Palm Tree Island

by Herbert Strang

But we now perceived that the raft was taken in a current, which bore us to the right hand towards the promontory I have mentioned above, but obliquely, so that we were like to be carried past it without being able to land. The wind was blowing against the current, and we hoped it might stay our course long enough for us to come at some haven; but though we loosed another spar, which I used very diligently though with little dexterity, the current gained upon us, and I saw that we should never do it. In that predicament it came into my mind that we might use our coats as a sail, and we instantly stripped them off and joined them together by the sleeves, and then we lashed them to the spar I had been plying and held it upright, Billy drawing the loose end taut by two short lengths of rope which he fastened very quickly to the extremity of the raft. The sail made a very extraordinary appearance, as you may believe, but Billy laughed merrily when he saw it fill with the wind, and so, he working his paddle, and me holding the mast—with no little difficulty, for the wind was blowing more strongly—we drew nearer and nearer to the land.

And now, when we were, as I guessed, about two furlongs from the beach, I spied all of a sudden two boats lying close together near a small spit of land. I might have noticed them before but for being so busy with the sail. Billy saw them too, and cried out that they were our own boats, and was for steering instantly out to sea again, for he would sooner have faced a tempest than Hoggett, or any other of the men who had ill-used him. But even before I could answer him we were aware of a strange trembling of the raft beneath our feet, in no wise like the wonted heaving of the sea, and while we were in the article of wondering what it might be, the raft seemed to sink under us, as if a great gap had opened beneath it and it was falling through empty air. I was in a terrible fright, and catched at my breath, but still keeping my feet, and in a moment we heard a strange rushing behind us, and, turning about, beheld a great wall of water bearing down upon us. With one consent we flung ourselves on our faces, clutching at the ropes that bound the raft together, and had barely got a grip of them when the mountainous wave crashed upon us, and we were completely engulfed.

What happened to us then neither Billy nor I could ever perfectly tell, though we talked about it often; but I must suppose that the raft was rolled over and over, with us a-clinging to it. I had scarce got a little breath into me again, after a greater space of time even than when I had been sucked under at the sinking of our vessel, when the return wave smote upon us, and we were hurled back, and while we were still gasping after this, another green wall fell upon us from seawards, though not so high as the first, and, its force being spent, we found ourselves, sore bruised and breathless, on the landward side of a small group of rocks of about seven or eight feet high, and not above thirty yards from the beach. We had been carried clean over it, and the raft, to which we had clung as by a miracle, was floating in two or three feet of water. This we discovered afterwards, for we were as near dead as any one could be, and, indeed, I wonder that we were not killed outright, as we should have been beyond doubt but that the raft prevented us from being dashed upon the ground. We had had battering enough as it was, but coming to our senses, and very sick from the water we had swallowed, we sprang off the raft and hauled it ashore, Billy crying out that his feet, which were bare, were cut to pieces on the beach, which was very hard and jagged, though I escaped hurt, having my boots on.

We were immediately aware of a deep rumbling from the hill above, and lifting our eyes, we beheld prodigious quantities of smoke or steam, we could not tell which, belching from the top, and then a vast torrent of water pouring down towards us, with steam rising from it in clouds. We were near paralyzed with the sight, but recovered ourselves in time to skip back to the rocks over which we had been cast, and clambered to the top of them with what haste we might, Billy's feet being all red with blood from the sharpness of the beach. The torrent spread out as it flowed downwards, and, coming straight towards us, I was in a great fear lest, even though we were perched up, we should not escape it, and we were, indeed, on the point of casting ourselves into the sea. But I was thankful we did not do it, for the stream did not rise higher than within three feet of our perch, but dashed up a great shower of spray, which was scalding hot. It also hurled our raft with great violence against the rock beneath us, breaking off a good portion of it; but it did not carry it out to sea, the rocks preventing it.

Then, as we looked up towards the summit of the hill, we saw a number of figures, very small in the distance, hasting pell-mell downwards. At first I thought they were savages, who had espied us, but within a little I knew them for seamen of our crew. They ran at the edge of the torrent, avoiding the clouds of steam, but this they could no longer do when they came to where the water had spread over the beach, and we heard them uttering very great yells of pain, as well from the scalding water as from the jagged edges of the ground, their feet being unshod save for one or two of them. They skipped from point to point, endeavouring to find a safe way, and I recollected afterwards the strange antics of Wabberley, who, being of a ponderous shape, was very unfit for such feats of agility. The men gave no sign of having seen us, but bore away towards their right and our left towards a small tract of sand which, being protected by the slope of the hill, had not been covered by the lava from the mountain top, for such I concluded to be the constitution of the hard, blackish soil of which I have before spoken.

The seamen who came first to the beach disappeared from our sight behind a number of rocks like to those upon which we sat, and immediately afterwards we heard loud cries of alarm proceeding from that quarter. Those behind hasted on with even greater expedition than before, and when they joined their comrades there arose a perfect chorus of execration, which puzzled us a good deal, until, glancing seaward beyond the rocks that hid the men from our sight, I descried the nose of a boat, and shortly afterwards made out that it was empty. Without doubt it was one of the two boats we had seen laid up on the beach, and a wave had carried it out to sea, and it was this had provoked the cries we had heard. But I did not see the second boat, and wondered why the men did not put off in this to pursue the truant instead of spending their breath in vain outcries. When some little while had passed, and the boat was still drifting out, none pursuing it, I was taken with a great curiosity to see what the reason might be, and descended from my perch to creep towards them, taking care as I went to haul our raft to a safe place on the beach. As for Billy, he refused to budge, saying that he would not go a foot nearer to the men, because he was sure they would do him a mischief, a thing which I could by no means believe, their minds being taken up with other matters. However, he would not come, so I left him there, and went on alone.

It being my purpose to see without being seen—at least, until I knew what mind the men bore towards us—I went softly, and coming to the rocks beyond which they were, I peeped round one of them with great caution. And then I understood both why they did not pursue the boat and why they had let out so lamentable an outcry. The second of the two boats had a great hole stove in her bottom, without doubt by that huge wave which had well-nigh struck the breath out of us. The men were at their wits' end what to do, for the other boat was drifting further and further from the shore, and was at this time, as I reckoned, at least a hundred yards distant. One of them, as I looked, cried out that he would swim out to it; otherwise they were undone, for they were in peril of being boiled or burnt alive; and he plunged into the water and made a stroke or two. But immediately afterwards another of the men cried out that he saw the fin of a shark, at which the first man—his name was Pumfrey, and he was the ship's carpenter—instantly turned about and swam for the shore, splashing most vehemently with his arms and legs and bellowing like a bull, as much to frighten away the shark as from fear.

Seeing this their last hope of recovering the boat altogether dashed away, the seamen did nothing but walk to and fro in great agitation of mind, letting forth the most dreadful curses that ever I heard. As for Mr. Bodger, whom I spied among them, he sat down on a rock, being a timorous creature, as I have before said, and setting his face in his hands, groaned and sighed in pitiful fashion, as did those that were sick and wounded among them. It came into my mind—what I had not thought of before—that Billy and me, being partners with them in their unhappy situation, were no better able than they to leave this terrible place, at least with any prospect of success, for I knew very well that our raft would be a poor vessel for any voyage. And since it appeared to be our doom to live or die with them, I saw no benefit that could arise from any attempt to hide our presence. Accordingly I walked round the rock into their midst. It was Wabberley that spied me first, and when he saw me his jaw dropped and his face went green, as having beyond doubt believed me to be now at the bottom of the sea. He uttered a strange cry, which the others hearing, they looked towards him, and at the same instant beheld me, and after a sudden brief silence came running at me, demanding with the greatest eagerness how I had come ashore. When I told them, on a raft, they shouted for joy, and Hoggett catching me roughly by the arm, cried to me to say where that same raft was, or he would dash my head against the rocks. I answered that there was no need of threats or violence, for the raft lay but a short distance away, and he might perhaps use it to overtake the boat, and at the same time I pointed to the further rocks. Without more ado he set off at a run, and spying Billy still sitting upon the rock he asked whether we had the captain and Mr. Lummis also with us. But he did not wait for an answer, running very swiftly until he came to the place where our raft lay, the other men following him in a crowd.

When he saw what a poor shattered thing the raft was, he broke out again into cursing, thinking that it would be useless for his purpose, as indeed it might have been, he being a very ponderous man. But then bethinking himself he catched hold of Billy, and, Joshua Chick coming up, swore that Billy and he, being of no great weight, should go on the raft and pursue the boat, which, as we now perceived, had come into the current that had nearly carried us past the further extremity of the shore. Billy cried out that he would not go, but Hoggett took him by the middle, and when Chick had launched the raft, he threw the boy fairly on to it, bidding Chick fling him into the sea if he made any bones about it. And then, wrenching up two of the planks of the broken boat to serve as paddles, he gave them to the boatswain and Billy, who thereupon began to ply them with the utmost vigour.

We watched them as they went further and further from the shore, the seamen shouting with excitement, and even laying wagers one against another, though, being bereft of everything save their weapons and some few articles that were in the boat, it seemed to me great folly. And when after a long chase the boat was overhauled near the archway in the red rock of which I have spoken, they fell into a perfect ecstasy of joy, clapping each other on the back and shouting like frantic people. We saw Chick baling out the boat, Billy helping him, and as they were a long while doing this, it was plain that she held a great quantity of water and would most likely have foundered in no long time. Whilst they were at this work of baling, the raft floated away, and neglecting it they began to pull back to the beach. But they had not taken many strokes before we saw them turn again, and the men around me burst forth into horrible execrations, supposing in the first moment (so base of mind were they, as well as witless) that Chick was purposing to row away and desert them. But I told them that Billy had only remembered the raft, and so it proved, for they rowed after it, and having catched it up, fastened it by a rope to the boat's stern and so headed again towards the shore.