MAROONED.
Ned remained exactly as Mr. Stout had left him until the little craft
was alongside the brig, hoisted on board, and the Evening Star, swinging
around into the wind, was standing off on her course once more.
During all this time the mate had not, so far as he could tell, looked
at him for a single instant, and this apparent lack of sympathy puzzled
Ned.
“I don’t see what makes him so queer,” he said to himself as he watched
the vessel rapidly drawing away from the tiny island upon which he had
been landed. “The captain seemed kind enough while I was locked in the
state-room; but neither he nor the mate acted as if they felt bad
because I had to go away.”
Then once more he wondered what leprosy was, which necessitated his
leaving the brig so suddenly, and to neither of these mental questions
could he give a satisfactory reply.
The packages which had been brought ashore were too numerous to admit of
his carrying them at one load, and he decided to leave everything,
except the articles given him by the mate, on the beach until he could
locate the village.
The fishing-lines, knife, and matches he put in his pockets, covered the
other goods with the rubber coat, and when the Evening Star had faded
away in the distance to a mere smudge on the horizon, he set out in
search of the inhabitants of the island.
It was about noon when he came ashore, and since then fully two hours
had been spent watching the brig.
The heat seemed intense, and the glare of the sun on the white sands
nearly blinded him.
“There’s no use standing here any longer,” he said aloud after one more
glance at the faint shadow which marked the brig’s position. “If I don’t
start it’ll soon be dark, an’ then there _would_ be trouble, for a
fellow can’t find his way around a strange island very well when it’s
impossible to see anything. It seems kinder queer that I was so sick it
wasn’t safe for me to stay aboard the Evening Star, an’ yet the captain
thought it was all right for me to walk a couple of miles when it’s hot
enough to melt the boots off a fellow’s feet!”
Then, with his eyes fixed on what appeared to be a clump of trees, in
order that he might be certain of traveling in a direct course, Ned set
out, trudging along resolutely, regardless of the heat, which brought
the perspiration from his face in tiny streams.
The hard lessons of life which Ned had already received stood him in
good stead now. Without them he might have weakened before this, the
first of many troubles yet to come; but he had known a number of
instances where a good deal more labor than that of walking two miles
had been required of him, with no prospect of a reward when the task was
finished, and the question of fatigue hardly entered his thoughts.
He believed he should soon arrive at a village where he would be
hospitably received as soon as he informed the inhabitants that he had
been set ashore because of suffering from leprosy, therefore the thought
of what he would soon enjoy served to pass the time more rapidly.
After half an hour’s steady walking he saw that the point toward which
he had been making his way was indeed a clump of trees.
The grove was situated at the head of a small bay which made in on the
western side of the island, and here the vegetation was almost
luxuriant.
Trees covered an extent of land fully half a mile square, and sloping
down from the higher portions of the island to the water’s edge were
bushes and small plants in profusion.
To a fellow who wanted to “camp out” where he would be free from
intrusion, it was a beautiful place; but to one in Ned’s situation, who
hoped to see houses as a sort of guarantee that he might find something
to eat, it was not cheering.
“I reckon the village is on the other side of the grove,” he said to
himself. “If I’d known where to look for it in the first place I might
have saved quite a long walk.”
He was beginning to grow tired, and the heat had caused such a thirst
that water seemed an absolute necessity.
Fortunately he was not forced to travel very much further without a
plentiful supply of this most precious liquid.
After passing about half-way through the grove, he came upon a small
natural spring which apparently gushed out of the coral rock, and here
he made a long halt, satisfying his thirst gradually because of the
intense pleasure of drinking when his tongue was so parched.
The thing which struck him as most strange was the fact that during all
his travels he had not seen a sign of human beings.
From what he had noticed of the island while on the brig, it did not
appear to be very large, and he failed to understand how it could be
populated and this portion so completely deserted.
“I mustn’t sit here thinkin’ about it,” he muttered, rising to his feet.
“It’ll be night before I strike the hospital if I don’t keep moving.”
Straight through the grove he went, then on the other side within sight
of the water, but seeing no signs of life, save when the birds swooped
down past him as if trying to find out what sort of creature this was
who had come among them so suddenly.
He quickened his pace, and continued on with grim determination until
the sun sank behind the waste of waters, and the shadows of night were
gathering more rapidly than he had ever seen them before.
“I have surely walked three miles an hour,” he said to himself, “and if
it was two o’clock when I started, I’ve got over not less than twelve
miles. Say it was three across from where I landed to the grove, and
that makes nine I’ve footed it around the shore with——”
He ceased speaking very suddenly, and stood silent and motionless
staring in front of him on the sand near the water’s edge.
He had returned to the very place where Mr. Stout put him ashore, for
here were the packages just as he had left them.
During at least five minutes he remained like a statue gazing at the
inanimate objects as if expecting they would give him some solution to
what was a perplexing riddle, and then like a flash of light the truth
came into his mind.
“What a fool I have been not to understand the whole thing before!” he
exclaimed. “When I told what I had heard from the pantry, the mate went
to the captain, and the two decided that it wouldn’t be safe to let me
go among the men, for fear I might give away the secret. The idea of my
bein’ sick was cooked up, I was kept in the state-room so none of the
crew could see me, an’ landed on the first desolate island the brig came
to. There’s no show of people livin’ here, for I’ve followed the water
around, and nearly all the time could see half-way across, so that part
of the business is settled. Now I’m to stay here till I die so’s I can’t
tell about their wreckin’ the brig.”
There was only one thing that prevented Ned from giving way to the
despair and grief which came into his heart with the knowledge of the
cruel deed of which he was the victim, and that was the certainty the
Evening Star would soon be scuttled.
“Perhaps I’m lucky in only bein’ set ashore here. They might have kept
me on board till the last minute, an’ then left me to go down with the
vessel.”
Boy though he was, Ned understood that it was in the highest degree
necessary he should retain control of himself, and instead of indulging
in useless grief, he set about making the best of what was a very bad
plight without a single redeeming feature.
“There’s no use in goin’ hungry, an’ I may as well see what we’ve got
here in the way of grub,” he said to himself as he unfastened the
largest package.
A cry of anger and disappointment burst from his lips as the contents
were disclosed to view.
The square of canvas contained nothing but oakum and bits of rope.
Feverishly he opened the others, only to find them filled with rubbish
of all kinds.
The captain had doomed him to starvation, and the different bundles were
prepared to deceive the crew, some of whom might have been suspicious
had the poor boy been set ashore with nothing to eat.
Captain Bragg believed death would soon close the lips of the one who
had unwittingly learned his secret.
Ned no longer tried to act the manly part.
Anger was the first sensation after the terrible discovery that he had
been sentenced to a lingering death, and he attacked the rubbish in a
frenzy, throwing it on every side and stamping upon the fragments like a
madman.
Then came grief and despair.
Seated on the sand by the side of what he had believed was a generous
supply of provisions, he gave way to tears, and when this fit passed it
was night.
He was too tired to retrace his steps to the grove, the only place where
could be found the semblance of a shelter, even had he been disposed to
battle against the fate which seemed to beset him on every side.
Stretching out at full length on the sand, he pulled the rubber coat
over him, and finally fell asleep with a partially defined hope that
death might overtake him before he could awake to consciousness.
For a boy who had just been marooned and who neither had provisions nor
the means of procuring any, Ned Rogers slept remarkably well.
Although the sand was by no means as soft as the hard mattress in the
state-room of the Evening Star, he did not awaken until the rays of the
sun falling across his face banished the slumber from his eyelids.
For an instant he gazed around in wonderment, not knowing how such a
change could have been made in his surroundings, and then the full
knowledge of all that had occurred came to him once more.
His first impulse was to cry, and then he checked himself resolutely as
he said:
“Look here, Ned, it won’t do at all. I don’t remember that you’ve ever
been in quite as hard a scrape as this; but I’m certain you know what it
is to be hungry, and this island ain’t half as tough as runnin’ ’round
Jonesboro hearin’ the folks say you are bound to come to some wicked
end. You’re pretty near as bad off as Robinson Crusoe, an’ yet he come
around all right.”
Then Ned regretted not having read the book more carefully when Frank
Hubbard loaned it to him, because if he had done so he might the better
have been able to decide upon his future course.
Rising to his feet and mechanically plunging his hands in his pockets,
he became aware of the fish-lines, and with this very pleasant
remembrance came the thought that Mr. Stout had given him these few
articles with the kindly hope that he might prolong his life.
“Perhaps he didn’t dare to do any more while the captain was watching.
Anyway, I oughter be able to catch some fish if I can find bait, and
with what matches I have got there won’t be much trouble about building
a fire.”
The mere fact that he knew what to do seemed to give him no slight
amount of mental relief, and he started at a rapid pace for the tiny bay
which ran up into the grove.
“There will be fish in that place if anywhere, and after breakfast I
reckon it won’t be such a very hard job to rig up some kind of a
shanty,” he said to himself as he walked along, keeping a sharp lookout
meanwhile over the surrounding waters in the hope of seeing a sail.
There was not a craft of any kind in sight, and if he had known exactly
the position of Spider Key, he would have understood that his chances of
seeing a vessel were very slight.
On arriving at the shore of the bay his first work was to dig in the
sand for worms, as he would have done at Jonesboro; but on reaching the
foundation coral without finding other form of life than fleas, he gave
it up as a bad job.
Then he walked around the beach until he found what looked like mussels,
and breaking the shell of one of these soon had his hook baited.
The shores of the bay were very bold, and it was hardly necessary to use
a pole in order to cast the line into deep water.
To the anxious fisherman it seemed as if the hook had hardly reached the
surface before the bait was seized by a silvery fish, and a second later
he had the first portion of his breakfast on shore.
“With three fellers like that I’ll have all I can eat this morning,” he
said in a tone of satisfaction.
It surely seemed as if the fish of the bay were eager to accept his
invitation to breakfast, and before one could have counted fifty he had
a plentiful supply.
The task of cooking them was more difficult than the catching, because
of his inexperience.
Instead of burying them among the ashes as he should have done, Ned
could think of no other way than to toast the fish, by placing them on
short sticks stuck in the sand near the blaze.
This was a tedious and unsatisfactory way of cooking, because while one
portion was burning the opposite side of the fish was growing cold; but
he succeeded after a certain fashion, and his hunger was appeased.
There was no especial reason why he should work very industriously, or,
at least, he did not think there was, and he seated himself within the
shade of the trees, remaining there until he fell asleep once more.
When he awakened again it was afternoon and time to think of getting
supper.
“This won’t do,” he said ruefully. “I mustn’t go on simply eatin’ and
sleepin’, otherwise when it storms I shall be badly left. I wonder if
the queer clams I used for bait wouldn’t go well roasted? It won’t take
so long to cook them, and perhaps I can yet make a good start on
buildin’ a shanty.”
To kindle the fire and throw among the coals an armful of mussels was
not a long job, and then Ned walked slowly through the grove to decide
upon the location of his proposed house.
He finally, after considerable discussion with himself, concluded that
it would be wisest to erect the building within a short distance of the
spring, and near the head of the bay.
In order that he might have no difficulty in finding the spot selected,
he half broke, half cut down a sapling, and then went back to the scene
of his culinary operations.
The mussels were well roasted; but, lacking salt, they were not as
palatable as the fish.
“These go a long way ahead of nothin’,” Ned said grimly, “but fall
mightily short of some grub I’ve tasted in my day. After the shanty is
built I shan’t have anything to do but hunt ’round for provisions, an’
it’ll be queer if I can’t manage to catch one or two of these birds.”
He was rapidly getting rid of that terrible feeling of utter desolation
which had at first come upon him, and appeared as well able as any boy
could have been to provide against want.
The remainder of the day was spent in house-building, and a slow task it
proved to be. He had no other tool than the pocket knife, and it was not
particularly well adapted to the hewing of trees.
He contrived to lop off some of the small limbs and break down saplings
enough to make the roof of his shanty; but before anything more could be
done night had come.
Again he slept under the rubber coat, and despite the fact of the
noon-day nap his slumber was long and profound.
He was awake by sunrise, however, and fully determined to have something
to show for this day’s labor.
In order to economize time he made a breakfast of roasted mussels, and
then began to work with a will on the building.
Before the sun set again he had put up a dwelling which pleased him very
much, save as to size.
It was not more than six feet square and about five high, but it would
serve to shelter him from the rain, although a heavy wind might level it
in short order.
To four small trees which grew at nearly equal distance from each other
he had lashed the main timbers of the building, using creeping vines for
ropes, and placing them at as high a point as it would be convenient to
work.
Across these were tied other poles about four inches apart, and over
them were laid the broad leaves of what appeared to be a species of
banana plant, the whole being bound down with vines.
The sides and one end of the shanty were inclosed in leaves, and while
the wind was not too boisterous he had a very comfortable dwelling.
On this night Ned slept for the first time in his life beneath his own
roof, and there was such a sense of satisfaction and proprietorship in
the fact that he almost forgot his desolate condition.
Next morning he was in no hurry to arise. Having worked so hard on the
previous day, it seemed only fair he should indulge in a prolonged
resting spell.
Hunger forced him to venture forth before the forenoon was very far
advanced, however, and for the second time he served up a meal of fish,
which were captured as readily as before.
After this two or three hours were spent trying to snare some of the
birds by making a slip noose with one of the fishing-lines and placing
within the circle fragments of mussels.
He had no difficulty in enticing the feathered visitors to an
examination of his bait, but they refused in the most provoking manner
to alight long enough for him to fasten the string around their legs,
and he was forced to relinquish this method of replenishing his larder.
“You’ve beaten me this time,” he said with a laugh; “but just wait
awhile till I rig up another kind of a trap, and we’ll see who comes out
best.”
The next most pleasing method of passing the hours seemed to be by an
examination of what he had already begun to call “his farm,” and he set
out intending to make a full exploration in two days, going half-way
around on each excursion.
“If I only had a dog I believe this would be a jolly sort of a place in
which to live for a month or so,” he said aloud, as if there was a
certain sense of companionship in the sound of his own voice. “It’s
goin’ to be mighty lonesome after awhile.”
He had started on his exploring trip by following the same course taken
when he was searching for the supposed village; but on this occasion he
walked nearer the water’s edge and kept a sharp lookout for anything
which might serve as food.
A few yards from the edge of the grove he found a portion of the coral
not covered by the sand, and on this was a fine white powder which he
tasted of eagerly.
“It’s real salt!” he exclaimed in surprise and delight. “I reckon the
sea-water has washed up on it, an’ then the sun has dried the salt out.
That’s the way I’ve heard Deacon Grout say some folks found it.”
As may be supposed, he was careful to gather up the small amount which
had been prepared by the elements, and while doing so resolved to make
arrangements for getting as much as might be needed in the future.
A leaf served as a salt-dish, and he carried it carefully back to the
hut, saying as he deposited the precious powder where it could not be
blown away:
“To-morrow I’ll go after those pieces of canvas the captain wrapped his
bogus grub in and begin this part of my housekeeping in ship-shape
fashion. The fish will taste mighty good to-night if I can manage to
cook them all over alike.”
When this had been done to his satisfaction he started once more on the
exploring tour, and after having walked fifteen or twenty minutes was
rewarded by another “find” which seemed even more valuable than the
first.
This was neither more nor less than what appeared to be the hull of a
small vessel almost entirely buried in the sand, the ends of the
framework only showing above the surface.
“Now I can build me a house that won’t be in danger of goin’ to sea when
the first storm comes on,” he said triumphantly. “The only thing is to
rig up something which will answer as a spade, and the rest is just a
question of hard work.”