The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn Part 11

This was the opportunity for Bowata and his party, who, with arrows ready fitted to their bow-strings, again rose from behind the covering rocks and let fly at the enemy. Some of the arrows missed their mark, but about three-quarters of them were effective--one man, I observed, receiving no less than three shafts in his body--and five of the enemy fell, while others came staggering forward with arrows sunk deep in various parts of their anatomy. The leader of the band, however, remained unhurt, and he continued, by shouts, to urge his men forward to the attack. It was evident that his followers derived great encouragement from his words and actions, and that to put him _hors de combat_ would practically be to win the battle; therefore, leaving my now empty rifle leaning against the rock behind which I had been crouching, I drew my cutla.s.s and advanced to meet the fellow, determined to personally tackle him and put him out of action without loss of time.

He was a sufficiently formidable antagonist, it must be admitted; two inches taller than myself, broad in proportion, with an enormously ma.s.sive chest and shoulders, and great muscles that stood out like cables under the skin of his bare arms. His features were typically Tartar, and his small eyes blazed with ferocity as, waving his sword above his head, he advanced with a shout of defiance to meet me.

Meanwhile Bowata and his followers poured in still another flight of arrows, and then, flinging down their bows, they gripped their formidable war clubs and, uttering weird yells, charged across the sand and fell upon the Chinamen as they emerged from the water.

I quite antic.i.p.ated that the fight between the leader and myself would be a long and exceedingly tough one; but, to my amazement, it was begun and finished in a breath. The man came charging upon me with uplifted sword, his evident intention being to make a cut at my head that should finish me out of hand. And indeed he very nearly accomplished his purpose; for as I raised my cutla.s.s to guard my head his blade descended upon it with terrific force--and sh.o.r.e my weapon clean in two, and if I had not at the same moment stepped nimbly aside I should a.s.suredly have been cloven to the eyes. As it was, the descending weapon missed me by a hair-breadth, shearing a large hole in the sleeve of my shirt but not touching the skin. Scarcely realising what I was about, but acting upon instinct or the impulse of the moment, I suppose, before my antagonist could again raise his weapon I violently thrust my severed blade into his face, and as he staggered back with the force of the blow I whipped out my revolver and shot him through the head. That ended the fight; for as the man fell dead at my feet a shout of mingled horror and consternation arose from those Chinese who happened to witness the incident, and who thereupon incontinently turned and fled to their boats, an example immediately followed by their comrades, hotly pursued by the blacks, who plied their war clubs with terrible effect.

It was a disastrous adventure for the Chinamen; for of the total number engaged--which I estimated to be between thirty and forty--only eleven escaped, for I counted them. On the other hand, the casualties on our side were remarkably small, numbering only seven wounded, the wounds consisting entirely of sword cuts, none of which was serious. Of those seven Bowata happened to be one, his wound consisting of a sword thrust through the upper part of the left arm. I therefore took him and his six companions in misfortune up to the house to dress their wounds, leaving the remainder of the party on the beach to collect the weapons and their spent arrows, and to clear up generally.

My surgical duties occupied about an hour and a half; and when all my patients had been attended to I sent them with Billy down to the cove, to be ferried across in the sailing boat to Cliff Island, where no doubt their own people would look after them. Then, remembering that there were wounded Chinamen among those abandoned upon the beach, I started down to see what could be done for them; for although a party of wounded and no doubt treacherous and vindictive c.h.i.n.ks would be a most embarra.s.sing charge to have on my hands, common humanity demanded that they should not be left to perish miserably where they had fallen.

Before, however, I had covered half the distance between the bungalow and the beach I met the remaining blacks marching triumphantly up the hill, singing a song of victory, and carrying not only their own recovered weapons but also several swords that they had taken from the fallen enemy. They also brought the rifle that I had left on the beach, and the sword, scabbard, and belt of the Chinese leader, which they solemnly handed over to me as the victor. Seeing that they had evidently been busy among the fallen I asked whether there were many wounded among the latter, to which the man whom I was questioning replied: No, they were all dead! pointing significantly to his blood- smeared war club by way of explanation.

Well, it may perhaps seem inhuman to say it, but I was not altogether sorry. The men were undoubtedly pirates, if not by profession, pirates at least when opportunity seemed to be favourable. They had attacked me deliberately and without provocation, and, but for the help of the blacks, Billy and I would unquestionably have been "wiped out". Ten or a dozen of such men, wounded, would have been a terribly embarra.s.sing charge for me to have a.s.sumed; and it would have been still more embarra.s.sing to have had them about the place when they were again hale and strong. No; taking everything into consideration I was not altogether sorry that they had been put beyond the possibility of perpetrating further mischief.

Meanwhile, what had become of the junk? I had looked for her just before leaving the bungalow on my way back to the beach, and had sighted her, some six miles off, in the south-eastern quarter, heading to the southward, close-hauled, by which I judged that no further trouble need be looked for from her.

But there were the dead on the beach to be disposed of, without loss of time. How could this disposal be best effected? I considered the matter, and presently hit upon a plan. The Chinese, in their precipitate flight, had abandoned two of their boats, namely the small one and one of the bigger ones. Those two would be sufficient to contain the whole of the dead; and, having now decided upon my mode of procedure, I led my little band of black warriors back to the beach and, with their a.s.sistance, transferred the dead Chinamen to the two abandoned boats. We had barely completed this gruesome task when Billy returned with the sailing boat, whereupon I boarded her, sailed her round from the cove to the east beach, took the Chinese boats in tow, and anch.o.r.ed them for the night under the lee of the northern extremity of Eden. The next day I again took the boats in tow and, with a party of eight natives to help me, towed them to the beach of North Island, where we buried the dead Chinamen. The smaller of the two boats I then presented to Bowata, in recognition of the a.s.sistance he had rendered me in repelling the attack by the Chinese, while the bigger one I kept, for the sake of her materials, which would be valuable to me in the completion of the cutter. It was while clearing up and putting matters generally straight after the Chinamen's unwelcome visit that the sword of the leader again came under my notice and, impelled by curiosity, I drew the weapon from its sheath and subjected it to a somewhat critical examination; for if that should prove satisfactory I intended to make use of it in future in place of the cutla.s.s, the blade of which it had shorn through with such perfect ease. I found it to be somewhat heavier than the cutla.s.s, the blade being considerably thicker than that of the other weapon, though not quite so wide; it was, however, perfectly balanced and I was able to wield it with the utmost ease, while it was literally as keen-edged as a razor; and so exquisite was its temper that there was no sign of a notch or indentation of any description on its edge along its entire length, from point to hilt. I returned it to its sheath with much satisfaction, feeling that I had effected a most profitable exchange.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A SURPRISING REAPPEARANCE.

It was about three weeks later that, as Billy and I foregathered in the living-room of the bungalow, early on a certain morning, discussing our biscuit and early cup of coffee prior to setting out for the matutinal bath that always preceded the work of the day, Billy asked:

"By the way, Mr Blackburn, did Kit disturb you at all last night? He was so uneasy that I had to turn out twice and go to him, and both times I found him standing at the top of the veranda steps, straining at his leash," (latterly we always tied him up at night) "switching his tail fiercely, and uttering half-suppressed growls, as though he scented or heard something unusual prowling near the house. It was only by staying with him for about half an hour that I at last succeeded in quieting him down. You see, I was afraid he would awake you, and I knew how frightfully tired you must be after your long day's work at the cutter, under the broiling sun. I hope no apes or other unpleasant creatures have found their way to Eden, and are lurking to frighten the life out of me."

"I think you need not greatly fear," said I. "All the same, there was probably a cause for Kit's uneasiness--which, by the way, did not in the least disturb me, for I never heard him--and we may as well try to discover what it was; therefore after breakfast I will take the rifle and give a look round."

It was, however, unnecessary to wait until after breakfast for the elucidation of the mystery, for when Billy and I reached the beach upon which stood the nearly complete hull of the cutter, two ragged, unkempt, sunburnt scarecrows emerged from the shadow of the craft and approached me.

"Mornin', Mister," remarked the taller of the pair, in a would-be hearty tone of voice that nevertheless somehow suggested cringing, as did his manner. "Well, here we are again, turned up like bad pennies; just in time, by the looks of it, to help ye finish this dandy yacht and sail her to--wherever you thinks of goin'."

"What!" I exclaimed, in inexpressible amazement, "can it be possible that you are Svorenssen and--and Van Ryn? Why, I believed that you and all the rest of the crew of the _Yorkshire La.s.s_ were drowned when she was wrecked, more than a year ago."

"So we was, Mister--very nigh," replied Svorenssen. "There was only three of us--besides you and Billy--that escaped; and that was me, Dirk here, and a chap named Flemin'--Pete, we used to call 'im. When the ship struck we was all washed overboard by the first sea as broke aboard; and nat'rally those of us as could swim struck out as soon as our heads rose above water. And--but, I say, Mister, ain't there no breakfast knockin' about? We haven't ate nothin' since yesterday a'ternoon, and we're feelin' pretty sharp set, I can tell ye."

"Breakfast!" I reiterated. "Why, of course. It will be ready in about an hour's time. But you cannot come up to the house as you are, you know--by the way, were you by any chance prowling about in the neighbourhood of the house last night?"

"Ay, we was," answered Svorenssen. "We landed on the beach below it, and made it out at once in the moonlight. We guessed as it was yours; and we was for rousin' you out to give us a bite o' supper; but that dog o' yours growled so vicious, and seemed so savage, that we decided to wait till this mornin'."

"It was extremely fortunate for you that you did," said I. "The 'dog', as you call him, happens to be a _leopard_; and if you had persisted in your attempt to approach the house, the pair of you would a.s.suredly have been killed. I tell you this at once, by way of warning."

"The beast will 'ave to be shained oop; else how are we to go in an' out of der 'ouse?" demanded Van Ryn.

"You will _not_ go in and out of the house," I retorted. "There is no room for you there. Then, just look at yourselves. You are as indecent in the matter of your clothing as you are filthy in your persons.

Before anything else you will have to cleanse yourselves, and be clothed decently. The condition of your clothes you cannot help, I suppose, being castaways for more than a year; but you might at least have kept your bodies clean. You are disgustingly verminous, both of you; and after you have had a meal your first business must be to get yourselves clean. You will remain here while Billy and I go up to the house and bring you down some breakfast; after which I must see what can be done to make you reasonably presentable."

"All right. Mister," answered Svorenssen, "we'll keep clear of the 'ouse, never fear. We don't want to be tore to pieces by no leopards, after tryin' our utmost for over a year to get to ye and lend a hand in whatever you might be doin' to get away from this ruddy hole. We're just as anxious as you can be to get away from it, you may bet on that."

"Well," said I to Billy, as we turned away to retrace our steps to the house, our bath completely forgotten, "this reappearance of Svorenssen and Van Ryn is a surprise, and not altogether an agreeable one at that.

I never particularly liked either of them; they impressed me from the very beginning as being insubordinate of disposition and impatient of discipline; and I have not forgotten the character that the boatswain and Chips gave them. How did they behave before I joined the _Yorkshire La.s.s_, Billy? Had your father ever any trouble with them?"

"Yes, in some ways a good deal," answered Billy. "What the boatswain and Chips said about them was quite true. They and the other two foreigners were always quarrelling with the rest of the forecastle hands; they wanted to do only just what work suited them, and not what Father wanted them to do; and from what the other men said I believe that the Dagoes would have mutinied if it had not been for the chance of getting hold of and sharing the treasure."

Returning to the house, Billy and I s.n.a.t.c.hed a hasty meal, and then we started back for the beach, bearing with us food, two suits of the lightest clothing the slop-chest afforded, two blue-striped shirts, two cloth caps, soap, towels, a comb, and a pair of scissors. The two seamen were too hungry to talk much while discussing their meal, nor did I attempt to question them just then, curbing my curiosity until a more favourable opportunity to satisfy it should present itself; and when the pair had finished eating I marched them off to the river where, handing them the soap and towels, I bade them strip, enter the water, and thoroughly cleanse themselves from the acc.u.mulated grime of a year's neglect. This at length done, I set them to cut each other's hair and beard and generally render themselves as decent looking and respectable as was possible; after which I handed them their new clothes and bade them burn their old rags. They seemed to consider me quite unreasonably particular, and grumbled a good deal at what they appeared to regard as the wholly unnecessary trouble I was imposing upon them; but I would take no denial; and when at length they realised that I intended to have my way they surlily submitted. In the end I believe that, in despite of themselves, they were rather glad that I had been so insistent; for when they once more stood fully clothed their appearance was improved almost beyond recognition, and they seemed quite pleased with themselves.

They were by no means so pleased, however, when, in response to a remark by one of them, I gave them to clearly understand that I would not house them in the bungalow, and that during the comparatively short period of our further stay on the group they would have to be content with such accommodation as a tent would afford. They argued hotly that, being castaways and survivors from the same shipwreck, we all stood upon a perfectly equal footing and were alike ent.i.tled to share equally in everything. To which I replied that the bungalow, the sailing boat, and the cutter were all mine, built with my own hands out of material salved by me from the wreck; that they had not partic.i.p.ated or helped in the slightest degree in any of the salving or building operations.

Therefore I considered they were not ent.i.tled to claim any share in the comforts or advantages arising from those operations; but that, as an act of grace, I was prepared to allow them a reasonable share of those comforts and advantages; while, if they would help me to complete the cutter, make her ready for sea, and a.s.sist me on the voyage, they should be welcome to a pa.s.sage in her. For a heated five minutes I believed I was in for very serious trouble with the two men; but in the midst of the argument--which was chiefly between Van Ryn and myself--Svorenssen intervened, drawing his companion away and saying a few hasty words that seemed to have the effect of wonderfully calming the Dutchman's excitement; and the dispute ended by their admitting--rather lamely I thought--that since I was evidently master of the situation, they supposed they must make the best of it and accept what I chose to give them. As to helping with the completion of the cutter, they expressed themselves as only too willing to do so, since they had had more than enough of "Robinson Crusoeing" it.

"Now," said I to them as, their toilet at length completed, we moved away from the stream, "I must again warn you both to keep well clear of the house. I have already told you that the animal which you last night mistook for a dog is a leopard. Now that you have arrived on the island I shall be obliged to keep him tied up; but if you approach the house it will be at your peril; for if Kit sees or scents either of you he will probably break adrift, and you will simply be torn limb from limb. He is a most ferocious creature, and will not tolerate strangers; so bear in mind what I say and give him a wide berth."

"Bud I vants to see the house," protested Van Ryn. "How am I to do that?"

"You will have to forgo that pleasure, so that's all there is about it,"

I replied dryly.

"If the brute interveres mit me, I vill kill 'im," threatened the Dutchman.

"Will you?" said I. "Why, man, you would stand no more chance with that leopard than if you were the merest baby. But--enough of this. You had better pitch your tent on the beach, close to the cutter. Go down there now and choose a spot to suit yourselves, and Billy and I will come down later on with a sail, pole, and what other gear is necessary, and help you to rig it up."

By mid-afternoon the tent--consisting of the brigantine's fore-course, which I had salved--was satisfactorily rigged up, a trench dug round it to carry off water in the event of rain, and a sufficiency of rude but efficient furniture stored within it; and, somewhat to my surprise, the pair who were to occupy it expressed themselves as quite satisfied.

Then, since it was too late in the day to do much work upon the cutter, I invited the seamen to give me a detailed account of how they had fared since the wreck. It was Svorenssen who undertook to tell the story, and he told it in the coa.r.s.e, uncouth language of the forecastle, embellishing and emphasising it here and there, after the manner of the sh.e.l.lback, by the introduction of words and phrases comprehensible enough to me but confusing and quite unintelligible to a landsman. I shall therefore take the liberty of translating the narrative into plain, simple English for the benefit of my readers. Thus translated, it ran as follows:

"It must have been about half an hour after Chips came for'ard with the news that you had met with an accident, and had been carried down into your cabin, and the gale was still blowing as heavy as ever, when some of us on the forecastle thought we heard another sound above the shriek of the wind and the hiss of the sea; and, looking ahead, we presently saw, stretching away on both bows, as far as we could see, an unbroken line of wildly leaping breakers and flying spray. We at once hailed the quarterdeck, shouting: 'Breakers ahead and on both bows!' but it is exceedingly doubtful whether or not we were heard, and if we had been, it would have made no difference, for before anything could be done the ship was among the breakers, and a second later she struck, not very hard, but just sufficiently so to cant us broadside-on. Then she struck again, and hung until a tremendous sea broke aboard, sweeping her decks and doubtless washing all hands on deck overboard--at all events that sea took me and swept me helplessly over the bows, as also Van Ryn and another man, named Fleming. But I knew nothing about them until the next morning.

"Being a swimmer, I instinctively struck out, and I had not made more than a dozen strokes before my hands struck something that I at once seized and clung to. It proved to be a bit of topgallant bulwark, about six feet long, and it afforded me a most welcome support, especially as the seas were still breaking over me so furiously that it was only with the utmost difficulty I contrived to s.n.a.t.c.h a breath between whiles.

But the breaking seas that came near to smothering me were also sweeping me away fast to leeward, and after a time I found myself in smoother water, the seas no longer broke over me, and, the water being quite warm, I experienced no discomfort, apart from the uncertainty as to what was to eventually happen to me, and I just kept paddling along to leeward, following the run of the seas.

"I might have been overboard about half an hour when, clearing the salt water out of my eyes, I caught the loom of land ahead, through the darkness, the sight of which greatly cheered me, for I had no doubt of my ability to hold out until I could reach the sh.o.r.e, and I had the comforting conviction that where there was land there was also safety.

About an hour later I found myself again among breakers; but they were a mere trifle compared with those that I had already encountered, and shortly afterward my feet touched bottom and, abandoning the fragment of wreckage to which I had been clinging, I crawled up the beach to above high-water mark, flung myself down upon the warm sand, and instantly fell asleep.

"When I awoke the sun was shining brilliantly, and the gale had broken, although it was still blowing a strong breeze. I looked out to seaward, and at once sighted the wreck, about two miles away, dismasted, and hard and fast upon the reef. Then, glancing at my surroundings, I perceived that I had landed upon a beach of fine white sand, backed by country densely wooded, with hills stretching away to north and south. The sight of the trees suggested possibilities of fruit, the thought of which reminded me that I was hungry; and I was about to make a plunge into the woods in search of something to eat when I heard a voice hailing, and, looking in the direction from which the hail had come, I saw, to my great satisfaction, Van Ryn and Fleming, about a quarter of a mile along the beach.

"Naturally we at once joined forces, and, they being like myself, hungry, we forthwith proceeded to hunt for food, speedily finding an abundance of cocoa-nuts that had fallen, ripe, from the trees that lined the inner edge of the beach. We ate and drank our fill of the fruit and milk of the nuts, and then, having meanwhile discussed our plans for the future, we began our quest for a practicable path inland, for the idea of camping on the beach, night after night, had few attractions for us.

But the undergrowth was so dense and impenetrable that it was not until we had traversed quite a mile of the beach, under the rays of a scorching sun, that we at length found a spot where, by cutting and hacking the monkey-rope and creepers with our knives, we finally succeeded in working our way into a valley enclosed between two ranges of hills running practically parallel.

"My word! that was hot work, I a.s.sure you, Mr Blackburn. Of course there was no lack of shade, but, on the other hand, there was no air.

The atmosphere was simply stifling, and what with that and the labour of hewing a way through the dense undergrowth--much of it consisting of bushes covered with tough, sharp thorns that got hold of our clothes, and not infrequently our skins, and refused to let go--the perspiration poured from us like water, and simply drenched our clothes. But the monkey-rope, the creepers, the thorns, and the heat were not the worst of our troubles; the whole place was swarming with mosquitoes that hovered about us in clouds and bit us savagely in a hundred places at once. And, as though these were not enough, there were myriads of small black ants that penetrated our clothing and bit us even more savagely than the mosquitoes. Luckily we did not encounter the ants until we were very nearly through the belt of bush, or we should have been compelled to abandon our attempt.

"Ultimately, however, we effected the pa.s.sage of the bush, and found ourselves fairly in the valley, with long dry gra.s.s, waist-high, plenty of trees, big and little, but not much bush or creeper. And then we encountered potential trouble of a fresh kind, for although we were no longer attacked by ants, we too frequently heard rustlings in the long gra.s.s that we presently discovered to be caused by snakes, and we were compelled to walk very warily, lest we should perchance unwittingly tread upon one of the creatures, and be bitten, perhaps fatally, as a punishment. I confess that--well, to put it plainly, I did not half like it; but what were we to do? We were searching for a cave, or shelter of some sort, that would serve us for a lodging and a place of protection in the event of a recurrence of bad weather, and we were not likely to find it by standing still. Also we were looking for food, with a view to the future; but the question of supplies afforded us little anxiety, for banana and plantain trees were abundant in that valley, to say nothing of grapes and several other kinds of fruit.

Coming to a banana tree, the fruit of which was fully ripe, we made a good meal, and then, feeling rather tired, we trampled down a smooth place in the gra.s.s, under the shade of a big tree, stretched ourselves thereon, and were soon fast asleep.

"Judging from the position of the sun in the heavens, it might be about five o'clock in the afternoon when I was awakened by somebody shaking me by the shoulder, and as I opened my eyes I heard a voice I at once recognised as that belonging to Dirk here, who was saying, in a sort of whisper:--

"'Hush! don't make a noise, but just lift your head, cautious, and look.'

"'Look where?' I returned, also in a sort of whisper; 'and what am I to hush for?'