THE morning broke fair with a gentle breeze from the west, which would enable me to make the run easily in a couple of hours. I put on board two light poles which might, if necessary, serve for oars, and rigged a couple of loops on the washboard at each side, through which to thrust them when they were to be used. After taking on board a supply of water, and food enough for several days in case I should chance to be blown out to sea, and not forgetting my lasso and burning-glass, I called Duke on board, hoisted the sail, and cast off. Out through the creek mouth, over the bar, and through its breakers slid the little craft, and as soon as we were fairly outside I bore up and ran straight for the north cape, with a fair beam wind. The fresh morning air, the dew still wet on the boat, the sun scarce a span above the sea, the cool, blue water sliding by, the breaking of the surf as it ran angling along the strand, all acted like a cordial to my spirits. Duke sat up in the bottom of the boat eyeing the whole proceeding with a critical air, hardly willing to yield an entirely unqualified approval, and yet not ready to advance any positive objection. I fairly burst into a laugh at his quizzical expression. He sprang up wagging his tail and came to me and laid his head on my knee, as much as to say, “It is all right, I see.”
Before reaching the cape I eased off a little with the intention of running approximately over the regionwhere the sunken galleon was supposed to lie. The spot, according to the admiral’s account, was about a mile east of north from the rocky point, and I wanted to sound as far out in this direction as my forty-foot line would allow, if, as I hoped, there should chance to be any shallow that would allow me to reach bottom at all near the shore. The yellowish color of the water off the cape gave token of an extensive shoal in this direction, as did also the peculiar action of the swell, which seemed half inclined to break as it passed. With a stone tied to the line, I sounded as soon as I passed the cape, and found at two hundred yards from shore not over twenty feet of water. This depth increased very gradually until the full length of the line, forty feet or thereabouts, ran out at a distance of an eighth of a mile from the shore, showing that there was a long shoal or submerged spit extending out from the north end of the island.
As soon as I left the immediate vicinity of the shore, where the breakers stirred up the bottom, the water became beautifully clear and transparent, so that at my last sounding I saw, or fancied I saw, the gleam of the bright sand shining up from below. I now lowered the sail to test if there was any current running, but beyond a slight movement, I could detect nothing. I was now far enough from the cape so that I could take a slant to the southwest and easily clear the rocks. So I hauled up the sail and brought her head around. Soon we were spinning along the western shore, and in an hour were off the “Farm Haven,” toward which I turned, and running into the mouth of the little stream moored the boat safely and landed.
There was a busy day before me, and I lost no time in beginning work. First of all, I threw the ballast overboard to make room for a cargo of yams andpotatoes. I next wove out of willow branches a rough basket, or rather a sort of shallow tray, to carry them to the boat. I dug and loaded fully five bushels of fine, clean sweet potatoes and a number of large yams, and the supply remaining in the ground would have filled my boat a half-dozen times. I next turned my attention to the dry peas and beans, and gathered about a bushel of each, besides a number of great scarlet pepper-pods. Then I took down the tent and put it aboard, as well as the axe, the shovel, the hoe, and the sail and blankets. I boiled a lot of yams for dinner, and this being over at about three in the afternoon, I called Duke and went up the gully path to the top and looked about a little to see what prospect there might be for a path over the island to the other side. In a straight east and west line the distance could not be over three and a half to four miles.
There was a ridge running back from the cliff to the central plateau, which I thought might afford an easy path, and I knew that once on this central plateau I could descend to the stream and so reach home. Having seen this much I returned to the boat, and casting off poled out as far as possible to get an offing. By short tacks I managed finally to get far enough to venture on my northern slant. But the sun was almost down when I rounded the north cape and started down the other shore.
Just as I came opposite the mouth of the creek, the wind died away, and I hastened to get out my rude poles and row into the harbor. This was a terrible task, and if the wind had not gone down I much doubt whether I could have done it at all until the tide turned. But at last we made the creek and moored the boat safely with its precious cargo. I was too tired thatnight to do more than unload the tools, blankets, canvas, and cooking utensils, leaving the vegetables on board till morning. That night being oppressively warm, I swung my hammock under the open work-shed, and lulled by the music of the breakers, slept soundly until broad day.
The first work on hand was the care of my cargo of potatoes. These with the beans and peas I carried up to the dark, dry store-room. Some of the potatoes I buried in the dry sand, to test its preservative properties. As a future provision I turned up with the spade a little patch of soil near the creek and planted half a dozen hills of yams and potatoes in a favorable spot, and a row of the beans and peas, guarding the latter from the birds with a layer of brush. This occupied the greater part of the day.
In the afternoon I drew a wire nail out of the chest, with which to make a fish-hook. The back of the axe formed a good anvil, and the shank of the hoe, the wooden handle being removed, did fairly well for a hammer. With these tools I fashioned the red-hot nail into hook form, using for tongs a pair of clam shells. I drew the point out sharp, bent the hook, and cut a barb over the edge of the axe. The head of the nail was left intact to secure the line. As this was my first effort at blacksmithing the hook was not perhaps as elegant as it might have been, but it looked as though it might work satisfactorily. For a line, I unlaid and retwisted some pieces of hempen rope that had formed reef points on the sail of the tent, and coated them well with candle-berry wax. I made a wooden float for a bob and fitted a stone for a sinker, so that by bed-time, my fishing-tackle was finished, together with a good hundred feet of stout line.
That night a rain set in, and it continued steadily forthree days without ceasing, varying only between a violent downpour and a fine, driving mist from the northeast. I could not work out of doors in such weather; so, gathering a great quantity of cocoanut husks, I busied myself hour after hour spinning cöir. I wanted to make a good, strong, sounding-line at least a hundred fathoms long, and a line of equal length by which to anchor a buoy as a guide in the submarine search operations. Thus the time was by no means lost, though the confinement was exceedingly irksome. Duke made an occasional dash out into the wet, and once returned carrying in his mouth an armadillo rolled up tight in a ball, which afforded us a variation in diet.
But the sky finally cleared and I hastened out to try my fishing-tackle. Anchoring the boat just beyond the breakers at the mouth of the creek, I baited my hook with a shell-fish and cast it over, letting the line run slowly out as the hook sank toward the bottom, and then hauling it up and repeating the operation. Presently I got a tremendous bite, and drew in a fish that weighed about fifteen pounds. It was a red snapper, and proved most excellent eating. This was fishing enough for once, and I pulled to shore and set about cooking part of my prize. Soon the air was redolent with the odor of fried fish, and both Duke and I regaled ourselves with fish and potatoes, washing them down with pure, sweet water cool from the porous water-jar.
I now set about the construction of an apparatus by the aid of which I hoped to be able to make a reconnaissance of the bottom of the shallow sea, where the sunken galleon was supposed to lie. I went out with my axe to the upland and cut down a fine cedar tree. This I split until I procured four rough but slight slabs, an inch thick and about a foot in width, sawing them to a length of about three feet. I pinned these securelytogether in the form of a rectangular tube a foot in diameter and three feet long, and in one end of the tube fitted a tight cedar bottom. In this bottom I cut an aperture just large enough to receive one of my glass photograph plates, five inches by seven, and after cleaning off the sensitive gelatine coating securely fitted it in place like a window. With melted pitch I payed freely all the joints and seams, so that the structure was perfectly water-tight, and then blackened the wood on the inside with a mixture of pulverized charcoal and hot wax, so that it would reflect no light.
Before this was finished the rains set in again and continued for a whole week. I concluded that the annual rainy season must now be at hand. For though the sky would occasionally clear for a day or part of a day, the showers were so frequent that the house grew damp and unwholesome, and I was obliged to air it every day with a rousing fire in the fireplace, the heat of which drove me to seek shelter under the work-shed. The weather was so uncertain that I did not dare to venture out in the boat further than a few hundred feet, and then with a line fast to the shore; this I occasionally did for the purpose of fishing, and always with good luck, catching the red snappers, rock cod, and various other varieties, all of which found their way to the larder.
It was on one of these occasions that I tried my new-made contrivance, the water-glass. When the closed end of this was submerged over the side of the boat, by looking in at the open upper end I could plainly see the bottom and the fish swimming about my hook. Of course I was very anxious to try the apparatus in deeper water to ascertain how far the vision could penetrate. But the weather would not render it possible without too great risk. The value of such a device woulddepend entirely upon the clearness and depth of the water. I knew from written accounts that the sponge fishers use a similar contrivance,—frequently a wooden bucket with a pane of glass in the bottom, which they call a “sponge glass,” and with which they search for sponges and conch shells in the Bermudas, employing it with perfect success, in clear water, even at a considerable depth. The sponge glass enables the operator to overcome the surface agitation and reflection of the water, just as a thin transparent sheet of ice sometimes renders the bottom of a deep pond visible to a skater.
One morning, when there was an almost perfect calm, I noticed on the surface of the sea a long streak extending from a point about half a mile from shore away toward the eastern horizon until it was lost in the distance. This appearance was so curious and inexplicable that after gazing at it for a while, both from the beach and from the top of a palm, I finally rowed the boat out to it, and found that it was muddy water, with leaves, grass, and vegetation floating in it, and a great number of cocoanuts bobbing about among the other fragments and detritus. It looked precisely as though the contents of some slack water lagoon connecting with the sea had been suddenly swept out by a freshet or some extraordinary current. Among the floating matter were innumerable sea beans, as they are called,—a sort of nut or seed that is sometimes used as an ornament for watch chains,—also little scarlet, egg-shaped seeds, like those that are picked up in such quantities on the Florida beaches. But there was no sea-weed with the other detritus. This mass of matter slowly travelled along the surface and by the next day was out of sight. I suppose to a more skilled observer the phenomenon might have proven a valuable aid in determining the set of the currents, or other natural facts worthy of note.
While out on this excursion I several times tried the water-glass, but found the sea so charged with matter and so cloudy and milky that I could see but indistinctly and to no great depth. This, however, did not discourage me, as I knew the water was likely to change in this respect from week to week.
There came upon the island at this time great numbers of pelicans. They would light on the beach in large flocks, and sit there for hours, apparently resting from a long flight; then all together, as by a concerted signal, they would rise and in an irregular body wing their way to the south. Duke took great delight in hunting these birds, and would watch by the hour for their arrival. As soon as a flock appeared in the northern sky he would prick up his ears, all attention, and wait until, circling about, they alighted. Then he would begin a deliberate attempt to stalk them, creeping along, belly to the ground, until nearly up to them, then making a bold rush, but always without success, the birds on such occasions merely rising and circling to another resting-place. He would come in after this sport wet with the rain and panting with exertion, and appeared to look with reproach at my lack of interest in the game, as though he would say, “Where is your gun, you idle fellow?” But I had no use for pelicans. Indeed, I still had too vivid a remembrance of the peculiar flavor of gull meat to hanker after fish-eating birds of any sort, as food. The white crane, or heron, and the beautiful pink and white ibis also made their appearance occasionally in flocks; but they were so shy and difficult to approach that I could never get within a hundred yards of them.
Penetrating one morning, in spite of the drizzling rain, to a part of the forest just under the rocky plateau, I came upon some trees about thirty or forty feet inheight having flowers variegated with purple, yellow, green, and red, and bearing at the same time fruit in the form of great gourds. This I found was what is known as the calabash tree (Crescentia cujete). I collected a number, of different sizes, and carried them home through the rain. The hard, wood-like shells could readily be cut with the knife and saw, yet they were strong and tough. With this raw material, already partially shaped to hand, I set about making various kinds of vessels,—domestic and culinary utensils, a water-bottle to carry on my tramps and excursions, etc. With four great gourds lashed together I constructed a buoy for subsequent use in my marine explorations, and with a number of small ones I made a life-preserver as a part of my boat equipment. It was a great comfort to have a dish to eat from once more. Indeed, I had often regretted that I did not bring with me the two halves of the broken dish which I had seen at the “Farm Haven.” My two developing-trays with their deep sides had proved but inconvenient substitutes; besides, they were generally kept for other uses. Taken altogether there was no single vegetable product of the island that contributed more to my comfort than the calabash tree.
As I now had plenty of canvas I concluded to rig my boat anew and change it from the awkward latteen rig to that of a sloop with mainsail and jib. The want of a needle and thread to sew the sails was a great drawback, but I made shift to use an awl made out of a leg of a compass belonging to my drawing instruments, and for thread a slender cord made of cöir. I rigged the jib with a traverse so that it needed no special attention except to be hauled aft when I went about, and the mainsail with a gaff and throat halliards, that it might be lowered by the run upon emergency; I also provided both jib and mainsail with three rows of reef points, that I might show little or much canvas, as the slate of the wind should require. With axe and saw and knife I fashioned a good pair of cedar oars, light and strong, and fitted thole-pins in the gunwales to receive them; I put a pair of thole-pins in the stern for sculling, and had a spare oar for use in case of breakage.
The weather continued stormy, with rain nearly every day, and frequently for several days together without cessation. I passed most of the time under the boat-shed, and generally slept there at night, as the climate was very mild and warm notwithstanding the rains. Moreover, I had now two blankets to sleep in at night, and lay quite warm and comfortable in my hammock. The house I used as a kitchen, dining-room, store-room, and library. It was quite impossible to read elsewhere at night, for the candle could not be kept alight in the open-sided shed. I read all the books through deliberately, including the German Word-book. I would lie in my swinging hammock by the hour during the day-time and read even the Dispensatory faithfully through while the rain pattered on the roof, with an occasional “swish, swish,” as the eddying wind drove it with greater or less violence against the house. That I should find the dry details of a Dispensatory sufficiently interesting to make the continuous reading of them even endurable expresses well the desperate dulness of my lonesome surroundings. Duke slept much, and I envied him his capacity for slumber. He would lie in a dry spot and snooze for fifteen minutes at a time, get up and gape and stretch, then lie down and shiver and drop to sleep with one eye open, and so alternating pass the day. Sometimes I would practice on him with German words from the Word-book, which he understood,so far as I could see, quite as well as English. At any rate, when I spoke he wagged his tail, and thus demonstrated that he was a good fellow and not disposed in any degree to criticise or find fault with the personal peculiarities or the language of a friend.
At last one clear, bright morning, when the birds were noisily rejoicing and the butterflies were out in their gala dresses, I undertook an expedition by land to the “Farm Haven.” The creek was swollen deep with the rains, so that I could not conveniently travel up the bed. Therefore I made my way north along the beach for a mile, and struck west through the jungle at the most open place I saw. By an occasional use of the axe I forced a path through to the rocks, which happened here to be low, and speedily gained the central plateau. At the point where I mounted the rocks I found great quantities of ripe whortleberries growing on low bushes, and of large size and exquisite flavor. I ate my fill of these and pressed on along the plateau looking for the connecting ridge. The walking was not bad on this upland, as there was no tangled mass of undergrowth, and the trees grew well apart. The ridge was not difficult to find and proved easily passable, so that I made shift to reach the cliffs long before noon.
Being near them I went to the Brazil-nut trees and gathered a peck or more of the nuts, filling my haversack quite full as well as my pockets. Duke here chased a little animal which I fancied must be what is called an agouti; but as he did not catch him I could not know positively. However, this persistent hunter soon after managed to tree an animal which I had no difficulty in recognizing as the familiar raccoon. I had no idea until I saw this specimen that this plantigrade was to be found in the Caribbean islands. There was,however, no mistaking the identity of the species. It was undoubtedly a genuine “coon.” The silver-tipped fur, the pointed snout, the barred tail all spoke in favor of a true descent and a perfect relationship with the animal which I had so often hunted on moonlight nights in the woods at home. It was an undoubted “case of coon.” When I found him he was in a slender sapling, with Duke barking below. I laid the axe to the trunk and speedily felled it to the ground. Duke seized his victim before he could recover, and shook him as a terrier would a rat. Running to his assistance I speedily put an end to the combat with my knife, and bagged the game. Here was material for a feast, for I well knew by experience that roast coon is a morsel fit for an epicure.
Farm Haven looked beautifully fresh from the rains. I found the garden still more choked with weeds, and the potatoes mostly gone to seed. I gathered a few to roast in the embers for my dinner, but most of them had begun to decay. The Indian corn was ripe, and I took this occasion to gather it all, a good heap of perhaps ten bushels, which I carried little by little to a sheltered nook under the rocks and piled up without removing the husks. I started a good fire to roast some corn and potatoes. After dressing the coon I swung it by a cord in front of the fire where it was slowly turned by the twist of the cord first in one direction and then in the other, requiring only an occasional twirl to keep it going.
While the dinner was cooking, Duke and I looked about the valley to see what could be found. We went over to the north of the mouth of the rivulet among some willows, to gather a few wands for basket-making. As soon as we reached the other side of the stream I noticed a strong stench as of decayed animal matter.The source of this smell was soon disclosed in a great heap of oysters. Great bivalves, some of them eight or more inches across, lay rotting in a pile on the pebbly shore. All about were heaps of open shells and decayed shell-fish. It occurred to me at once that I had chanced upon the headquarters of a pearl fishery; and this accounted most satisfactorily for the encampment, but not for the hurried departure of the campers. There was at least a ton of unopened oysters lying in the rotting drying-heap, and I determined to examine them as soon as we had finished dinner.
THERE was a wooden tub lying near the oyster heap, which I conjectured was for holding water in which to open and separate the oysters in the examination for pearls. I filled this tub at the stream and set it in the shade of the willows. Then, with bared arms, and nostrils plugged with leaves, I began the disgusting task of examining the oysters carefully one by one. The second oyster I opened contained fifteen little seed pearls not much larger than a grain of mustard seed. Then I drew blank after blank in the lottery, until I had opened perhaps fifty shells. Then a great prize came out in the shape of a beautiful pear-shaped pearl of the size of a small hazel-nut, rainbow tinted and lustrous as a moon-lit cloud. Thus it went with varying fortune all the afternoon, until the heap was exhausted and I had collected two hundred and fifty seed pearls, ninety-seven small pearls, and a hundred and sixteen larger ones, some of them of great lustre and beauty. What the value of these pearls would prove to be I had no means of estimating, but it doubtless would be considerable. I tied them carefully in my handkerchief and put them in my pocket. The smell of the decayed shell-fish is something frightful to remember, and after I had finished and washed myself thoroughly in the stream it still seemed to cling to me and to permeate everything in the neighborhood. Why I had not noticed this awful stench on my first visit wasstrange to me, and must have been due to the course of the wind at that time.
When I had finished this loathsome task it was so late that I concluded to stay all night at the cove instead of trying to go home. If the weather kept clear there would be no great hardship in sleeping on the grass for one night. The sun set, however, with an angry red glow amid a mass of heavy clouds portending foul weather. Moreover, as the night fell there was an oppressive calm, and the heat was intense. So threatening was the aspect of the weather that had I been at all sure of being able to find my way in the darkness, I should have certainly attempted to get home even after the sun had set. There was no shelter if it should rain, and I was at my wits’ end how to contrive a place to pass the night. What a fool I had been not to notice the approaching storm in time to get to my comfortable house. The best provision I was able to make was to gather some grass and willow-boughs and take them under an overhanging rock, where I cut with the axe in the dark some limbs and boughs and made a sort of lean-to. This I supplemented with the tub turned up toward the quarter whence the rain would most probably come, and Duke and I crept into this sorry nest to await events.
One event came without waiting, and that was a powerful stench from the unlucky tub. But as I had endured this already for nearly half a day, I concluded it would, by familiarity, become less and less offensive. I could not go to sleep, but lay there turning and tossing on my uncomfortable couch and watching the weather.
The calm continued until near midnight, when a cool breeze sprang up and swept down the gorge and out to sea. I thought this indicated that the storm was aboutto pass around and away; but the heavy rumble of thunder out at sea, growing louder and sharper, and becoming almost continuous, and the constant play of lightning, quickly dissipated this notion. I looked out with awe at this tremendous electric display.
The breeze fell presently, and I looked out and saw coming in from the sea a coppery red mass of cloud glowing as though it contained a furnace. Instinctively I crouched down behind the rock beside the dog, who was shivering with fear, and grasped the corners of a huge fallen fragment. With a dreadful, screeching roar, mingled with a din of thunder such as I am utterly unable to describe, and can liken to nothing I ever heard before or since, the hurricane burst upon the island. There was no rain, but at first I thought there was, for the spray from the ocean beat in my face and drenched me to the skin. It was not rain, for it was salt to the taste. My shelter of boughs, and also the high-smelling tub were blown away instantly, and with the dog under me I fairly had all I could do to hold on. Above the roar of the wind, the rattling of stones, and the din of the thunder, I could hear the crash of falling trees and breaking boughs. Nor did the awful wind let up for nearly half an hour, and I was quite worn out with the apprehension and the struggle. If I lifted my face for an instant the spray and sand and pebbles whipped with such violence against it that I was glad to bury it close to the ground. Such awful storms I had heard of, and even been witness to their effects after the event; but never could I have had an adequate idea of the terrible reality without this experience.
During the entire passage of the hurricane not a drop of rain fell, so far as I could judge, though, as before stated, I was drenched with spray. Gradually, with an occasional renewal of the blast, the wind went down, andin an hour the stars were shining pure and serene in the dark vault above.
The temperature had now fallen many degrees, and there was a cool, steady wind from the north that chilled me through to the bone. Of course I had no fire, and no means of procuring one, and the only relief obtainable was such exercise as I could get by stamping about and thrashing my arms until the blood was in rapid circulation. Sitting back against the rock I dozed a little now and then, and waited impatiently for the break of day, which seemed as though it never would come.
As soon as it was fairly light we started for home. The effects of the hurricane were visible on every hand. Trees broken off, blown over, and uprooted, green branches scattered here and there, the silvery under sides of the leaves showing, and giving an air of disorder and destruction by their unaccustomed appearance and tint, all marked the hand of the destroyer. The central plateau seemed to have suffered most. Here several great trees had been twisted until the trunks were a mass of splinters, indicating that they had successively occupied the very eye and centre of the rotary wind. Hurrying along rapidly we came down to the lower land, and I was glad to observe much fewer signs of destruction here. We came upon a dead pig, killed by a huge fallen limb, and I pulled him out, as we were now nearly home, and dragged him along with me for food.
When we reached the open beach I found plenty of evidence of the mighty wind in the scattered palm leaves, boughs, and branches strewn along the strand. In the distance I could see the ruins of my work-shed. The roof was off, and lying down the beach a hundred yards or more in a heap at the water’s edge. The boat, for which I felt specially anxious, was hidden from viewby a clump of water bushes that grew on the hither bank of the creek. The mast I could see, and noted that an unnatural tilt had been given to it. Dragging the dead pig I slowly made my way along the sand. The house stood intact, my hammock still swung to the frame-work of the shed. The top of a cocoanut palm, twisted off by the wind and carried through the air, had brought up against the frame of the shed and lodged there, while the nuts growing on it were scattered about the ground, some of them as far as the water’s edge.
I went immediately to the boat and found it careened and sunk in the shallow water of the creek, the upper gunwale just above the surface. At the house the only damage done was a hole in the northeast corner of the wall, caused by the end of a bough which had been driven through it and was still sticking in the gap. The first thing I did was to build a rousing fire in the chimney; then hanging my damp clothing up in front of it to dry I went down for a bath in the creek, and to examine more minutely the boat. When she was righted up and baled out with a gourd I found she had suffered no injury whatever, being as tight as a bottle. Nor would she have sunk except for an extra amount of ballast that happened to be on board, as the air-tight compartments held perfectly. But the sinking was doubtless the best thing that could have happened.
As soon as I could dress and get something for breakfast, I cut up the pig and put part of it in salt, and then turned to with a will upon the work of repairing the shed. The larger part of the material of the roof was uninjured, and as the weather fortunately remained clear, by the following night I had the roof on again in good shape and much stronger than before, as with theaid of the axe I was able to cut a great number of stout poles to add to the structure. When I had patched up the hole in the wall of my house and cleared away the litter, most of the signs of the hurricane had disappeared from my neighborhood.
The dampness of my house in wet weather, which was due to the walls getting wet and soaking through with the driving rain, led me now to undertake a new task. The clay used in the building of the boat would, I thought, be sufficient in quantity to give the floor and the walls inside and out a good coat, and this when once dry would make the structure like an adobe building. I intended, moreover, to add an extra thickness of thatch, put in a row of glass photograph plates toward the sea for windows, make a good cedar door, to be hung on wooden hinges, and add a wide veranda to the front, under which I might sit in the evening.
The rain still came every day or two now, though evidently the dry season was fast approaching. The weather was too uncertain to venture out any distance in the boat, and I therefore had plenty of time on my hands to attend to my building and other schemes for domestic comfort. As planned, I daubed the whole house, inside and outside, with a good thick coat of the clay smoothed with the back of the shovel. On the outside, to give a workmanlike finish, I lined the soft clay into blocks and pointed the joints neatly. Then, with dry, pulverized clay and sand, which I sprinkled with water, trampled with the feet and smoothed by beating with the shovel, I produced a hard, smooth floor like that under the shed. All around the edge of this floor I fitted a single row of clam shells, and inside of this a second row of pink-mouthed tiger shells, which formed a handsome border. I put in a narrow horizontal window, of six panes side by side, at each side ofthe doorway, and constructed a good door of split cedar, pinned together and hung on wooden hinges to swing outward, and provided it with a latch. I then doubled the thatch all over the house and put up a light porch in front thatched with palm leaves, and built a floor for it the same as in the house. At one end of this porch I constructed a little low shed with walls and roof for the dog.
As there was still a great quantity of clay left I built an oven near the house, as follows: upon a raised platform of poles erected about three feet above the ground, and about three by four feet in extent, I put a layer of sand and clay about four inches thick. This was the floor of the oven. All around this floor I laid a wall of adobe bricks, made of sand and clay partly dried. I then filled the interior with sand heaped up in the form of an arch, and laid the adobe bricks over it, daubing and plastering all the cracks. At the rear was a small clay chimney, and at the front an opening for a doorway. When the clay had well set and partly hardened, I raked out the sand through the doorway and left the hollow clay structure standing. I then constructed an adobe slab with which to close the doorway. In this oven I built a hot fire of dry wood and kept it going all day, by which means the clay was partly burned and the construction made entirely proof against the wet,—though, for that matter, the adobe would have stood without such treatment.
To utilize the heat left in the walls from the burning I had put a pot full of beans on to boil, with a good chunk of salt pork. At night I put the beans and pork in an earthen dish and set them in the oven, which was still hot, and closed it up tight, covering the chimney and luting the door slab with wet clay. In the morning, when I opened it, there gushed out a deliciousvapor, and the dish of beans and pork, brown and crisp came forth hot and fit for a king.
One article I needed very badly was soap. I had tried to wash my clothing several times, but it was quite filthy notwithstanding these attempts. My entire wardrobe consisted of a heavy woollen shirt, a pair of tough moleskin pantaloons, a home-made hat, and a stout pair of shoes. Socks I had none, as the single pair I brought on shore were entirely worn out. Latterly I had made a practice of going barefoot, except on extended excursions through the jungle and over the rocks. With plenty of wood ashes and pig fat at hand why should I not make soap? I rigged up a leaching apparatus thus: in the bottom of a huge gourd I pierced several holes, and laid over them a layer of grass so that the ashes would not stop them up; then I filled the gourd with alternate layers of grass and ashes to the top, and poured in fresh water as long as it would absorb any. In a little while the lye began to drip out of the holes into a vessel placed beneath to receive it. By changing and renewing the ashes several times I finally collected a kettle full of the lye. This I placed over the fire and boiled until it had lost two thirds of its volume. Then I put into the boiling lye strips and pieces of fat pork until it would dissolve no more, keeping up the boiling slowly all the time. The result was a good article of light colored soap of a jelly-like consistency. Its use both upon my clothing and myself was a luxury indeed.
One day I burned some lime and mixed a whitewash, which with a cocoa-husk swab I applied to the interior walls of the house, changing them to a dazzling white and rendering the whole interior light and cheerful; which was a great comfort on dark days when I was confined there. Moreover, it gave the place an air ofwholesomeness and neatness that was very home-like. As a further improvement I made a bed of soil at each end of the porch and transplanted some flowering vines and creepers of several varieties; I also made a half-dozen hills in front of the house, carrying and filling in these spots a quantity of rich muck, and planted sweet potatoes that they might spread their vines over the sand. The garden which I had made before the rains set in was now in thriving condition, all the peas and beans being up and the potato-vines in blossom.
My diet was now varied and healthful enough; but I lacked one article of food that I longed for and felt the need of more and more every day,—and that was bread, the staff of life. Parched-seed gruel was a very poor substitute indeed, and at last I got so hungry for a taste of bread that I determined to make some out of the Indian corn.
So one day I made a basket and started across the island to bring home a supply of the corn. All the way over I kept a good lookout for a suitable gritty stone, that could be used to grind the corn, and found several that I thought might answer the purpose fairly well; but one sample—being a slab of grit-stone having a rough, pocked surface with small hard bits of chalcedony interspersed throughout—was so superior in quality to all the rest that I concluded I could do no better if I sought the island over. This slab, which was quite as much as I could carry, I laid against a tree where I could easily find it, and went on my way to “Farm Cove.” I had not been here since the great storm, and was surprised to see how quickly and fully all traces of the hurricane had disappeared. The corn was all right, the husks had fully dried, and the heap lying on the rocks had not suffered from the rains. I filled my basket,—a good bushel,—and immediately camehome, returning forthwith for the slab of grit-stone. Duke treed another raccoon, which we captured by cutting down the tree, and then with our plunder and the stone we managed to get home at nightfall.
The next day it began again to rain in intermittent showers; raining and shining alternately, as in the April weather of northern latitudes. After building a fire and heating up the oven and putting in the raccoon to bake, with some yams for dinner, I went to work on my stone slab. First I broke off a good piece the full width of the slab in length, and about six inches in width to use as a grinder. With the back of the axe I hammered and dressed this as smooth as I could. Then I went at the slab itself, pounding it with the axe and breaking it at the edges until it was formed into a reasonably smooth, rectangular shape two feet long by one foot in width. I now sprinkled the face of the slab with wet sand and water, and placing it in an inclined position, rubbed the grinder up and down upon it, feeding on fresh sand and water from time to time, as it lost its cutting properties.
This was slow, hard, tedious work, and the progress made was so gradual that it called for all my will to keep at it. Perseverance, however, will finally conquer most obstacles, and this was a mere question of muscle and will-power struggling against a hard grit-stone. The stone was fated finally to yield; but it took me two days of hard work to get it into the right shape. All this for a piece of corn bread, and the bread not yet forthcoming.
When finished the slab had a smooth, gritty surface slightly incurved from end to end, and the grinder designed to lie across it had its corners rounded smoothly off.
I set to work now to grind my corn as follows: Theslab was propped up at a slight angle on a piece of canvas; on this slab the corn, a handful at a time, was sprinkled and then ground by rubbing the grinder up and down over it. As it became pulverized the meal would gradually drift down on to the canvas, the coarser particles rolling away to the edge of the heap, only to be scraped up and ground over again. This was, as you may imagine, tedious work. When I had accumulated about four quarts of meal, I felt that I had enough of grinding for once.
Now commenced the first act of bread-making proper. In a gourd I mixed about a pint of the meal with warm water and a little salt, and set it in a warm place over night, that it might have a chance to ferment. This was to be my yeast. In the morning the contents of the gourd were in a state of incipient fermentation, and I went out and fired up the oven to be ready for the grand final act. While the oven was heating I mixed up the rest of the meal with salt and water, and added the fermented meal to it, mixing the whole to a consistency such that it could readily be stirred. This I set near the fire in an earthen pan, and watched it from time to time. In about two hours it began to rise slightly, and the oven being fully ready I clapped the pan in and closed it up to bake. In an hour I opened the oven and took out a fragrant panful of nicely browned, light, and crumbling corn bread, as a reward for all my labors. Perhaps it was not so good as a skilled bread-maker might have produced, but it was sweet and delightful to me, and well repaid all my trouble, and both Duke and I rejoiced over it with our broiled bacon.
After this experiment bread-making was a regular thing. Sometimes I simply stirred up the raw meal with a little salt and water and baked it on the backof a shovel before the open fire,—hoe-cake fashion,—to be eaten brown and hot; but I generally made raised bread by the process which I have described, sometimes adding a modicum of pork fat for shortening.
THE severe rains gradually ceased, until sunshine was the rule and rain the exception. I did not expect a season of absolute dryness, for in this locality rain prevails to some extent throughout the whole year, so that the vegetation rarely suffers from drought.
One morning, the sky being clear and a gentle breeze blowing from the southwest, Duke and I went aboard the boat,—which by the way, I had named the “Mohawk”—and started for a trial of the water-glass. We were soon on the ground, a mile to the north of the cape. Lowering the sails I put the glass over the side, with very little hope of success as the water seemed to have a cloudy appearance. It proved to be in such a condition that I could not see the bottom at all. I then put up the sail and ran in nearer the shore to where the depth was about thirty feet. Here I could see the sand and rocks and shells on the bottom very distinctly, and noted that there were streaks and veins of the murky water running through the more transparent portion.
Finding that nothing could be done in the way of investigation until the water became clearer, I stood out to the west until by a single tack I could make Farm Cove, intending to bring back a cargo of corn and some yams and potatoes. I found a few bushels of yams still in good condition, and noted with pleasure that many of the potatoes left in the ground had sproutedand the vines had already acquired quite a growth. With spade and shovel I turned to heartily, and cleared away the luxuriant growth of weeds which threatened to choke this volunteer crop. Then I loaded in my corn and started back, reaching home in time for supper.
The next two days I devoted to planting a patch of corn, hardly expecting to remain long enough upon the island to enjoy it, but thinking it wise to provide for an uncertain future. On the third day I went out again to try the water-glass, but the water was still lacking in transparency and there was nothing to do except to wait.
But while returning I thought of a thing that would be very useful to me in future expeditions, and that was to set up on the northern cape something which might serve as a guide to me in future operations. I had no compass and was obliged to guess the direction blindly by the sun. Now the Spanish admiral, when he reported that the galleon bore east of north from the point of rocks, and about a mile therefrom, probably spoke, as to direction at least, from actual observation of the compass, as a sailor would; for nobody knows better than a sailor the impossibility of guessing at direction without a guide. Indeed, the sailor, when he comes on deck, turns instinctively to the compass to orient himself and correct his sense of direction, because the course of the vessel may have changed half a dozen times during a watch below, without his knowledge. To one on board a vessel the parts fore and aft, starboard and port, below and aloft, have a fixed relation to each other, and one is apt to get a set impression as to direction from this fixed relation of familiar objects. Thus I have heard of an old sailing-master who was on board the same vessel for twenty years, and who declared that,no matter where the ship might be or upon what course, it always seemed to him that the head of his bunk lay to the north; that when at sea the most distressing thing to him was that the sun never rose in the same quarter two mornings in succession; and that it never rose in the east except on Long Island, where he was born.
As to the accuracy of the estimated distance—one mile—that, to be sure, was a much more uncertain quantity; though officers of war vessels are, and were then, well trained to estimate distances on the water, as otherwise they could not determine the range of their cannon and arms. Altogether I had every reason to suppose, barring variations in the compass and individual errors, that the location assigned was reasonably accurate. At any rate I decided to start my investigation with the assumption that the assigned location was accurate, and to work from the designated point as a centre; it would then be easy, as I proceeded, to allow for error in all directions without the chance of multiplying it in any particular direction.
In my little box of drawing-tools was a small brass protractor—a semi-circle divided into one hundred and eighty degrees, with half-degree marks. This would be convenient in the work I was about to do, though not absolutely necessary, as in its absence I could have easily constructed one that would answer my purpose. The first thing to do was to establish a true north and south line. That night the stars shone brightly, and I easily found the pole star by the pointers in the Great Bear, or “Dipper.” In the sand at the north cape I drove an upright stake made of a stout cane. Then taking another straight piece I placed it in a notch on top of the upright and sighted along its length adjusting it until it pointed straight at the north star. To secureit in this position I drove a short notched stake at the butt of the inclined cane and tied the cane firmly to both. I was now sure that the two uprights were in a true north and south direction from each other, and the work for that night was finished, as the remainder could be better done by daylight.
The next thing I wanted was a standard of measurement; unfortunately my drawing instruments did not contain the usual ivory rule. But this did not occasion me much uneasiness, as I hoped to be able to deduce the standard inch by a comparison of my belongings. If I once got the true inch it would be easy to get from that the foot, the yard, the rod, the mile. I had my photograph plates as one guide; these I had every reason to suppose were cut quite accurately to the dimensions of five inches by seven. Then there was the brass protractor. It is true there were no inches marked on this; but the workman who made it would naturally follow some standard, and the chances were very great that the diameter of this instrument would be found to be an exact multiple of the inch, and as I conjectured, exactly four inches. To test this matter I laid the protractor on the short side of one of the plates, and taking the difference between the two found, as I had expected, that this difference was one fifth of the width of the plate, and one seventh of its length. This proved satisfactorily to my mind that the plate was accurate in dimensions, that is to say, five by seven inches, and that the difference between the length of the straight side of the protractor and the width of the plate was the standard inch. From this starting-point I constructed a foot measure, and cut me a light pole exactly a rod in length.
Returning now to the cape where my north and south direction rod was fixed, I proceeded to set a peg, whichto avoid confusion we will designate as A, in the sand in a prolongation of the line, and with the protractor got the true east by north, marking this line by a second peg. Then I turned about and marked a line which made an angle of one hundred and twenty degrees with the east by north line, and which would lead down the beach.
I now proceeded to plant in the sand three poles about fifteen feet in height: one at the central point A, one in a prolongation of the east by north line, which pole we will call B, and the third in a prolongation of the angle line down the beach, which latter pole we will call C. The next thing was the measurement of a base line from the pole A, through C down the beach for a mile. This I did as accurately as I could with my rod measure; but it was a sort of work highly conducive, as you may imagine, to the backache, especially as I went over it three times to eliminate as much error as possible, taking the average of the three measurements. Nor was the third measurement completed much before it was time to go home.
Only one thing now remained to be done, and this I did the next morning. At the end of the mile line on the beach I erected a tall pole, which we will call D, and from it as a centre laid off a line thirty degrees from the base to intersect the east-by-north line or its prolongation, and marked the direction by a second tall pole which we will call E. Now, according to a simple problem in trigonometry, it will be seen that if I should sail out in my boat east of north from the cape, guiding myself by the two poles A and B, when I had brought the poles D and E into line having A and B in line at the same time, I should be a mile away from A in a true east-of-north direction.
Although I now went out every day to try the water,it did not grow clear. Finding the guide-poles barely visible, especially the more distant pair, I mounted a gourd on the top of each one, after which I had no further difficulty in seeing them. As it was some little trouble to take the bearings constantly, I rigged a buoy and anchored it at the spot where theoretically the galleon lay. I found the water about sixty feet deep; and the buoy—a large gourd attached to a line with a stone for an anchor—floated easily on the swell, with eighty feet of line. After this buoy was anchored I took down the guide-poles, marking their places with pegs, in case I should require to use them again. This I did out of a superabundance of caution, not that I believed any one else than myself—had there been any one else—could have read the riddle they told to me.
Every day for three weeks I went out to the shoal near the buoy and examined the water. It was getting gradually clearer; but had it not been for my recollection of the first visit made, before I had the water-glass, and of the appearance of the water at that time, I should have doubtless given up the attempt in despair. The remembrance, however, of the clear water, and the gleam through it of yellow sand, was not to be forgotten, and it kept up my hopes to the last.
The weather grew oppressively hot, and there came on one day a terrific thunder-storm followed by a gale of wind from the northeast which lasted two days and was followed in turn by fair weather, with a gentle southwest wind. When I went out again I found the water quite clear. I was very impatient to test the glass, so much so that I would not wait to make any trials until I had reached the neighborhood of the buoy. Here I lowered the sails and put the glass over.
I could see the bottom quite plainly. It was ofclean sand and strewed with shells. Here and there was a fragment of sea-weed, sponge, or other ocean growth. A shoal of silver-sided mackerel dashed by, and numerous strange fishes came into view. One sort there was with long streamers extending from the tail, and a body banded with rainbow hues. I looked long and intently at the strange panorama unfolded to my view, and found when I raised my head that the boat had drifted half a mile to the northeast of the buoy. Then I hoisted the sail and ratched back beyond the buoy, and drifted again, with the glass over the side, watching the bottom for signs of the galleon. This manoeuvre I repeated as long as there was light enough to see. I found that I could not see the bottom after four in the afternoon, nor before nine in the morning.
I spent three days at this work without any success, and then found that I was going at times over ground that I had already searched, for I began to identify objects as having been already seen. Especially did I recognize a huge conch-shell with a clam-shell wedged in the mouth. It was necessary therefore to devise some systematic method of search, or I should simply be hunting over and over the same ground. So I adopted the plan of gridironing, so to speak, a territory of a mile square, after the following fashion: I made me an extra buoy and anchored it at an arbitrary point about a half-mile south of the centre buoy. Taking this as a starting-point I drifted a mile before the wind to the northeast; then ratching back to the starting-point I lifted the buoy and carried it a hundred feet to the northwest, and drifted again down another parallel line, and so on.
The wind held steadily in the southwest, fortunately, day after day, and after a week’s hard work I camenearly on a line with the central buoy; but no signs of a wreck, or even a mound where one might be buried in the sand. On the eighth day of this systematic search the weather seemed about to change. A huge bank of clouds lay low in the southwest, and I hardly knew whether to venture out or not. But as it would in all probability take some hours for the storm to brew, I set forth and made one drift with my usual success, then returned and started for the second.
When I was about half-way down on the second drift I found the wreck. There was no doubt about it. The hulk lay there very slightly buried in the sand, a great, black mass careened a little to port, and the bows somewhat higher than the stern. Strange to say, it was not further than twenty rods from my central marking buoy, and about due north from it. I immediately dropped overboard my reserve buoy, composed of four large gourds attached to a strong line, and having a hundred-pound rock for an anchor, and watched to see that the anchoring-stone dropped just beside the hull.
At last I had found it! Here beneath me in sixty feet of water lay the Spanish galleon, exactly where the admiral so long ago had reported her to have sunk. His report being so far verified, it would also prove true in respect to the treasure contained within her ancient ribs.
A darkening of the sea and sky warned me that there was no time to waste in dreaming over my discovery. The storm which had been coming would now soon be here. I therefore hoisted sail and turned my back on the galleon. It was none too soon. Indeed, before I made the creek the wind had risen to such a height that I had to lower the sails and double reef them, and then went into the creek gunwale under, with the white spume and froth flying clear over the boat. But a missis as good as a mile. I got safely in and cooked me a noble dinner of corn bread and baked pork and beans in honor of the day’s glorious event.
Duke and I sat in the open porch that afternoon, sheltered from the wind and rain, resting contentedly after the long strain of hard work which had kept me on the keen jump every day from dawn until dark since the search began. The wind blew strongly, with occasional gusts of driving rain, and I feared the storm might shift my buoys, or tear them loose and carry them away; but I could locate the central buoy again by the sights already taken, if it should go, and from that the spot could easily be found. But I hoped for better results, as the main buoy, which marked the wreck, had plenty of line, and moreover, was strong and buoyant. I wished this one might last, for with the anchor lying close beside the sunken hull, it seemed to me a sort of claim stake. I determined, as soon as the weather would permit, to rig a buoy which would outride the storms, and anchor it securely over the wreck. As is usual with the heavier winds and gales in this locality, the wind before nightfall began to veer around to another quarter, getting before sunset quite around into the north, and by nine o’clock settling down in the northeast, exactly the opposite quarter from its starting-point, with fine rain and mist.
Having located the galleon, I had now done all I had intended to do before leaving the island, except to mark the location more securely, if that proved necessary; and I was therefore impatient to get away in my boat for Martinique or some other civilized port where I could get the necessary assistance and diving-apparatus. Of course I must now wait for settled weather and a favorable wind as I had once before had to do. But this time I hoped most sincerely that I should notbe kept waiting as long as before, for with little to do the time would hang heavily on my hands. The bare thought of getting back once more to civilization made my heart beat faster, and stirred my very soul.
The northerly wind was chill, and the air so moist that I built a cheerful fire in the chimney and drew my chair up in front of it, closed the door, lighted a candle, and tried to read, Duke snoozing on the floor at my feet in front of the hearth.
But although I sat thus until midnight, I could not read. I watched the embers fall and die away hour after hour, thinking over the days spent on the island, the trials and the labor, the mistakes and the successes, and the strange outcome. That I should have actually found the galleon seemed now upon cool reflection little less than a miracle. That some of the hundreds of professional wreckers and divers who make a regular business of seeking out such things on the faintest clues should not have run across the Spanish admiral’s report and sought and found the wreck and removed the treasure seemed a strange thing to me now. Why had not the Spanish government done this long ago? Then the horrible idea entered my mind that perhaps they had already done so. Or if not, perhaps an expedition designed for that purpose might even now be on its way, and might arrive when I had left the island. If so, they would speedily pick up my buoy, and I should return to find the treasure gone.
All these and a thousand such distempered fancies tortured me into a state bordering on frenzy. To have the treasure almost in sight and yet to lose it would be too much for human nature to bear. I would remove my buoy, erase every mark and take my chances of picking up the clue. But after all, how foolish that would be. The treasure lies there safe, and has lainthere many, many years, and this frantic fear coming at so late a day is the height of folly.
Then my mind would wander away to plans for conducting my negotiations: how I should seek out a man whom I could trust, and how I should present matters to secure his aid and co-operation. How should I get the money? Ah, there were the pearls! I would sell them and possibly raise money enough myself. But would I dare offer these pearls for sale? Would not their possession excite the cupidity of others and cause them to follow me back to the island and come upon me in the midst of the work of securing the treasure?
And so my fancies came and went, until at last, overpowered by fatigue, I fell fast asleep in my chair, and was wakened an hour or two before break of day by Duke’s cold nose against my hand. Whereupon I sensibly went to bed and to sleep.
IT was now the month of May and I had been about nine months a prisoner on the island. If all went as well as I hoped, I might be at home before the end of a year with money enough to redeem the dear old farm.
The morning was gray and gloomy, the wind still driving gusts of rain from the northeast, and the breakers yellow with sand rolling in on the beach, and dashing up fragments of weed and long streamers of bladder plant. There was a strong salt smell in the nostrils that such weather brings on the seashore; the gray, leaden clouds hung low and heavy over a dark, indigo sea, whitened far and near with foaming crests, like manes of racing steeds; the foliage gleamed silvery gray as the leaves were swept by the wind; and the willows along the creek bent until they dipped their slender branches in the stream. Occasionally a parrot or other long-tailed bird could be seen tossed and buffeted in an attempt to fly from one tree to another, frequently giving up the struggle and fairly drifting away to be lost among the foliage.
Notwithstanding the wet, I went about getting stores into the boat and preparing for the voyage. I filled half a dozen two-gallon gourds with water, and stopped them with well waxed wooden plugs, stowing them carefully in the bottom of the boat with due regard to her trim. Then I put on board the remainder of thedried turtle-meat, and set a ham on the fire to boil. I made two pans of bread, and put them, with pork, beans, yams, and potatoes, in the oven to bake. This food would all keep well. In addition I parched and ground up two or three quarts of seed for cold gruel. Everything was stowed away, and the boat in readiness by three o’clock in the afternoon.
There was but little sign of an abatement or change in the weather. I felt curious to know if my buoy still held, and as there was yet time before dark to go up to the north cape by way of the beach and return, I called Duke and started along the strand. About half-way there we came upon the carcass of a magnificent silver-sided tarpon,—a huge fish somewhat like a sea-bass,—that would have weighed probably two hundred pounds. It was dead when cast ashore, and so of course unfit for food. A flock of gulls were quarrelling and fighting over it, and as we approached they arose and filled the air in a great cloud. After we passed by they circled around, wind-buffeted, and settled again on their food, covering the beach, and hovering in a seething, hungry, struggling crowd about the fish, which must have been a rare feast for them.
I picked up a beautiful and perfect specimen of the fragile shell of the pearly nautilus, thin as paper, fluted and corrugated with lovely regularity, and tinted like the shaded petals of a blush rose. Rarely beautiful, divinely perfect, this sample of nature’s handiwork, cast up by the foaming, angry breakers amid the brown tangle of the shore and the foul-smelling ocean-weeds, seemed like a poem, a hymn in praise of nature’s God. I put the delicate and perfect structure carefully in my bosom to carry away as a memento of my island home.
We reached the cape, and I clambered up the highest rock from which I could obtain a clear outlook, andfound my buoy all right, rising and falling with the swell, now submerged, and now reappearing, evidently tugging at its anchor-rope, and securely held thereby.
I thought how peacefully slept the ancient hulk beneath all this turbulence. Undisturbed by wind or wave it lay there slowly changing its tough timbers of Andalusian oak back into the elements from which they sprang. I thought, too, of the indestructible gold that lay buried there, waiting the fulness of time for its reappearance in the active life of man; how long the years had been since it had felt the grip of avarice or slid freely from the fingers of charity.
Suddenly I saw away upon the rim of the sea in the northeast, in the very eye of the wind, the white glint of a small sail. The mist, the waves, and the changing rain hid it momently, and then it would gleam out again a white spark among the gray. I watched it intently for a quarter of an hour, and made out that it must be a small schooner-rigged boat hove to with jib and close reefed mainsail, drifting bodily before the wind, and rolling in a frightful manner. The mainmast had been broken off at the top, and on the foremast, half-masted, fluttered a red flag. I made out clearly, presently, that the craft was merely a half-decked boat similar to my own, though perhaps of somewhat larger size, and I thought I could see somebody on board, but could not distinguish clearly. But of course, if it was hove to, there would be some one on board, as such a condition of the canvas would not be likely to occur by accident in a boat fortuitously adrift. If the wind held in the present quarter, the boat was certain to drift on to the island, and that too in a short time. It would not take above two hours and a half for it to reach the breakers, unless it could run before the wind and thus make a course to avoid the island. Very soon indeed,the island would be a lee shore, and an exceedingly dangerous one. I marvelled greatly that they did not seem to see this danger.
There was but one thing I could do, and that was the preparation of beacon-fires to guide them into the creek mouth, the only harbor on the east coast of the island. With this in view I hurried as fast as possible down the beach to the house, and laid two fires, one on each side of the creek mouth, heaping up the dry wood from my store in such a manner that it would make a great blaze, and getting all in readiness to light as soon as the sun went down. The wind was appreciably less, and I believed was gradually decreasing. Moreover, it had now stopped raining, and I could see the boat more distinctly.
An hour before sunset I thought it would be possible to go out with my own boat under double-reefed canvas, and intercept the stranger. Something was undoubtedly wrong on board of her, otherwise she would not be allowed thus to drift to leeward without control, with the island in plain sight. If there should prove to be no one on board, I might possibly be able to save the boat, which could hardly fail to prove better than my own. On the other hand, should there be some one on board, I might render valuable assistance. I determined forthwith to make the attempt. So I lighted my fires and got on board.
It was no easy matter to run my boat out over the bar in the teeth of a half-gale of wind; and I did not accomplish it without getting completely wet through, as I was obliged to tail on behind and push her out through the breakers until I was immersed to my neck in salt water, and then clamber in over the stern and haul aft the main sheet with the sail flapping and thundering as though determined to burst loose. However,I soon got her under control and was gliding along close hauled on the starboard tack, with the spray, as she pitched nose down, flying as high as the gaff, and raining down on the deck in bucketfuls.
The sun was about an hour high as I left the creek, and the strange boat in plain sight about a mile and a half dead to windward. I could easily get to windward of her in a single tack, by standing well off shore on the first slant.
When I came up near enough to hail I did so, and got no response. Getting to windward I wore and ran down quite to the boat, and letting both sheets go, loosened the halliards and lowered the mainsail, and brought my own boat close up along side. For the moment my own sail hid the vessel and I could not see what was before me. But now I looked and saw lying in the stern sheets what seemed to be the corpse of an old, gray-haired man of perhaps seventy years, the head held by a girl of eighteen or thereabouts.
I never shall forget the look that was on her face. Pale, drawn, with dishevelled hair, and dark circles around her beautiful eyes, she gazed at me without a word.
“Do you know,” cried I, “that you are drifting on to the beach and will be among the breakers in half an hour?”
For answer she pointed to her dry lips.
“Is it water you want?”
She nodded. I hastily cast a line on board and lashed the two vessels together, where grinding they rose and fell with the waves, and then seizing a gourd of water made my way to the girl. She would not drink herself until after I had poured some water into the mouth of the old man, who though perfectly helpless was still alive, and swallowed the water as fast as I gave it to him.Then I held the mouth of the heavy gourd to her own lips until I thought she had drunk enough. She gripped it with both hands, and I had to force it away from her. It was a pitiful sight.
But there was no time to lose, for we were fast drifting into the breakers, and it was absolutely necessary to get the boats before the wind and get steerage way on, or we should be on shore and dashed to pieces by the rollers. I sprang forward and loosened the main sheet of the strange boat, unlashed the helm which was tied amidships, and she paid off at once handsomely.
The sun was now quite down, but my two beacon-fires burned brightly, and I steered straight for them. Finding my own boat alongside had a tendency to bring us around to the wind, I put the helm into the girl’s hand and bade her hold it just so, and jumping on to my own boat lowered the jib, that was still set, cast off the lashing, and hitching a line forward made her fast to tow. I then hauled up and got on board the other boat again, and let my own boat drop behind us. Now I found no difficulty in steering, though my own boat would yaw and pull a little, first one way and then the other.
We were soon close to the bar, and I felt no little apprehension as to what might happen when we actually encountered the huge roller which broke every few moments there. But there was no help for it; we must take our chances, one of which—and not the least probable—was that the first boat might ground and the one in tow come crashing in on top of us. Fortunately,—for it was pure good-luck,—we struck a roller just at the right moment which lifted us over the bar as it broke. The tow-line snapped in twain as we were on the crest, and my own boat shot alongside like a waterfowl and passed us, both boats riding into the creek alongside of each other, the red glare of the beacon-firesat either hand lighting up the scene like the last act of a sensational drama.
As soon as we were fairly in the creek I jumped overboard, the water not being above my chest, and beached both the boats safely. The girl still sat holding the old man’s head, and had not spoken a word. But she followed my motions with her eyes, and I could easily read therein that she was grateful enough for my exertions, and appreciated the danger we had escaped.
The old man could apparently neither speak nor move. An ashen pallor lay on his countenance, and one side of his face, especially one corner of his mouth, was drawn down and distorted,—a sufficient indication, had I understood it, that he was suffering from a stroke of paralysis. From his clothing, which was soaked with spray, I could easily see that he was a clergyman.
I helped the girl out, partly carrying her as she could scarcely stand, and then attempted to lift out the old man. He was a heavy, strongly built man, weighing all of two hundred and fifty pounds. A heavy, helpless man is about as awkward a burden as one can imagine. Limp and yielding he could not be picked up except by the middle, and he was so lying in the boat that it was impossible for me to get a good hold of him in such position as to exert my strength. His clothing, all soaked with rain and salt water, clung to him, and must have chilled his poor helpless body through. If he was to live at all it was absolutely necessary to get him warm and dry right speedily.
Meantime the poor girl stood shivering in her equally wet garments, looking on anxiously at my efforts. Finally she spoke: “I think if you will turn him across the boat, you may be able to lift his head and shoulders up here,”—placing her hand on the gunwale. “Have courage, dear father, he will be gentle with you.”