"Light the lamp in my room, boy, and then lend me a hand to put this man
on my bed."
I next turned to the writhing, groaning figure on the floor and saw
that, as I had already surmised, it was that of--Svorenssen! He was
dressed only in shirt and trousers, both of which, rain-sodden and
drenched with blood, were torn to rags by the teeth and claws of the
leopard, which was still raving outside and doing his utmost to break
adrift from his moorings. The man's injuries, especially about the
throat, shoulders, arms, and chest, were shocking; and I felt that, with
the limited appliances at our command, there was but very small hope of
saving his life. He still grasped in his right hand a formidable
bludgeon, and a similar weapon lay on the floor near him.
I had only time to take in these details when Billy returned, and
between us we contrived to half carry, half drag the writhing and
groaning Finn into my room and deposit him on my bed. I then sent Billy
to the natives' room, the occupants of which had been roused by the
disturbance, bidding him set them to work providing warm water and such
other matters as I thought I might require.
Guided by the book of instructions attached to the medicine-chest, I did
the best I could for the injured man; but his wounds were of so ghastly
a nature, and his suffering so acute, that I recognised from the very
outset, not only that it was impossible he should recover, but that
death must ensue in a very few hours. And it was dreadful to sit there
by his side, listening to his moans, liberally interspersed with curses
of the leopard, of me, and not infrequently of mankind in general, and
to reflect that that flood of blasphemy was issuing from the lips of a
man hovering on the brink of eternity! At length I could endure it no
longer, and I said to him, rather sharply, I am afraid:
"Stop that blasphemy, Svorenssen, for pity's sake, and rather turn your
thoughts to prayer--if you know how to pray. I fear that your life has
been a deplorably misspent one, and it can last but a few hours longer.
Before to-morrow's sun sets you will be face to face with God!
Therefore I urge you to devote the few remaining hours at your disposal
to making your peace with Him, instead of cursing those who have never
knowingly wronged you."
"What--d'ye--mean?" he gaspingly demanded. "I--ain't goin'--to--die--am
I?"
"Yes," I said, "you are; and it is well that you should know it.
Therefore, forget all your wrongs, real or imaginary, and--"
But here I was interrupted by an outburst of such vile and savage
profanity that it literally rendered me speechless. It lasted, I
suppose, fully ten minutes, and left its utterer gasping and in a state
of collapse. I administered stimulant, and at length the colour came
slowly back to the sufferer's cheeks and lips, and he opened his eyes.
For several minutes he lay there gazing up at me steadfastly,
questioningly; then he muttered:
"Thank 'e, Mister. If it hadn't been for you I'd have slipped my cable
that time. And so you think I'm goin' to die? Well, I'm beginnin' to
think so myself now. My God! it's awful to think that a few hours more
and I shall be face to face with my Maker, and bein' called to account
for a whole lifetime of wickedness. And there's no way out!"
"Oh, but there _is_," I said eagerly, and thereupon I began to expound,
with all the earnestness at my command, and as lucidly as I could, the
wonderful story of man's redemption. I got my Bible and read passage
after passage suited to the dying man's needs, until the expression of
terror and anxiety gradually faded from his features, and ultimately his
eyes closed and he seemed to fall asleep. Then the day dawned and
Billy, entering softly, took my place as watcher while I snatched a
brief hour or two of sleep on his bed.
I was aroused by the clatter of crockery in the living-room, where the
native women were making ready to serve breakfast--for even when the
shadow of Death hovers over a house its inmates must needs eat and
drink; and then one of the natives who every day came over to help with
the work on the cutter, brought the news that the sailing boat had
disappeared, the inference being that Van Ryn had taken her.
Nevertheless, I gave orders that Eden should be thoroughly searched for
him; but he was never found, nor was the boat, and that was the end of
him so far as we were concerned, for we never again heard of him.
When breakfast was ready I tiptoed to the door of my bedroom and
beckoned Billy, who crept softly out, closing the door behind him.
"He is asleep again now," the boy whispered; "but he is dying in peace;
and he wants to see you, Mr Blackburn, before he passes away, that he
may repeat to you the terrible confession that he has made to me."
We took breakfast in silence, for our minds were full of thoughts too
deep for utterance; and when we had finished I resumed my post beside
the dying man's bed. Svorenssen was still asleep--the sleep of utter
exhaustion; but he was very uneasy, and moaning occasionally. About
half an hour later, however, he awoke and, after I had again given him a
stimulant, he stammered and gasped the confession he desired to make.
There is no need to repeat it here word for word. In substance it was
to the effect that Van Ryn had proposed, and he had agreed, that they
two, obtaining entry through the back of the house, should murder me--in
my sleep if possible--arm themselves from the arms chest, and thereafter
impose their will upon poor Billy. The cutter was to be completed and
launched, the treasure shipped aboard her, and the conspirators, with
Billy as forced navigator, were to make their way to some civilised
port, arrived in sight of which, Billy was to be knocked on the head and
hove overboard--exactly as I had suspected--while the two men were to
divide the treasure equally between them. It was a dreadful confession
for a man to make; and I found it bitterly hard to utter the words of
forgiveness that were so piteously pleaded for, but I forced myself to
do so at last; and shortly after noon of that day the man, happy now
and, I believe, at peace with his Maker, passed away. We buried his
body an hour or two later.
With the death of one, and the disappearance of the other of the two men
who had come into our lives, only to act as a disturbing element from
almost the first moment of our acquaintance with them, all my worries
and anxieties passed away like the memory of an evil dream; and upon the
day following that of Svorenssen's death I turned with renewed zest to
the completion of the cutter. The hull was by this time practically
finished; her deck was laid, her companion and tiny self-emptying
cockpit completed, and all that was now needed was to run a low bulwark
around her, rig and step the completed mast and bowsprit, bend the
sails, ballast and launch her, get the stores, water, _and treasure_
aboard; and up anchor and away.
Taken as it stands, that list of work still remaining to be done looks
simple enough; yet it took me a full month to complete it, for the
greater part of it was of so technical a character that the natives were
of little assistance to me, and I had to do most of it with my own
hands. Also, I found that Van Ryn had by no means completed the task he
had undertaken to perform; the two topsails--square-header and jib-
header--still needed roping, as did the jib; and that work cost me
several days' labour to complete to my satisfaction. Then there were
the launching ways and the cradle to be built; and this task taxed my
ingenuity to its utmost limit; but at length all was done, except the
actual launching of the boat.
The finishing touches to my final preparations were completed too late
in the afternoon for us to do anything more that day. Immediately after
breakfast on the following morning, therefore, Billy and I climbed
aboard the cutter, hoisted the _Yorkshire Lass's_ ensign to her topmast
head, suspended a bottle of wine--one of the very few that we had left--
from her stem head, and then, leaving Billy aboard, I descended to the
ground, removing the ladder by which we had ascended. The wedging-up
having already been accomplished, I next took a maul and, shouting to
Billy to "stand by", proceeded to knock away the spur shores. There was
now a moment's hesitation on the part of the cutter, of which I took
advantage to jump clear; and then she began to move, slowly at first but
with rapidly increasing velocity, while I dashed the bottle of wine
against the craft's cut-water, and named her the _Dolphin_, in
accordance with Billy's earnestly expressed wish.
Two seconds later the craft took the water, plunging deeply with the
foam brimming to her taffrail; then, rising buoyantly, she shot far out
toward the middle of the cove until, in obedience to my hail, Billy let
go her anchor and brought her up. I then saw that I had underestimated
the amount of ballast required, and that she needed about half a ton
more, and a slight readjustment of it to put her in correct trim. That,
however, was an error that could be easily rectified; and meanwhile I
was highly gratified by the graceful appearance she presented, now that
she was afloat.
Next in order came a "cold collation" that I had caused to be prepared
for the delectation of Bowata and his petty chiefs, the whole of whom I
had invited over to Eden to witness the launch, and--Billy having been
brought ashore in the islanders' boat--we forthwith fell to, all hands
doing full justice to the feast. At its conclusion I formally presented
the bungalow and all that we were leaving in it to Bowata, with a strict
injunction to him and his to show the utmost kindness to any shipwrecked
persons who might hereafter be so unfortunate as to be cast away on the
group, an injunction which they all promised to obey most faithfully.
Then followed our mutual farewells, to the accompaniment of much howling
and weeping on the part of our black friends; after which the remainder
of the day was devoted to the completion of the ballasting of the cutter
and its correct adjustment.
There was but one other duty now to be done before we started for home,
and that was the disposal of Kit, the leopard. Since the night when he
so fearfully mauled Svorenssen the nature of the beast had undergone a
material change for the worse. He had developed an uncertainty and
ferocity of temper that rendered him distinctly unsafe and altogether
unsuitable as a pet for anyone. With grief and many tears poor Billy
was obliged to admit that such was the case; therefore it was at length
agreed that he should be transported to West Island, where he could hurt
no one, and where he would find ample prey for his sustenance;
accordingly, on the following morning we weighed anchor and bade a final
good-bye to our Pacific Eden, sailing through the East and North Island
Channels to West Island, where, without mishap, we landed Kit and turned
him adrift to shift for himself, not by any means without regret, for
the beast had stood us in good stead on one memorable occasion. Then,
sailing up North-west Channel, we entered the lagoon and, heading to the
northward, passed through the wide gap in the reef, abreast of Shark
Bay, and once more found ourselves riding buoyantly on the long swell of
the open Pacific.
Of course I had long ago given most careful consideration to the
question of where I should steer for, in the event of the cutter's
completion, and after much study of the charts at my command I had
decided to shape a course for Sydney, Australia. It meant a voyage of
some two thousand three hundred and fifty miles across the open ocean in
a ten-ton cutter, but I felt sure the _Dolphin_ could do it, especially
as we should have the south-east trade wind and the prospect of
reasonably fine weather with us nearly all the way. Accordingly, as
soon as we were fairly clear of the reef, I bore up and headed away to
the southward, along the west side of the group, of which we finally
lost sight about an hour before sunset.
To say that our voyage was unadventurous would be untrue; on the
contrary, we had many thrilling adventures and several hair-breadth
escapes from destruction, but lack of space forbids more than the bare
mention of them here. Let it suffice to say that, after a voyage packed
with sufficiently exciting incidents, we arrived safely in Sydney
harbour on the twenty-third day after our departure from the group.
Arrived there, my first business was to negotiate with a firm of bankers
for the exchange of some of the gold coinage, which formed part of our
treasure, for a sufficient number of British sovereigns to carry both of
us comfortably home, and, this done, we set about providing ourselves
with outfits suitable for the voyage. It was, of course, impossible for
us to keep our adventures entirely secret; a hint of them somehow got
abroad, possibly from the people in the hotel at which we put up, and
the enterprising reporters of the Sydney papers did the rest; one result
of which was that I soon got from a local yachtsman so advantageous an
offer for the _Dolphin_ that I unhesitatingly accepted it. We spent a
very pleasant fortnight in Sydney, many of its leading citizens vying
with each other to show us hospitality; finally, on a certain day in the
month of April we both embarked for England in an Orient liner, which,
after a most delightful voyage, landed us in London on a glorious day in
the month of May.