Kitabı oku: «The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Pacific», sayfa 3
CHAPTER IX. – THROUGH HIDDEN DANGERS
Critical moments followed. Captain Sparhawk navigated the Sea Gypsy among the rocks with marvelous seamanship. Time and again a shout of dismay went up from the sailors as the yacht almost grazed some huge black rock or scraped a coral reef. But the passage was negotiated with safety, and finally the sea-battered yacht lay snug and safe in the lee of the island and all hands drew a long breath of relief.
“Let go the anchor,” came the command, and the cable roared out of the hawser holes with a savage shout, as if of joy, at the ship’s delivery.
“Where under the sun are we?” asked Mr. Jukes of Captain Sparhawk, as soon as these maneuvers had been completed.
“I have no more idea than you, sir,” was the reply. “But it looks to me as if this island must be one of the Pamatous.”
“One of the pearl islands?” asked the millionaire.
“The very same. But I cannot be sure. Islands are sown pretty thickly in this part of the Pacific.”
“Are the Pamatou people cannibals?” asked Jack.
“I don’t think so,” said the captain, “but before I send a boat ashore I am going to deal out arms to the landing party. We want to run no risks. I shall also put a guard on the ship, for these savages are great thieves and they might see a chance for some piratical tricks in our dilemma.”
“The machine gun will come in handy then,” said Mr. Jukes.
“Yes, indeed, sir. I’ll give orders to have it mounted at once in a conspicuous place so if any of the gentry ashore have any rascally designs they can see we’re ready for them with a dose of cold lead.”
Jack, after some difficulty, secured permission for himself and Raynor to go ashore with the landing party. Mr. Jukes, who remained on board, was unwilling that they take the risk of a hostile attack, but at last he yielded, and the boys, in high glee, buckled on cartridge belts and selected rifles from the ship’s armory.
“Keep the rifles in the bottom of the boat,” ordered the captain, as they shoved off, “and don’t use them unless you absolutely have to.”
Although the place where they lay was sheltered, the storm was still howling and shrieking above the island and the sea ran rather high. The inclement weather, no doubt, explained why no natives had so far been seen.
A landing was successfully made in the surf, the men leaping from the boat and dragging her ashore, waist-deep in water. Dense foliage, among which could be seen the huge fronds of the banana, and broad-leaved breadfruit trees grew almost down to the dazzlingly white beach. Further back great palms, laden with cocoanuts, towered majestically above the tropic growth.
“There seems to be no sign of a village here,” said the captain.
“Perhaps it is on the other side of the island,” suggested Jack.
“Well, we’ll tramp along the beach and see what we can find,” decided the man in command of the “expedition.”
Four men were told off to guard the boat, with orders to fire three shots if anything out of the way occurred. The party in search of the village was to signal in the same way if anything untoward happened and they needed help.
“Shall we carry the rifles?” asked Jack.
“Yes; but try to conceal them as much as possible,” counseled the captain.
They set off along the beach, walking briskly, for the sand was firm and hard. Looking back at the anchored yacht, they could see the glitter of the machine-gun with a man stationed beside it. The gun was trained on the shore ready for instant use against any possible attack. After traversing a short distance they came in sight of what appeared to be a pathway. The condition of it showed that it was much traveled and probably it formed the high road to the village.
Captain Sparhawk decided to follow it. In single file the adventurers advanced along the track which wound in and out, dodging trees and rocks in a manner peculiar to most savage trails whose makers would rather go round an obstacle than clear it out of the way. There was a gloomy sky overhead and the wind boomed dolefully among the palms, making a noise like sheets of rain falling as their big fan-like leaves rustled and scraped against each other.
A hundred rods or so from the coast they found themselves in a ravine which towered up steeply on each side of the track. This canyon appeared to penetrate the centre of the island, the interior of which was hilly.
“I guess the village, if there is one, must be clear round the other side of the island,” said Billy Raynor, between bites at a banana he had picked from a bush at the side of the trail. Others of the party were munching on oranges and a fruit the captain called a “custard apple,” the latter a large, brown-colored “apple,” filled with a yellow paste that looked and tasted like custard.
“There’s one thing certain, the high cost of living need never worry these fellows,” remarked Jack.
“Not if they’re content to be vegetarians,” said Billy.
“They don’t need to be that,” said the captain, “the seas hereabouts teem with fish – and look there!”
There was a rush and a clatter of falling stones just ahead of them as a flock of goats, half-wild creatures, with wonderfully agile legs, leaped up the sides of the canyon and then, at a safe height, stood gazing down at the invaders of the island.
“These South Sea islanders prefer goat’s meat to anything except pork,” said the captain; “in fact, the cannibals pay the doubtful compliment to human flesh of calling it 'long pig.’”
This mention of cannibalism made the boys feel rather uncomfortable. Although the captain reassured them and they knew that the horrible practice of eating human flesh had all but died out in the South Seas, except in some remote islands, they did not know but the one they were exploring might prove to be one of the latter. It was just as their minds were busy with these disquieting thoughts that Jack gave a sharp exclamation and came to a halt.
The fronds of a banana tree had parted suddenly in front of the lad who was in advance of the party.
Between the green leaves a hideous face, daubed with red and white paint, suddenly glared out at the boy and then, as swiftly, vanished.
CHAPTER X. – CHUMMING WITH SAVAGES
So quickly had this happened that none of the others had seen it. But Jack quickly apprised them of his discovery.
“If the man’s face was painted, would that mean he was on the war-path?” asked Billy rather nervously.
“Not necessarily,” rejoined the captain, “but still, he might be hostile. On feast days the natives paint themselves up and that may have been the reason for his decorations.”
“Ugh! He was hideous enough to stop a clock or scare a locomotive off the track,” exclaimed Jack.
“The village must be near at hand,” said the captain presently. “Let us press on.”
They had reached the end of the ravine now, having crossed almost the entire island. The path widened and others branched off from it. But they stuck to the main thoroughfare and in a few moments came in sight of a native village lying not far back from the shore and amidst a grove of magnificent palms.
The rhythmical throbbing of tom-toms reached their ears and they could see natives dancing in their peculiar swaying manner to the sound of the skin drums. Suddenly the dancing ceased. The natives in a swarm, among them the man with the painted face, descended on the travelers. Many wore flowers in their hair and others added to these decorations by brass rings in their noses and ear-rings composed of old china door knobs. The men were remarkably handsome and the women pretty.
After the first uncertainty as to their reception, there was no doubt of their friendliness as they pressed about. Several of them could talk English and the captain soon learned that they were indeed on one of the Pamatou group, as he had surmised. The village, which was celebrating a feast day, was one of two on the island occupied by pearl fishers. The natives were civilized; schooners and ships frequently touching there. To the south of them they said were “bad men,” meaning cannibals, and the boys were glad they had not landed on one of them.
Nothing would do but that the white men must sit down and partake of the feast which was just ready. The boys stuffed themselves with roast pork, goat-meat, sweet potatoes, yams, roasted bread-fruit, fish and fruit. They washed this down with cocoanut milk. During the meal, a young Pamatouan attached himself to each of the boys. Each of these lads was about sixteen and wore, like most of the rest, a single white garment, although some of the natives sported trousers, and a few even had shoes – which they carried in their hands!
The two lads, who had thrust their services on Jack and Billy, informed them that they were their friends and would be so all the time the Sea Gypsy lay at the island. They waited on the amused boys hand and foot, not letting them do anything. Jack’s acquisition was called Bolabola; Billy’s savage servitor was called, so he said, Anai. Each could speak a little English and they informed the boys that they were “their friends for always.” From the captain the lads learned that this is a common custom among the islanders who value the friendship of a white man highly, and think it an honor and a credit to wait on him. He suggested giving them some little presents. Jack presented Bolabola with a pocket-knife and Billy gave Anai a fountain pen, having nothing else with him. Anai promptly stuck the pen through a big hole bored in the lobe of his ear and capered about delighted with his new ornament.
When it came time to go back to the ship, the friendly natives could not hear of the adventurers trudging back on foot. A great war canoe was launched and paddled by fifty strapping natives, singing musically, and so they were paddled round the island in state. On their arrival at the ship, the boat which had been left under guard was signalled to return, and presents of calico, straw hats, cheap cutlery and glass beads and fish-hooks and lines, – the latter highly prized, – were dealt out from the yacht’s stores. The natives swarmed all over the ship and it was hard to induce them to leave at all. As for Bolabola and Anai, they refused to go till they had extracted promises from their “friends,” Jack and Billy, to visit them ashore and visit a pearl cave they knew of along the coast.
This exactly suited the boys, and their delight, when Mr. Jukes decided to stay at the island for some days, was unbounded. The reason for the decision to remain there was arrived at after the millionaire had held a consultation with Captain Sparhawk. Tahiti was not far off, and that night Jack was ordered to raise the wireless station on the French island and find out if a small vessel could not be despatched at once with coal to replenish the Sea Gypsy’s exhausted bunkers.
The next morning Jack had the satisfaction of informing Mr. Jukes that the details had been arranged and that a small tramp steamer might be expected to come to their relief in a few days. The expense was considerable, but this did not appear to bother Mr. Jukes, who chafed at the delay in his search for the survivors, if any there were, of the Centurion.
CHAPTER XI. – THE CAVE OF THE PEARLS
Two days later, following the arrival at the island of the coal ship – a small, rusty tramp steamer – the boys set out for the village to meet their friends, who had swum out to the ship almost daily, despite the sharks, to see the white youths. As they left the yacht they saw Thurman, who had been put to work in the crew, laboring with the other blackened “hands” at getting the fuel on board.
“He doesn’t look as if he liked his job much,” said Jack.
“He ought to be glad he’s alive,” supplemented Billy Raynor. “I wonder if he has really mended his ways or if it was just the effect of his scare that made him promise to reform.”
“Impossible to say,” replied Jack, “but time will show, I guess.”
The boys found their friends on the beach with a long, cranky-looking canoe, paddled with wonderfully carved paddles. In the canoe were bananas, roast pork and other delicacies; also several empty cocoanut shells.
“What are those for?” asked Jack, looking at the latter.
“We put um pearl in them if so be we get any,” grinned Anai.
“Do you really think we’ll get any?” asked Billy.
“No can say. Think cave good place. You ready?”
“Whenever you are,” said Jack, taking his place in the canoe, while Billy followed his example. The two native lads shoved off and sprang on board with wonderful agility, driving the canoe through the surf and up onto the summit of a huge wave, where it hung poised for an instant like a bird. The next moment they had shot with powerful strokes through the rollers and were out beyond the danger line of the surf.
They passed through a noisy fleet of fishers, all of whom greeted them, and then the canoe was headed for a green headland some distance down the coast. The sun glowed fiercely overhead, the surf boomed unceasingly on the beach and the reef beyond, the water hissed along the sides of the canoe as the two athletic young natives urged forward amid shouts.
Looking over the side, Jack could see the coral bottom as clearly as if an inch instead of many feet of water separated it from the frail canoe. It was almost as if they were floating in the air. Fish of brilliant colors darted about and once a dark, sinister shade appeared beneath the canoe. The Kanaka boys shouted and beat the water with their paddles. The dark shadow melted away.
“Him very bad shark,” said Anai. “White men call him tiger shark. Worst kind of all shark.”
“I’d hate to bathe around here,” observed Jack.
“Oh, him all right, most generally scare him away, kick, splash, makee big noise, he go 'way.”
“Yes, but suppose he refused to be scared,” objected Billy.
“Then maybe he takee off leg, arm, maybe swallow you all up.”
The long, curved point soon hid the fishers in front of the village from view. Rounding it, they found themselves skimming along a coast of surpassing beauty. Steep, majestic cliffs arose from the clear water and long green creepers from the forest above trailed over them.
At last the prow of the canoe was turned and the boys saw that the furious paddlers were heading at top speed for the cliffs.
“Hey, stop that, you’ll smash the canoe!” cried Jack, as, without any diminution of speed, the canoe was urged with wild shouts from the paddlers right at the rocky escarpment.
“They’ve gone crazy,” exclaimed Billy, “they – ”
He did not conclude what he was going to say. Instead, he set up a cry of alarm as the prow of the canoe was hurled at the cliff at a spot where a regular curtain of lianas and other forest trailers depended from above.
Swish, whoosh, went the canoe, as it shot through the parasites and creepers. The boys instinctively ducked their heads. Instead of being dashed to destruction against the cliff, the frail craft had been guided into this singular cave, one of many along the coast, through the greenery portal. Both the Kanaka boys set up a shout of laughter at the expense of Jack and Billy, who looked rather sheepish at their late alarm.
They were in a dark passage that led into an inner water cave filled with an eternal sunless twilight that was very refreshing to them after the heat and glare outside. The canoe shot through the passage and into the cave itself, the boys uttering a shout of admiration the while.
“Look,” said Anai, pointing upward.
Overhead was a marvelously perfect, natural dome, with a large hole in the centre through which shafts of sunlight fell into the cave and were reflected from the water with a greenish light.
“Look,” ordered the Kanaka boy again.
The boys obeyed and gazed over the side of the canoe. Below them, through several feet of crystal-clear water, they could see bowers of coral, white and pink, with fish darting in and out of the chinks and crossing prismatically, while others hung motionless as if suspended, fanning the water incessantly with their gauzy fins. It was the most wonderful water picture the boys had ever seen.
CHAPTER XII. – A TRAP!
“We eat. Then we go get pearls,” decided Anai.
The boys, whose appetites had been sharpened by the trip, were not averse to this, and they made a hearty meal. After it the two native boys produced leaves in which betel nuts had been carefully wrapped up and offered them to Jack and Billy, both of whom declined them. But Anai and his friend began chewing the spicy nuts with great zest.
A canoe-length from where they floated a clear rill of water stole noiselessly down from above, mingling its sweet waters with the sea. After demolishing their betel nuts, the chewing of which is a well-nigh universal custom in the South Seas, the two native boys stood erect and then bound their long black hair in knots on the top of their heads.
Then, with a shout, they balanced gracefully for a second on the edge of the canoe and plunged over. They floated for a minute or two and then dived, after inhaling immense breaths. To the boys, watching the divers through the clear water, it looked as if they were literally climbing down, head first, through the pellucid depths.
Then they saw both the Kanaka lads wrenching oyster shells from their hold on the coral with furious energy. It seemed impossible that they could stay under water as long as they did, but at length, even their wonderful endurance gave out and, laden with shells, they shot back to the surface.
Reaching the canoe, the two divers hung almost exhausted on the outrigger, regaining their breath after they had thrown several oysters into the canoe, which the boys opened eagerly, but only two small pearls rewarded them. The two Kanaka boys showed plainly the stress of the long time they had stayed down. Their eyes were bloodshot and their faces suffused. Their veins stood out on their bodies like cords.
The boys begged them not to go down again, but they insisted.
“How often do you mean to dive?” asked Billy.
“One, maybe two, three time,” said Anai.
“Nobody can dive more than three time,” declared the other. “Him bad if dive too many time. Makee much sick.”
“I should think so,” said Jack. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible for any one to stay down so long. It’s wonderful.”
The next two dives yielded three more pearls from a dozen or more oysters. None of them were of any great value but the two divers insisted on presenting them to the boys.
“Me try get you very good pearl some udder day,” promised Anai, and his companion nodded to show that he meant to help in the enterprise.
“Hullo, what’s that?” asked Jack suddenly, after they had chatted and rested for some time and began to think about returning. There was a booming sound in the air and the waters of the cave began to become agitated, rocking the canoe dangerously.
Overhead, through the dome, they could see that the sky had darkened.
“Me think storm come. Better get out of here,” said Anai, looking troubled. “Him bad time of year for storms.”
“Goodness, I should say so,” declared Jack. “We’ve been in two bad ones already.”
“That’s how we got blown here,” added Billy.
“We thinkee that good storm blow you here, white boys,” said Anai.
The sky grew darker, and every now and then a big roller entirely filled the mouth of the cavern, blinding them with spray. Having spent its fury, these great waves retired with a concussion that was deafening, dragging the canoe with fearful velocity toward the mouth of the cave by its suction. At such times they only saved themselves from being swept out to sea by grasping the hanging curtain of creepers and vines. Anai and his companion baled the canoe with a big shell, but the boys felt that their position was an awkward and even a dangerous one.
Another great wave burst, sealing up the cave as if it was an air-tight compartment, and making the waters of the cavern boil and seethe furiously. The pressure of air caused by the sudden rush of water affected the boys’ ears as if they had been suddenly placed in a caisson.
“This is terrible,” cried Jack.
“Something will have to be done,” said Billy. “We can’t last in here much longer.”
“Are we in danger, Anai?” asked Jack.
“We in very bad fix; but we getee out all right,” the Kanaka assured him, stopping his bailing.
“They’ve got some plan in their head,” decided Jack, and sat down in the bottom of the cranky, frail canoe to see what the next move was to be. It was a startling one. The two youths seized their paddles and then, as the next wave receded, they shot out of the mouth of the cave like a bomb from a mortar, before either Jack or Billy could guess their intention or stop what seemed sheer madness on the Kanakas’ part, and placed all their lives in grave danger. Outside they found themselves in the teeth of a howling gale. Spray blinded them, flying over them in sheets.
Nothing more was said, nothing seen. The air was darkened with flying spume. It seemed impossible that the canoe could live a minute.
