The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn

by Harry Collingwood

We took breakfast in silence, for our minds were full of thoughts too deep for utterance; and when we had finished I resumed my post beside the dying man’s bed. Svorenssen was still asleep—the sleep of utter exhaustion; but he was very uneasy, and moaning occasionally. About half an hour later, however, he awoke and, after I had again given him a stimulant, he stammered and gasped the confession he desired to make.

There is no need to repeat it here word for word. In substance it was to the effect that Van Ryn had proposed, and he had agreed, that they two, obtaining entry through the back of the house, should murder me—in my sleep if possible—arm themselves from the arms chest, and thereafter impose their will upon poor Billy. The cutter was to be completed and launched, the treasure shipped aboard her, and the conspirators, with Billy as forced navigator, were to make their way to some civilised port, arrived in sight of which, Billy was to be knocked on the head and hove overboard—exactly as I had suspected—while the two men were to divide the treasure equally between them. It was a dreadful confession for a man to make; and I found it bitterly hard to utter the words of forgiveness that were so piteously pleaded for, but I forced myself to do so at last; and shortly after noon of that day the man, happy now and, I believe, at peace with his Maker, passed away. We buried his body an hour or two later.

With the death of one, and the disappearance of the other of the two men who had come into our lives, only to act as a disturbing element from almost the first moment of our acquaintance with them, all my worries and anxieties passed away like the memory of an evil dream; and upon the day following that of Svorenssen’s death I turned with renewed zest to the completion of the cutter. The hull was by this time practically finished; her deck was laid, her companion and tiny self-emptying cockpit completed, and all that was now needed was to run a low bulwark around her, rig and step the completed mast and bowsprit, bend the sails, ballast and launch her, get the stores, water, and treasure aboard; and up anchor and away.

Taken as it stands, that list of work still remaining to be done looks simple enough; yet it took me a full month to complete it, for the greater part of it was of so technical a character that the natives were of little assistance to me, and I had to do most of it with my own hands. Also, I found that Van Ryn had by no means completed the task he had undertaken to perform; the two topsails—square-header and jib-header—still needed roping, as did the jib; and that work cost me several days’ labour to complete to my satisfaction. Then there were the launching ways and the cradle to be built; and this task taxed my ingenuity to its utmost limit; but at length all was done, except the actual launching of the boat.

The finishing touches to my final preparations were completed too late in the afternoon for us to do anything more that day. Immediately after breakfast on the following morning, therefore, Billy and I climbed aboard the cutter, hoisted the Yorkshire Lass’s ensign to her topmast head, suspended a bottle of wine—one of the very few that we had left—from her stem head, and then, leaving Billy aboard, I descended to the ground, removing the ladder by which we had ascended. The wedging-up having already been accomplished, I next took a maul and, shouting to Billy to “stand by”, proceeded to knock away the spur shores. There was now a moment’s hesitation on the part of the cutter, of which I took advantage to jump clear; and then she began to move, slowly at first but with rapidly increasing velocity, while I dashed the bottle of wine against the craft’s cut-water, and named her the Dolphin, in accordance with Billy’s earnestly expressed wish.

Two seconds later the craft took the water, plunging deeply with the foam brimming to her taffrail; then, rising buoyantly, she shot far out toward the middle of the cove until, in obedience to my hail, Billy let go her anchor and brought her up. I then saw that I had underestimated the amount of ballast required, and that she needed about half a ton more, and a slight readjustment of it to put her in correct trim. That, however, was an error that could be easily rectified; and meanwhile I was highly gratified by the graceful appearance she presented, now that she was afloat.

Next in order came a “cold collation” that I had caused to be prepared for the delectation of Bowata and his petty chiefs, the whole of whom I had invited over to Eden to witness the launch, and—Billy having been brought ashore in the islanders’ boat—we forthwith fell to, all hands doing full justice to the feast. At its conclusion I formally presented the bungalow and all that we were leaving in it to Bowata, with a strict injunction to him and his to show the utmost kindness to any shipwrecked persons who might hereafter be so unfortunate as to be cast away on the group, an injunction which they all promised to obey most faithfully. Then followed our mutual farewells, to the accompaniment of much howling and weeping on the part of our black friends; after which the remainder of the day was devoted to the completion of the ballasting of the cutter and its correct adjustment.

There was but one other duty now to be done before we started for home, and that was the disposal of Kit, the leopard. Since the night when he so fearfully mauled Svorenssen the nature of the beast had undergone a material change for the worse. He had developed an uncertainty and ferocity of temper that rendered him distinctly unsafe and altogether unsuitable as a pet for anyone. With grief and many tears poor Billy was obliged to admit that such was the case; therefore it was at length agreed that he should be transported to West Island, where he could hurt no one, and where he would find ample prey for his sustenance; accordingly, on the following morning we weighed anchor and bade a final good-bye to our Pacific Eden, sailing through the East and North Island Channels to West Island, where, without mishap, we landed Kit and turned him adrift to shift for himself, not by any means without regret, for the beast had stood us in good stead on one memorable occasion. Then, sailing up North-west Channel, we entered the lagoon and, heading to the northward, passed through the wide gap in the reef, abreast of Shark Bay, and once more found ourselves riding buoyantly on the long swell of the open Pacific.

Of course I had long ago given most careful consideration to the question of where I should steer for, in the event of the cutter’s completion, and after much study of the charts at my command I had decided to shape a course for Sydney, Australia. It meant a voyage of some two thousand three hundred and fifty miles across the open ocean in a ten-ton cutter, but I felt sure the Dolphin could do it, especially as we should have the south-east trade wind and the prospect of reasonably fine weather with us nearly all the way. Accordingly, as soon as we were fairly clear of the reef, I bore up and headed away to the southward, along the west side of the group, of which we finally lost sight about an hour before sunset.

To say that our voyage was unadventurous would be untrue; on the contrary, we had many thrilling adventures and several hair-breadth escapes from destruction, but lack of space forbids more than the bare mention of them here. Let it suffice to say that, after a voyage packed with sufficiently exciting incidents, we arrived safely in Sydney harbour on the twenty-third day after our departure from the group.