Chapter Twenty Nine.
The Search.
Home Sweet Home—Max on Moonlight—Following a Trail—The Concealed Canoe.
“Where’er thou wanderest, canst thou hope to go
Where skies are brighter, or the earth more fair?
Dost thou not love these aye-blue streams that flow,
These spicy forests, and this golden air?
“O yes! I love these woods, these streams so clear,
Yet from this fairy region I would roam,
Again to see my native hills—thrice dear!
And seek that country, of all countries,—Home.”
Max hastened to collect fuel, and kindle a fire, in order to prepare some food. Assuming, as usual, the entire superintendence and control of the culinary department, and every thing connected therewith, he set Browne to work washing and scraping tara-roots, despatched me after a fresh supply of fuel, and sent Morton with the hand-net down to the fish-pond to take out a couple of fish for a broil. But while thus freely assigning tasks to the rest of us, with the composed air of one accustomed to the exercise of unquestioned authority, he by no means shrunk from his own fair share of the work; and having got the fire burning cleverly by the time that Morton returned with the fish, he rolled up his sleeves, and with an air of heroic fortitude, commenced the necessary, but somewhat unpleasant process of cleaning them.
Night had now set in, but the sky being perfectly clear, and the moon at her full, it was scarcely darker than at early twilight.
Max seemed to prolong his culinary operations to the utmost, either from pure love of the employment, or with the still lingering hope, that our companions might yet arrive in time to partake of our supper.
At last however, it became apparent that the cookery could not, without serious detriment, be longer protracted. The bursting skin of the taro revealed the rich mealy interior, and eloquently proclaimed its readiness to be eaten. The fish were done to a turn, and filled the cabin with a savoury odour, doubly grateful to our nostrils after a twelve hours’ fast. Max declared with a sigh, that another moment upon the gridiron would ruin them, and he was reluctantly compelled to serve up the repast without further delay, when, notwithstanding our growing anxiety on account of Arthur’s absence, we made a hearty meal. After feeding Monsieur Paul, and setting by some food in readiness for our companions when they should arrive, as we still hoped they would do in the course of the evening, we went out to a spot above the cascade, where Morton and Browne had arranged some rude fragments of basalt, so as to form a semicircle of seats, which, if less comfortable than well-cushioned arm-chairs would have been, might at any rate be considered in decidedly better “rural taste,” and in more harmonious keeping with the character of the surrounding scene.
From this point we could trace the windings of the brook for some distance in one direction, while below us, in the opposite one, spread the moonlit lake, reflecting in its mirror-like surface the dark masses of foliage that fringed its shores. It was one of those tranquil, dreamy nights, known only in tropical countries. A subtle fragrance of fresh buds and blossoms filled the air. The light streamed in a silvery flood upon the tufted tops of the groves; while in the solemn shade beneath, the serried trunks reared themselves in long ranks, like the grey columns of some Gothic ruin.
As we sat listening to the murmur of the waterfall, the rustling of the trees, and the distant and muffled booming of the surf, I fell into a dreamy reverie, which was at length dissipated by Browne’s voice—
“Can any thing be more beautiful than this scene at this moment!” exclaimed he, “and yet I do not know when I have experienced such a weariness of it all—such an intense longing for home, as I feel to-night.”
“I shall begin to believe in mesmeric sympathy,” said Morton, “I was myself just thinking of home. Home, sweet home!” and he heaved a long-drawn sigh.
Yes! the charm and illusion of our island life had long ended. We were tired of tropical luxuriance, and eternal summer. Glowing skies, and landscapes like a picture, had almost ceased to gratify even the eye. I longed for a glimpse of a rugged New England hill once more. A gnarled New England oak, though stripped by wintry winds of every leaf, would be a sight more grateful to me, than all those endless groves of waving palms.
“I cannot believe,” resumed Browne, “that we are destined to waste our days in this lonely spot, elysium as it is, of external beauty. We have faculties and desires, which can find no scope here, and which are perishing for lack of exercise. Still it is possible. But it is a dreary, dreary thought! I can now feel the pathos of the words of the ancient mariner on coming in sight of his native land—
“‘Oh dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?—
Is this mine own countree?
“‘We drifted o’er the harbour bar
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep away!’”
Browne recited the lines with a power and feeling, that affected even the matter-of-fact Morton; Max hastened to show that he was above being so easily moved.
“All this comes,” cried he, “of lying here under the trees in the moonlight. Moonlight certainly has a tendency to make people melancholy and sentimental; it also makes them do foolish things. The most absurd and unreasonable notions I ever entertained, came into my head by moonlight, and wouldn’t go away. Only twenty-five minutes ago, we were quite a rational, practical set of persons, eating our supper, (a well-cooked supper, too, though I say it myself), with a keen appetite, like Christians. And now, we have fallen to sighing and quoting poetry, and Browne waxes quite pathetic at the touching thought of getting a glimpse once more, of the smoky chimneys of Glasgow! Finally, I have nearly caught the infection myself, and unless I escape out of the moonlight presently, I dare say I also shall become quite lack-a-daisical, and commence a poetical apostrophe to my native village of Hardscrabble—or rather to plump little Susan Somers, my first love, at the ‘madam’s’ school, who affected my weak mind and susceptible heart to that extent, that in her bewildering presence my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, while I grew red in the face like a perplexed turkey gobbler. But what can have become of Arthur and the rest? Unless something had happened to them, they must have returned before now.”
A little before midnight we retired to the cabin to sleep, having first agreed, that in the morning three of us should proceed up the stream again, to make a thorough search for our companions, the fourth remaining behind until near noon, when, if the absentees had not yet returned, he should set out to join the others at the islet below the falls, which we fixed upon as the rendezvous.
In the morning, lots were drawn to determine which of us should remain at the cabin, and that duty fell to Morton. The rest of us, having armed ourselves, and prepared a supply of taro and bread-fruit, sufficient, as we supposed, for several days, set out, soon after sunrise. Our progress was much more rapid than it had been when we first went over the ground, as we now had a definite object in view, and pressed steadily forward, without allowing any thing to interrupt or delay us. In an hour and a half after starting, we came in sight of the islet. Opposite it was the stake which Browne had planted in the sand, just as we had left it. We pushed on up the stream to the cascade, and crossing to the right bank, we began to skirt the base of the rocky wall on that side, looking carefully around for some traces of our companions.
We had proceeded in this way, about one hundred yards from the brook, when I picked up one of Johnny’s arrows in a tuft of fern. This was conclusive evidence that we were upon the right track. A little farther on, was a piece of marshy ground, and here we made a startling discovery. In the soft soil, several foot-prints could be plainly distinguished. Some were coarse, shapeless impressions, precisely such as would be made by the rude moccasins worn by Arthur and Johnny. Others were the prints of naked feet, and some of these were of far too large a size to be made by either of the three. This discovery affected us for the moment like an electric shock, and we stood looking at one another without speaking, and scarcely breathing, while the very beating of our hearts might be heard.
Browne was the first to recover himself, when he commenced a close examination of all the tracks. The piece of ground upon which they could be traced, extended some thirty yards, and after a careful scrutiny of the whole of it, we became convinced that at least four persons, besides our three companions, had recently passed over it. All the tracks were not in the same direction, and from finding those of precisely the same size lying in opposite directions, we inferred that some of these persons, at least, had passed and repassed the spot.
The most distressing surmises as to the cause of the disappearance of our companions, now began to suggest themselves. We were so astounded by this decisive evidence of the presence of strangers upon the island, that we scarcely knew what to do next, but at last concluded to return to the islet and await Morton’s arrival, being anxious to avoid the risk of any further division of our numbers. We accordingly retraced our way thither: supposing that Morton would have set out before we could reach the cabin, and that we might pass each other on the way without knowing it, if we should proceed down the stream to meet him, we remained quietly at the islet, keeping a vigilant and somewhat nervous look-out on every side.
He arrived about noon, having started rather sooner than had been agreed upon. On being informed of the tracks which had been discovered, he said that we ought at once to trace them as far as we were able. “We must not rest,” said he, “until we know something more of this, even if we have to traverse every inch of ground on the island.”
Browne was inclined to infer from the foot-prints, that the interior, and the eastern part of the island, of which we as yet knew nothing, were inhabited, and that our companions had fallen into the hands of the natives.
“Let us, in the first place, find, if possible, where they are. We can then judge what is to be done, if indeed we can do any thing,” said Morton, “and now for the place where the tracks you speak of are to be seen.”
Grasping our weapons, which were no longer to be regarded as a useless incumbrance, we once more proceeded up the brook, and soon reached the piece of low ground before mentioned. We again narrowly inspected the tracks: Morton measured them with a twig, and concluded, as we had previously done, that these were the foot-prints of at least seven persons—there being that number of clearly different sizes. Three of these were without doubt the tracks of Arthur, Johnny, and Eiulo. The impressions made by the moccasins of the two former led only in one direction, (from the stream), while those of the naked feet, (or of some of them), were in two opposite directions. Following these tracks eastward along the rocky ridge, we soon came to firm dry ground, where footsteps could no longer be traced. But by a minute scrutiny, we were still able to detect slight but decisive indications of the course of the party whose trail we were endeavouring to follow.
In one place, a bunch of spreading ferns had been trodden down, and the long graceful fronds bruised and broken: in another, a cluster of crushed wild-flowers betrayed a recent footstep. A little further on, we came to a wide, meadow-like expanse, where the grass and weeds grew rank and tall, and through this the path of a considerable party could be readily traced. Gradually becoming accustomed to this species of minute investigation, as we continued carefully to practise it, we soon grew so expert and skilful, that things very slight in themselves, and which would ordinarily have altogether escaped notice, sufficed to guide and direct us.
The path trodden through the meadow, led to the foot of an ascent, up which we followed the trail slowly and with difficulty, the soil being hard, and the vegetation scanty. On gaining the top, we found that we had reached the eastern, or south-eastern extremity of the island, and the sea spread before us, almost at our feet. The trail led directly towards the edge of a steep bank, just above the shore, near which we lost it altogether. Morton leaped down the bank some ten or twelve feet, while the rest of us were looking round for easier and more gradual means of descent. Finding a stunted tree springing from the lower ground, close against the bluff, I leaped among its spreading branches, and climbed down its trunk to the shore, where I found Morton searching for some traces of the party which we had tracked almost to the edge of the height.
In a moment we were joined by Max and Browne, who had clambered down the face of the bank by the assistance of the shrubs and bushes growing upon it.
“It is useless,” said Browne, “to look here for the trail we have lost. If they descended to the shore, it must have been in some place where Johnny and Eiulo could have got down.”
“The track seemed to lead directly to the sea,” said Morton, “and you must consider that a party of savages would not find much of an obstacle in such a bank as this, and would scarcely be as careful as ourselves of the safety of Johnny and Eiulo. In fact, I suppose they would hand or drop them down such a height, without scruple or ceremony. What I now begin to fear is, that our unfortunate companions have fallen into the hands of a party of savages, landing here for some transient purpose, and have been carried off by them.”
At this moment an exclamation from Max, who had walked a little way along the beach, announced some discovery, and turning round we saw him beckoning to us.
“What is that?” said he, when we had joined him, stooping down, and pointing towards a clump of stunted trees, growing in an angle or indentation, where the bluff fell back for a short distance from the shore, “is it not a canoe drawn up under the trees?”
It was not easy to distinguish the object clearly, on account of the thickness of the foliage. After waiting a moment, and looking carefully about, being satisfied that there was no one in the vicinity, we approached the spot. Max was not mistaken; a large canoe, capable of holding fifteen or twenty persons, was lying among the bushes, where it had evidently been placed for concealment. In the bottom were a number of carved paddles, a mast wound about with a mat-sail, several calabashes containing water, and some cocoa-nuts.
Having hastily noted these particulars, we withdrew to a short distance, behind a rock detached from the bank, and surrounded by a dense growth of tangled shrubbery, to hold a consultation.
From the position in which we found the canoe, with no dwelling near that we could see, and from the circumstance of its containing water and provisions, we inferred that it did not belong to persons inhabiting the island, or this portion of it at any rate. There was at least a probability of its belonging to the party which we had tracked so nearly to the spot, and that they were now somewhere in the neighbourhood.
“This canoe must be destroyed,” said Morton, after a moment of silence, “and we had better set about it at once.”
This proposition seemed a bold and a somewhat strange one. Browne demanded the object of such a proceeding.
“Unless we do this,” answered Morton, “our companions, if they are still alive, and in the power of the savages, may be carried away from the island before our eyes, and separated from us for ever. As long as they are here, within our reach, there is hope of our being able to rescue them; if not by force, then by some device or stratagem. At the worst, we only run some unnecessary risk, by what I propose. Could we ever forgive ourselves if Arthur should be carried off through our having omitted a precaution calculated to prevent it?”
Morton’s decision and earnestness prevailed; while he undertook the work of destroying the canoe, Max, Browne, and I, stationed ourselves at different points around the spot, so as to give timely notice of the approach of any person. He devoted himself to his task with such vigour, that in a very few moments he had completely broken up the bottom of the canoe, by repeated blows of a stone as heavy as he could lift in both hands. Not content with this, he disengaged the outrigger, and threw it, together with the mast and sail, into the sea.