Frontier Boys in the South Seas Part 23

Berwick was found with a wounded hand, resulting from his efforts to stop the machinery. Juarez had accomplished this, but to the gaze of all there was offered a badly wrecked mechanism. Berwick was livid with rage and more concerned by the mishap to the engine than by the pain in his injured hand.

Someone, it was found, had tampered with the machinery. Who was the culprit?

"How serious is the injury?" inquired the professor.

Berwick shook his head and looked at his injured member, about which Jim was skilfully applying a bandage.

"I fear it will be several days," was the gloomy response. "But we will get right at it."

Even Berwick, however, was disappointed with the progress he could make toward repairing the distorted machinery, although he had the helpful aid of all the boys. There were exasperating delays. Essential parts of the machinery were not to be found and subst.i.tutes had to be made.

The unvarying calm and sultry heat persisted.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ISLAND OF BOHOOLA.

But there is an end to all things, and at last the long wished for breeze sprang up. The sails filled once more, the ship sped on and hope revived.

A welcome sound at noon the next day brought everyone on deck.

"Land, ho!" called the forward watch.

"Where away!" shouted the mate who was on duty.

"Off the starboard bow!"

The captain had just finished his task of determining their location, and had recognized the fact that the island they sought might be near at hand.

The hours went by more swiftly now, all watching interestedly the new field of their endeavor, the Treasure Isle. Would they find fortune and a successful ending to their venture? Oddly enough the thought uppermost in the minds of all was the possible abundant supply, not of treasure, but of fresh water and something good to eat.

The land which they were rapidly approaching appeared to be of considerable extent. Headlands, it was seen, rose somewhat abruptly from the sea. At their base they could see a line of white caused by the incessant action of the waves as they broke upon the sh.o.r.e.

"It doesn't seem as if there was any place to make a landing," said the professor, looking at the long line of breakers and the spray that was flung in the air.

"Can't tell until you are close in," replied the captain. "We'll run along the sh.o.r.e a ways."

Continuing thus till within half a mile of the coast, the yacht was brought about, and with sails close hauled, followed its contour for quite some time without success.

"Looks like a bit of smooth water over there," said the captain, indicating a place in the near distance. "Bring her up to the wind," he ordered. "We will take a look into it."

The yacht had now been brought about and with sheets eased off she was drifting slowly on the tide.

"Who will compose the first landing party?" asked the captain.

"Jim, Juarez and myself," answered the professor. "The steward and one of the crew to row."

The boat was launched and equipped. One empty water cask and a bucket was carried along. Was the island inhabited? From the ship's deck no sign of life was discernible to the naked eye or indeed by careful search with the spy gla.s.s. The party went, however, fully armed and prepared for any emergency.

There was, they found, a recession in the sh.o.r.e several hundred feet in width through which the waves extended their course, later to break in foam on submerged rocks a hundred yards beyond.

The boat shot rapidly forward, and readily pa.s.sed through the opening between the cliffs. On each side, the rocks, jagged and rough, rose threateningly, but a further recess to the right afforded shelter, and the water became comparatively smooth. Pa.s.sing through the channel and rounding the obstructing rocks they found another pa.s.sage of similar extent which led further inland and brought them into a little crescent shaped bay of something like a half mile in length by a quarter of a mile in width. At several points were observed small strips of sandy beach, and strange wading birds of the stork species were seen, but not a suggestion or sign of a habitation.

"Crescent Bay!" cried Jim, noting the shape. "Isn't it fine here!"

"It's fine!" exclaimed the professor. "Who would think of such a place as this hidden away in the fastness of these hills. It's like some of the secret haunts of the buccaneers."

"It would be a nice bit of seamanship to bring a craft through that channel, though," said Juarez.

"But I believe it could be done," said Jim.

The scenery grew wilder and more beautiful with every stroke of the oars. From caverns of leafy shade came the gleam and flicker of many colored plumage.

Few readers but are familiar with the glowing color in which voyagers have painted the beautiful islands of the South Pacific. Nature has lavished upon them her rarest gifts; deep shadowy groves, valleys musical with murmuring streams, lofty mountains rising into the sapphire heaven out of a girdle of eternal foliage; wonderous visions of color in shrub and flower, the golden-yellow of the low-growing chinquapins, and the blood red osiers; a bright fresh air, redolent of fragrance, and a sea dimpling in cloudless sunshine.

But this fairy region, where Shakespeare might have fitly placed his Oberon and t.i.tania, was inhabited by a race unworthy of its charms; a race enervated and corrupted, and abandoned to all those vices which usually accompany or originate in a degrading and sanguinary idolatry.

The Tahitians were not cannibals, but they sacrificed human victims in frightful numbers on the shrines of their hideous divinities.

Intoxication and theft were their predominant vices; continual wars decimated the population so that in some cases great islands were left absolutely without an inhabitant; infanticide was a universally prevalent custom, and that fully two-thirds of the young were cruelly murdered is a fact vouched for by the missionary Williams, one of the most intelligent, persevering, and successful of the pioneers of the true religion in Polynesia. This beautiful Tahitian group of islands was, therefore, a sink of vice and crime.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE HURRICANE.

"I see a cascade or waterfall on the hillside yonder," cried Juarez.

"Then we will make a landing somewhere along the beach in that direction," ordered the professor.

Slowly they approached the sh.o.r.e, and landing carefully reconnoitered, but nothing was observed to warrant their caution.

A spring, pouring forth a constant stream of limpid, cool water, was readily located, and here each found satisfying refreshment. About them everywhere were luxuriant growths, and tropical fruits of many varieties were within reach of the extended hand.

Water was conveyed to the boat, and the cask filled to transport a supply to the ship. A quant.i.ty of yams were gathered for the party on board while they themselves ate of the fruit to their heart's content.

As they walked inland they came upon charming glens and defiles well up the mountain side, and still above them rose great castleated turrets, all draped in mosses and flowering shrubs forming the abode of many a bird of prey that on their approach rose screaming to the sky.

"But this is a vast s.p.a.ce that we have got to examine," said Jim, speaking in a low voice to the professor. "I wonder where," quoting from the chart, "we are to find the cave opening--the opening high up and hard to reach, with a blue rock somewhere about?"

"We shall go about it systematically, as soon as we find travel safe. If there are inhabitants we must conduct our exploitations in groups. If otherwise we can spread out and cover the ground much more rapidly."