We slouched down the shores of our little lake, and somehow the ship seemed to have come nearer since we started. How or why Waller had considered it necessary to move her, I could not conceive. Nor could we find the great boulder by which we had landed, though we felt sure that we had followed the same direction to it from the cliff-top.
We waved listlessly with our handkerchiefs for the launch to be sent to us, waiting at the water’s edge therewhile. Denvarre was still grubbing about among the rocks farther up the stones. Suddenly he gave a yell.
“Why, the water’s sunk,” he bawled. “Here’s the rock we landed on. The absurd lake’s running away.”
He was standing forty or fifty yards above us and we ran and joined him. As we looked higher up the sloping shore, we recognized what had been the water’s edge when we landed. There was no sort of doubt that the new-formed lake was leaking out again rapidly, and that our ship would very shortly be in a regular dry dock. We went on to consider that if the yacht took ground on that flat, rocky bottom she would careen over, and probably smash in her sides. We should be left homeless amid that desolation—a pretty kettle of fish.
As soon as the dinghy had snorted across and taken us aboard, we sought Waller and explained to him our discovery. Occupied with other matters he had never noticed the shrinkage, and had the lead hove at once. It gave six fathoms less than before, but—what was more satisfactory—showed fourteen still remaining. We knew the sea-level could not be more than fifty feet below us, so unless the water was draining away into some unimaginable gulf, there would remain thirty feet or more for our good ship to float in.
This was cheering in some ways, though it detracted in no wise from the hopelessness of our situation from the point of view of a possible rescue.
We resolved therefore that at earliest dawn a select expedition should set forth to carry inquiry further into the land, taking with it arms, food, and the necessary accoutrement for two days at least, that every portion of the seaward face of the cliffs might be examined for the greatest distance to which we could transport a boat. The party was to consist of Denvarre, Gerry, one sailor—name of Parsons—and myself. Lessaution we judged it best to leave, as we felt sure that his build did not fit him for prolonged exercise across the boulder-strewn confusion of this land of desolation. We felt, too, that he could amuse himself in delving around the foreshore of the lake, where antiquities were just as probable as further west; we said nothing to him of our project. Garlicke preferred to stay and “protect the ladies,” as he put it, and Waller’s business was on his ship. We four therefore spent the afternoon in dozing, to make up for the exertions of the night, and to prepare for the toils of the morrow. We rose for dinner, and endeavored to pass a cheerful evening, but Gerry took his cigar on deck at an early opportunity, unable to sustain the conflict with his natural passions which the sight of Garlicke’s attentions to Vi provoked, and I fought down my overmastering desire to throttle Denvarre, with a stolid determination that made me extremely unsociable, and a most apathetic conversationalist. So uneasily the after-dinner period passed, and we turned in to dream of the undying fires of Erebus in collusion with the outbursting of an uncontrolled and ever-growing Niagara.
Now behold us next morning setting forth into the unknown, with a great waving of handkerchiefs from the good folk on deck. We crossed the moat—as I christened it—scrambled ashore, and started along the incline of bare rock that led toward the cliff-tops. The going after the first half-mile was desperately rough. Great slab-like boulders, round and smooth-faced, lay about in gigantic masses, and the clefts between them were wide and deep. Laboriously we hopped from one to the other, getting many a bruise and thump as we slid upon their glassy surfaces. The slope that led up from the lake edge to the western hills was like a great moraine. It ran to the foot of ranged rocks that buttressed the lower shoulders of the peak. The quantities of pebbles were arranged in irregular ridge and furrow formation, growing in size and smoothness as we approached the cliff face. We proceeded excessively slowly; half-an-hour’s toil took us a bare mile.
As we paused and looked round, wiping our brows, a yell came sharply through the still air, and an extraordinary object staggered into our vision. Round the corner of basalt which hid the ship from us emerged a thing like a monstrous beetle. With frantic gesticulation it beckoned us to stop. It was with some difficulty we recognized the familiar form of Lessaution, for he had done his best to disguise it. His peaceful person had assumed the fantastic presentment of a mediæval buccaneer. According to his lights, I suppose, it was the strictly correct habiliment of the explorer.
A blue cap, something like that assigned to statues of Liberty, dangled from his poll, flopping with studied abandon over his left ear. He wore a baggy Norfolk jacket, with pockets erupting all over it like sartorial warts; huge gray worsted stockings came over his knees and half-way up his thighs, and immense brown boots were laced over his skinny little calves. In his hand was an axe; round his waist was a belt; from this dangled a sheath-knife, flanked by an enormous Colt’s revolver; above his left shoulder flaunted the muzzle of a shot-gun, the butt of which seriously incommoded the play of his right elbow. He stood forth the pirate of cheap fiction confessed.