Mother Carey's Chicken Part 61

"Well, you might have said you were too frightened to notice," said the captain, smiling. "You need not have been ashamed. But come now, which way are we going now?"

"Away from the sun," replied Mark, who felt no inclination to show that he had felt too much alarmed to take any notice of the direction they rowed. "I suppose we must be going east."

"Well, then, if you started by going east, and kept on rowing till you are going east again, I think you may conclude that you have gone nearly round a piece of land, and that the said piece is an island. It might not be, for we may be going right into some gulf; but this place looks as much like an island as is possible, and I don't think it can be anything else."

"Island," said Gregory, gruffly, "volcanic, and the coral has risen up round it, and kept it from being washed away."

"But could an island like this have been washed away?" said Mark.

"To be sure it could, my boy," said the captain. "From what I have seen a great deal of it is loose scoria. You saw plenty of big stones lying about?"

"Yes," replied Mark, "but they were huge stones. Some of them must weigh half a ton."

Mark knew that half a ton meant ten hundredweight; but his comparison was a shot at a venture, for he had no idea how big, or rather how small, a rock is which weighs half a ton.

"I don't think the sea would make much of a rock weighing half a ton, Mark," said the captain, smiling. "Why, in one of our great storms it would move that almost as easily as if it were a pebble. Mr Gregory is quite right. Volcanic islands have before now been formed, and been in eruption for a long time, and then been slowly swept away by the action of the sea."

"How long to sundown, sir?" said Mr Gregory.

"Half an hour," said the captain, after a glance at the slowly descending orb.

"And then it will be dark directly. What do you say, sir, give it up, land and set up camp, or keep on?"

"Keep on, Gregory," said the captain, quietly. "There is a headland away yonder. Once we get round that we may see home. Tired, my lads?"

"Tidy, sir," said Billy Widgeon. "But if it's all the same to you, we'd rather keep on as long as we can."

"Why, Billy?" asked Mark.

"Well, sir, since you put it like that," said the little sailor, smiling sheepishly, "it is that."

"Is what, Billy?"

"Why, what you mean, sir. You meant wittles. That's what you was a-thinking about. You see if we goes ash.o.r.e we shall have to pick they fowls, and make a fire, and wait till they're cooked afore we can eat 'em, and to men as hungry as we, sir, that's a deal wuss than rowing a few miles; eh, mate?"

This was to the man at the oar forward. The response was an affirmatory grunt.

"There, Gregory," said the captain, "what do you say now?"

"Keep on," replied Gregory, shortly. "Widgeon is right."

The island never seemed more beautiful to them than now as the sun went down lower and lower till, like a great fiery globe, it nearly touched the sea: for rock, jungle, and the central mountainous clump, with the conical volcano dominating all, was seen through a glorious golden haze, while the sea was first purple and gold, and then orange, changing slowly into crimson.

The sun disappeared just as they rounded the point for which they had been making; but still there was no sign of the camp. Nothing but the purple lagoon stretching on and on, with the creamy line of surf on one side, the fringe of cocoa-nut trees right down to the sand on the other.

"A good clear row at all events," said the captain. "Here, Gregory, let's take the oars and pull till we can't see."

The mate changed places with the sailor in front, the captain took Billy Widgeon's oar, and the boat began to travel more rapidly, but still there was no sign of the camp. The stars came out, the water seemed to turn black, and in a very short time all was darkness; but there was no difficulty in keeping on, for the light-coloured sands on the one side acted as a guide, and the roar of the breakers on the reef kept them away on the other.

There was something very awe-inspiring though in the journey in the dark; and in spite of himself Mark could not help feeling that it was rather uncanny to be riding over the black water with what seemed to be golden serpents rus.h.i.+ng away in undulating fas.h.i.+on on either side.

Then, too, there was a curious quivering glow, something like an aurora, playing about the top of the mountain on their left; while all at once, plainly heard now by all, there came the distant roar of the creature which had so far remained undiscovered.

"We must be getting near home now," said the captain quietly, "for that sound comes always from the north-west of the camp."

He spoke calmly enough, but Mark detected a peculiarity in his voice which he had noted before when his father was anxious, and this finally gave place to words.

"I hope the women have not been alarmed by that sound, Gregory," he said at last.

"I hope so too," said the mate quietly. "It may be a timid creature after all. I believe it's one of those great orang-outangs. I've never heard one, but I've read that they can roar terribly."

"I hope it's nothing worse," said the captain in a low tone.

"Keep on, of course?" whispered Gregory.

"I think so, as long as we can see. We must have nearly circ.u.mnavigated the island, and it will have been a splendid day's work to have discovered the s.h.i.+p and done that too."

"I've got two hours' more row in me," said Gregory quietly. "By that time the men will have another hour in them, and at the worst we could manage another hour afterwards. Before then we must have reached camp."

"Ah, what's that?" cried the captain as the boat struck something.

"Bock," cried Gregory. "No, too soft."

"Row! row!" said Mark. "It was a monstrous fish--a shark."

"You could not see it?" cried the captain hoa.r.s.ely, as he bent to his oar, Gregory following his example, so that the boat surged through the water.

"I saw something dark amongst these golden eel things, and they all seemed to rush away like lightning."

There was a dead silence in the boat for the next quarter of an hour, during which the rowers pulled with all their might. No one spoke for fear of giving vent to his thoughts--thoughts suggested by the adventure early in the day; but every one sat there fully expecting to see the savage-looking head of some shark thrust from the water and come over into the boat.

The suffering was for a time intense, but no further shock was felt, and as the minutes glided away their hopes rose that if this last were an enemy they were rapidly leaving it behind.

All at once Mark half rose from his place.

"Is that the light over the mountain?" he exclaimed.

"Nay," cried Billy, "that's a fire. You can see it gleam on the water."

"Hurrah!" cried Gregory, "then that means home, and they are keeping it up as a guide."

Another quarter of an hour's rowing proved this, for a big fire was blazing upon the sand, and before long they were able to make out moving figures and the fire being replenished, the leaping up of the flames and the ruddy smoke ascending high in the air.

"Now, then, give a hail," said the captain, "to let them know we're safe. They'll think we are coming from the other direction."

Billy Widgeon uttered a loud "Ahoy!" and then putting two fingers in his mouth, brought forth an ear-piercing whistle.

A distant "Ahoy!" came back, and a whistle so like Billy Widgeon's that it might have been its echo, while directly after there was a flash and then a report.