The doctor volunteered to accompany me, and I decided to take him with me. It was indeed important that he should make himself acquainted with the pass, for it had been settled that whenever I remained with the yacht he should be in command of the party working on shore, and, as the only reliable water-supply I knew of was at the cascade, it might become necessary for him to lead the men across the mountains to it should a water-famine occur at South-west Bay. Again, it was certain that bad weather would occasionally make the landing of boats at South-west Bay impossible for weeks at a time, so that, if there were some urgent reason for communicating with the yacht, this could only be done by crossing to the pier landing-place, at which I am of opinion that one can land ten times with safety to once in South-west Bay. It had been my intention to form a depot of stores at the pier, but this we found to be unnecessary.
After I had made the above explanations to my companions assembled in the saloon, our sportsman, who had been listening attentively, remarked: 'Skipper, you have given us plenty of reason for taking Cloete-Smith with you tomorrow and teaching him the roads; but you have omitted the most important reason of all. Let me inform you that you won't get us to do any work on shore on Sundays; so on every Sunday afternoon we will put on our best clothes and the doctor will have to take us over the pass to the pier, where we can do a sort of church-parade, and listen to the band. I suppose there will be a bar there, too, with Theodosius as bar-man presiding over the rum-barrel.'
CHAPTER X.
THE SUMMIT OF TRINIDAD.
On the following morning—November 21—as soon as breakfast was over, the doctor and myself started for the shore. In view of the rough climbing before us we did not burden ourselves with much baggage, but set forth in light marching order. We dispensed with blankets, and, in addition to the somewhat scanty clothing we had on, we carried merely provisions for three days, consisting of some ship's biscuit, a few strips of Brazilian charki or jerked beef—rather rank—some dried figs, a flask of rum, a tin bottle to hold water, one pannikin, tobacco, pipes, and matches.
We could see from the deck that there was considerable surf on the beach, and it was evident that we should not find the landing at the pier to be so easy a matter as it often is.
Two of the paid hands pulled us off in the dinghy. When we were about halfway to the shore we perceived a bright red object on an eminence near the cascade. On getting nearer we distinguished this to be a ragged red flag flying from a pole. This was a startling discovery for us, and might signify that some rival expedition had landed on the island.
We reached the pier and found a high swell rolling by it, while eddies and overfalls round the outer end of it caused the boat to become more or less unmanageable, driving her first in one direction, then in another, so that she could not be brought very close to, without risk of staving her in against the rocks.
Under these circumstances the only safe method of getting on shore was to jump into the water. The boat was backed in towards the pier end, the men pulling a few strokes ahead whenever a wave threatened to dash her on to it. I stood in the stern and awaited a favourable opportunity, then jumped overboard and clambered quickly up the pier side before the next roller should wash me off. Then the boat was backed in again, and the doctor repeated the performance.