The Hot Swamp Part 4

"An' I bear no ill-will to you, Bladud, though you _did_ squeeze most of the life out of me once. Farewell, both."

As he spoke the little man seized an oar, leaped overboard, and, after some trouble in steadying himself and pointing the oar in the right direction, struck out for the sh.o.r.e.

It was a long way off, and often, while this scene was being enacted, was heard the bubbling cry of men whose powers were failing them. Some were carried by currents against a point to the westward and, apparently, dashed against the rocks. Others sank before half the distance had been traversed.

Bladud and the captain looked at each other when Maikar had left them.

"Can you swim?" asked the captain. "Like a duck," returned the prince, "and I can help you if required."

"I swim like a fish," returned the captain, "but it is hard to part from my _Penelope_! She has never failed me till now, and as this venture contains all my goods, I am a ruined man."

"But your life still remains," said the prince. "Be of good cheer, captain. A stout man can make his fortune more than once. Come, let us go."

A loud cry from Maikar at that moment hastened their deliberations.

"Are you going to c.u.mber yourself with your weapons?" asked Arkal, as they were about to spring from the side, observing that his friend took up his sword and shield.

"Ay--that am I. It is not a small matter that will part my good sword and me."

Both men sprang overboard at the same moment, and made for the spot where little Maikar was still giving vent to bubbling yells and struggling with his oar.

Bladud was soon alongside of him, and, seizing his hair, raised him out of the water.

"Got the cramp," he shouted.

"Keep still, then, and do what I tell ye," said the prince, in a tone of stern command.

He caught the poor man under the armpits with both hands, turned on his back and drew him on to his chest. Swimming thus on his back, with Captain Arkal leading so as to keep them in the right direction, the three were ultimately cast, in a rather exhausted condition, on the sh.o.r.e of the little bay.

CHAPTER FIVE.

AFTER THE WRECK.

It was on the southern sh.o.r.e of what is now known as France that our hero and his comrades in misfortune were cast.

At the time we write of, we need hardly say, the land was nameless.

Even her old Roman name of Gaul had not yet been given to her, for Rome itself had not been founded. The fair land was a vast wilderness, known only--and but slightly--to the adventurous mariners of the east, who, with the spirit of Columbus, had pushed their discoveries and trade far beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

Of course the land was a vast solitude, inhabited, spa.r.s.ely, by a few of those wandering tribes which had been driven westward--by conquest or by that desire for adventure which has characterised the human race, we suppose, ever since Adam and Eve began to explore the regions beyond Eden. Like the great wilderness lying to the north of Canada at the present time, it was also the home of innumerable wild animals which afforded to its uncivilised inhabitants both food and clothing.

Captain Arkal was the only one of the three survivors of the wreck who had seen that coast before or knew anything about it, for, when Bladud had entered the Mediterranean many years before, he had pa.s.sed too far to the southward to see the northern land.

As they staggered up the beach to a place where the thundering waves sent only their spray, Bladud looked round with some anxiety.

"Surely," he said, "some of the crew must have escaped. It can hardly be that we three are the only survivors out of so many."

The party halted and looked back at the seething waves from which they had just escaped.

"It would be foul shame to us," said the captain, "if we did not try to lend a helping hand to our comrades; but we shall find none of them here. I observed when they started that, in spite of my warning, they made straight for the land, instead of keeping well to windward to avoid being swept round that point of rock to the west. I led you in the right direction, and that is why we alone are here. If any of the others have been saved, they must be on the other side of that point."

While he was speaking, the captain had hurried into the woods, intending to cross the neck of land which separated them from the bay beyond the point referred to.

Their strength returned as they ran, for their intense desire to render aid to those of their late comrades who might stand in need of it seemed to serve them in the stead of rest.

"Come, quick!" cried little Maikar, whose catlike activity and strength enabled him to outrun his more bulky companions. "We may be too late; and some of them can't swim--I know."

They reached the crest of a ridge a few minutes later, and, halting, looked at each other in dismay, for the bay beyond the point was full of great rocks and boulders, among which the waves rushed with such fury that they spouted in jets into the air, and covered the sea with foam.

"No living soul can have landed there," said the captain, in a tone that showed clearly he had given up all hope.

"But some may have been swept round the next point," suggested Maikar eagerly, commencing to run forward as he spoke.

Bladud followed at once, and so did the captain, but it was evident that he regarded any further effort as useless.

It proved a longer and more toilsome march than they had expected to pa.s.s beyond the second point, and when at last it was reached, there was not a speck at all resembling a human being to be seen on the coast, in all its length of many miles.

"No hope," murmured Bladud.

"None," returned the captain.

Little Maikar did not speak, but the expression of his countenance showed that he was of the same opinion.

"Now," resumed the captain, after a brief silence, "if we would not starve we must go straight back, and see whether any provisions have been washed ash.o.r.e."

They did not, however, return to the spot where they had landed, for they knew that the same current which had carried their hapless comrades to the westward must have borne the remains of the wreck in the same direction. Descending, therefore, to the foam-covered bay before referred to, they searched its margin carefully, but for some time found nothing--not even a sc.r.a.p of wreck.

At last, just as they were about to give up in despair, and turn to some other method of obtaining food, they observed a portion of the wreck that had been driven high up on the beach into a cleft of rock. Running eagerly towards it, they found that it was only a plank.

Bladud and the captain looked at it for a moment or two in silence, and Maikar gave vent to a groan of disappointment.

"Never mind," said the prince, lifting the plank and laying it on his shoulder, in the quiet thoughtful way that was peculiar to him, "it will serve to make a fire and keep us warm."

"But we need not to be kept warm, for the weather is fine and hot," said Maikar, with a rueful expression. "Moreover, we need food, and we cannot eat a plank!"

The prince did not reply, but led the way towards a neighbouring cliff.

"Don't you think we had better make our fire in the woods, Bladud?"

asked the captain.

"That would oblige one of us to watch in case natives or wolves should attack us, and none of us are in a fit state to watch. We must sleep."

"But I can't sleep without first eating," said Maikar in a remonstrative tone. "Should we not go to the woods first and try to catch something?"

"Can you on foot run down the hare, the deer, the bear, the wild-boar, or even the rabbit?"

"Not I. My legs are swift enough, though short, but they are not equal to that."

"Well, then, as we have neither bow nor shaft, and my good sword would be of little use against such game, why waste our time and strength in the woods?"