Marjorie Read online

  CHAPTER XXIV

  FAIR ISLAND

  For the nonce I will make bold to leave Captain Marmaduke sailing theseas and to occupy myself solely with the fate of those who wereencamped on the island, and chiefly of Marjorie and Lancelot and therebymyself who had the good fortune to be with them to the end of theenterprise. And, oh, as I think of Marjorie in those days it is everwith fresh wonder and delight and infinite gratitude to Heaven for theprivilege to have seen her. She seemed just a boy with boys, she withLancelot and me, and she wore her boyish weed with a simplestraightforward ease that made it somehow seem the most right andnatural thing in the world. But that was ever her way; whatever she didseemed fit and good, and that not merely to my eyes who loved her, but,as I think, to most. And she was very helpful in mind and body, alwayseager to bear her share in any work that was toward, and in counciladvising wisely without assertion. It might seem at first blush ahandicap for adventurers to have a girl on their hands, but we did notfind it so, only always, save for the peril in which the maid was, again and blessing. And so to our fortunes. You must know that from thefurther coast of our island--the further from our wreck, I mean--wecould discern the outlines of other islands, the nearest of whichappeared to be within but a few hours' sail. It was plain, therefore,that we were, very fortunately for us, cast away in the neighbourhood ofa considerable archipelago, and that we had every reason on the whole torejoice at our condition instead of bewailing it.

  Now, though the island we were on was in many ways fair and commodious,we were not without confidence that another island, which lay a littlefurther off, as it might be a couple of hours' sail, would serve us evenin better stead, and at least we resolved to explore it. So Lancelot andMarjorie and I, with some thirty of our own men, resolved to cross overin the shallop boat which had conveyed the first party to the islandwhile the weather was still fair, taking with us a great plenty of armsand implements, canvas and abundance of provisions, as well as aquantity of lights and fireworks, which we had saved from the ship, andwhich Lancelot thought might be useful for many purposes. It was agreedbetween us and the colonists that if we found the new island better thanthe old we were to make great bonfires, the smoke of which could notfail to be seen from the first island, or Early Island, as we came tocall it. This they should take as a signal to come with all speed to thenew camping-ground.

  You must not think it strange that we set out upon this expeditionthoughtlessly and leaving the other folk unprotected. For, in the firstplace, there were a goodly number of the colonists--as many in number asthe sailors; and, in the second place, the sailors were not sowell-armed as many of the colonists were, having nothing but theirknives and a few axes. Furthermore, as Cornelys Jensen was not amongthem, and as it seemed most unlikely that the purpose, if purpose hehad, would hold with his fellows now that there was, as it were, no shipto seize, we felt that there could be no danger to our companions inleaving them while we went on our voyage of exploration. So you willplease to bear in mind how matters now stood. There was CaptainMarmaduke in the skiff, who had sailed away from us to seek succour forus all. There was on the island with which we had first madeacquaintance the majority of our colonists--men, women and children,together with the greater part of the sailors--under the authority ofHatchett. There were, further, Lancelot and Marjorie and myself and ourthirty men, who had gone off in the shallop to explore the adjacentislands in the hope of finding a better resting-place for our wholeparty. As for Cornelys Jensen, I took him to be at the bottom of thesea.

  We had arranged that during our absence the administration of the colonyshould be vested in a council, of whom the Reverend Mr. Ebrow was oneand Hatchett another, for, as the leading man among sailors, he couldnot be overlooked, and I mistrusted him no more now that Jensen wasgone. Certain of the soldierly men and two or three of the mostcool-headed amongst the colonists made up the total of this council,whose only task would be to apportion the fair share of labour to eachman in making the island as habitable a place as might be till ourreturn. For, after all, it was by no means certain that we should havebetter luck with the near island, and in any case it was well to beprepared for all emergencies.

  It was late on the second day of our arrival at the island that Lancelotand Marjorie and I with our companions set off on our expedition. Wefollowed the coast-line of our island a long while, keeping asufficiently wide berth for fear of the shoals. When we had halfcircumnavigated it there lay ahead of us the island for which we weremaking. It lay a good way off, and, as the day was very fine and still,it seemed nearer to us than it proved to be. As far as we could judge atthat distance, it seemed to be a very much larger island than the onewhich we had just left; and so indeed it proved to be.

  The shallop was a serviceable vessel, and ran bravely before the wind onthe calm sea. Had the wind been fully in our favour we should have madethe island for which we were steering within the hour; but it blewslightly across our course, compelling us to tack and change our courseoften, so that it was a good two hours before we were close to our goal.When we came close enough we saw that the island seemed in all respectsto be a more delectable spot than that island on which chance had firstcast us. There was a fine natural bay, with a strand of a fine, white,and sparkling sand such as recalled to me the aspect of many of thelittle bays and creeks in the coast beyond Sendennis, and in therecollection brought the tears into my mouth, not into my eyes. Fromthis strand we could see that the land ran up in a gentle elevationthat was very thickly wooded. Beyond this again rose in undulatingsuccession several high hills, that might almost be regarded as littlemountains, and these also seemed to be densely clothed with trees.Marjorie declared that the place looked in its soft greenness and theclean whiteness of its shore a kind of Earthly Paradise, and indeed ourhearts went out to it. I found afterwards, from conversation with mycompanions, that every man of us felt convinced on our first close sightof Fair Island, as we afterwards called it, that we should find thereabundance of water and all things that we needed which could reasonablybe hoped for.

  We came, after a little coasting, to a small and sheltered creek, intowhich it was quite easy to carry our vessel. The creek ran some littleway inland, with deep water for some distance, so here we beached theshallop and got off and looked about us.

  Although by this time the day was grown somewhat old, we were determinedto do at least a measure of exploring then and there, and ascertainsome, at least, of the resources of our new territory. There was, ofcourse, the possibility that we might meet with wild animals or withstill wilder savages, but we did not feel very much alarm about eitherpossibility. For we were a fairly large party; we were all well-armed,and well capable of using our weapons. Each of us carried pistols and ahanger, Marjorie with the rest, she being as skilful in their use as anylad of her age might be. For my own part I always wore in my coat pocketa little pistol Lancelot had given me, that looked like a toy, but was amarvel of mechanism and precision. Weaponed as we were, we had come,moreover, into that kind of confidence which comes to those who havejust passed unscathed through grave peril, a confidence which is, as itwere, a second wind of courage.

  It would not do, of course, to leave our boat unprotected, so it wasnecessary to tell off by lot a certain number of our men to stay with itand guard it. All the men were so eager for exploration that those uponwhom the lots fell to remain behind with the shallop made rather wryfaces; but Lancelot cheered them by telling them that theirs was aposition to the full as honourable as that of explorers, and that in anycase those who looked after the boat one day should be relieved and gowith the exploring party on the next day, turn and turn about.

  This satisfied them, and they settled down to their duty in content. Itwas agreed upon that in case of any danger or any attack, whether bysavages or by wild beasts--for in those parts of the world there mightwell be monstrous and warlike creatures--they were to make an alarm byblowing upon a horn which we had with us, and by firing a shot. It wasto be their task while we were away to
prepare a fire for our eveningmeal. We had our supply of provisions and of water with us, but those ofus who were to explore had very good hopes that we should bring back tothe skiff not merely the good news that we had found water, but alsosomething in the way of food for our supper. Lancelot, for one,expressed his confidence that there must be game of various kinds in sothickly a wooded place, and when Lancelot expressed an opinion I and theothers with me always listened to it like Gospel.

  Luckily for us, we soon found one and then another spring of freshwater. But it took us a matter of three days to explore that islandthoroughly, for it was very hilly, and in many parts the woods werewell-nigh impenetrable in spite of our axes. Most of the trees andshrubs had at this time either blossoms or berries on them, red, white,and yellow, that filled the air with sweet and pungent odours. It was alarge island, and on the other side of the ridge of hills which rose upso sharply from the place where we first landed the land stretchedalmost level for a considerable distance before it dropped again in lowcliffs to the sea. Part of this plain was grass-grown land, not unlikeEnglish down land, but in other parts the grass grew in great tufts asbig as a bush, intermixed with much heath, such as we have on ourcommons in England; part of it was thickly grown with all manner ofbright flowers and creeping plants, that knotted themselves together insuch an entanglement that it was very hard to cut a path. We had need togo carefully here, for suspicion of snakes. We found no sign of savagewild beasts, though of harmless ones there were plenty, some of whichmade very good meat. As for savages, we saw none; and as far as we couldmake out we were the only human beings upon the island. Yet Lancelot,who was wonderfully quick at noting things, thought that he detectedsigns here and there which went to show that we were not the first menwho had ever explored it. There were few land fowls--only eagles of thelarger sort, but five or six sorts of small birds. There were waterfowlin abundance of many varieties, with shellfish to our hands, and goodfish for the fishing, so between the sea and the land we were in no fearof want of victual, which cheered us very greatly.

  We had rigged up some rough tents with our canvas, one apart forMarjorie and one for me and Lancelot, and half a dozen for our men, andaltogether our condition had fair show of comfort, and to me indeedseemed full of felicity.

  Until we had thoroughly explored the island we did not deem it wise tomake our promised communication with the former island. But as soon aswe had pretty well seen all that there was to be seen, we thought that,the time still being fair, we could scarcely do better than get ourfellow-adventurers over. Our men were therefore set to work collectingas large a quantity of fuel as might be, and in clearing a path to thesummit of the nearest hill, from which we might set off our bonfire tothe best advantage.

  Our men were all dispersed about the island busy at this business, andMarjorie was in her tent, taking at her brother's entreaty the rest shewould never have allowed herself. It was a very hot day, and Lancelotand I, who had been collecting firewood on the near slope of the hill,but a few yards from the creek where our craft was beached, were lyingdown for a brief rest under a tree and talking together of old times.The sight of a small gaudy parrot, of which there was an abundance inthe island, had sent our memories back to that parlour of Mr. Davies'swhere we had first met, and where there were parrots on the wall, and sowe chatted very pleasantly.

  By-and-by our talk flagged a little, for we grew drowsy with the heat,and our eyes closed and we fell into dozes, from which we would lazilywake up to enjoy the warm air and the bright sunlight and the vividcolours of everything about us, sea and sky and trees and flowers andgrasses.

  I remember very well musing as I lay there upon the strangeness ofdisposition which leads men to pine out their lives in the mean air ofsmoky cities, with all their hardship and their unloveliness, when theworld has so many brave places only waiting for bold spirits to come anddwell therein. Boylike, I had forgotten all the perils which I hadundergone before ever I came to Fair Island. I was only conscious of thedelicious appearance of the place, of our good fortune in finding sofair a haven; and if only Captain Marmaduke and my mother had been withus I think I could have been very well content to pass the remainder ofmy days upon that island, which seemed to me to the full as enchanted asany I had read of in the Arabian tales.

  I had dropped into a kind of sleep, in which I dreamt that I was Sindbadthe Sailor, when I was awakened by a light step and the sound of a softvoice. I looked up and saw that Marjorie was bending over Lancelot, whowas sitting up by me. She held him by the arm and pointed out across thesea.

  'Don't you see something out there?' she asked, speaking quite low, asshe always did when excited by anything.

  Lancelot and I followed the direction of her gaze and her outstretchedfinger, and discerned very far away upon the sea a small black object.It lay between us and the island we had left, but somewhat to the rightof it.

  'What is it?' I asked.

  'That's just what I want to know,' said Marjorie. 'How if it should besavages?'

  The very thought was disquieting. We had grown so secure that we hadalmost forgotten the possibility of such dangers; but now, at Marjorie'swords, the possibilities came clearly back to me. Captain Marmaduke hadtold us many a time stories about savages and their war canoes andtheir barbarous weapons, and it was very likely indeed that what we sawwas a boat filled with such creatures creeping across the sea to attackus.

  It moved very slowly across the smooth waters, and there was a strongbright sun, which played upon the surface of the water very dazzlingly,which added to our difficulty in understanding the floating object. Butas it came slowly nearer we saw that it must be some kind of vessel, forwe distinguished what was clearly a mast with a sail, though, as therewas very little wind that morning, the sail hung idly by the mast. Alittle later we were able to be sure that what we saw was a kind ofraft, with, as I have said, a mast and sail, but that its propulsioncame from some human beings who were aboard it, and who were causing itsslow progress with oars. By this time I had got out a spy-glass from ourtent; and then Lancelot gave a cry of amazement, for he recognised inthe new-comers certain of those colonists our companions whom we hadleft behind on the hither island. There were five of them on board, allof whom Lancelot named to us, and as he named them, Marjorie and I,looking through the glass in turns, were able to recognise them too.By-and-by they saw us too, for one of them stood up on the raft, andstripping off his shirt waved it feebly in the air as a signal to us, asignal which we immediately answered by waving our kerchiefs. It takes along time to tell, but the thing itself took longer to happen, for itmust have been fully an hour after we first noted the raft before itcame close to the shore of our island.

  As soon as it was within a couple of boats' lengths Lancelot and I, inour impatience and our anxiety to aid, ran into the water, which wasshallow there, for the beach sloped gently, and was not waist high whenwe reached the voyagers, so that we had no fear of sharks. Thenew-comers were huddled together on as rudely fashioned a raft as it hadever been my lot to see, and had it not been for the astonishingtranquillity of the sea it is hard to believe that they could have madea hundred yards without coming to pieces. They all leaped into the waternow, and between us we ran the crazy raft on to the beach, Lancelot andI doing the most part of the work, for the poor wretches that had beenon board of her seemed to be sorely exhausted and scarcely able to speakas they splashed and staggered through the shallow water to the shore,where Marjorie was waiting anxiously for us.

  They did speak, however, when once they were safely on dry land and hadtaken each a sip from our water-bottles, for all their throats wereparched and swollen with thirst. It was a terrible tale which they hadto tell, and it made us shiver and grow sick while they told it. I willtell it again now, not, indeed, in their words, which were wild,rambling, and disconnected, but in my own words, making as plain a taleof it as I can, for indeed it needs no skill to exaggerate the horror ofit.