With Airship and Submarine: A Tale of Adventure

by Harry Collingwood

Chapter Twenty Five.

Barker’s Treachery.

The presence of Barker in the ship, and the working by Mildmay of the “traverse” which that presence seemed to render desirable, somewhat prolonged the passage of the Flying Fish to von Schalckenberg’s pearl-island. A full week thus elapsed between the date upon which they had taken the man on board, and that upon which they arrived at their destination—during which nothing was sighted.

But Barker made that week a lively time indeed for the rest of the party; for what between his quaint manners and mode of expression, and the interminable string of yarns that he spun, he kept them continuously at the high-water level of hilarity. He possessed in a very high degree the faculty of telling a story humorously; he even contrived to infuse a certain measure of humour into the relation of his most recent misfortunes; and, finding himself in touch with a thoroughly appreciative audience, he appeared to throw himself heart and soul into the task of entertaining them, by way of repayment of their hospitality. And when, presently, they began to grow somewhat accustomed to his singularities of manner and speech, and their sensitiveness to it had begun to wear off, they told themselves and each other that, queer fish as he was, he was “not half a bad sort.”

The only quality, indeed, in him that still continued to jar upon them was his phenomenal inquisitiveness. He appeared not to know the meaning of rudeness or impertinence; he sought to pry into everything, and seemed genuinely surprised and puzzled when Sir Reginald somewhat curtly yet courteously excused himself from complying with his request to be shown all over the ship, and have everything explained to him. Yet it was almost impossible to feel angry with him, because he appeared to be so overwhelmingly grateful for his deliverance from imprisonment upon that mere speck of an out-of-the-way, inhospitable islet that he was always talking about it, always striving to give expression to his gratitude in some way or other. To such an extent was this the case, indeed, that it quickly became embarrassing, almost to the extent of annoyance, to the rest of the party. There was nothing they did that he did not want to assist in; and they found the utmost difficulty in making him understand that they would really prefer that he did not take his turn with the others at the night-watches in the pilot-house.

They quickly realised that it would be quite impossible for them to preserve from him the secret of the nature of their operations at the pearl-island; they therefore made a virtue of necessity, and frankly told him all about the matter, merely retaining the position of the island from him. As might be expected, he exhibited the utmost interest in their plans; promptly demanded to be made useful in the carrying out of their operations, and—also as might be expected—betrayed no diffidence about making the suggestion that he should be permitted to share in such good fortune as might attend their labours.

The atoll was sighted a little after ten o’clock in the morning, and by eleven o’clock the ship had safely entered the lagoon, and come to anchor as nearly as possible in its centre. The islet—which, as von Schalckenberg’s book had stated, was little more than a mere rock—was of coral formation, and appeared to be merely a volcanic or seismic upheaval of one small portion of the oval ring of coral that formed the lagoon. Looked at broadside-on, so to speak, it bore some resemblance in appearance to a whale asleep on the water. Sand had washed up and become lodged among the inequalities of the rock-surface, and the deposits of birds had converted this into soil that, poor as it looked, sufficed to nourish a small clump of coconut palms that reared themselves from the highest point of the islet, which rose some thirty feet above the surface of the ocean. The shoal upon which the oyster-bed was reputed to exist lay two miles to the westward of the islet, and had been sighted from the deck of the Flying Fish shortly before her arrival in the lagoon, its position being indicated by a very distinct discoloration of the water.

The ship having been moored, the two boats were lowered into the water, and the party made an excursion to the islet, to view the place, and fill in the interval before luncheon. The islet was so small, however, and so absolutely devoid of interest, that half an hour sufficed the party to become perfectly acquainted with it; but they were repaid for their trouble by the discovery of a long, shallow, saucer-like depression, with a smooth bottom, that offered perfectly ideal facilities for the deposit of the oysters while undergoing the process of decomposition, which is the preliminary to the finding of such pearls as they may contain. There was no doubt that this would render the island and its immediate vicinity almost intolerably offensive to the olfactory nerves; but as the lagoon was to windward of the islet, and the ship was moored a mile and a half away from it, it was believed that her occupants would suffer no inconvenience from that source.

Luncheon over, two small nets, each with a sufficient length of rope to reach from the surface to the sea-bottom on the shoal, together with a couple of shovels and two rope ladders, were got out and put into the boats, while Mildmay and the professor arrayed themselves in their diving-suits and armour. Thus equipped, the two boats, with the six men of the party, set out for the shoal, Sir Reginald, the professor, and Barker going in one boat, while Mildmay, Lethbridge, and Sziszkinski went in the other. The passage through the reef lay to windward; the boats therefore were obliged to run some two miles to the eastward, to get outside and clear of the reef, and then go either north or south for about a distance of some two and a half miles to get round to the back of the reef and the island ere they could shape a course for the shoal. Luckily, although there was a considerable amount of swell, which burst upon the reef with a continuous sound of thunder, and threw up a wall of diamond spray some twenty feet high into the clear, sun-lit air, the trade-wind was blowing but a moderate breeze, and there was consequently not much sea. The boats therefore made excellent time, and arrived upon the shoal some three-quarters of an hour after leaving the ship. And here, again, they were favoured, from the fact that the shoal lay almost dead to leeward of the atoll, and but two miles distant from it; they were therefore in somewhat sheltered water, both as regards the swell and the sea, neither of which broke on the shoal.