the engineer hoarsely. "Have you been down to the creek yet?" he
continues.
"No, sir," says Manners; "we were about to go down there, but I thought
it best to speak to you first."
"Quite right," assents Gaunt; "I will go with you."
The engineer re-enters his room, hastily explains the situation to Mrs
Gaunt, and then, returning, leads the way up the staircase to the roof;
that, it will be remembered, being the only mode of exit from the
building.
It is not until the trio reach this comparatively exposed situation that
they at all realise the strength of the gale; but, once there, though
the building is surrounded on all sides by the high ground of the ravine
through which the river flows, the tempest seizes upon them and beats
and buffets them and dashes them hither and thither with such
irresistible power and fury that they are in absolute peril of their
lives whilst they remain there, and to avoid being actually hurled off
into space they are constrained to go down upon their hands and knees.
To add to their difficulties the darkness is so intense that they can
see absolutely nothing; they have to grope their way like blind men,
relying solely upon their remembrance of localities for guidance. And,
search as they will, they cannot find the exterior ladder by which to
descend to the ground outside. It has doubtless been blown away. This
misfortune, however, is soon remedied by the substitution of a rope from
the store-room for the missing ladder, and with its assistance the three
men quickly reach the ground.
Arrived there, they find that their difficulties have only just begun,
for they are no sooner clear of the house than, what with the profound
darkness and the awful buffeting of the wind, they soon get confused and
lose their way. At length, however, after more than an hour's aimless
wandering, they find themselves at the ship-yard, which is in quite
another direction, and once there, they are enabled, by keeping close
along the water's-edge, to reach the creek.
As each had by this time expected, the punt is not there; and now any
lingering hopes as to the skipper's safety which either of them may have
cherished disappears, and in his own mind each mutely gives the poor
fellow up as lost. The punt being missing, there is no means of
crossing to the main, for the stream, swollen by the recent rain, is
rushing past at a speed swift enough to sweep away the strongest swimmer
that ever breasted wave, to say nothing of the fact that the gale--which
is opposed to the current--has churned and lashed the waters into a
sheet of blinding foam. They can do nothing, therefore, except make an
ineffectual attempt to light a fire, in the hope that its blaze,
reflected in the sky, may serve as a beacon to their unfortunate friend
in the improbable event of his still being alive and within sight of the
island; but this attempt also is frustrated by the wind, which not only
renders it impossible for them to kindle a flame but also sweeps away
all their materials as fast as they are gathered. There is nothing left
for them, then, but to wend their way back homewards as best they can
and await the dawn of day.
The dawn that morning was long in coming, and when at length the grey
murky light slowly forced its way through the overhanging canopy of rent
and tattered cloud which obscured the heavens, wreck and destruction
everywhere became visible. Fay Island, it is true, had escaped almost
unscathed, doubtless owing to its sheltered situation; but on the main--
as the party had got into the way of designating the larger island--
thousands of trees were lying prostrate, many of them uprooted, and the
rest snapped off close to the ground.
As soon as it was light enough to see anything, Gaunt, with Henderson
this time for a companion, once more made his way down to the creek, but
there was nothing to be seen from there. Even the buoy attached to the
raft's moorings was invisible; but just where it ought to be there was a
strong ripple on the roughened surface of the water which seemed to
suggest that the buoy, and possibly the swamped punt as well, was still
there, but dragged under water by the strength of the current.
It continued to blow very heavily--though not with the same awfully
destructive violence which marked the first burst of the hurricane--all
that day and part of the ensuing night, when the gale broke, and by
sunrise the wind had dropped to a strong breeze. Then once more did the
four men set out from the fort in the, by that time, almost hopeless
effort to obtain some clue to the fate of poor Captain Blyth.
Descending the outer ladder--which had been discovered on the previous
day at some distance from the fort--the search party first made for the
creek, from the shore of which--the stream having by this time subsided
and its current sunk to its normal speed--they descried not only the
buoy marking the moorings of the raft, but also, as they had quite
expected, the swamped punt hanging to it. The latter was promptly
secured; Manners swimming out to it with the end of a line from the
shore, by means of which the craft was drawn in and grounded upon the
beach and baled out. The oars having been washed out of her and swept
away, the next thing to be done was to work up a new pair; a task which
was soon accomplished, since they now had an abundant store of suitable
material close at hand in the ship-yard. This done, the searchers made
their way down stream and crossed to the main, there separating into two
parties, one of which was to skirt the shore to the northward and
westward, whilst the other was to proceed in the opposite direction
until the two parties reunited; their object being not so much to look
out seaward--for they knew that if the raft had missed the island it
would by that time be far enough away--but rather to examine the shore
for any sign of wreckage or--the poor skipper's dead body. Henderson
and Nicholls constituted one party, whilst Gaunt and Manners formed the
other. They had not only a long, but also a most difficult journey
before them, the difficulty arising chiefly from the nature of the
ground they had to traverse; and it occupied them until well on in the
afternoon of the following day, both parties camping in the woods for
one night--and finding it anything but a pleasant experience; but
neither party found anything to throw the least light upon the fate
either of the raft or of the unfortunate man who had gone to sea in her;
and when at length they met they had at least the negative satisfaction
of being able to say that, after a thorough search of the entire
seaboard of the island, they had discovered no actual _proof_ that the
captain had lost his life.
Very fortunately for them no damage had been done either to the mill or
in the ship-yard; there was therefore no time lost in making good
deficiencies of that kind, and they were consequently enabled to resume
and carry on their shipwrights' work forthwith. But not until a full
fortnight after the gale did they finally give up the skipper as lost,
young Manners being despatched every morning to the top of the mountain
with instructions to remain there all day and maintain a constant look-
out, the party still hoping, against their better reason, that after all
the raft _might_ have held together, and that Blyth _might_, in such a
case, strive to regain the island. But at the expiration of that time
they felt that it was useless to hope further, and the watching was
discontinued.
Doctor Henderson was the hero of the next adventure which befell the
party; and a pretty state of consternation he managed to throw everybody
into for the time being, his poor wife and little Lucille especially.
It happened thus. It had been the custom of the party ever since their
landing upon the island to observe Sunday as a day of rest, the prayers
of the Episcopal Church being read, with their proper lessons, both
morning and evening; whilst the rest of the day was devoted to such
much-needed recreation as they thought in their consciences might
legitimately be indulged in. Manners and Nicholls, after the manner of
seamen, usually devoted a great deal of time on this particular day to
the requirements of the toilette and the patching up of their clothes;
whilst the two married men devoted themselves entirely to their
families, taking their wives and the youngsters for tolerably long walks
when the weather permitted. Sometimes the two families took these
excursions in company, sometimes separately, according to their
inclinations at the moment; and, whether separately or together, Gaunt
usually carried his sketch-block and colours, whilst Henderson always
took his specimen box; the one being as enthusiastic an amateur artist
as the other was a botanist and chemist. When the weather was
unfavourable for these walks Gaunt was in the habit of routing out some
interesting book from his large stock and reading from it aloud; whilst
Henderson, in the privacy of a little laboratory he had managed to fit
up, prosecuted his researches into the nature of the various plants and
herbs he had collected in former rambles.
They were all thus engaged on the afternoon of an atrociously wet
Sunday, about a month after the mysterious disappearance of poor Captain
Blyth, when the rest of the party were suddenly startled by a loud cry
for help from Henderson, the call being instantly repeated twice or
thrice in a much weaker tone of voice.
Tossing aside his book and springing to his feet Gaunt at once rushed
off to the laboratory, with all the others close at his heels, and there
they discovered the unfortunate doctor in a most extraordinary state of
mind and body, and at the same time became conscious of a faint fragrant
odour pervading the atmosphere of the room. Pale as death, with all his
limbs hanging limp as if paralysed, the poor fellow was huddled up in a
chair upon which he had evidently hung himself when the seizure--or
whatever it was--first came upon him. His eyes were rolling wildly, his
teeth chattered as though he were suffering from an ague fit, and his
moustache and beard _were_ flecked with foam. But it was evident that
he still retained his reason, for the moment that he saw the little
crowd pouring into the room he cried out in a weak but piercing voice:
"Fly! fly for your lives, every one of you but Gaunt! _Fly_! I say;
stay not a moment. My dear fellow," turning to Gaunt, "_drive_ them
out; _throw_ them out if they will not go otherwise! And throw open
that window at once; this atmosphere is _deadly_, I tell you."
This statement had the desired effect; the room was cleared promptly,
everybody beating a somewhat precipitate retreat but the engineer and
Mrs Henderson, the latter quietly but firmly refusing to be removed,
upon the double plea that it was no more dangerous for her than for
Gaunt, and that, whether or no, her proper place was beside her husband.
As for Gaunt, he acted with his usual decision, first dashing the
window wide-open, and next stooping to raise his friend and convey him
into a presumably more healthy atmosphere; and if any additional motive
beyond solicitude for the sufferer were needed to impel him to this step
he had it, first in the awful pallor which suddenly overspread Mrs
Henderson's features, and secondly in a curious sickly feeling of
lassitude and languor which he felt stealing over himself. But, to his
unspeakable surprise, no sooner did he approach Henderson than the
latter shrank away from him with a cry of fear, beseeching him in a weak
voice not to come near him. Gaunt, however, by no means saw matters in
this light; if the atmosphere were deadly, or even deleterious, as his
own increasingly unpleasant sensations made him perfectly ready to
believe, then the sooner they three were out of it the better. So,
disregarding the unfortunate doctor's protestations and entreaties, he
raised him in his arms and, notwithstanding the increasing sensation of
feebleness and numbness which oppressed him, staggered with his burden
into the outer air of the court-yard, closely followed of course by Mrs
Henderson. But it was a most trying business altogether, for no sooner
did Gaunt lay hands upon the sufferer, though he did it ever so gently,
than the poor fellow rent the air with his screams, crying out between
whiles that Gaunt was crushing him to death and that he was stripping
the flesh off his bones. It was a most extraordinary affair altogether,
for they could get no intelligible explanation from the patient even
after they had with infinite trouble and care--seemingly at the cost of
the acutest agony to Henderson--conveyed him to his own room and laid
him on his bed. He could do nothing but shiver and moan and cower down
among the coverings, and entreat that nobody--not even his wife or
child--would go near him, or, least of all, touch him. The little party
were almost beside themselves with anxiety and terror, which feelings
were increased when poor Mrs Henderson exhibited symptoms of a similar
character. As for Gaunt, he was thoroughly alarmed; for not only did
the feeling of feebleness increase, but he also found himself gradually
becoming the victim of a blind unreasoning terror for which the term
"abject cowardice" afforded but a very inadequate description. And to
this very unpleasant sensation was added that of a morbid sense of
touch, so acute that even the very pressure of his clothes became almost
unendurable. Fully alive, however, to the possibly critical state of
affairs, he battled desperately against the influences at work upon him,
and, with infinite patience, at length succeeded in extorting from
Henderson a few suggestions toward the adoption of remedial measures,
which he put in force first for the benefit of the doctor, next for Mrs
Henderson--who had also succumbed to a similar though much milder
attack--and lastly for himself. Nothing that was done, however,
appeared to be of the slightest service, the symptoms continuing with
unmitigated severity for fully eight hours, after which they gradually
subsided. Gaunt was quite himself again by noon next day; Mrs
Henderson recovered about eighteen hours later; but as for the doctor,
it was fully a week before he entirely shook off the effects of the
attack. But in less than twenty-four hours from his first seizure he
had sufficiently recovered to give an explanation of the singular affair
to the following effect. He had, it would seem, been investigating the
nature of a hitherto unknown plant growing in considerable abundance
upon the island, and had found it to possess several very remarkable
qualities, some at least of which he believed might be rendered of the
utmost value in medical practice. Anxious to make his researches
thoroughly exhaustive he had, upon the day of the catastrophe, been
distilling the essence of the plant; and, his task completed, he was in
the act of bottling the extract for future examination when its
peculiarly pleasing fragrance caused him to take several deep
inhalations from the bottle. He had hardly done so when he felt his
strength rapidly leaving him, and he had only time to deposit the phial,
open, upon his table and stagger to a chair when something very like a
fit of paralysis seized him. He at once cried out for help; but by the
time that his cries had evoked a response his nerves had begun to give
way, and in a very few minutes he was enduring such an agony of fear of
everybody and everything as words utterly failed him to describe. And
with this terrible fear came the equally terrible morbid sensitiveness
of touch, which he found himself equally unable to describe. So
excruciating was it, he said, that even the sound of an approaching
footstep caused him more suffering than he had ever before experienced;
and as to the moving of him from the laboratory and again into his own
room--his silence and the convulsive shudder which shook him from head
to foot were far more expressive than words. His first act when he was
sufficiently recovered to move about once more was to secure the phial
containing the liquid which had done all the mischief, and--with
Nicholls to manage the punt--go right out to sea, where, hastily
uncorking the bottle, he flung it as far from him to leeward as
possible, at the same moment ordering his companion to give way for home
again with all speed. This was done whilst the terror of his attack was
still upon him; but it was not in the nature of a man of Henderson's
training to give way for long to so irrational a fear as that which
prompted this action, and in less than a month afterwards he had, with
the adoption of all proper precautions, secured another and far more
liberal supply of the singular essence, with a view to future
experiments and analysis.
Meanwhile, the work at the ship-yard was pushed forward with all
possible energy, and to such good purpose that in an incredibly short
time, all things considered, the timbers for the new boat were raised
into position and secured, the planking carried up to the gunwale, the
deck laid and caulked, the joiners' work advanced, and the spars put in
hand. Everybody was in the highest possible spirits, for they saw the
end of their labours rapidly approaching; they were, moreover, not only
pleased but absolutely proud of their work, for, though of course only
amateurs, they had wrought so carefully and conscientiously that
everything was finished off not only as strongly but also as neatly as
if they had every one served an apprenticeship to the handicraft. Then
the little vessel herself was a perfect beauty; graceful in shape,
notwithstanding her extreme breadth of beam; powerful, yet buoyant; and
with lines so cunningly moulded that, whilst it would doubtless require
a good strong breeze to show her off to the utmost advantage, Nicholls
and Manners--who might both be expected to know a good hull when they
saw it--confidently predicted that she would prove very nimble even in
light airs. And so confident were they of her sea-going powers that
they averred, again and again, they would not be afraid to face in her
even such a hurricane as that which had robbed them of poor Captain
Blyth; indeed, they even went the length of volunteering to take her
home to England after she should have accomplished the primary mission
of her existence in conveying the party to a civilised port. Matters
were in this satisfactory state, the work having reached such a stage of
advancement that the rigging of the _Petrel_--as they had decided to
name the little cutter--had already been begun, and some talk was being
indulged in of hopes that the launch might be accomplished within the
following week, when, on a bright Sunday afternoon, Gaunt left Fay
Island for the main, taking the two children with him, the object of the
little party being to gather a few of the strangely-shaped and
exceedingly beautiful shells to be found on the sea-beach, as mementoes
of their long sojourn on the island. The ladies preferred to remain at
home, deciding that the day was far too hot for walking exercise; and
the doctor remained with them for company. It was getting on toward
sunset--indeed, the sun had already disappeared behind the high ground
to the westward of the fort--and the doctor with his two fair companions
had ascended to the flat, rampart-like roof of the building to enjoy the
cool, refreshing breeze and watch for the return of the shell-gatherers,
when the sound of a musket-shot, quickly followed by some five or six
others, broke upon the air with startling effect, and immediately
afterwards the head of a lofty triangular sail glided into view from
behind some tall bushes which had hitherto concealed its approach. That
a strange craft of some sort was in the river was the first idea which
presented itself to Henderson's mind; that Gaunt--who was unarmed--and
the children were but too probably at that moment crossing from the
main, and consequently in full view from the deck of the strange craft,
was the next; and that the firing must necessarily have proceeded from
the unlooked-for visitor and be an indication of hostility, possibly
directed against Gaunt and the youngsters, was the third--the three
ideas following each other with the rapidity of a lightning flash. To
these succeeded a fourth--the Malays! So long a time had elapsed since
poor Blyth had arrived with his alarming intelligence respecting the
propinquity of these rascals and his disquieting suggestions as to a
possible visit from them, that, though an anxious watch had been for
some time maintained, the uninterrupted absence of any alarming
indications had at length resulted in so complete a relaxation of
vigilance that even the very existence of these pests of the Eastern
seas had been forgotten. What if the wretches were upon them now? It
seemed only too probable. As these thoughts darted through Henderson's
brain, and with them the frightful suggestion that those three--the
unarmed man and the two helpless children, one of them _his_--might at
that moment be beset by a cruel and bloodthirsty foe, a cold shudder
went through his frame, and, hurriedly speaking to his companions a few
words which he intended should be reassuring, but which his manner
rendered quite the reverse, he dashed down the inner stairway to the
court-yard, and seizing Gaunt's repeating rifle, which he knew to be
loaded, and directing Manners and Nicholls--who had rushed out of their
room at the sound of the firing--to arm themselves and follow him, he
rushed up to the roof again, and descending to the ground by the outer
ladder, hurried away off in the direction of the creek. He had not
advanced in this direction much beyond a hundred yards, along the
pathway through the bush, when a child's screams--little Lucille's--
smote upon his distracted ear, and, darting forward in a very frenzy of
apprehension, as he sprang round a bend in the path the poor child, her
head uncovered and her long fair hair streaming behind her, her sweet
eyes wild with terror, and her little hands outstretched, rushed up to
him and with an inarticulate cry of joy sank exhausted and almost
lifeless at his feet. Behind her, not a dozen yards distant, followed a
fierce-looking Malay, his parted lips revealing the white teeth clenched
in the eagerness of pursuit, his cruel black eyes gleaming with the
ferocious joy of anticipated success, and with a murderous-looking
creese with a long wavy blade uplifted in readiness to strike the moment
he should have brought the poor innocent little victim within reach of
his lean muscular arm.
To spring over the prostrate form of his darling child, thus placing
himself between her and her pursuer, whilst he raised his rifle to his
shoulder, was an act of such lightning-like rapidity with Henderson that
he and his foe were almost within striking distance before either could
check his career. The next instant the crack of his rifle rang out
sharp and clear, and the Malay, with a convulsive bound, crashed face
downward at his feet dead, with the bullet through his brain.