Palm Tree Island

by Herbert Strang

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

OF OUR VOYAGE TO A NEIGHBOURING ISLAND, AND OF OUR INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION BY THE SAVAGES

We did not take another voyage for some days, for my dreams were haunted by visions of the monster, and I felt a shuddering reluctance even to look at the canoe, upon which I seemed to see tentacles writhing. And when we did again embark, it was only to paddle out to the fishing-ground I have mentioned, though by and by, when the recollection of the monster had become somewhat dimmed, we cruised about the coast sometimes for the mere pleasure and exercise of it, and to make ourselves more expert in the management of our vessel. After a time the notion came to us of rigging up a mast and sail, and trying what we could do in real navigation. We had some difficulty in stepping the mast, which was a straight pine sapling; but the way we at length hit upon was as follows: we fastened two straight logs athwart the canoe, setting them parallel, and just so far apart as gave room for the mast. Having set up the mast between them, we lashed two more logs, but shorter, crosswise upon the first two, close up against the mast, which was then, as you perceive, gripped pretty firmly by the four logs. The sail gave us little trouble, for we had become expert by this time in weaving, and we wove a sort of huge mat with long grasses, which we found to serve excellently well. Spars and cordage were also easily made, though they took a prodigious time, and we one day hoisted our sail to see how our contrivances would act.

Rigging

We were much disappointed when we found that as soon as the sail caught the wind our vessel heeled over, so that we had to lower the sail immediately, or we should have been capsized. After some thought we hit upon a remedy, which was to make some alterations in the weight of the outrigger, and also in the length of the outrigger beam; and when we had spent a deal of time in making experiments, and running some risks of losing the vessel, we managed so that she ran perfectly steady with an ordinary breeze. And then we discovered that, our stability being assured, we could sail marvellously close to the wind and at a very fair speed, much faster, indeed, than we could paddle, and it then became our delight to make little trips round the coast and some distance out to sea, always very carefully looking out first from our watch-tower to be sure that no savages were in sight.

The Red Rock

On one of these expeditions we sailed round to the north side of the island, and it came into our heads to see whether it was possible to make an ascent of the big red rock, the sides of which, so far as we had been able to examine them from the cliffs and the hills, appeared to be unscalable. We took care not to let our vessel drift into the current that ran between the rock and the island, and running round to the north side of it, we found that it was not near so precipitous here as on the other sides—indeed, there was a very convenient landing-place at the foot, and a little cove where the vessel might safely lie, tied by the painter to a crag, while we satisfied our curiosity by making the ascent. You may be sure that we tied the vessel up very securely before leaving her, for if she had drifted loose I do not know what we should have done, for we could scarcely have swum to the island, the current being so strong, and I suppose we should simply have stayed on the rock until we were dead.

There was no pathway up the rock, on which we were perhaps the first human beings that had ever set foot, and we found the ascent a great deal more difficult than it had appeared from below. We had to clamber up from point to point with the aid sometimes of stunted bushes—very sturdy they were, too—that grew out of fissures; and choosing the easiest way, we made a very zigzag course, sometimes losing sight of the sea altogether. Here and there we disturbed sea-birds which had made their nests in the face of the cliff, but there were not near so many of these as we might have expected. After climbing thus for about three hundred feet, as I calculated, we came to a sort of broad terrace that ran in a fairly easy slope round the northern and eastern faces of the rock, and pretty well covered with shrubs and moss. From this we made our way, rather laboriously, to the southern side, and came by and by to the ledge, or platform, which jutted out from the rock to the island, and which I mentioned a while ago. Billy, you remember, had spoke of leaping the gap, which would have been an impossible feat, for not only was the distance too great, it being, I should think, at least twenty feet, but, moreover, the ledge on the rock was somewhat higher than the promontory of the island. Looking down upon this latter as we now did, the gap seemed even less than it had appeared from the other side, and I had really to be very stern with Billy when he declared again that he knew he could jump it.

From this ledge or platform we found the ascent to the summit of the rock pretty easy, and when we got there, we saw that it was flat in general, but a great deal cut up by fissures and jagged bosses, so that it was not near so smooth as it appeared when we overlooked it from the side of the mountain. Some of the fissures were of considerable depth, and when I flung a small fragment of rock into one of them, to test it, there came a faint splash from below, by which we knew that it contained water; and yet the splash was not so faint as to come from the sea, so that we concluded the water at the bottom of the fissure was fresh, and had collected there from the drainage of the sort of tableland on which we stood. There were thin shrubs and lichen growing on the rock, but we saw nothing to interest us, and so, having got but a poor reward for our labour in climbing, we descended again, and found the descent little less laborious than the ascent; indeed, I thought it more difficult, for the looking down made me a little dizzy. We were both pretty tired by the time we reached the canoe, which was just as we left it; and I should not have thought it worth while to say anything about this fruitless expedition but for some surprising events that happened later.

Preparing for a Voyage

It was some little while after this, I think, that I suffered a spell of home-sickness, and was more miserable and down-hearted than I had ever been since we came to the island. I have no doubt it was because we had more time on our hands than heretofore, for with the making of our canoe it seemed that there was little else left for us in the way of handiwork, and the tending of our animals and plantations was by no means enough to fill all our days. The servant of the ingenious gentleman in the tale—Sancho Panza is his name, I think—in his simplicity invoked blessings on him that invented sleep; and I would match him by a similar invocation on the inventor of work, for I am very sure that while we work we have no leisure to be discontented, and when our work is done there is blessed sleep to refresh us. I did not forget the saying that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and Billy and I, as I have said, did some little in the way of play, with skittles, and shooting at the running man, and in sailing our canoe, which was a very fine sport, I assure you; and we spent some time in trying to teach our dogs, which were growing apace, to perform tricks, with but little success. However, I mention my home-sickness because it was when I was in that black fit that Billy spoke again of sailing to England.

"Why not make a bigger canoe, master, and put a great store of food and water aboard, and sail away?" he said. "When our water was done, we could touch at some of them islands we passed and get more, and maybe after a bit we might fall in with a proper ship and get a passage home."

I pointed out in answer to this that we should not find it an easy matter to launch a vessel large enough to carry provisions for a lengthy voyage. "If we had a chart and compass," I said, "and other things useful in navigation, about which neither you nor I know much, we might perhaps set off and go from island to island on our stock of food, until we came maybe to one of the possessions which the Dutch have, I believe, in the Indian Archipelago, or maybe to some place in Spanish America where we might find a friendly ship. But suppose our food gave out and we could not make land," I said, "what could we do without a chart or any means of taking observations? If luck went against us, we might sail for weeks, and indeed months, without ever seeing land at all. And besides," I went on, "suppose nothing of this sort happened to us, but we chanced upon an island where the native people were hostile——"

"We would fight 'em," says Billy, interrupting me; "that's what we made them bows and arrows for, and we can shoot straight now, and we could make a few thousand arrows so that it wouldn't matter if we lost some."

I could not help smiling at Billy's simplicity, admiring at the same time his stoutness of heart; but I showed him that with all our expertness we could not hope, being two, to contend with great hosts of savages, who would very soon overwhelm us. However, Billy was not at all convinced that his idea of a voyage to England was impracticable, and he talked so much about it that I was in course of time prevailed on to consider it, at least so far as to consent to make a little experiment. In short, we resolved upon making a voyage of several days from the island. We had to consider of the well-being of our live stock during our intended absence, and that gave us some trouble, for though we might take our two dogs with us, we could certainly not transport our pigs or our poultry, nor did we wish to do so. On the other hand, if we left them in their usual habitations, and we were away longer than we expected, they would certainly starve, while if we let them loose the fowls would as certainly be devoured by the wild dogs, and the pigs the same, or else return to their wildness, but most likely the former, for animals that have become domestic are no match in fighting for wild animals of their kind. We might have left a large quantity of food, that's true; but knowing the nature of beasts we knew that they would devour it gluttonously without any forethought, and maybe kill themselves with over-eating, and at any rate there would be none of it left after the first day. It was a good while before we hit upon any way out of this difficulty, and then it was Billy who thought of a way, and very ingenious it was, in my estimation. As he very truly said, we needed some contrivance that would enable the pigs to get their food, but not too fast, and his device for this was to make a long trough with holes in the bottom of it, and to raise this above the ground just so high that the pigs by lifting up their snouts could nibble through the holes at what the trough contained. I say I thought it an ingenious notion, and we considered how such a trough could be made, for we could not make one of planks, and it would be a tedious business to burn out the inside of a tree as we had done with our vessel. But it came into my head that we could make one by moulding clay on such a tree, which we did, and having broken a number of holes in the clay when it was moist, we burnt it hard, and thus the trough was finished, in much less time than the hollowing of a tree would have taken. We put some yams into it, and made a trial of this new contrivance, and we found it answered our expectations almost too well, for owing to the height of the trough when we had propped it up, the smallness of the holes, and the unwonted postures to which the pigs were enforced, they could only eat very slowly, which must have been a great trouble to animals accustomed to rapid gobbling of their meals. We saw that we should have to make a special trough for the smaller pigs, or else give them one end of the trough to themselves, for otherwise the larger animals would never have let them eat at all; and in the end we put up a fence between the smaller and the larger pigs, and tilted the trough a little, so that it was lower at one extremity; and this end also we filled with pounded bread-fruit as well as yams, as being more fit for the younger stomachs, besides being not so hard to get at through the holes. From the trial we made we saw that the trough, when full, would hold enough food for three or four days, and if we were absent longer than that, the pigs must needs sing for their supper, as Billy said.

As for the fowls, we could not for a long time think of any manner of supplying them with food. We were accustomed to fling their food to them over the fence of their enclosure, and Billy said that what we needed was some contrivance for dropping supplies down among them at intervals. I remembered having read somewhere of a device for releasing a catch by a candle burning a thread passed through it at a certain distance from the top, but we could not make with our candle-nuts a candle that would last near long enough, and besides, if we could there was the danger that it would cause a conflagration. But this set us on thinking towards the plan which we resolved on, and that was to support a basket of food by a catch, and tie to the catch a strip of raw hide, which, when it contracted with the sun's heat, would release the catch. The manner of our doing this was as follows. We suspended the basket from the roof of the fowl-house by slings, one on each side, and to one of the slings we fastened a long strip of raw hide, the other end of this being attached by a wooden peg to the wall, and the hide being stretched pretty tight in a horizontal direction. The contraction of the hide would thus pull the sling from under the basket, and so cause it to fall. We found when we tried this at first that the basket fell too soon, which was due to the too rapid contraction of the hide; but we devised a remedy for this by wrapping the hide round with wet grass, which prevented it from contracting so soon. We put enough food in the basket to last about two days, being unable to put more because it would then be too heavy for the catch.

"If we are away longer than two days, and they eat it all too soon," says Billy, "they must make the best of it, and maybe it'll learn 'em not to be greedy."

The supply of water for our animals gave us no trouble, for with our numerous pots and pans filled there was enough for over a week.

A Certain Lecture

All these arrangements having been made—and we grudged the time for them, so eager were we now to go a-sailing—we determined to set forth the very next day. As we lay in our hut that night, before we went to sleep we talked over what was before us, and I own I was in a very serious mood, for we were certainly braving the unknown. We might be caught in a storm, and knew not in the least how our vessel would then behave. We might encounter savages, who would be hostile to us, and maybe kill us, or make us captives. We were leaving a comfortable and secure home, and embarking on what might prove to be a very sea of troubles; and when, in talking to Billy, the manifold dangers to which we might be exposed became more deeply pictured in my mind, I was almost ready to give up the design. But when I threw out sundry hints to this effect, Billy spoke so slightingly of these imaginary perils, and so glowingly of the delights of roving and going a voyage of discovery, that I resolutely stilled my qualms, and, indeed, felt some little ashamed of my timorousness. For an example, when I said that we might never come home again, Billy said, "Why, master, you are a croaker. We might have gone to the bottom with poor Captain Corke and poor Mr. Lummis, and we didn't. We might have been took into that boat with Hoggett and Wabberley and that lot, and we warn't, and mighty glad I am of it, for I wouldn't be within call of Hoggett for a thousand pound. And if so be they're alive anywhere now, and Mr. Bodger is with 'em, he wishes to goodness he warn't, that I warrant you."

"But suppose we come back and find our house ruined with an earthquake or smothered under ashes from the mountain?" I said.

"Why, we shall think ourselves uncommon lucky," says he, "as we was not here to be ruined and smothered too. I call that nothing but croaking, master."

I took some pains to defend myself from this charge, and to show Billy that there is all the difference in the world between a settled habit of looking on the dark side of things and a prudential survey when some great enterprise is in question; but I might as well have talked to the pigs, or to our two dogs, for all the impression I made. And it is as well 'twas so, for his confidence and resoluteness to see only the bright side were wonderfully cheering to me; and I have often since thought that it is a great affliction to be able to see too much. To use a homely instance, the donkey in the tale starved because he could not make up his mind between the two bundles of hay; if he had seen only one at a time he would have had a very good meal.

When we rose in the morning I was quite as ready as Billy to embark on our voyage. At the last moment something put it into our heads to convey all our spare provisions and some of our tools to the cavern below, which already held a great store, and to conceal the opening, which hitherto we had only covered with loose logs. We now laid these logs very close together across the top of the shaft a little below the floor level, and over these we laid grass, and over this again a quantity of earth like that of which the floor consisted; and then we rammed it down, and laid on it flags and rushes with which we were used to strew the floor, so that no one would think, to look at it, that there was a cellar beneath. Then, having already strengthened the fences of our poultry-run and pigsty, to keep out the wild dogs, we carried down to the vessel a good store of provisions and water, also our spears and bows and arrows, the arrows in neat quivers we had made out of palm leaves. We then waited for the full tide to launch our canoe and set sail.

We go a Voyage

This happened in the afternoon. We had talked over the direction of our course, and had resolved to sail to the westward, for no other reason, I think, than that we had seen the seamen of the Lovey Susan make for the east, and we had no wish to meet them again if perchance we had to land for any purpose. If any one says it was a foolhardy thing to attempt a voyage without a compass, and asks how we could be sure of finding our way back again, I will remind him that it was very rarely indeed Old Smoker had not a crown of steam or smoke upon his head, and he stood so high that he could have been seen for a distance of thirty or forty miles, I am sure, and we did not purpose to go near so far as that. Our design was, indeed, to make direct for the island which we had seen as a dim line on the western horizon, and we set forth in the afternoon because we thought it best to approach this island under cover of night, for if our coming was observed by the people of the island while we were still a great way off, they would be able, if hostilely inclined, to prepare an ambuscade for us, which might be our ruin; whereas if we surprised them by an unexpected arrival on their coast, they would not have had time to get ready for us, and so we should not be in near so much danger.

A Coral Island

The breeze blew gently from the north-west, and the Fair Hope, beating up against it, proceeded but slowly, though she sailed with a steadiness which, now that we were farther from land than we had ever been before, gave us much contentment. Our progress was so slow, indeed, that darkness was upon us before we had got half-way to the island, and we had to steer by the stars, which shone out with exceeding brightness in a sky perfectly clear. There is something inexpressibly moving in sailing thus upon a calm sea, in the deep silence of the night, and neither Billy nor I had much to say to each other. We tried to sleep a little now and then, taking it in turns to steer, for the vessel needed no other management, so tranquil were the elements; but neither of us could sleep soundly, and at length we gave over the attempt, and were content to float idly on. Some while before daybreak we heard the sound of breakers on our leeward side, and we instantly brought the vessel to, having no mind to run upon a strange shore in the darkness. When the dark lifted, we saw that we were within a mile or so of a low island which, from our former experience when sailing in the Lovey Susan, we knew to be a coral island. Between it and us there was a reef over which the sea was breaking, and we could see no opening in it, but we knew that there always is an opening in such a reef, giving admittance to a broad lagoon. Accordingly, we hoisted our sail again, and, still beating up to windward, we came after some time to a gap in the reef at least a hundred yards broad, so that we ran through it with ease, to find ourselves, as we expected, in the shelter of the lagoon. We saw immediately that our coming had not been unobserved, for on the farther side of the lagoon there was a crowd of naked brown people in a little clearing among the trees, who we knew had seen us, at first by their gestures, and then by the proceedings of some few of them. For while we looked, we saw a half-dozen or so running along the shore away from us, and Billy cried that they were affrighted, and they must be a lot of cowards. But I very soon perceived that he was quite mistaken in this, for the goal of the runners was plainly a little cove about a mile up the coast, where there were certain long dark objects drawn up on the beach which I judged to be canoes, though I could not see them clearly at so great a distance, especially as we were on the sea-level.

We were about two hundred and fifty yards from the place where the natives were congregated on the shore of the lagoon, so that we could see them plainly, and we observed that the men were armed with clubs and spears, but we saw no bows and arrows. They made no signs of welcome such as were made by the people of the islands at which the Lovey Susan had touched, nor did they make signs of hostility, so that I thought they were waiting for some indication from us as to our friendliness or the reverse. Accordingly I stood up in the canoe, and, raising my hands above my head, waved them in the air, upon which many of the natives did the same, only their hands held their weapons. But they shouted also, and there did not appear to be anything unfriendly in the tone, so we continued our course towards the shore, to which Billy had indeed been slowly paddling all the time. As we drew nearer the shouts of the people grew more vociferous, and I observed that the women and children among them had now got behind the men, which I thought might be out of nothing but shyness, but on the other hand it might be for security; and when we were, I suppose, about sixty yards from the shore, I directed Billy to cease from paddling, so that we might hold a parley with the people, if we could, before venturing to land among them. But though he shipped his paddle, I observed that we still drifted shoreward, the tide coming into the lagoon through the gap in the reef; and being by no means ready to come within the power of these people until we were sure of them, I caught up my paddle, and began to use it so that we might keep a constant distance from the shore. It was very fortunate I did this, as it proved afterwards, for it precipitated the attack which would have otherwise been made upon us later, when we might not have been able to get away. The people, no doubt, supposed from my action that we were going to paddle out of the lagoon, which did not suit their bloodthirsty minds, for at the first stroke I made they burst into a great roar, the ferocity of which was not doubtful, and a perfect cloud of spears hurtled through the air, one of which, narrowly missing me, struck Billy in the arm, and another completely transfixed his dog Robin, which fell dying in the bottom of the canoe, and was immediately licked with every demonstration of grief by its companion. Other spears hit the canoe, and some stuck in its sides, but the most fell into the water.

An Attack

Billy was in such a rage at the loss of his dog that he seized his bow and arrows, and in spite of his own hurt was going to shoot among the savages; but I saw that we were in very great danger and sharply bade him drop his weapon and help me run our vessel out of harm's way. We set to with our paddles, therefore, making all haste to get out of the lagoon, and not at present hoisting the sail, for the lagoon being sheltered by a thick belt of trees, we felt scarcely at all the north-westerly wind, and went much faster with paddles than we could have done with the sail. The savages cast more spears at us, but none hit us again, and we were soon out of range and thought we should easily escape through the gap, when I observed that three of the canoes which had been lying on the beach were now launched, and were coming towards us very fast. It was plain that the native village was in that direction, for though not above half-a-dozen men had hastened thither along the shore, there were at least forty men in the three canoes, which now, I perceived, were making slantwise across the lagoon, with the plain intent of cutting us off from the entrance. This sight made me feel very anxious, for though we might very likely outdistance the canoes if we could hoist our sail in a fair breeze, we were no match for them in the sheltered lagoon, our vessel being, I think, heavier than theirs, and having only two paddles to their dozen at least. We had less distance to go than they, that's true, but they moved I doubt not three feet to our one, so that I could not help thinking we had a poor chance of escaping, especially as Billy could use only one arm. We worked as hard as ever we did in our lives, I assure you, Billy doing the steering, and all the time he muttered terrible threats of vengeance against the savages for killing his dog.

We had been so intent upon the canoes that were speeding to cut us off that we had had no eyes for a nearer danger. When the savages on shore had discharged their spears, a good number of them leapt into the water and set off swimming after us, of which we were not aware until on a sudden we saw their black heads on the surface not many yards away. They were very fine swimmers, that is certain, for some of them had overhauled us, and were indeed almost within reach of our outrigger before we saw them. I own I got a fright then, for if they once managed to grip the outrigger, they could haul it beneath the surface and so upset our craft, and all would be over. In this extremity I called to Billy to keep them off with his spear or axe, though this meant a slackening of speed which we could ill afford in face of the canoes drawing nearer so rapidly to the gap; and besides, it gave opportunity to others of the swimmers to come up with those that had at first outstripped them. You see, then, how desperate was our situation, I having both to paddle and to steer, and Billy having to rush from end to end of the canoe to beat off the men, which would soon become an impossible business, for while he jabbed at the men aiming at the stern cross-piece, another made a dash for the bow-end, and there were others ready to clutch at the beam.

I was pretty nearly mad with despair when, as we came out of the shelter of the trees lining the land side of the lagoon, I felt the breeze blow stronger against my cheek and a flush of hope within me. Crying to Billy to keep up for a minute longer, to which he answered, "Trust me, master," in a breathless kind of way, I dropped my paddle, caught at the halyard, and ran the sail up the mast. Instantly it filled and took the wind, but in the moment when the vessel came to a stop at my ceasing to paddle, two of the swimmers laid hands on the beam of the outrigger, and I felt the vessel give a dreadful lurch. My heart was in my mouth, as we say; but Billy, with a desperate stroke of his spear, drove one of the men away, and the next moment the sudden filling of the sail caused the vessel to plunge forward, so that the man who still clung to the outrigger was drawn along and prevented from exerting his strength to upset us. And while he still hung on Billy reached over, and brought his axe down with great force on the man's head, almost losing his balance; and the man gave a yell and let go his hold, falling back among his companions, who had now abandoned the pursuit.