Chapter 3. "Just Nowhere!"

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER THREE. "JUST NOWHERE!"

"One must eat and one must sleep," said Oliver Lane, "even if a fellow has been knocked on the head and nearly killed."

Every one was of the same opinion; but though there were a few attempts at jocularity, the mirth was forced, and all knew that they were trying to hide the deep feelings of thankfulness in their hearts for their safety, after passing through as terrible an ordeal as could fall to the lot of man.

There was another reason, too, for the solemnity which soon prevailed; the captain lay dead in the cabin--the man who not many hours before was in full possession of health, and now sleeping calmly there, beyond sharing the hopes and fears of those whom he had left behind. Consequently, men went to and fro as if afraid of their steps being heard, and for the most part conversed in whispers for some time, till the question arose about keeping watch.

"There's only one thing to keep a watch for to-night," said the mate to Oliver,--"savages."

"If there are savages here, would they not have been drowned, Mr Rimmer?"

"Perhaps--or burned to death. Then there's nothing to watch for."

"Not for the wave that may come and carry us back to sea?"

"No; that would be too long a watch, sir. Such an eruption as we have encountered only comes once in a man's lifetime. I'm in command now, and I shall let every poor fellow have ten or a dozen hours' good sleep, and I am so utterly done up that I shall take the same amount myself."

The consequence was that all through that natural darkness of night dead silence reigned.

But not for ten or a dozen hours. Before eight of them were passed, Oliver Lane was awake and on deck, eager and excited with all a naturalist's love of the wild world, to see what their novel surroundings would be like.

The sun was shining brilliantly; low down in the east the sky was golden, and as he raised his head above the hatchway, it was to gaze over the bulwarks at a glorious vista of green waving trees, on many of which were masses of scarlet and yellow blossom; birds were flying in flocks, screaming and shrieking; while from the trees came melodious pipings, and the trills of finches, mingled with deep-toned, organ-like notes, and the listener felt his heart swell with thankfulness, and a mist came before his eyes, as he felt how gloriously beautiful the world seemed, after the black darkness and horrors through which he had passed.

Then everything was matter-of-fact and ordinary again, for a voice said,--"Hullo! you up? Thought I was first."

"You, Drew? I say, look here." Sylvester Drew, botanist of the little expedition, shaded his eyes from the horizontal sunbeams, and looked round over the hatchway as he stood beside his companion, and kept on uttering disconnected words,--"Beautiful--grand--Paradise--thank God!" By one impulse they stepped on deck and went to the bulwarks, to stand there and look around, astounded at the change.

From where they had obtained their first glimpse of their surroundings they only saw the higher ground; now they were looking upon the level--a scene of devastation.

For they were both gazing upon the track of the earthquake wave, and all around them trees were lying torn-up by the roots, battered and stripped of their leafage, some piled in inextricable confusion, others half buried in mud. Some again had soft white coral sand heaped over them. Here, the surface had been swept bare to the dark rock which formed the base of the island or continent upon which they had been cast; there, mud lay in slimy waves, some of which were being disturbed at the surface by something living writhing its way through the liquid soil.

"Might have given a fellow a call," said a voice, and Panton came up to them. "You fellows are as bad as schoolboys; must have first turn."

"Never thought of calling you," said Drew.

"Not surprised at you," said Panton to Oliver Lane, "you are only a schoolboy yet; but you might have called me, Drew."

"Don't take any notice, Oliver, lad," said Drew. "Panton always goes badly till he has been oiled by his breakfast."

"My word!" cried Panton, as he grasped the scene around them. "Look here, Drew! Look at the earth bared to its very bones. Volcanic. Look at the tufa. That's basalt there, and look where the great blocks of coral are lying. Why, they must have been swept in by the wave."

"Don't bother," said Drew. "I want to make out what those trees are in blossom. They must be--"

"Oh, bother your trees and flowers! Here, Oliver, lad, look at the great pieces of scoria and pumice. Why, that piece is smoking still. These must be some of the fragments we saw falling yesterday."

"Can't look," said Oliver, "I want to know what those birds are, and there's a great fish in that muddy pool yonder, and, if I'm not greatly mistaken, that's a snake. Here, quick! Look amongst those trees. There's a man--no, a boy--no. I see now; it's alive, and--yes--it's some kind of ape."

"Well, we can't go on fighting against each other, with every man for his own particular subject," said Drew, "we must take our turns. We've been cast on a perfect naturalist's paradise, with the world turned upside down, as if for our special advantage."

"Yes," said Panton; "we could not possibly have hit upon a place more full of tempting objects."

"But what about our exploration in New Guinea?" said Oliver.

"This may be the western end of that island," said Panton. "But where's the volcano that has caused all this mischief?"

"Yonder," said Oliver, pointing, "behind the cloud."

The others looked at a dense curtain of mist which rose from the earth, apparently to the skies, and hid everything in that quarter, the desolation extending apparently for a couple of miles in the direction of the curtain, beyond that the ground rose in a glorious slope of uninjured verdure, and then came the great cloud of mist or smoke shutting off the mountain, or whatever was beyond.

"But where is the sea?" said Oliver.

"All run down through a big hole into the earth, I say," said a deep voice. "Well, gentlemen, how are you?"

"Ah, Mr Rimmer, good morning," cried Oliver, shaking hands. "How are your hurts?"

"Oh, better my lad, and yours?"

"Only a bit stiff and achy. But who's to think of injuries in such a glorious place?"

"Glorious!" said the mate, screwing up his face. "Look about you. Everything's destroyed."

"Oh, yes," said Drew; "but in a month it will be all green again and as beautiful as ever!"

"Except my poor brig," said the mate. "Why, she's regularly planted here in the mud and sand, and, unless she strikes root and grows young vessels, she's done for."

"But where is the sea?" cried Oliver.

The mate looked round him and then pointed south-west.

"Yonder, if there is any," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Trees all standing in the other direction, and yes, there are others out that way," he said, pointing. "It's plain enough, the wave swept right across this low level. You can see how the trunks lie and how the rocks and the shells have been borne along. Far as I can make out the wave has cleared a track about a dozen miles wide. May be twenty. Why, you gentlemen seemed to be quite pleased."

"Why not?" cried Oliver. "It's grand. Look at the work cut out for us. We want all the British Museum staff to help."

"Better have my crew, then, for there's nothing for us to do. The brig's fast settled down on an even keel. I say, Mr Panton, kick me or pinch me, please."

"What for?"

"Because I must be asleep and all this a dream. No, it's real enough," he said, sadly; "wait till I get a glass."

He went back to the cabin and returned directly with a telescope.

"I'll go up to the main-top," he said, "and have a look round."

The three naturalists were too much taken up by the endless objects of interest spread around them to pay much heed to his words, so that he had mounted to the main-top and then to the topgallant masthead before his words took their attention again, just too, as plainly enough they could make a huge animal of the crocodile kind slowly crawling along the edge of a pool about a quarter of a mile away.

"Here you are, gentlemen," the mate shouted.

"Yes, what is it?" cried Oliver, in answer to his hail.

"You can trace it all from here with the glass. There is some sea left."

"So I suppose," said Panton drily.

"Lies about four miles away to the east-'ard, and the land's swept right up to us, and then away north-west for a dozen miles, I should say, to the sea on that side."

"Can you make out the mountain?"

"No; there's nothing but cloud to the norrard. I expect it's there, and not very far away."

"And how far-off is the nearest sea?" asked Oliver.

"'Bout four miles."

"And what do you make this out to be--an island?"

"Can't say, sir. Island or peninsula. Can't be mainland. But I shall be able to settle that before long."

He reached the deck just as the men were coming up from the forecastle, and they were soon at work swabbing the planks, squaring yards, shaking out the sails to dry, and getting the vessel in order just as if she were at sea, while the cook and steward attended to their work as coolly as if nothing had happened.

At mid-day the mate had taken his observations and marked down their position on the chart just where the map showed a broad blank in the Arafura Sea.

"But are you right?" said Oliver, as he followed the mate's pointing finger.

"As right as my knowledge of navigation will let me be, sir," said the mate quietly. "That's where we are."

"But where is that?"

"Just nowhere, sir."

"But--"

"We're very cunning, sir, and think we know the whole world and everything there is; but now and then we find out that we are not so clever as we thought, and that there is just a little more to learn. I said that we were nowhere just now, which isn't quite correct, because we are here; but it strikes me that we're in a spot where no civilised vessel ever was before."

"What, right on shore?" said Oliver, smiling.

"No, sir, I didn't mean that. I meant no vessel ever touched here before, or it would have been marked down in the chart. Savages have been, perhaps. Maybe they're here still, but they have been frightened into their holes by the eruption."

Oliver looked out of the open cabin window as if expecting to see a party of the people coming, but he only made out something living in one of the pools left by the flood wave.

"I'm very sorry, gentlemen, the captain and I undertook to cruise with you along the New Guinea coast; but man proposes and--you know the rest. Here we shall have to stay till some vessel comes in sight to take us off, and to that end I propose that to-morrow morning we begin to make expeditions to the coast, and set up a spar here and there with a bit of bunting showing for a signal of distress."

"No, don't--that is--not yet," said Oliver, excitedly. "No place that you could have found would have equalled this."

"If we have no more eruptions," said Drew.

"And earthquake waves," added Panton.

"I think we have been most fortunate," cried Oliver.

"Oh, well, if you're satisfied, gentlemen," said the mate, "I'm sure I am. You mean to begin looking for your bits of stone and butterflies then, here?"

"Of course," cried Oliver; "and we can live on board just as if we were at sea."

"Oh, yes," said the mate drily; "and you'll always be able to find the brig. She won't stir just yet, and there's no need to lower down an anchor. Very well, then, gentlemen, so be it; and now, if you please, we'll go down and make our way across yonder where those trees are standing, and do our duty by our poor dead friend."

Silence fell upon the group at this, and an hour later the whole of the crew were standing upon an eminence about a couple of miles from the ship, where the earthquake wave had passed on, leaving the beautiful trees and undergrowth uninjured, and save at the edge they had escaped the storm.

Here in the wonderful solitude, where the sun's rays fell in silver rain upon the newly turned black earth, the dead captain was laid to take his long last sleep; and sad, but still lightened in heart, the party returned to the _Planet_ to talk over their plans for the morrow, when the first exploration of the unknown land was to commence.

Still weary from the shock and exertions of the past days, bed was sought in pretty good time, and Oliver Lane lay in his berth close to the open cabin window for some time in a half dreamy fashion, inhaling the soft warm air, and fancying now and then that a puff of hot sulphurous steam was wafted in through the window. Then he listened to a dull low singing and murmuring noise, quite plain now in the distance as if steam was rising from the ground. Anon came a loud splashing and wallowing as of some large beast making its way through water, and this was followed by a series of heavy blows apparently struck on the land or liquid sand. Gasping sighs, the smacking of lips, and then again hisses and noises, which made the listener ask himself whether there could be dangerous beasts about, and whether it was wise for the mate to have a couple of stout planks laid from the gangway down to the sand in which the brig was bedded.

But somehow these things ceased to trouble him. The noises were undoubtedly caused by fishes or crocodiles, which would not come on board, and he dropped off to sleep, and then awoke, as if directly, to lie staring at the dim cabin lamp against the roof, and wonder what was the meaning of the heavy feeling of oppression from which he suffered.

"Was it a nightmare?" he asked himself. Certainly there was something upon his chest, and it was moving. He could feel it plainly stirring all over him, and he was about to give himself a violent wrench when something passed between his eyes and the cabin lantern--something so horrible that it froze all his faculties into a state of inaction. For he saw distinctly the glistening of burnished scales, and a serpent's head at the end of an undulating neck, and directly after a forked flickering tongue touched and played about his face. _

Read next: Chapter 4. Snakes

Read previous: Chapter 2. A Bit Of Blue

Table of content of Fire Island


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book