A NARROW ESCAPE.
“Nonsense, lad,” said Tom. “No craft that sailed these waters ever had
thousands of guineas aboard of her, seeing as how there isn’t no use for
money in these here parts. All the trade is with beads and iron and such
like.”
“Maybe so; but the money’s here, and I found it. It seems as if the man
who lived up in our hut, he were separated from his mates, and that he
had the money one time.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Why, it seems as if he had hidden it under the fireplace, for there’s a
hole under it which would hold the box I’ve found down here; and that
they who took it went off in a hurry—maybe saw a sail, and left him and
the money behind.”
“Well, where is this money? Come along and let us see it.”
“Why, down in the biggest of them huts there, in a box tied up with
cord; but it’s rotted, and the money tumbled out at the sides.”
[Illustration: “_There was the box, tied together with string._”
Page 76.]
We at once got over the fence, which we could easily see had been built
to keep the pigs within bounds, and followed Bill to where there were
standing the remains of some huts, which, as he said, had been cleared
of what would give any clue as to who the occupants had been; but there,
under one of the bed-places, was the box, as Seaman had described it,
wrapped up in a piece of sail-cloth, tied together with island-made
string, and the coverings being more than half rotten, the contents had
burst out, and partly rolled, on the ground.
Curious, though the money was safe, and I am sure a roast sucking pig
would have been of much more use to us than all the gold that ever was
coined, it was to this money we first turned our attention, and agreed
that nothing should be done until it was safely stowed away—money that
had lain for years untouched and uncared for.
We pulled out the box, and emptied the coins still remaining in it into
a heap on the ground, and added to them those which had fallen out, and
to our eyes the pile of gold and silver seemed a mound of inexhaustible
wealth.
However, we had divided the gold from the silver, and counted it out as
nearly as we were able, for there were coins of various nations mixed up
with the guineas of which Bill had spoken. We found that there was about
twelve hundred pounds—a sum far larger than could have been expected to
be found on board a trader in the South Seas.
As soon as we had counted out our money, we began to talk of how we
could stow it away; and after much discussion we decided on carrying it
to the hut where we were living, and putting it in the dead seaman’s
chest.
As we were on our way back with it, just before we came to the fence, we
saw some of the pigs of which Bill had told us, and I managed to catch a
little squeaker to carry it back for our dinner; but its cries alarmed
the mother, who came after us in hot haste, and if we had not been on
the fence when she came up she would doubtless have made us pay for
kidnapping her offspring. As it was, she caught hold of my trousers in
her mouth, and would have hauled me back on top of her if, luckily, they
had not been rather rotten and given way, Mrs. Pig falling back with a
piece of tarry trousers in her mouth, while I tumbled over on the other
side of the fence, by no means sorry to get off so cheaply.
The pigling I had caught I had chucked over before, so all the efforts
of the old sow to rescue her darling child from its fate were fruitless,
and we soon had him stewing in the iron pot.
Whilst he was cooking, we spoke of the money we had found, and what we
should do with it, and puzzled our heads to know where the schooner had
come from, and what nation she belonged to.
We thought she was English by the Bible and chart, but the money puzzled
us more than enough; so at last we agreed not to bother ourselves about
where it came from any more, and began to build castles in the air of
buying or building a ship, of which Tom Arbor should be captain, and
Bill Seaman and myself the two mates.
Whilst we were yarning away, Bill suddenly said, “I forgot something I
found by the box the money was in. Look here!” and he pulled out of the
breast of his shirt a small leather bag tied up carefully. “See,” he
said, as he undid it and poured out the contents; “there’s a lot of
pretty beads; pity they haven’t holes in ’em, or we might string ’em.”
“Well, they are pretty,” said both Tom and myself, as we eagerly bent
over the little heap of shining balls; “but ’tis a pity they’re not of a
size and true shaped. I suppose they’re some of the beads the natives
wouldn’t have to do with. Never mind, we can keep them; there were none
like them among the trade aboard of the _Golden Fleece_.”
The little bag had its contents restored to it, and was stowed away in
the chest with our money, and we then all concluded it was time for bed.
By dint of hard work and manœuvring Tom and I, at the end of ten days
more, had got our boat raised and decked forward and aft, leaving only
an open space amidships in which we could lie down; and in this we also
built a cemented fireplace similar to the one we had found in the dead
man’s hut. Outside the boat we had also fastened a great, bolster-like
fender of cocoanut fibre, which we served over with string made of the
same material, the whole being thoroughly soaked in a mixture of
cocoanut oil and hog fat; for Bill, while we were acting as shipwrights,
had been farming and hunting to make provision for our voyage, and as we
said we wanted grease, he had boiled down the remains of two porkers, of
which he had salted part to furnish us with meat.
The only question now remaining was to rig our little ship, and this
gave rise to endless discussion. At first we decided on keeping her
mizzen as it was, and altering the torn dipping lug into a jib and
standing lug; but we soon saw that she was now so much deeper and
heavier that this would scarcely move her except in very heavy weather.
After much trouble we managed, by fitting her with a bowsprit and using
up all that was not rotten of the canvas we had found on the island, to
give her a suit of sails for going on a wind, and made a huge mat of
palm leaves for a square-sail to be set in running.
All being completed, we packed on board under her fore and aft decks a
stock of provisions, consisting of dried and salted pig, turtle flesh,
smoked fish, and maize; while, besides our beakers, we had hundreds of
cocoanut shells full of water, and on deck we had a coop of a dozen
fowls.
All being prepared, our stock, according to our calculations, being
enough to last us for at least a couple of months, we paddled the
_Escape_ out of the lagoon, and, making sail to a fresh trade wind which
blew on our beam, we steered in the direction of the nearest island
marked on the chart.
Though we had been now a long time on the island, and had found a refuge
there from starvation or a still more dreadful death by thirst, we
quitted it without regret, and launched forth on our voyage into the
unknown.
As to setting our course, at first we had an idea by the sun by day, and
we had learned aboard of the _Golden Fleece_ that when the Southern
Cross was vertical it was always due south; but I do not suppose we were
ever accurate within two or three points either way of south-west, which
we aimed at, and mostly by keeping the wind abeam.
The _Escape_ made very good weather and steered easily, but,
notwithstanding the size of her patchwork sails, she did not go fast
through the water. “Never mind, lads,” said Tom, when Bill and I
complained of this; “it’s better than a leaky corner of the forecastle
of the _Fleece_ to sleep in.”
“Yes,” I said, “and there ain’t no mate to boot us or bos’n to
rope’s-end us here either.”
“Ay, and more than that,” cried Bill, who was superintending the boiling
of our pot, in which was a piece of beautiful pork and some maize, “our
tucker here ain’t mouldy, weevilly biscuit and salt junk that’s more fit
for sole leather than food for humans.”
“Well done, cobbler,” was our answer, and we put up patiently with the
slowness of our progress when we considered how much better off we were
than we had ever been aboard of the _Golden Fleece_.
The first day and night and all the next day passed away without our
seeing anything save porpoises, which gambolled around, looking, as they
always do to my mind, the happiest of created beings, flying-fish, and
silver-winged gulls. But about the middle of the second night Bill, who
had the watch, called out, “Rouse up, mates; whatever is that?”
Tom and I were awake in a second, and looking ahead as he told us, we
saw a sight which all the fireworks ever made by the ingenuity of man
could not have equalled. High up in the heavens, blotting out the stars,
was a dense, black cloud, which seemed to be supported on a pillar or
fountain of fire, and from the cloud were raining down masses of matter
white-hot, red-hot. While we were looking, indeed before we had properly
cleared our eyes of sleep, we heard a tremendous noise, louder than a
thousand claps of thunder, and the breeze which had been carrying us
steadily along suddenly ceased.
“Whatever can that be?” I cried. “A ship blown up?”
“A ship!” answered Tom. “No ship that ever floated could give a sight
like that, nor a clap neither. That’s a burning mountain. I’ve heard as
there be some in these parts.”
Clap succeeded clap, but though all wonderful, none of them equalled in
intensity of the sound the first one, while the fountain of fire leaped
up and down in the most marvellous manner.
“Look out, boys; be smart and shorten sail,” said Tom. “I’ve heard as
how there be great waves after one of these blows-up, and we must keep
our craft bows on if so be as we are not to be swamped.”
Sail was shortened as quickly as we could, and our well covered over
with the canvas to prevent us being swamped; and then Tom told us to
lash ourselves to the deck, and get our paddles out, while he got the
oar over the stern, so as to be ready to twist the boat in any
direction.
Scarcely were we ready when we heard a low, moaning sound, and soon saw
a wall of water of appalling height sweeping rapidly towards us. We
worked frantically at oar and paddles, and fortunately it met us bows
on; but so steep was the wave that we could not rise properly to it, and
for what seemed an appalling time we were buried in the water. Would our
boat free herself and rise again, or would she sink under the weight,
and drag us down with her to the depths of the ocean?
Such were the thoughts which passed through my mind, and, I doubt not,
through the minds of my companions; but they were answered by our
emerging from the wave with our gunwale broken, but otherwise uninjured.
Our decks proved stanch, and though the weight of water had beaten the
sails down into the well, which was full, the boat still floated.
“Quick! you two unlash yourselves, and bail for your lives, for there’ll
be some more of these waves, and if she meets them half water-logged as
she is, down to Davy Jones’s locker we go,” cried Tom.
Bill and I did not need any second bidding to obey Tom’s order, while he
straightened the boat in the direction the wave had struck, and we
bailed away for dear life.
Before we were half clear we heard the same sort of sound as had
heralded the first wave, and again we were struck and half buried by the
water; but the wave was not so high as the first, and we came through at
the cost only of having to bail out more water.
Each successive wave, for there were a dozen, was smaller and smaller,
and at last the sea became smooth again, and the trade winds blew once
more; while from the burning mountain, instead of a fountain of fire and
sparks, we could only see the rosy reflection of flames on rolling
masses of white smoke.
We soon repaired our damage, and made sail with, as far as we could see,
no real harm done save that the coop with our fowls in it had been
washed away, and the wood we had for our fire was so damp that it would
not light, and we had to make our breakfast of raw pork and uncooked
Indian corn.
When the sun rose, we hung up our clothes to dry, and found that we
could still see the column of smoke, though not the reflection of the
flames.
Tom steered steadily for this smoke, and when we asked if we were not
running into danger by steering for the volcano, he comforted us by
saying that after such a blow-up as we’d seen there could be no other
for some time; and, as he understood, these burning mountains were
always in the centre of a group of islands, and we should be sure to
find inhabitants, and maybe a schooner or ship trading for sandalwood,
bêche de mer, and copra, in which we could get a passage to China,
Australia, or New Zealand.
Though the trade winds blew fresh and the sun was shining, the whole air
seemed to be full of a sort of brown haze; and we found that our decks,
sails, clothes, hair, in fact everything, were covered with a fine,
brown dust, which settled down on us, and in such quantities that we had
to keep on shovelling it overboard or we should have sunk under its
weight.
All day we sailed on in the direction of the smoke, and at night we
again saw it lighted up by the reflection of the fire beneath. We were
tired and weary, and though we took it in turns to steer and look out,
the helmsman often found his head bobbing down on his chest. But in the
middle of the night we were all frightened out of our sleepiness by the
boat striking some hard substance.
“What’s up?” cried Tom, as he came out of the well, where he and I had
been sleeping. “What have you run into, Bill?”
Bill was as much startled as we were, and as the bumps were repeated, we
concluded it would be best to shorten sail and wait for daylight, though
we at once sounded, in case we might be near any land, but found no
bottom, though we bent every available bit of rope on to our leadline.
When the sun rose we saw a strange sight indeed, for the whole surface
of the sea was covered with floating masses of stone, through which we
had to make our way, two of us standing in the bow to fend off the lumps
as we got close to them.
“Well, in all my born days I never sailed a boat among a lot of
paving-stones ’afore,” said Tom. “I suppose they was blowed up out of
the mountain.”
This made us laugh, but the work of shoving off the floating pumice
stone from the boat was very severe, and we had several times to shorten
sail while we rested from the labour; but by the middle of the afternoon
the pieces began to get fewer and fewer, and before sunset the surface
of the sea was clear of them, and we could steer our course without let
or hindrance.
In the middle watch, under the smoke, I saw (it was my watch) what
looked like a black mass streaked with threads of fiery gold. And when I
was relieved by Tom, he told me that that must be the side of the fiery
mountain; and sure enough when I awoke after daylight, there, right
ahead of us, towered a great mountain out of the sea, crowned by a mass
of smoke.
Near the top the mountain was black and bare, but lower down its sides
were clothed with forests, through which the liquid fire poured out of
the crater had cut broad gashes.
Tom, who was steering, was heading away so as to pass to the north of
the island, which we were rapidly doing; and Bill was lacing some
palm-leaf mats together to set as a square-sail, a task in which I at
once joined him.