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The Wreck of the Andromeda

by

Harry Collingwood

Chapter I

The Catastrophe

Ting-Tong, ting-tong. The clear, sonorous tones of the ship’s bell rang out melodiously upon the silence of the night—a silence which yet was full of sound, the sound of the trade-wind piping and shrilling weirdly aloft through the standing and running rigging, seeming to an imaginative ear like the wailing of the ghosts of drowned sailors, with, by way of bass, the deep, ever recurring roar and hiss of the bow wave as it swept away on either hand in a long line of star-spangled, phosphorescent foam.

The chiming of the bell was immediately answered by the peculiarly pitched cry of the look-out on the topgallant forecastle—“All’s well!”

“Four bells! my wheel,” said I to to my special chum, Jim Annesley, who, with me, had been keeping a look-out in the starboard waist. And with a “So long, old chap!” I left him and, springing nimbly up the poop ladder, made my way along the poop, past Mr. Kennedy, the chief mate and officer of the watch, to the wheel, where the seaman who had been “grinding water” for the past two hours, was waiting to be relieved.

“Sou’-west and by west, three-quarters west!” remarked the man whom I had gone to relieve, passing the course on to me as he surrendered the spokes of the wheel to my clutch, and “Sou’-west and by west, three-quarters west,” I responded, according to the usage of sailormen, as I took over the charge.

It was a glorious night. There was no moon, but the sky, where not obscured by patches of solemn-sailing trade cloud, was brilliant with myriads of stars which beamed down upon us out of the immeasurable heights of the dark blue vault with that soft, clear splendour which is seen only in the tropics. It was dark, yet not so dark but that I could catch under the foot of the foresail, a glimpse of the horizon; black, flecked here and there with patches of luminous foam, against the lighter blue-black of the spangled sky, when the ship lifted her bows on the crest of a sea. A remark made by the mate to his apprentice assistant, as the pair passed me on their way forward, after reading the dial of the patent log, told me that we were reeling off our eighteen knots, which was not bad, even for the Andromeda, one of the very few sailing passenger clippers not yet crowded off the face of the waters by steam.

There was a good reason for this last fact, however. The Andromeda and her sister ship, the Atalanta, owed their existence to steam, being in fact, training ships in which embryo officers of the Inter-Oceanic Steamship Company were sent to sea to acquire a thorough practical knowledge of seamanship and navigation previous to appointment to the steamers. There were eight of us apprentices aboard the Andromeda, of whom I was the senior; and the Company killed two birds with one stone, so to speak, by utilising their two training ships as combined passenger and cargo carriers between San Francisco and Australia. Very well it answered, too; for there was always enough imperishable freight, at a comparatively low figure, to fill the ships and make them self-supporting, while there were plenty of people who regarded the voyage as a yachting trip, more pleasant and less monotonous than the same voyage in a steam liner, while others took the round trip as a health-giving holiday. There were twenty-four such people aboard us now, our full complement, and a very jolly lot they were, taking them big and large. The only exception—if indeed one can call it such—was Miss Anthea Shirley-Winthrop, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Doctor Shirley-Winthrop. She was the most lovely girl I ever saw, but proud! She treated all men, even her own father, like dust beneath her dainty little feet; and she never looked at, but through, one—at something thousands of miles away. However, that is enough for the present about the passengers; those of them who are more particularly concerned with the extraordinary adventure I have set out to relate, we shall become acquainted with as we go on.

We were sixteen days out from ’Frisco, and seven from Honolulu, where we had called for a few hours to give the passengers a run ashore, and to lay in a stock of fruit. We sailed from ’Frisco on the afternoon of July 28th, 1914, and even then the mutterings of war were beginning to make themselves heard, although nobody seemed to dream of the tremendous cataclysm that was brewing. It was therefore with something like consternation that, upon our arrival at Honolulu, on August 6th, we learned that nearly the whole of Europe was involved, and especially that Great Britain had declared war upon Germany. We fully expected that our passengers, most of whom were Americans, would abandon the trip, go ashore at Honolulu, and return home by the first steamer. But not a bit of it; they one and all returned to the ship a good half-hour before sailing time, “guessing” that they were not going to be cheated out of their holiday by all the Kaisers in creation, and “calculating” that there were plenty of British warships in the Pacific to keep the Germans busy without affording them any spare time to interfere with the Andromeda. And so indeed it seemed, for during the seven days of our run from Honolulu we had been spoken by no less than five British cruisers, but—to quote the boatswain—had not so much as smelt a German.

Of course we were sailing with lights out, and skylight and scuttles carefully masked, but we felt that in doing so we were safe, since we were in a part of the ocean unfrequented by ships, while the look-outs on forecastle and in waist were doubled at night-time, and kept constantly on the qui vive.

Although the ship was reeling off her eighteen knots, running before a brisk north-east trade-wind, with royals set and studding sails abroad on both sides, she was steering as sweetly and easily as a little boat—as I could tell by watching a particular star which showed just clear of the head of the port main topgallant stunsail, and as I watched that star I was idly speculating upon the chances of our blundering into the clutches of a German cruiser, or commerce-destroyer.

Five bells chimed out, the look-outs responded with their usual wail of “All’s well,” and my thoughts had wandered away from the war to some other subject—I forget what—when with startling suddenness there came a yell, that was almost a scream, from the two look-outs on the topgallant forecastle, in which I seemed to distinguish the words “right under our bows.” The next instant the ship stopped dead; a loud crunching, grinding sound arose forward; with the suddenness of the stoppage of the ship’s progress I was forced hard up against the wheel, while the mate, who had been padding fore and aft the poop in a pair of felt slippers, and had just wheeled about on his way forward again, made a running stumble and then fell prone upon the deck with a heavy thud. At the same instant there arose aloft a terrific medley of rending, crashing, splintering and twanging sounds as the three topmasts carried away at the caps and, with all attached, fell forward upon the forecastle and the main deck in an indescribable raffle of splintered spars, torn canvas and tangled running gear. Then, with a heave, the ship rose and seemed to climb over some obstacle, the pounding of which against her bottom as she passed over it shook her from stem to stern. I could clearly trace our progress over the obstacle, by the crushing, thudding sounds of it against our hull, and when it came abreast of the wheel I distinctly saw, alongside, a great shapeless black mass, heaving and squirming in the midst of a welter of phosphorescent foam, and when, a moment later, we passed clear, it became evident that what I had seen was but a small portion of a much larger mass which rose ponderously to the surface from beneath our keel and went drifting away astern into the darkness.

Turning my gaze inboard I saw the mate sitting on the deck where he had fallen, with his right hand pressed to his forehead, as though he had been partially stunned, and was trying to recover his faculties. At the same instant the figure of the skipper, clad in pyjamas, rose above the level of the poop as he sprang up the ladder, shouting—

“Mr. Kennedy! Mr. Kennedy! Where are you, sir?”

“Here I am, sir,” answered the mate, scrambling uncertainly to his feet. “Here’s a pretty business, sir—”

“A pretty business indeed!” stormed the skipper. “Why, the ship is a wreck! What, in heaven’s name, has happened, sir? Have we been in collision?”

“Yes, sir,” I shouted—as the mate still seemed dazed and scarcely to know where he was; “we have run over a waterlogged derelict. I distinctly saw it over here to port as it drove astern.”

“Is that Massey?” asked the skipper, coming toward me.

“Yes sir,” I replied.

“Then put your helm hard a-starboard, and lash it,” he commanded. “We will heave the ship to, if we can swing the lower yards, and find out the extent of the damage. Then, go for’ard and muster all hands. Back the fore-yard; tell the carpenter to sound the well and report to me here; organise a gang to clear away the wreckage; then, swing a lantern over the bows and see if you can discover what damage we have sustained. Cut away, now, and come back with news as soon as you can. And as you go, pass the word for Mr. Owen,” (the second mate) “to come to me.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” I answered, and departed upon my errands, to encounter on the poop ladder a stream of saloon passengers, clad in most unconventional garb, who were swarming up from below, intent upon being informed as to what had happened. They would have stopped me, for cross-examination, but, referring them to the skipper, I brushed past on my mission. I found the second mate and gave him the skipper’s message, then went for’ard. There was no need to call the hands, for they had tumbled out of the forecastle in a body, at the first crash, and were already, upon their own initiative, clearing the fore-deck of the worst of the wreckage. I shouted for the carpenter, and passed on to him the skipper’s orders to sound the well, sent a gang of men aft to man the fore-brace and back the fore-yard, and then, entering the forecastle, found and lighted a lantern which I caused a man to swing over the bows while I lay out on the martingale stays to get a good look at the damage, if any, done to our bows by the collision.

It was a terrible sight. As the bows lifted to the heave of the sea, I saw that, from the level of the water-line downwards, the stem had been twisted round until about five feet of the plating was bent over to port so that it made almost a right angle with the line of the ship’s length, while the plates had been burst open, leaving a hole fully a foot wide, out of which the water was pouring with the dip and rise of the bows to the run of the swell. It was clear that the safety of the ship depended upon the strength of the fore bulkhead—which, luckily, extended from the keelson to the deck—and that, should it give way, the poor old Andromeda must go to the bottom within a little while.

With this portentous news I hurried aft, to find that the carpenter had already joined the skipper, who had separated himself from the crowd of clamourous passengers and withdrawn aft to receive Chip’s report, out of the passengers’ hearing. It was that the ship was making water at the rate of about an inch a minute, the presumption being that the passage of the derelict under the bottom had opened some of the plate joints. Then I made my report, and the carpenter was told to open the fore-hatch and ascertain how the bulkhead was bearing the pressure of the sea upon it. Meanwhile, a gang of men had started the pumps, while the rest, under the chief mate, who had by this time got over the effects of his fall, were busy clearing away the wreckage.

As soon as the carpenter had left us, the skipper turned to me.

“Now, Massey,” he said, “I have a job for you, of the utmost importance. If that fore bulkhead yields ever so little, it will soon be all up with the Andromeda. You will muster the rest of the apprentices, take charge of them, and start them upon the job of getting the boats ready for launching. First of all you will get hold of the chief steward and tell him my orders are that he is to open the lazarette and rouse out all the stores he and his men can lay hands upon. Cabin bread and water are the most important items; and, after them, tinned stuff and a small quantity of wine and spirits. The stewardesses will help by bringing the lighter articles up here, ready for placing in the boats. Then, get to work with the other apprentices upon the boats. Start all the water that is now in the breakers, and fill them afresh from the ship’s tanks. Take off the covers, and fold each up carefully and place it in the boat to which it belongs. Personally assure yourself that all plugs are in, and that each boat has not only a baler but also a bucket. See also that the full complement of oars and rowlocks is in each boat, also masts and sails; in short, make certain that the equipment of each boat is complete.

“By the time that you have done that, the provisions will be coming up, and you may begin to store them, seeing that each boat has a proper proportion of each, and not that one boat gets all the bread, another all the tinned stuff, and another all the wines and spirits. I want each boat to be independent of the rest. And don’t forget your sextant, nautical almanac and book of tables. I have decided to give you command of the jollyboat, if it should become necessary to abandon the ship. That’s all, I think. Cut away now, and get busy; and if you should think of anything useful that I have omitted to mention, do as you think best.”

With the usual “Ay, ay, sir,” to show that I comprehended my orders I hurried away, and, first of all, hunted up the chief steward, to whom I communicated the skipper’s orders. Then I went round the decks, got together my seven fellow apprentices, and we set to work with a will upon the boats. There were six of these, namely, the longboat, first and second cutters, jollyboat, and two smart gigs, to accommodate sixty-six of us, all told: the boat accommodation was therefore ample, even if we should be unable to launch the longboat, which was, for the moment, buried under a mass of wreckage.

We started with the two gigs, which were slung to the davits, one on either quarter. It did not take us long to get the covers off these and to give them and their gear a careful overhaul. By the time this was done, the provisions were beginning to come up on deck, and we soon had both gigs stowed and ready for lowering. Then came the two cutters. We stripped and overhauled these, and swung them outboard, ready for lowering, before replacing their gear or stowing their provisions. By the time this was done, much of the wreckage had been cleared away, and it was possible to get up mast and yard tackles to hoist out the jollyboat and the longboat. Meanwhile, the passengers, at the skipper’s earnest persuasion, had retired to their cabins, properly dressed themselves, and were busily engaged in putting together a few of their most valued possessions, upon the off-chance of finding room for them in the boats.

The dawn was showing when I had finished my job and reported progress. The carpenter had left a moment earlier, and I judged, not only from the serious look on Chips’ face, but also from the posture of the ship herself, that the hours of the Andromeda were numbered.

We were ready to quit at practically a moment’s notice, while the ship promised to remain afloat for at least a couple of hours longer, the captain therefore gave orders for a good substantial breakfast to be prepared for all hands, to which we shortly afterwards did justice.

It was about nine o’clock in the morning when the word was passed for all hands to muster on deck, and a couple of minutes later saw the order obeyed, the passengers assembling on the poop, while the crew gathered in the waist. Then, all being present, the skipper stepped out and took up a position at the head of the port poop ladder where he could be seen and heard by all.

“Ladies and gentlemen, and you officers and men forming the crew of the Andromeda,” he said, “you will hardly need any words of mine to tell you that the hours—indeed, might almost say the moments—of this good ship are numbered. So far as it is possible for me to judge, she will continue to float for about another hour; but since, for the preservation of our lives, it is necessary to abandon her, and since the weather is just now as favourable as it is at all likely to be for the operation of taking to the boats, I have decided to carry out that operation forthwith, that it may be done without hurry or confusion.

“As you have no doubt noticed, the boats are safely afloat; there will therefore be room for everybody, and also for a very small quantity of personal baggage.

“The longboat, with a complement of twenty, all told, including twelve passengers, will be under my command. The first and second cutters, with a complement of fourteen each, will be commanded respectively by the chief and second mates. The jollyboat, with a complement of eight will be commanded by Mr. Massey, the senior apprentice; and, finally, the two gigs, each with a complement of five, will be commanded by Mr. Annesley and Mr. Duncan, the two apprentices next in seniority. I have here in my hand a carefully prepared list giving the names of the crew and passengers to go in each boat, and, as I call them out, those names will be pleased to pass down into the boat designated.

“Before we go, however, I wish to tell you what my plans are—plans made after careful consideration and consultation with my first and second officers. The nearest inhabited land is some eight hundred miles distant, but it lies dead to windward; it is therefore useless to think of making our way thither. The next nearest is the Union group, practically a thousand miles away. This group is under British control, and it has the advantage of lying due south of us, so that, the prevailing winds being from the eastward, we ought to be able to fetch it under sail. Allowing the boats an average speed of four knots—and there will doubtless be frequent occasions when they will do more—we ought to accomplish the run in ten days. This, I know, is a long time for delicately nurtured women and children to look forward to being cooped up in open boats, but I am afraid it cannot be helped; we men will do everything we can to make it easy for them, and they must steel themselves to the ordeal.

“But—and I have kept this to the last—such a long sojourn in the boats may not be necessary. For, on our passage toward the Union group of islands, we shall cross the track of one of our own steamers—the Paramatta—bound from Suva to Honolulu. She is due to reach the point where we shall cross her track, seven days hence, and I am sanguine in the belief that, with favourable weather and winds, we can arrive at that point in time to intercept her and be picked up.” (There was a little murmur of gratification from the passengers at this cheering news, and the skipper bowed and smiled encouragingly. He resumed.)

“I have only one thing to add, and that is, each boat is to regard herself as a separate and independent unit, and is to make her way to the spot named in the shortest possible time, and there await the coming of the Paramatta or the other boats. That is all I have to say, ladies and gentlemen, except that I pray God to take us all under His especial care and guidance and to grant us a spell of favourable weather.

“And now to get away in the boats as quickly as possible.”

Chapter II

Becalmed in the Jollyboat

With our sail set, and the boat heading to the southward in the wake of the two gigs, I now had leisure to take a hasty glance at the good ship which had, first and last, borne me safely over many a thousand leagues of ocean, and was now hastening to her last berth in the Pacific ooze.

“So ends Chapter One. What, think you, is to be the end of Chapter Two, Massey?” remarked Mr. Oldroyd, one of two passengers who had left America to hunt kangaroos.

“If all goes well I hope it will end in our all being picked up by the Paramatta, this day week,” I said.

“If all goes well! Is there any reason why all should not go well?” asked Doctor Shirley-Winthrop, another American who, with his daughter, was in my boat.

“No,” I answered, “no particular reason; certainly not. But, of course, our position out here in an open boat, a thousand miles from the nearest land we can hope to reach, is precarious. So long as the weather holds, there will be little for us to trouble about. We have as much wind as we want, and no more, and it is blowing from the right quarter; moreover the sea is going down. If these conditions continue for the next seven days, we may hope to fall in with the Paramatta, and be picked up.

“But although under such conditions, practically the worst that we may expect is seven days’ exposure in an open boat, I am very glad you have asked that question, Doctor, because, as I said just now, our position is precarious. It depends upon the weather, than which, I suppose, there is nothing more uncertain. For example, we are heading to the south’ard, and are not more than about five degrees from the Line. Now, this breeze may hold until we reach the equator; but, on the other hand, it may not. I have known the equatorial calms to set in almost as far north as this, and if they should come to us early, our progress will be retarded, and our chances of falling in with the Paramatta reduced. I want you all to bear these facts in mind, so that, should matters not go with us precisely as we wish, you may not be unduly disappointed.”

“Y–e–s, I understand,” remarked the Doctor slowly. “You mean we must not be too cocksure that everything is going to pan out just right?”

“Precisely,” I said. “What I mean is very exactly expressed by our old English adage—‘Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst’.”

“Is there any sign of a change of weather?” asked the Doctor.

I took a look to windward, and all round the horizon. The sky overhead was a clear, rich ultramarine blue, paling away toward the horizon into a soft, warm grey against which the deep, sapphire blue of the sea ruled sharply in an unbroken circle, save where the tiny sails of the boats dotted it here and there. Solemn-moving trade clouds, like tufts of cotton-wool, came sailing slowly up out of the eastward, passing overhead, and vanishing beneath the western horizon, but nowhere, I was thankful to say, could I see any sign of change. True, the strength of the wind had moderated since our collision with the derelict, but that was all to the good, for the sea was moderating too, while we had just enough wind to enable us to show whole canvas to it comfortably. The two gigs were slipping away from us rapidly; they were smart boats, fast, whether under oars or sails, it was ideal weather for them, and they were only carrying five people each. We—the jollyboat—on the contrary were a sort of miniature longboat, built to carry, rather than for speed, yet in certain trim—which happened to be precisely our present trim—the little hooker had the knack of slipping along in a surprising manner. The two cutters, nearly as powerful as the jollyboat, and also built in a measure for speed, ought by good rights to be coming up with us, hand over hand, yet we were handsomely holding our own with them, if not actually creeping slowly away from them. As for the longboat, she was a slow coach; but if the breeze should freshen, she would be able to give an excellent account of herself.

“No,” I answered the Doctor, “there is no sign of a change, so we must just hope for the best, and be as considerate for each other as we can.”

There was just one drawback. The jollyboat had been stored, bottom-up, in the longboat for some time, her planking had become dry, and had shrunk, opening her seams, consequently she leaked like a basket, when she was first put into the water, necessitating the constant employment of one man as a baler; but as the hours went on she gradually “took up”, and matters became less unpleasant.

Meanwhile, I was busy thinking. Here we were, eight of us, in an open boat some thirty feet long by seven-and-a-half feet beam, and two of our number were young women. We were booked for seven days, at least, under these conditions, and, if nothing were done to remedy it, the complete lack of privacy would be horribly unpleasant for the two girls, to say nothing of the fact that there was absolutely no shelter for them in the event of bad weather. I called Wilkinson, the able seaman, aft, and turned the boat over to him, while Mr. Mason, at my request, took a turn at baling to release Dartnell, the ordinary seaman. Then Dartnell and I, going for’ard, re-arranged the storage of the boat, clearing away the whole of the space forward of the mast. This space I covered in with the boat’s canvas coat, making a sort of tiny forecastle of it, the interior of which I arranged with rugs and spare coats so as to convert it into a small sleeping apartment screened off from the rest of the boat. The result was not unsatisfactory; and I called the stewardess forward and showed her what I had done. She was thoroughly appreciative and intensely grateful, and shortly afterward I saw her obviously explaining matters to Miss Shirley-Winthrop. Then the two went for’ard together and disappeared, presumably re-arranging matters to their own liking. The result was that they were able to pass the night in privacy and some measure of comfort; but not a word of thanks or appreciation would Miss Shirley-Winthrop condescend to utter. Apparently, she regarded everything that was done for her as only what she was entitled to.

This, however, did not trouble me; I was not out to court her favour, and the feeling that I had done the best I could for her and my other female passenger was all the satisfaction I needed. Besides, I had things of more importance than the moods and humours of a spoilt young woman to think about, and the weather was one of them. As the day wore on the wind was dropping, and I feared a calm almost as much as I did a gale. When we abandoned the wreck the breeze was fresh enough to carry the boat almost gunwale-to, and there had been occasions when it was necessary to ease off the sheet to keep the water from lapping in over the lee gunwale, but these occasions had been growing steadily less frequent until by about two o’clock in the afternoon they had ceased, and by four o’clock the boat was sailing almost upright and our speed had dwindled to about three knots. The gigs, however, were making good headway, the leading gig having run out of sight, while the one next ahead of us was only to be seen occasionally, when we both happened to lift on the back of a swell at the same moment. In like manner we had gradually drawn away from the cutters, the nearest of which was by this time quite three miles astern of us, while the longboat was hull-down.

The aspect of the sky, too, was undergoing a subtle change. The blue of the zenith was no longer so clear and clean as it had been during the morning; it had lost much of its rich colour and had become quite of a pallid turquoise tint, indicating that it was being gradually overspread by a gathering haze, while the little tufts of trade clouds had noticeably diminished in number, were slower in their movements, and seemed to come to a pause on the western horizon and merge into a steadily-growing bank of vapour which had begun to form there. The result of this was a gorgeous sunset that evoked the admiration of my five passengers, although there was far too much fire and smoke in its composition to please me.

The wind was now dropping in so pronounced a fashion that there could no longer be doubt as to the spell of calm which I dreaded so much. Nevertheless, we carried on until close upon ten o’clock, by which time the sail was rustling and flapping to the mast with every motion of the boat, while the sheet hung slack amidships, and the boat no longer answered her helm. Then, reluctant though I was to do so, I had to order the dowsing of the sail and a resort to the oars; for if we were to intercept the Paramatta we must keep moving. There was no margin of time allowing us to lie idle until another breeze should spring up.

There were five of us in the jollyboat capable of handling an oar, namely, Messrs. Oldroyd and Mason, passengers, the two seamen and myself (Dr. Shirley-Winthrop confessed that he had never handled an oar in his life, but was willing to learn). But, of those five, it was necessary that one should always be steering, while it was obvious that none of us could work an oar for any length of time without rest. I therefore arranged that two should pull and one steer, turn and turn about, in spells of two hours, Wilkinson, the A.B. and I taking the first spell, while Dartnell steered; then Oldroyd and Mason were to come on for two hours while the Doctor steered, and so on, ringing the changes in such a fashion that each of us who could handle an oar pulled for two hours at a stretch, and then, after a spell of rest, took a two hours’ turn at the tiller.

It was weary, back-breaking work, pulling a heavy boat like the jollyboat with only one pair of oars, especially at the start when, although the wind had dropped, the sea was still “lumpy” and “sloppy”. We managed to get on, however, after a fashion, doing an average of a trifle under two knots per hour. But I was greatly surprised and much puzzled, when sunrise came and revealed a clear horizon. Not one of the boats was in sight! The disappearance of the gigs I could easily account for; they were light boats, pulled easily, and would draw away from the rest of us like smoke as soon as it came to a question of taking to the oars. But where were the cutters and the longboat? Certainly not ahead of us. We had pulled industriously all through the night, without cessation; and assuming that they had done the same I could not conceive how it would be possible for them to overhaul us and pass out of sight ahead. And still assuming that they, like ourselves, had kept their oars going all night, I found it equally difficult to understand how we could have run them out of sight. I sent Dartnell, the lightest man amongst us, up to the boat’s mast-head to take a look round, and he remained there a long five minutes, searching the entire horizon, but without success. Exceedingly improbable though it seemed, I at length came to the conclusion that the cutters and the longboat must be out of sight astern of us, and the idea came to me that perhaps it would be well to spare my crew a little by waiting for the laggards to overtake us and rejoin; but upon going over my previous calculations I found that we really dared not do it; we had not a minute to spare if we would intercept the Paramatta: and reluctantly I gave the word to “carry on” with the oars.

At eight o’clock that morning we piped to breakfast, and Miss Shirley-Winthrop and the second stewardess emerged from the nest I had rigged up for them in the eyes of the boat. As they came aft I ventured to express the hope that they had passed a comfortable night and slept well. Then, for the first time since I had been brought into contact with her, Miss Shirley-Winthrop looked at, instead of through and beyond me. She cast upon me a glance of scorn and contempt which ought to have withered me—but didn’t—and remarked, with a toss of her pretty head—

“Comfortable! slept well! Surely you must be jesting at our misery, sir. How do you suppose it possible for any woman to be comfortable in a stifling little hole like that, or to sleep with the rattle of oars going on all night?”

“I am awfully sorry if you have passed a bad night,” I said. “Of course I know that it is very different from the accommodation aboard the poor old Andromeda, but it is the best that could be contrived, under the circumstances. And, if I may be permitted to say so, your ‘misery’ does not appear to have visibly affected either of you, thus far.”

“I am sure it has not affected me,” laughed the stewardess, “for I was very comfortable all through the night, except for the heat, while I was able to get some quite long snatches of sleep. And this morning I feel fresh, and fit for anything. Is there anything I can do to help, Mr. Massey?”

“Yes,” I said, “there is. After breakfast I will teach you how to steer the boat by compass; and when you have learned, you will be able to release one man to snatch a little additional rest. And rest, I can assure you, is going to be valuable to us men, so long as this calm lasts.”

I added the last remark chiefly to afford Miss Shirley-Winthrop an opening to volunteer her services also; but she said not a word, and did not appear to have heard my remark.

Breakfast over, we threw out the oars again and resumed our voyage. Oldroyd and Wilkinson doing the hard work while I coached the stewardess in the art of steering. Within half-an-hour the girl had so perfectly acquired the knack that I was able to leave the boat in her hands and stretch myself out for a brief nap. But, as I did so, I saw the Doctor’s daughter shift over into the seat which I had vacated beside the stewardess, and before I dropped off to sleep she was getting Lucy Stroud to initiate her into the mysteries of steering.

“Good!” thought I. “The girl is all right at heart, I’ll bet. What is the matter with her is that she has been thoroughly spoilt, from her babyhood up, and has never been thwarted. This little boat excursion is going to do her a lot of good, if I am not mistaken.”

That day was a terrible day for all of us. The air was stagnant, not so much as the ghost of a catspaw wrinkled the oil-smooth surface of the swell. There was not a cloud in the whole of the vast vault that overarched us, but the rich blue was still dimmed, as on the previous day, by a haze which should have tempered the heat of the sun, but did not, on the contrary, it seemed somehow, to impart an added sting to his beams, which beat down upon us with such a virulence of scorching power that our arms, backs and shoulders, even where protected by our shirts, began to blister and smart cruelly. An hour at the oars was an hour of torment, and as I saw the oarsmen wincing at the chafe of their shirts upon their blistered skins, I was more than once inclined to bid them knock off. Yet each time reflection reminded me that away down there, some hundreds of miles to the southward, was the Paramatta rushing northward under the impulse of her powerful engines, and that if we wished to cross her path in time to intercept her—as most certainly we did—we must not waste a moment, though we should chafe our bodies raw in our eagerness. Even for the two girls, whose hardest work was steering the boat—a task which they had quietly but firmly taken upon themselves—the heat was excessively trying though they shared the protection of a handsome silk and lace sunshade which Miss Shirley-Winthrop had had the vanity—or the good sense, as things turned out—to bring from the ship with her. Yes, it was a terrible day for all of us; even when we were not exerting ourselves at all the perspiration streamed from us, and this resulted in a continuous, parching thirst which the meagre allowance of water that our resources permitted seemed to aggravate rather than allay. None of us took very much solid food, the intolerable smart of our scorched and blistered bodies set up a fever which robbed us of all appetite and induced a racking headache that drove us nearly crazy. Dartnell, the ordinary seaman, suffered to such an extent that we had to restrain him from going overboard in the hope that the comparative coolness of the sea would afford relief. But we did the next best thing we could for him, we drenched him, clothes and all, with salt-water, as he sat in the bottom of the boat, and he declared so emphatically that the treatment had relieved him, that Wilkinson, Oldroyd and I tried it on ourselves. And it did afford us relief and comfort for a short time; but we paid for the relief in another way, for the salt-water stung our broken blisters until the smart tormented us even more acutely than our earlier sufferings had done.

Our miseries during the ensuing forty-eight hours were a repetition of those of the day I have described only in an aggravated form. Night, with the absence of the blazing, scorching sun, afforded us some measure of relief, and although we ached in every joint, and our shoulders, the backs of our necks, and our arms were covered with great raw, bleeding patches, where the blisters had burst and the skin had been chafed to rags by the friction of our clothing, we somehow kept the boat going all through the night. But about an hour before noon of the next day the last of us—myself—collapsed completely, and for the next thirty hours the jollyboat lay “as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean,” with all the men aboard her, except the Doctor, delirious with pain and exhaustion. He and the stewardess got busy—the latter said that the Doctor’s daughter helped, too, until we began to show signs of returning consciousness. I don’t quite know of what Doctor Shirley-Winthrop’s treatment consisted, for he had no medicines with him, and the stewardess seemed to know little more about it than we did, although she helped the Doctor to treat us. All I know is that our raw places had been somehow treated or dressed, and had been bound up with soft material that had come from heaven knows where, that our delirium had vanished, and much of our pain and discomfort with it, and that upon investigation, our stock of fresh-water proved to be alarmingly low. I suspected that Doctor Shirley-Winthrop had used it unsparingly in his treatment of his patients; but be that as it may, I have scarcely a doubt that he saved our lives.

But to what end had he saved them? That was the question that now exercised me. For the morrow of the day upon which we recovered our senses was the day when the Paramatta was due to pass the spot for which we were aiming. And, as nearly as I could reckon it, we were at that moment close upon one hundred and eighty miles from that spot, with the weather still stark calm! One hundred and eighty miles in twenty-four hours! It could not be done—unless we happened to have a gale of wind behind us, of which at that moment there was no sign.

The more I thought of it the more clear to me did it become that it was useless to think of intercepting the Paramatta. Carefully I went over my calculations again, only to come to the conclusion that, if we were to take to the oars again and pull for all we were worth during the twenty-four hours, we should never get nearer to her than within about a hundred miles, after which the distance would begin to widen again, and go on widening.

Then, if we were to admit the impossibility of intercepting the Paramatta—and I could see nothing else for it—what were we to do? There was the outward-bound steamer from Honolulu to Suva, but we should miss her too, for according to her time table she was at that moment—there or thereabout—passing us, bound south, about one hundred and twenty miles away, and she would not be coming north again for another month. Also it would be useless to think of hanging about where we were, in the hope of being seen and picked up by some passing craft, for we were in a part of the Pacific Ocean which is rarely traversed by craft of any description, save those of the Inter-Oceanic Steamship Company. Of course there remained the Union group of islands, due south of us, of which the skipper had spoken as an alternative to being picked up by the Paramatta. We could keep doggedly on as we were going, and if nothing untoward occurred, and our provisions and water held out, in time we should reach them. Yes, that was just the point: would our provisions and water hold out? I estimated that the Union group was still nearly nine hundred miles distant, and, taking the most favourable view of probabilities, I did not see any prospect of our being able to reach them in less than twelve days at the least. It might take us more than that; it would not be prudent to reckon on less. Then I took stock of our supply of food and water. Of the former I found that we had sufficient to last us, at our normal rate of consumption, a fortnight; but our water! Gauging it as carefully as I could, I made it just six gallons, the equivalent of one pint per day per head for six days!

I determined to take my companions into my confidence, and consult with them as to what should be our next move. Since it was impossible for us to intercept the Paramatta, they had a right to express an opinion upon the alternative to be adopted, whether we should continue to push southward in the hope of making the Union group, or whether we should—do something else.

I put the case to them, and I was relieved to find that, so far at least as two of them—Messrs. Oldroyd and Mason—were concerned, they too, had been thinking matters over, and were by no means surprised. Neither were the two seamen, nor the stewardess, though the latter had kept her surmises strictly to herself, waiting patiently for me to speak. It was only the doctor—and possibly his daughter, who apparently had nothing to say upon the matter—who had failed to grasp the significance of the disastrous calm, and all that it involved. He had been looking forward with the utmost confidence to being picked up by the Paramatta and it took a good deal of explanation to make it clear that we had lost that chance. When he grasped the situation, he said—

“Supposing, Mr. Massey, you were alone in this boat, or—what amounts practically to the same thing—we landsmen were to say to you, ‘We know absolutely nothing about such matters as these, and are therefore willing to abide by a decision based upon your professional experience and judgment,’ what would you do?”

It was the very point that had been puzzling me; but it was one that had to be faced, and I had finally made up my mind upon it.

“I should be guided entirely by circumstances,” I replied. “The first and most imperative thing to be done is to cut down our allowance of water to the lowest possible limit. For the rest, we must be governed by the direction of the wind—when it comes. We are now in the belt of tropical calms, where absence of wind and frequent tremendous downpours of rain are common; but these spells of calm are frequently varied by light airs which come from any point of the compass, while more or less violent squalls are not infrequent. Now, we know where the Union group is. If the winds permit, we will try to make them, but if not, I believe there are clusters of islands at no great distance away down to the south-west. If we cannot make the Unions, our wisest plan would be to head south-west and try to hit one of the islands of which I have spoken; for, by so doing, we should also have a chance of being picked up by one of the copra and shell traders that cruise among those islands.”

“I don’t see that we can do anything else,” remarked Oldroyd, appealing to the company.

“Most sensible thing, I think,” agreed his friend, Mason.

“Can you suggest a better plan, Doctor?” I demanded.

“Of course he cannot,” snapped his daughter. “He is a landsman, and knows nothing about the sea. But I am very sorry that Captain Cupples did not appoint us to one of the other boats. We should at least have been with an officer who would know what to do without consulting his passengers.”

Inwardly, I heartily shared the young lady’s regret, and was almost provoked into saying so; but I kept my temper, remembering all that the poor, spoiled beauty had to put up with; and replied, with the most cheerful smile I could muster—

“Very well, then; it is settled that we follow the procedure I have suggested. And, thank God! there is a little breeze coming to help us. D’ye see that catspaw away out there on the port bow, Wilkinson? Bend on the halliard and hoist the sail. We must utilise every breath of wind that comes to us; they are much too precious to be wasted.”

Chapter III

Weird Happenings

There were catspaws playing all round us now, and presently Wilkinson, standing up in the boat and shading his eyes with one hand, pointed away to the southward with the other, indicating a narrow line of rich ultramarine blue that stretched right along the southern horizon, with numerous catspaws of the same tint impinging upon the surface of the water between us and it, flickering lightly hither and thither for a few moments and then merging into each other until patches of blue an acre or more in extent became quite numerous, these in turn merging into each other and extending in every direction. Finally, one of these bigger patches of blue spread until it took the jollyboat into its gracious embrace, when with a slight preliminary rustling, the sail filled, the sheet tautened, and with a heel of about one strake to starboard, and a musical tinkling of water along our bends, we gathered way and began to “catch” in west-south-westerly direction at the rate of about two knots. Gradually the breeze grew stronger until within an hour we were doing four knots, with perhaps a bit over.

That breeze lasted all through the night and well into the morning of the next day, dying away about eleven o’clock in the forenoon. But I did not anticipate another long spell of calm, on the contrary, I was afraid that our next trouble would be that of too much wind, for with the dying away of the breeze a great bank of slatey-blue cloud began to gather and rise along the western horizon, threatening a thunder-storm; and I knew from past experience, that in those latitudes a thunder-storm frequently breaks with furious wind squalls, dangerous to a small open boat.

The storm was slow to come, but it broke at last, about three o’clock in the afternoon, in the form—to my great relief—of just an ordinary tropical thunder-storm, without wind, but finishing up with a perfect deluge of rain which descended from the overcharged clouds in such torrents that by catching it in our outspread sail, we could re-fill our water breakers, to my intense relief. Of course, we also all got drenched to the skin—except Miss Shirley-Winthrop, who so far honoured me as to accept the loan of my “oily”—but that did not really matter, for the rain was tepid and the drenching was agreeable rather than otherwise.

The storm, and the succeeding downpour of rain, lasted until close upon sunset; but with the cessation of the rain there was no clearing of the sky, which remained lowering and overcast, with a closeness of the atmosphere that was almost suffocating, so that, despite our drenched clothing, we were all perspiring freely.

The darkness descended upon us with startling suddenness, that night, and when it came it was like being shut up in a tomb. The silence was profound, for the heavy rain had beaten the sea so flat that even the swell seemed to have subsided and the boat was as motionless as though afloat in a tank, while none of us seemed in the least inclined to be talkative. The smoothness of the water rendered the conditions ideal for rowing, but so oppressive was the humid heat of the night that the slightest exertion seemed a hardship, and I had not the heart to call upon anyone to toil at an oar, particularly now that we had abandoned hope of intercepting the Paramatta, while the replenishment of our water supply rendered extreme haste no longer of vital importance. So we just sat there, motionless, silent, panting and perspiring; too languid and inert even for the smokers of the party to fill and light their pipes.

At length Miss Shirley-Winthrop curtly announced her intention to retire for the night, and requested—though it sounded much more like a command—that the lantern might be lighted to enable her to make her way to her quarters in the eyes of the boat. This was done, and the young lady left us, with a brief “good-night” to her father, but ignoring the rest of us; and the stewardess went with her. Some ten minutes later the hurricane lamp was passed out of the little tent-like shelter forward and extinguished, it now being a matter of some importance to economise the oil.

But, as though the retirement of the young women had been a signal, then things began to happen. First of all, a faint, momentary gleam of bluish radiance, flickering out of the blackness low down in the southern quarter heralded the most magnificent display of sheet lightning that I ever beheld. It lasted for two hours or more, beginning with scarcely perceptible glimmers at intervals of about a minute, and increasing in brilliance and rapidity until at the height of its intensity the atmosphere seemed, for the space of about a quarter of an hour, to be one continuous shimmer of brilliant vari-coloured light.

And it was while this beautiful electrical display was at its height that the first really remarkable event of that extraordinary night happened. The silence that enwrapped us was practically complete. But merely to make that bald statement does not express the intensity of it. It was so profound as to be uncanny; it was as though nature was breathlessly awaiting some momentous happening; it seemed to have assumed a new quality and to have become tangible. And—so far at least as I was concerned—it so got upon one’s nerves that when anyone moved, the sound seemed so startling that my impulse was to hit out savagely at the offender. Perhaps it was the highly-charged electrical atmosphere that was responsible for this curious nervous state; I don’t know. But the others were evidently under the same influence, for it was noticeable that they were all exercising a painful restraint upon themselves to avoid movement or any action calculated to break the weird silence.

It was at the moment when matters had reached this stage that, suddenly, as with one accord, we all sat up and assumed an intent listening attitude, for, faint and apparently from far away, there had come to our ears a peculiar sound, a sound that could be separated into two other distinct sounds, namely, a low, weird whining, and the sound of rushing water. Starting to my feet, I stared into the far distance all round the boat, under the impression that a heavy and dangerous squall was approaching, for the sounds were increasingly distinct. I was prepared to perceive in some quarter of the heavens a distinct darkening of the already dark sky, and beneath it a pallid line of white lashed into a surge of phosphorescent fire by the scourge of the approaching squall. Evidently, Wilkinson and Dartnell, the two seamen, had the same idea, for they, too, scrambled to their feet and stared about them, while one muttered—“Squall comin’!”

But nothing of the kind anticipated was to be seen, although the sounds were rapidly growing in intensity, the whining sound having developed into the unmistakable howl of a furious wind.

“Do you see anything, Wilkinson, Dartnell?” I demanded, puzzled and not a little disconcerted.

“N–o, sir, I don’t,” answered both men, hesitatingly, at the same moment. Then—“Yes, by the Piper! I do, though,” exclaimed Wilkinson; and as the man spoke we all three caught sight of it simultaneously—a mound of white water, circular in shape and some two or three fathoms in diameter, coming along up from the south and heading directly for us. I did not know in the least what it was, but instinctively I recognised it as something dangerous, and shouted—

“Out oars, men, and pull for your lives! Lively, now! Well done, Wilkinson, give way, man! Back water, Dartnell. So! Now give way both!”

Galvanised into sudden and intense activity the two seamen grasped the oars, tossed them into the rowlocks and, throwing all their strength into the action, got the boat going just in the nick of time. Some twenty seconds later the tornado—for that was what it was—went whooping and screaming and yelling immediately over the spot where we had been, its passage marked by the swirling, seething mound of phosphorescent water which it was churning up in its fury. Had we not got out of its path, that mound of water would have boiled in over the gunwale of our boat and swamped her, with the certainty that not one of us would have survived to tell the tale.

Within five moments the tornado had swept out of sight and hearing, and after about half an hour’s desultory chat chiefly concerning remarkable phenomena that one or another of us had witnessed, we subsided into silence again, the Doctor stretching himself out for the night upon the after-thwart, while Messrs. Oldroyd and Mason arranged themselves as comfortably as they could on the bottom-boards of the stern-sheets. The sheet lightning was by this time passing away, only an occasional flicker of it lighting up the scene for a moment, to be followed by steadily lengthening intervals of intense darkness. But the silence was no longer so oppressive, for far away down in the southern quarter there was the occasional low mutter of distant thunder, and I began to wonder whether the storm of the afternoon was to be repeated.

After a longer spell than usual of total darkness there came a brilliant flicker of sheet lightning, lasting for perhaps a second and a half, and before it vanished Wilkinson, the able seaman, who had resumed his former position in the bottom of the boat, started up and flinging out his right arm, yelled “Sail ho!”

The effect was electrical: the cry brought every one of us instantly to our feet, staring in the direction to which Wilkinson had pointed. But it was pitch dark again, and I found time to reflect.

A sail? It was absurd, of course, impossible. In a breathless calm, like that which had prevailed all through the afternoon, no sailing ship could have approached us; while if it had chanced to be a steamer that Wilkinson saw, we should have heard the beat of her propeller in that intense silence, as far as we could see her. Moreover, there were neither side nor mast-head lights visible. Again, if by a miracle a sailing ship had chanced to drift within our ken, she could not have come so rapidly but that we should have seen her long ago, when the sheet lightning was playing so vividly.

“You have been asleep and dreaming, Wilkinson,” I said, reprovingly. “How on earth do you suppose a ship could get near us in such weather as this? What was she like?”

“She’s a barque-rigged craft, Mr. Massey,” the man answered confidently. “About five hundred ton I’d put her down to be. She’s about a mile off, out there, broad on our starboard beam, lyin’ pretty near broadside-on to us, with her jibs hauled down and her courses in the brails. As to how she comes there, I can’t say: all I know is that I seen her, as plain as ever I seen anything in all my life.”

I was astonished, not so much at the amount of information which the man reeled off—for I knew that the practised eye of a seaman will catch a wonderful amount of detail even in a space of time as brief as that occupied by a flash of lightning—but at the character of the information, for he had accurately described the appearance of a ship precisely as she would most probably present herself under the somewhat peculiar weather conditions.

“There! did ye hear that, sir?” continued Wilkinson, as I stood staring out to starboard, silently digesting what the man had said, and trying to find an explanation of it.

“That” was something that sounded like a brief command uttered in a man’s ordinary tone of voice, followed by other sounds which might have been those of a coil of rope flung down on deck, and next the faint squeak of a block-sheave on a rusty pin.

“Yes,” I said, “I certainly did. But it is exceedingly strange. I cannot understand it. However, it is a chance that must not be missed. Pass along the hurricane lamp and let us show them a light. And out oars again, men. We’ll pull aboard her; she cannot get away from us so long as this calm lasts. Did she look English, think you?”

“Well—no, sir, I wouldn’t say that she did,” replied Wilkinson. “She sat high out of the water, as if she was in ballast, and looked to be badly down by the head.”

“Ah, well,” I said, “English or not, we’ll go and have a look at her. Even if she should be a German, we shall be better off aboard her than drifting about in an open boat. Give way, lads. Now then,”—as I lighted the lamp—“to show them a light. If they are keeping anything of a look-out they cannot fail to see the lantern and to hear the thud of the oars in the rowlocks.”

Standing up in the stern-sheets, with the tiller between my legs, while I held the lantern aloft, I headed the boat in the direction where we supposed the stranger to be, meanwhile keeping a bright look-out for an answering light, and momentarily expecting to hear a hail. But no answering light appeared, no hail came pealing out across the water, and I was beginning to doubt whether Wilkinson had not been dreaming after all, despite the sounds which I had heard, when a vivid flash of fork lightning streamed out from a point low down on the horizon, and at the same instant three voices—those of the Doctor, Oldroyd and Mason—exclaimed joyously—

“There she is!”

Yes; there she was, undoubtedly, almost directly ahead, showing up like a black silhouette against the background of sky illuminated for the fraction of a second by the lightning-flash. But what a queer-looking craft she was. True, I had only caught the ghost of a glimpse of her, for the light of the hurricane lamp which I held aloft somewhat dazzled my vision, but the thought that instantly came to my mind was that this was assuredly no present-day ship, or my eyes had strangely deceived me. Wilkinson had described her as sitting high out of the water, as though in ballast, and appearing to be badly down by the head. And, in a general way, that description corresponded with the impression which I had obtained of her appearance, but it would apply equally well to the ships portrayed in pictures painted during the reign of Queen Elizabeth! I had seen scores of drawings of such craft at one time and another, notably in an illustrated History of England; and unless my imagination was playing me a curious trick, the “ghost of a glimpse”—as I have called it—which I caught of the stranger during the brief illumination created by a flash of lightning had left upon my retina the image of just such another ship—short, squat, high-sterned, low-bowed, with three stumpy masts stepped close together, high-peaked bowsprit and spritsail yard, with spritsail hanging in the brails! Of course it was a trick of the imagination—it must be; no ship of that period could still be sailing the seas; but so vividly had that quaint image impressed itself upon me that I could not resist the temptation to question Wilkinson further.

“What countryman would you take her to be, Wilkinson?” I said.

“What countryman, Mr. Massey?” he repeated. “Well, dashed if I think I could put a name to her, now that you comes to ask me. She ain’t British—I’ll swear to that. And, come to think of it, I’m not so sure that I’d call her European, either. Foreign-lookin’ sort of craft she is, and all out o’ trim, too. Sort of cross between an English barque and a Chinese junk, I’d say she was.”

Now, coining from a man in Wilkinson’s sphere of life, a man, moreover, without a shred of imagination, this description, quaint as it was, coincided fairly enough with the image which I still had in mind, and I felt more puzzled than ever. What on earth could the craft be?

“Well,” I said, “whatever country she may hail from, I hope there will be somebody aboard understanding English. Because I shall want to arrange with her skipper to land us all somewhere on British territory. The Company will willingly pay. We ought to be well within earshot of her by this time, I should think,” I continued. “Mr. Mason, kindly hold this lamp for me, a moment, please, I’ll try a hail.”

And, raising my hands to my mouth, trumpet-wise, I yelled, at the full power of my lungs—

“Ship ahoy–y–y!”

As the cry pealed out across the water the two seamen rested upon their oars, listening for a reply.

But the moments passed, and none came, no answering light was shown, nor was there the faintest sound indicating the presence of a craft of any kind in the neighbourhood, although, some ten minutes earlier, I had heard—or thought I heard—the sound of a man’s voice, followed by other sounds indicative of the proximity of a ship.

“Hang it all!” I exclaimed in perplexity. “This is queer—very queer. Why the mischief don’t those fellows answer? Let us try again, all together. Now—one—two—three—ship ahoy–y–y!”

The combined shout, uttered in unison by six pairs of more or less stentorian lungs, was loud enough, one would have thought, to be heard a couple of miles off, in that breathless calm, but it proved as ineffective as my hail. The silence remained unbroken, save for the soft lap, lap of the water against the boat’s planking.

By the light of the lamp, still held aloft by Mason, we gazed at one another in astonishment. What, in the name of all that was puzzling, did it mean? There were five of us in that boat, namely, the three male passengers, Wilkinson, and myself, each of whom was prepared to assert, unequivocally, that we had seen a ship at no great distance away—although I, for one, was still profoundly puzzled to know how she could possibly have got there: we had been pulling toward her for fully ten minutes, and ought now in all reason to be quite near her, yet we could get no reply to our hails, no indication of her contiguity. Why, according to my judgment, we ought to be close enough to her to hear a man speak in anything above a whisper, near enough to hear even a bare-footed man padding along her deck, near enough to hear the scrape of a match by a man lighting his pipe! And unless her crew had suddenly gone fast asleep, or died, they must see the light of our upheld hurricane lamp. The only explanation I could think of was, that her skipper must be one of those selfish, boorish, unfeeling wretches of whom one hears occasionally, who are inhuman enough to refuse succour to shipwrecked people and callously abandon them to the mercies of the sea. If the skipper of the craft for which we were searching chanced to be a fellow of that kidney it might be that, upon seeing our light, he had ordered his crew to take no notice of it, to ignore our hails, and carefully to refrain from making any sounds likely to betray their presence to us. Yet that could scarcely be it, either, for glass-smooth though the water was, there was still enough swell running to cause a ship to roll, though ever so slightly, and a rolling ship meant rustling, flapping canvas, pattering reef-points, jerking sheets, squeaking parrals, kicking tiller chains, creaking spars, and all those other trifling sounds of ship-board to which one soon grows so accustomed as to become unconscious of them, yet which make themselves startlingly audible in a calm. Those sounds could not be hushed at the order of a surly skipper; yet not one of them could we hear.

“Let us try her once more, lads,” I said. “Now, then—one—two—three—ship ahoy!”

It was no good. The mystery ship simply would not respond, do what we would!

“Give way, men,” I ordered. “Pull a dozen strokes, and then lay in your oars and listen. We must lie close aboard her; and if she will not answer our hails we will hang about where we are until we hear or see something of her. Then we will pull alongside and insist on being taken aboard. Whatever else she may be, she is a sailing ship and cannot move until a breeze comes, so we are pretty sure of her, sooner or later. We must keep a sharp look-out all round, then if another flash of lightning comes some of us will be certain to see her. That will do, men. Way enough. Lay in your oars. We will remain where we are until daylight, at all events.”

The men laid in their oars—and sat upon them to prevent them from rattling with the slight rocking of the boat. Then we all sat rigid, silent, scarcely daring to draw our breath, so intently were we listening for some errant sound which should furnish us with a clue to the whereabouts of the ship we were seeking, while we stared hard in different directions into the blackness around, waiting and watching for a glint of light, or a flash of lightning which should reveal what we all so eagerly desired to see. But the minutes of watching lengthened into hours, with no faintest sound, no gleam of light, no further flash of lightning to help us; and when at length the pallor of a new dawn lightened along the eastern horizon and I was once more able to see my surroundings—for we had extinguished our light, with the two-fold object of economising oil and seeing better in the darkness—I found the rest of the men sitting with arms folded, fast asleep; while as for the strange ship, there was not a trace of her to be seen in any direction!

Was I greatly surprised? Honestly speaking I do not think I was. Perplexed—yes, profoundly so, for I firmly believed that I had caught a fleeting—a very fleeting—glimpse of a ship of some sort during that small fraction of a second when that last flash of lightning had illuminated our surroundings, and I felt even more convinced that I had really heard the sounds I have mentioned. Yet, on the other hand, it may all have been a mere trick of imagination suddenly aroused by Wilkinson’s cry of “Sail ho!”

But, it may be asked, why should Wilkinson have raised that cry if no ship was there? I think the circumstances might easily account for that. There we were, a party of castaways in an open boat with our thoughts naturally dwelling continually upon the idea of rescue. If, as I suspected, Wilkinson had fallen asleep as he sat there in the bottom of the boat, what more natural than that he should dream he saw a ship? And again, if he dreamed such a dream, what more natural than that he should shout “Sail ho!” and so awake himself, leaving him firmly convinced that his dream had been real? As for the rest of us, the positive assertion of the seaman that he had sighted a ship, coupled with his circumstantial description of her appearance, would stimulate our imaginations, even to the extent of preparing us to believe, presently, when the next flash of lightning came, that we had seen her too. That was the explanation of the mystery which Doctor Shirley-Winthrop offered when we fell to discussing it, and it may have been the correct one.

Chapter IV

Land Ho!

As soon as the day had fairly come, we took the meal which we dignified with the name of breakfast; and then, since it was useless to remain where we were, Wilkinson and I manned the oars and got the boat moving, while the stewardess took a trick at the tiller, heading the boat south-west by compass.

The weather was still very unsettled. The calm continued as unbroken as ever, but now there was a long low swell creeping up from the southward that seemed to me to portend a blow from that quarter. The sky was overcast, dark and lowering, and distant objects showed up with startling distinctness, as was exemplified by the clearness and sharpness of definition of the fin of a shark sculling lazily along, which appeared at a distance of fully two miles from us away out on our starboard beam. The thunder and lightning had ceased hours ago, but from the aspect of the sky I anticipated a deluge of rain at any moment. We had discussed the problem of the mysterious ship, and the Doctor had propounded his own theory concerning it, after which the entire party had subsided into a gloomy silence, in accord with the weather.

Following upon a long spell during which not one of the party had uttered a word, Oldroyd, who occupied the seat next the stewardess, and who had been staring moodily and abstractedly ahead, suddenly broke the silence.

“Say, Massey,” he exclaimed, “what in the nation does that portend?” As he spoke, he pointed skyward and straight ahead.

Suspending operations for a moment, I turned on the thwart and gazed in the direction toward which he was pointing. I saw instantly what had attracted his attention.

Directly ahead, and about half-way between the zenith and the horizon, a big patch of cloud had assumed a particularly sombre hue, and was now writhing and working as though violently agitated by some internal commotion. At its darkest part it had developed a conical shape ending in a sharp point, directed downward toward the surface of the water. This sharp point, which was almost inky black, was behaving in the most extraordinary manner, extending and retracting rapidly, with a curious darting movement. At one moment, it would shrink until it was almost lost in the body of the cloud, the next it would dart forth again, its extremity agitated with a strange quivering movement. And every time that it darted forward it seemed to project nearer to the surface of the water, which, I now observed, manifested a tendency to heap itself up into a mound, as though to meet it.

“I cannot say for certain,” I replied, “for I have never before seen anything of the sort; but it answers pretty closely to a description I once read of the manner in which a waterspout is formed. See there. Watch that black tongue of vapour. Notice how it seems to be reaching down toward the ocean, nearer and still nearer every time. And see, too, how the surface of the water seems to heap itself up to meet it. Do you see that? There is now a distinct and growing mound of water piled up under it, and it is increasing in height every moment, while the tongue of vapour seems to be reaching down to touch it. Yes, that is a waterspout in the making, sure enough, and—ah! now the two have come together, and there is your fully-formed waterspout. Now, it will pay to watch that fellow and see where he is going, for we don’t want him any nearer than half a mile, and waterspouts are occasionally a bit erratic in their movements in weather like this. Ah! thank goodness, he is heading to the nor’ard and won’t come near us—”

“There is another, behind us!” suddenly remarked the doctor’s daughter, in quite an ordinary, conversational tone, her interest in what was happening seeming to have caused her to forget for the moment her vast superiority to the rest of us. And it was surprising to note how sweet and seductive the tones of her voice could be, when she chose.

Yes, it was as Miss Shirley-Winthrop had said. While we had all been absorbedly watching the formation of a waterspout some seven or eight miles ahead, another had formed, about four miles astern, and upon glancing round we spotted two others close together, some six miles away. They all appeared to be moving in the same direction, namely northward; and since the pair last sighted were on our port beam, and were coming our way, we took to our oars again, to give them a wide berth.

“There’ll be a breeze after this, Mr. Massey, you’ll see,” hazarded Wilkinson. And he was right; for when, after about twenty minutes’ heavy downpour, the rain ceased, a fiery little breeze came piping up from the southward which compelled us to close reef our one sail and carefully tend the sheet to save the boat from burying herself gunwale-under, with all hands sitting up to windward.

For the first half-hour or so we buzzed along merrily enough, reeling off a good honest six knots per hour; but by the end of that time the wind had kicked up a nasty short, vicious little sea that caught the boat on her bluff port bow and flew over her in such drenching clouds of spray that it became necessary not only to keep one hand constantly baling, but also to run the boat a point or two farther off the wind, so as to take the sea more nearly broadside-on. But as the afternoon progressed the wind steadily increased in strength and the sea gathered weight, became steeper, and broke more heavily; so that by about four o’clock it had become dangerous to sail the boat, and I was drenched with perspiration due to my efforts to keep her above water. At length—

“I am going to heave-to, Wilkinson,” I said, “while there is daylight to see what we are doing. Another half-hour of this would swamp the boat. Lead the end of the painter aft and lash it firmly round all four of the oars, about their middle. Then dowse the sail and heave the oars overboard. We will use them as a floating anchor to ride by and keep the boat head-on to the sea. Get that done at once; and I will then tell you what I further want done.”

It was the work of a few minutes; and when it was accomplished we found, to our satisfaction, that while the drag of the oars was just sufficient to keep the boat riding with her head to the sea, it permitted her to drive astern almost as rapidly as though she were entirely free; thus the sea no longer broke heavily over her and she rode practically dry, the canvas shelter rigged up for’ard serving to keep a lot of water out. Our next move was to strike the mast, secure the heel of it to the fore thwart, and rest the head of it in a crutch formed of a pair of stretchers lashed together and set up on the stern-sheets. The mast thus formed a sort of ridge pole for a roof which we began to extemporise out of the remaining portion of the boat cover, reinforced by the sail, and when at last we had got the whole strained taut and secured outside the gunwale of the boat to our satisfaction, the little boat was completely housed over with canvas, with the exception of some six feet of her stern-sheets. Thus, by crowding together a bit we were able to enjoy practically complete shelter from the weather, while—more important still—the seas that broke over the boat, later on—for it blew a whole gale that night—were kept out of her interior, such water as leaked through being baled.

By the time that our preparations were completed, the night was upon us, it was blowing heavily, a mountainous sea was running, and I give you my word it was trying to the nerves to stand up in the stern-sheets of that boat and look out over the canvas cover at the great on-coming hills of black water, towering high and threatening above us, their crests crowned with seething, phosphorescent foam, and to see that foaming crest leap at the boat and smother her for half her length in a swirling welter of sea-fire as it swept past her! But for our good canvas roof, the boat could not have lived half an hour after we hove her to; but the canvas saved us; for although the water came streaming through it every time a sea swept the boat, it was only for a few seconds at a time; and brisk baling kept the boat free and buoyant, if not exactly dry.

It was a wretched night for us, for we were all huddled together in the middle of the boat under our canvas protection, through which the water streamed down upon one or another of us every time a sea broke over the boat, and it was suffocatingly hot, while the place reeked with the odour of paraffin oil smoke—since we were compelled to keep the lamp burning in case its light should be needed in an emergency. It must have been a night of terror, too, for the passengers, and especially the women, for the wild leaps and soarings and the giddy downward plunges of the boat bore testimony to the height of the sea that we were riding, while the incessant thuds of heavy masses of water falling upon the canvas overhead and streaming through, were eloquent of the fate that only that thin sheet of canvas saved us from. As for me, I never closed my eyes for a moment all through that night, but sat there in the stern-sheets with Wilkinson and Dartnell coiled up at my feet, all three of us holding ourselves ready to act at a moment’s notice, as circumstances might require.

It was while we were huddling together under the shelter of the canvas, breaking our fast as best we could, that we became conscious of a sudden gleam of sunshine striking through our sodden canvas roof; and, hastily scrambling from under cover, I looked abroad, to behold the cheering spectacle of a wide rift in the sooty wrack away down on the eastern horizon, with a portion of the disc of the sun showing through it. As I gazed enraptured at the welcome sight the rift continued to widen, revealing a patch of primrose sky behind it merging into delicate blue above, the entire body of the sun appeared, darting his cheering beams athwart the indigo-hued, foam-crested procession of towering mountain waves, and at the same moment I became conscious of a moderating of the strength of the gale. Within the next five minutes the sky had practically cleared, great patches of deep, clean blue showing in every direction, while the tattered remnants of storm clouds were sweeping rapidly out of sight to the nor’ard. Every moment the seas were breaking less dangerously, and presently a little fleet of Portuguese men-o’-war, with their diaphanous sails spread, went driving past us. I dipped my head beneath the canvas cover and shouted joyously—

“Hurrah, good people! the gale is breaking, and before many hours are over our heads we shall be under way again, if all goes well.”

I sat watching the boat for another half-hour or so, noting all the time that the strength of the wind was steadily decreasing, and the seas breaking less dangerously, then, satisfied that the crisis was past, and the peril over, I turned the charge of the boat over to Wilkinson, who had slept through most of the night, and, stretching myself out on the bottom-boards of the stern-sheets, instantly sank into a state of blissful oblivion.

When they aroused me it was past noon, and everybody was clamouring for the mid-day meal, the task of serving out which, as well as all other meals, I had undertaken, from the first. The moment that a hand was laid upon my shoulder, sleep fled, but even as I opened my eyes I could tell, by the feel of the boat, that her motions were much less violent than they had been when I fell asleep. I scrambled to my feet and flung a hasty glance round the horizon. The sky was clear and clean, save for a big patch of light, dappled cloud in the north-eastern quarter; the sun was darting his beams fiercely down upon us; the sea, though still heavy, was no longer breaking dangerously, and the colour of the water had changed from indigo to a rich sapphire tint. The fine weather was returning.

While serving out the food and water—the allowance of the latter I had increased to a quart per day since the rain had enabled us to re-fill our breakers—and during the progress of the meal, I narrowly watched the behaviour of the boat and the run of the sea, and finally came to the conclusion that if the weather continued to improve at the same rate we might venture to get under way again before sunset. This sanguine view was confirmed, and about four o’clock in the afternoon I gave the order to haul aboard and unlash the oars, and to step the mast and set the sail. The wind had by that time decreased to such an extent that the boat would safely carry whole canvas, while the sea no longer broke, but there was still so heavy a swell running that every time the boat sank into a hollow her sail collapsed to the mast, completely becalmed under the lea of the great liquid hill to windward, to fill again with a sudden flap and a jerk of the sheet as we were lifted heavenward upon its advancing slope. To sail the boat under such conditions was rather nervous work at the outset, for there was scarcely time for her to gather way at each upheaval before she was becalmed in the next trough, losing way to such an extent that she was liable to fall off and get broadside-on to the sea to a dangerous extent; but after half an hour of such work I caught the trick of humouring her through the calm spells, and then we managed better, although not doing more than a couple of knots per hour. Even the swell, however, grew steadily less dangerous with the passage of the hours; and by midnight the conditions had so improved that I felt I might safely turn the boat over to the care of the two seamen for the remainder of the night and secure for myself a little more much-needed sleep.

It seemed to me that I had barely lost consciousness when I was aroused by the touch of a hand, and the voice of Dartnell, the ordinary seaman, in my ear, murmuring—

“Mr. Massey, Mr. Massey! rouse and bitt, sir. There’s land in sight!”

“Land?” I repeated. “The dickens there is! Where away?” And, rising hastily but quietly from my recumbent position, so that I might not disturb any of the other sleepers, I seated myself on the thwart beside the speaker—to find that day had broken, that it was a gloriously fine, clear morning, with a nice brisk little breeze blowing, rippling the surface of the ocean into a multitude of sparkling wavelets, and that the boat was bowling merrily along, almost gunwale-to, over a sapphire sea heaving gently in long, low mounds of swell that came sweeping solemnly up from the southward.

“Where away is your land, Dartnell?” I repeated, peering out under the foot of the sail in the direction toward which the man was pointing.

“Out there, sir, broad on our lee bow,” answered Dartnell, in low, eager tones. “Wait till she lifts on the back of the swell, and you’ll see it—there ye are, sir. D’ye see it? That’s land, plain enough, or I never see’d none in my life.”

“Yes, you are right, Dartnell,” I replied, unconsciously raising my voice in my excitement as, the boat lifting, I caught a glimpse of a pale blue hummock, about three points on our lee bow, standing out sharply defined and clear-cut against the warm pallor of the north-western horizon. “That is land, sure enough. But it is a long way off—”

“Land?” exclaimed Oldroyd, starting up, and staring hard at me. “Did I hear you say something about land, Massey?”

“Yes,” I replied. “It is true. There is land in sight on the lee bow; but still a long way off. Not far short of thirty miles, I should say.”

“Pooh! what does that matter, so long as it is in sight?” he exclaimed, eagerly, starting to his feet. “Where is it? Show it me. The sight of a chunk of dry land is the thing I most want to see in the world, just now.”

I pointed it out, and then to the others, all of whom had by this time been awakened by our excited voices; and then all hands began to bombard me with questions, some wanting to know how long it would be before we could reach it, while others wanted me to give it a name.

But I could give no satisfactory reply to either question. As regards the first, I had to explain to them that it would depend upon whether or not the breeze held steady. If it did, we might hope to step ashore in another six hours—if, upon a nearer view of the island, it should seem safe to land there. With regard to the other question—that of giving the island a name—I was figuratively as well as literally “at sea”, for I had no chart to consult, while, to be perfectly candid, with the hazy knowledge of our whereabouts which I possessed, I had scarcely hoped to make a landfall so soon. Then the Doctor wanted to know what I meant by the proviso—“if it should seem safe to land there,” and I had to explain that certain of the Pacific islands were inhabited by savages who welcomed strangers to their shores chiefly as an addition to their larder. Oldroyd and Mason, however, quickly reminded me that they had brought their rifles and a goodly supply of ammunition and we soon agreed that, unless a hostile demonstration in overwhelming force should be made upon our approach, we would at least land and reconnoitre. Somebody remarked that there might be no savages; that the island might be uninhabited. But I felt it necessary to discourage any such hope, the island in sight was too big to be entirely without inhabitants.

Fortunately, the breeze held and the boat went buzzing along at a merry pace, yet the time seemed long before we felt that we had materially reduced our distance from the island. But as the minutes sped some of us at least were able to note those subtle changes in the appearance of the island which marked our steady approach. Originally a faint blue silhouette just showing clear of the horizon when the boat lifted upon the back of a swell, it might easily have been mistaken by a landsman for part of a cloud, of which we lost sight every time the boat sank into the trough. But as time passed on the outline of the silhouette grew more sharply defined, its colour deepened from pale, delicate blue to dove-grey, it towered higher above the horizon, and stretched for a greater length along it. Next came a subtle change of colour, the uniform hue of dove-grey deepening here and lightening there until the flat surface became broken up into distinct projections and recessions which, in turn, became further broken up into suggestions of hill and ravine as the all-pervading tint of grey began to melt into varying shades of green. The next distinct change of which we were conscious was when the flat, silhouette appearance broke up into a perspective of varying distances and the highest point of the island, shaggy with vegetation, towered high enough into the sky to remain visible even when the boat settled into the trough.

From the moment when the island was first sighted, I had been keeping my luff, my intention being to examine the weather side of the island first, thus I had continued to keep it about three points on our lee bow during the whole time of our approach. It was while we were getting our mid-day meal—the last, as we hoped, we should be called upon to take in the boat—that we first became aware of a sort of whiteness, like puffs of steam, showing at the southern extremity of the island, which was the extremity nearest us. These appearances occurred pretty regularly at intervals of about ten seconds, and by the time that the meal was over I had identified them as bursts of spray leaping high into the air with the impact of the swell upon the shore. As we stood on, the leap of the breakers and the bursts of spray became clearer, while at the same time they manifested a tendency to reach out athwart our hawse, suggesting the idea of a reef projecting from the southern extremity of the island. And such in truth it proved to be, though it was not the sort of reef I had at first supposed; that is to say, it was not an outcrop of rock jutting into the sea for a few hundred yards, but was, as we ultimately recognised, a barrier reef of coral bowing out from the southern extremity and enclosing a spacious lagoon on its south-western side.

Still holding my luff as closely as I dared, consistently with the free movement of the boat through the water, we came abreast of the southern point of the island somewhere about two o’clock in the afternoon, a mile and a half or so to windward of it, and for another hour and a half we coasted along the south-western side of the island, with a wall of white surf and diamond spray leaping into the air at intervals of ten seconds on our lee. Then, quite suddenly, we sighted what we were looking for, namely, the break in the reef which invariably occurs, giving access to the lagoon and the shore. At the distance which we were from it, it was only barely distinguishable as the slightest perceptible break in the line of surf and spray, but I knew what it was in a moment, for I had been through just such a passage once before.

“There is the mouth of our harbour,” I cried, pointing to it. “A few minutes more, and we shall be through it and in smooth water—and safety, I hope.”

“Where?” demanded the Doctor. “You surely do not mean that little narrow gap where the surf is not breaking? Why, my good fellow, this boat will never pass through there. A swimmer, going through, could touch both sides at the same moment with his outstretched hands.”

“Yes,” I said, “it looks like it, I know. But you will find that there is width enough for a ship of the Andromeda’s size to pass through.”

He was by no means reassured, however, and he presently showed how much confidence he placed in my statement, by calmly and openly kicking off his shoes.

We stood on as we were going, for about five minutes, until we were right up with and opposite the opening, then I put up the boat’s helm and bow square away, bringing the wind over the boat’s starboard quarter and necessitating a jib, which we safely accomplished. Now, running practically dead before the wind, the boat slid along in lively fashion—although she did not seem to be going as fast as when we were close-hauled—and the gap in the reef for which we were heading began to widen rapidly, while the thunder of the surf momentarily grew more deafening, until soon it was impossible to hear each other’s voices.

It was nervous work, running down before the wind, toward that leaping, spouting, raving turmoil of surf, in a deeply laden boat, with the swell catching her on the starboard quarter and doing its best to twist her off her course, and I saw more than one hand gripping the gunwale until the knuckles showed white through the skin; but, as I had assured them all, there was plenty of width in the gap, when we came to it, and in some twenty breathless seconds we slid through, to find ourselves in the smooth water of a lagoon about nine miles long, by about three and a half wide at its broadest part, which was just abreast the opening.

The change wrought by those twenty seconds consumed in the passage through the reef was, at least to those for whom the experience was new, amazing. Less than a minute before, we had been lifting and falling upon a swell some seven or eight feet in height from ridge to trough, while now we were sliding smoothly along over an expanse of water the surface of which was merely wrinkled into tiny wavelets by the soft breathing of the warm breeze. And now, with a feeling of safety to which we had all been strangers ever since that night when the Andromeda had put an end to herself by cutting in halves a waterlogged derelict, we could gaze our fill and feast our eyes upon the glorious sanctuary to which a kind Providence had guided us.

For glorious it was, at least to the eye, whatever it might prove to be upon a closer acquaintance. First, there was the lagoon, an expanse of smooth water, protected by a breakwater of Nature’s own building, spacious enough, and apparently deep enough, to form a safe anchorage for an entire navy. And beyond it rose the island, its southern extremity consisting of a rocky promontory some fifty feet high springing vertically out of the sea, from which, in a series of gentle undulations, the outline of the land swept upward to a bald white, flat-topped peak which was the summit of the island. To the left of the peak the land sloped downward again until it ended in a range of low cliffs, hidden now that we had entered the lagoon, but which I had noted during our run in toward the break in the reef. A long expanse of dazzling white sandy beach, fringed with thousands of cocoanut palms, formed the inner margin of the lagoon, and from the inner edge of the beach the whole island seemed to be densely covered with vegetation, of what kind precisely we could scarcely tell as yet, though some of it undoubtedly consisted of tall trees. But it was the variegated hues of the vegetation that most charmed the eye, for not only was there every conceivable shade of green, from that scarcely distinguishable from yellow to an olive tint that was almost black, while here and there were patches of vivid scarlet, many gradations of blue, crimson, mauve, pink and white. Truly it had all the appearance of an earthly paradise, and I most earnestly hoped that it might prove to be so indeed, for I feared that, unless the unexpected happened in the shape of a ship heaving in sight and taking us off, we were doomed to a rather prolonged sojourn upon that island. It was true of course that a ship might heave in sight at any moment, and one of our earliest tasks would have to be the provision of means to attract her attention, but I had my doubts as to the probability, for, according to the rough reckoning which I had been able to keep by means of my sextant and watch, the island was quite off the usual track of ships, while the absence of a trader’s store on the beach was strong evidence of the truth of my suspicion that the existence of the island was practically unknown.

The next matter for anxiety was the possible presence of savages and the character of the reception they would accord us. That there would be natives of some sort, gentle or otherwise, I felt convinced; the island was much too large, and apparently much too desirable in every way, to be altogether without human inhabitants, and I directed the two seamen, who were sitting for’ard, to keep a sharp look-out, while doing the same myself, so far as the intervening lugsail would permit. Momentarily I expected to see a swarm of swarthy men, armed with spears and war clubs appear upon the beach, prepared to dispute our right to land; but as the moments sped the beach remained untenanted, nor could I detect any sign of canoes, or of huts or smoke. True, inhabitants might be lying in wait to ambush us, but the absence of canoes seemed to negative such a supposition; the jollyboat was too insignificant an object to have attracted attention while we were in the offing, and so have given the natives time to hide their canoes; while there were none on the beach when we entered the lagoon.

Chapter V

The Island

“There is something that I don’t quite understand about this island,” I remarked to the company in general as we continued to run in toward the beach. “It is, as you can all see, an island of considerable size, and of great fertility, judging from the dense growth of vegetation on it. It is unlikely that such an island should be uninhabited, yet I can detect no signs of any; and the absence of such signs makes me feel a trifle uneasy—”

“Why so?” demanded the Doctor. “If the island should prove to be uninhabited, the absence of such signs is the most natural thing imaginable, isn’t it?”

“Assuredly,” I assented. “But, the size and general appearance are all against the idea. And if there are inhabitants, why are they keeping out of sight, and why have they taken pains to conceal their presence? To me the matter has a rather sinister appearance—”

“To me it would appear that Mr. Massey is afraid to land, now that he has brought us here,” remarked Miss Shirley-Winthrop to the circumambient air.

“You have hit it exactly,” I returned. “I certainly am a bit afraid of what would happen to you and Miss Stroud if, upon landing, our party were to be attacked and overpowered by a strong body of savages and all of us men slain. I am therefore going to take every reasonable precaution before I permit anybody to set foot ashore. I will examine every yard of that beach for sign of savages, if it occupies me until sundown to do it!”

The young lady turned paler when I hinted at the fate which might be hers, should she fall alive into the hands of savages, but she wrinkled her pretty nose into an expression of disdain and forbore to answer me.

“Lay aft here, Wilkinson, and take the tiller,” I ordered. Then, as the man obeyed and seated himself on the thwart which I had vacated, grasping the tiller with his left hand and holding the sheet in his right, I continued—“Luff, and head the boat for the beach at the southern extremity of the bay. I will begin my examination there.”

Leaving the seaman to handle the boat, I stepped over the thwart to where my bag was stored, and extracted from it my telescope, which I had been thoughtful enough to bring with me. Roughly focussing it, I brought it to bear upon the beach, and was gratified to find that, even at our then distance—about a mile and a half—I was able to discern such small objects as cocoanuts which had fallen ripe from the trees or been shaken down by the wind. “Excellent!” thought I. “By the time that we have arrived within a quarter of a mile of that sand there will not be so much as a human footprint upon it that this good telescope will not reveal.”

During the boat’s run to the southern extremity of the lagoon I carefully searched the beach, the shore adjoining it, especially the patches of grass land that occurred here and there between the growth of trees and scrub, and every gully and ravine that opened up during our progress, but never a sign of human presence could I discover; no, not even after, upon running right to the southern end of the lagoon, we hove about and stood to the northward and westward, skirting the beach at a distance of a scant quarter of a mile. At that distance the beach held no secrets from my telescope, there was not so much as a shred of dry weed stirred by the wind that escaped my ken; had there been human or other footprints, I must have detected them—indeed I did detect many footprints of the gulls and other web-footed birds that wheeled and screamed about us and overhead—but none of human origin did I see; nor did my searching gaze find any track of canoes hauled up on or launched from the beach. The only discovery made during my inspection of that ten-mile length of beach was that it overlay a fringing reef of coral about half a mile wide over which the average depth of water was only about seven feet. This reef, by the way, imparted to the water which covered it a light blue tint, as though the water were diluted with milk, which exactly marked the boundary and extent of the reef.

I have forgotten one other important discovery we made, and that was that, about two miles from the north-western end of the lagoon we saw a little brook winding its way down the hillside to the beach; and after I had completed my inspection, we returned to this spot, landed, and, finding everything favourable, decided to camp there, at least for the night.

The day was by this time so far advanced that the sun was within a span of the western horizon when at length the boat gently grounded on the beach and all but the Doctor sprang out to help the women-folk ashore. As usual, Miss Anthea showed her contempt for the rest of us by choosing Dartnell, the ordinary seaman, to carry her the yard or two required to save her feet from getting wet, but the stewardess chose the first who came to hand, which happened to be myself. There was not much to be done; a few minutes sufficed for the transfer of our belongings from the boat to the spot selected for our camp, after which we hauled the boat as high up on the beach as we could induce her to go, secured her by her painter to an oar thrust deep into the sand; and then, while Wilkinson, Dartnell and I went to work to rig up a tent for the two girls, Oldroyd and Mason went off collecting fallen cocoanuts, the stewardess meanwhile collecting dry brushwood and making a fire.

By the time that the tent was rigged up to my satisfaction, tea was ready, and we all sat down round the fire—which, the night having fallen, was our only source of light—and thoroughly enjoyed the first hot meal since the abandonment of the Andromeda. We had tea—made in an empty biscuit tin—hot soup, tinned beef, biscuits, of course, and finished up with cocoanuts, of which an abundant supply had been found close at hand. At the conclusion of the meal, the two girls retired to their tent for the night, while those of us who were smokers indulged in a few carefully husbanded whiffs during our discussion of plans for the immediate future. The discussion, however, was not very animated, for the welcome change from our cramped quarters in the boat to the spaciousness and luxurious softness of the greensward upon which we had pitched our camp, and the fact that for nine nights our rest had been much broken united to woo us to rest. Therefore, after unanimously deciding that the first thing to be done was to explore the island and settle the vexed question of inhabitants or no inhabitants, and arranging the order in which the night watches were to be kept, we men curled up in the long grass and surrendered ourselves to the oblivion of sleep.

It had been decided by the others that since I had been the chief sufferer from broken rest, mine should be the final watch, from four o’clock to six in the morning—the Doctor being absolved from duty of that kind upon the ground of ill-health, the boat voyage having told upon him pretty severely—and accordingly I slept soundly until I was called by Dartnell, who stood the watch preceding mine.

As, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I rose to my feet, in obedience to the seaman’s call, I shivered, for the air was at that moment comparatively cool, while the fire had been permitted to burn itself out hours before. Taking the loaded rifle with which the watchers had been armed, and which had been transferred from one to the other with the change of watches, and receiving Dartnell’s report that nothing of a disquieting character had occurred during his watch, I left the little group of sleepers and proceeded to the spot which had been chosen overnight as the most suitable post for a sentinel, taking my stand close to the trunk and in the deep shadow of a wide-spreading tree. It was very dark there, but in the course of a few minutes my eyes became accustomed to the obscurity and I was then able to see that the open spaces were flooded with the soft radiance of the star-studded sky, affording light enough for a keen-sighted person to detect at a considerable distance the presence of any moving thing of sufficient stature to show above the surface of the long grass. The only movement visible, however, was that of the wind ripples sweeping in orderly procession over the open grassy glades and the swaying of the foliage in the gentle breeze, while the only sounds were the soft whispering rustle of that same foliage, the tinkling murmur of the wavelets on the margin of the beach, and the low, continuous thunder, subdued by distance, of the breakers upon the barrier reef. Sight and sounds alike seemed but to emphasise the stillness and apparent security of the hour, and to tend toward a soothing and somnolent state of mind and body which I might have found irresistible but for the conviction which obsessed me that this lovely island must almost of necessity harbour other inhabitants than ourselves—inhabitants, maybe, as crafty and ferociously savage as those known to occupy certain of the islands at no very great distance from us. The minutes passed: no sight or sound occurred to stir one to greater alertnesss; and at length a faint pallor of the sky spreading rapidly upward above the undulating outline of the tree-clad ridges to the eastward, apprised me that another day, with its comparative immunity from danger, was dawning. My watch was over and, shouldering the rifle, I emerged from the shadow of the tree where I had spent the last two hours, and made my way through the long, dew-sodden grass to the spot where our camp was pitched.

As I did so I saw the two seamen, Wilkinson and Dartnell, rise and stretch their arms above their heads, yawn portentously, and scramble to their feet, staring about them as though scarcely realising as yet their whereabouts, their example being almost immediately followed by the Americans, Oldroyd and Mason. Then, as I joined the party, exchanging “Good mornings” with them and handing over the rifle to its owner, Miss Stroud, the stewardess, emerged from the tent, looking fresh and bright as the morning itself, and smilingly greeted us. In answer to our enquiries she informed us that she had enjoyed the most delicious night’s rest within her experience, and that Miss Shirley-Winthrop was still fast asleep. By this time the Doctor, awakened by our voices, was also on his feet, and my announcement that I intended to indulge in a swim in the lagoon was greeted with acclamation and the statement that all the males of the party would join me. Dartnell was the only man who at all hung fire; he was a little dubious, suggesting the possible presence of sharks in the lagoon; but upon my reminding him of the narrowness of the passage through the reef, the swirling turmoil of waters that perpetually raged there, and the known aversion of sharks to pass such a barrier, his hesitation vanished and he briefly announced that he would accompany us “and chance it.”

We thoroughly enjoyed our swim, diving and sporting in the tepid waters for a good half-hour with all the abandon of schoolboys, finally scrubbing our bodies with the fine white sand, in lieu of soap, and rinsing them off with another plunge. Then I declared my intention to try for a few fish for breakfast, the jollyboat being fitted with a locker in which I had previously found four fishing lines with hooks and sinkers complete, the hooks, moreover, furnished with shreds of dry, shrivelled bait. Accordingly we launched the boat, and, Wilkinson and Dartnell accompanying me, went out to the edge of the fringing reef, which I thought a rather promising spot for sport, while the Doctor and his two fellow-countrymen plunged into the woods, intent upon finding fruit. Both expeditions were successful, half an hour’s fishing resulting in the acquisition of four large rock cod and seventeen smaller fish, several of which bore a striking resemblance to red mullet, while a brace of them were gorgeously coloured with all the tints of the rainbow. As for the Doctor and his party, they had discovered bread fruit, loquats, custard apples, and several other varieties of fruit, some of which while exceedingly tempting in appearance were unknown to any of us and were consequently regarded with suspicion and therefore let alone. But, apart from these last, the “red mullet”—as we agreed to call them—the bread fruit, roasted in the ashes of the fire, and the custard apples, with tea, furnished forth such a luxurious feast that all fears of possible starvation vanished, while the humble cocoanut at once became a drug on the market, useful enough perhaps as a thirst-quencher but otherwise of little value.

“You look different men already,” announced Miss Stroud, as we drew toward the conclusion of our meal. “Probably your bath this morning has had a good deal to do with the improvement in your appearance. I envied you all as I watched you sporting in the distance. I love swimming, but the beach is so open that there is no sense of privacy. However, if you men are all going off exploring to-day, as your conversation seems to suggest, perhaps Miss Shirley-Winthrop and I may muster up courage enough to indulge in a swim when you are all gone.”

“But we are not all going,” I returned. “Do you suppose we should for a moment dream of going away and leaving you two girls—to say nothing of the camp—entirely unprotected? Certainly not!”

“Oh, what a disappointment!” exclaimed Miss Anthea. “The stewardess—Miss Stroud, I mean—and I have been talking about it, and I had set my heart upon a swim.”

“Then you shall certainly have it, if the matter can be compassed satisfactorily to yourselves,” I said. “While we were fishing I noticed what I thought might prove to be a small cove at the northern end of the lagoon, suitable perhaps as a good hiding place for our boat—which I have no fancy for leaving on the open beach exposed to the possible gaze of enemies. It may also prove to be an excellent bathing-place for you ladies, affording you complete privacy. It is only about a mile from here. I will go at once, look at the place, and report upon it when I return.”

“May I go with you?” asked Miss Stroud. “I have nothing else to do, and I am longing for a good walk.”

“Assuredly,” I said. And, borrowing one of the rifles, we set off without more ado. I thought Miss Anthea regarded us rather wistfully as we started, but she said nothing; and she had been so consistently insolent to me from the first that I did not feel like inviting her to accompany us, and so perchance affording her an opening for further rudeness.

I enjoyed that walk amazingly, and was almost sorry when, in about twenty minutes, we reached the spot for which I was aiming. It was situated at the extreme northern end of the lagoon and, as I had more than suspected, was a small, rocky cove, nearly circular in shape, about one hundred fathoms across, with deep, clear, transparent water everywhere right up to the rocks. There was a level, rocky shelf, about six inches above the water’s surface, and about ten yards long, which would afford a splendid diving platform; and the whole place was so artfully concealed by Nature that it would afford an admirable harbour for the boat, while as a perfectly private and secluded bathing-place it was ideal.

“Here is your salt-water bath, ready-made for you by beneficent Nature; and I doubt very much whether human ingenuity could improve it,” I said. “What do you think of it?”

“It is simply perfect,” was the answer. “I am sure Miss Shirley-Winthrop will be delighted with it. But it is rather a long way from the camp, isn’t it? Do you think it will be safe for us to come so far, unprotected?”

“It will be, of course, provided there are no savages on the island,” I replied. “But until that question is settled, I am afraid you will have to put up with a protector. It will be a nice little easy job for the Doctor. But don’t stay in too long and get chilled. This cove is so situated that the sun only looks down into it for a short time each day and the water is cool.”

My companion promised circumspection, and, having completed our survey, we left the cove and were soon back in camp, where we found everything much as we had left it, except that Miss Anthea had developed a fit of ill-temper again, and at first flatly refused to accompany Miss Stroud on her bathing expedition. She relented, however, though somewhat sulkily, by the time that the boat was ready, and made one of the party; but it seemed that, as usual I was, in some unaccountable way, the cause of her ill-humour, for she simply ignored me when I addressed a chance remark to her, while she almost snapped Miss Stroud’s head off when the latter tried to engage her in conversation.

Arrived at the cove, we moored the boat in a secure spot; after which the two seamen and I set out upon our walk back, leaving the two girls to enjoy their swim, while the Doctor, armed with one of the rifles, mounted guard on the beach outside the cove.

It had been arranged that Oldroyd, Mason and I should devote the day to a preliminary exploration of the island, to be followed at an early date by one more thorough and detailed; our object being to gain in the first instance merely a general idea of the extent and principal features of our new home upon which to found a plan for a comprehensive survey, and it was agreed that, in order to carry out this first arrangement, the proper course to pursue would be to make our way to the summit of the peak, from which we expected to obtain a clear view of the whole of the island. In pursuance of this plan, the two Americans had employed the time of my absence in carefully overhauling their combined armoury, which consisted of six excellent rifles and two double-barrelled shot guns, cleaning them, oiling their mechanism, and generally preparing them for service, and they were just putting the finishing touches to this labour of love when I reached the camp; there remained, therefore, nothing to be done but for me to get my telescope, don the bandolier of cartridges and shoulder the rifle which they placed at my service, and for us to set out.

It was about nine o’clock in the morning when we made a start, and as we estimated the summit of the peak to be about three miles distant we calculated that we ought to reach our destination in about two hours, allowing for the fact that we had a stiff climb before us. Our outfit for the occasion consisted of my telescope, a pocket compass belonging to Mason, a shot gun, carried by the latter, the two rifles with which Oldroyd and I were armed, and a few biscuits in our pockets. We made no provision for the quenching of our thirst, trusting to luck that we should find water somewhere on our way.

At the spot where our camp was pitched, the trees stood pretty widely apart, with little or no undergrowth, the chief impediment to rapid progress therefore, at least at the outset of our journey, consisted of the long, tangled grass, through which we found some little difficulty in forcing our way. We began our journey by closely following the right bank of the brook by the side of which we had pitched our camp, and for the first half-mile or so we made fairly satisfactory progress without encountering serious difficulties, our walk being rendered interesting by the variety and beauty, both in form and colouring, of the foliage of the trees, shrubs and plants which we encountered.

The brilliant and beautiful hues of the foliage and flowers that everywhere met our gaze were not the only objects to charm the eye. Here and there, at pretty frequent intervals, we came upon fruit-bearing trees and bushes in great variety, a few of which were familiar to one or another of us, but many of which none of us were able to recognise. There were, among others, the bread fruit tree in rich abundance, the loquat, the custard apple, a small orange almost identical with the mandarin, a small but very delicious purple grape, a fruit almost identical with the nectarine but much finer, the alligator pear, and the mango. We sampled some of the varieties as we went along, and found them admirable as thirst-quenchers, particularly the grapes and oranges, and we filled our pockets with the latter as a stand-by in case we should fail to find water—a precaution for which we thanked our stars before the day was over.

The vegetable world, however, by no means absorbed our exclusive attention, nor did it claim our exclusive admiration; the woods were alive with birds, many varieties of which were of the most brilliant plumage imaginable. Lizards were the only four-footed creatures we encountered, and there were no snakes, so far as we could see.

As I have already remarked, for the first half-mile of our journey the only obstacle we encountered was that caused by the long, tangled grass, through which at times it was a little difficult to force our way. But at the end of that half-mile we found the trees suddenly becoming set much closer together, while between them the grass gave way to a thick undergrowth of parasitic scrub which speedily became so dense that it was impossible for us to force our way through, unless we chose to hack a passage with our knives. We tried this, but the lianas proved to be so strong and tough that we had to abandon the attempt, for the two-fold reason that we feared we should break our blades and because we recognised that, even if we escaped that misfortune, it would cost us days, instead of hours, of labour to reach the peak. We therefore retraced our steps a few yards, until we reached the brook, up the rocky bed of which we made our way with comparative ease. But it was fearfully hot work; for we were hemmed in on either hand by steep banks, the sides of which we could reach with our outstretched hands, while overhead the foliage arched us in, screening us from the sun’s rays, it is true, but also shutting out the breeze, so that we seemed to be toiling and scrambling up an ever-winding course in the atmosphere of an oven, heavily charged with the all-pervading odour of rank, and sometimes decaying, vegetation.

After more than two hours’ strenuous labour, we emerged, drenched with perspiration, from the intricacies of the wood to find ourselves in a vast open space, devoid of every vestige of vegetation, in the midst of which rose the flat-topped cone forming the summit of the peak. The ground was black rock, the surface shaped into curious folds and creases, giving one the impression that it had once been a thick liquid which had congealed in the act of flowing. And such an impression pretty nearly hit the mark, for Oldroyd, who generally knew what he was talking about, pronounced the rock to be lava, and the cone before us the crater of the volcano—extinct for ages, if one might judge by appearances. The bare lava extended sloping upward, for about a quarter of a mile, and then we came to a bed of scoriae forming the sides of the cone. These scoriae consisted mostly of masses of once incandescent rock that had been vomited forth by the volcano, mingled with pumice-stone and ashes. They formed a steep slope, and we soon discovered that they stood so insecurely that any attempt to climb the slope must be accompanied by great risk; for it was evident that the displacing of a single fragment might produce a veritable avalanche of débris; indeed the whole hillside seemed to be alive, falls of greater or lesser magnitude taking place at frequent intervals. Walking round the base of the cone, however, and keeping at a respectful distance from it, to avoid injury from a sudden fall, we at length found a spot where all the loose débris seemed to have come down, leaving the rock of the cone bare. The surface of the bared rock was very steep and smooth, but there were, nevertheless, projections enough here and there to render it climbable, we thought, and after considering it awhile we determined at least to make the attempt. We proceeded to clamber over the mound of fallen débris which lay at the foot of the slope—itself a task of considerable difficulty involving frequent risks of a sprained ankle, not to say a broken limb—and after an arduous climb which consumed more than an hour, we found ourselves triumphantly occupying the summit.

The cone proved to be, indeed, as Oldroyd had asserted, the crater of a volcano; and a ghastly looking place it was. Its interior was, roughly, oval in shape, about a mile and three-quarters long by about half a mile wide. The flat, encircling crest upon which we stood averaged perhaps thirty yards in width, though there were places where it shrank to a tenth of that. Its surface was, in places, very crumbly and treacherous, so much so that at one spot Mason, who was rather a venturesome beggar, narrowly escaped being precipitated to the bottom of the interior—down into which he was gazing—through the soil crumbling away beneath his feet. That interior was at least two hundred feet deep, with smooth, precipitous walls, and had he gone down, nothing could have saved him.

However, we were not up there to gaze into the crater of an extinct volcano, but to get some idea of the general characteristics of our island kingdom, which we proceeded to survey.

We were at this time standing on the south rim of the crater; and the whole of the southern part of the island was open to our view. It had been a whim of mine to make of my telescope a sort of range-finder by focussing it accurately upon various objects at different known distances, and then to scratch those distances on the slide, and I now—as often aforetime—found my scale of distances useful. I discovered that the southern extremity of the island was just ten and a quarter miles from where I stood, while the eastern side was four and three-quarter miles, and the western side exactly six miles away. There was not very much to see on this southern side of the island, except that the land undulated gently upward everywhere toward the peak. The lagoon was of course the principal object in the picture, and a magnificent expanse of water it looked from that height, the whole of it being in sight. But I could find no sign or trace of inhabitants to the southward, though I scanned every bit of it in search of smoke; nor could I descry even so much as the loom of land anywhere along the southern half of the horizon.

Our inspection of the southern part being complete, we walked round the rim of the crater to take a peep at the northern part, and here we found considerably more to occupy our attention.

In the first place we immediately noticed that at the north-western extremity—distant exactly ten and a half miles—there was another lagoon, much smaller than the southern one, being about three and a half miles long by about a mile and a half wide. Unfortunately, the inequalities of the ground shut out our view of the greater part of the beach, but I saw no canoes on that portion of it which was visible, nor were any to be seen on the lagoon; yet I felt convinced that if indeed there were savages on the island, that lagoon would be the place at which to look for them. With the help of my telescope I searched the neighbourhood of the second lagoon for smoke, indicating the presence of natives, and once or twice I almost believed I could detect such signs; but the wavering of the air, due to rarefaction, was so great that I could not be at all sure; and when my compani