Читать книгу The Island Queen - Robert Michael Ballantyne - Страница 4

The next day Pauline and her brothers visited the wreck, and here new difficulties met them, for although the vessel lay hard and fast on the rocks, there was a belt of water between it and the main shore, which was not only broad, but deep.

“I can easily swim it,” said Dominick, beginning to pull off his coat.

“Dom,” said Otto, solemnly, “sharks!”

“That’s true, my boy, I won’t risk it.”

He put his coat on again, and turned to look for some drift-wood with which to make a raft.

“There’s sure to be some lying about, you know,” he said, “for a wreck could hardly take place without something or other in the way of spars or wreckage being washed ashore.”

“But don’t you think,” suggested Otto, “that the men whose graves we have found may have used it all up?”

Otto was right. Not a scrap of timber or cordage of any kind was to be found after a most diligent search, and they were about to give it up in despair, when Pauline remembered the bay where they had been cast ashore, and which we have described as being filled with wreckage.

In truth, this bay and the reef with its group of islands lay right in the track of one of those great ocean currents which, as the reader probably knows, are caused by the constant circulation of all the waters of the sea between the equator and the poles. This grand and continuous flow is caused by difference of temperature and density in sea-water at different places. At the equator the water is warm, at the poles it is cold. This alone would suffice to cause circulation—somewhat as water circulates in a boiling pot—but other active agents are at work. The Arctic and Antarctic snows freshen the sea-water as well as cool it, while equatorial heat evaporates as well as warms it, and thus leaves a superabundance of salt and lime behind. The grand ocean current thus caused is broken up into smaller streams, and the courses of these are fixed by the conformation of land—just as a river’s flow is turned right or left, and sometimes backward in eddies, by the form of its banks and bottom. Trade winds, and the earth’s motion on its axis, still further modify the streams, both as to direction and force.

It was one of those currents, then, which flowed past the reef and sometimes cast vessels and wreckage on its shores.

Hastening to the bay, they accordingly found enough of broken spars and planks, to have made half a dozen rafts, twice the size of that required to go off with to the wreck; so to work they went at once with eager enthusiasm.

“Hold on!” shouted Dominick, after a few spars had been collected and dragged up on the sand.

Otto and Pauline paused in their labour, and looked anxiously at their brother, for his face wore a perplexed look.

“We have forgotten that it is impossible to shove a raft of any size, big or little, through these huge breakers, so as to get it round the point, to where the wreck lies.”

“Well, then,” cried Otto, with the ready assurance of ignorance, “we’ll just drag it overland to the wreck, and launch it there.”

“But, Otto, you have not taken into consideration the fact that our raft must be so large that, when finished, the dragging of it over rough ground would require three or four horses instead of three human beings.”

“Well, then,” returned the boy, “we’ll make it small, just big enough to carry one person, and then we’ll be able to drag it overland, and can go off to the wreck one at a time.”

“Now, just think, brainless one,” retorted Dominick; “suppose that I were to go off first to the wreck, what then?”

“Why, then I would go off next of course, and then Pina would follow, and so we’d all get on board one at a time, and explore it together.”

“Yes; but what would you come off on?”

“The raft, to be sure.”

“But the raft, I have supposed, is with me at the wreck. It won’t go back to the shore of its own accord to fetch you, and we have no ropes with which to haul it to and fro.”

“Then there’s nothing for it,” said Otto, after a few moments’ thought, “but to make it big enough for two, or carry over the broken spars and planks piecemeal, and put them together opposite the wreck; so, come along.”

This latter plan being adopted, they set to work with energy. To their joy they found not only that a good deal of cordage—somewhat worn, indeed, but still serviceable—was mingled with the wreckage, but that many large protruding bolts and rusty nails formed convenient holdfasts, which facilitated the building up and fastening together of the parts.

At last, after considerable labour, the raft was got ready early in the afternoon, and the brothers, embarking on it with two long poles, pushed off to the wreck while Pauline sat on the shore and watched them.

It was an anxious moment when they drew near enough to observe the vessel more distinctly, for it was just possible that they might find in her hold a supply of food and things they stood so much in need of, while, on the other hand, there was a strong probability that everything had been washed out of her long ago, or that her former crew had taken out all that was worth removing.

“What if we should find casks of biscuits and barrels of pork, to say nothing of tea and sugar, and such like?” murmured the sanguine Otto, as they poled slowly out.

“And what if we should find nothing at all?” said Dominick.

“O Dom!” exclaimed Otto, in a voice so despairing that his companion turned to look at him in surprise. “Look! see! the ship has been on fire! It can only be the mere skeleton that is left.”

Dominick turned quickly, and saw that his brother had reason for this remark. They had by that time approached so near to the wreck that the charred condition of part of her bulwarks, and specially of her lower spars, became obvious; and when, a few minutes later, they stood on the deck, the scene that presented itself was one of black desolation. Evidently the ill-fated vessel had been enveloped in flames, for everything on board was charred, and it was almost certain that her crew had run her on the rocks as the only method of escaping, her boats having been totally destroyed, as was apparent from the small portions of them that still hung from the davits.

“Nothing left!” said Otto. “I think that Robinson Crusoe himself would have given way to despair if his wreck had been anything like this. I wonder that even this much of it has been left above water after fire had got hold of it.”

“Perhaps the hull sank after the first crash on the rocks, and put out the fire,” suggested Dominick, “and then subsequent gales may have driven her higher up. Even now her stern lies pretty deep, and everything in her hold has been washed away.”