Adventures in Southern Seas Part 5

I could see that Van Luck attributed to me all his misfortunes, for he watched me closely, but when I spoke to him he shifted his gaze uneasily, as though afraid to look me in the face. I can honestly say I felt nothing but pity for him, and I made allowance for his animosity toward me when I remembered his cruel punishment.

"Of a truth, Peter," said Hartog to me one evening when we sat together in the cabin, "I had better have shot Van Luck than let him live to become what he is. Never again will I send a man adrift upon such a voyage, though by all the rules of the sea the mutinous dog deserved what he got for his treachery. It was not his fault that you and I were not marooned instead of him."

I did not answer, but had I then known the malice in Van, Luck toward me, of which I shall hereafter tell, the compa.s.sion which I felt for him would have been lessened.

CHAPTER XV

THE SEAWEED SEA

Of all the adventures through which we had pa.s.sed, perhaps there was none so dangerous as that which now befell us. We had shaped our course to the east, on the look-out for a new group of islands, among which Hartog expected to find the Island of Gems, when, one morning, we observed the horizon to have a.s.sumed a black look as though a storm was brewing, but on nearing this phenomenon, we found it to consist of an immense growth of seaweed floating upon the ocean, and extending as far as the eye could reach.

The course we were steering would have carried us into the midst of the weed, so we hauled our wind, and coasted along it to the south, hoping either to find an opening through which we might pa.s.s, or to come to the end of the floating ma.s.s, but the farther we proceeded the thicker the weed became, while other ma.s.ses now appeared to larboard, so that we feared we might be enmeshed in such a manner that we would find it impossible to extricate ourselves. I had read of a sea covered by a weed which held ships entangled as in a net, and I feared that this was the danger into which fate had now led us. Portions of the kelp detached from the main ma.s.s, which floated alongside the ship, proved it to be a growth of extraordinary strength, the weed extending twenty feet and more below the surface of the water, and being so tough that two of our men between them were unable to break a specimen we drew on board, so that if we should become entangled in the kelp, we knew that death by slow starvation, when our provisions were exhausted, would await us.

During the day upon which we first sighted this phenomenon we attempted every manoeuvre of navigation to keep the ship clear of the weed, but in spite of all we could do, and the ceaseless watch Hartog and I between us kept on deck, the dawn of the next day found the ship as stationary as though we had run ash.o.r.e.

"Nothing but a gale from the right quarter can save us, Peter," said Hartog when we held a consultation together in the cabin, "and even a gale will not help us unless it comes soon and before the weed gathers."

I knew what he said was plain truth, yet I advised we should keep a brave face before the men, as nothing would be gained by provoking a scare.

Notwithstanding our a.s.sumed cheerfulness, however, we could see the crew were becoming alarmed, and as each day added to the acc.u.mulation of the weed which collected between us and the open sea, anxious looks were turned to the horizon in the hope of detecting the long-expected breeze.

So as to give the men occupation, and prevent their brooding, Hartog gave directions to man the boats in order that an attempt might be made to tow the ship through the weed, but after two days' fruitless effort the attempt was abandoned. It was dreadful to contemplate our impotence in the face of this danger, which hourly grew upon us. The seaweed, in itself so harmless that it becomes the sport of children when washed ash.o.r.e upon the beaches at home, here, in its original and monstrous growth became more terrifying than all the Leviathans of the deep.

There was something irresistible in this brown mantle which drew its folds so silently and yet so surely around us that even Dirk Hartog's indomitable spirit quailed at the thought of what might be before us.

"What demon led us. .h.i.ther, Peter?" he said to me when a week had pa.s.sed, and we still rode motionless in the grip of the seaweed. "Of all the perils which mariners must face, whoever heard of a ship's company being brought to their doom by floating kelp?"

I told him of the sea of which I had read, and which I believed we had come to. He listened to me with patience, and then relapsed into a reverie, from which I found it impossible to arouse him.

On coming on deck I detected Van Luck at his old game of sowing discord among the men. They did not, however, appear to pay much attention to what he said. He had now no authority over them, and none but Janstins and Bantum, who were with us on this second voyage, remembered him as the first officer of the "Endraght". The ingrat.i.tude of the man, however, after the consideration we had shown him, angered me, and I spoke to him roughly, and ordered him to quit the deck.

"Take heed," I warned him, "that I do not have you put in irons, or sent adrift upon a second voyage."

Van Luck obeyed me with a scowl, and slunk below, but I could see an evil light in his eyes which I attributed to madness, though I was subsequently to learn there was much method in it. I did not like to add to Hartog's anxieties by telling him of Van Luck's conduct, and, indeed, when I considered our present predicament, it seemed unlikely that Van Luck, or anybody else, could do us much harm or good.

And now another event occurred to add to our perplexities. The kelp around the vessel suddenly became alive with a small species of black crab. These creatures must have scented the food from our vessel, and they came in millions to besiege us in order to devour it. The deck was soon black with them, and they swarmed below in ever-increasing numbers. Nothing escaped them, and most of our provisions were quickly demolished. We killed them in thousands, and the stench from their crushed bodies almost drove us out of our minds, but other thousands quickly filled their places, and the crustaceans continued to pour down the hatches like black streams of evil-smelling water.

But this visitation, dreadful though it was, eventually proved our salvation. The weed, now alive with marine life, lost its density, and when, at length, the breeze came, we could feel we were making headway.

But had we not been able to force our pa.s.sage into the open I verily believe we would all have been devoured alive by black crabs, which swarmed upon us. As it was, many of the men suffered severely from the bites of these creatures, and weeks elapsed before the ship was clear of them and the stench which they had brought aboard. But when the breeze freshened from the right quarter, and we felt our vessel moving toward the open sea, we were too thankful for our escape from a horrible death to think of the lesser evils from which we suffered, though the destruction of such a considerable quant.i.ty of our stores was a serious loss, and set Hartog thinking as to whether our immediate return to Amsterdam was not imperative.

"I had made up my mind for another year in these lat.i.tudes, Peter," he said, "and I am loath to go back without setting foot upon the Island of Gems, but man is but a straw in the hands of Destiny, and who am I to set myself against the decrees of Fate?" So with mixed feelings of disappointment and pleasure we once more found ourselves homeward bound.

I had hoped that from this voyage I might return a rich man, able to make honourable proposals to Count Holstein for his daughter's hand, but it seemed now that fortune was not to be won so easily. My share of the treasure found on Cortes' island might enrich me sufficiently to buy a small interest in my master's business, but this was all I could hope for, and the bright dreams which Hartog and I had formed of the Island of Gems seemed about to dissolve, as is the way with phantoms, into thin air.

But who can trace the course of Destiny, or fathom the mysteries of Fate?

CHAPTER XVI

THE ISLAND OF GEMS

For some weeks after getting free from the kelp we experienced fine weather, with favourable winds and a smooth sea, when, almost without warning, a storm broke upon us with hurricane force. All hands were ordered to shorten sail, no easy task in the fury of a gale. As chief officer I took command in the fore part of the vessel, while Hartog issued his orders aft. The sea ran so high, often breaking over the bows and swamping the decks, that I ordered the men to attach themselves by lifelines to the foremast, and I also secured myself in the same way. As sometimes happens at sea in the heart of a storm, a succession of rollers followed each other, making it impossible to do more than hang on until they pa.s.s, and during one of these intervals I observed Van Luck, whose presence I had forgotten in the hurry of the moment, standing by the foremast with a knife in his hand. I was powerless to reach him from where I stood, and a moment later the lifeline which held me to the foremast was severed, when, despite a desperate effort which I made to retain my hold, I was swept into the sea.

For a time, which seemed to me an eternity, I was under water, but when I rose to the surface I could see the ship at some distance from me, fighting her way through the storm. I was almost suffocated by the spray which continually blew over me, and the heavy sea boots which I wore, filling with water, threatened to drag me down. I had given myself up for lost, when I noticed a spar floating near, which must have been washed overboard with me, and, making an effort, I succeeded in laying hold of it, so that I managed to keep afloat. Thus holding to the spar and swimming, sometimes with one hand and sometimes with the other, I kept my head above water until my feet touched ground, when I waded upon the sh.o.r.e of an island, where I fell down exhausted, and for the time lost consciousness.

When I came to myself it was almost dark. I had fortunately been carried by a current upon the leeside of the island, so that I was protected from the wind and sea, but my limbs felt numb and cold, while the blood coursed feebly in my veins. I felt too weary to move, and presently I fell asleep, from which I awoke, as I judged, about midnight, much refreshed.

I was now once more haunted by the thought of being marooned in a strange country, so that I remained awake, bemoaning my fate and blaming myself for not having taken better precautions against such a mishap. These reflections led me so far that I began to form a project against my life, but the dawn dissipated my gloomy ideas, when I made up my mind to trust to Providence, which had protected me through so many perils.

I then mounted the high land to scan the horizon, but no sign of the ship could I see, so I knew myself to be again a castaway. The island appeared to be one of considerable size, very fertile and well watered.

The verdure inland was unusually luxuriant, even for the tropics. From the centre of the island rose a mountain, with a smoke-cloud banging upon it, which proved it to be an active volcano.

The storm had pa.s.sed, and the weather was pleasant, the beat not excessive, being tempered with a land breeze. I descended after a while into a valley, where I noticed a number of fresh-water ponds, at one of which I knelt down to drink, when I perceived a prodigious quant.i.ty of bivalve sh.e.l.ls of one single species, which formed a kind of beach, in breadth about fifteen feet. The water in the pond was clear, and although it was deep, the sand and sh.e.l.ls at the bottom of it were easily seen.

Whilst I was admiring their beauties I was startled by the approach of a party of natives, the leader of whom, a tall, muscular savage, marched in front of the others, who followed him with some degree of order. From the crown of his head to his waist he was plastered with a red pigment, his frizzled-out hair being ornamented with the plumes of the bird of Paradise. His dress, composed of tapa cloth, sh.e.l.ls, and feathers, was more elaborate than any I had seen in the islands. In his hand he carried a spear tipped with white quartz. His followers were decked in similar fashion. Raising his right arm in token of friendship, an overture to which I responded, the chief then addressed me in the same dialect to that used at Cortes' island, which I had little difficulty in understanding, although some of the words puzzled me.

"Whence come you?" said he. "From the sun or the sea?"

"From the sea, O chief, whither I will return when my friends, the white spirits, come for me," I answered.

This reply did not seem to surprise my interrogator, who now desired me to follow him. After proceeding for some distance through a luxuriant forest we came to what appeared to be the gates of a town. Two large perpendicular stones rose to the height of fourteen feet above the ground. These pillars must have been twelve feet through at the base, and five feet on top, while a still larger stone, some sixteen feet long and four feet thick, was mortised into the perpendicular columns.

It was difficult to understand how such huge stones could be quarried and transported inland by a people possessing so few mechanical appliances as these savages, but to my inquiry regarding this curious gateway I was answered that the stones had been there as long as any could remember, having been placed in position by supernatural agency.

At the gate of the city crouched some miserable specimens of humanity: old men and women, haggard, shrivelled, and naked. These unfortunates, I afterwards learned, were the aged and infirm, too feeble to perform their share of the work of the tribe and condemned to remain at the gateway, dependent for food upon such charity as might be given them.

On entering the town we pa.s.sed a number of warriors, all fine, athletic men, dressed in the same style as those who accompanied us, and painted with stripes of red, yellow, and white pigment.

I was now received by a commanding figure, whom I took to be the king.

He was even more gorgeously dressed than the others, with strings of bright stones round his neck and Paradise plumes in his hair, while upon his head was a circlet composed of human teeth, set in clay, in the centre of which glowed an opal of extraordinary fire. His face was sullen and cruel, and his hazel eyes, with their dark lashes and yellow-tinged whites, gave to his countenance an expression scarcely human. Near to him stood a group of young men, their bodies plastered with a bright red pigment, who appeared to be his personal attendants, or slaves.

This savage now addressed me, asking the same questions as the other chief, to which I returned similar answers. I was then led to a house with a beehive-shaped roof, where food was brought to me, consisting of coconuts and bananas, with a luscious kind of fruit I had never before tasted, but which I found very palatable. After my meal I was taken before the queen.

CHAPTER XVII

QUEEN MELANNIE

The queen was white--indeed very pale--with large dark eyes, and brown hair that hung down in its natural beauty, untouched by the pigments with which the savages convert their own hair into mops. She was dressed in a robe of white tapa cloth with strings of bright sh.e.l.ls and gold ornaments upon her neck and arms. Upon her head was a diadem of white clay encrusted with uncut gems. The throne upon which she sat was of polished marble. Her left hand rested upon the woolly head of a black boy, who showed his white teeth as we entered. In her right hand she carried a human skull. The queen, though very beautiful, looked sad. She could not have been more than eighteen years old, and it was evident she came from European descent, and was in no way related to the savages by whom she was surrounded.

And now I bethought me if I would gain favour I must make a present to the queen, and remembering a small mirror I had with me, set in a silver frame, which Anna had given me as a parting gift, I took it from my pocket and presented it to Queen Melannie, the name by which her people addressed her. It cost me a pang to part with it, but I reflected that if these savages killed me, as seemed likely unless I could ingratiate myself with them, the mirror would, with equal certainty, pa.s.s into their hands as if I voluntarily surrendered it.

The queen uttered an exclamation of surprise when she caught sight of her face in the looking gla.s.s, nor could some of her attendants who stood near resist the temptation to look over her shoulder in order to see the reflection of their own faces also. Nothing that I could have given the queen would have pleased her more. My present at once brought me into favour, for all appeared to regard such a prodigy as the work of immortals.

Queen Melannie, having appropriated Anna's mirror, and finding I understood what she said to me, then dismissed her attendants and invited me to a private audience. I asked her how she, a white lady, came to be among savages, but she could tell me nothing except that she remembered standing upon the beach as a child, alone, when it was very cold, and that she cried very much, until the natives had brought her into this house, where she had been reared and cared for ever since.