eyeing them sardonically. "Tackel Old Scrubs, will ye? Well, some
needs a bale of cotton to fall on 'em afore they learns anything.
Enjoyed your little diversions, mates? And w'at do you expect to gain?
I asks you that, now. You poor little infants! Ain't you never tackled
him afore? Don't remember a little brigatine, name of the
_Petrel!_ My eye, but you _are_ a pack of damn fools!"
To this he received no reply. The men sullenly assisted each other.
Then they went immediately on deck and to work.
After this taste of his quality, Captain Selover enjoyed a quiet ship.
We made good time, but for a long while nothing happened. Finally the
monotony was broken by an incident.
One evening before the night winds I sat in the shadow of the extra
dory on top of the deck house. The moon was but just beyond the full,
so I suppose I must have been practically invisible. Certainly the
Nigger did not know of my presence, for he came and stood within three
feet of me without giving any sign. The companion was open. In a
moment some door below was opened also, and a scrap of conversation
came up to us very clearly.
"You haf dem finished?" the doctor's voice inquired. "So, that iss
well,"--papers rustled for a few moments. "And the r-result--
ah--exactly--it iss that exactly. Percy, mein son, that maigs
the experiment exact. We haf the process----"
"I don't see, sir, quite," replied the voice of Percy Darrow, with
a tinge of excitement. "I can follow the logic of the experiment, of
course--so can I follow the logic of a trip to the moon. But when you
come to apply it--how do you get your re-agent? There's no known
method----"
Dr. Schermerhorn broke in: "Ach, it iss that I haf perfected. Pardon
me, my boy, it iss the first I haf worked from you apart. It iss for
a surprise. I haf made in small quantities the missing ingredient.
It will form a perfect interruption to the current. Now we go----"
"Do you mean to say," almost shouted Darrow, "that you have succeeded
in freeing it in the metal?"
"Yes," replied the doctor simply.
I could hear a chair overturned.
"Why, with that you can----"
"I can do everything," broke in the doctor. "The possibilities are
enormous."
"And you can really produce it in quantity?"
"I think so; it iss for us to discover."
A pause ensued.
"Why!" came the voice of Percy Darrow, awestricken. "With fifty
centigrammes only you could--you could transmute any substance--why,
you could make anything you pleased almost! You could make enough
diamonds to fill that chest! It is the philosopher's stone!"
"Diamonds--yes--it is possible," interrupted the doctor impatiently,
"if it was worth while. But you should see the real importance----"
The ship careened to a chance swell; a door slammed; the voices were
cut off. I looked up. The Nigger's head was thrust forward fairly into
the glow from the companionway. The mask of his sullenness had fallen.
His eyes fairly rolled in excitement, his thick lips were drawn back
to expose his teeth, his powerful figure was gathered with the tensity
of a bow. When the door slammed, he turned silently to glide away.
At that instant the watch was changed, and in a moment I found myself
in my bunk.
Ten seconds later the Nigger, detained by Captain Selover for some
trifling duty, burst into the forecastle. He was possessed by the
wildest excitement. This in itself was enough to gain the attention
of the men, but his first words were startling.
"I found de treasure!" he almost shouted. "I know where he kept!"
They leaped at him--Handy Solomon and Pulz--and fairly shook out of
him what he thought he knew. He babbled in the forgotten terms of
alchemy, dressing modern facts in the garments of mediaeval thought
until they were scarcely to be recognised.
"And so he say dat he fine him, de Philosopher Stone, and he keep him
in dat heavy box we see him carry aboard, and he don' have to make
gol' with it--he can make diamon's--_diamon's_--he say it too
easy to fill dat box plum full of diamon's."
They gesticulated and exclaimed and breathed hard, full of the marvel
of such a thought. Then abruptly the clamour died to nothing. I felt
six eyes bent on me, six unwinking eyes moving restless in motionless
figures, suspicious, deadly as cobras----
Up to now my standing with the men had been well enough. Now they drew
frankly apart. One of the most significant indications of this was
the increased respect they paid my office. It was as though by prompt
obedience, instant deference, and the emphasising of ship's etiquette
they intended to draw sharply the line between themselves and me.
There was much whispering apart, many private talks and consultations
in which I had no part. Ordinarily they talked freely enough before
me. Even the reading during the dog watch was intermitted--at least
it was on such days as I happened to be in the watch below. But twice
I caught the Nigger and Handy Solomon consulting together over the
volume on alchemy.
I was in two minds whether to report the whole matter to Captain
Selover. The only thing that restrained me was the vagueness of the
intention, and the fact that the afterguard was armed, and was four
to the crew's five. An incident, however, decided me. One evening I
was awakened by a sound of violent voices. Captain Selover occasionally
juggled the watches for variety's sake, and I now had Handy Solomon
and Perdosa. The Nigger, being cook, stood no watch.
"You drunken Greaser swab!" snarled Handy Solomon. "You misbegotten
son of a Yaqui! I'll learn you to step on a seaman's foot, and you
can kiss the book on that! I'll cut your heart out and feed it to the
sharks!"
"Potha!" sneered Perdosa. "You cut heem you finger wid your knife."
They wrangled. At first I thought the quarrel genuine, but after a
moment or so I could not avoid a sort of reminiscent impression of
the cheap melodrama. It seemed incredible, but soon I could not dodge
the conclusion that it was a made-up quarrel designed to impress me.
Why should they desire to do so? I had to give it up, but the fact
itself was obvious enough. I laughed to see them. The affair did not
come to blows, but it did come to black looks on meeting, muttered
oaths, growls of enmity every time they happened to pass each other
on the deck. Perdosa was not so bad; his Mexican blood inclined him
to the histrionic, and his Mexican cast lent itself well to evil looks.
But Handy Solomon, for the first time in my acquaintance with him,
was ridiculous.
About this time we crossed into frequent thunders. One evening just
at dark we made out a heavy black squall. Not knowing exactly what
weight lay behind it, I called up all hands. We ducked the staysail
and foresail, lowered the peak of the mainsail, and waited to feel
of it--a rough and ready seamanship often used in these little California
windjammers. I was pretty busy, but I heard distinctly Handy Solomon's
voice behind me.
"I'll kill you sure, you Greaser, as soon as my hands are free!"
And some muttered reply from the Mexican.
The wind hit us hard, held on a few moments, and moderated to a stiff
puff. There followed the rain, so of course I knew it would amount
to nothing. I was just stooping to throw the stops off the staysail
when I felt myself seized from behind, and forced rapidly toward the
side of the ship.
Of course I struggled. The Japanese have a little trick to fool a man
who catches you around the waist from behind. It is part of the
jiu-jitsu taught the Samurai--quite a different proposition from the
ordinary "policeman jiu-jitsu." I picked it up from a friend in the
nobility. It came in very handy now, and by good luck a roll of the
ship helped me. In a moment I stood free, and Perdosa was picking
himself out of the scuppers.
The expression of astonishment was fairly well done--I will say that
for him--but I was prepared for histrionics.
"Señor!" he gasped. "Eet is you! _Sacrosanta Maria!_ I thought
you was dat Solomon! Pardon me, señor! Pardon! Have I hurt you?"
He approached me almost wheedling. I could have laughed at the
villain. It was all so transparent. He no more mistook me for Handy
Solomon than he felt any real enmity for that person. But being angry,
and perhaps a little scared, I beat him to his quarters with a
belaying pin.
On thinking the matter over, however, I failed to see all the ins and
outs of it. I could understand a desire to get rid of me; there would
be one less of the afterguard, and then, too, I knew too much of the
men's sentiments, if not of their plans. But why all this elaborate
farce of the mock quarrel and the alleged mistake? Could it be to
guard against possible failure? I could hardly think it worth while.
My only theory was that they had wished to test my strength and
determination. The whole affair, even on that supposition, was
childish enough, but I referred the exaggerated cunning to Handy
Solomon, and considered it quite adequately explained. It is a minor
point, but subsequently I learned that this surmise was correct. I
was to be saved because none of the conspirators understood navigation.
The next morning I approached Captain Selover.
"Captain," said I, "I think it my duty to report that there is trouble
brewing among the crew."
"There always is," he replied, unmoved.
"But this is serious. Dr. Schermerhorn came aboard with a chest which
the men think holds treasure. The other evening Robinson overheard
him tell his assistant that he could easily fill the box with diamonds.
Of course, he was merely illustrating the value of some scientific
experiment, but Robinson thinks, and has made the others think, that
the chest contains something to make diamonds with. I am sure they
intend to get hold of it. The affair is coming to a head."
Captain Selover listened almost indifferently.
"I came back from the islands last year," he piped, "with three
hundred thousand dollars' worth of pearls. There was sixteen in the
crew, and every man of them was blood hungry for them pearls. They
had three or four shindies and killed one man over the proper way to
divide the loot after they had got it. They didn't get it. Why?" He
drew his powerful figure to its height and spread his thick arms out
in the luxury of stretching. "Why?" he repeated, exhaling abruptly.
"Because their captain was Ezra Selover! Well, Mr. Eagen," he went
on crisply, "Captain Ezra Selover is their captain, _and they know
it_! They'll talk and palaver and git into dark corners, and
sharpen their knives, and perhaps fight it out as to which one's going
to work the monkey-doodle business in the doctor's chest, and which
one's going to tie up the sacks of them diamonds, but they won't git
any farther as long as Captain Ezra is on deck." "Yes," I objected,
"but they mean business. Last night in the squall one of them tried
to throw me overboard."
Captain Selover grinned.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"Hazed him to his quarters with a belaying pin."
"Well, that's all settled then, isn't it? What more do you want?"
I stood undecided.
"I can take care of myself," he went on. "You ought to take care of
yourself. Then there's nothing more to do."
He mused a moment.
"You have a gun, of course?" he inquired. "I forgot to ask."
"No," said I.
He whistled.
"Well, no wonder you feel sort of lost and hopeless! Here, take this,
it'll make a man of you."
He gave me a Colt's 45, the barrel of which had been filed down to
about two inches of length. It was a most extraordinary weapon, but
effective at short range.
"Here's a few loose cartridges," said he. "Now go easy. This is no
warship, and we ain't got men to experiment on. Lick 'em with your
fists or a pin, if you can; and if you do shoot, for God's sake just
wing 'em a little. They're awful good lads, but a little restless."
I took the gun and felt better. With it I could easily handle the
members of my own watch, and I did not doubt that with the assistance
of Percy Darrow even a surprise would hardly overwhelm us. I did not
count on Dr. Schermerhorn. He was quite capable of losing himself in
a problem of trajectory after the first shot.
VI
THE ISLAND
I came on deck one morning at about four bells to find the entire
ship's company afoot. Even the doctor was there. Everybody was gazing
eagerly at a narrow, mountainous island lying slate-coloured across
the early morning.
We were as yet some twenty miles distant from it, and could make out
nothing but its general outline. The latter was sharply defined,
rising and falling to a highest point one side of the middle. Over
the island, and raggedly clasping its sides, hung a cloud, the only
one visible in the sky.
I joined the afterguard.
"You see?" the doctor was exclaiming. "It iss as I haf said. The
island iss there. Everything iss as it should be!" He was quite
excited.
Percy Darrow, too, was shaken out of his ordinary calm.
"The volcano is active," was his only comment, but it explained the
ragged cloud.
"You say there's a harbour?" inquired Captain Selover.
"It should be on the west end," said Dr. Schermerhorn.
Captain Selover drew me one side. He, too was a little aroused.
"Now wouldn't that get you?" he squeaked. "Doctor runs up against a
Norwegian bum who tells him about a volcanic island, and gives its
bearings. The island ain't on the map at all. Doctor believes it, and
makes me lay my course for those bearings. _And here's the
island_! So the bum's story was true! I'd like to know what the
rest of it was!" His eyes were shining.
"Do we anchor or stand off and on?" I asked.
Captain Selover turned to grip me by the shoulder.
"I have orders from Darrow to get to a good berth, to land, to build
shore quarters, and to snug down for a stay of a year at least!"
We stared at each other.
"Joyous prospect," I muttered. "Hope there's something to do there."
The morning wore, and we rapidly approached the island. It proved to
be utterly precipitous. The high rounded hills sloped easily to within
a hundred feet or so of the water and then fell away abruptly. Where
the earth ended was a fantastic filigree border, like the fancy paper
with which our mothers used to line the pantry shelves. Below, the
white surges flung themselves against the cliffs with a wild abandon.
Thousands of sea birds wheeled in the eddies of the wind, thousands
of ravens perched on the slopes. With our glasses we could make out
the heads of seals fishing outside the surf, and a ragged belt of kelp.
When within a mile we put the helm up, and ran for the west end. A
bold point we avoided far out, lest there should be outlying ledges.
Then we came in sight of a broad beach and pounding surf.
I was ordered to take a surf boat and investigate for a landing and
an anchorage. The swell was running high. We rowed back and forth,
puzzled as to how to get ashore with all the freight it would be
necessary to land. The ship would lie well enough, for the only open
exposure was broken by a long reef over which we could make out the
seas tumbling. But inshore the great waves rolled smoothly, swiftly--
then suddenly fell forward as over a ledge, and spread with a roar
across the yellow sands. The fresh winds blew the spume back to us.
We conversed in shouts.
"We can surf the boat," yelled Thrackles, "but we can't land a load."
That was my opinion. We rowed slowly along, parallel to the shore,
and just outside the line of breakers. I don't know exactly how to
tell you the manner in which we became aware of the cove. It was as
nearly the instantaneous as can be imagined. One minute I looked ahead
on a cliff as unbroken as the side of a cabin; the very next I peered
down the length of a cove fifty fathoms long by about ten wide, at
the end of which was a gravel beach. I cried out sharply to the men.
They were quite as much astonished as I. We backed water, watching
closely. At a given point the cove and all trace of its entrance
disappeared. We could only just make out the line where the headlands
dissolved into the background of the cliffs, and that merely because
we knew of its existence. The blending was perfect.
We rowed in. The water was still. A faint ebb and flow whispered
against the tiny gravel beach at the end. I noted a practicable way
from it to the top of the cliff, and from the cliff down again to the
sand beach. Everything was perfect. The water was a beautiful light
green, like semi-opaque glass, and from the indistinctness of its
depths waved and beckoned, rose and disappeared with indescribable
grace and deliberation long feathery sea growths. In a moment the
bottom abruptly shallowed. The motion of the boat toward the beach
permitted us to catch a hasty glimpse of little fish darting, of big
fish turning, of yellow sand and some vivid colour. Then came the
grate of gravel and the scraping of the boat's bottom on the beach.
We jumped ashore eagerly. I left the men, very reluctant, and ascended
a natural trail to a high sloping down over which blew the great Trades.
Grass sprung knee-high. A low hill rose at the back. From below the
fall of the cliff came the pounding of surf.
I walked to the edge. Various ledges, sloping toward me, ran down to
the sea. Against one of them was a wreck, not so very old, head on,
her afterworks gone. I recognised the name _Golden Horn_, and
was vastly astonished to find her here against this unknown island.
Far up the coast I could see--with the surges dashing up like the explosion
of shells, and the cliffs, and the rampart of hills grown with grass
and cactus. A bold promontory terminated the coast view to the north,
and behind it I could glimpse a more fertile and wooded country. The
sky was partly overcast by the volcanic murk. It fled before the
Trades, and the red sun alternately blazed and clouded through it.
As there was nothing more to be seen here, I turned above the hollow
of our cove, skirted the base of the hill, and so down to the beach.
It occupied a wide semicircle where the hills drew back. The flat was
dry and grown with thick, coarse grass. A stream emerged from a sort
of canon on its landward side. I tasted it, found it sulphurous, and
a trifle worse than lukewarm. A little nearer the cliff, however, was
a clear, cold spring from the rock, and of this I had a satisfying
drink. When I arose from my knees, I made out an animal on the hill
crest looking at me, but before I could distinguish its
characteristics it had disappeared.
I returned along the tide sands. The surf dashed and roared, lifting
seaweeds of a blood red, so that in places the water looked pink.
Seals innumerable watched me from just outside the breakers. As the
waves lifted to a semi-transparence, I could make out others playing,
darting back and forth, up and down like disturbed tadpoles, clinging
to the wave until the very instant of its fall, then disappearing as
though blotted out. The salt smell of seaweed was in my nostrils: I
found the place pleasant--
With these few and scattered impressions we returned to the ship. It
had been warped to a secure anchorage, and snugged down. Dr.
Schermerhorn and Darrow were on deck waiting to go ashore.
I made my report. The two passengers disappeared. They carried lunch
and would not be back until night-fall. We had orders to pitch a large
tent at a suitable spot and to lighten ship of the doctor's personal
and scientific effects. By the time this was accomplished, the two
had returned.
"It's all right," Darrow volunteered to Captain Selover, as he came
over the side. "We've found what we want."
Their clothes were picked by brush and their boots muddy. Next morning
Captain Selover detailed me to especial work.
"You'll take two of the men and go ashore under Darrow's orders," said
he.
Darrow told us to take clothes for a week, an axe apiece, and a block
and tackle. We made up our ditty bags, stepped into one of the surf
boats, and were rowed ashore. There Darrow at once took the lead.
Our way proceeded across the grass flat, through the opening of the
narrow cañon, and so on back into the interior by way of the bed
through which flowed the sulphur stream. The country was badly eroded.
Most of the time we marched between perpendicular clay banks about
forty feet high. These were occasionally broken by smaller tributary
arroyos of the same sort. It would have been impossible to reach the
level of the upper country. The bed of the main arroyo was flat, and
grown with grasses and herbage of an extraordinary vividness, due,
I supposed, to the sulphur water. The stream itself meandered aimlessly
through the broader bed. It steadily grew warmer and the sulphur smell
more noticeable. Above us we could see the sky and the sharp clay edge
of the arroyo. I noticed the tracks of Darrow and Dr. Schermerhorn
made the day before.
After a mile of this, the bottom ran up nearly to the level of the
sides, and we stepped out on the floor of a little valley almost
surrounded by more hills.
It was an extraordinary place, and since much happened there, I must
give you an idea of it.
It was round and nearly encircled by naked painted hills. From its
floor came steam and a roaring sound. The steam blew here and
there among the pines on the floor; rose to eddy about the naked
painted hills. At one end we saw intermittently a broad ascending
cañon--deep red and blue-black--ending in the cone of a smoking
volcano. The other seemed quite closed by the sheer hills; in fact
the only exit was the route by which we had come.
For the hills were utterly precipitous. I suppose a man might have
made his way up the various knobs, ledges, and inequalities, but it
would have required long study and a careful head. I, myself, later
worked my way a short distance, merely to examine the texture of their
marvellous colour.
This was at once varied and of great body--not at all like the smooth,
glossed colour of most rock, but soft and rich. You've seen painters'
palettes--it was just like that, pasty and _fat_. There were reds
of all shades, from a veritable scarlet to a red umber; greens, from
sea-green to emerald; several kinds of blue, and an indeterminate
purple-mauve. The whole effect was splendid and barbaric.
We stopped and gasped as it hit our eyes. Darrow alone was unmoved.
He led the way forward and in an instant had disappeared behind the
veil of steam. Thrackles and Perdosa hung back murmuring, but at a
sharp word from me gathered their courage in their two hands and proceeded.
We found that the first veil of steam, and a fearful stench of gases,
proceeded from a miniature crater whose edge was heavily encrusted
with a white salt. Beyond, close under the rise of the hill, was
another. Between the two Percy Darrow had stopped and was waiting.
He eyed us with his lazy, half-quizzical glance as we approached.
"Think the place is going to blow up?" he inquired, with a tinge of
irony. "Well, it isn't." He turned to me. "Here's where we shall stay
for a while. You and the men are to cut a number of these pine trees
for a house. Better pick out the little ones, about three or four
inches through: they're easier handled. I'll be back by noon."
We set to work then in the roaring, steaming valley with the vapour
swirling about us, sometimes concealing us, sometimes half revealing
us gigantic, again in the utterness of exposure showing us dwindled
pigmies against the magnitudes about us. The labour was not difficult.
By the time Darrow returned we had a pile of the saplings ready for
his next direction.
He was accompanied by the Nigger, very much terrified, very much
burdened with food and cooking utensils. The assistant was lazily
relating tales of voodoos, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.
VII
CAPTAIN SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE
I lived in the place for three weeks. We were afoot shortly after
daybreak, under way by sun-up, and at work before the heats began.
Three of us worked on the buildings, and the rest formed a pack train
carrying all sorts of things from the shore to the valley. The men
grumbled fiercely at this, but Captain Selover drove them with slight
regard for their opinions or feelings.
"You're getting double pay," was his only word, "earn it!"