She was wet, of course, particularly when driven hard to windward, but in such a climate as we now enjoyed, to be drenched with salt water was a pleasure rather than otherwise, and, regarded as a drawback, was not worth a moment's consideration. It took us a month almost to a day to build and rig her complete; and after our first trial of her we almost invariably used her to go to and fro between the two bays, although the trip by water was about seven miles in length, as compared with the short cut of two miles overland. Yet we did it either way in a little over half an hour, while the sail home in the evening, after a hard day's work, was much the more exhilarating mode of travelling of the two. And what, perhaps, gratified us as much as anything in connection with the construction of this exceedingly useful craft was that in building her we had not been obliged to touch the schooner at all, but had drawn for our material entirely upon the loose wreckage of bulwarks and so on that we had found strewn about the beach on the day after the wreck, together with four stout saplings which we cut down to serve as beams, and which we found to be exceedingly tough and in many respects to resemble elm.

And while the carpenter, the boatswain, Sails, and I had been strenuously at work upon the construction of the catamaran, Cunningham had been quite as industriously employed upon his design for the proposed schooner, working alone, day after day, in our cave dwelling round at North Bay, evolving his half-breadth and body plans, his midship section, buttock lines, water lines, diagonals, and all the rest of it; ruling in, rubbing out again, calculating, altering, modifying, and patiently labouring to get his several drawings to agree accurately with each other, and resolutely refusing to be satisfied until he had got everything exactly to his liking: and at length he was able to display to us, not altogether without pride, the completed draught of as pretty a little ship as I think I ever set eyes upon. He had taken, as the foundation of his design, the shape of the Zenobia's gig, in which we had made our memorable Atlantic voyage, and out of which we had been taken by poor old Skipper Brown, that fine little craft having produced a profound impression upon him, in consequence of the splendid qualities as a sea boat which she had exhibited. But the new craft was of course to be much bigger than the gig, for she was not only to be completely decked from stem to stern, but was to be sufficiently roomy in her interior to enable us to perform a voyage of over a thousand miles with a very fair measure of comfort. Her principal dimensions, therefore, were forty feet on the water line by ten feet beam; and, in order to provide a reasonable amount of headroom below, as also to make her weatherly, she was considerably deeper in proportion than the gig, and much sharper in the floor, this providing her with plenty of power for her size, by means of which she would be enabled to make good way even in a heavy head sea. Her bow was an almost exact reproduction of that of the gig, rather long and overhanging, with plenty of "flare" to lift her over a head sea, and she was provided with an even longer counter, which gave her after-body a remarkably smooth and easy delivery; while, for the rest, her water lines were almost those of a racing yacht, so that I concluded she would be exceedingly nimble under her canvas. Altogether we were immensely pleased with, and not a little impressed by Cunningham's effort; but I could not help reminding the others that it was one thing to draught a smart little vessel on paper, and quite another to build her with such resources as we had at our disposal. Chips, however, who of course knew—or should have known—more about such matters than any of the rest of us, while not exactly pooh-poohing my reminder, was confident that—as he expressed it—we were men enough to bring the scheme to fruition; and with that assertion I was obliged, by no means unwillingly, to rest satisfied.

Meanwhile, however, a great deal still remained to be done before we could start work upon the new schooner; for although we had by this time salved everything from the wreck—and it was astonishing how much and what a wide variety of things we found in her—she still remained to be broken up; and we agreed that that should be our next job.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

TWO IMPORTANT EVENTS OCCUR.

It may be thought that there is little or nothing of interest to be found in the operation of breaking up the wreck of a ship, but I, who have assisted in such an operation, can testify most strongly to the contrary; for when the work is undertaken as we undertook to break up the wreck of the Martha Brown—that is to say, carefully, taking her apart plank by plank and beam by beam, exactly reversing, in fact, the several processes by which she was put together—there is plenty of both interest and instruction to be found in observing the numberless ingenious devices which have been resorted to by the shipwright to join together the several members of the hull in such a manner as to ensure the maximum of strength, so that, when once joined together, no strain short of that involving the absolute destruction of the material should be capable of pulling them apart again. We who had been aboard the schooner during the time of her passage across the reef, and had experienced in our own persons the terrific violence of the shocks to which she had then been subjected, were amazed that she had not been shattered like an egg shell; but when, later on, we came to dismember her, we were still more amazed to find how little damage, comparatively speaking, she had sustained while passing through that fearful ordeal on the reef, and what extraordinary exertions were needed to wrench her several parts asunder. But a detailed description of the varied schemes to which we were obliged to resort in order to effect our purpose would be of no interest to the general reader; I will therefore content myself with the bare statement that it cost us six weeks of the hardest labour I ever performed in my life to reduce the Martha Brown to her component parts, and to stack the materials upon the beach in readiness for use in the construction of the new schooner.

In fairness to ourselves, however, it must be said that during part of that time there were only four of us engaged upon the work, Cunningham being busy upon calculations of stability, the relative positions of the centre of gravity and the metacentre of the new schooner, and I know not what beside, in connection with the determination of the amount of ballast that would be needed, the position of the masts, and the area and proportions of the several sails—for now that the engineer was fairly mounted upon his new hobby there was no possibility of dragging him out of the saddle. He had several novel theories which he was anxious to test, and he was resolutely determined that the new schooner should be as nearly perfect as his skill could make her; he therefore simply scoffed at us when we pointed out that time was flying, indignantly demanded to be told what mattered a few days more or less in comparison with the importance of the matters with which he was dealing, and returned to his figures with renewed zest.

But all things come to an end sooner or later, and the day at length arrived when Cunningham completed his final calculation, drew his last line, and carefully rolled up his completed drawings, to await the moment when they would be called for upon the beginning of the important task of laying the keel of the new schooner.

Now, if I have succeeded in portraying anything like a true picture of our life upon the island, the reader will have gathered the impression that, after the first day following the wreck, we were constantly in a condition of breathless activity, due to the fact that there were so many matters, each of apparently paramount importance, all clamouring for our instant attention, and that, at the beginning at least, we strove to attend to all these several matters at the same time, doing first a little to this, and then a little to that or the other, according to what we believed at the moment to be most pressing. And this state of affairs prevailed with us until we had salved everything possible from the wreck, and until we had built our catamaran; after which we felt that we might with advantage adopt some sort of system in the arrangement of our work.

Now among a number of the things that we desired to do, but had postponed in favour of other matters, which had seemed more pressingly urgent, was the exploration of our cave. This cave was situated only some thirty yards from the beach, in North Bay, in the heart of a steeply rising acclivity which gradually merged itself in the plateau constituting the western extremity of the island. It was only by the merest accident that we had discovered the existence of the cavern on that day when we undertook the exploration of the island—although there is no doubt that we should have found it sooner or later—for the entrance was so small that only one person could pass through at a time, and even then only in a crouching position; and it was this latter circumstance which at first so strongly commended the place to us as a residence, for it was in fact quite a stronghold in its way, being capable of defence for a practically unlimited period by a single armed man. Once past that low and narrow opening, however, one found oneself in quite a spacious chamber of roughly circular shape, some thirty feet in diameter by about twelve feet high, with a perfectly smooth, dry, sandy floor, rendering the cave a most comfortable place of abode, as we discovered when we had taken up our quarters in it.

Thereafter we had all been so strenuously busy that, with the exception of Cunningham, we had used the cave merely as a sleeping place; while the engineer, absorbed in his drawings and calculations, had never thought of exploring the cave and examining its extent, resting satisfied with the knowledge that the place was amply large enough for all our requirements, while the situation of the island rendered the presence of wild animals or noxious reptiles within it an impossibility. And so, absorbed in our various occupations, we had allowed the matter to go on from day to day, recognising, in an abstract sort of fashion, the fact that it would be no more than an act of common prudence to examine the cavern, but daily postponing the examination until a more convenient season. Thus the matter had been allowed to slide until the day finally arrived when Cunningham reached the end of his labours— rather earlier than he had anticipated—and, having put away his papers, suddenly bethought him that here at last was his opportunity to give the interior of the cavern a thorough overhaul. He accordingly provided himself with an abundant supply of dry branches, to serve as torches, lighted one of them, and proceeded forthwith to investigate, with the result that about an hour later he startled us all by unexpectedly emerging from behind a thick clump of bushes on the beach of South-west Bay and frantically waving a lighted torch in his hand, under the influence of such violent excitement that when we dropped work, and ran to him to learn what was the matter, we found him to all intents and purposes incoherent for the moment.

"Hurrah, you chaps, hurrah!" he yelled, waving the flaming torch above his head as he advanced to meet us. "Aren't we a lot of lucky dogs, eh? Cheer, you beggars, cheer, and split your throats! Who wouldn't be shipwrecked, if they could meet with such a slice of luck as ours? By George!—I say, Temple, kick me, old chap, will ye, just to convince me that I'm awake."

"Steady, man, steady!" I returned, seizing him by the shoulder and giving him a good shaking. "What in the world is the matter with you, and what is all the excitement about? You don't mean to say that there's a ship in sight, standing in for the island, do you?"

"Ship!" he retorted, in accents of ineffable contempt; "not much, there isn't. No, it is something infinitely better than that. It is this, my son, that when we leave this island we do so as a little bunch of bloated plutocrats—millionaires, my boy, millionaires!"

"Millionaires!" I ejaculated. "What on earth does the man mean? What are you driving at, Cunningham? Can't you pull yourself together and tell us in plain English what has happened?"

"I know," exclaimed Parsons, with sudden illumination. "He've found a buried treasure! Ain't that it, Mr Cunnin'ham?"

"Ay," answered Cunningham, "you are right, in a way, Chips, certainly. But it is no pirates' hoard that I have found—no chests heaped high with cups and candlesticks of gold and silver and jewelled weapons, and overflowing with necklaces, bracelets, and rings torn from the persons of shrieking women; it is something far better than that. It is a gold mine, in the heart of yonder hill."

"A gold mine!" I returned, in accents of deep disappointment. "Surely that is nothing to get into such a tremendous state of excitement about. We have no tools with which to work it, and—"

"Tools!" repeated Cunningham with withering scorn; "we have all the tools we shall need. See this," and he produced from his pocket a nodule of a dull, reddish-yellow colour, of irregular shape, and about the size of a small egg. "I picked this out of the soil with my fingers. And there is plenty more where this came from."

I took the nugget in my hand and examined it curiously. There was nothing very remarkable about it excepting its weight, which was very great for an object of its size. But it was gold, without a doubt; I had seen and examined gold nuggets before, and could not be deceived.

"Where did you find this?" I asked, as I passed the thing on to Murdock for his inspection.

"In our cave—or rather in a passage leading from it to this beach," answered Cunningham, who had by this time regained his composure. "You see," he continued, "the way of it was this. I have finished my calculations and drawings—finished them rather earlier to-day than I expected; and I thought that, as I had an hour or two to spare, I might as well employ the time in giving the cavern a thorough overhaul. Accordingly I provided myself with some dry branches to serve as torches, lighted up, and proceeded to look round. Then I found that, as I have more than once suspected, there was an opening at the back end of the cavern, giving access to another chamber almost as large as the one which we occupy; while beyond that again there are other passages and chambers—seven of the latter in all—communicating with each other, and ending in a long, tortuous cleft forming a passage which leads out there, behind those bushes. But it is the last chamber of all, the one nearest in this direction, that is the marvel. Unlike the others—all rock chambers—the one about which I am now speaking is a great hollow in what appears to be a 'fault' of stiff clay; and, man alive, that clay is as thick with gold nuggets as a pudding is thick with plums! There must be more than a hundredweight of nuggets actually in sight, protruding from the walls and floor of that chamber, every one of which may be picked out with no other tools than a man's fingers; so what there is hidden, and just waiting to be dug out, heaven only knows, but there must be tons upon tons of it! Come and see for yourselves. Never mind about your work for the rest of the day, come and look at your fortunes; it is not every day that you will see such a sight, I give you my word."

Well, of course, you will guess that we did not need a second invitation. There were we, five men cast away upon an uncharted island in mid-Pacific, far from all the usual ship tracks; our hopes of rescue consisting in the possibility that we might be taken off, sooner or later, by a stray whaler, or, failing that, of effecting our escape eventually in a craft to be built by ourselves—provided that we should prove possessed of the requisite skill to build her out of the materials at our disposal. At that moment, and under those circumstances, gold was just about as valueless to us as the pebbles on the beach; yet such is the magic of the word that no sooner was gold mentioned than we all incontinently dropped our tools, and, quite forgetting that it might be our fate never to escape at all from the island, eagerly followed Cunningham, consumed with impatience to view this wonderful find of his.

And wonderful, in truth, it was. The way to it was through what Cunningham had aptly described as a cleft, the outer extremity of which was in the face of the cliff, so completely concealed from the beach by a clump of bushes that it might never have been discovered, except by the merest accident. The cleft was exceedingly tortuous as to direction, narrow, so low that in places it was necessary to go down upon hands and knees to effect a passage, full of awkward and unexpected projections, rough and uneven of floor, with here and there little pools of water which had dripped from the roof and sides. We traversed about a mile of this, and then suddenly emerged into a great, shapeless hollow in what appeared to be a wide stratum of stiff brown clay, sandwiched between two almost vertical layers of sandstone, which seemed to have been turned over during some tremendous natural convulsion, perhaps when the island was hove up above the surface of the sea. And what Cunningham had said respecting the abundance of gold was strictly and literally true: the nuggets were as thickly arranged, proportionately, as raisins in a Christmas pudding; there were hundreds of them in sight, singly, at distances apart of not much more than a foot, and in little groups of half a dozen or more, almost touching each other. Within two minutes I dug out, with my fingers only, a nugget shaped somewhat like a potato and as big as an orange, and the dislodging of that revealed another sticking in the clay behind it. Naturally we all with one accord went to work picking out nuggets, some using our bare fingers only, while those who happened to have knives about them used them. In the course of half an hour we had each picked out as many nuggets as we could dispose about our persons, and then the lessening number of torches warned us that it was high time to beat a retreat; but our labours seemed to have produced no visible effect, for where we had removed one nugget we had, as a rule, disclosed another. I estimated that, during that short half-hour, each of us had collected an average of about seven pounds weight of gold.

Now, for a day or two after this discovery, it threatened to be a most serious misfortune; for the ability to acquire large quantities of gold at the mere cost of the exertion necessary to pick it out of the soil appealed so strongly to the boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker that during the two days immediately following Cunningham's sensational announcement they absolutely refused to do any work whatever except dig out nuggets of gold, and the more they gathered the more eager did they appear to be to gather more. But at the end of that time, the fact that Cunningham and I had steadfastly refrained from the display of any anxiety to share in their good fortune, having, on the contrary, pursued the task of breaking up the wreck, together with our reiterated insistance on the greater importance of the work upon which we were engaged, steadied them a bit; and by the end of the second day we detected signs that the sharp edge of their enthusiasm had worn off, and that they were once more beginning to think. Then Cunningham and I proceeded to remind them of a fact to which, at the outset, they stubbornly refused to listen, namely, that we knew where the gold was, and could get it at any time; but the matter which most vitally concerned us was to get the schooner built and in the water as quickly as possible, so that, should it become necessary for us to quit the island in haste, we might have the means to do so. The three recalcitrants came to see this at last, persuaded thereto, perhaps, by a rather exaggerated attitude of indifference to the gold on the part of Cunningham and myself, and an equally exaggerated anxiety to push on with the schooner; with the ultimate result that on the morning of the third day they rather shamefacedly announced their readiness to turn-to again, and accompanied us to South-west Bay. But what put the finishing touch to the matter was Cunningham's audacious proposal to ballast the schooner entirely with gold, and sail in her direct home to England. This idea very strongly appealed to their somewhat crude imaginations, especially when the engineer took a sheet of paper and proved to them by figures that if we could obtain gold enough to carry out this plan, the value of it, equally divided among the five of us, would enable each to bank upward of half a million; which, if judiciously invested, would provide us with an income of somewhere about two thousand pounds sterling per month! Such figures as these naturally appealed to men whose incomes hitherto had amounted to about five pounds per month, and they were immediately all on fire to build the Schooner, if only to see how much gold she could be induced to carry as ballast.

Had there been a shipwright in our party he would probably have been intensely amused at the lightheartedness and assured confidence with which we approached the task of building a schooner, small, certainly, but complete in every respect, out of the timbers and planking of the dismembered Martha Brown. I do not believe that anyone excepting myself had the slightest suspicion of the difficulties that we were so cheerfully facing; but by the time that we had got the keel blocks laid, and were preparing to shape and put together the keel, it began to dawn upon us that we had undertaken a distinctly formidable task, and one in which we might very easily fail should we once permit ourselves to become discouraged. Indeed, the getting out of the keel was in itself a work of such difficulty that Chips more than once threw down his tools and pronounced the task impossible, demanding the revision and simplification of the design.

But Cunningham was deeply in love with the design which he had worked out with so much care—and so indeed was I; therefore we resolutely resisted Parsons' demands, and insisted that all that was needed was patience and the resolution to take the necessary pains, and in the end we got our own way and the work proceeded. But it proceeded with what, to me, was painful slowness, there being days occasionally on which the embryo ship presented precisely the same appearance when we knocked off work in the evening that she had done when we started in the morning, the whole day having been consumed in cutting out and putting together the several pieces of timber which were subsequently to be worked into her hull. Nevertheless, patience and perseverance worked wonders, and by and by, after we had been steadily at work for close upon six months, a day came when we were able to stand and gaze admiringly at the completed skeleton of as smart a little vessel as I ever set eyes upon. If she possessed a fault in my eyes it was that she presented altogether too smart an appearance, being, in model, nothing less than an exceedingly beautiful little yacht; and according to my merchant seaman's view of the matter a forty-foot yacht was not precisely the kind of craft best adapted to navigate the thousands of miles of ocean that lay between ourselves and home. Yet when Cunningham challenged me to point out what I regarded as faults, I was met at every turn by arguments which seemed quite unanswerable, so that at last I was driven to take refuge in the adage that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and to acknowledge that if the vessel only behaved half as well as her designer asserted she would, I should be more than satisfied.

Now, although there were five of us—all young and in the very pink of condition—engaged upon the work of building the schooner, there were times when the united strength of all hands scarcely sufficed to accomplish some particular task, such as the setting up of a pair of frames, or the bending and fastening of a stringer; consequently we welcomed, almost literally with open arms, the arrival of two able-bodied assistants, who came to us under somewhat singular circumstances.

From the day of the wreck, when we found ourselves castaways, up to the moment when, as I have said above, we were able to gaze upon the complete skeleton of our new schooner, we had enjoyed an uninterrupted continuance of perfect weather; but a few days after the date referred to the Trade wind died away, and all the indications pointed toward the approach of another hurricane. And indeed we were allowed barely sufficient time to make everything about the shipyard secure when our anticipations were realised by the outburst of a hurricane which, if it was not as violent as the one that had shipwrecked us, was more than sufficiently so to compel us completely to suspend our building operations for two whole days. These we spent in the cavern diligently and systematically digging for gold, under the direction and supervision of Cunningham; and I may as well mention here that the results of the two days' labours demonstrated that we had been lucky enough to stumble upon what is probably the most fabulously rich "pocket" of gold nuggets that has ever been discovered by man.

The gale broke some time during the night of the second day, and when we awoke and turned out on the following morning the weather had reverted to its normal delightful conditions, and only a heavy south-westerly sea remained as evidence of what had been. I think I have already mentioned that it was our habit to proceed to and fro between North and South-west Bays in the catamaran, in preference to tramping two miles overland in the tropical heat; but on this particular day we walked, being of opinion that it was hardly desirable to expose the catamaran to the strain of a trip round the end of the island in so steep and heavy a sea. Knocking-off work at the usual time, we climbed the cliffs and proceeded to walk back to North Bay across the plateau, the boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker leading the way, while Cunningham and I followed, about a hundred yards behind, a distance which was more than sufficient to allow the trio to get out of sight ahead of us. And as Cunningham and I sauntered along very slowly we had no expectation of seeing anything more of Murdock and his companions until our arrival at the cave; consequently we were a little surprised, upon our emerging from the jungle, to find the three seamen standing in the open, upon the highest point of the plateau, all gazing intently to seaward.

"What is it, Murdock?" I shouted, as we hastened our steps to join them. "Anything in sight?"

"Why, yes, Mr Temple," answered the boatswain, facing round toward us. "There's something floatin', about a couple o' mile off there, that looks like a boat with people in her."

"A boat!" I ejaculated. "Where away? Show me!"

"Come here, sir, and stand where I am," replied Murdock. Then, as I took up a position on the spot indicated, the man placed himself behind me, and proceeded to point over my shoulder.

"See that there low bush, yonder, Mr Temple, just in line with my finger?" he demanded. "Very well, then. Just run your eye along about a p'int, or maybe a little more, to the west'ard, and—there! d'ye see her, sir? Ah, now she's vanished again in the trough. But you keep your eye gazin' in that direction and you'll—there she is again! See her, sir?"

"Ay, I do," said I, as I caught a momentary glimpse of a small dark object which appeared for a moment, hovering on the crest of a sea, and then sank out of sight again. And, as Murdock had said, it certainly presented very much the appearance of a small boat drifting slowly away toward the south-west before the freshening Trade wind. Moreover, although the glimpse I had caught had been but momentary, I thought I had detected the appearance of what might very well be a crouching human figure sitting in her. Presently I got another sight of the thing, and my impression that it was indeed a boat—or possibly a canoe—with one or more persons in her was so greatly strengthened that I determined there and then to investigate.

"I really believe you are right, Murdock," said I. "At all events it looks so much like a boat—with people in her—that we certainly ought to satisfy ourselves. So, come along, one of you; we'll take the catamaran and go off to her. If it really is a boat, and there are people in her, it is very evident that they are too utterly exhausted to make the island, and if they miss it they will inevitably perish. Come along; we have not a moment to waste if we are to save the daylight."

With one accord each of my companions stepped forward, eager to accompany me the moment that there was a question of saving life; but I needed only one man, and I chose Murdock, as being the smartest seaman and the strongest man among them: and without further ado we took to our heels and raced to the beach, I shouting over my shoulder to Cunningham to stay where he was and guide us by signalling with his hands the direction in which we should steer.

As I had said, we had not a moment to waste, for the sun's disk was even then within a finger's breadth of the horizon, and darkness followed sunset with amazing swiftness in that latitude. Murdock and I therefore ran at our utmost speed to the beach, cast adrift the catamaran, sprang aboard her, thrust her head offshore, and then threw ourselves upon the halyards and mast-headed the yard, when I seized the steering paddle and headed the craft for an opening between the breakers on the reef, while Murdock stationed himself beside me, with his hand shielding his eyes as he stared seaward, anxiously watching for the first glimpse of the object of which we were in pursuit.

For the moment, however, his efforts were useless, as he and I both knew, for the object had been so far to the westward when last seen that we could not hope to sight her until we were fairly beyond the limits of the bay; and when this at length happened the upper edge of the sun's disk was just visible above the western horizon, sinking beneath it at the precise moment when the catamaran shot through the opening between two formidable walls of breakers, which were dashing themselves into spray thirty feet high as they hurled themselves upon the lava reef.

The boat, or whatever it was, ought now to be within the range of our vision, and Murdock intently scrutinised the darkening sea ahead for some sign of it, but in vain. Then he turned his glances shoreward and saw Cunningham standing on the verge of the bluff, vigorously waving us to keep away.

"Put up your hellum a bit, sir," he admonished me, with his eye still upon Cunningham; then—"Steady!" as he saw the engineer fling both hands above his head, and almost at the same instant I caught the faintest glimpse imaginable of a small dark spot appearing for a moment in ghostly fashion against the creaming head of a distant breaker, just clear of the lower end of our lateen yard.

"There she is!" I exclaimed, and as I spoke a star glimmered out of the deepening blue almost immediately above the spot where the object had appeared.

"Where away, sir?" demanded the boatswain, again peering ahead under the sharp of his hand.

"Do you see that star?" I responded, pointing with my disengaged hand. "Well, she is about half a point to the westward—there she is again, straight ahead!"

"I see her, sir; I see her," answered Murdock. "Steady as you go, Mr Temple, and we're bound to pick her up."

I thought so too, although the darkness was falling about us with the rapidity of a sea fog gathering. Still, the star was a splendid guide, and steering by it we caught two or three additional glimpses of the object before the darkness completely enveloped us. Moreover, the catamaran was slashing along at racing speed, smothering us with spray every time she hit the crest of a wave; and now my chief fear was that this same spray might so effectually conceal our surroundings at the precise moment when we most needed to see, namely, when we were surmounting a comber, that we might unwittingly overshoot our mark. Therefore at very brief intervals I admonished Murdock to "keep his eyes skinned", at the same time myself keeping as sharp a lookout as I could. I estimated that, with the breeze then blowing, we ought to cover the distance between the object and ourselves in about six or seven minutes after clearing the reef, but I had no means of judging the time, except by guesswork, out there in the darkness, and I was on tenterhooks lest we should miss the thing and stand too far out, when the chances would be all against our picking her up on the return journey. Therefore at last, feeling that we must be pretty close to the object of our quest, I sent Murdock forward, believing that he would have a better chance of picking her up from there than by standing alongside me, although his figure would greatly obscure my own view.

Accordingly the boatswain went right forward into the very eyes of the catamaran, where he would be clear of the heaviest of the flying spray; and he had scarcely taken his station when, without looking round, he suddenly shouted:

"There she is, sir! Keep her away or you'll be on to her; hard up, sir! So, steady! Now, hard down and shake her. That'll do, sir; keep her at that. Luff a bit yet, sir. So, steady!" and, dashing aft, the boatswain snatched up a small coil of line that we had made ready for the purpose, and hurled himself recklessly at a dark mass that at that moment came sliding close past what had been our lee side before I luffed the catamaran into the wind. I heard the splashing clatter of his boots as he landed upon certain objects that sounded like loose paddles lying washing about in the bottom of the canoe—for such I now saw the craft to be; saw him stoop, as though making fast the rope he had taken with him; and then he shouted: "All fast, sir; let her go off!" I put up the helm of the catamaran, and as she fell off and began to gather fresh way Murdock hauled his prize up alongside and scrambled out of her, snubbing the towline to a length of about two fathoms.

"It's a canoe, sir," he reported as he rose to his feet beside me, "and there's people aboard her—natives—four or five, I sh'd say, though I didn't stop to count 'em; and I'm blest if I know whether they're alive or dead, but I think there must be life in one of 'em at least, for when I jumped into her I stumbled over one, and I thought I heard a groan."

"Well," said I, "I hope we have been in time to save the poor beggars. I suspect that they belong to the island that is visible from the crater, about a hundred miles to the south-west of us, and that they were caught in the gale and blown out to sea. If so, they have been at sea three whole nights and two days, drenched all the time with the flying spray, buffeted with the wind, and labouring hard all the while to keep their cockleshell of a craft afloat. And these islanders are not very tough when it comes to facing prolonged exposure of that kind."

We got the catamaran round and headed her for the island, with the canoe in tow, the carpenter having been thoughtful enough to light a fire on the beach to serve as a guide to us; and a quarter of an hour later we were ashore again, with Cunningham, Chips, and Sails tenderly lifting five natives out of the half-swamped canoe and laying them on the sand, close to the fire, while Murdock and I secured the catamaran. By the time that we had done this, Cunningham had got to work upon the new arrivals, in two of whom he found signs of life, while the other three he pronounced doubtful. Then, under his directions, we each took a body, which we proceeded vigorously to chafe and slap with our bare hands, varying the treatment with occasional attempts to administer a little stimulant, with the object of restoring the suspended circulation of the blood; and eventually—not to dwell at unnecessary length upon this episode—we succeeded in restoring two of them, but the remaining three defied our utmost efforts, although we worked at them until late into the night. Then, having bountifully fed the two survivors, we left them to dispose of themselves as they would for the night, and retired to our cavern.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

MOKALUA AND VATI.

When we turned out on the following morning our two resuscitated savages were nowhere to be seen, and the bodies of the three dead had also vanished; but a glance in the direction of the beach showed that they were still somewhere on the island, for their canoe lay hauled up on the sand, alongside the catamaran, where we had left her on the previous night, and the prints of their naked feet on the sand indicated that they had made some three or four journeys to the eastern extremity of the bay. We therefore concluded that the two were performing the obsequies of their departed companions, and made no endeavour to discover their whereabouts, taking it for granted that they would reappear when they had disposed of their dead to their satisfaction. While we were partaking of breakfast a big cloud of smoke arose from the woods situated at the eastern extremity of the bay, causing us to surmise that the dead were at that moment undergoing the process of cremation; but we made no attempt to investigate, leaving the savages to their own devices for that day, and proceeding to the shipyard as usual immediately after breakfast.

Shortly after midday our two savages hove in sight, making their way down the cliff path to the shipyard, having evidently followed the path over the plateau which we had beaten in our frequent passages to and fro between the two bays. They displayed no fear of us, approaching us without the slightest hesitation, but exhibiting more curiosity than any natives with whom I had thus far been brought into contact. They seemed to be filled with astonishment at the whiteness of our skins when, following our usual custom, we discarded our scanty clothing and plunged into the sea for a few minutes before partaking of our midday meal; and did not appear to be able to understand how it was that, while our faces, necks, hands, and arms were almost as dark as their own skins, the remaining portions of our bodies, ordinarily protected from the sun by our clothing, should be so very much lighter. They were not oppressed by any feeling of false modesty or bashfulness, but examined us minutely at close quarters, jabbering together with the utmost animation all the while and lightly running their fingers over our arms and necks, with the apparent purpose of finding the join in the differently coloured portions of our skin.

This was all very well, of course, and sufficiently amusing to all concerned; but now that these two savages had come to us we quite intended to make use of them, and allow them to work for their living. Therefore, as soon as we had resumed our clothing, Murdock undertook the task of making known our intentions and wishes to our dusky friends. And the way he did it was amusing enough. In common with others of his kind he had repeatedly been brought into contact with foreigners of various nationalities, both civilised and savage, but he had one simple method of communicating with them all, a method which he was firmly convinced must be efficacious in exact proportion to the measure of intelligence possessed by the persons with whom he desired to communicate; and that method was to speak to the stranger in broken English! For example, he proposed to set these two natives to the task of collecting fuel for the purpose of cooking the fish which Chips and Sails were about to catch for our midday meal by going offshore a short distance in the catamaran; and the way he did it was something like this.

Turning to the two natives, he poked first one and then the other on the naked chest with his forefinger, to secure their attention, and then proceeded to remark, with much flourishing of his hands:

"Now then, Johnnie, and you, Jim, come along wi' me and gather firewood. Savvy?"

To this the natives naturally responded with a blank stare of non-comprehension, gradually merging into a broad smile. Then, seeing that his first attempt had not been exactly a success, the boatswain proceeded upon his usual lines. Assuming an aspect of intense earnestness, and holding his forefinger up before them, he continued:

"Now, lookee here, you coffee-coloured sweeps, me wantee you come alonga me and catchee plenty wood for makee fire cookee fis' that them two men are goin' for catchee. Now, then, d'ye savvy that?"

The intonation of his concluding words no doubt conveyed to the minds of his hearers the idea that he was asking a question, for the two savages turned to each other and exchanged a few words. Then the elder, with a broad smile, pointed first to himself and uttered the word "Mokalua"— which we easily understood must be his name—and then to his companion, pronouncing the word "Vati", which was as certainly the name of the other. So evident was this that even Murdock understood it, and, proud of his quick comprehension, hastened to display his cleverness by prodding the first native in the chest and remarking:

"Ay, ay; that's easy enough to understand: your name's Mokalua, and yours,"—turning to the other—"is Vati. That's all right; I can see that we'll soon get to understand each other. Now then, Mokalua and Vati, let's have another try. Me wantee plenty much firewood, so you two come and helpy me gatheree it. Comprenny?"

Further blank looks from the natives, at which the boatswain lost his patience; and, clutching Mokalua by the wrist, while he seized the unhappy Vati by the shoulder and violently swung him round with his face toward the cliffs, he exclaimed savagely:

"Here, come along o' me, you two! You're like the monkeys; you can understand, but you won't, for fear o' bein' put to work! But you don't get over me quite so easily as that, my sons; I've had that trick tried on me before, but it didn't come off, and it ain't comin' off now. You've got to work for your livin' while you're on this here hisland, and don't you forget it. Can't understand my language, can't ye? Well, I can speak another language with my boot—"

I saw that the time had arrived for me to interfere. Murdock was rapidly working himself up into a rage, and when he was angry he was a little apt to be violent; also he was an exceptionally powerful man, while the two natives whom he held in his grasp were still weak from semi-starvation and long exposure, and were beginning to look rather frightened. Now I did not want them to be frightened, I wanted to win their confidence, so I stepped forward and gently removed the boatswain's grasp from the persons of his prisoners, saying:

"There, that will do, Murdock; don't get excited, man, because these two bronze images cannot understand you. You cannot understand them, you know, so you are quits. We shall just have to be patient with them, and treat them kindly; and I have no doubt that in due time they will learn to understand what we want them to do." Then, turning to the two wide-eyed savages, and trusting that they would at least understand the intonation of my voice, I patted them both good-naturedly on the shoulder and said, in English of course:

"That's all right. Don't you be afraid of him, he'll not hurt you; he's quite a good-natured chap. But he wants you to go with him to the woods yonder; so run along," and I first pointed to the jungle, then to Murdock, patted them encouragingly on the back, and finally waved my hand toward the cliffs.

That I was tolerably successful in a general sort of way was at once evident, for the expression of mingled fear and savagery on Mokalua's features at once vanished, giving place to a smile; he nodded his head, pointed to Murdock, himself, and Vati, waved his hand toward the woods, said a few quick words to his companion, and at once set off at a brisk walk toward the cliff path, accompanied by the two others, the trio returning about twenty minutes later with an abundant supply of dry twigs and branches, with which they at once proceeded to build the constituents of a fire. But it was evident, from their actions and their quick, earnest interchange of remarks, that the two were exceedingly curious as to how we were going to set light to the wood, now that we had it; and they looked on with the most absorbed interest while Cunningham took a little dry moss in his hand and focused the sun's rays upon it with a burning-glass, afterwards fanning it into a flame by gently whirling it in the air; and I shall not readily forget their amazement when the moss burst into flame and Cunningham thrust it into the heart of the heap of sticks. When Cunningham made to return the lens to his pocket, Mokalua held out his hand and said something which we readily understood to be a request that he might be permitted to look at it: and when the engineer handed it over to him the native first examined it with wondering eyes, turning it about in his hands, holding it up, and becoming quite eloquent in the expression of his amazement when his quick eye detected the inverted image of the landscape seen through it; then, after one or two futile attempts, he succeeded in focusing the rays of the sun upon his naked arm, giving a little yelp as he felt the sting of the heat. Finally, with a laugh, he handed the lens back to Cunningham; but there was a covetous look in his eyes as he did so which caused me to utter a word of warning to the engineer lest he should awake some fine morning and discover that his burning-glass had mysteriously vanished.

In such manner, and to the accompaniment of quite a number of amusing little incidents, did Mokalua and Vati become members of our small community. And glad enough were we all to have them, for the awkwardness and inconvenience arising from our inability to understand each other's speech soon passed away, the two savages manifesting an extraordinary aptitude to adapt themselves to the situation, and an equally extraordinary facility in the comprehension of what was required of them; so that they rapidly became of very material value to us, catching more fish than the party could consume, gathering our firewood for us, teaching us new methods of cooking, and assisting us in the more laborious portions of our shipyard work. Thus by the time they had been with us some three or four months we began to wonder how we had ever contrived to rub along at all without them.

Their one fault was an ineradicable propensity to steal anything and everything that they could lay their hands upon, especially nails— which, it will be understood, were of very considerable value to us, situated as we then were. But their most serious peccadillo, and the one which had the most disastrous results, was their theft of a brace of revolvers and a number of cartridges. We had no occasion to make use of our firearms until the two savages had been with us about five months; then on a certain day we made the disagreeable discovery that South-west Bay had been invaded by a school of some seven or eight orcas, or killer whales, the most voracious and ferocious creatures that swim the seas, being even more terrible than the white shark, although not quite so big as he is. When we first became aware of the presence of these tigers of the sea in our bay we were not greatly concerned, being under the impression that theirs was only a flying visit, and that they would disappear in the course of an hour or so, and be no more seen. But when on the following day they were seen to be still present, and when, further, they chose to amuse themselves by snatching the fish off the hooks, we came to the conclusion that it was time to declare war upon those orcas, for so long as they remained in the bay we might not dare to bathe.

Accordingly we armed ourselves with revolvers, put a boarding pike and cutlass into the hand of each of the savages, and went out in the catamaran to attack and drive away the orcas. And a very fierce and desperate battle we had with them too, for they proved to be full of fight, charging the catamaran with the evident intention of destroying it; and during the two hours that the fight raged we experienced several exceedingly narrow escapes from destruction by the wounded cetaceans, though we drove them off at last, after killing all but two, while the survivors were so desperately wounded that they no doubt died very shortly after reaching the open ocean.

The most important point, however, in connection with this incident was that the two savages then saw revolvers used for the first time; and the flash, the report, and, above all, the undoubted fact that in some mysterious fashion they were able to wound and even to kill at the distance of a spear-cast, absolutely fascinated them. Nothing would satisfy them but that they must possess a revolver apiece, and the very next day they stole a brace, together with some fifty cartridges; and having watched us intently, and thus acquired a smattering of knowledge of how to use the weapons, took to the woods, where, later on, we heard them popping away in the most reckless fashion. That, of course, was an offence which it would never do to overlook; therefore we sallied forth, captured the culprits, took the revolvers and the half-dozen or so remaining cartridges from them, and having first read them a severe lecture—one of many such—upon the heinousness of stealing, endeavoured to create a lasting impression upon their minds by inflicting upon each a severe rope's-ending. Four days later we found that they and their canoe, together with several small articles—Cunningham's burning-glass among the number—had vanished.

Now this was likely enough to prove a very serious matter for us, for several important reasons. In the first place, Mokalua and Vati had proved to be individuals possessed of quite a considerable amount of intelligence, for savages. They had spent five months with us, during which they had come to know the island intimately; and doubtless they had perceived, among other things, that it was capable of supporting some five hundred fellow savages in what, to them, would be a condition of ease and affluence. Also, they knew that there were but five of us, possessing several things which to them represented such incalculable wealth that no effort on their part to acquire it would be regarded as too great. Therefore we at once jumped to the conclusion that, animated by a deep sense of resentment at the indignity which we had inflicted upon them by flogging them, and possibly also spurred on by an overpowering cupidity, they had determined to risk their very lives in an attempt to return to their own island, there to report all that they had seen and learned during their sojourn with us, with the object of stirring up their fellow islanders to organise an expedition against us.

Strongly impressed with the conviction that this was really what had happened, Simpson, the sailmaker, and I hastened to stock the catamaran with provisions and water enough to last us for four days, and forthwith proceeded to sea, heading in the direction of the island which lay to leeward of us, in the hope of overtaking the two savages before they could arrive at their destination, and inducing them, either by persuasion or by force, to return with us. And we were fully justified in hoping that we should be successful, for the catamaran was a wonderfully speedy craft, especially before the wind; we calculated that the savages would scarcely average more than four knots per hour paddling in the open sea, even with the wind in their favour, while the catamaran would do ten easily. Consequently we should cover in ten hours a distance which they would need twenty-five hours to traverse; and, since they would probably not have more than nine hours' start of us, we ought to catch them long before they could arrive at their island.

It was about eight o'clock in the morning when we started, and the moment that we were clear of the reef I bore up dead before the wind; and thereafter all that was necessary was to keep the catamaran running straight before it. We took it for granted that the fugitives, like ourselves, would avail themselves of the direction of the wind as a guide, consequently we assumed that they were somewhere—probably about thirty-six miles—directly ahead of us when we bore away, and a very simple calculation enabled us to determine that, if all our data happened to be correct, we ought to overtake the canoe about two o'clock in the afternoon. Therefore for the first four hours of our pursuit we troubled ourselves only to maintain as straight a course as possible. At the end of that time, however, or about midday—by which time our own island was out of sight astern, while the other had not yet hove up above the horizon—I deemed it advisable to take a look round. Accordingly, turning over the steering paddle to Simpson, I shinned up to the catamaran's masthead, and remained there for fully five minutes, intently scrutinising the surface of the sea in every direction, my range of vision at that elevation covering a circle of about nine miles radius. But there was nothing in sight, at which I was in nowise surprised, as I estimated that the canoe was still about twelve miles ahead of us. I calculated, however, that we were gaining upon her at the rate of about six miles an hour, in which case she ought to be on the horizon's verge in the course of another half-hour; therefore at the expiration of that time I again went aloft, and was just a trifle disappointed to find the horizon still bare. However, I was quite certain that a run of another half-hour would suffice to bring her into view, therefore at one o'clock I again ascended to the masthead, quite prepared to see her directly ahead. But again I was disappointed, for the horizon was bare in every direction, save for the fact that, as straight ahead of us as though we had seen and been steering for it all the while, there was a delicate blue shape, which I instantly recognised as the upper part of the island that we had seen from the lip of the crater on our own island.

I was decidedly nonplussed at the fact that the fugitives were still invisible, and knew not how to account for it. True, the sea was a trifle heavy for navigation in so frail a craft as a small canoe, yet the two savages were experts in the handling of such craft, and it was therefore scarcely likely that they had met with a mishap of any description—indeed, all that was needed to ensure their perfect safety was to keep the canoe dead before the sea, and she would go along without shipping a drop of water; even I, comparatively inexpert as I was, would not have hesitated to undertake such a voyage, under the influence of so powerful an inducement as that which we suspected to animate the two natives. There was one other possible explanation, of which I thought as I stood up there on the swaying yard, and that was that the fugitives might have secured a piece of canvas, or material of some kind, out of which they had manufactured a sail; in which case their speed would no doubt be considerably higher than that which we had estimated, and all our calculations would need revision. Considerably perturbed at the thought, I descended to the deck and mentioned the matter to Simpson, who agreed with me that it was quite possible our dark friends might have taken the precaution to provide themselves with a sail when they had made up their minds to return to their own island— for we had not allowed ourselves time before our departure to overhaul our belongings in detail, and ascertain the precise extent of their depredations.

Even if they had not stolen any of our canvas, they were past masters of the art of mat making, and might easily have plaited for themselves a sail of fine grass, which would answer their purpose almost as well as one made of canvas. And if they had done that, what would their speed probably be? The canoe was only a small craft of about twenty-four feet long by about four feet beam, and with two men in her she would probably run before wind and sea at a speed of about six and a half knots. Then, still allowing her to have had nine hours' start of us, we came to the disconcerting conclusion that at the precise moment when we were discussing the question she must be within ten miles of her destination, while we still had a run of some fifty miles before us. In that case, of course, it was hopeless for us to dream of overtaking her: nevertheless I did not intend to abandon the chase until I had fully satisfied myself that the fugitives had made good their escape; therefore we continued to stand on, hour after hour, until, by the time that the sun was within half an hour of his setting, we had brought the strange island "hull-up" on the horizon ahead, and had satisfied ourselves that there was no canoe between it and us.

It was a considerably more extensive island than our own, being about twenty miles long from north to south, somewhat rugged of surface, with plenty of trees dotted about here and there, and wide patches of cleared ground in between, upon which crops of various kinds seemed to be growing. It rose rather steeply from the water's surface to a height of some fifty or sixty feet, and then went sweeping grandly away to right and left in a constantly steepening slope, which culminated in a lofty, isolated peak occupying practically the centre of the island.

When we had run in close enough to note all these details I brought the wind over the catamaran's port quarter and headed her so as to pass to the southward of the island, being determined, now that I had come so far, to sail right round it and see as much as I could of it.

The sun was just dipping beneath the horizon when, having brought the most southerly extremity of the island square upon our starboard beam, some two miles distant, we shifted our helm, and, jibing over, brought the wind on our starboard quarter, hauling up to the northward and westward to skirt the lee side of the island. This course soon brought us in under the lee of the land and into smooth water, when, maintaining an offing of about two miles, that we might not be becalmed and so invite the risk of capture by a dash of canoes from the shore, we quietly coasted along the lee side of the island, which we now discovered to be roughly crescent-shaped in plan, with a deep indentation on the west side protected by a barrier reef, and thus forming a magnificent natural harbour, some eight miles long from north to south by about six miles wide from east to west. A fine sandy beach skirted the whole margin of this indentation, scattered along which, at brief intervals, we caught sight of some ten or twelve little villages of palm-leaf huts nestling in the midst of luxuriant coconut groves, the land behind them soaring steeply away to the summit of the cone. And abreast of each village the beach was dotted with canoes, some of which were big enough to carry forty or fifty men. But nowhere did we see a sign of the canoe of which we were in pursuit; and ultimately we were driven to the conclusion that she had made the run across under sail, and had secured a sufficiently long start to enable her to make good her escape.

It was about four bells in the first watch when we ran out from under the lee of the island and once more felt the full strength of the Trade wind, which in the interim had freshened up until it was now blowing a single-reefed topsail breeze; and at once the catamaran began to deluge us with spray as we brought her close to the wind and started on our long beat back to our own island. And now it became necessary for me to use a little discretion, lest I should miss the island altogether; for it was far below the horizon, and I had neither chronometer nor sextant to help me to find it again, all I knew as to its position being that it lay about a hundred miles dead to windward. Therefore I held on upon the starboard tack until midnight, and thereafter tacked every four hours, knowing that by following this plan we should be certain to pick it up sooner or later. And so we did, catching our first glimpse of it shortly after nine o'clock the next morning, when it hove into view above the horizon broad on our port bow, rising a little higher as we brought it abeam, and then gradually sinking again as it swung aft to our port quarter. As soon as it sank out of sight we hove the catamaran about, when it quickly reappeared, rising steadily above the horizon, and this time showing much higher and more clearly before it began to sink again. Finally, about six o'clock, just before sunset, we slid into North Bay once more and beached the catamaran, much to the relief of our companions, who were beginning to grow somewhat anxious as to how our queer-shaped craft would stand the continuous strain of beating to windward for many hours at a stretch against the strong wind and heavy sea.

Now that the pursuit was over and had failed, and we were all together again, we began to realise, as we discussed the incident, just what the flight of those two natives meant to us. It meant several things: and each one of them spelt d-a-n-g-e-r to us in big black letters; danger of the most imminent and deadly kind; danger which was liable now to swoop down upon us at any moment, and, if it caught us unprepared, simply to wipe us out of existence. In a word, it meant that if those two fugitives had succeeded in reaching their own island—as we had only too much reason to believe was the case—we were liable at any moment to an invasion in force from their fellow islanders; and if we could not repel that invasion, or, better still, effect our own escape before it happened, we could hope for nothing short of annihilation. Long and anxiously we discussed the question that night; and the decision at which we finally arrived was that if Mokalua and Vati had indeed reached their own island it would probably take them at least a week to gain the ear of the chiefs, tell the story of their own sojourn with us, and stir them up to such a condition of cupidity as would induce them to undertake an expedition against us. And when they had accomplished so much it would probably take them another week to organise the expedition and get across to us, possibly even longer, if the Trade wind continued to blow strongly. We considered, therefore, that we had about a fortnight in which to complete our preparations; and the question then arose whether these preparations should be of a defensive character, or whether, by working hard, we could complete the schooner, ballast her, get her into the water, and leave the island before the expected invasion took place.

Common sense pointed to the latter alternative as by far the wiser of the two; the only difficulty was that we were by no means sure that we could accomplish it. Fortunately for us, although we had put the most implicit faith in the fidelity of Mokalua and Vati, we had never allowed them to become aware of the existence of the subterranean passage from our dwelling cave to South-west Bay: therefore, if the worst should come to the worst, and we were attacked before we were ready to leave the island, we might no doubt barricade ourselves into our cavern and make a good stand there, and perhaps even defend the schooner from destruction, so long as our cartridges held out; but if the invaders should once succeed in effecting a landing upon the island, they could, almost to a dead certainty, prevent us from completing our preparations, launching the schooner, and getting away in her. Finally, the matter seemed to resolve itself into a fight against time, our aim being to complete the schooner and sail in her for home before the savages should arrive upon the scene. In accordance with this arrangement, then, we proceeded with our several labours, commencing work each day the moment that there was light enough to see what we were about, and working steadily on until we could see no longer, encouraged by the thought that although our calculations seemed to indicate the possibility of attack within about a fortnight of the flight of the two natives, the force of circumstances might perhaps afford us a still longer time in which to complete our task.

And with the passage of the days we began to realise that, work as hard as we might, we should need nearly double the time which we believed we had at our disposal if we were to finish our work as it ought to be finished. For while the schooner's hull was complete her deck was only partially laid, and that task had to be completed, together with all deck fittings, such as the companion way and fore scuttle; the seams must be properly caulked and paid, the masts stepped and rigged, the sails finished and bent, the interior fittings, such as bunks, lockers, shelves, and so on, fixed, the water casks stowed and filled, the ballast stowed, provisions collected and put on board, and the little craft generally completed in readiness for sea. True, many of the jobs were trivial and did not need much time to attend to them, but in the aggregate they presented quite a formidable appearance; and lastly, and most formidable of all, there remained the launching ways to finish, the cradle to build, and the wedging up to be done. Taken altogether, the task seemed to be an impossible one, and our only hope lay in the chance that our savage neighbours would so far resemble Mokalua and Vati in character that they would proceed with their preparations for the invasion which we regarded as inevitable with the same placid deliberation and absence of haste that had been such strongly marked characteristics of the two fugitives.

Yet it would not do to count upon this; therefore as soon as we fully realised the impossibility of completing the schooner and getting away in her within the fortnight, we so far modified our plans as to devote a certain amount of time to the putting of our cavern into a condition of defence. Fortunately for us, this was a very simple matter; for the savages knew of only one entrance to the cavern, namely, that in North Bay, and that was so exceedingly small that it might easily be blocked from the inside with a few large stones. And, as luck would have it, stones admirably adapted for the purpose existed in the cavern itself, and only needed moving forward close to the entrance, after which—as we tested by experiments—five minutes' work would suffice to block the opening so effectually that nothing less than a powder charge would ever clear it. Accordingly we divided our weapons and ammunition into two equal parts, one of which parts we put aboard the schooner, while the other we deposited in the mouth of our cavern. Then, having secured ourselves as far as was possible against attack, we returned to our work upon the schooner with redoubled energy.

Dawn of the twenty-third day after the flight of Mokalua and Vati found us in high feather; for the strenuous labour of the preceding three weeks had brought us to the point that a few hours' further work would see the completion of our task, the further work required being that needed to finish the cradle and wedge up, preparatory to launching. We had been working systematically, attending first to those matters which were most urgent, with the result that the schooner was now finished and ready for sea, with ballast—consisting entirely of as much gold in nuggets as Cunningham's calculations showed she could possibly carry— properly stowed, the water casks stowed and filled, provisions on board, masts stepped and rigged, sails bent—in short, everything completed except the fitting and equipment of the cabin, and that, we decided, could be done as easily after our little ship had been launched as while she remained on the stocks. On this particular morning, then, we were, as I have said, all in high feather, for we awoke with the comfortable assurance that, barring accidents, the schooner would be safely afloat before we again lay down to rest.

Now, although we had been working so strenuously during the past three weeks, we had not omitted to take proper precautions against a surprise on the part of the natives, the most important of these precautions consisting in the visit of one of us to the summit of the crater the first thing every morning, from which commanding elevation the sea to the south-west was carefully scanned, with the aid of Cunningham's telescope, in search of the expected flotilla of canoes. The same precaution was observed the last thing before nightfall; and we decided that, should the sea prove to be clear on these occasions, there was not much risk of our being surprised during either of the intervals between.

On the particular morning before referred to it chanced to be my turn to make the journey up the mountain; therefore, taking the telescope in its case from the rock projection in the cavern which was its recognised resting-place, and bidding my companions au revoir, I started out on my three-and-a-half mile walk to the summit, while the others hurried down to the beach, and, getting aboard the catamaran, made sail for South-west Bay, where our shipyard was situated.

Now the whole distance from our cavern to the summit of the crater was uphill, and the day, in addition to being brilliantly fine, was excessively hot, for the Trade wind had softened down on the preceding day, and was now blowing only a very moderate breeze; therefore I did not greatly hurry myself, for my way lay, practically for the whole distance to the foot of the crater, through jungle, where, although I was sheltered to a great extent from the rays of the sun, I was also shielded from the wind, and before I had travelled a mile I was perspiring profusely. But, hot as it was while walking through the jungle, it was hotter still when at length I emerged from its shelter upon the bare hillside; and I had no sooner climbed above the level of the vegetation, and was able to look over the top of it, than I flung myself down upon a big block of lava, took off my hat, and proceeded to wipe away the perspiration which was by this time streaming down my forehead into my eyes and half-blinding me. And it was while I was thus engaged that I happened to allow my gaze to wander away out over the surface of the water in a south-westerly direction; and then I saw a sight which caused me to spring to my feet with a smothered exclamation. For, far out upon the sun-flecked blue of the gently ruffled ocean, I caught a glimpse of first one and then another and another small dark dot, each of which emitted frequent sparkling flashes which I instantly identified as the sunlight striking upon the wet blades of swiftly wielded paddles. With anxious haste I gripped the telescope case, swung it round, withdrew the telescope, raised it to my eyes, and focused it; and there, magnified into unmistakable distinctness by the powerful lenses, I saw no less than ten canoes paddling straight for our island, and only some eight miles distant from West Point, as we had named the headland which projected into the ocean between North and South-west Bays. They were head-on to me, therefore I could not very well judge what size they might be; but I knew that they must be fairly big craft, each carrying a considerable number of men, judging by the multitudinous number of flashes that sparkled from their paddles as they swung rhythmically into and out of the water: and they were all keeping line too, for the whole ten swung up into view together on the crest of a sea, and then disappeared again in the trough, with almost mathematical regularity and precision. Without a doubt the anticipated invasion of our island by the savages was about to take place; and, equally without a doubt too, the invaders must gain a footing upon our territory before we were prepared to quit it, unless a plan could be devised whereby their advance might be delayed for some two or three hours. As these thoughts flashed through my mind I anxiously scanned the surface of the ocean for other canoes, but could find only the ten which I had originally counted. Then, without wasting time in ascending to the summit of the crater, I set off at a run and raced at my utmost speed all the way back to our cavern.

It was downhill all the way, and despite the intense heat I do not think I was more than twenty minutes in covering the distance. Once inside the cavern I provided myself with a sufficient number of torches for my purpose, lighted half a dozen of them to enable me to see what I was about, and then proceeded to block the entrance securely from the inside with the stones which we had already provided for that express purpose. This done, I opened the case of ammunition which we kept stored in the cavern, loaded a gun and a brace of revolvers, thrust the latter in my belt, crammed my pockets and the bosom of my shirt with cartridges, and, seizing a torch, hurried away through the tunnel to the shipyard in South-west Bay, where I found my companions strenuously at work upon the completion of the cradle, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the savages were at that moment within half a dozen miles of us.

They glanced at me with a somewhat startled expression as I dashed down the beach toward them with the gun in my hand and the revolvers in my belt, and my face streaming with perspiration; and Cunningham shouted:

"Hillo, old chap, you're hot, and look as though you had been hurrying. What's up? You surely don't mean to say that—"

"The savages are coming?" I interrupted. "That's just what I do mean to say, then. They are within half a dozen miles of us at this moment— ten big canoe-loads of them, and they'll be ashore here and about our ears in two hours from now, unless we can devise some means of preventing them. How are you getting on, Chips? How long will it be before you are ready to wedge up?"

"Not for three or four hours yet, I'm afraid," answered the carpenter, pausing in his work to consider the matter. "You see, we've a good deal to do yet afore we can finish this here cradle, and the wood, bein' nothin' but odds and ends like, is comin' a bit awk'ard—"

"Just so, I quite understand," I cut in upon his explanation. "Well, carry on, man; don't stop an instant; we can't afford to waste so much as a single second just now. Do the best you can with the resources at your command, and work as you never worked before. As for me, I'm going to take out the catamaran to meet those beggars, and see if I can't hamper them a bit and prevent them from landing here in this bay. I've blocked the cavern entrance at the other end, so it won't matter much where they land so long as they don't come ashore here. That must be prevented at all costs. I shall want one hand with me to sail the catamaran while I do the fighting. Now, who can best be spared?"

"Why, I think I am the most useless member of the party—" began Cunningham.

"No," I interrupted him emphatically; "your engineering knowledge should come in very usefully in helping Chips to use up those odds and ends of timber to the best advantage in completing the cradle. You are the man for me, Simpson, so jump now. Get aboard the schooner, open a box of ammunition, and bring me as many cartridges as you can carry, also another gun, in case anything goes wrong with this one. Then join me aboard the catamaran. And now, so long, you chaps; I'm off. Do your level best to finish off and wedge up as soon as possible; and I'll do what I can to hinder the savages and keep them from landing here. Goodbye!" and, so saying, I turned and ran toward the spot where the catamaran lay with her bows hauled up on the beach.



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 the Martha. 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."