CHAPTER XIXCASTAWAYS ON OONIMAK
“You see, boys,” began Jalap Coombs, after it was certain that theSeamewhad been captured, “as my friend old Kite Roberson uster say, ‘I ain’t no pig in a poke.’ Not that I’ve ever got onto the exact bearings of a ‘poke’; but nigh as I can make out, it’s some turrible dark place like a ship’s hold with the hatches battened down, or maybe a tomb. Anyhow, I haven’t been in the dark all this time so much as Cap’n Duff thought I was. He ’lowed he was the only navigator ’boardship, while I ’lowed there was two of us. So, while he kep’ his log, I likewise kep’ mine. Now, ’cording to my reckoning, we are not, at this blessed minute, more’n fifty mile from the island of Oonimak, with a breeze that’s coming on a gale blowing dead for it. If we choose, we can make it inside of six hours, and I reckon we’ll make it anyway, sooner or later, whether we choose or no, ef this wind holds. There is water there and maybe something to eat, both of which is wanting with us at the present time.”
“There are seal-skins there too,” interrupted Serge.
“Sartain there is, lad, and I was meaning to have fetched ’em on the next tack. Now the question is, who owns them seal-skins, and what shall be did with ’em? Ef they is left where they be too long, they’ll spile. Ef the natyves finds ’em they’ll be stole. Ef they stays there till Cap’n Duff can come for them, they’ll be spiled. Ef the gover’ment finds ’em, they’ll be confiskercated, though being took in the open seathey ain’t in no ways liable. Ef we find ’em, we’ll save ’em and make good use of ’em. A part of ’em belongs to us, anyway, and the rest would naturally be ours by the right of salvage ef we saved ’em from destruction. So now I leaves it to you two ef our best plan ain’t to clap sail onto this little packet, head her for Oonimak Island, do the best we can with our seal-skins, and afterwards shape our course ’cording to sarcumstances?”
Both lads agreed that they could suggest no better plan of action than this, whereupon the mate remarked that “them was his sentiments and likewise old Kite Roberson’s, who uster say, ‘When ye sight a good thing, keep your eye on it; if not, what’s the use of eyes?’”
So the whale-boat’s sail was hoisted, she was got before the wind, and on the fierce breath of the rising gale she was whirled away like an autumn leaf in the direction of Oonimak Island.
So strongly did the gale blow by the time the day was half spent, and with such prodigious leapings did the light boat spring from crest to crest of the leaden seas, that every ounce of Jalap Coombs’s strength and every atom of his skill were necessary to her safe steering and to keeping her from being swamped. While he stood up in the stern in order to get a better purchase on his long steering-oar, the lads, crouched in the boat’s bottom amidship in order to steady her as much as possible, were obliged to devote most of their time to bailing. In spite of their thick clothing and oil-skins, the damp chill of the wind penetrated to the bone, and they were drenched by incessant showers of flying spray.
After six hours of this terribly exciting and arduous sailing, all hands began to look anxiously for a break in the fog, and strained their eyes for some glimpseof the land they felt sure must be near at hand. At length, in a momentary lift, they caught sight of Shishaldin’s snowy cone, and knew that Jalap Coombs had indeed brought them to Oonimak. Now they heard the roar of breakers, though they could see nothing of the coast against which these were so furiously thundering. To keep on seemed suicidal; while to either halt or retreat in the face of the furious gale now raging was impossible.
A warning cry from Phil, a mighty sweep of Jalap Coombs’s steering-oar, and their cockle-shell swerved from a jagged rock against which the hissing waves were churned to a yeasty froth. Their tremendous speed was apparent as they swept by this mark so swiftly that in a moment it was again swallowed by the mist, and had vanished behind them.
“If we can only have the luck to strike a beach,” said Serge, though his words were unheard save by himself.
“Hold hard! and stand by!” shouted Jalap Coombs, as with set face and unflinching gaze he stared through the gray thickness at a line of leaping white, behind which was a dim background of land. “We’re close in now, and she’ll strike in another minute! When she does, then jump and run for your lives. Look out!”
Even as he spoke the whale-boat was lifted high in the air, poised for a moment like a bird in mid-flight, and then hurled forward amid a smother of foam and a roar of rushing waters. An instant later she struck with a crash that left her occupants bruised and breathless. There was no time, however, to consider bruises or aches, and almost with the shock itself they had gained their feet and leaped into water up to their knees.
Phil had grasped both shot-gun and rifle with thehope that he might save them from the wreck. Whether or not he was overbalanced by their weight he never knew; but with his first step into the water he slipped on the kelp-covered rocks, fell face downward, and would have been swept away by the outward rush of the sea had not the mate seized his collar. With a single movement of the sinewy arm Phil was lifted to his feet, and in another minute had been dragged beyond reach of the breakers that chafed and roared in impotent rage at this escape of the prey they had deemed so surely their own.
The next sea sprang upon the boat, rolled it over and over, bit at it with savage teeth, and finally tossed it, hopelessly shattered, at the feet of its recent occupants.
Serge could have cried at this wanton destruction of that upon which they had so much depended, while Phil was equally disconsolate over the loss of his guns. To Jalap Coombs, however, these successive disasters seemed only to lend an access of cheerfulness and activity. Rushing into the ravenous waters, he snatched from them the boat’s mast and sail, the long-handled gaff, a couple of oars, a coil of line, and some loose bits of rope.
“Don’t ye be cast down, lads!” he cried, cheerily, after this had been accomplished, and the three stood together on the beach. “We’ve more to be thankful for than to grieve over. We’ve lost our boat, to be sure; but it’s a marcy it brung us safe to shore as it did. There’s no use in crying over it now; for, as old Kite uster say, ‘What can’t be mended had best stay broke.’”
“But what are we going to do for a living now that our guns are gone?” asked Phil.
“Guns?” cried Mr. Coombs, contemptuously. “Ef we hadn’t nothing but guns to depend on in thisworld, I reckon there’d be a-many of us wouldn’t make no living. I know I wouldn’t, nor do I think Kite Roberson would have; for, good soul as he was, he never could a-bear the sight of a gun. Said his daddy uster lick him with a ramrod from the time he was broiling age till he run away to sea. What are we going to do for a living? Go fishing for one thing; develop the resources of this here island for another. When we’re tired of developing we can go into the fur business, and take to trading seal-skins. You’ve forgot the wealth we’ve got stowed away up yonder, haven’t ye, and that we come here a-purpose to look after?”
“Yes, I had,” answered Phil, soberly, “and I had forgotten our many other mercies as well. I had almost forgotten the miraculous preservation of our lives; but I shall remember, and be thankful for it from this time on.”
“We are fortunate to be cast away on this particular island,” broke in Serge, “for, from what I have heard, it has plenty of water, which some of them have not, plenty of food, such as it is, plenty of material for making a fire, plenty of old houses in which we can find shelter, and, above all, it is located right in the track of all vessels going into or out of Bering Sea, as well as up and down the coast.”
“If food, drink, fire, and shelter are awaiting us, let’s go to them, and not keep them waiting any longer,” cried Phil, “for I am hungry, thirsty, wet, cold, and tired, and if you two are not all of those things you ought to be.”
“Speaking of fire,” remarked Jalap Coombs, as he ruefully withdrew the shattered remains of what had been a water-tight match-box from his pocket, “I hope you boys have got some dry matches with ye, for mine are all spiled.”
As neither of them had any matches, the mate’s facegrew very sober; but he brightened as Serge remarked, confidently, “If you will provide food, Mr. Coombs, I will promise you the fire to cook it with, unless all the stories I have heard of this island are false.”
“Good for you, lad! Fire’s one of the most important things; but I must say I don’t see how you’re going to get it, unless ye mean to climb to the top of yon smoking mountain.”
“I don’t believe I shall have to go quite as far as that,” replied Serge, “but I’ll get it, and the question is where will you have it put. Do you know what part of the island we have landed on, or where the seal-skin cache is?”
“I do,” answered Phil; “for I recognize that far point with the ugly-looking water just beyond.”
“Right you are, lad,” said Jalap Coombs. “It was just to the east’ard of this very place we landed the skins, and the cache isn’t more’n half a mile away from where we stand. You’re right in calling that ‘ugly’ water too, for it’s the beginning of Krenitzin Strait, as nasty a bit of roaring tide-rip and eddy, rock and reef, as ye’ll find on the coast. It’s God’s marcy that we warn’t flung in there instead of on to this beach. Ef we had been, we wouldn’t have stood no more show than a butterfly in a whirlwind.”