"Why, Harry, how's this?" he exclaimed. "I thought you said there
wasn't no land within a hundred and fifty mile of us last night, and
here's as pretty a little spot, close aboard of us, as a man need wish
to set his eyes upon."
"I went by the chart," I answered, "and that showed a clear sea all
about here. But you can never rely upon a chart here, in the Pacific;
what is clear sea at the time that a survey is being made, may very
possibly be dotted with a score of such small islands as the one ahead
in a very few years. I have read that coral islands form very rapidly.
This one, however, cannot be of such very recent growth, for there are
full-grown cocoa-nuts upon it, as well as other trees; I am surprised
that it is not shown on the chart."
I said this as I was standing at the foot of the mast, and on the point
of going aloft. In a few seconds more I was standing on the crosstrees
and examining the line of surf ahead for the narrow strip of unbroken
water which would indicate the existence of a passage through the reef.
As I stood thus, my gaze was arrested by the appearance of a small
object in rapid motion across the bosom of the lagoon inside the reef,
and a scrutiny of a few seconds was sufficient to satisfy me that it was
a canoe. Seating myself upon the crosstrees, that I might more
conveniently use the glass which I had taken aloft with me, I quickly
focussed the instrument and brought it to bear. With its assistance, I
was now enabled to discern that the canoe was a craft of about the same
size as the one which we had towing astern, and it held three persons.
The two who wielded the paddles were black, but, unless my eyes
strangely deceived me, the third was a _white man_.
I cannot attempt to describe the extraordinary feeling which came upon
me at this discovery.
"Can it be possible," thought I, "that this is the island upon which the
_Amazon_ was cast away, and am I about to have the inexpressible joy of
seeing my beloved father once more, and so unexpectedly as this?" I
again had recourse to the glass, and being now somewhat nearer, I no
longer had any room for doubt; the individual who sat in the stern of
the canoe, and who, I now saw, was steering the craft with a paddle,
_was_ undoubtedly white. I now observed, too, that the canoe was
passing through an opening in the south-western edge of the reef. The
passage would have escaped my notice in the then position of the cutter,
had it not been for seeing the canoe passing through it, for it was
broadside-on to us, as it were, and the unbroken water was therefore not
easily detected. I turned my telescope upon the island, and now saw a
thin film of light blue smoke, as from a wood fire, rising from among
the trees; but there was no sign of a wreck of any description within
view, and if anything of the kind existed, it must be on the other side
of the island.
The canoe was by this time in open water, and I saw that she was
paddling along the edge of the reef towards us. Bob now made her out
from the deck, and hailed me, asking if I saw her. I answered that I
did, and, in an uncontrollable tumult of excitement, descended to the
deck. I directed Bob to keep the cutter away for the canoe, for,
strangely enough, the thought never entered my head that her occupants
might be enemies. I ran down below and got up our club-ensign, which I
hoisted at the peak, and as it blew out in the fresh morning breeze, we
saw the figure in the stern of the canoe rise to his feet and wave his
hat. I took up my glass once more, and was now able to make out that
this figure was tall, deeply bronzed by the sun, and had grey hair and a
thick bushy grey beard.
"That is a white man, Bob, in that canoe," said I excitedly.
"A white man!" exclaimed Bob; "then it's the skipper, Harry, for a
thousand pounds."
"No such luck, Bob, I am afraid," replied I; "this man is grey-haired,
and my poor father's hair was dark brown, if you recollect."
"True," answered Bob; "but if not the skipper hisself, it may be
somebody belonging to him."
"That cannot be, either," I returned; "for according to the account we
received from the seaman, there was no one left with him but the chief
mate, who, I presume, was Winter--who, you will recollect, was put into
your berth when you met with your accident; and Winter was quite a young
man--scarcely thirty, I believe."
"Well, whoever it may be, we shall soon find out all about him now, for
we shall be alongside the little hooker in another five minutes,"
remarked Bob philosophically, but with evident disappointment in the
tone of his voice.
This was true, for we were nearing the canoe fast. I again had recourse
to my telescope, and with its assistance, was now able to see with
perfect distinctness the occupants of the canoe. I scanned with the
greatest intentness the features of him who was steering, and who was
facing directly towards us; and as I did so, in a tumult of the most
painful agitation and suspense, feature after feature once more became
familiar, and notwithstanding the grey hair and beard, I at length
recognised, with unspeakable joy, my father.
"Hurrah!" I shouted; "hurrah! it is he--it _is_ my father, Bob; and we
have found him after all, and that when we little expected to do so.
Thank God; oh! thank God!"
"Amen," answered Bob, taking off his tarpaulin reverently for a moment,
while the tears rolled down his weather-beaten cheeks.
We took room, and rounded the cutter to, and as she came up into the
wind, with all her canvas shaking, the natives vigorously plied their
paddles, and with a few lusty strokes shot their light craft alongside.
I went to the gangway, and held out my hand to assist my father in over
our low bulwarks, whilst Bob hove the end of a coil of line into the
canoe, shouting to the blacks, "Now then, darkies, look out, and catch a
turn with this here rope's-end, will ye? for if you goes astarn, you'll
have all your work afore ye to overhaul us and get alongside again."
"Good Heaven! that voice--surely I should know it," murmured my father.
"Thank you, sir. Yours is the first sail I have seen for--Why, how is
this?"
I had been unable to control myself any longer; and, to my father's
infinite surprise, he suddenly found himself in my embrace, and, as
suddenly, recognised the tones of the voice which called him "father."
I thought the dear old man would have fainted, but he rallied himself
with a powerful effort, though it was some little time before he could
speak. At length--
"My son! my noble boy Harry," exclaimed he. "Great God! Merciful
Father! I thank Thee for this great and unexpected mercy. Little did I
think, my dear boy, when I saw your white sails standing in for the
island, what unexpected happiness awaited me. And, if I mistake not,"
added he, "this is my old friend and staunch shipmate, Robert Trunnion.
This is indeed a happy day for me," grasping Bob's hand heartily, "a day
I have despaired of ever seeing again. But, tell me, what has happened,
and how come you to be here in this small cockle-shell of a craft? You
surely cannot have been cast away, and have built her yourselves. If
you have, you are wonderfully good shipwrights. And how came you to
find out that I was here? or is this happy meeting the result of
accident? Everything is so surprising that I feel perfectly
bewildered."
"You shall know all, dear sir, in good time," I answered. "The story is
too long to be told in a breath. Let us get inside, and come to an
anchor; and as soon as we are sufficiently recovered from our present
excitement to tell an intelligible tale, you shall know everything."
"Well, well, so be it," answered my father; "and I suppose I had better
play pilot in navigating this `seventy-four' of yours through the
channel. What water do you draw?"
"Seven feet aft," I answered, "and she works to perfection; so you will
have no difficulty with her."
"So much the better," answered my father, "as it will be rather ticklish
work. Keep her well to windward, Robert; do not go closer than forty
fathoms to the southern extremity of the surf. And now, my dear boy,
one word more. How is your sister?"
"Well; quite well, I am happy to say. At least, she was so when we left
England, little more than four months ago," I answered; "and so was
everybody else in whom we are interested."
"I am delighted beyond measure to hear it," returned my father; "this is
_good_ news, better than I could have dared to hope. Now keep her away,
Robert. Starboard your helm--hard a-starboard; so, steady now as you
go. Do you see the opening of the channel? Steer as straight as you
like for it. This _will_ be a surprise for Winter, indeed."
"He is still with you, then, dear sir?" said I. "I trust he is in good
health."
"Yes, I am happy to say he is quite well," returned my father. "Indeed
we have neither of us had a day's illness since we have been on the
island. I was quite an invalid at the time that the ship was lost,
certainly but I soon recovered, thanks to Winter's care and good
nursing. But how did you know of his being with me?"
"We learned your whole story, from the time of your sailing for home up
to the day of your being so shamefully abandoned," I replied, "and that
by the merest accident. We happened to fall in with one of the men whom
you shipped at Canton, on board a vessel which we boarded on the line,
on our passage out. But here is some one with whom I must make you
acquainted, dear sir," I continued, as Ella's fair head appeared at the
companion.
I then introduced her to my father, briefly narrating the circumstances
under which she became a member of our little crew, and frankly
explaining the relation in which we now stood towards each other. When
I had finished my explanation, my father took the dear little girl by
the hand, kissed her on the forehead, and said a few kind words to
relieve the embarrassment and agitation under which it was evident she
was suffering; and I had the very great satisfaction of seeing that
these two beings, in whom I was so warmly interested, were mutually
impressed very favourably towards each other.
We soon worked through the short passage in the reef, and then stood
away to the westward, rounding the southern extremity of the island very
shortly afterwards. The moment that we cleared this point, and opened
the western side of the island, Bob shouted, "Ah! there lies the dear
old barkie, sure enough. Look at her, Harry, lad. She's sorely mauled
about, poor old beauty, but I should still ha' knowed her anywheres, as
far as these old eyes could see her."
There, indeed, lay the wreck of the _Amazon_, close to the beach, about
two miles off, and sorely mauled about she was; so much so, that I
greatly doubted whether Bob would ever have identified her as our old
ship, had not my father's presence, and the story we had already heard
of her loss, assisted him. Her three lower masts were still standing,
but the whole of her upper works were gone, and I at first supposed that
they had been used for fire-wood, until we opened up a tiny bay somewhat
nearer us to the southward, and saw a small vessel in process of being
built on the beach.
"You have established a shipyard here, I see, sir," I remarked, as this
object came in view.
"Yes," answered my father; "but we have made but poor progress, so far.
You will be of the greatest assistance to us, my dear boy--you and
Robert here. Since you have managed to turn out such a sweet little
craft as this cutter, I shall be strongly inclined to pull our work to
pieces and begin all over again afresh."
"How do you mean, sir?" I inquired. "You surely do not imagine that
Bob and I built this cutter?"
"Did you not?" returned my father. "Then where did you pick her up?"
"She was built on the Thames," I replied; "and Bob and I have managed to
bring her out here between us."
My father was greatly surprised at hearing this, but as we were now
approaching the anchorage, it was decided to defer all explanations
until we could have an opportunity of proceeding with them in a
straightforward fashion. Sail was shortened, and in about ten minutes
afterwards we dropped our anchor in a pretty little well-sheltered bay,
within a couple of cables' length of the beach, and in full view of a
neat little cottage constructed of bamboo, which stood on a lawn of
about an acre in extent, environed with beautiful tropical trees and
plants.
Winter was down on the beach full of curiosity respecting the
new-comers, and I will leave to the reader's imagination the surprise
and delight with which he recognised in them two of his old shipmates.
The two canoes conveyed all hands of us ashore, and my father, after
welcoming us heartily to "his dominions" as we stepped from the canoes
to the beach, gave his arm to Ella, and with me on his other side, and
Bob and Winter following arm-in-arm astern, and the two natives bringing
up the rear, we at once wended our way to the cottage, where we found
that Winter had prepared a sumptuous breakfast in anticipation of our
arrival.
Whilst discussing this meal, I related, at my father's earnest
solicitation, our whole story, commencing with an account of the wreck
on Portland beach, and of the tale of the treasure-island told by the
dying Spaniard, and then going on to relate how we had been induced, by
a belief in this story, to build and fit out the _Water Lily_ and sail
in her in search of the treasure, mentioning, in due course, our meeting
with the seaman who had given us a clue to the _Amazon's_ fate, and of
our resolve, therefore, to search the whole Archipelago, if need be, for
the abandoned ones; and winding up with an account of our late
achievement of the destruction of the _Albatross_, and of the consequent
imprisonment of her crew upon the island we had so recently sailed from.
Great was the surprise of my father and his companion as I proceeded,
and frequent their comments and interruptions; but at last I got through
with it, and then, of course, I became anxious, in my turn, to hear how
matters had gone with my father and Winter during their long stay where
they now were.
"I have very little to tell," replied my father, in answer to my
questions; "and that little I should not now be alive to relate, but for
the unceasing care and attention of my friend and comrade, Winter, here,
who refused to save himself from a possible lifetime of captivity on
this island by deserting his commander. He watched me all through a
long and tedious illness, and, under God, was the means of saving my
life for this happy moment. We have never _quite_ despaired of being
restored to home and friends, but latterly we have felt that our
deliverance might be the work of years. At first, we were kept buoyed
up by the hope of being rescued by some passing vessel; but, though we
have maintained a ceaseless watch, we have never sighted a single sail
from the moment of our first arrival here until you hove in sight this
morning. All my charts and instruments of every description were
carried off when the mutineers left in the boats, so that I have but a
very remote idea of our actual whereabouts, but we must be in a very
out-of-the-way corner of the globe, as indeed I now gather clearly from
what you have told me. Our first work, after my recovery, was the
building of this hut: and then followed the preparation of a garden, a
short distance inland from here, so that we might secure the means of
existence. As soon as this was completed to our satisfaction, we went
to work upon the building of a small vessel; but our appliances were so
inadequate to the task, that our progress has been excessively slow, as
you may judge when I tell you that we have been at work now fully two
years, and the craft is yet barely half-finished. Latterly, indeed, we
have got on somewhat better, for the two blacks--who, as far as I can
learn from their signs and the few words of English they have picked up
since being with us, were blown off their own island in a gale of wind,
and came ashore here in the last stare of exhaustion--have been of the
greatest assistance to us in the mere handling of heavy weights; and now
that you have joined us, I think we may make short work of the remainder
of the job."
I was at first disposed to suggest the abandonment of the half-finished
schooner (for such she was), but, on more mature consideration, I came
to the conclusion that it would be better to finish her, on many
accounts--the chief of which was that as we now mustered seven hands,
all told, including the blacks, whom we could not leave behind, we
should be uncomfortably crowded on board the cutter; and I doubted much
whether we could find room to stow away, in so small a craft, a
sufficiency of water, to say nothing of provisions for so large a party.
The day was, of course, declared a high holiday on the island; and,
after our mutual explanations had been fully given, we all--the whites,
of course, that is--proceeded to the beach to inspect the craft on the
stocks. She was a much larger craft than the _Lily_, measuring fully
thirty tons. My father and Winter had given a great deal of care and
attention to her design, and the result was a very pretty model, though
her lines were by no means so fine as the cutter's. She was immensely
strong, owing to the fact that it was less laborious to build in the
timbers just as they were taken from the _Amazon_, or only with such
alterations as were imperatively necessary to bring them to the required
shape, than it would have been to reduce them with the imperfect tools
in the possession of the builders. The whole of her framing was set up
and secured, and the garboard and two adjacent streaks on each side
bolted to and that was all. I could easily understand, as I looked on
her massive timbers, how great must have been the labour for two pair of
hands to bring her even thus far forward; and, in addition to this,
there was the pulling of it all to pieces, in the first instance, on
board the parent ship, and the rafting of the materials down to the bay
afterwards.
After taking a good look at the craft, we shoved off in the canoes for
the wreck, calling on board the cutter on our way, that my father and
Winter might satisfy the curiosity they felt concerning the little craft
which had so successfully traversed so many thousand miles of ocean.
They were, naturally, delighted at everything they saw, and admired her
model greatly: but were, nevertheless, loud in their expressions of
wonder at what they termed our temerity in venturing on so long a voyage
in such a mere boat.
A quiet paddle of about half-an-hour took us alongside the wreck, which
lay grounded in about ten feet of water, pretty much as she had been
left by the mutineers. We had no difficulty in boarding, a substantial
accommodation-ladder having been constructed to facilitate so frequent
an operation. There was not much to see when we stood upon her deck--
the whole of the poop having been removed to furnish materials for the
schooner; but Bob and I naturally felt a deep interest in the ship which
had formerly been our floating home, and as to whose fate we had for so
long been in a state of such painful uncertainty.
We remained on board about an hour, during which Ella insisted on having
pointed out to her the exact spot which my old berth had formerly
occupied; and then we returned to the shore and visited the garden,
which had been formed in a small natural clearing within about a quarter
of a mile of the house. Here we found a goodly patch of wheat, almost
ready for the sickle: a large plot of potatoes, which, my father said,
grew but indifferently well in that climate a few other English
vegetables, some yams, and several fruit-trees of various kinds,
including the very useful breadfruit, which had been carefully selected
and as carefully transplanted to their present position, where they had
flourished amazingly under the not very efficient gardening skill which
had been bestowed upon them by the two recluses. Of animal food there
was no lack, the small island being almost overrun by the many
descendants of three pigs and half-a-dozen fowls, which the mutineers
had, in an unaccountable paroxysm of generosity, left behind.
The remainder of the day was spent in a tour quite over my father's
limited dominions, Bob and Winter having, however, devoted the afternoon
to the rigging-up of a couple of tents close alongside the hut, for the
accommodation of us of the cutter's crew. During our ramble, which Ella
shared--though she at first wished to remain aloof, thinking my father
and I might have private matters to discuss after so long a separation--
the subject of the treasure-island again came uppermost; and my father
seemed to be strongly of opinion that, in spite of our failure to find
it, it really existed, and that our disappointment had arisen in some
error as to its exact position. For my own part, I hardly knew what to
think. I could not for a moment believe that the Spaniard, knowing
himself to be a dying man, would tell a wanton and objectless falsehood;
and I had never supposed him to be otherwise than in the full possession
of his senses whilst relating his story. But he had given the position
of the island definitely, and, on our arrival at the latitude and
longitude named, we had found no land at all. True, there had been a
certain amount of reservation in his statement. He had given the
position "as near as he could ascertain it," or in words to that effect;
but, allowing the possibility of an error, that error was not likely to
exceed a few miles, and I thought that, had the island really existed,
we ought to have been able, at all events, to see it from our mast-head
when in the position ascribed to it.
We talked the matter over at some length--for no one is quite
indifferent to the advantages accruing from the possession of wealth--
but we could make nothing very satisfactory of it; so at last the
subject was changed, and we discussed and arranged our plan of immediate
operations, my father's longing for home being a thousand times
increased now that he knew we had sent information home of the
possibility of his still being in existence. We all fully shared in his
impatience, as I knew that Ada would soon begin to feel uneasy, if she
were not already so, at the long period which had now elapsed since she
could last have heard from or of us. As for Winter, he was a Portland
man, and the stories Bob told him of his kith and kin fully aroused his
semi-dormant longings to see them all once more.
The next morning, we all turned to with a will upon the schooner. It
happened that more materials were required from the wreck; and the
obtaining of these, and the rafting of them down to the shipyard, had
hitherto been a work involving the expenditure of much time and great
labour, as, until the arrival of the two blacks in their canoe about six
months before, my father had nothing in the shape of a boat, excepting a
rude catamaran sort of an affair and after the acquisition of the canoe,
though she was, of course, most useful for many purposes, the rafting
down of the timbers and planking was almost as tedious and laborious an
operation as ever, the canoe being too small and too light for towing
purposes, and their usual mode of procedure had been to kedge down
everything.
But our arrival put an entirely new phase upon this part of the
business. We got out our tube-boat, and put her together and rigged
her; and then we six men--four whites and the two natives, who were
strong, active lads--manned her and the cutter, and proceeded to the
wreck, where we combined our forces in taking apart such portions of the
wreck as we thought most suitable for our purpose.
By the middle of the afternoon two good-sized rafts were in the water,
and the _Lily_ taking one of these in tow, and the tube-boat (which Bob
insisted on christening as the _Ella_) the other, we got the whole down
to the bay and moored to the beach in little more than an hour--a task
which, my father declared had usually occupied him and Winter the best
part of a day, and even then the amount of material transported had
scarcely been a quarter as great as that now brought down. So great,
indeed, had been the additional assistance afforded by the two pairs of
strong arms belonging to the cutter's crew, that we considered we now
had a sufficiency of material to plank the schooner right up to her
gunwale.
I do not know whether I have mentioned it before or not, but, in fitting
out the _Water Lily_, I had provided a very complete chest of
carpenter's tools, so that we might have the means of effecting any
necessary repairs to the cutter, as far as our skill would allow and
these now came into play with excellent effect.
We all worked in high spirits, for it was now no longer a doubtful
question as to whether the schooner could be finished or not, the
additional strength contributed by Bob and myself being found just
sufficient to render manageable, and comparatively easy, work which had
before proved too heavy for my father and Winter alone, or even when
aided by the two natives. These, I may as well now mention, were two
lads of about eighteen years of age, and, having been treated very
kindly from their first arrival by my father, proved very tractable and
willing, and altogether very valuable aids in many respects.
We were none of us very skilful in the handling of tools, and our work
was, consequently, of no very highly finished character but everything
was as strong as wood and iron could make it, and within a fortnight we
had contrived, by dint of sheer hard work, to get the schooner planked
right up.
At first we had a great deal of difficulty with our fastenings, from
want of a smith or a smith's forge; and this had been the greatest bar
to my father's progress. Ella was the means of helping us out of this
difficulty, by suggesting an idea which I think would never have
occurred to any of us men. This was neither more nor less than the
construction of a rude but efficient smith's hearth out of some old
sheet and pig iron obtained from the wreck, and the manufacture of a
bellows from some boards and stout tarpaulin, the nozzle being made of
bamboo, and inserted into an orifice in the hearth which was packed
air-tight with clay. It was a clumsy contrivance certainly, but it
answered our purpose well enough to save us a great deal of time and
labour.
The laying of the deck was our next task; and it took us another
fortnight to do this, as we resolved that everything should be as well
done as possible. This was exclusive of the time occupied in fixing the
combings of the hatch and fore-scuttle, cabin-companion, skylight, and
other openings. As we "got our hands in," however, we made more rapid
progress; and, in little more than two months from the date of the
_Water Lily's_ arrival, the hull of the schooner was completed and in
readiness for the reception of her spars. These we got out of the spars
of the wreck, all of which had been sent down long before by my father
and Winter, and carefully stored up for this very purpose.
Another month saw these spars all shaped and fitted, and ready to be put
into their places. This had been the work of my father and myself,
aided in the lifting, turning over, and shifting generally by the
natives, Bob and Winter busying themselves meanwhile in the manufacture
of a suit of sails from those belonging to the _Amazon_. Our rigging
was not very trustworthy, being manufactured, for the most part, out of
the old rigging of the wreck; but there had been a good supply of new
rope also on board, as a stand-by, and this we had used in, as far as it
would go, in the most important parts.
We decided to rig the craft complete upon the stocks, and then launch
her, and tow her down alongside the wreck, to take in ballast, and her
water-tanks, stores, etc. This we accordingly did, finishing off
everything, even to the bending of the sails; and four months to a day
after the _Water Lily's_ arrival saw her caulked, her seams paid, her
hull painted, and, in short, everything ready, even to wedging up, for
launching.
Volume Two, Chapter IX.