FOR a time no one in the cutter moved or said a word. I remember that
the boatswain chewed at his quid of tobacco as though he was starving;
but he did not speak a word.
It was Jack Baldwin’s voice that broke the silence.
“The old ship’s gone, boys,” roared he. “We can’t do her any good, so
drop her, and mind what you’re about, or you’ll be with her before you
know it.” And he was right, for the cutter was heavily loaded, there
being nineteen aboard of her—the right number of her crew was twelve.
I am bound to say, that I believe if any one of the crew of the _Nancy
Hazlewood_ had been seen clinging to the loose gear that was floating
about the place where the ship foundered they would have been taken
into the cutter; but no one was seen, nor was it likely that a man
could keep afloat for any length of time, for the spray was flying.
Such was the loss of the good ship _Nancy Hazlewood_, the story of
which I have tried to tell you just as it happened, adding nothing
and keeping nothing back that might give you a clear idea of how she
foundered on that Thursday, the 26th of April, 1813.
It was judged that she went down in latitude 27° North, by longitude
77° West, and about one hundred or one hundred and ten miles north of
the Little Bahama Banks.
The cutter was a fine, light boat, about twenty-five feet in length, by
six feet in breadth at the widest part—a small craft to carry nineteen
souls one hundred miles through a stormy sea.
Ten minutes after the _Nancy Hazlewood_ foundered the crew of the
cutter were pulling away to the southward. After a little while Tom
looked up and saw that Jack Baldwin was gazing very earnestly at him.
“Tom,” said he, suddenly, “if I loose the lashings on your arms and
legs, will you promise to be quiet, and do your fair share of work?”
Tom’s cheeks were still wet, and he was shaken every now and then by a
sob. I hope that you who read this will not think him overly womanish,
but will give a thought as to how broken he was with fatigue, and with
the hardships through which he had passed. I can say that none of the
crew of the cutter seemed to think lightly of him on account of it, and
even Jack Baldwin’s voice was kind as he spoke.
I have always found that when men are strongly moved they are apt to be
very unreasonable. So it was with Tom, for he felt very bitterly toward
Jack at that moment, as though Jack were to blame for the trouble that
had fallen upon them. However, nothing could be gained by staying tied
as he was, so he presently said:
“You may untie me, if you like. The Lord knows that I don’t care much
for my life just now, but there’s no use letting all these poor fellows
drown like the rest.”
“Is that all the thanks I get for saving your life?” said Jack Baldwin.
“Never mind; you’ll give me more thanks when your feet are safe on dry
land. Untie him, bo’sen, for he’ll have to take his hand at the oars,
along with the rest.”
The first thing that was done was to divide the boat’s crew into
parties, each of which were to row by spells. Two of the men not
rowing were to keep a lookout ahead, in case any vessel might heave in
sight. The rest were to bail out the boat, for it was needful to keep
bailing nearly all the time. In most cases it might have been safer to
have tried to ride out the storm, and to have run the chance of being
picked up by some passing vessel; but there were certain things to be
considered in the case of those in the cutter. Their provisions and
water were none too plenty, and there was little chance of being picked
up, as so few vessels were sailing in those waters, excepting in fleets
and under convoy.
A landsman would have been puzzled to know how a boat as small as the
cutter could ever hope to live in a sea such as that was. It was,
indeed, no small matter to run her safely, and Jack, who was at the
tiller, had to keep his weather eye lifting, I can tell you.
One of the crew kept a constant lookout over the stern, to see when a
wave with a crest was coming, and to warn the man at the tiller of it,
for these were the seas that brought danger with them. At one time all
hands would back water, so as to let such a one break in front of them.
At another time they would pull all, so as to get out of the way until
the force of the broken sea was spent. Sometimes one of these following
seas would fling the cutter high aloft on its crest, carrying it along
like an eggshell for a little distance, and giving them a dash as it
went by that would set them all bailing for dear life.
Of course, it was needful to let each sea meet them fairly astern, for
if the boat should broach too, she would be swamped or capsized as
quick as a wink. As soon as one sea would pass them another would come.
Perhaps it would be a cross sea, which, of course, was the kind that
they dreaded the most of all. Sometimes the helm of the cutter could
not bring her around quickly enough, or, maybe, just then her rudder
would be clear of the water. Then Jack Baldwin would sing out in his
mighty voice:
“Give way starboard! Back port!” or “Give way port! back starboard!”
The next moment, perhaps, another green sea would be seen rushing at
them, and Jack would shout:
“Give way together!”
Then there would be a thunder and a roar behind them, and the seething
of white foam would hiss alongside of the gunwale, and as it rolled
past Jack’s voice would ring out:
“Back, back all!”
There were times when all four of these orders would be given inside
the space of a minute. This is what they went through for nearly two
days, so it may perhaps give you a notion of what they had to do to
keep the boat alive for that time, and what a sea it was to keep her
alive in.
They had in the way of provisions about seventy-five pounds of
hard-tack and two small breakers of water. They presently found that
the water in one of the breakers was mixed with salt, so they heaved it
overboard at once to make more room, as they were very much crowded.
So the afternoon wore along, and at last evening began to settle down
over them.
Any one but a seaman might have wondered how the boat was to be kept
afloat at night, when it was only by such unending care that she was
kept alive in the daytime. But as darkness settled the crest of each
wave glimmered with a pale phosphorescence that not only showed its
position, but the course in which it was traveling. Nevertheless, it
was an awful night, one of the most awful that Tom Granger has ever
passed through. Above the ceaseless din and thunder of the roaring
water Jack Baldwin’s voice could be heard singing out his orders to
the oarsmen, and now and then to the others:
“Bail her out smartly, lads! Keep her dry! Who’s bailing there? Lively
now!”
Tom had turned to, and was bailing a great part of the time. He had
been pulling an oar in the afternoon, for every one had to take his
turn; and so, what with weariness and cold and want of sleep, he was
nearly done up. He managed to joke and laugh with the men, as though
all that they were passing through was nothing to speak of; but for
all that he would find himself half asleep at times, though he was
still dipping out the water. When in this state he always had one
thing before his eyeballs; it was a ship, her stern under water and
her bows standing so high that she showed her copper bottom. Her
maintop-gallant-mast was gone, and her fore-sail was shaking in the
wind—it was the _Nancy Hazlewood_ as he had last seen her.
It was the same all that night; whenever he would shut his eyes, even
if it were only for a moment, he would see that sinking ship and the
troubled waters around her.
About four o’clock in the morning Jack gave up the tiller to Tom
Granger. Tom felt very sorry for him, for he seemed harassed and worn.
He himself was pretty well tired out, as I have said, for he had only
had about two hours sleep for over three days. Nevertheless, he took
the tiller, for Jack seemed more done up than he. Tom held the tiller
for the rest of that day, and for most of the next night.
Early in the day it was found that the water had given out, so they
heaved that breaker overboard also. There was a great mistake somewhere
in the matter of this water. Either the allowance for each man was
wrong, or there was not as much in the breaker as had been supposed.
They had counted on its lasting eighteen hours longer than it did,
and the lack of it proved to be one of the greatest causes of their
suffering.
The next morning the sun shone out, though the weather was squally, and
the sea as heavy as ever. By that time they were suffering more from
thirst than from anything else. Tom pitied the poor men from the bottom
of his heart. The boatswain, who sat nearest him, kept clearing his
throat, as though he could get rid of the dryness and the pain in that
way.
As the sharpness of their thirst increased, the men showed that there
was not the friendly feeling between them that there had been at first.
They were surly, would speak sharply to one another, and were sullen
when spoken to by Jack or Tom. About nine o’clock one of the men on the
lookout sang out all of a sudden:
“Land over the port bow!”
Jack had the tiller again at this time, and it was all that Tom could
do to keep the men from standing up in the boat. If they had done so,
they would have capsized her, in all likelihood. About a quarter of an
hour afterward they were near enough to hear the surf thundering on the
beach. Some of the men were for landing off-hand, and both Jack and Tom
found it hard work to keep these fellows in order.
Tom thought that the land in front of them was most likely one of the
smaller islands at the northern part of the Bahama group. A line of
white sand-hills, topped by a growth of coarse grass and low scrub
bushes, could be seen a little distance inland. The shore stretched
northerly and southerly, and looking from the seaward, they could see
no break in it.
Jack put the boat’s head to the southward, so as to keep the seas
pretty well to the stern, his idea being to run along the coast line
until he could either turn the end of the island, or find some creek or
inlet where there would be a fit place to beach the cutter.
There was a current setting up the beach, and it was very laborious
work pulling against it, so, as time went on, the men grumbled louder
and louder, saying that they might just as well land where they were,
and that there was no use breaking their hearts with rowing, while they
might beach the boat, with only a ducking at the worst.
Tom was more sorry for the men, than angry at them, for any one could
see how parched they were with thirst, and how nearly worn out.
At last a sailor named Hitch flung down his oar, and swore that he
would row no more, without it was to row to the shore. An approving
growl went up amongst the men, and things began to take a very ugly
look. Jack was in a towering rage; he swore at the men, as only he
could swear; but every moment showed that they could not be kept at
their oars a great while longer.
Meantime the man Hitch sat sullenly, answering Jack’s words with others
not a bit better.
“Tom,” roared Jack, all of a sudden; “Tom, come here and take this
tiller, while I settle that mutinous son of a sea cook.”
He made a step forward as he spoke, but in a moment the man’s fingers
were around the boat’s plug.
“You’ll settle me, will you?” cried he. “— — your eyes! Come a step
furder, and I’ll out with this plug, and send us all to the bottom,
with the boat under us!”
Jack stopped where he was, for he saw that the fellow would do as he
said; had he done so, the boat would have filled and gone down in a
minute.
When Jack stopped, a laugh went up from all around, for it was plain to
see that the men were in sympathy with Hitch. This made the fellow feel
inclined to go a step further, for he felt bold when he saw Jack pause.
“If you don’t put the boat’s head to the shore,” said he, “I’ll pull
out the plug, anyhow!”
“Tom,” cried Jack, passionately, “give me the tiller; if they will
drown for a pack of lubberly fools, let them drown and be ——d!”
“For heaven’s sake, Jack!” cried Tom; “think what you’re about. You’ll
drown us all. Let me hold the tiller!”
But Jack was blind and deaf with his passion, and would listen to
nothing. Tom struggled with him as long as he was able; holding on to
the tiller with might and main, fighting him off, and pleading with him
all the while.
I suppose that they must have fought for two or three minutes, and the
boat was nearly swamped more than once with their struggles. At last
Jack wrenched Tom’s hands away and seized hold of the tiller, for a
great part of Tom’s strength had gone from him, because of long and
hard exposure, which seemed to have told more upon him than on Jack.
The men appeared to be pretty well frightened by this time, and Hitch
had taken his oar again. In a moment Jack had put the boat’s head
toward the shore.
“Pull lively now, my hearties,” said he, grimly, “for you’ll have a
tough pull of it before you get to that beach over yonder.”
Just before they came to the outer line of breakers, Jack put the
cutter’s head about so as to let her beach stern foremost.
Tom knew that the cutter would never get through the breakers. There
was not the tenth part of the tenth part of a chance of it; therefore
he flung off his coat and kicked off his shoes, so as to be in
readiness when the time should come. There was not much of the raging
and the lashing of the surf to be seen from the sea. Now and then a
spit of foamy water would shoot high up into the air from the recoil
of the waters on the hard sand, but they could not tell what the full
wrath and roaring of the great breakers were until they had gotten
fairly in amongst them.
Jack did all that a man could do to get that boat to the beach. He
tried rather to keep it off than to urge it too rapidly toward the
shore. He did his work well, for he had brought the cutter through the
first line of breakers, and into the second—but he got her no further.
A monstrous wave, fully twelve feet high, a solid mountain of green
water, came rushing toward them, its crest growing sharper and sharper,
and seeming to mount higher and higher as it swept toward the shore.
“Pull for your lives!” roared Jack, in a voice of thunder. But it was
no use, for the next instant the breaker was on them. For a moment
Tom had a feeling of spinning toward the shore, with the green water
towering ten feet above him; then it arched slowly over, there was a
crash and a roar, and he was struggling in a whirling, watery blindness.
Over and over he rolled, grasping at the sand every now and then, but
all the time feeling himself as helpless as a rat in the tumultuous
swirling of the water. Presently he felt himself being sucked out
again. Faster and faster he went, as the undertow gathered force in its
rush. For a moment he gained his feet, and bore with all his strength
against the outgoing water. The sand slid from beneath his heels,
till he must have sunk three inches into it. For an instant he had a
half-blinded vision of Jack Baldwin, fifteen or twenty feet nearer to
the shore than himself. Then came another crashing roar, and he was
whirled over and over and round and round, like a feather in the water.
A great feeling of utter helplessness came over him; for a moment his
lips came to the surface and he gave a gurgling cry.
Out went the undertow again, and out went Tom with it, only to meet
another breaker and to be again whirled by it toward the beach. By this
time he had given up struggling, and everything was sliding away from
him.
All of a sudden he felt himself clutched by the shirt. Once more came
the horrible dragging of the undertow, but this time some one was
holding him against it. Everything was glimmering to his sight, but he
felt that he was being dragged up on the beach, and at last that he was
lying on the dry sand, face up, and Jack Baldwin panting alongside of
him.
PART II
CHAPTER X.
IN this story of Tom Granger I have undertaken to divide that which
I am writing into chapters and parts, in the same manner that novel
writers sometimes divide their novels and tales. I find that it keeps
me more steadily to my course, so that, though I wander now and then
from the matter in hand, I always get safely back to my bearings again.
If you will go with me to the end, you will find that I have spun my
yarn to the last word, though it may be in my own fashion.
Every one has read tales of shipwreck and of lonely islands, and there
is generally something romantic and even pleasant in them; but in real
shipwreck there is nothing either romantic or pleasant; neither is a
desert island a cheerful place to dwell upon. I say this because I wish
you to understand why it is that I do not intend to give you a long
account of the life that they led at this place.
Nevertheless, I would not have you think from that which I have just
written that Tom and Jack were altogether miserable during the year
and a half that they lived there. Many times they were sick at heart
looking for the aid that was so long in coming; but there were other
times when they were full of hopes, and times when they were even
happy. Neither was the place a barren, desolate, dreary sand waste,
such as are many of the Bahama Islands. They saw many curious and
beautiful things during the time of their living there. As an instance
I may say that when Tom came away he brought with him a parcel of as
handsome shells as ever I saw in all my life. They are now piled upon
the mantle-shelf in my parlor. I have them before my eyes as I write
these words. There is a large one upon the centre-table that has a
full-rigged ship wrought upon it. It was carved with a jack-knife, and
it shows the work of many idle moments, when Tom sat beside the fire in
front of their hut at night, with Jack Baldwin for company.
Oftentimes a great longing has come upon Tom to visit the old place
once more, and to see those things again which he learned to know so
well. As I sit here now, and close my eyes, I can see many of them with
my inward sight. I can even see them more clearly than when the memory
of them was fresh and green, for, as the eyes of one’s body become
dim and blurred, the eyes of memory become ever sharper and keener,
so that not even the smallest thing escapes their sight. So now I can
see the place that was Tom’s home for sixteen months so long ago, as
plainly as though I had left it only yesterday. I can see the cave in
the side of the sand-hill, the cutter turned bottom up for the roof,
and the screen of woven grass that hung in front to keep the rain from
beating in. I can even see the tame sea-gull sitting on the keel of the
upturned boat.
Oftentimes, as I sit smoking my pipe after my dinner, I slide off into
a doze, and sometimes I dream of all these places—of the sand-spit
where they found the half-buried wreck that brought them so strange a
fortune; of the long, narrow tongue of sand beyond, where, at low tide,
the flamingoes always stood in a line, like so many red-coated British
soldiers; of the coral reef where they fished; of the beach where the
turtles came to drop their eggs, and of other things, all of them
seeming pleasant as I look at them down through the distance of the
past. So I should like to see the old place once more with my mortal
eyes, though I may never hope to do so now, for my sands are nearly run.
But, though the place may seem pleasant to me after all these years, it
was not an island such as one reads of in novels and stories; it was
not a place upon which one would choose to live all one’s years, and
Tom Granger was tired enough of it before he got through with it, I can
tell you.
My neighbors profess to be very fond of listening to me when I get
started in upon spinning yarns about Tom Granger’s life on the island,
and I think that not only do they profess to be fond of it, but that
they really are so.
My dear old friend, the late Doctor White, used to come regularly
every Saturday night, winter or summer, clear or foul, and the first
thing that he would say was:
“Come, Tom, spin us a yarn;” or, “Let us hear one of your traveler’s
lies, Tom.” (This, you understand, was merely a piece of pleasantry
upon his part.) Then straightway I would begin upon some yarn, while he
would sit opposite to me across the fire, listening to me and smoking
his pipe the while. I must say, though, that he had a nasty habit of
interrupting me with experiences of his own, for he had been assistant
surgeon aboard the _Pimlico_, in the South Atlantic, from 1836 to 1838,
and he had seen a few little trivial things which he would tell me,
though I had heard them a score of times before, and though they were
not nearly as interesting as those things which I would be telling him.
However, that is neither here nor there, and I find that I am again
wandering from the point in hand. What I began to say was, that, though
my neighbors are always glad to listen to my yarns, and though they
tell me that they are both interesting and instructive, I will not give
a long and full account of Tom’s and Jack’s daily life upon the island
on which they were cast, for this narrative concerns other matters of
more import, and I thank my stars that I am able to bridle my tongue,
being, as I said before, no great talker.
Tom and Jack were the only ones of all the crew of the cutter that
were cast alive on the island. The first day or two of their life
thereon was as bitter and miserable as could be. All this would be both
painful and unpleasant to tell, as well as needless, and, therefore, I
will pass it by. By the time that a month had gone, they were settled
as comfortably as could be, considering what they had at hand to make
themselves comfortable.
The body of the island was about five miles in length, and about two
miles or two miles and a half in breadth at the widest part. From the
lower and easterly end a long, sandy hook ran out into the ocean. It
was the continuation of the eastern beach, and, with the south shore of
the island, it enclosed a smooth, deep bay or harbor, in which even the
largest ships could have ridden at anchor easily and comfortably.
On the Atlantic side of this sand-spit, and close to where it joined
the body of the island, was the sunken wreck that afterward had so much
to do with Tom’s fortunes, and of which I shall soon have more to tell
you. The eastern side of this hook or beach was of sloping sand, washed
up by the continual beating of the surf. The western, or bay side, was
an abrupt coral reef. This coral reef was covered with barnacles, so
that there were always plenty of fish to be caught along that shore
during the slack water or the young flood.
Up and down the length of the eastern shore, and following in a line
with the beach, was a ridge of white sand hills. A number of scrub
trees grew along the crest of this ridge, and it was these trees
or bushes that the lookout in the cutter had first sighted. In the
south-western end of these sand hills Jack and Tom built their hut.
The lower end of the chain of white hills made a sudden turn to the
westward, and not far from where they fell away to the level of the
beach was a thicket of underbrush, with half a dozen palmetto trees
growing in the midst of it. Near to the edge of this thicket a spring
of clear, cool water bubbled up out of the white sand, and slid away
through thick grasses and sedge until it found its way through a marshy
little flat into the bay.
It was close to this spot that they chose to live, and thither they
dragged the cutter from the place where she had been flung on the
sand, two or three miles further up the beach. The boat had been stove
in beyond all hopes of repairing, especially as they had no tools to
mend it with, excepting their jack-knives and two rude chisels that
Tom afterward made from rusty bolts which they picked out of the ribs
of the wreck on the sand-spit. But, even if they had had a whole
boat-builder’s outfit, and planks to spare, I doubt if the cutter could
have been mended, for not only had the bottom been stove in, but the
bow had been smashed into splinters.
The loss of the cutter was one of their bitterest sources of regret
during their life on this place, for now and then they could see the
looming of land not more than twenty miles away toward the southward.
They could easily have reached it in a day’s time, if the boat had
been sound and whole. As it was, she would never float again, so they
dragged her down the beach and patched her with grass and mud, and used
her for a roof to cover them at night, for they found that the dews
were heavy at some seasons of the year. It took them over a fortnight
to move the boat from where she had been thrown to the place where they
built their home, three miles away. It was heavy work hauling it across
the sand, but, as I said, by the time that a month had gone, they were
pretty comfortably settled, and were feeling quite at home in their
quarters.
In front of them was the long, narrow hook of white sand, over which
the air danced and quivered when the hot sun beat down upon it. It
curved out into the dark water for a mile, like a long, slender hook,
cutting off the bay from the open water beyond. To the right of them
was the bay shore of the island, the silvery sand strewn thickly with
many-colored shells as far as the eye could reach. About three hundred
yards away was the buried wreck. At that time nothing was to be seen of
it but the ribs, that just showed above the sand like a row of dead,
blackened stumps. From this wreck they obtained iron spikes, which Tom
fashioned into rude tools and ruder fish-hooks.
Such was the scene that they had before their eyes for all those
sixteen months, unchanged, excepting as storm or calm would change
the face of things; and the same monotonous sound was always in
their ears—the eternal “swash! swash!” of the ground swell on the
shell-strewn beach below the hut, sounding unceasingly through the
deep, heavy thundering of the Atlantic breakers to the eastward.
Day followed day in an unchanging round—now fishing and now hunting
gull’s eggs. The fishing was done in the morning, when the tide was
good. During the hot afternoons they would lie on the sand, in the
shade of the cutter, looking out to sea, talking lazily, and now and
then dozing. It was a helpless, listless life, and as time wore along,
I doubt if they would have known what day or month or even what year it
was, if Tom had not kept a score of the days as they passed, by marking
them on the side of the cutter with his jack-knife—a short mark for
week days and a long mark with a cross for Sundays. By this means they
contrived to know how time was going with them.
This enforced inaction was one of the bitterest trials to them. I have
known times when, while they were sitting still, Jack would burst out
into a sudden volley of imprecations. Tom would never give way in this
manner;—perhaps it would have been a relief to him if he had. When the
darkness of despair would settle over him, he would leave Jack, and
walk up and down the beach by himself; perhaps for hours at a time.
During all the time that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was sinking under him,
Tom had thought little of Patty, and had wondered at himself in a dull
sort of a way; perhaps it was the press of work that was then upon
him, that drove her out of his mind, or rather blunted the keenness
of the thought of her. But now, in the listless idleness of his life,
he thought of her, and thought of her continually. Her presence was
always with him, and at times his longing for her was so deep and
keen, that his heart ached with it. Often in the night time he would
lie on the dark, lonely sand, looking up at the stars, saying nothing,
but thinking of Patty and of his home, with a longing so strong, that
sometimes he was nearly crazy with the yearning of his home-sickness.
At other times the gloominess of a deep despair would settle over him
in a dark cloud; then, perhaps, he would say to himself, “Supposing
that I do get back to my home again, what good will it do me? I have
been given a year in which to earn seven hundred and fifty dollars; it
may be two years before I am taken off of this sand spit,—what chance
is there of my earning that much here?” Then, maybe he would get up and
walk away, pacing up and down the beach by himself, cursing the fortune
that had thrown him on this land, and sometimes even selfishly wishing
that he could die, and be rid of all the troubles that beset him.
During such moods Jack would leave him alone, for he saw that Tom was
thinking of things, and was not to be talked to or interfered with;—he
had grown to have a strangely high regard and respect for him; very
different from the way in which he used to look upon him. He seemed to
have a dim idea that Tom’s troubles were deeper than his own, but why
they were greater, he did not know, for Tom never talked of Patty to
him. So Jack always let him alone, and, though he would follow him with
his eyes, he never ventured a word at such times.
I would not have you think that Tom was twiddling his thumbs all this
time, and idly wishing that he could get away without doing anything
further than to wish.
During the fall they built a raft; it took them nearly a month and
a half to make it, for they had no tools to work with, but two rude
chisels and two jack-knives, one of which (Jack’s) had the point broken
off of it. But after they had spent all the time in the making of the
raft, it turned out to be of no use, excepting to fish off of in the
bay during fair weather, so all their labor was for nothing.
They had great ideas of it at first, and one day when the wind was
fair, and the day clear and bright, they undertook to sail away upon it
to the island to the southward. Tom had fashioned a pair of oars out
of a palmetto tree, and he and Jack had made a sail out of the coarse
sea-grass that covered the island; these had cost them vast labor, but
they found that with oars and sail together, they did not get their
clumsy craft along at the rate of a mile an hour. I doubt if they ever
could have reached the island under the best of circumstances; as it
was, they met a current a couple of miles to the southward, that swept
them out to sea. They were fully six hours in getting back to land;
even then it was a chance that they got back at all, nor would they
have done so if a wind had not luckily sprung up from the south. After
that they were content to remain where they were.
They also set up a signal: it was a palmetto tree with a bush lashed to
the top of it; beside this they built a pile of brush to fire at night,
in case any vessel should appear in the offing at evening time. They
added to this brush heap, from day to day, until it was as high as a
hay stack.
Once, during the latter part of that autumn, a dead porpoise was washed
up on the beach toward the lower part of the sandy hook. This was a
Godsend to them as a means to let their condition be known to the
outside world, for of the skin of this porpoise they made a number of
bags or bladders, which they set adrift at different times, when the
wind was fair for carrying them away. In these air bladders Tom put a
map of the island, its bearings (as nearly as he could judge), and word
of their condition. All this was drawn and written on two strips of
bark, and was done with the point of a red hot piece of iron. This was
the wording of the written part:
+-----------------------------+
| _The ship Nancy Hazlewood |
| of Philadelphia was lost |
| at sea on the 26 of Apl. |
| 1813. The 1st & 2d mates |
| by name John Kent Baldwin |
| and Thomas Granger were |
| wrecked on ths. Islnd. If |
| you are a Christn. come to |
| thr. aid._ |
+-----------------------------+
This I have copied from a slip of bark that Captain Williamson
afterward gave me.
Thus they settled and lived on the island with little of interest
happening in their lives, until the great hurricane of 1814 came upon
them. This was great in itself, but it brought that with it which let
them have no more idle days for a long time to come.
CHAPTER XI.
I SUPPOSE that there are very few people who read this story that have
not heard of the great hurricane of 1814, for I take it that very
few will read what I have written who are not in some way related or
connected with Tom Granger, and all such have heard him tell of it
again and again. Nevertheless, as I have ink and paper before me, and
as the itch of writing is upon me, I will tell it once more for the
benefit of those who come hereafter, and who have not heard of it from
Tom’s own mouth.
This hurricane reached over a zone stretching in breadth from Florida
to the Greater Antilles. It was felt more heavily in the northern part
than anywhere else; so that Tom and Jack passed through the worst of
it. One hundred and eight vessels were wrecked in the harbors and on
the coast of this region during the progress of the hurricane, and the
death-list was known to reach as high as one hundred and six. The crops
suffered severely, and over seven hundred houses were destroyed.
A few years ago, while I was spending a couple of weeks at Atlantic
City with my wife and two of my grandchildren, I met a Mr. Fitzgerald.
He was a lad living at Nassau at the time of this hurricane, and he
not only remembered it well, but his father, who was a gentleman much
interested in scientific matters, had kept careful data and memoranda
relating to it.
Mr. Fitzgerald was a very bright and intelligent old gentleman at the
time that I met him, and I was much interested in talking the matter
over with him, and comparing notes regarding it. The storm was severe
enough with Tom and Jack, but it must have been terrible indeed in a
place where there were so many lives to be lost and so much property to
be destroyed as in Nassau. He told me that the storm began with them
about ten o’clock in the night of the fourth of March, and blew with
great violence until half-past ten o’clock in the morning of the fifth.
The barometer at that time stood at 27.06 inches, which was the lowest
that his father had ever seen it. From that time the storm subsided,
and the torrents of rain began to cease, though the wind continued to
blow with violence until four o’clock in the afternoon. But all the
great loss of life and property happened in the space of twelve hours,
and while the hurricane was at its height.
The storm began at an earlier hour with Jack and Tom than it did at
Nassau, according to Mr. Fitzgerald’s account of it. I know, however,
that it came on the fourth of March, because that is the day before
Tom’s birthday, which comes on the fifth; therefore I am accurate in
regard to my dates, even if Mr. Fitzgerald had not corroborated the
account that I have always given of it.
It was a peculiarly sultry day, especially for that time of the year.
Tom and Jack were fishing in the morning, and, though they were sitting
still, the sweat kept running from Tom’s face in streams, as though he
was engaged in doing a hard piece of work. All morning there was a dead
stillness and a leaden heaviness in the air, and it seemed as though it
was a labor even to breathe. The sea gulls kept flying around the reef
in a troubled way, clamoring as they flew, and seeming to be restless
and uneasy at the oppressive stillness. The sky in the morning was of
a dull copperish color, though not a cloud was to be seen, but, as the
day wore along, a misty haze spread above them, through which the sun
shone red and dull, as it does in the morning and evening, when it is
near to the horizon. Once Jack said:
“Tom, there’s something going to happen. I never felt anything like
this in all my life before; and did you ever see the sea gulls behaving
as they are doing now? Mark my words, Tom, there’s something going to
come of all this before the day’s over.”
Tom agreed with him in his forebodings, for the oppression that he was
laboring under made him feel singularly apprehensive and uneasy in his
mind. In the afternoon they left their fishing and went back to their
hut, where they stretched themselves out in the shade, panting for
breath, for it seemed as though a hot blanket had been spread above
them. The tame sea gull sat under the lee of the boat, all hunched up
together. Every now and then it would look restlessly about, uttering a
low, whimpering note as it did so.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, as near as Tom could judge,
a strong puff of wind blew suddenly from the south. It ceased as
suddenly as it began, but, in a few minutes a gust as sudden and as
short-lived blew from the west. Then it blew again, but from the
eastward. This time it was more steady, and in a quarter of an hour it
had increased to a smart gale. It seemed to bring some coolness with
it, and lifted the oppressed feeling that had rested upon Tom and Jack
during the morning. Within an hour or so of sundown this wind died away
completely, and then it was as heavy, and as still, and as sultry as
ever. Then half an hour passed before anything farther happened.
Jack and Tom were busy scaling and cleaning their fish when, all of a
sudden, a shadow fell as though a hand had been stretched out across
the sky. Jack ran out of the hut with his knife in his hand, and the
next moment Tom heard him calling to him in a loud voice, bidding him
to hurry out and look at what was coming. Then Tom dropped everything
and ran.
As I said before, there was not a breath of air stirring, and yet a
black ragged wrack of clouds was flying wildly above their heads.
This bellying sheet of clouds hung very low in the air; above them it
was of a dull leaden color, rimmed with a strange reddish light, but
toward the west it was as black as ink. Although there was no wind
going, a cold air seemed to breathe out of the black emptiness of the
west, just such as you may feel when you open the door of a cool room
in the summer time. The ocean near to them was grey, with the light
from the east, and every now and then a white-cap would gleam, with a
pallid light against the darkness behind; but in the distance it grew
darker and darker, until the rim of the horizon was lost in the inky
pall beyond. Every moment the gloom fell about them, until it seemed
as though night had set in, though it was a good hour till sundown.
A dull, whispering moaning sound came from out the hollow of the
west, and Tom could hear it through all the beating and thundering of
the surf behind him. There was something awful in that moaning that
seemed to fill the air above and around them; both men stood looking
out toward the west, and neither of them said a word. Tom noticed how
the sea gulls were running restlessly up and down the beach, uttering
shrill wild cries every now and then, but not taking to wing.
And every moment the deep moaning grew louder and louder.
Suddenly a faint breath of air came, and instantly the sound of the
surf to the east was dulled as though a blanket had been spread
over it. Then there was a pause,—then there was a wild sweep of the
wind,—then, in an instant, the hollow roar was upon them and around
them.
Out from the blackness of the west came rushing an awful grey cloud of
mist and rain and salt spray, and before I can write these words, it
struck the island with a tremendous and thunderous uproar. Tom and Jack
were flung backward and down to the ground as though a wall had fallen
upon them, and all around them was a blinding gloom of sand and rain
and spray. Through this whirling darkness Tom saw the cutter lifted up
and tossed over and over like a dead leaf. Even through all the uproar
he could distinctly hear the noise of snapping and rending and tearing,
as the trees and bushes of the thicket near to them were being torn up
by the roots. Then he had a vision of one of the palmetto trees being
whirled through the air as though it were a straw.
For a while he lay clinging flat to the ground, digging his fingers
into the sand; but after a while he saw that Jack was crawling on his
hands and knees toward the lee of the sand hills, not far away from
where they lay; then he followed him in like manner.
It was a great while before they got safely to the shelter of the duns;
I suppose that it could not have taken them less than half an hour to
cross the two hundred yards of sand that lay between them and the lee
of the sand hills. Every now and then a heavier gust than usual would
come, and then they would lay flat upon the sand again, holding on to
the shifting surface, as though they feared being blown bodily away.
But between the gusts they would contrive to crawl a few feet farther.
At last they reached the lee of the hills, and so were sheltered from
the full force of the wind, though the hurricane bellowed and roared
above and around them with a noise such as Tom never heard before or
since.
The rain increased till it fell in torrents; it did not beat down the
wind, for the tempest blew more and more heavily until just before
morning, when it was something frightful.
All that night the rain poured down upon them in a deluge, but I do not
think that either of them noticed it, their minds being taken up with
quite different matters. The darkness around them was utter and blank
beyond what I can tell you. You could not have seen your hand within
six inches of your face. It seemed as though the end of all things had
come.
Tom and Jack sat hand in hand;—when one of them said anything to the
other, he had to put his lips to within an inch of his companion’s ear,
to make him understand a single word. But very little was said between
them, and most of the time they sat holding one another’s hand in
silence. Now and then the ground would actually tremble beneath them,
and at times a dim fear passed through Tom’s mind that the very sand
hill above them would be carried bodily away with the force of that
tremendous blast. About day-break, or what would have been day-break at
an ordinary time, the rain ceased to fall, though the hurricane still
raged with nearly as much fury as ever.
At last the faint grey daylight came, and after a while they were able
to see the things around them pretty clearly. The first thing that
Tom saw was a white sea gull crouched on the ground close to him. He
could have reached out his hand and have touched it, but it did not
seem to be in the least afraid at his presence. There were hundreds of
them around, but they all seemed to be dulled with terror, and made no
effort to move out of the way, or to take to flight.
At length, in the dim morning light, the ocean came out before them; it
was a strange sight, for the surf was beaten down by the wind, until
the sand beach reached out half as far again as it did on ordinary
occasions.
At first they could see nothing of the sandy hook to the southward,
for, though no sea was running, and though the ocean was leveled to
a seething sheet of whiteness, the water was banked up in the bay,
and covered the sand spit completely. The first thought that occurred
to Tom was that the whole bar had been swallowed up, and that there
had been an earthquake, though they had not noticed it in all the
bewilderment of the tempest. But, as the light grew stronger and
stronger, they could see the gleam of wet sand here and there, and
then could see the water running over it from the bay to the ocean.
By this time the storm was beginning to fall, though they did not dare
to leave their shelter for an hour or so later, and though the wind was
still heavy until the middle of the afternoon.
When they did leave the lee of the hill, the sight was strange enough;
the palmetto trees were all gone but one, and it was more than half
stripped of leaves.
One of them had been carried more than a quarter of a mile, and was now
lying half buried in the sand at the base of the dun, beneath which
they had taken shelter.
There was not a sign of their home in the sand hill, for not only was
the place levelled over as completely as though it had never been, but
the very shape of the hills themselves had been changed by the sand
that had blown against them here, or had been carried away from them
there.
The cutter had been swept away to a distance of two or three hundred
yards. It had lodged in a hollow between two of the duns. It was lying
keel up, and the sand was banked around the weather side of it like a
snowdrift. Strange enough, it was not much more broken than it had been
before, so they got it back again in a day or two, and it was still
sound enough to serve for their roof for the balance of the time that
they stayed on the island.
The great stack of brushwood that they had heaped on the highest
sand-dun had all been carried away, as had also their signal tree with
the bush lashed to it. Everything was salt with the spray that had been
carried inland, and the island flats were dotted all over with pools of
salt water, that had been blown or swept over the land. Wherever this
salt water lay the grass was killed or blackened, so that the following
summer the island looked as though fire had passed over it.
Such was the great hurricane of 1814 as Tom Granger and Jack Baldwin
felt it; and I think that they both felt it in its full force, though
they escaped from it with no more harm than a thorough wetting and
a great fright. It took them several weeks to do what they could at
making good the damage done, and then it was not fully repaired, for
all the provisions that they had stored up had been carried away or had
been covered up by the sand that had been blown before the blast.
I think that the greatest loss that they suffered was that of Tom’s
jack-knife. He had left it lying beside the fish that he was in the
act of cleaning when Jack had called to him and he had run out of the
hut. They looked for it every now and then for several days afterward,
digging about the place where it had been lost; but their hut or cave
in the sand hill had been so completely covered, and the lay of the
hill itself had been so entirely changed, that they never found it
again.
The loss of a jack-knife may seem but a small thing to tell you, who
have only had to slip around the corner and buy a new one at the
nearest hardware shop. But there was no hardware shop near to Jack and
Tom, and the loss of the jack-knife was a very great ill to them.
Neither did they ever see the tame sea-gull again, and they missed the
sight of it from the keel of the upturned boat. I suppose that it must
have been swept away and have perished in the hurricane.
CHAPTER XII.
AND now a little more than a week had passed since the great hurricane
of which I have just told you fell upon them. I recollect that it was a
Sunday morning. Sundays were generally spent in doing no work, and in
taking a stroll around the island. But they had had no rest since the
day of the storm, for the time between then and now had all been spent
in repairing the damages that had been wrought. Now they were pretty
comfortably settled again, and the day being bright and fair, they had
fixed that it should be spent in taking a look about them.
It was cool and pleasant, and they strolled leisurely up the western
side of the island, skirting the belt of Mangrove bushes, around the
northern end, past the barren sand flat, and so down the Atlantic beach
again. By the middle of the afternoon they had come back to the lower
end of the island, and had gone out on to the spit.
The water that had washed over this place on the day of the storm had
carried away a great deal of the sand. The surf ran much farther up the
beach, and Tom noticed that the ribs of the wreck stood higher out of
the sand than he had ever seen them. They did not go farther than the
wreck, but laid themselves down close to it, looking out across the
water toward the distant island that was then looming to the southward,
talking about it and about their chances of getting to it.
Jack was in a more than usually downhearted state as to their not being
able to get away from the place that they were on. He said that so far
as he could see, they might have to live there all their lives and then
die, and no one be the wiser of it. Tom was feeling gloomy himself on
this particular day, and he felt very impatient at poor Jack when he
began his complaining. He felt that if complaints were to be made, it
was he that should make them, and not Jack, for had he not much more
to lose by staying where he was than the other? I know how selfish
this was, but there are times when we are given over to spells of
selfishness, and, though such a state may be very wrong, it is yet very
natural.
“You might just as well have patience, Jack,” said he, “We’ve tried to
get away already, and you know what came of it. We certainly can’t live
here forever without sighting a vessel of some sort at some time or
other.”
“We haven’t seen a sign of a ship up to this time,” said Jack, gloomily.
“That’s very true, and maybe we’ll have to wait till the war’s over
before one comes along. You know very well that there’s no shipping
being done nowadays.”
“Wait till the war’s over!” cried Jack, raising himself suddenly on his
elbow; “why, heavens and earth, man, it may be half a dozen years to
come, before the war’s over!”
“Perhaps it may be a dozen years, for all that I know,” said Tom, “but
all the same you’ll have to wait, so you may just as well keep your
tongue still between your teeth, and be patient about it!”
“Wait?” cried Jack, and he thumped his clenched fist down on the sand.
“By G—I’ll not wait! I’ll do something; see if I don’t! I’ll not let
any twenty miles of water keep me tied up in this God-forsaken place!
Why don’t you do something? You’re so full of your d—d contrivances for
making us comfortable; why don’t you puzzle out some plan for getting
us off altogether?”
Tom was lying on the sand, his hands under his head, and one leg
crossed comfortably over the other. He did not move while Jack was
talking, and he made a point of seeming to be very easy under it, but
he was getting more and more angry all the time. He did not answer Jack
immediately, but after a while he spoke as quietly as he could.
“You’re unreasonable, Jack,” said he. “Haven’t I done everything
that I could do to get us away; haven’t I built a raft and put up
signals on the sand hills; haven’t I set a dozen or more bladder-bags
adrift? The chances are that some of them’ll be picked up, and in good
time a ship’ll come to us. I don’t see that you have any reason to
complain, and if you have reason, you’d better try to do something
yourself;—you’re welcome to it. As for our getting away;—we’ve tried to
get away already, and you know what came of it. In my opinion we came
so devilish near getting away, that we liked never to have got back to
this or to any other island.”
“Do you mean to say that you’re so scared at a little risk that you’re
afraid to try it over again?”
“I don’t know about being scared, but I certainly ain’t going to try it
over again.”
“You ain’t?”
“No.”
Jack did not say a word for a little while, but Tom felt that he was
looking at him very hard. At last he spoke again.
“It’s my belief, Tom Granger,” said he, “that you haven’t got an ounce
of pluck left about you. I believe that you’re that dull that you’d
be content to live here forever, if you could get enough to fill your
belly!”
This was too much for Tom. He sat up suddenly, facing the other. “Jack
Baldwin,” said he, and his voice trembled with his anger, “understand
me, once for all. If we’re to live together, or to talk together, or to
have anything to do with one another, I never want to hear such speech
from your mouth as you’ve just given me; do you understand me?”
Here he paused for a moment, and then he burst out passionately: “What
do you know how much I want to get away? Do you suppose that I don’t
want to get away because I don’t keep up an everlasting whimpering and
whining about it, as you do? What do you want to get away for, anyhow?
Is the only woman that you love in all the world waiting at home for
you, looking for you, and praying for you, and wondering why she don’t
hear from you—thinking, maybe, that you’re dead. God help her! I wish
that I was dead, and that she knew it. It would be better for us both,
I guess!” Then he rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in
his hands, rocking his body to and fro as he sat.
Jack did not say another word, and in a few moments Tom heard him get
up and walk away. After a little while Tom got a grip on himself and
looked up again.
Jack was standing just below the wreck and over toward the ocean. He
had gathered what seemed to be a handful of small, black, flat shells,
and he was busy in skimming them out across the surf. Presently Tom got
up and walked slowly over to where he was standing. He was heartily
ashamed of the way in which he had spoken to the other, and would have
given a great deal if he could only have recalled his words; but that
is a thing that can never be done. He stood a little behind Jack, with
his hands in his breeches pockets, looking down at the sand the while.
After a while Jack spoke, without looking around.
“Look’ee, Tom Granger,” said he, doggedly, “I’m sorry I spoke to
you the way that I did. I didn’t know that you had a sweetheart at
home,—you ought to ha’ told me before. I’ll never say any more about
getting away, if I have to stay on this d—d island to the crack of
doom, and that I promise you.”
“That’s all right,” muttered Tom; “don’t let’s say any more about it.”
One of the round black things that Jack was skimming out to sea, lay at
his feet, and without knowing what he did, he stooped and picked it up
as he was speaking. He turned it over and over in his palm in an absent
sort of a way, for he was feeling very uncomfortable at the time.
He turned it over and over, until, after a while, it worked through
his sight into his mind; then he looked more closely at it, for he
had never seen the like of it before. It was not a shell, neither was
it a pebble, for there were no pebbles on the island. It was thin and
perfectly round, and as black as ink. On one side of it was a raised
surface that bore a faint likeness to the rude image of a head; below
this was something that looked like a row of small figures. He brushed
it smooth with the palm of his hand, and then looked more closely at
it, turning it around and around, and this way and that. All of a
sudden a thought struck him, and I cannot describe the thrill that
went through him as he looked at that which he held. As this thought
went through his mind, he closed his hand and looked slowly around
him, as though he was in a dream. I can distinctly recollect that that
singular feeling which we all have felt at times passed over him;—a
feeling as though all this had happened before, but as though it had
happened in a dream. Then he looked at the object once more, and could
just make out the figures;—they were 1, 7, 9 and 2. He picked at the
edge of the disk, and a white sparkle followed the scratching of his
thumb nail.
“Good Lord, Jack!” cried he, “look! look!”
There was a ring in his voice that made Jack jump as though he had been
struck. “Look at what, Tom?” said he, in a half-frightened voice.
“Look at this!” said Tom, and he held out that which he had picked up a
minute before. “What do you think it is?”
Jack had three or four of them in his own hand. “I don’t know,” said
he, turning them over and over. Suddenly he too began to look more
closely at them. “Why, Tom—Tom—” he began, “is it—is it—”
“It’s money;—it’s silver money, Jack, as sure as I am a living sinner!”
“Why, so it is!” cried Jack, “why, so it is, Tom! This is a half a
dollar, and so is this, and this, and this! Why, Tom, here’s another,
and another! Great heavens, Tom! _the sand’s covered with them!_”
And so it was. Here and there would be two or three lying together, but
in most cases they were scattered about like shells at high water mark.
Jack sat down quite overcome, and then began laughing in a foolish sort
of a way, but there was a catch in his laugh that sounded mightily
like crying. “Tom,” said he, “we’re rich men! Tom, did you ever see or
hear of the like? Why, Tom—”
Then he stopped all of a sudden, and, scrambling to his feet, fell to
gathering up the money as though he had been crazy.
For an hour or more they hunted up and down, picking up silver pieces
as children pick up chestnuts under a chestnut tree. After a while they
only found a few stray coins here and there, and finally they cleared
the beach of them altogether. Then they sat down to count them. Tom had
about two hundred dollars; Jack had gathered more nearly three hundred
than two. Altogether they had a little less than five hundred dollars
between them.
“Where do you suppose they came from, Tom?” said Jack, after a while.
He was sitting on the sand when he spoke, holding a lot of the coins in
his hand and turning them over with his fingers.
Tom shook his head. This was the same thought that had been puzzling
him for some time past, and, as yet, he had not been able to answer it.
After a while they went back to their hut, carrying their money with
them. Jack was very talkative and excited, but Tom was as silent as
the other was noisy, for he was pondering over the matter of Jack’s
question—Where did they all come from?
Where did they all come from? He thought and thought till his brain was
muddled with his thinking. Could there have been a treasure buried
here by the buccaneers in times past? It was a wild thought, but Tom
was ready for any kind of wild thought at the time. But then the date
of the coin that he had found—1792—that was long after the time of the
buccaneers. He picked up another piece and looked at it; it also bore
the same date, 1792, and so did another and another; they were all of
the same mintage. He did not know what to think of it.
Jack must have had a notion that Tom was puzzling his wits over this,
for he sat beside the fire all of the evening without saying a word.
Every now and then he arose and threw some more brushwood on the
flames; beyond that he hardly moved, but sat in silence, watching Tom
furtively.
“Tom,” said he, at last.
“Well, Jack.”
“Do you suppose that it could _rain_ money?”
“Stuff and nonsense!”
“I don’t see any stuff and nonsense about it. I’ve heard of it raining
stones, and why shouldn’t it rain money as well? We never found any
before that hurricane came on us.”
“That’s true enough, Jack,” said Tom, “I hadn’t thought of that.” For
the finding of this money had driven all thought of the hurricane out
of his head.
“Then you think it might have rained money, after all?”
“No; I don’t think that.”
“Humph! Well, what do you think about it?”
“I don’t know what to think about it; but you’ve put a new idea into my
head.”
It was later than usual when they went to rest that night. Tom laid
awake hour after hour, his thoughts as busy as bees. Where had the
money come from? This was the question that ran through his brain
unceasingly, keeping him awake as the silent night moved along. And
then, why should all the coins bear the same date of 1792?
Suddenly the whole thing opened before him, and he saw it all as
clearly as I see the hand before my face. He could hardly help shouting
aloud, but he bethought him that Jack might be asleep, and that it
would be a pity to awaken him.
“Jack,” whispered he, in a low voice.
“Helloa!” said the other, quickly, for he was wide awake.
“I think I’ve found it out!”
“Found out what?”
“Found where the money came from.”
“Well, where did it come from?” said Jack, and Tom could see in the
gloom that he sat up in his excitement.
“Did you notice that all the money bore the same date, 1792?” said Tom.
“No; I didn’t notice that.”
“Well, it did, and, what’s more, it’s all Spanish money.”
“But where did it come from?” said Jack.
“Jack,” said Tom, slowly, “as sure as I’m lying here, that wreck on
the sand-spit is the wreck of a Spanish treasure ship.”
“Tom!” shouted Jack, “you’re right! What a fool I was not to think of
that! Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face!”
No doubt you who read this have guessed the matter long ago, and have
wondered that Tom and Jack were so dull of wits as not to have thought
of it before. But the idea never entered their heads that a fortune was
lying buried in the sand that covered the poor old wreck that had been
so constantly before their eyes for almost a year, and when they found
money like pebbles along the beach, it never struck them that it could
have been washed out of those crumbling ribs, whose only value had been
that they gave them a rusty spike every now and then.
Jack was wild to go out into the night, and to hunt for money there and
then, and it was as much as Tom could do to quiet him and make him lie
down and try to get a little sleep. Of course, neither of them caught a
wink, and both were stirring at the dawn of day.
They hardly ate a bite of food before they set to work.
By noontide Tom had made a couple of rude shovels, the blades of which
were of the plankings of the cutter over their heads, and the handles
of which were two straight limbs, cut from the neighboring thicket. It
was a long tedious piece of work to make these shovels, for Tom had no
tools to work with but Jack’s knife, and only half of the blade of
that was left. Tom labored steadily at the shovels, but Jack was very
impatient at the slowness of the work, and was continually urging him
to hurry matters. I suppose that he was back and forth from the hut to
the wreck a dozen times in the course of the morning.
But at last the shovels were finished. Tom tried to persuade Jack to
eat a bite before he went to work, but Jack would have nothing to
do with food; he shouldered the two shovels and started away to the
sand-spit, leaving Tom to cook and eat his dinner by himself. When Tom
went over to the wreck a half an hour later, he found Jack busily at
work, and a great hole already scooped out in the sand,—but Jack had
not yet found a cent of money.
I do not think that they had any idea of what they were undertaking,
and what a tremendous piece of work it was that lay before them. I
confess that Tom was as foolish as Jack, in having a notion that all
they would have to do would be to scoop away a little sand, and pick up
money by the handful; but they found nothing either on that day or the
next, or the next, or for a week or more to come. Jack began to be very
much discouraged, and said more than once that he was certain that Tom
had been mistaken in his notion that the wreck was that of a treasure
ship.
Tom himself began to be a little down-hearted, and more than once
suspected that he had made a wrong guess. But when he brought to mind
that the money was of one mintage, and, from the way in which it lay,
that it was plainly washed out of the wreck by the water that had
flowed over the sand-spit at the time of the hurricane, he would feel
reassured that he was right, though he could not account for the reason
why a part of it should have been washed up, while the rest seemed to
lie so deeply beneath the surface. So he managed to keep Jack pretty
steadily to his work, though, as the days dragged along and nothing
came of their labor, it became a great task to do so.
But on the tenth day they made a find. They were just about to give up
their work for the evening, when Tom unearthed a small, wooden box. It
was about a foot long, six inches wide, and three or four inches deep.
It was very rotten, and fell to pieces as Jack tried to pick it up. It
was full of money, which tumbled all in a heap as the box crumbled in
Jack’s hand. The money must have been in rolls when it was put into the
case, for there were scraps of mouldy paper mixed with it, and some of
the coins had bits of paper glued to them by the black rust that had
gathered upon them.
This was the first money that they found by digging, and Jack nearly
went crazy over it. Tom himself was very much excited, but he did not
act as absurdly as Jack, who danced, and laughed, and shouted like one
possessed. It was their first gleam of good luck, and it was a good
thing that it came when it did, for it was speedily followed by the
worst of ill fortune.
That night there came a south-east storm that did great damage. It had
been brewing all of the afternoon, but Tom and Jack had not seen it,
or, if they had seen it, had thought nothing of it, for heretofore
the wash of the surf had never run as far up as the wreck, even in
the heaviest weather. But so much of the sand had been carried away
that the surf came a great deal higher than it had done before. It was
blowing quite heavily when Tom and Jack went over to the sand-spit the
next morning, and a part of the wash of the breakers had found its way
into the place that they had been digging, so that the sand had caved
in here and there. They tried to do all that they could to protect
their work, but it was no good, for, by the time that evening had come,
the place that they had dug out was half full of sand, and by the next
morning it was nearly levelled over, and all of their labor was to be
done again. As soon as the storm was over they set to work, and in a
week’s time had the sand nearly all dug out. Then came another blow,
and the same thing happened as before.
After this they set about the work with more system. They built a
breakwater of stakes, between which they wove twigs and grass. This was
Tom’s plan, and they found that it kept the sea back completely, for,
as I have said, it was only the wash of the breakers that ran over the
place that they were at work. It never filled up again as long as Tom
and Jack were engaged upon it.
But all this cost a great deal of time and labor, and I doubt very much
if they had not found the box of money whether they would ever have
struck a shovel into the sand again after the first storm came upon
them; so that it was a lucky thing that they found the box when they
did, and that the southeaster did not come a day sooner.
For three or four months they worked as never men worked before. It is
strange to think of how men will labor and toil for money, even when
money will do them as little good as it did Jack and Tom on this lonely
island. It is a wonder that they did not kill themselves with the work
and the hardships that they went through during that time. However, the
excitement that they were living under kept them up to a great degree.
During all these months they lived upon little else than fish. Now and
then they would gather a few mussels or catch a crab or two, but their
chief living was fish—broiled fish for breakfast, dinner and supper,
until they both grew to loathe the very sight of it. Tom got such a
surfeit of them in that time that he could never bear the smell of a
frying fish from that day to this.
Upon the first of September they counted over the money that they had
unearthed, and they found that they had over eight thousand dollars in
all. It was made up of silver coins of all sizes, large and small.
They only had three days more of work on the island, and, as two of
those days were blank, they did not add very much to the sum that they
had already gathered.
CHAPTER XIII.
IT was the morning of the 3d of September of the same year,—1814.
Tom and Jack had just finished their breakfast;—it was of broiled fish.
Hughy! It makes me shudder even now to think of it, for I do hate the
very sight of a fish.
The work of digging at the wreck had settled down to a very jog-trot
business by this time. Neither of the men were in a hurry to quit
their comfortable seat on the sand and turn to hard work, that had
lost all the savor of novelty it had had at first. The first day that
they had struck shovel into the sand above the wreck, Jack had started
off eagerly, without eating a bite; he was quite willing to eat a meal
now,—even a meal of broiled fish—and to take a goodly while to the
eating of it also. So they both sat dwadling over their unsavory food,
not at all anxious to make a start.
“Well, Jack,” said Tom, at last; “I suppose that we might as well be
stirring.”
“I reckon we might,” said Jack, and then he stretched himself, as a
first step toward getting up.
At that moment a sound fell upon their ears. It was not one to which
you would have given a second thought, and yet if it had been a clap
of thunder out of a clear sky, it could not have startled the two more
than it did.
When they had rebuilt their hut after it had been destroyed by the
great hurricane, they had not located in the same spot in which they
had lived before. An eddy of the wind had scooped a hollow out of
the side of the sand hill, and it was in the side of this cup-shaped
hollow that they had digged their house, and had roofed it in with the
cutter as they had done before; for they thought that they would be
more sheltered in this spot if another hurricane should come upon them.
Looking from this hollow in front of them, they could see nothing but a
part of the western ocean and the upper end of the sand-spit, whereupon
they worked from day to day. It was just back of them, and from the
crest or brim of this sandy bowl that the sound came that startled them
so greatly.
It was the sound of a man’s voice.
“Ahoy there!”
For a moment Jack and Tom looked at one another without turning around.
This minute I can see just how Jack stared at Tom; his mouth agape, and
his eyes as big as saucers. But it was only for a moment that they sat
looking at one another so amazedly, for the next instant they jumped to
their legs and turned around.
A burly red-faced man was standing on the crest of the white sand hill,
his figure sharply marked against the blue sky behind him. His hands
were thrust deeply into his breeches pockets, and he stood with his
legs a little apart. He had a short cutty pipe betwixt his teeth;—the
bowl was turned topsey-turvey, and there was no light in it. When he
saw that Tom and Jack were looking at him, he spoke again, without
taking the pipe from out his mouth.
“Are you fellows the first and second mates of the _Nancy Hazlewood_,
privateersman?”
Jack nodded his head.
The man turned and beckoned two or three times, and then came slowly
and carefully down the steep side of the sand dun, half sliding, half
stumbling. The first thing that he said when he came to where they
were, was:
“I just tell you what it is, mates; that mess of fish smells mighty
good.” Then he asked which of them was the first mate.
“I’m the first mate,” said Jack.
By this time three or four heads rose above the crest of the hill, and
a little knot of sailors gathered on the top of the dun; then they
came jumping and sliding and stumbling down to where the others were
standing.
But all this time Tom was like one in a dream. I think that he must
have been dazed by the suddenness of the coming of that for which he
had longed so bitterly and so deeply. He tried to realize that they
were rescued; that these men were about to take them away; that they
were really to leave the island that had been their prison for so
many long and weary days, and that in a few weeks at the furthest, he
would be in Eastcaster again, and would see Patty, and would be talking
with her of all these things. Many a time in the silence of the lonely
night, he had pictured their rescue to himself, and in the sleep that
followed, he had perhaps dreamed that a boat was lying on the beach
below their hut, and then had wakened to the bitterness of its being
only a dream. But now that rescue had in truth come to them, he could
no more realize it than you or I can realize that we are really to see
the other world, some time to come. So he stood leaning against the
poor old shattered cutter that had sheltered Jack and him for so long,
and as he leaned there he looked about him, wondering dully, whether or
not he would not awaken in a few minutes and find this too to be only
a dream. He heard the man who had hailed them, telling Jack that he
was the first mate of the barque _Baltimore_, of Baltimore, and that
they were bound for New York from Key West, having run fifty miles out
of their course to pick them up at this island. He heard him ask Jack
which one of them had set the bladder of porpoise hide adrift, that
the _Baltimore_ had picked up off the Florida coast, and saw that Jack
jerked his thumb toward him, and that the mate of the _Baltimore_ was
looking at him, and was saying that it was a d—d clever Yankee trick.
He saw the sailors crowding around, looking here and there; peeping and
prying into the doorway of the hut, and talking amongst themselves.
“Blast my eyes, Tommy, look at this here shanty!” “Well, I’m cussed if
they hain’t got a ship’s boat slung up for a roof!” “Damme! look at
his beard and hair; (this in a hoarse whisper) he’s the second mate,
Bill;—Granger, you know.”
Then he heard Jack ask the mate of the _Baltimore_ for a chew of
tobacco. He cut off the piece of the plug with his old broken
jack-knife, and Tom watched him doing it as though it was a matter of
the greatest moment to him. I can recollect that he thought dully how
Jack must enjoy his tobacco after having been so long without it.
After a while there was a movement, and he heard Jack calling to him to
come along, as they were all going over to the boat, but it was still
in the same dazed state that he walked along the beach with the others
until they came around the end of the sand hills, saw the bay open
before him, and the barque floating like a swan upon the smooth surface
of the water. A ship’s boat was lying high and dry on the sand of the
beach, and two sailors were sitting in the stern, smoking comfortably
and talking together. They tumbled out of the boat and stood looking as
the others drew near, and Tom thought what a strange sight Jack and he
must be—ragged, tattered, patched, half-naked, with beards reaching to
their breasts, and heads uncovered, excepting for the mat of hair that
hung as low as their shoulders. He had not thought of their looking
strange before this.
So they reached the boat, and Tom stood for a moment looking down into
it and at the oars lying along the thwarts within. Then he and Jack
and Mr. Winterbury (the first mate) climbed in and the boat was shoved
off, grating on the sand as it moved into the water. There was a rattle
of oars dropped into the rowlocks, and then the regular “chug! chug!”
of the rowing. He looked back and saw the island and the beach and
the white sand hills that he knew so well dropping slowly astern. It
seemed very strange to be looking at them from the ocean. At last they
were close to where the barque was slowly rising and falling upon the
heaving of the ground swell that came rolling in around the point of
the sandy hook beyond. This is the way in which their rescue came.
As they swept under the lee of the barque Mr. Winterbury stood up in
the stern sheets of the boat. There were a row of faces looking down at
them from the forecastle, and two or three sailors were standing on the
bulwarks, holding on to the shrouds. They, too, were looking down into
the boat. Two men were standing near to the break of the poop. One of
them was a handsome young fellow of about twenty; the other was a tall,
rather loose-jointed man, somewhat round-shouldered, and a little past
the prime of life. He had his hands clasped behind him, and he hailed
the first mate as soon as the cutter came alongside.
“Did you find them all safe and sound, Mr. Winterbury?”
“Yes, sir; safe and sound.”
Mr. Winterbury went up the side first, and Jack and Tom followed close
at his heels. They were met by Captain Williamson as soon as they had
stepped upon the deck. He shook hands with them, and immediately asked
them to step into the cabin, for he must have seen that it was trying
to them to be stared at by all of the ship’s crew. There was a decanter
of Madeira and three glasses on the cabin table. Captain Williamson
bade Tom and Jack be seated, and then sat down himself. He filled one
of the glasses, and then passed the decanter to the others, bidding
them to fill likewise, which they did.
It may not be out of place here to give you a description of Captain
Williamson. He was one of the skippers of the last century, the like
of which we rarely, if ever, see nowadays. He was part owner in the
craft that he sailed, and made a good thing of it. He came of an old
Annapolis family, and was a courteous, kindly, Christian gentleman,
though stiff and formal in his manners. He fancied that he looked like
General Washington, and it was a weakness of his to act and carry
himself as nearly as he could after the manner of the General, who, by
the by, was a distant relative or connection, though by marriage, if
I mistake not. Another weakness of his was a fancy that he would have
made a great naval captain if he had only had the opportunity.
As it was, he had never smelt fighting powder in all his life; nor was
he likely to do so, for, though no coward, he was cautious and careful
in the extreme, and would never willingly have entered into action,
even with a fighting bum-boat. He always wore a cocked hat, like an
admiral, knee-breeches, buckles and pumps, and when he was standing
still rested mainly on one foot, with his hands clasped behind him
and the knee of the other leg bent, just as General Washington always
stands in the pictures that one sees of him.
So he sat now, with one knee crossed over the other, very stiff and
straight, just as General Washington might have sat if he had been
sitting in the cabin.
“May I ask which of you is the first mate?” said he.
“I’m the first mate, sir,” said Jack.
“Mr. Baldwin, I believe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it you, sir, who conceived the extremely ingenious and clever
plan of sending bags or bladders of porpoise hide afloat, with your
condition and location inclosed within them?”
“No, sir,” said Jack, “it was my mate here,” and he chucked his thumb
toward Tom.
“It was a very clever thought—very clever indeed,” said Captain
Williamson, turning to Tom. “How did you get that black substance with
which it was covered?”
“We mixed the porpoise blubber with soot,” said Tom.
The captain nodded his head. “Very clever indeed,” said he again,
“it was very efficacious, for the bladder was quite covered with the
substance when we picked it up—so much so, indeed, that my fingers were
thoroughly befouled in the handling of it. And was it you, also, who
made the map of the island?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom again.
Then Captain Williamson nodded his head once more, and said for the
third time: “Very clever—very clever, indeed.” Then he told Tom that
the _Baltimore_ had picked up the bladder off the Florida coast. “It
was,” said he, “but fifty miles out of my course to come to this
island, for I am bound for New York harbor. I recognized the situation
of the island from the plan of it found enclosed in the bladder.”
“It was a kind and Christian act on your part,” said Tom. “Very few
captains would have run fifty miles out of their course to pick up two
poor souls, ’specially while so many British cruisers are about. I and
my mate—”
Here he stopped, for a great lump rose in his throat until it seemed to
choke him.
“Tut! tut! tut! tut!” said Captain Williamson, holding up his hand
deprecatingly; “it was no more than one Christian man ought to do for
another. Say no more of that, I beg of you. There are many questions
that I wish to ask of you in reference to the loss of the _Nancy
Hazlewood_, but I will not trouble you with questions just at this
season. I will beg of you to give such an account, however, after you
are refreshed with clean linen and clothes, and what not.”
As Captain Williamson paused for a moment Tom looked at Jack, and saw
that he fidgeted restlessly in his chair when the other spoke of the
_Nancy Hazlewood_. There was a great deal about her loss that would be
very difficult and very bitter to tell.
“In the meantime,” said Captain Williamson, resuming his speech, “you
need have no anxiety about anything that you may desire to fetch away
from the island with you, for I have sent a boat ashore under my second
mate, Mr. Bright. He will see that everything is brought safely away
from your hut or cabin. So, as I said, you need have no anxiety on that
score.”
At these words Jack and Tom sprung to their feet, for the thought
struck them both at once that their money would be found, and that in
an hour’s time every man aboard of the ship would not only know that
the two castaways had been digging for treasure, but would also know
where that treasure had been found. It would be no secret then, but
would be known to all, and there was no telling what such knowledge
might bring with it. It was a thing that no one but the captain or the
chief officers of the ship should be aware of just at the present time.
“Captain Williamson,” cried Jack, “for the love of heaven, don’t let
that boat go ashore just yet! Tom, you speak to him, you’re blessed
with the gift of talk; speak to him, and tell him about the mon—, about
you know what.”
“Yes, captain,” cried Tom, “for heaven’s sake don’t let the boat go
ashore till we tell you something first.”
Captain Williamson had also risen to his feet. He seemed to be very
much amazed at their words. “Why not? Why shouldn’t the boat go
ashore?” said he. “What does all this mean?”
“Has the boat left the ship yet, captain?” said Tom.
“Yes; the boat has left the ship; but what does all this mean, I say?”
“Then, stop it—call it back!” cried Tom.
Jack was walking up and down, patting his clenched fist in his
excitement. “I’ll tell you what it means,” he blurted out; “it means
that there’s nigh to nine thousand dollars in silver money in that hut,
and that the crew of the boat mustn’t find it there.”
“Nine thousand dollars!” repeated Captain Williamson; and then he
stopped and stood glaring at the two men as though he doubted he had
heard aright.
“Yes,” said Jack, thumping his fist down on the table, “nine thousand
dollars, and if you let that boat’s crew find it, and find where it
came from, you’ll be chucking a fortune from your own hands into their
pockets. For heaven’s sake, stop the boat—call it back!”
Then Captain Williamson stepped quickly to the door and flung it open.
“Mr. Winterbury!” cried he, sharply.
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Call the cutter back!”
“Call the—”
“Call the cutter back!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
There was a pause, and then Tom and Jack heard the bellow of the mate’s
voice in the trumpet:
“Cutter ahoy-y-y-y!”
Captain Williamson stood with his head out of the cabin door, and
presently they heard him ask:
“Do they hear you, sir?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then signal them back.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Then Captain Williamson drew in his head, shutting the door carefully,
and resumed his seat. He passed his hand over his face, and crossed his
knees, and then put on his Washingtonian air again. I think that he was
half ashamed of the excitement that had driven him out of it a moment
before.
“Now, Mr. Granger,” said he, “since Mr. Baldwin has called upon you to
be the spokesman, will you tell me what all this means?”
“Yes, sir; I will,” said Tom. “Of course, you will have to know
everything, after what has passed; but I should have told you of it
anyhow, for I put much trust in your honor.”
“You are perfectly right to do so,” said Captain Williamson. “Sit down,
if you please.”
Then the two sat down again, and Tom began his story. Captain
Williamson did not say a word to interrupt him, but every now and
then he looked sharply from Tom to Jack, and from Jack back again to
Tom. He sat with his elbows on the arms of his chair, and the tips of
his fingers just touching each other; but he did not move a muscle,
excepting as he turned his head when he looked first at one, and then
at the other.
At last Tom had made an end of the story. Captain Williamson did not
move for a second or two, but he sat just as he had been doing all
along. Then he drew a deep breath, and arose from his chair. He took a
turn or two up and down the cabin; then he stopped suddenly in front of
Tom and Jack.
“This is an extraordinary—a most extraordinary tale,” said he. “I never
heard the like in all my life. It’s like a tale in a romance, and I
can scarcely believe that I have heard aright. That you should find a
treasure on this—”
Here he stopped abruptly and looked sharply from one to the other.
“Surely, there can be nothing false and underhand in all this,” he said.
“I suppose the story does sound strange to you,” said Tom. “I reckon
that it’s because we’re so used to it that it don’t seem as though it
ought to be strange. It’s the truth, though, captain. There wouldn’t be
any use in our telling you a lie, for you can easily prove the truth of
it for yourself.”
“True, true,” said he, and then he began walking up and down the cabin
again. “What do you intend to do about the matter now?” said he,
stopping for a moment, and turning to the others.
Tom and Jack looked at one another.
“I’ll leave the whole thing to you, Tom,” said Jack. “It was you who
found the money—at least, it was you that found out where it was. I
suppose it ought all to belong to you, by rights.”
“That’s all nonsense, Jack,” said Tom. “It was you who found it first;
but even if you hadn’t, we’re mates, and it’s share and share alike
between us.”
“Well, I reckon that’s no more than fair,” said Jack, “but it don’t
matter in this case; I’ll leave the whole thing to you.”
Tom sat lost in thought for a few moments. At last he spoke: “I’d make
this proposal,” said he; “that we put the whole thing in the hands
of Captain Williamson, leaving him to do what he thinks best in the
matter, only having him guarantee to share all gains that shall come
from it with us. It seems to me that we certainly owe as much as this
to him, and that it’s the least that we can do. What do you think,
Jack?”
Jack hesitated for a moment. “Well,” said he, “I suppose that it’s no
more than what’s right.”
“I think not,” said Tom. “What do you say about it, captain?”
“It’s for you to say,” said Captain Williamson. “Of course, I’ll be
glad to go into the matter with you, but I wish you to understand that
I don’t want you to feel that any money is due me because I ran a few
miles out of my course to pick you up. That was no more than one man
could be expected to do for another. If I come into this, it must be on
purely business grounds, and not as a gift of gratitude from you.”
“Very well,” said Tom. “What do you think would be fair terms between
us?”
“If you have no objections, I would like to talk with my first mate
about it,” said Captain Williamson.
Jack and Tom looked at one another again.
“Do you think that there’s any special need of his knowing about it?”
said Jack. “It seems to me that we’re taking in a good many. It’s all
right that you should share with us, seeing that you’ve treated us in
such a handsome manner. I acknowledge that very few captains would have
sailed out of their course in times of war for the sake of picking up
a couple of poor, shipwrecked devils, with nothing to be gained by it,
and, apart from the business part of it, I think likely that we owe
that much to you; but I don’t see why the mate should be taken in, too.”
“I don’t know that he will expect to be ‘taken in,’” said Captain
Williamson, somewhat coldly, “but I think that you’ll find his advice
in the matter will be of help to you. You may rely upon it that the
secret will be as safe with him as it will be with me.”
“All right,” said Jack; “if Tom don’t care, I don’t, either.”
So Mr. Winterbury was called into the cabin, and Tom told the story of
the finding of the treasure all over again.
“What do you think of it, Mr. Winterbury?” said Captain Williamson,
when Tom had ended.
“I think it’s the most extraordinary yarn that ever I heard in all my
life.”
“Exactly my thought. And now, if Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Granger will
excuse us for a moment or two, I would like to have a few words with
you outside.” Then they went out, and Jack and Tom were left alone.
“It seems to me that you did rather too much, Tom,” said Jack.
“I think it was as little as we could do,” said Tom. “They’ve sailed
fifty miles out of their course to pick us up, without expecting so
much as a red cent for it, so I think it was as little as we could do.”
“Oh, all right; I’m not finding fault,” said Jack. “I don’t mean to
find any fault at all; I was only giving you my notion about it. I’m
satisfied.”
But it was very plain, from the way in which he spoke, that he was
_not_ satisfied.
In a little while Captain Williamson and Mr. Winterbury came into the
cabin again. Then the captain asked a number of questions about the
wreck—how much of it they had already uncovered, etc., etc.
“We’ve uncovered a little less than one quarter of it, I should judge,”
said Tom, looking to Jack for confirmation.
Jack nodded his head.
Then Captain Williamson told them what his idea was about it. That
he did not think that the wreck was that of a treasure ship, as they
had not found money enough in it for that; that he had no doubt that
the vessel had been carrying newly-minted money to some one of the
Spanish provinces when she had been cast on the beach—probably in a
south-easterly gale. From what they had already found, he thought that
there might have been from forty to fifty thousand dollars in her all
together, and that there might be from thirty to forty thousand dollars
yet left under the sand. He said that he would undertake to find the
rest of the money, and that he would send or take out a ship stocked
with provisions for that purpose, the expense of which he would bear
himself. That all wages and expenses above that should be paid out
of the money that they should find, and that the net gain should be
shared equally between them, each taking a third. “Or,” said he, in
conclusion, “I will buy either or both of your interests out, accepting
all the risks myself. I will give you each six thousand dollars for
your share in the venture, for which I offer a note payable at ninety
days, with safe indorsement.” He then said that he would give them a
week to think over the offer he had made, and would be glad to hear
anything that they might have to propose.
I will say here, that at the end of a week they had made up their minds
to run their chances of what might be found, and that it paid them to
do so.
A little later in the morning Captain Williamson and Mr. Winterbury and
Jack and Tom went ashore in the captain’s gig. They left the gig and
the crew of it a little distance up the beach, while they four walked
down to the hut, Tom and Jack carrying a small sea-chest between them,
in which to store the money that was hidden under a pile of brush-wood
in the cabin. Then they went out on the sand-spit to inspect the wreck,
and Captain Williamson renewed the offer that he had made in the cabin
of the _Baltimore_, and said again that they might take a week to think
it over.
Then they tore down the breakwater that Tom and Jack had built, so
that the sea might make in during the next storm, and so hide the work
that they had done. After this they went back to the gig, and Captain
Williamson sent four of the men to the hut for the chest of money.
So, at last, their life upon the island came to an end.
They had a safe and quick journey home, entering Sandy Hook on the 20th
of the month. They were quarantined for a couple of days through some
delay, and landed in New York on the 23d.
During the voyage home, Jack gave Captain Williamson an account of the
loss of the _Hazlewood_. The captain looked very serious over it; he
did not say anything, but he shook his head. He evidently thought that
it was a very shady piece of business.
The day after they landed in New York, Jack and Tom took stage to
Philadelphia, which they reached a little after noon of the 26th.
You all know what followed. The Board of Trade appointed a committee
to inquire into the circumstances of the loss of the ship _Nancy
Hazlewood_. Tom did not write a letter home, because he expected that
every day would be his last in town; but the investigation dragged
along until more than a week had been consumed by the committee.
Both Tom and Jack were blamed, because that they had come off with
their lives, while the captain and most of the crew had gone down
in the ship. Mr. Blakie, of the firm of Blakie & Howard, said some
particularly bitter and cutting things, which might have stung Tom very
sharply if he had not felt that, by rights, there was not much blame
resting upon him.
Mr. Blakie’s words were meant as much for him as they were for Jack,
for it was not known that Tom had been taken off the vessel against
his will. Jack did not breathe a word of this, and Tom was too proud
to seem to want to slip from under the blame, and leave Jack to bear
it all. Jack did not say in so many words that Tom had joined him in
deserting the ship in the cutter, but what he did say would have led
any reasonable man to infer as much. It is quite natural that a man
should dislike to carry all of a load of blame on his own shoulders,
and there is a great satisfaction in knowing that others share the
burden; at the same time, it would have been a good thing for Tom, if
Jack had spoken out and told the whole truth, for, as it turned out, it
weighed in the balance against him when every scruple told.
But at last the committee dismissed Tom, and he was free to go; little
he cared then of their favorable or unfavorable opinion, for the time
had come when he might go home.
There was just time to catch the morning stage for Eastcaster, and in
half an hour he was rumbling out of Philadelphia, mounted, pipe in
mouth, on the outside of the _Union_ stage, with his boxes and bundles
safely stowed away in the boot.
PART III
CHAPTER XIV.
IT seemed to Tom, now that he was fairly on the homeward road, as
though the wheels of the stage were weighted with lead, and as though
the horses that dragged it crawled at a snail’s pace, for his hopes
and his longing for home outstripped a thousand fold the rate of his
traveling.
To P., 18 M.—14 M. to E.; to P., 19 M.—13 M. to E.; to P., 20 M.—12 M.
to E. So passed the milestones in succession, and Tom counted every one
as they rumbled by it. But at last it was 2 M. to E., and a steep hill
lay in front of them; it was the last hill between him and home.
Tom had taken the _Union_ line of stages, which did not, like the
_Enterprise_ line, run on to Downeyville, but stopped at Eastcaster.
The driver of “No. 3” was a stranger to Tom; old Willy Wilkes had
heretofore driven the stage as long as he could remember.
“Where’s old Willy Wilkes?” said Tom, soon after they had left
Philadelphia.
The strange driver let fly an amber stream of tobacco juice over the
side of the coach, and answered, briefly, “Dead.”
“Dead!”
“Ya-as. Caught cold last spring and died in June;” then, with some
curiosity, “Did you know him?”
“Yes, I knew him,” said Tom, briefly. Here was the first change, and
it threw a cloud over him; was he to find other changes as great? He
had only been gone a year and a half, but it seemed to him as though it
might have been ten years. There was a pause of a few minutes, and the
new driver of “No. 3” looked furtively at Tom from out the corners of
his eyes. Tom had not cut off his beard, and his hair had turned iron
grey in the last five months; he knew that he was greatly changed.
It was Tom’s beard that seemed to catch the driver’s eye, for folks
went clean-shaven in those days.
“I allow you’re from foreign parts,” said he, at last.
“Yes; I’m from foreign parts,” said Tom, shortly. Nothing more was said
between them after this. Tom sat buried in thoughts and the driver sat
chewing vigorously at his quid of tobacco, looking steadfastly over the
leader’s ears the whiles.
So they began the slow climbing of the last hill; they reached the top
of the rise, and then the country lay spread out before them, hill
and valley, field, meadow-land and wood, all brown and golden in the
mellow autumn sunlight. The houses clustered more thickly about the
village, and over the rusting foliage peeped the white spire of St.
James’ Church. A lump arose in Tom’s throat at the sight of the dear
old place, and his eyeballs felt hot and dry. Then a keen and sudden
thrill shot through him, for, away beyond the village and over to the
right, he could see the yellow sunlight shining on the white walls of a
house. Close to it stood an old stone mill and back of it was an apple
orchard. Then Tom felt, indeed, that his darling was near to him.
The driver gathered up his reins. “Click!” said he, and the coach
dashed down the hill, and house and mill were hidden from Tom’s sight.
So they reached the level road and went rumbling along it; they turned
the corner and Eastcaster was before them. The scattered houses grew
thicker and thicker; they turned another corner sharply and were in
Market street.
Everything was the same as when Tom had last seen them: trees, houses,
stores, people, everything. Shipwreck, death, loneliness and misery
had been around him for a year and a half, and yet Eastcaster was the
same as though he had not come back to it through the valley of the
shadow of death. It seemed strange to him that it should be so; it was
as though he had left everything but yesterday. Here was Pepperill’s
store, there the blacksmith shop. They passed Parkinson’s tobacco
store; a number of men were sitting on chairs around the door in the
sunshine. They looked up at the stage with dull interest. Tom knew
them all, but not one of them recognized him. A little further along,
on the opposite side of the street, was Mr. Moor’s office. As they
rumbled by it, Tom saw that two men were standing at the window looking
absently into the street; one of them was Mr. Moor, the other was Isaac
Naylor. A thrill darted through him when he saw Isaac Naylor; it was
strange that the sight of his former rival should seem to bring Patty
so near to him. The two men looked at the stage as it passed, but they
saw nothing, for their minds were evidently fixed upon other things.
Mr. Moor was talking, looking anxious and worried; Isaac Naylor was
listening, cold and impassive.
Tom noticed this in the moment that he was passing.
Then the stage stopped, for it was in front of the _Crown and Angel_,
and Black Jim—the identical Black Jim that Tom had left a year and a
half ago, who was standing out in the road, waiting the coming of the
stage—loosened the straps at the horses’ necks. The passengers tumbled
out from the inside, and Tom got down from the box, and stood looking
about him. There were a group of loungers sitting along the tavern
porch in the warm sunlight; their feet on the railing, and their chairs
tilted back. Tom knew nearly all of them, but they did not recognize
him;—he never fully realized till then, how changed he was in his
appearance. Even Mrs. Bond, the landlady, who was standing at the door
with her hands under her apron, did not know him.
Some one came walking along the street and stopped, for a moment, to
look at the stage—it was Will Gaines. “He’ll know me, at least,” said
Tom, to himself, but he did not; he looked at Tom, but there was no
other light than that of curiosity in his eyes.
“Will,” said he, at last; “Will Gaines, don’t you know me?”
Then sudden recognition flashed into Will’s face. He stood for a moment
as though bereft of speech; then he strode forward, and clutched Tom by
the shoulder.
“My God! Tom Granger; is it—is it you? They said you were dead! I—I—”
Then he stopped, and Tom felt his hands trembling as they lay on his
shoulders.
“Dead!” said Tom, after a moment of silence.
“Yes, Tom; dead.”
“But I’m not dead,” said Tom, smiling, and trying to shake off the
feeling that was creeping over him.
“Don’t! Don’t talk that way, Tom,” said Will; “don’t make so light of
it. Your father had a letter from Lovejoy & Co., of Philadelphia. It
was nearly a year ago, now; the letter said that your ship had been
lost, no one knew how or where. Tom,”—here he stopped abruptly—“Come
into the tavern, Tom,” said he.
As they went up the tavern steps and entered the door, the loungers
stared at them with wide-opened eyes. They did not recognize him, but
a stranger was an object of interest in the town in those days. Will
hurried him into the house, and Mrs. Bond showed them into the parlor.
There was something so odd in Will’s manner, that the feeling of fear
grew heavier and heavier on Tom’s spirit—the first words that he spoke,
were:
“Will, how’s Patty?”
Will did not answer immediately, and Tom, glancing quickly up, saw that
he was looking earnestly at him.
There was a moment of dead silence, through which sounded the clicking
of the dishes being washed in the out kitchen of the tavern.
“Will, how’s Patty?” said Tom, again, and he himself noticed what a
sharp ring there was in his voice. “Why don’t you speak? What’s the
matter? How’s Patty?”
“Patty?”
“Yes; Patty.”
“Patty? Oh! Patty’s all right.”
Tom looked at him very keenly. His heart was crumbling within him,
though he could not tell why. He felt faint and ill, and leaned heavily
on the table near him. He looked out of the window, watching Black
Jim watering the stage horses at the trough in the stable-yard; then,
without looking back at Will, he steadied himself for the next question.
“I’m no coward, Will,” said he; “you see I’ve gone through enough
this year to turn my hair grey, and I’m no coward now, if I ever was
before. I want you to tell me the truth; is—is Patty dead?”
“Dead! No; of course she isn’t dead. She was very much broken down when
she heard of the loss of the ship that you sailed in; but she’s all
right now,—well and hearty.”
“And she’s not sick—nothing the matter with her?”
“Nothing.”
Tom put his hand to his forehead, for things were swimming around
him; then he gave a short laugh, but there was a quaver in it. “You
frightened me pretty badly, Will,” said he; “I don’t deny that I felt
as though you were dragging my heart out by the roots.”
“See here, Tom, you don’t look well,” said Will; “let me call for a
glass of brandy for you.”
“I don’t want any brandy; I wouldn’t mind having a drop of water,
though.” There was a pitcher standing on the table beside him; he
tilted it and looked into it and saw that there was water in it; then
he raised it to his lips and took a deep draught of it. “What did you
scare me so for?” he said, half angrily, turning on Will again.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, Tom,” said the other; then he hesitated
for a moment or two. “Look here, Tom,” said he, “you’d better go home;
your mother has something to tell you. Your father was in town not half
an hour ago; I saw him at Bradley’s blacksmith shop. I wish to heavens
you’d been a little sooner; you might have ridden out home with him.
If you’ll wait a bit, I’ll slip over and borrow uncle’s gig and drive
you home.”
“I don’t want to wait; I’ll walk,” said Tom. Then, “Look here, Will;
what are you so anxious for me to go straight home for?”
“What makes you think that I’m anxious?”
“You ain’t answering my question, Will Gaines.”
“I have no reason for wanting you to go straight home, except that I
suppose your folks’ll want to see you.”
“Is that all?” said Tom, looking sharply at the other.
“Yes.”
Tom looked at him a little while longer, and then he turned away. He
did not believe Will, but he saw that nothing more was to be gotten out
of him.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Will, presently, “you walk on out
home, and I’ll go over and get uncle’s gig and drive after you, and
pick you up. It won’t do to run in on your people without their knowing
of your coming. Your mother ought to know of it before she sees you.”
This was all very true, though Tom felt that Will’s plan was laid in
order to secure his going home without stopping. He said nothing of his
thoughts, however, but left the tavern, and started for home.
He walked briskly along the dusky turnpike road, but there was a dull
feeling of unhappiness resting upon his heart, for Will’s words, and
looks, and tones, all told him that there was something wrong. So he
came at last to the foot of the hill, where the turnpike road crosses
Stony-Brook by the old county bridge. On the other side of the stream
is a by-road that leads off from the highway and runs through the
woods. Tom knew it well, for it was the old mill road, and led to Elihu
Penrose’s house. Many a time had he walked it, and well he knew every
bend and turn of it. The last time he had passed along it his heart
had beaten high with love, and hope, and high resolve, albeit there
was the bitterness of a coming parting lurking at the bottom of it.
When he came to the spot where the mill road opens on the pike he stood
still, and, as he stood, all the fear that had rested upon him since
his homecoming seemed to gather and intensify into a dark and nameless
dread. What had happened? What could it all mean?
As his fears grew stronger his love waxed stronger with them. He looked
back along the turnpike road—there was no signs of Will Gaines. Why
should he go home, and not see his own dear love the first of all? “God
bless her!” said he, with quivering lips, “I’ll not go home first; I’ll
go and see her—my darling!”
So he left the highway, and walked down the road through the woods. The
brown leaves that were beginning to fall rustled beneath his feet, and
the yellow patches of sunlight slid over his head and shoulders as he
walked beneath the shadow of the grey trees along the roadside.
Then he came out of the woods and into the open sunlight again. Now he
was on the grass-bordered foot-path; on one side of him was the white
dusty road, and on the other the mill-race, with the row of pollard
willows standing along it. In front of him were the white walls of
the mill-house, with the vines clustered around the end of the old
well-remembered porch, just as he had seen them last. As he came closer
he saw a slender girl’s figure sitting in a high-backed rocking chair,
half hidden by the net-work of the vines around her.
It was Patty.
Tom’s heart gave a great leap within him; then stood still, and then
began to beat furiously. He paused for a moment, gazing at her, his
hand resting on the top of the picket fence in front of the garden;
then he went forward again, but very slowly.
She was sitting bent over some sewing that lay spread out on her lap.
He stood for a second or two at the green gate that led up to the
porch, and then he laid his hand on the latch. At the click of the
latch Patty raised her head, and Tom saw that she, like others that he
had met, did not know him.
She arose and stood watching him as he came slowly up the path; his
heart beating as though it would smother him.
He reached the porch;—one step,—two steps,—three steps,—and he stood
upon it and looked at her.
Then he saw a strange frightened look come slowly into her eyes; she
reached out her hand and laid it on the top of the rocking chair near
to her.
“Patty!”
There was a space of dead silence, through which Tom heard and noticed
the sound of rushing water and the clattering of the mill. He did not
go a step forward, for, as he looked at her, there was that in her face
that chilled him through and through—it was as though a gulf had opened
between them.
Her face was as white as death, and Tom saw the fingers of the hand
that rested on the top of the rocking chair, quivering nervously. She
moistened her lips with her tongue, and at last she spoke, but in a
hoarse whisper, and so low that he could hardly hear the matter of the
words:
“Tom—Tom—Oh, my God, Tom! is that thee?”
“Yes, Patty; it’s me! I’ve come back to thee after a sorely long time!
Why don’t thee speak—why don’t thee say something to me? What’s the
matter, Patty?”
“Wait—wait—let me think!” said she, putting her finger to her forehead,
“they all told me that thee was dead—they said that thee was drowned.
Can dead people come back again?”
“Patty! Patty!” cried Tom, “my own darling! tell me; what does this
mean?”
By this time the tears were running in streams down her pale cheeks;
she made no effort to wipe them away, and did not seem to know that
they were flowing.
“What is the matter?—Patty, tell me,” said Tom, again.
“Oh, Tom! I—I—am going to be married to-morrow!”
I do not know how long it was that Tom stood there, staring blankly at
her. His throat was dry and husky, and he felt the muscles of his face
twitching every now and then. It was Patty who broke the silence.
“Tom!” she cried, in a choking voice; “dear Tom! don’t look at me in
that way—thee breaks my heart! Say something kind to me, Tom—speak to
me!”
“Who’s thee going to—who’s the man, Patty?” said Tom, dully.
“Isaac Naylor. Oh, Tom! I was urged to it so that I couldn’t help
myself. They all told me that thee was dead. Even thy mother said thee
was drowned!”
The muscles of Tom’s throat had tightened until he felt as though he
was choking. He stood as though uncertain what to do, for a little
while; then he said, “I—I guess I’d better go—go home, now; there’s no
use my staying any—any longer.” Then he turned away and went stumbling
blindly down the porch steps. He reached the gate and fumbled for a
little while, hunting for the latch; then he opened it and went out
into the road. There were a few chickens dusting themselves in the
path; he stood looking stupidly at them for a little while, his hands
hanging limp at his sides. Then he turned and walked heavily away,
without looking back.
CHAPTER XV.
TOM GRANGER walked along, scarcely knowing where he was going. After a
while he stopped and looked about him, and he saw that he was standing
in the road not far from the highway. Around him was the silent woods;
in front of him was the sunny highroad, about three hundred paces
farther on. He felt that he could not go out into it just now. He flung
himself down on the grassy roadside, burying his face in his arms,
giving himself up utterly to the despair that was upon him. No sound
broke the silence of the autumn woodland but the gurgle of the rocky
brook across the road, the sudden rustle of the trees as the breeze
rushed through them now and then, and the rattling of the dead leaves
stirred by a breath of air.
Tom lay heeding nothing, thinking nothing, for his heart was too full
of the bitterness of his troubles to give place to aught else. How long
he lay there he cannot tell; that which aroused him was the sound of
footsteps coming down the road from the highway. Then he sprang to his
feet, for he could not bear that any one should find him lying there.
He saw that it was Isaac Naylor who was coming. Then Tom strode out
into the road and stood directly in front of him, so that the other
could not pass him.
“Does thee know who I am, Isaac Naylor?” said he; then, without waiting
for an answer, “I’m Tom Granger!”
Maybe the Friend’s face grew a trifle whiter than it was used to be;
nevertheless, he stood his ground, though he looked around and behind
him, as though to see whether any help was near to him in case that
the need for it should arise. I have no doubt but that Tom’s face was
white, his eyes bloodshot, and that he looked wicked and dangerous as
he stood in the pathway in front of the other. For a while Isaac stood
with bent head and with hands that trembled a little clasped in front
of him. But presently he raised his face and looked calmly into Tom’s
eyes.
“I heard in town that thee had come back, Thomas,” said he, “and I was
both glad and sorry to hear it. I was glad that the Good Father had
spared thy life and sorry that thee had come back just now. I see where
thee’s been and I know what thee’s heard. I’m sorry—very sorry.”