CHAPTER XXXVIIILAND!
Our progress was slow. For some while we carried strong winds, which swept us onwards into the softer climates of the Pacific; they then failed us, and were followed by a succession of light airs, as often ahead as astern. I was astonished, however, by the yacht-like qualities of motion of the little barque. Through weather that had scarcely weight enough in it to have stirred theCountess Ida, theLady Blanchewould sneak over a surface of water that was often glass-like, ripples fine as wire breaking away from her keen stem, and a short wake scoring the liquid smoothness under her counter; her topsails and courses motionless, save but for their soft swaying to the long and gentle respiration of the swell; a faint lifting, however, perceptible in the light cloths of the loftier sails, which were doing the work of the rest, and communicatingto the little fabric out of the delicate softness of the blue Pacific heavens, so to speak, an impulse of vitality, the recollection of which would move me to amazement when I found that our progress in the twenty-four hours had been as considerable as the Indiaman would have got out of a pleasant breeze.
But not to linger upon this time—though I could tell much of my incessant intimate association with Miss Temple—dwell with delight, untinctured by recollection of the miseries and anxieties of this passage, upon the memory of the soft and lovely nights of those delicious parallels, the clear dusk radiant with the glistening of stars from sea-line to sea-line, the mild atmosphere, sweet with dew, the hush upon the slumbering leagues of the deep, soothing as a benediction to the perturbed spirit, the play of delicate fires in the water, the stirring of canvas in the still gloom aloft, as of the brushing of the pinions of hovering creatures: then the wide blue sparkling scene of day, the barque clothed in the ivory whiteness of her canvas striking a prismatic shadow of pearl from her white sides and silken heights into the opalescent profound,on which she would rest as on a bed of glass, some distant fountain and curve of wet black body denoting the rising of a leviathan from the depths—ah! had all been well with us, this would have made a noble time for the memory to muse on—but my story draws me to its conclusion.
It was February the 18th, as very well indeed do I remember. From the hour of our having sighted the whaler off Cape Horn, we had met with nothing, not even of the bigness of the tip of the wing of a sea-fowl, to break the continuity of the sea-line, no shadow of low-lying land, no vision of star-like space of water indicating the froth of the submerged reef. On this day at noon, having worked out my calculations, I discovered that the distance to Braine’s island, as I may call it, from the then situation of the barque, was to be traversed, if the light air held as it was, in about twelve hours; so that it would be proper to keep a lookout for it at about midnight.
I gave Mr. Lush this piece of news; he received it with a flush of excitement that almost humanised the insipid coarseness of hisdull, wooden, leather-bound, weather-hardened visage.
‘Ye may calculate upon our keeping a bright lookout, sir,’ said he with a grin that disclosed his tobacco-coloured fangs, and that might fairly be called sardonic, since the eyes bore no part in this disagreeable expression of satisfaction.
I watched him walk forwards to convey the information to the men. They went in a whole body on to the forecastle, and stood staring about them, as though the ocean wore a new countenance to their gaze, now that they believed Braine’s island to be a short distance past the slope of it. The carpenter pointed, and was full of talk; there was much lighting of pipes, expectoration, puffing of great clouds indicative of emotion, uneasy, impatient, flitting movements amongst the men, some of whom presently broke up into couples and fell to pacing the forecastle like marines on sentry; talking, as I did not doubt, of the money they were going to dig up, what they would do with it when they had it, and so on; the expressions on their faces varying at every instant, one emotion suppressing another in a manner that to a contemplativeand leisurely eye would have provided a study at once ludicrous and informing.
I had the watch that afternoon; and when Miss Temple and I had eaten our little midday meal, I drew chairs into the shadow of the short awning, and we sat together, I, pipe in mouth, occasionally quitting her side to take a look outside the edge of our canvas roof, along with a brief stare ahead, for I could not be sure of Captain Braine’s chronometer, nor of the exactness of my own calculations, and if the madman’s island was where he had declared it to be, it might heave into view off either bow or right ahead at any moment, for all I could tell.
Miss Temple stood in no need now of Captain Braine’s overcoat. She was habited in the costume of theCountess Ida; somewhat soiled it was, yet the perfect fit of it continued to atone for its shipwrecked airs. Her dark eyes glowed under the shadow of the straw hat she had had on when she left the Indiaman. She needed but her jewelry, the flash and decoration of her trinkets, to show very nearly as finely as she had on that day. There was but little alteration visible in her. For my part I could detect no more than that herface was a trifle thinner than when we had first entered on this wild adventure. The eye of close and constant association would not indeed witness changes which might instantly be perceptible to one encountered after an absence. Still, I had the image of her brilliant on my mind as she was on board the Indiaman, and viewing her now, as I say, I could perceive no other change than what I have mentioned. Intellectually, however, there was an alteration, defined to a degree to my sight. Her gaze was softened, and was often sweet. The characteristic firmness of her lips had lost its air of haughtiness. There was no longer any manner of command in her looks, nor of exaction in her fixed regard; there was nothing to hint that her spirit was broken—merely that it had been bowed to an average human level by the rough usage of the sea, and by the amazing experiences with which her months of lonely association with me had been surcharged.
Heretofore, that is to say for some weeks past, she had exhibited a resigned, calm, resolved behaviour, as of one who was constantly schooling herself to prepare for an issue of life or death. She had long ceased toutter a complaint; she would even detect a sigh in herself with a glance of contrition and self-reproach. Again and again had I complimented her upon the heroic qualities which her sufferings of mind and body had fructified in her; but this afternoon she was feverishly impatient and restless. The old fires of her spirit when alarmed were in her eyes. I would observe her struggling in vain to appear composed. As we sat together, she exclaimed, as she brought her eyes to my face from a nervous sweeping gaze at the horizon over the bows: ‘By this time to-morrow we shall know our fate.’
‘Perhaps not. Yet I pray it may be so. If I were sentenced to be hanged, I would wish the hour come. But what is to be our fate? Nothing in this life is so bad or so good as our fears or our hopes would have us think. If there should be no island—— Well, those villains will find me on the alert for what may come along in the shape of chance, and you must be ready.’
‘I am ready,’ she exclaimed; ‘only tell me what to do. But this expectation——’ Her lips trembled, and her white fingers clenched to the agitation that possessed her.‘The misery is, Mr. Dugdale, you have no scheme.’
‘That will come,’ I exclaimed; ‘be calm, and remain hopeful. I might, in the language of the heroes of novels, hope to reassure you by promising that if we are to perish we will perish together. I am not a hero, and I talk with the desire and the intention of living. There may be a few more adventures yet before us; but your hand is in mine, and I shall not relinquish it until I conduct you to your mother’s side.’
Of course I talked only to cheer her; yet I hoped even as I spoke, and my hope gave a tone of conviction to my words that seemed to animate her, and she smiled whilst her wistful eyes sank, as though to a sudden reverie.
During the rest of the day the crew were ceaselessly on the move, passing in and out of the galley and in and out of the forecastle, pacing the planks with impatience strong in their rolling gait; one or another of them from time to time springing on to the head rail to peer thirstily and steadfastly under the shelter of his hand; one or another again at long intervals ascending to the height of theforeroyal yard, there to linger, whilst the fellows below gazed up with expectant faces, and ears greedy for a cry from that lofty summit. The sturdy figure of the carpenter was conspicuous amongst them. When he came aft, he would look as though willing to converse with me, but I walked away abruptly on his approach, and if I chanced to leave the cabin when he was on deck, I kept to the lee side, contriving an air that even to his unintelligent gaze must have conveyed the assurance that I wished to have nothing to do with him.
The breeze was light, just forward enough on the beam to allow of the foretopmast studding-sail remaining abroad. So weak was the air, that the barque crept along with erect spars, and the red fly of the dogvane scarcely flickered to the soft breathings at the royal mast head. I feared that it would fall a dead calm at sun-down, but greatly to my satisfaction, there was a small freshening in the breeze whilst the scarlet yet lay gloriously upon the cloudless countenance of the west. Indeed, my own almost crazy anxieties and expectation made the mere fancy of a spell of stagnation abhorrent to me. Supposingthe chronometer below to be correct, I was in little doubt of the accuracy of my computations, and my desire to verify or disprove the madman’s assurance was consuming and insupportable.
When the night descended it was moonless, and through the pleasant blowing of the wind, of a singular sweetness and freshness such as I could not imagine of darkness in any other ocean. The water was now streaming in a line of whiteness along either side, and the murmur under the counter was as constant as the voice of a running brook heard amid the stillness of a summer night. The carpenter had the watch from eight to twelve; but for my part I could not find it in me to go to my cabin. Such was my feverishly restless condition, that I knew I should close my eyes in vain, and that the inactivity of a recumbent posture would speedily grow irksome and intolerable. Miss Temple entreated me to lie down upon the locker in the cabin. I answered that I should be unable to sleep, and that without sleep the mere resting of my limbs would be of no service to me.
‘But you will have to watch from twelveto four,’ she exclaimed, ‘and at this rate you will get no sleep to-night.’
I smiled, and answered that Braine and the carpenter between them had murdered sleep; and then took her on deck, where we walked and conversed till the hour of eleven—six bells. I then returned with her to the cabin. She declined to enter her berth; she begged me, and her eyes pleaded with her voice, to suffer her to remain at my side throughout the night. But this I would not hear of; I told her that such a vigil would exhaust her, that her utmost strength might have to be taxed sooner than either of us could imagine; that she must endeavour to obtain some repose upon the locker, and that if anything resembling land showed during my watch, I would call her. I saw a look of reproachful remonstrance in her face; but compliance was now a habit with her, and in silence she allowed me to arrange a pillow and to throw a light blanket, that I fetched from her bed, over her feet. I sat near her at the table, leaning my cheek on my elbow, and from time to time exchanged a few words with her. There was hardly any movement in the sea. The wind held the canvas motionless.The seething alongside was too delicate to penetrate, and the silence in the little cuddy was unbroken save by the ticking of a small brass clock under the skylight, and by the measured tramp of the carpenter overhead.
A little before twelve I looked at my companion, and perceived that she was asleep. On the eve, as I believed we were, of God alone knew what sort of events, the spectacle of the slumbering unconscious girl, whose beauty was never so affecting as when softened, and I may say spiritualised by the expression of placid repose, moved me to the heart. What a strange association had been ours! How intimate had we become! what confidences had our common suffering caused us to exchange! what condition of shoregoing life was there that could have brought this girl and me together as we had been and still were? How I loved her, I was now knowing; I could dwell upon my passion with delight as I looked at her, though on the threshold of a future that might prove terrible and destructive to us both. What was the secret of her heart, so far as I was concerned? I gazed at her lips with some unintelligible hope of witnessing them shape the syllables of myname; then the clear chimes of eight bells floated aft. With a sigh and a prayer, I dimmed the cabin lamp and went softly to the companion steps.
On my emerging, the carpenter came up to me.
‘It’s been blowing a steady air o’ wind,’ said he; ‘allowing for this here improvement in our pace, what time d’ye reckon the island’ll take to show itself?’
‘If it exists,’ I answered, ‘it might be in sight now. The captain’s description showed that there was no height of side to make a loom of. If you’re going forward, see that a couple of hands are stationed on the forecastle, and tell them to keep a bright lookout. We don’t want to run the reef down, if it’s there.’
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he exclaimed in the rough off-hand voice of a sailor receiving an order, and left the poop.
The time crept away. There was a light burning in the galley; and the shapes that flitted in and out through the open door, throwing giant shadows upon the hazy square of illumination on the bulwark abreast of the galley entrance, satisfied me that most if notall of the men were awake and on the lookout. Several figures, never less than two, paced against the stars over the bows with the regular tread of sentinels, clear on the forecastle under the forecourse by the spaces of the spangled sky they blotted out as they moved. The breeze continued a pleasant air, and all about the gliding barque were the summer tinkling sounds of water gently broken. Occasionally, I would go forward, and taking my stand on the rise of the cathead where it sloped to the rail, strain my eyes into the elusive starry dusk where sea and sky seemed to melt into liquid gloom. No one accosted me as I passed to and fro. Once I heard the tones of the carpenter in the galley warm in argument. The fellows pacing the forecastle would come to a halt whenever I went forward, and stand looking at me in silence, full of expectation, no doubt, of my being able to see more than they. The very barque herself seemed to participate in the emotions, the breathless curiosity, the avid yearnings of the men who awaited the appearance of the island with restless motions and voices subdued into low growling notes: the ship herself, I say, seemed governed bythe impassioned expectation of the hour, so tremulously breathless was she aloft, so still and subtle was her movement through the water, so hearkening the aspect of her forward, as though the stirless curve of her jibs were ears which she eagerly projected that she might catch the first sound of the wash of surf.
All this while Miss Temple lay soundly sleeping below.
It was wanting about ten minutes to four when the quarter-deck was suddenly hailed from the forecastle. The voice rang loud and startlingly upon the ear used to the continued stillness of the night.
‘Hallo!’ I cried.
‘There’s something dark right ahead,’ came back the answer.
I whipped the glass out of the companion, and walked swiftly forwards where all the crew had run to the first cry, and where I found them standing in a huddle of shadowy shapes at the rail, some pointing, and all looking in one direction.
‘Where away is the object reported?’ I exclaimed.
‘Yonder,’ cried the carpenter, steppingout of the little crowd and projecting his arm almost on a line with the jib-boom end.
I instantly perceived it! It was just a streak of shadow, low-lying, like a line of cloud beheld by night lifting a few fathoms of its brow above the sea-line. I pointed the telescope; and the lenses without revealing features, resolved the length of airy obscurity into the firm proportions of land.
‘Is it the island, sir?’ demanded the carpenter in a voice hoarse with excitement.
My own astonishment—the wonder raised in me by yonder prompt settlement of the incredulity that had possessed me from the first minute of hearing the captain’s story—the conflict of emotions which followed on my considering that the land ahead must inevitably be Braine’s island, since the chart showed clear water to the distance of the latitude of Easter Island, which the low stretch over the bows most assuredly was not, the loom being little more than that of a reef—rendered my ear deaf to the carpenter’s inquiry. He repeated his question.
‘If not, then I know not what other land it can be,’ said I. ‘How far distant will it be, think you?’
The men gathered about us to hear what was said.
‘Three mile about,’ he answered.
‘More like five,’ grumbled out a seaman.
‘Five in your eye!’ cried another—‘more liketew. If ye’ll stay your breathing, you’ll hear the wash o’ the surf.’
‘Better shorten sail and wait for daylight, Mr. Lush,’ said I.
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered; ‘that’ll be the proper thing to do;’ and instantly fell to bellowing out orders.
The uproar of the excited crew clewing up and hauling down, yelling as they pulled at the ropes, and springing about with an alacrity that made their darting figures resemble those of madmen, awakened Miss Temple. I stood alone on the poop, endeavouring to obtain a view of the land by leaning over the rail, when she came up to me.
‘What is it, Mr. Dugdale?’
‘Land!’ I exclaimed, instantly turning to her.
‘The island?’ she cried, suppressing astonishment until she should have received my answer.
‘I have no doubt of it. The shadow indicates that it is little more than a reef. Its bearings, according to my computation, accurately correspond with those given by Captain Braine.’
She projected her head over the rail, but was some time before she could distinguish the mere dash of gloom that the land made upon the horizon.
‘If it should be the island!’ she cried. ‘That you should have steered this ship straight as an arrow for it, and that it should be there—no madman’s dream, as we have both believed it! If one part of the story be true, the other part should be so.’
I was too astounded to converse. I could do no more than ejaculate. To be sure, as my companion had said, if the story of the island was true, the story of the gold might be equally true. There would be the treasure, then, for the men to possess themselves of! And afterwards?
My brains seemed to whirl like a teetotum in my skull.
Meanwhile, the sailors had reduced sail till the barque was now under topsails only, the rest of the canvas hanging from the yardsin the grip of its gear. The carpenter arrived on the poop.
‘Mr. Dugdale,’ he exclaimed, in a rough, congratulatory voice, ‘you’ve done wonderfully well, sir. By ——! but I don’t think there’s e’er a navigator would have struck it true as a hair as ye have. Ye’ve got no doubts now left, I allow?’ and I saw his face darken with the wrinkles of the grin that overspread his countenance.
‘What’s to follow?’ I demanded, thinking to take advantage of his mood.
‘Why, the gold,’ he answered, ‘the money, sir; what we’ve been a-waiting for; and what I suspects we’ll most of us know what to do with when we gits it.’
‘And then?’
‘That’ll be a matter for consideration,’ he answered, drawing off and going to the rail and staring ahead.
‘Back the topsail yard and bring the ship to a stand, Mr. Lush,’ said I, ‘and get a cast of the lead, will you?’
These orders were immediately obeyed. The lead ran out to the whole scope of line without touching bottom. There was nothing now to be done but to wait for daylight. Awhole eternity seemed to pass before the dawn broke. Then to the sifting of the dull gray faintness over the rim of the eastern sea, the land came stealing out, till, to the sudden soaring of the sun into the clear blue sky of the Pacific morning, it flashed out into its full proportions and distinctive features not a mile off our port beam as we then lay with our maintopsail aback.
The crew, neglecting all discipline and shipboard habit, were assembled in a body on the poop; and thus we all stood looking, I a little distance away from them with Miss Temple at my side. It was a small coral island, apparently of the dimensions that Captain Braine had named. To the northward the smooth water brimmed to a long shelf of coral grit, lustrous as snow in the sparkle of the early sunshine. There was a small rise, green with vegetation, in the centre of the island; how far distant, I could not imagine. Almost abreast of us, the land went in with a semicircular sweep like to a horseshoe, and was exactly the lagoon that had been described by Captain Braine. In the centre of it, just as he had marked the thing down upon his chart, rose a coral formation of theappearance of a very thick pillar, and at the distance from which we surveyed it, it might easily have passed for a monument of white stone erected by human hands, the decorated summit of which had been rudely broken off by a tempest or some volcanic shock. On a line with this pillar, some little distance up the beach of the lagoon, were several clumps of trees. There was a deal of a sort of stunted vegetation going inland from the margin of the little bay, coarse grass, as my telescope made out, tangles of bushes, and so on.
The carpenter in the midst of the men stood with the parchment chart in his hand, pointing out how the outlines corresponded with those of the land, amidst a hubbub of eager comments and exclamations of excitement. For my part, I could not credit my senses; I disputed the evidence of my own eyes; I brought them away from the island to fix them with an emotion of profound bewilderment upon Miss Temple.
‘Can it be real?’ I cried. ‘After the weeks of conviction of the utter madness of this quest, am I at last to be persuaded that the wretched suicide was not mad, that hisisland is a fact, and his gold an absolute reality too?’
I turned my back upon the crew to press my hands to my eyes to ease my brow of an intolerable sense of swooning in it.
‘Three cheers for him, men!’ I heard the carpenter roar out. Volley after volley of huzzas rang from the deep sea lungs of the sailors. They were cheering me. I turned to find them all looking my way. They tossed their caps and flourished their arms like madmen in the exuberance of their delight.
‘Now, sir,’ sung out the carpenter, ‘hadn’t we better see to our ground tackle?’
‘As you will,’ I answered; ‘there is your island; I have kept my word with you; now, Mr. Lush, the crew will proceed as they think proper. When you require my services again as a navigator I am ready;’ and so saying I seated myself on the edge of the skylight, and with folded arms continued to view the island with such astonishment and incredulity as made me fear for my head.
‘Is it all for the best, do you think, Mr. Dugdale?’ said Miss Temple, who had seated herself beside me.
‘I cannot tell—it may be so. If they findthe money, the wretches’ delight and good temper may render them willing to comply with my wishes to make for the nearest port. I am in a dream. Give me a little time to recover my amazement. You know it ought to be impossible that that island should be there.’
She glanced at me anxiously, with something of alarm indeed, as though there was even a greater strangeness in my manner than in my language. Long hours of anxiety, long hours of sleeplessness, the continual apprehension of what was to follow if this island was not discoverable, these things and how much more had done their work with me; and now on top was come the shock of the discovery of the truth of what I had all along been convinced was the dream of a madman—the lie of a crazy head! I felt a moisture in my eyes; my limbs trembled; my breathing grew thick and difficult. In silence, Miss Temple hurried below and returned with a tumbler of cold brandy grog. She put it into my hand, and I drank it off; and I have very little doubt that the strong stimulant—such a dose as might have made me boozy in an hourof ease!—rescued me from an attack of hysterics, man as I am who tell this!
Meanwhile the seamen had gone forward, and were all hard at work with the chain cables, connecting them with the anchors, affixing tackles, hoisting the ponderous irons to the catheads, and filling the barque with business and songs. They worked with desperate will and eagerness, yet their progress was slow, and the sun had mounted many degrees before all was ready forward for bringing up. They then went tumultuously to breakfast, which they devoured upon deck, emptying their hook-pots down their throats, and hastily eating their biscuit and meat, whilst they jabbered away in voices of enthusiasm, one calling out a joke to another amidst loud laughter.
The carpenter had now taken command. He came aft while Miss Temple and I nibbled at some breakfast which Wilkins had brought us on deck, and ordered the maintopsail to be swung, and stationed a hand with a lead-line in each of the main-chains. The wind was about south, and allowed the barque with her yards braced fore and aft to very nearly look up for the lagoon. We crept slowly along;the lead on either hand went in frequent flights towards the bow, but no bottom was reported. This went on till the yawn of the lagoon was upon our starboard quarter, with the trend of the land covered with bushes opening out as it ran into the south-east, and then came a shout from the port main chains. The water now shoaled rapidly; a man stood forward ready to let go the anchor; down thundered the topsail yards to the cry of the carpenter to let go the halliards; the barque lost way; the sharp clank of a hammer rang through the vessel, followed by a mighty splash, and the roar of iron links torn in fury through the hawse-pipes.
In a few moments theLady Blanchewas at rest, with the western spur of the lagoon within half a mile of her.