CHAPTER VI
"THE ATOLL"
During the night the south-east trades came upon them in a squall, and the whaleboat was soon bowling along merrily.
In a short while they found themselves in the midst of a choppy, foam-flecked sea, making good headway before the gradually strengthening breeze.
As daylight crept over the east, Jack, with a horrible sinking feeling of dismay, felt his returned eyesight gradually fail again.
As the deep indigo of the night gave way before the rosy beams of the morning sun and the moon lost its glitter, Jack saw a mist of grey slowly spreading before him; then, as the light of day increased, the grey merged into a black, which grew darker and darker, until the rover felt as if he was being pressed down by an awful pall of ink, pierced by tiny shafts, glinting flickers, and hovering waves of flashing, scintillating light, which splashed through the black curtain for all the world like the Northern Lights.
Great was the distress of his companions on hearing of this return of the evil.
Jack took his misfortune very quietly, and stretched himself in the bottom of the boat with a great show of fortitude and resignation.
"Keep a look-out for the island," he murmured, and then lay silent with closed eyelids, which he found afforded him some relief from the shafts of light which leaked in through the black shroud of his blindness and burnt his aching eyeballs.
A heavy feeling of depression weighed down upon the boat's crew, and Broncho's many attempts to break it only served to increase it.
Jim felt cowed and frightened; Tari, always of a singularly silent disposition, remained mute in the bows, and whilst Jack tried hard to respond to Broncho's sallies, his tortured brain refused to follow the thread of the discourse, and he found himself answering at random and listening without hearing.
About noon, Jim, who was on look-out duty forward, sang out excitedly that he saw something ahead, sticking out of the sea.
"Looks like a ship's mast," he cried, "but there don't seem no yards or sails on it, 'cept what looks like a flag flying at the truck."
Eagerly they all, except Jack, strained their eyes on the distant object.
"Appears to me like one o' them Sitka Indian totem-poles," called Broncho to the rover. "It's a cert it ain't got no fixin's."
"No hull in sight yet?" asked Jack, with the low, subdued voice which had come upon him with his blindness.
"Nary a thing. It shore looks some queer an' lonely out thar, a-stickin' out o' the scenery like a burnt pine."
Suddenly Jim began shouting with all the strength of his lungs.
"Land ho! Land! Land! Land! Hurray! The island at last!"
Sure enough the boy was right. Away a point to starboard of the mysterious mast a long clump of palms was appearing in view.
"Him Low Island" asserted Tari, after a short look.
"An atoll, certainly," said Jack from aft; "but we're rather far south for the Low Archipelago. It must be one of the Gambier group."
"Why, it's quite close," cried Jim. "I can see the surf now all along, and the mast is sticking right out of the middle of it."
"Inhabited, then!" exclaimed Jack uneasily. "Get those Winchesters loaded, Broncho. One can't trust Paumotu Islanders; they're a treacherous lot, and have cut off many a ship before now."
Swiftly the rushing whaleboat approached before the strong trades.
Here and there to right and left the white water, flashing in the sunshine, swirled and thundered on half-covered reefs, round which countless numbers of shrieking, swooping seabirds hovered and darted as they fished.
Round these reefs the deep blue of the Pacific changed to a translucent emerald green, such as is given to the submerged part of an iceberg when the bright sun is upon it.
The island was evidently but the smallest of coral reefs, studded with a thin growth of cocoanut palms, which seemed thickest at the point where Jim had first sighted them.
Like all atolls, its highest point was but a few feet above the sea-level, and it hung, but a floating speck of shining white sand and green foliage, in the midst of the immense space of blue sea and sky.
But for the screaming birds, no sign of life showed, no habitations, no smoke, nothing but the green brush, the gleaming sand, and shining, flashing surf.
And yet, set in the very midst, rose a gigantic palm, bare as a ship's spare topgallant mast, entirely denuded of its cluster of yellow fruit and waving, fernlike branches.
From its top fluttered a small, small flag, undistinguishable at the distance, but without possible doubt a signal of some importance, put there by human hands.
As the whaleboat drew nearer the hoarse grumble of the surf could be heard as it cast itself in long rollers upon the narrow, fragile strip of beach, with the whole weight of the Pacific behind it.
And now, as every feature of this fairy isle unrolled itself before their anxious eyes, keenly they surveyed it all, watching grimly for the dreaded human.
"Nary a sign o' man thar," muttered Broncho. "It shore looks lonesome a whole lot."
"The inhabitants of atolls always live on the lagoon," explained Jack. "They shun the sea strand and consider it the abode of evil spirits and devils."
"Can we land through that surf?" asked Jim uneasily, as he scanned the boiling white water ahead.
"Want a Pitcairn Islander to take us in if it looks as bad as it sounds," declared the rover.
"Me boat-steerer, go in allee-lightee," said Tari quietly.
"We'd better skirt round the island first, and see if we can't find an opening into the lagoon," advised Jack.
The boat's head was turned, and skimming along just outside the breakers, they commenced to circle the island.
All of a sudden as they came opposite the big palm, a man appeared through the brush and walked slowly on to the beach.
He stopped at the water's edge, and stood there watching them, his form standing clear-cut and lonely against the dazzling whiteness of the sand.
Jim drew his breath with a long hiss of apprehension, and Broncho fumbled his Winchester uncertainly as he gazed at the apparition.
Tari, at the steering-oar, gave a queer grunt of alarm, and with a rapid gesture, murmured in dialect to the rolling-stone, who, helpless in his blindness, lay silent and worried.
"Carryin' a war club!" exclaimed the cowpuncher significantly, in a low voice.
It was a moment of great suspense. Who knew what lurking savages lay hid behind the ambush of that brushwood, ready as the boat's keel grated on the shore to shower a flight of poisoned arrows upon the strangers?
What would be the next move of the decoy in the foreground? Was he about to entice them ashore with friendly gestures? What blood-thirsty design had he planned for their entrapping? They could not tell. They could only trust to Providence and await the issue.
Suddenly the solitary figure moved, flourished an arm, and hailed them.
"Boat ahoy!" came thundering down the wind.
The effect of the two English words was electrical.
Jim sprang wildly on to the thwart and cheered. The cowpuncher laid down his Winchester, and bent his eagle eye upon the man with renewed keenness.
"He's white, shore enough!" he exclaimed, and burst into a strange laugh of relief.
The Kanaka gave a short, expressionless grunt, whilst Jack clambered to his feet, and with one hand round the mast to balance himself, shouted out the question:
"Can we get into the lagoon?"
"No; better land here. Look out for the surf, though. Where you from?"
"Shipwrecked!" replied Jack.
Acting on the stranger's advice, Tari turned the boat's head shorewards. The sail was lowered and mast unstepped, whilst Jim and Broncho shipped two oars and prepared to pull or backwater, according as the Kanaka should direct.
Skilfully Tari ran her in, and then waited just outside the broken water for a good opportunity.
Picking out the last of three big waves, he signed to Jim and Broncho to give way, and off went the whaleboat, swooping forward on the crest of the roller.
Straight as an arrow Tari kept her head, and the boat danced along without shipping more than a cupful or two of water; then, judging his time to a nicety, the Kanaka backed her off as the breaker toppled and fell crashing; again, with wild cries of encouragement, he bade them pull, and the boat was hurled towards the beach in the midst of a raging mass of foam, which kept Jack busy baling as it boiled around and lipped in over the gunwale.
The beach shelved gradually, and the whaleboat was carried far up it before the undertow began to take hold.
At a word from Tari, all hands leaped overboard, and, helped by the big stranger, who had run into the surf to their aid, they ran the boat high and dry.
Weakened and cramped by their long spell of hardships and privations since leaving the Ocmulgee, this last effort used up every remaining ounce of strength, and utterly exhausted, the castaways threw themselves full length upon the sand and lay there.
Before them stood the stranger, tall and muscular. His burly figure and square, resolute face were those of that unmistakable type, the British bluejacket, and he hardly required the bell-bottomed navy trousers to identify him.
Virile strength, trained and disciplined to a fine perfection, showed in every line of his active form.
"You're on British soil, lads," he began, squatting down beside the worn-out boat's crew, and he jerked his thumb up at the small flag straining in the strong breeze from the top of the bare palm.
They now perceived it to be a very minute Union Jack, faded and somewhat ragged.
"This island is called H.M.S. Dido," he went on. "I named her after the gunboat I belong to. My name's Bill Benson, bosun's mate. I fell overboard about a month back. Got picked up by that black-'arted scoundrel 'Awksley, of the Black Adder."
At these words, Jack, who was listening indifferently, suddenly leant forward to attention with a strange new look on his tired face; noticing which the man exclaimed,
"Know him, governor?"
"I do," returned Jack slowly, with a deep note of sternness in his voice.
"Know no good, I'll be bound; but he's ashore here somewheres. His blighted crew o' yellow-skinned beachcombers got fed up with him, an' they just popped the three of us ashore 'ere—marooned us, as they say."
"Who was the third, do you say?" broke in Jack again, a strange excitement in his eyes.
"Why, that pretty little wife o' his to be sure, who's a mighty sight too good and 'andsome for the likes of 'im. We've been 'ere more'n a week now. That's my yarn, an' when you've had your siesta, I'll hear yours. Your landin' party was a kind o' surprise-packet to me, an' I just piped to clear decks for action when I see'd you fust; an' you can bet I just sweated pure joy when you hailed back in the old chin-chin."
"Wall," said Broncho slowly, sitting up and looking round, "you shore had us shorthorns some fretted an' scared likewise when you jumps out on the scenery so gay an' easy; but it's that 'ere flag o' yours which has us some distrustful an' on the scout for ambushes at the first turn of the kyards."
"Oh, that's my pocket 'andkercher. I shinned up that old palm, trimmed his spars offen him, an' nailed it wi' wooden pegs to the masthead, when I fust takes possession o' the island in the name of 'Er Majesty, so as there shouldn't be no international hankypanky diplomatin' round later," the navy man explained calmly.
"Where's this Hawksley gone to, do you say?" asked Jack, trying hard to hide the excitement in his voice.
"Why, I h'expec' he's divin' in the lagoon fishin' up oysters, a-lookin' for pearls; 'e puts in mos' of his time that way."
"And his wife?" queried Jack again, his voice shaking for all his efforts to control it.
"Moonin' round somewheres, poor thing. I reckon he's mighty near broke 'er heart. She don't seem to take no 'eed o' nothin', an' just navigates along plumb indifferent; dumb as a bloomin' Thames barge, with the look of a beaten dog in 'er big, mournful eyes."
A deep, half-smothered curse burst from Jack's pale lips, and springing suddenly to his feet, he wandered off unsteadily with bent head along the beach, feeling his way by the edge of the breakers.
The others watched him wonderingly. Jim got up, meaning to follow him; but Broncho motioned him down again, saying:
"Let him be, sonny!" Then, turning to the bluejacket, explained, "Our mate's blind, an' it kinder hits him on the raw at times."
But the anxiety in the cowboy's eyes robbed the easy tones of their indifference. The man received his explanation with a nod of the head.
"Sorter moody, eh? An' I don't wonder——"
"Seein' as you-alls wants to savvy why we comes a-pirootin' in disturbin' the ca'm salubrity o' your peaceful layout so abrupt an' precip'tite-like," broke in Broncho hurriedly, with a sudden change of conversation, "I'll just paw round in my mem'ry an' enlighten you some."
"Navigate ahead, governor, me ear-valves is open," said the bosun's mate politely.
"It's this way," drawled Broncho. "My bunkie there"—pointing to Jack's receding form—"me, an' the boy goes a-weavin' offen a ship into this here toomultuous sea without stoppin' to count the chips, we're in sech a hustle—some like the way you-alls vamooses the war-boat, I surmise. That 'ere event occurs away down south, crowdin' hard on two moons back. We-alls goes floatin' round in the swirlin' vortex o' them tempestuous waters, till things begin to look scaly; but finally we makes a landin' on what you-alls call a whaleship.
"It's there we meets up with Tari here, and another saddle-coloured gent who's locoed. This same saddle-coloured gent, which his name is Lobu, puts up sech a fervent play that we-alls has to corral him in a kind of calaboose forward; but it shore don't give him no bliss, an' he's that enraged an' indignant that he starts in to light a camp-fire down thar, allowin' as how he'll call the turn on us that-away, an' he mighty near rakes in the pot with that desp'rate play o' his. Though we-alls busts in an' tries to down the flames with wet sails an' liquid goods, it ain't no use; the deal goes agin us, an' we has to make tracks.
"We saves our skins by scoutin' off in this here boat, which same play has that paltry Lobu plumb disgusted to the core, an' he finally allows he'll shore pull his picket-pin for good an' quit this vale o' tears.
"A-promotin' o' which idees, he goes jumpin' off into the sea, an' though we-alls makes a sperited play to obstruct his little game, it's no use; we're too late, an' the last the outfit sees of him is his blood, whilst he goes p'intin' off under water a-wrastlin' with a shark.
"Right in the tracks o' this eepisode we-alls near bogs down likewise, bein' some scarce in liquid refreshments, not to say entirely lackin' in the same—our canteens havin' run out, an' things lookin' ugly an' desp'rate, when rain comes.
"But we ain't out o' the wood yet, for Derringer Jack yonder, who's all the time doin' range-boss an' playin' the leadin' hand with both sand an' savvy, goes buttin' his head agin fate, an' one maunin' emerges outer the racket plumb moon-blind.
"It's shore a low mean play the Fates puts up agin poor old Jack, but I ain't out to give you-alls no sarmon tharon, nor yet to bewail the abandoned an' ornery conduct o' Destiny.
"It's a paltry play it makes, for shore, a-debauchin' itself on Jack that-away, an' plumb mortifies the whole outfit to death; but to resoome this here narrative, it's yesti'd'y we-alls sees your island in a mirage an' capers off on its trail, with what result you-alls knows."
"I'm a flat-foot if you unfort'nit jossers ain't been jammed in a clinch proper," commented the naval Robinson Crusoe, as Broncho ceased.
There was a short pause, and then Jim broke in:
"Got any fresh water here?"
"I ain't see'd none; but there's milk, er course."
"Milk!" ejaculated Broncho in astonishment. "I don't see no cows around."
"No, there ain't no cows a-muckin' around; but the milk here grows up aloft, on them trees."
"Cocoanuts!" exclaimed the boy eagerly, with a watering mouth.
"That's what," replied Bill Benson heartily. "Like one, young 'un?"
"Aye, that I would."
At which the bosun's mate got good-humouredly to his feet and strolled off into the low brush. Presently he reappeared with his arms full of ripe, juicy fruit.
"Wot oh, Aunt Sally!" he cried cheerfully. "Two shies a penny! 'minds one er 'ome, don't it?"
In a few moments they were all quenching their thirst with the delicious milky juice.
"My! that's somethin' like a drink!" sighed Jim, drawing a long breath.
"It shore beats any bug-juice I ever pours down my throat," commented Broncho appreciatively.
"It 'as its good p'ints," observed Bill Benson. "You can lap it down till y'r back teeth are awash without acquirin' a cordite mouth, but it falls considerable flat on the palate after a week o' nothin' else. There ain't no bite to it. It's good enough for babbies, but I'm gettin' that sick of it I'd as soon suck bilgewater."