A flaming sun and a flaming sky; an oily sea, rippled up ever and anon
by the skimming rush of a flight of flying-fish; a shark fin or two here
and there gliding above the surface. In the far distance a low
foreshore with broad palms just distinguishable; and out here, alone on
the wide waters, a man in a canoe--fishing.
To be strictly accurate, however, he is not fishing now, though he came
out with that intent. He has a line over the side, but seems to be
heading out to sea, as though purposing to cross the ocean itself. The
line is of native make, likewise the hooks; the canoe ditto, and the
paddles. The man is clothed almost entirely with lightly-woven native
attire, but otherwise there is nothing of the negro, or even negroid,
about the sunburnt face and the thick, dark beard. He is a white man
technically, though long exposure to tropical heat in all its changes
has rendered him as swarthy as an Arab. The expression of his face is
one of profound melancholy, as that of a man condemned to lifelong and
hopeless exile. And such, in fact, he is, not through the justice or
malevolence of his fellow-man, but through sheer force of circumstances.
That distant palm-plumed foreshore is his home, and at the same time
his prison. He cannot get away from it.
Now he sends the canoe over the water with each long sweep of his
powerful arm--hard and brown and sinewy--regardless of heat or toil, as
though the boundless freedom of the liquid plain inspired him with a new
life; to those who had made the canoe and its gear the said liquid plain
was merely a place where you could catch fish--but they were not
imaginative people. Glancing back shoreward an eager then a startled
look comes into the man's face. Between the shore and him, in the far,
far distance, are several black specks. You or I could not have seen
them; but he can, and, with the sight, he puts the canoe straight out to
sea with renewed resolve, intending to remain there until dark; for he
knows those tiny distant specks to be other canoes--and that spells
foes.
The last time we saw this man was on the occasion of his meeting with
another man--a savage--in the lonely silence of the forest after the
battle and rout. Then had followed weeks, during which he and the
savage had led the lives of hunted beasts, and their narrow escapes from
other and hostile bands were many and wonderful. Added to such the
perils of the wilderness--of weeks threading the sluggish channels of
some great, mysterious river, the gloom and awesome silence of it only
broken by the weird blowing of gigantic hippopotami or the splash of
ugly crocodiles, the thick foliage reaching over the black, smooth
waterway rendering their path as though threading some never-ending
cavern--and all in a very cranky canoe, which the native had managed to
steal at the risk of both their lives from an unwary village. At last
they had gained the coast. For days before they had done so the river
seemed to branch off into innumerable deltas, forming islands. Here
animal life was plentiful, but of human inhabitants, however barbarous,
was no sign. It seemed an utterly wild, unexplored, untrodden region,
clean outside any of the known world.
It was a strange companionship that between these two, if only that
neither understood a word of the other's speech--and by no possibility
did either seem able to impart it. Sometimes while they were resting
Wagram would endeavour to instruct his companion by making drawings on
the ground with a bit of stick, but hardly any of them were understood.
A tree or an animal or a man was recognised, but all attempt to
establish any sequence of ideas by dint of such pictorial instruction
proved hopeless. But he himself soon became proficient in the sign
language, and the two would talk quite rapidly therein; only the
subject-matter must fall within the sphere of the latter's experience,
or he was hopelessly fogged. He was absolutely lacking in imagination.
Often Wagram had found himself wondering as to the other's motive in
sticking to him thus closely. It could hardly be all gratitude; and
every attempt to convey that his own restoration to civilisation would
result in considerable reward to the other seemed to fail, for on
reaching the coast the native had squatted down, as though quite content
to spend the rest of his life there. Or, from his barbarous and heathen
point of view, the man might have come to regard him as a great
magician, and one whose magic was immeasurably greater than that of the
only other white man he had ever seen. As to this, he would often
beguile the time by singing, a great deal of such being echoes of the
choir-loft at Hilversea, and the dusky barbarian would listen,
entranced, open-mouthed. It was possible that a belief in his
supernatural powers had something to do with this fidelity.
Even as the companionship so had the experience been a strange one. The
frequency and variety of peril had inspired in the man thus reft from
the peaceful ease of a stately English home, if not a contempt for it,
at any rate an indifference to danger. In the matter of food he had
long since learned that a native could live in luxury for a month where
he would have starved in three days. The whole experience had hardened
him into magnificent physical form; but as weeks grew into months, and
months multiplied, a great depression grew and deepened upon him. He
would already have been given up for dead, when the loss of the _Baleka_
became known, especially on the report of her survivors. Poor Gerard
would be in a terrible state of grief, and Haldane and Yvonne--it would
be a blow to them, and to others perhaps. And at the thought of
Hilversea his depression would take the form of a great bitterness,
which it would tax all his robust faith to overcome.
Something of this depression is upon him now as he sends his little
craft skimming over the oily sea, a mere speck at this great distance
out. Once before, he and his companion had been visited from outside,
but had been able to hide in the thickest recesses of their island home
in time--a glance at the ferocious-looking savages who constituted the
intruders having convinced them that they might as well fall again into
the hands of those from whom they had originally fled as into the power
of such as these.
Soon hardly the fringe of palms upon the coast he has left is visible
above the mirage-like horizon; the shore itself no longer is. Yet to
him this matters nothing. He is at home on this blue, mysterious sea.
Even the triangular shark fins gliding here and there make no appeal to
his imagination. They are just so many incidents, and that is all, for
he is thoroughly accustomed to that sort of thing by this time.
And now the sun is drooping, and the cloudless sky takes on that molten,
sickly murk so frequently attendant on the sunset in tropical seas.
Night will be here directly, with a sudden rush; but that concerns him
in no wise, for he has a supply of water, well covered with wet matting,
within his canoe, also food of a kind--and he has learnt to do with very
little food of late. There is no need to exert himself with further
paddling.
With a dewy rush the night falls, and alone beneath the misty stars,
alone on the great deep, its silence only broken by the splash and
hollow "sough" of some sea-monster, his thoughts wing themselves back to
the home which, in all likelihood, he will never see again, and with the
idea comes another as though in a flash. This living death prolonged
for years--why not end it now? Not in yielding up life--oh no--but only
in risking it. Gravely risking it, true; but still, is not some risk,
even grave risk justifiable under the circumstances? Why not keep on
his way, paddle straight out to sea, on the off chance of falling in
with a passing ship? How far he would have to paddle he had no idea.
He had been thrown upon the coast in an unconscious state, but it could
not have been very distant if his captors had pulled him off the hulk in
their canoes--and the hulk had been in the path of shipping. But was it
the same part of the coast as that from which he had now put forth, or
was it, perhaps, some hundreds of miles farther off, and, in the trend
of the coast-line, standing out much farther into the ocean? Anyhow, he
made up his mind to chance it. His canoe was a mere cockleshell, out
here in the ocean waste; but, then, the seas were placid, and, beyond a
ripple, only too smooth.
What of his companion, apparently deserted? Even though a savage, would
not that companion feel his loss? No. The utter lack of imagination of
the savage would not allow room for sentimental qualms; while, as for
the loss of the canoe, that could be remedied in half a day. So, his
resolution fixed, he started forth--truly in the very sublimity of
desperation--for, should he fail, death was the alternative, grim death
from hunger and thirst amid the awful solitude of the boundless sea.
Hour followed upon hour, and still in the darkness this man urges his
craft forward in search of his one chance of life, well knowing that
against that one chance there are a hundred--nay, a thousand. Still, he
takes it.
He feels neither hunger nor thirst. The heavy moisture of the night
dews are effective against the latter; while, as for the first, the hard
training he has been through has got him into the way of doing with very
little. As hour after hour goes by he begins to strain his eyes over
the pathless deep for a distant light, his ears for the throb of an
approaching propeller. Then drowsiness overtakes him and he falls
asleep, and the canoe drifts at the mercy of the currents--drifts
farther and farther away from land.
Now he dreams, and his dreaming is strange. He is at Hilversea once
more, at dear old Hilversea, amid the waving of summer woods and rustle
of ripening corn, and all the glad sights and sounds of the fairest of
English landscapes, and all is as it has been. Yes; all as it has been.
This fearful experience is as a thing of the past--a nightmare out of
which he has awakened; and yet--and yet--there is still a want--a
strange, uneasy, restless want of something, or somebody, which is not
altogether sad, or, if sad, is leavened by a confused sweetness. The
dream fades into more confusion, then blank. Then the dreamer awakes,
and--Great Heaven!
Half of the great lurid orb of day has lifted itself above the horizon,
gleaming along the smooth folds of the waste of waters, and on these he
is no longer alone. About a quarter of a mile distant lies a ship.
A ship? A wreck. Two jagged stumps of masts rise from the submerged
hull, over whose main bulwarks the water is lazily washing, leaving the
poop and the forecastle but a few feet above the surface. He has seen
it before--not once, but twice. Great Heaven! it is the Red Derelict--
the Red Derelict again.
He stares, then rubs his eyes, then stares again. Is he still dreaming?
No; there the thing lies, this ghost of a vessel, just as it had lain
when it had afforded him timely refuge from imminent peril. A
mysterious inner prompting moves him once more to board the hulk--acting
upon which not long does it take him to shoot his canoe alongside, and,
making her fast with the stout woven grass rope which does duty for a
painter, he climbs on to the dry, glistening deck of the poop.
His glance takes in the long length of the ship. Swift, keen as that of
the wild creatures of earth and air is that glance now, and it falls
upon an object lying under water on the submerged main deck--the
skeleton of a pistol. In a moment it is in his hand. A further glance
shows it to be the same rusted weapon he had held in his hand before.
The nameplate, bearing the letters E.W., is still lying near at hand.
The letters seem to stand out at him.
Thoughts many and various come crowding into his mind as he stares at
the thing. All his experiences of blood and horror, since last he stood
upon this deserted deck arise. The savage demoniac of his own race and
colour, in whose power he had been, who was he? More than ever some
strange instinct convinces him that the man is the murderer of his
brother. This hulk seems to have drifted about these seas within a very
circumscribed compass for years. What if it had been the scene of a
bloody fight, a mutiny perhaps, wherein Everard had been slain, and the
white savage, with others, had escaped to the mainland? And with the
thought comes another. What if the body of his brother is lying below--
shut up, with the bodies of others, here in its floating tomb, beneath
his feet? Strange, indeed, if his quest should end here.
Three times he has sighted this sad derelict, twice stood on board her.
Has this been ordered with a purpose? Yet--why not? And with the
thought he flings off his upper garment of woven grass. He is going to
explore the interior of the ship--so far as he is able.
On the former occasion of his standing here he would have shrank from
such an attempt, not only on account of the possible horrors that he
might find, but because doubting his power to carry out so hazardous a
venture. Now it is different. Good swimmer as he was before, now he is
as thoroughly at home in the water as the barbarous inhabitants of
yonder coast--that is to say, as thoroughly at home as in his natural
element. He gazes down into the gaping pit of the companion-way, then,
drawing a long breath, dives down into the blackness within.
At first he can see little enough as he gropes his way around, then by
the sickly green light through the glass ports, and also that coming
down the companion-way, he is able to make out the interior of the
cuddy. A few small fish, imprisoned, dart hither and thither, but of
human bodies there is no sign. Then, unable to hold his breath any
longer, he shoots up once more into outer air.
Shading his eyes, so that the glare may not impede his vision for his
next descent, he sits for a few minutes taking in the air, then, feeling
rested, dives down once more into the heart of the waterlogged ship.
Now he can see better, can distinguish some sodden litter lying about,
but still no human bodies. Then, just as he is about to give up all
further exploration, his hand encounters something hard.
It is lying in one of the bunks--a small box or case of some sort.
Grasping it firmly he makes for the companion-way again and rises to the
surface, and on arriving there the fit of gasping, and a desire to
vomit, shows that he has been under water long enough. His find is a
flat, oblong, tin case of about eight inches by four, and it is
hermetically sealed.
He examines it with vivid curiosity--the outside, that is--for he
quickly decides that this is no time for investigating its contents.
But it is time for a little frugal refreshment; wherefore, hauling in
his canoe by the painter, he proceeds to hand up the requisites for a
sparing meal. While he does so a great shark rises from beneath the
hulk--it might have been the identical one that had so nearly gripped
him before--but it inspires in him no particular horror now; in fact,
scarcely any attention. A mere shark is a mere nothing to the dwellers
on those coasts.
Having taken off the edge of his appetite he leans back against the
ragged stump of the mainmast, and for the first time for long,
experiences a craving for tobacco. Perhaps the yearning is brought
about by feeling the deck of a ship under him, for he has long since
learnt to do without it. Looking idly at the tin case the thought comes
over him that it may contain some clue with regard to his brother or to
his brother's fate, and acting upon the idea he stows it away carefully,
together with the skeleton of the pistol, within the skin pouch which is
slung round his neck by way of a pocket. Then a drowsiness comes over
him, and he falls asleep.
The sun flames hot above him, but this causes him no inconvenience now.
He slumbers on, and a light breeze rises, rippling the oily surface of
the sea--blowing off shore. It winnows in a grateful coolness about
him, lulling into deeper slumber, and--the derelict drifts on.
The red rim of the sun touches the sea, seeming to meet the molten water
as with a hiss, for the slight breeze has died down with evening, and
the last light floods redly over the ghastly hulk with its single human
occupant--this man with the attire and colour of a savage and the
straight refined features of a European. The sudden, twilightless
tropical night falls, falls blackly, and the sleeper sleeps on.
Crash! Whirr! Splash! The hulk starts, shivers from stem to stern,
and a great wave comes roaring over her, sweeping the poop by several
feet. Half stunned by the concussion the sleeper starts up, to be
knocked half senseless by violent contact with the stump of the
mainmast; yet even then instinct moves him to grip hold of something
firm and hang on for all he knows, and well for him that it is so, or he
would have been whirled into the sea in a moment by the volume of water
sweeping over him. An immense blaze of lights flashes before his dazed
gaze, together with a very babel of voices and a wild roaring and a rush
of white foam--then another wave rolls over him. Half stunned, half
choked, he strives to lift up his voice, but it refuses its office. At
last he succeeds in effecting a hoarse attempt at a shout.
But the receding lights away there in the black gloom are receding
farther and farther, the receding babel of voices too, and amid these
and the roar of steam how shall his hoarse-throated, feeble shout find
its way across the intervening waste? It cannot. Instinctively he
springs for his canoe, with a wild idea of overtaking his one chance of
rescue by sheer strength of arm. But of it there is no sign--except the
frayed end of the painter rope by which it had been made fast. Swamped,
crushed by the weight of water which had swirled over the hulk, it has
gone to the bottom, and with it his slender stock of provisions. And
the tiers of lights are now far distant, and he is left here, as one
before him was left--alone on this ghastly hulk--left to die, with his
one chance of rescue gliding away in demoniacal mockery upon the black
midnight sea.