Old Clair-de-Lune was the first to be up, but I was close upon his heels, and Dolly Venn not far behind me. Who spoke the first word I don"t rightly recollect; but I hadn"t been on the heights more than ten seconds when I knew why it was spoken, and what the true meaning of it might be.
The ship was gone!
All the eyes in the wide world could not have found her on that angry sea below us, or anywhere on the black and looming horizon beyond. The night had taken her. The ship was gone. Hope as we might, speak up as we might, tell each other this story or tell each other that--the one sure fact remained that the Southern Cross had steamed away from Ken"s Island and left us to our fates.
"He"ll be running for sea-room, and come in when the gale falls," said Peter Bligh, when we had stood all together a little while, as crestfallen a lot as the Pacific Ocean could show that day; "trust Mister Jacob to be cautious--he"s a Scotchman, and would think first of the ship. A precious lot of good his wages would do him if the ship were down in sixty fathoms and he inside her!"
"That"s true," cried Dolly Venn, "though your poor old father didn"t say it, Mister Bligh. The ship"s gone, but she"ll come back again." And then to me he said, very earnestly, "Oh, she must come back, captain."
"Aye, lad," said I, "let her ride out the gale, and she"ll put back right enough. Mister Jacob isn"t the one to desert friends. He"ll have learned from Harry Doe how it stands with us, and he"ll just say, ""Bout ship"; that"s what Mr. Jacob will say. I"ve no fear of it at all. I"m only wondering what sort of sh.o.r.e-play is to keep us amused until we sight the ship again."
Well, they looked doleful enough; but not a man among them complained.
"Tis that way with seamen all the world over. Put them face to face with death and some will laugh, and some will curse, and some talk nonsense; but never a man wears his heart upon his sleeve or tells you that he"s afraid. And so it was that morning. They understood, I do believe, as well as I did, what the consequences of the gale might be.
They were no fools, to imagine that a man could get from Ken"s Island to San Francisco in any c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l the beach might show him. But none of them talked about it; none charged me with it; they just put their hands in their pockets like brave fellows who had made up their minds already to a very bad job; and be sure I was not the one to give a different turn to it. The ship had gone; the Lord only knew when she would come back again. It was not for me to be crying like a child for that which neither I nor any man could make good.
"Well," said I, "the ship"s gone, sure enough, and hard words won"t bring her back again. What Mister Jacob can do for his friends, that, I know, will be done. We must leave it to him and look after ourselves far as this place is concerned. You won"t forget that the crew downstairs will be ready enough to ask after our health and spirits if we give them a look in, and my word is for lying-to here until night comes or the ship is sighted. It must be a matter of hours, anyway. The gale"s abating; a landsman would know as much as that."
They said, "Aye, aye," to it, and Peter Bligh put in a word of his humour.
"The ship"s gone, sure enough," said he; "but that"s more than you can say for my appet.i.te! Bear or dog, I"m not particular, captain; but a good steak of something would come handy, and the sooner the better.
"Twere enough to bring tears to a man"s eyes to think of all the good grub that"s gone aboard with Harry Doe. Aye, "tis a wonderful thing is hunger, and the gift of the Lord along with good roast beef and pork sausages. May-be you find yourself a bit peckish, captain?"
I answered "Yes," though that was far from the truth, for what with watching through the night and thinking about the ship and little Ruth b.e.l.l.e.n.den"s loneliness in this place of mystery, and far worse than mystery, I"d forgotten all about meal-times, and never once had asked myself where breakfast was to come from. But now the long faces of my shipmates brought me to a remembrance of it, and when little Dolly Venn cried, "Oh, captain, I am so hungry!" I began to realize what a parlous plight we were in and what a roundabout road we must tread to get out of it. Lucky for us, the old Frenchman, who had stood all this time like a statue gazing out over the desolate sea, now bobbed up again, good Samaritan that he was, and catching Master Dolly"s complaint, he spoke of breakfast on his own account.
"Ah! you hungry, you thirst, messieurs; sailor-man always like that. Your ship gone? Never mind, he shall come back again, to-day, to-morrow, one, two, three day--pray G.o.d it be not longer, shipmate, pray G.o.d!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: A picturesque old figure standing there.]
I thought him a fine, picturesque old figure, standing there on the headland with his long hair streaming in the wind like a woman"s, and his brawny arms outstretched as though he would call the ship back to us from the lonely ocean. Truth to tell, the place was one to fill any man with awe. Far as the eye could see, the great waste was white with the foam of its breaking seas; the headland itself stood up a thousand feet like some mighty fortress commanding all the deep. Far below us were the green valleys of the island, the woods we had raced through last night; pastures with little white houses dotted about on them; the bungalow itself wherein Ruth b.e.l.l.e.n.den lived. No picture from the gallery of a high tower could have been more beautiful than that strange land with the wild reefs lying about it and the rollers cascading over them, and the black glens above which we stood, and the great circle of the water like some measureless basin which the whole earth bounded. I did not wonder that old Clair-de-Lune was silent when he looked down upon a scene so grand. It seemed a crime to speak of food and drink in such a place; and yet it was of these that Peter Bligh must go on talking.
"We"ll do the prayin", shipmate, if you"ll do the cookin"," cried he, hopefully; "as for that--you speak like a wise man. "Tis wonderful easy to pray on a full stomach! There isn"t a hunger or a thirst this side of "Frisco which I would not pray out of this same island if you"ll be pleased to bring "em along. Weigh anchor, my man," says he, "and we"ll pipe down to dinner."
Well, the old man laughed at his manner of putting it, and, without further ado, we all went down to the bird"s nest in the hollow, and there we lighted a fire in the shelter of the pit, and old Clair-de-Lune going away in search of rations, he returned presently with victuals enough to feed a missionary, and more than that, as pretty a trio to serve them as any seaman could hope for. For what should happen but that the three young girls we"d seen yesterday in the woods came romping up the hill together; and one bringing a great can for the coffee, and another a basket of luscious fruit, and a third some new-made bread and biscuit--they ran down the ladder to us and began to talk in their pretty language, and now and then in English which did not need much understanding.
"I am Rosamunda," says one.
And the second, she says:
"I am Sylvia--Sylvia--Sylvia."
And the third, she chimes in with:
"I am Celestine, and I have brought you bread."
And they all stood together, shy and natural, looking now at one, now at another of us; but most often, I thought, at little Dolly Venn, who had a way of making them understand which an older man might have envied.
"And wonderful pretty names, too, young ladies, though a seaman doesn"t often hear the likes of "em," cries Peter Bligh, gallant enough, as all Irishmen are. "They"re all Pollies in our parts, and it do come easier to the tongue and more convenient if you know many of "em. Whereby did you hitch up names like those?" asks he; "which, askin" your pardon, seem to me to be took out of a picture-book."
They giggled at this; but old Clair-de-Lune, who was mighty proud of them, and justly, answered Peter Bligh as though the question were serious.
"Monsieur, in my own country I am artiste; I play the drama, the comedy, the tragedy. Clair-de-Lune they call me at the theatre. To the daughters of my master I give the artiste"s name--why not? Better the good name than the bad name! It was long year ago, shipmate; the Belle Ile was wrecked on these reef; the maitre is drowned, but I and the young ladies are save. We come, we go, none interfere. The Governor is angry, we hide in the hill; the Governor laugh, we go down to the valley. When the sleep-time comes, we go to the house under the sea: you shall find him a dangerous time, but we hide far down. None frighten Clair-de-Lune; they frighten of him. He become the father according to his best."
It was touching, I must say, to hear this old man"s broken story; and prettier still to see the affectionate eyes with which these little girls watched every movement of one to whom, I am sure, they were beholden for all that they got out of Ken"s Island. For the rest, the tale was plain enough. The father had been wrecked and drowned on the sword-fish reef; the servant had saved the children and himself from the ship, and his own natural cleverness had done the rest. No one interfered with him, he said; and this was true. I verily believe that the devils in the valley below believed that he and the children with him were nothing more or less than spirits.
I say his story was plain, and yet there was something in it which was Greek to me. He had named a house under the sea, and what that meant, or how any man could build such a house, lay beyond my understanding. I should have asked a question about it there and then, and have sought light on the matter if it hadn"t been that the food was already cooked, and, the others being mighty anxious, we sat down to steaming coffee and broiled kid"s flesh and good bread and sweet fruit, and I was very willing to keep my curiosity. Once, it is true, the young girl who called herself "Rosamunda" came and sat by my side and wished to talk to me; but, prettily as she spoke our tongue, her measure of it was limited, and we did not get very far, in spite of good intentions.
"Do you like the island, do you like living here?" I asked her.
She answered me with a doubting shake of her pretty head.
"In the sun-months, yes, I like it; but not in the sleep-time. You will go away before the sleep-time, monsieur?"
"Really, young lady," said I, "it seems to me that it depends upon Mister Jacob and the ship. But, supposing I cannot go away--what then?
How does the sleep-time concern me?"
"You must not stay," she said, quickly; "for us it is different; we--we live in the house under the sea, but no stranger may live there--the Governor would not permit it. On the island all things sleep. If you do not go to the house under the sea--ah, monsieur, but you will sail away, you will sail in your ship."
She put it very childishly, the same c.o.c.k-and-bull story that the old Frenchman had been at last night. What to make of it, I knew no more than the dead. Here we seemed to be on as fair an island as the whole Pacific might show you; and yet these odd folk could talk of sun-months and sleep-time, and other stuff which might have been written in a fairy-book. Do you wonder that I laughed at them and treated it as any sane man, not given to fables, would have done?
"Sleep-time or sun-time, I"ll be away before then, please G.o.d, mademoiselle," said I; "do not fear for Jasper Begg, who was always fond of his bed and won"t grumble overmuch, be it sleep or waking. For the rest, we"ll take our chance, as others must do here, I fancy. Mme.
Czerny, for instance--do you know Mme. Czerny, young lady?"
She nodded her head and said that she did.
"Yes, yes, we know Mme. Czerny; she is the Governor"s wife. I think she is unhappy, Monsieur Captain. In the sun-months I see her, but in the sleep-time she lives in the house under the sea, and no one knows. You are her friend, perhaps; you would know that she is unhappy?"
I knew it well enough; but I wished to lead this little talker on, and so I said I did not.
"Unhappy, young lady! Why should she be unhappy?"
I asked it naturally, as though I was very surprised; but you could not deceive Mlle. Rosamunda. A more artful little witch never played at fairies in a wood.
"If she is not unhappy, why have you come here, Monsieur Captain? You come to help her--oh, I know! And you say that you do not."
"Perhaps so, young lady; perhaps I do--that I will tell you by-and-bye.
But I am curious about the Governor. What sort of a man is he, and where does he happen to be at this particular moment? I"m sure you could say something nice about him if you tried."
[Ill.u.s.tration: She looked at me with her big, questioning eyes.]
She looked at me with her big, questioning eyes, as though the question were but half understood. Presently she said:
"You laugh at me. M. Czerny has gone away to the world. Of course he would go. He has gone in the ship. What shall I tell you about him?
That he is kind, cruel; that we love him, hate him? Every one knows that; every one has told you. He is the Governor and we are his people who must obey: When he comes back he will ask you to obey him too, and you must say "yes." That will be at the sleep-time: eight, nine, ten days. But why do you ask, Monsieur Captain? Has not Mme. Czerny said it because you are her friend? I know that you tease me. Sailors love to tease little girls, and you are no better than the other ones."