Chapter Twenty Four.
An Afternoon Call.
“I’m glad you brought the skylight,” said Mr Meldrum to the first mate when the excitement attending the return of the boat’s crew with Miss Pussy had somewhat calmed down. “Its the very thing we’ll want presently!” He then proceeded to show Mr McCarthy what he and those who had remained ashore had done during the absence of the others.
Adjoining the site of the tent, and under the lee of a sort of gable-end of the cliffs, a piece of ground had been cleared of the snow close to a freshwater tarn some little distance above the sea-shore, where it was not affected by the tide; and here the land had been levelled in the form of a parallelogram, some thirty feet long by twenty wide, round which a trench had been dug about a foot deep.
At the four corners of this, stout posts, selected from some of the deck-beams of the Nancy Bell that had been secured for the under-structure of the raft, were set up in holes excavated of such a depth that they would firmly resist any lateral pressure brought to bear against them by the wind; and, round the top of these uprights, a scantling of deal had been nailed on, thus making the framework of a good-sized cottage.
Mr McCarthy was quite surprised at the progress made.
“You’ve been pretty busy, sorr,” he said. “Be jabers, you’ll have a cabin built in no time!”
“Yes,” replied Mr Meldrum, “we have got along; but you must remember we’ve had fourteen hands at work besides the carpenter, including Mr Lathrope and myself; and such a number of men, when their labour has been systematically divided, can accomplish a good deal in a short time. I wish we had some more timber, though! We’ve got the roof yet to make, and a partition or two in the inside for the proper division of the building. I have planned out a separate room for the ladies, and one for us men; in addition to a general sort of apartment, where we can all have our meals together, and which will serve as a store-room as well.”
“Sure an’ you don’t think, sorr, we’ll have to live here long!” said the first mate, a little alarmed at the magnitude of the other’s plans.
“Indeed I do,” answered Mr Meldrum. “It is now only the beginning of August, which is the worst season here, as I mentioned to poor Captain Dinks; and the winter will probably last from four to five months; during which time, according to all accounts that I’ve read of the place, we may expect to experience the most bitter weather, and have to depend entirely on our own resources; for, none of the whaling schooners that go seal-hunting in these parts ever visit the island, as far as I know, before November or December—and even then they go generally to the eastern side and do not come here! Before that time, however, that is as soon as the snow melts and the spring sets in, we’ll have to try and cross over the land to one of the harbours which the whalers frequent, and which I’ve got marked on the chart. Until that period, Mr McCarthy, as you must perceive, we will have to remain here; so it is best for us to try and be as comfortable as we can under the circumstances. Last night, as you know, it was cold enough in all conscience; but that will be nothing to what we may expect later on when the regular gales and sea-fogs and snowstorms set in, and they continue for weeks, I believe!”
“Begorrah, it’s a bad look-out!” said the mate,—“a bad look-out, anyway!”
“It is; there’s no good of our blinking the fact,” replied the other,—“but, still, other shipwrecked crews have borne worse hardships than we’ll have to contend with, and, you know, what men have done men may do! I wish we had some more of the poor old ship’s planks, however. Besides their being necessary for completing our house properly, we shall want a large supply of them for fuel during the next four months.”
“Sure and they’ll float ashore,” said the mate.
“I don’t know about that,” responded Mr Meldrum. “You said just now, when you returned in the jolly-boat, that all the bows and forward parts of the vessel had been washed to pieces; and yet, of all that wreckage not a single scrap came ashore here to tell the tale before you brought the news:— what do you think of that, eh!”
“Be jabers, it’s all that blissid current that takes it back agin! Sure an’ I’ve sane it floating in foreninst the land myself.”
“Well, we’ll have to try and baulk the current, then,” said Mr Meldrum. “We must keep a good look-out on the ship; and, as soon as we see that the stern has broken up, the jolly-boat will have to be manned and cruise about to pick up and tow ashore whatever timber and stray planks may be seen.”
“Right you are, sorr,” replied Mr McCarthy. “I’ll say to that!”
“Say, mister,” interposed the American, who had remained silent during the deliberations of the other two, although he was supposed to be present at the council and a deliberative member. “How’ll the grub last all that air time! Twenty-seven folks all told, as I’ve kalkerlated ’em, take a powerful lot of feedin’ in four months!”
“Ah!” said Mr Meldrum, “that’s a serious consideration. However, with that lot of penguins there,”—and he pointed to the little colony of the quaint birds, which were still croaking and grumbling at them, not having yet become accustomed to their strange visitors,—“I don’t think we’ll starve! Besides these gentry, too, there will be lots more sea-fowl, and perhaps some land ones as well. Still, it will be advisable, Mr Lathrope, as you have introduced the subject, to take stock of all the stores we have, and Master Snowball must be instructed to be not quite so lavish in his display at dinner-time as he was yesterday.”
“Sorry I spoke,” said Mr Lathrope, rather chop-fallen at the way in which his suggestion had been taken. “I didn’t want you to cut short the vittles, but only to kinder kalkerlate!”
“I’m just doing that,” replied the other, “and we’ll see what we’ve got to depend upon at once.”
As the American had remarked, they were just twenty-seven souls in all: Imprimis, Captain Dinks—whose wound evidently was progressing favourably, for he had lost all those feverish symptoms that were apparent the day previous and was now in a sound sleep, after eating some thin soup which Snowball had concocted for him by Mr Meldrum’s direction—Mr McCarthy, Adams, Frank Harness, Ben Boltrope the carpenter, and Karl Ericksen the rescued Norwegian sailor, besides Snowball and thirteen others of the crew of the Nancy Bell, making twenty of those belonging to the ship; while, of the passengers, there were six—Mr Meldrum, Kate, Florry, Mrs Major Negus and her son and only hope Maurice, and lastly, though by no means least, Mr Lathrope—the grand total, with the stewardess, who must not be forgotten, coming exactly to seven-and-twenty.
Now, to feed all this large family, they had brought ashore on the raft three barrels of salt beef and four of pork, six hams uncooked, besides the one which Frank had removed from the steward’s pantry along with the round of spiced beef on his visit to the ship in search of the cat; some four dozen eight-pound tins of preserved meats and vegetables; about a couple of hundredweight of flour; five bags of biscuit; a few bottles of spirits; and sundry minor articles, such as pickles and salt, and one or two pots of preserves—not a very considerable amount of provender, considering the number of souls to be supplied, and the length of time Mr Meldrum thought it wise to estimate that the provisions would have to last.
Just as they were rolling back the casks under the shelter of the tent, Maurice Negus rushed up to Mr Meldrum in company with Florry, both of the children being intensely excited evidently about something they had seen or heard.
“Oh crickey!” cried out the former before he had quite got up to the party, so as to have the first voice in the matter,—“Do come! There’s an awful long thing just crawled out of the sea, and it is creeping up to the tent as fast as it can!”
“Yes,” chorussed Florry, “and it’s like the seals we saw in the Zoological Gardens; only it’s twice as big and has a long trunk like an elephant!”
“Jeehosophat!” exclaimed Mr Lathrope, feeling for his revolver. “It must be a rum outlandish animile, if it’s like that!”
“Zee-oliphant,” said Karl Ericksen, the Norwegian sailor, in his broken English. “He is not harmful:— he good for man eat.”
“Snakes and alligators! that’s prime anyhow, I reckon,” put in Mr Lathrope. “I guess this air animile’ll save your old stores, mister, hey?”
“I hope so,” answered Mr Meldrum. “Although I’ve never tasted seal beef myself, I have heard it’s very fair when you can’t get the genuine article; the whalers generally use it, at all events, some of them even thinking it a dainty. But, let us go and see this sea-elephant that the children have discovered!”
They did not have to go far; for, the queer-looking amphibious creature had by this time crawled up on to the rocks close outside the tent, and was quite near to where they were standing—the Norwegian sailor having already seen and recognised its species before he spoke.
The animal was a gigantic sort of seal, some twenty-five feet in length and quite five high. If big, it was certainly also most unwieldy, for it appeared to waddle up from the shore with the greatest difficulty. Its body was covered with a short brown fur, with lighter hair of a dun colour under the throat; and, what gave it the singular appearance whence its name of “sea-elephant” was probably more derived than from its size, was the pendulous nostrils, which hung down over its mouth, just like the proboscis or long trunk of the children’s old friend, “Jumbo.”
Karl Ericksen had managed to rummage out a harpoon one day amongst the odds and ends in the forecastle of the Nancy Bell, and the sailor having been familiar with its use from long whaling experience, had not forgotten to bring it ashore when they abandoned the wreck—looking upon the weapon with almost as much veneration as Mr Lathrope regarded the rifle he had inherited from the celebrated Colonel Crockett.
This harpoon Karl now brought forth, approaching the seal with the obvious intention of despatching it summarily; when another evidence of its elephantine character was displayed, well justifying its title.
As the sailor came up to it and raised the harpoon to strike, the animal raised itself on its fore-flappers, snarling and emitting a hollow roar which startled everybody near, causing them to jump away, and give it a wide berth; while at the same time it erected its nose so that it stood out quite stiff, more than a foot long, and, opening its mouth, it exposed the bright scarlet palate and gullet, from the bottom of which its hoarse bellow proceeded. Karl, however, was not frightened by the sea-elephant’s rage, but with a single swinging blow from his harpoon on the snout stretched it lifeless on the ground, when all were better able to appreciate its enormous size. Its girth alone exceeded sixteen feet, and the animal appeared all the more imposing when dead than alive.
The Norwegian sailor cut out the tongue, telling Mr Meldrum that this portion of the sea-elephant and the snout were considered great delicacies by the whalers; but none of the party relished either, although Snowball served up both at dinner in his most recherché fashion. The flesh of the body, too, was of a blackish hue, and had an oily taste about it, which made the sailors turn up their noses at it and wish to fling it away; but this Mr Meldrum would not allow.
“We will probably be glad enough to get it bye and bye,” he said; and he then caused the despised seal “beef” to be cut up in pieces and salted down in one of their spare casks in case of future need.
During the time Mr Meldrum had been taking stock of their stores, before the coming of the sea-elephant—“to pay them an afternoon call,” as Florry said—the carpenter, with a number of the hands working under him, had been proceeding with the house-building operations; but he had to stop at last, more from want of the proper timber wherewith to complete the job than through the darkening of the afternoon on account of the approach of night.
“I can’t get along nohow,” Ben explained to Mr Meldrum, who was now regarded as the head of the party, and the one to look to in every difficulty. “I’m at a standstill for planking, sir. I can manage the roof part pretty well, by breaking up those old puncheons we brought under the raft and using the staves for shingles; but the joists and rafters bother me, sir.”
“Well, we must hope to get some more to-morrow from the wreck,” said Mr Meldrum. “The ship cannot last much longer; but, recollect, we can’t get any ashore till she breaks up.”
“Aye, aye, sir, I knows that,” replied Ben. “Still, I hopes it won’t all drift away to sea when she do go to pieces.”
“We’ll try to prevent that, Boltrope,” said the other. “Mind, Mr McCarthy, and have a look-out stationed in the morning to keep an eye on the ship, with a man to relieve him watch and watch, the same as on board! She’s all firm now, for I saw the flag still waving when I looked before the light began to fail; but if the wind and sea get up again, as they very likely will towards midnight, tomorrow will tell a very different tale!”
“I’ll have a look-out, never fear, sorr.”
“And, McCarthy—”
“Yes, sorr!”
“See that the jolly-boat is ready and a crew picked for it to put off the moment any wreckage is observed floating inshore. We must not neglect any chance of securing all the timber we can for fuel, putting the house out of the reckoning entirely!”
“Indade I will, sorr,” answered the mate cheerily; and then, all struck work for the day and retired into the tent, not sorry to have another easy night’s rest. Every one was anxious to turn in, for really there was nothing else to be done.