At last, as a compromise, I hit upon the idea of cutting down the back wall of the house, between the house proper and the lean-to addition wherein my provisions were stored, and which had been used upon occasion as a smoke house. The provisions could be stored if necessary on board the boats, or under the work-shed. And a wide doorway cut between the two compartments would, with a curtain dividing the larger one, give me the necessary room. I myself would take as my sleeping-place the added room, and by arranging a couple of bunks, the thing would be done.
CHAPTER XI.
ALICE AND HER FATHER.
THE next morning, when shortly after dawn I awoke from a sound, refreshing sleep, my clothes were dried upon me, the storm had passed, and there was promise of a calm, clear day. Raking together the few coals that remained, I soon had my fire burning brightly, and then went down to look at the two boats lying in the creek. The stranger I found had the name “Alice” painted on either bow. The “Alice” proved upon closer examination a much larger boat than the “Mohawk.” She was fully four feet longer, and much broader and deeper. A flush deck extended aft from the bows about one third of her whole length, and as in my own boat, was carried clear aft at each side of a well which was protected by an upright washboard. She was provided with an iron centre-board, hinged at the forward end on a pivot. A very considerable rise or sheer fore and aft indicated that she would be pretty safe in heavy weather and high seas. There was a good boat’s-compass swung in gimballs, and mounted near the after part of the well, where it would be in sight of the steersman, and an extinguished lantern lying near it, as though to be used when needed, for a binnacle light. The boat was very strongly built, and evidently intended as a sea-going craft. An oiled tarpaulin, buttoned over pins on the washboard, partly covered the well-hole forward, and evidently could be drawn over the whole opening in case of heavy seas.
Of course I was much interested in the examination of the boat, and in the minutest detail of her construction and condition, as I expected when I came to leave the island to use her instead of my own boat, an exchange of vessels greatly to my advantage. On the deck just forward of the foremast a water cask had been lashed. The two hollowed skids nailed to the deck were still there in place. There was a ringbolt let into the deck at each side originally, designed to take the cask lashings. One of these ringbolts was pulled through the deck and the water cask was gone. This condition told the story almost as plainly as words. A heavy sea had struck the port bow and coming on board had washed away the cask, tearing out the bolt. The tarpaulin had saved the vessel from filling.
I looked to the mooring-lines to see that both boats were secure, and then waded over the creek to a place above the willows, where there was a clear, bright-bottomed pool, sheltered from view and well adapted for the fresh-water bath which I needed. Here, too, was a gourd of soap, placed there on former occasions for the bath.
I was in the very midst of the soap-and-water refreshment when I saw on a log at the bank and among the leaves what I took for the head of a huge python or boa constrictor. A hideous head, thrust out toward me through the foliage, bright eyes gleaming like jewels, a wrinkled, pouchy throat,—the unmistakable reptilian characteristics,—caused a shiver of horror to pass through me for a moment. My first impulse was to fly and leave my clothing on the bank. Up to this time I had not seen a single snake, great or small, venomous or harmless, on the island. Backing and edging slowly away, I soon reached a point where I could plainly see that my terrible snake had feet, Ah! it was nothing more nor less than an iguana, a great, harmless species of lizard that loves to haunt the banks of the streams; not only harmless but edible, a delicate morsel for an epicure, hunted as zealously as the Marylanders seek for diamond-back terrapin.
Instantly from fancying myself the hunted I became the hunter. I had tasted iguana-stew at Martinique, and had a distinct recollection of the delicate white meat, with a flavor apparently compounded of those of spring chicken, green turtle, and frogs’ legs.
The reptile remained perfectly motionless, with the exception of a sort of regular waving of the folds of the pouched throat. I quietly lowered myself into the water and went a few rods down stream to the boats, where I got a strong cord and a stout ten-foot cane pole. I made a running noose in the cord and hung it upon the pole. With this apparatus I returned and found the lizard still pumping slowly away with his throat, in precisely the same place and attitude. Slowly and cautiously I waded up at one side, until I was distant the length of the pole, and then by infinite degrees advanced the noose, watching the pumping in the wrinkled throat, until the loop was fairly over the head, but of course without touching the reptile.
Just then the pumping action abruptly stopped. But I did not wait for him to be off. On the contrary, I hauled aft on my line like lightning, the noose closed around the ugly neck and jerked a fifty-pound iguana splashing into the creek. As I had no mind to feel his sharp claws, I drove the end of the pole into his mouth and thus between cord and pole held him firmly in the water. He swam like a fish, but he was too securely caught to get away. I dragged him up to the bank where my clothing lay, and getting hold of my knife dispatched him; then I hurriedly clothed myself and cleaned the iguana, taking off the skin and cutting him up ready for the pot. And in fifteen minutes a good portion of him was in my iron kettle and on the fire.
Though snaring big lizards is not perhaps within the strict limits of what may properly be called true sport, still I must say that for real excitement, eager earnestness of pursuit, and genuine pleasure at the capture, I have never experienced before nor since anything approaching the hunter’s joy excited by this morning’s pot hunt for an iguana.