Chapter Twenty Two.
“Alone!”
The next morning, when Fritz got on deck, he found the ship diving and courtesying to her anchor, while an ominous swell came rolling in past her from the westward towards the beach. The surf, too, was breaking against the boulders of the high rocky ramparts that came down sheer from the cliff on the left-hand side of the bay, which was now to the right of where Fritz was standing at the stern of the Pilot’s Bride, she having swung round during the night and now laying head to sea.
There was no wind to speak of, although there was evidently a change brewing; still, any one with half an eye could see that the skipper was quite prepared for any emergency, for the headsails of the vessel, instead of being furled up, now hung loose, the gaskets being cast-off and the bunts dropped. The men, also, were forward, heaving away at the windlass and getting up the cable, of which a considerable length had been paid out, the ship riding in over forty fathoms of water.
“Hullo, mister,” exclaimed Captain Brown, when he noticed Fritz looking about him, as if perplexed as to what these signs meant,—“I told you we might hev to cut an’ run any moment!”
“Why?” said Fritz.
“Can’t you see, man,” retorted the other. “I thought you’d hev been half a sailor by this time, judgin’ by your smart lad of a brother! Why, the wind is jest choppin’ round to the west’ard, I reckon; an’, as I don’t kinder like to let the ship go to pieces on them thaar cliffs to loo’a’d, I guess we’re goin’ to make tracks into the offin’ an’ give the land a wide berth.”
“Are you going to start soon?” asked Fritz.
“Waall, there ain’t no ’mediate hurry, mister; but I allers like to be on the safe side, an’ when them islanders bring their second boatload o’ taters an’ t’other grub, I reckon we’ll be off. They’ve brought one lot already, in return for the dry goods an’ bread-stuffs I’ve let ’em hev; an’ when they bring the second, I guess the barg’in’ll be toted up!”
Not long afterwards, Fritz saw the islanders’ boat coming off from the landing-place. It was pretty well laden, and the swell had increased so greatly that it sometimes was lost to sight in the trough between the heavy rollers that undulated towards the shore. The Tristaners, however, being accustomed to the water and experienced boatmen, did not make much of the waves; but, pulling a good steady stroke, were soon alongside—the bowman catching a rope which was hove from the chains and holding on, while the various contents of the cargo brought were handed on board. This operation had to be performed most dexterously; for, one moment, the little craft would be almost on a level with the ship’s bulwarks, while the next she would be thirty feet below, as the billowy surface of the sea sank below her keel.
Eric was beside the skipper, checking the quantities of provisions which had been accurately calculated beforehand, for the Tristaners showed a keen eye to business and weighed everything they bartered for the whaler’s goods, when one of the men hailed him. This was the identical young fellow of whom he had spoken to Fritz when first expounding his projected scheme for going sealing to Inaccessible Island, and who, he mentioned besides, had told him all about the place. Indeed, he had actually suggested his going there. Eric had wondered much at not having come across this young man on the previous day when they had visited the settlement, although he looked about for him, so he was doubly pleased to see him now.
“Hullo!” cried out this Tristaner to the young German. “So you are back again, eh?”
“Yes,” said Eric. “Come aboard a moment; I want to speak to you.”
“All right,” exclaimed the other, who was a fine, stalwart young fellow, with jet-black hair and a bronzed face that appeared to be more tanned by the weather than owing its hue to coloured blood; when, in a jiffy, he had swung himself into the chains by the rope attached to the boat’s bows and was by Eric’s side on the deck of the Pilot’s Bride, his face all over smiles.
“You’re the very chap I was wanting to see,” said Eric, shaking hands with him cordially. “I was puzzled to know what had become of you yesterday. I did not see you anywhere.”
“I was away up the mountain, gathering grass,” replied the young fellow. “So, you’ve returned here, as you said you would, early in the year?”
“You told me such fine accounts of the fishing,” retorted Eric with a laugh, “that, really, I couldn’t stop away. I want to talk to you about it again now. This is my brother,” he added, introducing Fritz.
“Glad to know him,” said the Tristaner, bowing politely—indeed, the manners of all the islanders struck Fritz as being more polished than what he had observed in so-called civilised society. “Is he going to join you in settling on Inaccessible Island?”
“Yes,” replied Eric. “He and I have determined to start sealing there. We have come from America on purpose. Is there anything more you can tell us about it?”
“Have you got provisions to last you a year at the least? You must calculate to hold out so long, for no ship may be able to visit you earlier and you cannot count on procuring much food on the island.”
“Oh, yes; we’ve got plenty of grub,” said Eric, using the sailor’s term for food.
“And the things besides that I told you would be necessary?”
“You may be certain of that,” replied Eric. “The only thing I see that we’ll have any difficulty about will be in rigging up a house. I’m sure that Fritz and I will never be able to build a substantial shanty like one of those you have here in your island.”
“No, perhaps not,” said the young fellow, smiling. “You see, when we are going to run up a house, we all join together and lend a hand, which makes it easy work for us. It would be impossible for one or two men—or many more, indeed. I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, though. If the captain of your ship here will promise to bring me back again to Tristan, I will go over there with you for a couple of days or so, to see you comfortably fixed up, as you Americans say, at Inaccessible Island, before you and your brother are left to yourselves.”
“Agreed!” exclaimed Eric joyfully. “I will ask the skipper at once.”
To dart across the deck to where Captain Brown was now standing by the open hatchway, overseeing the provisions being passed down into the ship’s hold, was, for the sailor lad, but the work of a moment!
“Oh, Captain Brown,”—commenced Eric breathlessly, his excitement almost stopping his speech for a second.
“Waall, what’s all the muss about?” said the old skipper, turning round and scanning the lad’s eager face. “Do you an’ your brother want to back out o’ the venture naow? I saw you talkin’ to thet Tristaner you met here with me in the spring.”
“Back out of the project?” repeated Eric very indignantly. “Give up my pet plan, when everything is turning more and more in favour of it, captain? I should think not, indeed!”
“Then, what’s the matter?” asked the skipper.
“I want you to grant me a favour,” said Eric, hesitating a bit as the other looked at him steadfastly, a half-smile, half-grin on his weather-beaten countenance.
“Thought sunthin’ wer up!” ejaculated the skipper. “Waall, what’s this durned favour o’ your’n?” he added in his good-natured way. “Spit it out, sonny, an’ don’t make sich a mealy mouth of it!”
“This Tristaner—young Glass, you recollect him, don’t you, captain?” said Eric, proceeding with his request—“says he’ll come with us and help to build our cabin for us at Inaccessible Island, and settle us—”
“Show you the ropes, in fact, hey?” interrupted the skipper.
“Yes,” continued Eric. “He agrees to stop a day or two with us, till we feel at home, so to speak, if you will undertake to bring him back again and land him at Tristan before you go on to the Cape.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the skipper, giving expression to a long, low whistle from between his closed teeth. “Thet’s the ticket, is it? Waall, I guess I don’t mind doin’ it to oblige you an’ your brother, though it’ll take me a main heap out o’ my way coastin’ up haar ag’in!”
“Thank you; oh, thank you, captain,” said Eric, quite delighted with this promise; and he rushed back across the deck to tell the others the good news.
While the young Tristaner was explaining matters to his comrades in the boat—from which all the stores had now been removed that had been brought off from the island and a few extra articles put in, which Captain Brown had made them a present of, as “boot” to the bargain of barter—the wind began to spring up in gusts, causing the ship’s sails to flap ominously against the masts.
“Guess you’d better be off,” cried the skipper, coming to the side, where the two brothers and the young Tristaner who was going to accompany them stood leaning over, having a parting palaver with those in the boat below. “The breeze is risin’, an’ if you don’t kinder care ’bout startin’, I reckon we must. Shove off thaar!”
“All right,” sang out one of the islanders, casting off the rope which attached them still to the ship. “Good-bye, and mind you bring our countryman back safe.”
“You bet,” shouted the skipper. “I’ll take care o’ him as if he wer my own kin. Now, Eric,” he added, “you’ve got to tend your duties to the last aboard, you know; away aft with you an’ see to the mizzen sheets. All hands make sail!”
The topsails were dropped at the same moment and sheeted home, while the jib was hoisted; and the ship, paying off, forged slowly up to her anchor.
“Now, men,” sang out Captain Brown sharply. “Put your heart into thet windlass thaar, an’ git the cable in! It’s comin’ on to blow hard, an’ if you don’t look smart we’ll never git out of this durned bay in time!”
Clink, clank, went round the unwieldy machine, as the crew heaved with a will, their movements quickened by the urgency of getting under weigh without delay, and each man exerting the strength of two.
“Heave away, men!” chorussed the mate, standing over them and lending his voice to their harmonious chant. “Heave! Yo ho, heave!”
A few hearty and long pulls, and then the anchor showed its stock.
“Hook cat!” shouted the mate; whereupon, the fall being stretched along the deck, all hands laid hold.
“Hurrah, up with her now, altogether!” came the next cry; and then, the anchor was bowsed up to the cathead to the lively chorus that rang through the ship, the men walking away with the fall as if it had no weight attached to it. The yards were now braced round and the Pilot’s Bride began to beat out of the bay against the head wind, which was now blowing right on to the shore.
“Guess we aren’t a bit too soon,” said the skipper, when the vessel, after her second tack to starboard, just cleared Herald Point. “If we’d stopped much longer, we’d been forced to stop altogether, I reckon!”
“Was there any danger?” asked Fritz innocently.
“Yes, mister; there’s allers danger to a shep with a gale comin’ on an’ a nasty shore under her lee. There’s nothin’ like the open sea for safety! When you can’t come to an anchor in a safe harbour, the best thing is to up cable an’ cut and run, say I!”
Inaccessible Island was only about eighteen miles distant from Tristan; but, as it lay to the south-west of that island and the wind blew strongly from almost the same quarter, the Pilot’s Bride had to make a couple of long tacks before she could approach sufficiently near for Fritz to see the spot where he and his brother had elected to pass so many weary months of solitary exile.
As the ship beat to windward, passing the island twice on either tack, he was able to notice what a bare, inhospitable-looking place it was.
Its structure seemed pretty much the same as that of Tristan, with the exception that the snow-white cone projecting into the clouds, which was the most noticeable feature in the latter island, was here wanting; but, a wall of volcanic rocks, about the same height as the cliff of Tristan d’Acunha, entirely surrounded the desolate spot, falling for the most part sheer into the sea and only sloping, as far as could be seen from the distance the ship was off, sufficiently on one side to allow of any access to the top. Against this impenetrable, adamantine barrier, on the west, the heavy rolling sea that had travelled all the way from Cape Horn was breaking with a loud din, sending columns of spray flying over almost the highest peaks and making the scene grand but awesome at the same time.
“Well might it be called Inaccessible Island!” exclaimed Fritz, gazing intently at the threatening cliffs and cruel surge.
“Yes, sirree, it kinder skearts one to look at it, don’t it now, hey?”
“I should think it more dangerous to approach than Tristan?” said Fritz presently.
“I rayther guess so, mister,” replied the skipper. “I rec’lect readin’, when I was a b’y, of the wreck of a big East Indyman here bound fur Bombay. She wer called the Blenden Hall, an’ I ken call to mind, though it must be nigh fifty year ago, the hull yarn as to how she wer lost.”
“Do you?” said Fritz. “I should like to hear about it.”
“Waall, here goes, I reckon. You see as how there wer several ladies aboard, an’ it wer the plight they wer put in thet made me ’member it all. It wer in the month of July thet it happen’d, an’ the vessel, as I said afore, wer bound to Bombay. The weather bein’ thick an’ the master funky about his latitudes, findin’ himself by observation near these islands, he detarmined to look for ’em, in order to get a sight of ’em an’ correct his reck’nin’. I guess he hed too much of a sight soon; fur, a thick fog shortly shut out everythin’ from gaze, an’ lookin’ over the side he found the vessel in the midst of a lot o’ floatin’ weed. The helm wer put down, but by reason of light winds and a heavy swell settin’ in to the shore, the same as you just now saw at Tristan, the shep’s head couldn’t be got to come round. Breakers were now heard ahead, so the jolly-boat wer lowered with a tow-line to heave the bows round; but it wer of no use, as the wind hed failed entirely an’ the swell was a-drivin’ the shep on to the rocks. An anchor wer then let go, but the depth of water didn’t allow it to take hold, so, they lowered the cutter to help tow the shep’s head round, along with the jolly-boat, when all of a sudden she struck. The fog wer so thick by then, thet those on board couldn’t see the boats alongside, much less the shore. Howsomedever, they cut away the masts, to ease the vessel an’ stop her grindin’ on the rocks. Soon arter this, the fog lifted when those on board were frit by seein’ right over their heads apparently, those very terrific-lookin’ cliffs you see in front, just thaar—only thet they wer close into ’em, not more nor half a cable’s length off, an’ the heavy seas, sich as you ken now see runnin’ up the face of the rocky wall thaar, wer breaking boldly right over the shep—”
“And,” interrupted Fritz, “what happened then?”
“What could you expect?” replied the skipper. “I guess she wer beaten into matchwood in five minutes; although, won’erful to say, the hull of the passengers, ladies an’ all, wer got ashore safely, only one man bein’ drowned—an’ it sarved him right, as he was one of the crew who tried to escape when the shep first struck, an’ leave all the rest to perish! They wer all got to land by a hawser rigged from a peak of projectin’ rock to a bit of the wreck; an’ the ladies, I read, mister, an’ all o’ them, lived from July to November on penguins an’ seal flesh, which they cooked in part of an iron buoy that they sawed in half fur a kittle, shelterin’ themselves from the cold in tents thet they made out of the vessel’s sails. I reckon, mister, you’ll be kinder better provided fur an’ lodged, hey?”
“Yes, thanks to your kindness,” said Fritz; “but the island seems completely encompassed by this rocky wall. I don’t see where and how we’re going to land and get our things on shore!”
“Don’t you?” chuckled the skipper. “I guess you’ll soon see how we’ll fix it.”
Presently, Fritz’s doubts were solved.
When the Pilot’s Bride had worked her way well to windward of the island, the captain fetched down towards the eastern side, where, on rounding a point, a narrow bay lay right before the ship, quite sheltered from the rough swell and wind that reigned paramount on the other side of the coast, storming and beating against the wall-like cliffs in blind fury!
Here, it was as calm as a mill pond; so, the ship was brought to an anchor right in front of a pretty little waterfall that leaped its way by a series of cascades from the cliff above to a level plateau at the base, where a narrow belt of low ground extended for about a mile in front of the bay, its seaweed face being bordered by a broad sandy beach of black sand.
“Oh, that is pretty!” exclaimed Fritz and Eric, almost together in one breath. “It is like the falls of the Staubbach at home in dear Germany.”
“I don’t know nary anythin’ ’bout thet,” said the skipper laconically, for the brothers spoke for the moment in their native tongue, carried away by old associations; “but I guess we’ll hev to see ’bout gettin’ your fixins ashore pretty sharp, fur the wind may change agin, an’ then I’d hev to cut an’ leave you.”
“All right, captain, we’re quite at your service,” said Fritz; and, a boat being lowered, the various packages containing the brothers’ personal belongings, as well as the supply of provisions furnished by the skipper from the ship’s stores for their use, were put on board, after which the two then jumped in accompanied by Captain Brown and the young Tristaner, the little party being rowed ashore by four seamen whom the skipper had ordered to assist.
As soon as they landed, the things were carried up the beach; when, the seamen bearing a hand,—directed by Captain Brown, who seemed quite used to the sort of work,—all devoted their efforts towards building a rough sort of house, which would serve the adventurous brothers for a temporary habitation until they could make themselves more comfortable.
Young Glass selected the best site for the building; and the skipper having caused a lot of timber to be placed in the boat, a makeshift cottage was hastily run up, the walls being of blocks of stone without and of wood inside. The islander then thatched this neatly with tussock-grass, which grew all up the face of the cliff, where, as he showed the brothers, it could be utilised as a sort of ladder to gain the plateau on top—on which, he also told Fritz and Eric, they would find droves of wild hogs and a flock of goats that would come in handy for food when their provisions failed.
The Tristaner had promised to remain with them as long as Captain Brown would stay with the Pilot’s Bride, that is, for a week or so, if the weather was favourable. However, quite unexpectedly, towards afternoon on the next day—when the cottage was completed, it is true, but they had not as yet had time to explore the island in company with young Glass, in order to be familiarised as to the best spots for sealing, planting their potatoes and vegetable seeds, and so on—the wind shifted again round to the south-east; and no sooner was this change apparent than the skipper had to weigh anchor without a moment’s delay, when of course the Tristaner had to embark, or else submit to share the young crusoes’ exile.
Captain Brown had remained on shore with them all the time from their landing, and he appeared now very loth to leave them at the last. Really, as they went down with him to the whale-boat in which they had come ashore, there were tears in the old man’s eyes, which he tried vainly to hide.
“Pooh!” he exclaimed, stamping his foot vigorously. “It’s all them dratted ’skeaters or flies, or sunthin’s got inter my durned old optics as I can’t see! Hail the ship, Eric my lad, an’ tell ’em to send a boat to take us off, will you, sonny?”
“But the whale-boat that we landed in is here, captain,” said Eric, thinking the skipper had forgotten all about it.
“Nary you mind thet, my lad,” shouted the good-hearted old man; “I’m goin’ to leave thet with you fur a present, b’ys, in case you sh’u’d get tired an’ want ter shift your quarters to Tristan some day. It’s allers best to be purvided with the means of escape, you know, in case of the worst, for the Pilot’s Bride might get wracked down ’mongst the islands Kerguelen way, an’ no shep might ever call to take you off.”
“Oh, captain, how can we thank you!” exclaimed Fritz, overcome with emotion at the skipper’s thoughtfulness. “Still, you will come and look us up next year should all be well with you, eh?”
“You bet on thet,” replied the worthy old man. “I guess you’ll see me next fall, if I’m in the land o’ the livin’!”
“And you’ll call to see if there are any letters for us at the Cape of Good Hope, won’t you? I told our people at home to write there, on the chance of their communications being forwarded on.”
“I’ll bring ’em sure, if there’s any,” replied the skipper; and, by this time, a second boat having been sent off from the ship, in which the seamen who had pulled the first whale-boat ashore now took their places, along with the Tristan islander, it only remained for the kind old captain to embark—and then, the brothers would be crusoes indeed!
“Good-bye, an’ God bless you, my b’ys,” he said, wringing first the hand of Fritz and then that of Eric, in a grip that almost crushed every feeling in those respective members. “Good-bye, my lads; but keep a stiff upper lip an’ you’ll do! Trust in providence, too, an’ look arter the seals, so as to be ready with a good cargo when I come back next fall!”
“Good-bye, good old friend,” repeated Fritz, wringing his honest hand again on the old man stepping into the boat, the crew of which raised a parting cheer as it glided away to the ship, leaving the young crusoes behind on the beach!
They watched with eager eyes the sails being dropped and the anchor weighed, the Pilot’s Bride soon after spreading her canvas and making way out of the little bay.
Then, when she got into the offing, the skipper, as a final adieu, backed the vessel’s main-topsail and dipped her colours three times, firing the bow gun at the same time.
It was a nautical farewell from their whilom comrades: and then the brothers were left alone!