The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island Part 15

Let us now follow the boys. Lashed in the boat were two oars, as carefully secured as though tied only the day before. At the bow was the rope which the Professor discovered, after he had noticed the one tied around the oars. It will be remembered that the boat had been fitted with a mast and a sail. Those had been removed, as well as the crosspiece and the brace which held them in place. It was, therefore, necessary to row the boat around the point. The distance, as calculated by the Professor, was two miles or more to the cliffs, and fully a mile from the extreme point of the cliff to the mouth of the river.

Shortly after they started on the journey a light wind sprang up, which, however, did not seriously interfere with their progress, but it was sufficient to induce them to take a course outside of the point, instead of attempting to thread their way insh.o.r.e between the rocks.

When abreast of the extreme point George's attention was directed toward an object on the cliff.

"What is that up on the rocks?"

Harry stopped rowing, and looked in the direction of George's extended arm. "It looks like a boat. Let us go in."

The boat was pointed to the sh.o.r.e, and drawn up, and in their eagerness, each tried to gain the elevation first. A miscalculation was made, in the attempt to reach the object, which was not visible from their location, and they were compelled to thread their way down again and go around the broken side of the cliff walls.

As they were about to ascend Harry called out: "Look at the boat, George! Run quick, it is adrift!" The wind had quickened, and they realized their carelessness in securing it at the landing place, and before George, who was lower down, could reach the water's edge, it was washed around the point of the rock, out of his reach.

Here was a dilemma. The boat lost, and no means to reach the mainland without swimming. The place where they landed was less than five hundred feet from the spot where they were cast ash.o.r.e months before.

Innumerable large rocks, detached from each other, formed the immense tier of sentinels for this part of the coast, and Harry's trip across, when he had the benefit of the life-preserver, was an entirely different thing from their present condition.

To add to the perplexity of the situation, George was not a good swimmer, and he doubted his ability to make the trip across the channels between the rocks which separated them from the mainland.

"Why not try to find the object we saw while we were out at sea?"

"Good idea. But I would like to know how we are going to get up?"

"Wasn't that a silly trick, to be so careless about our boat. What will the Professor say?"

At last, after repeated trials, they found a way which led them up the craggy sides, to the object they had seen.

"It is our life-boat," was Harry's excited cry. "That is, what is left of it."

We have previously detailed how, when they struck the rock, on that eventful day, months before, the boat had apparently been broken in two, and they saw only the stern of the boat held within a saddle of the rock; and how, at the next great wave, even that portion had disappeared. Here was the battered and broken-up part that remained.

"Do you think this part would float?"

"I suppose it would, but how can we get it down?"

They sat down, not discouraged, but annoyed at their own stupidity and carelessness. Night was approaching, and sitting down would not remedy matters. It was low tide, and the waters had receded, so that the wrecked boat was now fully twenty-five feet from the water. It was held within a wedge in the rocks, tilted up, and it was too heavy for them to lift. If they could possibly dislodge it, so as to push it over the edge, it would probably be crushed to pieces in tumbling down.

Even such a calamity would be better than remaining there, and it was decided to be the only course now available. Every vestige of the locker, or seats, or other appendages of the boat were swept away. The bare sh.e.l.l of the stern portion remained.

It was now growing dark, and when the wreck was finally dislodged and fell down with a crash the boys made their way down the sides very cautiously. It was now but the work of moments to get afloat. The boat originally had water-tight compartments, but these were now utterly useless as a means of sustaining the vessel; nevertheless, it was a means by which they might reach land, as they felt sure it would not sink. Here was another difficulty. They had neither oar nor other means of propelling it to sh.o.r.e. After considerable effort a portion of the side of the boat was broken off, and tired and worn with the effort and excitement they steered the craft sh.o.r.eward. To do so was not an easy task, as the wind had increased, and the waves beat stronger, but this had no terror for them after all their previous experiences.

When the sh.o.r.e was reached Harry had one positive observation to make: "I am going to see that this boat is so fixed that it won't get away."

George looked around, and in spite of their trials, could not help laughing at Harry. "I should like to know how you are going to do it. I don't see any ropes around here, and trying to pull it up this steep beach wall will not be an easy job."

"Then we have got to take it where we can pull it up. I am tired of losing things in this way. We'll have a nice story to tell the Professor."

The Professor was by this time thoroughly alarmed, as well he might be, for it was past eight o'clock that evening when, going down from Observation Hill, he heard voices in the distance, and recognized the boys. He called to them, and you may be sure that their answering voices were joyful sounds.

When the boys appeared both began excitedly to detail their experiences, getting details of the story involved without any sequence just as we might expect an exciting, mixed-up recital of this kind to be under the circ.u.mstances.

"You lost your boat and found the other one. You are having enough experiences to fill a book."

CHAPTER X

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY; AND THE SURPRISE

You may be sure that the interesting topic of conversation that night had relation to the events of the day. All previous experiences were insignificant now in comparison. Every phase of the question was discussed, and a solution sought.

The Professor did not attempt to conceal his doubts. "I have a theory that we are or may be near some other island, possibly inhabited by white or civilized people. It is likely that people from those islands may visit this place at intervals, and that the boat which we left at the falls was really washed down to the sea and found by some of them."

"If that is the case, why should it be washed up on sh.o.r.e, as it was?

They, no doubt, used the boat, as the oars and rope showed. But I can't possibly make out the meaning of its being in the driftwood."

"That boat we made is a hoodoo," was Harry's conclusion. "Twice lost is enough for me."

"Well, I would take a sail in it the next day if we could only find it."

"I am interested in it," observed the Professor, "not so much for the purposes of its use, as to enable us to find out something more about it, and how it came to be there. If it had occurred to me that we should lose it so soon you may be sure I should have made a more careful examination of it when we had it. But it is too late now."

Harry's solution was the one most acceptable. "Let us make another boat, and with that we can carry on our investigations more satisfactorily."

"Harry is right. A good vessel will be a measure of safety, in the event we should be attacked by savages, and it will at least enable us to visit the sh.o.r.e line of our continent."

The sanitary arrangements of their kitchen had been for some time very unsatisfactory, and somewhat cramped, and the Professor thought it would be wise, for their comfort and health, to cleanse it thoroughly.

"I am inclined to think that Harry's sickness was caused by the condition of the kitchen. We are apt to overlook these things in the multiplicity of our work."

"What is the best way to clean it, by washing?"

"That is necessary, of course, but it is impossible, even by a liberal use of hot water and soap, to remove many of the poisonous germs. Some good disinfectant should be used."

"Have we anything which could be used for the purpose?"

"There is nothing better than charcoal. Common wood charcoal has the capacity of purifying and rendering odorless almost all impurities."

"In what way does charcoal do this?"

"When charcoal is crushed up finely its remarkable porosity enables it to absorb an enormous quant.i.ty of gases, and when so absorbed it condenses them, in which condition they are harmless, or they are retained in the charcoal."

"But how about the impure liquids?"

"Its affinity for sour and stinking liquids is so great that two tablespoonfuls of charcoal will purify a pint of the foulest sewage; it will also, in that quant.i.ty, absorb 100 cubic inches of gaseous ammonia."

"Have we anything else that can be used?"