Chapter VI
Land
At last the electric light really went out. I had looked at my
watch just before this happened and wound it up, which, Bickley
remarked, was superfluous and a waste of energy. It then marked
3.20 in the morning. We had wedged Bastin, who was now snoring
comfortably, into his berth, with pillows, and managed to tie a
cord over him--no, it was a large bath towel, fixing one end of
it to the little rack over his bed and the other to its
framework. As for ourselves, we lay down on the floor between the
table legs, which, of course, were screwed, and the settee,
protecting ourselves as best we were able by help of the
cushions, etc., between two of which we thrust the terrified
Tommy who had been sliding up and down the cabin floor. Thus we
remained, expecting death every moment till the light of day, a
very dim light, struggling through a port-hole of which the iron
cover had somehow been wrenched off. Or perhaps it was never
shut, I do not remember.
About this time there came a lull in the hellish, howling
hurricane; the fact being, I suppose, that we had reached the
centre of the cyclone. I suggested that we should try to go on
deck and see what was happening. So we started, only to find the
entrance to the companion so faithfully secured that we could not
by any means get out. We knocked and shouted, but no one
answered. My belief is that at this time everyone on the yacht
except ourselves had been washed away and drowned.
Then we returned to the saloon, which, except for a little
water trickling about the floor, was marvelously dry, and, being
hungry, retrieved some bits of food and biscuit from its corners
and ate. At this moment the cyclone began to blow again worse
than ever, but it seemed to us, from another direction, and
before it sped our poor derelict barque. It blew all day till for
my part I grew utterly weary and even longed for the inevitable
end. If my views were not quite those of Bastin, certainly they
were not those of Bickley. I had believed from my youth up that
the individuality of man, the ego, so to speak, does not die when
life goes out of his poor body, and this faith did not desert me
then. Therefore, I wished to have it over and learn what there
might be upon the other side.
We could not speak much because of the howling of the wind, but
Bickley did manage to shout to me something to the effect that
his partners would, in his opinion, make an end of their great
practice within two years, which, he added, was a pity. I nodded
my head, not caring twopence what happened to Bickley's partners
or their business, or to my own property, or to anything else.
When death is at hand most of us do not think much of such things
because then we realise how small they are. Indeed I was
wondering whether within a few minutes or hours I should or
should not see Natalie again, and if this were the end to which
she had seemed to beckon me in that dream.
On we sped, and on. About four in the afternoon we heard sounds
from Bastin's cabin which faintly reminded me of some tune. I
crept to the door and listened. Evidently he had awakened and was
singing or trying to sing, for music was not one of his strong
points, "For those in peril on the sea." Devoutly did I wish that
it might be heard. Presently it ceased, so I suppose he went to
sleep again.
The darkness gathered once more. Then of a sudden something
fearful happened. There were stupendous noises of a kind I had
never heard; there were convulsions. It seemed to us that the
ship was flung right up into the air a hundred feet or more.
"Tidal wave, I expect," shouted Bickley.
Almost as he spoke she came down with the most appalling crash
on to something hard and nearly jarred the senses out of us. Next
the saloon was whirling round and round and yet being carried
forward, and we felt air blowing upon us. Then our senses left
us. As I clasped Tommy to my side, whimpering and licking my
face, my last thought was that all was over, and that presently I
should learn everything or nothing.
I woke up feeling very bruised and sore and perceived that
light was flowing into the saloon. The door was still shut, but
it had been wrenched off its hinges, and that was where the light
came in; also some of the teak planks of the decking, jagged and
splintered, were sticking up through the carpet. The table had
broken from its fastenings and lay upon its side. Everything else
was one confusion. I looked at Bickley. Apparently he had not
awakened. He was stretched out still wedged in with his cushions
and bleeding from a wound in his head. I crept to him in terror
and listened. He was not dead, for his breathing was regular and
natural. The whisky bottle which had been corked was upon the
floor unbroken and about a third full. I took a good pull at the
spirit; to me it tasted like nectar from the gods. Then I tried
to force some down Bickley's throat but could not, so I poured a
little upon the cut on his head. The smart of it woke him in a
hurry.
"Where are we now?" he exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me
that Bastin is right after all and that we live again somewhere
else? Oh! I could never bear that ignominy."
"I don't know about living somewhere else," I said, "although
my opinions on that matter differ from yours. But I do know that
you and I are still on earth in what remains of the saloon of the
Star of the South."
"Thank God for that! Let's go and look for old Bastin," said
Bickley. "I do pray that he is all right also."
"It is most illogical of you, Bickley, and indeed wrong,"
groaned a deep voice from the other side of the cabin door, "to
thank a God in Whom you do not believe, and to talk of praying
for one of the worst and most inefficient of His servants when
you have no faith in prayer.
"Got you there, my friend," I said.
Bickley murmured something about force of habit, and looked
smaller than I had ever seen him do before.
Somehow we forced that door open; it was not easy because it
had jammed. Within the cabin, hanging on either side of the bath
towel which had stood the strain nobly, something like a damp
garment over a linen line, was Bastin most of whose bunk seemed
to have disappeared. Yes--Bastin, pale and dishevelled and
looking shrunk, with his hair touzled and his beard apparently
growing all ways, but still Bastin alive, if very weak.
Bickley ran at him and made a cursory examination with his
fingers.
"Nothing broken," he said triumphantly. "He's all right."
"If you had hung over a towel for many hours in most violent
weather you would not say that," groaned Bastin. "My inside is a
pulp. But perhaps you would be kind enough to untie me."
"Bosh!" said Bickley as he obeyed. "All you want is something
to eat. Meanwhile, drink this," and he handed him the remains of
the whisky.
Bastin swallowed it every drop, murmuring something about
taking a little wine for his stomach's sake, "one of the Pauline
injunctions, you know," after which he was much more cheerful.
Then we hunted about and found some more of the biscuits and
other food with which we filled ourselves after a fashion.
"I wonder what has happened," said Bastin. "I suppose that,
thanks to the skill of the captain, we have after all reached the
haven where we would be."
Here he stopped, rubbed his eyes and looked towards the saloon
door which, as I have said, had been wrenched off its hinges, but
appeared to have opened wider than when I observed it last. Also
Tommy, who was recovering his spirits, uttered a series of low
growls.
"It is a most curious thing," he went on, "and I suppose I must
be suffering from hallucinations, but I could swear that just now
I saw looking through that door the same improper young woman
clothed in a few flowers and nothing else, whose photograph in
that abominable and libellous book was indirectly the cause of
our tempestuous voyage."
"Indeed!" replied Bickley. "Well, so long as she has not got on
the broken-down stays and the Salvation Army bonnet without a
crown, which you may remember she wore after she had fallen into
the hands of your fraternity, I am sure I do not mind. In fact I
should be delighted to see anything so pleasant."
At this moment a distinct sound of female tittering arose from
beyond the door. Tommy barked and Bickley stepped towards it, but
I called to him.
"Look out! Where there are women there are sure to be men. Let
us be ready against accidents."
So we armed ourselves with pistols, that is Bickley and I did,
Bastin being fortified solely with a Bible.
Then we advanced, a remarkable and dilapidated trio, and
dragged the door wide. Instantly there was a scurry and we caught
sight of women's forms wearing only flowers, and but few of
these, running over white sand towards groups of men armed with
odd-looking clubs, some of which were fashioned to the shapes of
swords and spears. To make an impression I fired two shots with
my revolver into the air, whereupon both men and women fled into
groves of trees and vanished.
"They don't seem to be accustomed to white people," said
Bickley. "Is it possible that we have found a shore upon which no
missionary has set a foot?"
"I hope so," said Bastin, "seeing that unworthy as I am, then
the opportunities for me would be very great."
We stood still and looked about us. This was what we saw. All
the after part of the ship from forward of the bridge had
vanished utterly; there was not a trace of it; she had as it were
been cut in two. More, we were some considerable distance from
the sea which was still raging over a quarter of a mile away
where great white combers struck upon a reef and spouted into the
air. Behind us was a cliff, apparently of rock but covered with
earth and vegetation, and against this cliff, in which the prow
of the ship was buried, she, or what remained of her, had come to
anchor for the last time.
"You see what has happened," I said. "A great tidal wave has
carried us up here and retreated."
"That's it," exclaimed Bickley. "Look at the debris," and he
pointed to torn-up palms, bushes and seaweed piled into heaps
which still ran salt water; also to a number of dead fish that
lay about among them, adding, "Well, we are saved anyhow."
"And yet there are people like you who say that there is no
Providence!" ejaculated Bastin.
"I wonder what the views of Captain Astley and the crew are, or
rather were, upon that matter," interrupted Bickley.
"I don't know," answered Bastin, looking about him vaguely. "It
is true that I can't see any of them, but if they are drowned no
doubt it is because their period of usefulness in this world had
ended."
"Let's get down and look about us," I remarked, being anxious
to avoid further argument.
So we scrambled from the remnant of the ship, like Noah
descending out of the ark, as Bastin said, on to the beach
beneath, where Tommy rushed to and fro, gambolling for joy. Here
we discovered a path which ran diagonally up the side of a cliff
which was nowhere more than fifty or sixty feet in height, and
possibly had once formed the shore of this land, or perhaps that
of a lake. Up this path we went, following the tracks of many
human feet, and reaching the crest of the cliff, looked about us,
basking as we did so in the beautiful morning sun, for the sky
was now clear of clouds and with that last awful effort, which
destroyed our ship, the cyclone had passed away.
We were standing on a plain down which ran a little stream of
good water whereof Tommy drank greedily, we following his
example. To the right and left of this plain, further than we
could see, stretched bushland over which towered many palms,
rather ragged now because of the lashing of the gale. Looking
inland we perceived that the ground sloped gently downwards,
ending at a distance of some miles in a large lake. Far out in
this lake something like the top of a mountain of a brown colour
rose above the water, and on the edge of it was what from that
distance appeared to be a tumbled ruin.
"This is all very interesting," I said to Bickley. "What do you
make of it?"
"I don't quite know. At first sight I should say that we are
standing on the lip of a crater of some vast extinct volcano.
Look how it curves to north and south and at the slope running
down to the lake."
I nodded.
"Lucky that the tidal wave did not get over the cliff," I said.
"If it had the people here would have all been drowned out. I
wonder where they have gone?"
As I spoke Bastin pointed to the edge of the bush some hundreds
of yards away, where we perceived brown figures slipping about
among the trees. I suggested that we should go back to the mouth
of our path, so as to have a line of retreat open in case of
necessity, and await events. So we did and there stood still. By
degrees the brown figures emerged on to the plain to the number
of some hundreds, and we saw that they were both male and female.
The women were clothed in nothing except flowers and a little
girdle; the men were all armed with wooden weapons and also wore
a girdle but no flowers. The children, of whom there were many,
were quite naked.
Among these people we observed a tall person clothed in what
seemed to be a magnificent feather cloak, and, walking around and
about him, a number of grotesque forms adorned with hideous masks
and basket-like head-dresses that were surmounted by plumes.
"The king or chief and his priests or medicine-men! This is
splendid," said Bickley triumphantly.
Bastin also contemplated them with enthusiasm as raw material
upon which he hoped to get to work.
By degrees and very cautiously they approached us. To our joy,
we perceived that behind them walked several young women who bore
wooden trays of food or fruit.
"That looks well," I said. "They would not make offerings
unless they were friendly."
"The food may be poisoned," remarked Bickley suspiciously.
The crowd advanced, we standing quite still looking as
dignified as we could, I as the tallest in the middle, with Tommy
sitting at my feet. When they were about five and twenty yards
away, however, that wretched little dog caught sight of the
masked priests. He growled and then rushed at them barking, his
long black ears flapping as he went.
The effect was instantaneous. One and all they turned and fled
precipitately, who evidently had never before seen a dog and
looked upon it as a deadly creature. Yes, even the tall chief and
his masked medicine-men fled like hares pursued by Tommy, who bit
one of them in the leg, evoking a terrific howl. I called him
back and took him into my arms. Seeing that he was safe for a
while the crowd reformed and once again advanced.
As they came we noted that they were a wonderfully handsome
people, tall and straight with regularly shaped features and
nothing of the negro about them. Some of the young women might
even be called beautiful, though those who were elderly had
become corpulent. The feather-clothed chief, however, was much
disfigured by a huge growth with a narrow stalk to it that hung
from his neck and rested on his shoulder.
"I'll have that off him before he is a week older," said
Bickley, surveying this deformity with great professional
interest.
On they came, the girls with the platters walking ahead. On one
of these were what looked like joints of baked pork, on another
some plantains and pear-shaped fruits. They knelt down and
offered these to us. We contemplated them for a while. Then
Bickley shook his head and began to rub his stomach with
appropriate contortions. Clearly they were quick-minded enough for
they saw the point. At some words the girls brought the platters
to the chief and others, who took from them portions of the food
at hazard and ate them to show that it was not poisoned, we
watching their throats the while to make sure that it was
swallowed. Then they returned again and we took some of the food
though only Bickley ate, because, as I pointed out to him, being
a doctor who understood the use of antidotes; clearly he should
make the experiment. However, nothing happened; indeed he said
that it was very good.
After this there came a pause. Then suddenly Bastin took up his
parable in the Polynesian tongue which--to a certain extent--he
had acquired with so much pains.
"What is this place called?" he asked slowly and distinctly,
pausing between each word.
His audience shook their heads and he tried again, putting the
accents on different syllables. Behold! some bright spirit
understood him and answered:
"Orofena."
"That means a hill, or an island, or a hill in an island,"
whispered Bickley to me.
"Who is your God?" asked Bastin again.
The point seemed one upon which they were a little doubtful,
but at last the chief answered, "Oro. He who fights."
"In other words, Mars," said Bickley.
"I will give you a better one," said Bastin in the same slow
fashion.
Thinking that he referred to himself these children of Nature
contemplated his angular form doubtfully and shook their heads.
Then for the first time one of the men who was wearing a mask and
a wicker crate on his head, spoke in a hollow voice, saying:
"If you try Oro will eat you up."
"Head priest!" said Bickley, nudging me. "Old Bastin had better
be careful or he will get his teeth into him and call them
Oro's."
Another pause, after which the man in a feather cloak with the
growth on his neck that a servant was supporting, said:
"I am Marama, the chief of Orofena. We have never seen men like
you before, if you are men. What brought you here and with you
that fierce and terrible animal, or evil spirit which makes a
noise and bites?"
Now Bickley pretended to consult me who stood brooding and
majestic, that is if I can be majestic. I whispered something and
he answered:
"The gods of the wind and the sea."
"What nonsense," ejaculated Bastin, "there are no such things."
"Shut up," I said, "we must use similes here," to which he
replied:
"I don't like similes that tamper with the truth."
"Remember Neptune and Aeolus," I suggested, and he lapsed into
consideration of the point.
"We knew that you were coming," said Marama. "Our doctors told
us all about you a moon ago. But we wish that you would come more
gently, as you nearly washed away our country."
After looking at me Bickley replied:
"How thankful should you be that in our kindness we have spared
you."
"What do you come to do?" inquired Marama again. After the
usual formula of consulting me Bickley answered:
"We come to take that mountain (he meant lump) off your neck
and make you beautiful; also to cure all the sickness among your
people."
"And I come," broke in Bastin, "to give you new hearts."
These announcements evidently caused great excitement. After
consultation Marama answered:
"We do not want new hearts as the old ones are good, but we
wish to be rid of lumps and sicknesses. If you can do this we
will make you gods and worship you and give you many wives."
(Here Bastin held up his hands in horror.) "When will you begin
to take away the lumps?"
"To-morrow," said Bickley. "But learn that if you try to harm
us we will bring another wave which will drown all your country."
Nobody seemed to doubt our capacities in this direction, but
one inquiring spirit in a wicker crate did ask how it came about
that if we controlled the ocean we had arrived in half a canoe
instead of a whole one.
Bickley replied to the effect that it was because the gods
always travelled in half-canoes to show their higher nature,
which seemed to satisfy everyone. Then we announced that we had
seen enough of them for that day and would retire to think.
Meanwhile we should be obliged if they would build us a house and
keep us supplied with whatever food they had.
"Do the gods eat?" asked the sceptic again.
"That fellow is a confounded radical," I whispered to Bickley.
"Tell him that they do when they come to Orofena."
He did so, whereon the chief said:
"Would the gods like a nice young girl cooked?"
At this point Bastin retired down the path, realising that he
had to do with cannibals. We said that we preferred to look at
the girls alive and would meet them again to-morrow morning, when
we hoped that the house would be ready.
So our first interview with the inhabitants of Orofena came to
an end, on which we congratulated ourselves.
On reaching the remains of the Star of the South we set to work
to take stock of what was left to us. Fortunately it proved to be
a very great deal. As I think I mentioned, all the passenger part
of the yacht lay forward of the bridge, just in front of which
the vessel had been broken in two, almost as cleanly as though
she were severed by a gigantic knife. Further our stores were
forward and practically everything else that belonged to us, even
down to Bickley's instruments and medicines and Bastin's
religious works, to say nothing of a great quantity of tinned
food and groceries. Lastly on the deck above the saloon had stood
two large lifeboats. Although these were amply secured at the
commencement of the gale one of them, that on the port side, was
smashed to smithers; probably some spar had fallen upon it. The
starboard boat, however, remained intact and so far as we could
judge, seaworthy, although the bulwarks were broken by the waves.
"There's something we can get away in if necessary," I said.
"Where to?" remarked Bastin. "We don't know where we are or if
there is any other land within a thousand miles. I think we had
better stop here as Providence seems to have intended, especially
when there is so much work to my hand."
"Be careful," answered Bickley, "that the work to your hand
does not end in the cutting of all our throats. It is an awkward
thing interfering with the religion of savages, and I believe
that these untutored children of Nature sometimes eat
missionaries."
"Yes, I have heard that," said Bastin; "they bake them first as
they do pigs. But I don't know that they would care to eat me,"
and he glanced at his bony limbs, "especially when you are much
plumper. Anyhow one can't stop for a risk of that sort."
Deigning no reply, Bickley walked away to fetch some fine fish
which had been washed up by the tidal wave and were still
flapping about in a little pool of salt water. Then we took
counsel as to how to make the best of our circumstances, and as a
result set to work to tidy up the saloon and cabins, which was
not difficult as what remained of the ship lay on an even keel.
Also we got out some necessary stores, including paraffin for the
swinging lamps with which the ship was fitted in case of accident
to the electric light, candles, and the guns we had brought with
us so that they might be handy in the event of attack. This done,
by the aid of the tools that were in the storerooms, Bickley, who
was an excellent carpenter, repaired the saloon door, all that
was necessary to keep us private, as the bulkhead still remained.
"Now," he said triumphantly when he had finished and got the
lock and bolts to work to his satisfaction, "we can stand a siege
if needed, for as the ship is iron built they can't even burn us
out and that teak door would take some forcing. Also we can shore
it up."
"How about something to eat? I want my tea," said Bastin.
"Then, my reverend friend," replied Bickley, "take a couple of
the fire buckets and fetch some water from the stream. Also
collect driftwood of which there is plenty about, clean those
fish and grill them over the saloon stove."
"I'll try," said Bastin, "but I never did any cooking before."
"No," replied Bickley, "on second thoughts I will see to that
myself, but you can get the fish ready."
So, with due precautions, Bastin and I fetched water from the
stream which we found flowed over the edge of the cliff quite
close at hand into a beautiful coral basin that might have been
designed for a bath of the nymphs. Indeed one at a time, while
the other watched, we undressed and plunged into it, and never
was a tub more welcome than after our long days of tempest. Then
we returned to find that Bickley had already set the table and
was engaged in frying the fish very skilfully on the saloon
stove, which proved to be well adapted to the purpose. He was
cross, however, when he found that we had bathed and that it was
now too late for him to do likewise.
While he was cleaning himself as well as he could in his cabin
basin and Bastin was boiling water for tea, suddenly I remembered
the letter from the Danish mate Jacobsen. Concluding that it
might now be opened as we had certainly parted with most of the
Star of the South for the last time, I read it. It was as
follows:
"The reason, honoured Sir, that I am leaving the ship is that
on the night I tore up the paper, the spirit controlling the
planchette wrote these words: 'After leaving Samoa the Star of
the South will be wrecked in a hurricane and everybody on board
drowned except A. B. and B. Get out of her! Get out of her! Don't
be a fool, Jacob, unless you want to come over here at once. Take
our advice and get out of her and you will live to be old.--
SKOLL."
"Sir, I am not a coward but I know that this will happen, for
that spirit which signs itself Skoll never tells a lie. I did try
to give the captain a hint to stop at Apia, but he had been
drinking and openly cursed me and called me a sneaking cheat. So
I am going to run away, of which I am very much ashamed. But I do
not wish to be drowned yet as there is a girl whom I want to
marry, and my mother I support. You will be safe and I hope you
will not think too badly of me.--JACOB JACOBSEN.
"P.S.--It is an awful thing to know the future. Never try to
learn that."
I gave this letter to Bastin and Bickley to read and asked them
what they thought of it.
"Coincidence," said Bickley. "The man is a weak-minded idiot
and heard in Samoa that they expected a hurricane."
"I think," chimed in Bastin, "that the devil knows how to look
after his own at any rate for a little while. I dare say it would
have been much better for him to be drowned."
"At least he is a deserter and failed in his duty. I never wish
to hear of him again," I said.
As a matter of fact I never have. But the incident remains
quite unexplained either by Bickley or Bastin.
