Chapter 10

A SAIL--LAND.

Since the night of the mutiny they had been flying a signal of distress, and when Frank saw it fluttering at the mast-head, through his bitter, blinding tears, he wondered if it would bring assistance to him, or must he float on and on over this wide, silent sea till he, too, died? The thought was an appalling one, and he threw himself on the deck in an agony of despair.

So intense was his strange fear and grief and loneliness that he did not realize the fact that the schooner was driving through the water at the rate of five miles an hour, though he heard the wash of the waves against her sides, and felt the momentarily freshening wind blow cool on his face and pipe lonesomely through the cordage.

Weary, sick at heart, and worn out with watching, he finally fell asleep, and when he awoke the wind was gone, the sails flapped idly against the mast, and the sun, in unclouded splendor, was just beginning to peep above the eastern horizon.

He got up, feeling refreshed, but very hungry, went to the galley, searched around till he found some bread and a bit of cheese, and then came back to the shade of the awning to eat it.

The long day passed, the night came and went, and another day dawned, only to find Frank still drifting aimlessly on before any breeze that chanced to blow.

A little past noon he saw a sail a long way to windward, and so great was his joy at the discovery that he shouted at the top of his voice, and ran hither and thither about the deck in a mad transport of sudden hope and delight.

The vessel proved to be the British bark Swallow. Frank could hardly restrain his gladness within rational bounds when he saw her change her course and stand directly toward the Sea Eagle, with all the speed the light wind that was blowing would permit her to make.

When within speaking-distance, the stranger hove to and hailed:

"What schooner is that, and where bound?"

"The Sea Eagle, from Ruatan to Philadelphia!" piped the boy's voice from the schooner's deck.

"Where is your captain?"

"Dead!"

"His name and yours?"

"Captain Calvin Thorne. My name is Frank Arden, and I am all alone. First we had a mutiny on board, and then yellow fever, and now I am the only one left."

"Yellow fever!" The captain of the bark repeated the words with a kind of terrified jerk. "Forward there, men! Bend on all sail and stand off!" he shouted to his crew, as he turned from the rail, where he had stood while speaking to Frank. "We can't help you, boy. Sorry, but we can't, if it's yellow fever you have on board."

And, to Frank's unspeakable amazement, the bark was instantly put about, and was soon rapidly widening the distance between him and safety.

He had not thought of the dread pestilence the Sea Eagle carried in her every rope and spar and sail.

For a moment he felt as if he should die, so great was the reaction from eager hope and joy to bitterest disappointment and despair; but he rallied his sinking heart, after a little, and watched the bark disappear in the sun lit distance, with strangely-bright and tearless eyes.

No one could, no one dared, to help him, when they knew it was yellow fever that menaced them, and tainted the very air through which the Sea Eagle sailed. He no longer need look for relief by means of a passing vessel. That hope was gone utterly; for it would be wicked and cruel not to tell of what it was the captain had died. And who would aid him, when they knew it was to risk their life to do so?

Yellow fever, and with good reason, is only another name for death to a sailor, and Frank could not blame them for giving the schooner a wide berth.

When the Swallow was quite out of sight, he returned to his seat under the awning. It was now almost sunset, and the haze and mist of early twilight began to creep over the tossing waves.

For the first time since he was left alone on the vessel, he sat himself down to calmly think over the terrifying position in which he was placed and gravely consider what it was best for him to do.

He had passed through all there was, he thought, of sorrow, dismay, disappointment and horror; and whatever there might be of suffering and danger in store for him, he felt that, at most, they could give him no greater pain than he had already endured.

The reflection somehow was as comforting as it was sudden and startling to his weary energies and overtaxed strength. He would not give up again, and, from that moment, resolved to save both the vessel and himself, if he could.

Captain Thorne, when predicting his own speedy death, had spoken as if he thought Frank would live to reach land; and in this belief he had died, after giving into the lad's keeping his little all of wealth and telling him what to do in case he survived the perils of this most perilous voyage.

And, oh, how faithfully would Frank carry out his dead benefactor's wishes, if he but lived to set foot on the soil of Pennsylvania again!

Buoyed up by this new hope and determined henceforth to make the best of all and everything that might befall him, Frank went to the galley, made himself a cup of strong coffee, and, with some hard biscuit, cheese and dried beef that he found there, made a hearty supper.

Everything remained in the galley just as poor Nat had left it, and during the whole time he was on the schooner it constituted the limit of Frank's foraging-ground, for he had not the courage to enter the cabin yet, or search for other stores than the cook's room afforded.

On the evening of the fifth day a brisk breeze sprang up, which set the whitecaps to tumbling far and near and sent clouds of spray flying from the schooner's bows.

The sun set in the luminous west, leaving behind a long track of orange and purple light; the growing moon flung its yellow rays across the troubled waters, melting into the million phosphorescent gleams that sparkled and quivered along the surface like living jets of fire. Frank had never before seen so lovely a sunset, or one so utterly lonely and sad. He stretched himself on the deck, with his two hands clasped under his head, in lieu of a pillow, and watched the masts make eccentric circles through the stars, and the few fleecy clouds, that for a time had followed in the wake of the moon, vanish, as it seemed to him, into the sea.

"The vessel must be making six knots an hour, and doing it, too, easily."

Frank fell asleep with some such vague calculation drifting disconnectedly through his mind. He was awakened about daylight by the loud screaming of a number of gulls that were flying near the vessel in anxious search of a morsel of food.

He jumped up in great excitement, not on account of the noise made by the gulls, but another sound he heard--a deep, continuous roar, not unlike the moan of the wind through a pine forest.

He looked around him, first confusedly and then with surprised wonder. His eyes brightened, and a cry of joy broke from his lips, for there, not a mile away, was land. A long, white line of surf marked the boundary of the beach, and beyond it he saw the feathery tops of palm and cocoanut trees, nodding in the fresh morning breeze.

Land at last!

Again Frank's jubilant shout echoed oddly clear and solitary above the incessant booming of the breakers and the monotonous wash of the waves.

Land, and no mistake, and the Sea Eagle was driving straight toward it with a speed that would strand her in twenty minutes, if she kept on.

And grandly determined upon her own destruction looked the staunch old schooner, in the fast brightening rays of the rising sun, as, with all sail set and never a hand at her helm, she plowed her way toward the low, sandy shore stretching away like the shadow of doom before her.

Frank meant to beach her, and take his chance on the island, for an island he felt pretty certain it was.

He flew to the cabin, and brought up the captain's glass. He could do it now without superstitious fear. To the southward he saw a black, barren ledge of rocks, rising abruptly out of the sea, but to the north and east the shore was low, and there did not appear to be much surf.

He ran to the wheel, and gave it a turn a point or two more to the north and east. The vessel obeyed her helm splendidly. The tide was at the flood, the wind fresh but steady, and blowing directly on land.

With firm, shut lips, watchful eyes and pale, resolute face, Frank kept his small hand on the spokes, the rapid pulsations of his heart telling away the seconds so audibly that he could count them.

In less than ten minutes' time she struck, grounding lightly and getting off again; then she plunged forward, driven high on the beach by an incoming wave, and was as motionless as if she had never pitched and tossed through mountainous billows or careened to the angry rush of the storm-lashed sea.

Frank relinquished his grasp of the wheel, and drew a long breath of mingled regret and satisfaction.

"Fast aground till a squall comes along and breaks you up," he said, as if speaking to the vessel. "It's all there was left for either of us to do, for we are death, it seems, to every one that comes near us."

Hardly a dozen yards were between him and solid earth. Frank soon had the ladder over the side, and in two minutes more was on shore.

He ran up and down the beach a little way, shouting at intervals as loud as he could, but there was no answer.

Scores of beautiful little paroquets were chattering in the palm trees, and numbers of long-legged sea-fowl stalking about on the reef, but no human being, or any sign of one, did he see.

It was necessary that he should know something about the size of the island before deciding what next it was best to do, so he set out to explore its wooded portion and ascertain what the prospects were for living on it for an indefinite length of time.

An hour's tramp showed him that it was perhaps two miles long by less than half that distance wide, and to all appearance no human being other than himself had ever set foot upon it.

The northern part was simply a barren rock, fissured and seamed by the action of the water, its base marked by a tossing line of foam of ominous import, for it told of the sunken reefs hidden beneath its restless ebb and flow, and extending far out to sea. The southern and eastern end were covered with a dense growth of tropical vegetation, but fresh water he did not find, or any animal, great or small. Many varieties of brilliantly-plumaged birds flew screaming away at his approach, but they were the only living things he saw.

He came back to the schooner, clambered on board, went to the galley, got himself a good breakfast, and, while he was eating it in the shade of the awning, made up his mind what he would do.

The rainy season was near at hand--a period which Captain Thorne had told him was usually ushered in by frequent afternoon squalls, accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning, which was more than likely to be speedily followed by a hurricane of such violence as to destroy in a second a vessel beached and helpless as was the Sea Eagle. The tide was going out by this time, and the schooner's bow was buried high and dry in the sand.

Frank's first act after finishing his breakfast was to take in the sail. Such of it as he could not handle he cut away, and then began to carry it on shore. The captain's small boat still hung in the davits, but he did not need it as yet.

With the sails and spars he made a nice roomy tent, under the largest of the palm trees nearest the shore, so he could always have the schooner in sight, and also an unobstructed view of the open sea.

His object now was to make himself as comfortable as he could on the island, and then wait patiently for a sail to come and take him off, or something to turn up in his favor of a nature calculated to restore him again to the world and enable him to carry out to the letter Captain Thorne's dying request.

By noon he had his tent up; then he went to the vessel and quickly removed to his new quarters one of the smallest of the casks of water on deck, a case of ship biscuits and the tin box the captain had charged him to guard with untiring care.

He worked unceasingly until near sunset, and the surf was again beginning to play around the stranded schooner's bow.

He was so tired he could hardly stand, and made his last trip to the vessel for that day just as the moon began to glimmer over the water.

It looked so very friendly, hanging directly above the mainmast, like a great golden world, that he thought it would be pleasant to eat his supper on land, by the light of its mellow rays, though the fire he had kindled an hour before flamed up brightly on the sand close by and the fragrance of boiling coffee mingled appetizingly with the briny breath of the sea.

After partaking of his supper, he swung his hammock in the tent, for he had no desire to pass another night on the schooner, and in five minutes was fast asleep.

He had a lively remembrance of the red ants, soldier-snails, gnats, lizards, mosquitoes and sand-flies of Ruatan; but none of these winged and creeping pests disturbed his slumber, and he slept on until the sun was fully an hour high and the palm trees vocal with the chattering of the paroquets.

He awoke refreshed, sprang from his hammock and ran to see if the schooner was all right.

Yes, there she was! Her tapering masts shining like polished marble in the brilliant sunshine, and the tide fretting and frothing against her sides.

After an exhilarating plunge in the surf, Frank set about getting his breakfast. The day previous he had carried on shore all the galley furniture, completely dismantling poor Nat's late quarters of stove, cooking utensils, cups and plates, and everything portable, even to the zinc covering of the floor.

He had not ventured so far as the hold, but had taken everything of value from the captain's cabin--his books and charts, the ship's instruments, a fine eight-day chronometer clock, still going, and which he wound up with no little pleasure.

He carefully housed on shore the contents of the lockers, which included a case of port wine, a little bag of Spanish reals, another of doubloons, a case of canned meats, two of preserved fruits and jellies and a small medicine chest.

All the cargo, save the cocoanuts, was a rotten mass in the hold, the larger part of which he eventually pitched overboard.

There were coffee, chocolate, sugar, rice, beans, dried beef, barley, vermicelli, a small quantity of tea, salt pork, hard biscuit, flour, salt beef, lemons, honey, a cask of vinegar, a dozen sacks of salt and a few other supplies, such as a sailing craft of the kind usually carries.

In four days' time Frank had every movable article out of her, yet the dreaded squall had not come nor a drop of rain fallen.

There lay the Sea Eagle, blistering under the sun by day and gauntly outlined under the stars by night, changed in no way since she stranded, except that she had settled quite two feet in the sand and was aground so firmly that it looked as if it would take a pretty strong gale to blow her to pieces.

So far, Frank had been too busy and too much engrossed by the novelty of his situation to devote much time to thinking; but now, when the excitement and hurry was over and he had leisure to turn his attention to other matters, second only in importance to securing all there was of value in the schooner, he concluded to make a thorough exploration of the island and the grim, conical-shaped ledge of rocks that formed its upper, or southern part.

So, the fifth day of his landing on the island, he got ready the small boat, placed in it a bottle of water and a good supply of food, and set out to row around the reefs.

He made a complete circuit of the island, and found it to be one of the many results of volcanic eruption common throughout the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

At low tide, a long, black reef showed its frowning edge above the restless surf, connecting with the higher point of rocks overlooking the narrow strip of fertile land lying between it and the sandy beach, where the Sea Eagle had stranded, and still maintained the strange and lonely anchorage she had made for herself.

Frank, curious and venturesome as he might be, was yet keenly alive to hidden dangers, and, as he rowed around among the rocks, kept a sharp lookout for treacherous currents and submerged ledges.

The meridian sun was pouring down its fiercest rays, and he was thinking of returning to his tent and the grateful shade of the palm-trees, when, just as he had rounded the jagged spur of a particularly ugly-looking coral reef, he suddenly saw before him a deep, dark line of perfectly smooth water, over-arched by a natural bridge of grayish-white limestone, and flowing, as it seemed to him, directly under the island.

The entrance to this odd underground water-way was not more than four feet in height by six wide, but he unhesitatingly entered the narrow channel, bent upon seeing what there was of it and where it led to.

Drawing a long breath of surprise and satisfaction, he ceased rowing, and, as the boat came to a stand-still on the glassy surface of this subterranean sea, he uttered an exclamation of wonder, and looked around him in a maze of doubt and admiration.

The cool, grotto-like atmosphere and dim, half-twilight contrasted pleasantly with the heat and glare outside, though the silence was something oppressive, and different from any he had ever before known.

No sound of wave or sigh of wind or howl of tempest seemed ever to have been heard here. The water along the edges of the rocks was absolutely without motion, and the light from either extremity of the cave--as one might call it--nearly lost itself before it reached the vaulted centre.

Frank shouted loudly, and in answer the rocks sent back only the faintest and most weirdly far-away echoes.

When Frank had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, and his eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, he found the cay, or channel, to be some fifty yards in extent, cut through the soft, porous rock by the action of the water, that for ages and ages of time had beaten against its gradually-yielding base, until it had made for itself a passage such as man, with all his marvelous ingenuity, could never have fashioned.

Frank rowed the entire length of the cay--as the Bay Islanders call these little wave-made inlets--coming out on the opposite side to that which he had entered; and then, as it was getting late, he returned home, as the brave-hearted boy termed the spot where he had pitched his tent and stored his provisions.

Apart from finding the channel, he had made no discovery worth mentioning. With the exception of a few sea-birds, he saw no living creature, great or small; but this he did not much mind, for he hoped a sail would come his way soon, and solitude was no new thing to him. So he ate his supper with hearty relish, and, when it was dark, clambered into his hammock and fell peacefully asleep.