Fire Mountain Part 16

Captain Peabody says he is going home with a full ship, grease or no grease, that the hands may be ----, that they haven't the guts to get at the grease anyway, and that it isn't the mate's place to give him advice. So Garboy shut up, and we are bound north after the baleen.

Well, I think Garboy is right, though he hasn't any business offering advice to the Old Man. I am glad the Old Man shut him up. Anyway, a full ship means more dollars, and I will need plenty of dollars to start life ash.o.r.e with. I will have enough to buy the old Wentworth place. I think Alice will take me, and if she don't, there are plenty of other girls in the world.

"You see, friend Winters is indulging in the time-honored pastime of spending his payday before he has it; and of vowing the usual sailor vow to leave the sea and buy a farm. Well, perhaps the poor devil was in earnest; but he didn't have a chance to achieve his ambition.

"Now we will skip to the last regular entries in the book. They are dated several months later, August of 1890, and the _Good Luck_ has been on the northern grounds for some time. No position is given, for reasons you will appreciate. First is dated August 15th:

Still in the fog. We have been three weeks without a sight, fogbound, and blundering G.o.d knows where. The breeze holds from the southwest at about three knots, but the bank is moving with the wind. It is so thick we can not see a ship's length in any direction. The current is strong and westerly.

I know the Old Man is worried, because the Kamchatka coast is close a-lee. Garboy says he was in a bank in these seas one time for ten weeks. I think he is a liar. I am thinking a lot about Alice.

"Next entry two days later, August 17th," said the hunchback.

Still fogbound. Heavy groundswell from sou'east. Garboy says it means a sou'east blow, and I think he is right. Well, anything to blow away this cursed fog! The Old Man is drunk today. The old skinflint never hands out a swig to any of us, though. We must be near land, for we hear birds flying above the fog. All hands standing by, and we are keeping the best lookout possible. The Old Man should sober up, and attend to business.

"There, that is the last regular entry, the last one he wrote upon the ship. Here is the next one--observe the different ink! This is written in red, the same color as those figures upon the skin. I think Winters wrote with one of those red writing-sticks you buy on the China coast; he probably had one in his pocket. This entry tells of tragedy--mark how it begins:

May G.o.d have mercy! I will write down our plight, though I know there is small chance of these words reaching civilization. I sit in the window of the dry cave, on the Fire Mountain, and write by the light of the midnight sun!

Manuel Silva and I are the sole survivors of the wreck of the _Good Luck_. Thirty-five were lost. We are cast away on a barren island.

It is a volcanic mountain, filled with black caves. There is a bottomless hole that belches steam, and the earth shakes. We do not know our lat.i.tude or longitude. G.o.d help us, we only know we are cast away in the empty Bering sea, near the Asia coast!

It happened a week ago. I had the deck. We were running before a hard gale from the sou'east, and the Old Man was drunk. It was very thick, and impossible to keep a good lookout. Then, just after two bells in the middle watch, I heard breakers. I had only time to order the wheel up, when we struck. We jammed between two monster rocks, and the masts went by the board, and the ship broke in two. The fore part went to pieces, and all the hands forward, except Silva, who was at the wheel, went to.

The stern was wedged fast. Garboy and Costa gained the deck from the cabin. The others must have drowned in their bunks. We launched the quarterboat, but it swamped, and we were spilled into the boiling sea.

I was washed free of the reef, and made the beach. I found Silva there.

We were 'most frozen, and bruised badly. I got out the matches I had in the waterproof packet I carry this log in, and we made a fire of driftwood in one of the caves, and warmed ourselves. Then, we looked for the others, it being daylight, except for the couple of hours after midnight. But we found not a body.

We salvaged all the wreckage we could reach. It was not much, for the currents swept most of the stuff to sea. We got a cask of beef, and one of biscuit. The quarterboat came ash.o.r.e, only a little damaged.

We also got the wreckage of No. 4 whaleboat, and her gear, and some timbers, and a handy billy.

That day the gale was spent, and next day was clear and calm. We repaired the quarterboat with stuff from the whaleboat, and she is tight. Then we pulled off to the wreck, and succeeded in boarding her.

Then the Devil entered into us, and we were possessed by greed. We had planned to get clothes, and stores from the lazaret; but when we got into the lazaret, we had no thought but for the treasure of ambergrease. We spent all the day getting the ambergrease to sh.o.r.e.

We were greatly tired by the labor, and, since the wreck showed no signs of breaking up, we went into a cave and turned in.

While we slept, it came on to blow again. When we awoke, the seas were breaking over the wreck. The bay was quiet, sheltered by the mountain, so our stuff on the beach had come to no harm. But during the day the wreck broke up, and swept to sea. We salvaged but one box of candles--not a particle of the clothes and food we so sorely need. So, doth Providence justly punish us for our greed!

Silva was greatly disheartened, but I braced him up. We set about to explore the caves, with the candles; for we wanted a dry cave to sleep it, and to stow the ambergrease in. The ground-level caves are all wet from steam, though they are warm. So, we went into the mountain through the Elephant Head, toward the great noise. We came to a windy cave, where there was a great Bottomless Hole, that the noise came out of. Silva went half mad with terror, for he is very superst.i.tious, but I saw it was steam. But it is an evil place. And afterward we found the hole in the roof that led to this dry cave.

This window I write by is the only daylight opening of the dry cave, and it is full forty feet above the beach. But we had no nerve to look deeper into the black guts of this awful place, and we decided to use this cave. So, I rigged the handy billy, and we hoisted all the grease in through the window, and stowed it. And we have taken up our quarters here, and I have made a ladder from the rope of the handy billy, so we can come in through the window, and don't have to pa.s.s through that fearsome place where the hole is.

"There--that was written a week after the wreck," said Little Billy.

"The next one, three days later:

We have been here ten days now, and I think things look mighty black.

Silva's nerve is gone, and I have to fight to keep mine. The mountain shakes continuously, and we fear it will erupt. And always, there is the noise, the moaning in the hole, and the great rumble. It has got Silva.

Silva has gone down to the beach to get sh.e.l.lfish. We are saving the beef, as much as we can. I am glad Silva is out of my sight. He is mad--and, G.o.d help me! I fear I am going mad, too. He sits and looks at me by the hour, just looks, looks, and says not a word, and his eyes burn.

I am feared of him. He is a murderer. He told me so, when his conscience mastered him. He told me why he feared the hole. He drank of the hot spring, and when he got a bellyache, he thought he was dying. Then he told me that he was one of the hands on the _Argonaut_, a dozen years ago, and that there was mutiny, and that he strangled the captain with his hands. And he says the moaning down in the hole is the captain calling him. He is very superst.i.tious. Now he prays by the hour, and then curses horribly. And he goes down to the edge of the hole and howls at the captain. I try to talk with him, and plan to reach the mainland in the quarterboat, but he shakes his head, and just looks, looks. I have taken his sheath knife, but I fear to wake and find him strangling me. But I will leave here, whether he will go or not. Better to die at sea, than in this black place!

"Now--the next entry. Day or two later, I judge," said Billy.

He is gone! He was sitting opposite me, and suddenly he sings out something in his own lingo, and sprang to his feet, and rushed down toward the hole leading to the windy cave. He was laughing awfully. I followed--but could not catch him. He jumped into the hole and the noise stopped. And I stayed through the shake, and saw the lights from the pit. G.o.d help me, I wanted to jump, too!

I am going to leave this place tomorrow. I have repaired the quarterboat, and hopeless or not, I will try to reach Kamchatka. It is better than to stay here, and go mad, and follow Silva!

I have written the secret of the cave on a piece of the lining of my parka, though G.o.d knows if I shall ever need it. I have a little beef, and biscuit, and the breaker from the wreck of the whaleboat. Little enough! If I only had the lat.i.tude and longitude of this place, I might guess my chances. But--not even a compa.s.s!

"The next entry is just a scrawl," said Little Billy. "It is barely legible."

I am in the fog--the terrible gray fog! No water! I see Alice in the fog!

"And then--the end."

I see Silva sitting opposite me. He looks, looks! Lord G.o.d, hast thou deserted me?

CHAPTER XI

THE CODE

There was a moment's silence as Little Billy finished reading. There was in the hunchback's face, and in the faces of the girl and the old captain, a somber understanding of John Winters's fate.

The whaleman's pitiful experience was a commonplace of the sea, and it required no effort of mind on their part to vision the tragedy of an open boat on an empty sea. But Martin was more sharply impressed. The sea held as yet no commonplaces for him, and the poignant question that ended the castaway's chronicle kindled a flame of pity. Martin had the picture mind, and a habit of dramatizing events.

As Little Billy read, Martin had unconsciously followed the narrative with his mind's eye, building a series of vivid, connected pictures.

He had witnessed the battle with the whales, the finding of the treasure, had peered baffled into the blanket of Bering fog, had seen the leaping breakers at the base of the smoking mountain, had excursioned through the caves by Winters's side, and, at last, had beheld clearly the little open boat, with its despairing occupant, disappear into the gray mist.

"The poor devil!" cried Martin.

His words broke the spell of silence that was upon the table.