Читать книгу Biggles Flies West - W E Johns - Страница 9

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The years rolled by, and with their passing, nature triumphed. Came sun and rain and wind and calm, but no man came to the island where Louis, once le Grande, kept lonely vigil with his fate.

Before a year was out the gruesome stains upon the galleon’s deck were hidden beneath a mantle of fallen leaves that died and rotted where they lay, and made a sure foundation for the ever-questing moss.

When James the Second ruled in England there came a storm that undermined the rocks which lay about the harbour’s narrow mouth, so that they fell, and falling, made a wall against the waves; and year by year the tireless sea cemented them with sand.

The years rolled on, each year contributing its little to the shrouding of the dying ship. While Queen Anne wore the crown came briers and vines to seek a foothold in the moss that blanketed the rotting timbers. In the reign of George the First the masts collapsed and struck a futile blow at the all-devouring jungle; but the briers and vines and weeds embraced them, and dragged them down to oblivion and decay.

The years rolled on. In the reign of George the Second a ship came watering at the island, and although the thirsty sailors came ashore they did not learn its secret. When George the Third was king came several ships, but a hundred years had passed and no sign remained to reveal what they could not suspect, and so they sailed away.

The years rolled on. When George the Fourth sat on the throne a shipwrecked mariner was cast away upon the island, and although he stayed there for a year, often in his lonely wanderings passing within a score of paces of the green-girt wreck, he did not find it. And so he went away in the next ship that called, and in due course died a pauper’s death, not knowing that once he had made a frugal meal within a yard of enough doubloons to pay a prince’s ransom.

The years rolled on. William the Fourth, Victoria, King Edward—the seventh of the name—King George the Fifth, the eighth King Edward, all ruled in turn, but still the island kept its secret.

And then one day, when George the Sixth upheld the British Empire, a man came running on the rocks, a sailor, judging by his clothes. And as he ran he gasped for breath, and looked behind as one who runs in fear. Reaching the rock on which Dakeyne once stood, he turned towards the briers and vines as if to seek a hiding-place. A little dell of green moss beckoned, and bracing himself, he jumped. He landed fair and square, but stumbled as the rotting timbers which the moss concealed collapsed beneath his weight. A scream of mortal fear broke from his lips as he clutched at the air for support. But the effort was in vain, and he plunged headlong into the void.

Thus was the silence broken.