As Leslie stood there, gazing abstractedly ahead and puffing meditatively at his pipe, he was startled back to a consciousness of his surroundings by a violent shock that thrilled through the catamaran and caused him to look anxiously over the stern, under the impression that the craft had struck and run over a piece of floating wreckage. He could see nothing, however, and was still staring and wondering when the same thing occurred a second time; and Dick now noticed that the wind had suddenly fallen almost calm, also that the surface of the ocean appeared to be strangely agitated, the regular run of the sea out from the south-east having in a moment given place to a most extraordinary and dangerous cross-sea that seemed to be coming from all directions at the same moment, the colliding seas meeting each other with a rush and causing long walls of water to leap into the air to a height of from twenty to thirty feet. These leaping walls or sheets of water were in a moment flying into the air all round the catamaran, and falling back in drenching showers of spray that instantly flooded her. They at once awoke Flora, who started up in affright, crying to Dick to tell her what fresh danger had arisen.
“Oh, nothing very serious this time,” answered Leslie; “It is quite a novel experience to me, I admit; but there can be only one possible explanation of it, and that is that we have just sustained a shock of earthquake. If I am right in my surmise, this extraordinary disturbance of the sea will subside almost as rapidly as it has arisen, and that will be an end of the whole business. But, by Jove, I am not so sure that it will be, after all,” he added in quite another tone of voice. “Just look at that!”
And he pointed toward the island, over the peak of which there hovered a faint glow, like the reflection upon smoke of a hidden fire.
“Why, what does that mean, Dick?” demanded Flora. “It looks as though our volcano had become active again; but that is hardly likely, is it, after remaining quiescent for so many years?”
“Well, as to that,” answered Dick, “its long period of quiescence constitutes no guarantee that it will not again break out into activity. And, as a matter of fact, it certainly has done so; that ruddy, luminous glow, hovering like a halo over the peak, can mean nothing else. So long, however, as it is no more actively violent than it now is, no very serious harm is likely to ensue; but, all the same, I would very much rather it had not happened. As it is, it is a hint to us to hurry up with our preparations and get away as quickly as may be from a region where such happenings are possible. And now, lie down, again dear, and get some more sleep, if you can. You need all that you can get. And it appears that the disturbance is all over, for the sea is smoothening down again, and here comes the wind, once more, back from its proper quarter.”
When dawn broke, Leslie found himself within some ten miles of his island, but to leeward of it, Point Richard, its most northerly extremity, then bearing a good two points on his weather bow; he therefore tacked and made a board to the southward, with the object of getting far enough to windward to weather the reef on the next tack. Being now close enough to the island to get a distinct view of its general outline, he scrutinised it most carefully in the endeavour to discover whether the earthquake had seriously affected it; and it was with some concern and anxiety that he thought he could detect certain slight alterations of shape, here and there. Not, of course, that it mattered to him, in the abstract, how much or how little the island had altered in shape, provided—but this was a very big proviso—that it had not so seriously affected his dockyard as to damage the cutter, or caused the treasure-cave to collapse to such an extent as to obliterate its situation, or bury the treasure beyond the possibility of recovery.
Anxious now to get back to the camp at the earliest possible moment, Leslie was alternately watching the island and the luff of his mainsail, impatiently waiting for the moment to arrive when it would be possible to again tack to the eastward, when his eye was attracted by the appearance of an object some distance to the eastward and broad on his lee bow. Looking at it intently, it had to him the appearance of a mast with a fragment of sail fluttering from it, and keen though he was upon reaching camp with as little delay as might be, it was impossible for him, as a sailor, to pass such an object without examination. With a little stamp of impatience, therefore, he put up his helm and bore away for it.
It was not very far distant—a couple of miles, perhaps: certainly not more; and to reach it therefore involved no very serious loss of time. It was not long ere he was close enough to it to enable him to make out that it was a raft of some sort, rigged with a boat’s oar, or a small spar, for a mast, upon which was hoisted the remains of what had once been a boat’s lug sail. He noticed also that it was occupied by a little group of recumbent figures, whose attitudes were grimly suggestive of an ocean tragedy. They were mostly lying prone upon the raft, with the water washing round them; but one figure was seated with his back supported against the little mast. They were evidently all insensible, for though the catamaran was by this time quite close to them there was no attempt made by any one of them to signal her; there was nothing indeed to indicate that life still lingered upon that forlorn little ocean waif.
Taking room for the manoeuvre, Leslie tacked at the right moment, and, with fore sheet to windward, slid gradually and with steadily decreasing way up to the lee side of the raft, which he reached just as, with the main sheet eased full off, the catamaran lost way altogether. And as he glided up alongside the helplessly drifting fabric there came to his nostrils a whiff of poisoned air that told its own tale only too clearly. Still, although death was so obviously present, it was possible that life might be there too; so taking a rope’s-end with him he sprang on to the little structure, and secured the two craft together. Then he rapidly examined the motionless figures, one after the other. There were five of them altogether, and of these five, three were undoubtedly dead; but in the case of the other two it seemed just possible that life was not quite extinct, and he therefore hurriedly removed them both to the catamaran, and as hurriedly cast the raft adrift again. Luckily Flora was once more asleep, and so escaped the dreadful sight presented by that little platform of broken planking and odds and ends of splintered timber, with its ghastly load, the empty water-breaker and entire absence of food on the raft telling at a glance the whole history of the tragedy.
The moment that the catamaran was again clear of the raft, Leslie turned his attention to the two pitifully emaciated and rag-clad objects that he had rescued, and commenced operations by administering a small quantity of brandy to each; his efforts being eventually rewarded by the discovery of signs of returning animation in both. Thus encouraged, he assiduously persevered, and presently one of them opened his eyes, and, staring vacantly about him, huskily murmured: “O God, have pity, and give me water—water!”