Gabbett, guided by the Crow, had determined to beach the captured boat
on the southern point of Cape Surville. It will be seen by those who
have followed the description of the topography of Colonel Arthur's
Penitentiary, that nothing but the desperate nature of the attempt could
have justified so desperate a measure. The perpendicular cliffs seemed
to render such an attempt certain destruction; but Vetch, who had been
employed in building the pier at the Neck, knew that on the southern
point of the promontory was a strip of beach, upon which the company
might, by good fortune, land in safety. With something of the decision
of his leader, Rex, the Crow determined at once that in their desperate
plight this was the only measure, and setting his teeth as he seized
the oar that served as a rudder, he put the boat's head straight for the
huge rock that formed the northern horn of Pirates' Bay.
Save for the faint phosphorescent radiance of the foaming waves, the
darkness was intense, and Burgess for some minutes pulled almost at
random in pursuit. The same tremendous flash of lightning which had
saved the life of McNab, by causing Rex to miss his aim, showed to the
Commandant the whale-boat balanced on the summit of an enormous
wave, and apparently about to be flung against the wall of rock
which--magnified in the flash--seemed frightfully near to them. The
next instant Burgess himself--his boat lifted by the swiftly advancing
billow--saw a wild waste of raging seas scooped into abysmal troughs,
in which the bulk of a leviathan might wallow. At the bottom of one
of these valleys of water lay the mutineers' boat, looking, with its
outspread oars, like some six-legged insect floating in a pool of ink.
The great cliff, whose every scar and crag was as distinct as though
its huge bulk was but a yard distant, seemed to shoot out from its base
towards the struggling insect, a broad, flat straw, that was a strip of
dry land. The next instant the rushing water, carrying the six-legged
atom with it, creamed up over this strip of beach; the giant crag, amid
the thunder-crash which followed upon the lightning, appeared to stoop
down over the ocean, and as it stooped, the billow rolled onwards,
the boat glided down into the depths, and the whole phantasmagoria was
swallowed up in the tumultuous darkness of the tempest.
Burgess--his hair bristling with terror--shouted to put the boat about,
but he might with as much reason have shouted at an avalanche. The wind
blew his voice away, and emptied it violently into the air. A snarling
billow jerked the oar from his hand. Despite the desperate efforts of
the soldiers, the boat was whirled up the mountain of water like a
leaf on a water-spout, and a second flash of lightning showed them
what seemed a group of dolls struggling in the surf, and a walnut-shell
bottom upwards was driven by the recoil of the waves towards them. For
an instant all thought that they must share the fate which had overtaken
the unlucky convicts; but Burgess succeeded in trimming the boat, and,
awed by the peril he had so narrowly escaped, gave the order to return.
As the men set the boat's head to the welcome line of lights that marked
the Neck, a black spot balanced upon a black line was swept under their
stern and carried out to sea. As it passed them, this black spot emitted
a cry, and they knew that it was one of the shattered boat's crew
clinging to an oar.
“He was the only one of 'em alive,” said Burgess, bandaging his sprained
wrist two hours afterwards at the Neck, “and he's food for the fishes by
this time!”
He was mistaken, however. Fate had in reserve for the crew of villains
a less merciful death than that of drowning. Aided by the lightning,
and that wonderful “good luck” which urges villainy to its destruction,
Vetch beached the boat, and the party, bruised and bleeding, reached the
upper portion of the shore in safety. Of all this number only Cox was
lost. He was pulling stroke-oar, and, being something of a laggard,
stood in the way of the Crow, who, seeing the importance of haste in
preserving his own skin, plucked the man backwards by the collar, and
passed over his sprawling body to the shore. Cox, grasping at anything
to save himself, clutched an oar, and the next moment found himself
borne out with the overturned whale-boat by the under-tow. He was
drifted past his only hope of rescue--the guard-boat--with a velocity
that forbade all attempts at rescue, and almost before the poor
scoundrel had time to realize his condition, he was in the best possible
way of escaping the hanging that his comrades had so often humorously
prophesied for him. Being a strong and vigorous villain, however, he
clung tenaciously to his oar, and even unbuckling his leather belt,
passed it round the slip of wood that was his salvation, girding himself
to it as firmly as he was able. In this condition, plus a swoon from
exhaustion, he was descried by the helmsman of the Pretty Mary, a few
miles from Cape Surville, at daylight next morning. Blunt, with a wild
hope that this waif and stray might be the lover of Sarah Purfoy, dead,
lowered a boat and picked him up. Nearly bisected by the belt, gorged
with salt water, frozen with cold, and having two ribs broken, the
victim of Vetch's murderous quickness retained sufficient life to
survive Blunt's remedies for nearly two hours. During that time he
stated that his name was Cox, that he had escaped from Port Arthur with
eight others, that John Rex was the leader of the expedition, that the
others were all drowned, and that he believed John Rex had been retaken.
Having placed Blunt in possession of these particulars, he further said
that it pricked him to breathe, cursed Jemmy Vetch, the settlement, and
the sea, and so impenitently died. Blunt smoked three pipes, and then
altered the course of the Pretty Mary two points to the eastward,
and ran for the coast. It was possible that the man for whom he was
searching had not been retaken, and was even now awaiting his arrival.
It was clearly his duty--hearing of the planned escape having been
actually attempted--not to give up the expedition while hope remained.
“I'll take one more look along,” said he to himself.
The Pretty Mary, hugging the coast as closely as she dared, crawled in
the thin breeze all day, and saw nothing. It would be madness to land at
Cape Surville, for the whole station would be on the alert; so Blunt, as
night was falling, stood off a little across the mouth of Pirates' Bay.
He was walking the deck, groaning at the folly of the expedition, when
a strange appearance on the southern horn of the bay made him come to a
sudden halt. There was a furnace blazing in the bowels of the mountain!
Blunt rubbed his eyes and stared. He looked at the man at the helm. “Do
you see anything yonder, Jem?”
Jem--a Sydney man, who had never been round that coast before--briefly
remarked, “Lighthouse.”
Blunt stumped into the cabin and got out his charts. No lighthouse was
laid down there, only a mark like an anchor, and a note, “Remarkable
Hole at this Point.” A remarkable hole indeed; a remarkable “lime kiln”
would have been more to the purpose!
Blunt called up his mate, William Staples, a fellow whom Sarah Purfoy's
gold had bought body and soul. William Staples looked at the waxing and
waning glow for a while, and then said, in tones trembling with greed,
“It's a fire. Lie to, and lower away the jolly-boat. Old man, that's our
bird for a thousand pounds!”
The Pretty Mary shortened sail, and Blunt and Staples got into the
jolly-boat.
“Goin' a-hoysterin', sir?” said one of the crew, with a grin, as Blunt
threw a bundle into the stern-sheets.
Staples thrust his tongue into his cheek. The object of the voyage was
now pretty well understood among the carefully picked crew. Blunt had
not chosen men who were likely to betray him, though, for that
matter, Rex had suggested a precaution which rendered betrayal almost
impossible.
“What's in the bundle, old man?” asked Will Staples, after they had got
clear of the ship.
“Clothes,” returned Blunt. “We can't bring him off, if it is him, in his
canaries. He puts on these duds, d'ye see, sinks Her Majesty's livery,
and comes aboard, a 'shipwrecked mariner'.”
“That's well thought of. Whose notion's that? The Madam's, I'll be
bound.”
“Ay.”
“She's a knowing one.”
And the sinister laughter of the pair floated across the violet water.
“Go easy, man,” said Blunt, as they neared the shore. “They're all awake
at Eaglehawk; and if those cursed dogs give tongue there'll be a boat
out in a twinkling. It's lucky the wind's off shore.”
Staples lay on his oar and listened. The night was moonless, and the
ship had already disappeared from view. They were approaching the
promontory from the south-east, and this isthmus of the guarded Neck was
hidden by the outlying cliff. In the south-western angle of this cliff,
about midway between the summit and the sea, was an arch, which vomited
a red and flickering light, that faintly shone upon the sea in the track
of the boat. The light was lambent and uncertain, now sinking almost
into insignificance, and now leaping up with a fierceness that caused a
deep glow to throb in the very heart of the mountain. Sometimes a black
figure would pass across this gigantic furnace-mouth, stooping and
rising, as though feeding the fire. One might have imagined that a door
in Vulcan's Smithy had been left inadvertently open, and that the old
hero was forging arms for a demigod.
Blunt turned pale. “It's no mortal,” he whispered. “Let's go back.”
“And what will Madam say?” returned dare-devil Will Staples who would
have plunged into Mount Erebus had he been paid for it. Thus appealed to
in the name of his ruling passion, Blunt turned his head, and the boat
sped onward.