Chapter Fifteen.We escape by the Skin of our Teeth.In a few minutes Sails joined me, with the extra gun and a biscuit tin full of cartridges; and between us we got the catamaran afloat, swung her round with her bows pointing seaward, and both jumped aboard. Then, while I seized the steering paddle, Simpson sprang to the main halyards and hoisted the big lateen sail, which at once filled, when we gathered headway and began to draw away from the shore, heading about south-west out of the bay; and as soon as the sail was fully set and the halyards belayed, Sails came aft and took the helm, while I gave the spare gun an overhaul before loading it.As we drew out from under the lee of the island and began to feel the true breeze it became apparent that it was fast freshening up again, for we could see the heads of the seas bursting into little patches of white froth here and there, at which I was profoundly grateful; for I felt that a fresh breeze, dead in their teeth, was likely to hamper the progress of the savages quite as much as I could hope to do, and every minute of delay now was worth a gold mine to us. And that the advance of the savages was indeed being retarded by the rapidly freshening breeze soon became apparent, for we were fully three miles offshore when we at length made out the canoes, about two miles to leeward of us, heading straight in for the island.Running rapidly down toward them, we soon neared them sufficiently to enable us to see that they were big, lumping craft, about sixty feet long by six or seven feet beam, each canoe being manned by about fifty savages, every mother’s son of whom was wielding a short, broad-bladed paddle as though his life depended upon it. Yet the canoes were not making very much headway, for they were unwieldy—looking craft, with long, high-peaked, overhanging bows, and sterns which seemed to catch and hold a good deal of wind, making the paddling of them to windward, especially against a heavy head sea, exceedingly hard work.To do anything really effective with these craft, and especially to make good shooting in the heavy sea that was running, it was necessary to get to close quarters with them; I therefore directed Simpson to haul up two or three points to the northward, my intention being to pass the flotilla on their port beam, come to the wind as soon as we had passed them, cross their sterns, raking them as we passed, and then follow them, maintaining a steady fire all the way, and crowding them up to the northward as much as possible, so that they might not land in South-west Bay.Our approach was greeted with yells of defiance from the crowded canoes, many of the occupants of which dropped their paddles, sprang to their feet, and hurled their long spears at us as we swept past them at a distance of some two hundred yards from the nearest canoe. They were experts in the hurling of spears, those savages; but it was no part of my plan to run the risk of getting either Simpson or myself hurt—two of us against some five hundred left no room for quixotic displays of daring; and we were careful to keep beyond the range of their spears, every one of which dropped harmlessly into the water at varying distances from us, the nearest of them all falling short by about thirty or forty fathoms. But if I was anxious that neither of us should be hurt, I was also anxious to avoid hurting the savages, as far as might be, my object being not so much to destroy them as to prevent them from landing on our island, if possible; and I thought that this might perhaps be done, and the savages compelled to retreat, by drilling their canoes so full of bullet holes that at least some of them would sink, when the remainder would become so crowded that it would be found impossible to continue paddling to windward—for I took it for granted that if one or two of their canoes sank, their crews would be picked up by the rest. Of course there was the risk that, in endeavouring to sink their canoes, I might wound or even kill a few savages; but that was their lookout, not mine.Therefore, when our antagonists opened the ball by casting spears at us, I retaliated by seizing my gun and aiming at the water line of the nearest canoe, expecting the bullet to pass right through her, leaving two holes which would admit quite a quantity of water, unless the savages happened to possess the means to plug them. My shot went true, for as the smoke blew away I saw a small white puncture show in the bottom of the canoe for an instant before it was hidden by the roll of the craft. A loud yell of astonishment greeted my first essay, showing that these particular savages had never before had experience of firearms; but the yell was not wholly the result of astonishment either, for I saw a native clap his hand to his leg, and shrewdly guessed that the bullet had punctured him as well as the canoe. I had time to drop the discharged gun, seize the loaded one, and fire a second shot before we were fairly past that particular craft; but that second shot was less successful than the first, for it missed the canoe. However, it caught a native, who sprang convulsively to his feet, his hands clutching his head, as, wheeling half-round, he staggered backward and tumbled head over heels into the sea. I naturally expected that his friends would stop and endeavour to pick him up, but not a bit of it; they merely uttered another yell, apparently of encouragement to each other, and drove their paddles into the water with increased energy.Both guns being now empty, I signed Simpson to come to the wind and luff athwart the sterns of the flotilla, while I busied myself upon the recharging of the pieces. By the time that this was done we were on the starboard quarter of the most southerly of the canoes, and I immediately proceeded to test my skill upon her. Making short tacks across her stern, I fired half a dozen bullets into her, every one of which hit, five out of the six wounding and disabling one or more of her occupants as well as drilling a hole in the canoe herself, with the result that she began to drop astern of the others, the crews of which were exerting themselves to their very utmost, having apparently come to the conclusion that the sooner they could reach the island the better it would be for them. Wherefore I attacked the next canoe in like manner: but now I was less careful than before in the matter of hurting her occupants, for it began to dawn upon me that these savages had no notion of standing by to help a disabled consort, and that, do what I would, I could not possibly prevent some of them at least from effecting a landing; therefore my business must be to see that as few of them as possible should set foot on the island. Incidentally, I found that by persistently attacking the southernmost canoe I was slowly but surely effecting one part of my purpose, by causing the whole flotilla to edge slowly away to the northward, thus diverting them from any purpose that they might have had of landing in South-west Bay.Then another plan suggested itself to me. I saw that the savages were either destitute of means to plug the bullet holes in their canoes or had not wit enough to make use of them; but each canoe appeared to carry several large calabash bowls, which were used as balers: my plan, therefore, was to shoot promptly at any man whom I saw attempting to bale a leaky canoe, with the result that the particular canoe which I happened to be attacking gradually filled and ultimately swamped, leaving her crew to cling helplessly to her as she floated full to her gunwale, or to strike out for the island, now some three miles distant. And since the fellows swam like seals there was no doubt that they would ultimately reach it—unless a shark happened to encounter them on the way; but I did not allow the probability of their ultimate arrival on the island to worry me much, for I felt tolerably certain that, before that could happen, we should have made good our escape, if indeed we were going to escape at all.Our effective antagonists were now reduced to eight canoes and their crews, who were all hanging together as much as possible for mutual protection, but were making poor headway against the steadily increasing wind and sea. If I could hinder them still further, so much the better; and the most obvious way to do that was to weaken their crews by wounding as many as possible: therefore I now resumed my original tactics of tacking to and fro athwart their sterns, and raking them as we passed. And this, I soon found, was a very excellent plan, for it not infrequently happened that by this mode of attack I was able to make one bullet do double, and in some cases even treble duty; the result being that by the time that we all drew up abreast of the island the entire fleet was in such difficulties that they were scarcely able to make any headway at all, two of the canoes indeed being so seriously crippled that at last, notwithstanding their close proximity to the island, they were actually compelled to bear up and run away to leeward again, while another of them was swamped, leaving five out of the original ten still to contend with.And now my trouble began in earnest, for so desperate were the savages rendered by the merciless persecution to which they had compelled me, in self-defence, to subject them, that they made the most strenuous efforts to get into South-west Bay; and, indeed, it was not until I bore up and took the extreme risk of running down one canoe that I was finally able to turn them from their purpose. But ultimately, after a running fight—if so one-sided an affair could be so called—four of them contrived to weather North-west Cape and effect a landing in North Bay. Then, after chasing them right into the bay, and keeping up a brisk fire upon them until they landed, to the number of about one hundred and twenty, and vanished into the woods, we in the catamaran bore up, headed out to sea again, and made the best of our way back to South-west Bay and the shipyard, hoping that upon our arrival we should find the schooner afloat; for we had been gone fully four hours.But to my intense disappointment, when we entered the bay there was the schooner still high and dry upon the stocks, with Chips, the boatswain, and Cunningham all busily engaged in turning over the small pile of lumber that still remained from the dismembered wreck of theMartha. Presently one of them looked up, saw us coming, and apparently reported the fact to the others, for Cunningham at once straightened himself up and came down to the water’s edge to meet us.“Well, Temple,” he exclaimed, as the catamaran grounded and I stepped ashore, “how have things gone with you? Have you managed to beat off our friends the enemy?”“I have not,” I answered, just a trifle sourly, I am afraid. “A hundred or more of them have landed round there in North Bay; and we may confidently expect a visit from them within the next half-hour. But what the mischief have you fellows been up to all this time? I fully expected to find the schooner afloat, under way, and only awaiting our return to be off! What have you been doing? Playing poker, or what?”“Now, my dear chap, don’t you go and turn rusty as well as the rest of us, or there’s no knowing what may happen; for, let me tell you, we’re all just as savage as bears with sore heads,” remonstrated Cunningham. “No,” he continued, “we’ve not been playing poker, or hunt the slipper, or even kiss in the ring; to put it plainly, we’ve been trying to do the impossible. The long and the short of it is, Temple, that we have used up our last scrap of available timber, and there still remains a good half-hour’s work to be done on the cradle before we dare start to wedge up. We have been nailing and plugging bits together, and working them in to the best of our ability, until our last nail is expended; and now we seem to be at a standstill. I’ll be shot if I know how we’re going to get over the difficulty.”“What! do you mean to tell me that after getting as far as that we are brought to a standstill for the sake of a few pieces of timber?” I demanded. “How much do you require?”“Oh, very little,” was the answer. “A few feet—ten or fifteen feet of three-inch stuff would serve—but the mischief of it is that we haven’t got it. Even the remains of the wreck will not yield us another inch.”“Then,” said I, “all that remains is to break into the catamaran, and take out of her as much as is required. She has served her turn; we shall not require her any more if we can get the schooner into the water; and—”“Kick me; kick me hard!” shouted Cunningham in an ecstasy of delight, as he smote me a blow between the shoulders that made me stagger. “The catamaran!” he continued. “Of course. Oh, what a lot of fools we were not to have thought of that before! But,” suddenly bethinking himself, “if we had, it would have been of no use, for you had her. She is available now, however, and in ten minutes we’ll rip enough stuff out of her to finish our job. I know exactly where to find the kind of stuff we want. Chips ahoy! bring your tools down to the catamaran, my son; we’re going to break her up!”The carpenter flung his hand aloft in joyous intimation that he understood, and at once made a dash for his tools, while Simpson and I wended our way to the schooner, to see how things looked in that direction, and also to forage for a morsel of food, for we had eaten nothing since breakfast, and were feeling pretty hungry.A single glance at the cradle, which, when wedged up, would lift the schooner off the keel blocks and throw her weight upon the launching ways, sufficed to reveal the pitiful straits to which Chips had latterly been reduced; for worked into it there were scraps of wood less than a foot in length, fastened to other pieces of similar size with nails or plugs, and presenting a most flimsy and unsatisfactory appearance. But when I came to look more closely I saw that the only unsatisfactory part of the work was its appearance; it was not nearly so flimsy as at first sight it had appeared to be. Chips had evidently fully realised his responsibility, and had taken care that, let the material be what it might, there should be nothing faulty about his workmanship. And I saw also that, given the necessary amount of material, he would be able to finish his work in a very short time.The boatswain routed out some food for us, and while Simpson and I sat down to eat and drink, Murdock, upon my instructions, went down to the catamaran—which the carpenter and Cunningham had already attacked—and brought away from her the two guns and the ammunition that remained from our engagement with the savages. And when he had performed this errand I bade him get aboard the schooner, rout out a few extra guns and a further supply of ammunition, load the weapons, and then station himself in the bows as a lookout, with special instructions to keep a wary eye upon the neighbouring cliffs and report the very first indication of the approach of an enemy.The boatswain had scarcely been on the lookout a matter of twenty minutes when he hailed me.“Mr Temple,” he shouted, “I wish you’d come up here, sir, for a minute, and bring that there glass of Mr Cunnin’ham’s along with ye. There’s some’at up there on top o’ them cliffs that I can’t rightly make out, and I’d like you to come and have a look at it.”Accordingly up I went, with Cunningham’s telescope still slung over my shoulders, and joined Murdock where he stood right in the eyes of the schooner, peering intently at a particular spot on the top of the cliffs.“Now then,” said I, withdrawing the telescope from its case, “where is this mysterious something that you can’t make out?”“Ye see that there big tree with the thick, knobbly-lookin’ trunk, up there, sir?” he demanded, pointing. “Well, just to the nor’ard of it there’s a bush with a lot of white flowers upon it. See that?”I replied that I did.“Very well,” continued my companion. “Two or three times I’ve seemed to see somethin’ movin’ among them there white flowers, but I can’t be quite—”“Yes, you are right, I see it; there is something—somebody—there,” I interrupted, having brought the glass to bear upon the spot while Murdock was speaking. “Ah! now I have lost it again,” I continued, “but I am certain I saw a dark face peering through the branches. Here! let me have your gun. If there is really anybody there we’ll give him a scare, if nothing worse.”So saying, I took the loaded gun, and, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the spot, stretched myself prone on the deck, with the barrel of the weapon resting upon the rail of the schooner’s very low bulwark. Sighting the piece carefully, I brought it to bear immediately on the spot where I thought I had seen the face, and then waited patiently for its reappearance. But minute after minute passed and nothing appeared; and presently Cunningham and the carpenter came up the beach staggering under a load of timber that promised to be amply sufficient for all our needs. I began to think that I must have been mistaken, and was about to lay aside the gun and descend to the beach again, when the boatswain, who had taken the glass from me and had been intently peering through it, murmured:“There ’tis again, Mr Temple—no, stop a minute, it’s gone—no ’tain’t! Have ye got your piece bearin’ dead upon that spot, sir?”I answered that I had.“Then stand by, and when I gives the word just you press the trigger, sir, please. Wait a bit; I don’t— Ah! there he is—fire!”On the instant I pressed the trigger, and as the smoke cleared away I thought I saw a slight momentary disturbance of the foliage about the spot at which I had aimed, and then all was still again.“You got him, sir, as sure as eggs is young chickens!” exclaimed Murdock, still peering through the glass. “Or, if you didn’t actooaly get him,” he amended, “you give him a scare that he won’t forget in a blue moon. Shall I just slip up there, Mr Temple, and see if I can find anything?”“Certainly not,” I replied severely. “We cannot afford to take any risks. Besides, what does it matter? No, you remain here, reload that gun, keep the glass, maintain a bright lookout, and if you see any savages attempting to sneak down upon the beach, shoot without hesitation. What I am chiefly afraid of is that they will muster up there in force, and attempt to overwhelm us with a rush. I am going below to lend the others a hand.”I found Cunningham, Parsons, and Simpson all working at high pressure under the bows; for they had of course heard the shot, and did not need to be told that it indicated the presence of the enemy, though whether in force or only in the form of a scout none of us could tell. But the fact that even one of the savages had already made his way across to our side of the island was spur enough to our energies, and now we worked as probably none of us had ever worked before, in an endeavour to complete the cradle, wedge up, and launch the schooner before the enemy should muster courage enough to charge home upon us. If such a thing as that last should happen—and it would only mean the loss of a few lives by the savages—nothing could possibly save us.I had been down on the beach about five minutes when a slight hissing sound reached my ear, and the next moment a long, triple-barbed, and exceedingly formidable-looking spear struck the sand and remained quivering there within about ten feet of us, and at the same instant Murdock shouted from above:“Mr Temple—Mr Temple, sir, I wish you’d come up here and take my place. They’re musterin’ up there on top o’ the cliff—I can see ’em movin’ about among the bushes—and I ain’t ne’er a good enough shot for the job you’ve told me off for. If I shoots and misses once or twice they’ll rush us, as sure as you’m alive, sir; while if two or three of ’em was bowled over it might hold ’em back a bit and give us more time. Come quick, sir, if you please; I believe they’m gettin’ ready for a rush!”There was sound sense in what the boatswain said: he was not a good enough shot, or quite cool enough in the handling of firearms, to stop a rush, and I therefore determined to act on his suggestion. Only Cunningham was quite as good a shot as myself, if not better; therefore I turned to him.“Cunningham,” said I, “you hear what Murdock says; and he is right. But you are the crack shot of the party, so please go up and relieve him at once. But before he comes down get him to bring up every gun from below, and our entire stock of cartridges, and make him load every weapon and place it handy for you. Go at once, please; and remember you must shoot to kill.”“But, my dear chap—” began Cunningham, and then I cut him short.“Go at once, sir,” I exclaimed sharply. “This is no time for arguing; and please remember that I command here.”“Right you are, old chap; I understand,” he replied, and went without further ado. And, as he turned to leave, another spear came whizzing through the air and stuck in the sand exactly where he had been standing a second earlier. Matters were beginning to look serious, for if the savages had among them—as they certainly had—men capable of hurling a spear from the top of the cliff as far as the schooner, one or the other of us might be hurt or even killed at any moment.A couple of minutes passed, and I heard the voices of Cunningham and Murdock as they talked together overhead, showing that the engineer had taken up his post. Simpson and I were holding a piece of timber in position, while Parsons secured it, when I suddenly saw a tall savage step boldly out from among the bushes on top of the cliff, poising a long spear in his hand. He gave the weapon a preliminary jerk, as though to test its balance, and then flung it high above his head in the act of casting. I was about to shout to Cunningham, calling his attention to the fellow, when a gun cracked sharply out overhead, and the savage spun round upon his heel, staggered backward, and fell crashing in among the bushes.“Good shot!” I shouted. “I say, Cunningham, keep Murdock up there with you to reload; we can do very well without him down here.”“All right,” came the answer; “I will, if you are sure that you don’t need him. Ah, by Jove! there’s another of them!”Cunningham’s shot took that fellow in the leg, for we saw him clap his hand to his right one, just above the knee, and go limping away out of sight. Apparently the savages believed that the discharge of the weapon left us temporarily harmless, for another man instantly sprang into view and hurriedly poised his spear; but Cunningham was too quick for him, for he, too, dropped and lay still. Then they layperdufor a few minutes, during which we, at work upon the cradle, put in some splendid work.Suddenly, with a final tap of his hammer, Chips sprang back and tossed the tool in the air, cleverly catching it by the handle as it fell. “Finished!” he yelled, on a note of exultation. “Now, Mr Temple and Simpson, get the mauls, and let’s wedge up. It’ll have to be a rather rough-and-ready job, I’m afraid; but once the weight of her is off the blocks and on to the ways we needn’t trouble much. And now, if Mr Cunnin’ham can spare the bo’sun, he’ll be useful to us. Come along, Sails, you and I’ll take the starboard side, while Mr Temple and Murdock takes the port, and we’ll see which gets finished first.”I hailed Cunningham, asking if he could spare Murdock, and he replied that they were at that moment reloading the whole battery of guns, after which he would send him down. And presently Murdock came.“Now then, boatswain,” said I, “‘wedge up’ is the word, so take that maul and strike with me. Chips and his mate think they can beat us; but we’ll show them a thing or two. Now then, strike!”Forthwith the air began to resound with the blows of iron on wood, as, with more or less dexterous strokes, we drove the wedges home, one pair after another; and in about ten minutes we all met under the little vessel’s counter, our work completed. But the savages evidently suspected that matters were approaching a crisis; possibly the idea was suggested to them by the carpenter’s triumphant yell of “Finished!” upon the completion of the cradle, for during that momentous ten minutes several of them had made desperate efforts to transfix us with their spears, and as they had now adopted the plan of making the attempt in groups of half a dozen or more—to all of whom it was manifestly impossible for Cunningham to attend at the same moment—we four at work under the schooner’s bottom had had two or three exceedingly narrow escapes.“Now, Mr Temple,” exclaimed the carpenter excitedly, “I’ll just take a look fore and aft under her bottom, to make sure that she’s clear everywhere; and when I sing out ‘All clear!’ will you and the rest please jump aboard and stand by to cover me with your rifles and protect me from a rush while I knock away the spur shores and launch the little hooker? And you might drop a few ropes’ ends over the sides, and especially over the bows, for me to swing aboard by as soon as she starts to run down the ways. And if them bronze-coloured skowbanks up on the cliffs there tries to run in upon me with their spears while I’m down under, give ’em toko; for if I’m hurted afore them spur shores is knocked away, we may have a lot of trouble yet. Ah! blest if I didn’t think so,” as Cunningham’s shots cracked out thrice, and two natives tumbled headlong down the face of the cliff, while a third hurriedly scrambled back to cover; “they’re guessin’ that if they don’t look sharp we’ll get away from ’em a’ter all, so please keep a keen eye on ’em, sir.”“Ay, ay, Chips, we will,” answered I. “Now, get along with your inspection, man, as lively as you please, for I see signs of a movement among them up there. Simpson,” to the sailmaker, “jump aboard and lend Mr Cunningham a hand to reload those guns; and when you have done that, drop a few ropes’ ends over the sides for Chips to climb aboard by.”By the time I had finished speaking the carpenter had crept in under the schooner’s bottom and was hastily yet carefully assuring himself that the vessel’s keel had been everywhere lifted clear of the keel blocks. Less than three minutes sufficed him to complete his examination, when he shouted the signal “All clear!” and immediately began to pound upon the heels of the spur shores with his maul, while Murdock and I made a dash for the ladder which afforded access to the schooner’s deck. But it was clear that the savages had by this time gained a tolerably accurate conception of what we were about, and had begun to realise that unless they acted at once we were likely to slip through their hands after all; for no sooner did the boatswain and I jump for the ladder than they set up a fierce yell, and about a hundred of them broke cover and began to scramble down the cliff face, shouting encouragement to each other as they swung or sprang from one projection to another, tossing their spears and war clubs down to the beach beneath, in order that they might have the use of both hands during their hurried descent. I naturally expected that Cunningham would open fire upon them forthwith; but he did not, for he was at the moment busily reloading the discharged weapons—moreover, it appeared that he had a better plan.At that moment the savages were moving so rapidly and so erratically as they swung down the cliff face that accurate shooting would have been exceedingly difficult; but the instant that the first native reached the beach and paused for a second to seize a club and a handful of spears from those which had been cast down from the summit of the cliff, the engineer, lying prone on the deck, with his weapon resting on the low rail of the schooner’s bulwarks, covered him, and the next instant the shot rang out and the man toppled over, mortally hit. Then Cunningham passed the empty weapon back to Simpson, receiving a loaded one in its stead, and in like manner bowled over the second and third of the savages who reached the beach. But this could not last long, as I could easily see upon reaching his side, for the savages were now swarming down the cliff so rapidly and in such numbers that it was impossible to load the guns quickly enough to cope with them. As Murdock and I dashed forward and joined the other two in the eyes of the schooner I saw that about a dozen of the savages had reached the beach unhurt, and were at that instant gathering themselves together to make a combined rush.“Now, lads,” said I, “this is where our revolvers are going to come in useful. Wait until they arrive within twenty yards of us, and then open upon them with the ‘barkers’; but don’t get excited and fire wild, whatever you do—we must make every shot tell. And— Hurrah, my hearties, there go the spur shores!” as I heard them clatter down and felt a sudden tremor thrill through the schooner. “Now, look out, here they come! Watch for the men who pause to hurl their spears, and do your best to bowl them over. She’s moving, lads, she’s moving! Hurrah! Another minute and we shall be afloat. Now, look out, and give ’em beans! Here they come!”Yes; they were coming with a vengeance, not only the dozen who formed as it were the vanguard of the rush, but some twenty or thirty more, who in the course of a few seconds had flung themselves down from the rocks to the soft, yielding sand below, while others were following down the cliff face at breakneck speed. They came running and leaping down the beach in pursuit of the now fast-moving schooner, each man grasping a single spear in his right hand and three or four more and a war club in his left, the whole of them yelling like demons. At that moment Chips appeared under the bows, and the sight of him was greeted by the savages with a howl of exultation, for they seemed to think that since he was down on the sand they had him in their power. But the carpenter knew perfectly well what he was about, and as the stem of the gliding schooner slid past him he made a spring at her wire bobstay, caught it first with one hand, then with the other, pulled himself up and flung his legs over it, and then rapidly hauled himself up it to the bowsprit end, which he reached just as the schooner plunged into the water, swung himself astride the spar, and so worked his way inboard. But it was touch and go with him, for the moment he showed himself about a dozen of the leading natives pulled up short and prepared to hurl their spears at him, and I am convinced that but for the hot revolver fire which we instantly opened upon the daring savages, bowling three of them over and so seriously disconcerting the aim of the others that they missed, Master Chips would, even at the last moment, have lost the number of his mess. But with the plunge of the schooner into the water all danger was over, for the little craft held her way in the most wonderful fashion, making so long a stern board into the waters of the bay that she shot far beyond the extreme range of the savages’ spears before she finally came to rest.Meanwhile her canvas was all loose and ready for setting; therefore the moment I felt her to be water borne I dashed aft to the tiller, at the same time shouting to the others to man the foresail and fore staysail halyards and hoist away: and by the time the foresail was hoisted the vessel was beginning to lose sternway, whereupon I jammed her tiller hard-over to port, and thus canted her with her head to the northward. This caused her head sails to fill, whereupon she quickly gathered headway, when, putting the helm hard up, I headed her out to sea, while the others proceeded to set the jib and mainsail; and within ten minutes of her first plunge into the water the littleNautilus—as we named her—was clear of the reef and fairly in the open sea.There were several trifling jobs that we would have preferred to finish off before proceeding to sea, several articles that we would fain have carried away from the island with us, had we been afforded the opportunity; but the presence of the savages of course precluded this, and therefore the moment that we were under way and clear of the western extremity of the island we flattened in our sheets, fore and aft, and proceeded to the northward, close-hauled on the starboard tack on our way to Honolulu, which was to be our first port of call.Naturally the first and most engrossing question claiming our attention was that of the behaviour of our little ship, and we had not been under way a quarter of an hour before we were all agreed that she far exceeded our most sanguine expectations; she was a magnificent little sea boat, riding the long Pacific surges as buoyantly as a gull, very stiff under her canvas, and extraordinarily fast and weatherly. The only thing that caused us any concern was that we found she was leaking to a somewhat alarming extent; but we were quite prepared for that, as she had been standing so long on the hot beach that her planks had shrunk somewhat, opening her seams. She “took up” however during the course of the night, after keeping us busy at the pump for the first three or four hours of our voyage, and after that we had no further trouble with her.The island was a mere faint blue smudge on the horizon astern when the sun when down on the evening of that eventful day, and on the ninth morning following we safely arrived at Honolulu. Here, thanks to Cunningham’s hundred and forty sovereigns, which he had contrived to hold on to through all our vicissitudes of fortune, we found ourselves possessed of money enough to carry us round the Horn and as far as Baltimore, where we had decided to call on our way home.We remained in Honolulu four days, making arrangements for our long and adventurous voyage round the southern extremity of the great American continent, and then gaily started, disregarding the strenuous warnings of the many friends made by us during our brief stay. And adventures enough and to spare we had, enough to fill another book of this size; but that, as a certain writer has remarked, is another story. It must suffice me now to say that we reached Punta Arenas, in the Strait of Magellan, fifty-three days after leaving Honolulu, stayed there two days, and safely arrived in Baltimore harbour two months, to the day, after leaving Punta Arenas.We had a little difficulty in finding “Marthy”, the relict of the late lamented Captain Ephraim Brown, but we found her at last, introduced ourselves, broke to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death, and then unfolded to her the story of the pearls. What between the news of her loss, and that of the enormous wealth coming to her through her late husband’s good fortune, the poor old soul was driven nearly crazy for a time; but she was a woman of strong common sense and a wonderfully practical turn of mind, and in the course of three or four days she rallied her faculties sufficiently to decide that she would put the whole of her affairs in the hands of a firm of lawyers of undoubted integrity, which, we agreed with her, was about the wisest thing she could do. Accordingly we handed over the pearls to them, leaving them to arrange the complicated question of duty, etcetera, and left Baltimore for England after a stay of just a fortnight. During our sojourn in Baltimore a heavy easterly gale had swept the Atlantic for a full week; then came a spell of fine weather and moderate westerly winds, which carried us clean across the “Pond” in twenty-two days, our arrival at Southampton, “all well”, occurring on 27 August, 1864.Of course I was now a rich man, and did not need to trouble myself about completing my indentures, or obtaining another berth; but I nevertheless made a point of reporting myself at the offices in London of the owners of theZenobia, where I was very cordially received. And here I had the satisfaction of learning, first, that theZenobia’slongboat had been picked up within twelve hours by a homeward-bound ship from Calcutta, thanks to which fortunate circumstance Captain Roberts’s life had been saved—as well as those of all the other occupants of the boat; and he was now as well as ever, and again in command of his ship, which had been captured some seven weeks after the occurrence of the mutiny, following upon an unsuccessful attempt to “hold up” an Australian clipper, in which attempt Bainbridge, the instigator of the mutiny, had been shot dead.
In a few minutes Sails joined me, with the extra gun and a biscuit tin full of cartridges; and between us we got the catamaran afloat, swung her round with her bows pointing seaward, and both jumped aboard. Then, while I seized the steering paddle, Simpson sprang to the main halyards and hoisted the big lateen sail, which at once filled, when we gathered headway and began to draw away from the shore, heading about south-west out of the bay; and as soon as the sail was fully set and the halyards belayed, Sails came aft and took the helm, while I gave the spare gun an overhaul before loading it.
As we drew out from under the lee of the island and began to feel the true breeze it became apparent that it was fast freshening up again, for we could see the heads of the seas bursting into little patches of white froth here and there, at which I was profoundly grateful; for I felt that a fresh breeze, dead in their teeth, was likely to hamper the progress of the savages quite as much as I could hope to do, and every minute of delay now was worth a gold mine to us. And that the advance of the savages was indeed being retarded by the rapidly freshening breeze soon became apparent, for we were fully three miles offshore when we at length made out the canoes, about two miles to leeward of us, heading straight in for the island.
Running rapidly down toward them, we soon neared them sufficiently to enable us to see that they were big, lumping craft, about sixty feet long by six or seven feet beam, each canoe being manned by about fifty savages, every mother’s son of whom was wielding a short, broad-bladed paddle as though his life depended upon it. Yet the canoes were not making very much headway, for they were unwieldy—looking craft, with long, high-peaked, overhanging bows, and sterns which seemed to catch and hold a good deal of wind, making the paddling of them to windward, especially against a heavy head sea, exceedingly hard work.
To do anything really effective with these craft, and especially to make good shooting in the heavy sea that was running, it was necessary to get to close quarters with them; I therefore directed Simpson to haul up two or three points to the northward, my intention being to pass the flotilla on their port beam, come to the wind as soon as we had passed them, cross their sterns, raking them as we passed, and then follow them, maintaining a steady fire all the way, and crowding them up to the northward as much as possible, so that they might not land in South-west Bay.
Our approach was greeted with yells of defiance from the crowded canoes, many of the occupants of which dropped their paddles, sprang to their feet, and hurled their long spears at us as we swept past them at a distance of some two hundred yards from the nearest canoe. They were experts in the hurling of spears, those savages; but it was no part of my plan to run the risk of getting either Simpson or myself hurt—two of us against some five hundred left no room for quixotic displays of daring; and we were careful to keep beyond the range of their spears, every one of which dropped harmlessly into the water at varying distances from us, the nearest of them all falling short by about thirty or forty fathoms. But if I was anxious that neither of us should be hurt, I was also anxious to avoid hurting the savages, as far as might be, my object being not so much to destroy them as to prevent them from landing on our island, if possible; and I thought that this might perhaps be done, and the savages compelled to retreat, by drilling their canoes so full of bullet holes that at least some of them would sink, when the remainder would become so crowded that it would be found impossible to continue paddling to windward—for I took it for granted that if one or two of their canoes sank, their crews would be picked up by the rest. Of course there was the risk that, in endeavouring to sink their canoes, I might wound or even kill a few savages; but that was their lookout, not mine.
Therefore, when our antagonists opened the ball by casting spears at us, I retaliated by seizing my gun and aiming at the water line of the nearest canoe, expecting the bullet to pass right through her, leaving two holes which would admit quite a quantity of water, unless the savages happened to possess the means to plug them. My shot went true, for as the smoke blew away I saw a small white puncture show in the bottom of the canoe for an instant before it was hidden by the roll of the craft. A loud yell of astonishment greeted my first essay, showing that these particular savages had never before had experience of firearms; but the yell was not wholly the result of astonishment either, for I saw a native clap his hand to his leg, and shrewdly guessed that the bullet had punctured him as well as the canoe. I had time to drop the discharged gun, seize the loaded one, and fire a second shot before we were fairly past that particular craft; but that second shot was less successful than the first, for it missed the canoe. However, it caught a native, who sprang convulsively to his feet, his hands clutching his head, as, wheeling half-round, he staggered backward and tumbled head over heels into the sea. I naturally expected that his friends would stop and endeavour to pick him up, but not a bit of it; they merely uttered another yell, apparently of encouragement to each other, and drove their paddles into the water with increased energy.
Both guns being now empty, I signed Simpson to come to the wind and luff athwart the sterns of the flotilla, while I busied myself upon the recharging of the pieces. By the time that this was done we were on the starboard quarter of the most southerly of the canoes, and I immediately proceeded to test my skill upon her. Making short tacks across her stern, I fired half a dozen bullets into her, every one of which hit, five out of the six wounding and disabling one or more of her occupants as well as drilling a hole in the canoe herself, with the result that she began to drop astern of the others, the crews of which were exerting themselves to their very utmost, having apparently come to the conclusion that the sooner they could reach the island the better it would be for them. Wherefore I attacked the next canoe in like manner: but now I was less careful than before in the matter of hurting her occupants, for it began to dawn upon me that these savages had no notion of standing by to help a disabled consort, and that, do what I would, I could not possibly prevent some of them at least from effecting a landing; therefore my business must be to see that as few of them as possible should set foot on the island. Incidentally, I found that by persistently attacking the southernmost canoe I was slowly but surely effecting one part of my purpose, by causing the whole flotilla to edge slowly away to the northward, thus diverting them from any purpose that they might have had of landing in South-west Bay.
Then another plan suggested itself to me. I saw that the savages were either destitute of means to plug the bullet holes in their canoes or had not wit enough to make use of them; but each canoe appeared to carry several large calabash bowls, which were used as balers: my plan, therefore, was to shoot promptly at any man whom I saw attempting to bale a leaky canoe, with the result that the particular canoe which I happened to be attacking gradually filled and ultimately swamped, leaving her crew to cling helplessly to her as she floated full to her gunwale, or to strike out for the island, now some three miles distant. And since the fellows swam like seals there was no doubt that they would ultimately reach it—unless a shark happened to encounter them on the way; but I did not allow the probability of their ultimate arrival on the island to worry me much, for I felt tolerably certain that, before that could happen, we should have made good our escape, if indeed we were going to escape at all.
Our effective antagonists were now reduced to eight canoes and their crews, who were all hanging together as much as possible for mutual protection, but were making poor headway against the steadily increasing wind and sea. If I could hinder them still further, so much the better; and the most obvious way to do that was to weaken their crews by wounding as many as possible: therefore I now resumed my original tactics of tacking to and fro athwart their sterns, and raking them as we passed. And this, I soon found, was a very excellent plan, for it not infrequently happened that by this mode of attack I was able to make one bullet do double, and in some cases even treble duty; the result being that by the time that we all drew up abreast of the island the entire fleet was in such difficulties that they were scarcely able to make any headway at all, two of the canoes indeed being so seriously crippled that at last, notwithstanding their close proximity to the island, they were actually compelled to bear up and run away to leeward again, while another of them was swamped, leaving five out of the original ten still to contend with.
And now my trouble began in earnest, for so desperate were the savages rendered by the merciless persecution to which they had compelled me, in self-defence, to subject them, that they made the most strenuous efforts to get into South-west Bay; and, indeed, it was not until I bore up and took the extreme risk of running down one canoe that I was finally able to turn them from their purpose. But ultimately, after a running fight—if so one-sided an affair could be so called—four of them contrived to weather North-west Cape and effect a landing in North Bay. Then, after chasing them right into the bay, and keeping up a brisk fire upon them until they landed, to the number of about one hundred and twenty, and vanished into the woods, we in the catamaran bore up, headed out to sea again, and made the best of our way back to South-west Bay and the shipyard, hoping that upon our arrival we should find the schooner afloat; for we had been gone fully four hours.
But to my intense disappointment, when we entered the bay there was the schooner still high and dry upon the stocks, with Chips, the boatswain, and Cunningham all busily engaged in turning over the small pile of lumber that still remained from the dismembered wreck of theMartha. Presently one of them looked up, saw us coming, and apparently reported the fact to the others, for Cunningham at once straightened himself up and came down to the water’s edge to meet us.
“Well, Temple,” he exclaimed, as the catamaran grounded and I stepped ashore, “how have things gone with you? Have you managed to beat off our friends the enemy?”
“I have not,” I answered, just a trifle sourly, I am afraid. “A hundred or more of them have landed round there in North Bay; and we may confidently expect a visit from them within the next half-hour. But what the mischief have you fellows been up to all this time? I fully expected to find the schooner afloat, under way, and only awaiting our return to be off! What have you been doing? Playing poker, or what?”
“Now, my dear chap, don’t you go and turn rusty as well as the rest of us, or there’s no knowing what may happen; for, let me tell you, we’re all just as savage as bears with sore heads,” remonstrated Cunningham. “No,” he continued, “we’ve not been playing poker, or hunt the slipper, or even kiss in the ring; to put it plainly, we’ve been trying to do the impossible. The long and the short of it is, Temple, that we have used up our last scrap of available timber, and there still remains a good half-hour’s work to be done on the cradle before we dare start to wedge up. We have been nailing and plugging bits together, and working them in to the best of our ability, until our last nail is expended; and now we seem to be at a standstill. I’ll be shot if I know how we’re going to get over the difficulty.”
“What! do you mean to tell me that after getting as far as that we are brought to a standstill for the sake of a few pieces of timber?” I demanded. “How much do you require?”
“Oh, very little,” was the answer. “A few feet—ten or fifteen feet of three-inch stuff would serve—but the mischief of it is that we haven’t got it. Even the remains of the wreck will not yield us another inch.”
“Then,” said I, “all that remains is to break into the catamaran, and take out of her as much as is required. She has served her turn; we shall not require her any more if we can get the schooner into the water; and—”
“Kick me; kick me hard!” shouted Cunningham in an ecstasy of delight, as he smote me a blow between the shoulders that made me stagger. “The catamaran!” he continued. “Of course. Oh, what a lot of fools we were not to have thought of that before! But,” suddenly bethinking himself, “if we had, it would have been of no use, for you had her. She is available now, however, and in ten minutes we’ll rip enough stuff out of her to finish our job. I know exactly where to find the kind of stuff we want. Chips ahoy! bring your tools down to the catamaran, my son; we’re going to break her up!”
The carpenter flung his hand aloft in joyous intimation that he understood, and at once made a dash for his tools, while Simpson and I wended our way to the schooner, to see how things looked in that direction, and also to forage for a morsel of food, for we had eaten nothing since breakfast, and were feeling pretty hungry.
A single glance at the cradle, which, when wedged up, would lift the schooner off the keel blocks and throw her weight upon the launching ways, sufficed to reveal the pitiful straits to which Chips had latterly been reduced; for worked into it there were scraps of wood less than a foot in length, fastened to other pieces of similar size with nails or plugs, and presenting a most flimsy and unsatisfactory appearance. But when I came to look more closely I saw that the only unsatisfactory part of the work was its appearance; it was not nearly so flimsy as at first sight it had appeared to be. Chips had evidently fully realised his responsibility, and had taken care that, let the material be what it might, there should be nothing faulty about his workmanship. And I saw also that, given the necessary amount of material, he would be able to finish his work in a very short time.
The boatswain routed out some food for us, and while Simpson and I sat down to eat and drink, Murdock, upon my instructions, went down to the catamaran—which the carpenter and Cunningham had already attacked—and brought away from her the two guns and the ammunition that remained from our engagement with the savages. And when he had performed this errand I bade him get aboard the schooner, rout out a few extra guns and a further supply of ammunition, load the weapons, and then station himself in the bows as a lookout, with special instructions to keep a wary eye upon the neighbouring cliffs and report the very first indication of the approach of an enemy.
The boatswain had scarcely been on the lookout a matter of twenty minutes when he hailed me.
“Mr Temple,” he shouted, “I wish you’d come up here, sir, for a minute, and bring that there glass of Mr Cunnin’ham’s along with ye. There’s some’at up there on top o’ them cliffs that I can’t rightly make out, and I’d like you to come and have a look at it.”
Accordingly up I went, with Cunningham’s telescope still slung over my shoulders, and joined Murdock where he stood right in the eyes of the schooner, peering intently at a particular spot on the top of the cliffs.
“Now then,” said I, withdrawing the telescope from its case, “where is this mysterious something that you can’t make out?”
“Ye see that there big tree with the thick, knobbly-lookin’ trunk, up there, sir?” he demanded, pointing. “Well, just to the nor’ard of it there’s a bush with a lot of white flowers upon it. See that?”
I replied that I did.
“Very well,” continued my companion. “Two or three times I’ve seemed to see somethin’ movin’ among them there white flowers, but I can’t be quite—”
“Yes, you are right, I see it; there is something—somebody—there,” I interrupted, having brought the glass to bear upon the spot while Murdock was speaking. “Ah! now I have lost it again,” I continued, “but I am certain I saw a dark face peering through the branches. Here! let me have your gun. If there is really anybody there we’ll give him a scare, if nothing worse.”
So saying, I took the loaded gun, and, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the spot, stretched myself prone on the deck, with the barrel of the weapon resting upon the rail of the schooner’s very low bulwark. Sighting the piece carefully, I brought it to bear immediately on the spot where I thought I had seen the face, and then waited patiently for its reappearance. But minute after minute passed and nothing appeared; and presently Cunningham and the carpenter came up the beach staggering under a load of timber that promised to be amply sufficient for all our needs. I began to think that I must have been mistaken, and was about to lay aside the gun and descend to the beach again, when the boatswain, who had taken the glass from me and had been intently peering through it, murmured:
“There ’tis again, Mr Temple—no, stop a minute, it’s gone—no ’tain’t! Have ye got your piece bearin’ dead upon that spot, sir?”
I answered that I had.
“Then stand by, and when I gives the word just you press the trigger, sir, please. Wait a bit; I don’t— Ah! there he is—fire!”
On the instant I pressed the trigger, and as the smoke cleared away I thought I saw a slight momentary disturbance of the foliage about the spot at which I had aimed, and then all was still again.
“You got him, sir, as sure as eggs is young chickens!” exclaimed Murdock, still peering through the glass. “Or, if you didn’t actooaly get him,” he amended, “you give him a scare that he won’t forget in a blue moon. Shall I just slip up there, Mr Temple, and see if I can find anything?”
“Certainly not,” I replied severely. “We cannot afford to take any risks. Besides, what does it matter? No, you remain here, reload that gun, keep the glass, maintain a bright lookout, and if you see any savages attempting to sneak down upon the beach, shoot without hesitation. What I am chiefly afraid of is that they will muster up there in force, and attempt to overwhelm us with a rush. I am going below to lend the others a hand.”
I found Cunningham, Parsons, and Simpson all working at high pressure under the bows; for they had of course heard the shot, and did not need to be told that it indicated the presence of the enemy, though whether in force or only in the form of a scout none of us could tell. But the fact that even one of the savages had already made his way across to our side of the island was spur enough to our energies, and now we worked as probably none of us had ever worked before, in an endeavour to complete the cradle, wedge up, and launch the schooner before the enemy should muster courage enough to charge home upon us. If such a thing as that last should happen—and it would only mean the loss of a few lives by the savages—nothing could possibly save us.
I had been down on the beach about five minutes when a slight hissing sound reached my ear, and the next moment a long, triple-barbed, and exceedingly formidable-looking spear struck the sand and remained quivering there within about ten feet of us, and at the same instant Murdock shouted from above:
“Mr Temple—Mr Temple, sir, I wish you’d come up here and take my place. They’re musterin’ up there on top o’ the cliff—I can see ’em movin’ about among the bushes—and I ain’t ne’er a good enough shot for the job you’ve told me off for. If I shoots and misses once or twice they’ll rush us, as sure as you’m alive, sir; while if two or three of ’em was bowled over it might hold ’em back a bit and give us more time. Come quick, sir, if you please; I believe they’m gettin’ ready for a rush!”
There was sound sense in what the boatswain said: he was not a good enough shot, or quite cool enough in the handling of firearms, to stop a rush, and I therefore determined to act on his suggestion. Only Cunningham was quite as good a shot as myself, if not better; therefore I turned to him.
“Cunningham,” said I, “you hear what Murdock says; and he is right. But you are the crack shot of the party, so please go up and relieve him at once. But before he comes down get him to bring up every gun from below, and our entire stock of cartridges, and make him load every weapon and place it handy for you. Go at once, please; and remember you must shoot to kill.”
“But, my dear chap—” began Cunningham, and then I cut him short.
“Go at once, sir,” I exclaimed sharply. “This is no time for arguing; and please remember that I command here.”
“Right you are, old chap; I understand,” he replied, and went without further ado. And, as he turned to leave, another spear came whizzing through the air and stuck in the sand exactly where he had been standing a second earlier. Matters were beginning to look serious, for if the savages had among them—as they certainly had—men capable of hurling a spear from the top of the cliff as far as the schooner, one or the other of us might be hurt or even killed at any moment.
A couple of minutes passed, and I heard the voices of Cunningham and Murdock as they talked together overhead, showing that the engineer had taken up his post. Simpson and I were holding a piece of timber in position, while Parsons secured it, when I suddenly saw a tall savage step boldly out from among the bushes on top of the cliff, poising a long spear in his hand. He gave the weapon a preliminary jerk, as though to test its balance, and then flung it high above his head in the act of casting. I was about to shout to Cunningham, calling his attention to the fellow, when a gun cracked sharply out overhead, and the savage spun round upon his heel, staggered backward, and fell crashing in among the bushes.
“Good shot!” I shouted. “I say, Cunningham, keep Murdock up there with you to reload; we can do very well without him down here.”
“All right,” came the answer; “I will, if you are sure that you don’t need him. Ah, by Jove! there’s another of them!”
Cunningham’s shot took that fellow in the leg, for we saw him clap his hand to his right one, just above the knee, and go limping away out of sight. Apparently the savages believed that the discharge of the weapon left us temporarily harmless, for another man instantly sprang into view and hurriedly poised his spear; but Cunningham was too quick for him, for he, too, dropped and lay still. Then they layperdufor a few minutes, during which we, at work upon the cradle, put in some splendid work.
Suddenly, with a final tap of his hammer, Chips sprang back and tossed the tool in the air, cleverly catching it by the handle as it fell. “Finished!” he yelled, on a note of exultation. “Now, Mr Temple and Simpson, get the mauls, and let’s wedge up. It’ll have to be a rather rough-and-ready job, I’m afraid; but once the weight of her is off the blocks and on to the ways we needn’t trouble much. And now, if Mr Cunnin’ham can spare the bo’sun, he’ll be useful to us. Come along, Sails, you and I’ll take the starboard side, while Mr Temple and Murdock takes the port, and we’ll see which gets finished first.”
I hailed Cunningham, asking if he could spare Murdock, and he replied that they were at that moment reloading the whole battery of guns, after which he would send him down. And presently Murdock came.
“Now then, boatswain,” said I, “‘wedge up’ is the word, so take that maul and strike with me. Chips and his mate think they can beat us; but we’ll show them a thing or two. Now then, strike!”
Forthwith the air began to resound with the blows of iron on wood, as, with more or less dexterous strokes, we drove the wedges home, one pair after another; and in about ten minutes we all met under the little vessel’s counter, our work completed. But the savages evidently suspected that matters were approaching a crisis; possibly the idea was suggested to them by the carpenter’s triumphant yell of “Finished!” upon the completion of the cradle, for during that momentous ten minutes several of them had made desperate efforts to transfix us with their spears, and as they had now adopted the plan of making the attempt in groups of half a dozen or more—to all of whom it was manifestly impossible for Cunningham to attend at the same moment—we four at work under the schooner’s bottom had had two or three exceedingly narrow escapes.
“Now, Mr Temple,” exclaimed the carpenter excitedly, “I’ll just take a look fore and aft under her bottom, to make sure that she’s clear everywhere; and when I sing out ‘All clear!’ will you and the rest please jump aboard and stand by to cover me with your rifles and protect me from a rush while I knock away the spur shores and launch the little hooker? And you might drop a few ropes’ ends over the sides, and especially over the bows, for me to swing aboard by as soon as she starts to run down the ways. And if them bronze-coloured skowbanks up on the cliffs there tries to run in upon me with their spears while I’m down under, give ’em toko; for if I’m hurted afore them spur shores is knocked away, we may have a lot of trouble yet. Ah! blest if I didn’t think so,” as Cunningham’s shots cracked out thrice, and two natives tumbled headlong down the face of the cliff, while a third hurriedly scrambled back to cover; “they’re guessin’ that if they don’t look sharp we’ll get away from ’em a’ter all, so please keep a keen eye on ’em, sir.”
“Ay, ay, Chips, we will,” answered I. “Now, get along with your inspection, man, as lively as you please, for I see signs of a movement among them up there. Simpson,” to the sailmaker, “jump aboard and lend Mr Cunningham a hand to reload those guns; and when you have done that, drop a few ropes’ ends over the sides for Chips to climb aboard by.”
By the time I had finished speaking the carpenter had crept in under the schooner’s bottom and was hastily yet carefully assuring himself that the vessel’s keel had been everywhere lifted clear of the keel blocks. Less than three minutes sufficed him to complete his examination, when he shouted the signal “All clear!” and immediately began to pound upon the heels of the spur shores with his maul, while Murdock and I made a dash for the ladder which afforded access to the schooner’s deck. But it was clear that the savages had by this time gained a tolerably accurate conception of what we were about, and had begun to realise that unless they acted at once we were likely to slip through their hands after all; for no sooner did the boatswain and I jump for the ladder than they set up a fierce yell, and about a hundred of them broke cover and began to scramble down the cliff face, shouting encouragement to each other as they swung or sprang from one projection to another, tossing their spears and war clubs down to the beach beneath, in order that they might have the use of both hands during their hurried descent. I naturally expected that Cunningham would open fire upon them forthwith; but he did not, for he was at the moment busily reloading the discharged weapons—moreover, it appeared that he had a better plan.
At that moment the savages were moving so rapidly and so erratically as they swung down the cliff face that accurate shooting would have been exceedingly difficult; but the instant that the first native reached the beach and paused for a second to seize a club and a handful of spears from those which had been cast down from the summit of the cliff, the engineer, lying prone on the deck, with his weapon resting on the low rail of the schooner’s bulwarks, covered him, and the next instant the shot rang out and the man toppled over, mortally hit. Then Cunningham passed the empty weapon back to Simpson, receiving a loaded one in its stead, and in like manner bowled over the second and third of the savages who reached the beach. But this could not last long, as I could easily see upon reaching his side, for the savages were now swarming down the cliff so rapidly and in such numbers that it was impossible to load the guns quickly enough to cope with them. As Murdock and I dashed forward and joined the other two in the eyes of the schooner I saw that about a dozen of the savages had reached the beach unhurt, and were at that instant gathering themselves together to make a combined rush.
“Now, lads,” said I, “this is where our revolvers are going to come in useful. Wait until they arrive within twenty yards of us, and then open upon them with the ‘barkers’; but don’t get excited and fire wild, whatever you do—we must make every shot tell. And— Hurrah, my hearties, there go the spur shores!” as I heard them clatter down and felt a sudden tremor thrill through the schooner. “Now, look out, here they come! Watch for the men who pause to hurl their spears, and do your best to bowl them over. She’s moving, lads, she’s moving! Hurrah! Another minute and we shall be afloat. Now, look out, and give ’em beans! Here they come!”
Yes; they were coming with a vengeance, not only the dozen who formed as it were the vanguard of the rush, but some twenty or thirty more, who in the course of a few seconds had flung themselves down from the rocks to the soft, yielding sand below, while others were following down the cliff face at breakneck speed. They came running and leaping down the beach in pursuit of the now fast-moving schooner, each man grasping a single spear in his right hand and three or four more and a war club in his left, the whole of them yelling like demons. At that moment Chips appeared under the bows, and the sight of him was greeted by the savages with a howl of exultation, for they seemed to think that since he was down on the sand they had him in their power. But the carpenter knew perfectly well what he was about, and as the stem of the gliding schooner slid past him he made a spring at her wire bobstay, caught it first with one hand, then with the other, pulled himself up and flung his legs over it, and then rapidly hauled himself up it to the bowsprit end, which he reached just as the schooner plunged into the water, swung himself astride the spar, and so worked his way inboard. But it was touch and go with him, for the moment he showed himself about a dozen of the leading natives pulled up short and prepared to hurl their spears at him, and I am convinced that but for the hot revolver fire which we instantly opened upon the daring savages, bowling three of them over and so seriously disconcerting the aim of the others that they missed, Master Chips would, even at the last moment, have lost the number of his mess. But with the plunge of the schooner into the water all danger was over, for the little craft held her way in the most wonderful fashion, making so long a stern board into the waters of the bay that she shot far beyond the extreme range of the savages’ spears before she finally came to rest.
Meanwhile her canvas was all loose and ready for setting; therefore the moment I felt her to be water borne I dashed aft to the tiller, at the same time shouting to the others to man the foresail and fore staysail halyards and hoist away: and by the time the foresail was hoisted the vessel was beginning to lose sternway, whereupon I jammed her tiller hard-over to port, and thus canted her with her head to the northward. This caused her head sails to fill, whereupon she quickly gathered headway, when, putting the helm hard up, I headed her out to sea, while the others proceeded to set the jib and mainsail; and within ten minutes of her first plunge into the water the littleNautilus—as we named her—was clear of the reef and fairly in the open sea.
There were several trifling jobs that we would have preferred to finish off before proceeding to sea, several articles that we would fain have carried away from the island with us, had we been afforded the opportunity; but the presence of the savages of course precluded this, and therefore the moment that we were under way and clear of the western extremity of the island we flattened in our sheets, fore and aft, and proceeded to the northward, close-hauled on the starboard tack on our way to Honolulu, which was to be our first port of call.
Naturally the first and most engrossing question claiming our attention was that of the behaviour of our little ship, and we had not been under way a quarter of an hour before we were all agreed that she far exceeded our most sanguine expectations; she was a magnificent little sea boat, riding the long Pacific surges as buoyantly as a gull, very stiff under her canvas, and extraordinarily fast and weatherly. The only thing that caused us any concern was that we found she was leaking to a somewhat alarming extent; but we were quite prepared for that, as she had been standing so long on the hot beach that her planks had shrunk somewhat, opening her seams. She “took up” however during the course of the night, after keeping us busy at the pump for the first three or four hours of our voyage, and after that we had no further trouble with her.
The island was a mere faint blue smudge on the horizon astern when the sun when down on the evening of that eventful day, and on the ninth morning following we safely arrived at Honolulu. Here, thanks to Cunningham’s hundred and forty sovereigns, which he had contrived to hold on to through all our vicissitudes of fortune, we found ourselves possessed of money enough to carry us round the Horn and as far as Baltimore, where we had decided to call on our way home.
We remained in Honolulu four days, making arrangements for our long and adventurous voyage round the southern extremity of the great American continent, and then gaily started, disregarding the strenuous warnings of the many friends made by us during our brief stay. And adventures enough and to spare we had, enough to fill another book of this size; but that, as a certain writer has remarked, is another story. It must suffice me now to say that we reached Punta Arenas, in the Strait of Magellan, fifty-three days after leaving Honolulu, stayed there two days, and safely arrived in Baltimore harbour two months, to the day, after leaving Punta Arenas.
We had a little difficulty in finding “Marthy”, the relict of the late lamented Captain Ephraim Brown, but we found her at last, introduced ourselves, broke to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death, and then unfolded to her the story of the pearls. What between the news of her loss, and that of the enormous wealth coming to her through her late husband’s good fortune, the poor old soul was driven nearly crazy for a time; but she was a woman of strong common sense and a wonderfully practical turn of mind, and in the course of three or four days she rallied her faculties sufficiently to decide that she would put the whole of her affairs in the hands of a firm of lawyers of undoubted integrity, which, we agreed with her, was about the wisest thing she could do. Accordingly we handed over the pearls to them, leaving them to arrange the complicated question of duty, etcetera, and left Baltimore for England after a stay of just a fortnight. During our sojourn in Baltimore a heavy easterly gale had swept the Atlantic for a full week; then came a spell of fine weather and moderate westerly winds, which carried us clean across the “Pond” in twenty-two days, our arrival at Southampton, “all well”, occurring on 27 August, 1864.
Of course I was now a rich man, and did not need to trouble myself about completing my indentures, or obtaining another berth; but I nevertheless made a point of reporting myself at the offices in London of the owners of theZenobia, where I was very cordially received. And here I had the satisfaction of learning, first, that theZenobia’slongboat had been picked up within twelve hours by a homeward-bound ship from Calcutta, thanks to which fortunate circumstance Captain Roberts’s life had been saved—as well as those of all the other occupants of the boat; and he was now as well as ever, and again in command of his ship, which had been captured some seven weeks after the occurrence of the mutiny, following upon an unsuccessful attempt to “hold up” an Australian clipper, in which attempt Bainbridge, the instigator of the mutiny, had been shot dead.
|Chapter 1| |Chapter 2| |Chapter 3| |Chapter 4| |Chapter 5| |Chapter 6| |Chapter 7| |Chapter 8| |Chapter 9| |Chapter 10| |Chapter 11| |Chapter 12| |Chapter 13| |Chapter 14| |Chapter 15|