Part 16 (1/2)

We had been putting our place in order while we talked thus, and then we had our breakfast, eating indeed some of the food which the men had been preparing when we drove them away. And after we had done our customary morning's work--fed the pigs and fowls, gathered ripe cocoa-nuts, and so forth--we set to work at once to make some new arrows and spears, and bows and strings also, in case the others broke; and all the while we were doing this, Billy talked very bravely about the great fight there would be if the rascals came back. I said nothing to damp his ardour, but my thoughts were very busy with a part of the subject which he seemed not to consider, namely, what we should do if it came to anything like a regular siege. I did not doubt we could do much execution among the enemy from behind our walls if they stood to be shot at; but they could very well avoid this, and since there would be many of them against us two, they could strictly blockade us; and though so far as food went we could defy them for a long time, having our concealed stores below, yet the need for constant watchfulness, day and night, would in a short time wear us out. When I asked Billy what we should do in that case, he said, ”Why, run out, and let 'em chase us; we could dodge them big chaps well enough, and I reckon we can run a deal faster.” It was easy enough to show him that the hunted life we should lead would be most wretched and precarious; but he having suggested that we might escape set me on thinking whether we might not indeed elude the enemy, at least for such time as was needful to find some defence or shelter.

We had, of course, the means of descending into our cavern; and this was so well stocked with food that we might live there for a long time; but our disappearance would immediately be discovered by our besiegers (so I called them in advance), and they would know our whereabouts the moment they entered the hut. The cavern, therefore, could not be a permanent habitation. But it came into my mind again that we had never thoroughly explored the tunnel leading from it, nor found whether it had an outlet, though we suspected it had; and I thought that if there was such an outlet, or if we could make one, our case would not be so hopeless as at the present time it seemed. Accordingly, we determined to descend into the cavern, and make another exploration, going together, as we did the last time, both for the company's sake and for better security in case of encountering any danger. So we heaved up the covering of the shaft, and having made half-a-dozen torches, enough to last us for several hours, we went down, leaving Little John on guard, pa.s.sed through the cavern, and came into the low and narrow pa.s.sage.

[Sidenote: Adventure in the Cave]

When we arrived at the place where the second pa.s.sage entered this from the right, we turned into it, and walked up an ascent, as I had done in the darkness, until the floor suddenly took a dip downwards, and then by the light of our torch we saw a considerable pool of water, extending farther than the light would carry. We debated for a little whether we should attempt to wade through this, and concluded that we would not do so until we had failed to find a way out in the other direction. Accordingly we retraced our steps, and went down the tunnel, until we came to the wider part where on our last visit we had seen water. The water was lower than it had been then, and we were able to go farther, and when we came to the brink of it, we heard very distinctly the sound of waves rolling in, so that we knew we could not be far from an opening to the sea. And, indeed, peering across the immense cave to which we had come, we saw far off a segment of blue sky, and knew that the object of our search was gained.

We stood at the edge of the water, surveying the cave by the light of our torches. We saw that there depended from its roof certain s.h.i.+ning things like icicles, of rugged form and differing in length, which I have since learned are called stalact.i.tes; and, moreover, there were large boulders and ma.s.ses of broken stalact.i.tes standing up out of the water. Billy gave a shout when he saw this, and cried that he would skip from rock to rock until he came to the mouth of the cave, and defied me to race him; but the torch I was carrying was now burning low, and I stayed to kindle another before going farther; and, moreover, I doubted the wisdom of such feats of agility, for it would be easy to miss one's footing and fall into the water, and if we both did it our torches would be wetted and we should not be able to light ourselves home. I had, indeed, just called out to him to come back, when a dreadful shriek ran through the cavern, and raising my torch above my head, I saw Billy scrambling up a tall and rugged rock that stood ten feet or more above the water, a good way from where I stood.

He had dropped his torch, and I saw him but dimly by the light of mine, and could not discern any cause for his terror; but that there must be a very great cause I knew well, for Billy was brave enough. He continued to shriek and call, though his voice rang so in that hollow vaulted s.p.a.ce that I could not at first make out any words; but having started to approach him when I heard his first cry, going from rock to rock as quickly as I could, I was presently able to see a number of long tentacles clinging to the rock on which he was perched, and others waving horribly above the surface of the water, as if some blind creature were groping for its prey. And even as there came to my mind the recollection of that loathly monster from whom I myself had barely escaped, and I stood as if fascinated by those hideous antic limbs, I saw the vast bulk of the beast appear above the surface, and rise gradually behind its tentacles up the rock.

Billy was by this time perched on the very summit of the rock, and when he saw the monster ascending towards him he let forth another dreadful cry which roused me from the sort of trance into which I had fallen.

Grasping the torch with my left hand and my axe with my right, I leapt over the low rocks that stood between me and Billy, scarcely keeping my footing, and began to hack with all my strength at the shapeless ma.s.s, which made such a resistance to that poor clumsy axehead as a thing of leather might make. It did not appear that my strokes were of any avail, for the tentacles crept higher and higher; and looking up when I heard another scream from Billy, I saw that one of them was beginning to twine itself about his leg. And then all of a sudden, while I was bringing my axe down once more on the monster, Billy made a leap upwards, to catch at a stalact.i.te that depended from the roof of the vault, not far from his head. He must have been pretty near beside himself to do what he did, for if he had caught hold of it he could not have held on long; and what did in fact happen was that the stalact.i.te broke off with a sharp snap, and down came Billy and it into the water.

I thought this might be the best thing that could happen, for he could swim like a fish, and the monster would take some time in letting itself down from the rock; but when Billy rose to the surface, and I called to him, I saw by his feeble movements that he must have been hurt, so I sprang to a low rock near which he had come up, and held out my axe for him to grasp, which he did, and so I got him on to the rock, though not without some trouble, it being scarce broad enough for both of us. And immediately afterwards I observed that the monster had left the big rock and disappeared into the water, on which I cried to Billy to be of good cheer, because I was sure my continual chopping had wrought some damage on the monster and maybe killed it. But the words were scarce out of my mouth when we saw, by the ruddy light of my torch, a tentacle appear above the water not three feet away. This put me in a shudder lest we were in a perfect den of the creatures, and I called to Billy to jump across the rocks, if he could, back to the entrance to the tunnel, so that he at any rate, being now the weaker, might be out of harm's way. His terror lending him strength, he gathered himself together and leapt from rock to rock as he had done before, while I seized upon the axe which I had dropped beside me when I landed on the rock, and chopped away in a kind of frenzy at the tentacles which were brandis.h.i.+ng themselves, you may say, at several places around me. As soon as I saw that Billy was safe I gave up the contest and sprang after him, and I was never so thankful in my life as I was when I stood beside him at the end of the tunnel.

We were neither of us in any mind to linger there, lest the monster and his brood came to attack us, for we were now so terrified that we would have believed them capable of anything. This was the second time that we had been baulked of finding an outlet to the sea, and our experience had been such that we should scarce attempt it again. We hurried back through the tunnel, and had not gone very far when we had another alarm, for whereas it had been dry when we descended, there was now a little stream of water running down, which increased as we advanced until it became almost a rivulet. At first I thought that the plug had come out of the pipe leading from the lake into the shaft, but when we came to the junction of the two pa.s.sages, we saw that the water, which was now above our ankles, was pouring out of the right-hand pa.s.sage, and not from the one that led from the cavern. This eased our alarm, but we did not stay to consider of any attempt to discover the ultimate source of this little torrent, but hastened on until we were once more in our hut; and then we knew by the mighty pattering on the roof and all around that a very heavy rain was falling. Indeed, when we opened the door we saw that it must have been raining ever since we departed, for the ground was exceeding sodden, and the trench about the hut was half full of water, being scarce deep enough to carry off the drainage.

Of course the rain had put out the fire which we kept constantly smouldering in the grate a few feet from our door, and though a hot meal would have been very comforting after our fright and the wetting we had got, we could not make one ready, because we had no dry wood in the hut, nor indeed did we care to light a fire in it, having no chimney to let out the smoke.

[Sidenote: A Mystery Solved]

It continued raining for two or three days, greatly to our discomfort; and we made up our minds to two things: first, to have a stock of firewood ready dried; second, to build ourselves a better grate, which we could cover in with pottery ware, and thus prevent the fire from being ever extinguished. During these days we observed, as we had done before, that the lake did not rise above the high-water mark, though the rain was the heaviest since we had been on the island; and when I sought once more to account for this, and remembered the torrent pouring down the pa.s.sage, it came all of a sudden into my mind that I had the true reason of it. The pa.s.sage, as I have said, rose continually from the cave inwards. Well, I guessed that its upper end opened into the side of the lake, but it then rose until its highest point was pretty nearly on a level with what we called the high-water mark, and after that descended again. If it was so, it acted as a siphon, the water not flowing down the pa.s.sage until the lake rose to the same height as the highest part of the pa.s.sage. When I tried to explain this to Billy he said it was all gammon, because if there was an opening from the lake into the pa.s.sage the water would keep on flowing through until it couldn't help but run over. He could not in the least understand that water could never rise above its own level until I showed him by means of two tanks made of pottery, one large and the other small, and then he owned that I might be right, though he said it seemed to him like saying that a ten-pound weight wouldn't send up a five-pound weight if they were put in the opposite pans of a balance.

However, my discovery (supposing my reasoning was correct, and we could not prove it)--my discovery, I say, was of no practical advantage to us, indeed, rather the reverse, for it seemed to show that the tunnel from the cavern to the sea might be sometimes impa.s.sable, so that as a way of retreat from our hut it was doubly useless. When I pointed this out to Billy he said, ”Never mind, master. We shall only have to fight all the harder inside, that's all,” which shows how hopeful he always was. The only comfort I had was to think that our fears and anxieties might never be justified, and that Hoggett and his crew would never more visit us.

CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH

OF THE a.s.sAULT ON THE HUT, IN WHICH BOWS AND ARROWS PROVE SUPERIOR TO MUSKETS

The period of rainy weather which we suffered set me on to think again of that project of digging a moat which we had formerly abandoned.

Several considerable rivulets flowed into the lake from the high ground around, of which one, that came down the slope nearest the red rock, had a pretty long course, and by the time it fell into the lake, forty or fifty yards from the hut, was almost a river. Observing how it washed the soil along with it, it came into my head that we might perchance enlist it in our service, and make it do a great part of the work of widening and deepening the trench. Of course Billy must ask his customary question, ”What's the good?” following this up with another, more pertinent. ”How _can_ we, master? The river--if you call it a river: _I_ don't--don't run anywhere near the trench.”

”That's true,” I said, ”but we can make it.”

”How's that?” said he.

”Why, by building a dam across it, and so turning its course where we please,” I said.

”Oh, more building,” says he. ”What a one you are, master, for keeping on a-doing things! What's the good? I lay you a cocoa-nut that before you get your dam made, the rain stops, and then where'll you be?”

I think I have already shown that Billy was always a good deal better than his word. He used to remind me of that young man in the Scripture, who refused when his father bid him do something, but ”afterwards repented and went,” and was more to be admired than the plausible sneak, his brother, who said to his father, ”I go, sir,” and then did nothing of the sort. I once told Billy about this, and he was very much interested, never having heard it before, and said he'd like to know that man, and asked me if I could tell him any more things like that. Accordingly I told him at different times all that I could remember of the Bible stories, and the one he liked best was the story of David, who took his admiration greatly, and whom he always called ”the little fellow,” thinking of Goliath.

However, to return to our dam. Billy helped me very diligently to pile up a dam of rocks, which was pretty laborious, for we had to haul them a good distance, and since it rained all the time we were constantly drenched, and I wonder we did not take an ague. We were about three days in doing it, and then, sure enough, as soon as it was done, the rain ceased, and Billy turned a triumphant countenance upon me, and asked what I thought of that. But I had the better of him next day, for the rain came again, and we saw with great delight that the stream was diverted by the dam into the narrow channel we had cut to bring it to our trench, and before long it was flowing through this in considerable volume, and fell into the lake. It n.o.bly answered my expectations, for the loosened earth was not only more easy for us to dig with our rude spades, but it became mud as soon as it was dug up, and was washed away. We began to deepen the trench into a moat at the two ends opening on the lake, working backwards to the middle; but before we had done very much the rain ceased again, and the rivulet dried up. However, we were fairly come to the wettest part of the year, and the rainy days were more than the fine ones, so that in the course of a few months we had made good progress, and had indeed widened and deepened the whole trench, though not near so much as I should have liked. The part directly in front of our door was the deepest, and we made a kind of drawbridge, of the nature of a hurdle, to throw over it; not at this time, however, attempting any contrivance for raising or lowering it.

[Sidenote: On the Watch]

Though we went about our daily work with great regularity, we were never, I think, quite so cheerful as we had been before the visit of our whilom s.h.i.+pmates. The thought that they might come back kept us continually on the stretch, so to speak; we went up to our watch-tower, one or other of us, not twice a day, as before, but three or four times, and we never went to bed at night without an uneasy feeling that when we awoke we might find our enemies upon us. For several nights, indeed, Billy and I took turns to watch, though we soon gave it up, partly because it was so fatiguing, and partly because, when we considered of it calmly, we thought it very unlikely that the men would arrive in the darkness, for, not knowing the coast, they might very easily run upon a rock and lose their boat, a calamity which they would not risk.

One day, I know not how many months after we had scared away Hoggett and his friends, Billy had gone up Flagstaff Hill to take his turn at looking out, and he came running to tell me that he had descried a small object on the eastern horizon. I immediately accompanied him back to the station, and when we got there, he told me that the object was scarce any bigger than when he first saw it, so that if it was a boat, which we could not yet determine, it was moving very slowly. The day was very hot, so that no one would wish to put forth any great exertion, least of all the crew of the _Lovey Susan_. We watched for a long time until we made out that the object was indeed a boat, and moving with oars alone, there being not a capful of wind. It was heading straight for our island, and we saw that it was a s.h.i.+p's boat of European make, and not a native canoe, so that we had no doubt it contained Hoggett and his fellows.