THE SECOND SHIPWRECK
A series of reefs does not supply the best of surfaces for a sprint.
Maseden slipped on a bed of seaweed and fell headlong, fortunately
escaping injury. Sturgess, lighter, perhaps more adroit on his feet--it
came out subsequently that he was an accomplished skater--stumbled
several times, but contrived to keep going.
Thus he was the first to reach Madge Forbes, who hurried to meet them,
followed by Nina, the latter walking more leisurely and carrying the
rifle.
"What has happened?" gasped Sturgess. He saw that the girl was pale and
frightened. She and her sister were continually looking backward, as
though expecting to find they were being pursued.
"I think--it is all right--now," she said brokenly. "Nina shot at
it--the most awful monster I have ever seen."
"Had it two legs, or four?"
Sturgess was incorrigible. Notwithstanding the start caused by the sound
of the gun, he grinned. The girl turned to Nina.
"Please tell them, Nina, that we are not romancing," she cried
indignantly.
Nina handed the rifle to Maseden.
"Put this thing right," she said coolly. "It won't work, but I'm sure I
hit the beast with the first bullet."
Maseden pressed down the lever, and saw that a cartridge had jammed, as
the extractor lever had not been jerked downward with sufficient force.
He began adjusting matters with the blade of his knife.
"Were you attacked by an animal?" he inquired.
"We don't know exactly what it was," said Madge. "When you left us we
decided to have a bath before putting on dry clothes. As our only towel
was the ship's flag, we arranged that each should rub the other dry with
her hands. We had just finished dressing, and Nina had gone to pile
fresh logs on the fire, when I heard a splash in the water of the creek.
I looked around and saw a fearful creature, bigger than a horse, which
barked at me. I shrieked, and Nina ran with the rifle. The thing barked
again--it was only a few feet away--so she fired. Then we both made
off."
"You disturbed a seal, I expect."
"No. If those were seals we saw last night, this was no seal," said Nina
decisively. "It had small, fiery eyes and long tusks. I think it had
flappers, though, in place of feet, but it was enormous."
"Sounds like a walrus," put in Sturgess.
"There are no walruses in the South Pacific," said Maseden. "Anyhow, now
that the magazine works all right, let's go and have a look."
Ample corroboration of the girl's story was soon forthcoming. The
splashing of water behind the group of big rocks sheltering the pool in
which they had taken their bath showed that something unusual was going
on.
They all reached the spot in time to witness the last struggles of a
gigantic sea-lion, one of the most fearsome-looking of the ocean's many
strange denizens. The shot fired by Nina Forbes had struck it fairly in
the throat, inflicting a wound which speedily proved mortal.
The animal was a full-grown male, fully ten feet in length, with a neck
and shoulders of huge proportions. Its tusks and bristles gave it a most
menacing aspect. The wonder was not that the bathers ran, but that Nina
had the courage to face such a monster.
Maseden was delighted, and patted her on the shoulder.
"Well done!" he cried. "You've supplied the larder with fresh meat for
days. We must even try our 'prentice hands at curing what we can't eat
to-day or to-morrow."
The girl herself was not elated by her triumph. The water in which the
sea-lion lay was deeply tinged with its blood, which had also
bespattered the rocks.
"I have never before killed any living creature," she said in a rather
miserable tone. "Why did the stupid thing attack us? We were doing it no
harm."
Maseden laughed.
"Off you go, both of you!" he said. "C. K. and I have the job of our
lives now. It will be no joke disjointing this fellow with a couple of
pocket-knives. But if the fact brings any consolation, I may tell you
that a sea-lion when irritated can be a very ugly customer. Probably
this one was sleeping in the sun under the lee of a rock, and you may
have come unpleasantly near him without knowing it. When he awoke and
saw you he was curious. Instead of slinking off, he roared at you, and
might easily have killed the pair of you!"
"Can't we help?" inquired Nina, seeing that Maseden meant to lose no
time.
"No."
"But we ought to," she persisted. "We must get used to such work."
"You can do something quite as serviceable by rigging a few lines on
stout poles, where there is plenty of sun and air, and seeing that a big
fire is kept up.... And, by the way, don't come this way till we call
you. We shan't be--presentable."
The two disappeared without further question.
"This will be a messy undertaking," Maseden explained to his assistant.
"The best thing we can do is strip, or our clothes will be in an awful
state."
At the outset they abandoned any thought of actually dismembering the
colossal carcass. They skinned it with difficulty, and then cut off the
flesh in layers. After an hour's hard endeavor they had gathered a fine
store of meat, while the pelt, after being well washed in salt water,
was stretched on a flat rock to dry.
They were dressing again when a new trouble arose. From out of the void
had gathered a flock of vultures. These fierce, evil-looking birds were
so daring in their efforts to raid the pile of meat that two actually
allowed themselves to be knocked over by the staves the men carried.
Sturgess remained on guard, therefore, while Maseden took the strips and
hung them on the lines the girls had already prepared.
Madge volunteered to do the cooking. She had found two flat, thin
stones, somewhat resembling hard slate, and she fancied that by placing
some steaks between these and covering them with glowing charcoal the
trick would be achieved. As a matter of fact, she succeeded wonderfully
well. Even Nina, sniffing her portion, vowed that the shooting of a
sea-lion had its compensations.
More vultures arrived. The sea-lion's bones were rapidly picked clean,
but one of the men had to keep close watch all day over the curing
operations.
An amusing argument arose as to the correct method of drying meat.
Maseden held that he distinctly remembered reading that _biltong_, or
South African antelope steak, was prepared by hanging the strips in the
sun. The girls were positive that this would cause putrefaction, and
that the meat should be placed in the shade.
As Maseden was not quite sure of his facts, he compromised as to a
quarter of the supply, with the result that this smaller quantity was
rendered uneatable.
* * * * *
The story of Alexander Selkirk has been told so often, and in so many
forms, that it will not bear repeating here. During a whole fortnight
these four young people devoted their wits and their muscles to the
all-important task of feeding themselves and securing some means of
escape into the interior. The men soon learned how to circumvent the
wily seal, and thus store plenty of meat and skins, which latter, with
sinews and a knife, were converted first into garments for the women
and, as supplies increased, into a tent.
Maseden noticed that the high-water mark fell daily, so he reasoned that
the _Southern Cross_ struck during a high spring tide, and that the neap
would occur in fourteen days. He laid his plans on that assumption,
which was justified almost to a day.
Another gale blew up, but despite its discomfort it helped them
materially, because the men loosened a barrier of logs which had formed
high up the wooded cliff, and the rain freshet brought down far more
timber than was needed for the biggest raft they could hope to
construct.
After some experiments they decided to make it a three-tier one, and
flexible in the center. Hence it was fully thirty feet in length, the
average length of a thick log being fifteen feet after its roots and
thin section had been burnt off. For the same reason the raft was
fifteen feet wide. It had a step in the forepart for their old friend,
the broken topmast. They dispensed with a rudder, believing they could
guide their ark with poles.
Observation showed that the tide flowed swiftly in mid-stream, and their
well-matured project was to push out to a prearranged point at
high-water, anchor while the tide fell, and travel as far as practicable
on the next tide. They tried to avoid all risks that could be foreseen.
The raft was built in the waterway which Madge had termed the
"creek"--the gulley cleared for itself by the torrent whose dry bed had
offered them a road through the otherwise impenetrable forest. Every
test of stability their inventiveness could devise proved that an area
of thirty feet by fifteen of logs arranged in three rows would support
four or five times the weight they were likely to place on it. By
manipulating the poles Maseden and Sturgess found that they could
control the movements of even such an unwieldy bulk, while if the wind
suited they might rig a sail of skins.
They were able to build quickly and well because of three essentials.
The timber was at hand, they had a fire, and in the pieces of rope and
strips of iron and wire they had invaluable means of making the
structure secure.
At last, on the fifteenth day after the wreck, Maseden poled out the
raft during the slack tide at high-water, and fastened it to ropes
already fixed and buoyed nearly a quarter of a mile from the shore. He
would allow none of the others to accompany him, nor did he carry any of
the few stores they possessed. He could not be absolutely certain that
the cables would withstand the strain, and if the raft were swept
seaward by the falling tide only one life was in jeopardy, while
Sturgess might be able to help him from the shore.
His vigil was watched by anxious eyes, especially when he thought fit to
ease the stress on the ropes by planting a long pole against a big rock
which he knew rested a few feet astern and below the surface. The two
hours of half-tide were the worst, but the anchors held. Three hours
later the raft was aground and he came ashore.
It was then nearly dark, as their first voyage would naturally be taken
in broad daylight. Nothing was said at the time, but he was told
afterwards, that for no conceivable guerdon would any of the three again
go through the agony of suspense they endured while the raft swung and
lurched in the fierce current.
Meat, fresh and dried, a quantity of oysters, the leather trunk, and a
charcoal fire cunningly packed in oyster shells kept in position by
wire--this cooking brazier being the invention of Nina Forbes--formed
the cargo. Most fortunately Maseden carried the poncho and the rifle
slung across his back with rope, and the cartridges were in his pockets.
They slept on board. Soon after daybreak the raft was afloat, but was
not allowed to move until there was a fair depth of water, owing to the
very great probability of the whole structure being dashed to pieces
against some awkwardly placed boulder. At last, however, Maseden
thought the channel was practicable, and the ropes were cast loose,
being sacrificed, of course, but that could not be helped.
They were off! The first of the sixty miles was already slipping away.
They were so excited, so bent on the adventure ahead, that none of them
thought of looking back until Providence Beach, which was the name they
gave their refuge, was nearly out of sight.
Suddenly Madge Forbes remembered, and turned her eyes in that direction.
She waved a hand and cried:
"Good-by, trees and rocks! You were kind to me and to all of us! I have
not had two such happy weeks since I came to South America!"
Maseden heard, but paid no particular heed. For one thing, he had
decided now not to re-open the question of the extraordinary relations
between his wife and himself until, if ever, they reached civilization
again. For another, he was busily conning the channel and noting the
behavior of their clumsy but quite buoyant craft.
He estimated the pace of the current at fully six miles an hour. The
raft was traveling about half that rate, which was quite fast enough for
his liking, so, although there was a strong breeze from the west, he did
not hoist the "sail." He stood on the port side and Sturgess on the
starboard. The two girls were seated on a pile of fir branches behind
the mast, which was stayed by ropes in such wise that all four had
something to cling to if the raft struck a sunken rock and lurched
suddenly.
The project was to drift as far inland as the day's tide would take
them, pole ashore at the nearest suitable place, and repeat the
overnight anchoring until they reached smooth water, when they might
perhaps make longer voyages. If they ran six miles that day they would
have done admirably. Providing Maseden's calculations as to their
precise locality were reasonably accurate, the next day would bring them
into a much wider arm of the sea.
Here the conditions might vary, but they would adapt themselves to
circumstances, always bearing in mind the exceeding wisdom of the
Italian proverb: _Che va piano va sano_--"He goes safely who goes
cautiously."
But there are other proverbs which are equally applicable to human
affairs, and especially to the hazards awaiting rafts floating on
unknown waters. For an hour they ran on gaily, with little or no
trouble, because the men could see broken water a long way ahead and
promptly piloted their argosy towards the open channel.
Then came the unexpected, or, to be exact, the crisis arose which
Maseden had foreseen many days earlier, but forgotten as the raft grew
strong and seaworthy under their hands.
About four miles from Providence Beach the gap between the two small
islands which shut off Hanover Island from its southerly neighbor came
into full view. Maseden anticipated a little difficulty at this point,
but he was quite unprepared for that which really took place.
He had every reason to believe that the main stream would flow straight
ahead until the second island was passed; he meant to land on Hanover
Island again, just short of the easterly end of Island Number Two.
Therefore he was annoyed, but not alarmed at first, at finding that the
current carried the raft into the straits between the islets.
The others, of course, noticed the change of direction, and being well
aware of his hopes and plans, asked him in chorus if this deviation
mattered.
"I don't see that it does," he said. "In any case, we must follow the
tide, and if this is the short cut so much the better."
He told them that which he actually believed. Still, at the back of his
head lay an uneasiness hard to account for. The raft was traveling south
now, not east, having swept round the bend in magnificent style. The
precipitous heights were closing in, but the channel was fully a quarter
of a mile in width. He would vastly have preferred skirting the wooded
slopes of Hanover Island, because these smaller islets were absolutely
barren in this hitherto invisible section, but, having no choice in the
matter, silenced his doubts by recalling his first and quite correct
theory that the real deep-water passage lay beyond, the _Southern Cross_
having in fact struck several miles north of Nelson Straits.
Owing to the steady narrowing of the waterway the rate at which they
traveled was increasing momentarily, though progress was delightfully
smooth and easy. The simile did not occur to any of the four until
complete disaster had befallen them, but the silent, resistless onrush
of the current was ominously suggestive of the course of some great
river during the last few miles before it hurls itself over a cataract.
Hanover Island soon vanished from sight altogether, and the towering
cliffs on either hand seemed to merge into an unbroken barrier ahead.
But the tidal race hurried on, so there must be an outlet, and this
presented itself, after a sharp turn to eastward again, when they had
covered a couple of miles on the new course.
They were only given the briefest warning of the peril into which they
were being carried. The stream flung itself against a great mass of
rock, which had been undermined until the upper edge of the precipice
hung out fifty feet or more over the rushing waters beneath. A most
uncanny maelstrom was thus created.
No sooner had the two men seen the danger than they labored with might
and main to slew the raft away to the opposite shore.
They succeeded in avoiding the first jumble of black rocks which lay at
the base of the cliff, but the whole character of the stream changed
instantly. It became a furious turmoil of broken water. The raft was
hurled hither and thither as though by some titanic force, and a few
yards farther on was dashed against a second and even more terrifying
reef.
The violence of the impact smashed the whole structure to pieces. Had
not the logs been arranged in tiers crosswise they must have split up
instantly, but the method in which they were put together held them for
one precious moment while the men each clutched one of the girls and
leaped for the nearest rock.
By rare good luck they kept their feet, and reached a great flat mass
which, judged by appearances, had only recently fallen.
Further advance or retreat was alike impossible. On three sides roared
the cheated torrent; behind and above, canopy-wise, towered the cliff.
If the evidence of ominous fissures and lateral cracks were to be read
aright, there was no telling the moment when they might be buried under
another avalanche of thousands of tons of stone.
Every tide deepened the sap. They were imprisoned in one of nature's own
quarries, where work was relentless and unceasing.
Once again idle chance had decided that Maseden should save Nina and
Sturgess Madge. Not that it mattered a jot. If ever four people were in
hapless case, it was they. For a time even to Maseden, who had never
lost faith in his star, it seemed that the best fortune that could now
befall would be for the trembling rock overhead to crash down on them.
The din was terrific, and the water level was rising so rapidly that
five minutes after they had gained their present position the boulders
to which they had sprung from the sundering platform of logs were a foot
deep in the swirling current. Each of the girls, wholly unconscious of
her attitude, clung despairingly to the man at her side and watched the
climbing surge with somber eyes.
They were too stunned to yield to fear, and the life of the past
fortnight had so steeled their nerves and strengthened their bodies that
fainting was no longer the readiest means of obtaining a merciful
respite from present horrors. Rather did a bitter rage possess them, for
it was a harsh and monstrous decree of fate which had not only robbed
them of a hard-won means of escape, but immersed them in a veritable
condemned cell.
Maseden, like the others, was watching the encroaching water-line in a
benumbed way when he became aware that Nina was speaking. He looked into
her drawn face and tried to smile, though a sort of mist clouded his
eyes.
"What is it, girlie?" he said, putting his mouth close to her ear and
addressing her as though she were a timid child.
"Is this the end?" she cried, imitating him.
"Not yet, anyhow," and he gave her a reassuring hug.
"Tell me--if you think--we have only a few more minutes," she said.
He read nothing into the request save a natural desire that she should
be prepared for the worst and try to cross the Great Divide with a
prayer on her lips. The pitiful words helped to dispel the cloud which
had befogged his wits, and he began to weigh the pros and cons of the
forlornest of forlorn hopes.
The water was lapping their feet. The rock arched outward over their
heads. Between the spot where they stood and the actual wall of rock
there was already a flowing stream.
He looked at his watch. The hour was seven o'clock, and he estimated the
time of high-water at about half-past seven. Then, as when he was lying
along the foremast of the _Southern Cross_ amid the thunders of the
reef, a tiny seed of hope sprang into life in his brain. If they could
outlast the tide there was still a chance!
The very fact that this chaos of fallen cliff created a fearsome rapid
in the tide-way showed that the passage must be fairly open during low
water. If promptness in decision could enable a man to conquer a
difficulty, Maseden was certainly not lacking in that attitude.
"Come!" he said. "Not for the first time, we must put our backs to the
wall. We may find a good grip for our feet before the water mounts too
high. The four of us must lace arms and cling together. I believe the
tide will not rise above our knees. At any rate, we cannot be swept away
easily. It is worth trying."
She nodded. Turning to her sister, she explained Maseden's scheme. Soon
they were braced against the rock and facing valiantly their new ordeal.
In the Middle Ages, when a lust for inflicting torture infected some men
like a cancerous growth, a favorite method of at once punishing and
destroying an unfortunate enemy was to chain him in a dungeon to which a
tidal river had access, and leave him there until the slow-rising flood
drowned him.
They were in some such plight, self-chained to a rock, though not
knowing when a sudden swirl of water might sweep them to speedy death.