XVIII
Morning broke dull, and heavy. The air was mild but full of moisture, and they were chilled with their long sleep in the open.
"Gosh! but I'd like to feel dry again," said Macro, as they sat munching raw rabbit for breakfast. "D'you feel like going out yonder?"
"I feel three times the man I was yesterday. But should we not go on further first? There may be someone living on the island."
"Not a soul but us two, I warrant you."
"But since we're here there might be others."
"That's so. There might be, but not likely. It's just luck, deil's own luck, 'at those screeching deevils out yonder aren't picking us to pieces like the rest."
"Say Providence, and I'll agree with you," said Wulfrey, who saw no need to ascribe to the devil so obviously good a work as far as they were concerned.
"Ca' it what you like, not one man in a thousand comes alive through what we came through. And I'm not forgetting that but for you I'd no be here myself. We can take a bit look round, but I'm sore set on a covering of some kind and a fire, and some rum would be cheerful. It's in my bones that we'll find all we want out there, and more besides."
So, after breakfast, they set off, carrying a couple of rabbits for provision by the way.
Looking round from the top of the highest hummock, they saw the great twisting cloud of sea-birds hovering over the distant wreckage, and the shrill clamour of their screaming came faintly to them on the still air. They had cleaned up what the sea had stranded on the spit and had had to go further afield.
From this vantage point they could to some extent make out the lie of the island. It ran nearly west and east and the narrow sand-spit on which they had landed was the extreme western point. Where they stood, the land was about a quarter of a mile in width and it stretched away in front further than they could see, in vast stretches of sand with a line of hummocks all along the northern side. It seemed very narrow, just a long thin wedge of sand, with illimitable gray sea on each side, as far as their eyes could reach. Right ahead, and about a mile away, was a great sheet of water, whether lake or inlet they could not tell. The hummocks ran along its northern side, and a narrow strip of sand divided it from the sea on the south.
"We'd best keep to the ridges," said Macro. "Yon spit on the other side may only end in the sea," so they tramped on along the firm beach on the seaward slope of the line of hummocks, and every now and again climbed up to see what was on the other side. When they found themselves abreast of the sheet of water they went down and found it salt and very shallow. It stretched away in front as far as they could see, but Macro thought he could see more sand hummocks at the far end.
Every here and there, when they climbed the ridge to look over, they came on little basins like their own, comparatively green and populous with rabbits. But never a sign of human life or habitation, not a tree or a shrub, not an animal except the rabbits.
"A God-forsaken hole," was the mate's comment, as they stood, after a couple of hours' trudging, looking out over the interminable ridges in front, and the great unruffled sheet of water below, and the gray slow-heaving sea beyond on both sides, and the gray sky enclosing all.
"There's nought here and never has been. Let's go back and get to work."
"That lake, or inlet, or whatever it is, seems to narrow over there. Suppose we see where it goes to," suggested Wulfrey.
"Only back into sea, I reckon."
However, they tramped on along the beach, and next time they looked over the ridge the land below had broadened out. The water had shrunk to a mere channel which ran, they saw, not into the sea but into a still larger lake beyond, unless it in turn should prove to be a long arm of the sea running all through the middle of the island. They could follow the low sand-spit which divided it from the sea on the south side, and the long line of hummocks on the north, till they faded out of sight in the distance.
Right in front of them spread the largest valley they had yet come across, and the coast ridges ran down into the middle of it and ended in the highest hill they had seen, and between the hill and the lake lay a number of large ponds.
"We must get up there," said Wulfrey.
"No manner o' use," growled the mate, who found tramping through the sand very tiring, and was eager to get back and attack the wreckage for shelter and fire and food and rum.
"Stop you here then, Macro, and I'll go on. If there's anything to see I'll wave my arms. You might skin those rabbits too. I'm beginning to feel empty again."
He struck straight across the valley to the ponds, and was delighted to find them fresh and much better to the taste than their own little pool. Then he climbed the hill, which was not far short of a hundred feet in height. And then Macro, who had been watching him intermittently as he hacked at the rabbits, saw him wave his arms in so excited a fashion that he picked up the rabbits and ran, wondering what new thing he'd found now that set him dancing in that fashion.
And when at last he panted heavily up the yielding side of the hill and saw, he gasped "Gosh!" with all the breath he had left, and sat down open-mouthed and stared as if he could not believe his eyes.
Beyond the end of the valley, the great lake stretched away further than they could see, and in a deep bend on the north side of it lay two ships.
"Schooners, b' Gosh!" jerked Macro, as soon as he could speak; and eyed them intently. "How in name of sin did they get there?" and his eye travelled quickly along the sand-spit that shut out the sea, in search of the break in it through which the schooners must have entered. But no break was visible. Still it might well be that this great inland lake joined the outer sea somewhere over there, beyond their range of sight, and that this was a harbour of refuge, though he had certainly never heard of it before.
"We must find out about 'em," he said at last, and they set off at speed towards the ships to which his eyes seemed glued.
"Not a sign of a man aboard either of 'em," he jerked one time, as he lurched up out of a rabbit-hole. "Nor ashore either."
And to Wulfrey also there was something strange and uncanny in the look of them. The absence of any slightest sign of life anywhere about imparted to them something of a lifeless look also. And their masts were bare of sails, spars, or even cordage, just bare poles sticking up out of the hulls like blighted pine trees. The sea outside had a long slow heave in it, but the water of the lake was smooth as a pond, not a pulse in it, not a ripple on it, and the two little ships lay as motionless as toy boats on a looking-glass sea.
Macro was evidently much exercised in his mind. He never took his eyes off the ships. So intent was he on them that he stumbled in and out of rabbit holes without noticing them, and the "Gosh!" that jerked out of him now and again was provoked entirely by the puzzle of the ships.
So they came at last round the curve of the land and stood opposite the nearer of the two, which lay about a hundred yards out from the shore of bare sand, and neither on ship nor shore nor water had they discovered any sign of life.
"Schooner a-hoy!" bellowed the mate through his funnelled hands. And again. "Schooner a-hoy!"
But no sudden head bobbed up at the hail, and but that they were whole and afloat the ships looked as dead as those others out past the point.
"Gosh, but it's odd!" and he looked quickly both ways along the shore and over his shoulders, as though he feared some odd thing might start up suddenly and take him unawares. "What's it mean?"
"There's no one there. They're deserted."
"Deserted? Man alive! Who'd desert ships afloat like that? What in —— does it mean?" his native fears of the unnatural and inexplicable getting the better of him.
"We'd better go and see," said Wulfrey.
"Swim?"
"I suppose so. I don't expect we can wade."
The mate shook his head. He had evidently no liking for the job, keen as was his desire to get to the bottom of it.
"Let's feed first anyway," he said, and produced the rabbits, which he had held on to in spite of his surprise and many stumblings. So they sat in the sand and ate raw rabbit, with their eyes on the ships all the time.
"They're dead ships like all the rest," was the sum of Macro's conclusions. "But how they got there beats me flat."
"They're afloat anyway and they'll be better to sleep in than the sandhills."
"Ay—mebbe,—if so be's there's no dead men aboard—or ghosts."
"There's no ghosts anyway. If there are any dead men we'll bury them decently and occupy their bunks."
At which the mate gave a shiver of distaste and chewed on in silence.
"Isn't it possible there's an opening to the sea over yonder?" asked Wulfrey, with an eastward jerk of the head.
"Mebbe, but I don't think it. There's no seaweed here, and no move in the water, and no tide-mark. It's dead level. But what if there is?"
"Why, then they might have got in that way, and then some storm blocked the opening and they couldn't get out."
"Mebbe. We can find out by travelling along yon spit till we get to the end of it. I'd liefer do that than go aboard."
"We'll sleep better on board than on the sand."
"Man, ye don't know what ill things may be aboard yon ships! There's a wrong look about 'em," which was undeniable, but still not enough to commend the chill sand to Wulfrey as a resting-place when shelter and possibly bunks might be had on board.
"It seems to me," he said, as they finished their meal, "that it doesn't matter much how they got there. We can perhaps find that out later. There they are, and if they're habitable we want to make use of them. I'm going to swim out to this nearest one and find out what's the matter."
"If you go I go," grumbled the mate uncheerfully.
"It's evident there's no one aboard or anywhere about, and it's absurd to sit here looking at them," said Wulf, and began to peel off his clothes, which had got almost dry with walking. "No good getting them wet again," he explained. "I've been all of a chill for the last five days. I'll fasten them on to my head."
"We'll be coming back."
"We might decide to stop there all night. Better take what's left of the meat."
"Gosh!" with a perceptible shiver of distaste again.
However, he peeled also, and by careful contrivance with belt and braces they bound their bundles on to their heads and stepped into the water.
"Phew! It's cold,—colder than the sea," said Wulfrey through tight-set teeth, as they struck out.
"'Tis that," and the mate's teeth chittered visibly, between the chill of the water and distaste of the adventure.
"Temperature ought to be same ... if sea comes in," sputtered Wulfrey.
"'Tisn't, all same. It's cauld as death."
They ploughed along till they reached the nearer ship, and swam round it in search of entrance, and failing other means laid hold of the rusty anchor-chain, which peeled in ruddy flakes at their touch. By the time Wulf tumbled in over the bows he was streaked from head to foot with iron-mould, and presented so ghastly an appearance that Macro's jaw fell as he came up the side, and he looked half inclined to drop back into the water.
"Man! You look awful. I tuk you for a ghost," he gasped in a whisper.
"You're nearly as bad yourself, but I took the cream of it. Now let us see what's what."
The mate's experienced eye showed him at once that the condition of the ship was not due to storm or accident. She had been deliberately stripped of everything that could be turned to account elsewhere. She was bare as a board,—not a rope nor a spar was left. The hatches were closed and looked as though they had not been touched for years.
They came to the fore-hatch leading down to the fo'c's'le, and he hauled it up with some difficulty and looked suspiciously down into the darkness within.
"Below there!" he cried, in a repressed hollow voice. But only the echoes answered him.
They passed the main-hatch leading to the hold, and went along, past a grated skylight thick with green mould, to the covered gangway leading to the officers' quarters. The doors were closed and bolted with rusty bolts. There could not by any possibility be anyone below, not anyone alive, that is.
Macro wasted no breath here, when they had managed to undo the bolts, but he visibly hesitated. Wulf stepped down into the cabin, and he followed.
Just bare walls, nothing more. Table, stools, lamps, everything movable or unscrewable had been carried away. In the four small rooms adjacent there were just four empty bunks and not a thing besides.
"Gosh, but it's queer!" whispered Macro. "Mebbe they're all lying dead in the hold."
"We'll make sure," and they went up on deck again, and with some labour, for the wood had swelled and stuck, got up the main hatch and dropped down into the hold.
But that was bare like the rest. The ship was as empty as a drum.
"Not so much as a rat, b' Gosh!" said the mate, with recovered spirits, seeing no sign of dead men or ghosts.
"What do you make of it?" asked Wulf.
"She's been stripped bare, that's plain. But why, beats me."
"Anyway, there's no objection to our stopping here now, I suppose. Bare bunks will be drier than the sand over there."
"That's so.... And I'm thinking that if we can bring over some of the stuff from that big pile out yonder we can make ourselves mighty comfortable here."
"We can start on that tomorrow. We've done enough for one day."
"We'll make a raft, like old Robinson Crusoe, and bring the stuff right down to the spit yonder," said Macro, waxing quite cheerful at the prospect. "Then we'll make a smaller raft to bring it aboard here."
"We'd better walk along that spit tomorrow and see if there's any opening to the sea."
"We can do that, but I doubt there's not, else this water wouldn't be so cold, and there'd be some movement in it. It's all dead like everything else."
They spent the rest of the daylight poking into every corner of the ship, and in the dark fo'c's'le Macro made a find of surpassing worth.
He had rooted everywhere, with a natural enjoyment in the process, and come on nothing but bare boards. "But you never know," he said, and went on rooting. And in the blackest corner his foot struck something loose which slid away and eluded him. He went down on his hands and knees and groped till he found it, and then gave a triumphant shout which brought up Wulfrey in haste.
It was a small round metal box such as was used for carrying flint and steel and tinder, well-worn and battered, but tightly closed, and the mate's fingers trembled with anxiety as he opened it with his knife.
"Thanks be!" he breathed deeply, for there in the little battered box lay all the possibilities of fire,—warmth, cooked food, life—all complete.
And—"Thank God!" said Wulfrey also. "That's the best find yet."
"If it'll work it's worth its weight in Guinea gold. But it's old, old," and he poked the tinder doubtfully with his finger, "as old as the ship, and that's older than you or me, I'm thinking. It's dropped out of some old pocket and rolled out of sight. We do have the deil's own luck."
"Providence!" said Wulfrey. "Can't we make a fire and roast some rabbit? I'm sick of raw meat."
"Where'd we make it? Galley-stove's gone with all the rest, and galley too for that matter.... Wouldn't do to set the ship afire.... There's only one safe way. Soon as we've got a bit of a raft together we'll bring over sand enough to make a fire-bed in the hold. Then we can roast all the rabbits in the island."
"What about the cover of the big hatchway there? Wouldn't that carry one of us and sand enough."
"Might. And there's wood enough and to spare in the skin of her down below. But it'll be dark in an hour."
"Come on. Let's get it overboard. I'll go. Can you rip up a board for a paddle?"
The hatch-cover was slightly domed and had four-inch coamings all round, and when let upside down on to the water made a sufficiently effective raft for light freight. Macro dropped down into the hold and ripped up a board and jumped it into pieces, and Wulfrey lowered himself gingerly down on to his frail craft and set off for the shore, with roast rabbit in his face.
"Ye'll have to look smart or ye'll be in the dark," Macro called after him, as he leaned over the side watching his clumsy progression.
"Ay, ay! I'll shout if I get lost," and the mate went down to break up firewood and shred filmy shavings in default of sulphur sticks.
Wulfrey, wafting slowly ashore, lighted on a colony of rabbits intent on supper, and was able to capture a couple in their panic rush for their holes. Then he hastily loaded his float with all the sand it could safely carry and set off again for the ship in great content of mind.
The transfer of his cargo to the deck of the ship was a much more difficult and precarious job than getting it alongside. He tried throwing it up in handfuls, but that proved slow work and more than once came near to spilling him overboard. And finally, as the night was upon them, he took off his coat and sent up larger parcels in it; and so at last Macro cried enough, and having shown him how to wedge his float in between the rusty anchor-chain and the bows, so that the wind should not drift it away in the night, he helped him up over the side.
It was an anxious moment when the first sparks shredded down into the ancient tinder. But they caught and glowed, and with tenderest coaxing lighted the mate's carefully-prepared matches, and these the chips, and these the faggots, and the mighty cheer and joy of fire were theirs.
They slept that night in great comfort, replete with roasted meat, roofed from winds and dew, and grateful both, each in his own way, for the marvellous encouragement of this first day on the island.
Though their beds were but bare boards, they had no fault to find with them, but slept like tops. And Macro's black head was so full of the wonderful possibilities of that vast pile of wastry out beyond the point, in conjunction with this amazing find of the ships, that there was no room left in it for any thought of ghosts or evil spirits.
XIX
Over their last night's fire they had made provision of roast meat for breakfast, and after it they paddled precariously across to the other schooner, a couple of hundred yards away, and explored it thoroughly. But it was in exactly the same condition as their own, so they closed all the hatches again and then, after a short discussion, decided to leave the solution of the puzzle of the ships for the present and devote the day to the salvage of any necessaries they could discover among the wreckage.
They paddled across to the southern spit which divided the lake from the sea, and found it a bare hundred yards in width, and at its highest point not more than ten feet above high-water level. They walked briskly along the side of the narrow channel that joined the two lakes, on past the first one, and in a couple of hours reached the sandy point where they had landed two days before. Out above the piles of wreckage the gray cloud of sea-birds swung and whirled, and their shrill screamings rose and fell with the varied fortunes of their quest.
"Screeching deevils!" was the mate's comment on them, and presently, "It'll be a long pull back with a log of a raft. It must be six or seven miles, I reckon."
"Perhaps we'll strike a boat among the wreckage."
"Ah—p'r'aps. We do have the deil's own luck."
It was almost dead low water. The storm of the previous days seemed to have exhausted the elements for the time being. The sea was smooth, with no more movement than the long slow heave which curled, as it neared the shore, into great green and white combers of exquisite beauty, rushing up the beaches in a dapple of marbled foam, and back into the bosom of the next comer with a long-drawn sibilant hiss.
There was a soft south-west wind and even a cheering touch of the sun, and as their work was like to be of the wettest, and dry clothes were a luxury, they left them above tide-level and went out stripped to the fight, their only weapon the mate's sailor's-knife in the belt which he buckled round his waist. But, in view of the screeching deevils already in possession, they forethoughtfully armed themselves with the weightiest clubs they could pick out of the raffle of the beach. For in that countless predatory host, although its components were but birds, there was menace passing words. It made them feel bare and vulnerable, and Macro cursed them heartily as he went.
They reached the pile without any difficulty, and the mate's keen eye raked round for the likeliest stuff for a raft. It was no good acquiring cargo till they had a craft to carry it.
There was no lack of timber, however, and cordage was to be had for the cutting, and with these the skilled hands of the seaman soon constructed a raft large enough for their utmost probable requirements. Then he turned with gusto to the more satisfying joys of plunder, and developed new and startling sides to his character.
Wulf laughed, but found him surprising, as the cateran spirit of his forebears came uppermost with this tremendous opportunity.
He climbed up and down and in and out of the high-piled wreckage like a hungry tiger, bashed in boxes and cases with a huge club of mahogany which had once adorned the cabin-staircase of a ship, and raked over their contents with the avidious claws of a wrecker of the evil coasts. Now and again strange ejaculations broke from him. More than once, in the wild glee of pillage and unexpected booty, he shouted snatches of weird runes and chanties which Wulf supposed were Gaelic. At times he stood and shook his fist at the screaming birds that swooped about him, and cursed them volubly. And once, Wulfrey, on the raft below, knitted his brows and watched him with doubtful perplexity as, in the disappointment of his hopes respecting one great case which had resisted his efforts and finally yielded nothing of consequence, he attacked another with shouts of fury and a Berserk madness that scattered chips and splinters far and wide. An incautious cormorant swooped by him. With a stroke he sent it spinning, a bruised and broken bundle of feathers, and it fell with a dull flop into the sea.
The man seemed demented, drunk with a rage for plunder and the destruction of everything that stood between him and it. His great club whirled, and the blows flailed here and there without any apparent regard to direction. The lust of slaughter and demolishment burst from him in volcanic fire and fury. For the moment he had reverted to his elemental type.
To the cooler head below he looked dangerous. Wulfrey's amused amazement gave place to doubt and a touch of anxiety. He could only hope that his companion was not often subject to fits such as this.
But the Berserk madness was not wholly without method, and presently plunder of all kinds came raining down on the raft.
Heralded by a sharp "Below there!" came a roll of linen and one of woollen cloth, a bale of blankets, more rolls,—this time of silk and satin and velvet, all more or less damaged by the sea, though they were the pick and cream of his salvaging, and all no doubt dryable.
"Good heavens! What does he want with these?" thought Wulfrey, but piled them up obediently.
Then, following the unmistakable course of the marauder up above, and clawing the raft along to keep in touch with him, down came on his head a bulging little sack, which felt like beans but proved to be coffee, and presently, after a pause, necessitated by packing arrangements up above, a series of soft bundles made up in crimson silk and tied with slimy rope.
Then, after another pause punctuated by shouts and crashes, down came a rattling heap of rusty cooking utensils all slung together with more slimy rope, a rusty axe, four broken oars. Till at last the raft became so crowded that there was barely standing room left on it.
"Steady, above there! We're full up. I can't take another pound, and I doubt if we can get this all home safely."
"Just this, man!" and Macro appeared up above with a small keg in his arms, and let himself and it carefully down on to the raft, with every appearance of a return to sanity.
"Man!" he said, with the afterglow of it all still in his face. "That was fine. We'll come again."
"We've got to get all these things home first."
"Easy that. This wind'll carry us fine," and he set to work with a couple of the broken oars and a blanket, and contrived a sail of sorts. Then, taking another oar and thrusting one into Wulfrey's hands, he propelled the clumsy raft along the side of the wreckage till it got clear, and the wind caught their sail and wafted them slowly towards the island.
"A grand grand place, yon!" he broke out again.
"There's stuff enough there to load a hundred ships.... Gosh, I've forgotten the pork!" and he uprooted the sail and began paddling back to the wreckage. "I stove in the head of a barrel and was smelling at it when I spied the wee keg."
"Was it eatable?"
"I've eaten worse."
"Couldn't we get it next trip?"
"Man, my stomach's been crying for it ever since I set eyes on it. 'Sides, those deevils of birds will finish it in no time. See them! They're at it now. Och, ye greedy deevils!"
He clambered up the pile with his oar and laid about him lustily, The birds rose up from the meat like a dense cloud of flies, and screamed and raved at him, and swooped at him with vicious eyes and beaks and claws, so that in a moment he became the centre of a writhing, fluttering, shrieking mass which threatened to annihilate him completely.
He flailed blindly at them with his oar, smashing them by dozens. But they were too many for him. He shouted for help, and when Wulfrey scrambled up he found him in very sore case, fighting blindly and streaming with blood.
"Come away, man!" shouted Wulfrey, and thrashed away at the nightmare of whirling birds. "Come away before they end us!" and in a moment he found himself the centre of a similar shrieking mass, dazed and blinded with their numbers and their fury. The terrified glimpse he got of their cold glittering eyes and gnashing beaks, and the compressed venom of their overwhelming assault, were too much for him. It was like fighting single-handed against all the fiends out of the pit.
He hurled his oar overboard, put up his arms to protect his eyes, and staggered to the edge of the pile, acutely conscious of jags and pecks and rips innumerable on his bare arms and shoulders. As he flung himself down into the water and dived under, a plunge alongside told him that Macro had done the same. A raucous swarm of birds followed them, but on their disappearance fluttered off to more visible chances above.
"Man! but that was awful!" gasped the mate hoarsely. "They nigh ate me alive."
"Let's get aboard or they'll be at us again. There's my oar," and he swam quietly to it and they climbed back on to the raft.
"An' never ae piece o' pork," lamented Macro. "The poaching deevils!"
"Be thankful you're alive, man! It was a close touch that."
"'Twas that. I'm bit all over. I'd like to end 'em all with one crack."
Fortunately the birds were too busy quarrelling up above to give them more than cursory attention. A few came whirling and swooping after them with greedy eyes and ravening beaks. But it was only in their multitudes that they were formidable and they soon gave up a chase that offered no easy prey.
The men, shaken and trembling, clawed along the pile till they caught the wind again, when Macro readjusted his masts and sail, and they drifted slowly back towards the island.
"Ye deevils! Ye scratching, scrawming, skelloching deevils!" breathed Macro deeply, every now and again, and shook his fist at the twisting column of birds behind. "I wish ye had ae neck and me ma hond on it."
Their weighty progress was of the slowest. When they drew alongside the yellow spit Macro plunged overboard and waded ashore for their clothes, and they drifted on along the low southern beach. But it was well after mid-day before they came abreast of the stark little ships which stood to them for home.
Then they made busy traffic transporting their salvage to the shore and carrying it across the bank to the edge of the lake. And when that was all done Macro unlashed the raft and they carried it over piece by piece, and roughly put it together there and loaded up again.
"It'll all come in for firing," said the mate. "We can't go on burning our own inside all the time."
It was no easy work propelling their rough craft with broken oars. Moreover Macro insisted on taking the hatch-cover in tow. But the spirit of accomplishment was upon them and the weight they dragged was a comforting one.
All the way, as they joggled slowly along, the mate never ceased enlarging on the wonders of the wreckage, nor forgot his one disappointment, which evoked resentful curses each time he thought of it.
"Man, but we're doing fine! A roof we've got, and fire, and things to eat.—There's flour in yon bundles,—just the cores of half a dozen casks. And yon bag's coffee, but we'll need to roast it and grind it. And the wee keg's rum, unless I've mistook it. An' there's enough stuff out yonder to last us for a thousand years. But, blankety-blank-blank-blank!—my stomach's crying after yon pork that them screeching deevils took out of our mouths, as you might say. Blankety-blank-blank 'em all—every red-eyed son o' the pit among 'em! But we'll try again, and next time I'll not broach the barr'l an' they'll know noth'n about it."
"Maybe they'll attack us all the same. It was the most horrible situation I was ever in. One felt so utterly helpless."
"Ay, blank 'em! There was no end to 'em.... They'd have ate me alive if you hadn't come and helped me tumble overboard. Blank 'em! Blank 'em! Blank 'em!"
"What on earth are all these things for?" asked Wulfrey one time, kicking a roll of crimson silk with his heel.
"Blankets to sleep on,—better than boards. The others for their gay gaudery,—the bonny reid and blue o' them. They mek me feel good and warm just to look at 'em. I just couldna leave them. Man, they're grand!"
They hoisted all their stuff on board, and found themselves hungry and thirsty with the heavy day's work. There were but the scantiest remnants of their breakfast left, and Macro undertook to chop wood and make a fire, scour some of the rusty cooking-utensils, and make flour-and-water cakes as soon as he had some water, if Wulfrey would go across for it and some fresh meat.
So he set off on the hatch-cover with a good-sized kettle, and was back inside an hour with water from the ponds by the hill and a couple of young rabbits, and found that the mate had not been idle. He had transferred a sufficiency of sand to the cabin to make a hearth at the foot of the steps, and had broken up wood enough to last for a week. He had spread out all the blankets, scoured most of the rust off a frying-pan and a small kettle and a couple of tin pannikins, and had opened the keg and sampled its contents and found it French cognac of excellent quality.
In the best of spirits he skinned the rabbits and set them roasting, with an incidental commination of thae screeching deevils that had robbed them of the pork which would have been such a welcome accompaniment. Then he compounded cakes of flour and water and fried them deftly, and set a kettle to boil wherewith to make hot grog, and boastfully promised coffee for the morrow when he had time to roast and grind it.
They both ate ravenously, and found great content in the taste of hot food and drink once more, after all these days of clammy starvation, and then they slept. And Wulfrey dreamed horribly all night of fighting helplessly with legions of screeching birds, and several times fought himself awake, and each time found Macro actively engaged in the same unprofitable business.
XX
In spite of his torn shoulders and unrestful night, Macro was for setting off again first thing next morning for more plunder. That huge pile of wastry drew him like a magnet. He hungered and thirsted to be at it again.
But Wulfrey flatly refused. They had enough to go on with, and he claimed at least a day to recover from the effects of the last excursion. And as Macro declined to tackle the job single-handed he was fain to agree, though with none too good a grace.
"This weather mayn't last. We'd best get all we can while we can," he urged.
"The stuff will be there tomorrow. Most of it's been there for years, you said."
"Ay, but man, there's mebbe things out of the 'Grassadoo,' that'll be spoiling for want of finding."
"They'll not spoil much more in one day. You're more used to this kind of work than I am, you see. I must have a rest."
Macro consigned rest to the bottomless pit, but after relieving his feelings in that way, consented at last to an easy-going exploration of the southern spit, to see if their lake opened into the sea, though he expressed himself satisfied, from his observations, that it did not.
First, however, out of the larger raft he constructed a smaller one, which bore them better than the hatch-cover and was more manageable, and the hatch they hauled on board again and fitted into its place, so as to keep the ship dry in case of bad weather. Then they paddled across to the spit and set off along it, both scrutinising the lie of the land carefully.
For a good hour they trudged through heavy sand, the sea swirling with long soft hisses up the yellow beach on their right hand, and on their left the placid water of the lake without a pulse in it. The dividing bank was nowhere in all its length more than a hundred yards wide, nor more than ten feet high at its crown.
More than once Macro stood and studied it in places, and when in time they came to long ridges of hummocks which stretched as far in front as they could see, he stood again, looking back from the top of the first they climbed, and said, "I'm thinking there's no opening this end. Mebbe it was on the level there. But this stuff shifts so in a gale you never know where you are."
Presently they came on the shallow rounded end of the lake, with higher sandhills beyond it, which ran along both sides of the island further than they could see. In between lay a vast unbroken stretch of level sand, and when they climbed to the top of the highest hill, they saw this sandy desert dwindle in the far distance to a point, with the sea on each side of it, like the one at the other end of the island.
"There's not a sign of anybody else," said Wulfrey.
"If there'd been anyone they'd bin living on them ships. We've got it all to ourselves, that's certain. And what's more, we'll have it all to ourselves till Kingdom come. No one else'll ever come, 'cept dead men."
"Those two ships came."
"Twenty, thirty years ago,—mebbe more. Must have bin an opening then and it's got silted up. They couldn't have got washed over the spit."
There were several more large fresh-water ponds close to these larger hills, and rabbits everywhere. They secured a couple and tramped back the way they had come.
Macro seemed to accept the whole situation and outlook with the utmost equanimity. They had very much more than they had had any right to expect; more was always to be had for the fetching from that wonderful pile out yonder; what that pile might yield in the way of richer plunder remained to be seen, and he was the man to see to it.
But Wulfrey had been cherishing a hope that the great lake would prove an inlet from the sea, a harbour of refuge into which other ships might be expected to run at times. And the fact that it was not, that no relief was to be looked for in that direction and that this desolate sandbank, bristling with wrecks, must necessarily be shunned by all who knew of it, weighed more and more heavily on him as he thought about it.
They were alive, where all their shipmates had perished. They were provided for beyond their utmost expectation. For all that he was most deeply grateful. But the prospect of passing the rest of his life on this bare bank troubled him profoundly and reduced him to silence and the lowest of spirits.
XXI
They woke next morning into a dense white fog, so thick that they could not see across the deck. Macro, intent on plunder, hailed it as an excellent screen from possible attack by the other pillagers of the wreck-pile, and though Wulfrey had his doubts, he would not counter him again.
His knowledge of human nature suggested to him the almost impossibility of two men living alone, in intimacy so close and exclusive, and with so little outlet for their thoughts and energies, without coming to loggerheads at times. He determined that, so far as in him lay, the provocation thereto should not come from him.
So far he had not only had nothing to complain of in his companion's presence, but, on the contrary, had found himself distinctly the gainer by it in every material way. But the strange wild outbursts, to which he had given vent when they were at the wreckage before, warned him of hidden fires below, and suggested the advisability of non-provocation of the under-man, if it were possible to avoid it.
So they paddled across to the spit, which they could not well miss, and set off on foot for the point, steering by the sullen lap and hiss of the waves as they stole softly up out of the fog on their left hand. There was a clamminess in the air which commended the idea of clothes to them while they worked on the pile. So they made their things into tight bundles, and carried them above their heads as they waded out neck-deep to their store-house. The shrill cries of the birds came dull and thin through the fog, more ghostly than ever from their invisibility. Now and again an inquisitive straggler fluttered down at them out of the close white curtain, and whirled back into it with a terrified squawk when it found they were alive.
They climbed the pile cautiously, but the birds seemed mostly at a distance; and when they had flung down sufficient timber Macro proceeded to construct another raft, while Wulfrey poked about up above on his own account.
And as he climbed about among the chaotic mass of barrels, boxes, cases, bales, he came to understand the wild craving to get at them, to bash them open and learn what they contained, which had possessed the mate that other day. There might be anything hidden there—goods of all kinds for the easement of their present situation. There might even be treasure of gold and jewels. It was impossible to say what there might not be. And though gold and jewels were absolutely useless to them, placed as they were, and with no prospect, according to Macro, of rescue or relief, the possibility of such things lying hidden in untold quantity all about him stirred him strangely.
He recognised feelings so abnormal to himself with no little surprise. He felt as a penniless small boy might feel if he were given the freedom of a great shop full of boxed-up toys and told to help himself. He wanted to smash open very closed case he came to, to see what was inside it.
The water lapped and clunked dismally in the hollows below, and at times he had to climb almost down to it, and then up the further side, to get across faults in the pile. In one such black gully, on what was usually the leeward side of the pile, he had stepped cautiously from ledge to ledge, and laid hold of a projecting spar and was hauling himself up the other side, when he came face up against a dark little cranny between two great cases. And in the niche sat the skeleton of a man, all huddled up and jammed together, but grinning at him in so ferociously jovial a manner, as though he had been expecting him and was rejoiced at the sight of him, that Wulfrey came near to loosing his hold and falling into the water. He scrambled hastily past, and saw grinning faces in every dark corner for the rest of the day, and some of them were fact and some were only fancy. For the tumbled pile of wreckage was like a huge trap for the catching of anything the sweeping gales might bring it.
He heard Macro's voice, dulled by the mist, calling to him, and he answered but knew not which way to go to get to him. It was only by constant shouting and long and precarious scrambling that they came together again.
"We'd best keep close in this fog," said the mate, "or one of us'll be stopping the night here. Found anything?"
"A dead man——"
"Any of ours?"
"No, he was only bones."
"It's full of 'em. They're no canny, but they'll not harm us. Where'll we begin?"
"One place is as good as another. Here, I should say, and quietly, or those fiends of birds will be at us again."
"Bear a hand with this, then," laying hold of a newly-stranded barrel. "That's pork out of the 'Grassadoo,' so it'll be all right," and heaving and hauling, they managed to get the barrel down on to the raft.
As they poked about the pile in the mist, it was evident they had struck a spot where a good portion of the contents of the 'Grace-à-Dieu' had lodged. Macro, having superintended the loading, recognised many of the marks and in some instances could recall their contents.
"Women's fallals," he said, with a scornful crack at one large case. "If they'd been men's, now, they'd have come in handy.... Boots and shoes, if I remember rightly,"—nodding at another case. "We'll soon see," and with a chunk of wood he stove in one side and hauled out a handful of its contents.—"Women's troke again! Mebbe we'll find some men's stuff in time.... I've seen yon chest before.... Old Will Taggart's, I think," and he stove it open, and went down on his knees and raked over the contents. "Seaman's slops, not much account.... A new pipe and a tin of tobacco! Thanks be! We'll take that ... and another flint and steel. Always useful! ... Clothes not much good, but we might be glad of 'em later on.... Yon's a box of tea and it'll be lead-lined inside. Should be more about. We had two hunderd aboard.... Glory! yon barrels are hard-tack. These ones are flour. If we work hard and get 'em ashore before the weather breaks again we'll live in clover.... What's this now? ... 'Duke of Kent'"—and he hauled up a stout wooden box by one handle out of a raffle of cordage and ragged sail-cloth. "Name of a ship—or name of a man? That's no a ship's box."
A deft blow under the lock and the box lay open, displaying a number of uniforms, richly decorated with gold braid and lacing, all more or less damaged by water, but otherwise in good condition.
"Duds enough to keep us going for a couple of years if so be as they fit," said the mate exuberantly, and Wulfrey laughed out at the idea of their peacocking about their sandbank rigged out in court costumes.
"He was Governor-General of Canada," he said. "I remember hearing he lost his baggage on the journey."
"We'll be Governor-Generals here when we're needing a change.... Nothing but his clothes," as he ran his hands all over the box. "Mebbe we'll find more of 'em lying about. Man! what a place it is! It'd take a man a lifetime to work through all the stuff there is here."
They worked hard and carried home a huge load, but as there was no wind they had to paddle all the way, and even Macro acknowledged to being a bit tired before they got all their plunder across the spit and on board, the transit across the lake on the smaller raft necessitating three separate journeys. He was in the highest of spirits however, and keen to be back at the pile next day. As for Wulfrey, hardening though he was with all these unusual labours, he found himself almost too weary to eat.
The fog lay on them like a white pall for six days. Macro predicted that it would go in a storm, and was urgent on salvaging all they could before it came.
So, day after day, they went out to the pile, and came back loaded at night till they had stuff enough in their hold to keep them in comfort for many months to come.
They had meat and drink, clothes and firing, and comfortable quarters. What more could any man want, unless it were to get away from it all? And that, the mate asserted, time after time, was the unlikeliest thing that could happen.
"We're here till Kingdom come," was the burden of his tune. "So we may as well be comfortable. And we've had the deil's own luck. We might ha' been living on rabbits and roots, and sleeping on the sand. Man! be thankful at being tired to such good purpose!"
"I'm thankful enough and tired enough, and we've got stuff enough for a year. I'm going to take a rest."
"I'm for the pile again tomorrow. If you won't come I'll e'en make shift alone," and Wulfrey let him go alone.