the wind our vessel heeled over, so that we had to lower the sail
immediately, or we should have been capsized. After some thought we
hit upon a remedy, which was to make some alterations in the weight of
the outrigger, and also in the length of the outrigger beam; and when
we had spent a deal of time in making experiments, and running some
risks of losing the vessel, we managed so that she ran perfectly steady
with an ordinary breeze. And then we discovered that, our stability
being assured, we could sail marvellously close to the wind and at a
very fair speed, much faster, indeed, than we could paddle, and it then
became our delight to make little trips round the coast and some
distance out to sea, always very carefully looking out first from our
watch-tower to be sure that no savages were in sight.
[Sidenote: The Red Rock]
On one of these expeditions we sailed round to the north side of the
island, and it came into our heads to see whether it was possible to
make an ascent of the big red rock, the sides of which, so far as we
had been able to examine them from the cliffs and the hills, appeared
to be unscalable. We took care not to let our vessel drift into the
current that ran between the rock and the island, and running round to
the north side of it, we found that it was not near so precipitous here
as on the other sides--indeed, there was a very convenient
landing-place at the foot, and a little cove where the vessel might
safely lie, tied by the painter to a crag, while we satisfied our
curiosity by making the ascent. You may be sure that we tied the
vessel up very securely before leaving her, for if she had drifted
loose I do not know what we should have done, for we could scarcely
have swum to the island, the current being so strong, and I suppose we
should simply have stayed on the rock until we were dead.
There was no pathway up the rock, on which we were perhaps the first
human beings that had ever set foot, and we found the ascent a great
deal more difficult than it had appeared from below. We had to clamber
up from point to point with the aid sometimes of stunted bushes--very
sturdy they were, too--that grew out of fissures; and choosing the
easiest way, we made a very zigzag course, sometimes losing sight of
the sea altogether. Here and there we disturbed sea-birds which had
made their nests in the face of the cliff, but there were not near so
many of these as we might have expected. After climbing thus for about
three hundred feet, as I calculated, we came to a sort of broad terrace
that ran in a fairly easy slope round the northern and eastern faces of
the rock, and pretty well covered with shrubs and moss. From this we
made our way, rather laboriously, to the southern side, and came by and
by to the ledge, or platform, which jutted out from the rock to the
island, and which I mentioned a while ago. Billy, you remember, had
spoke of leaping the gap, which would have been an impossible feat, for
not only was the distance too great, it being, I should think, at least
twenty feet, but, moreover, the ledge on the rock was somewhat higher
than the promontory of the island. Looking down upon this latter as we
now did, the gap seemed even less than it had appeared from the other
side, and I had really to be very stern with Billy when he declared
again that he knew he could jump it.
From this ledge or platform we found the ascent to the summit of the
rock pretty easy, and when we got there, we saw that it was flat in
general, but a great deal cut up by fissures and jagged bosses, so that
it was not near so smooth as it appeared when we overlooked it from the
side of the mountain. Some of the fissures were of considerable depth,
and when I flung a small fragment of rock into one of them, to test it,
there came a faint splash from below, by which we knew that it
contained water; and yet the splash was not so faint as to come from
the sea, so that we concluded the water at the bottom of the fissure
was fresh, and had collected there from the drainage of the sort of
tableland on which we stood. There were thin shrubs and lichen growing
on the rock, but we saw nothing to interest us, and so, having got but
a poor reward for our labour in climbing, we descended again, and found
the descent little less laborious than the ascent; indeed, I thought it
more difficult, for the looking down made me a little dizzy. We were
both pretty tired by the time we reached the canoe, which was just as
we left it; and I should not have thought it worth while to say
anything about this fruitless expedition but for some surprising events
that happened later.
[Sidenote: Preparing for a Voyage]
It was some little while after this, I think, that I suffered a spell
of home-sickness, and was more miserable and down-hearted than I had
ever been since we came to the island. I have no doubt it was because
we had more time on our hands than heretofore, for with the making of
our canoe it seemed that there was little else left for us in the way
of handiwork, and the tending of our animals and plantations was by no
means enough to fill all our days. The servant of the ingenious
gentleman in the tale--Sancho Panza is his name, I think--in his
simplicity invoked blessings on him that invented sleep; and I would
match him by a similar invocation on the inventor of work, for I am
very sure that while we work we have no leisure to be discontented, and
when our work is done there is blessed sleep to refresh us. I did not
forget the saying that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,"
and Billy and I, as I have said, did some little in the way of play,
with skittles, and shooting at the running man, and in sailing our
canoe, which was a very fine sport, I assure you; and we spent some
time in trying to teach our dogs, which were growing apace, to perform
tricks, with but little success. However, I mention my home-sickness
because it was when I was in that black fit that Billy spoke again of
sailing to England.
"Why not make a bigger canoe, master, and put a great store of food and
water aboard, and sail away?" he said. "When our water was done, we
could touch at some of them islands we passed and get more, and maybe
after a bit we might fall in with a proper ship and get a passage home."
I pointed out in answer to this that we should not find it an easy
matter to launch a vessel large enough to carry provisions for a
lengthy voyage. "If we had a chart and compass," I said, "and other
things useful in navigation, about which neither you nor I know much,
we might perhaps set off and go from island to island on our stock of
food, until we came maybe to one of the possessions which the Dutch
have, I believe, in the Indian Archipelago, or maybe to some place in
Spanish America where we might find a friendly ship. But suppose our
food gave out and we could not make land," I said, "what could we do
without a chart or any means of taking observations? If luck went
against us, we might sail for weeks, and indeed months, without ever
seeing land at all. And besides," I went on, "suppose nothing of this
sort happened to us, but we chanced upon an island where the native
people were hostile----"
"We would fight 'em," says Billy, interrupting me; "that's what we made
them bows and arrows for, and we can shoot straight now, and we could
make a few thousand arrows so that it wouldn't matter if we lost some."
I could not help smiling at Billy's simplicity, admiring at the same
time his stoutness of heart; but I showed him that with all our
expertness we could not hope, being two, to contend with great hosts of
savages, who would very soon overwhelm us. However, Billy was not at
all convinced that his idea of a voyage to England was impracticable,
and he talked so much about it that I was in course of time prevailed
on to consider it, at least so far as to consent to make a little
experiment. In short, we resolved upon making a voyage of several days
from the island. We had to consider of the well-being of our live
stock during our intended absence, and that gave us some trouble, for
though we might take our two dogs with us, we could certainly not
transport our pigs or our poultry, nor did we wish to do so. On the
other hand, if we left them in their usual habitations, and we were
away longer than we expected, they would certainly starve, while if we
let them loose the fowls would as certainly be devoured by the wild
dogs, and the pigs the same, or else return to their wildness, but most
likely the former, for animals that have become domestic are no match
in fighting for wild animals of their kind. We might have left a large
quantity of food, that's true; but knowing the nature of beasts we knew
that they would devour it gluttonously without any forethought, and
maybe kill themselves with over-eating, and at any rate there would be
none of it left after the first day. It was a good while before we hit
upon any way out of this difficulty, and then it was Billy who thought
of a way, and very ingenious it was, in my estimation. As he very
truly said, we needed some contrivance that would enable the pigs to
get their food, but not too fast, and his device for this was to make a
long trough with holes in the bottom of it, and to raise this above the
ground just so high that the pigs by lifting up their snouts could
nibble through the holes at what the trough contained. I say I thought
it an ingenious notion, and we considered how such a trough could be
made, for we could not make one of planks, and it would be a tedious
business to burn out the inside of a tree as we had done with our
vessel. But it came into my head that we could make one by moulding
clay on such a tree, which we did, and having broken a number of holes
in the clay when it was moist, we burnt it hard, and thus the trough
was finished, in much less time than the hollowing of a tree would have
taken. We put some yams into it, and made a trial of this new
contrivance, and we found it answered our expectations almost too well,
for owing to the height of the trough when we had propped it up, the
smallness of the holes, and the unwonted postures to which the pigs
were enforced, they could only eat very slowly, which must have been a
great trouble to animals accustomed to rapid gobbling of their meals.
We saw that we should have to make a special trough for the smaller
pigs, or else give them one end of the trough to themselves, for
otherwise the larger animals would never have let them eat at all; and
in the end we put up a fence between the smaller and the larger pigs,
and tilted the trough a little, so that it was lower at one extremity;
and this end also we filled with pounded bread-fruit as well as yams,
as being more fit for the younger stomachs, besides being not so hard
to get at through the holes. From the trial we made we saw that the
trough, when full, would hold enough food for three or four days, and
if we were absent longer than that, the pigs must needs sing for their
supper, as Billy said.
As for the fowls, we could not for a long time think of any manner of
supplying them with food. We were accustomed to fling their food to
them over the fence of their enclosure, and Billy said that what we
needed was some contrivance for dropping supplies down among them at
intervals. I remembered having read somewhere of a device for
releasing a catch by a candle burning a thread passed through it at a
certain distance from the top, but we could not make with our
candle-nuts a candle that would last near long enough, and besides, if
we could there was the danger that it would cause a conflagration. But
this set us on thinking towards the plan which we resolved on, and that
was to support a basket of food by a catch, and tie to the catch a
strip of raw hide, which, when it contracted with the sun's heat, would
release the catch. The manner of our doing this was as follows. We
suspended the basket from the roof of the fowl-house by slings, one on
each side, and to one of the slings we fastened a long strip of raw
hide, the other end of this being attached by a wooden peg to the wall,
and the hide being stretched pretty tight in a horizontal direction.
The contraction of the hide would thus pull the sling from under the
basket, and so cause it to fall. We found when we tried this at first
that the basket fell too soon, which was due to the too rapid
contraction of the hide; but we devised a remedy for this by wrapping
the hide round with wet grass, which prevented it from contracting so
soon. We put enough food in the basket to last about two days, being
unable to put more because it would then be too heavy for the catch.
"If we are away longer than two days, and they eat it all too soon,"
says Billy, "they must make the best of it, and maybe it'll learn 'em
not to be greedy."
The supply of water for our animals gave us no trouble, for with our
numerous pots and pans filled there was enough for over a week.
[Sidenote: A Certain Lecture]
All these arrangements having been made--and we grudged the time for
them, so eager were we now to go a-sailing--we determined to set forth
the very next day. As we lay in our hut that night, before we went to
sleep we talked over what was before us, and I own I was in a very
serious mood, for we were certainly braving the unknown. We might be
caught in a storm, and knew not in the least how our vessel would then
behave. We might encounter savages, who would be hostile to us, and
maybe kill us, or make us captives. We were leaving a comfortable and
secure home, and embarking on what might prove to be a very sea of
troubles; and when, in talking to Billy, the manifold dangers to which
we might be exposed became more deeply pictured in my mind, I was
almost ready to give up the design. But when I threw out sundry hints
to this effect, Billy spoke so slightingly of these imaginary perils,
and so glowingly of the delights of roving and going a voyage of
discovery, that I resolutely stilled my qualms, and, indeed, felt some
little ashamed of my timorousness. For an example, when I said that we
might never come home again, Billy said, "Why, master, you _are_ a
croaker. We might have gone to the bottom with poor Captain Corke and
poor Mr. Lummis, and we didn't. We might have been took into that boat
with Hoggett and Wabberley and that lot, and we warn't, and mighty glad
I am of it, for I wouldn't be within call of Hoggett for a thousand
pound. And if so be they're alive anywhere now, and Mr. Bodger is with
'em, he wishes to goodness he warn't, that I warrant you."
"But suppose we come back and find our house ruined with an earthquake
or smothered under ashes from the mountain?" I said.
"Why, we shall think ourselves uncommon lucky," says he, "as we was not
here to be ruined and smothered too. I call that nothing but croaking,
master."
I took some pains to defend myself from this charge, and to show Billy
that there is all the difference in the world between a settled habit
of looking on the dark side of things and a prudential survey when some
great enterprise is in question; but I might as well have talked to the
pigs, or to our two dogs, for all the impression I made. And it is as
well 'twas so, for his confidence and resoluteness to see only the
bright side were wonderfully cheering to me; and I have often since
thought that it is a great affliction to be able to see too much. To
use a homely instance, the donkey in the tale starved because he could
not make up his mind between the two bundles of hay; if he had seen
only one at a time he would have had a very good meal.
When we rose in the morning I was quite as ready as Billy to embark on
our voyage. At the last moment something put it into our heads to
convey all our spare provisions and some of our tools to the cavern
below, which already held a great store, and to conceal the opening,
which hitherto we had only covered with loose logs. We now laid these
logs very close together across the top of the shaft a little below the
floor level, and over these we laid grass, and over this again a
quantity of earth like that of which the floor consisted; and then we
rammed it down, and laid on it flags and rushes with which we were used
to strew the floor, so that no one would think, to look at it, that
there was a cellar beneath. Then, having already strengthened the
fences of our poultry-run and pigsty, to keep out the wild dogs, we
carried down to the vessel a good store of provisions and water, also
our spears and bows and arrows, the arrows in neat quivers we had made
out of palm leaves. We then waited for the full tide to launch our
canoe and set sail.
[Sidenote: We go a Voyage]
This happened in the afternoon. We had talked over the direction of
our course, and had resolved to sail to the westward, for no other
reason, I think, than that we had seen the seamen of the _Lovey Susan_
make for the east, and we had no wish to meet them again if perchance
we had to land for any purpose. If any one says it was a foolhardy
thing to attempt a voyage without a compass, and asks how we could be
sure of finding our way back again, I will remind him that it was very
rarely indeed Old Smoker had not a crown of steam or smoke upon his
head, and he stood so high that he could have been seen for a distance
of thirty or forty miles, I am sure, and we did not purpose to go near
so far as that. Our design was, indeed, to make direct for the island
which we had seen as a dim line on the western horizon, and we set
forth in the afternoon because we thought it best to approach this
island under cover of night, for if our coming was observed by the
people of the island while we were still a great way off, they would be
able, if hostilely inclined, to prepare an ambuscade for us, which
might be our ruin; whereas if we surprised them by an unexpected
arrival on their coast, they would not have had time to get ready for
us, and so we should not be in near so much danger.
[Sidenote: A Coral Island]
The breeze blew gently from the north-west, and the _Fair Hope_,
beating up against it, proceeded but slowly, though she sailed with a
steadiness which, now that we were farther from land than we had ever
been before, gave us much contentment. Our progress was so slow,
indeed, that darkness was upon us before we had got half-way to the
island, and we had to steer by the stars, which shone out with
exceeding brightness in a sky perfectly clear. There is something
inexpressibly moving in sailing thus upon a calm sea, in the deep
silence of the night, and neither Billy nor I had much to say to each
other. We tried to sleep a little now and then, taking it in turns to
steer, for the vessel needed no other management, so tranquil were the
elements; but neither of us could sleep soundly, and at length we gave
over the attempt, and were content to float idly on. Some while before
daybreak we heard the sound of breakers on our leeward side, and we
instantly brought the vessel to, having no mind to run upon a strange
shore in the darkness. When the dark lifted, we saw that we were
within a mile or so of a low island which, from our former experience
when sailing in the _Lovey Susan_, we knew to be a coral island.
Between it and us there was a reef over which the sea was breaking, and
we could see no opening in it, but we knew that there always is an
opening in such a reef, giving admittance to a broad lagoon.
Accordingly, we hoisted our sail again, and, still beating up to
windward, we came after some time to a gap in the reef at least a
hundred yards broad, so that we ran through it with ease, to find
ourselves, as we expected, in the shelter of the lagoon. We saw
immediately that our coming had not been unobserved, for on the farther
side of the lagoon there was a crowd of naked brown people in a little
clearing among the trees, who we knew had seen us, at first by their
gestures, and then by the proceedings of some few of them. For while
we looked, we saw a half-dozen or so running along the shore away from
us, and Billy cried that they were affrighted, and they must be a lot
of cowards. But I very soon perceived that he was quite mistaken in
this, for the goal of the runners was plainly a little cove about a
mile up the coast, where there were certain long dark objects drawn up
on the beach which I judged to be canoes, though I could not see them
clearly at so great a distance, especially as we were on the sea-level.
We were about two hundred and fifty yards from the place where the
natives were congregated on the shore of the lagoon, so that we could
see them plainly, and we observed that the men were armed with clubs
and spears, but we saw no bows and arrows. They made no signs of
welcome such as were made by the people of the islands at which the
_Lovey Susan_ had touched, nor did they make signs of hostility, so
that I thought they were waiting for some indication from us as to our
friendliness or the reverse. Accordingly I stood up in the canoe, and,
raising my hands above my head, waved them in the air, upon which many
of the natives did the same, only their hands held their weapons. But
they shouted also, and there did not appear to be anything unfriendly
in the tone, so we continued our course towards the shore, to which
Billy had indeed been slowly paddling all the time. As we drew nearer
the shouts of the people grew more vociferous, and I observed that the
women and children among them had now got behind the men, which I
thought might be out of nothing but shyness, but on the other hand it
might be for security; and when we were, I suppose, about sixty yards
from the shore, I directed Billy to cease from paddling, so that we
might hold a parley with the people, if we could, before venturing to
land among them. But though he shipped his paddle, I observed that we
still drifted shoreward, the tide coming into the lagoon through the
gap in the reef; and being by no means ready to come within the power
of these people until we were sure of them, I caught up my paddle, and
began to use it so that we might keep a constant distance from the
shore. It was very fortunate I did this, as it proved afterwards, for
it precipitated the attack which would have otherwise been made upon us
later, when we might not have been able to get away. The people, no
doubt, supposed from my action that we were going to paddle out of the
lagoon, which did not suit their bloodthirsty minds, for at the first
stroke I made they burst into a great roar, the ferocity of which was
not doubtful, and a perfect cloud of spears hurtled through the air,
one of which, narrowly missing me, struck Billy in the arm, and another
completely transfixed his dog Robin, which fell dying in the bottom of
the canoe, and was immediately licked with every demonstration of grief
by its companion. Other spears hit the canoe, and some stuck in its
sides, but the most fell into the water.
[Sidenote: An Attack]
Billy was in such a rage at the loss of his dog that he seized his bow
and arrows, and in spite of his own hurt was going to shoot among the
savages; but I saw that we were in very great danger and sharply bade
him drop his weapon and help me run our vessel out of harm's way. We
set to with our paddles, therefore, making all haste to get out of the
lagoon, and not at present hoisting the sail, for the lagoon being
sheltered by a thick belt of trees, we felt scarcely at all the
north-westerly wind, and went much faster with paddles than we could
have done with the sail. The savages cast more spears at us, but none
hit us again, and we were soon out of range and thought we should
easily escape through the gap, when I observed that three of the canoes
which had been lying on the beach were now launched, and were coming
towards us very fast. It was plain that the native village was in that
direction, for though not above half-a-dozen men had hastened thither
along the shore, there were at least forty men in the three canoes,
which now, I perceived, were making slantwise across the lagoon, with
the plain intent of cutting us off from the entrance. This sight made
me feel very anxious, for though we might very likely outdistance the
canoes if we could hoist our sail in a fair breeze, we were no match
for them in the sheltered lagoon, our vessel being, I think, heavier
than theirs, and having only two paddles to their dozen at least. We
had less distance to go than they, that's true, but they moved I doubt
not three feet to our one, so that I could not help thinking we had a
poor chance of escaping, especially as Billy could use only one arm.
We worked as hard as ever we did in our lives, I assure you, Billy
doing the steering, and all the time he muttered terrible threats of
vengeance against the savages for killing his dog.