brought up were astounding. Besides a lot of scientific apparatus and
chests of chemical supplies, everything that could possibly be
required, had been provided by that omniscient young man. After we
had built a long, low structure, windows were forthcoming, shelves,
tables, sinks, faucets, forges, burners, all cut out, fitted and ready
to put together, each with its proper screws, nails, clamps, or pipes
ready to our hands. When we had finished, we had constructed as
complete a laboratory on a small scale as you could find on a college
campus, even to the stone pillar down to bed-rock for delicate
microscopic experiments, and hot and cold water led from the springs.
And we were utterly unskilled. It was all Percy Darrow.
I was toward the last engaged in screwing on a fixture for the
generation of acetelyne gas.
"Darrow," said I, "there's one thing you've overlooked; you forgot
to bring a cupola and a gilt weather-cock for this concern."
After the laboratory was completed, we put up sleeping quarters for
the two men, with wide porches well screened, and a square, heavy
storeroom. By the end of the third week we had quite finished.
Dr. Schermerhorn had turned with enthusiasm to the unpacking of his
chemical apparatus. Almost immediately at the close of the
freight-carrying, he had appeared, lugging his precious chest, this
time suffering the assistance of Darrow, and had camped on the spot.
We could not induce him to leave, so we put up a tent for him. Darrow
remained with him by way of safety against the men, whose measure,
I believe, he had taken. Now that all the work was finished, the doctor
put in a sudden appearance.
"Percy," said he, "now we will have the defence built."
He dragged us with him to the narrow part of the arroyo, just before
it rose to the level of the valley.
"Here we will build the stockade-defence," he announced.
Darrow and I stared at each other blankly.
"What for, sir?" inquired the assistant.
"I haf come to be undisturbed," announced the doctor, with owl-like,
Teutonic gravity, "and I will not be disturbed."
Darrow nodded to me and drew his principal aside.
They conversed earnestly for several minutes. Then the assistant
returned to me.
"No use," he shrugged in complete return to his indifferent manner.
"Stockade it is. Better make it of fourteen foot logs, slanted out.
Dig a trench across, plant your logs three or four feet, bind them
at the top. That's his specification for it. Go at it."
"But," I expostulated, "what's the _use_ of it? Even if the men
were dangerous, that would just make them think you _did_ have
something to guard."
"I know that. Orders," replied Percy Darrow.
We built the stockade in a day. When it was finished we marched to
the beach, and never, save in the three instances of which I shall
later tell you, did I see the valley again. The next day we washed
our clothes, and moved ashore with all our belongings.
"I'm not going to have this crew aboard," stated Captain Selover
positively, "I'm going to clean her." He himself stayed, however.
We rowed in, constructed a hasty fireplace of stones, spread our
blankets, and built an unnecessary fire near the beach.
"Clean her!" grumbled Thrackles, "my eye!"
"I'd rather round the Cape," growled Pulz hopelessly.
"Come, now, it can't be as bad as all that," I tried to cheer them.
"It can't be more than a week or ten days' job, even if we careen her."
"You don't know what you're talking about," said Thrackles. "It's
worse than the yellow jack. It's six weeks at least. Mind when we last
'cleaned her'?" he inquired of Handy Solomon.
"You can kiss the Book on it," replied he. "Down by the line in that
little swab of a sand island. My eye, but _don't_ I remember!
I sweated my liver white."
They smoked in silence.
"That's a main queer contrivance of the Perfessor's--that
stockade-like," ventured Solomon, after a little.
"He doesn't want any intrusion," I said. "These scientific experiments
are very delicate."
"Quite like," he commented non-committally.
We slept on the ground that night, and next morning, under Captain
Selover's directions, we commenced the task of lightening the ship.
He detailed the Nigger and Perdosa for special duty.
"I'll just see to your shore quarters," he squeaked. "You empty her."
All day long we rowed back and forth from the ship to the cove,
landing the contents of the hold. These, by good fortune, we did not
have to carry over the neck of land, for just above the gravel beach
was a wide ledge on which we could pile the stores. We ate aboard,
and so had no opportunity of seeing what Captain Selover and his men
were about, until evening. Then we discovered that they had collected
and lowered to the beach a quantity of stateroom doors from the wreck,
and had trundled the galley stove to the edge where it awaited our
assistance. We hitched a cable to it, and let it down gently. The
Nigger was immensely pleased. After some experiment he got it to draw,
and so cooked us our supper on it. After supper, Captain Selover rowed
himself back to the ship.
"Eagen," he had said, drawing me aside, "I'm going to leave you with
them. It's better that one of us--I think as owner I ought to be
aboard----"
"Of course, sir," said I, "it's the only proper place for you."
"I'm glad you think so," he rejoined, apparently relieved. "And
anyway," he cried, with a burst of feeling, "I hate the gritty feeling
of it under my feet! Solid oak's the only walking for a man."
He left me hastily, as though a trifle ashamed. I thought he seemed
depressed, even a little furtive, and yet on analysis I could discover
nothing definite on which to base such a conclusion.
It was rather a feeling of difference from the man I had known. In
my fatigue it seemed hardly worth thinking about.
The men had rolled themselves in their blankets, tired with the long
day.
Next morning Captain Selover was ashore early. He had quite recovered
his spirits, and offered me a dram of French brandy, which I refused.
We worked hard again; again the master returned at night to his
vessel, this time without a word to any of us; again the men, drugged
by toil, turned in early and slept like the dead.
We became entangled in a mesh of days like these, during which things
were accomplished, but in which was no space for anything but the
tasks imposed upon us. The men for the most part had little to say.
"Por Dios, eet is too mooch work!" sighed Perdosa once.
"Why don't you kick to the Old Man, then?" sneered Thrackles.
The silence that followed, and the sullenness with which Perdosa
readdressed himself to his work, was significant enough of Captain
Selover's past relations with the men.
And how we did clean her! We stripped her of every stitch and sliver
until she floated high, an empty hull, even her spars and running
rigging ashore. I understood now the crew's grumbling. We literally
went at her with a nail brush.
Captain Selover took charge of us when we had reached this period.
He and the Nigger and Perdosa had long since finished the installation
of the permanent camp. They had built us huts from the wreck, collecting
stateroom doors for the sides, and hatches for the roofs, huge and
solid, with iron rings in them. The bronze and iron ventilation
gratings to the doors gave us glimpses of the coast through fretwork;
the rich inlaying of woods surrounded us. We set up on a solid rock
the galley stove--with its rails to hold the cooking pots from
upsetting, in a sea way. In it we burned the débris of the wreck, all
sorts of wood, some sweet and aromatic and spicy as an incensed
cathedral. I have seen the Nigger boiling beans over a blaze of sandal
wood fragrant as an Eastern shop.
First we scrubbed the _Laughing Lass_, then we painted her, and
resized and tarred her standing rigging, resized and rove her running
gear, slushed her masts, finally careened her and scraped and painted
her below.
When we had quite finished, we had the anchor chain dealt out to us
in fathoms, and scraped, pounded and polished that. These were indeed
days full of labour.
Being busy from morning until night we knew but little of what was
about us. We saw the open sea and the waves tumbling over the reef
outside. We saw the headlands, and the bow of the bay and the surf
with its watching seals and the curve of yellow sands. We saw the
sweep of coast and the downs and the strange huts we had built out
of departed magnificence. And that was all; that constituted our world.
In the evening sometimes we lit a big bonfire, sailor fashion, just
at the edge of the beach. There we sat at ease and smoked our pipes
in silence, too tired to talk. Even Handy Solomon's song was still.
Outside the circle of light were mysterious things--strange wavings
of white hands, bendings of figures, callings of voices, rustling of
feet. We knew them for the surf and the wind in the grasses: but they
were not the less mysterious for that.
Logically Captain Selover and I should have passed most of our
evenings together. As a matter of fact we so spent very few. Early
in the dusk the captain invariably rowed himself out to his beloved
schooner. What he did there I do not know. We could see his light now
in one part of her, now in the other. The men claimed he was scrubbing
her teeth. "Old Scrubs" they called him to his back: never Captain
Selover.
"He has to clean up after his own feet, he's so dirty," sagely
proffered Handy Solomon. And this was true.
The seaman's prophecy held good. Seven weeks held us at that infernal
job--seven weeks of solid, grinding work. The worst of it was, that
we were kept at it so breathlessly, as though our very existence were
to depend on the headlong rush of our labour. And then we had fully
half the stores to put away again, and the other half to transport
painfully over the neck of land from the cove to the beach.
So accustomed had I become to the routine in which we were involved,
so habituated to anticipating the coming day as exactly like the day
that had gone, that the completion of our job caught me quite by
surprise. I had thrown myself down by the fire prepared for the some
old half hour of drowsy nicotine, to be followed by the accustomed
heavy sleep, and the usual early rising to toil. The evening was warm;
I half closed my eyes.
Handy Solomon was coming in last. Instead of dropping to his place,
he straddled the fire, stretching his arms over his head. He let them
fall with a sharp exhalation.
"'Lay aloft, lay aloft,' the jolly bos'n cried.
_Blow high, blow low, what care we!_
'Look ahead, look astern, look a-windward, look a-lee.'
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e._"
The effect was electrical. We all sprang to our feet and fell to
talking at once.
"By God, we're _through_!" cried Pulz. "I'd clean forgot it!"
The Nigger piled on more wood. We drew closer about the fire. All the
interests in life, so long held in the background, leaped forward,
eager for recognition. We spoke of trivialities almost for the first
time since our landing, fused into a temporary but complete good
fellowship by the relief.
"Wonder how the old doctor is getting on?" ventured Thrackles, after
a while.
"The devil's a preacher! I wonder?" cried Handy Solomon.
"Let's make 'em a call," suggested Pulz.
"Don't believe they'd appreciate the compliment," I laughed. "Better
let them make first call: they're the longer established." This was
lost on them, of course. But we all felt kindly to one another that
evening.
I carried the glow of it with me over until next morning, and was
therefore somewhat dashed to meet Captain Selover, with clouded brows
and an uncertain manner. He quite ignored my greeting.
"By God, Eagen," he squeaked, "can you think of anything more to be
done?"
I straightened my back and laughed.
"Haven't you worked us hard enough?" I inquired. "Unless you gild the
cabins, I don't see what else there can be to do."
Captain Selover stared me over.
"And you a naval man!" he marvelled. "Don't you see that the only
thing that keeps this crew from gettin' restless is keeping them busy?
I've sweat a damn sight more with my brain than you have with your
back thinking up things to do. I can't see anything ahead, and then
we'll have hell to pay. Oh, they're a sweet lot!"
I whistled and my crest fell. Here was a new point of view; and also
a new Captain Ezra. Where was the confidence in the might of his two
hands?
He seemed to read my thoughts, and went on.
"I don't feel _sure_ here on this cussed land. It ain't like a
deck where a man has some show. They can scatter. They can hide. It
ain't right to put a man ashore alone with such a crew. I'm doing my
best, but it ain't goin' to be good enough. I wisht we were safe in
'Frisco harbour----"
He would have maundered on, but I seized his arm and led him out of
possible hearing of the men.
"Here, buck up!" I said to him sternly. "There's nothing to be scared
of. If it comes to a row, there's three of us and we've got guns. We
could even sail the schooner at a pinch, and leave them here. You've
stood them off before."
"Not ashore," protested Captain Selover weakly.
"Well, they don't know that. For God's sake don't let them see you've
lost your nerve this way." He did not even wince at the accusation.
"Put up a front."
He shook his head. The sand had completely run out of him. Yet I am
convinced that if he could have felt the heave and roll of the deck
beneath him, he would have faced three times the difficulties he now
feared. However, I could see readily enough the wisdom of keeping the
men at work.
"You can wreck the _Golden Horn_," I suggested. "I don't know
whether there's anything left worth salvage; but it'll be something
to do."
He clapped me on the shoulder.
"Good!" he cried, "I never thought of it."
"Another thing," said I, "you better give them a day off a week. That
can't hurt them and it'll waste just that much more time."
"All right," agreed Captain Selover.
"Another thing yet. You know I'm not lazy, so it ain't that I'm trying
to dodge work. But you'd better lay me off. It'll be so much more for
the others."
"That's true," said he.
I could not recognise the man for what I knew him to be. He groped,
as one in the dark, or as a sea animal taken out of its element and
placed on the sands. Courage had given place to fear; decision to
wavering; and singleness of purpose to a divided counsel. He who had
so thoroughly dominated the entire ship, eagerly accepted advice of
me--a man without experience.
That evening I sat apart considerably disturbed. I felt that the
ground had dropped away beneath my feet. To be sure, everything was
tranquil at present; but now I understood the source of that
tranquillity and how soon it must fail. With opportunity would come
more scheming, more speculation, more cupidity. How was I to meet it,
with none to back me but a scared man, an absorbed man, and an
indifferent man?
VIII
WRECKING OF THE GOLDEN HORN
Percy Darrow, unexpected, made his first visit to us the very next
evening. He sauntered in with a Mexican corn-husk cigarette between
his lips, carrying a lantern; blew the light out, and sat down with
a careless greeting, as though he had seen us only the day before.
"Hullo, boys," said he, "been busy?"
"How are ye, sir?" replied Handy Solomon. "Good Lord, mates, look at
that!"
Our eyes followed the direction of his forefinger. Against the dark
blue of the evening sky to northward glowed a faint phosphorescence,
arch-shaped, from which shot, with pulsating regularity, long shafts
of light. They beat almost to the zenith, and back again, a half dozen
times, then the whole illumination disappeared with the suddenness
of gas turned out.
"Now I wonder what that might be!" marvelled Thrackles.
"Northern lights," hazarded Pulz. "I've seen them almost like that
in the Behring Seas."
"Northern lights your eye!" sneered Handy Solomon. "You may have seen
them in the Behring Seas, but never this far south, and in August,
and you can, kiss the Book on that."
"What do you think, sir?" Thrackles inquired of the assistant.
"Devil's fire," replied Percy Darrow briefly. "The island's a little
queer. I've noticed it before."
"Debbil fire," repeated the Nigger.
Darrow turned directly to him.
"Yes, devil's fire; and devils, too, for all I know; and certainly
vampires. Did you ever hear of vampires, Doctor?"
"No," growled the Nigger.
"Well, they are women, wonderful, beautiful women. A man on a long
voyage would just smack his lips to see them. They have shiny grey
eyes, and lips red as raspberries. When you meet them they will talk
with you and go home with you. And then when you're asleep they tear
a little hole in your neck with their sharp claws, and they suck the
blood with their red lips. When they aren't women, they take the shape
of big bats like birds." He turned to me with so beautifully casual
an air that I wanted to clap him on the back with the joy of it.
"By the way, Eagen, have you noticed those big bats the last few
evenings, over by the cliff? _I_ can't make out in the dusk
whether they are vampires or just plain bats." He directed his remarks
again to the Nigger. "Next time you see any of those big bats, Doctor,
just you notice close. If they have just plain, black eyes, they're
all right; but if they have grey eyes, with red rims around 'em,
they're vampires. I wish you'd let me know, if you do find out. It's
interesting."
"Don' get me near no bats," growled the Nigger.
"Where's Selover?" inquired Darrow.
"He stays aboard," I hastened to say. "Wants to keep an eye on the
ship."
"That's laudable. What have you been doing?"
"We've been cleaning ship. Just finished yesterday evening."
"What next?"
"We were thinking of wrecking the _Golden Horn_."
"Quite right. Well, if you want any help with your engines or anything
of the sort, call on me."
He arose and began to light his lantern. "I hope as how you're getting
on well there above, sir?" ventured Handy Solomon insinuatingly.
"Very well, I thank you, my man," replied Percy Darrow drily.
"Remember those vampires, Doctor."
He swung the lantern and departed without further speech. We followed
the spark of it until it disappeared in the arroyo.
Behind us bellowed the sea; over against us in the sky was the dull
threatening glow of the volcano; about us were mysterious noises of
crying birds, barking seals, rustling or rushing winds. I felt the
thronging ghosts of all the old world's superstition swirling madly
behind us in the eddies that twisted the smoke of our fire.
We wrecked the _Golden Horn_. Forward was a rusted-out donkey
engine, which we took to pieces and put together again. It was no mean
job, for all the running parts had to be cleaned smooth, and with the
exception of a rudimentary knowledge on the part of Pulz and Perdosa,
we were ignorant. In fact we should not have succeeded at all had it
not been for Percy Darrow and his lantern. The first evening we took
him over to the cliff's edge he laughed aloud.
"Jove, boys, how could you guess it _all_ wrong," he wondered.
With a few brief words he set us right, Pulz, Perdosa, and I listening
intently; the others indifferent in the hopelessness of being able
to comprehend. Of course, we went wrong again in our next day's
experiments; but Darrow was down two or three times a week, and
gradually we edged toward a practical result.
His explanations consumed but a few moments. After they were finished,
we adjourned to the fire.
Thus we came gradually to a better acquaintance with the doctor's
assistant. In many respects he remained always a puzzle, to me.
Certainly the men never knew how to take him. He was evidently not
only unafraid of them, but genuinely indifferent to them.
Yet he displayed a certain interest in their needs and affairs. His
practical knowledge was enormous. I think I have told you of the
completeness of his arrangements--everything had been foreseen from
grindstones to gas nippers. The same quality of concrete speculation
showed him what we lacked in our own lives.
There was, as you remember, the matter of Handy Solomon's steel claw.
He showed Thrackles a kind of lanyard knot that deep-sea person had
never used. He taught Captain Selover how to make soft soap out of
one species of seaweed. Me, he initiated in the art of fishing with
a white bone lure. Our camp itself he reconstructed on scientific lines
so that we enjoyed less aromatic smoke and more palatable dinner. And
all of it he did amusedly, as though his ideas were almost too obvious
to need communication.
We became in a manner intimate with him. He guyed the men in his
indolent fashion, playing on their credulity, their good nature, even
their forbearance. They alternately grinned and scowled. He left
always a confused impression, so that no one really knew whether he
cherished rancour against Percy Darrow or kindly feeling.
The Nigger was Darrow's especial prey. The assistant had early
discovered that the cook was given to signs, omens, and superstitions.
From a curious scholar's lore he drew fantastics with which to torment
his victim. We heard of all the witches, warlocks, incubi, succibi,
harpies, devils, imps, and haunters of Avitchi, from all the teachings
of history, sacred and profane, Hindu, Egyptian, Greek, mediaeval,
Swedenborg, Rosicrucian, theosophy, theology, with every last ounce
of horror, mystery, shivers, and creeps squeezed out of them. They
were gorgeous ghost stories, for they were told by a man fully informed
as to all the legendary and gruesome details. At first I used to think
he might have communicated it more effectively. Then I saw that the
cool, drawling manner, the level voice, were in reality the highest
art. He told his stories in a half-amused, detached manner which imposed
confidence more readily than any amount of earnest asseveration. The
mere fact of his own belief in what he said came to matter little.
He was the vehicle by which was brought accurate knowledge. He had
read all these things, and now reported them as he had read: each man
could decide for himself as to their credibility.
At last the donkey engine was cleared and reinstalled, atop the cliff.
The Nigger built under her a fire of black walnut; Captain Selover
handed out grog all around; and we started her up with a cheer, just
to see the wheels revolve.
Next we half buried some long hatches, end up, to serve as bitts for
the lines, hitched our cables to them, and joyfully commenced the task
of pulling the _Golden Horn_ piece by piece up the side of the
cliff.
The stores were badly damaged by the wet, and there was no liquor,
for which I was sincerely grateful. We broke into the boxes, and arrayed
ourselves in various garments--which speedily fell to pieces--and
appropriated gim-cracks of all sorts. There were some arms, but the
ammunition had gone bad. Perdosa, out of forty or fifty mis-fires,
got one feeble sputter, and a tremendous _bang_ which blew up
his piece, leaving only the stock in his hand. A few tinned goods were
edible; but all the rest was destroyed. A lot of hard woods, a
thousand feet of chain cable, and a fairly good anchor might be
considered as prizes. As for the rest, it was foolishness, but we
hauled it up just the same until nothing at all remained. Then we shut
off the donkey engine, and put on dry clothes. We had been quite happy
for the eight months.
It was now well along toward spring. The winter had been like summer,
and with the exception of a few rains of a week or so, we had enjoyed
beautiful skies. The seals had thinned out considerably, but were now
returning in vast numbers ready for their annual domestic
arrangements.
Our Sundays we had mostly spent in resting, or in fishing. There were
many deep sea fish to be had, of great palatability, but small
gameness; they came like so many leaden weights. A few of us had
climbed some of the hills in a half-hearted curiosity, but from their
summits saw nothing to tempt weariness. Practically we knew nothing
beyond the mile or so of beach on which we lived.
Captain Selover had made a habit of coming ashore at least once during
the day. He had contented himself with standing aloof, but I took
pains to seem to confer with him, so that the men might suppose that
I, as mate, was engaged in carrying out his directions. The dread of
him was my most potent influence over them.
During the last few days of our wrecking, Captain Selover had omitted
his daily visit. The fact made me uneasy, so that at my first
opportunity I sculled myself out to the schooner. I found him,
moist-eyed as usual, leaning against the mainmast doing nothing.
"We've finished, sir," said I.
He looked at me.
"Will you come ashore and have a look, sir?" I inquired.
"I ain't going ashore again," he muttered thickly.
"What!" I cried.