The Island Treasure Part 29

"He vill meet his vate vrom elsevere," said Jan Steenbock solemnly, hurrying after us, for Hiram and Tom seemed all eagerness to tackle the skipper at once, and I trotted close after them. "Ze sbirrit ob ze dreazure vill hoont him, and poonish him in ze end!"

And, incredible as my story may seem, quite unwittingly, Jan became a true prophet, as what occurred subsequently will show.

When we got to the sh.o.r.e, we found that the ship had her boats hoisted in, and her anchor weighed; while the topsails were cast loose, showing that she was ready to sail at a moment's notice.

What concerned us most, though, was that we could see no means for getting on board; for the dinghy by which we had landed was towing astern by its painter, and thus all communication was cut off with the sh.o.r.e.

"_Denver City_, ahoy!" shouted out Hiram, putting his hands to his mouth as an improvised speaking trumpet. "Send a boat to take us off!"

Captain Snaggs at once jumped up on the taffrail on our hailing her.

"Not one o' ye durned cusses comes aboard my shep agen, if I knows it!"

he yelled back loudly. "Ye went ash.o.r.e o' yer own accord, an' thaar ye sh.e.l.l stop, by thunder!"

"Ye durned thief!" cried Hiram, mad with rage at the villain for thus cheating us, and abandoning us to our fate there on that lone desert isle. "Whaar's our treesor?"

"Guess ye're ravin', man," bawled Captain Snaggs; and then, as if this ended the colloquy, he sang out to the hands forward to "Hoist away!"

We then noticed a slight commotion on board, as if some of our shipmates rebelled at the idea of leaving us behind, while they sailed homeward; but this intervention on our behalf was futile, for the skipper brandished his revolver, as we could easily see from the top of the cliff, to which we had now climbed, in order to make our voices better heard on board, and after a momentary pause the sails were let drop and hauled out, and the vessel began to make her way out of the bay.

The captain then called out to us, as if in bragging malice, "I've got every durned chest aboard! D'ye haar? Flinders an' I brought 'em down to the beach last night when ye wer all caulkin'; an' I guess ye air pretty well chiselled at last!--Thet's quits fur the n.i.g.g.e.r's ghost, an'

yer mutiny, an' all! I reckon I've paid ye all out in full, ye durned skellywags!"

Those were the last words, in all human probability, that Captain Snaggs ever uttered in this mortal life.

There had been slight rumblings underground all the morning of that day, as if nature were warning us of further volcanic disturbance throughout the Galapagian archipelago; and now, of a sudden, an immense tidal wave, that seemed sixty feet high at the least, rolled into the little harbour like a huge wall, filling up the opening between the cliffs on either hand up to the very tops of these, as it came sweeping inward from the outside sea.

The next instant, the _Denver City_, with all on board her, disappeared, the wave sweeping back outwards with its prey, leaving the bottom of the harbour bare for over a mile, where all previously had been deep water.

The sea came back once more, though the tidal wave was not so high as before.

And still once again--ebb and flow, ebb and flow.

It was awful!

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

RESCUED.

We five--Jan Steenbock, Tom Bullover, Hiram, Sam Jedfoot, and lastly, though by no means least, myself--sole, solitary survivors of the awful catastrophe that had swallowed up our comrades, stood on the cliff above the yawning chasm, watching the tidal wave that still ebbed and flowed in diminishing volume at each reflux.

This it continued to do for a full half-hour afterwards, when the sea returned to its normal state, welling up tranquilly on the beach, and quickly washing away all traces of the recent convulsion of nature, as if nothing had happened--a sort of sobbing moan, only, seemed afterwards to come from the water every now and then at spasmodic intervals, as if the spirits of the deep were lamenting over the mischief and destruction they had wrought!

Scarcely could we believe our eyes; for, while not a single plank or piece of timber was cast ash.o.r.e of the ship, which must have been taken down bodily by the remorseless wave that had hurried our cruel captain and no less cruel mate, and the rest of the crew, nineteen souls in all, into eternity, without the slightest forewarning of their doom, the little bay now looked as quiet and peaceful as of yore, with its outstretching capes on either hand, and everything still the same-- equally wild, desolate, deserted, as when we first beheld it!

Most wonderful of all, though, was the fact that we alone were saved.

We were saved!

That thought appeared to flash through all our minds at once simultaneously; and, falling on our knees, there, on the summit of the headland, whence we had witnessed the terrible tragedy and now gazed down on the once more placid, treacherous sea, we each and all thanked G.o.d for our deliverance from the peril of the waters, as He had already delivered us from the cruelty of man--in the person of that treacherous, drunken demon who had abandoned us there to the solitude and the misery of exile and sailed off to enjoy, as he thought, the ill-gotten treasure of which he had robbed us. But he had met even a worse fate than he had meted out to us; for, what could have been worse for him than to die and be called to account for his misdeeds at the very moment of the realisation of his devilish design?

However, peace to his evil spirit, One greater than us poor marooned sailors would be his Judge!

That feeling was uppermost in my mind, and I'm sure it was reciprocated by the others, after we had returned thanks to the watchful Providence that had saved us while s.n.a.t.c.hing Captain Snaggs away in the middle of his sins; but his name was not mentioned by any there at that moment, nor did either of us utter a word afterwards, to each other at least, so far as I can remember, about his treatment of us--not even Sam, to whom throughout he had behaved the most cruelly of all.

Sailor-folk, as a rule, are not revengeful, and death we held, had blotted out the past; so we, too, buried the skipper's misdeeds in oblivion!

We stopped there on the cliff without speaking until it was close on sunset.

Our hearts were too full to express the various thoughts that coursed through our minds; and there we remained, silent and still, as if we five were dumb.

All we did was to stare out solemnly on the vast ocean that spread out from beneath our feet to the golden west in the far distance, where sky and sea met on the hazy horizon--with never a sail to break its wide expanse, with never a sound to break our solitude, save the sullen murmuring wash of the surf as it rippled up on the beach, and the heavy, deep-drawn sigh of the water as it rolled back to its parent ocean, taking its weary load of pebbles and sand below, as if sick of the monotonous task, which it was doomed to continue on without cessation, with ever and for ever the same motion, now that its wild, brief orgy was o'er, and its regular routine of duty had to be again resumed!

Tom Bullover was the first to break the silence.

"Come boys," he said, when the sun's lower limb was just dipping into the sea, leaving a solitary pathway of light across the main, while all the rest of the sea became gradually darker, as well as the heavens overhead, telling us that the evening was beginning to close in. "Come, Mr Steenbock and you fellows, we'd best go back to the cave for the night, so as to be out of the damp air. Besides, it won't be so lonesome like as it is here!"

"Ay, bo," acquiesced Hiram. "Thaar's Sam's old sail thaar, which 'll sarve us fur a bed anyhow."

"Dat so," chimed in the darkey. "I'se belly comf'able dere till Ma.s.s'

Tom friten me wid duppy. I'se got some grub dere, too; an' we can light fire an' boil coffee in pannikin, which I'se bring ash.o.r.e wid me from ship."

"Bully for ye!" cried Hiram, waking up again to the practical realities of life at the thought of eating, and realising that he was hungry, not having, like, indeed, all of us, tasted anything since the morning, the events of the day having made us forget our ordinary meal-time, "I guess I could pick a bit if I'd any thin' to fix atween my teeth!"

"Golly! don't yer fret, ma.s.sa," said Sam cheerfully, in response to this hint, leading the way towards his whilom retreat. "I'se hab a good hunk ob salt pork stow away dere, an' hard tack, too!"

"Why, what made you think of getting provisions up there?" observed I, laughing, being rather surprised at his precaution, when everyone else had been taken up with the treasure, and believed that we were on the point of leaving the island for good and all. "Were you going to give a party, Sam?"

"I'se make de preparations fo' 'mergencies, Cholly," he replied gravely.

"n.o.buddy know what happen, an' dere's nuffin' like bein' suah ob de grub!"

"Thet's true enuff, an' good sound doctrine. Don't ye kinder think so, mister?"

Jan Steenbock, to whom this question was addressed, made no reply; but, as he got up and followed Sam, Hiram took this for his answer, and went after him, the five of us entering the cave in single file.

Here, we found that, from its position on the higher ground, the tidal wave had not effected any damage, the only alteration being that made by the first shock of earthquake, causing the crack across the upper end, which had dislodged the stone in the centre, and disclosed the buccaneers' treasure. So, then, on Sam's producing a good big piece of salt junk, with some ship's biscuit, which he had wrapped up in a yellow bandana handkerchief and stowed away in one corner under his sailcloth, we all imitated the American, and 'put our teeth through' the unexpected food, finding ourselves, now that we had something to eat before us, with better appet.i.tes than might have been thought possible after what we had gone through.

Sailors, though, do not trouble themselves much over things that have happened, looking out more for those to come!

The next day, it seemed very strange to wake up and find ourselves alone there, especially after the stirring time we had recently, with the discovery of the treasure, and getting the ship afloat, and all; so, when we crawled out of the cave and went down to the beach, we five forlorn fellows felt more melancholy than can be readily imagined at seeing this bare and desolate, and hearing no sound but that of our own sad voices.

Even the coo of the doves was now unnoticeable, the birds having deserted their haunt in the grove after the earthquake shock, as I believe I have mentioned before. Lucky it was for them that their instinct warned them to do this in time; for the tidal wave had swept completely over the place, and the little dell was now all covered with black and white sand, like the rest of the sh.o.r.e--the sloping strand running up to the very base of the cliff, and trees and all traces of vegetation having been washed away by the sudden inrush of the water.

Jan Steenbock, whose place it was naturally to be our leader, but who had been so superst.i.tiously impressed by the belief that our calamity was entirely owing to our having anything to do with the buccaneers'

buried treasure, which he supposed, in accordance with the old Spanish legend, to be accursed, now once more reinstated himself in our good opinion, showing himself to be the sensible man that he always was, despite the fact of his having hitherto, from the cause stated, been more despondent than any of us.