THE CASTAWAY
Knocked down, recovering himself, scrambling and stumbling, Lang made
footing, got into waist-deep water, and finally struggled out and
beyond reach of the surf that seemed rushing in pursuit. The breath
was battered out of him, he felt limp and weak and as if bruised all
over.
Wiping his eyes, he looked up and down for another survivor. Nothing
but the foamy water moved along that shingly shore. He had scarcely
any hope. Gustav’s brains must have been knocked out instantly on the
reef, and Henry was long since drowned. Out on the rock the _Condor_
still hung spiked. She heaved up and down, and spray flew clean over
her from the striking seas.
At that moment Lang hardly regretted his companions, hardly was
thankful of his escape, hardly thought of anything except to be glad
to be out of that tearing surf. Brain and wits were numbed. He was
cold, wet and intensely uncomfortable. The enormity of the disaster
did not impress him at all, but he realized that he was going to
perish of exposure unless he could be warmed and dried.
He had thrown himself down, and he lay for some time still before he
developed force enough to get on his feet. He had no bones broken, no
severe bruises, even, but the strain and shock had left him in a sort
of numb collapse.
It was with difficulty that he fumbled for his match box. It was by
luck still in his pocket, and was of aluminum, supposed to be water
tight. The dozen or so matches did not appear damp, and he looked
vaguely about for materials for a fire.
There was plenty of driftwood all along the beach, but it was soaked
with rain and sea water. Dense forest covered the slopes rising back
from the shore. There must be firewood there, and he made his way
across sand and shingle, over a belt of straggling grass, sprinkled
with evergreen shrubs, and came to the edge of the woodland.
He expected to find dry branches, twigs, fallen trunks, but everything
was wetness. Rain and mist had made a sponge of the forest. He forced
his way through the tangle of stunted, bushy conifers that dripped
water from their boughs; the ground was spongy underfoot, thick with
moss and overgrown with ferns. The fallen trees seemed all mossy,
rotten, yielding, and what dead twigs he could find were too damp to
be brittle.
As he forced his way farther in, the trees were somewhat larger, but
there was the same thick carpeting of luxuriant moss and ferns, the
same sodden dankness. White and yellow and red fungi grew on the
rotting wood. There were no birds, no sign of animal life, and that
whole abominable swamp seemed like a forest in some sunless cavern.
But it was warm here, for the dense jungle shut out all the wind.
Shouldering his way about, he came at last upon a tree freshly broken
off four feet aboveground, leaving a splintery stump, which oozed with
bluish, gummy drops. It was “fat wood,” in fact, and as he realized
this he tore off splinters with his fingers and the blade of his
pocket knife, heaped them around the fractured end of the trunk, and
struck a match.
The resinous stuff flared up furiously. The flames ran over the gummy
surface of the damp trunk, and within two minutes he had a roaring and
intensely hot fire, such as he would never have thought this saturated
forest could produce. He stripped off his outer garments to dry them,
and stood in his underclothing, revolving slowly before the blaze, and
steaming in its heat.
Vitality flowed back into him with the warmth. His aching limbs were
soothed. He tore off armfuls of evergreen branches, shook the damp
from them, and tossed them on the fire. When his clothes were nearly
dry he put them on again, and sat down, stupid and drowsy. He noticed
that the daylight was waning, the fire redder and brighter. The crash
and wash of the sea mingled with the sound of the wind in the
treetops, and he dozed again and again, finally sinking into a heavy
sleep with his back against a tree.
He started up suddenly in a sort of horror, broad awake, feeling as if
he had not slept at all. Darkness was all around him, except in the
circle of red glow from the low fire, and all the terror of his
predicament came down upon him, as if it had been gathering force
while he slept.
He had come to the end of everything. He was cast away on what he knew
to be a desolate and uninhabited coast, a hundred miles perhaps from
any settlement, without food or any means of obtaining any, except the
little automatic pistol in his pocket, which he hardly knew how to
use. He had lost the great race, lost the emeralds, lost his life, and
lost Morrison’s life, and Eva’s, too, if it happened that she had
really gone on the expedition with her father.
He dragged the fire together and made it burn up. But he was too
anguished now to sit still. There was a soaking fog in the air. The
forest smelled of mold and death. He pushed out, blindly restless,
toward the open shore again.
Out in the open he found the world full of a pale glow. The air was
cloudy with fog, and a strong moon was shining through it. The crash
of the surf was fainter. The wind had fallen.
Going down to the water’s edge, it seemed a long way. Out through the
fog he could see the wreck of the schooner, and he wondered what
optical effect of haze made it seem only a stone’s throw away. It was
still spiked on its rock, but now seemed to stand in an almost
vertical position, with the stern in the water. Then he grasped the
fact that the tide was out.
The receding waters had left her scarcely fifty yards from shore. The
waves ran with less violence now, for the barrier rocks, standing in a
tall file above the surface, broke their force. And immediately Lang
remembered that there was food in that schooner.
He was empty, starving. Instantly he started to wade out, bracing
himself against the rollers. The shore sloped so gradually that he
actually made most of the distance without going much over the waist;
then it shelved suddenly, and he stumbled to his shoulders.
Treading warily for fear of a sudden plunge, he came within a fathom
of the rock where the boat hung, and then the bottom went out of
touch. He dipped under, but with a wallow and a few strokes he
clutched the slippery edge of the crag, and got his hands on the
schooner’s rail.
Easily now he pulled himself up. The schooner’s whole bottom seemed
smashed out back of the bows, and a great spike of rock protruded
through the hole. Everything movable in her must have tumbled down
into the stern, and much of it, he was afraid, must have been washed
out.
He slid down into the stern himself. Three feet of it was under water,
but, as he groped down with his hands, he could feel a miscellaneous
collection of loose objects—the handle of an ax, the head of a spade,
and a rolling collection of tins, all mixed and tangled up with
blankets, tarpaulin, his own poncho, pieces of canvas and bits of
cordage. He felt several loose potatoes which he fished out and put
carefully in his pockets, and then extracted other objects one by one,
dripping in the pallid light
As he retrieved them he laid them in a wet blanket He secured a lump
of corn bread, water soaked and uneatable, a piece of dried beef, and
one by one, most precious of all, tin after tin of American canned
provisions. And among these he struck upon the priceless salvage of
the emergency box of matches, its top still fast waxed.
How to get all these things ashore was a problem. Finally he tied them
up sacklike in the blanket, with six feet of loose cord, and, holding
the end of this, he ventured to jump.
It came near drowning him, but he held fast to the rope and came
through, dragging the freight after him. Well above high-water mark on
the shore he poured out the cargo and immediately went back for more.
This time he secured the rifle, but could find no cartridges. Its
magazine was full, however, and he took it, with a hatchet, a spade,
more loose potatoes, and several more food tins. He could find no
cooking utensils of any sort, except the coffeepot, which seemed
useless, as he had no coffee.
This load was cumbersome and hard to get ashore. He almost had to drop
it, and when he landed he felt that his strength would permit no more
of these excursions. He was wolfishly hungry, and with an armful of
tins, whose labels he could not see, he plunged into the woods again
toward his camp fire, which glowed redly through the misty jungle.
With the hatchet he was able to split fragments from the fallen tree,
and he made a roaring blaze again. By its light he discovered that he
had brought two tins of tomatoes, one of corn and two of vegetable
soup—no very filling articles, any of them. He had no better can
opener than the hatchet, but he hacked open the tomatoes and gulped
down the contents, meanwhile setting the soup tins to heat, and laying
several potatoes to roast at the edge of the fire.
While they cooked, he dried his clothes once more. The potatoes proved
hard, tasteless, saltless, but they filled his inside, and, with the
hot soup, a marvelous change was wrought in him. Courage came back
surprisingly. He had supplies now, enough for days, perhaps for weeks.
Enough to carry him to La Carolina—enough to take him to the emerald
glacier. It was possible that he might be in time, after all.
Hope and impatience came back to him as he huddled in the comforting
warmth. The valley of the glacier might be a day’s tramp away, or it
might be three or four—hardly more than that. He could scarcely miss
it if he followed down the coast. He would have to pack a heavy load
of supplies, but he felt hardened to anything now. Meanwhile, rest was
the first need. He forced himself to lie down, to close his eyes. He
did not think he could sleep, but while plans still revolved through
his mind he fell asleep.
When he awoke he was wet again. It was gray morning, and raining. The
branches dripped dismally. Only a thread of smoke rose from the almost
extinct fire. He split chips with the hatchet, got it blazing again,
and went back to the beach for more food, much less buoyant than a few
hours ago.
His little pile of salvage lay in a driving rain, and now he was able
to see surely what he had. It was certainly more than he could ever
carry on his back, and, worse yet, the tinned stuff seemed mostly
vegetables. He picked out a tin of soup, however, and one of dried
beef, and, returning to his fire, he opened them and ate.
Returning to the beach, he looked carefully over his stores again. It
was useless, he thought, to carry the spade. The rifle and hatchet
would be cumbersome enough. He sorted out such of the tinned goods as
would give most nutriment for least weight, and found a good deal of
soup, sardines, beef and salmon after all. One tin box that he had
supposed to contain meat was full of candles, which he had brought
with some vague idea of underground work. It occurred to him that they
might be invaluable for lighting fires.
There was also a lump of salt beef weighing some four pounds, more
than a dozen potatoes, the tin of matches, and he piled out twenty
cans of food, which should be enough for ten days, or more at short
rations. At any rate it was all he dared try to carry, and he tied all
these articles together in the blanket much as he had dragged them
from the schooner, and made a loop to go over his shoulder.
There was not the slightest use in delaying his start. He packed tins
of corn and beans in all his pockets, put the hatchet in his belt,
took the rifle in his hand, and started to tramp southward along the
beach in the rain.