Chapter Sixteen.

Chapter Sixteen.The skipper goes in chase of a strange sail.The violent atmospheric disturbances which accompanied the change of the seasons lasted about a month, after which the weather became tolerably settled once more, though rain now fell, more or less heavily, every day. To work out of doors in the midst of pelting rain was by no means pleasant, although there was no perceptible variation in the usual temperature of the climate. Still there existed in the breasts of all so strong a feeling of insecurity so long as the “fort” remained unbuilt, that they determined rather to suffer the unpleasantness of being daily drenched to the skin than to protract the uneasy feeling of defencelessness which haunted them.The building, then, was pushed forward with all possible expedition, and, thanks to the indefatigable energy with which they laboured, was so far finished as to be habitable within a couple of months of its commencement, though of course a great deal still remained to be done before it could be regarded as absolutely secure.The site for this house or fort—for when finished it really was strong enough to merit the latter appellation—was finally fixed so as to include within its limits a spring of pure fresh-water—an adjunct of the utmost importance if it should ever fall to the lot of the occupants to be placed in a state of siege, and it possessed the further advantage of completely commanding both the land and water approaches to the proposed ship-yard. It was built in the form of a hollow square, enclosing a small court-yard (which the ladies determined to convert into a garden at the earliest opportunity) with the spring in its centre. One side of the house was set apart for the purpose of a general living-room; the two contiguous sides were divided unequally—the larger divisions forming respectively the doctor’s and the engineer’s sleeping-rooms, whilst the smaller divisions served as kitchen and larder; and the fourth side afforded ample sleeping accommodation for the remainder of the party, with a store-room in one angle of the building, and the magazine and armoury in the other. The windows all looked outward, but were small, and strongly defended with stout iron bars built into the masonry, and with massive wood shutters inside, loop-holed for rifle firing. The doors giving access to the rooms all opened upon the court-yard, and were as high and wide as they could be made, so as to let in plenty of light and air. For still further security there was no doorway whatever in the exterior face of the building, egress and ingress being possible only by means of a staircase in the court-yard leading up on to the flat roof, and thence down on the outside by means of a light bamboo ladder which could be hauled up on the roof in case of need. The roof, or roofs rather, had only a very gentle slope or fall inward, just sufficient to allow of the rain flowing off, and afforded a fighting platform at a height of about fourteen feet from the ground, the defenders being sheltered by the exterior walls, which were carried up some five feet higher and were also loop-holed. It seemed at first sight a great waste of labour to build so strong a place as this for what they hoped would be a comparatively brief sojourn; but, as Gaunt pointed out to them, there was no knowing precisely how long their stay on the island might be protracted, and if they were going to construct a defence at all, it was as well, whilst they were about it, to construct something which should effectually serve its purpose. And after all, when the work came to be undertaken, it was found that it took but little if any longer time than would have been required to put up a wood house, and to surround it with an effective palisade.Another month saw the fort so far completed that Gaunt thought he might now safely take in hand the saw-mill upon which he had set his mind; and he and the skipper accordingly devoted themselves henceforward to that undertaking, finishing it within a few days of the date when Henderson reported that all was done at the fort which at that time was deemed necessary. The doctor and his party now took to the woods armed with their axes, and began the important task of selecting and felling the timber for the proposed boat, the design for which Gaunt had been diligently working upon whenever he could find a spare hour or two to devote to the purpose. As ultimately worked out this design was for a cutter, to be of twelve feet beam, forty feet long on the load-water line, and of such a depth as would not only afford comfortable head-room in the cabins, but also give the craft a good hold of the water and make her very weatherly. These dimensions, it was considered, were sufficient for perfect sea-worthiness, whilst the various timbers would be of a scantling light enough to permit of their being handled and placed in position with comparative ease with the limited power at their command. The greatest care was exercised in the selection of the timber, it being necessary to choose not only that which was thoroughly sound, but also such as could without very much labour be conveyed to the saw-mill. This latter necessity, or rather the actual labour of conveying the timber to the mill, caused their progress to be somewhat less rapid than they had anticipated, especially as Nicholls was now busily engaged at the smithy preparing the bolts, fastenings, and other iron work for the little craft; but, notwithstanding all, the work advanced with fairly satisfactory rapidity. It had been decided that the whole of the timber should be cut, sawn, and stacked in the ship-yard before even the keel-blocks were laid down, so that it might become at least partially seasoned before being worked into the hull, and this was accomplished in rather less than a couple of months.At length the day arrived when, everything being ready, the keel of the vessel was to be laid down—a task which, the keel-piece being cut out of one log, it took the little band an entire day to accomplish satisfactorily. And it was on the evening of this particular day, or rather during the ensuing night, that the little colony sustained a loss which plunged its members into grief so deep that its shadow never entirely left them until long after the termination of their sojourn upon the island.It happened thus. During the numerous passages of the raft to and fro between the west bay and Fay Island a small reef had been discovered some six miles north of the island, upon which reef, it had been further discovered, a certain fish of peculiarly delicate and agreeable flavour was to be caught between the hours of sunset and sunrise. So very delicious had this particular species of fish been found, that it had become quite a custom for one or more of the men to take the raft after the day’s work was over and go off to the reef for an hour or two’s fishing, thus combining business and pleasure in a most agreeable manner. Captain Blyth especially always partook of the fish with quite exceptional relish; and, it happening at this time that all hands had been too busily occupied for any of them to go out for several days past, the skipper thought he would celebrate so momentous an occasion as the laying of the keel by a few hours’ fishing upon the reef. Accordingly, as the evening meal was approaching completion, he announced his intention, at the same time inquiring if any of the others felt disposed to join him. All, however, confessed themselves to be too tired to find pleasure in anything short of a good night’s rest; and the skipper therefore departed alone, Henderson calling out after him as he went:“Don’t go to sleep and fall overboard, captain; and keep a sharp eye upon the weather. To my mind the wind seems inclined to drop, and if it does it will probably shift. And I suppose you have noticed that heavy cloud-bank working up there to the westward?”“Ay, ay, I’ve noticed it,” answered the skipper good-humouredly, but slightly derisive at what he considered the presumption of a landsman in thinking it necessary to cautionhimabout the weather. “Another thunderstorm, I take it—they always work up against the wind; but I shall be back again and safe in my bunk before it breaks. Good-night!”So saying, Blyth, pipe in mouth, strolled down to the tiny cove in which the punt was moored, cast off the painter, and paddled out to the raft, which rode to a buoy anchored about fifty yards distant from the beach. Arrived alongside the raft he made fast the punt’s painter to the buoy, loosed the raft’s huge triangular sail, mast-headed the yard by means of a small winch which Nicholls had fitted for the purpose, cast off his moorings, and began to work down the stream seaward, the wind being against him. He was not long in reaching the open water, and as he shot out between the two headlands which guarded the mouth of the harbour he noticed with satisfaction that the cloud-bank to which Henderson had warningly directed his attention had already completely risen above the horizon, and was slowly melting away under the moon’s influence. True, the atmosphere was somewhat hazy, and the breeze was less steady than usual; but the general aspect of the sky was promising enough, and if a change of weather was impending it would not, the skipper told himself, occur for several hours yet, or without giving him a sufficient warning to enable him to regain the island in good time.Arrived on the reef—over which, by the way, there was plenty of water, four fathoms being the least the party had ever found upon it—the expectant sportsman dropped his grapnel, lowered the sail, and threw his lines overboard. The sport, however, was not by any means good that night, for it was fully half an hour before he got a bite; and the interval which followed his first capture was so long that the skipper’s interest waned and his thoughts wandered off—as indeed they very often did—to his ship; and he fell to wondering what had become of her, whether the mutineers had actually gone the extreme length of carrying into effect their piratical plans, whether Sibylla and Ned were still on board, and, if so, how matters fared with them. He was full of commiseration for the two young people, both having taken a strong hold upon his warm and kindly heart, and he scarcely knew which to pity most—whether Sibylla, cruelly and perhaps permanently cut off from all intercourse with her own sex and constantly in association with a band of lawless men; or Ned, likewise a prisoner, with all his life’s prospects blighted, and in addition to this the never-ceasing care, anxiety, and watchfulness which he must endure on Sibylla’s account. Most people would have been disposed to say at once and unhesitatingly that the girl’s lot was infinitely the worse of the two. But the skipper did not; he understood pretty well, or thought he did, the position of affairs on board theFlying Cloud; and he knew to an absolute certainty that so long as Ned had life and strength to protect her Sibylla was reasonably secure. But Ned, he repeated to himself, would always have her safety and well-being upon his mind in addition to his other cares and anxieties. It was a miserable plight for both of them, he mused, and he didn’t see how they were to get out of it—unless, indeed, they could manage to steal away in a boat and give the ship the slip some fine dark night. And what would become of them then? he asked himself. What chance of ultimate escape would they have? He knew Ned well enough to feel assured he would never attempt so extreme a step without first making the fullest possible provision for the safety of his companion and himself; but when all was done, what prospect would they have of being picked up in those lonely seas? He pictured them to himself drifting helplessly hither and thither, exposed to the scorching rays of the sun all day and the pelting rain at night; their provisions consumed, their water-breaker empty, and hope slowly giving way to despair as day and night succeeded each other, with no friendly sail to cheer their failing sight and drive away the horrible visions which haunt those who are perishing of hunger and thirst. He saw Ned’s stalwart form grow gaunt and lean, and Sibylla’s rounded outlines sharpen and waste away under the fierce fires of hunger; and his soul sickened within him as their moans of anguish smote upon his ear. And at last he heard Sibylla, in her agony and despair, entreat Ned to take away the life which had become a burden to her. And he saw and heard too how Ned, his speech thick and inarticulate with torturing thirst, first tried unavailingly to soothe and comfort and encourage the suffering girl; and how at last, in sheer pity for her and mad desperation at their helpless state, the lad drew forth his knife and stealthily tested the keenness of its edge and point. And as he watched, with feverish interest yet unspeakable anxiety and horror, he saw that the long-protracted suffering of himself and his companion had at last proved too much for the poor lad and that his brain was giving way; for look! the baleful light of madness gleams in his bloodshot eyes! Madness gives new strength to his nerveless limbs as he rises and bends over his companion. As he slowly uplifts his arm its shrunken muscles swell beneath the skin as though they would burst it, his talon-like fingers close with a grip of steel round the haft of the upraised knife, Sibylla closes her eyes in patient expectancy of the stroke, the blade quivers and flashes in the sunlight, and Captain Blyth, with a cry of horror, starts forward—to awake at the sound of his own voice and to find himself at the edge of the raft, in the very act of leaping into the jaws of a shark which is eyeing him hungrily from the water alongside! He luckily checks his spring in time. To seize the boat-hook and strike savagely at the waiting shark with its point follows as a matter of course; and then the skipper piously returns thanks to God not only for his escape, but also that the events he has just been witnessing are nothing more substantial than an ugly dream.Blyth’s next act is to haul in the lines which have dropped from his nerveless hands during sleep, and which would unquestionably have been lost had he not taken the precaution to make them fast; and he finds to his chagrin that not only the bait but also the hooks have been carried off. He therefore neatly coils up his fishing-tackle preparatory to shaping a course for home; for the moon is on the very verge of the western horizon, and he knows therefore that it is past midnight. Moreover, though the breeze is rather fresher than it was and the horizon is clear, there is a murkiness in the atmosphere overhead which portends a change of weather; and as he looks knowingly about him he gives audible expression to his opinion that there will be but little work done in the ship-yard on the morrow.The grapnel is lifted, and the skipper, attaching the handle to the winch, begins to mast-head the yard of the solitary sail which propels the raft. As he does so his eyes are directed towards the moon, now slowly sinking beneath the horizon. Ha! what is that? The labour at the winch is suspended, a hasty turn is taken with the halliard, and Captain Blyth strains forward, his eyes shaded by both hands the better to observe that black spot which is slowly gliding athwart the moon’s pale face. Little need is there, though, for him to look so intently to ascertain what that black spot really is; it is more for the purpose of assuring himself that his eyes are not playing him false, or that he is not once more the victim of a dream. No; this is not a dream. He is wide awake enough now, and his mind is busy with a thousand tumultuous thoughts, for, as he watches, clear and unmistakable glide the upper sails of a large ship across the face of the sinking planet. She is steering south, but whether easterly or westerly it is impossible to say as she stands out black and silhouette-like against her golden background; but one thing is plain—she is moving very slowly. The skipper darts to the compass—one of a pair saved from the wreck of theMermaid—and striking a match, which he carefully shelters from the wind in the crown of his cap, he manages to take her bearing before she vanishes from his sight. He next completes the setting of his sail, hauls aft the sheet, and, jamming the raft close upon a wind, asks himself what is the best thing to do.To return to the island will consume an hour of most precious time; and when there what could he do to attract the stranger’s attention? Nothing more than light a huge bonfire; and the only spot suitable for this is the western side of the mountain, to reach which will consume at least another hour. Then there would be wood to collect, occupying say another half-hour, making a total of at least two hours and a half before such a signal could be rendered visible. And perhaps, after all, those on board the ship might not see it, or, seeing it, might not understand its meaning—might suppose it to be nothing more than a fire built by the natives, and so pass on their way. No; that would not do—the risk of failure would be too great. What then? There remained nothing, in Captain Blyth’s opinion, but to pursue the stranger. She could not, he thought, be going more than five knots, judging by the strength of the breeze and the momentary glimpse he had obtained of her; whilst the raft, light as she was and with the wind well over her quarter, would go nearly or quite seven. The strange sail was about twelve miles off; therefore, if he could overhaul her at the rate of about two knots per hour, he ought to be near enough to attract her attention by sunrise. But he must bear up in chase at once, there was no time to waste in running ashore to make known his intentions; and as for help, he wanted none, he was quite capable of managing the raft single-handed. Moreover, he began to suspect that Henderson would prove to be right in that suggestion of his respecting a change of weather, which made it all the more important that the strange sail should be overhauled before the change should occur.These reflections passed through the skipper’s brain in a single moment—not perhaps quite so definitely as here set forth, but to the same purpose—and in the next he jammed his helm hard up, eased off the sheet, and bore away upon a course which he conjectured would enable him to intercept the stranger.For a few minutes after the disappearance of the moon Blyth was able, or fancied he was able, still to distinguish the canvas of the chase looming up vaguely like a dark shapeless shadow upon the horizon; but either the sky grew darker in that quarter or the weather thickened, for he was soon obliged to admit that he could see it no longer. But that circumstance gave him not the least concern; he had set his course by a star, and he knew that so long as he continued to steer for it, so long would the course of the raft converge toward that of the stranger. Hewasconcerned, however, to notice later on that not only was the weather thickening overhead, necessitating a frequent changing of the star by which he was following his course, but also that the wind was becoming unsteady; sometimes falling away to such an extent as to cause the raft’s sail to flap heavily as she rolled over the ridges of the swell, and anon breezing up quite fresh again, but with a change of perhaps a couple of points in its direction, the change generally being of such a character as to bring the wind forward more on his starboard beam. Gradually the haze so thickened overhead that such stars as were not already obscured grew dim and soon disappeared altogether, leaving the solitary man dependent only upon the somewhat fickle wind for a guide by which to steer his course; for though he had a compass on board the raft, he had no binnacle, and no lamps by which to illuminate the compass card. It is true the island was still in sight, some four miles astern, but the night had grown so dark and the atmosphere so thick that the land merely loomed like a vast undefined blot of darkness against the black horizon, being so indistinct indeed that only the practised eye of a seamen could have detected its presence at all; it was therefore useless as an object to steer by, even to so keen-eyed an old sea-dog as Captain Blyth.It had by this time began to dawn upon the skipper that his adventure was likely to prove of a far more serious character than he had at all contemplated; and he was earnestly debating within himself the question whether his wisest course would not, after all, be to abandon the chase and make the best of his way back to the island, when the breeze once more freshened up so strongly, and that too dead aft, that it made everything on board the raft surge again as she gathered way and skimmed off before it. And Blyth, calculating that even if the chase were sailing away from instead of toward him it would shorten his distance from her at least a couple of miles before she caught it, grimly held on his course, determined to risk everything rather than lose so good a chance; his chief fear now being that the sheet would part under the tremendous strain brought to bear upon it by the immense sail. The raft, as has been elsewhere stated, was of very peculiar construction, her shape and build being such as to peculiarly favour speed, especially when running dead before the wind; and, light as she now was, she skimmed away before the fierce squall at a rate which made Blyth’s heart bound with exultation as he looked first to one side and then the other and noted the furious speed with which the phosphorescent foam from under her bows was left behind. There was now no longer any thought of turning back, for, be it said, Captain Blyth—good honest soul—was a devout believer in Providence; and he had by this time arrived at a firm conviction, first, that it was by the special intervention of Providence that he had been led to undertake his fishing excursion that night, and next, that the freshening up of a dead fair wind just when it did was a second special intervention of Providence to prevent his giving up the chase. And so he held on everything, and the raft rushed away dead before the wind through the pitchy darkness, the mast creaking ominously in its step every now and then, and the tautly-strained gear aloft surging from time to time in an equally ominous manner; whilst the sea rose rapidly—showing that the solitary voyager was fast drawing out from under the sheltering lee of the island astern—and the foaming wavecrests, vividly phosphorescent, momentarily towered higher and more threateningly, and hissed louder and more angrily in the luminous wake of the flying craft.The squall lasted a full hour, when the wind died away even more suddenly than it had arisen, and the raft was left tumbling about with little more than steerage-way upon her. The skipper had no means of ascertaining the time, it being too intensely dark to permit of his reading the face of his watch even when it was held close to his eyes, though he made two or three unsuccessful attempts to do so; but, anxious and impatient as he was for the dawn, he knew that it must be at least another hour, perhaps nearer two, before he could reasonably expect its appearance. Two hours more of sickening suspense! One hundred and twenty minutes! With the weather in such a threatening state what might not happen in the interval! If he could only have obtained an occasional glimpse of the compass, or if the night had been less opaquely dark he would not have cared so much. For in the one case he would have been enabled not only to keep a mental reckoning of his own course, but also that of the chase as well, and to follow her attentively no matter how capricious the breeze; whilst in the other case he might have stood some chance of catching a momentary glimpse of her. As his reflections took this turn he stooped and looked ahead under the foot of the sail; looked more intently; rubbed his eyes, and looked again. What was it he saw? A light—lights? Yes, surely; it must be so, or were those faint luminous specks merely illusory and a result of the over-straining of his visual organs due to the intensity of his gaze into the gloom? No; those feebly glimmering points of light were stationary; they maintained the same fixed distance from each other, and he could count them—one, two, three—half a dozen of them at least, if not more, he could not be certain, for they were so very faint. What could it mean? Was there a whole fleet of ships down there to leeward? That there wassomethingwas an absolute certainty; and as it seemed an impossibility that it could be anything else it was only reasonable to conclude that it must be a ship or ships. At all events there could be no question as to the course he ought to follow; it would be worse than folly to continue in pursuit of an invisible ship with those lights in comparatively plain view only a couple of points on his lee-bow. So the skipper bore away until the faint luminous spots opened out just clear of the heel of the long yard—which, it will be remembered, was bowsed down close to the deck—and there he resolutely kept them, the wind having by this time fallen so light that it was necessary for him to make frequent sweeps with the steering-oar in order to keep the raft’s head pointed in the required direction.Suddenly, a greenish spectral radiance beamed down upon him from above; and, quickly casting a startled glance aloft, Blyth shudderingly beheld a ball of lambent greenish light quivering upon the upper extremity of the long tapering yard and swaying to and fro with the roll of the raft, much as the flame of a candle would have done under similar circumstances. Clinging lightly to the end of the yard, it alternately elongated and flattened as the spar swayed to and fro, now and then rolling a few inches down the yard as though about to travel down to the deck, but as often returning to the extremity of the yard again. Presently another and similar luminous ball gleamed into shape at the mast-head, swaying and wavering about the end of the spar like its companion. They werecorposants, and whilst they conveyed to the skipper the only additional warning needed of the impending elemental strife, they also at once explained the mystery of the lights to leeward for which he was steering. They also were undoubtedly corposants glimmering from the spars of the strange sail of which he was in pursuit, and which, from her present proximity, must have been steering to the eastward, and consequently toward him, instead of to the westward and away from him, as he had feared.Blyth believed she certainly could not be more than a mile distant, his conviction being that the feeble, sickly lights of the ghostly corposants could not penetrate further than that distance in so thick an atmosphere, and it now became of the utmost importance—nay, it might even be a matter of life or death for him—to reach the stranger before the hurricane should burst upon them. He looked over the side to ascertain the speed of the raft through the water, and his heart quailed as he observed that, save for an occasional tiny phosphorescent spark on the surface or a faintly luminous halo lower down in the black depths slowly drifting by, there was nothing to indicate that she had any motion whatever. Her speed was not more than half a knot per hour; and the stranger was probably a mile distant—two hours away at the raft’s then rate of progress! Something must be done, and quickly, too; for out of the darkness round about him there now floated weird, whispering sighs, faint, dismal moanings, and now and then a sudden momentary rush as of invisible wings, telling that the storm-fiend was marshalling his forces and about to make his swoop. What was to be done? There were only two oars on board the raft—the steering-oars—and they were so firmly secured that it would be next to impossible to cast them adrift and use them as means of propulsion, even if one man’s strength were sufficient to handle them both simultaneously. Moreover, if a little puff of wind should come, as is sometimes the case, before the great burst of the hurricane, they would, one or both, be wanted where they were. Perhaps hailing might be of use. At all events, he would try. And, placing his hollowed hands on each side of his mouth to form a speaking trumpet the skipper drew a deep inspiration or two, hailed with the utmost strength of his lungs; “Ship ahoy–oy!”And then listened.No response. Nothing save the faint murmurings and railings of the gathering gale.“Ship ahoy–oy!”Hark! what was that? Did he, indeed, hear a faint answering halloo from away yonder in the direction of those weird lights, or was it merely that the wish was father to the thought?“Sh–i–ip A—hoy–oy–oy!”“Halloo!”Quite unmistakable this time; and the skipper, in a perfect frenzy of excitement, repeats his hail time after time, waiting only long enough to receive the answer before hailing again. Presently a bright star suddenly appears under the faintly gleaming corposants. It is a ship’s lantern held up over the rail. A minute later a tiny spark appears close to the lantern, immediately bursting into a keen bluish glare from which a cloud of white smoke arises and flakes of blue-white flame drop now and then as a port-fire is burnt. By its brilliant though ghostly radiance the skipper can see, less than half a mile distant, a brig under nothing but close-reefed main-topsail and fore-topmast staysail—evidently fully prepared for the worst that can come to her in the shape of weather—with a little group of figures gathered about the port-fire, and a smaller group, consisting of two men only, abaft the main-rigging, all peering eagerly in his direction.He sees one of the figures raise his arms; and presently there comes floating across the inky water:“Halloo, there! Who hails?”The skipper again raises his hands to his mouth, draws a mighty inspiration, and replies, as the readiest means of bringing succour to him:“Shipwrecked m–a–an. Broad—on—your—port—b–ea–eam!”The figure who had hailed waves his hand to show that he has heard; and just at that moment the port-fire burns out. Another is quickly ignited, however; and as the blue-white glare once more illumines the brig Blyth sees that there is but one man now on the forecastle—the man who holds aloft the port-fire—and that the rest are gathered aft, busy about the davit-tackles by which a boat is suspended on the larboard quarter.At this moment the whole firmament from zenith to horizon is rent asunder, and for a single instant the entire universe seems to have been set on fire by the fierce blaze of the lightning which flashes from the rent, whilst the accompanying thunder crash is so deafening that even the skipper, seasoned as he is, quails beneath the shock of it. For a single instant the sea and everything upon it, from horizon to horizon, is illumined by a light brighter than that of day; and in that single instant Blyth sees not only the brig, enveloped in a perfect network of fire, but also the huge piles of cloud overhead, twisted and distorted into a hundred fantastic shapes by the forces at work within them, and the black glistening water, carved into countless hollows and ridges by the agitation of its surface; the whole apparently motionless as if modelled in metal. Then comes the blackness of darkness, so thick and impenetrable that the half-stunned skipper, scarcely conscious of where he is, dares not move by so much as a single footstep lest he should step overboard. The next moment down comes the rain, not in drops, not even in sheets of water, but in a perfectly overwhelming deluge of such density and volume that Blyth, bowing to his knees beneath it, gasps and chokes like a drowning man.But he speedily recovers his senses—he had need to, for he will soon want them all—and, staggering to his feet, makes toward the mast, which with the yard and dripping sail is now distinctly outlined against the milky background of sea, milky by reason of the phosphorescence of its surface being lashed into luminosity by the pouring rain. He grasps the halliard of the sail, and with feverish haste proceeds to cast it adrift from its belaying-pin, murmuring the while:“Now God be merciful to me, a sinner: for I am too late. The time for rescue is past!”With utmost haste, yet with all the coolness and skill of a finished seaman, he lowers the sail on deck and proceeds to secure it as well as he can, for he knows only too well what the next act in the drama will be; he knows, too, that those on board the brig—invisible now—are as well versed as himself, and are at this moment far too busily engaged in preparing for the stroke of the hurricane to have a thought to spare for him.Now the rain stops as suddenly as it began, and an awful silence ensues, scarcely broken even by the lap of the water alongside, for the terrific downpour has completely beaten down the swell, and, save for an occasional gentle heave, the raft lies motionless.Now stand by! Summon all your nerve and all your courage to your aid, skipper, for you never stood half so sorely in need of them as you do now. And, above all, lift up your heart to God in fervent prayer, be it ever so brief. Call upon Him whilst you have time; for time, so far as you are concerned, may soon be merged in eternity!Listen! What is that low murmur in the air which so rapidly increases in volume until it becomes a deep, hoarse, bellowing roar? The sound is broad on your starboard beam, skipper! Aft to your steering-oar for your life, man; sweep her head round quick, in readiness to run before it! That is well; round with her; again; another stroke.Nowstand by! here it comes! Seize that rope’s-end and hold on for your life!A long line of milk-white foam appears upon the horizon, spreading and advancing with awful rapidity; the roar swells in volume until it becomes absolutely deafening; the air grows thick with vapour; a sudden whirl of wind rushes past lashing the skipper’s face with rain-drops as it goes—rain-drops? no; they are salt, salt as the brine alongside—and then, with a wild burst and babel of hideous sound and a shock as though the raft had collided with something solid, the hurricane strikes her. The white water surges up over her stern, and the skipper is hurled forward, face downward and half-stunned, upon her already submerged deck.

The violent atmospheric disturbances which accompanied the change of the seasons lasted about a month, after which the weather became tolerably settled once more, though rain now fell, more or less heavily, every day. To work out of doors in the midst of pelting rain was by no means pleasant, although there was no perceptible variation in the usual temperature of the climate. Still there existed in the breasts of all so strong a feeling of insecurity so long as the “fort” remained unbuilt, that they determined rather to suffer the unpleasantness of being daily drenched to the skin than to protract the uneasy feeling of defencelessness which haunted them.

The building, then, was pushed forward with all possible expedition, and, thanks to the indefatigable energy with which they laboured, was so far finished as to be habitable within a couple of months of its commencement, though of course a great deal still remained to be done before it could be regarded as absolutely secure.

The site for this house or fort—for when finished it really was strong enough to merit the latter appellation—was finally fixed so as to include within its limits a spring of pure fresh-water—an adjunct of the utmost importance if it should ever fall to the lot of the occupants to be placed in a state of siege, and it possessed the further advantage of completely commanding both the land and water approaches to the proposed ship-yard. It was built in the form of a hollow square, enclosing a small court-yard (which the ladies determined to convert into a garden at the earliest opportunity) with the spring in its centre. One side of the house was set apart for the purpose of a general living-room; the two contiguous sides were divided unequally—the larger divisions forming respectively the doctor’s and the engineer’s sleeping-rooms, whilst the smaller divisions served as kitchen and larder; and the fourth side afforded ample sleeping accommodation for the remainder of the party, with a store-room in one angle of the building, and the magazine and armoury in the other. The windows all looked outward, but were small, and strongly defended with stout iron bars built into the masonry, and with massive wood shutters inside, loop-holed for rifle firing. The doors giving access to the rooms all opened upon the court-yard, and were as high and wide as they could be made, so as to let in plenty of light and air. For still further security there was no doorway whatever in the exterior face of the building, egress and ingress being possible only by means of a staircase in the court-yard leading up on to the flat roof, and thence down on the outside by means of a light bamboo ladder which could be hauled up on the roof in case of need. The roof, or roofs rather, had only a very gentle slope or fall inward, just sufficient to allow of the rain flowing off, and afforded a fighting platform at a height of about fourteen feet from the ground, the defenders being sheltered by the exterior walls, which were carried up some five feet higher and were also loop-holed. It seemed at first sight a great waste of labour to build so strong a place as this for what they hoped would be a comparatively brief sojourn; but, as Gaunt pointed out to them, there was no knowing precisely how long their stay on the island might be protracted, and if they were going to construct a defence at all, it was as well, whilst they were about it, to construct something which should effectually serve its purpose. And after all, when the work came to be undertaken, it was found that it took but little if any longer time than would have been required to put up a wood house, and to surround it with an effective palisade.

Another month saw the fort so far completed that Gaunt thought he might now safely take in hand the saw-mill upon which he had set his mind; and he and the skipper accordingly devoted themselves henceforward to that undertaking, finishing it within a few days of the date when Henderson reported that all was done at the fort which at that time was deemed necessary. The doctor and his party now took to the woods armed with their axes, and began the important task of selecting and felling the timber for the proposed boat, the design for which Gaunt had been diligently working upon whenever he could find a spare hour or two to devote to the purpose. As ultimately worked out this design was for a cutter, to be of twelve feet beam, forty feet long on the load-water line, and of such a depth as would not only afford comfortable head-room in the cabins, but also give the craft a good hold of the water and make her very weatherly. These dimensions, it was considered, were sufficient for perfect sea-worthiness, whilst the various timbers would be of a scantling light enough to permit of their being handled and placed in position with comparative ease with the limited power at their command. The greatest care was exercised in the selection of the timber, it being necessary to choose not only that which was thoroughly sound, but also such as could without very much labour be conveyed to the saw-mill. This latter necessity, or rather the actual labour of conveying the timber to the mill, caused their progress to be somewhat less rapid than they had anticipated, especially as Nicholls was now busily engaged at the smithy preparing the bolts, fastenings, and other iron work for the little craft; but, notwithstanding all, the work advanced with fairly satisfactory rapidity. It had been decided that the whole of the timber should be cut, sawn, and stacked in the ship-yard before even the keel-blocks were laid down, so that it might become at least partially seasoned before being worked into the hull, and this was accomplished in rather less than a couple of months.

At length the day arrived when, everything being ready, the keel of the vessel was to be laid down—a task which, the keel-piece being cut out of one log, it took the little band an entire day to accomplish satisfactorily. And it was on the evening of this particular day, or rather during the ensuing night, that the little colony sustained a loss which plunged its members into grief so deep that its shadow never entirely left them until long after the termination of their sojourn upon the island.

It happened thus. During the numerous passages of the raft to and fro between the west bay and Fay Island a small reef had been discovered some six miles north of the island, upon which reef, it had been further discovered, a certain fish of peculiarly delicate and agreeable flavour was to be caught between the hours of sunset and sunrise. So very delicious had this particular species of fish been found, that it had become quite a custom for one or more of the men to take the raft after the day’s work was over and go off to the reef for an hour or two’s fishing, thus combining business and pleasure in a most agreeable manner. Captain Blyth especially always partook of the fish with quite exceptional relish; and, it happening at this time that all hands had been too busily occupied for any of them to go out for several days past, the skipper thought he would celebrate so momentous an occasion as the laying of the keel by a few hours’ fishing upon the reef. Accordingly, as the evening meal was approaching completion, he announced his intention, at the same time inquiring if any of the others felt disposed to join him. All, however, confessed themselves to be too tired to find pleasure in anything short of a good night’s rest; and the skipper therefore departed alone, Henderson calling out after him as he went:

“Don’t go to sleep and fall overboard, captain; and keep a sharp eye upon the weather. To my mind the wind seems inclined to drop, and if it does it will probably shift. And I suppose you have noticed that heavy cloud-bank working up there to the westward?”

“Ay, ay, I’ve noticed it,” answered the skipper good-humouredly, but slightly derisive at what he considered the presumption of a landsman in thinking it necessary to cautionhimabout the weather. “Another thunderstorm, I take it—they always work up against the wind; but I shall be back again and safe in my bunk before it breaks. Good-night!”

So saying, Blyth, pipe in mouth, strolled down to the tiny cove in which the punt was moored, cast off the painter, and paddled out to the raft, which rode to a buoy anchored about fifty yards distant from the beach. Arrived alongside the raft he made fast the punt’s painter to the buoy, loosed the raft’s huge triangular sail, mast-headed the yard by means of a small winch which Nicholls had fitted for the purpose, cast off his moorings, and began to work down the stream seaward, the wind being against him. He was not long in reaching the open water, and as he shot out between the two headlands which guarded the mouth of the harbour he noticed with satisfaction that the cloud-bank to which Henderson had warningly directed his attention had already completely risen above the horizon, and was slowly melting away under the moon’s influence. True, the atmosphere was somewhat hazy, and the breeze was less steady than usual; but the general aspect of the sky was promising enough, and if a change of weather was impending it would not, the skipper told himself, occur for several hours yet, or without giving him a sufficient warning to enable him to regain the island in good time.

Arrived on the reef—over which, by the way, there was plenty of water, four fathoms being the least the party had ever found upon it—the expectant sportsman dropped his grapnel, lowered the sail, and threw his lines overboard. The sport, however, was not by any means good that night, for it was fully half an hour before he got a bite; and the interval which followed his first capture was so long that the skipper’s interest waned and his thoughts wandered off—as indeed they very often did—to his ship; and he fell to wondering what had become of her, whether the mutineers had actually gone the extreme length of carrying into effect their piratical plans, whether Sibylla and Ned were still on board, and, if so, how matters fared with them. He was full of commiseration for the two young people, both having taken a strong hold upon his warm and kindly heart, and he scarcely knew which to pity most—whether Sibylla, cruelly and perhaps permanently cut off from all intercourse with her own sex and constantly in association with a band of lawless men; or Ned, likewise a prisoner, with all his life’s prospects blighted, and in addition to this the never-ceasing care, anxiety, and watchfulness which he must endure on Sibylla’s account. Most people would have been disposed to say at once and unhesitatingly that the girl’s lot was infinitely the worse of the two. But the skipper did not; he understood pretty well, or thought he did, the position of affairs on board theFlying Cloud; and he knew to an absolute certainty that so long as Ned had life and strength to protect her Sibylla was reasonably secure. But Ned, he repeated to himself, would always have her safety and well-being upon his mind in addition to his other cares and anxieties. It was a miserable plight for both of them, he mused, and he didn’t see how they were to get out of it—unless, indeed, they could manage to steal away in a boat and give the ship the slip some fine dark night. And what would become of them then? he asked himself. What chance of ultimate escape would they have? He knew Ned well enough to feel assured he would never attempt so extreme a step without first making the fullest possible provision for the safety of his companion and himself; but when all was done, what prospect would they have of being picked up in those lonely seas? He pictured them to himself drifting helplessly hither and thither, exposed to the scorching rays of the sun all day and the pelting rain at night; their provisions consumed, their water-breaker empty, and hope slowly giving way to despair as day and night succeeded each other, with no friendly sail to cheer their failing sight and drive away the horrible visions which haunt those who are perishing of hunger and thirst. He saw Ned’s stalwart form grow gaunt and lean, and Sibylla’s rounded outlines sharpen and waste away under the fierce fires of hunger; and his soul sickened within him as their moans of anguish smote upon his ear. And at last he heard Sibylla, in her agony and despair, entreat Ned to take away the life which had become a burden to her. And he saw and heard too how Ned, his speech thick and inarticulate with torturing thirst, first tried unavailingly to soothe and comfort and encourage the suffering girl; and how at last, in sheer pity for her and mad desperation at their helpless state, the lad drew forth his knife and stealthily tested the keenness of its edge and point. And as he watched, with feverish interest yet unspeakable anxiety and horror, he saw that the long-protracted suffering of himself and his companion had at last proved too much for the poor lad and that his brain was giving way; for look! the baleful light of madness gleams in his bloodshot eyes! Madness gives new strength to his nerveless limbs as he rises and bends over his companion. As he slowly uplifts his arm its shrunken muscles swell beneath the skin as though they would burst it, his talon-like fingers close with a grip of steel round the haft of the upraised knife, Sibylla closes her eyes in patient expectancy of the stroke, the blade quivers and flashes in the sunlight, and Captain Blyth, with a cry of horror, starts forward—to awake at the sound of his own voice and to find himself at the edge of the raft, in the very act of leaping into the jaws of a shark which is eyeing him hungrily from the water alongside! He luckily checks his spring in time. To seize the boat-hook and strike savagely at the waiting shark with its point follows as a matter of course; and then the skipper piously returns thanks to God not only for his escape, but also that the events he has just been witnessing are nothing more substantial than an ugly dream.

Blyth’s next act is to haul in the lines which have dropped from his nerveless hands during sleep, and which would unquestionably have been lost had he not taken the precaution to make them fast; and he finds to his chagrin that not only the bait but also the hooks have been carried off. He therefore neatly coils up his fishing-tackle preparatory to shaping a course for home; for the moon is on the very verge of the western horizon, and he knows therefore that it is past midnight. Moreover, though the breeze is rather fresher than it was and the horizon is clear, there is a murkiness in the atmosphere overhead which portends a change of weather; and as he looks knowingly about him he gives audible expression to his opinion that there will be but little work done in the ship-yard on the morrow.

The grapnel is lifted, and the skipper, attaching the handle to the winch, begins to mast-head the yard of the solitary sail which propels the raft. As he does so his eyes are directed towards the moon, now slowly sinking beneath the horizon. Ha! what is that? The labour at the winch is suspended, a hasty turn is taken with the halliard, and Captain Blyth strains forward, his eyes shaded by both hands the better to observe that black spot which is slowly gliding athwart the moon’s pale face. Little need is there, though, for him to look so intently to ascertain what that black spot really is; it is more for the purpose of assuring himself that his eyes are not playing him false, or that he is not once more the victim of a dream. No; this is not a dream. He is wide awake enough now, and his mind is busy with a thousand tumultuous thoughts, for, as he watches, clear and unmistakable glide the upper sails of a large ship across the face of the sinking planet. She is steering south, but whether easterly or westerly it is impossible to say as she stands out black and silhouette-like against her golden background; but one thing is plain—she is moving very slowly. The skipper darts to the compass—one of a pair saved from the wreck of theMermaid—and striking a match, which he carefully shelters from the wind in the crown of his cap, he manages to take her bearing before she vanishes from his sight. He next completes the setting of his sail, hauls aft the sheet, and, jamming the raft close upon a wind, asks himself what is the best thing to do.

To return to the island will consume an hour of most precious time; and when there what could he do to attract the stranger’s attention? Nothing more than light a huge bonfire; and the only spot suitable for this is the western side of the mountain, to reach which will consume at least another hour. Then there would be wood to collect, occupying say another half-hour, making a total of at least two hours and a half before such a signal could be rendered visible. And perhaps, after all, those on board the ship might not see it, or, seeing it, might not understand its meaning—might suppose it to be nothing more than a fire built by the natives, and so pass on their way. No; that would not do—the risk of failure would be too great. What then? There remained nothing, in Captain Blyth’s opinion, but to pursue the stranger. She could not, he thought, be going more than five knots, judging by the strength of the breeze and the momentary glimpse he had obtained of her; whilst the raft, light as she was and with the wind well over her quarter, would go nearly or quite seven. The strange sail was about twelve miles off; therefore, if he could overhaul her at the rate of about two knots per hour, he ought to be near enough to attract her attention by sunrise. But he must bear up in chase at once, there was no time to waste in running ashore to make known his intentions; and as for help, he wanted none, he was quite capable of managing the raft single-handed. Moreover, he began to suspect that Henderson would prove to be right in that suggestion of his respecting a change of weather, which made it all the more important that the strange sail should be overhauled before the change should occur.

These reflections passed through the skipper’s brain in a single moment—not perhaps quite so definitely as here set forth, but to the same purpose—and in the next he jammed his helm hard up, eased off the sheet, and bore away upon a course which he conjectured would enable him to intercept the stranger.

For a few minutes after the disappearance of the moon Blyth was able, or fancied he was able, still to distinguish the canvas of the chase looming up vaguely like a dark shapeless shadow upon the horizon; but either the sky grew darker in that quarter or the weather thickened, for he was soon obliged to admit that he could see it no longer. But that circumstance gave him not the least concern; he had set his course by a star, and he knew that so long as he continued to steer for it, so long would the course of the raft converge toward that of the stranger. Hewasconcerned, however, to notice later on that not only was the weather thickening overhead, necessitating a frequent changing of the star by which he was following his course, but also that the wind was becoming unsteady; sometimes falling away to such an extent as to cause the raft’s sail to flap heavily as she rolled over the ridges of the swell, and anon breezing up quite fresh again, but with a change of perhaps a couple of points in its direction, the change generally being of such a character as to bring the wind forward more on his starboard beam. Gradually the haze so thickened overhead that such stars as were not already obscured grew dim and soon disappeared altogether, leaving the solitary man dependent only upon the somewhat fickle wind for a guide by which to steer his course; for though he had a compass on board the raft, he had no binnacle, and no lamps by which to illuminate the compass card. It is true the island was still in sight, some four miles astern, but the night had grown so dark and the atmosphere so thick that the land merely loomed like a vast undefined blot of darkness against the black horizon, being so indistinct indeed that only the practised eye of a seamen could have detected its presence at all; it was therefore useless as an object to steer by, even to so keen-eyed an old sea-dog as Captain Blyth.

It had by this time began to dawn upon the skipper that his adventure was likely to prove of a far more serious character than he had at all contemplated; and he was earnestly debating within himself the question whether his wisest course would not, after all, be to abandon the chase and make the best of his way back to the island, when the breeze once more freshened up so strongly, and that too dead aft, that it made everything on board the raft surge again as she gathered way and skimmed off before it. And Blyth, calculating that even if the chase were sailing away from instead of toward him it would shorten his distance from her at least a couple of miles before she caught it, grimly held on his course, determined to risk everything rather than lose so good a chance; his chief fear now being that the sheet would part under the tremendous strain brought to bear upon it by the immense sail. The raft, as has been elsewhere stated, was of very peculiar construction, her shape and build being such as to peculiarly favour speed, especially when running dead before the wind; and, light as she now was, she skimmed away before the fierce squall at a rate which made Blyth’s heart bound with exultation as he looked first to one side and then the other and noted the furious speed with which the phosphorescent foam from under her bows was left behind. There was now no longer any thought of turning back, for, be it said, Captain Blyth—good honest soul—was a devout believer in Providence; and he had by this time arrived at a firm conviction, first, that it was by the special intervention of Providence that he had been led to undertake his fishing excursion that night, and next, that the freshening up of a dead fair wind just when it did was a second special intervention of Providence to prevent his giving up the chase. And so he held on everything, and the raft rushed away dead before the wind through the pitchy darkness, the mast creaking ominously in its step every now and then, and the tautly-strained gear aloft surging from time to time in an equally ominous manner; whilst the sea rose rapidly—showing that the solitary voyager was fast drawing out from under the sheltering lee of the island astern—and the foaming wavecrests, vividly phosphorescent, momentarily towered higher and more threateningly, and hissed louder and more angrily in the luminous wake of the flying craft.

The squall lasted a full hour, when the wind died away even more suddenly than it had arisen, and the raft was left tumbling about with little more than steerage-way upon her. The skipper had no means of ascertaining the time, it being too intensely dark to permit of his reading the face of his watch even when it was held close to his eyes, though he made two or three unsuccessful attempts to do so; but, anxious and impatient as he was for the dawn, he knew that it must be at least another hour, perhaps nearer two, before he could reasonably expect its appearance. Two hours more of sickening suspense! One hundred and twenty minutes! With the weather in such a threatening state what might not happen in the interval! If he could only have obtained an occasional glimpse of the compass, or if the night had been less opaquely dark he would not have cared so much. For in the one case he would have been enabled not only to keep a mental reckoning of his own course, but also that of the chase as well, and to follow her attentively no matter how capricious the breeze; whilst in the other case he might have stood some chance of catching a momentary glimpse of her. As his reflections took this turn he stooped and looked ahead under the foot of the sail; looked more intently; rubbed his eyes, and looked again. What was it he saw? A light—lights? Yes, surely; it must be so, or were those faint luminous specks merely illusory and a result of the over-straining of his visual organs due to the intensity of his gaze into the gloom? No; those feebly glimmering points of light were stationary; they maintained the same fixed distance from each other, and he could count them—one, two, three—half a dozen of them at least, if not more, he could not be certain, for they were so very faint. What could it mean? Was there a whole fleet of ships down there to leeward? That there wassomethingwas an absolute certainty; and as it seemed an impossibility that it could be anything else it was only reasonable to conclude that it must be a ship or ships. At all events there could be no question as to the course he ought to follow; it would be worse than folly to continue in pursuit of an invisible ship with those lights in comparatively plain view only a couple of points on his lee-bow. So the skipper bore away until the faint luminous spots opened out just clear of the heel of the long yard—which, it will be remembered, was bowsed down close to the deck—and there he resolutely kept them, the wind having by this time fallen so light that it was necessary for him to make frequent sweeps with the steering-oar in order to keep the raft’s head pointed in the required direction.

Suddenly, a greenish spectral radiance beamed down upon him from above; and, quickly casting a startled glance aloft, Blyth shudderingly beheld a ball of lambent greenish light quivering upon the upper extremity of the long tapering yard and swaying to and fro with the roll of the raft, much as the flame of a candle would have done under similar circumstances. Clinging lightly to the end of the yard, it alternately elongated and flattened as the spar swayed to and fro, now and then rolling a few inches down the yard as though about to travel down to the deck, but as often returning to the extremity of the yard again. Presently another and similar luminous ball gleamed into shape at the mast-head, swaying and wavering about the end of the spar like its companion. They werecorposants, and whilst they conveyed to the skipper the only additional warning needed of the impending elemental strife, they also at once explained the mystery of the lights to leeward for which he was steering. They also were undoubtedly corposants glimmering from the spars of the strange sail of which he was in pursuit, and which, from her present proximity, must have been steering to the eastward, and consequently toward him, instead of to the westward and away from him, as he had feared.

Blyth believed she certainly could not be more than a mile distant, his conviction being that the feeble, sickly lights of the ghostly corposants could not penetrate further than that distance in so thick an atmosphere, and it now became of the utmost importance—nay, it might even be a matter of life or death for him—to reach the stranger before the hurricane should burst upon them. He looked over the side to ascertain the speed of the raft through the water, and his heart quailed as he observed that, save for an occasional tiny phosphorescent spark on the surface or a faintly luminous halo lower down in the black depths slowly drifting by, there was nothing to indicate that she had any motion whatever. Her speed was not more than half a knot per hour; and the stranger was probably a mile distant—two hours away at the raft’s then rate of progress! Something must be done, and quickly, too; for out of the darkness round about him there now floated weird, whispering sighs, faint, dismal moanings, and now and then a sudden momentary rush as of invisible wings, telling that the storm-fiend was marshalling his forces and about to make his swoop. What was to be done? There were only two oars on board the raft—the steering-oars—and they were so firmly secured that it would be next to impossible to cast them adrift and use them as means of propulsion, even if one man’s strength were sufficient to handle them both simultaneously. Moreover, if a little puff of wind should come, as is sometimes the case, before the great burst of the hurricane, they would, one or both, be wanted where they were. Perhaps hailing might be of use. At all events, he would try. And, placing his hollowed hands on each side of his mouth to form a speaking trumpet the skipper drew a deep inspiration or two, hailed with the utmost strength of his lungs; “Ship ahoy–oy!”

And then listened.

No response. Nothing save the faint murmurings and railings of the gathering gale.

“Ship ahoy–oy!”

Hark! what was that? Did he, indeed, hear a faint answering halloo from away yonder in the direction of those weird lights, or was it merely that the wish was father to the thought?

“Sh–i–ip A—hoy–oy–oy!”

“Halloo!”

Quite unmistakable this time; and the skipper, in a perfect frenzy of excitement, repeats his hail time after time, waiting only long enough to receive the answer before hailing again. Presently a bright star suddenly appears under the faintly gleaming corposants. It is a ship’s lantern held up over the rail. A minute later a tiny spark appears close to the lantern, immediately bursting into a keen bluish glare from which a cloud of white smoke arises and flakes of blue-white flame drop now and then as a port-fire is burnt. By its brilliant though ghostly radiance the skipper can see, less than half a mile distant, a brig under nothing but close-reefed main-topsail and fore-topmast staysail—evidently fully prepared for the worst that can come to her in the shape of weather—with a little group of figures gathered about the port-fire, and a smaller group, consisting of two men only, abaft the main-rigging, all peering eagerly in his direction.

He sees one of the figures raise his arms; and presently there comes floating across the inky water:

“Halloo, there! Who hails?”

The skipper again raises his hands to his mouth, draws a mighty inspiration, and replies, as the readiest means of bringing succour to him:

“Shipwrecked m–a–an. Broad—on—your—port—b–ea–eam!”

The figure who had hailed waves his hand to show that he has heard; and just at that moment the port-fire burns out. Another is quickly ignited, however; and as the blue-white glare once more illumines the brig Blyth sees that there is but one man now on the forecastle—the man who holds aloft the port-fire—and that the rest are gathered aft, busy about the davit-tackles by which a boat is suspended on the larboard quarter.

At this moment the whole firmament from zenith to horizon is rent asunder, and for a single instant the entire universe seems to have been set on fire by the fierce blaze of the lightning which flashes from the rent, whilst the accompanying thunder crash is so deafening that even the skipper, seasoned as he is, quails beneath the shock of it. For a single instant the sea and everything upon it, from horizon to horizon, is illumined by a light brighter than that of day; and in that single instant Blyth sees not only the brig, enveloped in a perfect network of fire, but also the huge piles of cloud overhead, twisted and distorted into a hundred fantastic shapes by the forces at work within them, and the black glistening water, carved into countless hollows and ridges by the agitation of its surface; the whole apparently motionless as if modelled in metal. Then comes the blackness of darkness, so thick and impenetrable that the half-stunned skipper, scarcely conscious of where he is, dares not move by so much as a single footstep lest he should step overboard. The next moment down comes the rain, not in drops, not even in sheets of water, but in a perfectly overwhelming deluge of such density and volume that Blyth, bowing to his knees beneath it, gasps and chokes like a drowning man.

But he speedily recovers his senses—he had need to, for he will soon want them all—and, staggering to his feet, makes toward the mast, which with the yard and dripping sail is now distinctly outlined against the milky background of sea, milky by reason of the phosphorescence of its surface being lashed into luminosity by the pouring rain. He grasps the halliard of the sail, and with feverish haste proceeds to cast it adrift from its belaying-pin, murmuring the while:

“Now God be merciful to me, a sinner: for I am too late. The time for rescue is past!”

With utmost haste, yet with all the coolness and skill of a finished seaman, he lowers the sail on deck and proceeds to secure it as well as he can, for he knows only too well what the next act in the drama will be; he knows, too, that those on board the brig—invisible now—are as well versed as himself, and are at this moment far too busily engaged in preparing for the stroke of the hurricane to have a thought to spare for him.

Now the rain stops as suddenly as it began, and an awful silence ensues, scarcely broken even by the lap of the water alongside, for the terrific downpour has completely beaten down the swell, and, save for an occasional gentle heave, the raft lies motionless.

Now stand by! Summon all your nerve and all your courage to your aid, skipper, for you never stood half so sorely in need of them as you do now. And, above all, lift up your heart to God in fervent prayer, be it ever so brief. Call upon Him whilst you have time; for time, so far as you are concerned, may soon be merged in eternity!

Listen! What is that low murmur in the air which so rapidly increases in volume until it becomes a deep, hoarse, bellowing roar? The sound is broad on your starboard beam, skipper! Aft to your steering-oar for your life, man; sweep her head round quick, in readiness to run before it! That is well; round with her; again; another stroke.Nowstand by! here it comes! Seize that rope’s-end and hold on for your life!

A long line of milk-white foam appears upon the horizon, spreading and advancing with awful rapidity; the roar swells in volume until it becomes absolutely deafening; the air grows thick with vapour; a sudden whirl of wind rushes past lashing the skipper’s face with rain-drops as it goes—rain-drops? no; they are salt, salt as the brine alongside—and then, with a wild burst and babel of hideous sound and a shock as though the raft had collided with something solid, the hurricane strikes her. The white water surges up over her stern, and the skipper is hurled forward, face downward and half-stunned, upon her already submerged deck.

Chapter Seventeen.The Malays!The occupants of the fort retired to rest that night, as usual, at the early hour of ten o’clock; and, thoroughly fagged out with the day’s labour, soon sank to sleep. Nobody felt in the least degree anxious about the skipper, because, when Gaunt and Henderson took a last look at the weather before turning in, there was nothing particularly alarming in its aspect; they agreed that there was going to be a change, and that it would probably occur before morning; but Blyth, they considered, was not the man to be caught napping; moreover, he had already been absent long enough to make his return possible at any moment; so, with this opinion expressed and understood, all hands sought their bunks with perfectly easy minds.Manners and Nicholls were the first to awake, which they did simultaneously when the hurricane burst over the island, their sleeping-room happening to be on the weather side of the fort, or that upon which the gale beat with the greatest fury, and they were therefore naturally the first to be disturbed by the uproar of the storm.“Whew!” whistled Manners, as he settled himself more comfortably in his cosy bunk; “it’s blowing heavily! I’m glad I have no watch to keep to-night. Listen to that!” as the wind went howling and careering past the house, causing it to tremble to its foundations; “if it’s like that down here in this sheltered valley what must it be outside in the open sea?”“Bad enough, Mr Manners, you may depend on’t,” answered Nicholls, who, occupying the adjoining bunk, had overheard this muttered soliloquy, “bad enough! This is the worst bout we’ve had since we’ve been on the island. Why—listen to that, now!—and did ye feel the house shake, sir? Why, it must be blowing a regular tornado—or typhoon, as they calls ’em in these latitudes. The skipper sleeps pretty sound through it, don’t he, sir?”“He does, indeed,” replied Manners; and then, a sudden recollection of the fishing expedition coming upon him, he added, “I suppose heisasleep—I suppose he is in his berth. Did you hear him come in?”“Not I, sir,” was the answer. “I dozed off to sleep almost before I had time to make myself comfortable, and I never woke again until a minute or two since when the roar of the gale disturbed me.”“Are you awake, Captain Blyth?” demanded Manners sharply.No answer, and both men listen as well as they can through the awful roar and shriek of the gale, hoping to hear the measured breathing of the sleeper. But no such sound is heard; and after listening breathlessly for a few seconds Manners bounds out of his berth, and fumbling about for the matches, finds them at last and strikes a light. The skipper’s berth is empty and undisturbed; it has evidently not been slept in that night.Manners and Nicholls—the latter having also turned out—look blankly at the bunk and then at each other, the same dreadful suspicion dawning upon them both at the same instant.“Good heavens!” gasped Manners. “It cannot be that - and yet it looks like it—is it possible, Tom, that the skipper has not returned—that he is at sea on the raft in this awful gale?”“I’m blest if it don’t look uncommon like it, sir,” is Nicholls’ reply, uttered in a tone of desperate conviction. “Tell ye what ’tis, sir,” he continued, as he hastily proceeds to don a garment or two, slipping his bare feet into his shoes as he does so, “I’m off down to the creek to see if the punt is there. If she ain’t, you may depend on’t she’s ridin’ at the raft’s moorin’s—if she ain’t swamped—and that the raft’s at sea, with the poor skipper aboard of her. The Lord have mercy on him if it is so, that’s all I says.”“Stop a moment; I will go with you,” says Manners, also hastily dressing; “but before we go we had perhaps better inquire of Mr Gaunt or the doctor whether they know anything about him; they are certain to be awake.”A minute later the two men are groping their way along the wall of the court-yard toward the door of Gaunt’s room, in which they can perceive a light. Manners knocks, and instantly receives the response:“Yes. Who is there?”“Manners and Nicholls, sir. Do you know anything about the captain, Mr Gaunt? He is not with us, and his bunk has not been slept in to-night.”“Stay where you are, I will be out in a moment,” is the reply. And almost in the short space of time named Gaunt emerges.“Now, then,” he demands, somewhat sternly, “what is it you say about the captain? Surely I cannot have heard you aright?”“Indeed I am afraid, sir, you did,” answers Manners, by this time in a state of deep distress as the conviction forces itself upon him that the skipper really is missing.“I said, sir, that the captain is not with us, and that his bunk has not been slept in to-night.”“Then God help him, for I fear he is beyond all human aid!” ejaculates the engineer hoarsely. “Have you been down to the creek yet?” he continues.“No, sir,” says Manners; “we were about to go down there, but I thought it best to speak to you first.”“Quite right,” assents Gaunt; “I will go with you.”The engineer re-enters his room, hastily explains the situation to Mrs Gaunt, and then, returning, leads the way up the staircase to the roof; that, it will be remembered, being the only mode of exit from the building.It is not until the trio reach this comparatively exposed situation that they at all realise the strength of the gale; but, once there, though the building is surrounded on all sides by the high ground of the ravine through which the river flows, the tempest seizes upon them and beats and buffets them and dashes them hither and thither with such irresistible power and fury that they are in absolute peril of their lives whilst they remain there, and to avoid being actually hurled off into space they are constrained to go down upon their hands and knees. To add to their difficulties the darkness is so intense that they can see absolutely nothing; they have to grope their way like blind men, relying solely upon their remembrance of localities for guidance. And, search as they will, they cannot find the exterior ladder by which to descend to the ground outside. It has doubtless been blown away. This misfortune, however, is soon remedied by the substitution of a rope from the store-room for the missing ladder, and with its assistance the three men quickly reach the ground.Arrived there, they find that their difficulties have only just begun, for they are no sooner clear of the house than, what with the profound darkness and the awful buffeting of the wind, they soon get confused and lose their way. At length, however, after more than an hour’s aimless wandering, they find themselves at the ship-yard, which is in quite another direction, and once there, they are enabled, by keeping close along the water’s-edge, to reach the creek.As each had by this time expected, the punt is not there; and now any lingering hopes as to the skipper’s safety which either of them may have cherished disappears, and in his own mind each mutely gives the poor fellow up as lost. The punt being missing, there is no means of crossing to the main, for the stream, swollen by the recent rain, is rushing past at a speed swift enough to sweep away the strongest swimmer that ever breasted wave, to say nothing of the fact that the gale—which is opposed to the current—has churned and lashed the waters into a sheet of blinding foam. They can do nothing, therefore, except make an ineffectual attempt to light a fire, in the hope that its blaze, reflected in the sky, may serve as a beacon to their unfortunate friend in the improbable event of his still being alive and within sight of the island; but this attempt also is frustrated by the wind, which not only renders it impossible for them to kindle a flame but also sweeps away all their materials as fast as they are gathered. There is nothing left for them, then, but to wend their way back homewards as best they can and await the dawn of day.The dawn that morning was long in coming, and when at length the grey murky light slowly forced its way through the overhanging canopy of rent and tattered cloud which obscured the heavens, wreck and destruction everywhere became visible. Fay Island, it is true, had escaped almost unscathed, doubtless owing to its sheltered situation; but on the main—as the party had got into the way of designating the larger island—thousands of trees were lying prostrate, many of them uprooted, and the rest snapped off close to the ground.As soon as it was light enough to see anything, Gaunt, with Henderson this time for a companion, once more made his way down to the creek, but there was nothing to be seen from there. Even the buoy attached to the raft’s moorings was invisible; but just where it ought to be there was a strong ripple on the roughened surface of the water which seemed to suggest that the buoy, and possibly the swamped punt as well, was still there, but dragged under water by the strength of the current.It continued to blow very heavily—though not with the same awfully destructive violence which marked the first burst of the hurricane—all that day and part of the ensuing night, when the gale broke, and by sunrise the wind had dropped to a strong breeze. Then once more did the four men set out from the fort in the, by that time, almost hopeless effort to obtain some clue to the fate of poor Captain Blyth.Descending the outer ladder—which had been discovered on the previous day at some distance from the fort—the search party first made for the creek, from the shore of which—the stream having by this time subsided and its current sunk to its normal speed—they descried not only the buoy marking the moorings of the raft, but also, as they had quite expected, the swamped punt hanging to it. The latter was promptly secured; Manners swimming out to it with the end of a line from the shore, by means of which the craft was drawn in and grounded upon the beach and baled out. The oars having been washed out of her and swept away, the next thing to be done was to work up a new pair; a task which was soon accomplished, since they now had an abundant store of suitable material close at hand in the ship-yard. This done, the searchers made their way down stream and crossed to the main, there separating into two parties, one of which was to skirt the shore to the northward and westward, whilst the other was to proceed in the opposite direction until the two parties reunited; their object being not so much to look out seaward—for they knew that if the raft had missed the island it would by that time be far enough away—but rather to examine the shore for any sign of wreckage or—the poor skipper’s dead body. Henderson and Nicholls constituted one party, whilst Gaunt and Manners formed the other. They had not only a long, but also a most difficult journey before them, the difficulty arising chiefly from the nature of the ground they had to traverse; and it occupied them until well on in the afternoon of the following day, both parties camping in the woods for one night—and finding it anything but a pleasant experience; but neither party found anything to throw the least light upon the fate either of the raft or of the unfortunate man who had gone to sea in her; and when at length they met they had at least the negative satisfaction of being able to say that, after a thorough search of the entire seaboard of the island, they had discovered no actualproofthat the captain had lost his life.Very fortunately for them no damage had been done either to the mill or in the ship-yard; there was therefore no time lost in making good deficiencies of that kind, and they were consequently enabled to resume and carry on their shipwrights’ work forthwith. But not until a full fortnight after the gale did they finally give up the skipper as lost, young Manners being despatched every morning to the top of the mountain with instructions to remain there all day and maintain a constant look-out, the party still hoping, against their better reason, that after all the raftmighthave held together, and that Blythmight, in such a case, strive to regain the island. But at the expiration of that time they felt that it was useless to hope further, and the watching was discontinued.Doctor Henderson was the hero of the next adventure which befell the party; and a pretty state of consternation he managed to throw everybody into for the time being, his poor wife and little Lucille especially.It happened thus. It had been the custom of the party ever since their landing upon the island to observe Sunday as a day of rest, the prayers of the Episcopal Church being read, with their proper lessons, both morning and evening; whilst the rest of the day was devoted to such much-needed recreation as they thought in their consciences might legitimately be indulged in. Manners and Nicholls, after the manner of seamen, usually devoted a great deal of time on this particular day to the requirements of the toilette and the patching up of their clothes; whilst the two married men devoted themselves entirely to their families, taking their wives and the youngsters for tolerably long walks when the weather permitted. Sometimes the two families took these excursions in company, sometimes separately, according to their inclinations at the moment; and, whether separately or together, Gaunt usually carried his sketch-block and colours, whilst Henderson always took his specimen box; the one being as enthusiastic an amateur artist as the other was a botanist and chemist. When the weather was unfavourable for these walks Gaunt was in the habit of routing out some interesting book from his large stock and reading from it aloud; whilst Henderson, in the privacy of a little laboratory he had managed to fit up, prosecuted his researches into the nature of the various plants and herbs he had collected in former rambles.They were all thus engaged on the afternoon of an atrociously wet Sunday, about a month after the mysterious disappearance of poor Captain Blyth, when the rest of the party were suddenly startled by a loud cry for help from Henderson, the call being instantly repeated twice or thrice in a much weaker tone of voice.Tossing aside his book and springing to his feet Gaunt at once rushed off to the laboratory, with all the others close at his heels, and there they discovered the unfortunate doctor in a most extraordinary state of mind and body, and at the same time became conscious of a faint fragrant odour pervading the atmosphere of the room. Pale as death, with all his limbs hanging limp as if paralysed, the poor fellow was huddled up in a chair upon which he had evidently hung himself when the seizure—or whatever it was—first came upon him. His eyes were rolling wildly, his teeth chattered as though he were suffering from an ague fit, and his moustache and beardwereflecked with foam. But it was evident that he still retained his reason, for the moment that he saw the little crowd pouring into the room he cried out in a weak but piercing voice:“Fly! fly for your lives, every one of you but Gaunt!Fly! I say; stay not a moment. My dear fellow,” turning to Gaunt, “drivethem out;throwthem out if they will not go otherwise! And throw open that window at once; this atmosphere isdeadly, I tell you.”This statement had the desired effect; the room was cleared promptly, everybody beating a somewhat precipitate retreat but the engineer and Mrs Henderson, the latter quietly but firmly refusing to be removed, upon the double plea that it was no more dangerous for her than for Gaunt, and that, whether or no, her proper place was beside her husband. As for Gaunt, he acted with his usual decision, first dashing the window wide-open, and next stooping to raise his friend and convey him into a presumably more healthy atmosphere; and if any additional motive beyond solicitude for the sufferer were needed to impel him to this step he had it, first in the awful pallor which suddenly overspread Mrs Henderson’s features, and secondly in a curious sickly feeling of lassitude and languor which he felt stealing over himself. But, to his unspeakable surprise, no sooner did he approach Henderson than the latter shrank away from him with a cry of fear, beseeching him in a weak voice not to come near him. Gaunt, however, by no means saw matters in this light; if the atmosphere were deadly, or even deleterious, as his own increasingly unpleasant sensations made him perfectly ready to believe, then the sooner they three were out of it the better. So, disregarding the unfortunate doctor’s protestations and entreaties, he raised him in his arms and, notwithstanding the increasing sensation of feebleness and numbness which oppressed him, staggered with his burden into the outer air of the court-yard, closely followed of course by Mrs Henderson. But it was a most trying business altogether, for no sooner did Gaunt lay hands upon the sufferer, though he did it ever so gently, than the poor fellow rent the air with his screams, crying out between whiles that Gaunt was crushing him to death and that he was stripping the flesh off his bones. It was a most extraordinary affair altogether, for they could get no intelligible explanation from the patient even after they had with infinite trouble and care—seemingly at the cost of the acutest agony to Henderson—conveyed him to his own room and laid him on his bed. He could do nothing but shiver and moan and cower down among the coverings, and entreat that nobody—not even his wife or child—would go near him, or, least of all, touch him. The little party were almost beside themselves with anxiety and terror, which feelings were increased when poor Mrs Henderson exhibited symptoms of a similar character. As for Gaunt, he was thoroughly alarmed; for not only did the feeling of feebleness increase, but he also found himself gradually becoming the victim of a blind unreasoning terror for which the term “abject cowardice” afforded but a very inadequate description. And to this very unpleasant sensation was added that of a morbid sense of touch, so acute that even the very pressure of his clothes became almost unendurable. Fully alive, however, to the possibly critical state of affairs, he battled desperately against the influences at work upon him, and, with infinite patience, at length succeeded in extorting from Henderson a few suggestions toward the adoption of remedial measures, which he put in force first for the benefit of the doctor, next for Mrs Henderson—who had also succumbed to a similar though much milder attack—and lastly for himself. Nothing that was done, however, appeared to be of the slightest service, the symptoms continuing with unmitigated severity for fully eight hours, after which they gradually subsided. Gaunt was quite himself again by noon next day; Mrs Henderson recovered about eighteen hours later; but as for the doctor, it was fully a week before he entirely shook off the effects of the attack. But in less than twenty-four hours from his first seizure he had sufficiently recovered to give an explanation of the singular affair to the following effect. He had, it would seem, been investigating the nature of a hitherto unknown plant growing in considerable abundance upon the island, and had found it to possess several very remarkable qualities, some at least of which he believed might be rendered of the utmost value in medical practice. Anxious to make his researches thoroughly exhaustive he had, upon the day of the catastrophe, been distilling the essence of the plant; and, his task completed, he was in the act of bottling the extract for future examination when its peculiarly pleasing fragrance caused him to take several deep inhalations from the bottle. He had hardly done so when he felt his strength rapidly leaving him, and he had only time to deposit the phial, open, upon his table and stagger to a chair when something very like a fit of paralysis seized him. He at once cried out for help; but by the time that his cries had evoked a response his nerves had begun to give way, and in a very few minutes he was enduring such an agony of fear of everybody and everything as words utterly failed him to describe. And with this terrible fear came the equally terrible morbid sensitiveness of touch, which he found himself equally unable to describe. So excruciating was it, he said, that even the sound of an approaching footstep caused him more suffering than he had ever before experienced; and as to the moving of him from the laboratory and again into his own room—his silence and the convulsive shudder which shook him from head to foot were far more expressive than words. His first act when he was sufficiently recovered to move about once more was to secure the phial containing the liquid which had done all the mischief, and—with Nicholls to manage the punt—go right out to sea, where, hastily uncorking the bottle, he flung it as far from him to leeward as possible, at the same moment ordering his companion to give way for home again with all speed. This was done whilst the terror of his attack was still upon him; but it was not in the nature of a man of Henderson’s training to give way for long to so irrational a fear as that which prompted this action, and in less than a month afterwards he had, with the adoption of all proper precautions, secured another and far more liberal supply of the singular essence, with a view to future experiments and analysis.Meanwhile, the work at the ship-yard was pushed forward with all possible energy, and to such good purpose that in an incredibly short time, all things considered, the timbers for the new boat were raised into position and secured, the planking carried up to the gunwale, the deck laid and caulked, the joiners’ work advanced, and the spars put in hand. Everybody was in the highest possible spirits, for they saw the end of their labours rapidly approaching; they were, moreover, not only pleased but absolutely proud of their work, for, though of course only amateurs, they had wrought so carefully and conscientiously that everything was finished off not only as strongly but also as neatly as if they had every one served an apprenticeship to the handicraft. Then the little vessel herself was a perfect beauty; graceful in shape, notwithstanding her extreme breadth of beam; powerful, yet buoyant; and with lines so cunningly moulded that, whilst it would doubtless require a good strong breeze to show her off to the utmost advantage, Nicholls and Manners—who might both be expected to know a good hull when they saw it—confidently predicted that she would prove very nimble even in light airs. And so confident were they of her sea-going powers that they averred, again and again, they would not be afraid to face in her even such a hurricane as that which had robbed them of poor Captain Blyth; indeed, they even went the length of volunteering to take her home to England after she should have accomplished the primary mission of her existence in conveying the party to a civilised port. Matters were in this satisfactory state, the work having reached such a stage of advancement that the rigging of thePetrel—as they had decided to name the little cutter—had already been begun, and some talk was being indulged in of hopes that the launch might be accomplished within the following week, when, on a bright Sunday afternoon, Gaunt left Fay Island for the main, taking the two children with him, the object of the little party being to gather a few of the strangely-shaped and exceedingly beautiful shells to be found on the sea-beach, as mementoes of their long sojourn on the island. The ladies preferred to remain at home, deciding that the day was far too hot for walking exercise; and the doctor remained with them for company. It was getting on toward sunset—indeed, the sun had already disappeared behind the high ground to the westward of the fort—and the doctor with his two fair companions had ascended to the flat, rampart-like roof of the building to enjoy the cool, refreshing breeze and watch for the return of the shell-gatherers, when the sound of a musket-shot, quickly followed by some five or six others, broke upon the air with startling effect, and immediately afterwards the head of a lofty triangular sail glided into view from behind some tall bushes which had hitherto concealed its approach. That a strange craft of some sort was in the river was the first idea which presented itself to Henderson’s mind; that Gaunt—who was unarmed—and the children were but too probably at that moment crossing from the main, and consequently in full view from the deck of the strange craft, was the next; and that the firing must necessarily have proceeded from the unlooked-for visitor and be an indication of hostility, possibly directed against Gaunt and the youngsters, was the third—the three ideas following each other with the rapidity of a lightning flash. To these succeeded a fourth—the Malays! So long a time had elapsed since poor Blyth had arrived with his alarming intelligence respecting the propinquity of these rascals and his disquieting suggestions as to a possible visit from them, that, though an anxious watch had been for some time maintained, the uninterrupted absence of any alarming indications had at length resulted in so complete a relaxation of vigilance that even the very existence of these pests of the Eastern seas had been forgotten. What if the wretches were upon them now? It seemed only too probable. As these thoughts darted through Henderson’s brain, and with them the frightful suggestion that those three—the unarmed man and the two helpless children, one of themhis—might at that moment be beset by a cruel and bloodthirsty foe, a cold shudder went through his frame, and, hurriedly speaking to his companions a few words which he intended should be reassuring, but which his manner rendered quite the reverse, he dashed down the inner stairway to the court-yard, and seizing Gaunt’s repeating rifle, which he knew to be loaded, and directing Manners and Nicholls—who had rushed out of their room at the sound of the firing—to arm themselves and follow him, he rushed up to the roof again, and descending to the ground by the outer ladder, hurried away off in the direction of the creek. He had not advanced in this direction much beyond a hundred yards, along the pathway through the bush, when a child’s screams—little Lucille’s—smote upon his distracted ear, and, darting forward in a very frenzy of apprehension, as he sprang round a bend in the path the poor child, her head uncovered and her long fair hair streaming behind her, her sweet eyes wild with terror, and her little hands outstretched, rushed up to him and with an inarticulate cry of joy sank exhausted and almost lifeless at his feet. Behind her, not a dozen yards distant, followed a fierce-looking Malay, his parted lips revealing the white teeth clenched in the eagerness of pursuit, his cruel black eyes gleaming with the ferocious joy of anticipated success, and with a murderous-looking creese with a long wavy blade uplifted in readiness to strike the moment he should have brought the poor innocent little victim within reach of his lean muscular arm.To spring over the prostrate form of his darling child, thus placing himself between her and her pursuer, whilst he raised his rifle to his shoulder, was an act of such lightning-like rapidity with Henderson that he and his foe were almost within striking distance before either could check his career. The next instant the crack of his rifle rang out sharp and clear, and the Malay, with a convulsive bound, crashed face downward at his feet dead, with the bullet through his brain.Breathless with excitement and the exertion of his short run, his teeth clenched, and the fierce eagerness for battle suddenly awakened to full activity within him, the doctor stood waiting impatiently for the next foe to present himself. But none came; only Manners and Nicholls now appeared upon the scene with their rifles in their hands, and eager questions in their eyes and on their lips for an explanation of the sudden and tragic turn of affairs. To them in a few terse words Henderson stated what had already taken place, adding an expression of his apprehension that Gaunt and little Percy had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and finally directing the two men to advance with caution as far as possible with the view of ascertaining the whereabouts of the missing ones, and of affording them help if help were indeed still possible, and, when they had done all that they could, to the best of their judgment, to return to the fort with intelligence. Having thus dismissed his companions, the doctor tenderly raised the now insensible Lucille in his arms, and, pressing her to his breast with a sob of inarticulate gratitude to God for her preservation, he wended his way back to the fort with a heavy, grief-stricken heart, wondering meanwhile how he could best meet the anxious inquiries which he knew would be made by poor Mrs Gaunt.

The occupants of the fort retired to rest that night, as usual, at the early hour of ten o’clock; and, thoroughly fagged out with the day’s labour, soon sank to sleep. Nobody felt in the least degree anxious about the skipper, because, when Gaunt and Henderson took a last look at the weather before turning in, there was nothing particularly alarming in its aspect; they agreed that there was going to be a change, and that it would probably occur before morning; but Blyth, they considered, was not the man to be caught napping; moreover, he had already been absent long enough to make his return possible at any moment; so, with this opinion expressed and understood, all hands sought their bunks with perfectly easy minds.

Manners and Nicholls were the first to awake, which they did simultaneously when the hurricane burst over the island, their sleeping-room happening to be on the weather side of the fort, or that upon which the gale beat with the greatest fury, and they were therefore naturally the first to be disturbed by the uproar of the storm.

“Whew!” whistled Manners, as he settled himself more comfortably in his cosy bunk; “it’s blowing heavily! I’m glad I have no watch to keep to-night. Listen to that!” as the wind went howling and careering past the house, causing it to tremble to its foundations; “if it’s like that down here in this sheltered valley what must it be outside in the open sea?”

“Bad enough, Mr Manners, you may depend on’t,” answered Nicholls, who, occupying the adjoining bunk, had overheard this muttered soliloquy, “bad enough! This is the worst bout we’ve had since we’ve been on the island. Why—listen to that, now!—and did ye feel the house shake, sir? Why, it must be blowing a regular tornado—or typhoon, as they calls ’em in these latitudes. The skipper sleeps pretty sound through it, don’t he, sir?”

“He does, indeed,” replied Manners; and then, a sudden recollection of the fishing expedition coming upon him, he added, “I suppose heisasleep—I suppose he is in his berth. Did you hear him come in?”

“Not I, sir,” was the answer. “I dozed off to sleep almost before I had time to make myself comfortable, and I never woke again until a minute or two since when the roar of the gale disturbed me.”

“Are you awake, Captain Blyth?” demanded Manners sharply.

No answer, and both men listen as well as they can through the awful roar and shriek of the gale, hoping to hear the measured breathing of the sleeper. But no such sound is heard; and after listening breathlessly for a few seconds Manners bounds out of his berth, and fumbling about for the matches, finds them at last and strikes a light. The skipper’s berth is empty and undisturbed; it has evidently not been slept in that night.

Manners and Nicholls—the latter having also turned out—look blankly at the bunk and then at each other, the same dreadful suspicion dawning upon them both at the same instant.

“Good heavens!” gasped Manners. “It cannot be that - and yet it looks like it—is it possible, Tom, that the skipper has not returned—that he is at sea on the raft in this awful gale?”

“I’m blest if it don’t look uncommon like it, sir,” is Nicholls’ reply, uttered in a tone of desperate conviction. “Tell ye what ’tis, sir,” he continued, as he hastily proceeds to don a garment or two, slipping his bare feet into his shoes as he does so, “I’m off down to the creek to see if the punt is there. If she ain’t, you may depend on’t she’s ridin’ at the raft’s moorin’s—if she ain’t swamped—and that the raft’s at sea, with the poor skipper aboard of her. The Lord have mercy on him if it is so, that’s all I says.”

“Stop a moment; I will go with you,” says Manners, also hastily dressing; “but before we go we had perhaps better inquire of Mr Gaunt or the doctor whether they know anything about him; they are certain to be awake.”

A minute later the two men are groping their way along the wall of the court-yard toward the door of Gaunt’s room, in which they can perceive a light. Manners knocks, and instantly receives the response:

“Yes. Who is there?”

“Manners and Nicholls, sir. Do you know anything about the captain, Mr Gaunt? He is not with us, and his bunk has not been slept in to-night.”

“Stay where you are, I will be out in a moment,” is the reply. And almost in the short space of time named Gaunt emerges.

“Now, then,” he demands, somewhat sternly, “what is it you say about the captain? Surely I cannot have heard you aright?”

“Indeed I am afraid, sir, you did,” answers Manners, by this time in a state of deep distress as the conviction forces itself upon him that the skipper really is missing.

“I said, sir, that the captain is not with us, and that his bunk has not been slept in to-night.”

“Then God help him, for I fear he is beyond all human aid!” ejaculates the engineer hoarsely. “Have you been down to the creek yet?” he continues.

“No, sir,” says Manners; “we were about to go down there, but I thought it best to speak to you first.”

“Quite right,” assents Gaunt; “I will go with you.”

The engineer re-enters his room, hastily explains the situation to Mrs Gaunt, and then, returning, leads the way up the staircase to the roof; that, it will be remembered, being the only mode of exit from the building.

It is not until the trio reach this comparatively exposed situation that they at all realise the strength of the gale; but, once there, though the building is surrounded on all sides by the high ground of the ravine through which the river flows, the tempest seizes upon them and beats and buffets them and dashes them hither and thither with such irresistible power and fury that they are in absolute peril of their lives whilst they remain there, and to avoid being actually hurled off into space they are constrained to go down upon their hands and knees. To add to their difficulties the darkness is so intense that they can see absolutely nothing; they have to grope their way like blind men, relying solely upon their remembrance of localities for guidance. And, search as they will, they cannot find the exterior ladder by which to descend to the ground outside. It has doubtless been blown away. This misfortune, however, is soon remedied by the substitution of a rope from the store-room for the missing ladder, and with its assistance the three men quickly reach the ground.

Arrived there, they find that their difficulties have only just begun, for they are no sooner clear of the house than, what with the profound darkness and the awful buffeting of the wind, they soon get confused and lose their way. At length, however, after more than an hour’s aimless wandering, they find themselves at the ship-yard, which is in quite another direction, and once there, they are enabled, by keeping close along the water’s-edge, to reach the creek.

As each had by this time expected, the punt is not there; and now any lingering hopes as to the skipper’s safety which either of them may have cherished disappears, and in his own mind each mutely gives the poor fellow up as lost. The punt being missing, there is no means of crossing to the main, for the stream, swollen by the recent rain, is rushing past at a speed swift enough to sweep away the strongest swimmer that ever breasted wave, to say nothing of the fact that the gale—which is opposed to the current—has churned and lashed the waters into a sheet of blinding foam. They can do nothing, therefore, except make an ineffectual attempt to light a fire, in the hope that its blaze, reflected in the sky, may serve as a beacon to their unfortunate friend in the improbable event of his still being alive and within sight of the island; but this attempt also is frustrated by the wind, which not only renders it impossible for them to kindle a flame but also sweeps away all their materials as fast as they are gathered. There is nothing left for them, then, but to wend their way back homewards as best they can and await the dawn of day.

The dawn that morning was long in coming, and when at length the grey murky light slowly forced its way through the overhanging canopy of rent and tattered cloud which obscured the heavens, wreck and destruction everywhere became visible. Fay Island, it is true, had escaped almost unscathed, doubtless owing to its sheltered situation; but on the main—as the party had got into the way of designating the larger island—thousands of trees were lying prostrate, many of them uprooted, and the rest snapped off close to the ground.

As soon as it was light enough to see anything, Gaunt, with Henderson this time for a companion, once more made his way down to the creek, but there was nothing to be seen from there. Even the buoy attached to the raft’s moorings was invisible; but just where it ought to be there was a strong ripple on the roughened surface of the water which seemed to suggest that the buoy, and possibly the swamped punt as well, was still there, but dragged under water by the strength of the current.

It continued to blow very heavily—though not with the same awfully destructive violence which marked the first burst of the hurricane—all that day and part of the ensuing night, when the gale broke, and by sunrise the wind had dropped to a strong breeze. Then once more did the four men set out from the fort in the, by that time, almost hopeless effort to obtain some clue to the fate of poor Captain Blyth.

Descending the outer ladder—which had been discovered on the previous day at some distance from the fort—the search party first made for the creek, from the shore of which—the stream having by this time subsided and its current sunk to its normal speed—they descried not only the buoy marking the moorings of the raft, but also, as they had quite expected, the swamped punt hanging to it. The latter was promptly secured; Manners swimming out to it with the end of a line from the shore, by means of which the craft was drawn in and grounded upon the beach and baled out. The oars having been washed out of her and swept away, the next thing to be done was to work up a new pair; a task which was soon accomplished, since they now had an abundant store of suitable material close at hand in the ship-yard. This done, the searchers made their way down stream and crossed to the main, there separating into two parties, one of which was to skirt the shore to the northward and westward, whilst the other was to proceed in the opposite direction until the two parties reunited; their object being not so much to look out seaward—for they knew that if the raft had missed the island it would by that time be far enough away—but rather to examine the shore for any sign of wreckage or—the poor skipper’s dead body. Henderson and Nicholls constituted one party, whilst Gaunt and Manners formed the other. They had not only a long, but also a most difficult journey before them, the difficulty arising chiefly from the nature of the ground they had to traverse; and it occupied them until well on in the afternoon of the following day, both parties camping in the woods for one night—and finding it anything but a pleasant experience; but neither party found anything to throw the least light upon the fate either of the raft or of the unfortunate man who had gone to sea in her; and when at length they met they had at least the negative satisfaction of being able to say that, after a thorough search of the entire seaboard of the island, they had discovered no actualproofthat the captain had lost his life.

Very fortunately for them no damage had been done either to the mill or in the ship-yard; there was therefore no time lost in making good deficiencies of that kind, and they were consequently enabled to resume and carry on their shipwrights’ work forthwith. But not until a full fortnight after the gale did they finally give up the skipper as lost, young Manners being despatched every morning to the top of the mountain with instructions to remain there all day and maintain a constant look-out, the party still hoping, against their better reason, that after all the raftmighthave held together, and that Blythmight, in such a case, strive to regain the island. But at the expiration of that time they felt that it was useless to hope further, and the watching was discontinued.

Doctor Henderson was the hero of the next adventure which befell the party; and a pretty state of consternation he managed to throw everybody into for the time being, his poor wife and little Lucille especially.

It happened thus. It had been the custom of the party ever since their landing upon the island to observe Sunday as a day of rest, the prayers of the Episcopal Church being read, with their proper lessons, both morning and evening; whilst the rest of the day was devoted to such much-needed recreation as they thought in their consciences might legitimately be indulged in. Manners and Nicholls, after the manner of seamen, usually devoted a great deal of time on this particular day to the requirements of the toilette and the patching up of their clothes; whilst the two married men devoted themselves entirely to their families, taking their wives and the youngsters for tolerably long walks when the weather permitted. Sometimes the two families took these excursions in company, sometimes separately, according to their inclinations at the moment; and, whether separately or together, Gaunt usually carried his sketch-block and colours, whilst Henderson always took his specimen box; the one being as enthusiastic an amateur artist as the other was a botanist and chemist. When the weather was unfavourable for these walks Gaunt was in the habit of routing out some interesting book from his large stock and reading from it aloud; whilst Henderson, in the privacy of a little laboratory he had managed to fit up, prosecuted his researches into the nature of the various plants and herbs he had collected in former rambles.

They were all thus engaged on the afternoon of an atrociously wet Sunday, about a month after the mysterious disappearance of poor Captain Blyth, when the rest of the party were suddenly startled by a loud cry for help from Henderson, the call being instantly repeated twice or thrice in a much weaker tone of voice.

Tossing aside his book and springing to his feet Gaunt at once rushed off to the laboratory, with all the others close at his heels, and there they discovered the unfortunate doctor in a most extraordinary state of mind and body, and at the same time became conscious of a faint fragrant odour pervading the atmosphere of the room. Pale as death, with all his limbs hanging limp as if paralysed, the poor fellow was huddled up in a chair upon which he had evidently hung himself when the seizure—or whatever it was—first came upon him. His eyes were rolling wildly, his teeth chattered as though he were suffering from an ague fit, and his moustache and beardwereflecked with foam. But it was evident that he still retained his reason, for the moment that he saw the little crowd pouring into the room he cried out in a weak but piercing voice:

“Fly! fly for your lives, every one of you but Gaunt!Fly! I say; stay not a moment. My dear fellow,” turning to Gaunt, “drivethem out;throwthem out if they will not go otherwise! And throw open that window at once; this atmosphere isdeadly, I tell you.”

This statement had the desired effect; the room was cleared promptly, everybody beating a somewhat precipitate retreat but the engineer and Mrs Henderson, the latter quietly but firmly refusing to be removed, upon the double plea that it was no more dangerous for her than for Gaunt, and that, whether or no, her proper place was beside her husband. As for Gaunt, he acted with his usual decision, first dashing the window wide-open, and next stooping to raise his friend and convey him into a presumably more healthy atmosphere; and if any additional motive beyond solicitude for the sufferer were needed to impel him to this step he had it, first in the awful pallor which suddenly overspread Mrs Henderson’s features, and secondly in a curious sickly feeling of lassitude and languor which he felt stealing over himself. But, to his unspeakable surprise, no sooner did he approach Henderson than the latter shrank away from him with a cry of fear, beseeching him in a weak voice not to come near him. Gaunt, however, by no means saw matters in this light; if the atmosphere were deadly, or even deleterious, as his own increasingly unpleasant sensations made him perfectly ready to believe, then the sooner they three were out of it the better. So, disregarding the unfortunate doctor’s protestations and entreaties, he raised him in his arms and, notwithstanding the increasing sensation of feebleness and numbness which oppressed him, staggered with his burden into the outer air of the court-yard, closely followed of course by Mrs Henderson. But it was a most trying business altogether, for no sooner did Gaunt lay hands upon the sufferer, though he did it ever so gently, than the poor fellow rent the air with his screams, crying out between whiles that Gaunt was crushing him to death and that he was stripping the flesh off his bones. It was a most extraordinary affair altogether, for they could get no intelligible explanation from the patient even after they had with infinite trouble and care—seemingly at the cost of the acutest agony to Henderson—conveyed him to his own room and laid him on his bed. He could do nothing but shiver and moan and cower down among the coverings, and entreat that nobody—not even his wife or child—would go near him, or, least of all, touch him. The little party were almost beside themselves with anxiety and terror, which feelings were increased when poor Mrs Henderson exhibited symptoms of a similar character. As for Gaunt, he was thoroughly alarmed; for not only did the feeling of feebleness increase, but he also found himself gradually becoming the victim of a blind unreasoning terror for which the term “abject cowardice” afforded but a very inadequate description. And to this very unpleasant sensation was added that of a morbid sense of touch, so acute that even the very pressure of his clothes became almost unendurable. Fully alive, however, to the possibly critical state of affairs, he battled desperately against the influences at work upon him, and, with infinite patience, at length succeeded in extorting from Henderson a few suggestions toward the adoption of remedial measures, which he put in force first for the benefit of the doctor, next for Mrs Henderson—who had also succumbed to a similar though much milder attack—and lastly for himself. Nothing that was done, however, appeared to be of the slightest service, the symptoms continuing with unmitigated severity for fully eight hours, after which they gradually subsided. Gaunt was quite himself again by noon next day; Mrs Henderson recovered about eighteen hours later; but as for the doctor, it was fully a week before he entirely shook off the effects of the attack. But in less than twenty-four hours from his first seizure he had sufficiently recovered to give an explanation of the singular affair to the following effect. He had, it would seem, been investigating the nature of a hitherto unknown plant growing in considerable abundance upon the island, and had found it to possess several very remarkable qualities, some at least of which he believed might be rendered of the utmost value in medical practice. Anxious to make his researches thoroughly exhaustive he had, upon the day of the catastrophe, been distilling the essence of the plant; and, his task completed, he was in the act of bottling the extract for future examination when its peculiarly pleasing fragrance caused him to take several deep inhalations from the bottle. He had hardly done so when he felt his strength rapidly leaving him, and he had only time to deposit the phial, open, upon his table and stagger to a chair when something very like a fit of paralysis seized him. He at once cried out for help; but by the time that his cries had evoked a response his nerves had begun to give way, and in a very few minutes he was enduring such an agony of fear of everybody and everything as words utterly failed him to describe. And with this terrible fear came the equally terrible morbid sensitiveness of touch, which he found himself equally unable to describe. So excruciating was it, he said, that even the sound of an approaching footstep caused him more suffering than he had ever before experienced; and as to the moving of him from the laboratory and again into his own room—his silence and the convulsive shudder which shook him from head to foot were far more expressive than words. His first act when he was sufficiently recovered to move about once more was to secure the phial containing the liquid which had done all the mischief, and—with Nicholls to manage the punt—go right out to sea, where, hastily uncorking the bottle, he flung it as far from him to leeward as possible, at the same moment ordering his companion to give way for home again with all speed. This was done whilst the terror of his attack was still upon him; but it was not in the nature of a man of Henderson’s training to give way for long to so irrational a fear as that which prompted this action, and in less than a month afterwards he had, with the adoption of all proper precautions, secured another and far more liberal supply of the singular essence, with a view to future experiments and analysis.

Meanwhile, the work at the ship-yard was pushed forward with all possible energy, and to such good purpose that in an incredibly short time, all things considered, the timbers for the new boat were raised into position and secured, the planking carried up to the gunwale, the deck laid and caulked, the joiners’ work advanced, and the spars put in hand. Everybody was in the highest possible spirits, for they saw the end of their labours rapidly approaching; they were, moreover, not only pleased but absolutely proud of their work, for, though of course only amateurs, they had wrought so carefully and conscientiously that everything was finished off not only as strongly but also as neatly as if they had every one served an apprenticeship to the handicraft. Then the little vessel herself was a perfect beauty; graceful in shape, notwithstanding her extreme breadth of beam; powerful, yet buoyant; and with lines so cunningly moulded that, whilst it would doubtless require a good strong breeze to show her off to the utmost advantage, Nicholls and Manners—who might both be expected to know a good hull when they saw it—confidently predicted that she would prove very nimble even in light airs. And so confident were they of her sea-going powers that they averred, again and again, they would not be afraid to face in her even such a hurricane as that which had robbed them of poor Captain Blyth; indeed, they even went the length of volunteering to take her home to England after she should have accomplished the primary mission of her existence in conveying the party to a civilised port. Matters were in this satisfactory state, the work having reached such a stage of advancement that the rigging of thePetrel—as they had decided to name the little cutter—had already been begun, and some talk was being indulged in of hopes that the launch might be accomplished within the following week, when, on a bright Sunday afternoon, Gaunt left Fay Island for the main, taking the two children with him, the object of the little party being to gather a few of the strangely-shaped and exceedingly beautiful shells to be found on the sea-beach, as mementoes of their long sojourn on the island. The ladies preferred to remain at home, deciding that the day was far too hot for walking exercise; and the doctor remained with them for company. It was getting on toward sunset—indeed, the sun had already disappeared behind the high ground to the westward of the fort—and the doctor with his two fair companions had ascended to the flat, rampart-like roof of the building to enjoy the cool, refreshing breeze and watch for the return of the shell-gatherers, when the sound of a musket-shot, quickly followed by some five or six others, broke upon the air with startling effect, and immediately afterwards the head of a lofty triangular sail glided into view from behind some tall bushes which had hitherto concealed its approach. That a strange craft of some sort was in the river was the first idea which presented itself to Henderson’s mind; that Gaunt—who was unarmed—and the children were but too probably at that moment crossing from the main, and consequently in full view from the deck of the strange craft, was the next; and that the firing must necessarily have proceeded from the unlooked-for visitor and be an indication of hostility, possibly directed against Gaunt and the youngsters, was the third—the three ideas following each other with the rapidity of a lightning flash. To these succeeded a fourth—the Malays! So long a time had elapsed since poor Blyth had arrived with his alarming intelligence respecting the propinquity of these rascals and his disquieting suggestions as to a possible visit from them, that, though an anxious watch had been for some time maintained, the uninterrupted absence of any alarming indications had at length resulted in so complete a relaxation of vigilance that even the very existence of these pests of the Eastern seas had been forgotten. What if the wretches were upon them now? It seemed only too probable. As these thoughts darted through Henderson’s brain, and with them the frightful suggestion that those three—the unarmed man and the two helpless children, one of themhis—might at that moment be beset by a cruel and bloodthirsty foe, a cold shudder went through his frame, and, hurriedly speaking to his companions a few words which he intended should be reassuring, but which his manner rendered quite the reverse, he dashed down the inner stairway to the court-yard, and seizing Gaunt’s repeating rifle, which he knew to be loaded, and directing Manners and Nicholls—who had rushed out of their room at the sound of the firing—to arm themselves and follow him, he rushed up to the roof again, and descending to the ground by the outer ladder, hurried away off in the direction of the creek. He had not advanced in this direction much beyond a hundred yards, along the pathway through the bush, when a child’s screams—little Lucille’s—smote upon his distracted ear, and, darting forward in a very frenzy of apprehension, as he sprang round a bend in the path the poor child, her head uncovered and her long fair hair streaming behind her, her sweet eyes wild with terror, and her little hands outstretched, rushed up to him and with an inarticulate cry of joy sank exhausted and almost lifeless at his feet. Behind her, not a dozen yards distant, followed a fierce-looking Malay, his parted lips revealing the white teeth clenched in the eagerness of pursuit, his cruel black eyes gleaming with the ferocious joy of anticipated success, and with a murderous-looking creese with a long wavy blade uplifted in readiness to strike the moment he should have brought the poor innocent little victim within reach of his lean muscular arm.

To spring over the prostrate form of his darling child, thus placing himself between her and her pursuer, whilst he raised his rifle to his shoulder, was an act of such lightning-like rapidity with Henderson that he and his foe were almost within striking distance before either could check his career. The next instant the crack of his rifle rang out sharp and clear, and the Malay, with a convulsive bound, crashed face downward at his feet dead, with the bullet through his brain.

Breathless with excitement and the exertion of his short run, his teeth clenched, and the fierce eagerness for battle suddenly awakened to full activity within him, the doctor stood waiting impatiently for the next foe to present himself. But none came; only Manners and Nicholls now appeared upon the scene with their rifles in their hands, and eager questions in their eyes and on their lips for an explanation of the sudden and tragic turn of affairs. To them in a few terse words Henderson stated what had already taken place, adding an expression of his apprehension that Gaunt and little Percy had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and finally directing the two men to advance with caution as far as possible with the view of ascertaining the whereabouts of the missing ones, and of affording them help if help were indeed still possible, and, when they had done all that they could, to the best of their judgment, to return to the fort with intelligence. Having thus dismissed his companions, the doctor tenderly raised the now insensible Lucille in his arms, and, pressing her to his breast with a sob of inarticulate gratitude to God for her preservation, he wended his way back to the fort with a heavy, grief-stricken heart, wondering meanwhile how he could best meet the anxious inquiries which he knew would be made by poor Mrs Gaunt.

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