Cord and Creese Part 6

By a violent effort he staggered to his feet. In an instant he comprehended his position. At this western end the island descended gently into the water, and the shoal which it formed extended for miles away. It was this shoal that caused the long rollers that came over them so vehemently, and in such marked contrast with the more abrupt waves of the sea behind.

In an instant he had comprehended this, and had taken his course of action.

Now he had foothold. Now the ground beneath lent its aid to his endeavor; he was no longer altogether at the mercy of the water. He bounded forward toward the sh.o.r.e in such a direction that he could approach it without opposing himself entirely to the waves. The point that stretched out was now within his reach. The waves rolled past it, but by moving in an oblique direction he could gain it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE STAGGERED UP A FEW PACES UPON THE SANDY DECLIVITY."]

Again and again the high rollers came forward, hurling him up as they caught him in their embrace, and then casting him down again. As he was caught up from the bottom he sustained himself on the moving ma.s.s, and supported himself on the crest of the wave, but as soon as his feet touched bottom again he sprang forward toward the point which now became every minute more accessible. Wave after wave came, each was more furious, each more ravenous than the preceding, as though hounding one another on to make sure of their prey. But now that the hope of life was strong, and safety had grown almost a.s.sured, the deathlike weakness which but shortly before had a.s.sailed him gave way to new-born strength and unconquerable resolve.

At length he reached a place where the rollers were of less dimensions.

His progress became more rapid, until at length the water became exceedingly shallow, being not more than a foot in depth. Here the first point, where the mound was, protected it from the wind and sea. This was the cove which he had noticed. The water was all white with foam, but offered scarcely any resistance to him. He had but to wade onward to the sh.o.r.e.

That sh.o.r.e was at last attained. He staggered up a few paces upon the sandy declivity, and then fell down exhausted upon the ground.

He could not move. It was late; night came on, but he lay where he had fallen, until at last he fell into a sound sleep.

CHAPTER V.

THE MYSTERY OF COFFIN ISLAND.

When Brandon awaked on the following morning the sun was already high in the sky. He rose at once and walked slowly up, with stiffened limbs, to a higher spot. His clothes already were partly dry, but they were uncomfortable and impeded his motion. He took off nearly every thing, and laid them out on the sand. Then he examined his pistol and the box containing cartridges. This box held some oil also, with the help of which the pistol was soon in good order. As the cartridges were encased in copper they were uninjured. He then examined a silver case which was suspended round his neck. It was cylindrical in shape, and the top unscrewed. On opening this he took out his father's letter and the inclosure, both of which were uninjured. He then rolled them up in a small compa.s.s and restored them to their place.

He now began to look about him. The storm had ceased, the waves had subsided, a slight breeze was blowing from the sea which just ruffled the water and tempered the heat. The island on which he had been cast was low, flat, and covered with a coa.r.s.e gra.s.s which grew out of the sand. But the sand itself was in many places thrown up into ridges, and appeared as though it was constantly shifting and changing. The mound was not far away, and at the eastern end of the island he could see the black outline of the rock which he had noticed from the ship. The length he had before heard to be about five miles; the width appeared about one mile, and in its whole aspect it seemed nothing better than the abomination of desolation.

At the end where he was the island terminated in two points, between which there was the cove where he had found refuge. One of these points was distinguished by the mound already mentioned, which from where he stood appeared of an irregular oblong shape. The other point was low, and descended gently into the water. The island itself appeared to be merely the emergence of some sand-bank which, perhaps, had been formed by currents and eddies; for here the currents of the Strait of Sunda encounter those from the Southern and Indian oceans, and this bank lay probably near their point of union.

A short survey showed him this. It showed him also that there was but little if any hope of sustaining life, and that he had escaped drowning only perhaps to perish by the more lingering agonies of starvation.

Already hunger and thirst had begun to be felt, and how to satisfy these wants he knew not. Still he would not despair. Perhaps the _Java_ might return in search of him, and his confinement would only last for a day or so.

He understood the act of Cigole in a way that was satisfactory to himself. He had thrown him overboard, but had made it appear like an accident. As he fell he had heard the shout "Man overboard!" and was now able to account for it in this way. So a faint hope remained that the captain of the _Java_ would not give him up.

Still subsistence of some kind was necessary, and there was nothing to be done but to explore the sandy tract before him. Setting forth he walked toward the rock along the sea-sh.o.r.e. On one side toward the north the sh.o.r.e was shallow and sloped gently into the water; but on the southern side it descended more abruptly. The tide was out. A steep beach appeared here covered with stones to which myriads of sh.e.l.l-fish were attached. The sight of these suggested the idea to him that on the opposite side there might be clams in the sand. He walked over there in search of them. Here the slope was so gradual that extensive flats were left uncovered by the receding tide.

When a boy he had been sometimes accustomed to wander on sand flats near his home, and dig up these clams in sport. Now his boyish experience became useful. Myriads of little holes dotted the sand, which he knew to be the indications of these molluscs, and he at once began to scoop in the sand with his hands. In a short time he had found enough to satisfy his hunger, and what was better, he saw all around an unlimited supply of such food.

Yet food was not enough. Drink was equally necessary. The salt of these sh.e.l.l-fish aggravated the thirst that he had already begun to feel, and now a fear came over him that there might be no water. The search seemed a hopeless one; but he determined to seek for it nevertheless, and the only place that seemed to promise success was the rock at the eastern end. Toward this he now once more directed his steps.

The island was all of sand except the rocks on the south beach and the cliff at the eastern end. Coa.r.s.e gra.s.s grew very extensively over the surface, but the sand was fine and loose, and in many places thrown up into heaps of many different shapes. The gra.s.s grew in tufts or in spires and blades, thinly scattered, and nowhere forming a sod. The soil was difficult to walk over, and Brandon sought the beach, where the damp sand afforded a firmer foothold. In about an hour and a half he reached the rock.

It was between five hundred and six hundred feet in length, and about fifty in height. There was no resemblance to a coffin now as Brandon approached it, for that likeness was only discernible at a distance. Its sides were steep and precipitous. It was one black solid ma.s.s, without any outlying crags, or any fragments near it. Its upper surface appeared to be level, and in various places it was very easy to ascend. Up one of these places Brandon climbed, and soon stood on the top.

Near him the summit was somewhat rounded; at the farther end it was flat and irregular; but between the two ends it sank into a deep hollow, where he saw that which at once excited a tumult of hope and fear. It was a pool of water at least fifty feet in diameter, and deep too, since the sides of the rock went down steeply. But was it fresh or salt? Was it the acc.u.mulation from the showers of the rainy season of the tropics, or was it but the result of the past night's storm, which had hurled wave after wave here till the hollow was filled?

With hasty footsteps he rushed toward the margin of the pool, and bent down to taste. For a moment or so, by a very natural feeling, he hesitated, then, throwing off the fever of suspense, he bent down, kneeling on the margin, till his lips touched the water.

It was fresh! Yes, it was from the heavens above, and not from the sea below. It was the fresh rains from the sky that had filled this deep pool, and not the spray from the sea. Again and again he quaffed the refreshing liquid. Not a trace of the salt-water could be detected. It was a natural cistern which thus lay before him, formed as though for the reception of the rain. For the present, at least, he was safe.

He had food and drink. As long as the rainy season lasted, and for some time after, life was secure. Life becomes doubly sweet after being purchased by such efforts as those which Brandon had put forth, and the thought that for the present, at least, he was safe did not fail to fill him with the most buoyant hope. To him, indeed, it seemed just then as if nothing more could be desired. He had food and drink in abundance. In that climate shelter was scarcely needed. What more could he wish?

The first day was pa.s.sed in exploring the rock to see if there was any place which he might select for his abode. There were several fissures in the rock at the eastern end, and one of these he selected. He then went back for his clothes, and brought them to this place. So the first day went.

All the time his eyes wandered round the horizon to see if a sail might be in sight. After two or three days, in which nothing appeared, he ceased his constant watch, though still from time to time, by a natural impulse, he continued to look. After all he thought that rescue might come. He was somewhat out of the track of the China ships, but still not very much so. An adverse wind might bring a ship close by. The hope of this sustained him.

But day succeeded to day and week to week with no appearance of any thing whatever on the wide ocean.

During these long days he pa.s.sed the greater part of his time either under the shelter of the rock, where he could best avoid the hot sun, or when the sea-breeze blew on its summit. The frightful solitude offered to him absolutely nothing which could distract his thoughts, or prevent him from brooding upon the hopelessness of his situation.

Brooding thus, it became his chief occupation to read over and over his father's letter and the inclosure, and conjecture what might be his course of action if he ever escaped from this place. His father's voice seemed now to sound to him more imploringly than ever; and the winds at night, as they moaned round the rock, seemed to modulate themselves, to form their sounds to something like a wild cry, and wail forth, "Come home!" Yet that home was now surely farther removed than ever, and the winds seemed only to mock him. More sad and more despairing than Ulysses on the Ogygian sh.o.r.e, he too wasted away with home-sickness.

[Greek: kateibeto se glukus aion noston oduromeno.]

Fate thus far had been against him, and the melancholy recollections of his past life could yield nothing but despondency. Driven from home when but a boy, he had become an exile, had wandered to the other side of the world, and was just beginning to attain some prospect of a fortune when this letter came. Rising up from the prostration of that blow, he had struggled against fate, but only to encounter a more over-mastering force, and this last stroke had been the worst of all. Could he rally after this? Could he now hope to escape?

Fate had been against him; but yet, perhaps, here, on this lonely island, he might find a turning-point. Here he might find that turning in the long lane which the proverb speaks of. "The day is darkest before the morn," and perhaps he would yet have Fate on his side.

But the sternest and most courageous spirit can hardly maintain its fort.i.tude in an utter and unmitigated solitude. St. Simeon Stylites could do so, but he felt that on the top of that pillar there rested the eyes of the heavenly hosts and of admiring mankind. It is when the consciousness of utter solitude comes that the soul sinks. When the prisoner thinks that he is forgotten by the outside world, then he loses that strength which sustained him while he believed himself remembered.

It was the lot of Brandon to have this sense of utter desolation: to feel that in all the world there was not one human being that knew of his fate; and to fear that the eye of Providence only saw him with indifference. With bitterness he thought of the last words of his father's letter: "If in that other world to which I am going the disembodied spirit can a.s.sist man, then be sure, O my son, I will a.s.sist you, and in the crisis of your fate I will be near, if it is only to communicate to your spirit what you ought to do."

A melancholy smile pa.s.sed over his face as he thought of what seemed to him the utter futility of that promise.

Now, as the weeks pa.s.sed, his whole mode of life affected both mind and body. Yet, if it be the highest state of man for the soul to live by itself, as Socrates used to teach, and sever itself from bodily a.s.sociation, Brandon surely had attained, without knowing it, a most exalted stage of existence. Perhaps it was the period of purification and preparation for future work.

The weather varied incessantly, calms and storms alternating; sometimes all the sea lying dull, listless, and gla.s.sy under the burning sky; at other times both sea and sky convulsed with the war of elements.

At last there came one storm so tremendous that it exceeded all that Brandon had ever seen any where.

The wind gathered itself up from the south-east, and for a whole day the forces of the tempest collected themselves, till at last they burst in fury upon the island. In sustained violence and in the frenzy of its a.s.sault it far surpa.s.sed that first storm. Before sundown the storm was at its height, and, though yet day, the clouds were so dense and so black that it became like night. Night came on, and the storm, and roar, and darkness increased steadily every hour. So intense was the darkness that the hand, when held close by the face, could not be distinguished.

So restless was the force of the wind that Brandon, on looking out to sea, had to cling to the rock to prevent himself from being blown away.

A dense rain of spray streamed through the air, and the surf, rolling up, flung its crest all across the island. Brandon could hear beneath him, amidst some of the pauses of the storm, the hissing and bubbling of foaming waters, as though the whole island, submerged by the waves, was slowly settling down into the depths of the ocean.

Brandon's place of shelter was sufficiently elevated to be out of the reach of the waves that might rush upon the land, and on the lee-side of the rock, so that he was sufficiently protected. Sand, which he had carried up, formed his bed. In this place, which was more like the lair of a wild beast than the abode of a human being, he had to live. Many wakeful nights he had pa.s.sed there, but never had he known such a night as this.

There was a frenzy about this hurricane that would have been inconceivable if he had not witnessed it. His senses, refined and rendered acute by long vigils and slender diet, seemed to detect audible words in the voice of the storm. Looking out through the gloom his sight seemed to discern shapes flitting by like lightning, as though the fabled spirits of the storm had gathered here.

It needed all the robust courage of his strong nature to sustain himself in the presence of the wild fancies that now came rushing and thronging before his mind. The words of his father sounded in his ears; he thought he heard them spoken from the air; he thought he saw an aged spectral face, wan with suffering and grief, in front of his cave. He covered his eyes with his hands, and sought to reason down his superst.i.tious feeling. In vain. Words rang in his ears, m.u.f.fled words, as though muttered in the storm, and his mind, which had brooded so long over his father's letter, now gave shape to the noise of winds and waves.

"--In the crisis of your fate I will be near."

"I shall go mad!" cried Brandon, aloud, and he started to his feet.

But the storm went on with its fury, and still his eyes saw shapes, and his ears heard fantastic sounds. So the night pa.s.sed until at last the storm had exhausted itself. Then Brandon sank down and slept far on into the day.

When he awaked again the storm had subsided. The sea was still boisterous, and a fresh breeze blew which he inhaled with pleasure.