The doctor remained and worked hard on the island during the whole time that our operations were being carried on, as did Powell and Pursell, and they, with the paid hands, who relieved each other at intervals, practically did all the digging. I was on shore for one fortnight only, as will appear in the course of this narrative. I had, consequently, but a very small share of the hard work and of roughing it, for the life on board ship was incomparably more comfortable and easy than the life on shore. Our critical volunteer also only passed about two weeks, of not arduous work, on the island; for the rest of the time he was on the yacht.
This night we had another local storm, but by now we were getting accustomed to this.
Shortly after dawn on the following morning, Sunday, December 1, I saw, to my surprise, the whale-boat rounding the point. She came alongside, and the doctor, who was in charge of her boarded us. Seeing that there was very little surf in South-west Bay, he had rightly taken the opportunity of putting off for another cargo of stores. Among other articles, he carried away some large cocoanut mats we had purchased at Bahia, and which, when laid on the sandy floor of the tents, would make things more comfortable. He also took off the heavy boiler and receiving tank of the condensing apparatus, which could only be landed on a favourable day such as this was. Having loaded the boat, he left us again.
We had now taken so much weight out of the yacht that she was high out of the water, and might possibly prove somewhat cranky under canvas. So, after dinner, I took the two men off with me in the dinghy, for the purpose of fetching some heavy stones from the beach, to put in our hold in the place of all the tools we had taken out. First we pulled to the pier, where we landed without the slightest difficulty. Wright, while wandering about the beach, came across the last object one would expect to find on a desert island—a rather smart lady's straw-hat, so far as my judgment goes, of modern fashion. It had, probably, been blown off some fair head on a passenger steamer. The gallant gentlemen-adventurers, when they heard of this discovery, proposed that it should be stuck on a pole in the middle of the camp, to remind them of home and beauty.
Finding that there were no suitable stones near this beach, we got in the boat again and rowed to West Bay, to see if we should have better luck there. Three islets lie off the east side of the Ness. We found that the narrow deep-water channel between these and the cape could be taken with safety on a fine day like this. As a rule, this channel is impracticable, for the ocean swell penetrating it produces a great commotion, the sea being dashed with violence from the cliffs on one side to those on the other, so that the entire channel presents the appearance of a boiling cauldron; and, even on this quiet day, we had to keep the boat carefully in the middle, for the waves leapt high up the rocky walls with a loud noise, which was repeated in manifold echoes by the crags above. When we were in the passage between the third islet and the shore the scene before us was most impressive. The black cliffs rose perpendicularly on either side of us, about thirty feet apart, casting a profound shade on the heaving water, so that it looked like ink beneath us; and between these cliffs, as through a dark tunnel, we saw the sunlit waters and shores of West Bay. The mountains that lay to the back of it were barren and of bold outline, great pinnacles of rock dominating huge landslips that slope to the shingle-beach. We could distinguish the familiar forms of the Sugarloaf and Noah's Ark towering over the depressions of the hills.
At the farther end of the bay we found a suitable place for getting stones. Here a rocky shelf formed a sort of jetty. George leapt on shore and brought down the stones, while Wright, sitting in the stern, took them from him, and placed them at the bottom of the boat, while I backed in towards the jetty and pulled out again between the waves; for there was sufficient sea to do damage if proper caution was not observed. Having taken on board about half a ton of large heavy stones, we returned to the yacht and stowed them under the cabin-floor.
On the following morning, December 2, the doctor came off again in the lifeboat, and carried off another moderate load of stores. He reported that on the previous day, being Sunday, he had given all hands a holiday on his return to the shore, and that they had passed the day in exploring the neighbourhood of Treasure Bay. They came across some more tent poles and picks left by Mr. A——'s party. They also made one very curious discovery—a quantity of broken pottery, lying in a little rocky ravine at a considerable height above the shore. All this was of Oriental manufacture. Some was of unglazed earthenware, some of glazed china—the remains of what appeared to have been water-jars and punch-bowls. There were also some broken case-bottles of glass, oxidised and brittle from long exposure. The bowls proved to be of Blue Dragon china, about a hundred years old, and, therefore, of some value to the connoisseur.
Pottery of this description had certainly not formed part of the equipment of Mr. A——'s, or of any other of the treasure-hunting expeditions. Could these be relics of the pirates' booty—articles they had thrown away as being of no value to them when they buried the rest of the treasure? It was, certainly, difficult to account for the presence of old blue china on a barren hill-side of Trinidad. It has been suggested by an old sea captain that an East Indiaman may have been wrecked here many years ago, and that her crew had contrived to reach the shore with provisions and other property, for bowls of the same description as those of which these fragments had formed part were commonly used by the Malay sailors to eat their curry in.
The doctor soon left me, and hurried back with his boat's crew to the camp, for the sea was rising, the glass had been falling for twenty-four hours, and the sky had a stormy appearance, not only over the mountains, but on the sea-horizon as well.
These signs of foul weather did not deceive us, for it now blew hard from the south-east for several days, and the sea was so rough that we were unable to launch the dinghy, while, on the other hand, it was impossible to put out from the bay in the whale-boat. All communication was, therefore, cut off between the yacht and the shore for six days, and we could not even see each other during this time, as two capes stretched out between us.