evening in the large room of the fort, where all were assembled except
the astronomer, who still remained shut up in his cabin. The men were
busy over their various occupations, some cleaning their arms, others
mending or sharpening their tools. The women were stitching away
industriously, and Mrs Paulina Barnett was reading aloud; but she was
often interrupted not only by the noise of the wind, which shook the
walls of the house like a battering-ram, but by the cries of the baby.
Corporal Joliffe, who had undertaken to amuse him, had enough to do. The
young gentleman had ridden upon his playmate’s knees until they were
worn out, and the Corporal at last put the indefatigable little cavalier
on the large table, where he rolled about to his heart’s content until
he fell asleep.
At eight o’clock prayers were read as usual, the lamps were
extinguished, and all retired to rest.
When every one was asleep, Hobson and Long crept cautiously across the
large room and gained the passage, where they found Mrs Barnett, who
wished to press their hands once more.
“Till to-morrow,” she said to the Lieutenant.
“Yes,” replied Hobson, “to-morrow, madam, without fail.”
“But if you are delayed?”
“You must wait patiently for us,” replied the Lieutenant, “for
if in examining the southern horizon we should see a fire, which is not
unlikely this dark night, we should know that we were near the coasts
of New Georgia, and then it would be desirable for me to ascertain our
position by daylight. In fact, we may be away forty eight hours. If,
however, we can get to Cape Michael before midnight, we shall be back at
the fort to-morrow evening. So wait patiently, madam, and believe that
we shall incur no unnecessary risk.”
“But,” added the lady, “suppose you don’t get back to morrow,
suppose you are away more than two days?”
“Then we shall not return at all,” replied Hobson simply.
The door was opened, Mrs Barnett closed it behind the Lieutenant and
his companion and went back to her own room, where Madge awaited her,
feeling anxious and thoughtful.
Hobson and Long made their way across the inner court through a
whirlwind which nearly knocked them down; but clinging to each other,
and leaning on their iron-bound staffs, they reached the postern gates,
and set out [beween] between the hills and the eastern bank of the
lagoon.
A faint twilight enabled them to see their way. The moon, which was
new the night before, would not appear above the horizon, and there was
nothing to lessen the gloom of the darkness, which would, however, last
but a few hours longer.
The wind and rain were as violent as ever. The Lieutenant and his
companion wore impervious boots and water-proof cloaks well pulled in at
the waist, and the hood completely covering their heads. Thus protected
they got along at a rapid pace, for the wind was behind them, and
sometimes drove them on rather faster than they cared to go. Talking was
quite out of the question, and they did not attempt it, for they were
deafened by the hurricane, and out of breath with the buffeting they
received.
Hobson did not mean to follow the coast, the windings of which would
have taken him a long way round, and have brought him face to face with
the wind, which swept over the sea with nothing to break its fury. His
idea was to cut across in a straight line from Cape Bathurst to Cape
Michael, and he was provided with a pocket compass with which to
ascertain his bearings. He hoped by this means to cross the ten or
eleven miles between him and his goal, just before the twilight faded
and gave place to the two hours of real darkness.
Bent almost double, with rounded shoulders and stooping heads, the two
pressed on. As long as they kept near the lake they did not meet the
gale full face, the little hills crowned with trees afforded them some
protection, the wind howled fearfully as it bent and distorted the
branches, almost tearing the trunks up by the roots; but it partly
exhausted its strength, and even the rain when it reached the explorers
was converted into impalpable mist, so that for about four miles they
did not suffer half as much as they expected to.
But when they reached the southern skirts of the wood, where the hills
disappeared, and there were neither trees nor rising ground, the wind
swept along with awful force, and involuntarily they paused for a
moment. They were still six miles from Cape Michael.
“We are going to have a bad time of it,” shouted Lieutenant Hobson
in the Sergeant’s ear.
“Yes, the wind and rain will conspire to give us a good beating,”
answered Long.
“I am afraid that now and then we shall have hail as well,” added
Hobson.
“It won’t be as deadly as grape-shot,” replied Long coolly, “and
we have both been through that, and so forwards!”
“Forwards, my brave comrade!”
It was then ten o’clock. The twilight was fading away, dying as if
drowned in the mists or quenched by the wind and the rain. There was
still, however, some light, and the Lieutenant struck his flint, and
consulted his compass, passing a piece of burning touchwood over it, and
then, drawing his cloak more closely around him, he plunged after the
Sergeant across the unprotected plain.
At the first step, both were flung violently to the ground, but they
managed to scramble up, and clinging to each other with their backs bent
like two old crippled peasants, they struck into a kind of ambling trot.
There was a kind of awful grandeur in the storm to which neither was
insensible. Jagged masses of mist and ragged rain-clouds swept along
the ground. The loose earth and sand were whirled into the air and flung
down again like grape-shot, and the lips of Hobson and his companion
were wet with salt spray, although the sea was two or three miles
distant at least.
During the rare brief pauses in the gale, they stopped and took breath,
whilst the Lieutenant ascertained their position as accurately as
possible.
The tempest increased as the night advanced, the air and water seemed
to be absolutely confounded together, and low down on the horizon was
formed one of those fearful waterspouts which can overthrow houses, tear
up forests, and which the vessels whose safety they threaten attack with
artillery. It really seemed as if the ocean itself was being torn from
its bed and flung over the devoted little island.
Hobson could not help wondering how it was that the ice-field which
supported it was not broken in a hundred places in this violent
convulsion of the sea, the roaring of which could be distinctly heard
where he stood. Presently Long, who was a few steps in advance, stopped
suddenly, and turning round managed to make the Lieutenant hear the
broken words—
“Not that way!”
“Why not?”
“The sea!”
“What, the sea! We cannot possibly have got to the southeast coast!”
“Look, look, Lieutenant!”
It was true, a vast sheet of water was indistinctly visible before them,
and large waves were rolling up and breaking at the Lieutenant’s feet.
Hobson again had recourse to his flint, and with the aid of some lighted
touchwood consulted the needle of his compass very carefully.
“No,” he said, “the sea is farther to the left, we have not yet
passed the wood between us and Cape Michael.”
“Then it is”——
“It is a fracture of the island!” cried Hobson, as both were
compelled to fling themselves to the ground before the wind, “either
a large portion of our land has been broken off and drifted away, or a
gulf has been made, which we can go round. Forwards!”
They struggled to their feet and turned to the right towards the
centre of the island. For about ten minutes they pressed on in silence,
fearing, not without reason, that all communication with the south of
the island would be found to be cut off. Presently, however, they no
longer heard the noise of the breakers.
“It is only a gulf.” screamed Hobson in the Sergeant’s ear. “Let
us turn round.”
And they resumed their original direction towards the south, but both
knew only too well that they had a fearful danger to face, for that
portion of the island on which they were was evidently cracked for a
long distance, and might at any moment separate entirely; should it do
so under the influence of the waves, they would inevitably be drifted
away, whither they knew not. Yet they did not hesitate, but plunged into
the mist, not even pausing to wonder if they should ever get back.
What anxious forebodings must, however, have pressed upon the heart of
the Lieutenant. Could he now hope that the island would hold together
until the winter? had not the inevitable breaking up already commenced?
If the wind should not drive them on to the coast, were they not doomed
to perish very soon, to be swallowed up by the deep, leaving no trace
behind them? What a fearful prospect for all the unconscious inhabitants
of the fort!
But through it all the two men, upheld by the consciousness of a duty to
perform, bravely struggled on against the gale, which nearly tore them
to pieces, along the new beach, the foam sometimes bathing their feet,
and presently gained the large wood which shut in Cape Michael. This
they would have to cross to get to the coast by the shortest route,
and they entered it in complete darkness, the wind thundering among the
branches over their heads. Everything seemed to be breaking to pieces
around them, the dislocated branches intercepted their passage, and
every moment they ran a risk of being crushed beneath a falling tree, or
they stumbled over a stump they had not been able to see in the gloom.
The noise of the waves on the other side of the wood was a sufficient
guide to their steps, and sometimes the furious breakers shook the
weakened ground beneath their feet. Holding each other’s hands lest
they should lose each other, supporting each other, and the one helping
the other up when he fell over some obstacle, they at last reached the
point for which they were bound.
But the instant they quitted the shelter of the wood a perfect whirlwind
tore them asunder, and flung them upon the ground.
“Sergeant, Sergeant! Where are you?” cried Hobson with all the
strength of his lungs.
“Here, here!” roared Long in reply.
And creeping on the ground they struggled to reach each other; but it
seemed as if a powerful hand rivetted them to the spot on which they had
fallen, and it was only after many futile efforts that they managed
to reach each other. Having done so, they tied their belts together to
prevent another separation, and crept along the sand to a little rising
ground crowned by a small clump of pines. Once there they were a little
more protected, and they proceeded to dig themselves a hole, in which
they crouched in a state of absolute exhaustion and prostration.
It was half-past eleven o’clock P.M.
For some minutes neither spoke. With eyes half closed they lay in a kind
of torpor, whilst the trees above them bent beneath the wind, and their
branches rattled like the bones of a skeleton. But yet again they roused
themselves from this fatal lethargy, and a few mouthfuls of rum from the
Sergeant’s flask revived them.
“Let us hope these trees will hold,” at last observed Hobson.
“And that our hole will not blow away with them,” added the
Sergeant, crouching in the soft sand.
“Well!” said Hobson, “here we are at last, a few feet from Cape
Michael, and as we came to make observations, let us make them. I have
a presentiment, Sergeant, only a presentiment, remember, that we are not
far from firm ground!”
Had the southern horizon been visible the two adventurers would have
been able to see two-thirds of it from their position; but it was too
dark to make out anything, and if the hurricane had indeed driven them
within sight of land, they would not be able to see it until daylight,
unless a fire should be lighted on the continent.
As the Lieutenant had told Mrs Barnett, fishermen often visited that
part of North America, which is called New Georgia, and there are a good
many small native colonies, the members of which collect the teeth of
mammoths, these fossil elephants being very numerous in these
latitudes. A few degrees farther south, on the island of Sitka, rises
New-Archangel, the principal settlement in Russian America, and the
head-quarters of the Russian Fur Company, whose jurisdiction once
extended over the whole of the Aleutian Islands. The shores of the
Arctic Ocean are, however, the favourite resort of hunters, especially
since the Hudson’s Bay Company took a lease of the districts formerly
in the hands of the Russians; and Hobson, although he knew nothing
of the country, was well acquainted with the habits of those who were
likely to visit it at this time of the year, and was justified in
thinking that he might meet fellow-countrymen, perhaps even members of
his own Company, or, failing them, some native Indians, scouring the
coasts.
But could the Lieutenant reasonably hope that Victoria Island had been
driven towards the coast?
“Yes, a hundred times yes,” he repeated to the Sergeant again
and again. “For seven days a hurricane has been blowing from the
northeast, and although I know that the island is very flat, and there
is not much for the wind to take hold of, still all these little hills
and woods spread out like sails must have felt the influence of the wind
to a certain extent. Moreover, the sea which bears us along feels its
power, and large waves are certainly running in shore. It is impossible
for us to have remained in the current which was dragging us to the
west, we must have been driven out of it, and towards the south. Last
time we took our bearings we were two hundred miles from the coast, and
in seven days “——
“Your reasonings are very just, Lieutenant,” replied the Sergeant,
“and I feel that whether the wind helps us or not, God will not
forsake us. It cannot be His will that so many unfortunate creatures
should perish, and I put my trust in Him!”
The two talked on in broken sentences, making each other hear above the
roaring of the storm, and struggling to pierce the gloom which closed
them in on every side; but they could see nothing, not a ray of light
broke the thick darkness.
About half past one A.M. the hurricane ceased for a few minutes, whilst
the fury of the sea seemed to be redoubled, and the large waves, lashed
into foam, broke over each other with a roar like thunder.
Suddenly Hobson seizing his companion’s arm shouted—
“Sergeant, do you hear?”
“What?”
“The noise of the sea?”
“Of course I do, sir,” replied Long, listening more attentively,
“and the sound of the breakers seems to me not”——
“Not exactly the same... isn’t it Sergeant; listen, listen, it
is like the sound of surf!... it seems as if the waves were breaking
against rocks!”
Hobson and the Sergeant now listened intently, the monotonous sound
of the waves dashing against each other in the offing was certainly
exchanged for the regular rolling sound produced by the breaking of
water against a hard body; they heard the reverberating echoes which
told of the neighbourhood of rocks, and they knew that along the whole
of the coast of their island there was not a single stone, and nothing
more sonorous than the earth and sand of which it was composed!
Could they have been deceived? The Sergeant tried to rise to listen
better, but he was immediately flung down by the hurricane, which
recommenced with renewed violence. The lull was over, and again the
noise of the waves was drowned in the shrill whistling of the wind, and
the peculiar echo could no longer be made out.
The anxiety of the two explorers will readily be imagined. They again
crouched down in their hole, doubting whether it would not perhaps be
prudent to leave even this shelter, for they felt the sand giving
way beneath them, and the pines cracking at their very roots. They
persevered, however, in gazing towards the south, every nerve strained
to the utmost, in the effort to distinguish objects through the
darkness.
The first grey twilight of the dawn might soon be expected to appear,
and a little before half-past two A.M. Long suddenly exclaimed:
“I see it!”
“What?”
“A fire!”
“A fire?”
“Yes, there—over there!”
And he pointed to the south-west. Was he mistaken? No, for Hobson also
made out a faint glimmer in the direction indicated.
“Yes!” he cried, “yes, Sergeant, a fire; there is land there!”
“Unless it is a fire on board ship,” replied Long.
“A ship at sea in this weather!” exclaimed Hobson, “impossible!
No, no, there is land there, land I tell you, a few miles from us!”
“Well, let us make a signal!”
“Yes, Sergeant, we will reply to the fire on the mainland by a fire on
our island!”
Of course neither Hobson nor Long had a torch, but above their heads
rose resinous pines distorted by the hurricane.
“Your flint, Sergeant,” said Hobson.
Long at once struck his flint, lighted the touchwood, and creeping along
the sand climbed to the foot of the thicket of firs, where he was soon
joined by the Lieutenant. There was plenty of deadwood about, and they
piled it up at the stems of the trees, set fire to it, and soon, the
wind helping them, they had the satisfaction of seeing the whole thicket
in a blaze
“Ah!” said Hobson, “as we saw their fire, they will see ours!”
The firs burnt with a lurid glare like a large torch. The dried resin in
the old trunks aided the conflagration, and they were rapidly consumed.
At last the crackling ceased, the flames died away, and all was
darkness.
Hobson and Long looked in vain for an answering fire—nothing was to be
seen. For ten minutes they watched, hoping against hope, and were just
beginning to despair, when suddenly a cry was heard, a distinct cry for
help. It was a human voice, and it came from the sea.
Hobson and Long, wild with eager anxiety, let themselves slide down to
the shore.
The cry was not, however, repeated.
The daylight was now gradually beginning to appear, and the violence of
the tempest seemed to be decreasing. Soon it was light enough for the
horizon to be examined.
But there was no land in sight, sea and sky were still blended in one
unbroken circle.