Читать книгу With Drake on the Spanish Main - George Herbert Ely - Страница 5

Daybreak! But, eastward, no glory of dawn. Black thundrous clouds roll sullenly across a livid sky, riven at moments by pale zigzags of flame. Rain tumbles in cascades. League upon league of white-crested waves chase one another in fury, hissing, roaring as they hurl themselves upon a stubborn shore, only to be broken and thrown back into the seething turmoil. The wind outstrips them, shrieking as it cleaves a way through the massed foliage, in mad haste to reach the mainland and smite the yielding tops of Darien's palms and pines.

The shelving sandy beach is strewed with the jetsam of the storm. Here, a tangled heap of seaweed, left by a breaker when, spent with its own rage, it falls back baffled. There, a log of wood, hard by nameless creatures of the sea, destroyed by the fury of their own element. And here, high up the strand, beneath a bank overgrown with large-leaved plants, lies a human form, huddled, motionless.

The waves do not touch it now; the storm has exhausted itself; the tide is ebbing. Minute by minute the sea becomes less boisterous; the strip of sand widens; the rain ceases. By and by the sun breaks through the eastern sky, and, gathering strength, disperses the lingering clouds and flings his radiance over the scene. His beams, falling aslant through a gap in the cliffs, strike upon the draggled form on the sand; it stirs slightly, stretching itself as a leaf uncurls. At last, when the air quivers with heat, and all things lie under a shimmering haze, Dennis Hazelrig heaves a sigh, opens his eyes, and looks amazedly about him.

His eyes close; for some minutes he remains still; then he lifts himself slightly, falls back with a gasp, and lies again as one dead. But Nature is recovering under the beneficent rays. Pigeons are cooing in the branches above; parrots are screaming; insects drone their burden; and when a mosquito, adventuring forth, alights on a human cheek, and tastes, Dennis is stung once more into consciousness. He starts up, brushes the marauder away, staggers to his feet, and, to prevent himself from falling, clutches at a tuft of grass in the overhanging bank. Its thin blade-like edge draws blood from his hand, and he looks at the red stain as at some strange phenomenon. Then he laughs huskily, checks the sound as though it too is unfamiliar, and laughs again—a short sobbing laugh.

"Certes, I am alive!" he mutters.

An hour or two passed before Dennis ventured once more to try his tottering legs. The sun's heat had dried his clothes, which, as he ruefully observed, had been so rent by the buffeting waves that they hung upon him precariously. But in the same genial warmth his strength was returning, and though all his body ached, he could now move without a stagger. Catching sight of some clams near him, he was conscious of a vast emptiness within, and felt for the clasp-knife which he was wont to wear slung about his waist. It still hung upon its chain. He had opened and eaten, ravenously, a dozen of the shellfish before he realized that after all his thirst exceeded his hunger, and he looked round for a spring of fresh water. He walked some paces along the shore, groaning with every movement, until his ear caught the musical ripple of a stream, and he saw a rivulet flowing across the sand from a narrow water-course in the cliff. In an instant he was down on his knees, drinking his fill.

Refreshed with the draught, he rose and began to consider. He was alive: that was the first thing. It seemed marvellous to him. The tornado had ceased. Looking round, he could hardly believe that the sea now so calm was the same sea which, but a few hours before, had been a raging monster. As far as the eye could scan it stretched away, shimmering in the sunlight, only a white crest here and there giving sign of its late disturbance. Not a sail broke the line of the horizon. What had become of the Maid Marian and her crew and his companion adventurers on board? Had they, had any of them, been cast ashore like himself, on some other part of this strange coast? If he had escaped, why not others? There was something cheering in the thought, and instinctively he braced himself for a search when, remembering that awful night—the amazing suddenness of the blast that struck the bark, rending the sails like ribands, snapping the mainmast like a reed, the tumultuous waves, the crashing thunder, the bursts of lightning, the deluge that poured down from the heavens—as he remembered these battling elements he shuddered involuntarily; could it be otherwise than by a miracle that he had survived?

He lived over again his last conscious moments. The mainmast had gone by the board. He heard the hoarse shout of Miles Barton the master, calling upon the men to cut away the wreckage. He was with them at the task, struggling to keep his feet, when the gallant vessel staggered under the onslaught of a tremendous sea, and he was swept off her deck. He heard cries all around him, but could see nothing for the darkness and the blinding rain. Striving to keep his head above water, he felt his strength failing, so puny was it against the might of the passionate waves, when he encountered a floating spar, and clung to it with the tenacity of despair. After that he knew nothing. His grip must have relaxed, for the spar was not near him when he awoke to consciousness on the beach. Yet it seemed that this had been his salvation. He must have held to it until near the shore; then some mountainous breaker had torn him away and hurled him to the spot where he had lately opened his eyes again upon the world.

Hapless bark! It was scarcely possible that she had survived the hurricane. And what of the souls on board with him? What of Miles Barton, the bluff sea-dog her master, and his cheery crew, and the score of gallant gentlemen who had sailed out of Plymouth Sound but two months before, gay, high-hearted adventurers for the Spanish Main? Where was Sir Martin Blunt, the blithe captain of the band, and Philip Masterton, and Harry Greville, and Francis Tring, all young men of mettle, whom Dennis was proud to call his friends, and who, though but little his elders in years, had seen and done things in the great world that made him burn with envious admiration? Alas! he could not but fear that the sea had swallowed them.

But then again came the thought: might not Fortune have befriended them too? Why imagine the worst? And Dennis thrust sad thought from his mind; hope was not dead. His meal had given him strength to search, and search he would.

He looked about him. The sandy beach was narrow. It was overhung by cliffs of varying height, in parts merely a low bank, in parts reaching an altitude of perhaps forty or fifty feet. They were covered with the dense vegetation of the tropics. Some distance to the north of where he stood the receding tide had left bare a long ledge of massive rock, running up into the highest part of the cliff. To the south the shore was less rocky, and within half a mile curved round to the east. It was in this direction that he decided to go.

But he had not walked far along the glistening sand when he suddenly bethought himself. Signs of life there had yet been none, save the cries of birds from the trees above him. But what if he came upon a fishing village, and found himself among enemies—the wild red men of whom he had heard, the Spaniards of whose terrible deeds returning navigators made such grim tales for the winter nights at home? Where was he? On some shore of the Caribbean Sea, he made no doubt, for only the day before, when the Maid Marian was sailing merrily westward, Sir Martin had declared, and old Miles had borne him out, that but a few more days would bring them to the point where they expected to meet other adventurers who had preceded them on the same quest for excitement and gain.

And Dennis halted as one dazed when the full sense of his calamity was borne in upon him. He was alone!—alone! There might be, for all he knew, thousands of people almost within hail of him; but he was none the less alone, for they would be of another race, speaking another tongue, unfriendly, hostile. He sat down on a smooth rock and, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, stared moodily out to sea. Between him and all that he held dear stretched this wide ocean for thousands of miles. In utter hopelessness he wondered why it had not swallowed him up with all his comrades, instead of casting him here, a battered miserable body.

The mood passed. He had escaped the perils of the sea, not by his own strength, but by the hand of Providence. If perchance he had more to fear from man than from nature—why, it behoved him, an English boy, and a Devon boy to boot, to face his destiny with a stout heart. After all, he was of the same stuff as Master Walter Raleigh and Master Francis Drake and many another bold man of Devon. He could not think that any one of them, in his situation, would give way to black despair; and, lifting his aching body from the shore, he walked on: he would at least learn somewhat of his surroundings.

The beach, he found, bore gradually to the left, so that he could see but a short distance ahead. Still he encountered no signs of life, save here and there a scuttling crab, and the rank plant growths above him, whence now and again a bird fluttered out and wheeled screaming about his head, and then soared clattering into the foliage. Soon he tired of this monotonous tramping over sand, which appeared to lead no whither; and observing at length a cleft in the rocks, whence a shallow stream swiftly poured itself upon the beach, he bethought himself he might more quickly make a discovery if he pushed his way up the water-course, which must by and by lead to higher ground. He turned in obedience to this impulse, waded through the stream, that wound this way and that between banks thickly covered with vegetation, and after what seemed an eternity to his aching limbs, found himself upon a cliff overlooking the sea. His wandering had brought him by a circuit to a point north of the spot where he had awoke to consciousness.

The cliff on which he stood was much higher than the surrounding country. To right and left the ground shelved downwards, and he now perceived that the coast on both sides had an inward trend; that, in fact, the cliff was also a promontory. Turning round, he found that his view was blocked by the trees except in one direction, where a sudden dip in the ground gave him an outlook over several miles. And there, surely, at the far end of the vista, was the sea again. For the first time the suspicion occurred to him that he had been cast upon an island.

He went to the farthest point of the cliff to scan more carefully the horizon. Looking across the sea, which from the beach had seemed an unbroken plain, he now saw in the far distance several dark vague shapes rising a little above the surface. These must be islands. To the north, somewhat nearer to him, and somewhat more definite, were similar forms, which seemed to grow in size during the hour or more he watched them, no doubt owing to the fall of the tide. Far to the south he descried a long dark bar upon the horizon; this must be land, many miles away, probably the mainland. His view to the east being almost entirely shut out by the foliage, he could feel no certainty that his suspicion was justified; but he felt a stirring of interest and excitement now: supposing it were indeed an island, how did the discovery bear upon his lot?

Once more he turned and gazed along the valley at whose end he saw the sea. It could not be many miles away; perhaps in an hour or so he could reach it. The island, apparently, was not a large one, so that he could not go far without meeting its inhabitants. He looked around for any signs of habitation—a roof-top, a column of smoke; but there was none. Next moment he reflected that, if the island were small, it would not take him long to make its circuit and search every yard of the beach for tracks of his late comrades—of the Maid Marian too. Still cherishing a hope that some might have survived like himself, he set off to descend the cliff towards the beach, every downward step racking his bruised limbs and strained joints. When he gained the beach, he once more tramped southward, his eagerness lending him speed. He passed the water-course up which he had struck inland, and soon after came upon scattered articles of wreckage, among them the broken topmast of the Maid Marian. With a sigh for his lost comrades he passed on.

The sun had risen high in the heavens, and Dennis was fain to rest.

"I'm a poor battered hulk," he said aloud, finding some little solace in the sound of his voice, "and hungry—how hungry I am!"

He looked around for food, spied some shell-fish and ate them raw, quenching the ensuing thirst at another stream that rippled down from the interior. The feeling of nervousness lest he should encounter strangers again took hold upon him, and he felt a desire to hide. He found himself casting uneasy, almost terrified glances around him from the nook in which he was now resting, somewhat sheltered from the sun's fierce rays. Then, conquering the feeling, he rose again to continue his search of the beach. He must by and by, he thought, come upon some quay or harbour. When he should see it, he would halt and consider his course of action: whether to advance and risk the meeting with strangers, or to retreat until with recovered strength and a clearer mind he could prepare himself for what might be in store.

As he proceeded, he noticed that the jungle frequently approached to within a few feet of the mass of weed that marked high-water. At one spot he discovered, almost buried in the sand, the worm-eaten stern-post of a vessel. He could distinguish one or two letters of her name. Many a ship, he doubted not, had been wrecked on this coast, many a hapless wight had been cast up by the tide, alive or dead. By and by he came, on the southern side of the island, to high cliffs, and he set about scaling that which offered the easiest ascent, to obtain a view of sea and land from this point of vantage also. It was densely wooded, and as he mounted he heard, besides the cries of startled birds, other sounds that struck uncannily upon his ear. In his weakened state any new note in these sounds set his nerves tingling, and more than once he stopped, and could scarcely prevent himself from turning and speeding back to the beach, where at least there was nothing to cause him fresh tremors.

Near the top of the cliff the wood thinned away somewhat, and when he reached its highest point he found himself on a stretch of greensward. Northward the ground sloped gently down to a clump of trees, of a species unknown to him, tall, with slender trunks, which it seemed to him he could climb as easily as the masts on the Maid Marian. He made his way to them, half minded to swarm up the tallest of the group, so that from its summit he might gain a view, possibly, over the whole island, and solve the question that troubled him—whether somewhere upon it there was a settlement of men. Only when he reached the foot of the trunk did he remember his weakness. He stood leaning against it, and gazing up its length felt that at present his muscles were incapable of the feat.

All at once his eyes became fixed in his head. Travelling to the top, where a mass of foliage crowned the towering stem, they had lighted upon a face, that seemed to be peering at him from between the leaves. The feeling of fright that had before almost paralysed him seized him again. But next moment he laughed aloud.

"Ninny that I am!" he murmured. "Afraid of a monkey!"

He looked again. The monkey, a large long-tailed specimen of its kind, was gazing at him gravely, with a look so human that it reminded him of his old schoolmaster at Winchester. With the sportive instinct of a boy—Dennis was not yet seventeen—he stooped, picked up a stout piece of fallen branch, and flung it upward.

"Stir, Sir Monkey!" he cried. "I hail thee as the lord of this island!"

The wood struck the branch on which the monkey was perched. Chattering angrily, it flung its long arms around the branch above, and swung itself up, resting there, blinking and showing its teeth at this unmannerly intruder.

"A big fellow indeed!" said Dennis to himself. "I will not climb. If the beast is angered, as he seems, he would be no mean foe in his high perch. I'll not try a bout with you, Sir Monkey. For this time, farewell!"

And he went on, smiling a little as he became conscious that the meeting with the monkey had cheered him.