Kitabı oku: «The Island Queen», sayfa 3
Pauline saw nothing more after that for some time, because her eyes were blinded with tears.
Then Queen Pina cheered up again, for she thought that surely a ship would soon pass the island and take them off. As this last thought became more definite (for Pina was very young and hopeful) her eyes dried and permitted her to observe her kingdom more clearly.
The Prime Minister, she observed, was still busy on the shore, and, from his frequently stooping to pick up something, she argued that the affairs of State in that quarter were prospering.
Presently, from the midst of a mass of reeds not far off, there arose a shout, easily recognisable as that of the army, which was followed by cries of a stupendous, yet extremely familiar, kind. Pauline started up in considerable haste, and a moment later beheld the chief authors of the noise burst from the clump of reeds in the form of a large sow and a troop of little pigs.
They were evidently in a state of wild alarm, for, besides squealing with a degree of intensity possible only to pigs, they ran in such furious haste that they stumbled over sticks and stones in reckless confusion, scrambling to their feet again in such a hurry as to ensure repeated falls, and, generally, twirling themselves and their tails in a manner that was consistent with nothing short of raving madness.
Little wonder that those creatures acted thus, for, close on their heels, gasping and glaring, the army burst forth and fell on them—literally fell on one of them, for Otto in his anxiety to catch the hindmost pig, a remarkably small but active animal, tripped over a root just as he was about to lay hold of its little tail, and fell on the top of it with fearful violence. The mechanical pressure, combining with the creature’s spiritual efforts, produced a sudden yell that threw the cries of its companions quite into the shade. It might have sufficed to blow Otto into the air. Indeed, it seemed as if some such result actually followed, for, after turning a complete somersault, the boy was on his feet again as if by magic; but so also was the little pig, which, being thus forcibly separated from its family, turned aside and made for the main thicket. To cut off its retreat, the army made a sudden flank movement, headed the enemy, grasped it by the curly tail, and sought to lift it into his arms, but the curly tail straightened out, and, being exceedingly thin as well as taper, slipped from his hand. Need we say that the little pig came to the ground with a remonstrative squeal? It also rolled over. Otto, unable to check himself, flew past. The pig rose, diverged, and resumed its headlong flight. Otto doubled, came close up again, “stooped to conquer,” and was on the point of coming off victorious, when, with a final shriek of mingled rage and joy, the enemy rushed through a hole under a prickly bush, while the discomfited army plunged headlong into the same, and stuck fast.
Meanwhile the rest of the porcine family had found refuge in an almost impenetrable part of the thicket.
“Pork, your Majesty,” said Otto, on returning from the field of battle, “may at all events be counted as one of the products of your dominions.”
“Truly it would seem so,” responded the Queen, with a laugh; “nevertheless there does not appear to be much hope of its forming a source of supply to the royal larder.”
“Time will show,” said Dominick, coming up at the moment; “and see, here are several kinds of shellfish, which will form a pleasant addition to our fare.”
“Ay, and I saw eggs among the reeds,” said Otto, “some of which—”
“Not pigs’ eggs, surely?” interrupted Dominick.
“They may be so,” retorted Otto; “the fact that English pigs don’t lay eggs, is no argument against South Sea pigs doing so, if they choose. But, as I was about to say, your Majesty, when the Premier interrupted me—some of these eggs I gathered, and would have presented them as an offering from the army, if I had not fallen and crushed them beyond repair.”
In corroboration of what he said, Otto opened his coat pocket and revealed in its depths a mass of yellow substance, and broken shells.
“Horrible!” exclaimed Pauline; “how will you ever get it cleaned?”
“By turning it inside out—thus, most gracious Queen.”
He reversed the pocket as he spoke, allowing the yellow compound to drip on the ground, and thereafter wiped it with grass.
“I wouldn’t have minded this loss so much,” he continued, “if I had not lost that little pig. But I shall know him again when I see him, and you may depend on it that he is destined ere long to be turned into pork chops.”
“Well, then, on the strength of that hope we will continue the survey of our possessions,” said Dominick, leading the party still further into the low grounds.
For some time the trio wandered about without making any further discoveries of importance until they came to a thicket, somewhat similar to the one near which they had been cast on shore, but much smaller. On entering it they were startled by a loud cackling noise, accompanied by the whirring of wings.
“Sounds marvellously like domestic fowls,” said Dominick, as he pushed forward. And such it turned out to be, for, on reaching an open glade in the thicket, they beheld a large flock of hens running on ahead of them, with a splendid cock bringing up the rear, which turned occasionally to cast an indignant look at the intruders.
“That accounts for your eggs, Otto,” observed Pauline.
“Yes, and here are more of them,” said the boy, pointing to a nest with half a dozen eggs in it, which he immediately proceeded to gather.
“It is quite evident to me,” remarked Dominick, as they continued to advance, “that both the pigs and fowls must have been landed from the wreck that lies on the shore, and that, after the death of the poor fellows who escaped the sea, they went wild. Probably they have multiplied, and we may find the land well stocked.”
“I hope so. Perhaps we may find some more traces of the shipwrecked crew,” suggested Pauline.
Their expectations were not disappointed, for, on returning in the evening from their tour of exploration, they came on a partially cleared place in the thicket beside the golden cave, which had evidently been used as a garden. In the midst of a mass of luxuriant undergrowth, which almost smothered them, vegetables of various kinds were found growing—among others the sweet potato.
Gathering some of these, Otto declared joyfully that he meant to have a royal feast that night, but a difficulty which none of them had thought of had to be faced and overcome before that feast could be enjoyed. It was just as they arrived at the golden cave that this difficulty presented itself to their minds.
“Dom,” said Otto, with a solemn look, “how are we to make a fire?”
“By kindling it, of course.”
“Yes, but, you stupid Premier, where are we to find a light?”
“To tell you the truth, my boy,” returned Dominick, “I never thought of that till this moment, and I can’t very well see my way out of the difficulty.”
Pauline, to whom the brothers now looked, shook her head. Never before, she said, had she occasion to trouble her brain about a light. When she wanted one in England, all she had to do was to call for one, or strike a match. What was to be done in their present circumstances she had not the smallest conception.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Otto, after several suggestions had been made and rejected, “this is how we’ll do it. We will gather a lot of dry grass and dead sticks and build them up into a pile with logs around it, then Pina will sit down and gaze steadily at the heart of the pile for some minutes with her great, brown, sparkling eyes she should be able to kindle a flame in the heart of almost anything in five minutes—or, say ten, at the outside, eh?”
“I should think,” retorted the Queen, “that your fiery spirit or flashing wit might accomplish the feat in a shorter time.”
“It seems to me,” remarked Dominick, who had been thinking too hard to pay much regard to these pleasantries, “that if we live long here we shall have to begin life over again—not our own lives, exactly, but the world’s life. We shall have to invent everything anew for ourselves; discover new methods of performing old familiar work, and, generally, exercise our ingenuity to the uttermost.”
“That may be quite true, you philosophic Premier,” returned Otto, “but it does not light our fire, or roast that old hen which you brought down with a stone so cleverly to-day. Come, now, let us exercise our ingenuity a little more to the purpose, if possible.”
“If we had only some tinder,” said Dominick, “we could find flint, I dare say, or some hard kind of stone from which fire could be struck with the back of a clasp-knife, but I have seen nothing like tinder to-day. I’ve heard that burnt rag makes capital tinder. If so, a bit of Pina’s dress might do, but we can’t burn it without fire.”
For a considerable time the trio sought to devise some means of procuring fire, but without success, and they were at last fain to content themselves with another cold supper of cocoa-nut and water, after which, being rather tired, they went to rest as on the previous night.
Chapter Four.
Difficulties met and overcome
The next day Pauline and her brothers visited the wreck, and here new difficulties met them, for although the vessel lay hard and fast on the rocks, there was a belt of water between it and the main shore, which was not only broad, but deep.
“I can easily swim it,” said Dominick, beginning to pull off his coat.
“Dom,” said Otto, solemnly, “sharks!”
“That’s true, my boy, I won’t risk it.”
He put his coat on again, and turned to look for some drift-wood with which to make a raft.
“There’s sure to be some lying about, you know,” he said, “for a wreck could hardly take place without something or other in the way of spars or wreckage being washed ashore.”
“But don’t you think,” suggested Otto, “that the men whose graves we have found may have used it all up?”
Otto was right. Not a scrap of timber or cordage of any kind was to be found after a most diligent search, and they were about to give it up in despair, when Pauline remembered the bay where they had been cast ashore, and which we have described as being filled with wreckage.
In truth, this bay and the reef with its group of islands lay right in the track of one of those great ocean currents which, as the reader probably knows, are caused by the constant circulation of all the waters of the sea between the equator and the poles. This grand and continuous flow is caused by difference of temperature and density in sea-water at different places. At the equator the water is warm, at the poles it is cold. This alone would suffice to cause circulation—somewhat as water circulates in a boiling pot—but other active agents are at work. The Arctic and Antarctic snows freshen the sea-water as well as cool it, while equatorial heat evaporates as well as warms it, and thus leaves a superabundance of salt and lime behind. The grand ocean current thus caused is broken up into smaller streams, and the courses of these are fixed by the conformation of land—just as a river’s flow is turned right or left, and sometimes backward in eddies, by the form of its banks and bottom. Trade winds, and the earth’s motion on its axis, still further modify the streams, both as to direction and force.
It was one of those currents, then, which flowed past the reef and sometimes cast vessels and wreckage on its shores.
Hastening to the bay, they accordingly found enough of broken spars and planks, to have made half a dozen rafts, twice the size of that required to go off with to the wreck; so to work they went at once with eager enthusiasm.
“Hold on!” shouted Dominick, after a few spars had been collected and dragged up on the sand.
Otto and Pauline paused in their labour, and looked anxiously at their brother, for his face wore a perplexed look.
“We have forgotten that it is impossible to shove a raft of any size, big or little, through these huge breakers, so as to get it round the point, to where the wreck lies.”
“Well, then,” cried Otto, with the ready assurance of ignorance, “we’ll just drag it overland to the wreck, and launch it there.”
“But, Otto, you have not taken into consideration the fact that our raft must be so large that, when finished, the dragging of it over rough ground would require three or four horses instead of three human beings.”
“Well, then,” returned the boy, “we’ll make it small, just big enough to carry one person, and then we’ll be able to drag it overland, and can go off to the wreck one at a time.”
“Now, just think, brainless one,” retorted Dominick; “suppose that I were to go off first to the wreck, what then?”
“Why, then I would go off next of course, and then Pina would follow, and so we’d all get on board one at a time, and explore it together.”
“Yes; but what would you come off on?”
“The raft, to be sure.”
“But the raft, I have supposed, is with me at the wreck. It won’t go back to the shore of its own accord to fetch you, and we have no ropes with which to haul it to and fro.”
“Then there’s nothing for it,” said Otto, after a few moments’ thought, “but to make it big enough for two, or carry over the broken spars and planks piecemeal, and put them together opposite the wreck; so, come along.”
This latter plan being adopted, they set to work with energy. To their joy they found not only that a good deal of cordage—somewhat worn, indeed, but still serviceable—was mingled with the wreckage, but that many large protruding bolts and rusty nails formed convenient holdfasts, which facilitated the building up and fastening together of the parts.
At last, after considerable labour, the raft was got ready early in the afternoon, and the brothers, embarking on it with two long poles, pushed off to the wreck while Pauline sat on the shore and watched them.
It was an anxious moment when they drew near enough to observe the vessel more distinctly, for it was just possible that they might find in her hold a supply of food and things they stood so much in need of, while, on the other hand, there was a strong probability that everything had been washed out of her long ago, or that her former crew had taken out all that was worth removing.
“What if we should find casks of biscuits and barrels of pork, to say nothing of tea and sugar, and such like?” murmured the sanguine Otto, as they poled slowly out.
“And what if we should find nothing at all?” said Dominick.
“O Dom!” exclaimed Otto, in a voice so despairing that his companion turned to look at him in surprise. “Look! see! the ship has been on fire! It can only be the mere skeleton that is left.”
Dominick turned quickly, and saw that his brother had reason for this remark. They had by that time approached so near to the wreck that the charred condition of part of her bulwarks, and specially of her lower spars, became obvious; and when, a few minutes later, they stood on the deck, the scene that presented itself was one of black desolation. Evidently the ill-fated vessel had been enveloped in flames, for everything on board was charred, and it was almost certain that her crew had run her on the rocks as the only method of escaping, her boats having been totally destroyed, as was apparent from the small portions of them that still hung from the davits.
“Nothing left!” said Otto. “I think that Robinson Crusoe himself would have given way to despair if his wreck had been anything like this. I wonder that even this much of it has been left above water after fire had got hold of it.”
“Perhaps the hull sank after the first crash on the rocks, and put out the fire,” suggested Dominick, “and then subsequent gales may have driven her higher up. Even now her stern lies pretty deep, and everything in her hold has been washed away.”
There could be no doubt as to the latter point, for the deck had been blown up, probably by gunpowder, near the main-hatch, leaving a great hole, through which the hold could be seen almost as far as the bulkhead of the forecastle.
Hastening forward to the hatchway of this part of the vessel, in the feeble hope that they might still find something that would be of use, they descended quickly, but the first glance round quenched such a hope, for the fire had done its work there effectually, and, besides, there were obvious indications that, what the fire had spared, her crew had carried away. The only things left of any value were the charred remnants of the hammocks and bedding which had belonged to the sailors.
“Hurrah!” shouted Otto, with a sudden burst of joy, as he leaped forward and dragged out a quantity of the bedding; “here’s what’ll make fire at last! You said, Dom, that burnt rag was capital tinder. Well, here we have burnt sheets enough to last us for years to come!”
“That’s true,” returned Dominick, laughing at his brother’s enthusiasm; “let’s go aft and see if we can stumble on something more.”
But the examination of the after part of the vessel yielded no fruit. As we have said, that part was sunk deeply, so that only the cabin skylight was above water, and, although they both gazed intently down through the water with which the cabin was filled, they could see nothing whatever. With a boat-hook which they found jammed in the port bulwarks, they poked and groped about for a considerable time, but hooked nothing, and were finally obliged to return empty-handed to the anxious Pauline.
Otto did not neglect, however, to carry off a pocketful of burnt-sheeting, by means of which, with flint and steel, they were enabled that night to eat their supper by the blaze of a cheering fire. The human heart when young, does not quickly or easily give way to despondency. Although the Rigondas had thus been cast on an island in the equatorial seas, and continued week after week to dwell there, living on wild fruits and eggs, and such animals and birds as they managed to snare, with no better shelter than a rocky cavern, and with little prospect of a speedy release, they did not by any means mourn over their lot.
“You see,” remarked Otto, one evening when his sister wondered, with a sigh, whether their mother had yet begun to feel very anxious about them, “you see, she could not have expected to hear much before this time, for the voyage to Eastern seas is always a long one, and it is well known that vessels often get blown far out of their courses by monsoons, and simoons, and baboons, and such like southern hurricanes, so motherkins won’t begin to grow anxious, I hope, for a long time yet, and it’s likely that before she becomes very uneasy about us, some ship or other will pass close enough to see our signals and take us off so—”
“By the way,” interrupted Dominick, “have you tried to climb our signal-tree, as you said you would do, to replace the flag that was blown away by last night’s gale?”
“Of course not. There’s no hurry, Dom,” answered Otto, who, if truth must be told, was not very anxious to escape too soon from his present romantic position, and thought that it would be time enough to attract the attention of any passing vessel when they grew tired of their solitude. “Besides,” he continued, with that tendency to self-defence which is so natural to fallen humanity, “I’m not a squirrel to run up the straight stem of a branchless tree, fifty feet high or more.”
“No, my boy, you’re not a squirrel, but, as I have often told you, you are a monkey—at least, monkey enough to accomplish your ends when you have a mind to.”
“Now, really you are too hard,” returned Otto, who was busily employed as he spoke in boring a hole through a cocoa-nut to get at the milk, “you know very well that the branch of the neighbouring tree by which we managed to reach the branches of the signal-tree has been blown away, so that the thing is impossible, for the stem is far too big to be climbed in the same way as I get up the cocoa-nut trees.”
“That has nothing to do with the question,” retorted Dominick, “you said you would try.”
Otto looked with an injured expression at his sister and asked what she thought of a man being required to attempt impossibilities.
“Not a man—a monkey,” interjected his brother.
“Whether man or monkey,” said Pauline, in her quiet but decided way, “if you promised to attempt the thing, you are bound to try.”
“Well, then, I will try, and here, I drink success to the trial.” Otto applied the cocoa-nut to his lips, and took a long pull. “Come along, now, the sooner I prove the impossibility the better.”
Rising at once, with an injured expression, the boy led the way towards a little eminence close at hand, on the top of which grew a few trees of various kinds, the tallest of these being the signal-tree, to which Dominick had fixed one of the half-burnt pieces of sheeting, brought from the wreck. The stem was perfectly straight and seemingly smooth, and as they stood at its foot gazing up to the fluttering little piece of rag that still adhered to it, the impossibility of the ascent became indeed very obvious.
“Now, sir, are you convinced?” said Otto.
“No, sir, I am not convinced,” returned Dominick.
“You said you would try.”
Without another word Otto grasped the stem of the tree with arms and legs, and did his best to ascend it. He had, in truth, so much of the monkey in him, and was so wiry and tough, that he succeeded in getting up full twelve or fourteen feet before being utterly exhausted. At that point, however, he stuck, but instead of slipping down as he had intended, and again requesting to know whether his brother was convinced, he uttered a sharp cry, and shouted—
“Oh! I say, Dom, what am I to do?”
“Why, slip down, of course.”
“But I can’t. The bark seems to be made of needle-joints, all sticking upwards. If I try to slip, my trousers vill remain behind, and—and—I can’t hold on much longer!”
“Let go then, and drop,” said Dominick, stepping close to the tree.
“Oh no, don’t!” cried Pauline, with a little shriek; “if you do you’ll—you’ll—”
“Bust! Yes, I know I shall,” shouted Otto, in despair.
“No fear,” cried Dominick, holding out his arms, “let go, I’ll cat—”
He was stopped abruptly by receiving a shock from his little brother which sent him sprawling on his back. He sprang up, however, with a gasp.
“Why, boy, I had no idea you were so heavy,” he exclaimed, laughing.
“Now, don’t you go boasting in future, you prime minister, that I can’t knock you down,” said Otto, as he gathered himself up. “But I say, you’re not hurt, are you?” he added, with a look of concern, while Pauline seized one of Dominick’s hands and echoed the question.
“Not in the least—only a little wind knocked out of me. Moreover, I’m not yet convinced that the ascent of that tree is an impossibility.”
“You’ll have to do it yourself, then,” said Otto; “and let me warn you beforehand that, though I’m very grateful to you, I won’t stand under to catch you.”
“Was it not you who said the other night at supper that whatever a fellow resolved to do he could accomplish, and added that, where there’s a will, there’s a way?”
“I rather think it was you, Dom, who gave expression to those boastful sentiments.”
“It may be so. At all events I hold them. Come, now, lend a hand and help me. The work will take some time, as we have no other implements than our gully-knives, but we’ll manage it somehow.”
“Can I not help you?” asked Pauline.
“Of course you can. Sit down on the bank here, and I’ll give you something to do presently.”
Dominick went, as he spoke, to a small tree, the bark of which was long, tough, and stringy. Cutting off a quantity of this, he took it to his sister, and showed her how to twist some of it into stout cordage. Leaving her busily at work on this, he went down to the nearest bamboo thicket and cut a stout cane. It took some time to cut, for the bamboo was hard and the knife small for such work. From the end of the cane he cut off a piece about a foot in length.
“Now, Otto, my boy, you split that into four pieces, and sharpen the end of each piece, while I cut off another foot of the bamboo.”
“But what are you going to do with these bits of stick?” asked Otto, as he went to work with a will.
“You shall see. No use in wasting time with explanations just now. I read of the plan in a book of travels. There’s nothing like a good book of travels to put one up to numerous dodges.”
“I’m not so sure o’ that,” objected the boy. “I have read Robinson Crusoe over and over, and over again, and I don’t recollect reading of his having made use of pegs to climb trees with.”
“Your memory may be at fault, perhaps. Besides, Robinson’s is not the only book of travels in the world,” returned Dominick, as he hacked away at the stout bamboo.
“No; but it is certainly the best,” returned Otto, with enthusiasm, “and I mean to imitate its hero.”
“Don’t do that, my boy,” said Dominick; “whatever you do, don’t imitate. Act well the part allotted to you, whatever it may be, according to the promptings of your own particular nature; but don’t imitate.”
“Humph! I won’t be guided by your wise notions, Mr Premier. All I know is, that I wish my clothes would wear out faster, so that I might dress myself in skins of some sort. I would have made an umbrella by this time, but it never seems to rain in this country.”
“Ha! Wait till the rainy season comes round, and you’ll have more than enough of it. Come, we’ve got enough of pegs to begin with. Go into the thicket now; cut some of the longest bamboos you can find, and bring them to me; six or eight will do—slender ones, about twice the thickness of my thumb at the ground.”
While Otto was engaged in obeying this order, his brother returned to the signal-tree.
“Well done, Pina,” he said; “you’ve made some capital cordage.”
“What are you going to do now, brother?”
“You shall see,” said Dominick, picking up a heavy stone to use as a hammer, with which he drove one of the hard, sharp pegs into the tree, at about three feet from the ground. We have said the peg was a foot long. As he fixed it in the tree about three inches deep, nine inches of it projected. On this he placed his foot and raised himself to test its strength. It bore his weight well. Above this first peg he fixed a second, three feet or so higher, and then a third about level with his face.
“Ah! I see,” exclaimed Otto, coming up at that moment with several long bamboos. “But, man, don’t you see that if one of these pegs should give way while you’re driving those above it, down you come by the run, and, if you should be high up at the time, death will be probable—lameness for life, certain.”
Dominick did not condescend to answer this remark, but, taking one of the bamboos, stood it up close to the tree, not touching, but a few inches from the trunk, and bound it firmly with the cord to the three pegs. Thus he had the first three rounds or rungs of an upright ladder, one side of which was the tree, the other the bamboo. Mounting the second of these rungs he drove in a fourth peg, and fastened the bamboo to it in the same way, and then, taking another step, he fixed a fifth peg. Thus, step by step, he mounted till he had reached between fifteen and twenty feet from the ground, where the upright bamboo becoming too slender, another was called for and handed up by Otto. This was lashed to the first bamboo, as well as to three of the highest pegs, and the operation was continued. When the thin part of the second long bamboo was reached, a third was added; and so the work progressed until the ladder was completed, and the lower branches of the tree were gained.
Long before that point, however, Otto begged to be allowed to continue and finish the work, which his brother agreed to, and, finally, the signal flag was renewed, by the greater part of an old hammock being lashed to the top of the tree.
But weeks and months passed away, and the flag continued to fly without attracting the attention of any one more important, or more powerful to deliver them, than the albatross and the wild sea-mew.
During this period the ingenuity and inventive powers of the party were taxed severely, for, being utterly destitute of tools of any kind, with the exception of the gully-knives before mentioned, they found it extremely difficult to fashion any sort of implement.
“If we had only an axe or a saw,” said Otto one morning, with a groan of despair, “what a difference it would make.”
“Isn’t there a proverb,” said Pauline, who at the time was busy making cordage while Otto was breaking sticks for the fire, “which says that we never know our mercies till we lose them?”
“Perhaps there is,” said Otto, “and if there isn’t, I don’t care. I don’t like proverbs, they always tell you in an owlishly wise sort o’ way what you know only too well, at a time when you’d rather not know it if possible. Now, if we only had an axe—ever so small—I would be able to fell trees and cut ’em up into big logs, instead of spending hours every day searching for dead branches and breaking them across my knee. It’s not a pleasant branch of our business, I can tell you.”
“But you have the variety of hunting,” said his sister, “and that, you know, is an agreeable as well as useful branch.”
“Humph! It’s not so agreeable as I used to think it would be, when one has to run after creatures that run faster than one’s-self, and one is obliged to use wooden spears, and slings, instead of guns. By the way, what a surprising, I may say awful, effect a well-slung stone has on the side of a little pig! I came upon a herd yesterday in the cane-brake, and, before they could get away, I slung a big stone at them, which caught the smallest of the squeakers fair in the side. The sudden squeal that followed the slap was so intense, that I thought the life had gone out of the creature in one agonising gush; but it hadn’t, so I slung another stone, which took it in the head and dropt it.”
“Poor thing! I wonder how you can be so cruel.”
“Cruel!” exclaimed Otto, “I don’t do it for pleasure, do I? Pigs and other things have got to be killed if we are to live.”
