Читать книгу The Land of Fire: A Tale of Adventure - Reid Mayne - Страница 6

Not long does Captain Gancy lament the loss of his fine vessel and valuable cargo. In the face and fear of a far greater loss – his own life and the lives of his companions there is no time for vain regrets. The storm is still in full fury; the winds and the waves are as high as ever, and their boat is threatened with the fate of the barque.

The bulk of the Calypso’s crew, with Lyons, the chief mate, have taken to the pinnace; and the skipper is in his own gig, with his wife, daughter, son, young Chester, and two others – Seagriff, the carpenter, and the cook, a negro. In all only seven persons, but enough to bring the gunwale of the little craft dangerously near the water’s edge. The captain himself is in the stern-sheets, tiller-lines in hand. Mrs Gancy and her daughter crouch beside him, while the others are at the oars, in which occupation Ned and Chester occasionally pause to bale out, as showers of spray keep breaking over the boat, threatening to swamp it.

What point shall they steer for? This is a question that no one asks, nor thinks of asking as yet. Course and direction are as nothing now; all their energies are bent on keeping the boat above water. However, they naturally endeavour to remain in the company of the pinnace. But those in the larger craft, like themselves, are engaged in a life-and-death conflict with the sea, and both must fight it out in their own way, neither being able to give aid to the other. So, despite their efforts to keep near each other, the winds and waves soon separate them, and they only can catch glimpses of each other when buoyed up on the crest of a billow. When the night comes on – a night of dungeon darkness – they see each other no more.

But, dark as it is, there is still visible that which they have been long regarding with dread – the breakers known as the “Milky Way.” Snow-white during the day, these terrible rock-tortured billows now gleam like a belt of liquid fire, the breakers at every crest seeming to break into veritable flames. Well for the castaways that this is the case; else how, in such obscurity, could the dangerous lee-shore be shunned? To keep off that is, for the time, the chief care of those in the gig; and all their energies are exerted in holding their craft well to windward.

By good fortune the approach of night has brought about a shifting of the wind, which has veered around to the west-north-west, making it possible for them to “scud,” without nearer approach to the dreaded fire-like line. In their cockleshell of a boat, they know that to run before the wind is their safest plan, and so they speed on south-eastward. An ocean current setting from the north-west also helps them in this course.

Thus doubly driven, they make rapid progress, and before midnight the Milky Way is behind them and out of sight. But, though they breathe more freely, they are by no means out of danger – alone in a frail skiff on the still turbulent ocean, and groping in thick darkness, with neither moon nor star to guide them. They have no compass, that having been forgotten in their scramble out of the sinking ship. But even if they had one it would be of little assistance to them at present, as, for the time being, they have enough to do in keeping the boat baled out and above water.

At break of day matters look a little better. The storm has somewhat abated, and there is land in sight to leeward, with no visible breakers between. Still, they have a heavy swell to contend with, and an ugly cross sea.

But land to a castaway! His first thought and most anxious desire is to set foot on it. So in the case of our shipwrecked party: risking all reefs and surfs, they at once set the gig’s head shoreward.

Closing in upon the land, they perceive a high promontory on the port bow, and another on the starboard, separated by a wide reach of open water; and about half-way between these promontories and somewhat farther out lies what appears to be an island. Taking it for one, Seagriff counsels putting in there instead of running on for the more distant mainland, though that is not his real reason.

“But why should we put in upon the island?” asks the skipper. “Wouldn’t it be much better to keep on to the main?”

“No, Captain; there’s a reason agin it, the which I’ll make known to you as soon as we get safe ashore.”

Captain Gancy is aware that the late Calypso’s carpenter was for a long time a sealer, and in this capacity had spent more than one season in the sounds and channels of Tierra del Fuego. He knows also that the old sailor can be trusted, and so, without pressing for further explanation, he steers straight for the island.

When about half a mile from its shore, they come upon a bed of kelp2, growing so close and thick as to bar their farther advance. Were they still on board the barque, the weed would be given a wide berth, as giving warning of rocks underneath; but in the light-draught gig they have no fear of these, and with the swell still tossing them about, they might be even glad to get in among the kelp – certainly there would be but that between it and the shore. They can descry waveless water, seemingly as tranquil as a pond.

Luckily the weed-bed is not continuous, but traversed by an irregular sort of break, through which it seems practicable to make way. Into this the gig is directed, and pulled through with vigorous strokes. Five minutes afterward her keel grates upon a beach, against which, despite the tumbling swell outside, there is scarce so much as a ripple. There is no better breakwater than a bed of kelp.

The island proves to be a small one – less than a mile in diameter – rising in the centre to a rounded summit, three hundred feet above sea-level.

It is treeless, though in part overgrown with a rank vegetation, chiefly tussac-grass3, with its grand bunches of leaves, six feet in height, surrounded by plume-like flower-spikes, almost as much higher.

Little regard, however, do the castaways pay to the isle or its productions. After being so long tossed about on rough seas, in momentary peril of their lives, and eating scarcely a mouthful of food the while, they are now suffering from the pangs of hunger. On the water this was the last thing to be thought of; on land it is the first; so as soon as the boat is brought to her moorings, and they have set foot on shore, the services of Caesar the cook are called into requisition.

As yet they scarcely know what provisions they have with them, so confusedly were things flung into the gig. An examination of their stock proves that it is scant indeed: a barrel of biscuits, a ham, some corned beef, a small bag of coffee in the berry, a canister of tea, and a loaf of lump sugar, were all they had brought with them. The condition of these articles, too, is most disheartening. Much of the biscuit seems a mass of briny pulp; the beef is pickled for the second time (on this occasion with sea-water); the sugar is more than half melted; and the tea spoiled outright, from the canister not having been water-tight. The ham and coffee have received least damage; yet both will require a cleansing operation to make them fit for food.

Fortunately, some culinary utensils are found in the boat the most useful of them being a frying-pan, kettle, and coffeepot. And now for a fire! – ah, the fire!

Up to this moment no one has thought of a fire; but now needing it, they are met with the difficulty, if not impossibility, of making one. The mere work of kindling it were an easy enough task, the late occupant of the Calypso’s caboose being provided with flint, steel, and tinder. So, too, is Seagriff, who, an inveterate smoker, is never without igniting apparatus, carried in a pocket of his pilot-coat. But where are they to find firewood? There is none on the islet – not a stick, as no trees grow there; while the tussac and other plants are soaking wet, the very ground being a sodden spongy peat.

A damper as well as a disappointment this, and Captain Gancy turns to Seagriff and remarks, with some vexation, “Chips, (All ship-carpenters are called ‘Chips.’) I think ’t would have been better if we’d kept on to the main. There’s timber enough there, on either side,” he adds, after a look through his binocular. “The hills appear to be thickly-wooded half-way up on the land both north and south of us.”

His words are manifestly intended as a reflection upon the judgment of the quondam seal-hunter, who rejoins shortly, “It would have been a deal worse, sir. Ay, worse nor if we should have to eat our vittels raw.”

“I don’t comprehend you,” said the skipper: “you spoke of a reason for our not making the mainland. What is it?”

“Wal, Captain, there is a reason, as I said, an’ a good one. I didn’t like to tell you, wi’ the others listenin’.” He nods toward the rest of the party, who are out of earshot, and then continues, “’Specially the women folks, as ’tain’t a thing they ought to be told about.”

“Do you fear some danger?” queries the skipper, in a tone of apprehension.

“Jest that; an’ bad kind o’ danger. As fur’s I kin see, we’ve drifted onto a part of the Feweegin coast where the Ailikoleeps live; the which air the worst and cruellest o’ savages – some of ’em rank cannyballs! It isn’t but five or six years since they murdered, and what’s more, eat sev’ral men of a sealin’ vessel that was wrecked somewhere about here. For killin’ ’em, mebbe they might have had reason, seein’ as there had been blame on both sides, an’ some whites have behaved no better than the savages. But jest fur that, we, as are innocent, may hev to pay fur the misdeeds o’ the guilty! Now, Captain, you perceive the wharfor o’ my not wantin’ you to land over yonder. Ef we went now, like as not we’d have a crowd o’ the ugly critters yellin’ around us, hungering for our flesh.”

“But, if that’s so,” queried the captain, “shall we be any safer here?”

“Yes, we’re safe enough here – ’s long as the wind’s blowin’ as ’tis now, an’ I guess it allers does blow that way, round this speck of an island. It must be all o’ five mile to that land either side, an’ in their rickety canoes the Feweegins never venture fur out in anythin’ o’ a rough sea. I calculate, Captain, we needn’t trouble ourselves much about ’em – leastways, not jest yet.”

“Ay – but afterward?” murmurs Captain Gancy, in a desponding tone, as his eyes turn upon those by the boat.

“Wal, sir,” says the old sealer, encouragingly, “the arterwards ’ll have to take care o’ itself. An’ now I guess I’d better determine ef thar ain’t some way o’ helpin’ Caesar to a spark o’ fire. Don’t look like it, but looks are sometimes deceivin’.”

And, so saying, he strolls off among the bunches of tussac-grass, and is soon out of sight.

But it is not long before he is again making himself heard, by an exclamation, telling of some discovery – a joyful one, as evinced by the tone of his voice. The two youths hasten to his side, and find him bending over a small heath-like bush, from which he has torn a handful of branches.

“What is it, Chips?” ask both in a breath.

“The gum plant, sure,” he replies.

“Well, what then? What’s the good of it?” they further interrogate. “You don’t suppose that green thing will burn – wet as a fish, too?”

“That’s jest what I do suppose,” replied the old sailor, deliberately. “You young ones wait, an’ you’ll see. Mebbe you’ll lend a hand, an’ help me to gather some of it. We want armfuls; an’ there’s plenty o’ the plants growin’ all about, you see.”

They do see, and at once begin tearing at them, breaking off the branches of some, and plucking up others by the roots, till Seagriff cries, “Enough!” Then, with arms full, they return to the beach in high spirits and with joyful faces.

Arrived there, Seagriff selects some of the finest twigs, which he rubs between his hands till they are reduced to a fine fibre and nearly dry. Rolling these into a rounded shape, resembling a bird’s nest, click! goes his flint and steel – a piece of “punk” is ignited and slipped into the heart of the ball. This, held on high, and kept whirling around his head, is soon ablaze, when it is thrust in among the gathered heap of green plants. Green and wet as these are, they at once catch fire and flame up like kindling-wood.

All are astonished and pleased, and not the least delighted is Caesar, who dances over the ground in high glee as he prepares to resume his vocation.