The Missing Merchantman

by Harry Collingwood

The dawn that morning was long in coming, and when at length the grey murky light slowly forced its way through the overhanging canopy of rent and tattered cloud which obscured the heavens, wreck and destruction everywhere became visible. Fay Island, it is true, had escaped almost unscathed, doubtless owing to its sheltered situation; but on the main—as the party had got into the way of designating the larger island—thousands of trees were lying prostrate, many of them uprooted, and the rest snapped off close to the ground.

As soon as it was light enough to see anything, Gaunt, with Henderson this time for a companion, once more made his way down to the creek, but there was nothing to be seen from there. Even the buoy attached to the raft’s moorings was invisible; but just where it ought to be there was a strong ripple on the roughened surface of the water which seemed to suggest that the buoy, and possibly the swamped punt as well, was still there, but dragged under water by the strength of the current.

It continued to blow very heavily—though not with the same awfully destructive violence which marked the first burst of the hurricane—all that day and part of the ensuing night, when the gale broke, and by sunrise the wind had dropped to a strong breeze. Then once more did the four men set out from the fort in the, by that time, almost hopeless effort to obtain some clue to the fate of poor Captain Blyth.

Descending the outer ladder—which had been discovered on the previous day at some distance from the fort—the search party first made for the creek, from the shore of which—the stream having by this time subsided and its current sunk to its normal speed—they descried not only the buoy marking the moorings of the raft, but also, as they had quite expected, the swamped punt hanging to it. The latter was promptly secured; Manners swimming out to it with the end of a line from the shore, by means of which the craft was drawn in and grounded upon the beach and baled out. The oars having been washed out of her and swept away, the next thing to be done was to work up a new pair; a task which was soon accomplished, since they now had an abundant store of suitable material close at hand in the ship-yard. This done, the searchers made their way down stream and crossed to the main, there separating into two parties, one of which was to skirt the shore to the northward and westward, whilst the other was to proceed in the opposite direction until the two parties reunited; their object being not so much to look out seaward—for they knew that if the raft had missed the island it would by that time be far enough away—but rather to examine the shore for any sign of wreckage or—the poor skipper’s dead body. Henderson and Nicholls constituted one party, whilst Gaunt and Manners formed the other. They had not only a long, but also a most difficult journey before them, the difficulty arising chiefly from the nature of the ground they had to traverse; and it occupied them until well on in the afternoon of the following day, both parties camping in the woods for one night—and finding it anything but a pleasant experience; but neither party found anything to throw the least light upon the fate either of the raft or of the unfortunate man who had gone to sea in her; and when at length they met they had at least the negative satisfaction of being able to say that, after a thorough search of the entire seaboard of the island, they had discovered no actual proof that the captain had lost his life.

Very fortunately for them no damage had been done either to the mill or in the ship-yard; there was therefore no time lost in making good deficiencies of that kind, and they were consequently enabled to resume and carry on their shipwrights’ work forthwith. But not until a full fortnight after the gale did they finally give up the skipper as lost, young Manners being despatched every morning to the top of the mountain with instructions to remain there all day and maintain a constant look-out, the party still hoping, against their better reason, that after all the raft might have held together, and that Blyth might, in such a case, strive to regain the island. But at the expiration of that time they felt that it was useless to hope further, and the watching was discontinued.

Doctor Henderson was the hero of the next adventure which befell the party; and a pretty state of consternation he managed to throw everybody into for the time being, his poor wife and little Lucille especially.

It happened thus. It had been the custom of the party ever since their landing upon the island to observe Sunday as a day of rest, the prayers of the Episcopal Church being read, with their proper lessons, both morning and evening; whilst the rest of the day was devoted to such much-needed recreation as they thought in their consciences might legitimately be indulged in. Manners and Nicholls, after the manner of seamen, usually devoted a great deal of time on this particular day to the requirements of the toilette and the patching up of their clothes; whilst the two married men devoted themselves entirely to their families, taking their wives and the youngsters for tolerably long walks when the weather permitted. Sometimes the two families took these excursions in company, sometimes separately, according to their inclinations at the moment; and, whether separately or together, Gaunt usually carried his sketch-block and colours, whilst Henderson always took his specimen box; the one being as enthusiastic an amateur artist as the other was a botanist and chemist. When the weather was unfavourable for these walks Gaunt was in the habit of routing out some interesting book from his large stock and reading from it aloud; whilst Henderson, in the privacy of a little laboratory he had managed to fit up, prosecuted his researches into the nature of the various plants and herbs he had collected in former rambles.

They were all thus engaged on the afternoon of an atrociously wet Sunday, about a month after the mysterious disappearance of poor Captain Blyth, when the rest of the party were suddenly startled by a loud cry for help from Henderson, the call being instantly repeated twice or thrice in a much weaker tone of voice.

Tossing aside his book and springing to his feet Gaunt at once rushed off to the laboratory, with all the others close at his heels, and there they discovered the unfortunate doctor in a most extraordinary state of mind and body, and at the same time became conscious of a faint fragrant odour pervading the atmosphere of the room. Pale as death, with all his limbs hanging limp as if paralysed, the poor fellow was huddled up in a chair upon which he had evidently hung himself when the seizure—or whatever it was—first came upon him. His eyes were rolling wildly, his teeth chattered as though he were suffering from an ague fit, and his moustache and beard were flecked with foam. But it was evident that he still retained his reason, for the moment that he saw the little crowd pouring into the room he cried out in a weak but piercing voice:

“Fly! fly for your lives, every one of you but Gaunt! Fly! I say; stay not a moment. My dear fellow,” turning to Gaunt, “drive them out; throw them out if they will not go otherwise! And throw open that window at once; this atmosphere is deadly, I tell you.”