CHAPTER VIII.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

“Nonsense, lad,” said Tom. “No craft that sailed these waters ever had thousands of guineas aboard of her, seeing as how there isn’t no use for money in these here parts. All the trade is with beads and iron and such like.”

“Maybe so; but the money’s here, and I found it. It seems as if the man who lived up in our hut, he were separated from his mates, and that he had the money one time.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Why, it seems as if he had hidden it under the fireplace, for there’s a hole under it which would hold the box I’ve found down here; and that they who took it went off in a hurry—maybe saw a sail, and left him and the money behind.”

“Well, where is this money? Come along and let us see it.”

“Why, down in the biggest of them huts there, in a box tied up with cord; but it’s rotted, and the money tumbled out at the sides.”

We at once got over the fence, which we could easily see had been built to keep the pigs within bounds, and followed Bill to where there were standing the remains of some huts, which, as he said, had been cleared of what would give any clue as to who the occupants had been; but there, under one of the bed-places, was the box, as Seaman had described it, wrapped up in a piece of sail-cloth, tied together with island-made string, and the coverings being more than half rotten, the contents had burst out, and partly rolled, on the ground.

Curious, though the money was safe, and I am sure a roast sucking pig would have been of much more use to us than all the gold that ever was coined, it was to this money we first turned our attention, and agreed that nothing should be done until it was safely stowed away—money that had lain for years untouched and uncared for.

We pulled out the box, and emptied the coins still remaining in it into a heap on the ground, and added to them those which had fallen out, and to our eyes the pile of gold and silver seemed a mound of inexhaustible wealth.

However, we had divided the gold from the silver, and counted it out as nearly as we were able, for there were coins of various nations mixed up with the guineas of which Bill had spoken. We found that there was about twelve hundred pounds—a sum far larger than could have been expected to be found on board a trader in the South Seas.

As soon as we had counted out our money, we began to talk of how we could stow it away; and after much discussion we decided on carrying it to the hut where we were living, and putting it in the dead seaman’s chest.

As we were on our way back with it, just before we came to the fence, we saw some of the pigs of which Bill had told us, and I managed to catch a little squeaker to carry it back for our dinner; but its cries alarmed the mother, who came after us in hot haste, and if we had not been on the fence when she came up she would doubtless have made us pay for kidnapping her offspring. As it was, she caught hold of my trousers in her mouth, and would have hauled me back on top of her if, luckily, they had not been rather rotten and given way, Mrs. Pig falling back with a piece of tarry trousers in her mouth, while I tumbled over on the other side of the fence, by no means sorry to get off so cheaply.

The pigling I had caught I had chucked over before, so all the efforts of the old sow to rescue her darling child from its fate were fruitless, and we soon had him stewing in the iron pot.

Whilst he was cooking, we spoke of the money we had found, and what we should do with it, and puzzled our heads to know where the schooner had come from, and what nation she belonged to.

We thought she was English by the Bible and chart, but the money puzzled us more than enough; so at last we agreed not to bother ourselves about where it came from any more, and began to build castles in the air of buying or building a ship, of which Tom Arbor should be captain, and Bill Seaman and myself the two mates.

Whilst we were yarning away, Bill suddenly said, “I forgot something I found by the box the money was in. Look here!” and he pulled out of the breast of his shirt a small leather bag tied up carefully. “See,” he said, as he undid it and poured out the contents; “there’s a lot of pretty beads; pity they haven’t holes in ’em, or we might string ’em.”

“Well, they are pretty,” said both Tom and myself, as we eagerly bent over the little heap of shining balls; “but ’tis a pity they’re not of a size and true shaped. I suppose they’re some of the beads the natives wouldn’t have to do with. Never mind, we can keep them; there were none like them among the trade aboard of the _Golden Fleece_.”

The little bag had its contents restored to it, and was stowed away in the chest with our money, and we then all concluded it was time for bed.

By dint of hard work and manœuvring Tom and I, at the end of ten days more, had got our boat raised and decked forward and aft, leaving only an open space amidships in which we could lie down; and in this we also built a cemented fireplace similar to the one we had found in the dead man’s hut. Outside the boat we had also fastened a great, bolster-like fender of cocoanut fibre, which we served over with string made of the same material, the whole being thoroughly soaked in a mixture of cocoanut oil and hog fat; for Bill, while we were acting as shipwrights, had been farming and hunting to make provision for our voyage, and as we said we wanted grease, he had boiled down the remains of two porkers, of which he had salted part to furnish us with meat.

The only question now remaining was to rig our little ship, and this gave rise to endless discussion. At first we decided on keeping her mizzen as it was, and altering the torn dipping lug into a jib and standing lug; but we soon saw that she was now so much deeper and heavier that this would scarcely move her except in very heavy weather.

After much trouble we managed, by fitting her with a bowsprit and using up all that was not rotten of the canvas we had found on the island, to give her a suit of sails for going on a wind, and made a huge mat of palm leaves for a square-sail to be set in running.

All being completed, we packed on board under her fore and aft decks a stock of provisions, consisting of dried and salted pig, turtle flesh, smoked fish, and maize; while, besides our beakers, we had hundreds of cocoanut shells full of water, and on deck we had a coop of a dozen fowls.

All being prepared, our stock, according to our calculations, being enough to last us for at least a couple of months, we paddled the _Escape_ out of the lagoon, and, making sail to a fresh trade wind which blew on our beam, we steered in the direction of the nearest island marked on the chart.

Though we had been now a long time on the island, and had found a refuge there from starvation or a still more dreadful death by thirst, we quitted it without regret, and launched forth on our voyage into the unknown.

As to setting our course, at first we had an idea by the sun by day, and we had learned aboard of the _Golden Fleece_ that when the Southern Cross was vertical it was always due south; but I do not suppose we were ever accurate within two or three points either way of south-west, which we aimed at, and mostly by keeping the wind abeam.

The _Escape_ made very good weather and steered easily, but, notwithstanding the size of her patchwork sails, she did not go fast through the water. “Never mind, lads,” said Tom, when Bill and I complained of this; “it’s better than a leaky corner of the forecastle of the _Fleece_ to sleep in.”

“Yes,” I said, “and there ain’t no mate to boot us or bos’n to rope’s-end us here either.”

“Ay, and more than that,” cried Bill, who was superintending the boiling of our pot, in which was a piece of beautiful pork and some maize, “our tucker here ain’t mouldy, weevilly biscuit and salt junk that’s more fit for sole leather than food for humans.”

“Well done, cobbler,” was our answer, and we put up patiently with the slowness of our progress when we considered how much better off we were than we had ever been aboard of the _Golden Fleece_.

The first day and night and all the next day passed away without our seeing anything save porpoises, which gambolled around, looking, as they always do to my mind, the happiest of created beings, flying-fish, and silver-winged gulls. But about the middle of the second night Bill, who had the watch, called out, “Rouse up, mates; whatever is that?”

Tom and I were awake in a second, and looking ahead as he told us, we saw a sight which all the fireworks ever made by the ingenuity of man could not have equalled. High up in the heavens, blotting out the stars, was a dense, black cloud, which seemed to be supported on a pillar or fountain of fire, and from the cloud were raining down masses of matter white-hot, red-hot. While we were looking, indeed before we had properly cleared our eyes of sleep, we heard a tremendous noise, louder than a thousand claps of thunder, and the breeze which had been carrying us steadily along suddenly ceased.

“Whatever can that be?” I cried. “A ship blown up?”

“A ship!” answered Tom. “No ship that ever floated could give a sight like that, nor a clap neither. That’s a burning mountain. I’ve heard as there be some in these parts.”

Clap succeeded clap, but though all wonderful, none of them equalled in intensity of the sound the first one, while the fountain of fire leaped up and down in the most marvellous manner.

“Look out, boys; be smart and shorten sail,” said Tom. “I’ve heard as how there be great waves after one of these blows-up, and we must keep our craft bows on if so be as we are not to be swamped.”

Sail was shortened as quickly as we could, and our well covered over with the canvas to prevent us being swamped; and then Tom told us to lash ourselves to the deck, and get our paddles out, while he got the oar over the stern, so as to be ready to twist the boat in any direction.

Scarcely were we ready when we heard a low, moaning sound, and soon saw a wall of water of appalling height sweeping rapidly towards us. We worked frantically at oar and paddles, and fortunately it met us bows on; but so steep was the wave that we could not rise properly to it, and for what seemed an appalling time we were buried in the water. Would our boat free herself and rise again, or would she sink under the weight, and drag us down with her to the depths of the ocean?

Such were the thoughts which passed through my mind, and, I doubt not, through the minds of my companions; but they were answered by our emerging from the wave with our gunwale broken, but otherwise uninjured. Our decks proved stanch, and though the weight of water had beaten the sails down into the well, which was full, the boat still floated.

“Quick! you two unlash yourselves, and bail for your lives, for there’ll be some more of these waves, and if she meets them half water-logged as she is, down to Davy Jones’s locker we go,” cried Tom.

Bill and I did not need any second bidding to obey Tom’s order, while he straightened the boat in the direction the wave had struck, and we bailed away for dear life.

Before we were half clear we heard the same sort of sound as had heralded the first wave, and again we were struck and half buried by the water; but the wave was not so high as the first, and we came through at the cost only of having to bail out more water.

Each successive wave, for there were a dozen, was smaller and smaller, and at last the sea became smooth again, and the trade winds blew once more; while from the burning mountain, instead of a fountain of fire and sparks, we could only see the rosy reflection of flames on rolling masses of white smoke.

We soon repaired our damage, and made sail with, as far as we could see, no real harm done save that the coop with our fowls in it had been washed away, and the wood we had for our fire was so damp that it would not light, and we had to make our breakfast of raw pork and uncooked Indian corn.

When the sun rose, we hung up our clothes to dry, and found that we could still see the column of smoke, though not the reflection of the flames.

Tom steered steadily for this smoke, and when we asked if we were not running into danger by steering for the volcano, he comforted us by saying that after such a blow-up as we’d seen there could be no other for some time; and, as he understood, these burning mountains were always in the centre of a group of islands, and we should be sure to find inhabitants, and maybe a schooner or ship trading for sandalwood, bêche de mer, and copra, in which we could get a passage to China, Australia, or New Zealand.

Though the trade winds blew fresh and the sun was shining, the whole air seemed to be full of a sort of brown haze; and we found that our decks, sails, clothes, hair, in fact everything, were covered with a fine, brown dust, which settled down on us, and in such quantities that we had to keep on shovelling it overboard or we should have sunk under its weight.

All day we sailed on in the direction of the smoke, and at night we again saw it lighted up by the reflection of the fire beneath. We were tired and weary, and though we took it in turns to steer and look out, the helmsman often found his head bobbing down on his chest. But in the middle of the night we were all frightened out of our sleepiness by the boat striking some hard substance.

“What’s up?” cried Tom, as he came out of the well, where he and I had been sleeping. “What have you run into, Bill?”

Bill was as much startled as we were, and as the bumps were repeated, we concluded it would be best to shorten sail and wait for daylight, though we at once sounded, in case we might be near any land, but found no bottom, though we bent every available bit of rope on to our leadline.

When the sun rose we saw a strange sight indeed, for the whole surface of the sea was covered with floating masses of stone, through which we had to make our way, two of us standing in the bow to fend off the lumps as we got close to them.

“Well, in all my born days I never sailed a boat among a lot of paving-stones ’afore,” said Tom. “I suppose they was blowed up out of the mountain.”

This made us laugh, but the work of shoving off the floating pumice stone from the boat was very severe, and we had several times to shorten sail while we rested from the labour; but by the middle of the afternoon the pieces began to get fewer and fewer, and before sunset the surface of the sea was clear of them, and we could steer our course without let or hindrance.

In the middle watch, under the smoke, I saw (it was my watch) what looked like a black mass streaked with threads of fiery gold. And when I was relieved by Tom, he told me that that must be the side of the fiery mountain; and sure enough when I awoke after daylight, there, right ahead of us, towered a great mountain out of the sea, crowned by a mass of smoke.

Near the top the mountain was black and bare, but lower down its sides were clothed with forests, through which the liquid fire poured out of the crater had cut broad gashes.

Tom, who was steering, was heading away so as to pass to the north of the island, which we were rapidly doing; and Bill was lacing some palm-leaf mats together to set as a square-sail, a task in which I at once joined him.