Sunk at Sea by Robert Michael Ballantyne (to read list .TXT) 📕

to be; that a sort of apathy is stealing over us all; that the sands of life, in short, are running out while we are sitting idle here making no effort to help ourselves."

"What can we do, lad?" said the captain sadly, supposing that the youth was merely giving vent to a spirit of desperation.

"I'll tell you what we can do," said Will, rising; "we can cut down most of the trees and make a huge pile of them, which, with the broken pieces of the long-boat to kindle them, will create a blaze that will attract the attention of the people who live on yonder island--if there be any. I know the character of South Sea islanders, but it is better to live in captivity or die by the hand of savages than to perish of hunger and thirst. Come, Captain Dall, we _must_ stir the men up to make a last effort. Rather than die here, I will make a raft and hoist a sail on it, and commit myself to the winds and waves. What say you? Shall we try?"

"There is something in what you say, doctor," replied the captain, pondering the subject; "at all events, no harm can come of making the attempt. I'll go speak to the men."

In pursuance of this intention he left the place of outlook accompanied by Will, and the result of their consultation with the men was, that in a few minutes Larry O'Hale and Mr Cupples set to work with all the energy in their natures to fell trees with the two axes they possessed. When they were exhausted, Will Osten and Goff relieved them, and then the captain and old Bob took the axes. Thus the work went on all day, and in the evening a pile of logs was raised almost as large as a medium-sized cottage.

There was something hopeful in the mere act of working with a view to deliverance that raised the spirits of the men, and when the sun began to sink towards the western horizon, they sat down to their slight meal of biscuit and cocoa-nut milk with more appetite and relish than they had experienced for many days.

"I've bin thinkin'," said Larry, pausing in the midst of his supper.

"Well, wot have 'ee bin thinkin', lad?" said Muggins, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and wishing for more food--but wishing in vain, for he had finished his allowance--"you're a good deal given to thinkin', but there's not much ever comes on it, 'xcept wind in the shape o' words."

"And what's words," retorted the cook, in supreme contempt, "but the expression o' sintiment, widout which there wouldn't have bin nuthin' wotsomediver in the univarse? Sintiment is the mother of all things, as owld Father O'Dowd used to say to my grandmother whin he wanted to come the blarney over her. It was a philosopher sintimentilisin' over a tay-kittle, I'm towld, as caused the diskivery o' the steam-ingine; it was a sintimintal love o' country as indooced Saint Patrick to banish the varmin from Ireland, an' it was religious sintiment as made Noah for to build the Ark, but for which nother you nor me would have bin born to git cast upon a coral island. Sintiment is iverything, Muggins, and of that same there isn't more in your whole body than I cud shove into the small end of a baccy-pipe. But to return to the pint: I've bin thinkin' as to whether it would be best to set a light to this here little pile in the daylight or in the dark, bekase, in the wan case it's the smoke that would call attintion, an' in the other case it's the flame."

"That is true, Larry," said the captain; "I'm inclined to think it would be better seen at night, fire being more powerful than smoke."

"But they're more likely to be asleep at night, and to miss seein' it," observed Cupples, in a hollow tone.

It may be remarked in passing, that the mate's voice had become much more sepulchral and his aspect more cadaverous since his arrival on the island.

"True for ye," chimed in Larry; "an' who knows, if they did see it, but they might take it for the moon in a fog--or for a volkainy?"

"Wouldn't the best way to settle the matter be to kindle the fire just now, before it grows dark," suggested Will Osten, "so that they will have a chance of seeing the smoke, and then, when it grows dark, the fire will be getting brighter?"

"Right, doctor, you're right. Come, we'll put the light to it at once," cried the captain, rising. "Hand me the match-box, Mr Cupples; it's in the head o' the bread cask."

The whole party rose and went to the pile of timber, which was on the highest part of the islet and towered to a height of nearly twelve feet. Captain Dall applied a match to the tarry pieces of the long-boat, which had been placed at the foundation, and the flames at once leaped up and began to lick greedily round the timber, winding through the interstices and withering up the leaves. Soon a thick smoke began to ascend, for much of the timber in the pile was green, and before the sun had set a dense black cloud was rising straight up like a pillar and spreading out into the sky. As the fire gathered strength, a great tongue of flame flashed up ever and anon into the midst of the rolling cloud and rent it for a single instant; by degrees those tongues waged fierce war with the smoke. They shot through it more and more frequently, licked and twined round it--in and out--until they gained the mastery at last, and rose with a magnificent roar into the heavens. Then it was that Larry O'Hale gave vent to his excitement and admiration in an irrepressible shout, and his comrades burst into a mingled cheer and fit of laughter, as they moved actively round the blazing mass and stirred it into fiercer heat with boat-hooks and oars.

When night had closed in, the brilliancy of the bonfire was intense, and the hopes of the party rose with the flames, for they felt certain that any human beings who chanced to be within fifty miles of them could not fail to see the signal of distress.

So the greater part of the night was passed in wild excitement and energetic action. At last, exhausted yet hopeful, they left the bonfire to burn itself out and sat down to watch. During the first half-hour they gazed earnestly over the sea, and so powerfully had their hopes been raised, that they expected to see a ship or a boat approaching every minute. But ere long their hopes sank as quickly as they had been raised. They ceased to move about and talk of the prospect of speedy deliverance. The hearts of men who have been long exposed to the depressing influence of "hope deferred," and whose frames are somewhat weakened by suffering and insufficient food, are easily chilled. One after another they silently crept under the sail, which had been spread out in the form of a tent to shelter them, and with a sigh lay down to rest. Weariness and exposure soon closed their eyes in "kind Nature's sweet restorer--balmy sleep," and the coral island vanished utterly from their minds as they dreamed of home, and friends, and other days. So, starving men dream of sumptuous fare, and captives dream of freedom.

Will Osten was last to give way to the feeling of disappointment, and last to lie down under the folds of the rude tent. He was young, and strong, and sanguine. It was hard for one in whose veins the hot blood careered so vigorously to believe in the possibility of a few days reducing him to the weakness of infancy--harder still for him to realise the approach of death; yet, when he lay meditating there in the silence of the calm night, a chill crept over his frame, for his judgment told him that if a merciful God did not send deliverance, "the end" was assuredly drawing very nigh.


CHAPTER EIGHT.


IN WHICH OUR HERO SUGGESTS A PLAN WHICH GETS THE PARTY OUT OF ONE DIFFICULTY BUT PLUNGES THEM INTO ANOTHER.

How long Wandering Will would have lain in the midst of his slumbering comrades, indulging in gloomy reveries, it is impossible to say, for he was suddenly startled out of them by the appearance of a black object on the sea, at a considerable distance from the shore. Will's couch was near the open entrance to the tent, and from the spot where his head lay pillowed on his coat, he could see the lagoon, the opening in the reef, and the ocean beyond. He rose softly, but quickly, and went out to assure himself that his disturbed fancy had not misled him. No--there could be no doubt about it. Grey dawn was already breaking, and enabled him to see it distinctly--a dark moving speck on the sea far outside the reef. It could not be a gull or sea-bird, he felt persuaded; neither was it a ship, for his eye during the voyage had become a practised one in observing distant vessels. It might be a boat!

Full of this idea, and trembling with hope and anxiety, he returned to the tent, and gently awoke the captain.

"Sh! don't speak," he whispered, laying his hand on the captain's mouth.

"I'm convinced it is a boat," continued Will, as he stood beside the now smouldering fire, while the captain gazed long and earnestly through his telescope at the object on the sea.

"You're only half-right," said the other, with unusual seriousness, as he handed the glass to his companion; "it's a canoe--a large one, I think, and apparently full of men; but we shan't be left long in doubt as to that; our fire has evidently attracted them, and now we must prepare for their reception."

"Do you then doubt their friendliness?" asked Will, returning the glass to the captain, who again examined the approaching canoe carefully.

"Whether they shall turn out to be friends or foes, doctor, depends entirely on whether they are Christians or heathens. If the missionaries have got a footing amongst 'em, we are saved; if not--I wouldn't give much for our chance of seeing Old England again."

The captain's voice dropped as he said this, and his face was overspread with an expression of profound gravity.

"Do you _really_ believe in all the stories we have heard of the blood-thirstiness of these savages, and their taste for human flesh?" asked Will, with some anxiety.

"Believe them!" exclaimed the captain, with a bitter, almost ferocious laugh; "of course I do. I have _seen_ them at their bloody work, lad. It's all very well for shore-goin' folk in the old country to make their jokes about `Cold missionary on the sideboard,' and to sing of the `King of the Cannibal Islands;' but, as sure as there is a sky over your head, and a coral island under your feet, so certainly do the South Sea savages kill, roast, and eat their enemies, and so fond are they of human flesh that, when they can't get hold of enemies, they kill and eat their slaves. Look, you can make out the canoe well enough now without the glass; she's makin' straight for the opening in