THE MYSTERY OF COFFIN ISLAND.
When Brandon awaked on the following morning the sun was already high in
the sky. He rose at once and walked slowly up, with stiffened limbs,
to a higher spot. His clothes already were partly dry, but they were
uncomfortable and impeded his motion. He took off nearly every thing,
and laid them out on the sand. Then he examined his pistol and the box
containing cartridges. This box held some oil also, with the help of
which the pistol was soon in good order. As the cartridges were encased
in copper they were uninjured. He then examined a silver case which
was suspended round his neck. It was cylindrical in shape, and the
top unscrewed. On opening this he took out his father’s letter and the
inclosure, both of which were uninjured. He then rolled them up in a
small compass and restored them to their place.
He now began to look about him. The storm had ceased, the waves had
subsided, a slight breeze was blowing from the sea which just ruffled
the water and tempered the heat. The island on which he had been cast
was low, flat, and covered with a coarse grass which grew out of the
sand. But the sand itself was in many places thrown up into ridges, and
appeared as though it was constantly shifting and changing. The mound
was not far away, and at the eastern end of the island he could see the
black outline of the rock which he had noticed from the ship. The length
he had before heard to be about five miles; the width appeared about
one mile, and in its whole aspect it seemed nothing better than the
abomination of desolation.
At the end where he was the island terminated in two points, between
which there was the cove where he had found refuge. One of these points
was distinguished by the mound already mentioned, which from where he
stood appeared of an irregular oblong shape. The other point was low,
and descended gently into the water. The island itself appeared to be
merely the emergence of some sand-bank which, perhaps, had been formed
by currents and eddies; for here the currents of the Strait of Sunda
encounter those from the Southern and Indian oceans, and this bank lay
probably near their point of union.
A short survey showed him this. It showed him also that there was but
little if any hope of sustaining life, and that he had escaped drowning
only perhaps to perish by the more lingering agonies of starvation.
Already hunger and thirst had begun to be felt, and how to satisfy these
wants he knew not. Still he would not despair. Perhaps the _Java_ might
return in search of him, and his confinement would only last for a day
or so.
He understood the act of Cigole in a way that was satisfactory to
himself. He had thrown him overboard, but had made it appear like an
accident. As he fell he had heard the shout “Man overboard!” and was now
able to account for it in this way. So a faint hope remained that the
captain of the _Java_ would not give him up.
Still subsistence of some kind was necessary, and there was nothing
to be done but to explore the sandy tract before him. Setting forth he
walked toward the rock along the sea-shore. On one side toward the
north the shore was shallow and sloped gently into the water; but on
the southern side it descended more abruptly. The tide was out. A steep
beach appeared here covered with stones to which myriads of shell-fish
were attached. The sight of these suggested the idea to him that on the
opposite side there might be clams in the sand. He walked over there in
search of them. Here the slope was so gradual that extensive flats were
left uncovered by the receding tide.
When a boy he had been sometimes accustomed to wander on sand flats near
his home, and dig up these clams in sport. Now his boyish experience
became useful. Myriads of little holes dotted the sand, which he knew to
be the indications of these molluscs, and he at once began to scoop in
the sand with his hands. In a short time he had found enough to satisfy
his hunger, and what was better, he saw all around an unlimited supply
of such food.
Yet food was not enough. Drink was equally necessary. The salt of these
shell-fish aggravated the thirst that he had already begun to feel, and
now a fear came over him that there might be no water. The search seemed
a hopeless one; but he determined to seek for it nevertheless, and the
only place that seemed to promise success was the rock at the eastern
end. Toward this he now once more directed his steps.
The island was all of sand except the rocks on the south beach and the
cliff at the eastern end. Coarse grass grew very extensively over the
surface, but the sand was fine and loose, and in many places thrown
up into heaps of many different shapes. The grass grew in tufts or in
spires and blades, thinly scattered, and nowhere forming a sod. The soil
was difficult to walk over, and Brandon sought the beach, where the damp
sand afforded a firmer foothold. In about an hour and a half he reached
the rock.
It was between five hundred and six hundred feet in length, and about
fifty in height. There was no resemblance to a coffin now as Brandon
approached it, for that likeness was only discernible at a distance. Its
sides were steep and precipitous. It was one black solid mass, without
any outlying crags, or any fragments near it. Its upper surface appeared
to be level, and in various places it was very easy to ascend. Up one of
these places Brandon climbed, and soon stood on the top.
Near him the summit was somewhat rounded; at the farther end it was
flat and irregular; but between the two ends it sank into a deep hollow,
where he saw that which at once excited a tumult of hope and fear. It
was a pool of water at least fifty feet in diameter, and deep too, since
the sides of the rock went down steeply. But was it fresh or salt? Was
it the accumulation from the showers of the rainy season of the tropics,
or was it but the result of the past night’s storm, which had hurled
wave after wave here till the hollow was filled?
With hasty footsteps he rushed toward the margin of the pool, and
bent down to taste. For a moment or so, by a very natural feeling,
he hesitated, then, throwing off the fever of suspense, he bent down,
kneeling on the margin, till his lips touched the water.
It was fresh! Yes, it was from the heavens above, and not from the sea
below. It was the fresh rains from the sky that had filled this deep
pool, and not the spray from the sea. Again and again he quaffed the
refreshing liquid. Not a trace of the salt-water could be detected. It
was a natural cistern which thus lay before him, formed as though for
the reception of the rain. For the present, at least, he was safe.
He had food and drink. As long as the rainy season lasted, and for
some time after, life was secure. Life becomes doubly sweet after being
purchased by such efforts as those which Brandon had put forth, and the
thought that for the present, at least, he was safe did not fail to fill
him with the most buoyant hope. To him, indeed, it seemed just then as
if nothing more could be desired. He had food and drink in abundance. In
that climate shelter was scarcely needed. What more could he wish?
The first day was passed in exploring the rock to see if there was any
place which he might select for his abode. There were several fissures
in the rock at the eastern end, and one of these he selected. He then
went back for his clothes, and brought them to this place. So the first
day went.
All the time his eyes wandered round the horizon to see if a sail might
be in sight. After two or three days, in which nothing appeared, he
ceased his constant watch, though still from time to time, by a natural
impulse, he continued to look. After all he thought that rescue might
come. He was somewhat out of the track of the China ships, but still not
very much so. An adverse wind might bring a ship close by. The hope of
this sustained him.
But day succeeded to day and week to week with no appearance of any
thing whatever on the wide ocean.
During these long days he passed the greater part of his time either
under the shelter of the rock, where he could best avoid the hot sun, or
when the sea-breeze blew on its summit. The frightful solitude offered
to him absolutely nothing which could distract his thoughts, or prevent
him from brooding upon the hopelessness of his situation.
Brooding thus, it became his chief occupation to read over and over
his father’s letter and the inclosure, and conjecture what might be his
course of action if he ever escaped from this place. His father’s voice
seemed now to sound to him more imploringly than ever; and the winds at
night, as they moaned round the rock, seemed to modulate themselves, to
form their sounds to something like a wild cry, and wail forth, “Come
home!” Yet that home was now surely farther removed than ever, and the
winds seemed only to mock him. More sad and more despairing than Ulysses
on the Ogygian shore, he too wasted away with home-sickness.
[Greek: kateibeto se glukus aion noston oduromeno.]
Fate thus far had been against him, and the melancholy recollections of
his past life could yield nothing but despondency. Driven from home when
but a boy, he had become an exile, had wandered to the other side of the
world, and was just beginning to attain some prospect of a fortune when
this letter came. Rising up from the prostration of that blow, he had
struggled against fate, but only to encounter a more over-mastering
force, and this last stroke had been the worst of all. Could he rally
after this? Could he now hope to escape?
Fate had been against him; but yet, perhaps, here, on this lonely
island, he might find a turning-point. Here he might find that turning
in the long lane which the proverb speaks of. “The day is darkest before
the morn,” and perhaps he would yet have Fate on his side.
But the sternest and most courageous spirit can hardly maintain its
fortitude in an utter and unmitigated solitude. St. Simeon Stylites
could do so, but he felt that on the top of that pillar there rested
the eyes of the heavenly hosts and of admiring mankind. It is when the
consciousness of utter solitude comes that the soul sinks. When the
prisoner thinks that he is forgotten by the outside world, then he loses
that strength which sustained him while he believed himself remembered.
It was the lot of Brandon to have this sense of utter desolation: to
feel that in all the world there was not one human being that knew
of his fate; and to fear that the eye of Providence only saw him with
indifference. With bitterness he thought of the last words of his
father’s letter: “If in that other world to which I am going the
disembodied spirit can assist man, then be sure, O my son, I will assist
you, and in the crisis of your fate I will be near, if it is only to
communicate to your spirit what you ought to do.”
A melancholy smile passed over his face as he thought of what seemed to
him the utter futility of that promise.
Now, as the weeks passed, his whole mode of life affected both mind and
body. Yet, if it be the highest state of man for the soul to live
by itself, as Socrates used to teach, and sever itself from bodily
association, Brandon surely had attained, without knowing it, a most
exalted stage of existence. Perhaps it was the period of purification
and preparation for future work.
The weather varied incessantly, calms and storms alternating; sometimes
all the sea lying dull, listless, and glassy under the burning sky; at
other times both sea and sky convulsed with the war of elements.
At last there came one storm so tremendous that it exceeded all that
Brandon had ever seen any where.
The wind gathered itself up from the south-east, and for a whole day the
forces of the tempest collected themselves, till at last they burst in
fury upon the island. In sustained violence and in the frenzy of its
assault it far surpassed that first storm. Before sundown the storm
was at its height, and, though yet day, the clouds were so dense and so
black that it became like night. Night came on, and the storm, and roar,
and darkness increased steadily every hour. So intense was the darkness
that the hand, when held close by the face, could not be distinguished.
So restless was the force of the wind that Brandon, on looking out to
sea, had to cling to the rock to prevent himself from being blown away.
A dense rain of spray streamed through the air, and the surf, rolling
up, flung its crest all across the island. Brandon could hear beneath
him, amidst some of the pauses of the storm, the hissing and bubbling of
foaming waters, as though the whole island, submerged by the waves, was
slowly settling down into the depths of the ocean.
Brandon’s place of shelter was sufficiently elevated to be out of the
reach of the waves that might rush upon the land, and on the lee-side
of the rock, so that he was sufficiently protected. Sand, which he had
carried up, formed his bed. In this place, which was more like the lair
of a wild beast than the abode of a human being, he had to live. Many
wakeful nights he had passed there, but never had he known such a night
as this.
There was a frenzy about this hurricane that would have been
inconceivable if he had not witnessed it. His senses, refined and
rendered acute by long vigils and slender diet, seemed to detect audible
words in the voice of the storm. Looking out through the gloom his
sight seemed to discern shapes flitting by like lightning, as though the
fabled spirits of the storm had gathered here.
It needed all the robust courage of his strong nature to sustain himself
in the presence of the wild fancies that now came rushing and thronging
before his mind. The words of his father sounded in his ears; he thought
he heard them spoken from the air; he thought he saw an aged spectral
face, wan with suffering and grief, in front of his cave. He covered
his eyes with his hands, and sought to reason down his superstitious
feeling. In vain. Words rang in his ears, muffled words, as though
muttered in the storm, and his mind, which had brooded so long over his
father’s letter, now gave shape to the noise of winds and waves.
“--In the crisis of your fate I will be near.”
“I shall go mad!” cried Brandon, aloud, and he started to his feet.
But the storm went on with its fury, and still his eyes saw shapes, and
his ears heard fantastic sounds. So the night passed until at last the
storm had exhausted itself. Then Brandon sank down and slept far on into
the day.
When he awaked again the storm had subsided. The sea was still
boisterous, and a fresh breeze blew which he inhaled with pleasure.
After obtaining some shell-fish, and satisfying his appetite, he went to
the summit of the rock for water, and then stood looking out at sea.
His eye swept the whole circuit of the horizon without seeing any thing,
until at length he turned to look in a westwardly direction where the
island spread out before him. Here an amazing sight met his eyes.
The mound at the other end had become completely and marvelously
changed. On the previous day it had preserved its usual shape, but now
it was no longer smoothly rounded. On the contrary it was irregular, the
northern end being still a sort of hillock, but the middle and southern
end was flat on the surface and dark in color. From the distance
at which he stood it looked like a rock, around which the sand had
accumulated, but which had been uncovered by the violent storm of the
preceding night.
At that distance it appeared like a rock, but there was something in its
shape and in its position which made it look like a ship which had been
cast ashore. The idea was a startling one, and he at once dismissed it
as absurd. But the more he looked the closer the resemblance grew
until at last, unable to endure this suspense, he hurried off in that
direction.
During all the time that he had been on the island he had never
been close to the mound. He had remained for the most part in the
neighborhood of the rock, and had never thought that a barren sand
hillock was worthy of a visit. But now it appeared a very different
object in his eyes.
He walked on over half the intervening distance, and now the resemblance
instead of fading out, as he anticipated, grew more close. It was still
too far to be seen very distinctly: but there, even from that distance,
he saw the unmistakable outline of a ship’s hull.
There was now scarcely any doubt about this. There it lay. Every step
only made it more visible. He walked more quickly onward, filled with
wonder, and marveling by what strange chance this vessel could have
reached its present position.
There it lay. It could not by any possibility have been cast ashore on
the preceding night. The mightiest billows that ever rose from ocean
could never have lifted a ship so far upon the shore. To him it was
certain that it must have been there for a long time, and that the sand
had been heaped around it by successive storms.
As he walked nearer he regarded more closely the formation of this
western end. He saw the low northern point, and then the cove where he
had escaped from the sea. He noticed that the southern point where the
mound was appeared to be a sort of peninsula, and the theory suggested
itself to him by which he could account for this wonder. This ship, he
saw, must have been wrecked at some time long before upon this island.
As the shore was shallow it had run aground and stuck fast in the sand.
But successive storms had continued to beat upon it until the moving
sands which the waters were constantly driving about had gathered all
around it higher and higher. At last, in the course of time, a vast
accumulation had gathered about this obstacle till a new bank had been
formed and joined to the island; and the winds had lent their aid,
heaping up the loose sand on high till all the ship was covered. But
last night’s storm had to some extent undone the work, and now the wreck
was once more exposed.
Brandon was happy in his conjecture and right in his theory. All who
know any thing about the construction and nature of sand islands such
as this are aware that the winds and waters work perpetual changes. The
best known example of this is the far-famed Sable Island, which lies off
the coast of Nova Scotia, in the direct track of vessels crossing the
Atlantic between England and the United States. Here there is repeated
on a far larger scale the work which Brandon saw on Coffin Island. Sable
Island is twenty miles long and about one in width--the crest of a vast
heap of sand which rises out of the ocean’s bed. Here the wildest storms
in the world rage uncontrolled, and the keepers of the light-house have
but little shelter. Not long ago an enormous flag-staff was torn from
out its place and hurled away into the sea. In fierce storms the spray
drives all across, and it is impossible to venture out. But most of all,
Sable Island is famous for the melancholy wrecks that have taken place
there. Often vessels that have the bad fortune to run aground are broken
up, but sometimes the sand gathers about them and covers them up. There
are numerous mounds here which are known to conceal wrecked ships. Some
of these have been opened, and the wreck beneath has been brought to
view. Sometimes also after a severe gale these sandy mounds are torn
away and the buried vessels are exposed.
[Illustration: “GREAT HEAVENS!” CRIED BRANDON, STARTING BACK--“THE
‘VISHNU!’”]
Far away in Australia Brandon had heard of Sable Island from different
sea captains who had been in the Atlantic trade. The stories which these
men had to tell were all largely tinged with the supernatural. One in
particular who had been wrecked there, and had taken refuge for the
night in a hut built by the British Government for wrecked sailors, told
some wild story about the apparition of a negro who waked him up at dead
of night and nearly killed him with horror.
With all these thoughts in his mind Brandon approached the wreck and at
last stood close beside it.
It had been long buried. The hull was about two-thirds uncovered. A vast
heap of sand still clung to the bow, but the stern stood out full in
view. Although it must have been there for a long time the planks were
still sound, for they seemed to have been preserved from decay by the
sand. All the calking, however, had become loose, and the seams gaped
widely. There were no masts, but the lower part of the shrouds still
remained, showing that the vessel was a brig. So deeply was it buried in
the sand, that Brandon, from where he stood, could look over the whole
deck, he himself being almost on a level with the deck. The masts
appeared to have been chopped away. The hatchways were gone. The hold
appeared to be filled with sand, but there may have been only a layer of
sand concealing something beneath. Part of the planking of the deck as
well as most of the taffrail on the other side had been carried away.
Astern there was a quarter-deck. There was no skylight, but only
dead-lights set on the deck. The door of the cabin still remained and
was shut tight.
All these things Brandon took in at a glance. A pensive melancholy came
over him, and a feeling of pity for the inanimate ship as though she
were capable of feeling. By a natural curiosity he walked around to the
stern to see if he could read her name.
The stern was buried deep in the sand. He had to kneel to read it.
On the side nearest him the letters were obliterated, but he saw some
remaining on the opposite side. He went over there and knelt down. There
were four letters still legible and part of a fifth. These were the
letters:
VISHN
“Great Heavens!” cried Brandon, starting back--“the _Vishnu!_”