At length, however, when the sun had dropped to within some fifteen degrees of the western horizon, and was shining full into the bay where the wreck lay, the sea had so far gone down and the surf on the beach had so far abated as to render it possible for us to land without incurring much risk of injury to our limbs; we therefore awoke Murdock—who had passed most of the day in sleep—and, finding him in pretty good form after his long rest, forthwith proceeded to make the attempt. The distance which we had to traverse was a mere trifle of about fifty fathoms or thereabouts, and we did perfectly well until we reached the inner line of breakers; but there, as luck would have it, something went wrong with the boatswain, and without saying a word to either of us he suddenly flung up his hands and disappeared, at the precise moment when the comber had us in its grip and was about to fling us up on the beach, and when, consequently, it was most necessary that each of us should be perfectly free to look after himself. Fortunately, however, we were all swimming close together, and as Murdock disappeared, Cunningham and I with one accord dived and made a grab at him, catching him just as the breaker curled over and broke, hurling us all forward in a smothering swirl of foam; and the next instant we were all being rolled over and over upon the sand. Then, as we came to rest, I dug my toes and the fingers of my disengaged hand deep into the sand, ready for the backwash, while, as it afterward appeared, Cunningham did the same; and after a severe struggle of a few seconds’ duration the water receded, leaving us stranded and gasping for breath, when Chips and Sails, who had been on the watch, rushed down into the water, and, in obedience to a gasped request from me, seized the boatswain’s insensible body and dragged it up out of reach of the next breaker, while Cunningham and I scrambled to our feet and staggered after them.
Once ashore the boatswain soon recovered from his fainting fit, or whatever it had been, whereupon we all seated ourselves in a circle upon the sand and feasted upon bananas, afterwards slaking our thirst at a little runnel of deliciously cool, sweet water that the carpenter had discovered, earlier in the day, trickling out of the cliff at no great distance from the point at which the wreck had come ashore. And while we were eating, the carpenter informed us that he and the sailmaker had been stretched out upon the schooner’s cabin lockers, fast asleep, when she struck upon the reef for the first time; and that, awakened by the violence of the shock and the crash of the falling masts, they had leaped to their feet, and, scarcely knowing what they did, rushed up on deck, only to be swept overboard the next instant by a heavy sea which broke over the ship. Neither of them knew, at the moment, what had befallen the other; but from what they told us it was evident that the same sea which washed them overboard swept the schooner’s deck of everything and carried away her bulwarks: for when, fighting for breath, they rose to the surface, each of them found himself close to a mass of floating wreckage, to which he clung desperately, and so was eventually flung up on the beach, with the life so nearly battered out of him that it was just as much as either of them could do to crawl far enough up the beach to get beyond the reach of the deadly backwash, when they both collapsed, and so lay senseless until they were revived by the rays of the morning sun.
There were, however, two still missing, namely, the cook and the cabin boy. The former of these we found, quite dead, shut up in the stranded galley; but exactly what became of the cabin boy we never knew, for we never found a trace of him, alive or dead. We buried the body of the cook that same evening in the sand, using fragments of splintered planking wherewith to dig the grave, after which we flung ourselves down upon the dry sand above high-water mark, and, completely worn out, slept soundly until the following morning.
We awoke shortly after sunrise, to find the weather gloriously fine, the Trade wind again blowing briskly, and, to our very great surprise, the wreck but a few yards from the shore, in very little over two feet of water. But a single glance around us at the greatly altered appearance of the beach, as compared with what we had seen of it on the previous day, sufficed to explain the apparent mystery. The tide had something to do with it, of course, for it chanced that the schooner had come ashore on the very top of the highest spring tide: but it was perfectly evident that, apart from this, the water in the bay had been piled up to quite an unusual height by the gale; hence when the storm had subsided and the ocean had once more found its normal level the wreck was left little short of high and dry. This was quite a stroke of good luck for us; for we subsequently discovered that the range of tide in that particular part of the ocean was so exceedingly small that, even at high-water, we were able to wade right out to the wreck, while the wreckage which had been cast ashore on the previous day was now lying high and dry far up the beach, and quite beyond the reach of the ordinary tides. We were thus saved a vast amount of trouble, for although, when we began salvage operations, it was still necessary to do a certain amount of rafting in order to convey heavy articles ashore, light articles, such as we could carry, could be taken thither by the simple process of lowering them over the side to one of our companions, who then carried them ashore in his arms or on his shoulders.
But there were one or two matters demanding our immediate attention, the first being breakfast, while the next was the settlement of the very important question whether or not the island happened to possess other inhabitants than ourselves, and, incidentally, if so, what would be their attitude toward us. And this last was a matter of the most vital importance to us; for our experience, gained during the collection of our cargo of sandalwood, was that while the natives of certain of the islands were gentle, kindly disposed toward strangers, and perfectly harmless, those of others were exceedingly jealous and suspicious, fierce, treacherous, bloodthirsty, and in some cases actually cannibals. Of course if it should so chance that we had been cast away upon an island inhabited by natives possessing the last-named characteristics, our prospects of ultimate escape with our lives were what poor old Skipper Brown would have designated as “purty slim”, and until the point could be determined it behoved us to be exceedingly careful. Therefore, after discussing the matter at a sort of council of war, it was decided that, important as it might be to explore the island and ascertain its capabilities and limitations without delay, it was still more important and urgent to provide ourselves with the means of self-defence. Accordingly, while Chips and Sails again undertook to climb the cliff and procure some bananas for breakfast, Cunningham and I, accompanied by the boatswain—who seemed, after a good night’s rest, to be little the worse for the happenings of the previous day—agreed to wade off and board the wreck, with the view of securing such weapons and ammunition as were come-at-able, and had not been spoiled by sea water.
The arms chest, although actually under water, was secured without difficulty and carried ashore, together with several bottles of oil which we were able to rescue from the lazarette; and, this done, Cunningham and I set to work, immediately after breakfast, thoroughly to dry, clean, and oil all the weapons and put them in perfect working order, although such ammunition as we had been able to find was completely ruined by sea water. But I seemed to remember having heard our late skipper say that there was a reserve stock, packed in waterproof zinc-lined cases, stowed away somewhere in the ship; therefore, while Cunningham and I were engaged upon the task of cleaning the arms, the other three men went aboard the wreck and proceeded systematically to salve the entire contents of the lazarette, with the result that, before the day’s work was ended, they had found cases yielding no less than one thousand rounds of gun ammunition and two thousand revolver cartridges, all of which proved to be in perfect condition. We were thus pretty well provided with the means of self-defence, and, given something in the nature of a fairly strong defensive position, ought to be able to render a reasonably good account of ourselves.
The next thing to be done was to find that defensive position; the following day was therefore devoted to a thorough exploration of the island by the entire party, the expedition setting out immediately after breakfast, each of us being armed with cutlass, gun, and a brace of revolvers, with a good supply of cartridges in our pockets. Thus far we had observed nothing indicating that the island was inhabited by others than ourselves: but it must be remembered that the schooner had been wrecked in a bay hemmed in on the land side by cliffs, and that hitherto our farthest excursion had been to the top of the cliffs and just the few yards inland which were necessary to enable us to procure bananas from the trees growing right up to the cliff edge; the remainder of the island was therefore, so far, a terra incognita to us all, and might, for aught that we could tell to the contrary, be swarming with savages. We therefore decided to proceed with caution, all keeping close together.
To scale the cliff proved a very easy matter, for the carpenter and sailmaker had, on their first day ashore, found what might be termed a sort of natural stairway zigzagging up it, consisting of a series of rock projections, or ledges, up and down which it was possible to pass with little or no difficulty, and which served our purpose admirably.
Having climbed this stairway, we found ourselves at the top of the cliff and confronted by a dense undergrowth of jungle, consisting for the most part of an inextricable tangle of tough creepers, interspersed with shrubs and trees of various kinds, many of which seemed to be fruit bearers. Among these we recognised the plantain, banana, custard-apple, loquat, granadilla, guava, pawpaw, and some others with which none of us were acquainted; the fruit, however, was neither very plentiful nor very fine, most of the trees being so completely smothered with creepers that they could get neither sun, air, nor room enough to grow properly. We pushed through this brake for about a mile, working steadily uphill all the time, and frequently being compelled to cut a way for ourselves with our cutlasses, finally emerging upon a kind of ridge, bare of scrub, but richly carpeted with guinea grass, with a few tall trees of various kinds scattered here and there about it. But although this ridge, or plateau, was comparatively open, our view was still exceedingly circumscribed, for we were hemmed in on every hand by the bush belt, which seemed completely to cover the entire island, except the plateau upon which we stood and the bald summit of the curious-looking hill or mountain about two miles distant. The summit of this hill, which appeared to be flat, and which we estimated to be about three thousand feet higher than the ridge upon which we were then standing, promised to afford us a perfect view of the whole island; therefore, as the day was still young, we at once decided to make our way to and survey our domain from it.
The crest of the ridge upon which we stood appeared to lead straight toward the mountain, moreover it was not nearly so densely overgrown as was the lower ground; our progress, therefore, was tolerably rapid, and in the course of an hour we found ourselves clear of the bush and standing upon the lower slopes of the mountain. And then we knew that the towering mass in front of us could be nothing else than a volcano, either dormant or extinct, for there was no sign of smoke rising from its summit, although the nature of the soil around us, consisting as it did of pumice stone, scoriae, and ancient lava, left no doubt as to the character of the mountain.