The Blue Lagoon: A Romance
have got the boats away properly victualled and all; as it is I don’t
know what we’ve got aboard. You, Jenkins, what have you got forward
there?”
“Two bags of bread and a breaker of water,” answered the steward.
“A breaker of water be sugared!” came another voice; “a breaker half
full, you mean.”
Then the steward’s voice: “So it is; there’s not more than a couple of
gallons in her.”
“My God!” said Le Farge. “_Damn_ that Irishman!”
“There’s not more than’ll give us two half pannikins apiece all round,”
said the steward.
“Maybe,” said Le Farge, “the quarter-boat’s better stocked; pull for
her.”
“She’s pulling for us,” said the stroke oar.
“Captain,” asked Lestrange, “are you sure there’s no sight of the
dinghy?”
“None,” replied Le Farge.
The unfortunate man’s head sank on his breast. He had little time to
brood over his troubles, however, for a tragedy was beginning to unfold
around him, the most shocking, perhaps, in the annals of the sea—a
tragedy to be hinted at rather than spoken of.
When the boats were within hailing distance, a man in the bow of the
long-boat rose up.
“Quarter-boat ahoy!”
“Ahoy!”
“How much water have you?”
“None!”
The word came floating over the placid moonlit water. At it the fellows
in the long-boat ceased rowing, and you could see the water-drops
dripping off their oars like diamonds in the moonlight.
“Quarter-boat ahoy!” shouted the fellow in the bow. “Lay on your oars.”
“Here, you scowbanker!” cried Le Farge, “who are you to be giving
directions—”
“Scowbanker yourself!” replied the fellow. “Bullies, put her about!”
The starboard oars backed water, and the boat came round.
By chance the worst lot of the _Northumberland’s_ crew were in the
long-boat—veritable “scowbankers,” scum; and how scum clings to life
you will never know, until you have been amongst it in an open boat at
sea. Le Farge had no more command over this lot than you have who are
reading this book.
“Heave to!” came from the quarter-boat, as she laboured behind.
“Lay on your oars, bullies!” cried the ruffian at the bow, who was
still standing up like an evil genius who had taken momentary command
over events. “Lay on your oars, bullies; they’d better have it now.”
The quarter-boat in her turn ceased rowing, and lay a cable’s length
away.
“How much water have you?” came the mate’s voice.
“Not enough to go round.”
Le Farge made to rise, and the stroke oar struck at him, catching him
in the wind and doubling him up in the bottom of the boat.
“Give us some, for God’s sake!” came the mate’s voice; “we’re parched
with rowing, and there’s a woman on board.”
The fellow in the bow of the long-boat, as if some one had suddenly
struck him, broke into a tornado of blasphemy.
“Give us some,” came the mate’s voice, “or, by God, we’ll lay you
aboard!”
Before the words were well spoken the men in the quarter-boat carried
the threat into action. The conflict was brief: the quarter-boat was
too crowded for fighting. The starboard men in the long-boat fought
with their oars, whilst the fellows to port steadied the boat.
The fight did not last long, and presently the quarter-boat sheered
off, half of the men in her cut about the head and bleeding—two of
them senseless.
* * * * * *
It was sundown on the following day. The long-boat lay adrift. The last
drop of water had been served out eight hours before.
The quarter-boat, like a horrible phantom, had been haunting and
pursuing her all day, begging for water when there was none. It was
like the prayers one might expect to hear in hell.
The men in the long-boat, gloomy and morose, weighed down with a sense
of crime, tortured by thirst, and tormented by the voices imploring for
water, lay on their oars when the other boat tried to approach.
Now and then, suddenly, and as if moved by a common impulse, they would
all shout out together: “We have none.” But the quarter-boat would not
believe. It was in vain to hold the breaker with the bung out to prove
its dryness, the half-delirious creatures had it fixed in their minds
that their comrades were withholding from them the water that was not.
Just as the sun touched the sea, Lestrange, rousing himself from a
torpor into which he had sunk, raised himself and looked over the
gunwale. He saw the quarter-boat drifting a cable’s length away, lit by
the full light of sunset, and the spectres in it, seeing him, held out
in mute appeal their blackened tongues.
* * * * * *
Of the night that followed it is almost impossible to speak. Thirst
was nothing to what the scowbankers suffered from the torture of the
whimpering appeal for water that came to them at intervals during the
night.
* * * * * *
When at last the _Arago_, a French whale ship, sighted them, the crew of
the long-boat were still alive, but three of them were raving madmen.
Of the crew of the quarter-boat was saved—not one.
PART II
CHAPTER XI
THE ISLAND
“Childer!” shouted Paddy. He was at the cross-trees in the full dawn,
whilst the children standing beneath on deck were craning their faces
up to him. “There’s an island forenint us.”
“Hurrah!” cried Dick. He was not quite sure what an island might be
like in the concrete, but it was something fresh, and Paddy’s voice was
jubilant.
“Land ho! it is,” said he, coming down to the deck. “Come for’ard to
the bows, and I’ll show it you.”
He stood on the timber in the bows and lifted Emmeline up in his arms;
and even at that humble elevation from the water she could see
something of an undecided colour—green for choice—on the horizon.
It was not directly ahead, but on the starboard bow—or, as she would
have expressed it, to the right. When Dick had looked and expressed his
disappointment at there being so little to see, Paddy began to make
preparations for leaving the ship.
It was only just now, with land in sight, that he recognised in some
fashion the horror of the position from which they were about to escape.
He fed the children hurriedly with some biscuits and tinned meat, and
then, with a biscuit in his hand, eating as he went, he trotted about
the decks, collecting things and stowing them in the dinghy. The bolt
of striped flannel, all the old clothes, a housewife full of needles
and thread, such as seamen sometimes carry, the half-sack of potatoes,
a saw which he found in the caboose, the precious coil of tobacco, and
a lot of other odds and ends he transhipped, sinking the little dinghy
several strakes in the process. Also, of course, he took the breaker of
water, and the remains of the biscuit and tinned stuff they had brought
on board. These being stowed, and the dinghy ready, he went forward
with the children to the bow, to see how the island was bearing.
It had loomed up nearer during the hour or so in which he had been
collecting and storing the things—nearer, and more to the right, which
meant that the brig was being borne by a fairly swift current, and that
she would pass it, leaving it two or three miles to starboard. It was
well they had command of the dinghy.
“The sea’s all round it,” said Emmeline, who was seated on Paddy’s
shoulder, holding on tight to him, and gazing upon the island, the
green of whose trees was now visible, an oasis of verdure in the
sparkling and seraphic blue.
“Are we going there, Paddy?” asked Dick, holding on to a stay, and
straining his eyes towards the land.
“Ay, are we,” said Mr Button. “Hot foot—five knots, if we’re makin’
wan; and it’s ashore we’ll be by noon, and maybe sooner.”
The breeze had freshened up, and was blowing dead from the island, as
though the island were making a weak attempt to blow them away from it.
Oh, what a fresh and perfumed breeze it was! All sorts of tropical
growing things had joined their scent in one bouquet.
“Smell it,” said Emmeline, expanding her small nostrils. “That’s what I
smelt last night, only it’s stronger now.”
The last reckoning taken on board the _Northumberland_ had proved the
ship to be south by east of the Marquesas; this was evidently one of
those small, lost islands that lie here and there south by east of the
Marquesas. Islands the most lonely and beautiful in the world.
As they gazed it grew before them, and shifted still more to the right.
It was hilly and green now, though the trees could not be clearly made
out; here, the green was lighter in colour, and there, darker. A rim of
pure white marble seemed to surround its base. It was foam breaking on
the barrier reef.
In another hour the feathery foliage of the cocoa-nut palms could be
made out, and the old sailor judged it time to take to the boat.
He lifted Emmeline, who was clasping her luggage, over the rail on to
the channel, and deposited her in the stern-sheets; then Dick.
In a moment the boat was adrift, the mast stepped, and the _Shenandoah_
left to pursue her mysterious voyage at the will of the currents of the
sea.
“You’re not going to the island, Paddy,” cried Dick, as the old man put
the boat on the port tack.
“You be aisy,” replied the other, “and don’t be larnin’ your
gran’mother. How the divil d’ye think I’d fetch the land sailin’ dead
in the wind’s eye?”
“Has the wind eyes?”
Mr Button did not answer the question. He was troubled in his mind.
What if the island were inhabited? He had spent several years in the
South Seas. He knew the people of the Marquesas and Samoa, and liked
them. But here he was out of his bearings.
However, all the troubling in the world was of no use. It was a case of
the island or the deep sea, and, putting the boat on the starboard
tack, he lit his pipe and leaned back with the tiller in the crook of
his arm. His keen eyes had made out from the deck of the brig an
opening in the reef, and he was making to run the dinghy abreast of the
opening, and then take to the sculls and row her through.
Now, as they drew nearer a sound came on the breeze, a sound faint and
sonorous and dreamy. It was the sound of the breakers on the reef. The
sea just here was heaving to a deeper swell, as if vexed in its sleep
at the resistance to it of the land.
Emmeline, sitting with her bundle in her lap, stared without speaking
at the sight before her. Even in the bright, glorious sunshine, and
despite the greenery that showed beyond, it was a desolate sight seen
from her place in the dinghy. A white, forlorn beach, over which the
breakers raced and tumbled, sea-gulls wheeling and screaming, and over
all the thunder of the surf.
Suddenly the break became visible, and a glimpse of smooth, blue water
beyond. Mr Button unshipped the tiller, unstepped the mast, and took to
the sculls.
As they drew nearer, the sea became more active, savage, and alive; the
thunder of the surf became louder, the breakers more fierce and
threatening, the opening broader.
One could see the water swirling round the coral piers, for the tide
was flooding into the lagoon; it had seized the little dinghy and was
bearing it along far swifter than the sculls could have driven it.
Sea-gulls screamed around them, the boat rocked and swayed. Dick
shouted with excitement, and Emmeline shut her eyes _tight_.
Then, as though a door had been swiftly and silently closed, the sound
of the surf became suddenly less. The boat floated on an even keel; she
opened her eyes and found herself in Wonderland.
CHAPTER XII
THE LAKE OF AZURE
On either side lay a great sweep of waving blue water. Calm, almost as
a lake, sapphire here, and here with the tints of the aqua marine. Water
so clear that fathoms away below you could see the branching coral, the
schools of passing fish, and the shadows of the fish upon the spaces of
sand.