Salvage
Rising with the sun, Dennis set about making a more careful examination
of the hull of the _Maid Marian_. The leaks in her timbers were rather
more serious than he had supposed. Clearly they would prevent her from
drifting out to sea on the tide, but they would also render her final
break-up inevitable in the event of a violent storm from the
north-west. There were signs on the face of the cliff that at times
the waves dashed over the narrow beach of sand against the wall of rock
beyond. In these latitudes, as the fate of the _Maid Marian_ proved,
storms arose without warning, and with incredible swiftness; and it
behoved Dennis to make all speed in saving the ship's stores.
At low tide on this day, and on many that followed, he worked hard at
his task. He rigged up a block and pulley in the waist, by means of
which he was able to hoist casks and other heavy objects up the
hatchways and lower them over the side of the vessel. It was more
difficult to convey them from the vessel to a place of safety beyond
the reach of the tide. At first he tried to haul them by a rope, but
finding soon that he succeeded only in working up a ridge of sand which
rendered haulage exhausting and in some cases impossible, he bethought
himself of the device of employing rollers, such as he had seen used by
fishermen on the beach at home. It was an easy matter, with the tools
now at hand, to lop off and strip some straight boughs suited to his
purpose, and upon these he brought, slowly and not without pains, the
bulkier goods to safe harbourage. The tide always rose about the
vessel too soon for his impatience; but the work was arduous, the
intervals were really needed for rest, and they gave opportunities of
furthering his acquaintance with the monkey.
His relations with Mirandola, indeed, were placed on a sound and
satisfactory footing long before he had emptied the hull. The biscuits
were invaluable. At intervals, now long, now short, he would throw one
towards the monkey, which watched all his doings at the wreck day by
day with unfailing regularity. Little by little he diminished the
length of his throw, until, on the third day after his first lesson,
Mirandola had gained sufficient confidence to approach him to within a
few inches. On the fourth day, after keeping the monkey waiting longer
than usual, Dennis took a biscuit from his pouch, held it for a moment
between his fingers, then put it back again.
"It is time, Mirandola," he said, "that your education was completed.
You are, I verily believe, as wise as a serpent; will you not believe
that I am harmless as a dove? This is the same biscuit I stowed but
now in my pouch; it is for you; it is yours if you will take it
mannerly. No, I will not cast it on the sand; it is more seemly to
take it from my hand, and, I do assure you, it will be no less
relishable. Come, then, dear wiseacre; have I ever deceived you? Show
a little confidence in your true friend and well-wisher."
He held forth the biscuit, with an alluring smile. Mirandola cocked
his head on one side, gazed at this dispenser of delectable things with
a searching solemnity, and then crawled forward with watchful eye,
dubiously halting more than once. At length he came to Dennis's feet,
and sat up, with so gravely sad an expression that Dennis found it hard
not to laugh. Then, thrusting up his long arm, he made a grab at the
biscuit.
"Not so, Mirandola," said Dennis, holding it beyond the monkey's reach.
"Manners maketh man; assuredly they will not mar monkeys. Ape the
gentle philosopher your namesake; be courteous and discreet. Now, once
more."
He lowered the biscuit slowly, keeping his eyes on the creature's face.
But with a suddenness that took him aback, Mirandola raised himself on
his hind legs, flung out an arm, and, before Dennis could withdraw it,
held the biscuit in his skinny paw.
"Wellaway!" laughed Dennis. "I may keep my breath to cool my porridge,
for all the effect my words have upon your savage nature."
Then, to his surprise, the monkey came to him again, and held out his
hand.
"You shall not be disappointed," he said. "Not for the world would I
reject your advances. Here is a biscuit, and with this, shall we say,
our friendship is sealed."
And it was not long before Mirandola would sit upon his knee, and take
food from his hand with all mannerliness; and, its distrust gone,
showed itself to be as affectionate and devoted as a dog.
Dennis availed himself in other ways of the hours when the tide
interrupted his labour with the stores. There was no lack of planking
and tarpaulin in the vessel; these he utilized in building on the
ledge, and near a fresh spring that ran out of the cliff, a little hut
about two trees that grew near enough together to form uprights for his
roof. Then he erected two small sheds close by, wherein to shelter his
goods from the weather. At first he fumbled with the unfamiliar tools,
not omitting to pinch his fingers as he hammered in the nails. But he
soon acquired a certain dexterity, and was indeed mightily pleased with
his handiwork.
Every now and again he made a trip across the island, to discover
whether any vessels were in sight. Once or twice he descried a sail on
the horizon; once, indeed, he felt some excitement and anxiety as he
saw a bark under full sail bearing straight, as he thought, for the
shore. But in this he was mistaken; the vessel altered her course, and
Dennis, watching her diminishing form, hardly knew whether to be glad
or sorry. He was in truth too busy for self-commiseration: work filled
his days, unbroken sleep his nights. His feeling of loneliness had
almost entirely passed away, for Mirandola was his inseparable
companion, and it pleased his fancy to talk to the monkey as to a human
being.
So engrossing had his labour been that he had taken no account of the
passage of time. It came upon him with a shock, once, that the
unnumbered days were flitting away. The idea that he was doomed to
grow old upon this island, and linger out his years in endless
solitude, struck his imagination with a chill, and set him climbing the
cliff in a kind of frenzy, to scan once more the wide horizon for a
sail. If at that moment a vessel had hove in sight, he would have
flown a flag, fired a musket, to attract attention, reckless what crew
it bore, so deep was his yearning to see a fellow man. When the fit
passed, it left him with a new desire. Never yet had the possibility
occurred to him of leaving the island. Could he construct a raft, or
build a boat--nay, was there a chance of making the _Maid Marian_
herself, battered as she was, seaworthy? The absurdity of attempting
to navigate single-handed a bark of near a hundred tons set him
laughing; but the idea suggested a new outlet for his energy, just at
the time when the conclusion of his salvage work had bereft him of
occupation.
He became fired with the purpose of saving the vessel. The weather
hitherto had been perfect; but sooner or later a storm must come, and
then the ship would be ground to splinters against the cliff. Was it
possible to float her? He had unloaded what he imagined to be a good
many tons of stores; thus lightened, could she be moved? If he could
succeed in floating her, whither could she be taken? His tour of the
island had failed to discover any harbour; there was little to gain and
much to lose by allowing himself to drift about aimlessly in such a
hulk. Suddenly an idea struck him. Would it not be possible to devise
some means of floating her up the gully, round the shoulder of the
cliff? Her draught was not great: at high tide the water was deep
enough to carry her many yards beyond her present position, to a point
where she would be at once invisible from the open sea and protected
from the weather.
At the next fall of the tide he made a thorough inspection of the
wreck. It was easy to find the leaks, for at every ebb the water that
had entered the vessel at the flood gushed out in tiny cascades. Many
a time he had seen ships careened and caulked in the dockyard at
Plymouth. He had plenty of rope of which to make oakum, and of tar
more than enough to meet his needs; in his search through the vessel he
had lighted on no caulking iron, but a long nail would serve, and it
should go hard with him, he thought, but he would make the old hulk
sound and seaworthy ere many days were gone.
He found an unexpected assistant in Mirandola. He had teased out but
an inch or two of rope when the monkey squatted down by his side and
began with his strong nimble fingers to copy him, looking up in his
face with an air of such busy importance that Dennis was fain to lie
back and laugh.
"By my troth, Sir Mirandola," he said, "this is friendship indeed. And
you outdo me, on my soul; you pick two inches to my one. 'Tis not the
daintiest of work for fingers untrained to it, and if it pleases you,
why, I will e'en leave it to you, and admire this unwonted usefulness
in a philosopher."
But he found that when he ceased, the monkey ceased also.
"Poor knave!" he said. "You see not the end. 'Tis but an apish trick
after all. Well, God forbid that I should judge your motive; I am
thankful for your help, and we will work together."
Between them the two collaborators soon had a fine heap of oakum ready
for use, and a couple of days' hard work at low tide sufficed to caulk
all the seams. Mirandola's share in this second part of the job gave
Dennis more amusement. The busy creature solemnly dabbed tar on sound
parts of the timbers, and chattered with disgust when he discovered
that the stuff clung to his hairy skin, defying all his efforts to get
rid of it.
"I' faith, I named you more fittingly than I wot," quoth Dennis.
"Pico, your illustrious namesake, was a gentleman of rare and delicate
taste. Touch pitch and thou art defiled. But a little turpentine,
mayhap, will cleanse the outward spots; and as for your inward
hurt--what think you of a spread of honey on your biscuit?"
Mirandola thought nobly of the new delicacy, and came in time to look
for honey whenever he had imitated Dennis with more than usual energy.
The leaks having been well caulked, Dennis proceeded to pump the water
from the lower parts of the hold. He awaited the next high tide with
great eagerness. To his joy the vessel floated, and rode fairly
upright on her keel. The tide carried her several yards up the beach,
leaving her again high and dry at the ebb.
But Dennis now found himself faced by a difficulty. He wished to get
the vessel round the shoulder of the cliff, so that the tide might
carry her up the chine to the pool below his hut and sheds. The
distance was barely eighty yards, but he had noticed, from the movement
of a log floating some little way out, that the set of the current was
from north to west; so that if once she were allowed to float free, and
felt the force of the current, she would probably drift away in the
opposite direction from what he desired. On the other hand, if she
were driven too high on the beach, she might stick so firmly in the
sand that it would be impossible to move her, and then she would lie at
the mercy of the first north-west gale.
His little nautical knowledge was at first at a loss.
"Mirandola, your speechless wisdom is of no avail," he said ruefully,
as he sat at his fire one evening, feeding the monkey with pease
porridge. "You and I are both landsmen; unlike you, I adventured
forth, to gain gold, and fight the don Spaniards, if so the fates
should ordain. Here is never a Spaniard to fight, and as for gold, the
wealth of Croesus would not at this moment benefit me a jot. If I had
been bred to the sea, now, I should not be at this pass."
But long cogitation, and another visit to the ship, determined a course
of action. The windlass, he discovered, was uninjured, and though it
was very stiff, he could still manage to turn it. A big jagged rock
jutted out from the cliff near the shoulder round which the vessel must
be warped. To this rock he carried a rope from the stump of the
mainmast and securely fastened it. This would prevent the vessel from
drifting out to sea. Then, with a hatchet from the ship's stores he
cut a number of thick branches from the trees along the gully, and
pitching them into the pool floated them one by one on to the beach
alongside the wreck. There was plenty of rope on board to fashion
these into a stout raft, on to which, with the aid of the windlass, he
lowered a kedge anchor just sufficiently heavy to hold the vessel in a
calm. It was a matter of some difficulty to get the anchor so evenly
adjusted on the raft that the latter would not turn turtle; but after
some patient manoeuvring Dennis arranged it squarely in the centre, and
when the tide came in the whole floated with a fair appearance of
stability. Then with a long pole Dennis cautiously punted the raft out
beyond the gully, paying out as he went a stout cable, connecting the
anchor with the windlass. Some thirty yards beyond the gully, at a
point near enough in shore to be beyond the reach of the current, he
prepared to drop the anchor. It was too heavy for him even to move;
the only plan that suggested itself was to bring about what he had up
to that moment been most anxious to prevent--the raft must now be
intentionally upset. One by one he cut away the lashings of the
outermost logs on the seaward side. At last he felt by the movement of
the raft that only his own weight prevented the crazy structure from
turning over. He slid from the raft into the sea; the far side sank
and the anchor slipped over and went with a thud to the bottom. Then
the raft righted itself, and Dennis scrambled aboard.
The rest was easy. When the tide ebbed it carried the wreck inch by
inch towards the anchor, for with the aid of the windlass Dennis was
able to keep the cable constantly taut, while at the same time he paid
out the rope connecting the vessel with the shore. A couple of tides
brought him in this way up to the anchor; then, transferring the shore
cable to a stout tree some distance up the gully, he slacked off the
kedge line when the tide was running up, and allowed the wreck to be
carried shorewards. In this way the _Maid Marian_ floated slowly up
the gully on the flood, and another couple of tides brought her within
a few yards of the pool, which he designed for her permanent harbourage.
Below this there was a narrow bar that threatened to baulk him. At low
tide, indeed, he had to shovel away a large amount of sand in the
middle of the channel, and once came near losing his temper with
Mirandola, who, with well-meant industry, and a quite innocent
pleasure, set about scooping back the sand as it was dug out. But the
animal tired of this fatiguing amusement; the difficulty was overcome;
and when at last the vessel rode gently into the little natural harbour
below the hut, Dennis hailed the success of his long toil with a
cheerful "Huzza!" and broached a cask of sack. Of this indulgence he
partly repented, for the monkey seized upon the empty can when he laid
it down, and drained it greedily.
"No, no, my friend," said Dennis, gravely. "Wine maketh glad the heart
of man; I do not read that it is anywise a drink for brutes. And all
your philosophy would not reconcile me to a drunken Mirandola. 'Be not
among wine-bibbers,' says the wisest of kings and men; I bethink me he
says also, 'My son, eat thou honey, for it is good!' You shall have
honey, my venerable son."