"Is it fireflies or lanterns?" cries he all at once, bringing out the words like a pump might have done; "yonder on the hillside, shipmates--is it fireflies or lanterns?"
I stood to look, and while I stood Seth Barker named the thing.
"It"s lanterns," cries he; "lanterns, sure and certain, captain."
"And the three ripping little girls carrying them," puts in Dolly Venn.
""Tis no woman ever born that would hunt down four poor sailor-men,"
cries Peter Bligh.
"To say nothing of the he-lion they was a-fondling of"--from Seth Barker.
"Lads," said I, in my turn, "this is the unlooked for, and I, for one, don"t mean to pa.s.s it by. I"m going to ask those young ladies for a short road to the hills--and not lose any time about it either."
They all said "Aye, aye," and we ran forward together. The halloaing in the wood was closing in about us now; you could hear voices wherever you turned an ear. As for the lanterns, they darted from bush to bush like glow-worms on a summer"s night, so that I made certain they would dodge us after all. My heart was low down enough, be sure of it, when I lost view of those guiding stars altogether, and found myself face to face with the last figure I might have asked for if you"d given me the choice of a hundred.
For what should happen but that the weird being, whom Seth Barker had called the "he-lion," the old fellow in petticoats, whom the little girls made such a fuss of, he, I say, appeared of a sudden right in the path before us, and, holding up a lantern warningly, he hailed us with a word which told us that he was our friend--the very last I would have named for that in all the island.
"Jasper Begg," cried he, in a voice that I"d have known for a Frenchman"s anywhere, "follow Clair-de-Lune--follow--follow!"
He turned to the bushes behind him, and, seeming to dive between them, we found him, when we followed, flat on his stomach, the lantern out, and he running like a dog up a winding path before him. He was leading us to the heights, I said; and when I remembered the great bare peaks and steeple-like rocks, upstanding black and gloomy under the starry sky, I began to believe that this wild man was right and that in the hills our safety lay.
But of that we had yet to learn, and for all we knew to the contrary it might have been a trap.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BIRD"S NEST IN THE HILLS
There had been a great sound of "halloaing" and firing in the woods when we raced through them for our lives; but it was all still and cold on the mountain-side, and you could hear even a stone falling or the drip of water as it oozed from the black rocks to the silent pools below. What light there was came down through the craggy gorge; and it was not until we had climbed up and up for a good half-hour or more that we began to hear the sea-breeze whistling among the higher peaks like wild music which the spirits might have made. As for the path itself, it was oftentimes but a ledge against the wall of some sheer height; and none, I think, but seamen could have followed it, surely.
Even I remembered where I was, and feared to look down sometimes; but danger bridges many a perilous road, and what with the silence and the fresh breezes and the thought that we might live through the night, after all, I believe I could have hugged the wild old man who led us upward so unflinchingly.
I say that he went on unflinchingly, and surely no goat could have climbed quicker than he did. Now standing over an abyss which made you silly to look down into; now pulling himself up by bush or branch; at other times scrambling over loose shale as though he had neither hands nor knees to cut, he might well have scared the coolest who had met him without warning on such a road. As for the four men he had saved from the devils in the thickets below, I don"t believe there was one of them who didn"t trust him from the first. The sea is a sure school for knowing men and their humours. If this old Frenchman chose to put a petticoat about his legs, and to wear a lion"s mane down his back, we liked him all the better for that. What we had seen of the young girls"
behaviour towards him made up for that which we did not know about him.
He must have had a tender place somewhere in his heart, or three young women wouldn"t fondle him like a dog. Like a ship out of the night had he crossed our path; and his port must be our port, since we knew no other. That"s why, I say, we followed him over the dangerous road like children follow a master. He was leading us to some good haven--I had no doubt of it. The thing that remained to tell was, had we the strength and the breath to reach it?
You may imagine that it was no light thing to run such a race as we had run, and to be asked to climb a mountain on the top of it. For my part, I was so dead tired that every step up the hillside was like a knife in my side; and as for Peter Bligh, I wonder he didn"t go rolling down to the rocks, so hard did he breathe and so heavy he was. But men will do wonders to save their necks, and that is how it is that we went up and still up, through the black ravine, to the blue peaks above. Aye, a fearsome place we had come to now, with terrible gorges, and wild shapes of rocks, like dead men"s faces leering out of the darkness. The wind howled with a human voice, the desolation of all the earth seemed here. And yet the old man must push on--up, up, as though he would touch the very sky.
"The Lord be good to me," cried Peter Bligh, at last; "I can go no farther if it"s a million a mile! Oh, Mister Begg, for the love of G.o.d, clap a rope about the wild man"s legs."
I pushed him on over a sloping peak of shale, and told him to hold his tongue.
"Will you lie in the pool, then? Where"s your courage, man? Another hundred yards and you shall stop to breathe. There"s the old lion himself waiting for us, and a big bill of thanks he has against us, to be sure."
I said no more, but climbed the steep to the Frenchman"s side, and found him waiting on the bank of that which seemed to be a great cup-like hole, black and bottomless and the last place you"d have picked for a camp on all the hillside. Dolly Venn was already there, and Seth Barker, lying on the stones and panting like a great dog.
Old Clair-de-Lune alone was fresh and ready, and able in his broken English to tell us what he wished.
"Messieurs," he said, "speak not long but go down. I myself am shipmate too. Ah, messieurs, you do wise to follow me. Down there no dog bark. I show you the ladder, and all be well. To-morrow you speak your ship--go home. For me, never again--I die here with the children, messieurs; none shall come for old Clair-de-Lune, none, never at no time--but you, you I save for the shipmates" sake----"
It was odd talk, but no time to argue about it. I saw a ladder thrust up out of the pit, and when the old man went down I followed without hesitation. A lantern lighted in the darkness showed me a hollow nest 20 feet deep, perhaps, and carpeted over with big brown leaves and rugs spread out; and in one corner that which was not unlike a bed.
Moreover, there was a little stove in the place and upon one side an awning stretched against the rain; while cooking pots and pans and other little things made it plain at a glance that this was the man"s own refuge in the mountains, and that here, at least, some part of his life was spent. No further witness to his honesty could be asked for.
He had brought us to his own home. It was time to speak of thanks.
"What you"ve done for us neither me nor mine will ever forget," said I, warmly. "Here"s a seaman"s hand and a seaman"s thanks. Should the day come when we can do a like turn to you, be sure I"ll be glad to hear of it; and if it came that you had the mind to go aboard with us--aye, and the young ladies, too--why, you"ll find no one more willing than Jasper Begg."
We shook hands, and he set the lantern down upon the floor. Peter Bligh was lying on his back now, crying to a calendar of saints to help him; Seth Barker breathed like a winded horse; little Dolly Venn stood against the wall of the pit with his head upon his arm, like a runner after a race; the old Frenchman drew the ladder down and made all snug as a ship is made for the night.
"No one come here," he said, "no one find the way. You sleep, and to-morrow you signal ship to go down where I show. For me and mine, not so. This is my home; I am stranger in my own country. No one remember Clair-de-Lune. Twelve years I live here--five times I sleep the dreadful sleep which the island make--five times I live where others die. Why go home, messieurs, if you not have any? I not go; but you, you hasten because of the sleep."
We all p.r.i.c.ked up our ears at this curious saying, and Dolly Venn, he whipped out a question before I could--indeed, he spoke the French tongue very prettily; and for about five minutes the two of them went at it hammer and tongs like two old women at charring.
"What does he mean by sleep-time, lad?" I asked in between their argument. "Why shouldn"t a man sleep on Ken"s Island? What nonsense will he talk next?"
I"d forgotten that the old man spoke English too, but he turned upon me quickly to remind me of the fact.
"No nonsense, monsieur, as many a one has found--no nonsense at all, but very dreadful thing. Three, four time by the year it come; three, four time it go. All men sleep if they not go away--you sleep if you not go away. Ah, the good G.o.d send you to the ship before that day."
He did his best to put it clearly, but he might as well have talked Chinese. Dolly, who understood his lingo, made a brave attempt, but did not get much farther.
"He says that this island is called by the j.a.panese the Island of Sleep. Two or three times every year there comes up from the marshes a poisonous fog which sends you into a trance from which you don"t recover, sometimes for months. It can"t be true, sir, and yet that"s what he says."
"True or untrue, Dolly," said I, in a low voice, "we"ll not give it the chance. It"s a fairy tale, of course, though it doesn"t sound very pretty when you hear it."
"Nor is that music any more to my liking," exclaimed Peter Bligh, at this point, meaning that we should listen to a couple of gunshots fired, not in the woods far down below us, but somewhere, as it seemed, on the sea-beach we had failed to make.
"That would be Harry Doe warning us," cried I.
"And meaning that it was dangerous for us to go down."
"He"ll have put off and saved the longboat, anyway. We"ll hail him at dawn, and see where the ship is."
They heard me in silence. The tempest roaring in the peaks above that weird, wild place; our knowledge of the men on the island below; the old Frenchman"s strange talk--no wonder that our eyes were wide open and sleep far from them.
Dawn, indeed, we waited for as those who are pa.s.sing through the terrible night. I think sometimes that, if we had known what was in store for us, we should have prayed to G.o.d that we might not see the day.
CHAPTER IX
WE LOOK OUT FOR THE SOUTHERN CROSS
The wind blew a hurricane all that night, and was still a full gale when dawn broke. To say that no man among us slept is to put down a very obvious thing. The roaring of the breakers on the reefs below us, the showers of stones which the heights rained down, the dreadful noises like wild human voices in the hills, drove sleep far from any man"s eyes. And more than that, there was the ship to think of. What had become of the ship? Where did she lie? When should we see her again? Aye, how often we asked each other that question when the blast thundered and the lightning seemed to open the very heavens, and the spindrift was blown clean over the heights to fall like a salt spray upon our faces. Was it well with the ship or ill? Mister Jacob we knew to be a good seaman, none better. With him the decision lay to run for the open water or to risk everything for our sakes. If he made up his mind that the safety of the Southern Cross demanded sea-room he would take it, and let to-morrow look after itself. But I was anxious, none the less; for, if the ship were gone, "G.o.d help us on Ken"s Island," I said.
Now, the old Frenchman was the first to be moving when the day came, and no sooner did all the higher peaks show us a glimmer of the dawn-light--very beautiful and awesome to look upon--than he set up the ladder and began to show us the way to the mountain-top.
"You make signal; you fetch ship. Sailormen go down where landman afraid. Little boat come in; shipmate go out. Old Clair-de-Lune he know. Ah, messieurs, the wind is very dreadful to-day--what you call harriken. Other day, all quite easy plan--but this day not so, great water, all white--no go, no man."
It was queer talk, and we might have laughed at him if we"d have forgotten that he saved our lives last night and was waiting to save them again this morning. But you don"t laugh at a friend, talk as he may, and for that matter we were all too excited to think of any such thing, and we made haste to scramble up out of the pit and to follow him to the heights where the truth should be known--the best of it or the worst. For the path or its dangerous places we cared nothing now.
The rocks, upstanding all about us, shut in the view as some great basin cut in the mountain"s heart. You could see the black sky above and the bottomless chasms below--but of the water nothing. Imagine, then, how we raced for the summit: now up on our feet, now on all-fours like dogs; now calling, man to man, to hasten; now saying that haste wouldn"t help us. And no wonder--no wonder our hearts beat high and our hands were unsteady, for beyond the basin we should find the sea, and the view might show us life or death.