LAND!
Our progress was slow. For some while we carried strong winds, which
swept us onwards into the softer climates of the Pacific; they then
failed us, and were followed by a succession of light airs, as often
ahead as astern. I was astonished, however, by the yacht-like qualities
of motion of the little barque. Through weather that had scarcely weight
enough in it to have stirred the _Countess Ida_, the _Lady Blanche_
would sneak over a surface of water that was often glass-like, ripples
fine as wire breaking away from her keen stem, and a short wake scoring
the liquid smoothness under her counter; her topsails and courses
motionless, save but for their soft swaying to the long and gentle
respiration of the swell; a faint lifting, however, perceptible in the
light cloths of the loftier sails, which were doing the work of the
rest, and communicating to the little fabric out of the delicate
softness of the blue Pacific heavens, so to speak, an impulse of
vitality, the recollection of which would move me to amazement when I
found that our progress in the twenty-four hours had been as
considerable as the Indiaman would have got out of a pleasant breeze.
But not to linger upon this time—though I could tell much of my
incessant intimate association with Miss Temple—dwell with delight,
untinctured by recollection of the miseries and anxieties of this
passage, upon the memory of the soft and lovely nights of those
delicious parallels, the clear dusk radiant with the glistening of stars
from sea-line to sea-line, the mild atmosphere, sweet with dew, the hush
upon the slumbering leagues of the deep, soothing as a benediction to
the perturbed spirit, the play of delicate fires in the water, the
stirring of canvas in the still gloom aloft, as of the brushing of the
pinions of hovering creatures: then the wide blue sparkling scene of
day, the barque clothed in the ivory whiteness of her canvas striking a
prismatic shadow of pearl from her white sides and silken heights into
the opalescent profound, on which she would rest as on a bed of glass,
some distant fountain and curve of wet black body denoting the rising of
a leviathan from the depths—ah! had all been well with us, this would
have made a noble time for the memory to muse on—but my story draws me
to its conclusion.
It was February the 18th, as very well indeed do I remember. From the
hour of our having sighted the whaler off Cape Horn, we had met with
nothing, not even of the bigness of the tip of the wing of a sea-fowl,
to break the continuity of the sea-line, no shadow of low-lying land, no
vision of star-like space of water indicating the froth of the submerged
reef. On this day at noon, having worked out my calculations, I
discovered that the distance to Braine’s island, as I may call it, from
the then situation of the barque, was to be traversed, if the light air
held as it was, in about twelve hours; so that it would be proper to
keep a lookout for it at about midnight.
I gave Mr. Lush this piece of news; he received it with a flush of
excitement that almost humanised the insipid coarseness of his dull,
wooden, leather-bound, weather-hardened visage.
‘Ye may calculate upon our keeping a bright lookout, sir,’ said he with
a grin that disclosed his tobacco-coloured fangs, and that might fairly
be called sardonic, since the eyes bore no part in this disagreeable
expression of satisfaction.
I watched him walk forwards to convey the information to the men. They
went in a whole body on to the forecastle, and stood staring about them,
as though the ocean wore a new countenance to their gaze, now that they
believed Braine’s island to be a short distance past the slope of it.
The carpenter pointed, and was full of talk; there was much lighting of
pipes, expectoration, puffing of great clouds indicative of emotion,
uneasy, impatient, flitting movements amongst the men, some of whom
presently broke up into couples and fell to pacing the forecastle like
marines on sentry; talking, as I did not doubt, of the money they were
going to dig up, what they would do with it when they had it, and so on;
the expressions on their faces varying at every instant, one emotion
suppressing another in a manner that to a contemplative and leisurely
eye would have provided a study at once ludicrous and informing.
I had the watch that afternoon; and when Miss Temple and I had eaten our
little midday meal, I drew chairs into the shadow of the short awning,
and we sat together, I, pipe in mouth, occasionally quitting her side to
take a look outside the edge of our canvas roof, along with a brief
stare ahead, for I could not be sure of Captain Braine’s chronometer,
nor of the exactness of my own calculations, and if the madman’s island
was where he had declared it to be, it might heave into view off either
bow or right ahead at any moment, for all I could tell.
Miss Temple stood in no need now of Captain Braine’s overcoat. She was
habited in the costume of the _Countess Ida_; somewhat soiled it was,
yet the perfect fit of it continued to atone for its shipwrecked airs.
Her dark eyes glowed under the shadow of the straw hat she had had on
when she left the Indiaman. She needed but her jewelry, the flash and
decoration of her trinkets, to show very nearly as finely as she had on
that day. There was but little alteration visible in her. For my part I
could detect no more than that her face was a trifle thinner than when
we had first entered on this wild adventure. The eye of close and
constant association would not indeed witness changes which might
instantly be perceptible to one encountered after an absence. Still, I
had the image of her brilliant on my mind as she was on board the
Indiaman, and viewing her now, as I say, I could perceive no other
change than what I have mentioned. Intellectually, however, there was an
alteration, defined to a degree to my sight. Her gaze was softened, and
was often sweet. The characteristic firmness of her lips had lost its
air of haughtiness. There was no longer any manner of command in her
looks, nor of exaction in her fixed regard; there was nothing to hint
that her spirit was broken—merely that it had been bowed to an average
human level by the rough usage of the sea, and by the amazing
experiences with which her months of lonely association with me had been
surcharged.
Heretofore, that is to say for some weeks past, she had exhibited a
resigned, calm, resolved behaviour, as of one who was constantly
schooling herself to prepare for an issue of life or death. She had long
ceased to utter a complaint; she would even detect a sigh in herself
with a glance of contrition and self-reproach. Again and again had I
complimented her upon the heroic qualities which her sufferings of mind
and body had fructified in her; but this afternoon she was feverishly
impatient and restless. The old fires of her spirit when alarmed were in
her eyes. I would observe her struggling in vain to appear composed. As
we sat together, she exclaimed, as she brought her eyes to my face from
a nervous sweeping gaze at the horizon over the bows: ‘By this time
to-morrow we shall know our fate.’
‘Perhaps not. Yet I pray it may be so. If I were sentenced to be hanged,
I would wish the hour come. But what is to be our fate? Nothing in this
life is so bad or so good as our fears or our hopes would have us think.
If there should be no island—— Well, those villains will find me on the
alert for what may come along in the shape of chance, and you must be
ready.’
‘I am ready,’ she exclaimed; ‘only tell me what to do. But this
expectation——’ Her lips trembled, and her white fingers clenched to the
agitation that possessed her. ‘The misery is, Mr. Dugdale, you have no
scheme.’
‘That will come,’ I exclaimed; ‘be calm, and remain hopeful. I might, in
the language of the heroes of novels, hope to reassure you by promising
that if we are to perish we will perish together. I am not a hero, and I
talk with the desire and the intention of living. There may be a few
more adventures yet before us; but your hand is in mine, and I shall not
relinquish it until I conduct you to your mother’s side.’
Of course I talked only to cheer her; yet I hoped even as I spoke, and
my hope gave a tone of conviction to my words that seemed to animate
her, and she smiled whilst her wistful eyes sank, as though to a sudden
reverie.
During the rest of the day the crew were ceaselessly on the move,
passing in and out of the galley and in and out of the forecastle,
pacing the planks with impatience strong in their rolling gait; one or
another of them from time to time springing on to the head rail to peer
thirstily and steadfastly under the shelter of his hand; one or another
again at long intervals ascending to the height of the foreroyal yard,
there to linger, whilst the fellows below gazed up with expectant faces,
and ears greedy for a cry from that lofty summit. The sturdy figure of
the carpenter was conspicuous amongst them. When he came aft, he would
look as though willing to converse with me, but I walked away abruptly
on his approach, and if I chanced to leave the cabin when he was on
deck, I kept to the lee side, contriving an air that even to his
unintelligent gaze must have conveyed the assurance that I wished to
have nothing to do with him.
The breeze was light, just forward enough on the beam to allow of the
foretopmast studding-sail remaining abroad. So weak was the air, that
the barque crept along with erect spars, and the red fly of the dogvane
scarcely flickered to the soft breathings at the royal mast head. I
feared that it would fall a dead calm at sun-down, but greatly to my
satisfaction, there was a small freshening in the breeze whilst the
scarlet yet lay gloriously upon the cloudless countenance of the west.
Indeed, my own almost crazy anxieties and expectation made the mere
fancy of a spell of stagnation abhorrent to me. Supposing the
chronometer below to be correct, I was in little doubt of the accuracy
of my computations, and my desire to verify or disprove the madman’s
assurance was consuming and insupportable.
When the night descended it was moonless, and through the pleasant
blowing of the wind, of a singular sweetness and freshness such as I
could not imagine of darkness in any other ocean. The water was now
streaming in a line of whiteness along either side, and the murmur under
the counter was as constant as the voice of a running brook heard amid
the stillness of a summer night. The carpenter had the watch from eight
to twelve; but for my part I could not find it in me to go to my cabin.
Such was my feverishly restless condition, that I knew I should close my
eyes in vain, and that the inactivity of a recumbent posture would
speedily grow irksome and intolerable. Miss Temple entreated me to lie
down upon the locker in the cabin. I answered that I should be unable to
sleep, and that without sleep the mere resting of my limbs would be of
no service to me.
‘But you will have to watch from twelve to four,’ she exclaimed, ‘and at
this rate you will get no sleep to-night.’
I smiled, and answered that Braine and the carpenter between them had
murdered sleep; and then took her on deck, where we walked and conversed
till the hour of eleven—six bells. I then returned with her to the
cabin. She declined to enter her berth; she begged me, and her eyes
pleaded with her voice, to suffer her to remain at my side throughout
the night. But this I would not hear of; I told her that such a vigil
would exhaust her, that her utmost strength might have to be taxed
sooner than either of us could imagine; that she must endeavour to
obtain some repose upon the locker, and that if anything resembling land
showed during my watch, I would call her. I saw a look of reproachful
remonstrance in her face; but compliance was now a habit with her, and
in silence she allowed me to arrange a pillow and to throw a light
blanket, that I fetched from her bed, over her feet. I sat near her at
the table, leaning my cheek on my elbow, and from time to time exchanged
a few words with her. There was hardly any movement in the sea. The wind
held the canvas motionless. The seething alongside was too delicate to
penetrate, and the silence in the little cuddy was unbroken save by the
ticking of a small brass clock under the skylight, and by the measured
tramp of the carpenter overhead.
A little before twelve I looked at my companion, and perceived that she
was asleep. On the eve, as I believed we were, of God alone knew what
sort of events, the spectacle of the slumbering unconscious girl, whose
beauty was never so affecting as when softened, and I may say
spiritualised by the expression of placid repose, moved me to the heart.
What a strange association had been ours! How intimate had we become!
what confidences had our common suffering caused us to exchange! what
condition of shoregoing life was there that could have brought this girl
and me together as we had been and still were? How I loved her, I was
now knowing; I could dwell upon my passion with delight as I looked at
her, though on the threshold of a future that might prove terrible and
destructive to us both. What was the secret of her heart, so far as I
was concerned? I gazed at her lips with some unintelligible hope of
witnessing them shape the syllables of my name; then the clear chimes of
eight bells floated aft. With a sigh and a prayer, I dimmed the cabin
lamp and went softly to the companion steps.
On my emerging, the carpenter came up to me.
‘It’s been blowing a steady air o’ wind,’ said he; ‘allowing for this
here improvement in our pace, what time d’ye reckon the island’ll take
to show itself?’
‘If it exists,’ I answered, ‘it might be in sight now. The captain’s
description showed that there was no height of side to make a loom of.
If you’re going forward, see that a couple of hands are stationed on the
forecastle, and tell them to keep a bright lookout. We don’t want to run
the reef down, if it’s there.’
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he exclaimed in the rough off-hand voice of a sailor
receiving an order, and left the poop.
The time crept away. There was a light burning in the galley; and the
shapes that flitted in and out through the open door, throwing giant
shadows upon the hazy square of illumination on the bulwark abreast of
the galley entrance, satisfied me that most if not all of the men were
awake and on the lookout. Several figures, never less than two, paced
against the stars over the bows with the regular tread of sentinels,
clear on the forecastle under the forecourse by the spaces of the
spangled sky they blotted out as they moved. The breeze continued a
pleasant air, and all about the gliding barque were the summer tinkling
sounds of water gently broken. Occasionally, I would go forward, and
taking my stand on the rise of the cathead where it sloped to the rail,
strain my eyes into the elusive starry dusk where sea and sky seemed to
melt into liquid gloom. No one accosted me as I passed to and fro. Once
I heard the tones of the carpenter in the galley warm in argument. The
fellows pacing the forecastle would come to a halt whenever I went
forward, and stand looking at me in silence, full of expectation, no
doubt, of my being able to see more than they. The very barque herself
seemed to participate in the emotions, the breathless curiosity, the
avid yearnings of the men who awaited the appearance of the island with
restless motions and voices subdued into low growling notes: the ship
herself, I say, seemed governed by the impassioned expectation of the
hour, so tremulously breathless was she aloft, so still and subtle was
her movement through the water, so hearkening the aspect of her forward,
as though the stirless curve of her jibs were ears which she eagerly
projected that she might catch the first sound of the wash of surf.
All this while Miss Temple lay soundly sleeping below.
It was wanting about ten minutes to four when the quarter-deck was
suddenly hailed from the forecastle. The voice rang loud and startlingly
upon the ear used to the continued stillness of the night.
‘Hallo!’ I cried.
‘There’s something dark right ahead,’ came back the answer.
I whipped the glass out of the companion, and walked swiftly forwards
where all the crew had run to the first cry, and where I found them
standing in a huddle of shadowy shapes at the rail, some pointing, and
all looking in one direction.
‘Where away is the object reported?’ I exclaimed.
‘Yonder,’ cried the carpenter, stepping out of the little crowd and
projecting his arm almost on a line with the jib-boom end.
I instantly perceived it! It was just a streak of shadow, low-lying,
like a line of cloud beheld by night lifting a few fathoms of its brow
above the sea-line. I pointed the telescope; and the lenses without
revealing features, resolved the length of airy obscurity into the firm
proportions of land.
‘Is it the island, sir?’ demanded the carpenter in a voice hoarse with
excitement.
My own astonishment—the wonder raised in me by yonder prompt settlement
of the incredulity that had possessed me from the first minute of
hearing the captain’s story—the conflict of emotions which followed on
my considering that the land ahead must inevitably be Braine’s island,
since the chart showed clear water to the distance of the latitude of
Easter Island, which the low stretch over the bows most assuredly was
not, the loom being little more than that of a reef—rendered my ear deaf
to the carpenter’s inquiry. He repeated his question.
‘If not, then I know not what other land it can be,’ said I. ‘How far
distant will it be, think you?’
The men gathered about us to hear what was said.
‘Three mile about,’ he answered.
‘More like five,’ grumbled out a seaman.
‘Five in your eye!’ cried another—‘more like _tew_. If ye’ll stay your
breathing, you’ll hear the wash o’ the surf.’
‘Better shorten sail and wait for daylight, Mr. Lush,’ said I.
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered; ‘that’ll be the proper thing to do;’ and
instantly fell to bellowing out orders.
The uproar of the excited crew clewing up and hauling down, yelling as
they pulled at the ropes, and springing about with an alacrity that made
their darting figures resemble those of madmen, awakened Miss Temple. I
stood alone on the poop, endeavouring to obtain a view of the land by
leaning over the rail, when she came up to me.
‘What is it, Mr. Dugdale?’
‘Land!’ I exclaimed, instantly turning to her.
‘The island?’ she cried, suppressing astonishment until she should have
received my answer.
‘I have no doubt of it. The shadow indicates that it is little more than
a reef. Its bearings, according to my computation, accurately correspond
with those given by Captain Braine.’
She projected her head over the rail, but was some time before she could
distinguish the mere dash of gloom that the land made upon the horizon.
‘If it should be the island!’ she cried. ‘That you should have steered
this ship straight as an arrow for it, and that it should be there—no
madman’s dream, as we have both believed it! If one part of the story be
true, the other part should be so.’
I was too astounded to converse. I could do no more than ejaculate. To
be sure, as my companion had said, if the story of the island was true,
the story of the gold might be equally true. There would be the
treasure, then, for the men to possess themselves of! And afterwards?
My brains seemed to whirl like a teetotum in my skull.
Meanwhile, the sailors had reduced sail till the barque was now under
topsails only, the rest of the canvas hanging from the yards in the grip
of its gear. The carpenter arrived on the poop.
‘Mr. Dugdale,’ he exclaimed, in a rough, congratulatory voice, ‘you’ve
done wonderfully well, sir. By ——! but I don’t think there’s e’er a
navigator would have struck it true as a hair as ye have. Ye’ve got no
doubts now left, I allow?’ and I saw his face darken with the wrinkles
of the grin that overspread his countenance.
‘What’s to follow?’ I demanded, thinking to take advantage of his mood.
‘Why, the gold,’ he answered, ‘the money, sir; what we’ve been a-waiting
for; and what I suspects we’ll most of us know what to do with when we
gits it.’
‘And then?’
‘That’ll be a matter for consideration,’ he answered, drawing off and
going to the rail and staring ahead.
‘Back the topsail yard and bring the ship to a stand, Mr. Lush,’ said I,
‘and get a cast of the lead, will you?’
These orders were immediately obeyed. The lead ran out to the whole
scope of line without touching bottom. There was nothing now to be done
but to wait for daylight. A whole eternity seemed to pass before the
dawn broke. Then to the sifting of the dull gray faintness over the rim
of the eastern sea, the land came stealing out, till, to the sudden
soaring of the sun into the clear blue sky of the Pacific morning, it
flashed out into its full proportions and distinctive features not a
mile off our port beam as we then lay with our maintopsail aback.
The crew, neglecting all discipline and shipboard habit, were assembled
in a body on the poop; and thus we all stood looking, I a little
distance away from them with Miss Temple at my side. It was a small
coral island, apparently of the dimensions that Captain Braine had
named. To the northward the smooth water brimmed to a long shelf of
coral grit, lustrous as snow in the sparkle of the early sunshine. There
was a small rise, green with vegetation, in the centre of the island;
how far distant, I could not imagine. Almost abreast of us, the land
went in with a semicircular sweep like to a horseshoe, and was exactly
the lagoon that had been described by Captain Braine. In the centre of
it, just as he had marked the thing down upon his chart, rose a coral
formation of the appearance of a very thick pillar, and at the distance
from which we surveyed it, it might easily have passed for a monument of
white stone erected by human hands, the decorated summit of which had
been rudely broken off by a tempest or some volcanic shock. On a line
with this pillar, some little distance up the beach of the lagoon, were
several clumps of trees. There was a deal of a sort of stunted
vegetation going inland from the margin of the little bay, coarse grass,
as my telescope made out, tangles of bushes, and so on.
The carpenter in the midst of the men stood with the parchment chart in
his hand, pointing out how the outlines corresponded with those of the
land, amidst a hubbub of eager comments and exclamations of excitement.
For my part, I could not credit my senses; I disputed the evidence of my
own eyes; I brought them away from the island to fix them with an
emotion of profound bewilderment upon Miss Temple.
‘Can it be real?’ I cried. ‘After the weeks of conviction of the utter
madness of this quest, am I at last to be persuaded that the wretched
suicide was not mad, that his island is a fact, and his gold an absolute
reality too?’
I turned my back upon the crew to press my hands to my eyes to ease my
brow of an intolerable sense of swooning in it.
‘Three cheers for him, men!’ I heard the carpenter roar out. Volley
after volley of huzzas rang from the deep sea lungs of the sailors. They
were cheering me. I turned to find them all looking my way. They tossed
their caps and flourished their arms like madmen in the exuberance of
their delight.
‘Now, sir,’ sung out the carpenter, ‘hadn’t we better see to our ground
tackle?’
‘As you will,’ I answered; ‘there is your island; I have kept my word
with you; now, Mr. Lush, the crew will proceed as they think proper.
When you require my services again as a navigator I am ready;’ and so
saying I seated myself on the edge of the skylight, and with folded arms
continued to view the island with such astonishment and incredulity as
made me fear for my head.
‘Is it all for the best, do you think, Mr. Dugdale?’ said Miss Temple,
who had seated herself beside me.
‘I cannot tell—it may be so. If they find the money, the wretches’
delight and good temper may render them willing to comply with my wishes
to make for the nearest port. I am in a dream. Give me a little time to
recover my amazement. You know it ought to be impossible that that
island should be there.’
She glanced at me anxiously, with something of alarm indeed, as though
there was even a greater strangeness in my manner than in my language.
Long hours of anxiety, long hours of sleeplessness, the continual
apprehension of what was to follow if this island was not discoverable,
these things and how much more had done their work with me; and now on
top was come the shock of the discovery of the truth of what I had all
along been convinced was the dream of a madman—the lie of a crazy head!
I felt a moisture in my eyes; my limbs trembled; my breathing grew thick
and difficult. In silence, Miss Temple hurried below and returned with a
tumbler of cold brandy grog. She put it into my hand, and I drank it
off; and I have very little doubt that the strong stimulant—such a dose
as might have made me boozy in an hour of ease!—rescued me from an
attack of hysterics, man as I am who tell this!
Meanwhile the seamen had gone forward, and were all hard at work with
the chain cables, connecting them with the anchors, affixing tackles,
hoisting the ponderous irons to the catheads, and filling the barque
with business and songs. They worked with desperate will and eagerness,
yet their progress was slow, and the sun had mounted many degrees before
all was ready forward for bringing up. They then went tumultuously to
breakfast, which they devoured upon deck, emptying their hook-pots down
their throats, and hastily eating their biscuit and meat, whilst they
jabbered away in voices of enthusiasm, one calling out a joke to another
amidst loud laughter.
The carpenter had now taken command. He came aft while Miss Temple and I
nibbled at some breakfast which Wilkins had brought us on deck, and
ordered the maintopsail to be swung, and stationed a hand with a
lead-line in each of the main-chains. The wind was about south, and
allowed the barque with her yards braced fore and aft to very nearly
look up for the lagoon. We crept slowly along; the lead on either hand
went in frequent flights towards the bow, but no bottom was reported.
This went on till the yawn of the lagoon was upon our starboard quarter,
with the trend of the land covered with bushes opening out as it ran
into the south-east, and then came a shout from the port main chains.
The water now shoaled rapidly; a man stood forward ready to let go the
anchor; down thundered the topsail yards to the cry of the carpenter to
let go the halliards; the barque lost way; the sharp clank of a hammer
rang through the vessel, followed by a mighty splash, and the roar of
iron links torn in fury through the hawse-pipes.
In a few moments the _Lady Blanche_ was at rest, with the western spur
of the lagoon within half a mile of her.