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Jack at Sea, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 20. Floating Blacks |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY. FLOATING BLACKS "Is that Mr Bartlett firing one of the yacht's guns for a recall?" said Sir John. "No, sir; they could not make a noise like that." "It could not be thunder," said Jack. "Oh yes, it could," said the captain. "I've heard short sharp cracks like that often out here, but I don't think that was thunder." "Must have been," cried the doctor. "Why, I saw the flash. There! Look!" A bright light suddenly appeared from somewhere inland, followed at a few seconds' interval by a heavy detonation, exactly like the firing of a great gun. "Now what do you say, Captain Bradleigh?" cried Sir John. "That it is what I thought at first, sir. The mountain yonder is firing a shot or two. If we had been out at sea, I dare say we should have seen a great red-hot stone flying up and falling back." "Then there is going to be an eruption," cried Jack in excited tones. "That does not follow at all. Some of these volcanoes do no more perhaps than make a rumbling, and send up a few red-hot stones now and then. Forward now, gentlemen. Close up, my lads, and follow two and two." The mountain, if the captain was right, made no farther sign, and now began the most interesting part of the journey. With the exception of having to be careful not to stumble over the blocks of coral limestone which lay here and there in their road, it was easy walking in spite of the darkness, while this latter was modified by the brilliant stars overhead, the dazzling scintillations of the fireflies, which flittered out whenever any of the bushes which fringed the sands were approached-- and the soft, luminous, oil-like appearance at the edge of the lake. But the sand was soft, and it seemed to Jack as if they would never reach the boat. In the darkness Edward edged up close to his young master, and whispered-- "Tired, Mr Jack?" "Dreadfully." "Makes one's legs feel as if they were made of cast lead." "Or stones," said Jack. "Well, p'r'aps you're right, sir. Stone is more like it. Let me carry your gun, sir. Seems to get heavier every step, don't it?" "Yes; and the cartridges too. Thank you, Ned. I should be glad to get rid of them. No, you've got your own to carry, and--I say, how do you feel now? I mean, after your fall." "Oh, bit stiff, sir. There's nothing broken; but I don't go quite so well as usual. Shan't be sorry to get back to the yacht. Better give me your gun, sir." "Better give me yours to carry, Ned." "What, sir? Well, 'pon my word, Mr Jack, you do talk. I do wonder at you." Just then Jack started, for a hand was laid on his gun. "Who's that?" he cried. "Only me, sir--Lenny," said a dark figure behind him. "Let me carry your gun, and pouch too. I heerd what you said. Take hold of t'other's weapon, mate," continued the man to the sailor by him, and Jack and his man tramped the rest of the way relieved of their loads, heartily glad to hear at last a hail from somewhere away in the darkness. It came from the boat; and directly after a bright light flashed out over the calm lagoon, like a star just rising to shine across the sea, and the men gave a cheer. "Is that the _Silver Star_, Captain Bradleigh?" said Jack eagerly. "Yes, my lad. That's better than a figure-head, eh?" It was extremely beautiful just then, and looked very attractive and suggestive of rest and a good meal, beside being a guide to them along the lagoon, the men as they bent to their oars having the straight path of light to follow right up to the yacht's bows, and soon after the efforts of the cook and the cheery aspect of everything made Jack forget his weariness. "Well, gentlemen," said the captain after their late dinner, "I think that there ought to be another exploration to the east to-morrow." "Certainly," said Sir John; "I want to feel that we can go about in safety." "I suppose you'll be too tired to go, Jack?" said the doctor. "Too tired? Didn't I keep up well to-day?" said the lad quickly. "Capitally; but you look done up." "I shall be ready in the morning," said Jack shortly. "Don't attempt too much at first, Jack," said his father. "Oh no, I will not do that. But I can't be left behind." There was no need for any question about the matter, for the captain now joined in the conversation again. "I propose, Sir John," he said, "that we should have the first cutter and the gig to-morrow morning, and let the men row gently along the lagoon, close in shore. It will be a change; we can get along faster, and land as often as you wish. I could have the awning rigged up." "Yes, capital!" cried the doctor. "If you decide on that, Sir John, I should advise a start at daybreak, and a halt for breakfast when the sun begins to get hot. But, of course, we should have some coffee and biscuit before we start." The captain's plan was agreed upon, and in what seemed to be the middle of the night, Jack was awakened from a dream of watching a cup-headed mountain playing at throwing up and catching a huge red-hot ball, by a voice at his berth-side saying-- "Coffee's about ready, Mr Jack--t'other gents has begun to dress." For some moments Jack stared at him stupidly. "What time is it?" he stammered at last. "Some bells or another, sir--I dunno; but the men have got the boats out, and the things in for breakfast and lunch. They were at it before I woke." "I won't be long," said Jack, yawning, and wishing the expedition at the bottom of the sea, for he felt dreadfully sleepy, and as if he would have given anything for another hour or two's rest. It seemed absurd to be getting up in the dark when there was all the day before them, and altogether he was in that disposition of mind which people say is caused by getting out of bed the wrong way first. The doctor noticed it as the lad left his cabin to find a comfortable meal spread by the light of the cabin lamp, and the odour of coffee coming fragrantly from a steaming urn. "Here, look at him," cried the doctor. "Mind, or he'll bite." "Why, Jack, my boy," cried Sir John merrily; "don't look so fierce as that." "I didn't know I looked fierce," said the lad in an ill-used tone. "I can't help feeling tired and sleepy." "Of course he can't," said Doctor Instow. "He had a very hard day yesterday. Here, I'll set him right. You go back to bed, Jack, and lie there till we come back. You'll be as fresh as can be then." "What, let you go without me?" cried the boy, with a sudden display of animation. "Of course. It is too much for you." "Give me some coffee, Ned," said the boy irritably. "Is there no new bread?" "No, sir. Too soon. Dry toast, sir?" "Bother the dry toast! you know I don't like dry toast." "Yes, and it isn't well-made, Jack. You go to bed." The lad gave the doctor an angry glance, spread some marmalade upon the dry toast, and began to eat and sip from his coffee as fast as the heat thereof would allow. "Well, are you going to take my advice?" said the doctor, who was pretty busy over his own early breakfast. Jack made no reply, but went on sipping his coffee, and feeling much better. Sir John looked up, and raised his eyebrows a little. "Doctor Instow spoke to you, my boy," he said gently, and, to the speaker's surprise, his son said coolly-- "Yes, father, I heard him." "Then why do you not answer?" "Because he doesn't expect me, father. He knows what I should say." "Knows?" "Yes, father; he's only making fun of me. He only said that to make me speak out." "Then why do you not speak out? If you are so tired, it is excellent advice for you to go and take a good long rest." "And be fidgeting in that hot berth, thinking about the adventures you are having? It would do me harm instead of good. Bring, me some more toast, Edward." The doctor threw himself back in his revolving seat at the table, and clapped his hands on his knees. "Well done, Jack!" he cried. "Bravo, lad! You've got the stuff in you that good strong men are made of, after all. You're quite right. I did want to stir you up and make you speak. Stop in bed all day! Not you." The captain came in. "How are you getting on, gentlemen?" he said in his bluff way. "Nearly ready," said Sir John. "Then you will not go with us to-day?" "No, sir. Let Bartlett have a turn, and I'll take care of the yacht. One word though. I don't for a moment think you will come across savages, but if you do I should like you to take the lead. You don't want to fight, only to get back safely to the yacht, so make the best retreat you can." "Of course," said Sir John, and Jack looked from one to the other in an excited way, "I expect the doctor here would like a fight," said the captain with a grim smile. "I! Why?" cried Doctor Instow, with a surprised look. "So as to be getting a specimen or two to take home. I know what you naturalists are." "Oh, pooh! nonsense! absurd!" cried the doctor, taking a good deep draught of the coffee Sir John's man knew so well how to provide. "Doctors want to save life, not to destroy it--clever doctors do; and I'm not such a very bad one, am I, Jack?" "I can't talk properly with my mouth full," was the reply. "But this is not breakfast, my boy," said Sir John, smiling. "He's quite right, sir," said the captain. "Always make your hay while the sun shines, especially when you're travelling." There was no sign of any light when they went on deck, to find the men in the boats, and the mate waiting with Edward who had slipped up by his side. "Hullo!" cried the doctor. "You're not going, Ned?" "Yes, he is, doctor," said Jack quickly. "I want him." Sir John said nothing, but stepped down into the large boat. "I'll go in the other," said the doctor. "You'll come with us?" said the mate to Jack. "No; I'll go in the little boat," replied the lad; and he followed the doctor, Edward, whose face by the gleam of one of the lanterns was puckered up by a broad smile of satisfaction, entering the gig after him. "You'll be able to go a bit farther to-day, sir," said the captain at parting. "I'd halt at the best place you can find at mid-day, and have a good meal, rest for a couple of hours, and then make the best of your way back." Sir John nodded. "Save the men all you can, Bartlett. You have the sails." "Yes, sir," cried the mate. Then the oars dropped into the dark water and they rowed away, the lesser boat about a length behind. They seemed to Jack to have started too early, for it was very dark, and the lanterns they carried in the bows shed a strange light across the smooth water. There was the black forest on their left, and the ghostly-looking reef with its billows on their right, with the dull thunderous roar sounding strangely awe-inspiring, and the boy could not help feeling a sensation of nervousness as he thought of what the consequences would be if they rowed on in the dark to a part of the lagoon where the protecting coral bank came to an end. "You're very quiet," said the doctor suddenly, from his seat in the stern sheets. "What are you thinking about?" The boy told him. "Shouldn't have much chance then, my lad," said the doctor. "But no fear, we should have ample warning long before we came to such a spot. The water of the lagoon would not be like this. Perhaps, though, there is not another opening, for though the waves are always breaking on the outside, the little coral insects are always building on the in. But only think; we must be passing over the most wonderful specimens here, and we can't see a thing. How long is it going to be before the light comes?" "It's coming now," said Jack, pointing up to his left at a bright golden speck that seemed almost over their heads, and once more they witnessed all the glories of a tropic sunrise, the change from darkness to light being wonderfully quick, and soon after their eyes were aching with the beauties of coast and lagoon. "Oh, this is tiresome," cried the doctor; "fancy wasting our time hunting for danger when there are such chances for collecting. Look at those birds flying into that grove." "Yes, and this glorious garden under us. It's so clear that the bottom seems close enough to touch with the hand." "Look at those fish too. Did you ever see such colours in the sunshine?" cried the doctor. "There goes a snake," said Jack, "quite a big one; and what's that long shadowy-looking creature?" "Small shark," said the doctor. "Take notice. Water's tempting for bathing, but it won't do here. There's a shell! Why, Jack, that great oyster must weigh a couple of hundred-weight!" "What's that?" cried Jack. "Father's pointing to the shore. I see: a lizard. No, it's too big; it must be a crocodile." "Couldn't be in a bit of an island like this. It is, though. Ah, I see, there's a little river runs up into the land. Look, it's one of the valleys. I wonder the water's so clear. Comes over rocks, I suppose." "There he goes," cried Jack, for just then the great heavy saurian, which had crawled out at daybreak to have a nap in the warm sun, divined danger, shut its jaws with a loud snap, and rushed clumsily into the water, giving its tail a flourish as it disappeared in a heavy swirl. "I should have liked his head," said the doctor, "but he may keep it for the present. We'll remember this place and come and look him up another time." "Is it true that their horny skulls can't be penetrated by a bullet?" asked Jack. "I should be sorry to trust to it if a man was taking aim at me with a rifle, Jack. Oh no: I dare say if you shot at one and it hit the beast at a very sharp angle it might glance off, but a fair straight shot would go right through one of them. Look at that butterfly--or moth." "There's something drinking--two somethings--four or five. What are they?" "Legs and loins of pork, all alive oh!" said the doctor merrily. "Dear me! and we must not fire at them. What a pity! Look at that little fellow. He's just the size for the larder." "You mustn't speak so loud, doctor," cried Jack, laughing; "the pigs hear what you are plotting against them." "Seems like it. My word, how they can run!" "And swim," cried Jack. "I did not see that fellow in the water." For one had suddenly appeared from behind a rock about a dozen yards from the sandy shore. It was swimming as easily as a dog, in spite of what old proverbs say about pigs and the water, and it was evidently making eager efforts to reach the sands and rush after its companions, which had probably been making a breakfast off shell-fish, and were now disappearing among the trees. "Ah! look at that," cried the doctor. For suddenly the pig threw up its head, screaming dismally, and pawing at the air. "Stupid thing! it could have reached the sands in another half-minute." "It won't now," said the doctor, reaching back to pick up his double gun. "Let's row and try and save it from drowning," cried Jack eagerly. "It isn't drowning," said the doctor quietly. "Look! there it goes." Still squealing horribly, the unfortunate little animal suddenly seemed to make a dart backward several yards farther from the shore, but with its head getting lower, till the water rose above its ears, and as it still glided farther, less and less was visible, till only its wail-producing snout was above the surface. "Poor wretch! it must be in a terrible current," cried Jack. "Row, row, row." The men pulled hard, but the doctor shook his head and laid down his gun, for the pig's snout disappeared with a horrible last gurgling wail. "Yes, it's in a terrible current," said the doctor, "going down something's throat." "What!" cried Jack, upon whom the truth now flashed. "Yes, crocodile or shark has got him, my lad. Another warning not to try and bathe." "Yes, and to try and kill all the crocodiles and sharks we can." "Which comes natural to all men," said the doctor. "See that, Jack?" came from the other boat. "Yes, father. Horrible." A soft wind began to fan them as they rounded a well-wooded point, and the men stepped small masts and ran up a couple of lug-sails which carried the boats swiftly gliding along over the hardly rippled water. But the lovely garden below was now blurred and almost invisible, so the attention of all was taken up by the shore along which they coasted, and for hours now they went on past cocoa-nut groves, park-like flat, lovely ravines running upward, and down which tiny rills of water came cascading; past three huge black buttresses of lava, the ends that had cooled in the water of as many streams of fluent stone; and above all, grey, strange, dotted with masses of rock, seamed, scored, and wrinkled, rose from out of the dense forest, which rail up its flanks, the great truncated cone, above whose summit floated a faint grey cloud of smoke or steam--which they could not tell. But when mid-day arrived they had seen neither hut nor canoe, and in accordance with the captain's instructions they rowed into the mouth of a little river and landed in a lovely shady ravine, whose waters at a couple of hundred yards from the lagoon were completely shaded by the boughs of ancient trees. Their halting-place was a pool, at whose head the advance of such salt tide as ran up was checked by a huge wall of volcanic rock, down which trickled the bright clear waters of one stream, while another took a clear plunge only a few yards away right into the pool. "What a place for a lunch!" said Sir John, as the occupants of the two boats now met on shore, and Mr Bartlett placed one of the two keepers from each boat in good places for observation of sea and land, so as to guard against surprise. Edward was now in his element, and while men went with buckets to get water from the springs by climbing up the side of the huge lava wall, he spread a cloth for the gentlemen's lunch and emptied a flat basket. The sailors soon selected their spot a dozen yards away, and their preparations were very simple. "Hold hard a minute," cried Edward to the men as they returned with the buckets filled. "I want one of those. Let's see which is the coldest. Here, Mr Jack, sir, just you come and try this," he cried the next minute, and on the boy approaching eager enough, the man plunged a glass into the first bucket and dipped it full of the most brilliantly clear water possible, and handed it very seriously to his young master. "Oh, this won't do, Ned," cried the boy; "it isn't cold--why it's hot." "Hot it is, sir, but just you taste it. I did." Jack took a pretty good sip and ejected it directly. "Ugh!" he cried with a wry face. "It's horrible; hot, salt, bitter, filthy, like rotten eggs; and yet it's as clear as crystal." "Yes, sir, it's about the worst swindle I ever had." "Here, father--Doctor Instow," cried the boy; and they came up and tried the water in turn, and looked at each other. "Regular volcanic water," said the doctor. "Why that would be a fortune in England; people would take it and bathe in it, and believe it would cure them of every ill under the sun, from a broken leg up to bilious fever. There's no doubt where that comes from. Look how full it is of gas." He pointed to a stream of tiny bubbles rising from the bottom of the glass. "Sea-water ain't it, sir?" said Edward respectfully; "but how did it get up there?" "Sea-water? no, my man. Beautifully clear, but strongly charged with sulphur, magnesia, soda, and iron. Which spring did it come from?" "That one which shoots out into the pool, sir," said one of the men. "And is the other the same?" cried Jack. "No, sir; cold as ice and quite fresh." Jack and the doctor climbed up to see the sources of the two springs, finding the hot not many yards from the edge of the rocky wall, where it was bubbling up from a little basin fringed with soft pinky-white stone, while the bottom of the pellucid source, which was too hot for the hand to be plunged in, was ornamented with beautiful crystals of the purest sulphur. The source of the cold stream of fresh water they did not find, for it came dancing down the dark ravine, which was choked with tree-ferns, creepers, and interlacing boughs laden with the loveliest orchids, and their progress was completely stopped when they had advanced some hundred yards or so. "The beginning of the curious features of the place," said Sir John as they sat down to their pleasant meal, gazing through an arch of greenery at the sapphire lagoon and the silver foam of the billows on the creamy reef half-a-mile away. Never did lunch taste more delicious to the rapidly invigorating boy, never was water fresher, sweeter, and cooler than that of which he partook. Then a good long hour's rest was taken as they all lay about listening to the hum of insects, the whistle, twitter, and shrieking of birds; and beneath it all, as it seemed, came the softened bass from the reef. "What do you say to a start back, Mr Bartlett?" said Sir John at last, as he glanced at his son, who had just risen and gone knife in hand to dislodge a cluster of lovely waxen, creamy orchids from a tree overhanging the pool. "I think we ought to be going soon, sir," said the mate. "Here, Jack, my lad, what's the matter?" cried the doctor, springing up, as he saw the lad holding the flowers he had cut at arm's length. "Ah! stand still! Don't move whatever you do." "Help, help!" shouted Edward. "Snakes! snakes!" "Down flat, my lads, quick!" cried the mate; and as the men obeyed he pointed out across the lagoon to where a great matting sail came gliding into sight, looking misty and strange as seen through the veil of foam hanging iridescent about the reef, and twice over rising up sufficiently for the long low hull of a great sea-going canoe crowded with men to come into sight. _ |
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