here and
there a lump of the crystal stuff lifting sullenly with the swell,
flashing gloriously, and so proclaiming itself to the sight when the
sunbeam smote the foam that poured off it.
A chart of the islands lay upon the skylight, and every few minutes I
would be dropping the telescope to look at the chart, to gather from
the tracing the point of coast we were heading for. The whaleman had
said that the wreck lay on a ledge in Palmer's Bay, and Cliffe and
I were agreed that that large indent was between the two towering
shadows, to the right of the taller peak that soared a thousand feet
higher than Table Mountain.
The icebergs obstructed the view. The line of coast was studded with
them: yet every moment I was sinking my sight through the lenses into
each opening betwixt the bergs. The brig's progress under her small
canvas was about four knots and a half; I'd glanced for a moment at
some stately frozen pile majestically rocking and slowly veering by,
then put my eye to the glass afresh. My very soul was now loathing the
sight of the ice. The largest of the islands was no longer an object
of splendour and sublimity, but of horror and heart-weariness, charged
with a spirit of desolation that subdued me to a sort of numbness of
mind if I looked long: it seemed to stonefy the very principle of life
in me, as though there was a horrid magic in its bald white stare to
look a man into craziness, and emptiness, and into its own frozen
lifelessness.
But now, as we approached, the features of the land began to steal
out into a brilliant keenness wherever there was space for them to
show betwixt the floating ice, and on a sudden, whilst I was looking
through the glass, the motion of the brig slided a seaborne hill away
to the left, and exposed a front of cliff that lay with a shadow upon
it as though it was a sort of ravine, at the foot of which, though I
instantly guessed it would lift to some height above the sea as we got
nearer, lay a black speck. I looked again, and cried out wild with
excitement:
'Cliffe, I have the hull! I have the hull!'
The little man came headlong to my side, and put his grimacing face to
the telescope.
'Yes! I see it, I have it!' he shouted. 'Just as reported--high above
the wash--fair in the heart of the Bay. It'll be all plain sailing now.
Lor, but there ought to be no difficulty in boarding her.'
He returned the glass to me: I levelled it afresh at the instant that
the corner of a big heap of berg floated right into the field of vision.
It needed another hour of careful sailing to expose the hull anew: then
through the glass I saw her clearly. She lay, a large black hulk of
ship, upon a projection of ice that was at least thirty feet above the
sea. I made out her bowsprit, and the stump of her foremast. The cliffs
soared sheer and abrupt at the back of her to a great height. Even at
that distance it was not hard to guess that, after having stranded, she
had been lifted by some earthquake dislocation of ice into the posture
she rested in. Suppose the sea clear, she must have been visible to
passing ships for leagues.
The seamen were congregated in the bows, leaning over the rail, Bodkin
amongst them pointing eagerly. The mate roared to them to keep a bright
look-out, they then scattered, but the sight of that wreck had brought
them heedlessly together as one man. Cliffe's glass was not a powerful
one, yet the hull in the lens lay within half a mile, and I saw her
plainly. She had her head towards the cliffs, and sat very nearly upon
a level keel. A great portion of her starboard bulwarks were gone. She
was a mass of ice under her stern: looked to be fixed there to her bed
of white pillars. The sun shot sparkles into her as we advanced, and
still she showed black, as though the ice that coated her was as glass.
Nothing moved: I strained my vision till my brain reeled and the object
swung in the glass and was eclipsed: Cliffe looked, he saw no smoke nor
signs of life any more than I.
'If there's anyone alive aboard her,' said he, 'now's our time for
letting them know we're here.'
'Right,' I answered, speaking with my teeth almost set; 'do what you
will, Cliffe; do what is for the best.'
He called to Bland and a man, and they fetched a number of blank
charges for the cannon. The little skipper left the gun to the mate's
handling, himself taking charge of the brig, which needed exquisite
watching and management, so crowded was the water here with loose ice.
'Let fly fast as you can load, Mr. Bland,' said the captain; 'fire six
rounds.'
As he spoke came a cry from the forecastle: 'Lie close under the port
bow, sir!'
Thus was it, thus had it been, saving that now the pack stuff had
thickened perilously.
The gun was fired; it made a noble thunder, and roared in dying echoes
from near ice crag to ice crag. Again it was fired, yet again; all this
while the brig was rolling forwards with her helm going up and down to
the cries from the forecastle and to the gestures of the little captain.
I stood at a backstay with a levelled glass steadied against it, and
in the moment of the third explosion I saw smoke rise feathering from
the deck of the hull; still watching, my breath so thick and difficult
it was as though a hand was upon my throat, I marked that the smoke
thickened; but I could not see the red of the flame, nor the figure of
the person feeding it. I daresay I was as white as any corpse when I
stepped over to the captain and, putting the glass into his hand, said:
'There is life there.'
'There's smoke arising from that wreck,' shouted someone forward.
'We're here for _some_ purpose, then, anyway,' cried Cliffe with
a small oath, letting fall the glass to his side with the most
extravagant grimace I had ever beheld in him.
One saw the smoke easily now with the naked eye; it rose black against
the whiteness past it, curled featherwise, and blew scattering against
the face of the cliff. I levelled the glass again and saw the figure of
a man walking toward the stump of the foremast; I watched him; in a few
moments a square of colour rose to the summit of the mutilated spar,
where it blew steadily; it was a large English ensign, Jack down.
Bland let fly a fourth gun.
'Stop it!' roared Cliffe, 'we are seen! Hoist the ensign and dip it
thrice.'
The colour soared to the trysail gaff end; it blew out large on the
bight of the halliards when it was dipped, and was easily within the
observation of the man on the hull. When I looked through the glass
once more I saw a second figure; it was upon the hull's quarter, where
the rail or bulwarks rose to a height that hindered me from perceiving
how it was clad. I asked Cliffe to look; he steadied the glass, and
answered with a snap of his whole face, and a voice high-pitched with
delight:
'As God's my hope, Mr. Moore, it's a woman!'
The glass so shook in my hands that I could not use it; I took a few
turns, then looked again. The figure watched us from the same place,
but I could not tell whether it was a man or a woman. If it was a
woman, then it might be Mrs. Burke. I wanted three figures to make
_sure_ of Marie; I saw but two; where was the third?
I strained my sight at the telescope with a heart of fever, half
strangled by conflicting passions.
The figure that had hoisted the colour went to the side of the other,
and they both stood watching, nothing visible of them above their
waists. It was blowing a fresh breeze, and before this time Cliffe had
taken in certain canvas; I think the brig was under topsails only, the
foresail hauled up and hanging in its gear; the vessel drove slowly
with an occasional crackling noise of ice along her sides when she
sheared through some thin sludge stuff you could not see till you
were in it; fortunately the drift ice that had threatened a thick
surface just now had loosened here and tossed scattered; as we advanced
moreover, we found that the icebergs which had looked to sit close in
with the coast rode with a good offing; the sea was covered with these
floating islands off that part of the island marked Foul Point; the
eastern horizon was also like a terrace of ice, but the face of the
cliffs from Foul Point down to where the land rounded into Lewthwaite
Strait was fairly open.
All this while the sun shone brightly and with warmth. The sea streamed
in a glorious dye of violet; we rolled slowly onwards till we were
within about three-quarters of a mile of the coast and right abreast of
the wreck. The helm was then put down; the main topsail laid aback; the
gun again fired, and the ensign dipped. It was now about noon.
By this time I had made out that one of the figures was a woman; I saw
but two persons. Who the woman was I could not tell, fierce as had
been the struggle of my vision to resolve the glimmer of her face into
lineaments.
When the brig had been brought to a stand, Cliffe called a council.
We had ample sea room. The nearest floating ice lay about a quarter
of a mile distant on the port quarter; the smaller blocks were not
numerous, nor was there weight of sea to make them dangerous. All along
the base of the ice-clad cliffs the water was pouring in a thunder of
boiling surf; it was not the breakers but the great breathing swell
of this mighty ocean which worked all that noise and fury along the
cliffs' foot. The white brine sometimes shot twenty feet high, though
it blew but a moderate fresh breeze, and the surge ran small.
Cliffe, myself, Bland, and the boatswain Bodkin came together at the
companion hatch to consider. We had swept with the glass the line of
coast from the beach under the hull to as far as we could see on the
right, and beheld nothing but lofty coils of frothing combers raging
in surf; there was no chance for a boat anywhere _that_ way. The left
presented a like scene, saving that there was a point in Palmer's Bay
that, cruising eastwards, shut out the view of perhaps a quarter of a
mile of the water it enclosed. Upon that point our eyes were fastened.
'We must lower a boat,' said Cliffe, 'and find out how the land lies
past that arm of land.'
'It's the only sheltered bit along the whole boiling, I allow,' said
Bland.
Bodkin, putting down the telescope, exclaimed:
'She lies about forty feet high above the wash. The ice is broke and
irregular from the water to where she sits, and I reckon a man might
walk upon it if there's a landing-place round the point. But I won't
swear to it till I'm close in. Ice is deceitful stuff. Capt'n, there'll
be nothen to say till we've taken a look round. 'Tis certain there's to
be no getting at the hull from the bottom of the height she rests on,
even if the boat could land there.'
'Then lower away, Mr. Bland, as quickly as possible, and be off and
back with a report, that we may make up our minds what to do before it
falls dark.'
Whilst some hands were getting one of the whale-boats over, others were
busy with the deep-sea lead: but we were away, pulling for the shore,
before they sounded. I went in the boat, taking the telescope with me.
She was a five-oared boat; Bodkin pulled stroke; one of our smartest
seamen was in the bows. The fellows bent their backs, and the buoyant
little craft, swift of model with the whale-hunter's lines, flashed
over the blue ridges; often I sought to bring the glass to bear upon
the two figures watching us; to no purpose. The mate would not let me
stand up, and I put down the telescope in despair.
'That vessel,' said the mate, 'never berthed herself like that. She's
been chucked right up by the ice, and 'twas sudden too, bet yer heart,
Bodkin.'
The picture grew amazing as we advanced. The cliffs behind the hull
rose to about two hundred feet; I call them cliffs, they were a solid,
precipitous, rugged face of ice, how deeply sheathing the black rock
of the island no man could tell: the whole stretch of land resembled a
gigantic iceberg. The hull lay upon a huge block, the top about forty
feet high; it projected in a wide ledge, then fell sheer. You might
know it had been snapped from some parent monster by the smooth side it
showed to the sea, so clean cut to the eye, it might have been done by
the chisel and hammer of a giant big as the blue shadow of mountains
beyond.
My eyes were fixed on the wreck, and on the figures standing at her
bulwark rail. Now again I tried to bring the telescope to bear: the
jumping of the boat made the effort useless. All in a minute one of
the figures sprang on to the bulwark; flourished his arms, and then
motioned frantically towards the part of the bay concealed by the curve
of the ice.
'Hail him, in God's name!' I cried. 'Try him with your voice, Mr.
Bland.'
The mate stood up and roared, the full volume of his lungs trumpeting
into the inshore wind like a soldier's call, the sweep and lift of the
whale-boat to the summit of a large swell helping.
'How many are there of you?'
'Two,' came back the answer, dull through the roar of the surf but
distinguishable.
'Who is the other?'
The men were now resting on their oars, the boat sinking and lifting in
the sea that was great and hollow for so small a fabric; we were within
a pistol-shot of the base of the cliff on which the hull sat, but so
high perched was the craft, so bewrapped the two people, I could not
make out their faces. The man held up his hand as though he had not
heard.
The mate roared again, 'Who is the other?'
'A young lady.'
'Is it Miss Otway?'
He brandished an assent, and his figure stiffened in a posture of
amazement.
'Is that her alongside of you?'
Again the figure flourished an affirmative.
'Then here's Mr. Moore come to take her home,' thundered the mate.
When he said _that_, Marie--for it was she--leaned forward: she was
motionless whilst you might have counted twenty; she then stretched
out her arms. I pulled off my hat and flourished it, that she might
know me among the crowd we made in that boat, then lifted up my hands
to her. But even had my voice possessed Bland's carrying power I could
not have called. There, high above, upon the rail of the wreck, flanked
by towering walls of ice, stood, with arms outstretched in appeal to
me, the figure of my beloved. I had thought to find her dead--she was
there; I had thought to find her lying in an African grave--and there,
on that high-poised wreck she stood in silent appeal. For weeks and
weeks I had been mourning for her, asking of God that I might behold
her, seeing her in my dreams, a frozen corpse upon the deck of that
hull there: and now she stood up yonder, alive, full in sight.
The boiling of the surf ran a maddening noise of thunder round the bay.
But one saw what the man, whoever he might be, had frantically pointed
to. The water was smooth from the end of the point to away round for
some hundreds of paces. The sea could not get at the frozen beach
there: it flashed at the point, and recoiled in clouds.
'Put me ashore,' I exclaimed, 'I can climb those crags. Look how they
wind to the ledge: Bodkin will help me. I must go on board that wreck.'
'Sit down, I beg, sir,' exclaimed the mate, catching me by the arm as I
toppled half-delirious. 'Tumbling overboard's an easy job. Your eyes
deceive you; you could no more climb those rocks than jump ashore from
where you sit. What d'ye say, Bodkin?'
The man had already and quickly made up his mind. He glanced at the
fall of crags of headlong abruptness in places, huge and nodding, yet
so blending in their whiteness with the whiteness they stood out on
as to cheat the unpractised eye with an appearance of easy road-way,
and answered firmly, 'There's no mortal legs and arms as is a-going to
carry a man to the wreck by them rocks.'
'Why did the man motion to that landing-place?' I said.
The mate turned his sheep-eyed face round the bay, and answered, 'He
didn't know who we were. He was afraid that boiling,' said he, pointing
to the surf, 'would drive us away.'
'How is the wreck to be entered?' I asked, looking up and waving my
hat, and then again stretching forth my arms.
'It's a sailor's job. Have no fear. We'll get 'em out of that,'
answered the mate, and standing up he hailed the man. The other
flourished his arm. 'We're here to take you off,' bellowed Bland, 'and
we'll do it. Don't take any notice of our leaving you. It won't be for
long. D'ye hear me?'
'Ay, ay!' came the answer, feebly through the ceaseless thunder.
It tore my heart to look up at the wreck, as we pulled away, and
see Marie there, sundered from me by that curse of roaring foam,
inaccessible, to be come at only by patience, naval skill, efforts
which might have to be again and again repeated, always perilous.
I cannot express how marvellously strange this ice-ramparted bay
looked, with that wreck cradled on high, like a huge model in glass,
tinted black, smoke lifting still cloudily from her deck, and the red
inverted flag streaming like a square of fire against the marble white
beyond. Many large pieces of ice floated in this sweep of water: but
they showed plain, and the boat went securely. One piece was almost a
berg: a miniature island. Here and there the sea broke over it. It was
almost in the middle of the bay, and exactly abreast of the wreck. I
observed that Mr. Bland ran his eye curiously over it as we pulled past.
Who was the man on the hull that had answered us? He was not Captain
Burke. My sight had not distinguished his face, yet I should have known
him by his voice had he been Burke. Three had been left, so Wall the
boatswain reported: Burke and his wife, and Miss Otway; I saw but two.
The man had said there were two only: one was Marie: where were the
others, and who was that stranger?
We arrived alongside the brig, and with little difficulty I got aboard.
The pull had occupied so short a while there had been scarce time to
talk: but in any case the hurry and wildness of my spirits, my deep
agitation, amazement and delight, mingled with dark wonder and jealous
alarm, must have held me mute.
Cliffe impatiently awaited us: Bland and Bodkin came on board, leaving
the men in the boat. Bland immediately said:
'We must get them out with a cradle. There's no other way.'
'No landing, then, round that point there?' said Cliffe.
'Ay, sir, but the rocks are not to be climbed by anything wanting hoofs
and horns.'
'Who are they?'
'One's the young lady,' said the mate.
Cliffe spun round and stretched his hand to me.
'I do congratulate you,' he cried, convulsing his countenance. 'It's a
noble errand nobly rounded off. Hurrah!' and in a sudden ecstasy he
pulled off his hat and whirled it three or four times over his head. He
then cried, 'But two only? The third ain't dead, I hope?'
'Captain Burke and his wife are not there,' said I.
He grimaced at me, and said, 'Who's the man, then? But asking questions
won't get them out of it. What d'ye propose?'
As he spoke he whipped out his watch: as it lay in his hand I saw the
hour; the time was two, we had therefore a long afternoon of daylight
before us.
'We must take the mortar in the boat and communicate with it,' answered
Bland. 'There's a big piece of ice to anchor the boat to,' said he,
pointing to the lump I had observed him look at. 'We shall want a
cradle.'
'A cask 'll answer,' said Cliffe.
'Better have both boats in the water,' said Bland.
They exchanged further remarks to this effect, but I was no sailor
and could not follow them. No time, however, was lost. In less than
half-an-hour both boats were alongside, rising and falling singly
under the lee of the brig. In one boat was the mortar, with a complete
apparatus of gear and cradle for connection with the wreck. The cradle
consisted of a large cask cleverly slung, and so contrived as to
slide along a line when the rope attached to it was pulled. We were
nobly favoured by the weather. The send of the swell was as steady as
the tick of a clock: the seas ran short and small, with a rich sunny
feathering of foam that made a wonder of the ice, so tropic was it with
the blue overhead where floated a few large white clouds of a coppery
effulgence of swollen breast.
We got away by a quarter to three, one boat in tow of the other; the
wind and seas helped us, and we quickly entered the bay. We were of the
same number as before, and the same people. We drove with lifted oars
to the former talking place, and Bland hailed the man, and, with his
loudest roar, told him we were going to fire the end of a line to the
wreck and send him a tackle by it for a cradle. Did he understand?
The man responded with a peculiar flourish of his arm, and Bland
instantly said to me, 'He is a sailor.'
I had no eyes save for Marie. She had showed on a sudden at the rail
on the quarter as we entered the bay, and stood as still as a statue
watching us. Before Bland hailed I kissed my hand and flourished my hat
to her, and extended my arms; and she then stretched her hands, lifting
them immediately afterwards.
The surf held us several hundreds of feet away from the beach: the
hull stood about forty feet above; no cry I was capable of could have
reached her through the noise of the trembling combers; but the wind,
however, was brilliant, and Marie's form stood clear cut against the
white background; nevertheless, I could not distinguish her features.
The boat, with the other in tow, now pulled for the lee of the large
mass of ice that lay floating abreast of the wreck. The water swung
foamless and quiet under the shelter of this block. A couple of men
jumped out, and between them carried an anchor to some near crevice, in
which they half sank it. Thus were the boats solidly secured.
The mortar was then loaded: I saw the man on the wreck turn as though
addressing Marie, who immediately withdrew and disappeared. When all
was ready, Bland with many wild gestures and flourishes signalled to
the man to stand by. Our seamen were deeply interested and greatly
excited, particularly Bodkin, who had the handling of the mortar.
'Fire!' roared Bland.
The uncouth piece exploded in flame and smoke. Coil after coil of the
heap of small stuff of the thickness of lead-line standing beside it
flew off into the air.
'He has it!' bawled a man.
'Pay out now, pay out!' cried Bland. 'Light out handsomely, my lads. It
may come as too much dead weight for one man, which'll be a bad job if
winch is froze.'
'It's for his life, and _that's_ a three-manpower, aye, though yare
should be just out of horspital too,' exclaimed a seaman.
'Pay out. Ease him all you can, lads,' shouted the mate.
The man had got hold of the end of the line, and was dragging it
inboard hand over hand, bringing to him as he hauled the end of a stout
rope, to which a little block was attached with a line rove through
it. This was the gear the mate was calling upon the seamen to pay out
handsomely. He was but one man to three, and the tackle and rope must
needs grow heavier and heavier as its smoking steaming up-curving
bight lengthened. I watched almost breathless; if the man's strength
failed before his end of the rope came to his hand what should we do?
We could not assist. Now indeed I saw it would be impossible for any
one of us to scale those rugged crystal boulders and cavernous ruins of
ice which yet from the level of the water painted a practicable ascent
from the sheltered curve of the bay where the sea was silent.
Foot by foot the sailors veered out the gear, and hand over hand, with
admirable endurance and patient courage, the man on the wreck hauled
the stuff in: till on a sudden one of our men called out, 'The lady's
helping,' and I caught a glimpse of Marie past the man, dragging as he
dragged.
'It's all right!' after a long pause, exclaimed Bland, letting out his
words in the note of a deep-chested sigh of relief, and a hearty cheer
sprang from the lips of the seamen.
'He knows what to do. He's a sailor!' cried Bodkin.
He had vanished behind the bulwarks, but quickly reappeared signalling
to us with a flourish, whilst Marie stood as before, motionless,
watching.
'Now get it taut, for God's sake!' cried the mate. 'In with the slack.'
The men toiled on, and dragged till the bight of the rope was clear of
the water: the gear then described a curve from the stump of fore-mast
to the boat.
'Now clap on the watch tackle.'
A machinery of blocks and lines was applied to the rope, which tautened
to the strain till the mate cried 'Belay! If we don't mind our eye we
shall start the wreck!'
Then swiftly, but without hurry or confusion, the empty cask was got
over the bow and slung to a bowling or traveller.
'Haul out!' cried the mate, and nimbly, with quick steady pulls, the
cask was run up the rope. It travelled smoothly. The man sprang on to
the bulwark rail and received it, and, putting his hand on the edge of
it, jumped in.
'By thunder, no, then! The lady first, or you stop there!' groaned the
mate, his face suddenly dark with disgust and temper, and the others
looked along the rope to the cask with frowns eloquent of curses. But
in a moment the man got out, and I said, 'He was testing it.'
We now saw him, in the sharp white light the air was brimful of, help
Marie on to the rail: he put his hands under her arms, and carefully
sank her into the cask; then, pulling off his cap, flourished a signal
of 'all's ready' to us. Instantly, one end of the line was slackened
away whilst the other end was hauled upon, and the cask travelled
towards us.
'Stand by to lift the lady out,' bawled the mate, whilst the cask was
still coming. 'Into the bows two of you. Mr. Moore, you'll keep your
seat, I beg sir, till the lady's in the boat.'
The cask came sliding to the drag of the line down to the very stern
of the boat: there it was water-borne, and began to roll and leap with
the boat: but strong hands were ready, and in a minute Marie was lifted
over the gunwale, brought right aft, and seated beside me.