Part 16 (1/2)

Gaunt's story of his journey to the wreck, with the vivid description he gave of the fertility and general productiveness of their island-home, greatly raised the spirits of the listeners; and the sanguine way in which he spoke of their ability to build the little vessel which he contemplated, caused them already to feel as if their days on the island were numbered.

The chief point calling for consideration was how they should dispose of themselves in the immediate future. Their position was this: they were then located on the eastern end of the island; the lake and the islet were situated almost in the centre of their domain, or say at a point about six miles distant, as the crow flies, from the point where they then were; whilst the spot where the wreck lay, if measured in the same way, would be about five miles further on.

Gaunt made it so clear to them that the islet was the most fit and proper spot at which to establish their head-quarters that that matter might be considered as already definitely settled. But they would have to draw all, or nearly all, the materials for the proposed craft from the wreck; and that wreck would not only have to be broken up, but the timber, etcetera, would have to be conveyed to the islet before a permanent settlement could be established there. Had the party consisted of men only, there was no doubt their best plan would have been to remove in a body to the western end of the island, and to have established themselves temporarily on or near the beach close to the wreck whilst she was being broken up; but it seemed to be rather a hards.h.i.+p that the women and children should have to be removed there-- involving a somewhat lengthy and arduous journey--and to go into temporary quarters only to have to return gain over a great deal of the same ground afterwards, Gaunt's idea was that the ladies and children might be safely placed on the islet, and comfortably housed there in the first place; after which the three men of the party could go over to the wreck and remain there until everything of value were got out of her, he undertaking to visit the islet at least once every day to ascertain that all was going well in that direction. This proposition, however, met with no favour from the parties chiefly interested; and so it was ultimately resolved that, notwithstanding the inconvenience, the entire party should settle down for the time being on the western side of the island.

On the following morning this resolution was put into effect, the little band taking with them nothing but just such arms as were deemed absolutely essential to their safety, and the tinware, knives and forks, and other small table conveniences with which Ned's forethought had supplied them.

On this occasion Gaunt, who of course acted as guide, struck off in a new direction; as, having made a sketch-plan of the island when he was on the summit of the mountain, he believed it possible to reach the wreck by a much shorter route than the one he had followed. Keeping somewhat more to the right, or in a more northerly direction than on the first occasion, he brought his companions out upon the banks of the stream at a distance of about two miles below the lake, where the channel was somewhat wider than in any other portion of its course, and where the current was particularly gentle. Here it became necessary to construct a raft of some description for the transport of the party across the stream; but, as the water was perfectly smooth, anything which would bear their weight and hold together during the pa.s.sage was considered sufficient, and with the aid of their axes such an affair was knocked together in about three hours. The transit was then safely accomplished; and, climbing the steep slope of the ravine through which the stream flowed, they found upon reaching its summit that they had arrived at a spot overlooking the lake, and from which they were enabled to obtain an excellent view both of it and the islet which occupied its centre. The ladies were especially delighted at the prospect of finding a home in so lovely a spot; whilst Henderson cordially agreed with Gaunt that it would be difficult to find a safer place and one more suitable in every respect for head-quarters.

Pus.h.i.+ng on, they arrived about three o'clock in the afternoon at the base of the mountain; and here, in a pretty little meadow which lay between two of its projecting spurs, they determined to encamp for the night, the children, although they had been carried for the greater part of the day, being extremely tired, and the ladies scarcely less so. A little hut of branches and palm-leaves was constructed as a shelter for the weaker members of the party during the night, the men contenting themselves with the soft luxuriant gra.s.s for their sleeping place; and, then, whilst Nicholls set to work to build a fire, Gaunt and Henderson went off in different directions to forage for a supper.

The night pa.s.sed without adventure or alarm of any description, although, as a measure of precaution, the men had deemed it advisable that each should watch for an equal portion of the night; and on the following morning after an early breakfast the march was resumed. The gap in the cliffs was reached about two o'clock that afternoon; and by three the travellers found themselves on the beach at its nearest point to the wreck.

The first matter to be attended to now was the erection of shelters of some description. Henderson undertook to cut down a couple of saplings which Gaunt pointed out as suitable for the purpose; and whilst he was engaged upon this task the engineer, accompanied by Nicholls, went off to the wreck, their object being to procure not only a small quant.i.ty of s.h.i.+p's stores, but also one of the sails, which they intended to utilise in the construction of tents. On arriving alongside and making a minute inspection of the wreckage, it was found that the raffle was so complicated that to cut away the sail from its yard as it then lay and to convey it to the sh.o.r.e would be a work of very great difficulty; so, after a short consultation together, Gaunt and Nicholls decided to cut the whole adrift from the wreck and then warp it ash.o.r.e just as it was.

Nicholls accordingly get to work upon this task with his axe; and whilst he was thus engaged Gaunt searched for and found the boatswain's locker, rummaging in which he discovered a small grapnel just suited to his purpose. This he conveyed on deck, and, unreeving as much of the running-gear as he could get at, a good long warp was made by bending the whole together end to end. By the time that his preparations were completed, Nicholls had got the wreckage cut completely adrift from the hull, and the two men now proceeded to carefully coil down upon Gaunt's raft the whole of the warp; the grapnel being bent on to one end, whilst Nicholls, who was going to remain on the wreckage, retained possession of the other. Gaunt then pulled sh.o.r.eward; and as soon as the full length of the warp was paid out he dropped the grapnel overboard and then made the best of his way back to the wreckage, which Nicholls had already begun to drag sh.o.r.eward by the warp. The progress of the wreckage sh.o.r.eward was very slow; but it improved somewhat when Gaunt was able to rejoin his companion. As the warp was hauled in it was carefully coiled down on the wreckage; and when at length the grapnel came to the surface it and the warp were once more promptly transferred to the raft and a fresh cast was made, by which means they managed in about an hour and a half to get the spars with all attached so close to the beach that they grounded. It was now a comparatively easy matter to cut it apart and so obtain the sail, which was the first thing they required. The forecourse was selected, as being of considerable dimensions; and this, when detached from its yard, was dragged up on the beach and spread out to dry. With this sail, and rope procured from among the rigging which had come ash.o.r.e attached to the spars, they were able to construct two capital tents; and by night-fall the little party found themselves snugly housed.

The two succeeding days were devoted to the construction of a shed of dimensions sufficient to contain all that they thought would be likely to prove valuable to them among the stores and the cargo of the s.h.i.+p.

The structure was twenty-four feet long, by eighteen feet wide, and eight feet high to the eaves; and it had a regular pitched roof, with gable-ends, so that when the rainy season came--as come, Gaunt felt certain it would--the wet might be thrown off, leaving the goods beneath its shelter undamaged. It was not a very substantial affair, the four corner-posts being the strongest portion of it, formed as they were by the trunks of four standing cocoanut-trees, the sides and roof being wattled and afterwards thatched with palm-leaves. But the engineer thought it would serve its purpose; and his great object was to get everything he could from the wreck in the shortest possible time, because, lying where she was, she might, and probably would, go to pieces on the occasion of the first heavy gale which might spring up.

The shed completed, their next task was to secure everything which might prove of any possible value to them from the cargo of the wreck. In order to transfer these articles from the hulk to the sh.o.r.e a raft would be necessary; and a raft would also be required to eventually convey those goods round to the islet. The latter transfer would involve the expenditure of an immense amount of labour and time unless the wind or some other motive power could be pressed into their service; and Gaunt had already learned during the course of his professional experience that when any important work had to be performed it was better and more economical in every way to provide efficient ”plant” in the first instance. Now the construction of the vessel which he had in contemplation was a simple and easy enough matter to a s.h.i.+pwright with all the usual appliances at his disposal, but was really an important and formidable task to people situated as these were; and, therefore, when talking the matter over together, they had, influenced by Gaunt's arguments, resolved to devote the time and labour required to construct such aids as he seemed to think would be necessary and desirable. To convey from where they then were round to the islet all that they would require for the construction of their vessel would, with an ordinary raft propelled by oars alone, involve a vast amount of labour and time; and it was ultimately decided that it would be more expeditious in the long run if a raft could be constructed of such a character that she could be moved in any required direction by sails.

After a little thinking, Gaunt came to the conclusion that it would be possible to construct such a raft, and he set to work to plan it. The structure, as decided upon by him, consisted of two flat-bottomed straight-sided pontoons, each twenty-four feet long by six feet wide, and six feet deep, their ends being curved up from the bottom until they met the deck in a sharp chisel-like form. These pontoons were built with their fore-and-aft centre lines parallel, and were constructed on separate pairs of ways, the whole of the materials being obtained from the wreckage already strewn along the beach, and such portions of the deck-planking of the wreck as could be removed without exposing the cargo to the risk of damage by sea or rain. The bottom-planking was laid athwarts.h.i.+ps, and four of the planks at equal distances from each other were carried right through from pontoon to pontoon--the pontoons being built with a s.p.a.ce of six feet clear between them--thus securely connecting the two pontoons together. The pontoons were decked all over, the deck-planking for a length of twelve feet in the middle portion being also carried right across from one to the other. The two pontoons were thus securely fastened together above and below, the result being that the entire structure formed a good, substantially- built raft, having in its centre portion a platform or deck measuring twelve feet fore and aft, and eighteen feet athwarts.h.i.+ps. The craft--if one may dignify the structure with such a name--was rigged with one mast, situated exactly in the centre, and well supported by shrouds on each side, and she was provided with a lateen or three-cornered sail bent to a very long yard composed of a number of bamboos fished together. The yard was hung in its centre, an arrangement by which Gaunt hoped to succeed in making his raft sail with either end foremost with equal facility, his idea being to work the craft precisely upon the same principle as that adopted by the Ladrone Islanders in the working of their flying-proas.

This raft, though of such literal dimensions, was very easy and simple to build, as there was no shaping of timbers and no elaborate workmans.h.i.+p of any kind required, the only matter involving any considerable degree of care being that the two pontoons should be watertight; and this of course was very easily managed. But, simple as the work was, it was fully a month before the raft was ready for service, though when they at length got her afloat and tried her under sail the result was satisfactory, far beyond their roost sanguine antic.i.p.ations.

They were now in a position to attack the wreck in good earnest, which they did by rigging up a pair of sheers on deck and hoisting the cargo from the s.h.i.+p's hold and depositing it directly on the raft alongside.

The cargo proved to be, as had been expected, a general cargo--that is to say, it consisted of more or less of almost every conceivable product of a civilised country, from lucifer matches up to railway plant and machinery.

It was a very difficult matter to decide what might, and what might not be of value to the party, and the result was that they eventually determined to land the entire cargo. Of course only a very small portion of it would go into the shed which they had erected; but this was a matter of no very great moment, for a great deal of it was of such a nature that rain would not very materially injure it. It took them another month to empty the wreck, and then they set about the task of breaking her up.

To break up a s.h.i.+p is, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, no very difficult matter, but as they expected that they would be dependent almost entirely upon the wreck for the timber necessary to the construction of their little s.h.i.+p, they had to go carefully to work; and as it was all manual labour, and they were very weak-handed, they found the task one of no ordinary difficulty. At length, however, after nearly another month's arduous toil, they had cut her down to the water's-edge, and there they were obliged to leave her.

Hitherto they had not allowed themselves time to very closely investigate the nature of the cargo which they had so laboriously conveyed to the sh.o.r.e, their chief anxiety being to secure from the wreck every sc.r.a.p likely to be of the slightest use to them, before the change of, the season and the break-up of the weather should render this impossible. Now, however, they had leisure to give their booty a thorough overhaul; and this was the next task to which they devoted themselves. As, however, they were now no longer pressed for time, and one man could easily do most of what was required to be done in that way, it was arranged that Doctor Henderson should examine the cargo as far as he could, and prepare a detailed list of the various goods and articles of which it was composed; whilst Gaunt and Nicholls should proceed in the raft on a trip of exploration round the bay, for the purpose of discovering an outlet in the reef which the former believed to exist, and, if such an outlet could be found, to proceed through it and make a short trial trip to sea for the purpose of testing the sailing qualities of the raft.

On the morning following the completion of their work of dismemberment, therefore, these two tasks were taken in hand. Such cases and packages as it was thought the doctor would have a difficulty in breaking open unaided were attacked by the three men, and their contents laid bare; and then Gaunt and Nicholls got on board the raft--which was berthed at a short distance from the beach and made thoroughly secure by being moored with the s.h.i.+p's smallest kedge--and, hoisting her huge lateen sail, cast off from the mooring-buoy, and proceeded to execute a few trial evolutions preparatory to the exploration of the reef. The mode of working the raft under sail was, as has already been intimated, the same in principle with that in vogue among the Ladrone Islanders; that is to say, the vessel was sailed indifferently, with either end foremost, the sail being always kept on the same side of the mast. In order to accomplish this two broad-bladed steering-oars were necessary-- one for each end of the craft--and a long tripping-line, with its ends bent on to either end of the yard, hanging down in a bight on deck, so that by its means the end of the yard which was to form the tack might be hauled down on deck. It will be understood that when plying to windward a craft so rigged is never thrown in stays, but when it is necessary to go on the opposite tack her stern is thrown up to windward by means of the steering-oar, which is then laid in; the end of the yard which is down on deck and made fast is released, and the opposite end of the yard is hauled down and secured; the sheet is transferred from one end of the vessel to the other; the steering-oar at that end is laid out; and the vessel, gathering way, moves off in the required direction.

It is probably the most simple mode of working a craft known to navigating mankind, and it obviates all possibility of missing stays; a difficulty which mainly induced Gaunt to adopt it on board his raft.

This was the first occasion upon which it had had a fair trial, and it was found to answer admirably; the raft proving to be not only so stiff as to be absolutely uncapsizable, but also remarkably fast considering her shape, a speed of six knots being got out of her unloaded and with a good fresh breeze blowing.

As soon as the somewhat novel mode of working her had been satisfactorily tested, the exploration of the reef was begun in earnest.

They cruised along its inner edge to the southward in the first instance, and discovered several places where it would probably have been possible for them to pa.s.s out to sea; but in every case the channels, if indeed they were worthy of the name, were so narrow and tortuous that Gaunt had no fancy for attempting them unless as a last resource. They next tried the northern side of the bay; and here they were more successful, for just where the reef seemed to join the land there was a channel of about one hundred feet in width, nearly straight, and trending in a north-westerly direction, with so much water in it that the sea only broke in one or two places throughout its entire length. This channel was all that they could desire; for as the prevailing wind seemed to be about south-west, they were enabled to pa.s.s in and out of the bay with the sheet slightly eased off.

Standing through this channel, which was only about a quarter of a mile long, they soon found themselves in the open sea, with a considerable amount of swell, over which the raft rode with a buoyancy which was most satisfactory to her designer. If Gaunt had any doubt whatever about the strength of any portion of his novel construction it was in the transverse bracing which connected the bottoms of his two pontoons, and he was therefore rather anxious for the first ten minutes or quarter of an hour after he found himself fairly in the open sea. But the bracing was found amply sufficient to give the required rigidity, and this fact once demonstrated he kept away before the wind, and coasted along the northern sh.o.r.e of his island, keeping at a sufficient distance from the tremendously lofty cliffs to prevent his being becalmed. With the wind over her quarter the raft travelled remarkably fast, and within an hour of the time when she pa.s.sed out through the channel she was abreast of the entrance to the river--which, by the way, was so effectually masked that Gaunt actually ran past it, and arrived off a point which they had seen from their original landing-place before he became aware of the fact. Retracing his way, the engineer, after a careful search, found the opening and pa.s.sed into the river. Their course for the first two miles was dead to windward; but the raft sailed remarkably near the wind, and held her own even better than her designer had believed to be possible--the long, flat sides of the two pontoons seeming to act the parts of leeboards, and so preventing her from making any perceptible leeway. They reached the lake, sailed round the islet, landed there, and procured a liberal supply of fruits of various descriptions, which seemed to grow more luxuriantly and of a finer flavour there than on the mainland, and then embarking once more made the best of their way back to the bay, where they anch.o.r.ed the raft and proceeded on sh.o.r.e in a small boat, which had been built as a sort of tender to the larger craft.

They found Henderson still busy with his examination of the cargo, and Gaunt in particular was highly delighted with its multifarious character. There were many articles which he foresaw would be of the utmost use to them in the construction of their little s.h.i.+p, but perhaps the find which delighted him most was a large circular saw. When his eye fell upon this his vivid imagination at once pictured it as in operation in a mill erected upon a spot which he had already recognised as most suitable for the purpose; and he saw, too, that now they need no longer be dependent upon the old s.h.i.+p-timber, full of bolt and trenail holes, for the timber and planking of their craft, as they would be enabled with the a.s.sistance of the saw to provide themselves with all the planking, and, indeed, timber of every description which would be necessary in their work, from the magnificent teak and other trees which grew in such abundance on the island.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

CAPTAIN BLYTH AND YOUNG MANNERS REAPPEAR.

Having now secured from the wreck every sc.r.a.p which it was possible to obtain, the little party had more leisure than they had had since the moment of their landing; for there was now no longer any fear that if a gale sprang up they would sustain any material loss. True, the greatest part of their work still remained to be done; but there was no longer the same necessity for hurry that there had been whilst any portion of the cargo remained at the mercy of wind and wave, and they therefore resolved that in future they would take matters a little more easily.