The Mutineers Part 21

"Listen dah!" the cook whispered.

I thought of savage yells and trampling feet when, crouching on hands and knees, I listened; but I heard none of them. The sound that came to my ears was the faint, distant rumble of surf breaking on rocks.

Now Roger spoke sharply: "Steady, men, go slow."

"The sea's somewhere beyond us," I said.

"Come, come," Blodgett repeated tiresomely in his thin windy voice, "over these rocks and we'll be safe." He was so confident and eager that we were on the very point of following him. I actually leaned out over the edge ready to leap down. Never did a man's strange delusion come nearer to leading his comrades to disaster!

The cook raised his hand. "Look--look dah!"

He was staring past Blodgett's feet, past my hands, down at the rocks whither we were about to drop. The mist was opening slowly. There was nothing for more than six feet below us--for more than twelve feet. Now the mist eddied up to the rock again; now it curled away and opened out until we could look down to the ghostly, phosph.o.r.escent whiteness of waves breaking on rough stones almost directly under us. Blodgett, with a queer, frightened expression, crawled back to Neddie Benson.

We were sitting at the brink of a sheer precipice, which fell away more than two hundred feet to a ma.s.s of jagged rock on which the sea was booming with a hollow sound like the voice of a great bell.

"Well, here we'll have to make our stand if they follow us," said Davie.

Although the rest were white with horror at the death we so narrowly had avoided, old Davie did not even breathe more quickly. The man had no more imagination than a porpoise.

Gathering in the lee of the rocky ridge, we took stock of our weapons and recovered our self-possession. The cook again ran his thumb-nail along the edge of the cleaver; Roger examined the lock of his pistol--I saw a queer expression on his face at the time, but he said nothing; Blodgett sharpened his knife on his calloused palm and the rest of us found clubs and stones.

We could flee no farther. Here, if we were pursued, we must fight. But although we waited a long time, no one came. The mist gradually pa.s.sed off; the stars again shone brightly, and the moon presently peeped out from between the cone-shaped mountains on our eastern horizon.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

V

IN WHICH THE TIDE TURNS

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIX

IN LAST RESORT

"They're not on our heels at all events," said Roger, when we had sat silent and motionless until we were cramped from head to foot. Of our little band, he was by far the least perturbed. "If we should set an anchor watch, we could sleep, turn and turn about. What do you say to that?"

He had a way with him, partly the quiet humor that twinkled in his eyes, partly his courteous manner toward all of us, particularly the older men, that already had endeared him to every member of our company, and a general murmur of a.s.sent answered him.

"Blodgett, Neddie, and I'll stand first watch, then. We'll make the watches three hours on deck and three below, if you say so. You others had best hunt out an easy place to sleep, but let every man keep his knife or club where he can s.n.a.t.c.h it up in case of attack."

Remembering his comfortable quarters in the steerage of the Island Princess, the cook groaned; but we found a spot where there was some sun-baked earth, which we covered with such moss as we could lay our hands on, threw ourselves down, and fell asleep forthwith.

We were so stiff when the other three waked us that we scarcely could stand without help; but we gradually worked new life into our sore muscles and took our stations with as much good-will as we could muster. Roger gave us his watch to tell the time by, and we agreed on separate posts from which to guard against surprise--the cook a little way down the hill to the right, Davie Paine farther to the left, and I on the summit of the rocks whence I could see in all directions.

The wild view from that rock would have been a rare sight for old and experienced voyagers, and to me, a boy in years and in travels, it was fascinating both for its uncommon beauty and for the thousand perils that it might conceal. Who could say what savages were sleeping or prowling about under the dark branches of yonder shadowy woods? What wild creatures lurked in their depths? What pirate prows were steering their course by yonder cone-shaped peaks or by those same bright stars that twinkled overhead?

I studied the outline of the island, with its miles of flat marshland deep in gra.s.s and tangled vines, its palms and dense forests, its romantic mountains, and its jagged northern cliffs; I watched the moonbeams sparkling on the water; I watched a single light shining far out at sea. By and by I saw inland, on the side of one of the hills, a light shining in the jungle, and stared at it with a sort of unwilling fascination.

A light in the jungle could mean so many things!

Startled by a sound down in our own camp, I quickly turned and saw old Blodgett scrambling up to where I sat.

"It ain't no use," he said in an undertone. "I can't sleep." He twisted his back and writhed like a cat that wants to scratch itself against a doorpost. "What an island for temples! Ah, Benny, here's our chance to make our everlasting fortunes."

I touched him and pointed at the distant light shining out of the darkness.

Sitting down beside me, he watched it intently. "I tell ye, Benny," he murmured thoughtfully, "either me and you and the rest of us is going to make our everlasting fortunes out o' these here natives, or we're going to lay out under these here trees until the trumpet blows for Judgment."

After a time he spoke again. "Ah, but it's a night to be stirring! I'll stake all my pay for this unlucky voyage that there's not a native on the island who hasn't a bag of rubies tied round his neck with a string, or maybe emeralds--there's a stone for you! Emeralds are green as the sea by a sandy sh.o.r.e and bright as a cat's eyes in the dark."

Morning came quickly. Pink and gold tinted the cone-shaped peaks, the sky brightened from the color of steel to a clear cobalt, and all at once the world lay before us in the cool morning air, which the sun was soon to warm to a vapid heat. As we gathered at the summit of the cliff over which Blodgett nearly had let us into eternity, we could see below, flying in and out, birds of the variety, as I afterwards learned, that make edible nests.

It now was apparent that the light I had seen at sea was that of a ship's lantern, for to our amazement the Island Princess lay in the offing.

Landward unbroken verdure extended from the slope at our feet to the base of the cone-shaped peaks, and of the armed force that had frightened us so badly the evening before we saw no sign; but when we looked at the marsh we rubbed our eyes and stared anew.

There was the rough hillside that we had climbed in terror; there was the marsh with its still pools, its lush herbage, and the "road" that wound from the muddy beach to the forest on our left. But in the marsh, scattered here and there--! The truth dawned on us slowly. All at once Blodgett slapped his thin legs and leaned back and laughed until tears started from his faded eyes; Neddie Benson stared at him stupidly, then poured out a flood of silly oaths. The cook burst into a hoa.r.s.e guffaw, and Roger and Davie Paine chuckled softly. We stopped and looked at each other and then laughed together until we had to sit down on the ground and hold our aching sides.

In the midst of the marsh were feeding a great number of big, long-horned water buffaloes. We now realized that the road we had followed was one of their trails that the guttural calls and blasts from rude trumpets were their snorts and blats, that the spears we had seen were their horns viewed from lower ground.

The ebbing tide had left our boat far from the water, and since we were faint from our long fast, it was plain that, if we were to survive our experience, we must find help soon.

"If I was asked," Davie remarked thoughtfully, "I'd say the thing to do was to follow along the edge of that there swamp to the forest, where maybe we'll find a bit of a spring and some kind of an animal Mr. Hamlin can shoot with that pistol of his."

Roger drew the pistol from his belt and regarded it with a wry smile.

"Unfortunately," he said, "I have no powder."

At all events there was no need to stay longer where we were; so, retracing our steps of the evening before, we skirted the marsh and came to a place where there were many cocoanut trees. We were bitterly disappointed to find that our best efforts to climb them were of no avail. We dared not try to fell them with the cook's cleaver, lest the noise of chopping attract natives; for we were convinced by the light we had seen shining in the jungle that the island was inhabited. So we set off cautiously into the woods, and slowly tramped some distance through an undergrowth that scratched our hands and faces and tore our clothes. On the banks of a small stream we picked some yellow berries, which Blodgett ate with relish, but which the rest of us found unpalatable. We all drank water from the hollows of trees,--we dared not drink from the boggy stream,--and Neddie Benson ate the leaves of some bushes and urged the rest of us to try them. That we refused, we later had reason to be deeply thankful.

Following the stream we crossed a well-marked path, which caused us considerable uneasiness, and came at last to an open glade, at the other end of which we saw a person moving. At that we bent double and retreated as noiselessly as possible. Once out of sight in the woods, we hurried off in single file till we thought we had put a safe distance behind us; but when we stopped to rest we were terrified by a noise in the direction from which we had come, and we hastened to conceal ourselves under the leaves and bushes.

The noise slowly drew nearer, as if men were walking about and beating the undergrowth as they approached. Blodgett stared from his covert with beady eyes; Neddie gripped my wrist; the cook rubbed his thumb along the blade of the cleaver, and Roger fingered the useless pistol. Still the noises approached. At the sight of something that moved I felt my heart leap and stand still, then Blodgett laughed softly; a pair of great birds which flew away as soon as they saw us stirring, had occasioned our fears.

Having really seen a man in the glade by the stream, we were resolved to incur no foolish risks; so we cautiously returned to the hill, whence we could watch the beach and the broad marsh and catch between the mountains a glimpse of a bay to the northeast where we now saw at a great distance some men fishing from canoes. While the rest of us prepared another hiding-place among the bushes, Roger and Blodgett sallied forth once more to reconnoitre in a new direction.

Although we no longer could see the ship, we were much perplexed that she had lingered off the island, and we talked of it at intervals throughout the day. Whatever her purpose, we were convinced that for us it augured ill.

Presently Roger and Blodgett returned in great excitement and reported that the woods were full of Malays. Apparently the natives were unaware of our presence but we dared not venture again in search of food, so we resumed our regular watches and slept in our turns. As soon as the sun should set we planned to skirt the mountains under the cover of darkness, in desperate hope of finding somewhere food and water with which we could return to our boat and defy death by putting out to sea; but ere the brief twilight of the tropics had settled into night, Neddie Benson was writhing and groaning in mortal agony. We were alarmed, and for a time could think of no explanation; but after a while black Frank looked up from where he crouched by the luckless Neddie and fiercely muttered:--

"What foh he done eat dem leaves? Hey? Tell me dat!"

It was true that Neddie alone had eaten the leaves. A heavy price he was paying for it! We all looked at Blodgett with an anxiety that it would have been kinder, perhaps, to hide, and Blodgett himself seemed uneasy lest he should be poisoned by the berries he had eaten. But no harm came of them, and by the time the stars were shining again Neddie appeared to be over the worst of his sickness and with the help of the rest of us managed to stagger along. So we chose a constellation for our guide and set off through the undergrowth.