Читать книгу With Drake on the Spanish Main - George Herbert Ely - Страница 11

Rising with the sun, Dennis set about making a more careful examination of the hull of the Maid Marian. The leaks in her timbers were rather more serious than he had supposed. Clearly they would prevent her from drifting out to sea on the tide, but they would also render her final break-up inevitable in the event of a violent storm from the north-west. There were signs on the face of the cliff that at times the waves dashed over the narrow beach of sand against the wall of rock beyond. In these latitudes, as the fate of the Maid Marian proved, storms arose without warning, and with incredible swiftness; and it behoved Dennis to make all speed in saving the ship's stores.

At low tide on this day, and on many that followed, he worked hard at his task. He rigged up a block and pulley in the waist, by means of which he was able to hoist casks and other heavy objects up the hatchways and lower them over the side of the vessel. It was more difficult to convey them from the vessel to a place of safety beyond the reach of the tide. At first he tried to haul them by a rope, but finding soon that he succeeded only in working up a ridge of sand which rendered haulage exhausting and in some cases impossible, he bethought himself of the device of employing rollers, such as he had seen used by fishermen on the beach at home. It was an easy matter, with the tools now at hand, to lop off and strip some straight boughs suited to his purpose, and upon these he brought, slowly and not without pains, the bulkier goods to safe harbourage. The tide always rose about the vessel too soon for his impatience; but the work was arduous, the intervals were really needed for rest, and they gave opportunities of furthering his acquaintance with the monkey.

His relations with Mirandola, indeed, were placed on a sound and satisfactory footing long before he had emptied the hull. The biscuits were invaluable. At intervals, now long, now short, he would throw one towards the monkey, which watched all his doings at the wreck day by day with unfailing regularity. Little by little he diminished the length of his throw, until, on the third day after his first lesson, Mirandola had gained sufficient confidence to approach him to within a few inches. On the fourth day, after keeping the monkey waiting longer than usual, Dennis took a biscuit from his pouch, held it for a moment between his fingers, then put it back again.

"It is time, Mirandola," he said, "that your education was completed. You are, I verily believe, as wise as a serpent; will you not believe that I am harmless as a dove? This is the same biscuit I stowed but now in my pouch; it is for you; it is yours if you will take it mannerly. No, I will not cast it on the sand; it is more seemly to take it from my hand, and, I do assure you, it will be no less relishable. Come, then, dear wiseacre; have I ever deceived you? Show a little confidence in your true friend and well-wisher."

He held forth the biscuit, with an alluring smile. Mirandola cocked his head on one side, gazed at this dispenser of delectable things with a searching solemnity, and then crawled forward with watchful eye, dubiously halting more than once. At length he came to Dennis's feet, and sat up, with so gravely sad an expression that Dennis found it hard not to laugh. Then, thrusting up his long arm, he made a grab at the biscuit.

"Not so, Mirandola," said Dennis, holding it beyond the monkey's reach. "Manners maketh man; assuredly they will not mar monkeys. Ape the gentle philosopher your namesake; be courteous and discreet. Now, once more."

He lowered the biscuit slowly, keeping his eyes on the creature's face. But with a suddenness that took him aback, Mirandola raised himself on his hind legs, flung out an arm, and, before Dennis could withdraw it, held the biscuit in his skinny paw.

"Wellaway!" laughed Dennis. "I may keep my breath to cool my porridge, for all the effect my words have upon your savage nature."

Then, to his surprise, the monkey came to him again, and held out his hand.

"You shall not be disappointed," he said. "Not for the world would I reject your advances. Here is a biscuit, and with this, shall we say, our friendship is sealed."

And it was not long before Mirandola would sit upon his knee, and take food from his hand with all mannerliness; and, its distrust gone, showed itself to be as affectionate and devoted as a dog.

Dennis availed himself in other ways of the hours when the tide interrupted his labour with the stores. There was no lack of planking and tarpaulin in the vessel; these he utilized in building on the ledge, and near a fresh spring that ran out of the cliff, a little hut about two trees that grew near enough together to form uprights for his roof. Then he erected two small sheds close by, wherein to shelter his goods from the weather. At first he fumbled with the unfamiliar tools, not omitting to pinch his fingers as he hammered in the nails. But he soon acquired a certain dexterity, and was indeed mightily pleased with his handiwork.

Every now and again he made a trip across the island, to discover whether any vessels were in sight. Once or twice he descried a sail on the horizon; once, indeed, he felt some excitement and anxiety as he saw a bark under full sail bearing straight, as he thought, for the shore. But in this he was mistaken; the vessel altered her course, and Dennis, watching her diminishing form, hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. He was in truth too busy for self-commiseration: work filled his days, unbroken sleep his nights. His feeling of loneliness had almost entirely passed away, for Mirandola was his inseparable companion, and it pleased his fancy to talk to the monkey as to a human being.

So engrossing had his labour been that he had taken no account of the passage of time. It came upon him with a shock, once, that the unnumbered days were flitting away. The idea that he was doomed to grow old upon this island, and linger out his years in endless solitude, struck his imagination with a chill, and set him climbing the cliff in a kind of frenzy, to scan once more the wide horizon for a sail. If at that moment a vessel had hove in sight, he would have flown a flag, fired a musket, to attract attention, reckless what crew it bore, so deep was his yearning to see a fellow man. When the fit passed, it left him with a new desire. Never yet had the possibility occurred to him of leaving the island. Could he construct a raft, or build a boat—nay, was there a chance of making the Maid Marian herself, battered as she was, seaworthy? The absurdity of attempting to navigate single-handed a bark of near a hundred tons set him laughing; but the idea suggested a new outlet for his energy, just at the time when the conclusion of his salvage work had bereft him of occupation.

He became fired with the purpose of saving the vessel. The weather hitherto had been perfect; but sooner or later a storm must come, and then the ship would be ground to splinters against the cliff. Was it possible to float her? He had unloaded what he imagined to be a good many tons of stores; thus lightened, could she be moved? If he could succeed in floating her, whither could she be taken? His tour of the island had failed to discover any harbour; there was little to gain and much to lose by allowing himself to drift about aimlessly in such a hulk. Suddenly an idea struck him. Would it not be possible to devise some means of floating her up the gully, round the shoulder of the cliff? Her draught was not great: at high tide the water was deep enough to carry her many yards beyond her present position, to a point where she would be at once invisible from the open sea and protected from the weather.

At the next fall of the tide he made a thorough inspection of the wreck. It was easy to find the leaks, for at every ebb the water that had entered the vessel at the flood gushed out in tiny cascades. Many a time he had seen ships careened and caulked in the dockyard at Plymouth. He had plenty of rope of which to make oakum, and of tar more than enough to meet his needs; in his search through the vessel he had lighted on no caulking iron, but a long nail would serve, and it should go hard with him, he thought, but he would make the old hulk sound and seaworthy ere many days were gone.

He found an unexpected assistant in Mirandola. He had teased out but an inch or two of rope when the monkey squatted down by his side and began with his strong nimble fingers to copy him, looking up in his face with an air of such busy importance that Dennis was fain to lie back and laugh.

"By my troth, Sir Mirandola," he said, "this is friendship indeed. And you outdo me, on my soul; you pick two inches to my one. 'Tis not the daintiest of work for fingers untrained to it, and if it pleases you, why, I will e'en leave it to you, and admire this unwonted usefulness in a philosopher."

But he found that when he ceased, the monkey ceased also.

"Poor knave!" he said. "You see not the end. 'Tis but an apish trick after all. Well, God forbid that I should judge your motive; I am thankful for your help, and we will work together."

Between them the two collaborators soon had a fine heap of oakum ready for use, and a couple of days' hard work at low tide sufficed to caulk all the seams. Mirandola's share in this second part of the job gave Dennis more amusement. The busy creature solemnly dabbed tar on sound parts of the timbers, and chattered with disgust when he discovered that the stuff clung to his hairy skin, defying all his efforts to get rid of it.

"I' faith, I named you more fittingly than I wot," quoth Dennis. "Pico, your illustrious namesake, was a gentleman of rare and delicate taste. Touch pitch and thou art defiled. But a little turpentine, mayhap, will cleanse the outward spots; and as for your inward hurt—what think you of a spread of honey on your biscuit?"

Mirandola thought nobly of the new delicacy, and came in time to look for honey whenever he had imitated Dennis with more than usual energy.

The leaks having been well caulked, Dennis proceeded to pump the water from the lower parts of the hold. He awaited the next high tide with great eagerness. To his joy the vessel floated, and rode fairly upright on her keel. The tide carried her several yards up the beach, leaving her again high and dry at the ebb.

But Dennis now found himself faced by a difficulty. He wished to get the vessel round the shoulder of the cliff, so that the tide might carry her up the chine to the pool below his hut and sheds. The distance was barely eighty yards, but he had noticed, from the movement of a log floating some little way out, that the set of the current was from north to west; so that if once she were allowed to float free, and felt the force of the current, she would probably drift away in the opposite direction from what he desired. On the other hand, if she were driven too high on the beach, she might stick so firmly in the sand that it would be impossible to move her, and then she would lie at the mercy of the first north-west gale.

His little nautical knowledge was at first at a loss.

"Mirandola, your speechless wisdom is of no avail," he said ruefully, as he sat at his fire one evening, feeding the monkey with pease porridge. "You and I are both landsmen; unlike you, I adventured forth, to gain gold, and fight the don Spaniards, if so the fates should ordain. Here is never a Spaniard to fight, and as for gold, the wealth of Croesus would not at this moment benefit me a jot. If I had been bred to the sea, now, I should not be at this pass."

But long cogitation, and another visit to the ship, determined a course of action. The windlass, he discovered, was uninjured, and though it was very stiff, he could still manage to turn it. A big jagged rock jutted out from the cliff near the shoulder round which the vessel must be warped. To this rock he carried a rope from the stump of the mainmast and securely fastened it. This would prevent the vessel from drifting out to sea. Then, with a hatchet from the ship's stores he cut a number of thick branches from the trees along the gully, and pitching them into the pool floated them one by one on to the beach alongside the wreck. There was plenty of rope on board to fashion these into a stout raft, on to which, with the aid of the windlass, he lowered a kedge anchor just sufficiently heavy to hold the vessel in a calm. It was a matter of some difficulty to get the anchor so evenly adjusted on the raft that the latter would not turn turtle; but after some patient manoeuvring Dennis arranged it squarely in the centre, and when the tide came in the whole floated with a fair appearance of stability. Then with a long pole Dennis cautiously punted the raft out beyond the gully, paying out as he went a stout cable, connecting the anchor with the windlass. Some thirty yards beyond the gully, at a point near enough in shore to be beyond the reach of the current, he prepared to drop the anchor. It was too heavy for him even to move; the only plan that suggested itself was to bring about what he had up to that moment been most anxious to prevent—the raft must now be intentionally upset. One by one he cut away the lashings of the outermost logs on the seaward side. At last he felt by the movement of the raft that only his own weight prevented the crazy structure from turning over. He slid from the raft into the sea; the far side sank and the anchor slipped over and went with a thud to the bottom. Then the raft righted itself, and Dennis scrambled aboard.

The rest was easy. When the tide ebbed it carried the wreck inch by inch towards the anchor, for with the aid of the windlass Dennis was able to keep the cable constantly taut, while at the same time he paid out the rope connecting the vessel with the shore. A couple of tides brought him in this way up to the anchor; then, transferring the shore cable to a stout tree some distance up the gully, he slacked off the kedge line when the tide was running up, and allowed the wreck to be carried shorewards. In this way the Maid Marian floated slowly up the gully on the flood, and another couple of tides brought her within a few yards of the pool, which he designed for her permanent harbourage.

Below this there was a narrow bar that threatened to baulk him. At low tide, indeed, he had to shovel away a large amount of sand in the middle of the channel, and once came near losing his temper with Mirandola, who, with well-meant industry, and a quite innocent pleasure, set about scooping back the sand as it was dug out. But the animal tired of this fatiguing amusement; the difficulty was overcome; and when at last the vessel rode gently into the little natural harbour below the hut, Dennis hailed the success of his long toil with a cheerful "Huzza!" and broached a cask of sack. Of this indulgence he partly repented, for the monkey seized upon the empty can when he laid it down, and drained it greedily.

"No, no, my friend," said Dennis, gravely. "Wine maketh glad the heart of man; I do not read that it is anywise a drink for brutes. And all your philosophy would not reconcile me to a drunken Mirandola. 'Be not among wine-bibbers,' says the wisest of kings and men; I bethink me he says also, 'My son, eat thou honey, for it is good!' You shall have honey, my venerable son."