The Edge of the Marsh
During his operations about the wreck, Dennis had noticed that the
monkey showed a strange aversion for the sea. At low tide, when the
vessel was high and dry, he quite cheerfully accompanied his benefactor
on board; but as a rule, when he saw the tide rolling in, he chattered
angrily, swarmed down the side of the vessel, and posted himself at the
nearest point above high-water mark. Only on the one occasion, when he
mounted the windlass, did he remain on deck when the tide was at flood;
there he seemed to regard himself as out of reach of the waves. Dennis
wondered whether the dread of the sea was a characteristic of the
monkey tribe, or whether Mirandola had at some time suffered a
sea-change which it was determined not to repeat.
He took endless pleasure in studying the amiable creature; and when,
his work with the ship being finished, he began once more to take
lengthy strolls across the island, he drew a new delight from the
companionship of the monkey. The friendship being so firmly
established, Mirandola showed off his accomplishments with a freedom he
had not displayed when he regarded this newcomer with distrust and
suspicion. Dennis laughed to see his antics in the trees. He would
curl his long tail about a branch, and swing to and fro with manifest
enjoyment. Sometimes, clutching a banana with one hand, he would pick
another with one foot, and hold a third to his mouth with the second
hand. Sometimes when he saw Dennis holding his forehead in a brown
study, he would rub his long gaunt arms over his own brow with a
wistful look that brought a smile to the lad's face. He was amiability
itself, and showed genuine distress when Dennis took occasion to scold
him for some piece of inconvenient prankishness.
Now that his thoughts were no longer engrossed with his salvage work,
Dennis more often speculated on his future. The prospect was not very
encouraging. Supposing he could carry out his half-formed purpose of
building a boat, what chance was there of surviving a voyage across the
ocean in a vessel that, untrained as he was in handicraft, must
necessarily be a clumsy thing? And unless he could risk an ocean
voyage he felt that he had better remain where he was. No European
nation but the Spaniards and the Portuguese had settlements on the
American coast. What might be expected at the hands of the Spaniards
he knew full well. Had he not heard from the lips of one Master John
Merridew fearsome tales of their treachery and cruelty? John Merridew
had sailed with Captain John Hawkins to the West Indies, with Master
Francis Drake as one of the company. Forced by foul weather into the
port of St. John de Ulua, the Captain made great account of a certain
Spanish gentleman named Augustine de Villa Nueva, and used him like a
nobleman. Yet this same Augustine, sitting at dinner one day with the
Captain, would certainly have killed him with a poniard which he had
secretly in his sleeve, had not one John Chamberlain espied the weapon
and prevented the foul deed. And recalling Merridew's narrative,
Dennis wondered what had become of those hundred poor wretches who,
when victuals ran short, and the ship's company were driven to eat
parrots and monkeys and the very rats that swarmed in the hold,
preferred to shift for themselves on shore, rather than starve on
ship-board. In imagination he saw that touching scene, when the
General, as Merridew called Captain Hawkins, gave to each man five
yards of cloth, embraced them in turn, counselled them to serve God and
love one another; and thus courteously bade them a sorrowful farewell,
promising, if God sent him safe to England, to do what he could to
bring home such as remained alive. That Captain Hawkins would fulfil
his promise Dennis believed; but how many of those Englishmen were
still living? He reflected that he at least had food and present
safety; compared with theirs his lot was a king's.
But he was not to escape misfortune altogether. One day the storm he
had so long been expecting broke over the island, hurling great seas
into the mouth of the chine, threatening to dash the _Maid Marian_
against the rocks or sweep her out into the ocean. In the midst of
pelting, blinding rain Dennis strove to ensure her safety. She
wrenched at her anchor; every moment he feared lest her mooring ropes
should be snapped; he could do little but keep a watch on the
fastenings. And while he was thus watching, a roaring flood passed
through the gully from the plateau above, swamping his hut, washing
away some of his hardly-won stores; and the fierce blast tore off the
roof of one of his sheds, exposing its contents to all the fury of the
weather.
Next day he did what he could to repair the damage. Fortunately much
of his perishable goods was contained in stout boxes which he always
kept securely fastened, and the things he lost were those he could best
spare.
In the afternoon of that day, he went across to the opposite side of
the island, as he was wont to do at intervals, to take a look-out from
the high cliff there. He wondered whether the storm had cast any other
ill-fated vessel upon the shore. But, scanning the whole horizon, he
saw nothing but league upon league of restless sea.
"Our solitude is not to be disturbed, Mirandola," he said to the
monkey, "for which let us be thankful. Or ought we to deplore it? I
wish you could speak, my friend, and tell me something of your history.
Are you the last of your race, I wonder? Well, so am I. I have no
kith nor kin; nor, as it appears, have you. I have a humble estate in
an island--to be sure, somewhat larger than this. Now I come to think
of it, this island is yours; it is a mark of nobility of soul--or is it
poverty of spirit? I cannot say--that you do not regard me as a
supplanter. Good Holles, my steward, would not brook the intrusion of
any adventurer on my lands. Heigh ho! How fares the old fellow, I
wonder? How he shook his old head when I acquainted him with my
purpose to join Sir Martin Blunt in his voyage to the Spanish Main!
'God save you, sir!' said he, and asked whether he should sell my
whippets! One thing I know, Mirandola: that if it please God to bring
me safe home in season, Holles will give me a faithful account of his
stewardship. Let me think I am your steward, good my friend. And now
let us return to our honey-pot."
On the way back, Dennis struck somewhat to the left of his usual path,
to skirt the marsh on its south-western instead of its north-eastern
side. It was far larger in area than when he had first seen it; its
outlet was too narrow to carry off the surplusage due to the tremendous
rains. Dennis was picking his way around the oozy edge, letting his
thoughts travel back to the pleasant land of Devon, when suddenly he
was brought up short by the sight of a mark in the soft earth, the
strangeness of which mightily surprised and perplexed him. Parallel
with his own tracks there ran for a few yards a faint ribbon-like
track--such a track as might be made by a large cart wheel that had
rested very lightly on the surface. It was a single track: following
its course, he found that it disappeared into the water, just as he had
seen the mark of a cart wheel disappear into a roadside horse-pond at
home.
He looked around. There was nothing to account for the mark. He
scouted the idea that it had been actually made by a wheel; a vehicle
must have been drawn by animals, and there were no hoof-marks to match.
With all his puzzling he could find no explanation, and though he
looked warily about him as he went on his way, with some return of his
old feeling of nervousness, he saw no sign to suggest that the island
had been visited.
It was a day or two before he again found himself near the marsh. He
had been fishing from the base of the high cliff that formed his usual
look-out. A kind of natural pier of broken rock jutted out from the
cliff seawards, and the deep water on each side was the favourite
resort at high tide of shoals of small fish, which chose it, he
supposed, because the depth was not great enough for the ground sharks
that sometimes made their appearance off the shore, and the little fish
could disport themselves there in security.
Carrying his catch on a string--enough for his own dinner, for
Mirandola would not touch it--he passed again by the brink of the
marsh, and once more was puzzled by the wheel-like track which he had
seen before and been unable to explain. The marsh had somewhat shrunk
in the interval; the receding water had left more of the track visible:
and the outer soil having been baked hard by the sun, the strange
imprint was clearer and more definite.
It occurred to Dennis now to attempt to trace the mark in the opposite
direction, away from the point where it disappeared in the water. It
speedily grew fainter as he came to harder soil, and he lost it
altogether where it entered undergrowth which had no doubt been
partially submerged when the marsh was at its highest. But after some
search he found it again where it emerged from the rank vegetation, and
from that point he traced it with little difficulty, for it kept fairly
close to the margin of the lake. Its resemblance to the track of a
wheel had now ceased; not even the most rickety of carts, driven by a
drunken tranter on a Devonshire lane, could have made such erratic
movements as must have caused this shallow winding mark on the soil.
Dennis followed its curves with persistent curiosity, not unmixed with
a vague uneasiness. Mirandola accompanied him, springing lightly from
bough to bough of the trees nearest the edge of the marsh, descending
with extraordinary quickness and loping along the ground where gaps
intervened, or the fringe of the woodland belt took a trend inwards.
At length the tracking came perforce to an end. Again the trail
disappeared into the water, and Dennis halted, feeling a little vexed
that his patience was, after all, to bear no fruit. He looked round
for Mirandola. The monkey had disappeared, exploring, no doubt,
thought Dennis, a close-packed thicket that came within a few yards of
the morass, having apparently crowded out all nobler trees save one
slender cedar which, dominating the undergrowth, seemed taller than it
really was.
Dennis was about to give up the problem as hopeless and go on his way,
when suddenly he heard Mirandola chattering in a manner that was new to
him. The moment after, the monkey sprang from the thicket into the
tree, and climbed with frantic speed to the very top, where he sat
gibbering and shaking with terror. Dennis, wondering what had
perturbed him, took a step forward, then started back in a cold shiver.
A huge serpent was rearing itself from the midst of the undergrowth and
winding its coils about the trunk of the tree.
Mirandola on the topmost branch had now ceased his chattering, and
clung, watching the monster with dilated eyes. The poor creature was
helpless. To descend from his perch would have been fatal; there was
no other tree at hand to which it might escape. Indeed, under the
fascination of the serpent's baleful eyes, as it slowly drew its
immense coils up the trunk, the monkey lost all power of motion; and
Dennis himself, even with the thicket between him and the monster, felt
a sort of chill paralysis as he watched its sinister movements. For
half a minute he stood rooted to the spot; then, making an effort to
throw off this dire oppression, he tried to think of some means of
helping the monkey. At that moment of danger, he was conscious for the
first time of the strength of his affection for the animal whose
companionship had done so much to relieve the awful solitude of the
island. Unless he intervened, Mirandola was doomed, and the thought of
losing Mirandola filled him with a fierce longing to slay this monster
that was crawling inch by inch towards its prey.
His first impulse was to run back to his hut for the gun he kept there
ready loaded; but slow as the serpent's progress was, before he could
return to the spot the tragedy would have ended. Then he remembered
how the reptiles in the woods at home were killed. A blow on the
vertebrae crippled them; could he cripple this huge creature, which
even yet had not heaved all its length into the tree? His only weapon
was the sailor's clasp-knife which he always carried at his girdle. He
opened it impulsively, then hesitated. If he failed to hit the
vertebrae, and dealt only a flesh wound, he might perchance save the
monkey, but could he then save himself? He knew nothing of a boa
constrictor's power of movement; yet his instinct told him that, if
once enfolded in those monstrous coils, he must inevitably be crushed
to death. But he could not stand and see his pet mangled and devoured:
the serpent, moving deliberately, as though aware of its victim's
paralysis, was not yet beyond his reach. Springing through the
undergrowth, he marked a spot some distance from the reptile's tail.
The serpent heard his approach, and turned its head slowly in his
direction; but a second later Dennis drove his knife with all his force
at the centre of the sleek round mass.
Next moment he was thrown sprawling on the ground, by a flick of the
tail as the upper part of the serpent's body writhed convulsively under
the blow. He jerked himself to his feet and leapt away through the
undergrowth in panic fear. A few steps brought him to open ground, and
then, crushing down his nervous terror, he looked back. The coils were
slipping down the tree, and in a moment it was clear that the serpent's
power was gone; its huge bulk moved uncontrollably: its motor force was
destroyed. Dennis ventured to enter the thicket again. When the
serpent reached the ground, it writhed as he had seen injured eels and
earthworms writhe, but its movements were all involuntary; Mirandola
was saved.
[Illustration: "Dennis saves Mirandola."]
The monkey was now chattering volubly, but still clung to his perch.
Clearly he would not venture to descend while his enemy moved. For
some time Dennis watched it; then, feeling that he must put an end to
its maimed life, he hurried away to fetch his gun. A bullet in the
head: and the reptile lay motionless.
Even then some little time elapsed before Mirandola yielded to Dennis's
persuasive calls and slid, still somewhat nervously, to the ground. He
avoided the reptile's body, and scampered away with shrill cries to the
open. When Dennis overtook him, the monkey sprang upon his shoulder,
and so they returned to the hut.
After this thrilling experience Dennis felt somewhat less at ease in
his peregrinations of the island. He had come to think that he had
nothing to fear there so long as it was unvisited by men. But the
thickets that gave hiding to one huge reptile might harbour many more.
Henceforth he walked more warily, and never ventured far from his hut
without a gun.