Harper's Round Table, March 2, 1897

by Various

The huge shadow of the rocky cliff enshrouded us, and in rear of the black silhouette of the island I could see the pale greenish-blue of the sky in the west, with a few stars twinkling through it, and myriads of them gleaming in the deeper blue overhead. It was so peaceful and calm, and in such contrast to the scenes that we had been through, that were it not for the pain I still suffered, I could have felt almost joyous. But nature asserted herself, and lying there sprawled on the deck, I fell asleep.

I awakened with a start, to find it was daylight. I noticed that Caldwell must have staid awake after I did, for he had rolled up his jacket and placed it as a pillow beneath my head. But the honest fellow had given in at last, and there he was, snoring away on the top of the forward hatch, with his arms and legs straggled out like a jumping-jack on the floor of a play-room.

Now if what had happened before this calmly dawning day appears strange or improbable to any one who may read, and if they are tired of the relation of these facts, which, I can say without boasting, are unusual to have happened to any one being, let them lay aside for good and all the reading of what is to follow. For what has previously happened is nothing to what I am going to tell, in my opinion, as I am a truthful man.

I awakened Caldwell gently, and told him to go down and stir out the man who was doing the cooking for us, and have him brew some coffee and prepare breakfast. We had some fresh vegetables still left, for the Duchess of Sutherland had not been long from port when we had taken her.

Then, all alone, I gazed at the island in whose little bay we were resting.

A narrow stretch of beach ran from the foot of the cliff to the water's edge. The top was verdure-clad, and to the north some stunted underbrush grew along the crest. The strange crevice that I had noticed ran from the green slope, sheer and straight, to within twenty feet of the water's level. It looked as if it might have been made by the stroke of a giant's sword. The high rock at the end of the tongue of land to the southward resembled more closely than ever a moss-grown ruin; but all at once I jumped for the glass. A thin, twirling column of smoke arose from a little hollow a quarter of a mile up the shore, and by the aid of a telescope I could make out two or three huts, and some gray objects on the slope of the hill that resolved themselves into grazing sheep. I made up my mind, before I landed the prisoners and set to work stopping the seams, to row ashore and find out where we were. But hunger asserted itself, and the smell of cooking coming from the galley reminded me that with the exception of some sopped biscuit and a bit of fat meat that I had managed to worry down the night past, nothing solid had passed my lips since my struggle with the man in the passageway.

Running below, I asked the carpenter in to breakfast with me in the cabin. He was my First Lieutenant, as I have said, and of course I knew, without his saying so, that he had saved my life—with my own pistol, too, I surmise.

"Well, Captain Hurdiss," Chips said, "a busy day's before us. I think if we can careen the old hooker and get that opened strake so we can handle it from the outside, we can take her across, bar another such storm as we had last night."

"We'll make a try for it, Mr. Chips," said I, roaring out the answer after two or three futile attempts to speak quietly.

"You won't need a trumpet this voyage," was the carpenter's rejoinder to this, at which I laughed, for the hot coffee and food were restoring my spirits.