CHAPTER XLI ESCAPE
If I had witnessed the idleness of protest and remonstrance and appeal on board the barque, I must have held entreaty to be tenfold more useless in the face of the mortification of the carpenter and his crew, increased as their temper was by the irritation and the fatigue of hard and useless work. I might at once be sure that they had no intention of suffering me to leave the island until they quitted it themselves for good. There would be also distrust; the fear that I might contrive to run away with the ship. Yet I had still to find out what they meant to do; what their plans were for the night. I knew what I wanted, and I remember what I prayed for as I tramped solitarily backwards and forwards upon the edge of the herbage where it came thin to the beach.
Seven men entered the long-boat andshoved off. The carpenter remained; with him was the sailor named Woodward. They flung themselves down upon the ground with an air of exhaustion, and so lay smoking their pipes. After awhile, the carpenter called to me. I approached him leisurely. He asked me if I remembered the number of paces from the beach, and eyed me so surlily as he put the inquiry that I began to think he suspected I could tell if I chose.
‘If Wilkins can’t remember,’ I exclaimed, ‘why should I be able to do so—I, whose opinion of this business you well know? I do not recollect the number of paces. I wish I did, for I am more anxious than ever you can be that you should come at this gold, that we may sail away, and end the most cursed adventure that ever a man was forced into.’
The heat and the evident sincerity with which I spoke these words slightly subdued him, and his ugly face relaxed its threatening look. Finding him silent I said: ‘What do you mean to do?’
‘Stop here all night,’ he answered shortly. ‘Stop here, I’ve told ye, till we’ve found the money.’
‘You will leave some men aboard the ship to look after her?’
‘Two’ll be quite enough,’ he answered. ‘How much looking after do she want in weather of this pattern? If we don’t meet with the gold afore dark—and there’ll be no chance ofthat, I allow—we must all be at hand to tarn to at daybreak.’
I asked no further questions; and the fellow sank into silence, both he and the other sucking at their pipes, whilst they seemed to hunt with their eyes over the ground as they lay with their heads propped on their elbows.
I saw Miss Temple on the poop watching the approaching boat. Very well could I imagine the feeling which would possess her when she perceived that I was not among the occupants of the little craft! The boat clumsily drove alongside, and the men sprang on board over a short rope gangway ladder that had been dropped. They went to work at once, as though in a hurry to get the furling job over, that they might return; and with a swiftness that was surprising in fellows almost exhausted by previous labour, they furled the mainsail, foresail, and lighter canvas, leaving the topsails hanging, and the spankerloosely brailed in to the mast. This done, they descended, and came to a pause at the gangway, as though giving what news they had to the two seamen that had been left behind. They then entered the boat afresh and leisurely made for the island. As they jumped on to the beach, I noticed that the man Simpson had taken the place of Forrest, who had been left to keep a lookout with Wetherly. I felt instantly very uneasy on observing this. There was no other man of all the crew whom I would not sooner have wished to be Wetherly’s associate than that impudent, mutinous, bold-faced young seaman. To think of Miss Temple alone with those two men! one to be trusted, as I hoped and believed; but the other as insolent and defiant a rascal as could be imagined of any forecastle blackguardly hand! I gazed eagerly at the barque, and was glad to find that the girl had gone below. I earnestly prayed that she would have the sense to keep in hiding. There was the long night before her, and Wetherly might sleep.
Never since the hour of our losing sight of the Indiaman had I felt half so worried, half so distracted with fears and forebodings.I withdrew to a distance from that part of the beach where I had been walking, that the workings of my mind might not be seen in my face; and thankful was I afterwards, when I had somewhat cooled down, that the carpenter did not offer to approach or speak to me; for such was the passion my anxiety for Miss Temple had raised, that I believe a single syllable of rudeness would have caused me to fall upon him—with what result it would be useless here to imagine.
There was about an hour and a half of daylight remaining. When the sailors had secured their boat, they went to supper. In lieu of tea they drank rum-and-water, and this pretty plentifully.
‘Won’t ye jine us, Mr. Dugdale?’ called out the carpenter. ‘No call to eat along with us if you object to our company. Ye can have your food separate; but you’ll be wanting to eat anyhow.’
‘He must be a poor sailor who is not good enough company for me,’ I exclaimed, having by this time mastered myself; and forthwith I took my seat amongst them and fell to upon a piece of salt beef, whilst I got a strongerbeat for my pulse out of the pannikin of grog that I drained.
The men’s talk was all about the gold. ‘If it ain’t under them trees,’ said one of them, ‘it’ll ha’ to come to doing what the gent told us; starting at a hundred paces from the wash of the water there and digging in a line till we strikes it.’
‘What’ll them as hid it have wrapped it up in?’ exclaimed another.
‘Canvas,’ answered the carpenter shortly.
‘Which’ll have rotted by this time, I allow, and the money’ll be lying loose,’ said a sailor.
‘Who’ll get the first chink of it?’ cried Wilkins.
Exclamations of this sort I observed worked a general sense of elation in them; and the rum helping their spirits, they began to crack jokes, and their laughter was loud and frequent. The scene, to any one who could have viewed it without distress, must have been thought admirable for its character of soft romantic beauty. The western atmosphere was brimful of the reddening light of the descending sun; under it, the smooth ocean lay in dark gold that came sifting outinto a cool azure, which then ran with an ever-deepening tint of blue into the clear liquid distance. The trembling of the sea to the breeze put a weak coming and going of light and shadow into these dyes, and freshened the western light upon the surface into a very glorious scintillation. The barque floated like a shape of marble in the cerulean water that lay betwixt the reflection of the sun and the darker tints of the east. Her rigging resembled wires of gold, her masthead vane lay like a little flame against the sky, her white shadow fluctuated in dissolving quicksilver under her, and as she slightly leaned with the delicate heave of that wide Pacific breast, stars of crimson flashed off her deck, and her bright lower-masts showed as though they were on fire. The water in the lagoon floated in a tender blue to the coral beach on which it rippled. There was a subtle aroma as of sweet and secret inland vegetation upon the atmosphere. The long grass stirred, and the silken brushing of the leaves of the trees against one another produced the most refreshing sound that could be imagined to ears which for months had received no pleasanter noises than the strainingof timbers, the flapping of sails, and the sobbing and washing of the ocean surge. There was nothing in the wildness and rugged looks of the fiery-faced recumbent seamen to impair the tenderness of this picture. On the contrary, their roughness seemed to accentuate its gentle beauty, as the silence of a calm midnight at sea may be heightened by some gruff human voice speaking at a distance, or by some rude sound that assists the hearing as a contrast.
The carpenter looked towards the sun.
‘Don’t let’s waste no more time,’ he cried; ‘let’s attack that third clump there afore it falls dark.’
They sprang to their feet, seized their several tools, and in a few moments were hard at it, digging, boring, but in silence, for their efforts were too heavy for talk or for laughter. The sun went down whilst they were still toiling. They had discovered nothing, and the first to give up was the carpenter. He sent his shovel flying through the air with a loud curse.
‘I’m done for to-night,’ he roared. ‘Where did them scowbankers hide it? It’ll have to be as Mr. Dugdale says. ‘Morrow marningwe’ll start at a hundred paces from the beach. We’re not here to miss it, and we’ll have it if we rip the guts of this island out of her forty fathom deep!’
He was furious with temper and exhaustion, and stepping to a kettle that was full of rum and water, he half-filled a hook-pot and swallowed the contents to the dregs, afterwards pitching the vessel from him with an air of loathing and passion. The men, throwing their implements into a heap, came slowly to where the rum and provisions were, cursing very freely indeed, some of them groaning with weariness, smearing the sweat off their foreheads along their naked arms, and stretching their clenched fists above their heads in postures of yawning. Every man of them took a long drink, and then they slowly fell to filling their pipes whilst they continued to heap curses upon Captain Braine and his companion for not having buried the money in a place where it might be easily got at.
My heart was now beating quickly with anxiety. What was the next step they meant to take? Would the carpenter change his mind and carry all hands of us aboard? I observed him light his pipe, and take a lookaround with as evil an expression on his face as ever I had witnessed in it. He then trudged with a deep sea-roll in his walk down to the tree to which the boat was attached, and having carefully examined the knot, as though to make sure that the line was securely fastened, he stood gazing awhile at the little craft, as though considering, afterwards sending his eyes in another rolling stare round the horizon as far as it lay visible. I watched him furtively, but with consuming anxiety.
‘Tell ye what, mates,’ he suddenly sung out, rounding upon the men and approaching them, ‘there’s nothen to hurt in this weather, and the barque’s going to lie as quiet as if she was laid up. We’ll just stop where we are; but a lookout’ll ha’ to be kept, and the boat must be watched. Better settle the order at once. The lookout will sit in the boat, case’—he added with a sarcastic leer in my direction—‘there might be savages about unbeknown to us with a settlement aback of that hill amidships there. What d’ye say, Mr. Dugdale?’
‘I have no longer command,’ I answered; ‘it is for you to arrange as you will. Why you desire to keep me here, I cannot imagine.Why not put me aboard, that the young lady may have the comfort of my presence?’
‘She don’t want no comfort,’ he answered coarsely; ‘she’s all right. The number of paces the capt’n talked of may come to ye by daybreak, and we’re all at hand to tarn to.’
I made no answer.
The night came down dark and clear, with a noise of rippling waters in the quiet steady wind. The barque faded into a phantasm, and inland it was all black as ink, with the stars which rimmed the outline of the central rise winking there like sentinel beacons burning upon some giant mountain leagues distant. But where the boat lay the space of coral grit showed pallid, of the hue of ordinary soil bathed in moonlight, and the figure of the little fabric, with her nose pointing at the tree to which the rope that secured her was fastened, blended shadowily with the darkling surface of the water of the lagoon, over whose tiny ripples the clear reflection of the larger stars were riding.
The men roamed about in twos and threes, but never very far. I believed I could trace an uneasiness in their behaviour, as though they had consented to sleep out of the shipin obedience only to the carpenter’s wishes, and were now reconsidering their acquiescence with some indecision of mind. I earnestly hoped that this might not prove so, and watched and listened to them with my heart full of wretchedness. The carpenter was seated with another man, and conversed with him in low notes, which trembled to my ears like the subdued growling of a dog. I strolled away to a distance, but was neither followed nor called to.
The time passed very slowly. The men grew weary of moving about, though for some while the mere sensation of the hard soil was a delight to them, now that the air was deliciously cool and they had no work to do and could roam at will. They came in a body together and seated themselves round about the carpenter and his companion, drinking by the starlight, with the frequent glare of the lighting of pipes throwing out the adjacent faces, till it was like looking into a camera obscura. They talked much, but my attentive ear detected a drowsy note stealing into the sound of grumbling that stood for their conversation.
It was drawing on to the half-hour pastten when I stepped leisurely up to the huddle of shadows, and looking over them as they lay in all sorts of postures, I exclaimed: ‘Which is the carpenter?’
‘Here he is,’ answered the voice of Lush.
‘Are the men going to make a bedroom of this spot?’ said I.
‘Ay,’ he answered. ‘Where else? Ye han’t surely come across a hotel in your lonely rambles?’
These words he pronounced without intending offence, though such was the coarseness of the ruffian that he could say little which was not offensive. One or two of the fellows laughed.
‘I shall look out for comfortable quarters for myself,’ said I. ‘I have no fancy for lying amidst all this high grass. There may be snakes about.’
‘No, no!’ exclaimed one of the men; ‘there’s no snakes here, sir. I’ve kept a bright lookout. There’s nothen to be afeerd of.’
‘Ye’ll find the grass a soft bed,’ exclaimed the carpenter.
‘Thank you,’ I answered; ‘but since I am detained here against my will, allow me at least to choose my own mattress. Should youwant me, you’ll find me about eighty paces yonder, where there’s some clean sand betwixt the bushes.’ I pointed to a spot a little distance past the curve of the lagoon.
‘It don’t signify to us where ye sleep, sir, exclaimed Lush; ‘we shan’t be wanting ye till the morning, by which time I hope you’ll have recollected the distance Capt’n Braine named. If you should feel a-dry in the night ye’ll find a kettle-full of rum-and-water alongside yon breaker that’s standing upright.’
‘Thanks,’ said I; ‘good-night.’
There was a rumbling sleepy answer of ‘good-night’ from amongst them.
The spot I had chosen gave me a clear view of the lagoon, and by consequence of the boat. There was no grass here, and the bushes were small and stunted, as though starved by the sandy character of the soil. Yet they furnished a dark surface, amid which I could crawl on my hands and knees without risk of being seen from the place occupied by the men. I sat down to wait and watch. Over the tops of the bushes alongside of me I could just distinguish the figures of the sailors when one or another of them rose apparently to obtain a drink from the kettle.After I had been seated some twenty minutes or so, I spied one of them walking towards the boat. His dark shape showed with tolerable distinctness when he emerged from the comparative obscurity of the herbage into the dull gleam of the stretch of coral foreshore. He entered the boat, and then I lost sight of him, for the water past him lay in a trembling sheet of gloom, and his outline was absorbed in it. From time to time I could hear the voices of the seamen conversing; but shortly after eleven all was silent amongst them, and then the indescribable hush of the great ocean night settled down upon the lonely rock.
There was nothing in the stirring of the bushes to the wind, in the dim and delicate seething in the lagoon, in the hollower note of surf lightly tumbling at the back of the island, to vex this vast oppressive stillness. I thanked God that there was no moon; yet could have earnestly prayed for more wind and for a few clouds to obscure something of the small fine spangling of the atmosphere by the stars. I could see no light upon the barque; she lay in a little heap of faintness, what with her white sides and hanging white topsails, out in the gloom.
Presently, when I had supposed that all hands saving the fellow in the boat were sleeping, I saw a figure slowly coming my way. I gathered by his posture, as I dimly discerned it, that he was staring among the bushes as he advanced. He slightly lurched as he stepped, and it was not until he was within twenty feet of me that I perceived he was the carpenter. I pillowed my head on my arm, drew my feet up, and feigned to be in a sound slumber. He arrived abreast of me, stood looking a little, and then went slowly back to the others.
The scheme I had made up my mind to adventure was one of extraordinary peril. Yet I was quite certain that the dreadful risk would provide me with my last, indeed my only chance. I was now immovably convinced that though Captain Braine’s story of the existence of the island was a fact, his assurance of a large fortune in hidden gold was a madman’s fancy. The men would be finding this out; what they would then do, I could not conjecture; but the menace involved in their lawlessness, their rage of disappointment, their determination (certain to follow) to find their account in the barque and hercargo at all costs, was so heavy, so fraught with deadly peril to Miss Temple and myself, that I was resolved that night to make one prodigious dash for liberty, leaving the rest to fate. Once during that day it had occurred to me to make a rush for the boat and shove off, leaving the men without any means of pursuing me; but a little consideration showed me that the risks of such an attempt were all too fearfully against me. If I valued my life for my own as well as for the girl’s sake, I must not fail; and yet failure seemed almost certain. Before I could have liberated the line that secured the boat, sprung into her, lifted one of her heavy oars to shove her off with, the men, who had always been working within a hundred and fifty yards of the beach, would have been upon me. Or supposing I had managed to slide the boat a few fathoms away before they arrived, half of them would have been probably able to swim faster than I could scull the clumsy fabric, whilst my erect figure must have supplied an easy mark for the stones which those remaining on shore would have hurled at me. No! I had mused upon and then utterly dismissed that scheme, comingback to my first resolution, which I now lay waiting for the right moment to execute.
At half-past twelve by my watch, which the starlight enabled me to read, the man who had first entered the boat came out of it, and was replaced by another, whose figure I followed with my sight as he passed across the beach and disappeared in the little structure. For another hour I continued to watch, to wait, to hearken with every sense in me strained to its acutest limit; during which time the island continued sunk in the profoundest stillness of this midnight, saving always the noise of the rippling of waters and of the breezy stirring of the bushes. Then with a few words of appeal to God for courage and support, I started to crawl round past the spot where the men were sleeping, that I might arrive at the beach under cover of the tall grass, which would hinder them from observing my form as I approached the tree to which the boat’s line was secured.
The soil ran in a sandy trail through the bushes hereabouts, and I got along pretty nimbly, crawling noiselessly, feeling ready to burst at times, owing to the almost unconscious holding of my breath, forced upon meby my apprehension lest I should be observed or overheard. Presently, coming to the trees at whose base the men had dug, I stood up, not fearing detection here, and very rapidly gained the growth of bushes which darkened a space of land to the north, betwixt the place where the men lay and the broad shelf of white beach where, as the fellows had supposed, the Spanish brigantine had driven ashore. I now dropped on my knees and hands again, and in this posture skirted the high herbage that grew down to where the coral grit provided no soil for such vegetation, until I came to the tree, close up against which I rose, that my shape might appear as a part of the trunk. Then, with an eager, trembling hand, I cast the line adrift, and sinking again on my knees and hands, crawled upon the dark surface of the verdure to where it went nearest to the northern horn of the lagoon, where, still crouching, I remained for a little space watching.
In a few minutes the liberated boat, feeling the action of the wind, slowly floated off.
At every instant I was prepared to hear a shout from the shore or from the fellow who was supposed to be at watch in the boat.Yet it soon grew plain that my utmost hopes were to be confirmed by the heavy rum-influenced slumber that had overtaken the watchman, and that lay in lead upon the closed lids of the wearied sailors upon the grass. My heart was loud in my ears as I crouched watching. Presently the boat had slipped to some considerable distance from the shore, and was sliding seawards out to the wide yawn of the lagoon broadside to the ripples and the breeze. Then, pulling off my coat and waistcoat, and shoes and smallclothes, I crawled down on to the clear gleam of the beach, waded into the water, and struck out for the barque.
I was a fairly good swimmer; of old the exercise had been one of delight to me. The water was cool, but not chilling; I seemed to find a buoyancy in me, too, as from excess of brine in the dark surface, through which I gently pushed at first, lest I should raise a light of phosphorescence about me. At intervals I would pause, faintly moving my arms that I might keep myself afloat, and hearkening in a very agony of expectation. But all continued silent ashore. Now and again I caught sight of the boat as she went driftingseawards; but the shadow of the night lay thick upon the breast of the sea, and the small structure was sunk in it in a blending that eluded the gaze.
When I considered I had swum far enough to render any such sea-glow as my movements would kindle about me invisible from the island, I put my whole strength into my arms and legs and swam with a vigour that speedily began to tell. The dim heap of faintness which the barque had made grew definable with the stealing out of its proportions. The outline of the hull shaped itself; then I could see the clear line of the yards and spars ruling the starry sky with the vaporous-like folds of the topsails hanging. I felt no fatigue, no cold; the silence on the land filled me with a spirit of exultation, and the animation of that emotion acted upon me like a cordial of enduring virtue. Gradually and surely I neared the barque; the swim was but a short one in reality, and I needed no rest, though rest I could easily have obtained by floating on my back for a while. Within twenty minutes from my first cautious taking of the water, my hand was upon thelowest rung of the rope gangway ladder that lay over the side.
I held by it a little, to take breath and to listen. I had seen no figures on the vessel as I approached: but I knew that Forrest was on board, that the very piratical cast of the rogue’s character would render him alert and perceptive; that the moment he spied me he would guess a stratagem, and be upon me; and that it was my business to be before him, or to be prepared for his first spring, armed, as I knew him to be, with the sailor’s invariable weapon, the sheath-knife.