Contents
Chapter
| I. | The Landing of Charlton Foyle |
| II. | How he came to the Island |
| III. | The Interior of the Cliff |
| IV. | The Forest |
| V. | The End of the Fighting Sue |
| VI. | The Island Colony |
| VII. | The Sea Chest |
| VIII. | The Satyr |
| XI. | The Dryad |
| X. | The Duel |
| XI. | The Night |
| XII. | Marcelle's Tale |
| XIII. | The Tunic |
| XIV. | The Capture |
| XV. | In the Temple of Gîr |
| XVI. | In the Home of Pierre |
| XVII. | Jacob and Marcelle |
| XVIII. | In the House of Jacob |
| XIX. | The Hunt |
| XX. | The Venture |
| XXI. | The Waiting |
| XXII. | The Reward of Pierre |
| XXIII. | "She is My Wife" |
| XXIV. | The Flight |
| XXV. | The Temple |
| XXVI. | A Voice in the Night |
CHAPTER I
THE LANDING OF CHARLTON FOYLE
The wind had fallen, but the sky was still black with low and hurrying cloud, and the sea rolled heavily.
Charlton Foyle sat in the stern of the boat, and steered with an oar. He was striving to keep her head before the wind, and gazing anxiously at the land, towards which wind and tide were united to take him.
He saw that the cliff wall rose straight and high. There was no sign of nearer rocks or shallows. It appeared that the cliff rose abruptly from a deep water. What hope could it give?
He could not handle the boat. There was a mast, but it was not stepped, nor had he strength and skill to set it up, or to control its canvas. There were oars, but they were too heavy, and the boat too large for a single man to manage more than one.
Till the storm came in the night he had let the boat drift as it would. He had water: he had food. He had not known where he was, nor in which direction land might be nearest. His only hope was to be picked up by a passing ship, so he saved his strength and ate little.
For many days the sun shone, and the seas were kind. The indolent, laughing waters had rocked him gently, and in their arms he had regained something of the health which he had sought vainly over half the world. He had begun to care for life, when life seemed most likely to elude him. He was aware that he watched the horizons for lift of sail, or trail of smoke, with a keener vigilance than he had done in the weariness of the first days. But it was still with a mind too indifferent to the future for anxiety to disturb it, unless it were aroused by a danger which should be acute and imminent.
He had leaned lazily over the tossing side of the boat, watching strange life in deep water, or gazed at a sky of white and blue, or brilliant with tropic stars.
Once a flock of birds passed, low and swift, over the waves. He did not know their kind. They flew straight and fast, as having a clear goal and a common purpose. Should he make some effort to direct the boat in the same way? Even could he do it, he had doubted its wisdom. He knew nothing of how far such birds may travel. They might be on their way to a near land, or they might be leaving the near land behind them. They passed quickly, and the great loneliness of sky and water was again around him.
Once the wide expanse of solitary sky was specked by a great bird that grew in size as it came more nearly overhead. He realised that it was not merely flying over, but was descending toward him. It was grey in colour, larger than a swan, and with broad wings that moved with an occasional powerful stroke. It came low. It circled the boat twice in a narrowing spiral. He saw a long, hooked beak, and a dark eye that considered him. He reached for a boat-hook, and was aware that his hand shook as he did so.
Then it came with a rush, close over him. He crouched in the well of the boat, and thrust blindly as it passed.
Because he crouched as he did, the beak missed him. For a second he was under a canopy of feathered wings. The boat-hook caught and came clear.
He saw the great bird soaring back into the sky. There was a stain of blood on the end of the hook, and some grey feathers floated on the wind, and settled down on the water.
When the wind had risen, he had got out the oar and striven to keep the boat's head so that she should not be swamped by the waves. He did not know whether his toil had been needless. The boat was large, strongly built, and half-decked. He supposed that the storm had not been a bad one. Certainly not as bad as some that he had witnessed from a liner's deck. But the waves had seemed large - there was a difference in the point of view.
Anyway, the wind had fallen again. The black menace of the night, with its heaving waters that came out of the darkness, was over, and he was safe, though wearied - and now the sea was carrying him swiftly toward a peril which he had no means of avoiding, or any hope to overcome. Every moment the cliff-wall showed nearer and higher as the tide swept the boat forward.
At the rate at which it was moving, it obeyed the steering-oar very readily. He could deflect its course, but he doubted whether this would avail him. It might enable him to delay the final impact, or to strike the land somewhat farther north than would otherwise be the case, but it seemed that, soon or late, he must be dashed against a cliff-wall that showed neither beach nor break so far as his eyes could follow it.
Still, the impulse is instinctive to delay a danger which we can see no means of defeating. The swimmer will remain afloat while his strength lasts, though he may have no hope of rescue. The embarrassed tradesman will strive to renew a bill, though, as he well knows, the later date will give no better prospect of solvency. He leant on the oar till the boat lay almost broadside to an advancing wave. It rolled in the trough, and some water slopped over the gunwale.
Easing it somewhat, he looked shore-ward again as the next wave lifted. The morning sun, which was behind him, and still low in the sky, found a break in the flying cloud, and lighted the cliff-face with a fading glory. But he noticed that there was one spot which remained dark. It was not a break in the wall. It was like a cave-mouth at the tide-level. It gave a hope, though a faint one. He bent his mind to the task of steering toward it.
As he approached the cliff he saw that the distant view had not enlarged its terrors. It rose straight as a wall. If his boat were beaten against it by the breaking waves, he knew that disaster must be instant and irretrievable.
It seemed, as he neared it, that the pace of the boat was somewhat less, and that his control upon it increased. He wondered whether he might not be wiser to struggle to avoid the peril entirely. Soon or late, changes of wind and tide would be sure to aid him. But the chance was doubtful. His control of the boat, at the best, was not great. If he should work it some distance from the land, the next tide might fling it back, and there might then be no possibility of refuge.
Now, the opening which he had sought was before him, widening in appearance as he approached, and of such height that a fishing-smack could have run in with its sails set.
He was aided, more than he knew, by the fact that the tide was full, and near the turn; and, more by the tide's caprice than his own skill, he steered to the opening.
The waves that broke on the cliff-wall to right and left made a swirling turmoil of the gap which gave them passage. They rolled the boat till he thought that it would be over-set, swept it broadside on, and carried it into a tunnel where it bumped heavily against a wall of rock, recoiled, and the next moment was in somewhat quieter water.
He perceived that the tunnel, though straight in itself, was driven into the cliff obliquely from the sea-line. The cliff faced the east. The tunnel ran north-west. The direct force of the waves did not therefore swing in; yet the boat tossed from side to side, and though he struggled hard with the oar it got some rough bumps as the waves hurried it inward.
As his eyes became used to the gloom, he saw that the passage ended in a blank wall, against which the water rose and fell restlessly, making a murmurous sound which filled the tunnel. The speed of the boat slackened as he approached it. He shipped the oar and took up the boat-hook, thinking to fend the boat from the wall of rock which he was nearing. He saw no hope but to remain there and protect the boat as best he might, till the tide should carry him again to the open sea. Then he noticed a heavy iron ring, set in the face of the rock, by which a boat might be moored. He looked round with an increased wonder and a keener scrutiny. He saw that there were similar rings in the walls on either side. The tunnel had steadily narrowed as it progressed, so that the walls were much nearer than they had been at the entrance. It was evident that a boat moored to the three rings would be secure from being beaten against the rocks. He had abundance of stout cable, and he resolved to fasten it in this manner. He could at least feel that he would not be hurried out to the open sea, till he should be ready for the adventure.
Commencing to carry out this plan, which was not easy for one man only in the unquiet boat, he had to consider the length of free cable which he should allow. If it were much, the boat would not be centrally held; if little, how would it fare when the tide fell? and it could not fall with it, unless the cables broke. He pictured one breaking, while the others held, and the boat tipped up and its precious cargo scattered into the water.
It was true that he could watch, and pay out or shorten the cables as the need changed, but that could scarcely have been the intention of those who provided this means of security. He was led to wonder how deep might be the water beneath him. He sounded with the boat-hook, and struck rock at about four feet from the surface.
Reassured, he continued his work. If the tide, as he rightly supposed, were full, then his fears were groundless. Even while he worked he knew that this was so, and that the boat was pulling outward on the ropes that held it.
Also, as he worked, he observed another thing with a fresh wonder. In the inner corner a flight of steps rose in the rock. They were very roughly cut, mere holes for the toes to enter. At intervals at either side, staples were fixed for the climber's hands to grip. The ladder - if it could be held worthy of such a name - ended in a black hole in a corner of the rock-roof.
Surely, he thought, if human hands had hollowed that great tunnel, they would have given it a less perilous exit. But the hands might not be the same - or they might not have intended that the ascent should be easy.
He considered whether he should attempt to explore it. He did not know what hostility he might arouse. He knew that the cargo which his boat contained would excite the cupidity of all but the most ignorant savages, and from such as they he might encounter a different danger. He believed that he was off the tracks of sea-traffic, or of charted land, and he knew that the lonelier islands of the vast Pacific were the last homes of cannibalism, and of a savagery which appeared to be unable to understand any argument but that of extermination.
He realised that, should he climb those steps, his return could not be rapid, at whatever urgency. He realised also that, as the tide fell and his boat grounded, he would be trapped beyond the possibility of flight, should be continue to occupy the tunnel.
On the other hand, the sea offered a precarious hospitality. The steps that fronted him were the only possible alternative. Though it was true that his boat would become immobile as the water fell, it was equally so that no other boat could enter upon him at such a period.
The fact that there was provision for mooring a boat, and that it was vacant, suggested either that the tunnel was unused, or that those who occupied it were absent upon the sea.
He decided to wait till the tide fell, and, if nothing had then happened, he would climb the steps in the assurance that no one could approach the boat in his absence, or attack him in the rear of his exploration.
Meanwhile he was well armed, and none could come upon him hurriedly by such a descent. If a boat should enter while still the water allowed it, he would be trapped indeed, but that risk must be taken, and already it was almost over. There was a repeating rifle in the boat, and this he found and laid near to his hand while he manipulated the mooring ropes so that the boat was drawn close to the steps, and the hollow to which they led was directly above him.
He looked up, but he could see nothing. The hole was square and black.
So he sat there, watching the tossing sunlit water at the cave-mouth, and the black vacancy above him, the rifle across his knee. After a time the boat grounded, gently enough, and the water receded from it. He looked to see the whole passage draining equally, but the waves still swept in. He perceived that the floor, which was now bare around him, sloped downward toward the entrance.
As the water receded, he left the boat, and followed it, not being minded to pursue his first intention until he were satisfied that entrance from sea-ward would be difficult or impossible. He thought also that, if he could look outward from the tunnel, he could observe whether there was any sign of human life on the waters.
He found leisure as he waited to wonder that the floor of the tunnel was bare and black as the waves left it. He would have thought that such a cave would be a trap for sand and shell, and all the ocean's debris. But he supposed that the smooth slope caused it to be washed clear as the tide receded.
Having no haste, he did not attempt to wade ahead of the tide's retreat. It was a fortunate leisure, as he had realised before he stood, at a later hour, looking over an ocean which sparkled to a tropic sun and showed no sail. For the gentle slope had ended abruptly halfway down the passage, leaving only a narrow ledge of rock to follow on the left hand, apart from which the rock fell across the whole width to a depth he could not tell, for, when the tide had fallen a dozen feet below, it had not found its limit.
But he was satisfied to see that, by this time, there was no way of gaining access from the empty seas except it were by the climbing of twelve feet of wall-like rock, against which the waves beat continually.
There were not even any steps such as those which he had resolved to attempt. He judged that they who made or used this tunnel, whether it were yesterday or a thousand years ago - and it might be either for any means he had of deciding - did not intend that it should be entered, except at high tide, and that it was very certain that no one was now likely to attempt it.
He walked back confident that his rear was secure, and resolved to explore the mystery to which the steps led upward.
CHAPTER II
HOW HE CAME TO THE ISLAND
It was two months or more since Charlton Foyle had booked a passage to Honolulu on a trading schooner. He had been wandering aimlessly in the summer ways of the world, avoiding the death to which a dozen doctors had doomed him, yet not gaining the health without which life is of a doubtful value.
At Honolulu he had asked to continue on the schooner indefinitely. He did not like the two men who appeared to be the joint owners of the vessel, but that was an unimportant consideration, for he was indifferent to those around him. The schooner was well-found. He had lived less luxuriously on liners of fifty times the tonnage. He felt that the voyage had been beneficial beyond his previous experiences, and was anxious to continue it. They had demurred at first. They excused themselves on the plea that they would be visiting a succession of distant islands, at some of which they might be detained, and that the date of their return was uncertain. When they found that this did not deter him, they named a figure which they probably thought would be prohibitive. But in the end they had agreed, though with obvious reluctance, and after a quarrel between themselves, which he had partly overheard, though he did not understand its meaning. In view of what he knew later, he was surprised that they had consented at all - unless they were each so afraid of the treachery of the other that they welcomed even a stranger, who must be an embarrassment later. Unless, of course, he were - removed.
He did not know, even now, what dark secrets might explain the events which had followed - which do not concern us now - though it is a tale which might be worth the telling. He only knew that, after a load, of whatever nature, had been taken aboard in the night-time from a nameless beach, they had burst into a sudden quarrel, in which knives had been drawn, and from which they had been separated by the efforts of a crew which appeared to consist about equally of the adherents of either.
And then, on a later night, when he had lain on deck, as he sometimes did, unsuspected in the shadows, and they were anchored beside another nameless beach, a boat had been lowered and stealthily loaded by the men who held the watch, one of the partners superintending. And just as it appeared that the work was finished, the other had rushed up, with his party behind him, and the deck had become the scene of sudden violence, oaths, bare knives, and pistol-shots, and the cough of a dying man.
On a moment's impulse he had dropped over the side into the loaded boat, as the nearest safety from the flying shots of a quarrel which did not concern him, and then become aware, with mingled feelings, that the mooring-rope had parted, and that he was adrift on the ocean.
The distance had widened rapidly from the anchored schooner, while the noise of the fight continued and fell. After an interval of silence, he had heard two shots, and had supposed that the victorious party were disposing of what remained of their opponents. Then there had been a brief silence again, and then a pandemonium of cries that told that the loss of the boat had been discovered.
Should he hail them? He had experienced a natural hesitation. There would be so little difference in one shot more, and one more corpse for the sea's disposal. And, while he doubted, he drifted farther away, into a momentary security, for the night was dark and star-less.
As he drifted thus he realised that his peril might be the greater for his silence, were he to be in sight of the ship when the dawn rose, and that his alternative was to be an outcast in the loneliest wastes of the Pacific, where a thousand miles were unsailed and uncharted. But even while he realised his dilemma, the difficulty of explaining his silence had increased, and the distance widened. The ennui of his physical condition inclined him to the choice of inaction. The cries grew fainter and died away.
The dawn showed him an open ocean, without sail or sight of land.
CHAPTER III
THE INTERIOR OF THE CLIFF
It was typical of Charlton's disposition, though a condition of health rather than character, that, having assured himself that his rear was secure, and decided his purpose, he was in no haste to commence it. He became conscious that he was hungry, and ate a meal at his leisure. Having done this, he was increasingly aware that he was tired from a night's vigil, and from the toils in which he had spent it. As the time passed, and there came no threat from the dark aperture above him, he became assured that it held no menace. He did not resolve on sleep, rather it resolved upon him, as he ignored it idly. In the end, sleep he did, and for some hours, though his sleep was light and watchful.
Doubtless, when he awoke, he was the better for sleep and food, and went about his preparations with a careful deliberation. In the boat there was a lantern, which he lit, and, having no belt, he fastened it round him with a length of rope. He placed a loaded revolver in a right-hand pocket. He looked with hesitation at a very serviceable sword, straight and sharp, neither too light nor too heavy, which was among the boat's offensive equipment, but he rejected the thought. It was unlikely enough that he would meet with any living thing. If he should do so, they might not be unfriendly. If they were doubtful in their demeanour, a display of weapons would not increase their goodwill. More definite in its objection was the fact that he was not used to the wearing of such a weapon, and that it might impede his legs in climbing. Every way the revolver was best and should be sufficient.
The climb was not easy . . . The supports, through firm enough, of whatever age or metal, seemed very far apart. The foot-holes were sometimes difficult to find. Clinging closely to the face of the rock, he had to grope for them with a free foot, the hold of the other sometimes feeling insecure as he did so. He wondered whether the staples would hold, were his whole weight suddenly dragged upon them. He did not like the thought of falling upon the hard stone below. He imagined himself there with a broken leg, struggling to get into the boat before the returning water should drown him and his life afterwards, if he should be able to live under such conditions. The penalties of accident are heavy to a lonely man.
His arms ached badly. Probably he threw more strain upon them than a more accustomed climber would have done, and his muscles were unused to such effort.
When it seemed that he could climb no more, he realised that it might be harder to return than to continue. He rested for a few moments, so far as rest was possible in such a posture, and started upward again. A doctor might have told him that such experiences were all that was needed to complete a cure that the sea-winds had made possible. A man may die in a gradual lethargy, thinking that he has no will to live, who would yet be roused by a sudden threat of death, before he had gone too low for his will to wake to the conflict.
He was impeded also by the lantern, which would not keep clear of the wall, as he had designed to sling it, but he was glad of its light when he came at last to a place of landing.
At least - should he land? For some time he had left behind the open space of the tunnel and had been ascending a narrow shaft about a yard square. It still continued upward into the darkness, but behind him there was now an opening into an unlighted chamber. Loosing one hand, he leaned sideways from the wall and raised the lantern. He saw nothing but a bare rock-floor and an empty darkness. He was aching to rest his straining arms, and for the security of a solid floor, but still he hesitated. He did not doubt that he could step safely to the floor that was about three feet behind him - but the return? He thought that it might not be so easy to reach forward and clutch the rings, or to stride over vacancy to those precarious footholds. He had a vision of starving there with all his stores beneath him. The bare darkness of the chamber gave no promise of hospitality, nor probability of exit. It might be that the way out (if way there were) was to continue upward.
While he doubted, weariness solved the problem. He was too exhausted for descent or for further climbing. He reached out a foot, felt firm rock, leaned his weight upon it, and landed easily.
After a short rest, he commenced to explore the chamber. He was not keenly curious, nor did he feel anxious as to what he might discover. The physical exhaustion following the exertions of the night and day, acted on a body which was still searching for health rather than having found it, left his mind dull and aloof from his surroundings, now that the need for further effort had lost its urgency.
The lantern showed him a rock chamber, bare and black, about ten feet high, and of about twice that width. Its length was greater, and the light was insufficient to reveal it fully. He judged that its direction was towards the cliff-face, which limited its possibility.
He decided to make a circuit of the walls. If they should show no exit, he must continue to climb into the darkness or give up the enterprise and return to such hospitality as the sea might offer.
Turning to the short inner wall, he came at once to an open passage about three feet broad, and high enough for a man to walk freely. This must run inland, he thought, and gave a better prospect of reaching the surface. So far as the light showed, it was not level, but sloped steadily, though not steeply, upward.
He took a few steps along it and then returned, reluctant to leave an unexplored possibility of danger behind him. He would not risk the chance of anyone cutting off his return to the boat or gaining possession of it in his absence. He resolved that he would first complete the circuit of the walls of the chamber.
Emerging from the passage again, he took the wall left-hand, casting the light before him. He trod in a fine dry dust, which increased in depth as he went forward. The light flickered upon the length of the northern wall. Dim and huge, he caught the figure of a man. He stopped, lifting
the light to look more closely. He saw the drawing of a human form, with wide stag-like horns. It was coloured a dull red. The figure was crude, powerful, brutal. It was human, and yet not human. It might be god - or devil. It might be the work of an artist to whom the two had been one. Because art cannot be powerful without sincerity, no artist of our own or of any historic period could have drawn that figure. Charlton may not have realised this, but he recognised that he was looking upon the work of a dim antiquity.
The figure was not more than eight feet high, including the horns, yet it gave an impression of overshadowing size, and of an insatiable ferocity. He shivered, as though chilled, though the cavern was not cold.
He noticed that the figure held a sword in its left hand. He thought that its shape was not unlike that which he had left in the boat. He had an absurd fancy that it was the same. Always the sword, he thought. Races and civilisations rise and die, and their records pass from the minds of men, but the sword continues. Always the sword. His mind wondered and wandered. The figure held it hypnotised. He pulled himself free with difficulty. He looked down in the dust in which he trod - a very fine dry dust - and it had a new significance. It was the dust of things long dead - very long dead.
He went on with altered feelings, as of one who invaded an ancient sanctuary, or a forgotten tomb. The thought that he must beware of the presence of living men had left him wholly. And then, as he completed the length of the chamber - it was surprisingly long - and turned the corner to the shorter wall, he came on something which obliged him to adjust his mind afresh. It was a brass cannon. He saw it while still a few feet away, and at the first glance it was unmistakable. Coming closer, he saw that it was swivel-mounted, of no recent pattern. He ran the light along it, touching it in wonder to assure himself of its reality. It was covered with a thin coating of dust. He noticed a hint of verdigris at the touch-hole. Otherwise it showed clear and bright as he rubbed the dust aside. He thought that he saw some writing upon it - or was it ornamental scrollwork only? Looking more closely, he read - The Fighting Sue, 1866. That was definite; but it might have been at a later date that it found its home in this solitude. He looked round for anything which might give further explanation, but he found nothing. There was no powder or ball. There was no other object.
A line of light, very faint, which did not come from the lantern, caught his notice. Looking at the wall which fronted the cannon's muzzle, he saw a wooden shutter, wide and low, beneath which the light entered. It was made of a hard elm-like wood, showing no sign of decay. It was suspended on a long horizontal hinge. He tried to raise it, and found that he could do so after some effort, though it did not move easily. He looked through an embrasure cut through two feet of rock. It was not very large on its inner side, but it was shaped in a widening funnel, sloping downward. It showed a broad extent of ocean below him, with long waves rolling inward. If it had been made for the cannon, it, at least, must be recent. But what purpose of defence could it serve - could it ever have served - in this lonely place? Who had left it, and how, and when?
He could find no answer.
But he saw that there were traces of two occupations: one of an incalculable antiquity, and one which, in comparison, was but of yesterday.
With this thought in mind, he observed that the dust was much thicker along the walls than in the centre of the chamber, where it had the impression of many feet, and, looking closely, he was sure that some at least of these feet had been booted.
He completed the examination of the remaining wall, but made no further discovery.
He paused again at the mouth of the shaft, hesitating as to whether he should return to the boat, or explore the tunnel before doing so. He could not resolve the significance of all that he had seen, but it had diminished both his hope and his fear. He now imagined himself alone in a place where man had once been, but which they had long deserted. He had no reason to fear any hostility, nor to hope for any assistance.
On the whole he was relieved. He was in no urgent need of the necessities of life, at the lack of which a man must look round for the help of his fellows. He had much to excite cupidity. Should he meet with men here, it was little likely that they would be of his race or language, or of a natural friendliness.
The one problem which remained was that of an inland exit from the passage which he had discovered. That was, at least, probable.
If there were none, his course was clear. He must put to sea again when the conditions appeared favourable. His water would not last for ever. That consideration alone was decisive, for these caves showed no stream, nor any faintest trickle of moisture. If he put to sea again, he might find another side to the land, where it would be possible to beach the boat without danger. But this was doubly doubtful, for he knew that his measure of control of the boat gave little prospect of reaching such a goal, did it exist, of which he had no evidence.
On the other hand, if he should find that the passage gave him access to a desert land, he would have to decide whether it would be better to remain there or to risk the dangers of the sea once more, after he had replenished his stock of water and perhaps augmented the store of food which he carried. It was no hopeful prospect to drift at the mercy of sea and wind, knowing that his life was forfeit to the first serious storm that the days would bring. But then there would be no haste to decide. Really, there was no haste now. He felt tired and lethargic. Had the return to the boat been easier, he would have taken it at once, and rested there before he explored further.
As it was, he stood hesitating, and the lantern decided him. The light flickered, and he observed that the candle which it contained was almost finished. The thought that he might be obliged to stride across the hollow shaft in the darkness woke a sudden panic. Very carefully, lest a jerk should extinguish it, he slung the lantern to his side. He saw the metal loops in the wall before him, and in the urgency of the failing light he leaned forward boldly to grasp them. He hung a moment while his feet scraped for the holes, and the light went out as he found them. But it was easier to descend than it had been to climb upward, and he had beneath him a more definite and desired objective.
It was long after noon when he regained the boat, and the tide had risen far, though it had not yet reached it. He had gained this much by his enterprise, that he was no longer anxious lest any hostility should threaten him from the aperture above him. If there were any men living who had access to that gloomy chamber (which he greatly doubted), they were making no use of their knowledge, and it was little likely that they would be aware of his presence. He ate with an appetite such as he had not known for a long time; after which, he decided to wait till the next day before continuing his exploration. He put a fresh candle into the lantern, though he did not light it; laid it beside the loaded rifle, near to his hand, and settled himself into the bed which he had made in the stern of the boat, on which he had slept so many nights while the summer seas had rocked him.
He did not sleep at once, as he had expected to do. He lay awake till the darkness came, and the boat was lifted again in the arms of the advancing water. He felt her pull on the cables, now on this, now on that, as the waves swayed her. Soon she settled to a motion which was gentler and more regular than that to which he had been accustomed on the open sea. But still he did not lose consciousness. Perhaps he missed the stars overhead. When at last he slept, he dreamed - dreams of the kind which cause the sleeper to wake with a sense of misery and foreboding beyond reason.
He dreamed that he was in the water, struggling toward a distant shore. In fact, he could not swim; nor could he have told from recollection of his dreams with what stroke he contrived it. A dream will avoid difficulties of that kind, leaving some things in vague outline, while others are of a very vivid distinctness. He had a long knife in his hand. He could see the shore as he swam. A slope of sand, with a dark green line of trees beyond it. He was wondering whether he would reach it, or the sharks would get him. With the thought he became aware of one which swam close under him, a moving shadow in a green depth of water. He saw it turn, and the toothed mouth open. He knew that the next second it would come with a rush to seize him in that fatal vice. He dived sideways and saw the white belly shoot past him. As it did so, he struck into it with the knife he held. He kept his grip on the haft, and was dragged rapidly through the water. It. cut a long slit in the shark's belly, with a sound like the tearing of cloth. It was not that he cut it: the great fish cut itself open by the speed of its rush. He simply held on to the knife and was dragged along with it . . . The water round him was red, and the shark was gone . . . He swam on . . . He was on the sandy beach, walking towards the shelter of the trees beyond it. The sun was high. The sand burned his naked feet. He looked toward the welcome shade ahead, and suddenly his mind changed and he was afraid. It was a jungle toward which he was walking, dense, black, silent and menacing. He did not know what he feared, but he knew that he dared not enter it. He had no plan - no hope - the jungle terrified him. He watched its shadows in dread of what might emerge to destroy him . . . and the hot sand burnt his feet . . .
He woke to a dense blackness, very different from the open nights to which the last weeks had used him. In the tunnel the midnight darkness was absolute. It was full of the sound of waters that tossed and strained the boat which was his only safety, but he could see nothing. He could not have slept very long, or the tide would have receded again. A sense of loneliness oppressed him. He realised his isolation, as he had not done previously, even when adrift at night upon the solitude of the ocean. And the dream would not leave his mind. It was associated in some way which he could not understand with the deserted chamber above him, and that also had become an unearthly terror.
He was not naturally without fortitude, and he resisted the oppression which had invaded his mind, facing the dream squarely, and reasoning with himself upon it. It was an absurd dream, but not otherwise remarkable. Certainly, he could not kill sharks in the water. But he had watched them from the schooner's deck. One had followed his boat for several days. It was not unnatural that he should dream of it. It would have been natural enough that he should have dreamt of it with terror. But, in fact, he had not done so. Vivid though the moment had been when he had driven in the knife as the shark passed him, it had not frightened him in the dream. The recollection did not frighten him now It was the darkness beneath the trees . . . there was some horror there . . . if he should enter, it would be worse than death . . . and there was no other way. . . .
He faced it, but it would not yield to his reason. He tried to think of other things, but it would not be forgotten. In some way, the black secret of the jungle and the mystery of the chamber above him were one, and were united for his destruction. Had there been any light at all, he felt that he would have loosed the boat and drifted out with the tide. Yet the effort he made to resist this oppression of cowardice cannot have been without result, for in the end he slept again and wakened to find a dim light around him, and to see a shaft of morning sunlight striking the wall at the tunnel entrance.
CHAPTER IV
THE FOREST
He woke in a different mood from that with which the night had assailed him. He cared nothing for dreams, or for the dust of forgotten days. He was of no mind to venture again upon a deserted ocean, in a boat which he could not guide, if there were any better possibility. By the coastline he had seen he judged that the land must be of considerable extent. If it were uninhabited, it might give the means of sustaining life very easily in such a latitude. The cave above him offered shelter already which appeared to be his for the taking. If there were other inhabitants, they might be friendly. He could explore with caution. He need not show himself till he were sure that it would be safe to do so. Everything depended upon a land-ward exit to the passage he had discovered, or to the shaft above, and surely it was probable that one of these would give it.
He became keen to start, hurrying his morning meal, and even considered carrying up some of his possessions, his mind beginning to regard the upper chamber as his headquarters, rather than the boat which had brought him to it. He resisted this impulse, but he started in good spirits, equipped for a day's absence. He was less indifferent to life, and more alert to meet it than he had been for years. Circumstance had pressed upon him till he had been forced to react against it, and it had occupied his mind so that he was not even aware of the change which it had induced.
He climbed more quickly than yesterday, and was soon in the deserted chamber. He resolved to examine it once again before entering the tunnel, lest he should have overlooked anything of significance on his first circuit.
He found nothing; but, coming to the wooden shutter which covered the embrasure, it occurred to him that he would gain some light if he should fasten it upwards. Examination showed that this had been done by means of short chains and staples which were fixed into the rock. Having raised it thus, and satisfied himself that it was firmly held, he leaned out to survey the scene beneath him. It was idly done, a moment's gazing at the sunlit water before he returned his eyes to the dark interior. He had little hope of any rescuing sail from that lonely ocean, and he had ceased to fear that any hostile craft might be seeking the place of his refuge. His mind was on other things, and when his eye fell upon the smoke of a steamer clear in view upon the horizon beneath him, there was a moment's delay before he realised its significance. Then his mind rapidly debated the possibility of signalling, either from where he stood, or by returning to the boat.
He could think of no method which would be hopeful and for which time would allow, unless the ship were approaching while he prepared it, and as he watched, he knew that that was not the case. Already it was disappearing below the curve of the world.
So he did nothing, and watched it go, but the incident gave him an impression that he was not outside the area of the peopled seas, and that the land on which he stood must be known and might be inhabited by those who were at least in touch with civilisation, and this conclusion may have given him a greater confidence in the initial stages of the adventure which was before him.
It was a natural conclusion, but a mistaken one. The ship he saw had been driven for three weeks, with a broken propeller, at the mercy of the S.E. Trade. It was only a few days earlier that it had been repaired, and she was now heading due north for the Golden Gate, through seas which her captain had never known, though he had spent his life in the highways of the Pacific. He had been startled a few hours before by a cry of "Land ahead!" in an ocean which the charts gave as deep water, with the nearest island a thousand miles away. He was in the cabin with his second officer as Charlton watched the disappearing vessel. He had an obsolete chart of a previous century spread out before him. It was vague and doubtful in its warnings, or entirely blank in many areas, and when it was definite, it was usually wrong, but at the spot over which they were then sailing an island of considerable area had been vaguely indicated. The authority for the existence of this island was in a note which the captain was reading. "In 1744, Capt. Geo. Cooper, of the brig Good Adventure, reported that, having been driven many miles out of his course by storms and contrary winds, in which he had lost a mast and suffered other damage, and having been afterwards becalmed for seventeen days, a wind coming at length, he did shortly sight a large island, in lat. E. 123¡ 4'7" long. N. 5¡ 2'8", on which he would have landed, but that he found it to be surrounded on all sides by high and inaccessible cliffs, giving no hope of harbour. Being short of water and other furnishings, he did sail round it, but found no bay or inlet where he might anchor. Its circumference was about twenty miles, but he neither saw sign of life, nor did he believe that any could ever have landed upon it."
The two men looked at each other with the same thought in the minds of both. How could an island of such extent- from the circumference given, it might be anything from ten square miles to twentyfive - having been once discovered, have been lost and forgotten during the past two centuries? - and this in the equatorial region of the Northern Pacific? It was strange enough, but they did not think it so strange as a lands-man might. They knew too much of the vast spaces over which they trafficked. It was not only that it lay remote from other lands - the Marquesas Islands were fifteen hundred miles to the south-west, the speck of Duncan Island was twelve hundred miles to eastward, Christmas Island was two thousand miles due west: there was no nearer land - but that it lay apart from the ocean highways, and in that belt of tropic calms which the trade winds leave between them. It was a region which the sailing ships had dreaded, even when their routes were obliged to cross it, and which the steam-driven vessels of later days would take indifferently in the direct line of their purpose, and in that only. They knew that there are parts in the Pacific where the stream of traffic is as unceasing as in the main street of a busy town, and vast stretches were a ship might anchor till its crew should die or senility without sight of any other vessel to invade their solitude, and vast tracts also where, it may be, no sail has risen from the dawn of time.
An inaccessible island? It might well be. They had seen the abrupt unfriendly height of its southern shores, on which they would surely have perished had they not approached when there was daylight to warn them: they were now passing its eastern side, and the same prospect faced them. Anyway, he could do no more than report his discovery - or rather, that of the master of the Good Adventure, who had seen and told. He had beaten round its perilous cliffs in his two-masted brig as good seamanship contrived, and winds permitted. No one had confirmed his tale, and, as the years passed, it had been discredited. Well, he would be justified in the end.
Captain Markham, a precise man, made his records in a neat, small hand. It might not be the only island of which the charts gave no warning. It was a case for soundings- and more soundings. He would take no rest till he should be in better-known and safer seas. He went back to the bridge.
Meanwhile, Charlton Foyle, with a confidence curiously reinforced by that evidence of the passing nearness of his civilised kind, was going up the dark tunnel. It was a gentle, steady ascent, straight and long. The tunnel was quite dry. The air was good enough, though he could feel no current. Becoming curious on the point, he exposed the flame of the lantern. It bent, though very slightly. It indicated a very gentle passage of air in the direction in which he was going. He took this to imply that there must be some opening before him, and his pace increased, though he watched his steps carefully. After what he thought to be about half a mile, the ascent ceased. For a short distance the floor was level, then it began to descend. Here he passed an opening on his left hand, but he decided to continue straight forward. There was still no sign of light ahead, but he was suddenly aware that the walls had ceased. He stopped abruptly, daunted
by what he saw. He was in a dark chamber, such as he had left at the other end of the passage. But it was not empty. It was choked with snakes. They writhed in heaps on the floor. They were piled to his own height in fantastic contortions. He moved slightly, and something cold and soft flicked his cheek. He cried out sharply. But even as he did so, he had subdued the first impulse of panic, and had realised its foolishness. It was a vegetable growth that confronted him. Root or branch - he could not tell which. Leafless, vivid, fantastic, writing forms, with pale tints of green or yellow. Advancing upon them, he saw that they entered through an aperture in the wall before him. They crushed in, shutting out all light, almost all air. He wished that he had brought the sword to hack through them. Evidently there was a way out where they entered. He could see no other.
He was excited and eager now to find what the outside might offer. He was in no mood to be deterred by such an obstacle. He laid down the lantern and commenced to clear the way. Inspecting them more closely, he decided that he was confronted by the arms of some creeping plant which, having lost themselves through the window of this chamber, maintained a sickly existence in the darkness.
He found them tough and difficult to sever, and if he pulled as he broke them, a further length would be drawn in, and he had little gain for his effort. But he worked with energy, and soon had his way clear to a window of about three feet square, though he could see nothing through it. The creeper filled the opening, which pierced a wall of rock two or three feet in thickness. Even when he had cleared it sufficiently to discover the limit of its depth, the same growth covered it, a curtain through which no observation could penetrate.
Leaning forward, he worked gently at the screen which closed his view. He was cautious now, not knowing what strange sight might be near him. Finding how thick and close was the obstacle which confronted him, he tried to break more of the impeding growth away, but he was confronted now with the thicker stems of the main growth of the plant. It was a living matted wall three feet thick, with stems as thick as his own thigh, through which he at length worked a sufficient opening for the light to enter.
Lying forward half on the floor of the aperture and half on the supporting creeper, he at last saw the land to which fate had led him.
A wide prospect, several miles in extent, lay beneath and before him. He was looking out from a hillside, not so abrupt as were the cliffs to seaward, yet so steep that it could have been climbed with difficulty but for the vegetation which covered it, which appeared to be of one kind only. The back-sloping side curved forming to right and left in a gigantic arc, as though the whole island were one huge volcanic crater (as perhaps it had been), and it was draped and hidden from base to skyline in a garment of glossy green, as dark as winter ivy, formed by the giant creeper which flowered profusely with enormous saucer-shaped flowers of a plumbago-blue colour, and of an overpowering fragrance.
But Charlton's first glance was not upon this garmenting of the rocky wall from which he looked. He had not pushed his way out sufficiently far to see it. He was aware of flat ground two hundred feet beneath him, parrot-green, looking like a grazed field, and beyond that a dark forest of trees, growing close and high, at the sight of which he felt chilled, though the air was warm and windless, for it recalled the forest of which he had dreamed in the night, and which he had feared to enter. There was no beach before it now, but he did not doubt that it was the same, and that the dream had warned him against it.
From his vantage of height he could see somewhat over and beyond the forest, which stretched for several miles before him. Beyond was higher ground, thinly wooded. There was no sign of cultivation, or of the abodes of men, except - far to southward - something shone marble-white in the sunlight. It might be a house or temple. He could not tell.
Encouraged by the solitude of the scene, and reflecting that no creature, human or other, could have been using the entrance he occupied for many months, nor, probably, for a longer period, he pushed further outward, as far as he could do it with safety, till half his weight was upon the branches of the creeper. He saw the crater-like curve of the flower-clad cliff from which he looked. He supposed that it might continue on either hand, until it encircled the island. It must be an island surely! He remained there for a long time, satisfied that he could not be seen either from beneath or above, and watching for any sign of moving life. He heard the cries of seabirds, and of others from the forest. He saw many doves, of an unfamiliar kind, which flew to the hillside. Doubtless they nested in the green-clad wall from which he looked. He thought that he heard the chattering of monkeys. He noticed that the forest had little resemblance to the wooded places of the Pacific islands among which he had wandered. There were no palms of the kind which is most common to those scenes. It was more like the forests of Yucatan, or of Honduras. But yet different. The island could not be of any great size, or it would have been known and populated. It was unlikely that it contained wild creatures of formidable growth. It is not usual to find great beasts in small and isolated islands. Probably, all that he saw might be safely his, to take as he would. Only there was that gleam of distant white, which might mean anything. The heat increased as the sun mounted. Nature drowsed in the heat. Nothing moved.
It was not hot for the tropics. He reflected that the land beneath him must be above sea-level. The tunnel had been long, and he had ascended almost all the way.
He became weary of watching a scene which was without incident. He wondered whether he really wished that he should find no companionship of any kind on the island. He might be here all his life. It was likely enough. Atavistic instincts warred within him. There was the desire to possess. There was the fear of the strange tribe. There was the desire of comradeship. There was the instinct of mating. A woman? Yes - in the abstract - he would desire to find one. Any particular one, he might not. He had not yet met one that had the power to hold him. But the stillness gave him confidence, and while he lay and watched, his plans developed. He had no doubt that he could find food here without effort, and in abundance. He knew something of the prodigality of the eternal summer of these tropic isles. Shelter he had already, if there should be seasons of tempest from which to take refuge. J'y suis, j'y reste, he said, with a very definite decision. He would not show himself till he had watched many times. There was no haste. He would bring up all the stores from the boat into the greater security of the chamber above it. Perhaps he would bring them here in time. There was time in plenty. A lifetime, it might be. He would do that first and make all things secure, and he would venture out at his leisure. It would be easy to clamber down the sloping wall, with the growth of the creeper three feet thick upon it. He could not fall if he tried. Something moved at the edge of the forest. He had become weary of watching, and did not notice it as it first emerged. It was like a large dog. It was going to a little pool that lay between the trees and the open green beneath him. (Why did the trees end do suddenly? What was the meaning of the bare green level beneath him? his mind wandered to ask.) The creature stood upright, and he saw that he was a man. It went down on all fours again, and he saw that it was a beast. It was in a clearer light now. Men can see far in the glare of a tropic noon. Charlton saw that it had horns on its head. Horns like a goat. It put a bearded face to the water. Having drunk, it rose upright again. Certainly he was a man. Very hairy, or perhaps wearing a coat of skins. And yet the feet were hooved, unless the light deceived him. The creature dropped on all fours again. It disappeared.
Charlton's curiosity was aroused. He would explore that forest when he was ready. The creature, man or beast, had not seemed very formidable. But he would take the rifle when he did so.
CHAPTER V
THE END OF THE 'FIGHTING SUE'
Captain Andrew Sparrow of the Fighting Sue, pirate, carried on business for twelve years or more in the middle of the last century. He might not have continued successfully for so long a period had he not emulated the caution of the fox, that does not rob the hen-roosts near his own earth. He made his home in the equatorial regions of the North Pacific, which was then a lonelier ocean than it is today. He lay await for his prey in other seas. Then the Fighting Sue, Boston-built, brigantine-rigged, with five portholes aside, a long bow-chaser, and two brass cannon on the quarter-deck for use in a flying fight, did not live up to her name unless she were compelled to do so, which was seldom, for she was fast on any wind, and when she hunted she was not cumbered with cargo. She bullied, robbed, and ran.
She had fought at times, when fight she must - once with a Dutch frigate, from which she had been saved by darkness and a rising sea, with the loss of a topmast and a third of her crew. But escape she did, and with honour of its kind, for Captain Sparrow had handled her well.
When twelve years had gone, he decided that it would be tempting a forbearing Providence too far to continue his operations longer. In this his judgement was sound, as events proved.
His plans had long been made. He did not intend to risk his life by returning to lands that were at one in their objections to the profession which he had followed so successfully. He knew an island where he could retire in comfort. Like most sailors he desired the land for his later years.
It was an island with many advantages. He believed it to be entirely unknown. It was particularly inaccessible. It was sufficiently large. Its climate was exceptionally good. It was very fertile. He had already made it a place of occasional rest or refuge, and mounted some artillery for the defence of its only landing-place.
It is true that it was inhabited already by a strange and potentially formidable population, but he believed their numbers to be small, and he relied upon the arguments of shot and steel to enslave or destroy them. There were goat-like, half-human animals also, such as he had not seen elsewhere in all his wanderings, but experience had shown him that every land had its characteristic peculiarities, which were apt to be incredible to those who had not beheld them.
He did not only plan for himself. He planned for his crew. He did not intend that any wandering seaman should be in a position to betray him. He proposed that they should land with him, and that the ship should be sunk, so that further wandering would be impossible. He kept this part of his plan in his own mind. He would be the king of a new land.
He had schemed this long, and had perfected the details of his design. He had wealth, but it would be of little use after he had separated himself from the means of spending it.
There was a port in Chile where he was known, and which he could enter in comparative safety. Here he purchased stores of many kinds, and in great quantity. Here he took on board the wives of some of his men, who had made the place a furtive and infrequent home. Lest the port authorities should regard this as evidence that he was not returning, and think it no longer worth their while to grant him immunity under such circumstances, he cut his cable and ran out to sea in the night, when he had taken them aboard.
He made a good voyage, and landed his stores in safety, though with much labour, owing to the nature of the approach to the caves through which he must bear them.
Having done this, the devil tempted him. He had still much gold, and forever is a long time. He was able to think of many things which he might still purchase, of which he had nothing,
or of which he might be glad to have more. He determined on a last voyage before he sank the ship.
With the stores which he had put ashore he left the women and eight of his men. He left also his son, Jacob Sparrow, then a child of ten years. He landed most of his powder. His predatory career was over, and he did not expect to need it.
Before sailing, he invaded the island in force. He made his way through passages which had been cut through the rock to the cliff-tops. He descended the inner side of the cliff, and lost two men in an attempt to cross the bogs beneath it.
Abandoning this design, he continued along the top of the cliffs until he reached the south side of the island. Here he found a safer descent to fertile ordered land. There were some miles of park-like garden-ground, bearing fruits of many kinds, and a luxuriance of tropic flowers. This garden was tended by a number of huge birds, reminding Captain Sparrow of the cassowaries of Patagonia, but much larger. He would have been a tall man who could have looked over their backs, and their heads were nine feet from the ground. Their work was mainly to weed and prune, keeping space for the selected plants, and restraining them to their intended places. They did this most frequently by the simple process of eating that which was redundant. They stirred the soil with their beaks, levelling it with raking motions of their three-toed feet.
Coming upon a number of these monstrous birds, the men looked to the muskets. But Captain Sparrow ordering them not to fire, and the birds neither retreating nor molesting them, but only raising their long necks, and surveying the intruders with sardonic eyes, they passed through quietly.
Beyond the garden they came to a palisade thirty feet high, dividing it from the untamed luxuriance of a tropic forest. The forest was unlike anything which they had seen in Central America, or in the Indian Archipelagos, though it had some characteristics of either. There was a remarkable absence of noxious insects of all kinds. Even in the swamps there had been no mosquitoes.
Turning back through the garden-land, they came to the dark mass of an ancient temple, and to other buildings beyond it. These were closed and silent. Their windows, glazed with a somewhat opaque glass, were high and few, and too narrow for a man to have passed through them. Their approaches were always the same - stairs which wound upwards, steep and very narrow, in the thickness of the wall. He would have been a bold man who would have adventured to climb them without knowing the reception to which the next turn might bring him.
Captain Sparrow waited for three days while there came no sign of life from these dwellings.
He camped in a large hall, built of white stone, which was about half a mile from the temple on a slight hill, and which stood open and empty. He had with him a force of forty men, and he had his hands sufficiently occupied in maintaining discipline among them. But he would have no relaxation till he had disposed of the military problem which confronted them. Up to this time he had prudently left the women on board with the remainder of the crew.
He did not allow his men to molest the great birds, who continued their work with apparent indifference, but he gave them permission to shoot some of the little monkeys that abounded in the trees, to demonstrate the nature of their weapons to those who (he felt) were watching them from the silent temple. He also permitted them to invade the forest, where they were mobbed by a troop of the goat-foot satyrs, till they were obliged to shoot one in self-defence. Knowing nothing of mythology, they were not concerned as to whether it were allied either to men, or goats, or gods. They were hungry for fresh meat, after some months of salt junk and ship's biscuits, and they cooked it, as they had done the monkeys, and with results which were even more satisfactory.
Captain Sparrow's patience, often exercised before when he had hove-to for long weeks on a deserted ocean waiting for an expected victim, was again justified when a man emerged from the temple on the morning of the fourth day. Having news of this from a watching scout, Captain Sparrow drew his men into order, and received his visitor with some aspect of dignity upon the lawn which sloped away from the hall of which he had taken possession.
He found himself confronted by a man a head taller than himself, young, lean, dark, austerely handsome, and remote in his aspect. He did not appear to be impressed or interested by the display of disciplined force which met him. His aspect was aloof, but not discourteous.
He did not attempt speech, which would have been obviously futile. He opened a roll of papyrus in his hand, and showed a neatly painted map. With a courteous gesture he proposed that Captain Sparrow should examine it with him upon the long table which ran down the centre of the hall.
Captain Sparrow, who had had other more or less constrained interviews with the masters of the vessels on which he had levied blackmail, many of whom had been unable to speak a common tongue, was quick to accept a suggestion and to appreciate an attitude. Telling his men briefly to stand their ground, he walked in with his visitor to inspect a map which showed the whole island in coloured detail.
Half an hour later, without word spoken or written, they had arrived at an understanding which appeared to be mutually satisfactory. Whether Captain Sparrow intended to observe it, I cannot say.
The visitor (who was the son of the priest of Gîr) produced a duplicate of the map with colouring materials. Swiftly and neatly he painted a space around the temple grounds a dull red. That was to be sacred to his own people. At the south-west of the island a space was painted blue. That was reserved for the privacy of the invaders. Between these, and including the hall in which they stood, was a green space which would be common to both, and in which acquaintance could be made if both parties should desire it. On a waxed blank beneath the map the visitor laid his open hand, impressing it as his signature. He invited Captain Sparrow to do this also, so that the two hands crossed, and he then fastened the map to the wall at the higher end of the hall.
Besides this, Captain Sparrow had learned by gestures, and by swift and skilful sketches, that it would be a cause of difference to continue to shoot the monkeys; that it would be not only such, but in some way dangerous in itself, to molest the great birds; that his people were at liberty to enter the forest when they would, and to shoot the satyrs, providing that they did not kill more than one in any one moon; and that there was a stretch of swamp at the north of the island where there was a variety of blue pig, like a small tapir, which they could kill at their own pleasure; and he had signified his acceptance of these arrangements.
He offered drink and gifts of various kinds, but his guest declined them with an aloof politeness, and departed.
Captain Sparrow was a good judge of men in certain relations. He sailed away two days later, confident that the treaty would be honourably observed by those with whom he had made it, and having promised to hang anyone, whether man or woman, who should cause trouble by infringing its provisions while he was absent.
The men that he had left had been chosen by lot from among those whose women were now ashore, as these men were the most loath to start out on a further voyage, and by leaving only such as were married themselves, he judged it the less likely that trouble would arise with the wives who were temporarily deserted, and that those to whom they belonged would be the less reluctant to leave them.
Having ordered all these things with due thought for his people, as a king should, he set out on his last voyage, promising the unmarried men an opportunity at some port of call of remedying their loneliness, if their personal attractions, or the coin with which he would provide them, should prove sufficient inducement to get the women on board.
He sailed with a fair wind for the East Indies - virtuously resisting the impulse to plunder a clumsy merchantman that lumbered away in a very natural panic at the sight of the long low hull, the yawning portholes, the wide spread of canvas, and the flagless masthead - and he was south of the Ladrones when he encountered a succession of light varying winds, which left him drifting on a calm sea, over which a heavy mist settled.
The mist cleared during the night, and the dawn, coming with a light breeze from the north-east, showed him Her Majesty's corvette, Condor, of twenty guns, about three cables' length distant.
Captain Sparrow was ready for most emergencies, and he opened the game by running a signal of distress to the masthead, and following it, when the inevitable inquiries came, by the announcement that he had had seven deaths from smallpox, and that twelve men were sick below of the same malady.
It would have been sufficient to render many captains disinclined for any avoidable intimacy, but Lieutenant Mainwaring, who was in command of the corvette, was of a sceptical and inquiring mind. He asked questions as to the charter and destination of the brigantine, which were answered fluently enough, but the replies were unconvincing.
The fact was that the vessel showed her character too plainly in every line. She protested her innocence, and it was like a wolf bleating.
Lieutenant Mainwaring, spruce and motionless on his quarter-deck, gazed with an expressionless face at the Fighting Sue. He looked at the flag which hung, melancholy in reverse, from the innocent's fore-top, and inquired whether it had been there at first sight or had been run up afterwards. There was some difference on this point, but a midshipman (who should have been otherwise occupied) was certain that he had seen it raised as he watched the dim shadow take shape in the dawning light.
Lieutenant Mainwaring signalled, I am sending a boat. Captain Sparrow replied with many thanks that he did not need help. Lieutenant Mainwaring smiled slightly, but did not deign to reply.
Captain Sparrow knew that the game was up. So far he had kept his crew below, and had not ventured on any overt preparations for the conflict which was now inevitable, but he had his broadside shotted and run out on the starboard side, which was turned away from the Condor. The corvette, having no occasion to conceal her suspicion, had already trained her guns upon the victim of her unwelcome curiosity.
Captain Sparrow watched the approaching boat, and courteously lowered a ladder amidships.
Then, very suddenly, the rigging was alive with men, and the helm went over. There was a cry from the unlucky crew of the boat as they endeavoured vainly to avoid the impact of the vessel's side. The next moment the broad-side of the Condor flashed and roared. The Fighting Sue heeled and shivered as it struck her. There was an outcry of death and wounds on her gun-deck. A round-shot, coming through an open port, caused one of her guns to break loose. It slid across the sloping deck, disabling two who were not agile enough to avoid it.
But the Fighting Sue tacked and came round across the stern of the Condor, raking her from end to end with a broadside which, though not so heavy as she had taken, was the more deadly in its delivery.
Unfortunately for the Fighting Sue, it was a manoeuvre which could not easily be repeated.
Lieutenant Mainwaring, though a very angry man, and handicapped by the necessity of lowering a boat to pick up the crew of the first, who were now struggling in the water, did not allow himself to be flustered. Captain Sparrow had cause to observe, with a natural annoyance, that he was not the only man who could handle a ship efficiently under fire. The Fighting Sue was slightly to windward of her adversary, which might have been to her advantage, had she been seeking to close at her own choosing, but it was more doubtfully so when she only sought escape, and to avoid exposing herself to the heavier guns which were waiting to be trained upon her.
With all their canvas spread to a wind which was still too light to give them more than very gradual motion, the two ships showed like contending swans, white on the tropic blue, dodging and twisting as they endeavoured to bring their own guns into play while avoiding the opposing broadsides.
The guns flashed and thundered, and wisps of heavy sulphurous smoke drifted along the wind.
There were few casualties at this stage of the duel, for the fire of either vessel was directed to the masts and spars of her opponent, though with different objects.
Captain Sparrow wished to disable his adversary so that he might put a safe distance between them. Lieutenant Mainwaring wished only to secure his continuing company. So far, chance shook the dice, and threw them when a shot struck the mizzen of the Fighting Sue. It did not fall at once, but the next time that the helm went over and the strain came, it snapped off three feet from the deck, and went over-side with a tangle of sail and cordage which took five deadly minutes to hack clear so that it floated free. And meanwhile the Condor had closed in and was pouring all her weight of metal into the doomed hull of the Fighting Sue. After that, only one end was possible. Even could Captain Sparrow have gained his last hope and boarded, it must have been the same in the end. Larger numbers, better discipline, better morale must have decided. But Lieutenant Mainwaring respected the lives of his men, and he avoided every effort which the pirate ship made, like a cornered rat, to get its fangs fixed into the side of its unrelenting opponent.
After a while it lay still on the water like a wounded bird, but the deadly flashes still broke spasmodically from a gun-deck which was slowly sinking toward the ocean level. What use was there in surrender? Yet yield she did at the last, for the powder failed, Captain Sparrow having put too much ashore when he sailed on this peaceful enterprise.
Lieutenant Mainwaring, boarding the sinking vessel, took off nineteen unwounded prisoners, including the captain. He tumbled the wounded men over the side. He was in no mood to be merciful. He had heard of Captain Sparrow before. And his own losses were serious, and were (he considered) the lives of better men. As to the prisoners, acting on the authority given to naval officers in those seas, he held a swift court martial, and hanged them before sunset. He had offered the chance of at least some months of life to any one who would tell him of Captain Sparrow's headquarters. He should be taken home and tried there. He would offer no more. He was not of the kind to make terms with piracy. Yet this slender inducement was sufficient to bring a ready volunteer of treachery, but, unfortunately for himself, the man told the simple truth (excepting only the position of the island, which he did not know), and as it was so obvious that he was lying, he was strung up with the rest, protesting vainly against the incredulity which condemned him. So before sunset they were all hanged except Captain Sparrow himself. It may be that the lieutenant thought he might be induced to speak to better purpose than he supposed that the man had done; it may be that he desired to have some living exhibit to evidence his successful exploit.
Captain Sparrow had leisure to reflect upon the folly of having extended his voyages into the thirteenth year. Being landed in England some six months later, he was tried with more formality that Lieutenant Mainwaring would have considered necessary, but with no less certain issue. He was, however, offered a reprieve if he would give such information as would lead to the recovery of his illicit gains, which were believed to be very great. But this he declined to do. He would not betray his cherished secret, nor the men whom he had left behind. Whereupon he was hanged at Execution Dock.
It may be that he did not trust the promises which were made. It may be that he thought that they would not hang him while he remained silent. It is more probable that he was hanged because there was a degree of baseness to which he would not sink. Which might happen to any man.
CHAPTER VI
THE ISLAND COLONY
Captain Sparrow had not been explicit as to how long he intended to be absent on his last voyage. He was not one who gave his confidence widely. But he was a man to be obeyed; and as his orders had been that the men he left should proceed to the erection of houses, and should maintain peaceful relations with the earlier inhabitants, they continued to behave with quietness and industry until they had settled down to the routine of their new life. As the months passed they must have become increasingly doubtful as to whether they would see him again, but there
could never have been a day when the uncertainty was changed into the settled fact. They might have thought that he had marooned them with a deliberate treachery, but that was not reasonable, when it was considered that he had left such over-ample stores for so small a colony, with a
great treasure of precious things, and had sailed away with an empty hold. Also, he had left his son. It was perhaps fortunate for this youth (as the world esteems fortune) that the possibility of his father's return was in the minds of his companions while he was gaining the years and confidence which finally enabled him to assert himself as his heir and representative. By the time that he did this, the isolated community had settled into a debased existence which was to continue for a generation. There had, at first, been some tentative approaches towards acquaintance between them and the original inhabitants, but these had not been developed. There was an absolute lack of con geniality, of common interests or attractions. But there was a deeper cause. It is the peculiar degradation of Europeans (whether from their carnivorous habits, or other differences) that they have the power to cultivate and harbour diseases which are unendurable by other races. Encountering these for the first time, such people die helplessly.
The surviving race is apt to regard the issue complacently, as an evidence of its superiority. It is as though a sewer should boast that it can tolerate garbage.
The original inhabitants of the island, though they were of apparently finer physique, and of incomparably more equable health, than those who had intruded upon them (having won to this physical condition by a social economy which had systematically eliminated the weakest members of the community), yet suffered, after their age-long isolation from others of their kind, as many inferior races have done in every part of the world when the plague of European civilisation had reached them.
In six weeks more than fifty, out of a total population of eighty, were already dead, including the priest of Gîr; his son, who had negotiated the treaty, succeeding him.
The new ruler, having little faith in the characters, or belief in the goodwill of his new neighbours, and having an additional weight of responsibility on his mind arising from the fact that he had concurred in rejecting the directions of their oracle (which had shown the natural course of events to be that they should have attacked the invaders when first they landed), gave orders that this mortality should be kept secret, fearing that they would be treated with little ceremony on Captain Sparrow's return if he should learn of the losses which they had sustained.
Having no doubt as to the source of the new diseases, he ordered also that all contact should be avoided in the future, and that his people should confine themselves to their own reservation. This not only protected them from further infection, but rendered it the easier to conceal the diminution of their number.
To maintain communication and acquaintance with the course of events, he arranged that he himself (together with his wife, who was his sister also, and who declined to be separated from the danger he incurred) should join the invaders at a feast to be held regularly on the evening of the full moon, and at other times as occasion might arise or inclination lead him.
In doing this, he was influenced by the knowledge that the oracle had fore-shown that in the natural course of events, had they attacked the invaders from the first hour with every weapon at their disposal, he himself would have perished among many others; and he was conscious that this had influenced his father to make an effort for peace before appealing to the ordeal of battle.
That effort had been entrusted to him, and had apparently succeeded, but with the result that there were more numerous deaths than would have been incurred in a conflict which would have relieved them entirely of the presence of the white men, and these deaths had not been among the adult males, but most largely among the women and children, which inflicted a more permanent injury upon the community. His father, who would not have died, was dead. He, who would have perished, was still alive. It was not the first time that they had learned that to avoid the future which the oracle indicated was to fall beneath a less tolerable calamity.
Clearly it became his duty to take the risk of any contact with the strangers which might be necessary. And so it became his custom to join them at these monthly festivals, and on some other occasions, eating with them, though without touching the dead flesh, or the foods devitalised by the application of heat, which they preferred. He conversed with them also, learning their language, as they showed no aptitude at his own. This language was a debased form of English, which shrank and degenerated as the years passed, even from the form in which it had been spoken on the Fighting Sue. It became blended also with words and phrases introduced by the women of mongrel South American origin who formed the majority of the colony, and quaintly streaked with the phraseology of the Bible, the speeches of Charles James Fox, a book on the breeding and management of cattle, and a collection of broad-sheet ballads, which had constituted the fortuitous library of the colony. These books had been read by the more active-minded of the earlier generation, but the younger had shown no desire to read, nor had there been any with the inclination to teach them. The island to which fate had consigned them was of such a nature that the necessity for work was of the slightest. The climate was delightful. Food was abundant. They satisfied their inherited desire for flesh with the monthly satyr, and with the blue pigs in the further marsh.
They soon observed that the restriction in regard to the shooting of the satyrs was a necessity, in their own interest, if the animals were not to be exterminated. As it was, their numbers were not greatly diminished, though it was soon observable that the killing of the younger males resulted in the practice of an increasing polygamy among those that remained. The hunting of these animals constituted the principal diversion of the new colony. The satyrs, having realised the deadly nature of the muskets with which they were attacked, made no attempt at resistance, but fled in a useless terror at the approach of their enemies. They gradually learnt that it was only the male satyrs which incurred any danger, and that it was the younger of these which were most to the taste of their assailants.
The females and young would even continue their feeding undisturbed, the while the hunt went past them, beating the bushes for the hiding males, or breaking into a wild rush or pursuit when they had started their quarry.
Besides these hunts, there were occasional expeditions to the swamps where the pigs rooted and wallowed. But these creatures were dangerous. The women were left behind, and the men went armed with all the miscellaneous weapons they had learned to handle during their piratic exploits. They would return with the heavy carcasses of their victims slung from poles, and more than once with a litter in which a wounded companion would bear evidence of the ferocity of these animals.
After this, there would be an orgy of feasting, ending in a drunken saturnalia, for they had not failed to utilise the possibilities of the grapes which abounded wild in the forest, and hung in even heavier clusters from the cultivated vines of the gardens in which they were free to wander.
The years saw other changes. As the possibility of the return of Captain Sparrow and his companions diminished, the women whom they had left behind attached themselves, more or less definitely, to individuals among those that remained, not without quarrelling and some outbursts of violence, on one occasion with fatal consequence.
The children resulting from these, and from the earlier and more regular unions, were not sufficiently numerous to lead to any excessive increase in the size of the colony. Many of the women were past their first youth, and their lives had not been such as to leave them, as the years had passed, with unimpaired vitality. The island life, in spite of its physical advantages, was not a healthy one, and the children that were born were often neglected or indulged, with detrimental and sometimes fatal issues. They also developed, in some instances, a disconcerting resemblance to the animal population of the island, both in appearance and disposition, the causes of which are very difficult to decide. It would be the simplest solution to conclude that the satyrs were sufficiently near to the human race for a hybrid offspring to be produced, and in support of this supposition it is natural to recall passages in the Mosaic law which indicate that there were non-human creatures alive at so comparatively recent a date, toward which some women had a disposition to familiarity, and the character of some of those whom Captain Sparrow had landed would have been of little weight in refuting such a conclusion.
On the other hand, there is no direct evidence to support it, and it is at least equally possible that these physical peculiarities - usually consisting of the growth of more or less conspicuous horns, or of shaggy hair upon the neck and arms, combined with a somewhat goat-like countenance - resulted from the strangeness of the appearance of the satyrs having impressed the minds of these women, whose mentalities would render them susceptible to such influences.
It is an unpleasant fact that the women, mingling freely with the female satyrs, would follow the progress of the hunt, and would combine, with a repulsive, elbowing curiosity, to watch the capture and slaughter of the monthly victim. It seemed that their attitude had gradually affected the female satyrs, until these events were regarded as pleasantly exciting episodes, rather than as attacks upon their kindred by alien enemies, and even the males would emerge from their hiding-places the moment that they knew that a capture had taken place, and watch with an appearance of enjoyment the slaughter and disembowelling of their unfortunate companion.
There was another development which drew a closer link between these people and the half-human beasts on which they fed. They discovered that the satyrs, if caught while very young, could be taught to perform many useful services, and could learn to understand much of the language of their owners, though they made no attempt to speak it.
They captured and reared a number of young females, whom they trained to wait on them, and, in particular, to weave a fibrous cloth, such as was made and worn by the original inhabitants of the island, and which could be variously dyed, a process for which the forest gave abundant materials, both from its vegetable and insect life.
Another, and perhaps the most potent influence upon the development of the community, was the personality of Jacob Sparrow, after he had arrived at a sufficient age to assert an authority which he found no one prepared to challenge.
A successful leader, whether saint or criminal, must possess certain positive qualities, such as are admirable in themselves, whatever may be the uses which exalt or degrade them.
Captain Sparrow was capable of a cold and calculating brutality, which was sufficiently unattractive. It is difficult to suppose that there are many crimes which he would not have committed, had they been clearly to his advantage. But he had been prudent in enterprise, cool in danger, skilful in manoeuvre, and with a habit of moderation, even in pillage. He had a sense of order and method, and a personal magnetism, which had enabled him to control a succession of lawless crews without permitting licence, or using an intolerable severity. Pitiless in his punishments when the occasion required it, he was never either unreasonable or capricious. He was not loved, but he was both feared and respected. In a way, he was trusted. He had a fortunate reputation.
But Captain Sparrow's son did riot inherit the better part of these qualities. Gross and ungainly in body, he was destitute of physical courage, and averse from physical activity, but he was gifted with a farsighted cunning, which enabled him to maintain his position, perhaps more easily than would have been the case had it depended upon the ascendancy of more admirable characteristics. He was neither aggressive nor domineering, and so long as he was not impeded in the gratification of the selfish instinct on which his contentment depended, he allowed his followers a full measure of licence to pursue their own proclivities. He was, however, jealous of the recognition of his position, and insisted upon the wearing of a battered article of naval headgear when seated at the head of a long table at which his subjects assembled, while their own heads were required to be uncovered on those occasions.
He had also an unreasoning cupidity, causing him to cherish many articles which had originally been his father's property, but most of which he did not attempt to put to any service of utility, even had it been possible to do so, and first amongst which were twenty bars of solid gold, each of about two pounds weight, of an extrinsic value of which he had probably gained some knowledge during the early years which he had spent in a South American seminary.
These were always placed in a neat pile upon the table before him. No one ever attempted to steal them, for the sufficient reasons that there was nowhere to which they could be removed to any advantage, nor were they of any conceivable use to anyone who should have been sufficiently foolish to attempt it.
At the time with which we are concerned, Jacob was an obese old man, gluttonous, silent, and somnolent, but still capable of reacting to the excitements of fear or greed, or to any slight upon the dignity of a position which he did so little to justify, under which stimuli he would show that the watchful cunning which had distinguished his earlier years was still sufficient to render his ill-will dangerous to those who should be sufficiently indiscreet to arouse it.
His most amiable characteristic was an unreciprocated affection for a son which had been born to him about twenty years earlier by a daughter of one of the women who had been landed by Captain Sparrow, both of whom were now dead. This son, named Nicodemus by his mother, which had become Demers in the degenerate island speech, was a young man already over six feet in height, of heavy, awkward build, slouching forward as he walked, like a great ape, with long arms and large and very hairy hands.
His hair was long, thick, coarse and black, growing very low on the forehead. His brows were black and prominent. His nostrils were very wide. His jaw was heavy, with exceptionally large and powerful teeth, over which the lips were never entirely closed.
Over each ear he had a short, blunt horn, about two inches in length, showing at times through the shaggy growth of hair. Possibly his grandmother could have given some explanation of this peculiarity, but it is only right to say that his mother had shown no sign of mixed parentage, and she herself had been attached to Jacob Sparrow with an inexplicable loyalty.
Demers, unlike his father, was of unquestionable physical courage. It was his delight to lead the occasional expeditions against the blue pigs, which were no longer hunted with muskets owing to the powder, too carelessly used by the earlier generation, being nearly expended. On these occasions he would be the only man who could be relied upon to face the savage beasts when they had turned upon their pursuers, and who had the strength and skill to drive home a boarding-pike, while himself avoiding the angry tusks that were directed against him.
Once, when he had been wounded in the leg by one of these animals, he had burst into a passion of uncontrolled ferocity, causing him to batter the dying body of his assailant, and to trample upon it after all life had ceased, until it was flattened out into the muddy soil, and was judged to be unfit to be used for the food for which it had been hunted.
He had possessed himself of three of the younger women of his own generation, without consulting their inclinations, and with these in a bungalow larger than, and somewhat apart from, the abodes of the rest of the settlement, he lived an indolent life of physical indulgence, punctuated by bursts of energy, when he would seize his hunting weapons and rouse his less eager followers to join him. In his own way he was a good husband. He was not bad-humoured so long as his desires were promptly satisfied. He beat his wives, but this was because it gratified his own inclinations and helped to keep him in the good temper which is so necessary for successful domesticity. It was understood that these attentions were a mark of favour, and there is some evidence that the victims were not rendered acutely miserable by consciousness of the weals and bruises with which they were decorated.
CHAPTER VII
THE SEA CHEST
Charlton Foyle carried out his plan with a systematic thoroughness which was natural to him. Many and weary were the journeys which he made to and from the boat. Many were the loads which could only be hauled up with the help of a rope, and that with difficulty. He had found a smooth slab of stone beside the shaft-mouth in the first chamber, to which he had attached no importance previously, though he had stumbled over it on his first landing. He now saw that it was intended to be slid over the opening, which it could cover completely. That was good. But he first found it another use, fastening the rope around it so that he could rest at times when a heavy load was ascending. The day came when the boat was bare of all but the unstepped mast. Even the cordage, the oars, and the heavy canvas had been hauled aloft. Charlton tested the moorings afresh, and left it there at the tide's mercy. He was glad to have it: he might need it again: with half his mind he hoped to do so; but he had chosen the land.
He pushed the heavy slab over the hole. It was too heavy for one man to move it easily, but his muscles had developed as he had toiled. He was conscious of a glow of health and a zest for living, such as he had never expected to feel again. With health came confidence, and it was in a buoyant mood that he prepared for the second stage of the campaign which he had planned.
He had already taken the precaution of ascending the steps that went upward beyond the roof of the chamber which he now occupied. He had found another chamber, similar, but without admittance of any light, and entirely empty. There were drawings on the walls of a character of which he did not willingly think. They were of the same evident antiquity as that in the one where he was now living. There were dark passages leading to other chambers which he had explored without finding their terminations, but he had noticed one thing which contented him. Beyond a certain limit, the dust of time lay on the floors, and it was only his own footsteps which had disturbed it.
He would explore further at another time. That could wait - and the supply of candles for his lantern was limited. So were his matches. He was already calculating and hoarding the irreplaceable things.
The next step on which he had resolved was to convey small quantities of his immediate necessities to the inland chamber, leaving his main stores in the security of the one which he had first discovered, from which he could replace them as he required.
There was a good reason for this - apart from the fact that he did not wish for the added toil of conveying them to the further point - in the fact that, while the first was dry, the second was damp. This change had been observable from the point where the passage had commenced to descend, and in the chamber itself water dripped from the roof at one side, forming a small pool in the inner left-hand corner which must have had some means of drainage, as it did not overflow or diminish.
As he worked, Charlton had debated in mind the advisability of commencing his investigations by climbing up the cliffs rather than down. The creeper would render such an enterprise very easy. He did not think that he was far from the summit. Gaining it, he would have a better view of the island which he wished to explore. He might also contrive some method of signalling to any passing ship, which might be called to his rescue.
But the objections were obvious. Such a signal, were the opportunity to occur, would be equally visible to any unknown inhabitants of the island. He preferred to learn who or what they were before disclosing his existence so freely. To mount to the cliff-top might bring him into an immediate and undesirable notice.
Rather, his mind was concerned to leave his refuge unobserved, and to descend with secrecy. The moon was not full, but it would give light enough, if the sky were clear, for him to climb down and hide at the cliff-foot till the dawn came, and he could see where he went. He recognised that the darkness had its peril as well as its protection. But he did not intend that any living thing should learn of the entrance to his own burrow.
Commencing the last stage of his preparations, he cleared the floor of the second chamber from the creeper that he had torn away to make his passage. It had shrunk and withered, and its bulk had diminished. He would render himself conspicuous by throwing it outward, so he carried it back as he made successive journeys, bringing his food and weapons and some bedding for the drier side of the chamber; and, as he thus cleared the floor and refurnished it, he made a discovery which gave him fresh light upon what was before him, and left his mind in an increased wonder.
It was a seaman's chest of the ordinary pattern. It had been hidden beneath the growth of the creeper, and that which he had torn away had given it a deeper burial. It was unlocked. It contained some clothes, rotten with damp; some tools; some trinkets; two or three books. Things that were never of great value except to those who owned them. Some of them were incongruous, as though the possessions of several had been thrown together.
Some of the contents, apart from the mending materials which were in every seaman's chest that the oceans bore, suggested a female ownership. It was easy to conclude that this chest had belonged to one of those whose footsteps he had traced. It confirmed his theory that men had been there at a more recent date than was indicated by the presence of a part of the ordnance of the Fighting SueIt would have given little more information, but for a bulky notebook, which its owner had used for recording his experiences. Charlton seized upon this book with avidity, but it was not easy to decipher, and difficult to understand when he had done so.
It was written in French, which was in itself no difficulty. Charlton had spent two years as attaché to the British Embassy in Paris. He could speak or read the language with equal fluency. But this was the illiterate French of an uneducated man. His constructions were crude, his spelling original. He used words which are unknown to the lexicographer. More serious, he lacked the gift of narrative. He could not appreciate the position of one who was not already familiar with antecedent circumstances. Further, he appeared to have written with a pencil of the poorest quality, and the damp, which had soaked the book, had blurred much of it beyond any hope of interpretation.
Charlton spent many hours over this book, forgetting time and food as he did so.
The one clear thing was a date, written in ink on the first page, with (presumably) the owner's name, Jean Couteau, beneath it. The date was less than five years ago. The narrative might be later, but how much later there was no means of telling.
After many hours of study, Charlton summarised the facts he had gained.
At a date unknown, but roughly indicated by the diary, and by the condition of the contents of the chest, the writer, a seaman, had been cast away here, under unexplained circumstances and without means of leaving the island, together with a man named Pierre, sometimes called le charpentier, and another man named Latour, with a girl Marcelle, who appeared to have been his daughter. Latour was of a higher social status than the other two men (the narrator called him, monsieur more than once, and his Christian name did not appear). Possibly he and his daughter had been passengers on a wrecked or abandoned ship. But that was surmise. He wished to sort out the facts only. At the time at which the narrative had been written Jean was alone. The other three had gone into the interior, and had not returned. The girl had gone either alone and first, or together with Pierre. It was not clear whether Pierre had gone in ordinary companionship, or to aid, or in pursuit. He was clearly distrusted or disliked, both by Latour and Jean. Latour had gone after his daughter. He had supposed her to be in some danger. He had asked Jean to accompany him. Jean had refused - from fear. Latour had not returned. Jean had written the narrative at a time when he had no expectation that he would. But, at the last, Jean had resolved to go also. It was not clear why.
There was little more of actual fact that he could decipher with certainty, but there were allusions that implied that the interior of the island was more or less known, as well as feared, by the writer, either by report or observation. That suggested that some parts might be visited with comparative or entire impunity, and that those who had been lost had gone into some further danger. Jean called it an Isle of Devils. That might mean much, or little. The creature which Charlton had seen might suggest a devil to a vulgar mind. Also, he seemed to write under the shadow of a dread which he did not understand, even to be drawn to it against his will, if one blurred page had yielded its secret to Charlton's patience.
Anyway, they were gone, all gone. That was the sinister fact. And yet, was it? They might have found a more attractive location. They might be living now at no great distance. With their help his boat could be manned, and they could make sail for the civilisation that must seem lost for ever. They could supply the very help he needed, while he would seem to them an almost miraculous deliverer.
So he imagined, but he did not believe it. There were the things in the chest. They had not been rotten then. They would have been fetched. He believed they were dead.
He looked with a new doubt at the dark line of the forest. There was his dream, and the dread he had felt as he first viewed it. That was a fact - of a kind - also.
But on this day it had no power to daunt him. "Cowards die many times before their death," he said lightly. He would go when the moon rose.
But he took out the cartridges from his rifle, and cleaned and reloaded it very carefully. There had been several others in the boat - heavier weapons - which he had left in the first chamber, but weight counts in a tropic climate, and the ammunition for them was less plentiful. He hesitated over the sword again - but it would be awkward to wear. He had a fantastic thought that he might be flying back for refuge, and find an enemy in possession who might use it against him. Humouring his own folly, he hid it behind the chest.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SATYR
Charlton lay down before the short tropic twilight came, and slept soundly. When he woke and looked out through the creepers that screened his window so deeply, the country beneath him was flooded with silver light. It was too much for his purpose, rather than otherwise. His preparations had been made already. He ate a hearty meal of the preserved food with which his boat had been provisioned, longing the while for the fresh fruits which he did not doubt that he would soon pluck at his pleasure. He had filled his pockets with ship's biscuit, for he did not intend to return before the next night, but he hoped to find a meal which would be more to his liking. He slung the rifle over his back, and climbed out.
The stars were brilliant.
The descent was easy. It would not have been difficult had the cliff been perpendicular, with such a thickness of clinging growth to support him. As it was no more than a very steep slope, he could scarcely have fallen far had he designed to do so. He would have sunk among the leaves, and the boughs would have held him.
But he was almost intoxicated by the scent of the great flowers, which came out most strongly in the night-time. He knocked one of them aside, and a nightbird - or was it a giant moth? - flew out on silent wings, with a note of protest which was neither hum nor cry, but something strangely between the two.
He slipped a few feet at the last, for the boughs were thicker and less frequent, and the moonlight deceived him; but he was unhurt, and he paused, drawn back under the shadow, in doubt as to whether he should adventure further in the darkness.
It was three hours to dawn.
He decided that it would be best to move cautiously along the foot of the cliff, lest he should betray the locality of his refuge to any watching eyes when the light came. He turned left-hand, for he had in mind that hint of a white building on the distant hill to southward as his ultimate objective, should nothing hinder him earlier. The ground sloped slightly downward from the cliff-foot for a short space, beyond which was the level stretch of verdure that had shown parrot-green in the sunlight. He was of a mind to cross it, and gain the wood's shelter now, rather than later. He could lie closely there till the night should be over. But he would continue for a while, and not cross opposite to his own lair. Even a lapwing had too much sense to do such a thing as that.
He trod in a very thick herbage, waist-high in places, and drenched with a heavy dew. The hum of insects was round him, that his steps had brushed from their sleeping quarters. He was glad when he saw that the thick growth ceased and the level plain came to the cliff's base. He stepped briskly forward and his foot sank, and the mud held it. It sank - and continued sinking. He tried to throw his weight back on to the other foot, but it was too late. He had taken a long stride forward, and he could not recover it. He was sunk to the knee now, and the other foot had been dragged forward and was slipping into the slime. He was still sinking steadily. But the foot of the cliff-wall was not beyond the reach of his left hand, and he threw himself sideways toward it. Doing this, he was immersed to the waist. With both arms he grasped the twisted root of one of the giant creepers, which went down into the bog. He struggled desperately against the clutch of the glutinous clinging slime, but it held him firmly. Exhausted to no good purpose, he leaned forward upon the root he held to gain strength and breath. He could scarcely sink further while he remained in that position. To release himself was another matter. But he must avoid panic: there must be some way.
After a long rest he recommenced the struggle, but it was unavailing. The bog held and would not let go.
The firm ground could not be far from his left foot - he was so close to the cliff. If it continued to slope in the same direction? - he tried to move a foot toward it. He could not be sure how far he had succeeded. Very slightly, if at all. But he persevered. Either by that effort, or because he had sunk even more deeply while he struggled, he became aware that the side of his foot was on firm rock. With that leverage to aid him, he worked somewhat nearer the side. He worked the foot somewhat upward. He drew the other foot higher. The dawn was coming before he knew that the struggle was won, and that he was not destined to disappear beneath the green slime that had so nearly engulfed him.
He was safe, and with a feeling of measureless relief at his escape, but he was exhausted and unfit to go further. He struggled forward until he reached a spot where he could rest on ground which was reasonably level, and sheltered from observation. Then he took stock, in the growing light, of the damage which he had suffered. The slime which had held him was peculiarly adhesive. He was still covered by it, from the waist downward. From that point he looked as if he had been immersed in a bright green paint.
The clothes which he had worn when he left the schooner had been good and new. They were still in serviceable condition - or, at least, they had been so a few hours earlier- though worn and solid. He had no others. To cleanse them, if it were possible, had become an imperative necessity. But he must rest first. This was something different from his anticipated adventure. He should have been exploring the delights of a tropic forest by this hour, and plucking its pleasant fruits. He realised that to those who go strange ways it is the unexpected that happens. He rubbed his hands with the glossy leaves around him till they were clean of the slime, staining them an enduring yellow with the juice of the leaves as he did so.
Then he examined his rifle. Only the butt had gone under, and having cleaned this, he was satisfied that its utility was unimpaired. His revolver, which had been in a hip-pocket, had suffered more seriously and was beyond any immediate remedy.
The food in his jacket-pocket was but slightly damaged, and he speedily reduced the quantity which would be at the mercy of any further misadventures.
His greatest need was water. Water to drink. Water to cleanse his clothes and boots. Water in which to bathe.
He had the cliff on his left hand and the bog on his right. There was no better course than to go along the narrow space between them, and hope for some improvement in the prospect.
This he did for about an hour. The sun had not yet gained sufficient height to overlook the cliff, and the air was pleasantly cool. So far, there had been no means of crossing the bog, and Charlton began to fear that it might encircle the whole of the interior of the island. He considered climbing the cliff, from the top of which he might have a view which would resolve the doubt. If there were a passage across the bog, he might make better progress toward it above than below. If there were none, the cliff-top would be the limit of his domain. He had had enough of the bog.
While he debated this project there came a change. A narrow space of water showed between cliff and bog. Further, it widened. It was stagnant water, with a thick sediment on its surface of an unwholesome yellow. Patches of rank water-weed showed in places, with a curious iris-like flower of a deep blue streaked with crimson. The whole colouring of the scene was crude, though not discordant.
There were spaces where the bog appeared to have ceased entirely. Shallow, reedy water stretched to the forest. A crowd of gaily coloured waterfowl rose as he approached, and flew northward. Finding a clear-seeming pool, he cupped some water in his hands and tasted it, but it was brackish and very bitter.
The day was becoming hot, and the need of fresh water imperative.
He remembered the pool at which he had seen the creature - man or animal - drinking on the day when he first looked on the land. But that was far behind, and on the other side of the bog.
It was about half a mile further on that he thought it possible to reach the forest. The ground here was irregular. Shallow pools lay in its depressions. Dense canes, ten or twelve feet high, grew on its drier portions. Black mud intervened. In some places, dark pumice-like stones gave a firm footing.
Charlton was eager to overcome the obstacle which held him back from the forest, but the dread of the bog was still upon him. The contending feelings made him at times too venturesome, and at times too cautious. Twice he adventured to cross where the prospect was not attractive. Twice he turned back when it might have been no more hazardous to continue. When at last he crossed, it was to find that he had reached a part of the forest which was so low that he waded at times ankle-deep among rows of trees growing so thickly that there was scarcely space to pass between them.
The ground rose as he advanced. The character of the trees changed. The growth was luxuriant, the colours brilliant. Hummingbirds flashed past. Butterflies showed unfamiliar beauties. Great trees flowered like shrubs. Creeping plants festooned them with gorgeous tapestries of blossom. At times the sun, now high in the heavens, broke through the canopy of branches, making a riot of colour around him. At times he walked beneath a rich green gloom, shadowing to a dim twilight where the trees were densest. Straight, lofty aisles opened in places, with long vistas that were beautiful beyond description.
There were paroquets among the branches, and tiny monkeys smaller than squirrels.
Charlton forgot even his thirst for a time as he went through this scene of tranquil opulence. He forgot caution also, till he trod on a yellow snake that bit his boot as he killed it.
He went forward more warily, and with an altered observation. The tiny monkeys ate a nut which grew abundantly. It was a very small nut, suitable to their own size, with a brown wrinkled shell. Two would have gone into a thimble. The monkeys pelted each other with shells as they ate. They were obviously carefree and unafraid. They took no notice of him at all.
The nuts were probably wholesome, but they did not attract him. He found grapes which were more to his liking, and ate heartily.
Then he came to a pool.
It lay quiet and cool and deep, and trees grew to its margin.
He had no thought at first except that here was water for his need. Good water, pleasant to taste. He drank freely. He bathed. He cleansed his clothes as well as he was able, drying them in a sunny spot before he resumed them. It was when he was moving along the bank to reach this spot, where he saw that the sun shone, that he came to the drinking-place. It was clear of trees to the water's edge, a gentle downward slope of verdure with a narrow path behind it that disappeared in the forest. The ground was soft at the water's edge, and it was broken by many hoof-marks. Among these he traced the imprint of a human foot. It was small. Not a man's, he thought. Of, if a man's, not that of a European. But it was certainly human.
He looked round. The forest showed no life but that of bird and monkey. He decided to hide, and wait.
He saw that some of the marks were old, and others were quite fresh. It was clearly a regular resort of the creatures of the forest. If he would see before he was seen, here was the place at which to watch.
Bushes grew thickly beneath the trees around the margin of the lake. He made ambush at the side of the path, a few yards from the water's edge, in full view of the drinking-place.
He waited there several hours, lying full length, the rifle before him. The heat increased, and the forest grew silent. He was tired, and it was natural that he should sleep in the stillness.
He was wakened in the afternoon by the noise of a rout of creatures that came down the path to the water.
There were about a dozen of them, old and young, and they made barking, chattering, semi-human sounds that had the effect of a nightmare.
Sight followed hearing, and Charlton doubted that he woke as he watched them.
Manlike in posture when they trotted balanced on their short hind legs - beastlike when they went on all fours, which they did the more frequently - goatlike in horns and hair, and with arms that were more human than those of monkeys - they were the living forms of the satyrs of Phrygian mythology. It would have seemed reasonable that they should dance to the pipes of Pan as they came down to the drinking-place.
Drinking was a formality. A fat goat-bearded elder approached the waterside while the rest waited. There was a second male, younger, and appearing the more vigorous. He edged up to the water doubtfully. The ancient gave no sign, and he advanced more boldly. The eyes of the rest of the troop were fixed upon him. Suddenly the horns of the elder butted sideways. It was done so quickly, and so entirely without previous indication, that, though the younger male withdrew very speedily, he was not entirely successful in avoiding the attack. A horn caught him beneath the ear. He drew back, snarling, with a spreading patch of red on a hairy neck.
One by one, the rest of the party, which consisted of females, adolescents and children, came to the side of the ancient, and were allowed to drink while he surveyed them with a goat-like benevolence. But the offender did not venture again until the whole party were retiring. When they had disappeared along the forest path, he drank at his leisure; but having done so, he showed no disposition to follow them. He crept under the bushes on the opposite side of the path.
Charlton lay very still. He could hear no sound. He supposed that the creature had gone, but could not be certain, and remained motionless.
Then he saw the horned head cautiously lifted and withdrawn. There was a look of greedy anticipation in the goat-like eyes. For what was he waiting?
And what was he? A satyr? - or a faun? Charlton was not clear as to the distinction between these two beasts, if beasts were the proper word to use. He thought vaguely that a faun was less objectionable than a satyr, but his mind supplied no data to support this prejudice. Satyr - faun. Satire - fawn. Perhaps an association of sounds and ideas only. But this was trivial. What he did know was that these were creations of Phrygian or Attic myth, blended later, perhaps, with the darker superstitions of Tuscany. He was on an island in the Northern Pacific, in the twentieth century, and these things were unreal. They had never been - like dragons. Dragons! The simile was unconvincing, because he recalled at the next moment that the existence of dragons has been authenticated both by bone and fossil.
"Science" had ridiculed - and then found them. But it had not confessed the error of its incredulity. It had given them a new and longer name, and its omniscient compliance was unruffled by the discovery.
But they were not living. Had not been living for millenniums. At least "science" said so. It elbowed them aside into a remote antiquity. Probably it was right.
But dragons had been only a vague tradition. Widely distributed, it is true, but lacking definiteness, both in place and time. The human mind is so incapable of originality and imagination that this tradition rendered it almost certain that such creatures had been, but that was not a "scientific" argument. Denying their existence, the scientist was unaware that he proved its strength as he did so.
But the traditions of fauns and satyrs are comparatively recent, local, definite. They were also of a kind better adapted for survival in the earth of today, in any place where there were no men to destroy them.
But there was one other objection. Hands and hooves! He had been taught that these were physical characteristics separating the most widely different of the mammalia. They could not be united at the extremities of one animal. But then he remembered the fauna of Tasmania, and its lack of respect for the orderly work of the earlier naturalists.
Nature never did treat the scientists as respectfully as a lady should. She seemed mischievous, almost malicious in the way in which she would play a disconcerting card at the last moment.
Every educated person knew that fauns (or satyrs) did not exist; that satyrs (or fauns) were an invention of the human mind in its childlike infancy - before it had grown sufficiently intelligent to be incapable of imagining anything.
Anyway, here they were. One of them was very much here, and was not wanted. Charlton was quite capable of watching a drinking-place without assistance on the other side of the way.
If he could have withdrawn unobserved, he would have done so. But he doubted the possibility. The ears of the faun (or satyr) were large, and were probably in working order, though one of them might be painful. The old boy certainly knew how to use his horns. Probably this one did also. A -, which was it really? Charlton decided that its character must decide. If he observed it in any act of good conduct, it would be a faun. Otherwise not.
Meanwhile, having no confidence in the amiability of its character, he kept his hand on the rifle-trigger. He remembered incongruously that John Wesley (speaking from some experience) had said that he preferred nature to grace in a wife. Probably it was the same with satyrs. But did the question arise?
He was not clear as to what he meant, or whether he had meant anything. He was getting drowsy. He roused himself with an effort. He must not sleep here. But perhaps he had slept? Perhaps he had dreamed the whole thing. It seemed likely. Speculating upon this possibility, he slept, and the heat of the afternoon settled down upon the forest silence like a brooding bird.
CHAPTER IX
THE DRYAD
Out of sleep he started to an alert consciousness of movement in the branches above him. He looked up, but the foliage was too dense for sight to aid him. He looked out, and the satyr's head rose for a moment in the same curiosity as his own. It might have seen him, but its attention was on that which was approaching overhead. It crouched down out of sight.
Charlton was conscious that, though it was not dark, the intense noon-light had lessen