Part 15 (1/2)

On taking leave of his companions he at once struck inland towards the mountain, which, looming vast and grey, formed the most prominent object and landmark in the entire island. The ground sloped gently upward, and was thickly covered with long, tangled, and luxuriant gra.s.s; and at a short distance from the beach it began to be thickly dotted with clumps of trees, among which the cocoanut, the date-palm, and two or three varieties of the banana were prominent. On reaching the wooded portion of the island, the engineer found, to his great gratification, that although the soil appeared to be most densely overgrown with trees, such was not in reality the case, as the clump-like arrangement which he at first encountered still prevailed, although as he advanced inland the clumps grew much more closely together than they did on the outskirts of the wood. He had very little difficulty in making his way among the boles of the trees, as, contrary to what he had antic.i.p.ated, there was not much parasitic undergrowth, and where it became inconveniently dense his axe soon enabled him to clear a way for himself.

Advancing steadily and with tolerable rapidity over the gently rising ground, he at length, when not more than about two miles from camp, suddenly found himself upon the verge of a ravine with steeply-sloping sides, through the bottom of which wound what he at first took to be a river, but which, on close examination, he found was really an arm of the sea. Descending the banks of the ravine he followed this stream-- which at the point where he encountered it was about a quarter of a mile in width--and after pursuing a somewhat devious route for about another mile and a half, came to a spot where this arm of the sea widened out to a lake-like expanse of water, nearly circular in shape, and rather more than a mile in diameter. Almost in the very centre of this lake stood a small island of about eight or ten acres in extent and thickly wooded, which the engineer at once fixed upon as a most suitable spot on which to establish an encampment. He was very anxious to reach this island and submit it to a closer examination, but he had no means of crossing the intervening water except by swimming, and this, in consequence of the distance to be traversed, would occupy more time than he felt justified just then in devoting to it. But he promised himself that, circ.u.mstances permitting, he would do so on his return journey.

So far he had met with no trace or sign of the existence of savages, or indeed of inhabitants of any description, upon his territory; and he therefore relaxed somewhat of the vigilant and anxious demeanour which he had hitherto observed, and pushed forward, with as much rapidity as circ.u.mstances would allow, upon his journey. Traversing the borders of the lake, which lay embosomed in the midst of an amphitheatre of steeply-sloping hills, he reached, after a walk of about a mile, a spot where a genuine stream flowed into it. At the point of junction with the lake this stream was about a hundred yards in width, having a current which flowed seaward at the rate of half a knot per hour. Half a mile further on, following the course of the stream, Gaunt found that the channel narrowed very considerably, and, whilst still to all appearance moderately deep, the current became much more rapid. It was at about this spot that he discovered what he thought would serve as a capital site for a mill, if, indeed, the little party should find it in their power to undertake so important a work; and, making a mental note of the locality, he pa.s.sed on.

He now determined to follow the stream to its source, as his active mind already began to see that it might prove a very useful ally to them in many ways. The ravine-like character of the banks on either side of the stream still prevailed, and this, in conjunction with its winding course, continually opened up such vistas of sylvan beauty, that from time to time the wanderer involuntarily paused in admiration, and once or twice even caught himself asking the question whether, after all, a man might not do worse than spend the remainder of his life in the midst of such grandeur and beauty.

He now frequently encountered streams and brooks of more or less importance flowing down into the main stream on either side of the ravine, but they were scarcely sufficient in volume to account for the large quant.i.ty of water which now went das.h.i.+ng and foaming and sparkling over a bed of huge boulders. At length he came to the end of the ravine, and there he beheld a sight which amply rewarded him for all the labour which he had undergone in following the stream. The ravine terminated in a vertical wall of rock fully a thousand feet in height, from an immense fissure in which, near the top, there spouted a column of water which he estimated to be at least twelve feet in diameter. For fully a third of the distance this liquid column poured down unbroken, to be dashed into spray and mist--in which a rainbow softly beamed--upon an immense spike of rock which divided the flow into two nearly equal parts, and formed two superb cascades one on each side of the projecting rock.

At this point it was easy for an active man to cross the stream without wetting his feet, by jumping from boulder to boulder; and this the engineer did, for he saw that in order to reach the mountain he would have to get on the opposite side of the stream and follow its downward course for nearly a mile. When at length he climbed up the steep and lofty side of the ravine and reached its brow, the nearest spur of the mountain was only about a mile and a half distant, and for this he at once made. His route now lay over a flat table-land, out of which the mountain seemed to spring at once, and almost sheer. On reaching the base of the hill, however, its sides proved to be not quite so steep as they had appeared to be, but they were nevertheless steep enough to tax Gaunt's muscles to their utmost extent before he finally reached the bald summit.

He had now spread around and beneath him a prospect of such surpa.s.sing beauty as he thought he had never gazed upon before. The sea bounded his horizon on every side, whilst the entire island lay spread out like a map beneath him, with all its bold undulations, its streams, the lake, and the arm of the sea distinctly visible; and with the aid of his telescope he was even able to discern the gleaming white canvas of the tent which marked the position of the little party he had left behind.

Nay more, when he had finally adjusted the focus of his telescope, he was even able to detect, upon the white sand of the beach, two tiny moving objects which he knew to be his own boy Percy and little Lucille Henderson. For some time he was unable to withdraw his eyes from those two diminutive objects; but when he did so, and turned his face to the westward, he saw that the remarkable cliff which Ned had noticed as the s.h.i.+p pa.s.sed the island, and which seemed to divide it into two separate and distinct portions, was distant not more than three-quarters of a mile from the base of the hill on which he stood. The top edge of this cliff bounded his view to the westward so far as the island was concerned; but the bay with its encircling reef was visible, and even with the naked eye he readily detected, on the interior edge of the reef, a small speck-like object which the telescope showed him to be the wreck mentioned by Ned in his note. The day was now wearing on apace, and his long walk had sharpened his appet.i.te; Gaunt therefore thought that he could not do better than sit down where he was and take his luncheon or dinner whilst he noted in fuller detail the topography of the island, of which he there and then made a rough sketch-plan.

His meal over, the solitary explorer descended the mountain and made his way to the edge of the cliff. Arrived there, it soon become apparent that the most difficult portion of his journey still lay before him, for at the point where he then stood, he saw at once that to descend the cliffs face to the slope below would be an impossibility without the aid of ropes or some subst.i.tute for them. He turned south and followed the edge of the cliff, hoping to find a spot at which he might descend, but without success, as he at length reached a point where the face of the cliff turned sharply off to the eastward, eventually running into and forming a portion of the cliff proper, which on that side of the island ran sheer down to the water.

Retracing his steps, Gaunt soon found himself back at the spot where he had in the first instance reached the edge of the cliff, and pa.s.sing on he found, at a distance of about a quarter of a mile beyond, a narrow chasm or gap, which on careful inspection he saw would enable him to descend to the sloping green-sward at the foot of the cliff. Down this gap he cautiously scrambled, narrowly escaping an awkward fall once or twice on his way, and by that means soon reached the foot of the cliff, which appeared to maintain a tolerably uniform height of about three hundred and fifty feet.

From the point where he now stood the ground sloped pretty evenly down to the water, the inclination of the slope being about one foot in every three; and the distance to the water's-edge a mile, as near as might be.

The base of this long slope terminated in a narrow strip of sandy beach, which was strewed here and there with timber and what-not from the wreck in the offing. This wreck Mr Gaunt was exceedingly anxious to visit, as he felt it might--and probably would--prove of inestimable value to himself and his companions. She was not more than half a mile distant from the beach, and was lying close to the inside fringe of the white water which broke over the outlying reef. Her bows pointed sh.o.r.eward, but at an angle which enabled the engineer to catch a glimpse of her entire broadside; and she was lying well over on her side, with her inclined deck towards the island, thus enabling Gaunt to get, with the aid of his telescope, a fairly good view of her, and to form a tolerably accurate estimate of the amount of damage which she had received. She was a large vessel, measuring, as near as he could judge, some sixteen hundred tons, and she appeared to be built of wood. She had been either barque or s.h.i.+p-rigged; but all three of her masts were over the side, and could be seen floating there still attached to the hull by the rigging. Her bulwarks were entirely swept away, as also were her deck-houses--the broken stanchions of which Gaunt thought he could detect still projecting above the surface of the deck. The stem and stern-posts of a couple of boats still dangled from her davits; which seemed to point to the conclusion that when disaster overtook her the crew had been allowed little or no time in which to provide for their safety.

Gaunt was an excellent swimmer, and, having no boat, he thought his quickest mode of reaching the vessel would be by taking to the water.

He was on the point of stripping for this purpose when, his eye still fixed upon the s.h.i.+p, he caught a glimpse of two or three small dark objects projecting above the surface of the water and moving slowly about. He had a very shrewd suspicion as to the nature of these objects, and his telescope soon demonstrated to him the fact that he was right in believing them to be the dorsal fins of so many sharks.

He was scarcely prepared for this discovery, as he was under the impression that the bay on the sh.o.r.e of which he stood was completely hemmed in by the reef; and he was fully aware that if such had been the case the smooth water inside would be quite free from sharks, as these pests never voluntarily pa.s.s through broken water. Their presence, therefore, pointed to the probability that although he had been unable to detect such a circ.u.mstance, there must somewhere be a channel through the reef.

The sight of the sharks effectually put an end to his project of swimming off to the wreck, and he at once began to look about him for the means of forming such a raft as would enable him to make the trip in safety. There was plenty of timber lying strewed about the beach, but he had no nails or tools of any description, except his axe, with which to construct the raft. Under these circ.u.mstances the matter required a little thinking out; and whilst deliberating upon his best mode of proceeding, he sauntered along the beach on the look-out for suitable materials. He had been walking slowly along for a distance of about a mile when his quick eye detected certain objects lying on the sand which he instinctively divined to be human corpses, and, making his way to them, he found he was not mistaken. There they lay--seven of them--just as they had been washed ash.o.r.e, dead, after their last ineffectual struggle with the merciless sea. Three of them were fully clothed; the remaining four were clad only in their s.h.i.+rts, which seemed to indicate that they had leaped from their hammocks, upon some sudden alarm, and rushed upon the deck, to be almost immediately swept overboard. The bodies were in a most revolting condition, from the combined effects of the sun and the attacks of the sea-birds and land-crabs, the latter of which swarmed upon the beach in thousands. It was difficult to judge accurately how long a period had elapsed since death had overtaken these unfortunates; but from their appearance Gaunt believed that it could not have been many weeks. It was a sad sight to look upon, especially for a man in his situation; and he hastened to remove it by roughly sharpening a fragment of plank with his axe and scooping shallow graves in the sand, into which he rolled the bodies and hastily covered them up.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A VISIT TO THE WRECK.

This shocking discovery diverted his thoughts for a short time from his original project; but, having done all he could for the poor wretches, he was glad to turn anew to the question of the raft. To a man accustomed as he was to the quick devising of expedients it was not difficult to scheme out the plan of such a structure as would serve his purpose. Looking about him and collecting a quant.i.ty of such small pieces of wreckage as had nails in them, he formed them into a heap, to which with the aid of some dry gra.s.s and withered leaves and a lens from his telescope, he set fire and left it to consume. Then picking out three 6-inch planks of about equal length he sharpened their ends with his axe and laid them on the beach, at a distance of about three feet apart, with their sharpened ends pointing seaward. He next procured three pieces of plank long enough to just cross the first three planks at right angles; and as soon as his bonfire had burned itself out he cleared the nails from among the ashes, and with them fastened his structure together. Two short pieces of plank nailed vertically in mids.h.i.+ps, with another piece secured on top of that, formed a rough-and- ready seat; and two other pieces secured crosswise on each side to the outer edges of his raft, and at the distance of about a foot abaft the seat, gave him a fairly serviceable subst.i.tute for rowlocks. He had already been fortunate enough to find a couple of small oars, and he now thought he might venture to essay a trip to the wreck.

Small as was his raft, it was still so heavy as to give him some trouble in the launching of it; but he at length got it fairly afloat, and seating himself in the centre, adjusted his oars and began to try its paces. He was greatly surprised to find that he could propel it through the water at a very fair speed, and without much effort; and, this fact ascertained, he at once headed straight for the wreck, which he safely reached in about half an hour.

There were plenty of ropes'-ends dangling from the s.h.i.+p's side, to one of which he made fast his raft, and laying the oars carefully down in such a manner as that they would not be likely to slip overboard, he scrambled on board the wreck and reached the steeply inclined deck.

The wreck appeared to be fully as large as he had supposed; and he was agreeably surprised to find, on investigation, that she had not received nearly so much damage as he had antic.i.p.ated, indeed her injuries seemed to be confined almost entirely to the loss of her masts, bulwarks, and deck-houses. The cabin had been on deck; but this was swept away. The forecastle, however, was below, and into this he descended. It was arranged in the usual manner on board merchant s.h.i.+ps--that is to say, it had standing bunks round each side of it, in which the bedding of the unfortunate seamen still remained, precisely as when the s.h.i.+p struck.

The seamen's chests were also there, showing that they had had no time to make any elaborate preparations for leaving the s.h.i.+p; and the impression produced upon Gaunt's mind by what he saw was, that when the s.h.i.+p struck the watch below must have rushed immediately up on deck, and very soon, if not immediately afterwards, have been swept overboard.

As he was there, not to satisfy his curiosity, but to ascertain of what value the s.h.i.+p might prove to himself and his friends, he did not hesitate to open and examine the chests of the poor fellows; but he found nothing therein except such coa.r.s.e clothing as is usually worn by merchant seamen, and a few little odds and ends of no particular value, except perhaps a sailor's palm or two, with sail-needles; and in one or two instances a little housewife with sewing needles, thread, etcetera, neatly arranged.

One of the chests, however, proved to be a carpenter's tool-chest; and this, although Gaunt had a small tool-chest of his own among his effects, would be of such priceless value to the little band, that he determined to secure it then and there; and he accordingly dragged it on deck at once, in readiness to transfer to his raft. The floor of the forecastle was quite dry, and this circ.u.mstance led Gaunt to hope that the hull had received no damage; but on raising the hatch leading to the fore-peak he saw that the place was nearly full of water. His exploration of the forecastle ended here; and he was about to proceed on deck when he caught sight of a fis.h.i.+ng-line suspended on a nail inside one of the bunks. This fis.h.i.+ng-line he at once secured and took on deck with him laying it down on top of the carpenter's tool-chest so that it might not be forgotten when he left the wreck.

He now proceeded to the after end of the wreck. Here the cabins had been entirely swept away; and he had no means of ascertaining any particulars as to the owners.h.i.+p of the vessel, the nature of her cargo, or her destination--the s.h.i.+p's papers and the captain's private doc.u.ments having doubtless gone overboard with the wreck of the cabin.

But by looking over the s.h.i.+p's counter he saw that she was named the _Mermaid_, and that she hailed from the port of Bristol.