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diff --git a/393-0.txt b/393-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6411142 --- /dev/null +++ b/393-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8249 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blue Lagoon, by H. de Vere Stacpoole + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: The Blue Lagoon + A Romance + +Author: H. de Vere Stacpoole + +Posting Date: August 26, 2016 [EBook #393] +Release Date: January 1995 +Last Updated: January 19, 2008 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLUE LAGOON *** + + + + +Produced by Edward A. Malone. Corrections by Roger Frank. + + + + + + + + +The Blue Lagoon: A Romance + +by H. de Vere Stacpoole + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I + +PART I + + I. WHERE THE SLUSH LAMP BURNS + II. UNDER THE STARS + III. THE SHADOW AND THE FIRE + IV. AND LIKE A DREAM DISSOLVED + V. VOICES HEARD IN THE MIST + VI. DAWN ON A WIDE, WIDE SEA + VII. STORY OF THE PIG AND THE BILLY-GOAT + VIII. “S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H” + IX. SHADOWS IN THE MOONLIGHT + X. THE TRAGEDY OF THE BOATS + + +PART II + + XI. THE ISLAND + XII. THE LAKE OF AZURE + XIII. DEATH VEILED WITH LICHEN + XIV. ECHOES OF FAIRY-LAND + XV. FAIR PICTURES IN THE BLUE + + +PART III + + XVI. THE POETRY OF LEARNING + XVII. THE DEVIL’S CASK + XVIII. THE RAT HUNT + XIX. STARLIGHT ON THE FOAM + XX. THE DREAMER ON THE REEF + XXI. THE GARLAND OF FLOWERS + XXII. ALONE + XXIII. THEY MOVE AWAY + + + +BOOK II + +PART I + + I. UNDER THE ARTU TREE + II. HALF CHILD-HALF SAVAGE + III. THE DEMON OF THE REEF + IV. WHAT BEAUTY CONCEALED + V. THE SOUND OF A DRUM + VI. SAILS UPON THE SEA + VII. THE SCHOONER + VIII. LOVE STEPS IN + IX. THE SLEEP OF PARADISE + + +PART II + + X. AN ISLAND HONEYMOON + XI. THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE + XII. THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE (CONTINUED) + XIII. THE NEWCOMER + XIV. HANNAH + XV. THE LAGOON OF FIRE + XVI. THE CYCLONE + XVII. THE STRICKEN WOODS + XVIII. A FALLEN IDOL + XIX. THE EXPEDITION + XX. THE KEEPER OF THE LAGOON + XXI. THE HAND OF THE SEA + XXII. TOGETHER + + +BOOK III + + I. MAD LESTRANGE + II. THE SECRET OF THE AZURE + III. CAPTAIN FOUNTAIN + IV. DUE SOUTH + + + + +THE BLUE LAGOON + + +BOOK I + +PART I + +CHAPTER I + +WHERE THE SLUSH LAMP BURNS + +Mr Button was seated on a sea-chest with a fiddle under his left ear. +He was playing the “Shan van vaught,” and accompanying the tune, +punctuating it, with blows of his left heel on the fo’cs’le deck. + + “O the _Frinch_ are in the bay, + Says the _Shan van vaught_.” + +He was dressed in dungaree trousers, a striped shirt, and a jacket +baize—green in parts from the influence of sun and salt. A typical old +shell-back, round-shouldered, hooked of finger; a figure with strong +hints of a crab about it. + +His face was like a moon, seen red through tropical mists; and as he +played it wore an expression of strained attention as though the fiddle +were telling him tales much more marvellous than the old bald statement +about Bantry Bay. + +“Left-handed Pat,” was his fo’cs’le name; not because he was +left-handed, but simply because everything he did he did wrong—or +nearly so. Reefing or furling, or handling a slush tub—if a mistake +was to be made, he made it. + +He was a Celt, and all the salt seas that had flowed between him and +Connaught these forty years and more had not washed the Celtic element +from his blood, nor the belief in fairies from his soul. The Celtic +nature is a fast dye, and Mr Button’s nature was such that though he +had been shanghaied by Larry Marr in ’Frisco, though he had got drunk +in most ports of the world, though he had sailed with Yankee captains +and been man-handled by Yankee mates, he still carried his fairies +about with him—they, and a very large stock of original innocence. + +Nearly over the musician’s head swung a hammock from which hung a leg; +other hammocks hanging in the semi-gloom called up suggestions of +lemurs and arboreal bats. The swinging kerosene lamp cast its light +forward, past the heel of the bowsprit to the knightheads, lighting here +a naked foot hanging over the side of a bunk, here a face from which +protruded a pipe, here a breast covered with dark mossy hair, here an +arm tattooed. + +It was in the days before double topsail yards had reduced ships’ +crews, and the fo’cs’le of the _Northumberland_ had a full company: a +crowd of packet rats such as often is to be found on a Cape Horner +“Dutchmen” Americans—men who were farm labourers and tending +pigs in Ohio three months back, old seasoned sailors like Paddy +Button—a mixture of the best and the worst of the earth, such as you +find nowhere else in so small a space as in a ship’s fo’cs’le. + +The _Northumberland_ had experienced a terrible rounding of the Horn. +Bound from New Orleans to ’Frisco she had spent thirty days battling +with head-winds and storms—down there, where the seas are so vast that +three waves may cover with their amplitude more than a mile of sea +space; thirty days she had passed off Cape Stiff, and just now, at the +moment of this story, she was locked in a calm south of the line. + +Mr Button finished his tune with a sweep of the bow, and drew his right +coat sleeve across his forehead. Then he took out a sooty pipe, filled +it with tobacco, and lit it. + +“Pawthrick,” drawled a voice from the hammock above, from which +depended the leg, “what was that yarn you wiz beginnin’ to spin ter +night ’bout a lip me dawn?” + +“A which me dawn?” asked Mr Button, cocking his eye up at the bottom of +the hammock while he held the match to his pipe. + +“It vas about a green thing,” came a sleepy Dutch voice from a bunk. + +“Oh, a Leprachaun you mane. Sure, me mother’s sister had one down in +Connaught.” + +“Vat vas it like?” asked the dreamy Dutch voice—a voice seemingly +possessed by the calm that had made the sea like a mirror for the last +three days, reducing the whole ship’s company meanwhile to the level of +wasters. + +“Like? Sure, it was like a Leprachaun; and what else would it be like?” + +“What like vas that?” persisted the voice. + +“It was like a little man no bigger than a big forked raddish, an’ as +green as a cabbidge. Me a’nt had one in her house down in Connaught in +the ould days. O musha! musha! the ould days, the ould days! Now, you +may b’lave me or b’lave me not, but you could have put him in your +pocket, and the grass-green head of him wouldn’t more than’v stuck out. +She kept him in a cupboard, and out of the cupboard he’d pop if it was +a crack open, an’ into the milk pans he’d be, or under the beds, or +pullin’ the stool from under you, or at some other divarsion. He’d +chase the pig—the crathur!—till it’d be all ribs like an ould +umbrilla with the fright, an’ as thin as a greyhound with the runnin’ +by the marnin; he’d addle the eggs so the cocks an’ hens wouldn’t know +what they wis afther wid the chickens comin’ out wid two heads on them, +an’ twinty-seven legs fore and aft. And you’d start to chase him, an’ +then it’d be mainsail haul, and away he’d go, you behint him, till +you’d landed tail over snout in a ditch, an’ he’d be back in the +cupboard.” + +“He was a Troll,” murmured the Dutch voice. + +“I’m tellin’ you he was a Leprachaun, and there’s no knowin’ the +divilments he’d be up to. He’d pull the cabbidge, maybe, out of the pot +boilin’ on the fire forenint your eyes, and baste you in the face with +it; and thin, maybe, you’d hold out your fist to him, and he’d put a +goulden soverin in it.” + +“Wisht he was here!” murmured a voice from a bunk near the knightheads. + +“Pawthrick,” drawled the voice from the hammock above, “what’d you do +first if you found y’self with twenty pound in your pocket?” + +“What’s the use of askin’ me?” replied Mr Button. “What’s the use of +twenty pound to a sayman at say, where the grog’s all wather an’ the +beef’s all horse? Gimme it ashore, an’ you’d see what I’d do wid it!” + +“I guess the nearest grog-shop keeper wouldn’t see you comin’ for +dust,” said a voice from Ohio. + +“He would not,” said Mr Button; “nor you afther me. Be damned to the +grog and thim that sells it!” + +“It’s all darned easy to talk,” said Ohio. “You curse the grog at sea +when you can’t get it; set you ashore, and you’re bung full.” + +“I likes me dhrunk,” said Mr Button, “I’m free to admit; an’ I’m the +divil when it’s in me, and it’ll be the end of me yet, or me ould +mother was a liar. ‘Pat,’ she says, first time I come home from say +rowlin’, ‘storms you may escape, an’ wimmen you may escape, but the +potheen ’ill have you.’ Forty year ago—forty year ago!” + +“Well,” said Ohio, “it hasn’t had you yet.” + +“No,” replied Mr Button, “but it will.” + + + + +CHAPTER II + +UNDER THE STARS + +It was a wonderful night up on deck, filled with all the majesty and +beauty of starlight and a tropic calm. + +The Pacific slept; a vast, vague swell flowing from far away down south +under the night, lifted the _Northumberland_ on its undulations to the +rattling sound of the reef points and the occasional creak of the +rudder; whilst overhead, near the fiery arch of the Milky Way, hung the +Southern Cross like a broken kite. + +Stars in the sky, stars in the sea, stars by the million and the +million; so many lamps ablaze that the firmament filled the mind with +the idea of a vast and populous city—yet from all that living and +flashing splendour not a sound. + +Down in the cabin—or saloon, as it was called by courtesy—were seated +the three passengers of the ship; one reading at the table, two playing +on the floor. + +The man at the table, Arthur Lestrange, was seated with his large, +deep-sunken eyes fixed on a book. He was most evidently in +consumption—very near, indeed, to reaping the result of that last and +most desperate remedy, a long sea voyage. + +Emmeline Lestrange, his little niece—eight years of age, a mysterious +mite, small for her age, with thoughts of her own, wide-pupilled eyes +that seemed the doors for visions, and a face that seemed just to have +peeped into this world for a moment ere it was as suddenly +withdrawn—sat in a corner nursing something in her arms, and rocking +herself to the tune of her own thoughts. + +Dick, Lestrange’s little son, eight and a bit, was somewhere under the +table. They were Bostonians, bound for San Francisco, or rather for the +sun and splendour of Los Angeles, where Lestrange had bought a small +estate, hoping there to enjoy the life whose lease would be renewed by +the long sea voyage. + +As he sat reading, the cabin door opened, and appeared an angular +female form. This was Mrs Stannard, the stewardess, and Mrs Stannard +meant bedtime. + +“Dicky,” said Mr Lestrange, closing his book, and raising the +table-cloth a few inches, “bedtime.” + +“Oh, not yet, daddy!” came a sleep-freighted voice from under the +table; “I ain’t ready. I dunno want to go to bed, I— Hi yow!” + +Mrs Stannard, who knew her work, had stooped under the table, seized him +by the foot, and hauled him out kicking and fighting and blubbering all +at the same time. + +As for Emmeline, she having glanced up and recognised the inevitable, +rose to her feet, and, holding the hideous rag-doll she had been +nursing, head down and dangling in one hand, she stood waiting till +Dicky, after a few last perfunctory bellows, suddenly dried his eyes +and held up a tear-wet face for his father to kiss. Then she presented +her brow solemnly to her uncle, received a kiss and vanished, led by +the hand into a cabin on the port side of the saloon. + +Mr Lestrange returned to his book, but he had not read for long when +the cabin door was opened, and Emmeline, in her nightdress, reappeared, +holding a brown paper parcel in her hand, a parcel of about the same +size as the book you are reading. + +“My box,” said she; and as she spoke, holding it up as if to prove its +safety, the little plain face altered to the face of an angel. + +She had smiled. + +When Emmeline Lestrange smiled it was absolutely as if the light of +Paradise had suddenly flashed upon her face: the happiest form of +childish beauty suddenly appeared before your eyes, dazzled them—and +was gone. + +Then she vanished with her box, and Mr Lestrange resumed his book. + +This box of Emmeline’s, I may say in parenthesis, had given more +trouble aboard ship than all of the rest of the passengers’ luggage put +together. + +It had been presented to her on her departure from Boston by a lady +friend, and what it contained was a dark secret to all on board, save +its owner and her uncle; she was a woman, or, at all events, the +beginning of a woman, yet she kept this secret to herself—a fact which +you will please note. + +The trouble of the thing was that it was frequently being lost. +Suspecting herself, maybe, as an unpractical dreamer in a world filled +with robbers, she would cart it about with her for safety, sit down +behind a coil of rope and fall into a fit of abstraction: be recalled +to life by the evolutions of the crew reefing or furling or what not, +rise to superintend the operations—and then suddenly find she had lost +her box. + +Then she would absolutely haunt the ship. Wide-eyed and distressed of +face she would wander hither and thither, peeping into the galley, +peeping down the forescuttle, never uttering a word or wail, searching +like an uneasy ghost, but dumb. + +She seemed ashamed to tell of her loss, ashamed to let any one know of +it; but every one knew of it directly they saw her, to use Mr Button’s +expression, “on the wandher,” and every one hunted for it. + +Strangely enough it was Paddy Button who usually found it. He who was +always doing the wrong thing in the eyes of men, generally did the +right thing in the eyes of children. Children, in fact, when they could +get at Mr Button, went for him _con amore_. He was as attractive to them +as a Punch and Judy show or a German band—almost. + +Mr Lestrange after a while closed the book he was reading, looked +around him and sighed. + +The cabin of the _Northumberland_ was a cheerful enough place, pierced +by the polished shaft of the mizzen mast, carpeted with an Axminster +carpet, and garnished with mirrors let into the white pine panelling. +Lestrange was staring at the reflection of his own face in one of these +mirrors fixed just opposite to where he sat. + +His emaciation was terrible, and it was just perhaps at this moment +that he first recognised the fact that he must not only die, but die +soon. + +He turned from the mirror and sat for a while with his chin resting +upon his hand, and his eyes fixed on an ink spot upon the table-cloth; +then he arose, and crossing the cabin climbed laboriously up the +companion-way to the deck. + +As he leaned against the bulwark rail to recover his breath, the +splendour and beauty of the Southern night struck him to the heart with +a cruel pang. He took his seat on a deck chair and gazed up at the +Milky Way, that great triumphal arch built of suns that the dawn would +sweep away like a dream. + +In the Milky Way, near the Southern Cross, occurs a terrible circular +abyss, the Coal Sack. So sharply defined is it, so suggestive of a void +and bottomless cavern, that the contemplation of it afflicts the +imaginative mind with vertigo. To the naked eye it is as black and as +dismal as death, but the smallest telescope reveals it beautiful and +populous with stars. + +Lestrange’s eyes travelled from this mystery to the burning cross, and +the nameless and numberless stars reaching to the sea-line, where they +paled and vanished in the light of the rising moon. Then he became +aware of a figure promenading the quarter-deck. It was the “Old Man.” + +A sea captain is always the “old man,” be his age what it may. Captain +Le Farges’ age might have been forty-five. He was a sailor of the Jean +Bart type, of French descent, but a naturalised American. + +“I don’t know where the wind’s gone,” said the captain as he drew near +the man in the deck chair. “I guess it’s blown a hole in the firmament, +and escaped somewheres to the back of beyond.” + +“It’s been a long voyage,” said Lestrange; “and I’m thinking, Captain, +it will be a very long voyage for me. My port’s not ’Frisco; I feel it.” + +“Don’t you be thinking that sort of thing,” said the other, taking his +seat in a chair close by. “There’s no manner of use forecastin’ the +weather a month ahead. Now we’re in warm latitoods, your glass will +rise steady, and you’ll be as right and spry as any one of us, before +we fetch the Golden Gates.” + +“I’m thinking about the children,” said Lestrange, seeming not to hear +the captain’s words. “Should anything happen to me before we reach +port, I should like you to do something for me. It’s only this: dispose +of my body without—without the children knowing. It has been in my +mind to ask you this for some days. Captain, those children know +nothing of death.” + +Le Farge moved uneasily in his chair. + +“Little Emmeline’s mother died when she was two. Her father—my +brother—died before she was born. Dicky never knew a mother; she died +giving him birth. My God, Captain, death has laid a heavy hand on my +family; can you wonder that I have hid his very name from those two +creatures that I love!” + +“Ay, ay,” said Le Farge, “it’s sad! it’s sad!” + +“When I was quite a child,” went on Lestrange, “a child no older than +Dicky, my nurse used to terrify me with tales about dead people. I was +told I’d go to hell when I died if I wasn’t a good child. I cannot tell +you how much that has poisoned my life, for the thoughts we think in +childhood, Captain, are the fathers of the thoughts we think when we +are grown up. And can a diseased father—have healthy children?” + +“I guess not.” + +“So I just said, when these two tiny creatures came into my care, that +I would do all in my power to protect them from the terrors of life—or +rather, I should say, from the terror of death. I don’t know whether I +have done right, but I have done it for the best. They had a cat, and +one day Dicky came in to me and said: ‘Father, pussy’s in the garden +asleep, and I can’t wake her.’ So I just took him out for a walk; there +was a circus in the town, and I took him to it. It so filled his mind +that he quite forgot the cat. Next day he asked for her. I did not tell +him she was buried in the garden, I just said she must have run away. +In a week he had forgotten all about her—children soon forget.” + +“Ay, that’s true,” said the sea captain. “But ’pears to me they must +learn some time they’ve got to die.” + +“Should I pay the penalty before we reach land, and be cast into that +great, vast sea, I would not wish the children’s dreams to be haunted +by the thought: just tell them I’ve gone on board another ship. You +will take them back to Boston; I have here, in a letter, the name of a +lady who will care for them. Dicky will be well off, as far as worldly +goods are concerned, and so will Emmeline. Just tell them I’ve gone on +board another ship—children soon forget.” + +“I’ll do what you ask,” said the seaman. + +The moon was over the horizon now, and the _Northumberland_ lay adrift in +a river of silver. Every spar was distinct, every reef point on the +great sails, and the decks lay like spaces of frost cut by shadows +black as ebony. + +As the two men sat without speaking, thinking their own thoughts, a +little white figure emerged from the saloon hatch. It was Emmeline. She +was a professed sleepwalker—a past mistress of the art. + +Scarcely had she stepped into dreamland than she had lost her precious +box, and now she was hunting for it on the decks of the _Northumberland_. + +Mr Lestrange put his finger to his lips, took off his shoes and +silently followed her. She searched behind a coil of rope, she tried to +open the galley door; hither and thither she wandered, wide-eyed and +troubled of face, till at last, in the shadow of the hencoop, she found +her visionary treasure. Then back she came, holding up her little +nightdress with one hand, so as not to trip, and vanished down the +saloon companion very hurriedly, as if anxious to get back to bed, her +uncle close behind, with one hand outstretched so as to catch her in +case she stumbled. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SHADOW AND THE FIRE + +It was the fourth day of the long calm. An awning had been rigged up on +the poop for the passengers, and under it sat Lestrange, trying to +read, and the children trying to play. The heat and monotony had +reduced even Dicky to just a surly mass, languid in movement as a grub. +As for Emmeline, she seemed dazed. The rag-doll lay a yard away from +her on the poop deck unnursed; even the wretched box and its +whereabouts she seemed to have quite forgotten. + +“Daddy!” suddenly cried Dick, who had clambered up, and was looking +over the after-rail. + +“What?” + +“Fish!” + +Lestrange rose to his feet, came aft and looked over the rail. + +Down in the vague green of the water something moved, something pale +and long—a ghastly form. It vanished; and yet another came, neared the +surface, and displayed itself more fully. Lestrange saw its eyes, he +saw the dark fin, and the whole hideous length of the creature; a +shudder ran through him as he clasped Dicky. + +“Ain’t he fine?” said the child. “I guess, daddy, I’d pull him aboard +if I had a hook. Why haven’t I a hook, daddy?—why haven’t I a hook, +daddy?— Ow, you’re _squeezin’_ me!” + +Something plucked at Lestrange’s coat: it was Emmeline—she also wanted +to look. He lifted her up in his arms; her little pale face peeped over +the rail, but there was nothing to see: the forms of terror had +vanished, leaving the green depths untroubled and unstained. + +“What’s they called, daddy?” persisted Dick, as his father took him +down from the rail, and led him back to the chair. + +“Sharks,” said Lestrange, whose face was covered with perspiration. + +He picked up the book he had been reading—it was a volume of +Tennyson—and he sat with it on his knees staring at the white sunlit +main-deck barred with the white shadows of the standing rigging. + +The sea had disclosed to him a vision. Poetry, Philosophy, Beauty, Art, +the love and joy of life—was it possible that these should exist in +the same world as those? + +He glanced at the book upon his knees, and contrasted the beautiful +things in it which he remembered with the terrible things he had just +seen, the things that were waiting for their food under the keel of the +ship. + +It was three bells—half-past three in the afternoon—and the ship’s +bell had just rung out. The stewardess appeared to take the children +below; and as they vanished down the saloon companion-way Captain Le +Farge came aft, on to the poop, and stood for a moment looking over the +sea on the port side, where a bank of fog had suddenly appeared like +the spectre of a country. + +“The sun has dimmed a bit,” said he; “I can a’most look at it. Glass +steady enough—there’s a fog coming up—ever seen a Pacific fog?” + +“No, never.” + +“Well, you won’t want to see another,” replied the mariner, shading his +eyes and fixing them upon the sea-line. The sea-line away to starboard +had lost somewhat its distinctness, and over the day an almost +imperceptible shade had crept. + +The captain suddenly turned from his contemplation of the sea and sky, +raised his head and sniffed. + +“Something is burning somewhere—smell it? Seems to me like an old mat +or summat. It’s that swab of a steward, maybe; if he isn’t breaking +glass, he’s upsetting lamps and burning holes in the carpet. Bless _my_ +soul, I’d sooner have a dozen Mary Anns an’ their dustpans round the +place than one tomfool steward like Jenkins.” He went to the saloon +hatch. “Below there!” + +“Ay, ay, sir.” + +“What are you burning?” + +“I an’t burnin’ northen, sir.” + +“Tell you, I smell it!” + +“There’s northen burnin’ here, sir.” + +“Neither is there, it’s all on deck. Something in the galley, +maybe—rags, most likely, they’ve thrown on the fire.” + +“Captain!” said Lestrange. + +“Ay, ay.” + +“Come here, please.” + +Le Farge climbed on to the poop. + +“I don’t know whether it’s my weakness that’s affecting my eyes, but +there seems to me something strange about the main-mast.” + +The main-mast near where it entered the deck, and for some distance up, +seemed in motion—a corkscrew movement most strange to watch from the +shelter of the awning. + +This apparent movement was caused by a spiral haze of smoke so vague +that one could only tell of its existence from the mirage-like tremor +of the mast round which it curled. + +“My God!” cried Le Farge, as he sprang from the poop and rushed forward. + +Lestrange followed him slowly, stopping every moment to clutch the +bulwark rail and pant for breath. He heard the shrill bird-like notes +of the bosun’s pipe. He saw the hands emerging from the forecastle, +like bees out of a hive; he watched them surrounding the main-hatch. He +watched the tarpaulin and locking-bars removed. He saw the hatch +opened, and a burst of smoke—black, villainous smoke—ascend to the +sky, solid as a plume in the windless air. + +Lestrange was a man of a highly nervous temperament, and it is just +this sort of man who keeps his head in an emergency, whilst your +level-headed, phlegmatic individual loses his balance. His first +thought was of the children, his second of the boats. + +In the battering off Cape Horn the _Northumberland_ lost several of her +boats. There were left the long-boat, a quarter-boat, and the dinghy. +He heard Le Farge’s voice ordering the hatch to be closed and the pumps +manned, so as to flood the hold; and, knowing that he could do nothing +on deck, he made as swiftly as he could for the saloon companion-way. + +Mrs Stannard was just coming out of the children’s cabin. + +“Are the children lying down, Mrs Stannard?” asked Lestrange, almost +breathless from the excitement and exertion of the last few minutes. + +The woman glanced at him with frightened eyes. He looked like the very +herald of disaster. + +“For if they are, and you have undressed them, then you must put their +clothes on again. The ship is on fire, Mrs Stannard.” + +“Good God, sir!” + +“Listen!” said Lestrange. + +From a distance, thin, and dreary as the crying of sea-gulls on a +desolate beach, came the clanking of the pumps. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AND LIKE A DREAM DISSOLVED + +Before the woman had time to speak a thunderous step was heard on the +companion stairs, and Le Farge broke into the saloon. The man’s face +was injected with blood, his eyes were fixed and glassy like the eyes +of a drunkard, and the veins stood on his temples like twisted cords. + +“Get those children ready!” he shouted, as he rushed into his own +cabin. “Get you all ready—boats are being swung out and victualled. +H--l! where are those papers?” + +They heard him furiously searching and collecting things in his +cabin—the ship’s papers, accounts, things the master mariner clings to +as he clings to his life; and as he searched, and found, and packed, he +kept bellowing orders for the children to be got on deck. Half mad he +seemed, and half mad he was with the knowledge of the terrible thing +that was stowed amidst the cargo. + +Up on deck the crew, under the direction of the first mate, were +working in an orderly manner, and with a will, utterly unconscious of +there being anything beneath their feet but an ordinary cargo on fire. +The covers had been stripped from the boats, kegs of water and bags of +biscuit placed in them. The dinghy, smallest of the boats and most +easily got away, was hanging at the port quarter-boat davits flush with +the bulwarks; and Paddy Button was in the act of stowing a keg of water +in her, when Le Farge broke on to the deck, followed by the stewardess +carrying Emmeline, and Mr Lestrange leading Dick. The dinghy was rather +a larger boat than the ordinary ships’ dinghy, and possessed a small +mast and long sail. Two sailors stood ready to man the falls, and Paddy +Button was just turning to trundle forward again when the captain +seized him. + +“Into the dinghy with you,” he cried, “and row these children and the +passenger out a mile from the ship—two miles—three miles—make an +offing.” + +“Sure, Captain dear, I’ve left me fiddle in the——” + +Le Farge dropped the bundle of things he was holding under his left +arm, seized the old sailor and rushed him against the bulwarks, as if +he meant to fling him into the sea _through_ the bulwarks. + +Next moment Mr Button was in the boat. Emmeline was handed to him, pale +of face and wide-eyed, and clasping something wrapped in a little +shawl; then Dick, and then Mr Lestrange was helped over. + +“No room for more!” cried Le Farge. “Your place will be in the +long-boat, Mrs Stannard, if we have to leave the ship. Lower away, +lower away!” + +The boat sank towards the smooth blue sea, kissed it and was afloat. + +Now Mr Button, before joining the ship at Boston, had spent a good +while lingering by the quay, having no money wherewith to enjoy himself +in a tavern. He had seen something of the lading of the _Northumberland_, +and heard more from a stevedore. No sooner had he cast off the falls +and seized the oars, than his knowledge awoke in his mind, living and +lurid. He gave a whoop that brought the two sailors leaning over the +side. + +“Bullies!” + +“Ay, ay!” + +“Run for your lives—I’ve just rimimbered—there’s two bar’ls of +blastin’ powther in the hould!” + +Then he bent to his oars, as no man ever bent before. + +Lestrange, sitting in the stern-sheets clasping Emmeline and Dick, +saw nothing for a moment after hearing these words. The children, +who knew nothing of blasting powder or its effects, though half +frightened by all the bustle and excitement, were still amused +and pleased at finding themselves in the little boat so close to +the blue pretty sea. + +Dick put his finger over the side, so that it made a ripple in the +water (the most delightful experience of childhood). Emmeline, with one +hand clasped in her uncle’s, watched Mr Button with a grave sort of +half pleasure. + +He certainly was a sight worth watching. His soul was filled with +tragedy and terror. His Celtic imagination heard the ship blowing up, +saw himself and the little dinghy blown to pieces—nay, saw himself in +hell, being toasted by “divils.” + +But tragedy and terror could find no room for expression on his +fortunate or unfortunate face. He puffed and he blew, bulging his +cheeks out at the sky as he tugged at the oars, making a hundred and +one grimaces—all the outcome of agony of mind, but none expressing it. +Behind lay the ship, a picture not without its lighter side. The +long-boat and the quarter-boat, lowered with a rush and seaborne by the +mercy of Providence, were floating by the side of the _Northumberland_. + +From the ship men were casting themselves overboard like water-rats, +swimming in the water like ducks, scrambling on board the boats anyhow. + +From the half-opened main-hatch the black smoke, mixed now with sparks, +rose steadily and swiftly and spitefully, as if driven through the +half-closed teeth of a dragon. + +A mile away beyond the _Northumberland_ stood the fog bank. It looked +solid, like a vast country that had suddenly and strangely built itself +on the sea—a country where no birds sang and no trees grew. A country +with white, precipitous cliffs, solid to look at as the cliffs of Dover. + +“I’m spint!” suddenly gasped the oarsman, resting the oar handles under +the crook of his knees, and bending down as if he was preparing to butt +at the passengers in the stern-sheets. “Blow up or blow down, I’m +spint—don’t ax me, I’m spint!” + +Mr Lestrange, white as a ghost, but recovered somewhat from his first +horror, gave the Spent One time to recover himself and turned to look +at the ship. She seemed a great distance off, and the boats, well away +from her, were making at a furious pace towards the dinghy. Dick was +still playing with the water, but Emmeline’s eyes were entirely +occupied with Paddy Button. New things were always of vast interest to +her contemplative mind, and these evolutions of her old friend were +eminently new. + +She had seen him swilling the decks, she had seen him dancing a jig, +she had seen him going round the main deck on all fours with Dick on +his back, but she had never seen him going on like this before. + +She perceived now that he was exhausted, and in trouble about +something, and, putting her hand in the pocket of her dress, she +searched for something that she knew was there. She produced a +Tangerine orange, and leaning forward she touched the Spent One’s head +with it. + +Mr Button raised his head, stared vacantly for a second, saw the +proffered orange, and at the sight of it the thought of “the childer” +and their innocence, himself and the blasting powder, cleared his +dazzled wits, and he took to the sculls again. + +“Daddy,” said Dick, who had been looking astern, “there’s clouds near +the ship.” + +In an incredibly short space of time the solid cliffs of fog had +broken. The faint wind that had banked it had pierced it, and was now +making pictures and devices of it, most wonderful and weird to see. +Horsemen of the mist rode on the water, and were dissolved; billows +rolled on the sea, yet were not of the sea; blankets and spirals of +vapour ascended to high heaven. And all with a terrible languor of +movement. Vast and lazy and sinister, yet steadfast of purpose as Fate +or Death, the fog advanced, taking the world for its own. + +Against this grey and indescribably sombre background stood the +smouldering ship with the breeze already shivering in her sails, and +the smoke from her main-hatch blowing and beckoning as if to the +retreating boats. + +“Why’s the ship smoking like that?” asked Dick. “And look at those +boats coming—when are we going back, daddy?” + +“Uncle,” said Emmeline, putting her hand in his, as she gazed towards +the ship and beyond it, “I’m ’fraid.” + +“What frightens you, Emmy?” he asked, drawing her to him. + +“Shapes,” replied Emmeline, nestling up to his side. + +“Oh, Glory be to God!” gasped the old sailor, suddenly resting on his +oars. “Will yiz look at the fog that’s comin’—” + +“I think we had better wait here for the boats,” said Mr Lestrange; “we +are far enough now to be safe if—anything happens.” + +“Ay, ay,” replied the oarsman, whose wits had returned. “Blow up or +blow down, she won’t hit us from here.” + +“Daddy,” said Dick, “when are we going back? I want my tea.” + +“We aren’t going back, my child,” replied his father. “The ship’s on +fire; we are waiting for another ship.” + +“Where’s the other ship?” asked the child, looking round at the horizon +that was clear. + +“We can’t see it yet,” replied the unhappy man, “but it will come.” + +The long-boat and the quarter-boat were slowly approaching. They looked +like beetles crawling over the water, and after them across the +glittering surface came a dullness that took the sparkle from the +sea—a dullness that swept and spread like an eclipse shadow. + +Now the wind struck the dinghy. It was like a wind from fairyland, +almost imperceptible, chill, and dimming the sun. A wind from Lilliput. +As it struck the dinghy, the fog took the distant ship. + +It was a most extraordinary sight, for in less than thirty seconds the +ship of wood became a ship of gauze, a tracery—flickered, and was gone +forever from the sight of man. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +VOICES HEARD IN THE MIST + +The sun became fainter still, and vanished. Though the air round the +dinghy seemed quite clear, the on-coming boats were hazy and dim, and +that part of the horizon that had been fairly clear was now blotted out. + +The long-boat was leading by a good way. When she was within hailing +distance the captain’s voice came. + +“Dinghy ahoy!” + +“Ahoy!” + +“Fetch alongside here!” + +The long-boat ceased rowing to wait for the quarter-boat that was +slowly creeping up. She was a heavy boat to pull at all times, and now +she was overloaded. + +The wrath of Captain Le Farge with Paddy Button for the way he had +stampeded the crew was profound, but he had not time to give vent to it. + +“Here, get aboard us, Mr Lestrange!” said he, when the dinghy was +alongside; “we have room for one. Mrs Stannard is in the quarter-boat, +and it’s overcrowded; she’s better aboard the dinghy, for she can look +after the kids. Come, hurry up, the smother is coming down on us fast. +Ahoy!”—to the quarter-boat—“hurry up, hurry up!” + +The quarter-boat had suddenly vanished. + +Mr Lestrange climbed into the long-boat. Paddy pushed the dinghy a few +yards away with the tip of a scull, and then lay on his oars waiting. + +“Ahoy! ahoy!” cried Le Farge. + +“Ahoy!” came from the fog bank. + +Next moment the long-boat and the dinghy vanished from each other’s +sight: the great fog bank had taken them. + +Now a couple of strokes of the port scull would have brought Mr Button +alongside the long-boat, so close was he; but the quarter-boat was in +his mind, or rather imagination, so what must he do but take three +powerful strokes in the direction in which he fancied the quarter-boat +to be. + +The rest was voices. + +“Dinghy ahoy!” + +“Ahoy!” + +“Ahoy!” + +“Don’t be shoutin’ together, or I’ll not know which way to pull. +Quarter-boat ahoy! where are yiz?” + +“Port your helm!” + +“Ay, ay!”—putting his helm, so to speak, to starboard—“I’ll be wid yiz +in wan minute—two or three minutes’ hard pulling.” + +“Ahoy!”—much more faint. + +“What d’ye mane rowin’ away from me?”—a dozen strokes. + +“Ahoy!”—fainter still. + +Mr Button rested on his oars. + +“Divil mend them—I b’lave that was the long-boat shoutin’.” + +He took to his oars again and pulled vigorously. + +“Paddy,” came Dick’s small voice, apparently from nowhere, “where are +we now?” + +“Sure, we’re in a fog; where else would we be? Don’t you be affeared.” + +“I ain’t affeared, but Em’s shivering.” + +“Give her me coat,” said the oarsman, resting on his oars and taking it +off. “Wrap it round her; and when it’s round her we’ll all let one big +halloo together. There’s an ould shawl som’er in the boat, but I can’t +be after lookin’ for it now.” + +He held out the coat and an almost invisible hand took it; at the same +moment a tremendous report shook the sea and sky. + +“There she goes,” said Mr Button; “an’ me old fiddle an’ all. Don’t be +frightened, childer; it’s only a gun they’re firin’ for divarsion. Now +we’ll all halloo togither—are yiz ready?” + +“Ay, ay,” said Dick, who was a picker-up of sea terms. + +“Halloo!” yelled Pat. + +“Halloo! Halloo!” piped Dick and Emmeline. + +A faint reply came, but from where, it was difficult to say. The old +man rowed a few strokes and then paused on his oars. So still was the +surface of the sea that the chuckling of the water at the boat’s bow as +she drove forward under the impetus of the last powerful stroke could +be heard distinctly. It died out as she lost way, and silence closed +round them like a ring. + +The light from above, a light that seemed to come through a vast +scuttle of deeply-muffed glass, faint though it was, almost to +extinction, still varied as the little boat floated through the strata +of the mist. + +A great sea fog is not homogeneous—its density varies: it is +honeycombed with streets, it has its caves of clear air, its cliffs of +solid vapour, all shifting and changing place with the subtlety of +legerdemain. It has also this wizard peculiarity, that it grows with +the sinking of the sun and the approach of darkness. + +The sun, could they have seen it, was now leaving the horizon. + +They called again. Then they waited, but there was no response. + +“There’s no use bawlin’ like bulls to chaps that’s deaf as adders,” +said the old sailor, shipping his oars; immediately upon which +declaration he gave another shout, with the same result as far as +eliciting a reply. + +“Mr Button!” came Emmeline’s voice. + +“What is it, honey?” + +“I’m—m—’fraid.” + +“You wait wan minit till I find the shawl—here it is, by the same +token!—an’ I’ll wrap you up in it.” + +He crept cautiously aft to the stern-sheets and took Emmeline in his +arms. + +“Don’t want the shawl,” said Emmeline; “I’m not so much afraid in your +coat.” The rough, tobacco-smelling old coat gave her courage somehow. + +“Well, thin, keep it on. Dicky, are you cowld?” + +“I’ve got into daddy’s great-coat; he left it behind him.” + +“Well, thin, I’ll put the shawl round me own shoulders, for it’s cowld +I am. Are y’ hungry, childer?” + +“No,” said Dick, “but I’m drefful—Hi—yow——” + +“Slapy, is it? Well, down you get in the bottom of the boat, and here’s +the shawl for a pilla. I’ll be rowin’ again in a minit to keep meself +warm.” + +He buttoned the top button of the coat. + +“I’m a’right,” murmured Emmeline in a dreamy voice. + +“Shut your eyes tight,” replied Mr Button, “or Billy Winker will be +dridgin’ sand in them. + + “’Shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, + Sho-hu-lo, sho-hu-lo. + Shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, shoheen, + Hush a by the babby O.’” + +It was the tag of an old nursery folk-song they sing in the hovels of +the Achill coast fixed in his memory, along with the rain and the wind +and the smell of the burning turf, and the grunting of the pig and the +knickety-knock of a rocking cradle. + +“She’s off,” murmured Mr Button to himself, as the form in his arms +relaxed. Then he laid her gently down beside Dick. He shifted forward, +moving like a crab. Then he put his hand to his pocket for his pipe and +tobacco and tinder box. They were in his coat pocket, but Emmeline was +in his coat. To search for them would be to awaken her. + +The darkness of night was now adding itself to the blindness of the +fog. The oarsman could not see even the thole pins. He sat adrift mind +and body. He was, to use his own expression, “moithered.” Haunted by +the mist, tormented by “shapes.” + +It was just in a fog like this that the Merrows could be heard +disporting in Dunbeg bay, and off the Achill coast. Sporting and +laughing, and hallooing through the mist, to lead unfortunate fishermen +astray. + +Merrows are not altogether evil, but they have green hair and teeth, +fishes’ tails and fins for arms; and to hear them walloping in the +water around you like salmon, and you alone in a small boat, with the +dread of one coming floundering on board, is enough to turn a man’s +hair grey. + +For a moment he thought of awakening the children to keep him company, +but he was ashamed. Then he took to the sculls again, and rowed “by the +feel of the water.” The creak of the oars was like a companion’s voice, +the exercise lulled his fears. Now and again, forgetful of the sleeping +children, he gave a halloo, and paused to listen. But no answer came. + +Then he continued rowing, long, steady, laborious strokes, each taking +him further and further from the boats that he was never destined to +sight again. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DAWN ON A WIDE, WIDE SEA + +“Is it aslape I’ve been?” said Mr Button, suddenly awaking with a start. + +He had shipped his oars just for a minute’s rest. He must have slept +for hours, for now, behold! a warm, gentle wind was blowing, the moon +was shining, and the fog was gone. + +“Is it dhraming I’ve been?” continued the awakened one. “Where am I at +all, at all? O musha! sure, here I am. O wirra! wirra! I dreamt I’d +gone aslape on the main-hatch and the ship was blown up with powther, +and it’s all come true.” + +“Mr Button!” came a small voice from the stern-sheets (Emmeline’s). + +“What is it, honey?” + +“Where are we now?” + +“Sure, we’re afloat on the say, acushla; where else would we be?” + +“Where’s uncle?” + +“He’s beyant there in the long-boat—he’ll be afther us in a minit.” + +“I want a drink.” + +He filled a tin pannikin that was by the beaker of water, and gave her +a drink. Then he took his pipe and tobacco from his coat pocket. + +She almost immediately fell asleep again beside Dick, who had not +stirred or moved; and the old sailor, standing up and steadying +himself, cast his eyes round the horizon. Not a sign of sail or boat +was there on all the moonlit sea. + +From the low elevation of an open boat one has a very small horizon, +and in the vague world of moonlight somewhere round about it was +possible that the boats might be near enough to show up at daybreak. + +But open boats a few miles apart may be separated by long leagues in +the course of a few hours. Nothing is more mysterious than the currents +of the sea. + +The ocean is an ocean of rivers, some swiftly flowing, some slow, and a +league from where you are drifting at the rate of a mile an hour +another boat may be drifting two. + +A slight warm breeze was frosting the water, blending moonshine and +star shimmer; the ocean lay like a lake, yet the nearest mainland was +perhaps a thousand miles away. + +The thoughts of youth may be long, long thoughts, but not longer than +the thoughts of this old sailor man smoking his pipe under the stars. +Thoughts as long as the world is round. Blazing bar rooms in +Callao—harbours over whose oily surfaces the sampans slipped like +water-beetles—the lights of Macao—the docks of London. Scarcely ever +a sea picture, pure and simple, for why should an old seaman care to +think about the sea, where life is all into the fo’cs’le and out again, +where one voyage blends and jumbles with another, where after +forty-five years of reefing topsails you can’t well remember off which +ship it was Jack Rafferty fell overboard, or who it was killed who in +the fo’cs’le of what, though you can still see, as in a mirror darkly, +the fight, and the bloody face over which a man is holding a kerosene +lamp. + +I doubt if Paddy Button could have told you the name of the first ship +he ever sailed in. If you had asked him, he would probably have +replied: “I disremimber; it was to the Baltic, and cruel cowld weather, +and I was say-sick—till I near brought me boots up; and it was ‘O for +ould Ireland!’ I was cryin’ all the time, an’ the captin dhrummin me +back with a rope’s end to the tune uv it—but the name of the hooker—I +disremimber—bad luck to her, whoever she was!” + +So he sat smoking his pipe, whilst the candles of heaven burned above +him, and calling to mind roaring drunken scenes and palm-shadowed +harbours, and the men and the women he had known—such men and such +women! The derelicts of the earth and the ocean. Then he nodded off to +sleep again, and when he awoke the moon had gone. + +Now in the eastern sky might have been seen a pale fan of light, vague +as the wing of an ephemera. It vanished and changed back to darkness. + +Presently, and almost at a stroke, a pencil of fire ruled a line along +the eastern horizon, and the eastern sky became more beautiful than a +rose leaf plucked in May. The line of fire contracted into one +increasing spot, the rim of the rising sun. + +As the light increased the sky above became of a blue impossible to +imagine unless seen, a wan blue, yet living and sparkling as if born of +the impalpable dust of sapphires. Then the whole sea flashed like the +harp of Apollo touched by the fingers of the god. The light was music +to the soul. It was day. + +“Daddy!” suddenly cried Dick, sitting up in the sunlight and rubbing +his eyes with his open palms. “Where are we?” + +“All right, Dicky, me son!” cried the old sailor, who had been standing +up casting his eyes round in a vain endeavour to sight the boats. “Your +daddy’s as safe as if he was in hivin; he’ll be wid us in a minit, an’ +bring another ship along with him. So you’re awake, are you, Em’line?” + +Emmeline, sitting up in the old pilot coat, nodded in reply without +speaking. Another child might have supplemented Dick’s enquiries as to +her uncle by questions of her own, but she did not. + +Did she guess that there was some subterfuge in Mr Button’s answer, and +that things were different from what he was making them out to be? Who +can tell? + +She was wearing an old cap of Dick’s, which Mrs Stannard in the hurry +and confusion had popped on her head. It was pushed to one side, and +she made a quaint enough little figure as she sat up in the early +morning brightness, dressed in the old salt-stained coat beside Dick, +whose straw hat was somewhere in the bottom of the boat, and whose +auburn locks were blowing in the faint breeze. + +“Hurroo!” cried Dick, looking around at the blue and sparkling water, +and banging with a stretcher on the bottom of the boat. “I’m goin’ to +be a sailor, aren’t I, Paddy? You’ll let me sail the boat, won’t you, +Paddy, an’ show me how to row?” + +“Aisy does it,” said Paddy, taking hold of the child. “I haven’t a +sponge or towel, but I’ll just wash your face in salt wather and lave +you to dry in the sun.” + +He filled the bailing tin with sea water. + +“I don’t want to wash!” shouted Dick. + +“Stick your face into the water in the tin,” commanded Paddy. “You +wouldn’t be going about the place with your face like a sut-bag, would +you?” + +“Stick yours in!” commanded the other. + +Mr Button did so, and made a hub-bubbling noise in the water; then he +lifted a wet and streaming face, and flung the contents of the bailing +tin overboard. + +“Now you’ve lost your chance,” said this arch nursery-strategist, “all +the water’s gone.” + +“There’s more in the sea.” + +“There’s no more to wash with, not till to-morrow—the fishes don’t +allow it.” + +“I want to wash,” grumbled Dick. “I want to stick my face in the tin, +same’s you did; ’sides, Em hasn’t washed.” + +“_I_ don’t mind,” murmured Emmeline. + +“Well, thin,” said Mr Button, as if making a sudden resolve, “I’ll ax +the sharks.” He leaned over the boat’s side, his face close to the +surface of the water. “Halloo there!” he shouted, and then bent his +head sideways to listen; the children also looked over the side, deeply +interested. + +“Halloo there! Are y’aslape— Oh, there y’are! Here’s a spalpeen with a +dhirty face, an’s wishful to wash it; may I take a bailin’ tin of— Oh, +thank your ’arner, thank your ’arner—good day to you, and my respects.” + +“What did the shark say, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline. + +“He said: ‘Take a bar’l full, an’ welcome, Mister Button; an’ it’s +wishful I am I had a drop of the crathur to offer you this fine +marnin’.’ Thin he popped his head under his fin and went aslape agin; +leastwise, I heard him snore.” + +Emmeline nearly always “Mr Buttoned” her friend; sometimes she called +him “Mr Paddy.” As for Dick, it was always “Paddy,” pure and simple. +Children have etiquettes of their own. + +It must often strike landsmen and landswomen that the most terrible +experience when cast away at sea in an open boat is the total absence +of privacy. It seems an outrage on decency on the part of Providence to +herd people together so. But, whoever has gone through the experience +will bear me out that in great moments of life like this the human mind +enlarges, and things that would shock us ashore are as nothing out +there, face to face with eternity. + +If so with grown-up people, how much more so with this old shell-back +and his two charges? + +And indeed Mr Button was a person who called a spade a spade, had no +more conventions than a walrus, and looked after his two charges just +as a nursemaid might look after her charges, or a walrus after its +young. + +There was a large bag of biscuits in the boat, and some tinned +stuff—mostly sardines. + +I have known a sailor to open a box of sardines with a tin-tack. He was +in prison, the sardines had been smuggled into him, and he had no +can-opener. Only his genius and a tin-tack. + +Paddy had a jack-knife, however, and in a marvellously short time a box +of sardines was opened, and placed on the stern-sheets beside some +biscuits. + +These, with some water and Emmeline’s Tangerine orange, which she +produced and added to the common store, formed the feast, and they fell +to. + +When they had finished, the remains were put carefully away, and +they proceeded to step the tiny mast. + +The sailor, when the mast was in its place, stood for a moment resting +his hand on it, and gazing around him over the vast and voiceless blue. + +The Pacific has three blues: the blue of morning, the blue of midday, +and the blue of evening. But the blue of morning is the happiest: the +happiest thing in colour—sparkling, vague, newborn—the blue of heaven +and youth. + +“What are you looking for, Paddy?” asked Dick. + +“Say-gulls,” replied the prevaricator; then to himself: “Not a sight or +a sound of them! Musha! musha! which way will I steer—north, south, +aist, or west? It’s all wan, for if I steer to the aist, they may be in +the west; and if I steer to the west, they may be in the aist; and I +can’t steer to the west, for I’d be steering right in the wind’s eye. +Aist it is; I’ll make a soldier’s wind of it, and thrust to chance.” + +He set the sail and came aft with the sheet. Then he shifted the +rudder, lit a pipe, leaned luxuriously back and gave the bellying sail +to the gentle breeze. + +It was part of his profession, part of his nature, that, steering, +maybe, straight towards death by starvation and thirst, he was as +unconcerned as if he were taking the children for a summer’s sail. His +imagination dealt little with the future; almost entirely influenced by +his immediate surroundings, it could conjure up no fears from the scene +now before it. The children were the same. + +Never was there a happier starting, more joy in a little boat. During +breakfast the seaman had given his charges to understand that if Dick +did not meet his father and Emmeline her uncle in a “while or two,” it +was because he had gone on board a ship, and he’d be along presently. +The terror of their position was as deeply veiled from them as eternity +is veiled from you or me. + +The Pacific was still bound by one of those glacial calms that can only +occur when the sea has been free from storms for a vast extent of its +surface, for a hurricane down by the Horn will send its swell and +disturbance beyond the Marquesas. De Bois in his table of amplitudes +points out that more than half the sea disturbances at any given space +are caused, not by the wind, but by storms at a great distance. + +But the sleep of the Pacific is only apparent. This placid lake, over +which the dinghy was pursuing the running ripple, was heaving to an +imperceptible swell and breaking on the shores of the Low Archipelago, +and the Marquesas in foam and thunder. + +Emmeline’s rag-doll was a shocking affair from a hygienic or artistic +standpoint. Its face was just inked on, it had no features, no arms; +yet not for all the dolls in the world would she have exchanged this +filthy and nearly formless thing. It was a fetish. + +She sat nursing it on one side of the helmsman, whilst Dick, on the +other side, hung his nose over the water, on the look-out for fish. + +“Why do you smoke, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline, who had been watching +her friend for some time in silence. + +“To aise me thrubbles,” replied Paddy. + +He was leaning back with one eye shut and the other fixed on the luff +of the sail. He was in his element: nothing to do but steer and smoke, +warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. A landsman would have been +half demented in his condition, many a sailor would have been taciturn +and surly, on the look-out for sails, and alternately damning his soul +and praying to his God. Paddy smoked. + +“Whoop!” cried Dick. “Look, Paddy!” + +An albicore a few cables lengths to port had taken a flying leap from +the flashing sea, turned a complete somersault and vanished. + +“It’s an albicore takin’ a buck lep. Hundreds I’ve seen before this; +he’s bein’ chased.” + +“What’s chasing him, Paddy?” + +“What’s chasin’ him?—why, what else but the gibly-gobly-ums!” + +Before Dick could enquire as to the personal appearance and habits of +the latter, a shoal of silver arrow heads passed the boat and flittered +into the water with a hissing sound. + +“Thim’s flyin’ fish. What are you sayin’—fish can’t fly! Where’s the +eyes in your head?” + +“Are the gibblyums chasing them too?” asked Emmeline fearfully. + +“No; ’tis the Billy balloos that’s afther thim. Don’t be axin’ me any +more questions now, or I’ll be tellin’ you lies in a minit.” + +Emmeline, it will be remembered, had brought a small parcel with her +done up in a little shawl; it was under the boat seat, and every now +and then she would stoop down to see if it were safe. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +STORY OF THE PIG AND THE BILLY-GOAT + +Every hour or so Mr Button would shake his lethargy off, and rise and +look round for “sea-gulls,” but the prospect was sail-less as the +prehistoric sea, wingless, voiceless. When Dick would fret now and +then, the old sailor would always devise some means of amusing him. He +made him fishing-tackle out of a bent pin and some small twine that +happened to be in the boat, and told him to fish for “pinkeens”; and +Dick, with the pathetic faith of childhood, fished. + +Then he told them things. He had spent a year at Deal long ago, where a +cousin of his was married to a boatman. + +Mr Button had put in a year as a longshoreman at Deal, and he had got a +great lot to tell of his cousin and her husband, and more especially of +one, Hannah; Hannah was his cousin’s baby—a most marvellous child, who +was born with its “buck” teeth fully developed, and whose first +unnatural act on entering the world was to make a snap at the +“docther.” “Hung on to his fist like a bull-dog, and him bawlin’ +‘Murther!’” + +“Mrs James,” said Emmeline, referring to a Boston acquaintance, “had a +little baby, and it was pink.” + +“Ay, ay,” said Paddy; “they’re mostly pink to start with, but they fade +whin they’re washed.” + +“It’d no teeth,” said Emmeline, “for I put my finger in to see.” + +“The doctor brought it in a bag,” put in Dick, who was still steadily +fishing—“dug it out of a cabbage patch; an’ I got a trow’l and dug all +our cabbage patch up, but there weren’t any babies—but there were no +end of worms.” + +“I wish I had a baby,” said Emmeline, “and _I_ wouldn’t send it back to +the cabbage patch.” + +“The doctor,” explained Dick, “took it back and planted it again; and +Mrs James cried when I asked her, and daddy said it was put back to +grow and turn into an angel.” + +“Angels have wings,” said Emmeline dreamily. + +“And,” pursued Dick, “I told cook, and she said to Jane, daddy +was always stuffing children up with—something or ’nother. And I asked +daddy to let me see him stuffing up a child—and daddy said cook’d have +to go away for saying that, and she went away next day.” + +“She had three big trunks and a box for her bonnet,” said Emmeline, +with a far-away look as she recalled the incident. + +“And the cabman asked her hadn’t she any more trunks to put on his cab, +and hadn’t she forgot the parrot cage,” said Dick. + +“I wish _I_ had a parrot in a cage,” murmured Emmeline, moving slightly +so as to get more in the shadow of the sail. + +“And what in the world would you be doin’ with a par’t in a cage?” +asked Mr Button. + +“I’d let it out,” replied Emmeline. + +“Spakin’ about lettin’ par’ts out of cages, I remimber me grandfather +had an ould pig,” said Paddy (they were all talking seriously together +like equals). “I was a spalpeen no bigger than the height of me knee, +and I’d go to the sty door, and he’d come to the door, and grunt an’ +blow wid his nose undher it; an’ I’d grunt back to vex him, an’ hammer +wid me fist on it, an’ shout ‘Halloo there! halloo there!’ and ‘Halloo +to you!’ he’d say, spakin’ the pigs’ language. ‘Let me out,’ he’d say, +‘and I’ll give yiz a silver shilling.’ + +“‘Pass it under the door,’ I’d answer him. Thin he’d stick the snout of +him undher the door an’ I’d hit it a clip with a stick, and he’d yell +murther Irish. An’ me mother’d come out an’ baste me, an’ well I +desarved it. + +“Well, wan day I opened the sty door, an’ out he boulted and away and +beyant, over hill and hollo he goes till he gets to the edge of the +cliff overlookin’ the say, and there he meets a billy-goat, and he and +the billy-goat has a division of opinion. + +“‘Away wid yiz!’ says the billy-goat. + +“‘Away wid yourself!’ says he. + +“‘Whose you talkin’ to?’ says t’other. + +“‘Yourself,’ says him. + +“‘Who stole the eggs?’ says the billy-goat. + +“‘Ax your ould grandmother!’ says the pig. + +“‘Ax me ould _which_ mother?’ says the billy-goat. + +“‘Oh, ax me——’ And before he could complete the sintence ram, blam, +the ould billy-goat butts him in the chist, and away goes the both of +thim whirtlin’ into the say below. + +“Thin me ould grandfather comes out, and collars me by the scruff, and +‘Into the sty with you!’ says he; and into the sty I wint, and there +they kep’ me for a fortni’t on bran mash and skim milk—and well I +desarved it.” + +They dined somewhere about eleven o’clock, and at noon Paddy unstepped +the mast and made a sort of little tent or awning with the sail in the +bow of the boat to protect the children from the rays of the vertical +sun. + +Then he took his place in the bottom of the boat, in the stern, stuck +Dick’s straw hat over his face to preserve it from the sun, kicked +about a bit to get a comfortable position, and fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +“S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H” + +He had slept an hour and more when he was brought to his senses by a +thin and prolonged shriek. It was Emmeline in a nightmare, or more +properly a day-mare, brought on by a meal of sardines and the haunting +memory of the gibbly-gobbly-ums. When she was shaken (it always took a +considerable time to bring her to, from these seizures) and comforted, +the mast was restepped. + +As Mr Button stood with his hand on the spar looking round him before +going aft with the sheet, an object struck his eye some three miles +ahead. Objects rather, for they were the masts and spars of a small +ship rising from the water. Not a vestige of sail, just the naked +spars. It might have been a couple of old skeleton trees jutting out of +the water for all a landsman could have told. + +He stared at this sight for twenty or thirty seconds without speaking, +his head projected like the head of a tortoise. Then he gave a wild +“Hurroo!” + +“What is it, Paddy?” asked Dick. + +“Hurroo!” replied Mr Button. “Ship ahoy! ship ahoy! Lie to till I be +afther boardin’ you. Sure, they are lyin’ to—divil a rag of canvas on +her—are they aslape or dhramin’? Here, Dick, let me get aft wid the +sheet; the wind’ll take us up to her quicker than we’ll row.” + +He crawled aft and took the tiller; the breeze took the sail, and the +boat forged ahead. + +“Is it daddy’s ship?” asked Dick, who was almost as excited as his +friend. + +“I dinno; we’ll see when we fetch her.” + +“Shall we go on her, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline. + +“Ay will we, honey.” + +Emmeline bent down, and fetching her parcel from under the seat, held +it in her lap. + +As they drew nearer, the outlines of the ship became more apparent. She +was a small brig, with stump topmasts, from the spars a few rags of +canvas fluttered. It was apparent soon to the old sailor’s eye what was +amiss with her. + +“She’s derelick, bad cess to her!” he muttered; “derelick and done +for—just me luck!” + +“I can’t see any people on the ship,” cried Dick, who had crept +forward to the bow. “Daddy’s not there.” + +The old sailor let the boat off a point or two, so as to get a view of +the brig more fully; when they were within twenty cable lengths or so +he unstepped the mast and took to the sculls. + +The little brig floated very low on the water, and presented a mournful +enough appearance; her running rigging all slack, shreds of canvas +flapping at the yards, and no boats hanging at her davits. It was easy +enough to see that she was a timber ship, and that she had started a +butt, flooded herself and been abandoned. + +Paddy lay on his oars within a few strokes of her. She was floating as +placidly as though she were in the harbour of San Francisco; the green +water showed in her shadow, and in the green water waved the tropic +weeds that were growing from her copper. Her paint was blistered and +burnt absolutely as though a hot iron had been passed over it, and over +her taffrail hung a large rope whose end was lost to sight in the water. + +A few strokes brought them under the stern. The name of the ship was +there in faded letters, also the port to which she belonged. +“_Shenandoah_. Martha’s Vineyard.” + +“There’s letters on her,” said Mr Button. “But I can’t make thim out. +I’ve no larnin’.” + +“I can read them,” said Dick. + +“So c’n I,” murmured Emmeline. + +“S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H,” spelt Dick. + +“What’s that?” enquired Paddy. + +“I don’t know,” replied Dick, rather downcastedly. + +“There you are!” cried the oarsman in a disgusted manner, pulling the +boat round to the starboard side of the brig. “They pritind to tache +letters to childer in schools, pickin’ their eyes out wid book-readin’, +and here’s letters as big as me face an’ they can’t make hid or tail of +them—be dashed to book-readin’!” + +The brig had old-fashioned wide channels, regular platforms; and she +floated so low in the water that they were scarcely a foot above the +level of the dinghy. + +Mr Button secured the boat by passing the painter through a channel +plate, then, with Emmeline and her parcel in his arms or rather in one +arm, he clambered over the channel and passed her over the rail on to +the deck. Then it was Dick’s turn, and the children stood waiting +whilst the old sailor brought the beaker of water, the biscuit, and the +tinned stuff on board. + +It was a place to delight the heart of a boy, the deck of the +_Shenandoah_; forward right from the main hatchway it was laden with +timber. Running rigging lay loose on the deck in coils, and nearly the +whole of the quarter-deck was occupied by a deck-house. The place had a +delightful smell of sea-beach, decaying wood, tar, and mystery. Bights +of buntline and other ropes were dangling from above, only waiting to +be swung from. A bell was hung just forward of the foremast. In half a +moment Dick was forward hammering at the bell with a belaying pin he +had picked from the deck. + +Mr Button shouted to him to desist; the sound of the bell jarred on his +nerves. It sounded like a summons, and a summons on that deserted craft +was quite out of place. Who knew what mightn’t answer it in the way of +the supernatural? + +Dick dropped the belaying pin and ran forward. He took the disengaged +hand, and the three went aft to the door of the deck-house. The door +was open, and they peeped in. + +The place had three windows on the starboard side, and through the +windows the sun was shining in a mournful manner. There was a table in +the middle of the place. A seat was pushed away from the table as if +some one had risen in a hurry. On the table lay the remains of a meal, a +teapot, two teacups, two plates. On one of the plates rested a fork +with a bit of putrifying bacon upon it that some one had evidently been +conveying to his mouth when—something had happened. Near the teapot +stood a tin of condensed milk, haggled open. Some old salt had just +been in the act of putting milk in his tea when the mysterious +something had occurred. Never did a lot of dead things speak so +eloquently as these things spoke. + +One could conjure it all up. The skipper, most likely, had finished his +tea, and the mate was hard at work at his, when the leak had been +discovered, or some derelict had been run into, or whatever it was had +happened—happened. + +One thing was evident, that since the abandonment of the brig she had +experienced fine weather, else the things would not have been left +standing so trimly on the table. + +Mr Button and Dick entered the place to prosecute enquiries, but +Emmeline remained at the door. The charm of the old brig appealed to +her almost as much as to Dick, but she had a feeling about it quite +unknown to him. A ship where no one was had about it suggestions of +“other things.” + +She was afraid to enter the gloomy deck-house, and afraid to remain +alone outside; she compromised matters by sitting down on the deck. +Then she placed the small bundle beside her, and hurriedly took the +rag-doll from her pocket, into which it was stuffed head down, pulled +its calico skirt from over its head, propped it up against the coaming +of the door, and told it not to be afraid. + +There was not much to be found in the deck-house, but aft of it were +two small cabins like rabbit hutches, once inhabited by the skipper and +his mate. Here there were great findings in the way of rubbish. Old +clothes, old boots, an old top-hat of that extraordinary pattern you +may see in the streets of Pernambuco, immensely tall, and narrowing +towards the brim. A telescope without a lens, a volume of Hoyt, a +nautical almanac, a great bolt of striped flannel shirting, a box of +fish hooks. And in one corner—glorious find!—a coil of what seemed to +be ten yards or so of black rope. + +“Baccy, begorra!” shouted Pat, seizing upon his treasure. It was +pigtail. You may see coils of it in the tobacconists’ windows of +seaport towns. A pipe full of it would make a hippopotamus vomit, yet +old sailors chew it and smoke it and revel in it. + +“We’ll bring all the lot of the things out on deck, and see what’s +worth keepin’ an’ what’s worth leavin’,” said Mr Button, taking an +immense armful of the old truck; whilst Dick, carrying the top-hat, +upon which he had instantly seized as his own special booty, led the +way. + +“Em,” shouted Dick, as he emerged from the doorway, “see what I’ve got!” + +He popped the awful-looking structure over his head. It went right down +to his shoulders. + +Emmeline gave a shriek. + +“It smells funny,” said Dick, taking it off and applying his nose to +the inside of it—“smells like an old hair brush. Here, you try it on.” + +Emmeline scrambled away as far as she could, till she reached the +starboard bulwarks, where she sat in the scupper, breathless and +speechless and wide-eyed. She was always dumb when frightened (unless +it were a nightmare or a very sudden shock), and this hat suddenly seen +half covering Dick frightened her out of her wits. Besides, it was a +black thing, and she hated black things—black cats, black horses; +worst of all, black dogs. + +She had once seen a hearse in the streets of Boston, an old-time hearse +with black plumes, trappings and all complete. The sight had nearly +given her a fit, though she did not know in the least the meaning of it. + +Meanwhile Mr Button was conveying armful after armful of stuff on deck. +When the heap was complete, he sat down beside it in the glorious +afternoon sunshine, and lit his pipe. + +He had searched neither for food or water as yet; content with the +treasure God had given him, for the moment the material things of life +were forgotten. And, indeed, if he had searched he would have found +only half a sack of potatoes in the caboose, for the lazarette was +awash, and the water in the scuttle-butt was stinking. + +Emmeline, seeing what was in progress, crept up, Dick promising not to +put the hat on her, and they all sat round the pile. + +“Thim pair of brogues,” said the old man, holding a pair of old boots +up for inspection like an auctioneer, “would fetch half a dollar any +day in the wake in any sayport in the world. Put them beside you, Dick, +and lay hold of this pair of britches by the ends of em’—stritch them.” + +The trousers were stretched out, examined and approved of, and laid +beside the boots. + +“Here’s a tiliscope wid wan eye shut,” said Mr Button, examining the +broken telescope and pulling it in and out like a concertina. “Stick +it beside the brogues; it may come in handy for somethin’. Here’s a +book”—tossing the nautical almanac to the boy. “Tell me what it says.” + +Dick examined the pages of figures hopelessly. + +“I can’t read ’em,” said Dick; “it’s numbers.” + +“Buzz it overboard,” said Mr Button. + +Dick did what he was told joyfully, and the proceedings resumed. + +He tried on the tall hat, and the children laughed. On her old friend’s +head the thing ceased to have terror for Emmeline. + +She had two methods of laughing. The angelic smile before mentioned—a +rare thing—and, almost as rare, a laugh in which she showed her little +white teeth, whilst she pressed her hands together, the left one tight +shut, and the right clasped over it. + +He put the hat on one side, and continued the sorting, searching all +the pockets of the clothes and finding nothing. When he had arranged +what to keep, they flung the rest overboard, and the valuables were +conveyed to the captain’s cabin, there to remain till wanted. + +Then the idea that food might turn up useful as well as old clothes in +their present condition struck the imaginative mind of Mr Button, and +he proceeded to search. + +The lazarette was simply a cistern full of sea water; what else it +might contain, not being a diver, he could not say. In the copper of +the caboose lay a great lump of putrifying pork or meat of some sort. +The harness cask contained nothing except huge crystals of salt. All +the meat had been taken away. Still, the provisions and water brought +on board from the dinghy would be sufficient to last them some ten days +or so, and in the course of ten days a lot of things might happen. + +Mr Button leaned over the side. The dinghy was nestling beside the brig +like a duckling beside a duck; the broad channel might have been +likened to the duck’s wing half extended. He got on the channel to see +if the painter was safely attached. Having made all secure, he climbed +slowly up to the main-yard arm, and looked round upon the sea. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SHADOWS IN THE MOONLIGHT + +“Daddy’s a long time coming,” said Dick all of a sudden. + +They were seated on the baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the +brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting +over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. +Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble as if +troubled by fervent heat. + +“Ay, is he,” said Mr Button; “but it’s better late than never. Now +don’t be thinkin’ of him, for that won’t bring him. Look at the sun +goin’ into the wather, and don’t be spakin’ a word, now, but listen and +you’ll hear it hiss.” + +The children gazed and listened, Paddy also. All three were mute as the +great blazing shield touched the water that leapt to meet it. + +You _could_ hear the water hiss—if you had imagination enough. Once +having touched the water, the sun went down behind it, as swiftly as a +man in a hurry going down a ladder. As he vanished a ghostly and golden +twilight spread over the sea, a light exquisite but immensely forlorn. +Then the sea became a violet shadow, the west darkened as if to a +closing door, and the stars rushed over the sky. + +“Mr Button,” said Emmeline, nodding towards the sun as he vanished, +“where’s over there?” + +“The west,” replied he, staring at the sunset. “Chainy and Injee and +all away beyant.” + +“Where’s the sun gone to now, Paddy?” asked Dick. + +“He’s gone chasin’ the moon, an’ she’s skedadlin’ wid her dress brailed +up for all she’s worth; she’ll be along up in a minit. He’s always +afther her, but he’s never caught her yet.” + +“What would he do to her if he caught her?” asked Emmeline. + +“Faith, an’ maybe he’d fetch her a skelp—an’ well she’d desarve it.” + +“Why’d she deserve it?” asked Dick, who was in one of his questioning +moods. + +“Because she’s always delutherin’ people an’ leadin’ thim asthray. +Girls or men, she moidhers thim all once she gets the comeither on +them; same as she did Buck M’Cann.” + +“Who’s he?” + +“Buck M’Cann? Faith, he was the village ijit where I used to live in +the ould days.” + +“What’s that?” + +“Hould your whisht, an’ don’t be axin’ questions. He was always wantin’ +the moon, though he was twinty an’ six feet four. He’d a gob on him +that hung open like a rat-trap with a broken spring, and he was as thin +as a barber’s pole, you could a’ tied a reef knot in the middle of ’um; +and whin the moon was full there was no houldin’ him.” Mr Button gazed +at the reflection of the sunset on the water for a moment as if +recalling some form from the past, and then proceeded. “He’d sit on the +grass starin’ at her, an’ thin he’d start to chase her over the hills, +and they’d find him at last, maybe a day or two later, lost in the +mountains, grazin’ on berries, an’ as green as a cabbidge from the +hunger an’ the cowld, till it got so bad at long last they had to +hobble him.” + +“I’ve seen a donkey hobbled,” cried Dick. + +“Thin you’ve seen the twin brother of Buck M’Cann. Well, one night me +elder brother Tim was sittin’ over the fire, smokin’ his dudeen an’ +thinkin’ of his sins, when in comes Buck with the hobbles on him. + +“‘Tim,’ says he, ‘I’ve got her at last!’ + +“‘Got who?’ says Tim. + +“‘The moon,’ says he. + +“‘Got her where?’ says Tim. + +“‘In a bucket down by the pond,’ says t’other, ‘safe an’ sound an’ not +a scratch on her; you come and look,’ says he. So Tim follows him, he +hobblin’, and they goes to the pond side, and there, sure enough, stood +a tin bucket full of wather, an’ on the wather the refliction of the +moon. + +“‘I dridged her out of the pond,’ whispers Buck. ‘Aisy now,’ says he, +‘an’ I’ll dribble the water out gently,’ says he, ‘an’ we’ll catch her +alive at the bottom of it like a trout.’ So he drains the wather out +gently of the bucket till it was near all gone, an’ then he looks into +the bucket expectin’ to find the moon flounderin’ in the bottom of it +like a flat fish. + +“‘She’s gone, bad ’cess to her!’ says he. + +“‘Try again,’ says me brother, and Buck fills the bucket again, and +there was the moon sure enough when the water came to stand still. + +“‘Go on,’ says me brother. ‘Drain out the wather, but go gentle, or +she’ll give yiz the slip again.’ + +“‘Wan minit,’ says Buck, ‘I’ve got an idea,’ says he; ‘she won’t give +me the slip this time,’ says he. ‘You wait for me,’ says he; and off he +hobbles to his old mother’s cabin a stone’s-throw away, and back he +comes with a sieve. + +“‘You hold the sieve,’ says Buck, ‘and I’ll drain the water into it; if +she ’scapes from the bucket we’ll have her in the sieve.’ And he pours +the wather out of the bucket as gentle as if it was crame out of a jug. +When all the wather was out he turns the bucket bottom up, and shook it. + +“‘Ran dan the thing!’ he cries, ‘she’s gone again;’ an’ wid that he +flings the bucket into the pond, and the sieve afther the bucket, when +up comes his old mother hobbling on her stick. + +“‘Where’s me bucket?’ says she. + +“‘In the pond,’ say Buck. + +“‘And me sieve?’ says she. + +“‘Gone afther the bucket.’ + +“‘I’ll give yiz a bucketin’!’ says she; and she up with the stick and +landed him a skelp, an’ driv him roarin’ and hobblin’ before her, and +locked him up in the cabin, an’ kep’ him on bread an’ wather for a wake +to get the moon out of his head; but she might have saved her thruble, +for that day month in it was agin—— There she comes!” + +The moon, argent and splendid, was breaking from the water. She was +full, and her light was powerful almost as the light of day. The +shadows of the children and the queer shadow of Mr Button were cast on +the wall of the caboose hard and black as silhouettes. + +“Look at our shadows!” cried Dick, taking off his broad-brimmed straw +hat and waving it. + +Emmeline held up her doll to see _its_ shadow, and Mr Button held up his +pipe. + +“Come now,” said he, putting the pipe back in his mouth, and making to +rise, “and shadda off to bed; it’s time you were aslape, the both of +you.” + +Dick began to yowl. + +“_I_ don’t want to go to bed; I aint tired, Paddy—les’s stay a little +longer.” + +“Not a minit,” said the other, with all the decision of a nurse; “not a +minit afther me pipe’s out!” + +“Fill it again,” said Dick. + +Mr Button made no reply. The pipe gurgled as he puffed at it—a kind of +death-rattle speaking of almost immediate extinction. + +“Mr Button!” said Emmeline. She was holding her nose in the air and +sniffing; seated to windward of the smoker, and out of the +pigtail-poisoned air, her delicate sense of smell perceived something +lost to the others. + +“What is it, acushla?” + +“I smell something.” + +“What d’ye say you smell?” + +“Something nice.” + +“What’s it like?” asked Dick, sniffing hard. “_I_ don’t smell anything.” + +Emmeline sniffed again to make sure. + +“Flowers,” said she. + +The breeze, which had shifted several points since midday, was bearing +with it a faint, faint odour: a perfume of vanilla and spice so faint +as to be imperceptible to all but the most acute olfactory sense. + +“Flowers!” said the old sailor, tapping the ashes out of his pipe +against the heel of his boot. “And where’d you get flowers in middle of +the say? It’s dhramin’ you are. Come now—to bed wid yiz!” + +“Fill it again,” wailed Dick, referring to the pipe. + +“It’s a spankin’ I’ll give you,” replied his guardian, lifting him down +from the timber baulks, and then assisting Emmeline, “in two ticks if +you don’t behave. Come along, Em’line.” + +He started aft, a small hand in each of his, Dick bellowing. + +As they passed the ship’s bell, Dick stretched towards the belaying pin +that was still lying on the deck, seized it, and hit the bell a mighty +bang. It was the last pleasure to be snatched before sleep, and he +snatched it. + +Paddy had made up beds for himself and his charges in the deck-house; +he had cleared the stuff off the table, broken open the windows to get +the musty smell away, and placed the mattresses from the captain and +mate’s cabins on the floor. + +When the children were in bed and asleep, he went to the starboard +rail, and, leaning on it, looked over the moonlit sea. He was thinking +of ships as his wandering eye roved over the sea spaces, little +dreaming of the message that the perfumed breeze was bearing him. The +message that had been received and dimly understood by Emmeline. Then +he leaned with his back to the rail and his hands in his pockets. He +was not thinking now, he was ruminating. + +The basis of the Irish character as exemplified by Paddy Button is a +profound laziness mixed with a profound melancholy. Yet Paddy, in his +left-handed way, was as hard a worker as any man on board ship; and as +for melancholy, he was the life and soul of the fo’cs’le. Yet there +they were, the laziness and the melancholy, only waiting to be tapped. + +As he stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, longshore +fashion, counting the dowels in the planking of the deck by the +moonlight, he was reviewing the “old days.” The tale of Buck M’Cann had +recalled them, and across all the salt seas he could see the moonlight +on the Connemara mountains, and hear the sea-gulls crying on the +thunderous beach where each wave has behind it three thousand miles of +sea. + +Suddenly Mr Button came back from the mountains of Connemara to find +himself on the deck of the _Shenandoah_; and he instantly became +possessed by fears. Beyond the white deserted deck, barred by the +shadows of the standing rigging, he could see the door of the caboose. +Suppose he should suddenly see a head pop out—or, worse, a shadowy form +go in? + +He turned to the deck-house, where the children were sound asleep, and +where, in a few minutes, he, too, was sound asleep beside them, whilst +all night long the brig rocked to the gentle swell of the Pacific, and +the breeze blew, bringing with it the perfume of flowers. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE TRAGEDY OF THE BOATS + +When the fog lifted after midnight the people in the long-boat saw the +quarter-boat half a mile to starboard of them. + +“Can you see the dinghy?” asked Lestrange of the captain, who was +standing up searching the horizon. + +“Not a speck,” answered Le Farge. “Damn that Irishman! but for him I’d +have got the boats away properly victualled and all; as it is I don’t +know what we’ve got aboard. You, Jenkins, what have you got forward +there?” + +“Two bags of bread and a breaker of water,” answered the steward. + +“A breaker of water be sugared!” came another voice; “a breaker half +full, you mean.” + +Then the steward’s voice: “So it is; there’s not more than a couple of +gallons in her.” + +“My God!” said Le Farge. “_Damn_ that Irishman!” + +“There’s not more than’ll give us two half pannikins apiece all round,” +said the steward. + +“Maybe,” said Le Farge, “the quarter-boat’s better stocked; pull for +her.” + +“She’s pulling for us,” said the stroke oar. + +“Captain,” asked Lestrange, “are you sure there’s no sight of the +dinghy?” + +“None,” replied Le Farge. + +The unfortunate man’s head sank on his breast. He had little time to +brood over his troubles, however, for a tragedy was beginning to unfold +around him, the most shocking, perhaps, in the annals of the sea—a +tragedy to be hinted at rather than spoken of. + +When the boats were within hailing distance, a man in the bow of the +long-boat rose up. + +“Quarter-boat ahoy!” + +“Ahoy!” + +“How much water have you?” + +“None!” + +The word came floating over the placid moonlit water. At it the fellows +in the long-boat ceased rowing, and you could see the water-drops +dripping off their oars like diamonds in the moonlight. + +“Quarter-boat ahoy!” shouted the fellow in the bow. “Lay on your oars.” + +“Here, you scowbanker!” cried Le Farge, “who are you to be giving +directions—” + +“Scowbanker yourself!” replied the fellow. “Bullies, put her about!” + +The starboard oars backed water, and the boat came round. + +By chance the worst lot of the _Northumberland’s_ crew were in the +long-boat—veritable “scowbankers,” scum; and how scum clings to life +you will never know, until you have been amongst it in an open boat at +sea. Le Farge had no more command over this lot than you have who are +reading this book. + +“Heave to!” came from the quarter-boat, as she laboured behind. + +“Lay on your oars, bullies!” cried the ruffian at the bow, who was +still standing up like an evil genius who had taken momentary command +over events. “Lay on your oars, bullies; they’d better have it now.” + +The quarter-boat in her turn ceased rowing, and lay a cable’s length +away. + +“How much water have you?” came the mate’s voice. + +“Not enough to go round.” + +Le Farge made to rise, and the stroke oar struck at him, catching him +in the wind and doubling him up in the bottom of the boat. + +“Give us some, for God’s sake!” came the mate’s voice; “we’re parched +with rowing, and there’s a woman on board.” + +The fellow in the bow of the long-boat, as if some one had suddenly +struck him, broke into a tornado of blasphemy. + +“Give us some,” came the mate’s voice, “or, by God, we’ll lay you +aboard!” + +Before the words were well spoken the men in the quarter-boat carried +the threat into action. The conflict was brief: the quarter-boat was +too crowded for fighting. The starboard men in the long-boat fought +with their oars, whilst the fellows to port steadied the boat. + +The fight did not last long, and presently the quarter-boat sheered +off, half of the men in her cut about the head and bleeding—two of +them senseless. + + * * * * * * + +It was sundown on the following day. The long-boat lay adrift. The last +drop of water had been served out eight hours before. + +The quarter-boat, like a horrible phantom, had been haunting and +pursuing her all day, begging for water when there was none. It was +like the prayers one might expect to hear in hell. + +The men in the long-boat, gloomy and morose, weighed down with a sense +of crime, tortured by thirst, and tormented by the voices imploring for +water, lay on their oars when the other boat tried to approach. + +Now and then, suddenly, and as if moved by a common impulse, they would +all shout out together: “We have none.” But the quarter-boat would not +believe. It was in vain to hold the breaker with the bung out to prove +its dryness, the half-delirious creatures had it fixed in their minds +that their comrades were withholding from them the water that was not. + +Just as the sun touched the sea, Lestrange, rousing himself from a +torpor into which he had sunk, raised himself and looked over the +gunwale. He saw the quarter-boat drifting a cable’s length away, lit by +the full light of sunset, and the spectres in it, seeing him, held out +in mute appeal their blackened tongues. + + * * * * * * + +Of the night that followed it is almost impossible to speak. Thirst +was nothing to what the scowbankers suffered from the torture of the +whimpering appeal for water that came to them at intervals during the +night. + + * * * * * * + +When at last the _Arago_, a French whale ship, sighted them, the crew of +the long-boat were still alive, but three of them were raving madmen. +Of the crew of the quarter-boat was saved—not one. + + + + +PART II + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ISLAND + +“Childer!” shouted Paddy. He was at the cross-trees in the full dawn, +whilst the children standing beneath on deck were craning their faces +up to him. “There’s an island forenint us.” + +“Hurrah!” cried Dick. He was not quite sure what an island might be +like in the concrete, but it was something fresh, and Paddy’s voice was +jubilant. + +“Land ho! it is,” said he, coming down to the deck. “Come for’ard to +the bows, and I’ll show it you.” + +He stood on the timber in the bows and lifted Emmeline up in his arms; +and even at that humble elevation from the water she could see +something of an undecided colour—green for choice—on the horizon. + +It was not directly ahead, but on the starboard bow—or, as she would +have expressed it, to the right. When Dick had looked and expressed his +disappointment at there being so little to see, Paddy began to make +preparations for leaving the ship. + +It was only just now, with land in sight, that he recognised in some +fashion the horror of the position from which they were about to escape. + +He fed the children hurriedly with some biscuits and tinned meat, and +then, with a biscuit in his hand, eating as he went, he trotted about +the decks, collecting things and stowing them in the dinghy. The bolt +of striped flannel, all the old clothes, a housewife full of needles +and thread, such as seamen sometimes carry, the half-sack of potatoes, +a saw which he found in the caboose, the precious coil of tobacco, and +a lot of other odds and ends he transhipped, sinking the little dinghy +several strakes in the process. Also, of course, he took the breaker of +water, and the remains of the biscuit and tinned stuff they had brought +on board. These being stowed, and the dinghy ready, he went forward +with the children to the bow, to see how the island was bearing. + +It had loomed up nearer during the hour or so in which he had been +collecting and storing the things—nearer, and more to the right, which +meant that the brig was being borne by a fairly swift current, and that +she would pass it, leaving it two or three miles to starboard. It was +well they had command of the dinghy. + +“The sea’s all round it,” said Emmeline, who was seated on Paddy’s +shoulder, holding on tight to him, and gazing upon the island, the +green of whose trees was now visible, an oasis of verdure in the +sparkling and seraphic blue. + +“Are we going there, Paddy?” asked Dick, holding on to a stay, and +straining his eyes towards the land. + +“Ay, are we,” said Mr Button. “Hot foot—five knots, if we’re makin’ +wan; and it’s ashore we’ll be by noon, and maybe sooner.” + +The breeze had freshened up, and was blowing dead from the island, as +though the island were making a weak attempt to blow them away from it. + +Oh, what a fresh and perfumed breeze it was! All sorts of tropical +growing things had joined their scent in one bouquet. + +“Smell it,” said Emmeline, expanding her small nostrils. “That’s what I +smelt last night, only it’s stronger now.” + +The last reckoning taken on board the _Northumberland_ had proved the +ship to be south by east of the Marquesas; this was evidently one of +those small, lost islands that lie here and there south by east of the +Marquesas. Islands the most lonely and beautiful in the world. + +As they gazed it grew before them, and shifted still more to the right. +It was hilly and green now, though the trees could not be clearly made +out; here, the green was lighter in colour, and there, darker. A rim of +pure white marble seemed to surround its base. It was foam breaking on +the barrier reef. + +In another hour the feathery foliage of the cocoa-nut palms could be +made out, and the old sailor judged it time to take to the boat. + +He lifted Emmeline, who was clasping her luggage, over the rail on to +the channel, and deposited her in the stern-sheets; then Dick. + +In a moment the boat was adrift, the mast stepped, and the _Shenandoah_ +left to pursue her mysterious voyage at the will of the currents of the +sea. + +“You’re not going to the island, Paddy,” cried Dick, as the old man put +the boat on the port tack. + +“You be aisy,” replied the other, “and don’t be larnin’ your +gran’mother. How the divil d’ye think I’d fetch the land sailin’ dead +in the wind’s eye?” + +“Has the wind eyes?” + +Mr Button did not answer the question. He was troubled in his mind. +What if the island were inhabited? He had spent several years in the +South Seas. He knew the people of the Marquesas and Samoa, and liked +them. But here he was out of his bearings. + +However, all the troubling in the world was of no use. It was a case of +the island or the deep sea, and, putting the boat on the starboard +tack, he lit his pipe and leaned back with the tiller in the crook of +his arm. His keen eyes had made out from the deck of the brig an +opening in the reef, and he was making to run the dinghy abreast of the +opening, and then take to the sculls and row her through. + +Now, as they drew nearer a sound came on the breeze, a sound faint and +sonorous and dreamy. It was the sound of the breakers on the reef. The +sea just here was heaving to a deeper swell, as if vexed in its sleep +at the resistance to it of the land. + +Emmeline, sitting with her bundle in her lap, stared without speaking +at the sight before her. Even in the bright, glorious sunshine, and +despite the greenery that showed beyond, it was a desolate sight seen +from her place in the dinghy. A white, forlorn beach, over which the +breakers raced and tumbled, sea-gulls wheeling and screaming, and over +all the thunder of the surf. + +Suddenly the break became visible, and a glimpse of smooth, blue water +beyond. Mr Button unshipped the tiller, unstepped the mast, and took to +the sculls. + +As they drew nearer, the sea became more active, savage, and alive; the +thunder of the surf became louder, the breakers more fierce and +threatening, the opening broader. + +One could see the water swirling round the coral piers, for the tide +was flooding into the lagoon; it had seized the little dinghy and was +bearing it along far swifter than the sculls could have driven it. +Sea-gulls screamed around them, the boat rocked and swayed. Dick +shouted with excitement, and Emmeline shut her eyes _tight_. + +Then, as though a door had been swiftly and silently closed, the sound +of the surf became suddenly less. The boat floated on an even keel; she +opened her eyes and found herself in Wonderland. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LAKE OF AZURE + +On either side lay a great sweep of waving blue water. Calm, almost as +a lake, sapphire here, and here with the tints of the aqua marine. Water +so clear that fathoms away below you could see the branching coral, the +schools of passing fish, and the shadows of the fish upon the spaces of +sand. + +Before them the clear water washed the sands of a white beach, the +cocoa-palms waved and whispered in the breeze; and as the oarsman lay +on his oars to look a flock of bluebirds rose, as if suddenly freed +from the tree-tops, wheeled, and passed soundless, like a wreath of +smoke, over the tree-tops of the higher land beyond. + +“Look!” shouted Dick, who had his nose over the gunwale of the boat. +“Look at the _fish_!” + +“Mr Button,” cried Emmeline, “where are we?” + +“Bedad, I dunno; but we might be in a worse place, I’m thinkin’,” +replied the old man, sweeping his eyes over the blue and tranquil +lagoon, from the barrier reef to the happy shore. + +On either side of the broad beach before them the cocoa-nut trees came +down like two regiments, and bending gazed at their own reflections in +the lagoon. Beyond lay waving chapparel, where cocoa-palms and +breadfruit trees intermixed with the mammee apple and the tendrils of +the wild vine. On one of the piers of coral at the break of the reef +stood a single cocoa-palm; bending with a slight curve, it, too, seemed +seeking its reflection in the waving water. + +But the soul of it all, the indescribable thing about this picture of +mirrored palm trees, blue lagoon, coral reef and sky, was the light. + +Away at sea the light was blinding, dazzling, cruel. Away at sea it had +nothing to focus itself upon, nothing to exhibit but infinite spaces of +blue water and desolation. + +Here it made the air a crystal, through which the gazer saw the +loveliness of the land and reef, the green of palm, the white of coral, +the wheeling gulls, the blue lagoon, all sharply outlined—burning, +coloured, arrogant, yet tender—heart-breakingly beautiful, for the +spirit of eternal morning was here, eternal happiness, eternal youth. + +As the oarsman pulled the tiny craft towards the beach, neither he nor +the children saw away behind the boat, on the water near the bending +palm tree at the break in the reef, something that for a moment +insulted the day, and was gone. Something like a small triangle of dark +canvas, that rippled through the water and sank from sight; something +that appeared and vanished like an evil thought. + +It did not take long to beach the boat. Mr Button tumbled over the side +up to his knees in water, whilst Dick crawled over the bow. + +“Catch hould of her the same as I do,” cried Paddy, laying hold of the +starboard gunwale; whilst Dick, imitative as a monkey, seized the +gunwale to port. Now then: + + “‘Yeo ho, Chilliman, + Up wid her, up wid her, + Heave O, Chilliman.’ + +“Lave her be now; she’s high enough.” + +He took Emmeline in his arms and carried her up on the sand. It was +from just here on the sand that you could see the true beauty of the +lagoon. That lake of sea water forever protected from storm and trouble +by the barrier reef of coral. + +Right from where the little clear ripples ran up the strand, it led the +eye to the break in the coral reef where the palm gazed at its own +reflection in the water, and there, beyond the break, one caught a +vision of the great heaving, sparkling sea. + +The lagoon, just here, was perhaps more than a third of a mile broad. I +have never measured it, but I know that, standing by the palm tree on +the reef, flinging up one’s arm and shouting to a person on the beach, +the sound took a perceptible time to cross the water: I should say, +perhaps, an almost perceptible time. The distant signal and the distant +call were almost coincident, yet not quite. + +Dick, mad with delight at the place in which he found himself, was +running about like a dog just out of the water. Mr Button was +discharging the cargo of the dinghy on the dry, white sand. Emmeline +seated herself with her precious bundle on the sand, and was watching +the operations of her friend, looking at the things around her and +feeling very strange. + +For all she knew all this was the ordinary accompaniment of a sea +voyage. Paddy’s manner throughout had been set to the one idea, not to +frighten the “childer”; the weather had backed him up. But down in the +heart of her lay the knowledge that all was not as it should be. The +hurried departure from the ship, the fog in which her uncle had +vanished, those things, and others as well, she felt instinctively were +not right. But she said nothing. + +She had not long for meditation, however, for Dick was running towards +her with a live crab which he had picked up, calling out that he was +going to make it bite her. + +“Take it away!” cried Emmeline, holding both hands with fingers +widespread in front of her face. “Mr Button! Mr Button! Mr Button!” + +“Lave her be, you little divil!” roared Pat, who was depositing the +last of the cargo on the sand. “Lave her be, or it’s a cow-hidin’ I’ll +be givin’ you!” + +“What’s a ‘divil,’ Paddy?” asked Dick, panting from his exertions. +“Paddy, what’s a ‘divil’?” + +“You’re wan. Ax no questions now, for it’s tired I am, an’ I want to +rest me bones.” + +He flung himself under the shade of a palm tree, took out his tinder +box, tobacco and pipe, cut some tobacco up, filled his pipe and lit it. +Emmeline crawled up, and sat near him, and Dick flung himself down on +the sand near Emmeline. + +Mr Button took off his coat and made a pillow of it against a cocoa-nut +tree stem. He had found the El Dorado of the weary. With his knowledge +of the South Seas a glance at the vegetation to be seen told him that +food for a regiment might be had for the taking; water, too. + +Right down the middle of the strand was a depression which in the rainy +season would be the bed of a rushing rivulet. The water just now was +not strong enough to come all the way to the lagoon, but away up there +“beyant” in the woods lay the source, and he’d find it in due time. +There was enough in the breaker for a week, and green “cuca-nuts” were +to be had for the climbing. + +Emmeline contemplated Paddy for a while as he smoked and rested his +bones, then a great thought occurred to her. She took the little shawl +from around the parcel she was holding and exposed the mysterious box. + +“Oh, begorra, the box!” said Paddy, leaning on his elbow interestedly; +“I might a’ known you wouldn’t a’ forgot it.” + +“Mrs James,” said Emmeline, “made me promise not to open it till I got +on shore, for the things in it might get lost.” + +“Well, you’re ashore now,” said Dick; “open it.” + +“I’m going to,” said Emmeline. + +She carefully undid the string, refusing the assistance of Paddy’s +knife. Then the brown paper came off, disclosing a common cardboard +box. She raised the lid half an inch, peeped in, and shut it again. + +“_Open_ it!” cried Dick, mad with curiosity. + +“What’s in it, honey?” asked the old sailor, who was as interested as +Dick. + +“Things,” replied Emmeline. + +Then all at once she took the lid off and disclosed a tiny tea service +of china, packed in shavings; there was a teapot with a lid, a cream +jug, cups and saucers, and six microscopic plates, each painted with a +pansy. + +“Sure, it’s a tay-set!” said Paddy, in an interested voice. “Glory be +to God! will you look at the little plates wid the flowers on thim?” + +“Heugh!” said Dick in disgust; “I thought it might a’ been soldiers.” + +“_I_ don’t want soldiers,” replied Emmeline, in a voice of perfect +contentment. + +She unfolded a piece of tissue paper, and took from it a sugar-tongs +and six spoons. Then she arrayed the whole lot on the sand. + +“Well, if that don’t beat all!” said Paddy. + +“And whin are you goin’ to ax me to tay with you?” + +“Some time,” replied Emmeline, collecting the things, and carefully +repacking them. + +Mr Button finished his pipe, tapped the ashes out, and placed it in his +pocket. + +“I’ll be afther riggin’ up a bit of a tint,” said he, as he rose to his +feet, “to shelter us from the jew to-night; but I’ll first have a look +at the woods to see if I can find wather. Lave your box with the other +things, Emmeline; there’s no one here to take it.” + +Emmeline left her box on the heap of things that Paddy had placed in +the shadow of the cocoa-nut trees, took his hand, and the three entered +the grove on the right. + +It was like entering a pine forest; the tall symmetrical stems of the +trees seemed set by mathematical law, each at a given distance from the +other. Whichever way you entered a twilight alley set with tree boles +lay before you. Looking up you saw at an immense distance above a pale +green roof patined with sparkling and flashing points of light, where +the breeze was busy playing with the green fronds of the trees. + +“Mr Button,” murmured Emmeline, “we won’t get lost, will we?” + +“Lost! No, faith; sure we’re goin’ uphill, an’ all we have to do is to +come down again, when we want to get back—ware nuts!” A green nut +detached from up above came down rattling and tumbling and hopped on +the ground. Paddy picked it up. “It’s a green cucanut,” said he, +putting it in his pocket (it was not very much bigger than a Jaffa +orange), “and we’ll have it for tay.” + +“That’s not a cocoa-nut,” said Dick; “cocoa-nuts are brown. I had five +cents once an’ I bought one, and scraped it out and y’et it.” + +“When Dr Sims made Dicky sick,” said Emmeline, “he said the wonder +t’im was how Dicky held it all.” + +“Come on,” said Mr Button, “an’ don’t be talkin’, or it’s the +Cluricaunes will be after us.” + +“What’s cluricaunes?” demanded Dick. + +“Little men no bigger than your thumb that make the brogues for the +Good People.” + +“Who’s they?” + +“Whisht, and don’t be talkin’. Mind your head, Em’leen, or the +branches’ll be hittin’ you in the face.” + +They had left the cocoa-nut grove, and entered the chapparel. Here was +a deeper twilight, and all sorts of trees lent their foliage to make +the shade. The artu with its delicately diamonded trunk, the great +breadfruit tall as a beech, and shadowy as a cave, the aoa, and the +eternal cocoa-nut palm all grew here like brothers. Great ropes of wild +vine twined like the snake of the laocoon from tree to tree, and all +sorts of wonderful flowers, from the orchid shaped like a butterfly to +the scarlet hibiscus, made beautiful the gloom. + +Suddenly Mr Button stopped. + +“Whisht!” said he. + +Through the silence—a silence filled with the hum and the murmur of +wood insects and the faint, far song of the reef—came a tinkling, +rippling sound: it was water. He listened to make sure of the bearing +of the sound, then he made for it. + +Next moment they found themselves in a little grass-grown glade. From +the hilly ground above, over a rock black and polished like ebony, fell +a tiny cascade not much broader than one’s hand; ferns grew around and +from a tree above where a great rope of wild convolvulus flowers blew +their trumpets in the enchanted twilight. + +The children cried out at the prettiness of it, and Emmeline ran and +dabbled her hands in the water. Just above the little waterfall sprang +a banana tree laden with fruit; it had immense leaves six feet long and +more, and broad as a dinner-table. One could see the golden glint of +the ripe fruit through the foliage. + +In a moment Mr Button had kicked off his shoes and was going up the +rock like a cat, absolutely, for it seemed to give him nothing to climb +by. + +“Hurroo!” cried Dick in admiration. “Look at Paddy!” + +Emmeline looked, and saw nothing but swaying leaves. + +“Stand from under!” he shouted, and next moment down came a huge bunch +of yellow-jacketed bananas. Dick shouted with delight, but Emmeline +showed no excitement: she had discovered something. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DEATH VEILED WITH LICHEN + +“Mr Button,” said she, when the latter had descended, “there’s a little +barrel”; she pointed to something green and lichen-covered that lay +between the trunks of two trees—something that eyes less sharp than +the eyes of a child might have mistaken for a boulder. + +“Sure, an’ faith it’s an’ ould empty bar’l,” said Mr Button, wiping the +sweat from his brow and staring at the thing. “Some ship must have been +wathering here an’ forgot it. It’ll do for a sate whilst we have +dinner.” + +He sat down upon it and distributed the bananas to the children, who +sat down on the grass. + +The barrel looked such a deserted and neglected thing that his +imagination assumed it to be empty. Empty or full, however, it made an +excellent seat, for it was quarter sunk in the green soft earth, and +immovable. + +“If ships has been here, ships will come again,” said he, as he munched +his bananas. + +“Will daddy’s ship come here?” asked Dick. + +“Ay, to be sure it will,” replied the other, taking out his pipe. “Now +run about and play with the flowers an’ lave me alone to smoke a pipe, +and then we’ll all go to the top of the hill beyant, and have a look +round us. + +“Come ’long, Em!” cried Dick; and the children started off amongst the +trees, Dick pulling at the hanging vine tendrils, and Emmeline plucking +what blossoms she could find within her small reach. + +When he had finished his pipe he hallooed, and small voices answered +him from the wood. Then the children came running back, Emmeline +laughing and showing her small white teeth, a large bunch of blossoms +in her hand; Dick flowerless, but carrying what seemed a large green +stone. + +“Look at what a funny thing I’ve found!” he cried; “it’s got holes in +it.” + +“Dhrap it!” shouted Mr Button, springing from the barrel as if some one +had stuck an awl into him. “Where’d you find it? What d’you mane by +touchin’ it? Give it here.” + +He took it gingerly in his hands; it was a lichen-covered skull, with a +great dent in the back of it where it had been cloven by an axe or some +sharp instrument. He hove it as far as he could away amidst the trees. + +“What is it, Paddy?” asked Dick, half astonished, half frightened at +the old man’s manner. + +“It’s nothin’ good,” replied Mr Button. + +“There were two others, and I wanted to fetch them,” grumbled Dick. + +“You lave them alone. Musha! musha! but there’s been black doin’s here +in days gone by. What is it, Emmeline?” + +Emmeline was holding out her bunch of flowers for admiration. He took a +great gaudy blossom—if flowers can ever be called gaudy—and stuck its +stalk in the pocket of his coat. Then he led the way uphill, muttering +as he went. + +The higher they got the less dense became the trees and the fewer the +cocoa-nut palms. The cocoa-nut palm loves the sea, and the few they had +here all had their heads bent in the direction of the lagoon, as if +yearning after it. + +They passed a cane-brake where canes twenty feet high whispered +together like bulrushes. Then a sunlit sward, destitute of tree or +shrub, led them sharply upward for a hundred feet or so to where a +great rock, the highest point of the island, stood, casting its shadow +in the sunshine. The rock was about twenty feet high, and easy to +climb. Its top was almost flat, and as spacious as an ordinary +dinner-table. From it one could obtain a complete view of the island +and the sea. + +Looking down, one’s eye travelled over the trembling and waving +tree-tops, to the lagoon; beyond the lagoon to the reef, beyond the +reef to the infinite space of the Pacific. The reef encircled the whole +island, here further from the land, here closer; the song of the surf +on it came as a whisper, just like the whisper you hear in a shell; +but, a strange thing, though the sound heard on the beach was +continuous, up here one could distinguish an intermittency as breaker +after breaker dashed itself to death on the coral strand below. + +You have seen a field of green barley ruffled over by the wind, just so +from the hill-top you could see the wind in its passage over the sunlit +foliage beneath. + +It was breezing up from the south-west, and banyan and cocoa-palm, artu +and breadfruit tree, swayed and rocked in the merry wind. So bright and +moving was the picture of the breeze-swept sea, the blue lagoon, the +foam-dashed reef, and the rocking trees that one felt one had surprised +some mysterious gala day, some festival of Nature more than ordinarily +glad. + +As if to strengthen the idea, now and then above the trees would burst +what seemed a rocket of coloured stars. The stars would drift away in a +flock on the wind and be lost. They were flights of birds. All-coloured +birds peopled the trees below—blue, scarlet, dove-coloured, bright of +eye, but voiceless. From the reef you could see occasionally the +sea-gulls rising here and there in clouds like small puffs of smoke. + +The lagoon, here deep, here shallow, presented, according to its depth +or shallowness, the colours of ultra-marine or sky. The broadest parts +were the palest, because the most shallow; and here and there, in the +shallows, you might see a faint tracery of coral ribs almost reaching +the surface. The island at its broadest might have been three miles +across. There was not a sign of house or habitation to be seen, and not +a sail on the whole of the wide Pacific. + +It was a strange place to be, up here. To find oneself surrounded by +grass and flowers and trees, and all the kindliness of nature, to feel +the breeze blow, to smoke one’s pipe, and to remember that one was in a +place uninhabited and unknown. A place to which no messages were ever +carried except by the wind or the sea-gulls. + +In this solitude the beetle was as carefully painted and the flower as +carefully tended as though all the peoples of the civilised world were +standing by to criticise or approve. + +Nowhere in the world, perhaps, so well as here, could you appreciate +Nature’s splendid indifference to the great affairs of Man. + +The old sailor was thinking nothing of this sort. His eyes were fixed +on a small and almost imperceptible stain on the horizon to the +sou’-sou’-west. It was no doubt another island almost hull-down on the +horizon. Save for this blemish the whole wheel of the sea was empty and +serene. + +Emmeline had not followed them up to the rock. She had gone botanising +where some bushes displayed great bunches of the crimson arita berries +as if to show to the sun what Earth could do in the way of +manufacturing poison. She plucked two great bunches of them, and with +this treasure came to the base of the rock. + +“Lave thim berries down!” cried Mr Button, when she had attracted his +attention. “Don’t put thim in your mouth; thim’s the never-wake-up +berries.” + +He came down off the rock, hand over fist, flung the poisonous things +away, and looked into Emmeline’s small mouth, which at his command she +opened wide. There was only a little pink tongue in it, however, curled +up like a rose-leaf; no sign of berries or poison. So, giving her a +little shake, just as a nursemaid would have done in like +circumstances, he took Dick off the rock, and led the way back to the +beach. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ECHOES OF FAIRY-LAND + +“Mr Button,” said Emmeline that night, as they sat on the sand near +the tent he had improvised, “Mr Button—cats go to sleep.” + +They had been questioning him about the “never-wake-up” berries. + +“Who said they didn’t?” asked Mr Button. + +“I mean,” said Emmeline, “they go to sleep and never wake up again. +Ours did. It had stripes on it, and a white chest, and rings all down +its tail. It went asleep in the garden, all stretched out, and showing +its teeth; an’ I told Jane, and Dicky ran in an’ told uncle. I went to +Mrs Sims, the doctor’s wife, to tea; and when I came back I asked Jane +where pussy was—and she said it was deadn’ berried, but I wasn’t to +tell uncle.” + +“I remember,” said Dick. “It was the day I went to the circus, and you +told me not to tell daddy the cat was deadn’ berried. But I told Mrs +James’s man when he came to do the garden; and I asked him where cats +went when they were deadn’ berried, and he said he guessed they went to +hell—at least he hoped they did, for they were always scratchin’ up +the flowers. Then he told me not to tell any one he’d said that, for it +was a swear word, and he oughtn’t to have said it. I asked him what +he’d give me if I didn’t tell, an’ he gave me five cents. That was the +day I bought the cocoa-nut.” + +The tent, a makeshift affair, consisting of two sculls and a tree +branch, which Mr Button had sawed off from a dwarf aoa, and the +stay-sail he had brought from the brig, was pitched in the centre of the +beach, so as to be out of the way of falling cocoa-nuts, should the +breeze strengthen during the night. The sun had set, but the moon had +not yet risen as they sat in the starlight on the sand near the +temporary abode. + +“What’s the things you said made the boots for the people, Paddy?” +asked Dick, after a pause. + +“Which things?” + +“You said in the wood I wasn’t to talk, else—” + +“Oh, the Cluricaunes—the little men that cobbles the Good People’s +brogues. Is it them you mane?” + +“Yes,” said Dick, not knowing quite whether it was them or not that he +meant, but anxious for information that he felt would be curious. “And +what are the good people?” + +“Sure, where were you born and bred that you don’t know the Good People +is the other name for the fairies—savin’ their presence?” + +“There aren’t any,” replied Dick. “Mrs Sims said there weren’t.” + +“Mrs James,” put in Emmeline, “said there were. She said she liked to +see children b’lieve in fairies. She was talking to another lady, who’d +got a red feather in her bonnet, and a fur muff. They were having tea, +and I was sitting on the hearthrug. She said the world was getting +too—something or another, an’ then the other lady said it was, and +asked Mrs James did she see Mrs Someone in the awful hat she wore +Thanksgiving Day. They didn’t say anything more about fairies, but Mrs +James——” + +“Whether you b’lave in them or not,” said Paddy, “there they are. An’ +maybe they’re poppin’ out of the wood behint us now, an’ listenin’ to +us talkin’; though I’m doubtful if there’s any in these parts, though +down in Connaught they were as thick as blackberries in the ould days. +O musha! musha! the ould days, the ould days! when will I be seein’ +thim again? Now, you may b’lave me or b’lave me not, but me own ould +father—God rest his sowl!—was comin’ over Croagh Patrick one night +before Christmas with a bottle of whisky in one hand of him, and a +goose, plucked an’ claned an’ all, in the other, which same he’d won in +a lottery, when, hearin’ a tchune no louder than the buzzin’ of a bee, +over a furze-bush he peeps, and there, round a big white stone, the +Good People were dancing in a ring hand in hand, an’ kickin’ their +heels, an’ the eyes of them glowin’ like the eyes of moths; and a chap +on the stone, no bigger than the joint of your thumb, playin’ to thim +on a bagpipes. Wid that he let wan yell an’ drops the goose an’ makes +for home, over hedge an’ ditch, boundin’ like a buck kangaroo, an’ the +face on him as white as flour when he burst in through the door, where +we was all sittin’ round the fire burnin’ chestnuts to see who’d be +married the first. + +“‘An’ what in the name of the saints is the mather wid yiz?’ says me +mother. + +“‘I’ve sane the Good People,’ says he, ‘up on the field beyant,’ says +he; ‘and they’ve got the goose,’ says he, ‘but, begorra, I’ve saved the +bottle,’ he says. ‘Dhraw the cork and give me a taste of it, for me +heart’s in me throat, and me tongue’s like a brick-kil.’ + +“An’ whin we come to prize the cork out of the bottle, there was +nothin’ in it; an’ whin we went next marnin’ to look for the goose, it +was gone. But there was the stone, sure enough, and the marks on it of +the little brogues of the chap that’d played the bagpipes—and who’d be +doubtin’ there were fairies after that?” + +The children said nothing for a while, and then Dick said: + +“Tell us about Cluricaunes, and how they make the boots.” + +“Whin I’m tellin’ you about Cluricaunes,” said Mr Button, “it’s the +truth I’m tellin’ you, an’ out of me own knowlidge, for I’ve spoken to a +man that’s held wan in his hand; he was me own mother’s brother, Con +Cogan—rest his sowl! Con was six fut two, wid a long, white face; he’d +had his head bashed in, years before I was barn, in some ruction or +other, an’ the docthers had japanned him with a five-shillin’ piece +beat flat.” + +Dick interposed with a question as to the process, aim, and object of +japanning, but Mr Button passed the question by. + +“He’d been bad enough for seein’ fairies before they japanned him, but +afther it, begorra, he was twiced as bad. I was a slip of a lad at the +time, but me hair near turned grey wid the tales he’d tell of the Good +People and their doin’s. One night they’d turn him into a harse an’ +ride him half over the county, wan chap on his back an’ another runnin’ +behind, shovin’ furze prickles under his tail to make him buck-lep. +Another night it’s a dunkey he’d be, harnessed to a little cart, an’ +bein’ kicked in the belly and made to draw stones. Thin it’s a goose +he’d be, runnin’ over the common wid his neck stritched out squawkin’, +an’ an old fairy woman afther him wid a knife, till it fair drove him +to the dhrink; though, by the same token, he didn’t want much dhrivin’. + +“And what does he do when his money was gone, but tear the +five-shillin’ piece they’d japanned him wid aff the top of his hed, and +swaps it for a bottle of whisky, and that was the end of him.” + +Mr Button paused to relight his pipe, which had gone out, and there was +silence for a moment. + +The moon had risen, and the song of the surf on the reef filled the +whole night with its lullaby. The broad lagoon lay waving and rippling +in the moonlight to the incoming tide. Twice as broad it always looked +seen by moonlight or starlight than when seen by day. Occasionally the +splash of a great fish would cross the silence, and the ripple of it +would pass a moment later across the placid water. + +Big things happened in the lagoon at night, unseen by eyes from the +shore. You would have found the wood behind them, had you walked +through it, full of light. A tropic forest under a tropic moon is green +as a sea cave. You can see the vine tendrils and the flowers, the +orchids and tree boles all lit as by the light of an emerald-tinted day. + +Mr Button took a long piece of string from his pocket. + +“It’s bedtime,” said he; “and I’m going to tether Em’leen, for fear +she’d be walkin’ in her slape, and wandherin’ away an’ bein’ lost in +the woods.” + +“I don’t want to be tethered,” said Emmeline. + +“It’s for your own good I’m doin’ it,” replied Mr Button, fixing the +string round her waist. “Now come ’long.” + +He led her like a dog in a leash to the tent, and tied the other end of +the string to the scull, which was the tent’s main prop and support. + +“Now,” said he, “if you be gettin’ up and walkin’ about in the night, +it’s down the tint will be on top of us all.” + +And, sure enough, in the small hours of the morning, it was. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FAIR PICTURES IN THE BLUE + +“I don’t want my old britches on! I don’t want my old britches on!” + +Dick was darting about naked on the sand, Mr Button after him with a +pair of small trousers in his hand. A crab might just as well have +attempted to chase an antelope. + +They had been on the island a fortnight, and Dick had discovered the +keenest joy in life—to be naked. To be naked and wallow in the shallows +of the lagoon, to be naked and sit drying in the sun. To be free from +the curse of clothes, to shed civilisation on the beach in the form of +breeches, boots, coat, and hat, and to be one with the wind and the sun +and the sea. + +The very first command Mr Button had given on the second morning of +their arrival was, “Strip and into the water wid you.” + +Dick had resisted at first, and Emmeline (who rarely wept) had stood +weeping in her little chemise. But Mr Button was obdurate. The +difficulty at first was to get them in; the difficulty now was to keep +them out. + +Emmeline was sitting as nude as the day star, drying in the morning sun +after her dip, and watching Dick’s evolutions on the sand. + +The lagoon had for the children far more attraction than the land. +Woods where you might knock ripe bananas off the trees with a big cane, +sands where golden lizards would scuttle about so tame that you might +with a little caution seize them by the tail, a hill-top from whence +you might see, to use Paddy’s expression, “to the back of beyond”; all +these were fine enough in their way, but they were nothing to the +lagoon. + +Deep down where the coral branches were you might watch, whilst Paddy +fished, all sorts of things disporting on the sand patches and between +the coral tufts. Hermit crabs that had evicted whelks, wearing the +evicted ones’ shells—an obvious misfit; sea anemones as big as roses. +Flowers that closed up in an irritable manner if you lowered the hook +gently down and touched them; extraordinary shells that walked about on +feelers, elbowing the crabs out of the way and terrorising the whelks. +The overlords of the sand patches, these; yet touch one on the back +with a stone tied to a bit of string, and down he would go flat, +motionless and feigning death. There was a lot of human nature lurking +in the depths of the lagoon, comedy and tragedy. + +An English rock-pool has its marvels. You can fancy the marvels of this +vast rock-pool, nine miles round and varying from a third to half a +mile broad, swarming with tropic life and flights of painted fishes; +where the glittering albicore passed beneath the boat like a fire and a +shadow; where the boat’s reflection lay as clear on the bottom as +though the water were air; where the sea, pacified by the reef, told, +like a little child, its dreams. + +It suited the lazy humour of Mr Button that he never pursued the lagoon +more than half a mile or so on either side of the beach. He would bring +the fish he caught ashore, and with the aid of his tinder box and dead +sticks make a blazing fire on the sand; cook fish and breadfruit and +taro roots, helped and hindered by the children. They fixed the tent +amidst the trees at the edge of the chapparel, and made it larger and +more abiding with the aid of the dinghy’s sail. + +Amidst these occupations, wonders, and pleasures, the children lost all +count of the flight of time. They rarely asked about Mr Lestrange; +after a while they did not ask about him at all. Children soon forget. + + + + +PART III + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE POETRY OF LEARNING + +To forget the passage of time you must live in the open air, in a warm +climate, with as few clothes as possible upon you. You must collect and +cook your own food. Then, after a while, if you have no special ties to +bind you to civilisation, Nature will begin to do for you what she does +for the savage. You will recognise that it is possible to be happy +without books or newspapers, letters or bills. You will recognise the +part sleep plays in Nature. + +After a month on the island you might have seen Dick at one moment full +of life and activity, helping Mr Button to dig up a taro root or +what not, the next curled up to sleep like a dog. Emmeline the same. +Profound and prolonged lapses into sleep; sudden awakenings into a +world of pure air and dazzling light, the gaiety of colour all round. +Nature had indeed opened her doors to these children. + +One might have fancied her in an experimental mood, saying: “Let me put +these buds of civilisation back into my nursery and see what they will +become—how they will blossom, and what will be the end of it all.” + +Just as Emmeline had brought away her treasured box from the +_Northumberland_, Dick had conveyed with him a small linen bag that +chinked when shaken. It contained marbles. Small olive-green marbles +and middle-sized ones of various colours; glass marbles with splendid +coloured cores; and one large old grandfather marble too big to be +played with, but none the less to be worshipped—a god marble. + +Of course one cannot play at marbles on board ship, but one can play +_with_ them. They had been a great comfort to Dick on the voyage. He knew +them each personally, and he would roll them out on the mattress of his +bunk and review them nearly every day, whilst Emmeline looked on. + +One day Mr Button, noticing Dick and the girl kneeling opposite each +other on a flat, hard piece of sand near the water’s edge, strolled up +to see what they were doing. They were playing marbles. He stood with +his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth watching and +criticising the game, pleased that the “childer” were amused. Then he +began to be amused himself, and in a few minutes more he was down on +his knees taking a hand; Emmeline, a poor player and an unenthusiastic +one, withdrawing in his favour. + +After that it was a common thing to see them playing together, the old +sailor on his knees, one eye shut, and a marble against the nail of his +horny thumb taking aim; Dick and Emmeline on the watch to make sure he +was playing fair, their shrill voices echoing amidst the cocoa-nut +trees with cries of “Knuckle down, Paddy, knuckle down!” He entered +into all their amusements just as one of themselves. On high and rare +occasions Emmeline would open her precious box, spread its contents and +give a tea-party, Mr Button acting as guest or president as the case +might be. + +“Is your tay to your likin’, ma’am?” he would enquire; and Emmeline, +sipping at her tiny cup, would invariably make answer: “Another lump of +sugar, if you please, Mr Button;” to which would come the stereotyped +reply: “Take a dozen, and welcome; and another cup for the good of your +make.” + +Then Emmeline would wash the things in imaginary water, replace them in +the box, and every one would lose their company manners and become +quite natural again. + +“Have you ever seen your name, Paddy?” asked Dick one morning. + +“Seen me which?” + +“Your name?” + +“Arrah, don’t be axin’ me questions,” replied the other. “How the divil +could I see me name?” + +“Wait and I’ll show you,” replied Dick. + +He ran and fetched a piece of cane, and a minute later on the +salt-white sand in face of orthography and the sun appeared these +portentous letters: + +B U T T E N + +“Faith, an’ it’s a cliver boy y’are,” said Mr Button admiringly, as he +leaned luxuriously against a cocoa-nut tree, and contemplated Dick’s +handiwork. “And that’s me name, is it? What’s the letters in it?” + +Dick enumerated them. + +“I’ll teach you to do it, too,” he said. “I’ll teach you to write your +name, Paddy—would you like to write your name, Paddy?” + +“No,” replied the other, who only wanted to be let smoke his pipe in +peace; “me name’s no use to me.” + +But Dick, with the terrible gadfly tirelessness of childhood, was not +to be put off, and the unfortunate Mr Button had to go to school +despite himself. In a few days he could achieve the act of drawing upon +the sand characters somewhat like the above, but not without prompting, +Dick and Emmeline on each side of him, breathless for fear of a mistake. + +“Which next?” would ask the sweating scribe, the perspiration pouring +from his forehead—“which next? an’ be quick, for it’s moithered I am.” + +“N. N.—that’s right—Ow, you’re making it crooked!—_that’s_ +right—there! it’s all there now—Hurroo!” + +“Hurroo!” would answer the scholar, waving his old hat over his own +name, and “Hurroo!” would answer the cocoa-nut grove echoes; whilst the +far, faint “Hi hi!” of the wheeling gulls on the reef would come over +the blue lagoon as if in acknowledgment of the deed, and encouragement. + +The appetite comes with teaching. The pleasantest mental exercise of +childhood is the instruction of one’s elders. Even Emmeline felt this. +She took the geography class one day in a timid manner, putting her +little hand first in the great horny fist of her friend. + +“Mr Button!” + +“Well, honey?” + +“I know g’ography.” + +“And what’s that?” asked Mr Button. + +This stumped Emmeline for a moment. + +“It’s where places are,” she said at last. + +“Which places?” enquired he. + +“All sorts of places,” replied Emmeline. “Mr Button!” + +“What is it, darlin’?” + +“Would you like to learn g’ography?” + +“I’m not wishful for larnin’,” said the other hurriedly. “It makes me +head buzz to hear them things they rade out of books.” + +“Paddy,” said Dick, who was strong on drawing that afternoon, “look +here.” He drew the following on the sand: + +[Illustration: A bad drawing of an elephant] + +“That’s an elephant,” he said in a dubious voice. + +Mr Button grunted, and the sound was by no means filled with +enthusiastic assent. A chill fell on the proceedings. + +Dick wiped the elephant slowly and regretfully out, whilst Emmeline +felt disheartened. Then her face suddenly cleared; the seraphic smile +came into it for a moment—a bright idea had struck her. + +“Dicky,” she said, “draw Henry the Eight.” + +Dick’s face brightened. He cleared the sand and drew the following +figure: + + l l + <[ ]> + / \ + +“_That’s_ not Henry the Eight,” he explained, “but he will be in a +minute. Daddy showed me how to draw him; he’s nothing till he gets his +hat on.” + +“Put his hat on, put his hat on!” implored Emmeline, gazing alternately +from the figure on the sand to Mr Button’s face, watching for the +delighted smile with which she was sure the old man would greet the +great king when he appeared in all his glory. + +Then Dick with a single stroke of the cane put Henry’s hat on. + + === l + l l + <[ ]> + / \ + +Now, no portrait could be liker to his monk-hunting majesty than the +above, created with one stroke of a cane (so to speak), yet Mr Button +remained unmoved. + +“I did it for Mrs Sims,” said Dick regretfully, “and _she_ said it was +the image of him.” + +“Maybe the hat’s not big enough,” said Emmeline, turning her head from +side to side as she gazed at the picture. It looked right, but she felt +there must be something wrong, as Mr Button did not applaud. Has not +every true artist felt the same before the silence of some critic? + +Mr Button tapped the ashes out of his pipe and rose to stretch himself, +and the class rose and trooped down to the lagoon edge, leaving Henry +and his hat a figure on the sand to be obliterated by the wind. + +After a while, as time went on, Mr Button took to his lessons as a +matter of course, the small inventions of the children assisting their +utterly untrustworthy knowledge. Knowledge, perhaps, as useful as any +other there amidst the lovely poetry of the palm trees and the sky. + +Days slipped into weeks, and weeks into months, without the appearance +of a ship—a fact which gave Mr Button very little trouble; and even +less to his charges, who were far too busy and amused to bother about +ships. + +The rainy season came on them with a rush, and at the words “rainy +season” do not conjure up in your mind the vision of a rainy day in +Manchester. + +The rainy season here was quite a lively time. Torrential showers +followed by bursts of sunshine, rainbows, and rain-dogs in the sky, and +the delicious perfume of all manner of growing things on the earth. + +After the rains the old sailor said he’d be after making a house of +bamboos before the next rains came on them; but, maybe, before that +they’d be off the island. + +“However,” said he, “I’ll dra’ you a picture of what it’ll be like when +it’s up;” and on the sand he drew a figure like this: + +X + +Having thus drawn the plans of the building, he leaned back against a +cocoa-palm and lit his pipe. But he had reckoned without Dick. + +The boy had not the least wish to live in a house, but he had a keen +desire to see one built, and help to build one. The ingenuity which is +part of the multiform basis of the American nature was aroused. + +“How’re you going to keep them from slipping, if you tie them together +like that?” he asked, when Paddy had more fully explained his method. + +“Which from slippin’?” + +“The canes—one from the other?” + +“After you’ve fixed thim, one cross t’other, you drive a nail through +the cross-piece and a rope over all.” + +“Have you any nails, Paddy?” + +“No,” said Mr Button, “I haven’t.” + +“Then how’re you goin’ to build the house?” + +“Ax me no questions now; I want to smoke me pipe.” + +But he had raised a devil difficult to lay. Morning, noon, and night it +was “Paddy, when are you going to begin the house?” or, “Paddy, I guess +I’ve got a way to make the canes stick together without nailing.” Till +Mr Button, in despair, like a beaver, began to build. + +There was great cane-cutting in the cane-brake above, and, when +sufficient had been procured, Mr Button struck work for three days. He +would have struck altogether, but he had found a taskmaster. + +The tireless Dick, young and active, with no original laziness in his +composition, no old bones to rest, or pipe to smoke, kept after him +like a bluebottle fly. It was in vain that he tried to stave him off +with stories about fairies and Cluricaunes. Dick wanted to build a +house. + +Mr Button didn’t. He wanted to rest. He did not mind fishing or +climbing a cocoa-nut tree, which he did to admiration by passing a rope +round himself and the tree, knotting it, and using it as a support +during the climb; but house-building was monotonous work. + +He said he had no nails. Dick countered by showing how the canes could +be held together by notching them. + +“And, faith, but it’s a cliver boy you are,” said the weary one +admiringly, when the other had explained his method. + +“Then come along, Paddy, and stick ’em up.” + +Mr Button said he had no rope, that he’d have to think about it, that +to-morrow or next day he’d be after getting some notion how to do it +without rope. But Dick pointed out that the brown cloth which Nature +has wrapped round the cocoa-palm stalks would do instead of rope if cut +in strips. Then the badgered one gave in. + +They laboured for a fortnight at the thing, and at the end of that time +had produced a rough sort of wigwam on the borders of the chapparel. + +Out on the reef, to which they often rowed in the dinghy, when the tide +was low, deep pools would be left, and in the pools fish. Paddy said +if they had a spear they might be able to spear some of these fish, as +he had seen the natives do away “beyant” in Tahiti. + +Dick enquired as to the nature of a spear, and next day produced a +ten-foot cane sharpened at the end after the fashion of a quill pen. + +“Sure, what’s the use of that?” said Mr Button. “You might job it into +a fish, but he’d be aff it in two ticks; it’s the barb that holds them.” + +Next day the indefatigable one produced the cane amended; he had +whittled it down about three feet from the end and on one side, and +carved a fairly efficient barb. It was good enough, at all events, to +spear a “groper” with, that evening, in the sunset-lit pools of the +reef at low tide. + +“There aren’t any potatoes here,” said Dick one day, after the second +rains. + +“We’ve et ’em all months ago,” replied Paddy. + +“How do potatoes grow?” enquired Dick. + +“Grow, is it? Why, they grow in the ground; and where else would they +grow?” He explained the process of potato-planting: cutting them into +pieces so that there was an eye in each piece, and so forth. “Having +done this,” said Mr Button, “you just chuck the pieces in the ground; +their eyes grow, green leaves ‘pop up,’ and then, if you dug the roots +up maybe, six months after, you’d find bushels of potatoes in the +ground, ones as big as your head, and weeny ones. It’s like a family of +childer—some’s big and some’s little. But there they are in the +ground, and all you have to do is to take a fark and dig a potful of +them with a turn of your wrist, as many a time I’ve done it in the ould +days.” + +“Why didn’t we do that?” asked Dick. + +“Do what?” asked Mr Button. + +“Plant some of the potatoes.” + +“And where’d we have found the spade to plant them with?” + +“I guess we could have fixed up a spade,” replied the boy. “I made a +spade at home, out of a piece of old board, once—daddy helped.” + +“Well, skelp off with you, and make a spade now,” replied the other, +who wanted to be quiet and think, “and you and Em’line can dig in the +sand.” + +Emmeline was sitting near by, stringing together some gorgeous blossoms +on a tendril of liana. Months of sun and ozone had made a considerable +difference in the child. She was as brown as a gipsy and freckled, not +very much taller, but twice as plump. Her eyes had lost considerably +that look as though she were contemplating futurity and immensity—not +as abstractions, but as concrete images, and she had lost the habit of +sleep-walking. + +The shock of the tent coming down on the first night she was tethered +to the scull had broken her of it, helped by the new healthful +conditions of life, the sea-bathing, and the eternal open air. There is +no narcotic to excel fresh air. + +Months of semi-savagery had made also a good deal of difference in +Dick’s appearance. He was two inches taller than on the day they +landed. Freckled and tanned, he had the appearance of a boy of twelve. +He was the promise of a fine man. He was not a good-looking child, but +he was healthy-looking, with a jolly laugh, and a daring, almost +impudent expression of face. + +The question of the children’s clothes was beginning to vex the mind of +the old sailor. The climate was a suit of clothes in itself. One was +much happier with almost nothing on. Of course there were changes of +temperature, but they were slight. Eternal summer, broken by torrential +rains, and occasionally a storm, that was the climate of the island; +still, the “childer” couldn’t go about with nothing on. + +He took some of the striped flannel and made Emmeline a kilt. It was +funny to see him sitting on the sand, Emmeline standing before him with +her garment round her waist, being tried on; he, with a mouthful of +pins, and the housewife with the scissors, needles, and thread by his +side. + +“Turn to the lift a bit more,” he’d say, “aisy does it. Stidy +so—musha! musha! where’s thim scissors? Dick, be holdin’ the end of +this bit of string till I get the stitches in behint. Does that hang +comfortable?—well, an’ you’re the trouble an’ all. How’s _that_? That’s +aisier, is it? Lift your fut till I see if it comes to your knees. Now +off with it, and lave me alone till I stitch the tags to it.” + +It was the mixture of a skirt and the idea of a sail, for it had two +rows of reef points; a most ingenious idea, as it could be reefed if +the child wanted to go paddling, or in windy weather. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE DEVIL’S CASK + +One morning, about a week after the day on which the old sailor, to use +his own expression, had bent a skirt on Emmeline, Dick came through the +woods and across the sands running. He had been on the hill-top. + +“Paddy,” he cried to the old man, who was fixing a hook on a +fishing-line, “there’s a ship!” + +It did not take Mr Button long to reach the hill-top, and there she +was, beating up for the island. Bluff-bowed and squab, the figure of an +old Dutch woman, and telling of her trade a league off. It was just +after the rains, the sky was not yet quite clear of clouds; you could +see showers away at sea, and the sea was green and foam-capped. + +There was the trying-out gear; there were the boats, the crow’s nest, +and all complete, and labelling her a whaler. She was a ship, no doubt, +but Paddy Button would as soon have gone on board a ship manned by +devils, and captained by Lucifer, as on board a South Sea whaleman. He +had been there before, and he knew. + +He hid the children under a large banyan, and told them not to stir or +breathe till he came back, for the ship was “the devil’s own ship”; and +if the men on board caught them they’d skin them alive and all. + +Then he made for the beach; he collected all the things out of the +wigwam, and all the old truck in the shape of boots and old clothes, +and stowed them away in the dinghy. He would have destroyed the house, +if he could, but he hadn’t time. Then he rowed the dinghy a hundred +yards down the lagoon to the left, and moored her under the shade of an +aoa, whose branches grew right over the water. Then he came back +through the cocoa-nut grove on foot, and peered through the trees over +the lagoon to see what was to be seen. + +The wind was blowing dead on for the opening in the reef, and the old +whaleman came along breasting the swell with her bluff bows, and +entered the lagoon. There was no leadsman in her chains. She just came +in as if she knew all the soundings by heart—as probably she did—for +these whalemen know every hole and corner in the Pacific. + +The anchor fell with a splash, and she swung to it, making a strange +enough picture as she floated on the blue mirror, backed by the +graceful palm tree on the reef. Then Mr Button, without waiting to see +the boats lowered, made back to his charges, and the three camped in +the woods that night. + +Next morning the whaleman was off and away, leaving as a token of her +visit the white sand all trampled, an empty bottle, half an old +newspaper, and the wigwam torn to pieces. + +The old sailor cursed her and her crew, for the incident had brought a +new exercise into his lazy life. Every day now at noon he had to climb +the hill, on the look-out for whalemen. Whalemen haunted his dreams, +though I doubt if he would willingly have gone on board even a Royal +Mail steamer. He was quite happy where he was. After long years of the +fo’cs’le the island was a change indeed. He had tobacco enough to last +him for an indefinite time, the children for companions, and food at +his elbow. He would have been entirely happy if the island had only +been supplied by Nature with a public-house. + +The spirit of hilarity and good fellowship, however, who suddenly +discovered this error on the part of Nature, rectified it, as will be +presently seen. + +The most disastrous result of the whaleman’s visit was not the +destruction of the “house,” but the disappearance of Emmeline’s box. +Hunt high or hunt low, it could not be found. Mr Button in his hurry +must have forgotten it when he removed the things to the dinghy—at all +events, it was gone. Probably one of the crew of the whalemen had found +it and carried it off with him; no one could say. It was gone, and +there was the end of the matter, and the beginning of great +tribulation, that lasted Emmeline for a week. + +She was intensely fond of coloured things, coloured flowers especially; +and she had the prettiest way of making them into a wreath for her own +or some one else’s head. It was the hat-making instinct that was at work +in her, perhaps; at all events, it was a feminine instinct, for Dick +made no wreaths. + +One morning, as she was sitting by the old sailor engaged in stringing +shells, Dick came running along the edge of the grove. He had just come +out of the wood, and he seemed to be looking for something. Then he +found what he was in search of—a big shell—and with it in his hand +made back to the wood. + +_Item._—His dress was a piece of cocoa-nut cloth tied round his middle. +Why he wore it at all, goodness knows, for he would as often as not be +running about stark naked. + +“I’ve found something, Paddy!” he cried, as he disappeared among the +trees. + +“What have you found?” piped Emmeline, who was always interested in new +things. + +“Something funny!” came back from amidst the trees. + +Presently he returned; but he was not running now. He was walking +slowly and carefully, holding the shell as if it contained something +precious that he was afraid would escape. + +“Paddy, I turned over the old barrel and it had a cork thing in it, and +I pulled it out, and the barrel is full of awfully funny-smelling +stuff—I’ve brought some for you to see.” + +He gave the shell into the old sailor’s hands. There was about half a +gill of yellow liquid in the shell. Paddy smelt it, tasted, and gave a +shout. + +“Rum, begorra!” + +“What is it, Paddy?” asked Emmeline. + +“_Where_ did you say you got it—in the ould bar’l, did you say?” asked +Mr Button, who seemed dazed and stunned as if by a blow. + +“Yes; I pulled the cork thing out—” + +“_Did yiz put it back?_” + +“Yes.” + +“Oh, glory be to God! Here have I been, time out of mind, sittin’ on an +ould empty bar’l, with me tongue hangin’ down to me heels for the want +of a drink, and it full of rum all the while!” + +He took a sip of the stuff, tossed the lot off, closed his lips tight +to keep in the fumes, and shut one eye. + +Emmeline laughed. + +Mr Button scrambled to his feet. They followed him through the +chapparel till they reached the water source. There lay the little +green barrel; turned over by the restless Dick, it lay with its bung +pointing to the leaves above. You could see the hollow it had made in +the soft soil during the years. So green was it, and so like an object +of nature, a bit of old tree-bole, or a lichen-stained boulder, that +though the whalemen had actually watered from the source, its real +nature had not been discovered. + +Mr Button tapped on it with the butt end of the shell: it was nearly +full. Why it had been left there, by whom, or how, there was no one to +tell. The old lichen-covered skulls might have told, could they have +spoken. + +“We’ll rowl it down to the beach,” said Paddy, when he had taken +another taste of it. + +He gave Dick a sip. The boy spat it out, and made a face, then, pushing +the barrel before them, they began to roll it downhill to the beach, +Emmeline running before them crowned with flowers. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE RAT HUNT + +They had dinner at noon. Paddy knew how to cook fish, island fashion, +wrapping them in leaves, and baking them in a hole in the ground in +which a fire had previously been lit. They had fish and taro root +baked, and green cocoa-nuts; and after dinner Mr Button filled a big +shell with rum, and lit his pipe. + +The rum had been good originally, and age had improved it. Used as he +was to the appalling balloon juice sold in the drinking dens of the +“Barbary coast” at San Francisco, or the public-houses of the docks, +this stuff was nectar. + +Joviality radiated from him: it was infectious. The children felt that +some happy influence had fallen upon their friend. Usually after dinner +he was drowsy and “wishful to be quiet.” To-day he told them stories of +the sea, and sang them songs—chantys: + + “I’m a flyin’ fish sailor come back from Hong Kong, + Yeo ho! blow the man down. + Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down, + Oh, give us _time_ to blow the man down. + You’re a dhirty black-baller come back from New York, + Yeo ho! blow the man down, + Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down. + Oh, give us time to blow the man down.” + +“Oh, give us _time_ to blow the man down!” echoed Dick and Emmeline. + +Up above, in the trees, the bright-eyed birds were watching them—such +a happy party. They had all the appearance of picnickers, and the song +echoed amongst the cocoa-nut trees, and the wind carried it over the +lagoon to where the sea-gulls were wheeling and screaming, and the foam +was thundering on the reef. + +That evening, Mr Button feeling inclined for joviality, and not wishing +the children to see him under the influence, rolled the barrel through +the cocoa-nut grove to a little clearing by the edge of the water. +There, when the children were in bed and asleep, he repaired with some +green cocoa-nuts and a shell. He was generally musical when amusing +himself in this fashion, and Emmeline, waking up during the night, +heard his voice borne through the moonlit cocoa-nut grove by the wind: + + “There were five or six old drunken sailors + Standin’ before the bar, + And Larry, he was servin’ them + From a big five-gallon jar. + + “_Chorus._— + Hoist up the flag, long may it wave! + Long may it lade us to glory or the grave. + Stidy, boys, stidy—sound the jubilee, + For Babylon has fallen, and the niggers are all set free.” + +Next morning the musician awoke beside the cask. He had not a trace of +a headache, or any bad feeling, but he made Dick do the cooking; and he +lay in the shade of the cocoa-nut trees, with his head on a “pilla” +made out of an old coat rolled up, twiddling his thumbs, smoking his +pipe, and discoursing about the “ould” days, half to himself and half +to his companions. + +That night he had another musical evening all to himself, and so it +went on for a week. Then he began to lose his appetite and sleep; and +one morning Dick found him sitting on the sand looking very queer +indeed—as well he might, for he had been “seeing things” since dawn. + +“What is it, Paddy?” said the boy, running up, followed by Emmeline. + +Mr Button was staring at a point on the sand close by. He had his right +hand raised after the manner of a person who is trying to catch a fly. +Suddenly he made a grab at the sand, and then opened his hand wide to +see what he had caught. + +“What is it, Paddy?” + +“The Cluricaune,” replied Mr Button. “All dressed in green he +was—musha! musha! but it’s only pretindin’ I am.” + +The complaint from which he was suffering has this strange thing about +it, that, though the patient sees rats, or snakes, or what not, as +real-looking as the real things, and though they possess his mind for a +moment, almost immediately he recognises that he is suffering from a +delusion. + +The children laughed, and Mr Button laughed in a stupid sort of way. + +“Sure, it was only a game I was playin’—there was no Cluricaune at +all—it’s whin I dhrink rum it puts it into me head to play games like +that. Oh, be the Holy Poker, there’s red rats comin’ out of the sand!” + +He got on his hands and knees and scuttled off towards the cocoa-nut +trees, looking over his shoulder with a bewildered expression on his +face. He would have risen to fly, only he dared not stand up. + +The children laughed and danced round him as he crawled. + +“Look at the rats, Paddy! look at the rats!” cried Dick. + +“They’re in front of me!” cried the afflicted one, making a vicious +grab at an imaginary rodent’s tail. “Ran dan the bastes!—now they’re +gone. Musha, but it’s a fool I’m makin’ of meself.” + +“Go on, Paddy,” said Dick; “don’t stop— Look there—there’s more rats +coming after you!” + +“Oh, whisht, will you?” replied Paddy, taking his seat on the sand, and +wiping his brow. “They’re aff me now.” + +The children stood by, disappointed of their game. Good acting appeals +to children just as much as to grown-up people. They stood waiting for +another access of humour to take the comedian, and they had not to wait +long. + +A thing like a flayed horse came out of the lagoon and up the beach, +and this time Mr Button did not crawl away. He got on his feet and ran. + +“It’s a harse that’s afther me—it’s a harse that’s afther me! Dick! +Dick! hit him a skelp. Dick! Dick! dhrive him away.” + +“Hurroo! Hurroo!” cried Dick, chasing the afflicted one, who was +running in a wide circle, his broad red face slewed over his left +shoulder. “Go it, Paddy! go it, Paddy!” + +“Kape off me, you baste!” shouted Paddy. “Holy Mary, Mother of God! +I’ll land you a kick wid me fut if yiz come nigh me. Em’leen! Em’leen! +come betune us!” + +He tripped, and over he went on the sand, the indefatigable Dick +beating him with a little switch he had picked up to make him continue. + +“I’m better now, but I’m near wore out,” said Mr Button, sitting up on +the sand. “But, bedad, if I’m chased by any more things like them it’s +into the say I’ll be dashin’. Dick, lend me your arum.” + +He took Dick’s arm and wandered over to the shade of the trees. Here +he threw himself down, and told the children to leave him to sleep. +They recognised that the game was over and left him. And he slept for +six hours on end; it was the first real sleep he had had for several +days. When he awoke he was well, but very shaky. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +STARLIGHT ON THE FOAM + +Mr Button saw no more rats, much to Dick’s disappointment. He was off +the drink. At dawn next day he got up, refreshed by a second sleep, and +wandered down to the edge of the lagoon. The opening in the reef faced +the east, and the light of the dawn came rippling in with the flooding +tide. + +“It’s a baste I’ve been,” said the repentant one—“a brute baste.” + +He was quite wrong; as a matter of fact, he was only a man beset and +betrayed. + +He stood for a while, cursing the drink, “and them that sells it.” Then +he determined to put himself out of the way of temptation. Pull the +bung out of the barrel, and let the contents escape? + +Such a thought never even occurred to him—or, if it did, was instantly +dismissed; for, though an old sailor-man may curse the drink, good rum +is to him a sacred thing; and to empty half a little barrel of it into +the sea, would be an act almost equivalent to child-murder. He put the +cask into the dinghy, and rowed it over to the reef. There he placed it +in the shelter of a great lump of coral, and rowed back. + +Paddy had been trained all his life to rhythmical drunkenness. Four +months or so had generally elapsed between his bouts—sometimes six; it +all depended on the length of the voyage. Six months now elapsed before +he felt even an inclination to look at the rum cask, that tiny dark +spot away on the reef. And it was just as well, for during those six +months another whale-ship arrived, watered and was avoided. + +“Blisther it!” said he; “the say here seems to breed whale-ships, and +nothin’ but whale-ships. It’s like bugs in a bed: you kill wan, and then +another comes. Howsomever, we’re shut of thim for a while.” + +He walked down to the lagoon edge, looked at the little dark spot and +whistled. Then he walked back to prepare dinner. That little dark spot +began to trouble him after a while; not it, but the spirit it contained. + +Days grew long and weary, the days that had been so short and pleasant. +To the children there was no such thing as time. Having absolute and +perfect health, they enjoyed happiness as far as mortals can enjoy it. +Emmeline’s highly-strung nervous system, it is true, developed a +headache when she had been too long in the glare of the sun, but they +were few and far between. + +The spirit in the little cask had been whispering across the lagoon for +some weeks; at last it began to shout. Mr Button, metaphorically +speaking, stopped his ears. He busied himself with the children as much +as possible. He made another garment for Emmeline, and cut Dick’s hair +with the scissors (a job which was generally performed once in a couple +of months). + +One night, to keep the rum from troubling his head, he told them the +story of Jack Dogherty and the Merrow, which is well known on the +western coast. + +The Merrow takes Jack to dinner at the bottom of the sea, and shows him +the lobster pots wherein he keeps the souls of old sailor-men, and then +they have dinner, and the Merrow produces a big bottle of rum. + +It was a fatal story for him to remember and recount; for, after his +companions were asleep, the vision of the Merrow and Jack hobnobbing, +and the idea of the jollity of it, rose before him, and excited a +thirst for joviality not to be resisted. + +There were some green cocoa-nuts that he had plucked that day lying in +a little heap under a tree—half a dozen or so. He took several of +these and a shell, found the dinghy where it was moored to the aoa +tree, unmoored her, and pushed off into the lagoon. + +The lagoon and sky were full of stars. In the dark depths of the water +might have been seen phosphorescent gleams of passing fish, and the +thunder of the surf on the reef filled the night with its song. + +He fixed the boat’s painter carefully round a spike of coral and landed +on the reef, and with a shellful of rum and cocoa-nut lemonade mixed +half and half, he took his perch on a high ledge of coral from whence a +view of the sea and the coral strand could be obtained. + +On a moonlight night it was fine to sit here and watch the great +breakers coming in, all marbled and clouded and rainbowed with +spindrift and sheets of spray. But the snow and the song of them under +the diffused light of the stars produced a more indescribably beautiful +and strange effect. + +The tide was going out now, and Mr Button, as he sat smoking his pipe +and drinking his grog, could see bright mirrors here and there where +the water lay in rock-pools. When he had contemplated these sights for +a considerable time in complete contentment, he returned to the lagoon +side of the reef and sat down beside the little barrel. Then, after a +while, if you had been standing on the strand opposite, you would have +heard scraps of song borne across the quivering water of the lagoon. + + “Sailing down, sailing down + On the coast of Barbaree.” + +Whether the coast of Barbary in question is that at San Francisco, or +the true and proper coast, does not matter. It is an old-time song; and +when you hear it, whether on a reef of coral or a granite quay, you may +feel assured that an old-time sailor-man is singing it, and that the +old-time sailor-man is bemused. + +Presently the dinghy put off from the reef, the sculls broke the +starlit waters and great shaking circles of light made rhythmical +answer to the slow and steady creak of the thole pins against the +leather. He tied up to the aoa, saw that the sculls were safely +shipped; then, breathing heavily, he cast off his boots for fear of +waking the “childer.” As the children were sleeping more than two +hundred yards away, this was a needless precaution—especially as the +intervening distance was mostly soft sand. + +Green cocoa-nut juice and rum mixed together are pleasant enough to +drink, but they are better drunk separately; combined, not even the +brain of an old sailor can make anything of them but mist and +muddlement; that is to say, in the way of thought—in the way of action +they can make him do a lot. They made Paddy Button swim the lagoon. + +The recollection came to him all at once, as he was walking up the +strand towards the wigwam, that he had left the dinghy tied to the +reef. The dinghy was, as a matter of fact, safe and sound tied to the +aoa; but Mr Button’s memory told him it was tied to the reef. How he +had crossed the lagoon was of no importance at all to him; the fact +that he had crossed without the boat, yet without getting wet, did not +appear to him strange. He had no time to deal with trifles like these. +The dinghy had to be fetched across the lagoon, and there was only one +way of fetching it. So he came back down the beach to the water’s edge, +cast down his boots, cast off his coat, and plunged in. The lagoon was +wide, but in his present state of mind he would have swum the +Hellespont. His figure gone from the beach, the night resumed its +majesty and aspect of meditation. + +So lit was the lagoon by starshine that the head of the swimmer could +be distinguished away out in the midst of circles of light; also, as +the head neared the reef, a dark triangle that came shearing through +the water past the palm tree at the pier. It was the night patrol of the +lagoon, who had heard in some mysterious manner that a drunken +sailor-man was making trouble in his waters. + +Looking, one listened, hand on heart, for the scream of the arrested +one, yet it did not come. The swimmer, scrambling on to the reef in an +exhausted manner, forgetful evidently of the object for which he had +returned, made for the rum cask, and fell down beside it as though +sleep had touched him instead of death. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE DREAMER ON THE REEF + +“I wonder where Paddy is?” cried Dick next morning. He was coming out +of the chapparel pulling a dead branch after him. “He’s left his coat +on the sand, and the tinder box in it, so I’ll make the fire. There’s +no use waiting. I want my breakfast. Bother——” + +He trod the dead stick with his naked feet, breaking it into pieces. + +Emmeline sat on the sand and watched him. + +Emmeline had two gods of a sort: Paddy Button and Dick. Paddy was +almost an esoteric god wrapped in the fumes of tobacco and mystery. The +god of rolling ships and creaking masts—the masts and vast sail spaces +of the _Northumberland_ were an enduring vision in her mind—the deity +who had lifted her from a little boat into this marvellous place, where +the birds were coloured and the fish were painted, where life was never +dull, and the skies scarcely ever grey. + +Dick, the other deity, was a much more understandable personage, but no +less admirable, as a companion and protector. In the two years and five +months of island life he had grown nearly three inches. He was as +strong as a boy of twelve, and could scull the boat almost as well as +Paddy himself, and light a fire. Indeed, during the last few months Mr +Button, engaged in resting his bones, and contemplating rum as an +abstract idea, had left the cooking and fishing and general gathering +of food as much as possible to Dick. + +“It amuses the craythur to pritind he’s doing things,” he would say, +as he watched Dick delving in the earth to make a little +oven—island-fashion—for the cooking of fish or what not. + +“Come along, Em,” said Dick, piling the broken wood on top of some +rotten hibiscus sticks; “give me the tinder box.” + +He got a spark on to a bit of punk, and then he blew at it, looking not +unlike Æolus as represented on those old Dutch charts that smell of +schiedam and snuff, and give one mermaids and angels instead of +soundings. + +The fire was soon sparkling and crackling, and he heaped on sticks in +profusion, for there was plenty of fuel, and he wanted to cook +breadfruit. + +The breadfruit varies in size, according to age, and in colour +according to season. These that Dick was preparing to cook were as +large as small melons. Two would be more than enough for three people’s +breakfast. They were green and knobbly on the outside, and they +suggested to the mind unripe lemons, rather than bread. + +He put them in the embers, just as you put potatoes to roast, and +presently they sizzled and spat little venomous jets of steam, then +they cracked, and the white inner substance became visible. He cut +them open and took the core out—the core is not fit to eat—and they +were ready. + +Meanwhile, Emmeline, under his directions, had not been idle. + +There were in the lagoon—there are in several other tropical lagoons I +know of—a fish which I can only describe as a golden herring. A bronze +herring it looks when landed, but when swimming away down against the +background of coral brains and white sand patches, it has the sheen of +burnished gold. It is as good to eat as to look at, and Emmeline was +carefully toasting several of them on a piece of cane. + +The juice of the fish kept the cane from charring, though there were +accidents at times, when a whole fish would go into the fire, amidst +shouts of derision from Dick. + +She made a pretty enough picture as she knelt, the “skirt” round the +waist looking not unlike a striped bath-towel, her small face intent, +and filled with the seriousness of the job on hand, and her lips +puckered out at the heat of the fire. + +“It’s so hot!” she cried in self-defence, after the first of the +accidents. + +“Of course it’s hot,” said Dick, “if you stick to looward of the fire. +How often has Paddy told you to keep to windward of it!” + +“I don’t know which is which,” confessed the unfortunate Emmeline, who +was an absolute failure at everything practical: who could neither row +nor fish, nor throw a stone, and who, though they had now been on the +island twenty-eight months or so, could not even swim. + +“You mean to say,” said Dick, “that you don’t know where the wind comes +from?” + +“Yes, I know that.” + +“Well, that’s to windward.” + +“I didn’t know that.” + +“Well, you know it now.” + +“Yes, I know it now.” + +“Well, then, come to windward of the fire. Why didn’t you ask the +meaning of it before?” + +“I did,” said Emmeline; “I asked Mr Button one day, and he told me a +lot about it. He said if he was to spit to windward and a person was to +stand to loo’ard of him, he’d be a fool; and he said if a ship went too +much to loo’ard she went on the rocks, but I didn’t understand what he +meant. Dicky, I wonder where he is?” + +“Paddy!” cried Dick, pausing in the act of splitting open a breadfruit. +Echoes came from amidst the cocoa-nut trees, but nothing more. + +“Come on,” said Dick; “I’m not going to wait for him. He may have gone +to fetch up the night lines”—they sometimes put down night lines in +the lagoon—“and fallen asleep over them.” + +Now, though Emmeline honoured Mr Button as a minor deity, Dick had no +illusions at all upon the matter. He admired Paddy because he could +knot, and splice, and climb a cocoa-nut tree, and exercise his sailor +craft in other admirable ways, but he felt the old man’s limitations. +They ought to have had potatoes now, but they had eaten both potatoes +and the possibility of potatoes when they consumed the contents of that +half sack. Young as he was, Dick felt the absolute thriftlessness of +this proceeding. Emmeline did not; she never thought of potatoes, +though she could have told you the colour of all the birds on the +island. + +Then, again, the house wanted rebuilding, and Mr Button said every day +he would set about seeing after it to-morrow, and on the morrow it +would be to-morrow. The necessities of the life they led were a +stimulus to the daring and active mind of the boy; but he was always +being checked by the go-as-you-please methods of his elder. Dick came +of the people who make sewing machines and typewriters. Mr Button came +of a people notable for ballads, tender hearts, and potheen. That was +the main difference. + +“Paddy!” again cried the boy, when he had eaten as much as he wanted. +“Hullo! where are you?” + +They listened, but no answer came. A bright-hued bird flew across the +sand space, a lizard scuttled across the glistening sand, the reef +spoke, and the wind in the tree-tops; but Mr Button made no reply. + +“Wait,” said Dick. + +He ran through the grove towards the aoa where the dinghy was moored; +then he returned. + +“The dinghy is all right,” he said. “Where on earth can he be?” + +“I don’t know,” said Emmeline, upon whose heart a feeling of loneliness +had fallen. + +“Let’s go up the hill,” said Dick; “perhaps we’ll find him there.” + +They went uphill through the wood, past the water-course. Every now and +then Dick would call out, and echoes would answer—there were quaint, +moist-voiced echoes amidst the trees—or a bevy of birds would take +flight. The little waterfall gurgled and whispered, and the great +banana leaves spread their shade. + +“Come on,” said Dick, when he had called again without receiving a +reply. + +They found the hill-top, and the great boulder stood casting its shadow +in the sun. The morning breeze was blowing, the sea sparkling, the reef +flashing, the foliage of the island waving in the wind like the flames +of a green-flamed torch. A deep swell was spreading itself across the +bosom of the Pacific. Some hurricane away beyond the Navigators or +Gilberts had sent this message and was finding its echo here, a +thousand miles away, in the deeper thunder of the reef. + +Nowhere else in the world could you get such a picture, such a +combination of splendour and summer, such a vision of freshness and +strength, and the delight of morning. It was the smallness of the +island, perhaps, that closed the charm and made it perfect. Just a +bunch of foliage and flowers set in the midst of the blowing wind and +sparkling blue. + +Suddenly Dick, standing beside Emmeline on the rock, pointed with his +finger to the reef near the opening. + +“There he is!” cried he. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE GARLAND OF FLOWERS + +You could just make the figure out lying on the reef near the little +cask, and comfortably sheltered from the sun by an upstanding lump of +coral. + +“He’s asleep,” said Dick. + +He had not thought to look towards the reef from the beach, or he might +have seen the figure before. + +“Dicky!” said Emmeline. + +“Well?” + +“How did he get over, if you said the dinghy was tied to the tree?” + +“I don’t know,” said Dick, who had not thought of this; “there he is, +anyhow. I’ll tell you what, Em, we’ll row across and wake him. I’ll boo +into his ear and make him jump.” + +They got down from the rock, and came back down through the wood. As +they came Emmeline picked flowers and began making them up into one of +her wreaths. Some scarlet hibiscus, some bluebells, a couple of pale +poppies with furry stalks and bitter perfume. + +“What are you making that for?” asked Dick, who always viewed +Emmeline’s wreath-making with a mixture of compassion and vague disgust. + +“I’m going to put it on Mr Button’s head,” said Emmeline; “so’s when +you say boo into his ear he’ll jump up with it on.” + +Dick chuckled with pleasure at the idea of the practical joke, and +almost admitted in his own mind for a moment, that after all there +might be a use for such futilities as wreaths. + +The dinghy was moored under the spreading shade of the aoa, the painter +tied to one of the branches that projected over the water. These dwarf +aoas branch in an extraordinary way close to the ground, throwing out +limbs like rails. The tree had made a good protection for the little +boat, protecting it from marauding hands and from the sun; besides the +protection of the tree Paddy had now and then scuttled the boat in +shallow water. It was a new boat to start with, and with precautions +like these might be expected to last many years. + +“Get in,” said Dick, pulling on the painter so that the bow of the +dinghy came close to the beach. + +Emmeline got carefully in, and went aft. Then Dick got in, pushed off, +and took to the sculls. Next moment they were out on the sparkling +water. + +Dick rowed cautiously, fearing to wake the sleeper. He fastened the +painter to the coral spike that seemed set there by nature for the +purpose. He scrambled on to the reef, and lying down on his stomach +drew the boat’s gunwale close up so that Emmeline might land. He had no +boots on; the soles of his feet, from constant exposure, had become +insensitive as leather. + +Emmeline also was without boots. The soles of her feet, as is always +the case with highly nervous people, were sensitive, and she walked +delicately, avoiding the worst places, holding her wreath in her right +hand. + +It was full tide, and the thunder of the waves outside shook the reef. +It was like being in a church when the deep bass of the organ is turned +full on, shaking the ground and the air, the walls and the roof. Dashes +of spray came over with the wind, and the melancholy “Hi, hi!” of the +wheeling gulls came like the voices of ghostly sailor-men hauling at +the halyards. + +Paddy was lying on his right side steeped in profound oblivion. His +face was buried in the crook of his right arm, and his brown tattooed +left hand lay on his left thigh, palm upwards. He had no hat, and the +breeze stirred his grizzled hair. + +Dick and Emmeline stole up to him till they got right beside him. Then +Emmeline, flashing out a laugh, flung the little wreath of flowers on +the old man’s head, and Dick, popping down on his knees, shouted into +his ear. But the dreamer did not stir or move a finger. + +“Paddy,” cried Dick, “wake up! wake up!” + +He pulled at the shoulder till the figure from its sideways posture +fell over on its back. The eyes were wide open and staring. The mouth +hung open, and from the mouth darted a little crab; it scuttled over +the chin and dropped on the coral. + +Emmeline screamed, and screamed, and would have fallen, but the boy +caught her in his arms—one side of the face had been destroyed by the +larvæ of the rocks. + +He held her to him as he stared at the terrible figure lying upon its +back, hands outspread. Then, wild with terror, he dragged her towards +the little boat. She was struggling, and panting and gasping, like a +person drowning in ice-cold water. + +His one instinct was to escape, to fly—anywhere, no matter where. He +dragged the girl to the coral edge, and pulled the boat up close. Had +the reef suddenly become enveloped in flames he could not have exerted +himself more to escape from it and save his companion. A moment later +they were afloat, and he was pulling wildly for the shore. + +He did not know what had happened, nor did he pause to think: he was +fleeing from horror—nameless horror; whilst the child at his feet, +with her head resting against the gunwale, stared up open-eyed and +speechless at the great blue sky, as if at some terror visible there. +The boat grounded on the white sand, and the wash of the incoming tide +drove it up sideways. + +Emmeline had fallen forward; she had lost consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +ALONE + +The idea of spiritual life must be innate in the heart of man, for all +that terrible night, when the children lay huddled together in the +little hut in the chapparel, the fear that filled them was that their +old friend might suddenly darken the entrance and seek to lie down +beside them. + +They did not speak about him. Something had been done to him; something +had happened. Something terrible had happened to the world they knew. +But they dared not speak of it or question each other. + +Dick had carried his companion to the hut when he left the boat, and +hidden with her there; the evening had come on, and the night, and now +in the darkness, without having tasted food all day, he was telling her +not to be afraid, that he would take care of her. But not a word of +the thing that had happened. + +The thing, for them, had no precedent, and no vocabulary. They had come +across death raw and real, uncooked by religion, undeodorised by the +sayings of sages and poets. + +They knew nothing of the philosophy that tells us that death is the +common lot, and the natural sequence to birth, or the religion that +teaches us that Death is the door to Life. + +A dead old sailor-man lying like a festering carcass on a coral ledge, +eyes staring and glazed and fixed, a wide-open mouth that once had +spoken comforting words, and now spoke living crabs. + +That was the vision before them. They did not philosophise about it; +and though they were filled with terror, I do not think it was terror +that held them from speaking about it, but a vague feeling that what +they had beheld was obscene, unspeakable, and a thing to avoid. + +Lestrange had brought them up in his own way. He had told them there +was a good God who looked after the world; determined as far as he +could to exclude demonology and sin and death from their knowledge, he +had rested content with the bald statement that there was a good God +who looked after the world, without explaining fully that the same God +would torture them for ever and ever, should they fail to believe in +Him or keep His commandments. + +This knowledge of the Almighty, therefore, was but a half knowledge, +the vaguest abstraction. Had they been brought up, however, in the most +strictly Calvinistic school, this knowledge of Him would have been no +comfort now. Belief in God is no comfort to a frightened child. Teach +him as many parrot-like prayers as you please, and in distress or the +dark of what use are they to him? His cry is for his nurse, or his +mother. + +During that dreadful night these two children had no comfort to seek +anywhere in the whole wide universe but in each other. She, in a sense +of his protection, he, in a sense of being her protector. The +manliness in him greater and more beautiful than physical strength, +developed in those dark hours just as a plant under extraordinary +circumstances is hurried into bloom. + +Towards dawn Emmeline fell asleep. Dick stole out of the hut when he +had assured himself from her regular breathing that she was asleep, +and, pushing the tendrils and the branches of the mammee apples aside, +found the beach. The dawn was just breaking, and the morning breeze was +coming in from the sea. + +When he had beached the dinghy the day before, the tide was just at the +flood, and it had left her stranded. The tide was coming in now, and in +a short time it would be far enough up to push her off. + +Emmeline in the night had implored him to take her away. Take her away +somewhere from there, and he had promised, without knowing in the least +how he was to perform his promise. As he stood looking at the beach, so +desolate and strangely different now from what it was the day before, +an idea of how he could fulfil his promise came to him. He ran down to +where the little boat lay on the shelving sand, with the ripples of the +incoming tide just washing the rudder, which was still shipped. He +unshipped the rudder and came back. + +Under a tree, covered with the stay-sail they had brought from the +_Shenandoah_, lay most of their treasures: old clothes and boots, and all +the other odds and ends. The precious tobacco stitched up in a piece of +canvas was there, and the housewife with the needles and threads. A +hole had been dug in the sand as a sort of _cache_ for them, and the +stay-sail put over them to protect them from the dew. + +The sun was now looking over the sea-line, and the tall cocoa-nut trees +were singing and whispering together under the strengthening breeze. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THEY MOVE AWAY + +He began to collect the things, and carry them to the dinghy. He took +the stay-sail and everything that might be useful; and when he had +stowed them in the boat, he took the breaker and filled it with water +at the water source in the wood; he collected some bananas and +breadfruit, and stowed them in the dinghy with the breaker. Then he +found the remains of yesterday’s breakfast, which he had hidden between +two palmetto leaves, and placed it also in the boat. + +The water was now so high that a strong push would float her. He turned +back to the hut for Emmeline. She was still asleep: so soundly asleep, +that when he lifted her up in his arms she made no movement. He placed +her carefully in the stern-sheets with her head on the sail rolled up, +and then standing in the bow pushed off with a scull. Then, taking the +sculls, he turned the boat’s head up the lagoon to the left. He kept +close to the shore, but for the life of him he could not help lifting +his eyes and looking towards the reef. + +Round a certain spot on the distant white coral there was a great +commotion of birds. Huge birds some of them seemed, and the “Hi! hi! +hi!” of them came across the lagoon on the breeze as they quarrelled +together and beat the air with their wings. He turned his head away +till a bend of the shore hid the spot from sight. + +Here, sheltered more completely than opposite the break in the reef, +the artu trees came in places right down to the water’s edge; the +breadfruit trees cast the shadow of their great scalloped leaves upon +the water; glades, thick with fern, wildernesses of the mammee apple, +and bushes of the scarlet “wild cocoa-nut” all slipped by, as the +dinghy, hugging the shore, crept up the lagoon. + +Gazing at the shore edge one might have imagined it the edge of a lake, +but for the thunder of the Pacific upon the distant reef; and even that +did not destroy the impression, but only lent a strangeness to it. + +A lake in the midst of the ocean, that is what the lagoon really was. + +Here and there cocoa-nut trees slanted over the water, mirroring their +delicate stems, and tracing their clear-cut shadows on the sandy bottom +a fathom deep below. + +He kept close in-shore for the sake of the shelter of the trees. His +object was to find some place where they might stop permanently, and +put up a tent. He was seeking a new home, in fact. But, pretty as were +the glades they passed, they were not attractive places to live in. +There were too many trees, or the ferns were too deep. He was seeking +air and space, and suddenly he found it. Rounding a little cape, all +blazing with the scarlet of the wild cocoa-nut, the dinghy broke into a +new world. + +Before her lay a great sweep of the palest blue wind-swept water, down +to which came a broad green sward of park-like land set on either side +with deep groves, and leading up and away to higher land, where, above +the massive and motionless green of the great breadfruit trees, the +palm trees swayed and fluttered their pale green feathers in the +breeze. The pale colour of the water was due to the extreme shallowness +of the lagoon just here. So shallow was it that one could see brown +spaces indicating beds of dead and rotten coral, and splashes of +darkest sapphire where the deep pools lay. The reef lay more than half +a mile from the shore: a great way out, it seemed, so far out that its +cramping influence was removed, and one had the impression of wide and +unbroken sea. + +Dick rested on his oars, and let the dinghy float whilst he looked +around him. He had come some four miles and a half, and this was right +at the back of the island. As the boat drifting shoreward touched the +bank, Emmeline awakened from her sleep, sat up, and looked around her. + + + + +BOOK II + + +PART I + +CHAPTER I + +UNDER THE ARTU TREE + +On the edge of the green sward, between a diamond-chequered artu trunk +and the massive bole of a breadfruit, a house had come into being. It +was not much larger than a big hen-house, but quite sufficient for the +needs of two people in a climate of eternal summer. It was built of +bamboos, and thatched with a double thatch of palmetto leaves, so +neatly built, and so well thatched, that one might have fancied it the +production of several skilled workmen. + +The breadfruit tree was barren of fruit, as these trees sometimes are, +whole groves of them ceasing to bear for some mysterious reason only +known to Nature. It was green now, but when suffering its yearly change +the great scalloped leaves would take all imaginable tinges of gold and +bronze and amber. Beyond the artu was a little clearing, where the +chapparel had been carefully removed and taro roots planted. + +Stepping from the house doorway on to the sward you might have fancied +yourself, except for the tropical nature of the foliage, in some +English park. + +Looking to the right, the eye became lost in the woods, where all tints +of green were tinging the foliage, and the bushes of the wild cocoa-nut +burned scarlet as haw-berries. + +The house had a doorway, but no door. It might have been said to have a +double roof, for the breadfruit foliage above gave good shelter during +the rains. Inside it was bare enough. Dried, sweet-smelling ferns +covered the floor. Two sails, rolled up, lay on either side of the +doorway. There was a rude shelf attached to one of the walls, and on +the shelf some bowls made of cocoa-nut shell. The people to whom the +place belonged evidently did not trouble it much with their presence, +using it only at night, and as a refuge from the dew. + +Sitting on the grass by the doorway, sheltered by the breadfruit shade, +yet with the hot rays of the afternoon sun just touching her naked +feet, was a girl. A girl of fifteen or sixteen, naked, except for a +kilt of gaily-striped material reaching from her waist to her knees. +Her long black hair was drawn back from the forehead, and tied behind +with a loop of the elastic vine. A scarlet blossom was stuck behind her +right ear, after the fashion of a clerk’s pen. Her face was beautiful, +powdered with tiny freckles; especially under the eyes, which were of a +deep, tranquil blue-grey. She half sat, half lay on her left side; +whilst before her, quite close, strutted up and down on the grass, a +bird, with blue plumage, coral-red beak, and bright, watchful eyes. + +The girl was Emmeline Lestrange. Just by her elbow stood a little bowl +made from half a cocoa-nut, and filled with some white substance with +which she was feeding the bird. Dick had found it in the woods two +years ago, quite small, deserted by its mother, and starving. They had +fed it and tamed it, and it was now one of the family; roosting on the +roof at night, and appearing regularly at meal times. + +All at once she held out her hand; the bird flew into the air, lit on +her forefinger and balanced itself, sinking its head between its +shoulders, and uttering the sound which formed its entire vocabulary +and one means of vocal expression—a sound from which it had derived +its name. + +“Koko,” said Emmeline, “where is Dick?” + +The bird turned his head about, as if he were searching for his master; +and the girl lay back lazily on the grass, laughing, and holding him up +poised on her finger, as if he were some enamelled jewel she wished to +admire at a little distance. They made a pretty picture under the +cave-like shadow of the breadfruit leaves; and it was difficult to +understand how this young girl, so perfectly formed, so fully +developed, and so beautiful, had evolved from plain little Emmeline +Lestrange. And the whole thing, as far as the beauty of her was +concerned, had happened during the last six months. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HALF CHILD—HALF SAVAGE + +Five rainy seasons had passed and gone since the tragic occurrence on +the reef. Five long years the breakers had thundered, and the sea-gulls +had cried round the figure whose spell had drawn a mysterious barrier +across the lagoon. + +The children had never returned to the old place. They had kept +entirely to the back of the island and the woods—the lagoon, down to a +certain point, and the reef; a wide enough and beautiful enough world, +but a hopeless world, as far as help from civilisation was concerned. +For, of the few ships that touched at the island in the course of +years, how many would explore the lagoon or woods? Perhaps not one. + +Occasionally Dick would make an excursion in the dinghy to the old +place, but Emmeline refused to accompany him. He went chiefly to obtain +bananas; for on the whole island there was but one clump of banana +trees—that near the water source in the wood, where the old green +skulls had been discovered, and the little barrel. + +She had never quite recovered from the occurrence on the reef. +Something had been shown to her, the purport of which she vaguely +understood, and it had filled her with horror and a terror of the place +where it had occurred. Dick was quite different. He had been frightened +enough at first; but the feeling wore away in time. + +Dick had built three houses in succession during the five years. He had +laid out a patch of taro and another of sweet potatoes. He knew every +pool on the reef for two miles either way, and the forms of their +inhabitants; and though he did not know the names of the creatures to +be found there, he made a profound study of their habits. + +He had seen some astonishing things during these five years—from a +fight between a whale and two thrashers conducted outside the reef, +lasting an hour, and dyeing the breaking waves with blood, to the +poisoning of the fish in the lagoon by fresh water, due to an +extraordinarily heavy rainy season. + +He knew the woods of the back of the island by heart, and the forms of +life that inhabited them—butterflies, and moths, and birds, lizards, +and insects of strange shape; extraordinary orchids—some +filthy-looking, the very image of corruption, some beautiful, and all +strange. He found melons and guavas, and breadfruit, the red apple of +Tahiti, and the great Brazilian plum, taro in plenty, and a dozen +other good things—but there were no bananas. This made him unhappy +at times, for he was human. + +Though Emmeline had asked Koko for Dick’s whereabouts, it was only a +remark made by way of making conversation, for she could hear him in +the little cane-brake which lay close by amidst the trees. + +In a few minutes he appeared, dragging after him two canes which he had +just cut, and wiping the perspiration off his brow with his naked arm. +He had an old pair of trousers on—part of the truck salved long ago +from the _Shenandoah_—nothing else, and he was well worth looking at and +considering, both from a physical and psychological point of view. + +Auburn-haired and tall, looking more like seventeen than sixteen, with +a restless and daring expression, half a child, half a man, half a +civilised being, half a savage, he had both progressed and retrograded +during the five years of savage life. He sat down beside Emmeline, +flung the canes beside him, tried the edge of the old butcher’s knife +with which he had cut them, then, taking one of the canes across his +knee, he began whittling at it. + +“What are you making?” asked Emmeline, releasing the bird, which flew +into one of the branches of the artu and rested there, a blue point +amidst the dark green. + +“Fish-spear,” replied Dick. + +Without being taciturn, he rarely wasted words. Life was all business +for him. He would talk to Emmeline, but always in short sentences; and +he had developed the habit of talking to inanimate things, to the +fish-spear he was carving, or the bowl he was fashioning from a +cocoa-nut. + +As for Emmeline, even as a child she had never been talkative. There +was something mysterious in her personality, something secretive. Her +mind seemed half submerged in twilight. Though she spoke little, and +though the subject of their conversations was almost entirely material +and relative to their everyday needs, her mind would wander into +abstract fields and the land of chimerae and dreams. What she found +there no one knew—least of all, perhaps, herself. + +As for Dick, he would sometimes talk and mutter to himself, as if in a +reverie; but if you caught the words, you would find that they referred +to no abstraction, but to some trifle he had on hand. He seemed +entirely bound up in the moment, and to have forgotten the past as +completely as though it had never been. + +Yet he had his contemplative moods. He would lie with his face over a +rock-pool by the hour, watching the strange forms of life to be seen +there, or sit in the woods motionless as a stone, watching the birds +and the swift-slipping lizards. The birds came so close that he could +easily have knocked them over, but he never hurt one or interfered in +any way with the wild life of the woods. + +The island, the lagoon, and the reef were for him the three volumes of +a great picture book, as they were for Emmeline, though in a different +manner. The colour and the beauty of it all fed some mysterious want in +her soul. Her life was a long reverie, a beautiful vision—troubled +with shadows. Across all the blue and coloured spaces that meant months +and years she could still see as in a glass dimly the _Northumberland_, +smoking against the wild background of fog; her uncle’s face, Boston—a +vague and dark picture beyond a storm—and nearer, the tragic form on +the reef that still haunted terribly her dreams. But she never spoke of +these things to Dick. Just as she kept the secret of what was in her +box, and the secret of her trouble whenever she lost it, she kept the +secret of her feelings about these things. + +Born of these things there remained with her always a vague terror: the +terror of losing Dick. Mrs Stannard, her uncle, the dim people she had +known in Boston, all had passed away out of her life like a dream and +shadows. The other one too, most horribly. What if Dick were taken +from her as well? + +This haunting trouble had been with her a long time; up to a few months +ago it had been mainly personal and selfish—the dread of being left +alone. But lately it had altered and become more acute. Dick had +changed in her eyes, and the fear was now for him. Her own personality +had suddenly and strangely become merged in his. The idea of life +without him was unthinkable, yet the trouble remained, a menace in the +blue. + +Some days it would be worse than others. To-day, for instance, it was +worse than yesterday, as though some danger had crept close to them +during the night. Yet the sky and sea were stainless, the sun shone on +tree and flower, the west wind brought the tune of the far-away reef +like a lullaby. There was nothing to hint of danger or the need of +distrust. + +At last Dick finished his spear and rose to his feet. + +“Where are you going?” asked Emmeline. + +“The reef,” he replied. “The tide’s going out.” + +“I’ll go with you,” said she. + +He went into the house and stowed the precious knife away. Then he came +out, spear in one hand, and half a fathom of liana in the other. The +liana was for the purpose of stringing the fish on, should the catch be +large. He led the way down the grassy sward to the lagoon where the +dinghy lay, close up to the bank, and moored to a post driven into the +soft soil. Emmeline got in, and, taking the sculls, he pushed off. The +tide was going out. + +I have said that the reef just here lay a great way out from the shore. +The lagoon was so shallow that at low tide one could have waded almost +right across it, were it not for pot-holes here and there—ten-feet +traps—and great beds of rotten coral, into which one would sink as +into brushwood, to say nothing of the nettle coral that stings like a +bed of nettles. There were also other dangers. Tropical shallows are +full of wild surprises in the way of life—and death. + +Dick had long ago marked out in his memory the soundings of the lagoon, +and it was fortunate that he possessed the special sense of location +which is the main stand-by of the hunter and the savage, for, from the +disposition of the coral in ribs, the water from the shore edge to the +reef ran in lanes. Only two of these lanes gave a clear, fair way from +the shore edge to the reef; had you followed the others, even in a boat +of such shallow draught as the dinghy, you would have found yourself +stranded half-way across, unless, indeed, it were a spring tide. + +Half-way across the sound of the surf on the barrier became louder, and +the everlasting and monotonous cry of the gulls came on the breeze. It +was lonely out here, and, looking back, the shore seemed a great way +off. It was lonelier still on the reef. + +Dick tied up the boat to a projection of coral, and helped Emmeline to +land. The sun was creeping down into the west, the tide was nearly half +out, and large pools of water lay glittering like burnished shields in +the sunlight. Dick, with his precious spear beside him, sat calmly down +on a ledge of coral, and began to divest himself of his one and only +garment. + +Emmeline turned away her head and contemplated the distant shore, which +seemed thrice as far off as it was in reality. When she turned her head +again he was racing along the edge of the surf. He and his spear +silhouetted against the spindrift and dazzling foam formed a picture +savage enough, and well in keeping with the general desolation of the +background. She watched him lie down and cling to a piece of coral, +whilst the surf rushed round and over him, and then rise and shake +himself like a dog, and pursue his gambols, his body all glittering +with the wet. + +Sometimes a whoop would come on the breeze, mixing with the sound of +the surf and the cry of the gulls, and she would see him plunge his +spear into a pool, and the next moment the spear would be held aloft +with something struggling and glittering at the end of it. + +He was quite different out here on the reef to what he was ashore. The +surroundings here seemed to develop all that was savage in him, in a +startling way; and he would kill, and kill, just for the pleasure of +killing, destroying more fish than they could possibly use. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE DEMON OF THE REEF + +The romance of coral has still to be written. There still exists a +widespread opinion that the coral reef and the coral island are the +work of an “insect.” This fabulous insect, accredited with the genius +of Brunel and the patience of Job, has been humorously enough held up +before the children of many generations as an example of industry—a +thing to be admired, a model to be followed. + +As a matter of fact, nothing could be more slothful or slow, more given +up to a life of ease and degeneracy, than the “reef-building +polypifer”—to give him his scientific name. He is the hobo of the +animal world, but, unlike the hobo, he does not even tramp for a +living. He exists as a sluggish and gelatinous worm; he attracts to +himself calcareous elements from the water to make himself a +house—mark you, the sea does the building—he dies, and he leaves his +house behind him—and a reputation for industry, beside which the +reputation of the ant turns pale, and that of the bee becomes of little +account. + +On a coral reef you are treading on rock that the reef-building +polypifers of ages have left behind them as evidences of their idle and +apparently useless lives. You might fancy that the reef is formed of +dead rock, but it is not: that is where the wonder of the thing comes +in—a coral reef is half alive. If it were not, it would not resist the +action of the sea ten years. The live part of the reef is just where +the breakers come in and beyond. The gelatinous rock-building +polypifers die almost at once, if exposed to the sun or if left +uncovered by water. + +Sometimes, at very low tide, if you have courage enough to risk being +swept away by the breakers, going as far out on the reef as you can, +you may catch a glimpse of them in their living state—great mounds and +masses of what seems rock, but which is a honeycomb of coral, whose +cells are filled with the living polypifers. Those in the uppermost +cells are usually dead, but lower down they are living. + +Always dying, always being renewed, devoured by fish, attacked by the +sea—that is the life of a coral reef. It is a thing as living as a +cabbage or a tree. Every storm tears a piece off the reef, which the +living coral replaces; wounds occur in it which actually granulate and +heal as wounds do of the human body. + +There is nothing, perhaps, more mysterious in nature than this fact of +the existence of a living land: a land that repairs itself, when +injured, by vital processes, and resists the eternal attack of the sea +by vital force, especially when we think of the extent of some of these +lagoon islands or atolls, whose existences are an eternal battle with +the waves. + +Unlike the island of this story (which is an island surrounded by a +barrier reef of coral surrounding a space of sea—the lagoon), the reef +forms the island. The reef may be grown over by trees, or it may be +perfectly destitute of important vegetation, or it may be crusted with +islets. Some islets may exist within the lagoon, but as often as not it +is just a great empty lake floored with sand and coral, peopled with +life different to the life of the outside ocean, protected from the +waves, and reflecting the sky like a mirror. + +When we remember that the atoll is a living thing, an organic whole, as +full of life, though not so highly organised, as a tortoise, the +meanest imagination must be struck with the immensity of one of the +structures. + +Vliegen atoll in the Low Archipelago, measured from lagoon edge to +lagoon edge, is sixty miles long by twenty miles broad, at its broadest +part. In the Marshall Archipelago, Rimsky Korsacoff is fifty-four miles +long and twenty miles broad; and Rimsky Korsacoff is a living thing, +secreting, excreting, and growing—more highly organised than the +cocoa-nut trees that grow upon its back, or the blossoms that powder +the hotoo trees in its groves. + +The story of coral is the story of a world, and the longest chapter in +that story concerns itself with coral’s infinite variety and form. + +Out on the margin of the reef where Dick was spearing fish, you might +have seen a peach-blossom-coloured lichen on the rock. This lichen was +a form of coral. Coral growing upon coral, and in the pools at the edge +of the surf branching corals also of the colour of a peach bloom. + +Within a hundred yards of where Emmeline was sitting, the pools +contained corals of all colours, from lake-red to pure white, and the +lagoon behind her—corals of the quaintest and strangest forms. + +Dick had speared several fish, and had left them lying on the reef to +be picked up later on. Tired of killing, he was now wandering along, +examining the various living things he came across. + +Huge slugs inhabited the reef, slugs as big as parsnips, and somewhat +of the same shape; they were a species of Bech de mer. Globe-shaped +jelly-fish as big as oranges, great cuttlefish bones flat and shining +and white, shark’s teeth, spines of echini; sometimes a dead scarus +fish, its stomach distended with bits of coral on which it had been +feeding; crabs, sea urchins, sea-weeds of strange colour and shape; +star-fish, some tiny and of the colour of cayenne pepper, some huge and +pale. These and a thousand other things, beautiful or strange, were to +be found on the reef. + +Dick had laid his spear down, and was exploring a deep bath-like pool. +He had waded up to his knees, and was in the act of wading further when +he was suddenly seized by the foot. It was just as if his ankle had +been suddenly caught in a clove hitch and the rope drawn tight. He +screamed out with pain and terror, and suddenly and viciously a +whip-lash shot out from the water, lassoed him round the left knee, +drew itself taut, and held him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WHAT BEAUTY CONCEALED + +Emmeline, seated on the coral rock, had almost forgotten Dick for a +moment. The sun was setting, and the warm amber light of the sunset +shone on reef and rock-pool. Just at sunset and low tide the reef had a +peculiar fascination for her. It had the low-tide smell of sea-weed +exposed to the air, and the torment and trouble of the breakers seemed +eased. Before her, and on either side, the foam-dashed coral glowed in +amber and gold, and the great Pacific came glassing and glittering in, +voiceless and peaceful, till it reached the strand and burst into song +and spray. + +Here, just as on the hill-top at the other side of the island, you +could mark the rhythm of the rollers. “Forever, and forever—forever, +and forever,” they seemed to say. + +The cry of the gulls came mixed with the spray on the breeze. They +haunted the reef like uneasy spirits, always complaining, never at +rest; but at sunset their cry seemed farther away and less melancholy, +perhaps because just then the whole island world seemed bathed in the +spirit of peace. + +She turned from the sea prospect and looked backwards over the lagoon +to the island. She could make out the broad green glade beside which +their little house lay, and a spot of yellow, which was the thatch of +the house, just by the artu tree, and nearly hidden by the shadow of +the breadfruit. Over woods the fronds of the great cocoa-nut palms +showed above every other tree silhouetted against the dim, dark blue of +the eastern sky. + +Seen by the enchanted light of sunset, the whole picture had an unreal +look, more lovely than a dream. At dawn—and Dick would often start for +the reef before dawn, if the tide served—the picture was as beautiful; +more so, perhaps, for over the island, all in shadow, and against the +stars, you would see the palm-tops catching fire, and then the light of +day coming through the green trees and blue sky, like a spirit, across +the blue lagoon, widening and strengthening as it widened, across the +white foam, out over the sea, spreading like a fan, till, all at once, +night was day, and the gulls were crying and the breakers flashing, the +dawn wind blowing, and the palm trees bending, as palm trees only know +how. Emmeline always imagined herself alone on the island with Dick, +but beauty was there, too, and beauty is a great companion. + +The girl was contemplating the scene before her. Nature in her +friendliest mood seemed to say, “Behold me! Men call me cruel; men have +called me deceitful, even treacherous. _I_—ah well! my answer is, +‘Behold me!’” + +The girl was contemplating the specious beauty of it all, when on the +breeze from seaward came a shout. She turned quickly. There was Dick up +to his knees in a rock-pool a hundred yards or so away, motionless, his +arms upraised, and crying out for help. She sprang to her feet. + +There had once been an islet on this part of the reef, a tiny thing, +consisting of a few palms and a handful of vegetation, and destroyed, +perhaps, in some great storm. I mention this because the existence of +this islet once upon a time was the means, indirectly, of saving Dick’s +life; for where these islets have been or are, “flats” occur on the +reef formed of coral conglomerate. + +Emmeline in her bare feet could never have reached him in time over +rough coral, but, fortunately, this flat and comparatively smooth +surface lay between them. + +“My spear!” shouted Dick, as she approached. + +He seemed at first tangled in brambles; then she thought ropes were +tangling round him and tying him to something in the water—whatever it +was, it was most awful, and hideous, and like a nightmare. She ran with +the speed of Atalanta to the rock where the spear was resting, all red +with the blood of new-slain fish, a foot from the point. + +As she approached Dick, spear in hand, she saw, gasping with terror, +that the ropes were alive, and that they were flickering and rippling +over his back. One of them bound his left arm to his side, but his +right arm was free. + +“Quick!” he shouted. + +In a second the spear was in his free hand, and Emmeline had cast +herself down on her knees, and was staring with terrified eyes into the +water of the pool from whence the ropes issued. She was, despite her +terror, quite prepared to fling herself in and do battle with the +thing, whatever it might be. + +What she saw was only for a second. In the deep water of the pool, +gazing up and forward and straight at Dick, she saw a face, lugubrious +and awful. The eyes were wide as saucers, stony and steadfast; a large, +heavy, parrot-like beak hung before the eyes, and worked and wobbled, +and seemed to beckon. But what froze one’s heart was the expression of +the eyes, so stony and lugubrious, so passionless, so devoid of +speculation, yet so fixed of purpose and full of fate. + +From away far down he had risen with the rising tide. He had been +feeding on crabs, when the tide, betraying him, had gone out, leaving +him trapped in the rock-pool. He had slept, perhaps, and awakened to +find a being, naked and defenceless, invading his pool. He was quite +small, as octopods go, and young, yet he was large and powerful enough +to have drowned an ox. + +The octopod has only been described once, in stone, by a Japanese +artist. The statue is still extant, and it is the most terrible +masterpiece of sculpture ever executed by human hands. It represents a +man who has been bathing on a low-tide beach, and has been caught. The +man is shouting in a delirium of terror, and threatening with his free +arm the spectre that has him in its grip. The eyes of the octopod are +fixed upon the man—passionless and lugubrious eyes, but steadfast and +fixed. + +Another whip-lash shot out of the water in a shower of spray, and +seized Dick by the left thigh. At the same instant he drove the point +of the spear through the right eye of the monster, deep down through +eye and soft gelatinous carcass till the spear-point dirled and +splintered against the rock. At the same moment the water of the pool +became black as ink, the bands around him relaxed, and he was free. + +Emmeline rose up and seized him, sobbing and clinging to him, and +kissing him. He clasped her with his left arm round her body, as if to +protect her, but it was a mechanical action. He was not thinking of +her. Wild with rage, and uttering hoarse cries, he plunged the broken +spear again and again into the depths of the pool, seeking utterly to +destroy the enemy that had so lately had him in its grip. Then slowly +he came to himself, and wiped his forehead, and looked at the broken +spear in his hand. + +“Beast!” he said. “Did you see its eyes? Did you see its eyes? I wish +it had a hundred eyes, and I had a hundred spears to drive into them!” + +She was clinging to him, and sobbing and laughing hysterically, and +praising him. One might have thought that he had rescued her from +death, not she him. + +The sun had nearly vanished, and he led her back to where the dinghy +was moored recapturing and putting on his trousers on the road. He +picked up the dead fish he had speared; and as he rowed her back across +the lagoon, he talked and laughed, recounting the incidents of the +fight, taking all the glory of the thing to himself, and seeming quite +to ignore the important part she had played in it. + +This was not from any callousness or want of gratitude, but simply from +the fact that for the last five years he had been the be-all and +end-all of their tiny community—the Imperial master. And he would +just as soon have thought of thanking her for handing him the spear as +of thanking his right hand for driving it home. She was quite content, +seeking neither thanks nor praise. Everything she had came from him: +she was his shadow and his slave. He was her sun. + +He went over the fight again and again before they lay down to rest, +telling her he had done this and that, and what he would do to the next +beast of the sort. The reiteration was tiresome enough, or would have +been to an outside listener, but to Emmeline it was better than Homer. +People’s minds do not improve in an intellectual sense when they are +isolated from the world, even though they are living the wild and happy +lives of savages. + +Then Dick lay down in the dried ferns and covered himself with a piece +of the striped flannel which they used for blanketing, and he snored, +and chattered in his sleep like a dog hunting imaginary game, and +Emmeline lay beside him wakeful and thinking. A new terror had come +into her life. She had seen death for the second time, but this time +active and in being. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SOUND OF A DRUM + +The next day Dick was sitting under the shade of the artu. He had the +box of fishhooks beside him, and he was bending a line on to one of +them. There had originally been a couple of dozen hooks, large and +small, in the box; there remained now only six—four small and two +large ones. It was a large one he was fixing to the line, for he +intended going on the morrow to the old place to fetch some bananas, +and on the way to try for a fish in the deeper parts of the lagoon. + +It was late afternoon, and the heat had gone out of the day. Emmeline, +seated on the grass opposite to him, was holding the end of the line, +whilst he got the kinks out of it, when suddenly she raised her head. + +There was not a breath of wind; the hush of the far-distant surf came +through the blue weather—the only audible sound except, now and then, +a movement and flutter from the bird perched in the branches of the +artu. All at once another sound mixed itself with the voice of the +surf—a faint, throbbing sound, like the beating of a distant drum. + +“Listen!” said Emmeline. + +Dick paused for a moment in his work. All the sounds of the island were +familiar: this was something quite strange. + +Faint and far away, now rapid, now slow; coming from where, who could +say? Sometimes it seemed to come from the sea, sometimes, if the fancy +of the listener turned that way, from the woods. As they listened, a +sigh came from overhead; the evening breeze had risen and was moving in +the leaves of the artu tree. Just as you might wipe a picture off a +slate, the breeze banished the sound. Dick went on with his work. + +Next morning early he embarked in the dinghy. He took the hook and line +with him, and some raw fish for bait. Emmeline helped him to push off, +and stood on the bank waving her hand as he rounded the little cape +covered with wild cocoa-nut. + +These expeditions of Dick’s were one of her sorrows. To be left alone +was frightful; yet she never complained. She was living in a paradise, +but something told her that behind all that sun, all that splendour of +blue sea and sky, behind the flowers and the leaves, behind all that +specious and simpering appearance of happiness in nature, lurked a +frown, and the dragon of mischance. + +Dick rowed for about a mile, then he shipped his sculls, and let the +dinghy float. The water here was very deep; so deep that, despite its +clearness, the bottom was invisible; the sunlight over the reef struck +through it diagonally, filling it with sparkles. + +The fisherman baited his hook with a piece from the belly of a scarus +and lowered it down out of sight, then he belayed the line to a thole +pin, and, sitting in the bottom of the boat, hung his head over the +side and gazed deep down into the water. Sometimes there was nothing to +see but just the deep blue of the water. Then a flight of spangled +arrowheads would cross the line of sight and vanish, pursued by a form +like a moving bar of gold. Then a great fish would materialise itself +and hang in the shadow of the boat motionless as a stone, save for the +movement of its gills; next moment with a twist of the tail it would be +gone. + +Suddenly the dinghy shored over, and might have capsized, only for the +fact that Dick was sitting on the opposite side to the side from which +the line hung. Then the boat righted; the line slackened, and the +surface of the lagoon, a few fathoms away, boiled as if being stirred +from below by a great silver stick. He had hooked an albicore. He tied +the end of the fishing-line to a scull, undid the line from the thole +pin, and flung the scull overboard. + +He did all this with wonderful rapidity, while the line was still +slack. Next moment the scull was rushing over the surface of the +lagoon, now towards the reef, now towards the shore, now flat, now end +up. Now it would be jerked under the surface entirely; vanish for a +moment, and then reappear. It was a most astonishing thing to watch, +for the scull seemed alive—viciously alive, and imbued with some +destructive purpose; as, in fact, it was. The most venomous of living +things, and the most intelligent could not have fought the great fish +better. + +The albicore would make a frantic dash down the lagoon, hoping, +perhaps, to find in the open sea a release from his foe. Then, half +drowned with the pull of the scull, he would pause, dart from side to +side in perplexity, and then make an equally frantic dash up the +lagoon, to be checked in the same manner. Seeking the deepest depths, +he would sink the scull a few fathoms; and once he sought the air, +leaping into the sunlight like a crescent of silver, whilst the splash +of him as he fell echoed amidst the trees bordering the lagoon. An hour +passed before the great fish showed signs of weakening. + +The struggle had taken place up to this close to the shore, but now the +scull swam out into the broad sheet of sunlit water, and slowly began +to describe large circles rippling up the peaceful blue into flashing +wavelets. It was a melancholy sight to watch, for the great fish had +made a good fight, and one could see him, through the eye of +imagination, beaten, half drowned, dazed, and moving as is the fashion +of dazed things in a circle. + +Dick, working the remaining oar at the stern of the boat, rowed out and +seized the floating scull, bringing it on board. Foot by foot he hauled +his catch towards the boat till the long gleaming line of the thing +came dimly into view. + +The fight had been heard for miles through the lagoon water by all +sorts of swimming things. The lord of the place had got sound of it. A +dark fin rippled the water; and as Dick, pulling on his line, hauled +his catch closer, a monstrous grey shadow stained the depths, and the +glittering streak that was the albicore vanished as if engulfed in a +cloud. The line came in slack, and Dick hauled in the albicore’s head. +It had been divided from the body as if with a huge pair of shears. The +grey shadow slipped by the boat, and Dick, mad with rage, shouted and +shook his fist at it; then, seizing the albicore’s head, from which he +had taken the hook, he hurled it at the monster in the water. + +The great shark, with a movement of the tail that caused the water to +swirl and the dinghy to rock, turned upon his back and engulfed the +head; then he slowly sank and vanished, just as if he had been +dissolved. He had come off best in this their first encounter—such as +it was. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SAILS UPON THE SEA + +Dick put the hook away and took to the sculls. He had a three-mile row +before him, and the tide was coming in, which did not make it any the +easier. As he rowed, he talked and grumbled to himself. He had been in +a grumbling mood for some time past: the chief cause, Emmeline. + +In the last few months she had changed; even her face had changed. A +new person had come upon the island, it seemed to him, and taken the +place of the Emmeline he had known from earliest childhood. This one +looked different. He did not know that she had grown beautiful, he just +knew that she looked different; also she had developed new ways that +displeased him—she would go off and bathe by herself, for instance. + +Up to six months or so ago he had been quite contented; sleeping and +eating, and hunting for food and cooking it, building and rebuilding +the house, exploring the woods and the reef. But lately a spirit of +restlessness had come upon him; he did not know exactly what he wanted. +He had a vague feeling that he wanted to go away from the place where +he was; not from the island, but from the place where they had pitched +their tent, or rather built their house. + +It may have been the spirit of civilisation crying out in him, telling +him of all he was missing. Of the cities, and the streets, and the +houses, and the businesses, and the striving after gold, the striving +after power. It may have been simply the man in him crying out for +Love, and not knowing yet that Love was at his elbow. + +The dinghy glided along, hugging the shore, past the little glades of +fern and the cathedral gloom of the breadfruit; then, rounding a +promontory, she opened the view of the break in the reef. A little bit +of the white strand was visible, but he was not looking that way—he +was looking towards the reef at a tiny, dark spot, not noticeable +unless searched for by the eye. Always when he came on these +expeditions, just here, he would hang on his oars and gaze over there, +where the gulls were flying and the breakers thundering. + +A few years ago the spot filled him with dread as well as curiosity, +but from familiarity and the dullness that time casts on everything, +the dread had almost vanished, but the curiosity remained: the +curiosity that makes a child look on at the slaughter of an animal even +though his soul revolts at it. He gazed for a while, then he went on +pulling, and the dinghy approached the beach. + +Something had happened on the beach. The sand was all trampled, and +stained red here and there; in the centre lay the remains of a great +fire still smouldering, and just where the water lapped the sand, lay +two deep grooves as if two heavy boats had been beached there. A South +Sea man would have told from the shape of the grooves, and the little +marks of the out-riggers, that two heavy canoes had been beached there. +And they had. + +The day before, early in the afternoon, two canoes, possibly from that +far-away island which cast a stain on the horizon to the +sou’-sou’-west, had entered the lagoon, one in pursuit of the other. + +What happened then had better be left veiled. A war drum with a +shark-skin head had set the woods throbbing; the victory was celebrated +all night, and at dawn the victors manned the two canoes and set sail +for the home, or the hell, they had come from. Had you examined the +strand you would have found that a line had been drawn across the +beach, beyond which there were no footmarks: that meant that the rest +of the island was for some reason _tabu_. + +Dick pulled the nose of the boat up a bit on the strand, then he looked +around him. He picked up a broken spear that had been cast away or +forgotten; it was made of some hard wood and barbed with iron. On the +right-hand side of the beach something lay between the cocoa-nut trees. +He approached; it was a mass of offal; the entrails of a dozen sheep +seemed cast here in one mound, yet there were no sheep on the island, +and sheep are not carried as a rule in war canoes. + +The sand on the beach was eloquent. The foot pursuing and the foot +pursued; the knee of the fallen one, and then the forehead and +outspread hands; the heel of the chief who has slain his enemy, beaten +the body flat, burst a hole through it through which he has put his +head, and who stands absolutely wearing his enemy as a cloak; the head +of the man dragged on his back to be butchered like a sheep—of these +things spoke the sand. + +As far as the sand traces could speak, the story of the battle was +still being told; the screams and the shouting, the clashing of clubs +and spears were gone, yet the ghost of the fight remained. + +If the sand could bear such traces, and tell such tales, who shall say +that the plastic æther was destitute of the story of the fight and the +butchery? + +However that may have been, Dick, looking around him, had the shivering +sense of having just escaped from danger. Whoever had been, had +gone—he could tell that by the canoe traces. Gone either out to sea, +or up the right stretch of the lagoon. It was important to determine +this. + +He climbed to the hill-top and swept the sea with his eyes. There, away +to the south-west, far away on the sea, he could distinguish the brown +sails of two canoes. There was something indescribably mournful and +lonely in their appearance; they looked like withered leaves—brown +moths blown to sea—derelicts of autumn. Then, remembering the beach, +these things became freighted with the most sinister thoughts for the +mind of the gazer. They were hurrying away, having done their work. +That they looked lonely and old and mournful, and like withered leaves +blown across the sea, only heightened the horror. + +Dick had never seen canoes before, but he knew that these things were +boats of some sort holding people, and that the people had left all +those traces on the beach. How much of the horror of the thing was +revealed to his subconscious intelligence, who can say? + +He had climbed the boulder, and he now sat down with his knees drawn +up, and his hands clasped round them. Whenever he came round to this +side of the island, something happened of a fateful or sinister nature. +The last time he had nearly lost the dinghy; he had beached the little +boat in such a way that she floated off, and the tide was just in the +act of stealing her, and sweeping her from the lagoon out to sea, when +he returned laden with his bananas, and, rushing into the water up to +his waist, saved her. Another time he had fallen out of a tree, and +just by a miracle escaped death. Another time a hurricane had broken, +lashing the lagoon into snow, and sending the cocoa-nuts bounding and +flying like tennis balls across the strand. This time he had just +escaped something, he knew not exactly what. It was almost as if +Providence were saying to him, “Don’t come here.” + +He watched the brown sails as they dwindled in the wind-blown blue, +then he came down from the hill-top and cut his bananas. He cut four +large bunches, which caused him to make two journeys to the boat. When +the bananas were stowed he pushed off. + +For a long time a great curiosity had been pulling at his +heart-strings: a curiosity of which he was dimly ashamed. Fear had +given it birth, and Fear still clung to it. It was, perhaps, the +element of fear and the awful delight of daring the unknown that made +him give way to it. + +He had rowed, perhaps, a hundred yards when he turned the boat’s head +and made for the reef. It was more than five years since that day when +he rowed across the lagoon, Emmeline sitting in the stern, with her +wreath of flowers in her hand. It might have been only yesterday, for +everything seemed just the same. The thunderous surf and the flying +gulls, the blinding sunlight, and the salt, fresh smell of the sea. The +palm tree at the entrance of the lagoon still bent gazing into the +water, and round the projection of coral to which he had last moored +the boat still lay a fragment of the rope which he had cut in his hurry +to escape. + +Ships had come into the lagoon, perhaps, during the five years, but no +one had noticed anything on the reef, for it was only from the hill-top +that a full view of what was there could be seen, and then only by eyes +knowing where to look. From the beach there was visible just a speck. +It might have been, perhaps, a bit of old wreckage flung there by a +wave in some big storm. A piece of old wreckage that had been tossed +hither and thither for years, and had at last found a place of rest. + +Dick tied the boat up, and stepped on to the reef. It was high tide +just as before; the breeze was blowing strongly, and overhead a +man-of-war’s bird, black as ebony, with a blood-red bill, came sailing, +the wind doming out his wings. He circled in the air, and cried out +fiercely, as if resenting the presence of the intruder, then he passed +away, let himself be blown away, as it were, across the lagoon, +wheeled, circled, and passed out to sea. + +Dick approached the place he knew, and there lay the little old barrel +all warped by the powerful sun; the staves stood apart, and the hooping +was rusted and broken, and whatever it had contained in the way of +spirit and conviviality had long ago drained away. + +Beside the barrel lay a skeleton, round which lay a few rags of cloth. +The skull had fallen to one side, and the lower jaw had fallen from the +skull; the bones of the hands and feet were still articulated, and the +ribs had not fallen in. It was all white and bleached, and the sun +shone on it as indifferently as on the coral, this shell and framework +that had once been a man. There was nothing dreadful about it, but a +whole world of wonder. + +To Dick, who had not been broken into the idea of death, who had not +learned to associate it with graves and funerals, sorrow, eternity, and +hell, the thing spoke as it never could have spoken to you or me. + +Looking at it, things linked themselves together in his mind: the +skeletons of birds he had found in the woods, the fish he had slain, +even trees lying dead and rotten—even the shells of crabs. + +If you had asked him what lay before him, and if he could have +expressed the thought in his mind, he would have answered you “change.” + +All the philosophy in the world could not have told him more than he +knew just then about death—he, who even did not know its name. + +He was held spellbound by the marvel and miracle of the thing and the +thoughts that suddenly crowded his mind like a host of spectres for +whom a door has just been opened. + +Just as a child by unanswerable logic knows that a fire which has +burned him once will burn him again, or will burn another person, he +knew that just as the form before him was, his form would be some +day—and Emmeline’s. + +Then came the vague question which is born not of the brain, but the +heart, and which is the basis of all religions—where shall I be then? +His mind was not of an introspective nature, and the question just +strayed across it and was gone. And still the wonder of the thing held +him. He was for the first time in his life in a reverie; the corpse +that had shocked and terrified him five years ago had cast seeds of +thought with its dead fingers upon his mind, the skeleton had brought +them to maturity. The full fact of universal death suddenly appeared +before him, and he recognised it. + +He stood for a long time motionless, and then with a deep sigh turned +to the boat and pushed off without once looking back at the reef. He +crossed the lagoon and rowed slowly homewards, keeping in the shelter +of the tree shadows as much as possible. + +Even looking at him from the shore you might have noticed a difference +in him. Your savage paddles his canoe, or sculls his boat, alert, +glancing about him, at touch with nature at all points; though he be +lazy as a cat and sleeps half the day, awake he is all ears and eyes—a +creature reacting to the least external impression. + +Dick, as he rowed back, did not look about him: he was thinking or +retrospecting. The savage in him had received a check. As he turned the +little cape where the wild cocoa-nut blazed, he looked over his +shoulder. A figure was standing on the sward by the edge of the water. +It was Emmeline. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SCHOONER + +They carried the bananas up to the house, and hung them from a branch +of the artu. Then Dick, on his knees, lit the fire to prepare the +evening meal. When it was over he went down to where the boat was +moored, and returned with something in his hand. It was the javelin +with the iron point—or, rather, the two pieces of it. He had said +nothing of what he had seen to the girl. + +Emmeline was seated on the grass; she had a long strip of the striped +flannel stuff about her, worn like a scarf, and she had another piece +in her hand which she was hemming. The bird was hopping about, pecking +at a banana which they had thrown to him; a light breeze made the +shadow of the artu leaves dance upon the grass, and the serrated leaves +of the breadfruit to patter one on the other with the sound of +rain-drops falling upon glass. + +“Where did you get it?” asked Emmeline, staring at the piece of the +javelin which Dick had flung down almost beside her whilst he went into +the house to fetch the knife. + +“It was on the beach over there,” he replied, taking his seat and +examining the two fragments to see how he could splice them together. + +Emmeline looked at the pieces, putting them together in her mind. She +did not like the look of the thing: so keen and savage, and stained +dark a foot and more from the point. + +“People had been there,” said Dick, putting the two pieces together and +examining the fracture critically. + +“Where?” + +“Over there. This was lying on the sand, and the sand was all trod up.” + +“Dick,” said Emmeline, “who were the people?” + +“I don’t know; I went up the hill and saw their boats going away—far +away out. This was lying on the sand.” + +“Dick,” said Emmeline, “do you remember the noise yesterday?” + +“Yes,” said Dick. + +“I heard it in the night.” + +“When?” + +“In the night before the moon went away.” + +“That was them,” said Dick. + +“Dick!” + +“Yes?” + +“Who were they?” + +“I don’t know,” replied Dick. + +“It was in the night, before the moon went away, and it went on and on +beating in the trees. I thought I was asleep, and then I knew I was +awake; you were asleep, and I pushed you to listen, but you couldn’t +wake, you were so asleep; then the moon went away, and the noise went +on. How did they make the noise?” + +“I don’t know,” replied Dick, “but it was them; and they left this on +the sand, and the sand was all trod up, and I saw their boats from the +hill, away out far.” + +“I thought I heard voices,” said Emmeline, “but I was not sure.” + +She fell into meditation, watching her companion at work on the savage +and sinister-looking thing in his hands. He was splicing the two pieces +together with a strip of the brown cloth-like stuff which is wrapped +round the stalks of the cocoa-palm fronds. The thing seemed to have +been hurled here out of the blue by some unseen hand. + +When he had spliced the pieces, doing so with marvellous dexterity, he +took the thing short down near the point, and began thrusting it into +the soft earth to clean it; then, with a bit of flannel, he polished it +till it shone. He felt a keen delight in it. It was useless as a +fish-spear, because it had no barb, but it was a weapon. It was useless +as a weapon, because there was no foe on the island to use it against; +still, it was a weapon. + +When he had finished scrubbing at it, he rose, hitched his old trousers +up, tightened the belt of cocoa-cloth which Emmeline had made for him, +went into the house and got his fish-spear, and stalked off to the +boat, calling out to Emmeline to follow him. They crossed over to the +reef, where, as usual, he divested himself of clothing. + +It was strange that out here he would go about stark naked, yet on the +island he always wore some covering. But not so strange, perhaps, after +all. + +The sea is a great purifier, both of the mind and the body; before that +great sweet spirit people do not think in the same way as they think +far inland. What woman would appear in a town or on a country road, or +even bathing in a river, as she appears bathing in the sea? + +Some instinct made Dick cover himself up on shore, and strip naked on +the reef. In a minute he was down by the edge of the surf, javelin in +one hand, fish-spear in the other. + +Emmeline, by a little pool the bottom of which was covered with +branching coral, sat gazing down into its depths, lost in a reverie +like that into which we fall when gazing at shapes in the fire. She had +sat some time like this when a shout from Dick aroused her. She +started to her feet and gazed to where he was pointing. An amazing +thing was there. + +To the east, just rounding the curve of the reef, and scarcely a +quarter of a mile from it, was coming a big topsail schooner; a +beautiful sight she was, heeling to the breeze with every sail drawing, +and the white foam like a feather at her fore-foot. + +Dick, with the javelin in his hand, was standing gazing at her; he had +dropped his fish-spear, and he stood as motionless as though he were +carved out of stone. Emmeline ran to him and stood beside him; neither +of them spoke a word as the vessel drew closer. + +Everything was visible, so close was she now, from the reef points on +the great mainsail, luminous with the sunlight, and white as the wing +of a gull, to the rail of the bulwarks. A crowd of men were hanging +over the port bulwarks gazing at the island and the figures on the +reef. Browned by the sun and sea-breeze, Emmeline’s hair blowing on the +wind, and the point of Dick’s javelin flashing in the sun, they looked +an ideal pair of savages, seen from the schooner’s deck. + +“They are going away,” said Emmeline, with a long-drawn breath of +relief. + +Dick made no reply; he stared at the schooner a moment longer in +silence, then, having made sure that she was standing away from the +land, he began to run up and down, calling out wildly, and beckoning to +the vessel as if to call her back. + +A moment later a sound came on the breeze, a faint hail; a flag was run +up to the peak and dipped as in derision, and the vessel continued on +her course. + +As a matter of fact, she had been on the point of putting about. Her +captain had for a moment been undecided as to whether the forms on the +reef were those of castaways or savages. But the javelin in Dick’s hand +had turned the scale of his opinion in favour of the theory of savages. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +LOVE STEPS IN + +Two birds were sitting in the branches of the artu tree: Koko had taken +a mate. They had built a nest out of fibres pulled from the wrappings +of the cocoa-nut fronds, bits of stick and wire grass—anything, in +fact; even fibres from the palmetto thatch of the house below. The +pilferings of birds, the building of nests, what charming incidents +they are in the great episode of spring! + +The hawthorn tree never bloomed here, the climate was that of eternal +summer, yet the spirit of May came just as she comes to the English +countryside or the German forest. The doings in the artu branches +greatly interested Emmeline. + +The love-making and the nest-building were conducted quite in the usual +manner, according to rules laid down by Nature and carried out by men +and birds. All sorts of quaint sounds came filtering down through the +leaves from the branch where the sapphire-coloured lovers sat side by +side, or the fork where the nest was beginning to form: croonings and +cluckings, sounds like the flirting of a fan, the sounds of a squabble, +followed by the sounds that told of the squabble made up. Sometimes +after one of these squabbles a pale blue downy feather or two would +come floating earthwards, touch the palmetto leaves of the house-roof +and cling there, or be blown on to the grass. + +It was some days after the appearance of the schooner, and Dick was +making ready to go into the woods and pick guavas. He had all the +morning been engaged in making a basket to carry them in. In +civilisation he would, judging from his mechanical talent, perhaps have +been an engineer, building bridges and ships, instead of palmetto-leaf +baskets and cane houses—who knows if he would have been happier? + +The heat of midday had passed, when, with the basket hanging over his +shoulder on a piece of cane, he started for the woods, Emmeline +following. The place they were going to always filled her with a vague +dread; not for a great deal would she have gone there alone. Dick had +discovered it in one of his rambles. + +They entered the wood and passed a little well, a well without apparent +source or outlet and a bottom of fine white sand. How the sand had +formed there, it would be impossible to say; but there it was, and +around the margin grew ferns redoubling themselves on the surface of +the crystal-clear water. They left this to the right and struck into +the heart of the wood. The heat of midday still lurked here; the way +was clear, for there was a sort of path between the trees, as if, in +very ancient days, there had been a road. + +Right across this path, half lost in shadow, half sunlit, the lianas +hung their ropes. The hotoo tree, with its powdering of delicate +blossoms, here stood, showing its lost loveliness to the sun; in the +shade the scarlet hibiscus burned like a flame. Artu and breadfruit +trees and cocoa-nut bordered the way. + +As they proceeded the trees grew denser and the path more obscure. All +at once, rounding a sharp turn, the path ended in a valley carpeted +with fern. This was the place that always filled Emmeline with an +undefined dread. One side of it was all built up in terraces with huge +blocks of stone. Blocks of stone so enormous, that the wonder was how +the ancient builders had put them in their places. + +Trees grew along the terraces, thrusting their roots between the +interstices of the blocks. At their base, slightly tilted forward as if +with the sinkage of years, stood a great stone figure roughly carved, +thirty feet high at least—mysterious-looking, the very spirit of the +place. This figure and the terraces, the valley itself, and the very +trees that grew there, inspired Emmeline with deep curiosity and vague +fear. + +People had been here once; sometimes she could fancy she saw dark +shadows moving amidst the trees, and the whisper of the foliage seemed +to her to hide voices at times, even as its shadow concealed forms. It +was indeed an uncanny place to be alone in even under the broad light +of day. All across the Pacific for thousands of miles you find relics +of the past, like these scattered through the islands. + +These temple places are nearly all the same: great terraces of stone, +massive idols, desolation overgrown with foliage. They hint at one +religion, and a time when the sea space of the Pacific was a continent, +which, sinking slowly through the ages, has left only its higher lands +and hill-tops visible in the form of islands. Round these places the +woods are thicker than elsewhere, hinting at the presence there, once, +of sacred groves. The idols are immense, their faces are vague; the +storms and the suns and the rains of the ages have cast over them a +veil. The sphinx is understandable and a toy compared to these things, +some of which have a stature of fifty feet, whose creation is veiled in +absolute mystery—the gods of a people for ever and for ever lost. + +The “stone man” was the name Emmeline had given the idol of the valley; +and sometimes at nights, when her thoughts would stray that way, she +would picture him standing all alone in the moonlight or starlight +staring straight before him. + +He seemed for ever listening; unconsciously one fell to listening too, +and then the valley seemed steeped in a supernatural silence. He was +not good to be alone with. + +Emmeline sat down amidst the fears just at his base. When one was close +up to him he lost the suggestion of life, and was simply a great stone +which cast a shadow in the sun. + +Dick threw himself down also to rest. Then he rose up and went off +amidst the guava bushes, plucking the fruit and filling his basket. +Since he had seen the schooner, the white men on her decks, her great +masts and sails, and general appearance of freedom and speed and +unknown adventure, he had been more than ordinarily glum and restless. +Perhaps he connected her in his mind with the far-away vision of the +_Northumberland_, and the idea of other places and lands, and the +yearning for change the idea of them inspired. + +He came back with his basket full of the ripe fruit, gave some to the +girl and sat down beside her. When she had finished eating them she +took the cane that he used for carrying the basket and held it in her +hands. She was bending it in the form of a bow when it slipped, flew +out and struck her companion a sharp blow on the side of his face. + +Almost on the instant he turned and slapped her on the shoulder. She +stared at him for a moment in troubled amazement, a sob came in her +throat. Then some veil seemed lifted, some wizard’s wand stretched out, +some mysterious vial broken. As she looked at him like that, he +suddenly and fiercely clasped her in his arms. He held her like this +for a moment, dazed, stupefied, not knowing what to do with her. Then +her lips told him, for they met his in an endless kiss. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SLEEP OF PARADISE + +The moon rose up that evening and shot her silver arrows at the house +under the artu tree. The house was empty. Then the moon came across the +sea and across the reef. + +She lit the lagoon to its dark, dim heart. She lit the coral brains and +sand spaces, and the fish, casting their shadows on the sand and the +coral. The keeper of the lagoon rose to greet her, and the fin of him +broke her reflection on the mirror-like surface into a thousand +glittering ripples. She saw the white staring ribs of the form on the +reef. Then, peeping over the trees, she looked down into the valley, +where the great idol of stone had kept its solitary vigil for five +thousand years, perhaps, or more. + +At his base, in his shadow, looking as if under his protection, lay two +human beings, naked, clasped in each other’s arms, and fast asleep. One +could scarcely pity his vigil, had it been marked sometimes through the +years by such an incident as this. The thing had been conducted just as +the birds conduct their love affairs. An affair absolutely natural, +absolutely blameless, and without sin. + +It was a marriage according to Nature, without feast or guests, +consummated with accidental cynicism under the shadow of a religion a +thousand years dead. + +So happy in their ignorance were they, that they only knew that +suddenly life had changed, that the skies and the sea were bluer, and +that they had become in some magical way one a part of the other. The +birds on the tree above were equally as happy in their ignorance, and +in their love. + + + + +PART II + + +CHAPTER X + +AN ISLAND HONEYMOON + +One day Dick climbed on to the tree above the house, and, driving +Madame Koko off the nest upon which she was sitting, peeped in. There +were several pale green eggs in it. He did not disturb them, but +climbed down again, and the bird resumed her seat as if nothing had +happened. Such an occurrence would have terrified a bird used to the +ways of men, but here the birds were so fearless and so full of +confidence that often they would follow Emmeline in the wood, flying +from branch to branch, peering at her through the leaves, lighting +quite close to her—once, even, on her shoulder. + +The days passed. Dick had lost his restlessness: his wish to wander had +vanished. He had no reason to wander; perhaps that was the reason why. +In all the broad earth he could not have found anything more desirable +than what he had. + +Instead now of finding a half-naked savage followed dog-like by his +mate, you would have found of an evening a pair of lovers wandering on +the reef. They had in a pathetic sort of way attempted to adorn the +house with a blue flowering creeper taken from the wood and trained +over the entrance. + +Emmeline, up to this, had mostly done the cooking, such as it was; Dick +helped her now, always. He talked to her no longer in short sentences +flung out as if to a dog; and she, almost losing the strange reserve +that had clung to her from childhood, half showed him her mind. It was +a curious mind: the mind of a dreamer, almost the mind of a poet. The +Cluricaunes dwelt there, and vague shapes born of things she had heard +about or dreamt of: she had thoughts about the sea and stars, the +flowers and birds. + +Dick would listen to her as she talked, as a man might listen to the +sound of a rivulet. His practical mind could take no share in the +dreams of his other half, but her conversation pleased him. + +He would look at her for a long time together, absorbed in thought. He +was admiring her. + +Her hair, blue-black and glossy, tangled him in its meshes; he would +stroke it, so to speak, with his eyes, and then pull her close to him +and bury his face in it; the smell of it was intoxicating. He breathed +her as one does the perfume of a rose. + +Her ears were small, and like little white shells. He would take one +between finger and thumb and play with it as if it were a toy, pulling +at the lobe of it, or trying to flatten out the curved part. Her +breasts, her shoulders, her knees, her little feet, every bit of her, +he would examine and play with and kiss. She would lie and let him, +seeming absorbed in some far-away thought, of which he was the object, +then all at once her arms would go round him. All this used to go on in +the broad light of day, under the shadow of the artu leaves, with no +one to watch except the bright-eyed birds in the leaves above. + +Not all their time would be spent in this fashion. Dick was just as +keen after the fish. He dug up with a spade—improvised from one of the +boards of the dinghy—a space of soft earth near the taro patch and +planted the seeds of melons he found in the wood; he rethatched the +house. They were, in short, as busy as they could be in such a climate, +but love-making would come on them in fits, and then everything would +be forgotten. Just as one revisits some spot to renew the memory of a +painful or pleasant experience received there, they would return to the +valley of the idol and spend a whole afternoon in its shade. The +absolute happiness of wandering through the woods together, discovering +new flowers, getting lost, and finding their way again, was a thing +beyond expression. + +Dick had suddenly stumbled upon Love. His courtship had lasted only +some twenty minutes; it was being gone over again now, and extended. + +One day, hearing a curious noise from the tree above the house, he +climbed it. The noise came from the nest, which had been temporarily +left by the mother bird. It was a gasping, wheezing sound, and it came +from four wide-open beaks, so anxious to be fed that one could almost +see into the very crops of the owners. They were Koko’s children. In +another year each of those ugly downy things would, if permitted to +live, be a beautiful sapphire-coloured bird with a few dove-coloured +tail feathers, coral beak, and bright, intelligent eyes. A few days ago +each of these things was imprisoned in a pale green egg. A month ago +they were nowhere. + +Something hit Dick on the cheek. It was the mother bird returned with +food for the young ones. Dick drew his head aside, and she proceeded +without more ado to fill their crops. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE + +Months passed away. Only one bird remained in the branches of the artu: +Koko’s children and mate had vanished, but he remained. The breadfruit +leaves had turned from green to pale gold and darkest amber, and now +the new green leaves were being presented to the spring. + +Dick, who had a complete chart of the lagoon in his head, and knew all +the soundings and best fishing places, the locality of the stinging +coral, and the places where you could wade right across at low +tide—Dick, one morning, was gathering his things together for a +fishing expedition. The place he was going to lay some two and a half +miles away across the island, and as the road was bad he was going +alone. + +Emmeline had been passing a new thread through the beads of the +necklace she sometimes wore. This necklace had a history. In the +shallows not far away, Dick had found a bed of shell-fish; wading out +at low tide, he had taken some of them out to examine. They were +oysters. The first one he opened, so disgusting did its appearance seem +to him, might have been the last, only that under the beard of the +thing lay a pearl. It was about twice the size of a large pea, and so +lustrous that even he could not but admire its beauty, though quite +unconscious of its value. + +He flung the unopened oysters down, and took the thing to Emmeline. +Next day, returning by chance to the same spot, he found the oysters he +had cast down all dead and open in the sun. He examined them, and +found another pearl embedded in one of them. Then he collected nearly a +bushel of the oysters, and left them to die and open. The idea had +occurred to him of making a necklace for his companion. She had one +made of shells, he intended to make her one of pearls. + +It took a long time, but it was something to do. He pierced them with a +big needle, and at the end of four months or so the thing was complete. +Great pearls most of them were—pure white, black, pink, some perfectly +round, some tear shaped, some irregular. The thing was worth fifteen, +or perhaps twenty thousand pounds, for he only used the biggest he +could find, casting away the small ones as useless. + +Emmeline this morning had just finished restringing them on a double +thread. She looked pale and not at all well and had been restless all +night. + +As he went off, armed with his spear and fishing tackle, she waved her +hand to him without getting up. Usually she followed him a bit into the +wood when he was going away like this, but this morning she just sat at +the doorway of the little house, the necklace in her lap, following him +with her eyes until he was lost amidst the trees. + +He had no compass to guide him, and he needed none. He knew the woods +by heart. The mysterious line beyond which scarcely an artu tree was to +be found. The long strip of mammee apple—a regular sheet of it a +hundred yards broad, and reaching from the middle of the island right +down to the lagoon. The clearings, some almost circular where the ferns +grew knee-deep. Then he came to the bad part. + +The vegetation here had burst into a riot. All sorts of great sappy +stalks of unknown plants barred the way and tangled the foot; and there +were boggy places into which one sank horribly. Pausing to wipe one’s +brow, the stalks and tendrils one had beaten down, or beaten aside, +rose up and closed together, making one a prisoner almost as closely +surrounded as a fly in amber. + +All the noontides that had ever fallen upon the island seemed to have +left some of their heat behind them here. The air was damp and close +like the air of a laundry; and the mournful and perpetual buzz of +insects filled the silence without destroying it. + +A hundred men with scythes might make a road through the place to-day; +a month or two later, searching for the road, you would find none—the +vegetation would have closed in as water closes when divided. + +This was the haunt of the jug orchid—a veritable jug, lid and all. +Raising the lid you would find the jug half filled with water. +Sometimes in the tangle up above, between two trees, you would see a +thing like a bird come to ruin. Orchids grew here as in a hothouse. All +the trees—the few there were—had a spectral and miserable appearance. +They were half starved by the voluptuous growth of the gigantic weeds. + +If one had much imagination one felt afraid in this place, for one felt +not alone. At any moment it seemed that one might be touched on the +elbow by a hand reaching out from the surrounding tangle. Even Dick +felt this, unimaginative and fearless as he was. It took him nearly +three-quarters of an hour to get through, and then, at last, came the +blessed air of real day, and a glimpse of the lagoon between the +tree-boles. + +He would have rowed round in the dinghy, only that at low tide the +shallows of the north of the island were a bar to the boat’s passage. +Of course he might have rowed all the way round by way of the strand +and reef entrance, but that would have meant a circuit of six miles or +more. When he came between the trees down to the lagoon edge it was +about eleven o’clock in the morning, and the tide was nearly at the +full. + +The lagoon just here was like a trough, and the reef was very near, +scarcely a quarter of a mile from the shore. The water did not shelve, +it went down sheer fifty fathoms or more, and one could fish from the +bank just as from a pier head. He had brought some food with him, and +he placed it under a tree whilst he prepared his line, which had a lump +of coral for a sinker. He baited the hook, and whirling the sinker +round in the air sent it flying out a hundred feet from shore. There +was a baby cocoa-nut tree growing just at the edge of the water. He +fastened the end of his line round the narrow stem, in case of +eventualities, and then, holding the line itself, he fished. + +He had promised Emmeline to return before sundown. + +He was a fisherman. That is to say, a creature with the enduring +patience of a cat, tireless and heedless of time as an oyster. He came +here for sport more than for fish. Large things were to be found in +this part of the lagoon. The last time he had hooked a horror in the +form of a cat-fish; at least in outward appearance it was likest to a +Mississippi cat-fish. Unlike the cat-fish, it was coarse and useless as +food, but it gave good sport. + +The tide was now going out, and it was at the going-out of the tide +that the best fishing was to be had. There was no wind, and the lagoon +lay like a sheet of glass, with just a dimple here and there where the +outgoing tide made a swirl in the water. + +As he fished he thought of Emmeline and the little house under the +trees. Scarcely one could call it thinking. Pictures passed before his +mind’s eye—pleasant and happy pictures, sunlit, moonlit, starlit. + +Three hours passed thus without a bite or symptom that the lagoon +contained anything else but sea water, and disappointment; but he did +not grumble. He was a fisherman. Then he left the line tied to the tree +and sat down to eat the food he had brought with him. He had scarcely +finished his meal when the baby cocoa-nut tree shivered and became +convulsed, and he did not require to touch the taut line to know that +it was useless to attempt to cope with the thing at the end of it. The +only course was to let it tug and drown itself. So he sat down and +watched. + +After a few minutes the line slackened, and the little cocoa-nut tree +resumed its attitude of pensive meditation and repose. He pulled the +line up: there was nothing at the end of it but a hook. He did not +grumble; he baited the hook again, and flung it in, for it was quite +likely that the ferocious thing in the water would bite again. + +Full of this idea and heedless of time he fished and waited. The sun +was sinking into the west—he did not heed it. He had quite forgotten +that he had promised Emmeline to return before sunset; it was nearly +sunset now. Suddenly, just behind him, from among the trees, he heard +her voice, crying: + +“Dick!” + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE VANISHING OF EMMELINE (continued) + +He dropped the line, and turned with a start. There was no one visible. +He ran amongst the trees calling out her name, but only echoes +answered. Then he came back to the lagoon edge. + +He felt sure that what he had heard was only fancy, but it was nearly +sunset, and more than time to be off. He pulled in his line, wrapped it +up, took his fish-spear and started. + +It was just in the middle of the bad place that dread came to him. +What if anything had happened to her? It was dusk here, and never had +the weeds seemed so thick, dimness so dismal, the tendrils of the vines +so gin-like. Then he lost his way—he who was so sure of his way +always! The hunter’s instinct had been crossed, and for a time he went +hither and thither helpless as a ship without a compass. At last he +broke into the real wood, but far to the right of where he ought to +have been. He felt like a beast escaped from a trap, and hurried along, +led by the sound of the surf. + +When he reached the clear sward that led down to the lagoon the sun had +just vanished beyond the sea-line. A streak of red cloud floated like +the feather of a flamingo in the western sky close to the sea, and +twilight had already filled the world. He could see the house dimly, +under the shadow of the trees, and he ran towards it, crossing the +sward diagonally. + +Always before, when he had been away, the first thing to greet his eyes +on his return had been the figure of Emmeline. Either at the lagoon +edge or the house door he would find her waiting for him. + +She was not waiting for him to-night. When he reached the house she was +not there, and he paused, after searching the place, a prey to the most +horrible perplexity, and unable for the moment to think or act. + +Since the shock of the occurrence on the reef she had been subject at +times to occasional attacks of headache; and when the pain was more +than she could bear, she would go off and hide. Dick would hunt for her +amidst the trees, calling out her name and hallooing. A faint “halloo” +would answer when she heard him, and then he would find her under a +tree or bush, with her unfortunate head between her hands, a picture of +misery. + +He remembered this now, and started off along the borders of the wood, +calling to her, and pausing to listen. No answer came. + +He searched amidst the trees as far as the little well, waking the +echoes with his voice; then he came back slowly, peering about him in +the deep dusk that now was yielding to the starlight. He sat down +before the door of the house, and, looking at him, you might have +fancied him in the last stages of exhaustion. Profound grief and +profound exhaustion act on the frame very much in the same way. He sat +with his chin resting on his chest, his hands helpless. He could hear +her voice, still as he heard it over at the other side of the island. +She had been in danger and called to him, and he had been calmly +fishing, unconscious of it all. + +This thought maddened him. He sat up, stared around him and beat the +ground with the palms of his hands; then he sprang to his feet and made +for the dinghy. He rowed to the reef: the action of a madman, for she +could not possibly be there. + +There was no moon, the starlight both lit and veiled the world, and no +sound but the majestic thunder of the waves. As he stood, the night +wind blowing on his face, the white foam seething before him, and +Canopus burning in the great silence overhead, the fact that he stood +in the centre of an awful and profound indifference came to his +untutored mind with a pang. + +He returned to the shore: the house was still deserted. A little bowl +made from the shell of a cocoa-nut stood on the grass near the doorway. +He had last seen it in her hands, and he took it up and held it for a +moment, pressing it tightly to his breast. Then he threw himself down +before the doorway, and lay upon his face, with head resting upon his +arms in the attitude of a person who is profoundly asleep. + +He must have searched through the woods again that night just as a +somnambulist searches, for he found himself towards dawn in the valley +before the idol. Then it was daybreak—the world was full of light and +colour. He was seated before the house door, worn out and exhausted, +when, raising his head, he saw Emmeline’s figure coming out from amidst +the distant trees on the other side of the sward. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE NEWCOMER + +He could not move for a moment, then he sprang to his feet and ran +towards her. She looked pale and dazed, and she held something in her +arms; something wrapped up in her scarf. As he pressed her to him, the +something in the bundle struggled against his breast and emitted a +squall—just like the squall of a cat. He drew back, and Emmeline, +tenderly moving her scarf a bit aside, exposed a wee face. It was +brick-red and wrinkled; there were two bright eyes, and a tuft of dark +hair over the forehead. Then the eyes closed, the face screwed itself +up, and the thing sneezed twice. + +“Where did you _get_ it?” he asked, absolutely lost in astonishment as +she covered the face again gently with the scarf. + +“I found it in the woods,” replied Emmeline. + +Dumb with amazement, he helped her along to the house, and she sat +down, resting her head against the bamboos of the wall. + +“I felt so bad,” she explained; “and then I went off to sit in the +woods, and then I remembered nothing more, and when I woke up it was +there.” + +“It’s a baby!” said Dick. + +“I know,” replied Emmeline. + +Mrs James’s baby, seen in the long ago, had risen up before their +mind’s eyes, a messenger from the past to explain what the new thing +was. Then she told him things—things that completely shattered the old +“cabbage bed” theory, supplanting it with a truth far more wonderful, +far more poetical, too, to he who can appreciate the marvel and the +mystery of life. + +“It has something funny tied on to it,” she went on, as if she were +referring to a parcel she had just received. + +“Let’s look,” said Dick. + +“No,” she replied; “leave it alone.” + +She sat rocking the thing gently, seeming oblivious to the whole world, +and quite absorbed in it, as, indeed, was Dick. A physician would have +shuddered, but, perhaps fortunately enough, there was no physician on +the island. Only Nature, and she put everything to rights in her own +time and way. + +When Dick had sat marvelling long enough, he set to and lit the fire. +He had eaten nothing since the day before, and he was nearly as +exhausted as the girl. He cooked some breadfruit, there was some cold +fish left over from the day before; this, with some bananas, he served +up on two broad leaves, making Emmeline eat first. + +Before they had finished, the creature in the bundle, as though it had +smelt the food, began to scream. Emmeline drew the scarf aside. It +looked hungry; its mouth would now be pinched up and now wide open, its +eyes opened and closed. The girl touched it on the lips with her +finger, and it seized upon her fingertip and sucked it. Her eyes filled +with tears, she looked appealingly at Dick, who was on his knees; he +took a banana, peeled it, broke off a bit and handed it to her. She +approached it to the baby’s mouth. It tried to suck it, failed, blew +bubbles at the sun and squalled. + +“Wait a minute,” said Dick. + +There were some green cocoa-nuts he had gathered the day before close +by. He took one, removed the green husk, and opened one of the eyes, +making an opening also in the opposite side of the shell. The +unfortunate infant sucked ravenously at the nut, filled its stomach +with the young cocoa-nut juice, vomited violently, and wailed. Emmeline +in despair clasped it to her naked breast, wherefrom, in a moment, it +was hanging like a leech. It knew more about babies than they did. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HANNAH + +At noon, in the shallows of the reef, under the burning sun, the water +would be quite warm. They would carry the baby down here, and Emmeline +would wash it with a bit of flannel. After a few days it scarcely ever +screamed, even when she washed it. It would lie on her knees during the +process, striking valiantly out with its arms and legs, staring +straight up at the sky. Then, when she turned it on its face, it would +lay its head down and chuckle and blow bubbles at the coral of the +reef, examining, apparently, the pattern of the coral with deep and +philosophic attention. + +Dick would sit by with his knees up to his chin, watching it all. He +felt himself to be part proprietor in the thing—as indeed he was. +The mystery of the affair still hung over them both. A week ago they +two had been alone, and suddenly from nowhere this new individual had +appeared. + +It was so complete. It had hair on its head, tiny finger-nails, and +hands that would grasp you. It had a whole host of little ways of its +own, and every day added to them. + +In a week the extreme ugliness of the newborn child had vanished. Its +face, which had seemed carved in the imitation of a monkey’s face from +half a brick, became the face of a happy and healthy baby. It seemed to +see things, and sometimes it would laugh and chuckle as though it had +been told a good joke. Its black hair all came off and was supplanted +by a sort of down. It had no teeth. It would lie on its back and kick +and crow, and double its fists up and try to swallow them alternately, +and cross its feet and play with its toes. In fact, it was exactly like +any of the thousand-and-one babies that are born into the world at +every tick of the clock. + +“What will we call it?” said Dick one day, as he sat watching his son +and heir crawling about on the grass under the shade of the breadfruit +leaves. + +“Hannah,” said Emmeline promptly. + +The recollection of another baby once heard about was in her mind; and +it was as good a name as any other, perhaps, in that lonely place, +notwithstanding the fact that Hannah was a boy. + +Koko took a vast interest in the new arrival. He would hop round it and +peer at it with his head on one side; and Hannah would crawl after the +bird and try to grab it by the tail. In a few months so valiant and +strong did he become that he would pursue his own father, crawling +before him on the grass, and you might have seen the mother and father +and child playing all together like three children, the bird sometimes +hovering overhead like a good spirit, sometimes joining in the fun. + +Sometimes Emmeline would sit and brood over the child, a troubled +expression on her face and a far-away look in her eyes. The old vague +fear of mischance had returned—the dread of that viewless form her +imagination half pictured behind the smile on the face of Nature. Her +happiness was so great that she dreaded to lose it. + +There is nothing more wonderful than the birth of a man, and all that +goes to bring it about. Here, on this island, in the very heart of the +sea, amidst the sunshine and the wind-blown trees, under the great blue +arch of the sky, in perfect purity of thought, they would discuss the +question from beginning to end without a blush, the object of their +discussion crawling before them on the grass, and attempting to grab +feathers from Koko’s tail. + +It was the loneliness of the place as well as their ignorance of life +that made the old, old miracle appear so strange and fresh—as +beautiful as the miracle of death had appeared awful. In thoughts vague +and beyond expression in words, they linked this new occurrence with +that old occurrence on the reef six years before. The vanishing and the +coming of a man. + + * * * * * * + +Hannah, despite his unfortunate name, was certainly a most virile and +engaging baby. The black hair which had appeared and vanished like some +practical joke played by Nature, gave place to a down at first as +yellow as sun-bleached wheat, but in a few months’ time tinged with +auburn. + +One day—he had been uneasy and biting at his thumbs for some time +past—Emmeline, looking into his mouth, saw something white and like a +grain of rice protruding from his gum. It was a tooth just born. He +could eat bananas now, and breadfruit, and they often fed him on +fish—a fact which again might have caused a medical man to shudder; +yet he throve on it all, and waxed stouter every day. + +Emmeline, with a profound and natural wisdom, let him crawl about stark +naked, dressed in ozone and sunlight. Taking him out on the reef, she +would let him paddle in the shallow pools, holding him under the +armpits whilst he splashed the diamond-bright water into spray with his +feet, and laughed and shouted. + +They were beginning now to experience a phenomenon, as wonderful as the +birth of the child’s body—the birth of his intelligence: the peeping +out of a little personality with predilections of its own, likes and +dislikes. + +He knew Dick from Emmeline; and when Emmeline had satisfied his +material wants, he would hold out his arms to go to Dick if he were by. +He looked upon Koko as a friend, but when a friend of Koko’s—a bird +with an inquisitive mind and three red feathers in his tail—dropped in +one day to inspect the newcomer, he resented the intrusion, and +screamed. + +He had a passion for flowers, or anything bright. He would laugh and +shout when taken on the lagoon in the dinghy, and make as if to jump +into the water to get at the bright-coloured corals below. + +Ah me! we laugh at young mothers, and all the miraculous things they +tell us about their babies. They see what we cannot see: the first +unfolding of that mysterious flower, the mind. + +One day they were out on the lagoon. Dick had been rowing; he had +ceased, and was letting the boat drift for a bit. Emmeline was dancing +the child on her knee, when it suddenly held out its arms to the +oarsman and said: + +“Dick!” + +The little word, so often heard and easily repeated, was its first word +on earth. + +A voice that had never spoken in the world before, had spoken; and to +hear his name thus mysteriously uttered by a being he has created, is +the sweetest and perhaps the saddest thing a man can ever know. + +Dick took the child on his knee, and from that moment his love for it +was more than his love for Emmeline or anything else on earth. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE LAGOON OF FIRE + +Ever since the tragedy of six years ago there had been forming in the +mind of Emmeline Lestrange a something—shall I call it a deep +mistrust. She had never been clever; lessons had saddened and wearied +her, without making her much the wiser. Yet her mind was of that order +into which profound truths come by short cuts. She was intuitive. + +Great knowledge may lurk in the human mind without the owner of the +mind being aware. He or she acts in such or such a way, or thinks in +such and such a manner from intuition; in other words, as the outcome +of the profoundest reasoning. + +When we have learned to call storms, storms, and death, death, and +birth, birth; when we have mastered the sailor’s horn book, and Mr +Piddington’s law of cyclones, Ellis’s anatomy, and Lewer’s midwifery, +we have already made ourselves half blind. We have become hypnotised by +words and names. We think in words and names, not in ideas; the +commonplace has triumphed, the true intellect is half crushed. + +Storms had burst over the island before this. And what Emmeline +remembered of them might be expressed by an instance. + +The morning would be bright and happy, never so bright the sun, or so +balmy the breeze, or so peaceful the blue lagoon; then, with a horrid +suddenness, as if sick with dissimulation and mad to show itself, +something would blacken the sun, and with a yell stretch out a hand and +ravage the island, churn the lagoon into foam, beat down the cocoa-nut +trees, and slay the birds. And one bird would be left and another +taken, one tree destroyed, and another left standing. The fury of the +thing was less fearful than the blindness of it, and the indifference +of it. + +One night, when the child was asleep, just after the last star was lit, +Dick appeared at the doorway of the house. He had been down to the +water’s edge and had now returned. He beckoned Emmeline to follow him, +and, putting down the child, she did so. + +“Come here and look,” said he. + +He led the way to the water; and as they approached it, Emmeline became +aware that there was something strange about the lagoon. From a +distance it looked pale and solid; it might have been a great stretch +of grey marble veined with black. Then, as she drew nearer, she saw +that the dull grey appearance was a deception of the eye. + +The lagoon was alight and burning. + +The phosphoric fire was in its very heart and being; every coral branch +was a torch, every fish a passing lantern. The incoming tide moving the +waters made the whole glittering floor of the lagoon move and shiver, +and the tiny waves to lap the bank, leaving behind them glow-worm +traces. + +“Look!” said Dick. + +He knelt down and plunged his forearm into the water. The immersed part +burned like a smouldering torch. Emmeline could see it as plainly as +though it were lit by sunlight. Then he drew his arm out, and as far as +the water had reached, it was covered by a glowing glove. + +They had seen the phosphorescence of the lagoon before; indeed, any +night you might watch the passing fish like bars of silver, when the +moon was away; but this was something quite new, and it was entrancing. + +Emmeline knelt down and dabbled her hands, and made herself a pair of +phosphoric gloves, and cried out with pleasure, and laughed. It was all +the pleasure of playing with fire without the danger of being burnt. +Then Dick rubbed his face with the water till it glowed. + +“Wait!” he cried; and, running up to the house, he fetched out Hannah. + +He came running down with him to the water’s edge, gave Emmeline the +child, unmoored the boat, and started out from shore. + +The sculls, as far as they were immersed, were like bars of glistening +silver; under them passed the fish, leaving cometic tails; each coral +clump was a lamp, lending its lustre till the great lagoon was luminous +as a lit-up ballroom. Even the child on Emmeline’s lap crowed and cried +out at the strangeness of the sight. + +They landed on the reef and wandered over the flat. The sea was white +and bright as snow, and the foam looked like a hedge of fire. + +As they stood gazing on this extraordinary sight, suddenly, almost as +instantaneously as the switching off of an electric light, the +phosphorescence of the sea flickered and vanished. + +The moon was rising. Her crest was just breaking from the water, and as +her face came slowly into view behind a belt of vapour that lay on the +horizon, it looked fierce and red, stained with smoke like the face of +Eblis. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE CYCLONE + +When they awoke next morning the day was dark. A solid roof of cloud, +lead-coloured and without a ripple on it, lay over the sky, almost to +the horizon. There was not a breath of wind, and the birds flew wildly +about as if disturbed by some unseen enemy in the wood. + +As Dick lit the fire to prepare the breakfast, Emmeline walked up and +down, holding her baby to her breast; she felt restless and uneasy. + +As the morning wore on the darkness increased; a breeze rose up, and +the leaves of the breadfruit trees pattered together with the sound of +rain falling upon glass. A storm was coming, but there was something +different in its approach to the approach of the storms they had +already known. + +As the breeze increased a sound filled the air, coming from far away +beyond the horizon. It was like the sound of a great multitude of +people, and yet so faint and vague was it that sudden bursts of the +breeze through the leaves above would drown it utterly. Then it ceased, +and nothing could be heard but the rocking of the branches and the +tossing of the leaves under the increasing wind, which was now blowing +sharply and fiercely and with a steady rush dead from the west, +fretting the lagoon, and sending clouds and masses of foam right over +the reef. The sky that had been so leaden and peaceful and like a solid +roof was now all in a hurry, flowing eastward like a great turbulent +river in spate. + +And now, again, one could hear the sound in the distance—the thunder +of the captains of the storm and the shouting; but still so faint, so +vague, so indeterminate and unearthly that it seemed like the sound in +a dream. + +Emmeline sat amidst the ferns on the floor cowed and dumb, holding the +baby to her breast. It was fast asleep. Dick stood at the doorway. He +was disturbed in mind, but he did not show it. + +The whole beautiful island world had now taken on the colour of ashes +and the colour of lead. Beauty had utterly vanished, all seemed sadness +and distress. + +The cocoa-palms, under the wind that had lost its steady rush and was +now blowing in hurricane blasts, flung themselves about in all the +attitudes of distress; and whoever has seen a tropical storm will know +what a cocoa-palm can express by its movements under the lash of the +wind. + +Fortunately the house was so placed that it was protected by the whole +depth of the grove between it and the lagoon; and fortunately, too, it +was sheltered by the dense foliage of the breadfruit, for suddenly, +with a crash of thunder as if the hammer of Thor had been flung from +sky to earth, the clouds split and the rain came down in a great +slanting wave. It roared on the foliage above, which, bending leaf on +leaf, made a slanting roof from which it rushed in a steady sheet-like +cascade. + +Dick had darted into the house, and was now sitting beside Emmeline, +who was shivering and holding the child, which had awakened at the +sound of the thunder. + +For an hour they sat, the rain ceasing and coming again, the thunder +shaking earth and sea, and the wind passing overhead with a piercing, +monotonous cry. + +Then all at once the wind dropped, the rain ceased, and a pale spectral +light, like the light of dawn, fell before the doorway. + +“It’s over!” cried Dick, making to get up. + +“Oh, listen!” said Emmeline, clinging to him, and holding the baby to +his breast as if the touch of him would give it protection. She had +divined that there was something approaching worse than a storm. + +Then, listening in the silence, away from the other side of the island, +they heard a sound like the droning of a great top. + +It was the centre of the cyclone approaching. + +A cyclone is a circular storm: a storm in the form of a ring. This ring +of hurricane travels across the ocean with inconceivable speed and +fury, yet its centre is a haven of peace. + +As they listened the sound increased, sharpened, and became a tang that +pierced the ear-drums: a sound that shook with hurry and speed, +increasing, bringing with it the bursting and crashing of trees, and +breaking at last overhead in a yell that stunned the brain like the +blow of a bludgeon. In a second the house was torn away, and they were +clinging to the roots of the breadfruit, deaf, blinded, half-lifeless. + +The terror and the prolonged shock of it reduced them from thinking +beings to the level of frightened animals whose one instinct is +preservation. + +How long the horror lasted they could not tell, when, like a madman who +pauses for a moment in the midst of his struggles and stands +stock-still, the wind ceased blowing, and there was peace. The centre +of the cyclone was passing over the island. + +Looking up, one saw a marvellous sight. The air was full of birds, +butterflies, insects—all hanging in the heart of the storm and +travelling with it under its protection. + +Though the air was still as the air of a summer’s day, from north, +south, east, and west, from every point of the compass, came the yell +of the hurricane. + +There was something shocking in this. + +In a storm one is so beaten about by the wind that one has no time to +think: one is half stupefied. But in the dead centre of a cyclone one +is in perfect peace. The trouble is all around, but it is not here. One +has time to examine the thing like a tiger in a cage, listen to its +voice and shudder at its ferocity. + +The girl, holding the baby to her breast, sat up gasping. The baby had +come to no harm; it had cried at first when the thunder broke, but now +it seemed impassive, almost dazed. Dick stepped from under the tree and +looked at the prodigy in the air. + +The cyclone had gathered on its way sea-birds and birds from the land; +there were gulls, electric white and black man-of-war birds, +butterflies, and they all seemed imprisoned under a great drifting dome +of glass. As they went, travelling like things without volition and in +a dream, with a hum and a roar the south-west quadrant of the cyclone +burst on the island, and the whole bitter business began over again. + +It lasted for hours, then towards midnight the wind fell; and when the +sun rose next morning he came through a cloudless sky, without a trace +of apology for the destruction caused by his children the winds. He +showed trees uprooted and birds lying dead, three or four canes +remaining of what had once been a house, the lagoon the colour of a +pale sapphire, and a glass-green, foam-capped sea racing in thunder +against the reef. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE STRICKEN WOODS + +At first they thought they were ruined; then Dick, searching, found the +old saw under a tree, and the butcher’s knife near it, as though the +knife and saw had been trying to escape in company and had failed. + +Bit by bit they began to recover something of their scattered property. +The remains of the flannel had been taken by the cyclone and wrapped +round and round a slender cocoa-nut tree, till the trunk looked like a +gaily-bandaged leg. The box of fishhooks had been jammed into the +centre of a cooked breadfruit, both having been picked up by the +fingers of the wind and hurled against the same tree; and the stay-sail +of the _Shenandoah_ was out on the reef, with a piece of coral carefully +placed on it as if to keep it down. As for the lug-sail belonging to +the dinghy, it was never seen again. + +There is humour sometimes in a cyclone, if you can only appreciate it; +no other form of air disturbance produces such quaint effects. Beside +the great main whirlpool of wind, there are subsidiary whirlpools, each +actuated by its own special imp. + +Emmeline had felt Hannah nearly snatched from her arms twice by these +little ferocious gimlet winds; and that the whole business of the great +storm was set about with the object of snatching Hannah from her, and +blowing him out to sea, was a belief which she held, perhaps, in the +innermost recesses of her mind. + +The dinghy would have been utterly destroyed, had it not heeled over +and sunk in shallow water at the first onset of the wind; as it was, +Dick was able to bail it out at the next low tide, when it floated as +bravely as ever, not having started a single seam. + +But the destruction amidst the trees was pitiful. Looking at the woods +as a mass, one noticed gaps here and there, but what had really +happened could not be seen till one was amongst the trees. Great, +beautiful cocoa-nut palms, not dead, but just dying, lay crushed and +broken as if trampled upon by some enormous foot. You would come +across half a dozen lianas twisted into one great cable. Where +cocoa-nut palms were, you could not move a yard without kicking against +a fallen nut; you might have picked up full-grown, half-grown, and wee +baby nuts, not bigger than small apples, for on the same tree you will +find nuts of all sizes and conditions. + +One never sees a perfectly straight-stemmed cocoa-palm; they all have +an inclination from the perpendicular more or less; perhaps that is why +a cyclone has more effect on them than on other trees. + +Artus, once so pretty a picture with their diamond-chequered trunks, +lay broken and ruined; and right through the belt of mammee apple, +right through the bad lands, lay a broad road, as if an army, horse, +foot, and artillery, had passed that way from lagoon edge to lagoon +edge. This was the path left by the great fore-foot of the storm; but +had you searched the woods on either side, you would have found paths +where the lesser winds had been at work, where the baby whirlwinds had +been at play. + +From the bruised woods, like an incense offered to heaven, rose a +perfume of blossoms gathered and scattered, of rain-wet leaves, of +lianas twisted and broken and oozing their sap; the perfume of +newly-wrecked and ruined trees—the essence and soul of the artu, the +banyan and cocoa-palm cast upon the wind. + +You would have found dead butterflies in the woods, dead birds too; but +in the great path of the storm you would have found dead butterflies’ +wings, feathers, leaves frayed as if by fingers, branches of the aoa, +and sticks of the hibiscus broken into little fragments. + +Powerful enough to rip a ship open, root up a tree, half ruin a city. +Delicate enough to tear a butterfly wing from wing—that is a cyclone. + +Emmeline, wandering about in the woods with Dick on the day after the +storm, looking at the ruin of great tree and little bird, and +recollecting the land birds she had caught a glimpse of yesterday being +carried along safely by the storm out to sea to be drowned, felt a +great weight lifting from her heart. Mischance had come, and spared +them and the baby. The blue had spoken, but had not called them. + +She felt that something—the something which we in civilisation call +Fate—was for the present gorged; and, without being annihilated, her +incessant hypochondriacal dread condensed itself into a point, leaving +her horizon sunlit and clear. + +The cyclone had indeed treated them almost, one might say, amiably. It +had taken the house—but that was a small matter, for it had left them +nearly all their small possessions. The tinder box and flint and steel +would have been a much more serious loss than a dozen houses, for, +without it, they would have had absolutely no means of making a fire. + +If anything, the cyclone had been almost too kind to them; had let them +pay off too little of that mysterious debt they owed to the gods. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A FALLEN IDOL + +The next day Dick began to rebuild the house. He had fetched the +stay-sail from the reef and rigged up a temporary tent. + +It was a great business cutting the canes and dragging them out in the +open. Emmeline helped; whilst Hannah, seated on the grass, played with +the bird that had vanished during the storm, but reappeared the evening +after. + +The child and the bird had grown fast friends; they were friendly +enough even at first, but now the bird would sometimes let the tiny +hands clasp him right round his body—at least, as far as the hands +would go. + +It is a rare experience for a man to hold a tame and unstruggling and +unfrightened bird in his hands; next to pressing a woman in his arms, +it is the pleasantest tactile sensation he will ever experience, +perhaps, in life. He will feel a desire to press it to his heart, if he +has such a thing. + +Hannah would press Koko to his little brown stomach, as if in artless +admission of where his heart lay. + +He was an extraordinarily bright and intelligent child. He did not +promise to be talkative, for, having achieved the word “Dick,” he +rested content for a long while before advancing further into the +labyrinth of language; but though he did not use his tongue, he spoke +in a host of other ways. With his eyes, that were as bright as Koko’s, +and full of all sorts of mischief; with his hands and feet and the +movements of his body. He had a way of shaking his hands before him +when highly delighted, a way of expressing nearly all the shades of +pleasure; and though he rarely expressed anger, when he did so, he +expressed it fully. + +He was just now passing over the frontier into toyland. In civilisation +he would no doubt have been the possessor of an india-rubber dog or a +woolly lamb, but there were no toys here at all. Emmeline’s old doll +had been left behind when they took flight from the other side of the +island, and Dick, a year or so ago, on one of his expeditions, had +found it lying half buried in the sand of the beach. + +He had brought it back now more as a curiosity than anything else, and +they had kept it on the shelf in the house. The cyclone had impaled it +on a tree-twig near by, as if in derision; and Hannah, when it was +presented to him as a plaything, flung it away from him as if in +disgust. But he would play with flowers or bright shells, or bits of +coral, making vague patterns with them on the sward. + +All the toy lambs in the world would not have pleased him better than +those things, the toys of the Troglodyte children—the children of the +Stone Age. To clap two oyster shells together and make a noise—what, +after all, could a baby want better than that? + +One afternoon, when the house was beginning to take some sort of form, +they ceased work and went off into the woods; Emmeline carrying the +baby, and Dick taking turns with him. They were going to the valley of +the idol. + +Since the coming of Hannah, and even before, the stone figure standing +in its awful and mysterious solitude had ceased to be an object of +dread to Emmeline, and had become a thing vaguely benevolent. Love had +come to her under its shade; and under its shade the spirit of the +child had entered into her—from where, who knows? But certainly through +heaven. + +Perhaps the thing which had been the god of some unknown people had +inspired her with the instinct of religion; if so, she was his last +worshipper on earth, for when they entered the valley they found him +lying upon his face. Great blocks of stone lay around him: there had +evidently been a landslip, a catastrophe preparing for ages, and +determined, perhaps, by the torrential rain of the cyclone. + +In Ponape, Huahine, in Easter Island, you may see great idols that have +been felled like this, temples slowly dissolving from sight, and +terraces, seemingly as solid as the hills, turning softly and subtly +into shapeless mounds of stone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE EXPEDITION + +Next morning the light of day filtering through the trees awakened +Emmeline in the tent which they had improvised whilst the house was +building. Dawn came later here than on the other side of the island +which faced east—later, and in a different manner—for there is the +difference of worlds between dawn coming over a wooded hill, and dawn +coming over the sea. + +Over at the other side, sitting on the sand with the break of the reef +which faced the east before you, scarcely would the east change colour +before the sea-line would be on fire, the sky lit up into an +illimitable void of blue, and the sunlight flooding into the lagoon, +the ripples of light seeming to chase the ripples of water. + +On this side it was different. The sky would be dark and full of stars, +and the woods, great spaces of velvety shadow. Then through the leaves +of the artu would come a sigh, and the leaves of the breadfruit would +patter, and the sound of the reef become faint. The land breeze had +awakened, and in a while, as if it had blown them away, looking up, you +would find the stars gone, and the sky a veil of palest blue. In this +indirect approach of dawn there was something ineffably mysterious. One +could see, but the things seen were indecisive and vague, just as they +are in the gloaming of an English summer’s day. + +Scarcely had Emmeline arisen when Dick woke also, and they went out on +to the sward, and then down to the water’s edge. Dick went in for a +swim, and the girl, holding the baby, stood on the bank watching him. + +Always after a great storm the weather of the island would become more +bracing and exhilarating, and this morning the air seemed filled with +the spirit of spring. Emmeline felt it, and as she watched the swimmer +disporting in the water, she laughed, and held the child up to watch +him. She was fey. The breeze, filled with all sorts of sweet perfumes +from the woods, blew her black hair about her shoulders, and the full +light of morning coming over the palm fronds of the woods beyond the +sward touched her and the child. Nature seemed caressing them. + +Dick came ashore, and then ran about to dry himself in the wind. Then +he went to the dinghy and examined her; for he had determined to leave +the house-building for half a day, and row round to the old place to +see how the banana trees had fared during the storm. His anxiety about +them was not to be wondered at. The island was his larder, and the +bananas were a most valuable article of food. He had all the feelings +of a careful housekeeper about them, and he could not rest till he had +seen for himself the extent of damage, if damage there was any. + +He examined the boat, and then they all went back to breakfast. Living +their lives, they had to use forethought. They would put away, for +instance, all the shells of the cocoa-nuts they used for fuel; and you +never could imagine the blazing splendour there lives in the shell of a +cocoa-nut till you see it burning. Yesterday, Dick, with his usual +prudence, had placed a heap of sticks, all wet with the rain of the +storm, to dry in the sun: as a consequence, they had plenty of fuel to +make a fire with this morning. + +When they had finished breakfast he got the knife to cut the bananas +with—if there were any left to cut—and, taking the javelin, he went +down to the boat, followed by Emmeline and the child. + +Dick had stepped into the boat, and was on the point of unmooring her, +and pushing her off, when Emmeline stopped him. + +“Dick!” + +“Yes?” + +“I will go with you.” + +“You!” said he in astonishment. + +“Yes, I’m—not afraid any more.” + +It was a fact; since the coming of the child she had lost that dread of +the other side of the island—or almost lost it. + +Death is a great darkness, birth is a great light—they had intermixed +in her mind; the darkness was still there, but it was no longer +terrible to her, for it was infused with the light. The result was a +twilight sad, but beautiful, and unpeopled with forms of fear. + +Years ago she had seen a mysterious door close and shut a human being +out for ever from the world. The sight had filled her with dread +unimaginable, for she had no words for the thing, no religion or +philosophy to explain it away or gloss it over. Just recently she had +seen an equally mysterious door open and admit a human being; and deep +down in her mind, in the place where the dreams were, the one great +fact had explained and justified the other. Life had vanished into the +void, but life had come from there. There was life in the void, and it +was no longer terrible. + +Perhaps all religions were born on a day when some woman, seated upon a +rock by the prehistoric sea, looked at her newborn child and recalled +to mind her man who had been slain, thus closing the charm and +imprisoning the idea of a future state. + +Emmeline, with the child in her arms, stepped into the little boat and +took her seat in the stern, whilst Dick pushed off. Scarcely had he put +out the sculls than a new passenger arrived. It was Koko. He would +often accompany them to the reef, though, strangely enough, he would +never go there alone of his own accord. He made a circle or two over +them, and then lit on the gunwale in the bow, and perched there, humped +up, and with his long dove-coloured tail feathers presented to the +water. + +The oarsman kept close in-shore, and as they rounded the little cape +all gay with wild cocoa-nut the bushes brushed the boat, and the child, +excited by their colour, held out his hands to them. Emmeline +stretched out her hand and broke off a branch; but it was not a branch +of the wild cocoa-nut she had plucked, it was a branch of the +never-wake-up berries. The berries that will cause a man to sleep, +should he eat of them—to sleep and dream, and never wake up again. + +“Throw them away!” cried Dick, who remembered. + +“I will in a minute,” she replied. + +She was holding them up before the child, who was laughing and trying +to grasp them. Then she forgot them, and dropped them in the bottom of +the boat, for something had struck the keel with a thud, and the water +was boiling all round. + +There was a savage fight going on below. In the breeding season great +battles would take place sometimes in the lagoon, for fish have their +jealousies just like men—love affairs, friendships. The two great +forms could be dimly perceived, one in pursuit of the other, and they +terrified Emmeline, who implored Dick to row on. + +They slipped by the pleasant shores that Emmeline had never seen +before, having been sound asleep when they came past them those years +ago. + +Just before putting off she had looked back at the beginnings of the +little house under the artu tree, and as she looked at the strange +glades and groves, the picture of it rose before her, and seemed to +call her back. + +It was a tiny possession, but it was home; and so little used to change +was she that already a sort of home-sickness was upon her; but it +passed away almost as soon as it came, and she fell to wondering at the +things around her, and pointing them out to the child. + +When they came to the place where Dick had hooked the albicore, he hung +on his oars and told her about it. It was the first time she had heard +of it; a fact which shows into what a state of savagery he had been +lapsing. He had mentioned about the canoes, for he had to account for +the javelin; but as for telling her of the incidents of the chase, he +no more thought of doing so than a red Indian would think of detailing +to his squaw the incidents of a bear hunt. Contempt for women is the +first law of savagery, and perhaps the last law of some old and +profound philosophy. + +She listened, and when it came to the incident of the shark, she +shuddered. + +“I wish I had a hook big enough to catch him with,” said he, staring +into the water as if in search of his enemy. + +“Don’t think of him, Dick,” said Emmeline, holding the child more +tightly to her heart. “Row on.” + +He resumed the sculls, but you could have seen from his face that he +was recounting to himself the incident. + +When they had rounded the last promontory, and the strand and the break +in the reef opened before them, Emmeline caught her breath. The place +had changed in some subtle manner; everything was there as before, yet +everything seemed different—the lagoon seemed narrower, the reef +nearer, the cocoa-palms not nearly so tall. She was contrasting the +real things with the recollection of them when seen by a child. The +black speck had vanished from the reef; the storm had swept it utterly +away. + +Dick beached the boat on the shelving sand, and left Emmeline seated in +the stern of it, whilst he went in search of the bananas; she would +have accompanied him, but the child had fallen asleep. + +Hannah asleep was even a pleasanter picture than when awake. He looked +like a little brown Cupid without wings, bow or arrow. He had all the +grace of a curled-up feather. Sleep was always in pursuit of him, and +would catch him up at the most unexpected moments—when he was at play, +or indeed at any time. Emmeline would sometimes find him with a +coloured shell or bit of coral that he had been playing with in his +hand fast asleep, a happy expression on his face, as if his mind were +pursuing its earthly avocations on some fortunate beach in dreamland. + +Dick had plucked a huge breadfruit leaf and given it to her as a +shelter from the sun, and she sat holding it over her, and gazing +straight before her, over the white, sunlit sands. + +The flight of the mind in reverie is not in a direct line. To her, +dreaming as she sat, came all sorts of coloured pictures, recalled by +the scene before her: the green water under the stern of a ship, and +the word _Shenandoah_ vaguely reflected on it; their landing, and the +little tea-set spread out on the white sand—she could still see the +pansies painted on the plates, and she counted in memory the lead +spoons; the great stars that burned over the reef at nights; the +Cluricaunes and fairies; the cask by the well where the convolvulus +blossomed, and the wind-blown trees seen from the summit of the +hill—all these pictures drifted before her, dissolving and replacing +each other as they went. + +There was sadness in the contemplation of them, but pleasure too. She +felt at peace with the world. All trouble seemed far behind her. It was +as if the great storm that had left them unharmed had been an +ambassador from the powers above to assure her of their forbearance, +protection, and love. + +All at once she noticed that between the boat’s bow and the sand there +lay a broad, blue, sparkling line. The dinghy was afloat. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE KEEPER OF THE LAGOON + +The woods here had been less affected by the cyclone than those upon +the other side of the island, but there had been destruction enough. To +reach the place he wanted, Dick had to climb over felled trees and +fight his way through a tangle of vines that had once hung overhead. + +The banana trees had not suffered at all; as if by some special +dispensation of Providence even the great bunches of fruit had been +scarcely injured, and he proceeded to climb and cut them. He cut two +bunches, and with one across his shoulder came back down through the +trees. + +He had got half across the sands, his head bent under the load, when a +distant call came to him, and, raising his head, he saw the boat adrift +in the middle of the lagoon, and the figure of the girl in the bow of +it waving to him with her arm. He saw a scull floating on the water +half-way between the boat and the shore, which she had no doubt lost in +an attempt to paddle the boat back. He remembered that the tide was +going out. + +He flung his load aside, and ran down the beach; in a moment he was in +the water. Emmeline, standing up in the boat, watched him. + +When she found herself adrift, she had made an effort to row back, and +in her hurry shipping the sculls she had lost one. With a single scull +she was quite helpless, as she had not the art of sculling a boat from +the stern. At first she was not frightened, because she knew that Dick +would soon return to her assistance; but as the distance between boat +and shore increased, a cold hand seemed laid upon her heart. Looking at +the shore it seemed very far away, and the view towards the reef was +terrific, for the opening had increased in apparent size, and the great +sea beyond seemed drawing her to it. + +She saw Dick coming out of the wood with the load on his shoulder, and +she called to him. At first he did not seem to hear, then she saw him +look up, cast the bananas away, and come running down the sand to the +water’s edge. She watched him swimming, she saw him seize the scull, +and her heart gave a great leap of joy. + +Towing the scull and swimming with one arm, he rapidly approached the +boat. He was quite close, only ten feet away, when Emmeline saw behind +him, shearing through the clear, rippling water and advancing with +speed, a dark triangle that seemed made of canvas stretched upon a +sword point. + + * * * * * * + +Forty years ago he had floated adrift on the sea in the form and +likeness of a small shabby pine-cone, a prey to anything that might +find him. He had escaped the jaws of the dog-fish, and the jaws of the +dog-fish are a very wide door; he had escaped the albicore and squid: +his life had been one long series of miraculous escapes from death. Out +of a billion like him born in the same year, he and a few others only +had survived. + +For thirty years he had kept the lagoon to himself, as a ferocious +tiger keeps a jungle. He had known the palm tree on the reef when it +was a seedling, and he had known the reef even before the palm tree was +there. The things he had devoured, flung one upon another, would have +made a mountain; yet he was as clear of enmity as a sword, as cruel, and +as soulless. He was the spirit of the lagoon. + + * * * * * * + +Emmeline screamed, and pointed to the thing behind the swimmer. He +turned, saw it, dropped the oar and made for the boat. She had seized +the remaining scull and stood with it poised, then she hurled it blade +foremost at the form in the water, now fully visible, and close on its +prey. + +She could not throw a stone straight, yet the scull went like an arrow +to the mark, balking the pursuer and saving the pursued. In a moment +more his leg was over the gunwale, and he was saved. + +But the scull was lost. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE HAND OF THE SEA + +There was nothing in the boat that could possibly be used as a paddle; +the scull was only five or six yards away, but to attempt to swim to it +was certain death, yet they were being swept out to sea. He might have +made the attempt, only that on the starboard quarter the form of the +shark, gently swimming at the same pace as they were drifting, could be +made out only half veiled by the water. + +The bird perched on the gunwale seemed to divine their trouble, for he +rose in the air, made a circle, and resumed his perch with all his +feathers ruffled. + +Dick stood in despair, helpless, his hands clasping his head. The shore +was drawing away before him, the surf loudening behind him, yet he +could do nothing. The island was being taken away from them by the +great hand of the sea. + +Then, suddenly, the little boat entered the race formed by the +confluence of the tides, from the right and left arms of the lagoon; +the sound of the surf suddenly increased as though a door had been +flung open. The breakers were falling and the sea-gulls crying on +either side of them, and for a moment the ocean seemed to hesitate as +to whether they were to be taken away into her wastes, or dashed on the +coral strand. Only for a moment this seeming hesitation lasted; then +the power of the tide prevailed over the power of the swell, and the +little boat taken by the current drifted gently out to sea. + +Dick flung himself down beside Emmeline, who was seated in the bottom +of the boat holding the child to her breast. The bird, seeing the land +retreat, and wise in its instinct, rose into the air. It circled +thrice round the drifting boat, and then, like a beautiful but +faithless spirit, passed away to the shore. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TOGETHER + +The island had sunk slowly from sight; at sundown it was just a trace, +a stain on the south-western horizon. It was before the new moon, and +the little boat lay drifting. It drifted from the light of sunset into +a world of vague violet twilight, and now it lay drifting under the +stars. + +The girl, clasping the baby to her breast, leaned against her +companion’s shoulder; neither of them spoke. All the wonders in their +short existence had culminated in this final wonder, this passing away +together from the world of Time. This strange voyage they had embarked +on—to where? + +Now that the first terror was over they felt neither sorrow nor fear. +They were together. Come what might, nothing could divide them; even +should they sleep and never wake up, they would sleep together. Had one +been left and the other taken! + +As though the thought had occurred to them simultaneously, they turned +one to the other, and their lips met, their souls met, mingling in one +dream; whilst above in the windless heaven space answered space with +flashes of siderial light, and Canopus shone and burned like the +pointed sword of Azrael. + +Clasped in Emmeline’s hand was the last and most mysterious gift of the +mysterious world they had known—the branch of crimson berries. + + + + +BOOK III + + +CHAPTER I + +MAD LESTRANGE + +They knew him upon the Pacific slope as “Mad Lestrange.” He was not +mad, but he was a man with a fixed idea. He was pursued by a vision: +the vision of two children and an old sailor adrift in a little boat +upon a wide blue sea. + +When the _Arago_, bound for Papetee, picked up the boats of the +_Northumberland_, only the people in the long-boat were alive. Le Farge, +the captain, was mad, and he never recovered his reason. Lestrange was +utterly shattered; the awful experience in the boats and the loss of +the children had left him a seemingly helpless wreck. The scowbankers, +like all their class, had fared better, and in a few days were about +the ship and sitting in the sun. Four days after the rescue the _Arago_ +spoke the _Newcastle_, bound for San Francisco, and transhipped the +shipwrecked men. + +Had a physician seen Lestrange on board the _Northumberland_ as she lay +in that long, long calm before the fire, he would have declared that +nothing but a miracle could prolong his life. The miracle came about. + +In the general hospital of San Francisco, as the clouds cleared from +his mind, they unveiled the picture of the children and the little +boat. The picture had been there daily, seen but not truly +comprehended; the horrors gone through in the open boat, the sheer +physical exhaustion, had merged all the accidents of the great disaster +into one mournful half-comprehended fact. When his brain cleared all +the other incidents fell out of focus, and memory, with her eyes set +upon the children, began to paint a picture that he was ever more to +see. + +Memory cannot produce a picture that Imagination has not retouched; and +her pictures, even the ones least touched by Imagination, are no mere +photographs, but the work of an artist. All that is inessential she +casts away, all that is essential she retains; she idealises, and that +is why her picture of a lost mistress has had power to keep a man a +celibate to the end of his days, and why she can break a human heart +with the picture of a dead child. She is a painter, but she is also a +poet. + +The picture before the mind of Lestrange was filled with this almost +diabolical poetry, for in it the little boat and her helpless crew were +represented adrift on a blue and sunlit sea. A sea most beautiful to +look at, yet most terrible, bearing as it did the recollections of +thirst. + +He had been dying, when, raising himself on his elbow, so to say, he +looked at this picture. It recalled him to life. His willpower asserted +itself, and he refused to die. + +The will of a man has, if it is strong enough, the power to reject +death. He was not in the least conscious of the exercise of this power; +he only knew that a great and absorbing interest had suddenly arisen in +him, and that a great aim stood before him—the recovery of the +children. + +The disease that was killing him ceased its ravages, or rather was +slain in its turn by the increased vitality against which it had to +strive. He left the hospital and took up his quarters at the Palace +Hotel, and then, like the General of an army, he began to formulate his +plan of campaign against Fate. + +When the crew of the _Northumberland_ had stampeded, hurling their +officers aside, lowering the boats with a rush, and casting themselves +into the sea, everything had been lost in the way of ship’s papers; the +charts, the two logs—everything, in fact, that could indicate the +latitude and longitude of the disaster. The first and second officers +and a midshipman had shared the fate of the quarter-boat; of the +foremast hands saved, not one, of course, could give the slightest +hint as to the locality of the spot. + +A time reckoning from the Horn told little, for there was no record of +the log. All that could be said was that the disaster had occurred +somewhere south of the line. + +In Le Farge’s brain lay for a certainty the position, and Lestrange +went to see the captain in the “Maison de Sante,” where he was being +looked after, and found him quite recovered from the furious mania that +he had been suffering from. Quite recovered, and playing with a ball of +coloured worsted. + +There remained the log of the _Arago_; in it would be found the latitude +and longitude of the boats she had picked up. + +The _Arago_, due at Papetee, became overdue. Lestrange watched the +overdue lists from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, +uselessly, for the _Arago_ never was heard of again. One could not affirm +even that she was wrecked; she was simply one of the ships that never +come back from the sea. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE SECRET OF THE AZURE + +To lose a child he loves is undoubtedly the greatest catastrophe that +can happen to a man. I do not refer to its death. + +A child wanders into the street, or is left by its nurse for a moment, +and vanishes. At first the thing is not realised. There is a pang and +hurry at the heart which half vanishes, whilst the understanding +explains that in a civilised city, if a child gets lost, it will be +found and brought back by the neighbours or the police. + +But the police know nothing of the matter, or the neighbours, and the +hours pass. Any minute may bring back the wanderer; but the minutes +pass, and the day wears into evening, and the evening to night, and the +night to dawn, and the common sounds of a new day begin. + +You cannot remain at home for restlessness; you go out, only to return +hurriedly for news. You are eternally listening, and what you hear +shocks you; the common sounds of life, the roll of the carts and cabs +in the street, the footsteps of the passers-by, are full of an +indescribable mournfulness; music increases your misery into madness, +and the joy of others is monstrous as laughter heard in hell. + +If some one were to bring you the dead body of the child, you might +weep, but you would bless him, for it is the uncertainty that kills. + +You go mad, or go on living. Years pass by, and you are an old man. +You say to yourself: “He would have been twenty years of age to-day.” + +There is not in the old ferocious penal code of our forefathers a +punishment adequate to the case of the man or woman who steals a child. + +Lestrange was a wealthy man, and one hope remained to him, that the +children might have been rescued by some passing ship. It was not the +case of children lost in a city, but in the broad Pacific, where ships +travel from all ports to all ports, and to advertise his loss +adequately it was necessary to placard the world. Ten thousand dollars +was the reward offered for news of the lost ones, twenty thousand for +the recovery; and the advertisement appeared in every newspaper +likely to reach the eyes of a sailor, from the _Liverpool Post_ to +the _Dead Bird_. + +The years passed without anything definite coming in answer to all +these advertisements. Once news came of two children saved from the sea +in the neighbourhood of the Gilberts, and it was not false news, but +they were not the children he was seeking for. This incident at once +depressed and stimulated him, for it seemed to say, “If these children +have been saved, why not yours?” + +The strange thing was, that in his heart he felt a certainty that they +were alive. His intellect suggested their death in twenty different +forms; but a whisper, somewhere out of that great blue ocean, told him +at intervals that what he sought was there, living, and waiting for him. + +He was somewhat of the same temperament as Emmeline—a dreamer, with a +mind tuned to receive and record the fine rays that fill this world +flowing from intellect to intellect, and even from what we call +inanimate things. A coarser nature would, though feeling, perhaps, as +acutely the grief, have given up in despair the search. But he kept on; +and at the end of the fifth year, so far from desisting, he chartered a +schooner and passed eighteen months in a fruitless search, calling at +little-known islands, and once, unknowing, at an island only three +hundred miles away from the tiny island of this story. + +If you wish to feel the hopelessness of this unguided search, do not +look at a map of the Pacific, but go there. Hundreds and hundreds of +thousands of square leagues of sea, thousands of islands, reefs, atolls. + +Up to a few years ago there were many small islands utterly unknown; +even still there are some, though the charts of the Pacific are the +greatest triumphs of hydrography; and though the island of the story +was actually on the Admiralty charts, of what use was that fact to +Lestrange? + +He would have continued searching, but he dared not, for the desolation +of the sea had touched him. + +In that eighteen months the Pacific explained itself to him in part, +explained its vastness, its secrecy and inviolability. The schooner +lifted veil upon veil of distance, and veil upon veil lay beyond. He +could only move in a right line; to search the wilderness of water with +any hope, one would have to be endowed with the gift of moving in all +directions at once. + +He would often lean over the bulwark rail and watch the swell slip by, +as if questioning the water. Then the sunsets began to weigh upon his +heart, and the stars to speak to him in a new language, and he knew +that it was time to return, if he would return with a whole mind. + +When he got back to San Francisco he called upon his agent, Wannamaker +of Kearney Street, but there was still no news. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CAPTAIN FOUNTAIN + +He had a suite of rooms at the Palace Hotel, and he lived the life of +any other rich man who is not addicted to pleasure. He knew some of the +best people in the city, and conducted himself so sanely in all +respects that a casual stranger would never have guessed his reputation +for madness; but when you knew him better, you would find sometimes in +the middle of a conversation that his mind was away from the subject; +and were you to follow him in the street, you would hear him in +conversation with himself. Once at a dinner-party he rose and left the +room, and did not return. Trifles, but sufficient to establish a +reputation of a sort. + +One morning—to be precise, it was the second day of May, exactly eight +years and five months after the wreck of the _Northumberland_—Lestrange +was in his sitting-room reading, when the bell of the telephone, which +stood in the corner of the room, rang. He went to the instrument. + +“Are you there?” came a high American voice. “Lestrange—right—come +down and see me—Wannamaker—I have news for you.” + +Lestrange held the receiver for a moment, then he put it back in the +rest. He went to a chair and sat down, holding his head between his +hands, then he rose and went to the telephone again; but he dared not +use it, he dare not shatter the newborn hope. + +“News!” What a world lies in that word. + +In Kearney Street he stood before the door of Wannamaker’s office +collecting himself and watching the crowd drifting by, then he entered +and went up the stairs. He pushed open a swing-door and entered a great +room. The clink and rattle of a dozen typewriters filled the place, and +all the hurry of business; clerks passed and came with sheaves of +correspondence in their hands; and Wannamaker himself, rising from +bending over a message which he was correcting on one of the +typewriters’ tables, saw the newcomer and led him to the private office. + +“What is it?” said Lestrange. + +“Only this,” said the other, taking up a slip of paper with a name and +address on it. “Simon J. Fountain, of 45 Rathray Street, West—that’s +down near the wharves—says he has seen your ad. in an old number of a +paper, and he thinks he can tell you something. He did not specify the +nature of the intelligence, but it might be worth finding out.” + +“I will go there,” said Lestrange. + +“Do you know Rathray Street?” + +“No.” + +Wannamaker went out and called a boy and gave him some directions; then +Lestrange and the boy started. + +Lestrange left the office without saying “Thank you,” or taking leave +in any way of the advertising agent—who did not feel in the least +affronted, for he knew his customer. + +Rathray Street is, or was before the earthquake, a street of small +clean houses. It had a seafaring look that was accentuated by the +marine perfumes from the wharves close by and the sound of steam +winches loading or discharging cargo—a sound that ceased not night +or day as the work went on beneath the sun or the sizzling arc lamps. + +No. 45 was almost exactly like its fellows, neither better nor worse; +and the door was opened by a neat, prim woman, small, and of middle +age. Commonplace she was, no doubt, but not commonplace to Lestrange. + +“Is Mr Fountain in?” he asked. “I have come about the advertisement.” + +“Oh, have you, sir?” she replied, making way for him to enter, and +showing him into a little sitting-room on the left of the passage. +“The Captain is in bed; he is a great invalid, but he was expecting, +perhaps, some one would call, and he will be able to see you in a +minute, if you don’t mind waiting.” + +“Thanks,” said Lestrange; “I can wait.” + +He had waited eight years, what mattered a few minutes now? But at no +time in the eight years had he suffered such suspense, for his heart +knew that now, just now in this commonplace little house, from the lips +of, perhaps, the husband of that commonplace woman, he was going to +learn either what he feared to hear, or what he hoped. + +It was a depressing little room; it was so clean, and looked as though +it were never used. A ship imprisoned in a glass bottle stood upon the +mantelpiece, and there were shells from far-away places, pictures of +ships in sand—all the things one finds as a rule adorning an old +sailor’s home. + +Lestrange, as he sat waiting, could hear movements from the next +room—probably the invalid’s, which they were preparing for his +reception. The distant sounds of the derricks and winches came muffled +through the tightly-shut window that looked as though it never had been +opened. A square of sunlight lit the upper part of the cheap lace +curtain on the right of the window, and repeated its pattern vaguely on +the lower part of the wall opposite. Then a bluebottle fly awoke +suddenly into life and began to buzz and drum against the window pane, +and Lestrange wished that they would come. + +A man of his temperament must necessarily, even under the happiest +circumstances, suffer in going through the world; the fine fibre always +suffers when brought into contact with the coarse. These people were as +kindly disposed as any one else. The advertisement and the face and +manners of the visitor might have told them that it was not the time +for delay, yet they kept him waiting whilst they arranged bed-quilts +and put medicine bottles straight—as if he could see! + +At last the door opened, and the woman said: + +“Will you step this way, sir?” + +She showed him into a bedroom opening off the passage. The room was +neat and clean, and had that indescribable appearance which marks the +bedroom of the invalid. + +In the bed, making a mountain under the counterpane with an enormously +distended stomach, lay a man, black-bearded, and with his large, +capable, useless hands spread out on the coverlet—hands ready and +willing, but debarred from work. Without moving his body, he turned his +head slowly and looked at the newcomer. This slow movement was not +from weakness or disease, it was the slow, emotionless nature of the +man speaking. + +“This is the gentleman, Silas,” said the woman, speaking over +Lestrange’s shoulder. Then she withdrew and closed the door. + +“Take a chair, sir,” said the sea captain, flapping one of his hands on +the counterpane as if in wearied protest against his own helplessness. +“I haven’t the pleasure of your name, but the missus tells me you’re +come about the advertisement I lit on yester-even.” + +He took a paper, folded small, that lay beside him, and held it out to +his visitor. It was a _Sidney Bulletin_ three years old. + +“Yes,” said Lestrange, looking at the paper; “that is my advertisement.” + +“Well, it’s strange—very strange,” said Captain Fountain, “that I +should have lit on it only yesterday. I’ve had it all three years in my +chest, the way old papers get lying at the bottom with odds and ends. +Mightn’t a’ seen it now, only the missus cleared the raffle out of the +chest, and, ‘Give me that paper,’ I says, seeing it in her hand; and I +fell to reading it, for a man’ll read anything bar tracts lying in bed +eight months, as I’ve been with the dropsy. I’ve been whaler man and +boy forty year, and my last ship was the _Sea-Horse_. Over seven years +ago one of my men picked up something on a beach of one of them islands +east of the Marquesas—we’d put in to water——” + +“Yes, yes,” said Lestrange. “What was it he found?” + +“Missus!” roared the captain in a voice that shook the walls of the +room. + +The door opened, and the woman appeared. + +“Fetch me my keys out of my trousers pocket.” + +The trousers were hanging up on the back of the door, as if only +waiting to be put on. The woman fetched the keys, and he fumbled over +them and found one. He handed it to her, and pointed to the drawer of a +bureau opposite the bed. + +She knew evidently what was wanted, for she opened the drawer and +produced a box, which she handed to him. It was a small cardboard box +tied round with a bit of string. He undid the string, and disclosed a +child’s tea service: a teapot, cream jug, six little plates—all painted +with a pansy. + +It was the box which Emmeline had always been losing—lost again. + +Lestrange buried his face in his hands. He knew the things. Emmeline +had shown them to him in a burst of confidence. Out of all that vast +ocean he had searched unavailingly: they had come to him like a +message, and the awe and mystery of it bowed him down and crushed him. + +The captain had placed the things on the newspaper spread out by his +side, and he was unrolling the little spoons from their tissue-paper +covering. He counted them as if entering up the tale of some trust, and +placed them on the newspaper. + +“When did you find them?” asked Lestrange, speaking with his face still +covered. + +“A matter of over seven years ago,” replied the captain, “we’d put in +to water at a place south of the line—Palm Tree Island we whalemen +call it, because of the tree at the break of the lagoon. One of my men +brought it aboard, found it in a shanty built of sugar-canes which the +men bust up for devilment.” + +“Good God!” said Lestrange. “Was there no one there—nothing but this +box?” + +“Not a sight or sound, so the men said; just the shanty abandoned +seemingly. I had no time to land and hunt for castaways, I was after +whales.” + +“How big is the island?” + +“Oh, a fairish middle-sized island—no natives. I’ve heard tell it’s +_tabu_; why, the Lord only knows—some crank of the Kanakas, I s’pose. +Anyhow, there’s the findings—you recognise them?” + +“I do.” + +“Seems strange,” said the captain, “that I should pick ’em up; seems +strange your advertisement out, and the answer to it lying amongst my +gear, but that’s the way things go.” + +“Strange!” said the other. “It’s more than strange.” + +“Of course,” continued the captain, “they might have been on the island +hid away som’ere, there’s no saying; only appearances are against it. +Of course they might be there now unbeknownst to you or me.” + +“They _are_ there now,” answered Lestrange, who was sitting up and +looking at the playthings as though he read in them some hidden +message. “They _are_ there now. Have you the position of the island?” + +“I have. Missus, hand me my private log.” + +She took a bulky, greasy, black note-book from the bureau, and handed +it to him. He opened it, thumbed the pages, and then read out the +latitude and longitude. + +“I entered it on the day of finding—here’s the entry. ‘Adams brought +aboard child’s toy box out of deserted shanty, which men pulled down; +traded it to me for a caulker of rum.’ The cruise lasted three years +and eight months after that; we’d only been out three when it happened. +I forgot all about it: three years scrubbing round the world after +whales doesn’t brighten a man’s memory. Right round we went, and paid +off at Nantucket. Then, after a fortni’t on shore and a month +repairin’, the old _Sea-Horse_ was off again, I with her. It was at +Honolulu this dropsy took me, and back I come here, home. That’s the +yarn. There’s not much to it, but, seein’ your advertisement, I thought +I might answer it.” + +Lestrange took Fountain’s hand and shook it. + +“You see the reward I offered?” he said. “I have not my cheque book +with me, but you shall have the cheque in an hour from now.” + +“No, _sir_,” replied the captain; “if anything comes of it, I don’t say +I’m not open to some small acknowledgment, but ten thousand dollars for +a five-cent box—that’s not my way of doing business.” + +“I can’t make you take the money now—I can’t even thank you properly +now,” said Lestrange—“I am in a fever; but when all is settled, you +and I will settle this business. My God!” + +He buried his face in his hands again. + +“I’m not wishing to be inquisitive,” said Captain Fountain, slowly +putting the things back in the box and tucking the paper shavings round +them, “but may I ask how you propose to move in this business?” + +“I will hire a ship at once and search.” + +“Ay,” said the captain, wrapping up the little spoons in a meditative +manner; “perhaps that will be best.” + +He felt certain in his own mind that the search would be fruitless, but +he did not say so. If he had been absolutely certain in his mind +without being able to produce the proof, he would not have counselled +Lestrange to any other course, knowing that the man’s mind would never +be settled until proof positive was produced. + +“The question is,” said Lestrange, “what is my quickest way to get +there?” + +“There I may be able to help you,” said Fountain, tying the string round +the box. “A schooner with good heels to her is what you want; and, if +I’m not mistaken, there’s one discharging cargo at this present minit +at O’Sullivan’s wharf. Missus!” + +The woman answered the call. Lestrange felt like a person in a dream, +and these people who were interesting themselves in his affairs seemed +to him beneficent beyond the nature of human beings. + +“Is Captain Stannistreet home, think you?” + +“I don’t know,” replied the woman; “but I can go see.” + +“Do.” + +She went. + +“He lives only a few doors down,” said Fountain, “and he’s the man for +you. Best schooner captain ever sailed out of ’Frisco. The _Raratonga_ is +the name of the boat I have in my mind—best boat that ever wore +copper. Stannistreet is captain of her, owners are M’Vitie. She’s been +missionary, and she’s been pigs; copra was her last cargo, and she’s +nearly discharged it. Oh, M’Vitie would hire her out to Satan at a +price; you needn’t be afraid of their boggling at it if you can raise +the dollars. She’s had a new suit of sails only the beginning of the +year. Oh, she’ll fix you up to a T, and you take the word of S. +Fountain for that. I’ll engineer the thing from this bed if you’ll let +me put my oar in your trouble; I’ll victual her, and find a crew three +quarter price of any of those d--d skulking agents. Oh, I’ll take a +commission right enough, but I’m half paid with doing the thing—” + +He ceased, for footsteps sounded in the passage outside, and Captain +Stannistreet was shown in. He was a young man of not more than thirty, +alert, quick of eye, and pleasant of face. Fountain introduced him to +Lestrange, who had taken a fancy to him at first sight. + +When he heard about the business in hand, he seemed interested at once; +the affair seemed to appeal to him more than if it had been a purely +commercial matter, such as copra and pigs. + +“If you’ll come with me, sir, down to the wharf, I’ll show you the boat +now,” he said, when they had discussed the matter and threshed it out +thoroughly. + +He rose, bid good-day to his friend Fountain, and Lestrange followed +him, carrying the brown-paper box in his hand. + +O’Sullivan’s Wharf was not far away. A tall Cape Horner that looked +almost a twin sister of the ill-fated _Northumberland_ was discharging +iron, and astern of her, graceful as a dream, with snow-white decks, +lay the _Raratonga_ discharging copra. + +“That’s the boat,” said Stannistreet; “cargo nearly all out. How does +she strike your fancy?” + +“I’ll take her,” said Lestrange, “cost what it will.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +DUE SOUTH + +It was on the 10th of May, so quickly did things move under the +supervision of the bedridden captain, that the _Raratonga_, with +Lestrange on board, cleared the Golden Gates, and made south, heeling +to a ten-knot breeze. + +There is no mode of travel to be compared to your sailing-ship. In a +great ship, if you have ever made a voyage in one, the vast spaces of +canvas, the sky-high spars, the _finesse_ with which the wind is met and +taken advantage of, will form a memory never to be blotted out. + +A schooner is the queen of all rigs; she has a bounding buoyancy denied +to the square-rigged craft, to which she stands in the same +relationship as a young girl to a dowager; and the _Raratonga_ was not +only a schooner, but the queen, acknowledged of all the schooners in +the Pacific. + +For the first few days they made good way south; then the wind became +baffling and headed them off. + +Added to Lestrange’s feverish excitement there was an anxiety, a deep +and soul-fretting anxiety, as if some half-heard voice were telling him +that the children he sought were threatened by some danger. + +These baffling winds blew upon the smouldering anxiety in his breast, +as wind blows upon embers, causing them to glow. They lasted some days, +and then, as if Fate had relented, up sprang on the starboard quarter a +spanking breeze, making the rigging sing to a merry tune, and blowing +the spindrift from the forefoot, as the _Raratonga_, heeling to its +pressure, went humming through the sea, leaving a wake spreading behind +her like a fan. + +It took them along five hundred miles, silently and with the speed of a +dream. Then it ceased. + +The ocean and the air stood still. The sky above stood solid like a +great pale blue dome; just where it met the water line of the far +horizon a delicate tracery of cloud draped the entire round of the sky. + +I have said that the ocean stood still as well as the air: to the eye +it was so, for the swell under-running the glitter on its surface was +so even, so equable, and so rhythmical, that the surface seemed not in +motion. Occasionally a dimple broke the surface, and strips of dark +sea-weed floated by, showing up the green; dim things rose to the +surface, and, guessing the presence of man, sank slowly and dissolved +from sight. + +Two days, never to be recovered, passed, and still the calm continued. +On the morning of the third day it breezed up from the nor’-nor’west, +and they continued their course, a cloud of canvas, every sail drawing, +and the music of the ripple under the forefoot. + +Captain Stannistreet was a genius in his profession; he could get more +speed out of a schooner than any other man afloat, and carry more +canvas without losing a stick. He was also, fortunately for Lestrange, +a man of refinement and education, and what was better still, +understanding. + +They were pacing the deck one afternoon, when Lestrange, who was +walking with his hands behind him, and his eyes counting the brown +dowels in the cream-white planking, broke silence. + +“You don’t believe in visions and dreams?” + +“How do you know that?” replied the other. + +“Oh, I only put it as a question; most people say they don’t.” + +“Yes, but most people do.” + +“I do,” said Lestrange. + +He was silent for a moment. + +“You know my trouble so well that I won’t bother you going over it, but +there has come over me of late a feeling—it is like a waking dream.” + +“Yes?” + +“I can’t quite explain, for it is as if I saw something which my +intelligence could not comprehend, or make an image of.” + +“I think I know what you mean.” + +“I don’t think you do. This is something quite strange. I am fifty, and +in fifty years a man has experienced, as a rule, all the ordinary and +most of the extraordinary sensations that a human being can be +subjected to. Well, I have never felt this sensation before; it comes +on only at times. I see, as you might imagine, a young baby sees, and +things are before me that I do not comprehend. It is not through my +bodily eyes that this sensation comes, but through some window of the +mind, from before which a curtain has been drawn.” + +“That’s strange,” said Stannistreet, who did not like the conversation +over-much, being simply a schooner captain and a plain man, though +intelligent enough and sympathetic. + +“This something tells me,” went on Lestrange, “that there is danger +threatening the—” He ceased, paused a minute, and then, to +Stannistreet’s relief, went on. “If I talk like that you will think I +am not right in my head: let us pass the subject by, let us forget +dreams and omens and come to realities. You know how I lost the +children; you know how I hope to find them at the place where Captain +Fountain found their traces? He says the island was uninhabited, but he +was not sure.” + +“No,” replied Stannistreet, “he only spoke of the beach.” + +“Yes. Well, suppose there were natives at the other side of the island +who had taken these children.” + +“If so, they would grow up with the natives.” + +“And become savages?” + +“Yes; but the Polynesians can’t be really called savages; they are a +very decent lot. I’ve knocked about amongst them a good while, and a +kanaka is as white as a white man—which is not saying much, but it’s +something. Most of the islands are civilised now. Of course there are a +few that aren’t, but still, suppose even that ‘savages,’ as you call +them, had come and taken the children off—” + +Lestrange’s breath caught, for this was the very fear that was in his +heart, though he had never spoken it. + +“Well?” + +“Well, they would be well treated.” + +“And brought up as savages?” + +“I suppose so.” + +Lestrange sighed. + +“Look here,” said the captain; “it’s all very well talking, but upon my +word I think that we civilised folk put on a lot of airs, and waste a +lot of pity on savages.” + +“How so?” + +“What does a man want to be but happy?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, who is happier than a naked savage in a warm climate? Oh, he’s +happy enough, and he’s not always holding a corroboree. He’s a good +deal of a gentleman; he has perfect health; he lives the life a man was +born to live face to face with Nature. He doesn’t see the sun through +an office window or the moon through the smoke of factory chimneys; +happy and civilised too—but, bless you, where is he? The whites have +driven him out; in one or two small islands you may find him still—a +crumb or so of him.” + +“Suppose,” said Lestrange, “suppose those children had been brought up +face to face with Nature—” + +“Yes?” + +“Living that free life—” + +“Yes?” + +“Waking up under the stars”—Lestrange was speaking with his eyes +fixed, as if upon something very far away—“going to sleep as the sun +sets, feeling the air fresh, like this which blows upon us, all around +them. Suppose they were like that, would it not be a cruelty to bring +them to what we call civilisation?” + +“I think it would,” said Stannistreet. + +Lestrange said nothing, but continued pacing the deck, his head bowed +and his hands behind his back. + +One evening at sunset, Stannistreet said: + +“We’re two hundred and forty miles from the island, reckoning from +to-day’s reckoning at noon. We’re going all ten knots even with this +breeze; we ought to fetch the place this time to-morrow. Before that if +it freshens.” + +“I am greatly disturbed,” said Lestrange. + +He went below, and the schooner captain shook his head, and, locking +his arm round a ratlin, gave his body to the gentle roll of the craft +as she stole along, skirting the sunset, splendid, and to the nautical +eye full of fine weather. + +The breeze was not quite so fresh next morning, but it had been blowing +fairly all the night, and the _Raratonga_ had made good way. About eleven +it began to fail. It became the lightest sailing breeze, just +sufficient to keep the sails drawing, and the wake rippling and +swirling behind. Suddenly Stannistreet, who had been standing talking +to Lestrange, climbed a few feet up the mizzen ratlins, and shaded his +eyes. + +“What is it?” asked Lestrange. + +“A boat,” he replied. “Hand me that glass you will find in the sling +there.” + +He levelled the glass, and looked for a long time without speaking. + +“It’s a boat adrift—a small boat, nothing in her. Stay! I see +something white, can’t make it out. Hi there!”—to the fellow at the +wheel “Keep her a point more to starboard.” He got on to the deck. +“We’re going dead on for her.” + +“Is there any one in her?” asked Lestrange. + +“Can’t quite make out, but I’ll lower the whale-boat and fetch her +alongside.” + +He gave orders for the whale-boat to be slung out and manned. + +As they approached nearer, it was evident that the drifting boat, which +looked like a ship’s dinghy, contained something, but what, could not +be made out. + +When he had approached near enough, Stannistreet put the helm down and +brought the schooner to, with her sails all shivering. He took his +place in the bow of the whale-boat and Lestrange in the stern. The boat +was lowered, the falls cast off, and the oars bent to the water. + +The little dinghy made a mournful picture as she floated, looking +scarcely bigger than a walnut shell. In thirty strokes the whale-boat’s +nose was touching her quarter. Stannistreet grasped her gunwale. + +In the bottom of the dinghy lay a girl, naked all but for a strip of +coloured striped material. One of her arms was clasped round the neck +of a form that was half hidden by her body, the other clasped partly to +herself, partly to her companion, the body of a baby. They were +natives, evidently, wrecked or lost by some mischance from some +inter-island schooner. Their breasts rose and fell gently, and clasped +in the girl’s hand was a branch of some tree, and on the branch a +single withered berry. + +“Are they dead?” asked Lestrange, who divined that there were people in +the boat, and who was standing up in the stern of the whale-boat trying +to see. + +“No,” said Stannistreet; “they are asleep.” + +THE END + + + + +----- Transcriber's Note #1 ----- + +Introduction to the Project Gutenberg text of H. de Vere Stacpoole’s +The Blue Lagoon: A Romance + +by Edward A. Malone + +University of Missouri-Rolla + + +Born on April 9, 1863, in Kingstown, Ireland, Henry de Vere Stacpoole +grew up in a household dominated by his mother and three older sisters. +William C. Stacpoole, a doctor of divinity from Trinity College and +headmaster of Kingstown school, died some time before his son’s eighth +birthday, leaving the responsibility of supporting the family to his +Canadian-born wife, Charlotte Augusta Mountjoy Stacpoole. At a young +age, Charlotte had been led out of the Canadian backwoods by her +widowed mother and taken to Ireland, where their relatives lived. This +experience had strengthened her character and prepared her for single +parenthood. + +Charlotte cared passionately for her children and was perhaps overly +protective of her son. As a child, Henry suffered from severe +respiratory problems, misdiagnosed as chronic bronchitis by his +physician, who in the winter of 1871 advised that the boy be taken to +Southern France for his health. With her entire family in tow, +Charlotte made the long journey from Kingstown to London to Paris, +where signs of the Franco-Prussian War were still evident, settling at +last in Nice at the Hotel des Iles Britannique. Nice was like paradise +to Henry, who marveled at the city’s affluence and beauty as he played +in the warm sun. + +After several more excursions to the continent, Stacpoole was sent to +Portarlington, a bleak boarding school more than 100 miles from +Kingstown. In contrast to his sisters, the Portarlington boys were +noisy and uncouth. As Stacpoole writes in his autobiograhy Men and +Mice, 1863-1942 (1942), the boys abused him mentally and physically, +making him feel like “a little Arthur in a cage of baboons.” One night, +he escaped through an adjacent girls’ school and returned to Kingstown, +only to be betrayed by his family and dragged back to school by his +eldest sister. + +When his family moved to London, he was taken out of Portarlington and +enrolled at Malvern College, a progressive school with refined students +and plenty of air and sunshine. Stacpoole thoroughly enjoyed his new +surroundings, which he associated with the description of Malvern Hills +in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh (1857): “Keepers of Piers +Plowman’s visions / Through the sunshine and the snow.” This +environment encouraged his interest in literature and writing. + +The idyll ended, however, when Stacpoole began his medical training. At +his mother’s prodding, he entered the medical school at St. George’s +Hospital. Twice a day, he had to traverse a park frequented by +perambulating nursemaids, and he became romantically involved with one +of them. When his mother discovered their affair, she insisted that he +transfer to University College, and he complied. + +More interested in literature than corpses, Stacpoole began to neglect +his studies and miss classes, especially the required dissections. +Finally, the dean of the medical school confronted him, and their +argument drove Stacpoole to St. Mary’s Hospital, where he completed his +medical training and qualified L. S. A. in 1891. At some point after +this date, Stacpoole made several sea voyages into the tropics (at +least once as a doctor aboard a cable-mending ship), collecting +information for future stories. + +Stacpoole’s literary career, which he once described as being “more +like a Malay fishing prahu than an honest-to-God English literary +vessel,” began inauspiciously with the publication of The Intended +(1894), a tragic novel about two look-alikes, one rich, the other poor, +who switch places on a whim. Bewildered by the novel’s lack of success, +Stacpoole consulted his friendly muse, Pearl Craigie, alias John Oliver +Hobbes, who suggested a comic rather than tragic treatment. Years +later, Stacpoole retold the story in The Man Who Lost Himself (1918), a +commercially successful comic novel about a down-and-out American who +impersonates his wealthy look-alike in England. + +Set in France during the Franco-Prussian War, Stacpoole’s second novel, +Pierrot (1896), recounts a French boy’s eerie relationship with a +patricidal doppelganger. Like its predecessor, it was a commercial +failure, and it was at this point, perhaps, that Stacpoole began to +view literary success only in terms of sales figures and numbers of +editions. + +A strange tale of reincarnation, cross dressing, and uxoricide, +Stacpoole’s third novel, Death, the Knight, and the Lady (1897), +purports to be the deathbed confession of Beatrice Sinclair, who is +both a reincarnated murderer (male) and a descendant of the murder +victim (female). She falls in love with Gerald Wilder, a man disguised +as a woman, who is both a reincarnated murder victim (female) and the +descendant of the murderer (male). Despite its originality, the novel +was killed by “Public Indifference” (Stacpoole’s term), which also +killed The Rapin (1899), a novel about an art student in Paris. + +Stacpoole spent the summer of 1898 in Sommerset, where he took over the +medical practice of an ailing country doctor. So peaceful were his days +in this pastoral setting that he had time to write The Doctor (1899), a +novel about an old-fashioned physician practicing medicine in rural +England. “It is the best book I have written,” Stacpoole declared more +than forty years later. He could also say, in retrospect, that the +book’s weak sales were a disguised blessing, “for I hadn’t ballast on +board in those days to stand up to the gale of success, which means +incidentally money.” He would be spared the gale of success for nine +more years, during which he published seven books, including a +collection of children’s stories and two collaborative novels with his +friend William Alexander Bryce. + +In 1907, two events occurred that altered the course of Stacpoole’s +life: he wrote The Blue Lagoon and he married Margaret Robson. Unable +to sleep one night, he found himself thinking about and envying the +caveman, who in his primitiveness was able to marvel at such +commonplace phenomena as sunsets and thunderstorms. Civilized, +technological man had unveiled these mysteries with his telescopes and +weather balloons, so that they were no longer “nameless wonders” to be +feared and contemplated. As a doctor, Stacpoole had witnessed countless +births and deaths, and these events no longer seemed miraculous to him. +He conceived the idea of two children growing up alone on an island and +experiencing storms, death, and birth in almost complete ignorance and +innocence. The next morning, he started writing The Blue Lagoon. The +exercise was therapeutic because he was able to experience the wonders +of life and death vicariously through his characters. + +The Blue Lagoon is the story of two cousins, Dicky and Emmeline +Lestrange, stranded on a remote island with a beautiful lagoon. As +children, they are cared for by Paddy Button, a portly sailor who +drinks himself to death after only two and a half years in paradise. +Frightened and confused by the man’s gruesome corpse, the children flee +to another part of Palm Tree Island. Over a period of five years, they +grow up and eventually fall in love. Sex and birth are as mysterious +to them as death, but they manage to copulate instinctively and +conceive a child. The birth is especially remarkable: fifteen-year-old +Emmeline, alone in the jungle, loses consciousness and awakes to find a +baby boy on the ground near her. Naming the boy Hannah (an example of +Stacpoole’s penchant for gender reversals), the Lestranges live in +familial bliss until they are unexpectedly expelled from their tropical +Eden. + +The parallels between The Blue Lagoon and the Biblical story of Adam +and Eve are obvious and intentional, but Stacpoole was also influenced +by Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), which he +invokes in a passage describing the castaways’ approach Palm Tree +Island: + +“One could see the water swirling round the coral piers, for the tide +was flooding into the lagoon; it had seized the little dinghy and was +bearing it along far swifter than the sculls could have driven it. +Sea-gulls screamed about them, the boat rocked and swayed. Dick shouted +with excitement, and Emmeline shut her eyes TIGHT. + +“Then, as though a door had been swiftly and silently closed, the sound +of the surf became suddenly less. The boat floated on an even keel; she +opened her eyes and found herself in Wonderland.” + +This direct reference to Wonderland prepares the reader for the many +parallels that follow. When their adventures begin, both girls are +about the same age, Alice seven and a half, Emmeline exactly eight. +Just as Alice joins a tea party in Wonderland, Emmeline plays with her +tiny tea set on the beach after they land. Emmeline’s former pet, like +the Cheshire Cat, “had white stripes and a white chest, and rings down +its tail” and died “showing its teeth.” Whereas Alice looks for a +poison label on a bottle that says “Drink Me,” Emmeline innocently +tries to eat “the never-wake-up berries” and receives a stern rebuke +and a lecture about poison from Paddy Button. “The Poetry of Learning” +chapter echoes Alice’s dialogue with the caterpillar. Like the wily +creature smoking a hookah, Paddy smokes a pipe and shouts “Hurroo!” as +the children teach him to write his name in the sand. The children +lose “all count of time,” just as the Mad Hatter does. Whereas Alice +grows nine feet taller, Dick sprouts “two inches taller” and Emmeline +“twice as plump.” Like the baby in the “Pig and Pepper,” Hannah sneezes +at the first sight of Dicky. The novel is artfully littered with +references to wonder, curiosity, and strangeness—all evidence of +Stacpoole’s conscious effort to invoke and honor his Victorian +predecessor. + +Stacpoole presented The Blue Lagoon to Publisher T. Fisher Unwin in +September 1907 and went to Cumberland to assist another ailing doctor +in his practice. Every day from Eden Vue in Langwathby, Stacpoole wrote +to his fiancee, Margaret Robson (or Maggie, as he called her), and +waited anxiously for their wedding day. On December 17, 1907, the +couple were married and spent their honeymoon at Stebbing Park, a +friend’s country house in Essex, about three miles from the village of +Stebbing. It was there that they stumbled upon Rose Cottage, where +Stacpoole lived for several years before he moved to Cliff Dene on the +Isle of Wight in the 1920s. + +Published in January 1908, The Blue Lagoon was an immediate success, +both with reviewers and the public. “[This] tale of the discovery of +love, and innocent mating, is as fresh as the ozone that made them +strong,” declared one reviewer. Another claimed that “for once the +title of ‘romance,’ found in so many modern stories, is really +justified.” The novel was reprinted more than twenty times in the next +twelve years and remained popular in other forms for more than eighty +years. Norman MacOwen and Charlton Mann adapted the story as a play, +which ran for 263 performances in London from August 28, 1920, to April +16, 1921. Film versions of the novel were made in 1923, 1949, and 1980. + +Stacpoole also wrote two successful sequels: The Garden of God (1923) +and The Gates of Morning (1925). These three books and two others were +combined to form The Blue Lagoon Omnibus in 1933. The Garden of God was +filmed as Return to the Blue Lagoon in 1992. + +This Gutenberg etext of The Blue Lagoon: A Romance is based on the 1908 +first American edition published by J. B. Lippincott Company of +Philadelphia. + +----- Transcriber's Note #2 ----- + +The stated edition for this etext is the 1908 first American edition +published by J. B. Lippincott Company of Philadelphia. Stacpoole +delivered his original manuscript to publisher T. Fisher Unwin (London) +in September 1907. The London edition and the Lippincott (this etext) +edition were both published in 1908. Four changes were made in +creating the Lippincott edition: + +1. On page 18: + + London edition: he sat with it on his knees staring at + the white sunlit main-deck barred with the black shadows + of the standing rigging. + + US edition: he sat with it on his knees staring at + the white sunlit main-deck barred with the white shadows + of the standing rigging. + + Stacpoole originally indicated black shadows of the + rigging on the deck. + +2. On page 19: + + London edition: It was seven bells—half-past three in the + afternoon—and the ship’s bell had just rung out. + + US edition: It was three bells—half-past three in the + afternoon—and the ship’s bell had just rung out. + + The London edition is correct: seven bells is 3:30 in + the afternoon. Three bells is half-past one. + +3. On page 24: + + London edition: The dinghy was rather a larger boat than + the ordinary ships’ dinghy, and possessed a small mast + and lug-sail. + + US edition: The dinghy was rather a larger boat than + the ordinary ships’ dinghy, and possessed a small mast + and long sail. + + A lug-sail (modern: lugsail) is an evolved version of + the classical square sail that is correct for the boat + as described. + +4. On page 309: + + London edition: “This is the gentleman, Simon,” ... + + US edition: “This is the gentleman, Silas,” ... + +Other than these four changes, both 1908 editions are +essentially identical. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blue Lagoon, by H. de Vere Stacpoole + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLUE LAGOON *** + +***** This file should be named 393-0.txt or 393-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/393/ + +Produced by Edward A. Malone. 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