Dick Leslie's Luck: A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure

by Harry Collingwood

It was clear to Leslie that, with only four paddles left, the savages could not possibly propel their canoe to windward and return to his island; they must perforce go to leeward and make their way back to their own island as best they could. He had therefore no more to fear from them—at least for the present; and he accordingly let draw his fore sheet and, getting way on the catamaran, tacked and bore away for the mouth of the entrance channel, leaving his enemies to paddle before the wind and sea, and find their way back home again if they could.

The catamaran had arrived within about six miles of the channel, and Leslie was already debating within himself the question whether, after all, it would not have been a wiser and more prudent thing to have put it beyond the power of his surviving antagonists to return to their friends, and possibly organise a very much more formidable expedition against him, and whether, even now, it would not be advisable to go in chase of and utterly destroy them, when his eye was attracted to a small triangular object of brownish yellow tint that, brilliantly illuminated by the bright sunlight, showed up strongly against the dazzling white of the surf breaking upon the weather edge of the reef. It was in shape like a shark’s fin, but was not the same colour; it was hull down, and was sliding along at a rapid rate past the wall of surf. It needed but a single glance to enable Leslie to determine that it was a sail, ay, and undoubtedly the sail of a native canoe.

Sick with the sudden thought of the possibilities suggested by the presence of such an object just where he saw it, Dick took a hasty turn of a rope’s-end round the tiller-head and with one bound reached the weather-shrouds, up which he shinned with an agility equalled only by the dread that struck like a knife at his heart. In a moment he was high enough to get a footing upon the throat of the gaff, from which elevation he was enabled to obtain a clear view of the craft. She was about three miles away, well to the southward of the dense column of smoke rising from the blazing brig, and was edging away round the curved outer margin of the reef, heading so as to pass to the southward of the island in a westerly direction. She was too far distant, of course, to enable Leslie to distinguish details with his unaided eye, but he could see that she was a big craft, capable, he thought, of carrying quite forty men, she showed a very large sail to the freshly blowing breeze, and was skimming along at a very rapid pace.

This was as much as Leslie could make out at that distance; but it was enough, and, groaning with dire apprehension of some dreadful evil, he slid down the shrouds and went aft to the tiller. He could see through the whole devilish scheme now. The gang who had set fire to the brig were evidently only a small contingent of the expedition, and it had been their duty to attract his attention and decoy him away from the island while the others—headed without doubt by those scoundrels Sambo and Cuffy—raided the camp.

That, Leslie savagely meditated, was undoubtedly what had happened. And, meanwhile, where was Flora? What had been her fate? Had she received sufficient warning to effect her escape to the Treasure-Cave, which, armed with her revolvers, she could hold for hours against any number of savages? Or had she been surprised? The thought of the latter alternative plunged Leslie into a cold sweat, and set him to muttering the most awful threats of vengeance. He had no room in his mind for thought of the possible extent of irremediable damage that the savages might have wrought in the camp; he could think of nothing but Flora; could only hope and pray that she might have made good her escape. The catamaran was sailing as well as ever, for there was a strong breeze blowing, yet Leslie ground his teeth in a fever of impatience at what he deemed her snail-like pace; for his first business now must be to ascertain the fate of the girl he loved. The very worst that could possibly have happened, apart from harm to her, was comparatively unimportant. Yet, all the same, his mind once set at rest about her, he would exact a terrible penalty from those daring marauders; he would pursue them, ay, to their very island itself, if need were; while, if he caught them at sea, not a man should survive to organise another expedition against him. He felt now that he had been a weak fool not to utterly exterminate the decoy party that he had just left.

At length, after what to Leslie appeared an eternity of suspense, the catamaran passed through the entrance channel and bore away for the camp, a raking view of which was to be obtained as soon as the veiling wall of surf was passed. To his inexpressible relief, the framework of the cutter still stood on the stocks, apparently uninjured; and inshore of it he could see the tent, also apparently uninjured. He had been cherishing a sort of half hope that he would also see Flora standing on the beach awaiting his arrival; but she was not there, and, upon reflection, he was not greatly surprised. No doubt she was still in hiding, and would probably not reappear until he had succeeded in making her aware of his return and of the fact that all danger was now past. As the catamaran sped along Leslie’s keen glance roved anxiously over the various parts of the camp as they opened out, and he presently saw that his savage visitors had been busy with the varied items of the cargo that he had saved from the brig and stored under canvas, for the canvas cover was folded back, and boxes and bales were strewed here and there upon the sward. Ah, and there was Sailor—good dog!—lying down on the beach close to the water-line, waiting for him. But where, then, was Flora? She could certainly not be far off, or Sailor would not be there, lying so quietly and lazily stretched out in the sun. Leslie seized his rifle and fired a signal shot to let the girl know that he was at hand; but the echoes of the report pealed off the face of the mountain and still she did not appear, nor—stranger still—did Sailor leap to his feet with a welcoming bark. What, Dick wondered, was the matter with the old dog? Why did he lie there so utterly motionless? and what was that long thin shaft that looked almost as though its point were embedded in his body? Leslie gave vent to a bitter groan; for as he bore up to run the catamaran in upon the beach, he recognised only too clearly that the poor dog was dead—slain by the cruel spear that transfixed his body. And he saw, too—just in time to avoid grounding the catamaran upon the spot—that the sand of the beach was marked with many naked footprints, leading to and fro between the camp and a mark upon the sand that had evidently been left there by a canoe.

Leaping ashore, and taking care not to confuse the footprints by obliterating them with his own, Leslie examined the marks with the most anxious care; and presently his most dreadful fears were realised, for plainly to be distinguished here and there among the imprints of bare feet were the prints of Flora’s little shoes, blurred in places, as though she had offered strenuous resistance to the coercion of her captors, but quite unmistakable for all that. Dick subjected the whole length of the track, from the water’s edge to the boundary of the sward, to a most rigid examination, and at length satisfied himself that Flora’s footprints all led in one direction, namely toward the water; and then, with a savage cry, he went to work to prepare for the pursuit. For there could no longer be a shadow of doubt that Flora had been carried off, and was at that moment aboard the canoe that he had seen under sail. Oh, if he had but known—if he had but known!

His preparations were few, and did not take very long to complete. He first dashed off to the tent, and, snatching the mattress and bedding from his bed, rushed down to the catamaran with it, and, flinging it down on deck, covered it with a tarpaulin. He would certainly be out one night, if not two, and Flora would need something softer than the bare planks to lie upon when he had rescued her. Then, returning to the tent, he flung into a basket all the provisions that he could lay his hands upon, together with half a dozen bottles of wine—there was no time to go to the spring for water—and this with a small case of rifle ammunition and a few others matters that he thought would be useful, he also conveyed on board the catamaran. He was now ready to start; but as yet he knew not in what direction the canoe was steering, except that she was undoubtedly bound to the westward. Now, there were at least three islands lying in that direction, and the canoe was probably bound to one or the other of these; but it was of the utmost importance to know which one, for any mistake upon this point would be fatal, as it must result in the canoe being missed altogether. So Leslie took a boat compass that had originally belonged to the brig, and the telescope, and, thus provided, made his way as rapidly as possible to Mermaid Head—as he had named the most southerly point of the island—hoping and believing that from the lofty cliffs of that headland the flying canoe would still be in sight.

To climb to this point cost him twenty minutes of precious time, although he did the whole distance at a run; but when he got there he felt that the time had been well spent. For there, some ten miles away, with the afternoon sun shining brightly upon her sail, lay the fugitive canoe, scudding away on a due westerly course, with the wind over her port quarter. He cast a hurried glance over that part of the ocean where he believed the second canoe ought to be, and at length thought he caught sight of her, but could not be certain, as the light of the sun lay strong upon the sea in that direction. But when at length he got into the field of his telescope the image of what he had seen, he found that it was some object, about the size of the smaller canoe, certainly, but floating awash. If therefore it was indeed the canoe that he had already pursued, she had either capsized or been swamped, and there was an end of her and her crew. He now carefully took the bearing of the big canoe, and, this done, at once set out on his journey back to the camp and beach.

The return journey was accomplished in about a quarter of an hour, for it was all downhill. Then, having reached the camp, Leslie hunted up one or two further articles that he anticipated might be useful, and, rushing down to the catamaran, got under way and headed her for the channel. The breeze had by this time freshened up somewhat, and the craft heeled over under the pressure of her enormous mainsail until her lee pontoon was buried to its gunwale, while the weather-shrouds were strained as taut as harp-strings; but Dick only smiled grimly as he heard the wind singing and piping through his rigging; he would scarcely have shortened sail for a hurricane just then. The queer-looking structure tore at racing speed across the smooth surface of the lagoon, shearing through it with a vicious hiss along her bends and a roaring wave under her lee bow, and so out to sea. Leslie was compelled to haul his wind for a short distance after shooting through the channel, in order to clear the northern extremity of the reef; but he tacked the instant that he had room, and stood away to the southward, skirting the outer margin of the reef as closely as he dared and gradually edging away as the reef curved round in a westerly direction. He found himself close in under the cliffs of Mermaid’s Head about half an hour after clearing the entrance channel, and then at once shaped a course corresponding to the bearing of the canoe as taken from the summit of those same cliffs.