But where was the mirror? There was a cave near by; I stepped to it, and entered in. ’Twas deep and dark; but I felt about the walls of it, and sure enough found the mirror. It stood set up against the rock, wrapped in a canvas case.
Thus, then, the great mystery stood revealed. A chance, albeit a wondrous chance, had unmasked the trickery; for, if the lightning had not fallen, as it did, directly upon the face, and in that very moment of time, ’tis a thousand to one I had never seen it. For, on removing a little to one side, I found that the face was no longer to be descried. ’Twas the same when I essayed the other way. The thing appeared only by direct observation.
By means of this ghostly scarecrow, I apprehend, Doctor Copicus had sought to preserve his island inviolate of strangers, frighting away any ships (save those he wanted), which happened to wander near, scattering reports and rumours of terror, building on the superstitions of the sea. But why he should have employed the thing to terrify us, whom, by means of Ouvery, he had enticed hither, I could not at first understand.
However, casting back my thoughts upon past events, I saw the fact: in suborning Ouvery to the work, Doctor Copicus, no doubt, had given him a sign to show forth on his returning in our ship; which sign being wanting at our coming to the island, he had been deceived as to what we were.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE FLOAT. THE WALKING LAD.
But hunger and thirst, which began to work in me, diverted my thoughts.
My thirst I quenched with a draught from the water of the cataract, though it tasted brackish. Hereupon I began to walk back along the shore towards the gully by which I had descended.[D] But the sun began to shine scorching hot, and I had not gone far, but I was fain to turn in to a cave to shelter from the glare.
This cave was pretty deep, and the farther parts were dark. Now, by this time of my sojourn on the island, the instinct of curiosity was become habitual with me; and I prepared to search the cave, taking out my cocoa-fibre to have set fire to it with my flint and steel. But I found it would not kindle, being damp.
However, my sight becoming something accustomed to the dim light, I began to rummage amongst the pieces of fallen rock that blocked the cave at the farther end. Here I came upon the end of a ship’s cable which lay coiled in a hollow place behind a boulder. ’Twas fastened to a horse’s hide.
I was perplexed as to what the thing might be, but presently knew it for a float (the horse’s hide being blown up before use), and, by the same token, its use and office in the business of scaring poor mariners. For, recollecting the episode of the cut cable in the night of our coming to the island, I made small doubt that one had been sent out on the float to do the work.[E]