Part 13 (2/2)

[Sidenote: The Cave]

Paddling out of this bay, we were coasting along by more high cliffs when we came all of a sudden to an immense opening, which appeared to run a great way into the sh.o.r.e, though we could not tell how far, for its depths were very black.

”A cave, master!” cried Billy, full of excitement, and I was excited too, there being I know not what of mystery and fascination about a cave. ”Let us go in,” says he.

You may think it strange, but I felt a great reluctance to paddle into that gloomy place; my imagination, more active than Billy's, saw it peopled by sea-urchins and hobgoblins, and I could fancy I already heard strange noises, the fruit, I suppose, of my reading that wonderful play of Shakespeare, _The Tempest_. However, I could not show the white feather before Billy, so we paddled into the entrance, finding a considerable depth of water there, and so for twenty or thirty yards, there being more light in the cave than we had thought when outside, because it was lofty, and the water threw up reflections.

But when we had come some twenty yards into it, it made a sudden bend to the right, and at the same place became very much darker, so that though we peered in we could see but a few yards in front of us. We stayed for a little, looking about us, and seeing nothing but what appeared to be considerable patches of seaweed floating on the water; nor did we hear any noises, but all was as still as death, so that even Billy was oppressed by the silence, and even more by the hollow echo when he spoke.

”I don't much like the look of this place, master,” he said.

I did not tell him that my feeling was the same, but affected to laugh at him, though at the same time I dipped my paddle to bring the vessel round with her head pointing to the opening. As I did so, I observed a sort of heaving and undulating movement in one of the patches of seaweed, and marvelled at it, for there was no current on the surface, and the vessel was perfectly steady. But supposing there must be an under-current of some kind, I paid no more heed to it, but continued to paddle, and we soon brought the vessel out of the cave and among a little labyrinth of rocks, partly above the surface and partly submerged. We had but just got there, however, when we found our vessel begin to lose way and our paddles to stick in the seaweed, as we supposed, which was now very thick on the surface, and which was the greater impediment to us because of the outrigger. We strove as hard as we could to force the vessel through, but it was like tugging at a rebellious slip-knot; the harder you tug the more you tie yourself up.

We were thinking of backing the vessel, so as to go round about the obstacle, when all of a sudden, as I took notice of how the tendrils of the seaweed were clinging about the outrigger and curling up towards the side of the canoe, I was seized with the horrid suspicion that we had not to deal with seaweed at all, but with a monster, or maybe several, like to that terrible creature which had almost dragged me down when we were searching for eggs, as I have related. This thought made me shudder with a sickening apprehension, especially when the notion struck me, as it did at that moment, that this cavern could not be very far from the steep and rugged cliff by which we had descended.

Even before I could whisper my dread thought to Billy, some of the tentacles, as I had now no doubt they were, were creeping over the side, and one of them touched my leg and immediately held fast. For an instant I was perfectly overcome with horror, as I was on the cliff, and, as it were, paralyzed in my will; but then, making a great effort, I jerked myself free, at the same time calling aloud to Billy and chopping with my axe, which I had seized, at the tentacles that held the canoe in their grip and had altogether stopped its motion.

[Sidenote: A Shoal of Monsters]

”The monster, is it?” cries Billy, who hated the thing with the same aversion as I did, but seemed to be quite exempt from its fascination.

”I'll monster him,” says he, and he dropped his paddle and took up his axe and began hacking away with all his might at the horrid feelers that were crawling over the vessel. There were the two of us, then, slas.h.i.+ng and chopping with desperate energy, running, or rather creeping as quickly as we could, from end to end of the canoe whenever a tentacle showed itself above the gunwale, with the result that the grip of the creature (or creatures, for we knew not whether we had to do with one or many)--the grip of it, I say, relaxed, and we thought we could leave our axes and take to the paddles again. But we had not gone above two yards when the vessel was brought up again, and this time the paddles themselves were seized, and though I struggled with all my strength, my paddle was drawn out of my hands and I saw it no more. Billy was more lucky, and kept his, but he had to drop it into the bottom and take to his axe again, as I did to mine, and so we fell to it again, slas.h.i.+ng and chopping at these hideous tentacles that came up over the side, parts of them falling into the bottom of the vessel as we severed them and writhing there. Once more we beat off the enemy thus, and then I seized Billy's paddle in feverish haste, and plied it with all my might, Billy doing what he could also with two spears held together. And this time we got clear of the rocky labyrinth, to my unutterable relief, though with some sc.r.a.ping of the outrigger, for you may be sure we were in so great a hurry to get away that we could not stop for nice steering; and we kept on paddling hard for some minutes after we were a fair distance along the sh.o.r.e, and, indeed, did not cease until we found ourselves in the channel between the island and the red rock, and then we had another alarm, but of a different kind, for our vessel was caught in the mighty current which rushed through the narrow pa.s.sage, and was swept on as if it had been a cork, we gripping the thwarts and fearing every moment that we should either be dashed against the rocks on one side or the other, or be totally submerged in the boiling torrent. However, we came out at the further end safe, though very wet and terrified, and were carried on, though not so violently, past the place where the cascade fell from the mountain, and so on towards the long spit of land that had the natural archway at its end.

[Sidenote: The End of the Voyage]

We still had cause for alarm, for as yet we had no mastery of the vessel, and feared we should be carried by the current right out to sea. But by dint of great efforts, Billy with the paddle, which he had taken from me, being the more muscular, and I with the spears, we managed to take the vessel across the current and towards the land on our right hand, and by and by got into pretty calm water near the archway. Here, in the steep wall of the cliff, we saw a small cove, where we might have beached the canoe; but after what we had come through we had little disposition to linger, and so we paddled through the archway and turned the corner, and went along by the lava beach until we came at length to the sandy beach whence we had started. We were fairly worn out, I a.s.sure you, as well with our frights and terrors as with our exertions, and besides, we had eaten nothing since the morning, though we had provisions with us, having had too much to think about otherwise. Never did mariners land with more thankfulness than we did. When we had tied up our vessel we went to our house and built a roaring fire, to cheer our spirits as well as to dry our clothes; and when we had eaten a comforting meal and fell a-talking, we spoke of our satisfaction in the seaworthiness of the Fair Hope, and also in having circ.u.mnavigated the island.

”I'd like to kill that monster,” says Billy, as we talked about that part of our adventure; ”and I will, too, if he'll come out of that cave where we can see him proper.”

”I think we had better leave him in possession undisturbed,” I said, with the horror of the creature still upon me. ”Perhaps there is a shoal of the monsters there; the rocks we saw would make a very good home for them. And I don't think we'll go that way again, Billy; I seem to see those dreadful tentacles crawling all about me, and the leathery feel of them when I chopped makes me shudder still.”

”Cheer up, master,” says Billy. ”After all, we did 'em more damage than they did us, and taught 'em a lesson, I warrant you.”

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

OF OUR VOYAGE TO A NEIGHBOURING ISLAND, AND OF OUR INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION BY THE SAVAGES

We did not take another voyage for some days, for my dreams were haunted by visions of the monster, and I felt a shuddering reluctance even to look at the canoe, upon which I seemed to see tentacles writhing. And when we did again embark, it was only to paddle out to the fis.h.i.+ng-ground I have mentioned, though by and by, when the recollection of the monster had become somewhat dimmed, we cruised about the coast sometimes for the mere pleasure and exercise of it, and to make ourselves more expert in the management of our vessel. After a time the notion came to us of rigging up a mast and sail, and trying what we could do in real navigation. We had some difficulty in stepping the mast, which was a straight pine sapling; but the way we at length hit upon was as follows: we fastened two straight logs athwart the canoe, setting them parallel, and just so far apart as gave room for the mast. Having set up the mast between them, we lashed two more logs, but shorter, crosswise upon the first two, close up against the mast, which was then, as you perceive, gripped pretty firmly by the four logs. The sail gave us little trouble, for we had become expert by this time in weaving, and we wove a sort of huge mat with long gra.s.ses, which we found to serve excellently well. Spars and cordage were also easily made, though they took a prodigious time, and we one day hoisted our sail to see how our contrivances would act.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Canoe]

[Sidenote: Rigging]

We were much disappointed when we found that as soon as the sail caught the wind our vessel heeled over, so that we had to lower the sail immediately, or we should have been capsized. After some thought we hit upon a remedy, which was to make some alterations in the weight of the outrigger, and also in the length of the outrigger beam; and when we had spent a deal of time in making experiments, and running some risks of losing the vessel, we managed so that she ran perfectly steady with an ordinary breeze. And then we discovered that, our stability being a.s.sured, we could sail marvellously close to the wind and at a very fair speed, much faster, indeed, than we could paddle, and it then became our delight to make little trips round the coast and some distance out to sea, always very carefully looking out first from our watch-tower to be sure that no savages were in sight.

[Sidenote: The Red Rock]

On one of these expeditions we sailed round to the north side of the island, and it came into our heads to see whether it was possible to make an ascent of the big red rock, the sides of which, so far as we had been able to examine them from the cliffs and the hills, appeared to be unscalable. We took care not to let our vessel drift into the current that ran between the rock and the island, and running round to the north side of it, we found that it was not near so precipitous here as on the other sides--indeed, there was a very convenient landing-place at the foot, and a little cove where the vessel might safely lie, tied by the painter to a crag, while we satisfied our curiosity by making the ascent. You may be sure that we tied the vessel up very securely before leaving her, for if she had drifted loose I do not know what we should have done, for we could scarcely have swum to the island, the current being so strong, and I suppose we should simply have stayed on the rock until we were dead.

There was no pathway up the rock, on which we were perhaps the first human beings that had ever set foot, and we found the ascent a great deal more difficult than it had appeared from below. We had to clamber up from point to point with the aid sometimes of stunted bushes--very st.u.r.dy they were, too--that grew out of fissures; and choosing the easiest way, we made a very zigzag course, sometimes losing sight of the sea altogether. Here and there we disturbed sea-birds which had made their nests in the face of the cliff, but there were not near so many of these as we might have expected. After climbing thus for about three hundred feet, as I calculated, we came to a sort of broad terrace that ran in a fairly easy slope round the northern and eastern faces of the rock, and pretty well covered with shrubs and moss. From this we made our way, rather laboriously, to the southern side, and came by and by to the ledge, or platform, which jutted out from the rock to the island, and which I mentioned a while ago. Billy, you remember, had spoke of leaping the gap, which would have been an impossible feat, for not only was the distance too great, it being, I should think, at least twenty feet, but, moreover, the ledge on the rock was somewhat higher than the promontory of the island. Looking down upon this latter as we now did, the gap seemed even less than it had appeared from the other side, and I had really to be very stern with Billy when he declared again that he knew he could jump it.

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