it came from one of his comrades, he started along the shore in the
direction of the sound. In two hundred yards he came to a rocky bluff
from which great boulders had fallen upon the sand, forming a barrier
right down to the sea at low tide. Through these the sea was dashing
furiously, and it was so dark that he dared go no farther. He sat down
in a recess hollowed out of the cliff-foot by the sea at high tide, and
sheltered from the wind: his exhaustion conquered, and he fell asleep
in his wet clothes as he was.
When he awoke the eastern sky was grey, and broad golden streaks shot
up from the horizon. The wind had moderated, but great masses of flying
scud told what the night had been. He was stiff and chilled from his
wet clothes, but he crawled out from his shelter, and found himself
face to face with a man, dripping, cold, and miserable as himself. It
was Jansen, one of the sailors, a Norwegian, one of those Allen had
seen trying to make a raft. He too had spent the night lying on the
shore, and he believed that besides themselves none were left alive.
While they were talking the sun rose, and straightway their prospects
assumed a less gloomy hue. The wreck was hidden from them by a curve
of the shore heavily timbered. They ran to this and saw the schooner
dismasted, lying helpless on her side. Every sea washed over her, and
she seemed to be breaking up. Landwards the forest was a mere fringe,
clothing the foot of great basaltic cliffs that rose sheer to a plateau
which they could not see. Every crevice of the limestone had been
seized upon by enterprising tree-ferns and banian-trees, and only where
the face was so smooth as to afford no clinging-place was the rock
naked.
The two men wandered aimlessly along the narrow strip of sand left
between the high tide and the trees, and upon rounding a projecting
tree, came suddenly upon a thin column of smoke rising from the outer
edge of the bush. Their first instinct was to take cover behind a tree,
for they had the fear of cannibals ever before their eyes, but Allen
caught sight of a figure crouching among the undergrowth. Cannibal
savages do not wear blouses and trousers, nor even red beards, and to
whom could such a beard belong but Macevoy, A.B.? They found a group
of their shipmates crouching half-naked round a fire of drift-wood,
destined, when the smoke should subside, to dry their clothes.
“Jansen and Allen! That makes fourteen. There are only five missing
now. Could Castles swim, do any of you know?” asked the boatswain.
“Castles went to the bottom, if he had any swimming to do,” growled
Macevoy.
The men had got ashore at different times during the night,--some
clinging to spars and oars, and others, washed off before they could
seize anything, had swum until they drifted into shallow water. Five
only were missing--Benion, the cook, and three seamen; but they might
have landed on a different part of the beach. The captain now proposed
that two parties should follow the beach in opposite directions, to
look for the missing men and to find fresh water, while the rest
collected wood for a raft on which to bring off provisions from the
wreck before she broke up, for they were desperately hungry. Allen
chose to stay with the main body, who soon collected enough fallen
timber for a raft, and lashed the logs together with the thick creepers
that hung in festoons from every tree. When it was finished the tide
had ebbed too far for launching it, and they could therefore do nothing
more until the afternoon. They were about to disperse in search of food
when one of the search-parties returned carrying a body between them.
“Who is it?” shouted the captain.
“Benion,” answered the leading man.
Allen felt a thrill of guilty anticipation. Then he was dead after all,
and the gold would be his! The party came up and laid their burden
gently down. He was still alive. They had found him lying, helpless and
half-stunned, on the beach with a sprained ankle, and only strength
enough to crawl out of reach of the high tide.
By mid-day they knew all there was to know about their island. It was
pear-shaped, and barely a mile in diameter,--a mere lump of limestone
pushed up from the ocean-bed, with a fringe of coral at its base. The
cliffs were unbroken save in one place, where some old earthquake had
split a jagged fissure in the rock almost down to the sea-level. This
little gorge, choked with vegetation, would have contained water had
the island been larger; but as it was, they could only find a little
moisture oozing from the cliff-face. Some of them climbed the gorge to
the plateau above, and saw the narrow light-green circle of the reef
edged with foam: saw an island near them, and two or three others so
far away that they blended with the clouds, but saw no sign of man, nor
any hope of rescue but by their own efforts.
As soon as Benion was brought in, Allen was possessed with a fear
of being left alone with him. When the raft was launched, he joined
the two men told off to go to the wreck. It was evening before they
returned, with scarcely any stores, towing the largest of the ship’s
boats, staved and broken, but not beyond repair. At night over the
fire they took counsel. To stay for more than a week at this place
would mean starvation. The island must be one of the Fiji group, which
the captain had supposed to be two hundred miles to the southward. Some
of them had heard that there were white men there; and the party that
had climbed the cliff had seen the outline of a large island down the
wind. There was only one course open to them--to repair the broken boat
and set sail. Benion beckoned to Allen from the ivi-tree under which he
was lying. The men were some feet away, and they could talk undisturbed.
“Did you bring off the box on the raft?” he asked, eagerly.
“No,” replied Allen; “the cabin was full of water.” Benion started
up, forgetting his injury until the pain reminded him. “Good God!” he
cried, “it must be there--under my bunk. No one in the ship knew of it
but you, and it couldn’t float away. I’ll find it myself to-morrow,
even if I smash my ankle looking for it. You seem to take it very
calmly,” he added, fiercely; “have you forgotten that your share is in
it as well as mine?”
“Forgotten! No; but I am too pleased at having saved my skin to think
about it yet.”
“Your skin!” retorted Benion, contemptuously. “What good will your
_skin_ be to you if you have nothing to put on or into it? If that box
is lost, I would to God I might lie where it lies!”
His distress was so great that Allen felt an almost invincible desire
to tell him the truth. But why should he tell him now, in his present
state of excitement? How could he explain away the lie that had come
so readily to his lips? In his excitement Benion would suspect that
he meant to steal the money, and then good-bye to any future hope of
assistance. Why, Benion might repudiate all his verbal promises of
partnership, and he had no writing to show. And had he not worked
harder than Benion at the diggings?--been a hewer of wood and a drawer
of water while his partner sat at ease? How was he to be recompensed
for all this? And his share was to be so little, while with both shares
he might live a new life in some country where they would never meet.
“Was the box fixed under your bunk?” he asked quickly, seeing the
other’s eyes fixed inquiringly upon him.
“Lashed, do you mean? No. I had it out yesterday, and forgot to lash it
again.”
“Then it must have slid out,” replied Allen. “The schooner is lying on
her side, and your bunk is now where the ceiling used to be. Don’t be
afraid. I’ll go off to-morrow and have another hunt for it.”
But during the night the wind rose again, and at high tide a heavy sea
was thundering on the reef where the poor schooner lay in the darkness.
The dawn showed a flying scud from the south-east, and a grey ocean
streaked with foam. Spray was driving over the wreck, blurring her
outline, but it could be seen that she lay lower in the water. The
men busied themselves in repairing the boat, and collecting firewood.
Some of them scoured the reef at low water, catching small fish and
sea-slugs from the pools. Benion dragged himself to a spot whence he
could see the wreck, and lay there gazing at her with fierce anxiety,
and shuddering as each great sea struck and enveloped her in white
foam, as if he felt the blows on his own body. He would not touch food,
nor answer any one that spoke to him, and the men left him alone at
last, significantly touching their foreheads. “Left ’is wits aboard by
the looks of ’im, and wants to hail them to come ashore,” was their
diagnosis of the case. Allen came in late from fishing on the lee side
of the island, and busied himself at the fire that was farthest from
his partner.
The gale lasted all the next day, and brought up drenching
rain-squalls; but at midnight it suddenly died away, the stars came
out, and from every branch above the sleeping men the crickets burst
into song, to the tenor of the little wavelets sucking back the
shingle, and the bass of the great ocean-rollers breaking on the outer
reef.
The men were astir before daylight to get the raft afloat at high
tide. But when the sun rose, and they looked for the dark outline
of the stranded schooner, they saw nothing to interrupt the broad
golden pathway but a strong eddy in the breaking swell, as if a rock
lay beneath the surface. The schooner was gone. Torn, battered, and
smashed into match-wood--only her bones lay jammed on the reef; the
rest of her was strewn broadcast along the beach where the tide had
left it,--broken planks, spars, blocks, casks, chests, and rope half
buried in the sand. Benion had one last hope--his box might be among
the wreckage in spite of its weight. In his despair he forgot the pain
of his sprained ankle, and half hobbled, half crawled after the men who
had gone out to collect the stores worth saving. Kneeling on the sand
at high-water mark, he eagerly scanned each man’s burden as he passed,
asking them whether they had seen an iron-bound box.
“You’ll have to go to the reef for that,” said one; “iron don’t float.”
With the few tools they had saved from the wreck the repairs of the
boat made rapid progress. Three days passed, and though they had
been on half rations, their little stock of bread unspoilt by the
salt water was running short. At the most it would last them five
days, and they must allow three for the voyage to the westward. On
the third day, therefore, the last plank was roughly nailed into its
place, and caulked with strips torn from their clothing, a rough sail
was contrived from the schooner’s jib, and provisions and water were
prepared for their start upon the morrow.
Benion had had alternate fits of deep dejection and impotent fury since
the destruction of the schooner. He spoke to no one, and would not eat
his ration of biscuit though he drank his water greedily. At times he
would start up, kneeling on the sand and shaking his fist at the sky
and sea, shouting blasphemies learned at the diggings but forgotten
till now; at others he lay for hours, face downwards, on the sand,
pillowing his head upon his arm. The men thought him mad and avoided
him, and Allen was glad of any excuse for keeping away from him. But on
the day before the projected start he had shown no violence, but had
lain motionless on the ground hour after hour. They discussed him over
the fire at night.
“A chap as won’t eat, and has the jimmies, ain’t long for this world,”
said the boatswain, summing up.
“Wish he’d look sharp about it,” growled another; “we don’t want chaps
seein’ snakes aboard _that_ craft.” And he pointed to the boat. Allen
had been the first to notice Benion’s change of manner, and it filled
him with something like remorse. But it was too late to turn back now.
After all, if the box had been really lost, as it well might have been,
Benion would have had to bear his loss, and he must learn to bear it
now. Besides, perhaps he would tell him if they got safe out of the
island. Yes; he would tell him, but not now while he was in this state.
But however he tried to comfort himself, he was too uneasy to lie down
with the other men, who were laying in a stock of sleep for their
journey on the morrow. In the dim light of the stars he could see, just
beyond the shadow of the trees, a figure sitting on the sand looking
seaward, and could hear a few broken words brought to him by the night
breeze. He could feel, though he could not see, the fierce eyes with
a life’s longing written in them. He got up once intending to go and
speak to Benion, but abandoned the idea before he reached him, so
terrible did he seem in his despair; so he lay down watching him, and
trying to drive back his better feelings. About midnight he was almost
dozing when he sprang into wakefulness at the sound of his own name
coupled with a horrible blasphemy. Benion was kneeling erect, his right
arm extended seawards and clutching the back of his neck with his left,
declaiming passionately. Suddenly he turned, and falling on his hands
and knees, began to crawl towards the tree under which the captain
and officers of the ship were asleep. He passed into the shadow of
the trees, and for a moment was lost to sight. A horrible fear seized
Allen that he was mad and intended to kill some one, but uncertainty
prevented him from moving. A ray of light from one of the fires faintly
illumined the tree-trunk, and into this the crawling figure emerged
from the darkness. Yes; it must be murder that he intended, for now
he saw him grasp the captain’s gun that was leaning against the tree,
but before he could start forward he was crawling away as swiftly and
noiselessly as he had come, dragging the gun after him. Then it was not
murder of another but of himself. Now he was out again on the sand, and
scuffling along the beach upon his left foot and his right knee, nearly
as fast as a man could walk. Allen was too horrified to act--he could
only watch the receding figure with terror and bewilderment; and with
that strange perversity of humour it crossed his mind how funny Benion
looked scuffling along with his gun over his shoulder. But when the
figure disappeared behind a protruding tree, he yielded to the impulse
to follow and watch him. Perhaps he did not mean to kill himself after
all. He came out upon the sands, keeping in the shadow of the trees,
and near enough to Benion to distinguish his figure in the dim light.
After going a couple of hundred yards the hobbling figure became more
distinct, and Allen saw that he had stopped. There was not more than
twenty yards between them, and he sought for a deeper shadow in which
to stand. Just before him was a tree with low widespreading branches,
that threw the trunk into profound darkness. He crept towards it,
lifting his feet high and planting them softly on the sand. Something
struck him as familiar in the trunk as he neared it. Yes. Surely it
was the tree under which the box was buried! Had Benion halted there
by chance, or because he knew the spot? He turned to look for him, and
saw that he was creeping towards the tree on the other side of the
trunk. Then he must know the spot, and he had brought the gun to defend
him from interference. Allen would have run away but for the fear of
being overheard. Benion was on his knees now not five yards from him.
He could hear his labouring breath, and the rustle of the sand as he
dragged his wounded leg over it. As he came up Allen moved so as to
keep the tree between them. He stopped at the very edge of the pile
of sand and vines that hid the box, and sat down. How did he know so
well that it was there without feeling for it? He was going to dig it
up with his hands! He must get his breath first, though. Was this the
time to rest when any of the men might interrupt him? But no, he was
not resting, he was doing something. He was measuring the distance
with his gun, pushing the butt forward in the sand, so; or was he
going to dig with it that he leaned forward and put his foot against
the trigger-guard as a fulcrum? Good God! No; his head is against the
muzzle! “Benion!”
Before the blinding flash had left his eyes, or the report ceased
echoing along the cliff, Allen was kneeling beside his partner, whose
head--as much as was left of it--was pillowed on the box for which he
had died. But only for a moment. The awful shock, while it numbed his
senses, brought him realisation of his own danger. The report must have
aroused the men by the fire, and if they found him there they might
suspect foul play. What mattered the treasure beside such a danger?
Leaving the body as it was, he tore through the undergrowth straight
inland to the base of the cliff, and groped his way along the rocks
so as to pass to the rear of the camp. His naked feet were torn and
bleeding from his headlong rush through the bush, but his mind was
too intent upon the sounds from the beach to heed the pain. He heard
the voices of men in motion, and a loud shout from the direction of
the _ivi_-tree. Then they had found the body! They would bring it
back to the camp, and he would be missed; perhaps they had even seen
his footsteps! If he would escape suspicion he must mix with the men
before they had time to notice his absence. He began to run again and
burst out of the bush, heated and breathless, at a spot beyond the
camp. He slackened his pace when he saw the fire, but a glance told him
that it was deserted. There was a confused murmur from the direction of
the _dilo_-tree, and he pressed on in the hope of joining the others
unnoticed in the darkness. A few of the men were waving smouldering
brands snatched from the fire to fan them into flame, the rest were
stooping and craning over each other’s shoulders to look at something
in the middle of the circle. Allen, striving to suppress his panting
breath, pressed forward like the others, but his labouring lungs would
not obey him.
“Why, mate, who the ---- been chasing you? You’re blowing like a
black-fish.”
“What is it?” asked Allen between his gasps.
“Your mate, Benion, with a hole in his head that you can put your foot
into. Why, where have you been?”
Some of the men turned round to look at him, and in the faint light he
was not a prepossessing object. His face and hair were dripping with
sweat, though the skin was ghastly white, and his distended nostril
and heaving chest showed how fear and physical effort had told upon him.
“Looks as if he could tell us something about it,” muttered one of them.
But Allen roughly forced his way through them, and fell on his knees
beside the captain, who was giving directions for lifting the body.
“Benion!” he cried. “Good God! Why could he have done it?”
His distress was so evident that his words turned their thoughts in a
new direction.
“After all, the pore devil had the jimmies,” said the boatswain, “and
like as not he kicked the trigger off with his foot: must have got a
clip on the head as we went ashore.”
The gun was still lying where it fell--the muzzle resting on the dead
man’s shoulder, and the butt on the sand beside his right knee. The
position was so consistent with the idea of suicide, that they at once
adopted it.
“Well, it’s no good moving him till daylight,” said the captain. “Some
of you get a bit of sailcloth to cover him with, and let’s leave him
as he is until the morning. Now, my lads, turn in and get what sleep
you can, for we must be away at sun-up;” and he led the way back to the
camp, followed by most of the men. Allen went with them and lay down,
pretending to sleep rather than undergo the questions he thought might
follow.
They were all astir before daybreak. The captain called Allen, as being
Benion’s fellow-passenger, and asked him whether he knew of anything
that would account for the suicide.
“He had a box,” replied Allen, “in which he kept all our money. It was
lost in the schooner, and when he found that it was gone he lost his
head, as you saw.”
“Where were you when the thing happened?”
“I had left the camp on the other side. When I heard the gun go off I
ran in and found you round the body. When I left, Benion was sitting
here on the beach as he had been all day.”
“H’m! You must have been a long time away,” said the captain, turning
to give orders about stowing the stores in the boat. Then taking with
him the mate and such of the sailors as were not employed, he walked to
the _dilo_-tree followed by Allen. At its foot a sailcloth was spread,
which had roughly taken the shape of the body it covered. In the grey
light Allen could see that one end of it was stained red and caked
hard. The captain saw it too, and said, “Don’t uncover the poor devil;
dig the hole here, and we’ll lift him into it just as he is.”
Four sailors armed with bits of broken plank began to scrape up the
sand so as to form a hollow trench, and as the mound at the back grew
higher, the sand slipped down and met the pile Allen had made round
the buried chest. In a few moments a shallow trench had been dug, and
they lifted the stiff body still covered and lowered it gently into the
rough grave.
“Hats off!” said the captain, gruffly, as he stepped to the side of the
grave. “Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. We commit his
body to the earth, in sure and certain hope that at the last day he
will rise again.”
It was all that he could remember of the Burial Service, and he said it
defiantly as a man who does his duty regardless of the ridicule he may
provoke, and dropped a handful of the coral sand upon the canvas.
“Now shovel in the sand,” he said, roughly; “we’ve done all we can for
the poor chap.”
Allen was staring on the box. The creepers and sand he had thrown
upon it had taken the square form of the lid, and he could scarcely
believe that they had not seen it. But there were blood-stains on it.
He ran forward and shovelled the loose sand over them with his hands
so quickly that the work was done before another could come to his
assistance.
Two hours later the crowded boat was running free, and the island, with
its fellow to the northward, had taken definite shape.
“We must give it a name,” said the mate. “What’s it to be?”
“It looks mighty like a boot from this side,” said the boatswain; “and
the island to the nor’ward’s like a shoe. Let’s call it Boot Island.”
So Boot Island it was called.
III.
How they reached Levuka at last, and parted company in that budding
centre of idleness and cheap liquor--some to work their passages to
Sydney, and others to scatter over the group--need not be related
here. To get away from something that lay on the beach at Boot Island
was Allen’s one desire. Drink is said to drown memories, so he tried
drinking; but it would not wash away certain dull red stains on a
background of white sand. And on the morning after the debauch the body
and mind are too weak to resist an angry past: besides, what might not
a man say when he was drunk? To move anyhow, anywhere, were better
than this. So he became a wanderer. But the human mind is fashioned
mercifully, and blunts with use. If the body be healthy, there is no
impression, however strong, that will not wear away with time. He
shipped in a whaler, but almost before the high land had melted into
the clouds he wished himself back again. He found so many excuses for
himself, and as poor Benion had killed himself, what good could the
box do him lying on the beach in Boot Island? The first man who landed
would find it and take it away, whereas, if he had it, he would keep
only his own share, and send the rest to Benion’s widow. He left the
ship at the first island they touched. It chanced to be Apemama in the
Line Islands, whose king, having vanquished most of the neighbouring
atolls, and sighing for other worlds to conquer, eagerly welcomed a
white man who could mend his three “Tower” muskets.
[Illustration: LEVUKA.]