With a shyness that was almost awe, Nares and I descended the companion.
The stair turned upon itself and landed us just forward of a thwart-ship bulkhead that cut the p.o.o.p in two. The fore part formed a kind of miscellaneous store-room, with a double-bunked division for the cook (as Nares supposed) and second mate. The after part contained, in the midst, the main cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the stern; on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for the mate; and on the starboard, the captain"s berth and water-closet.
Into these we did but glance: the main cabin holding us. It was dark, for the sea-birds had obscured the skylight with their droppings; it smelt rank and fusty; and it was beset with a loud swarm of flies that beat continually in our faces. Supposing them close attendants upon man and his broken meat, I marvelled how they had found their way to Midway reef; it was sure at least some vessel must have brought them, and that long ago, for they had multiplied exceedingly. Part of the floor was strewn with a confusion of clothes, books, nautical instruments, odds and ends of finery, and such trash as might be expected from the turning out of several seamen"s chests, upon a sudden emergency and after a long cruise. It was strange in that dim cabin, quivering with the near thunder of the breakers and pierced with the screaming of the fowls, to turn over so many things that other men had coveted, and prized, and worn on their warm bodies--frayed old underclothing, pyjamas of strange design, duck suits in every stage of rustiness, oil skins, pilot coats, bottles of scent, embroidered shirts, jackets of Ponjee silk--clothes for the night watch at sea or the day ash.o.r.e in the hotel verandah; and mingled among these, books, cigars, fancy pipes, quant.i.ties of tobacco, many keys, a rusty pistol, and a sprinkling of cheap curiosities--Benares bra.s.s, Chinese jars and pictures, and bottles of odd sh.e.l.ls in cotton, each designed no doubt for somebody at home--perhaps in Hull, of which Trent had been a native and his ship a citizen.
Thence we turned our attention to the table, which stood spread, as if for a meal, with stout ship"s crockery and the remains of food--a pot of marmalade, dregs of coffee in the mugs, unrecognisable remains of foods, bread, some toast, and a tin of condensed milk. The table-cloth, originally of a red colour, was stained a dark brown at the captain"s end, apparently with coffee; at the other end, it had been folded back, and a pen and ink-pot stood on the bare table. Stools were here and there about the table, irregularly placed, as though the meal had been finished and the men smoking and chatting; and one of the stools lay on the floor, broken.
"See! they were writing up the log," said Nares, pointing to the ink-bottle. "Caught napping, as usual. I wonder if there ever was a captain yet, that lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles d.i.c.kens and his serial novels.--What a regular, lime-juicer spread!" he added contemptuously. "Marmalade--and toast for the old man! Nasty, slovenly pigs!"
There was something in this criticism of the absent that jarred upon my feelings. I had no love indeed for Captain Trent or any of his vanished gang; but the desertion and decay of this once habitable cabin struck me hard: the death of man"s handiwork is melancholy like the death of man himself; and I was impressed with an involuntary and irrational sense of tragedy in my surroundings.
"This sickens me," I said. "Let"s go on deck and breathe."
The captain nodded. "It IS kind of lonely, isn"t it?" he said. "But I can"t go up till I get the code signals. I want to run up "Got Left" or something, just to brighten up this island home. Captain Trent hasn"t been here yet, but he"ll drop in before long; and it"ll cheer him up to see a signal on the brig."
"Isn"t there some official expression we could use?" I asked, vastly taken by the fancy. ""Sold for the benefit of the underwriters: for further particulars, apply to J. Pinkerton, Montana Block, S.F.""
"Well," returned Nares, "I won"t say but what an old navy quartermaster might telegraph all that, if you gave him a day to do it in and a pound of tobacco for himself. But it"s above my register. I must try something short and sweet: KB, urgent signal, "Heave all aback"; or LM, urgent, "The berth you"re now in is not safe"; or what do you say to PQH?--"Tell my owners the ship answers remarkably well.""
"It"s premature," I replied; "but it seems calculated to give pain to Trent. PQH for me."
The flags were found in Trent"s cabin, neatly stored behind a lettered grating; Nares chose what he required and (I following) returned on deck, where the sun had already dipped, and the dusk was coming.
"Here! don"t touch that, you fool!" shouted the captain to one of the hands, who was drinking from the scuttle but. "That water"s rotten!"
"Beg pardon, sir," replied the man. "Tastes quite sweet."
"Let me see," returned Nares, and he took the dipper and held it to his lips. "Yes, it"s all right," he said. "Must have rotted and come sweet again. Queer, isn"t it, Mr. Dodd? Though I"ve known the same on a Cape Horner."
There was something in his intonation that made me look him in the face; he stood a little on tiptoe to look right and left about the ship, like a man filled with curiosity, and his whole expression and bearing testified to some suppressed excitement.
"You don"t believe what you"re saying!" I broke out.
"O, I don"t know but what I do!" he replied, laying a hand upon me soothingly. "The thing"s very possible. Only, I"m bothered about something else."
And with that he called a hand, gave him the code flags, and stepped himself to the main signal halliards, which vibrated under the weight of the ensign overhead. A minute later, the American colours, which we had brought in the boat, replaced the English red, and PQH was fluttering at the fore.
"Now, then," said Nares, who had watched the breaking out of his signal with the old-maidish particularity of an American sailor, "out with those handspikes, and let"s see what water there is in the lagoon."
The bars were shoved home; the barbarous cacophony of the clanking pump rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling water gushed on deck and made valleys in the slab guano. Nares leaned on the rail, watching the steady stream of bilge as though he found some interest in it.
"What is it that bothers you?" I asked.
"Well, I"ll tell you one thing shortly," he replied. "But here"s another. Do you see those boats there, one on the house and two on the beds? Well, where is the boat Trent lowered when he lost the hands?"
"Got it aboard again, I suppose," said I.
"Well, if you"ll tell me why!" returned the captain.
"Then it must have been another," I suggested.
"She might have carried another on the main hatch, I won"t deny,"
admitted Nares; "but I can"t see what she wanted with it, unless it was for the old man to go out and play the accordion in, on moonlight nights."
"It can"t much matter, anyway," I reflected.
"O, I don"t suppose it does," said he, glancing over his shoulder at the spouting of the scuppers.
"And how long are we to keep up this racket?" I asked. "We"re simply pumping up the lagoon. Captain Trent himself said she had settled down and was full forward."
"Did he?" said Nares, with a significant dryness. And almost as he spoke the pumps sucked, and sucked again, and the men threw down their bars.
"There, what do you make of that?" he asked. "Now, I"ll tell, Mr. Dodd,"
he went on, lowering his voice, but not shifting from his easy att.i.tude against the rail, "this ship is as sound as the Norah Creina. I had a guess of it before we came aboard, and now I know."
"It"s not possible!" I cried. "What do you make of Trent?"
"I don"t make anything of Trent; I don"t know whether he"s a liar or only an old wife; I simply tell you what"s the fact," said Nares. "And I"ll tell you something more," he added: "I"ve taken the ground myself in deep-water vessels; I know what I"m saying; and I say that, when she first struck and before she bedded down, seven or eight hours" work would have got this hooker off, and there"s no man that ever went two years to sea but must have known it."
I could only utter an exclamation.
Nares raised his finger warningly. "Don"t let THEM get hold of it," said he. "Think what you like, but say nothing."
I glanced round; the dusk was melting into early night; the twinkle of a lantern marked the schooner"s position in the distance; and our men, free from further labour, stood grouped together in the waist, their faces illuminated by their glowing pipes.
"Why didn"t Trent get her off?" inquired the captain. "Why did he want to buy her back in "Frisco for these fabulous sums, when he might have sailed her into the bay himself?"
"Perhaps he never knew her value until then," I suggested.
"I wish we knew her value now," exclaimed Nares. "However, I don"t want to depress you; I"m sorry for you, Mr. Dodd; I know how bothering it must be to you; and the best I can say"s this: I haven"t taken much time getting down, and now I"m here I mean to work this thing in proper style. I just want to put your mind at rest: you shall have no trouble with me."
There was something trusty and friendly in his voice; and I found myself gripping hands with him, in that hard, short shake that means so much with English-speaking people.
"We"ll do, old fellow," said he. "We"ve shaken down into pretty good friends, you and me; and you won"t find me working the business any the less hard for that. And now let"s scoot for supper."
After supper, with the idle curiosity of the seafarer, we pulled ash.o.r.e in a fine moonlight, and landed on Middle Brook"s Island. A flat beach surrounded it upon all sides; and the midst was occupied by a thicket of bushes, the highest of them scarcely five feet high, in which the sea-fowl lived. Through this we tried at first to strike; but it were easier to cross Trafalgar Square on a day of demonstration than to invade these haunts of sleeping sea-birds. The nests sank, and the eggs burst under footing; wings beat in our faces, beaks menaced our eyes, our minds were confounded with the screeching, and the coil spread over the island and mounted high into the air.
"I guess we"ll saunter round the beach," said Nares, when we had made good our retreat.
The hands were all busy after sea-birds" eggs, so there were none to follow us. Our way lay on the crisp sand by the margin of the water: on one side, the thicket from which we had been dislodged; on the other, the face of the lagoon, barred with a broad path of moonlight, and beyond that, the line, alternately dark and shining, alternately hove high and fallen p.r.o.ne, of the external breakers. The beach was strewn with bits of wreck and drift: some redwood and spruce logs, no less than two lower masts of junks, and the stern-post of a European ship; all of which we looked on with a shade of serious concern, speaking of the dangers of the sea and the hard case of castaways. In this sober vein we made the greater part of the circuit of the island; had a near view of its neighbour from the southern end; walked the whole length of the westerly side in the shadow of the thicket; and came forth again into the moonlight at the opposite extremity.
On our right, at the distance of about half a mile, the schooner lay faintly heaving at her anchors. About half a mile down the beach, at a spot still hidden from us by the thicket, an upboiling of the birds showed where the men were still (with sailor-like insatiability) collecting eggs. And right before us, in a small indentation of the sand, we were aware of a boat lying high and dry, and right side up.
Nares crouched back into the shadow of the bushes.
"What the devil"s this?" he whispered.
"Trent," I suggested, with a beating heart.