Paul Gerrard Part 10

"Oh! don't speak in that way, Mr Devereux," cried Paul, taking the other's hand; "you are not acting as you advise us to act. We may find food and water too. The island seems much larger than I at first thought it was."

"I have no wish to die, but still I do not feel as if I should recover,"

answered Devereux, in a feeble voice. "If I do not, and you should get home, I wish you to go to my father and mother and sisters, and to tell them that my earnest prayer was, that those who have the right to it should have the fortune, and that I said I would rather dig or plough all my days than enjoy what is not my own."

Paul had little doubt as to what Devereux was thinking of; still he did not like to ask him to be more explicit, so he replied--

"I am afraid that I should not be believed if I took such a message, so pray do not ask me to convey it."

Devereux made no reply, and for some time seemed very unwilling to converse. Paul earnestly wished that O'Grady would return, or that Devereux would give him leave to go in search of fresh water, which he thought might be found further in the interior. Devereux, whose eyes had been shut, at last looked up.

"Oh, for a gla.s.s of water, Gerrard! None but those who have been placed as we are know its true value," he whispered.

"Let me go and try to find some, sir," said Paul. "I see a large sh.e.l.l a few yards off; it will carry as much as you can drink. And now that the light is stronger, I observe in the distance some shrubs or low trees, and I cannot but hope that water will be found near them."

"Then go," said Devereux; "but take care that you can find me again."

Paul looked about, and saw a small spar floating on to the beach.

Without hesitation, he ran into the water to bring it out. He seized the prize, and was dragging it on sh.o.r.e, when a large monster darted towards him. He struck out the spar with all his force in the direction of the creature. It was almost torn from his grasp, and he was nearly dragged, with his face down, into the water; but he held on manfully, and sprang back. He just saw a pair of fierce eyes, two rows of sharp teeth, and a glance of white skin, convincing him that he had narrowly escaped from the jaws of a ravenous shark. He felt also that he had additional cause for thankfulness at having escaped the sharks when he and his companions had been so long helplessly tumbled about in the waves during the night. "Poor Alphonse and the rest! what has been their fate?" he thought. He did not tell Devereux of his narrow escape; but planting the pole in the sand, with a handkerchief tied to the top of it, he set off towards the spot where he hoped to find water.

Devereux wished him good speed.

"You will easily find me again," he said, as Paul left him. Paul hurried on. The ground was composed of sand and rock, with scarcely any vegetation. The spot where he had left Devereux was the summit of a bank; the s.p.a.ce he was traversing looked as if it had been recently covered by the sea. The trees were much farther off than he had fancied. The heat of the sun increased; he felt very weak and hungry, and it was with difficulty that he could make his way through the deep sand.

"If I do not go on, poor Mr Devereux will die of thirst, and water must be found," he said to himself whenever he found his resolution flagging.

A famous word is that _must_. We _must_ do what has to be done. We _must_ not do what ought not to be done. Paul struggled on in spite of the heat, and thirst, and hunger, and weariness, and the strange creatures which crawled out from the crevices in the rocks, and ran along the hot sand. He had no time to examine them. At length he found that he was rising on the side of another bank, and what had seemed mere shrubs in the distance, now a.s.sumed the appearance of a group of tall cocoa-nut trees. "Should there be no water below, I shall find what will be almost as refres.h.i.+ng," thought Paul, as he hurried on, almost forgetting his fatigue in his eagerness to reach the spot. The sand, however, seemed deeper and hotter than any he had before traversed.

Below the cocoa-nut trees there were low shrubs and some herbage. These indicated water without doubt. He ran on. He stopped and hesitated.

There was a long, low building, capable of holding a number of persons.

If it was at present occupied, what reception could he expect to meet from its inmates? He had read about savage Caribs, and buccaneers, and pirates, and he thought that, possibly, the people in the hut might be one or the other. He advanced cautiously, expecting every moment to see some one come out of the hut. "I am but a boy, and however bad they may be, they will not hurt me; and I must have the water at all events--for water there must be, or the hut would not have been built on that spot."

Saying this, he hurried on, treading lightly, "The people may be asleep, and I may get the water and be away without any one seeing me,"

he thought. He pa.s.sed the door of the hut. Before him appeared a tank cut in the coral rock, with the pure clear water bubbling up in the middle of it. Stooping down, he quickly washed out his sh.e.l.l, and then took a long, delicious draught. He felt as if he could never take enough. He did not forget his companions; and while he was considering how little the sh.e.l.l could carry, his eye fell on an iron pot by the side of the tank. He stooped down and filled it, and was carrying it off, when the door of the hut opened, and a woolly head with a hideous black face popped out, and a voice which sounded like a peal of thunder, the roll of a m.u.f.fled drum, and the squeak of a bagpipe, mingled in one, shouted out to him in a language he could not understand. Instead of running away, Paul turned round and asked the negro what he wanted. The latter only continued growling as before, and making hideous faces, while his eye glanced at the can. Paul made signs that he was only borrowing it, and would bring it back. He, however, did not venture within grasp of the unattractive-looking negro, who showed no inclination to follow him. The reason was soon apparent, for, as the black came rather more out of the doorway, Paul perceived that he had lost both his legs, and stood upon two wooden stumps. No one else appeared to be moving inside the hut, and Paul concluded, therefore, that the black was its only inmate. To avoid that unprepossessing individual, he had made a circuit, and as he looked about to ascertain the direction he was to take, he discovered that he was near the head of a long narrow lagoon, or gulf, which ran up from the sea. He had no time to examine it, as he was anxious to get back to Devereux. He ran on as fast as he could without spilling the water. He thought that he knew the way. He stopped. He feared that he had mistaken it. He looked back at the tall cocoa-nut trees, and wished that he had brought some of the fruit with him; but then he remembered that alone he could not have got it, and that the black, might possibly not have chosen to give him any. Again and again he stopped, fearing that he must be going in a wrong direction. The flagstaff could nowhere be seen. "Poor Mr Devereux! what will become of him should I miss him?" he said frequently to himself, as he worked his way on through the heavy sand. At last the looked-for signal appeared above the top of a bank. Devereux was lying where he had left him, but seemed unconscious of his approach. "Was he asleep--or, dreadful thought! could he be dead?" He ran on, nearly spilling the precious water in his eagerness. He called. Devereux did not answer. He knelt down by his side. His eyes were closed, and his arms were helplessly stretched out like those of the dead. Paul moistened his lips, and by degrees got them far enough apart to pour some water down his throat. At length, to Paul's great joy, Devereux opened his eyes.

"Where is O'Grady?" he asked, and then continued--"Ah! Gerrard, is that you? Where did you get the water? It is delicious! delicious!"

In a short time Devereux appeared to be sufficiently recovered to understand what was said to him; and while Paul was giving him an account of his adventures, O'Grady was seen running towards them. He arrived almost breathless, with his arms full of sh.e.l.l-fish, which he threw before them on the ground.

"I have had hard work to get them, but there is no lack of more on the lee side of the island, so we shall not starve," he exclaimed. "But set to and eat, for it won't do to wait for cooking, as we have no means of kindling a fire. When we have broken our fast, I will tell you what I have seen."

Although raw fish and cold water was not luxurious fare, the party were much strengthened by it, and after a time Devereux declared that he felt able to accompany his companions either to the spring, or in the direction O'Grady had been. They came to the conclusion that the island was inhabited; for O'Grady had seen some objects moving, which he took for people, on a rock at some little distance from the sh.o.r.e, and he supposed that they had gone there in a canoe for the purpose of fis.h.i.+ng.

It was finally agreed that they would go towards the rock, and endeavour to gain some information as to the island on which they had been cast, which they were not likely to obtain from the black Paul had seen at the hut. Devereux had much difficulty in walking, though with the help of his s.h.i.+pmates he got on faster than could have been expected. They made a shorter cut than O'Grady had taken, and were soon opposite the rock on which he fancied that he had seen some people.

"There are two men and a boy," exclaimed Paul, whose eyesight was the keenest of the party. "Who can they be?"

The three lads hurried on, as fast as Devereux's weakness would allow, to the beach.

"I thought so. There can be no doubt about it," cried Paul. "They see us. They are making signs to us. There is Alphonse, and Reuben Cole, and old Croxton. How can they get to us?"

Devereux and O'Grady were soon convinced that they were their s.h.i.+pmates.

O'Grady proposed swimming to them, as the distance was not great; but Paul remembered the shark from which he had so narrowly escaped in the morning, and urged him not to make the attempt. It was then agreed that they must either hollow out a canoe or build a raft.

"But where is the tree from which the canoe is to be formed, and the axes with which it is to be cut down?" asked Paul. "There are no trees nearer than the fountain."

The mids.h.i.+pmen had in their eagerness overlooked that consideration, and there did not seem much greater probability of their finding materials for the raft. Still, something must be done to rescue their s.h.i.+pmates, and that speedily, or they would die of thirst if not of hunger. Paul recollected the spar he had stuck up, and which had some rope attached to it, and O'Grady had observed some driftwood on the beach. They had pa.s.sed some low shrubs, with thick stems, of a bamboo character, and they would a.s.sist to make the platform for the raft if a framework could be formed. The rope, by being unlaid, would serve to bind the raft together. No time was to be lost. Paul set off for the spar, while the other two, making signals to their friends that they would try to help them, went along the sh.o.r.e to collect what wood they could find. There was plenty of driftwood fit for burning, but too small for their object.

At last they found a plank, and not far off a spar, and then another plank. Their spirits rose.

"What is one man's poison is another man's meat," cried O'Grady, as he found several planks together. "Some craft has been lost hereabouts, and probably all hands with her, and we are likely to benefit by her remains."

They had now, they fancied, got enough wood, with the aid of the shrubs, to form a raft, on which they might ferry themselves across to the rock.

They accordingly began to drag them towards the spot where they had parted from Paul. It was a work, however, of no little labour, as they could draw only one plank at a time over the heavy sands. They had made, three trips, and still Paul did not appear. They began to fear some accident might have happened to him, and, now that they had found so large a supply of wood, to regret that they had sent him for the spar. They had brought together all they had found; and while Devereux began to form the framework, O'Grady cut down with his knife branches from the shrubs near at hand. They had little doubt that their friends on the rock knew what they were about. While thus employed, a shout made them turn their heads, and, looking up, they saw Paul, with the spar on his shoulder, running towards them. When he came up, he had an extraordinary tale to tell. The spar, which had been left planted in the sand, had been removed. He had hunted about for it in every direction, and had almost given up the search, when he saw it lying on the ground in the direction of the hut. It was a sign that there must be somebody on the island besides the black, as with his wooden stumps he could scarcely have got as far and back again without having been seen. Paul reported also that he had seen a vessel a long way to leeward, but that she appeared to be beating up towards the island.

However, all their thoughts were required for the construction of their raft. The rope had not been removed from the spar, and this was a great a.s.sistance in strengthening it. The raft, however, without the means of guiding it, would be of little use. They had, therefore, to construct a couple of paddles and a rudder, and they then found that, with the help of two small spars, they could form a makes.h.i.+ft mast and yard, their s.h.i.+rts and pocket-handkerchiefs fastened together forming a sail. This would carry them to the rock, as the wind was off the sh.o.r.e, and they must trust to the a.s.sistance of their friends to get back. What was their disappointment, on stepping on the raft, to find that it would only well support two people, and that although a third could be carried on it, a fourth would most certainly upset it, and bring it under water.

The two mids.h.i.+pmen, therefore, agreed to go, and to leave Paul on sh.o.r.e, much to his disappointment. "Shove us off," cried O'Grady to Paul, as he let fall the sail, to which their neck-handkerchiefs and stockings served as sheets.

Devereux steered with the long spar, which had a piece of board fastened to the end of it, and O'Grady tended the sail with one hand, aided by his teeth, and paddled with the other. They made fair progress, but Paul watched them anxiously, for the raft was difficult to steer, and it was very possible that they might miss the rock, and, if so, have hard work to save themselves from being carried out to sea. The people on the rock waved their hands to encourage them. The wind came somewhat more on the quarter, and they had to paddle hard to keep the raft on its proper course.

Paul was eagerly watching their progress, when he was startled by a loud guttural sound behind him, and looking round there, he saw the hideous black standing on what might be literally called four wooden legs--for besides his two timber extremities, he supported his shoulders on a pair of crutches with flat boards at the bottom, which accounted for his being able to move on so rapidly over the soft sand. Paul could not escape from him except into the sea, so he wisely stood still. There was something very terrific in the black's countenance, increased by the grimaces he made in his endeavours to speak. He pointed to the iron pot, which Paul had slung by his side. Paul at first thought that he was accusing him of stealing it. "If he catches hold of me, I do not know what he may do; but at the same time, as he has no weapon in his hand, I do not suppose that he intends to hurt me," he thought. "I will boldly go up to him and give him the cup, and if he looks as if he would grab me, I can easily spring out of his way."

Paul forgot that the black's crutch would make a very formidable and far-reaching weapon. He advanced slowly, but was much rea.s.sured when the black, pointing to the rock, made signs of drinking. "After all, he is come as a friend to help us. He is not so ugly as I thought," he said to himself, as he handed the can to the black. No sooner did the black receive it, than away he went at a great rate over the sand.

Meantime the raft had been making good progress. The great fear was, lest it might meet with some current which would sweep it out of its course. Paul had no selfish feelings--he dreaded any accident as much as if he had been himself on the raft. O'Grady seemed to be paddling harder than ever. Devereux was too weak, he feared, to do much. "I wish that I had gone," he said more than once to himself. Now the raft was again making direct for the rock; the sail was lowered. One of the men caught it as it was being driven round the rock by the surge of the sea, and while they steadied it Alphonse was placed upon it, and immediately it began to return to the sh.o.r.e. Alphonse had taken a paddle, and he and O'Grady worked away manfully. They made good progress, and in a short time reached the beach. Alphonse was sitting on a box. It was the case of his beloved fiddle. He put it under his arm as he stepped on sh.o.r.e, and shook Paul warmly by the hand.

"Ah! this has been the means of saving my life," he said; "I clung to it when I had nothing else to support me, and was washed, with the wreck of the boat to which Croxton and Cole were hanging on, up to the rock, though how we got on to it I do not know, nor do my companions, I believe."

Alphonse looked very pale, and complained of hunger and thirst. While he was speaking, the black was seen coming over the sand at a great rate on his four legs. To one of his arms was slung the can of water. It showed that he had good instead of evil intentions towards the s.h.i.+pwrecked seamen. He made signs for Alphonse to drink, which he thankfully did.

Paul was eager to go off for the rest, and obtained leave to take Devereux's place. The negro seemed to take an interest in their proceedings, and both Devereux and Alphonse expressed their belief that he wished to be friendly.

When O'Grady and Paul arrived at the rock, they found old Croxton and Reuben disputing who should remain to the last.

"The old before the young," cried Reuben.

"Ay, but the old should have the choice of the post of honour," said Croxton.

However, he was at last induced to step on to the raft. It was not a time to stand on ceremony, for the sky gave indications that the weather was about to change, and it was very evident that, should the sea get up, the rock would no longer be tenable. The raft felt the weight of the old man, and the two boys found it much more difficult to paddle to the sh.o.r.e.

They had not got far when Paul observed a dark triangular-shaped object above the water; then he saw a pair of fierce eyes fixed on him. It was a huge shark--large enough to upset the raft with a whisk of his tail.

He did not tell his companions, but paddled steadily on. What did the appearance of the monster portend? He had heard of the instinct of sharks. Did the creature follow in the expectation of obtaining a victim?

On this trip the shark was to be disappointed, for they reached the sh.o.r.e in safety, and landing the old man, who was suffering much from thirst, and was therefore doubly grateful for the supply of water brought by the black, they for the last time shoved off. Both the lads felt greatly fatigued, and though they set their sail, they had to paddle hard to keep the raft on a right course. The sea had been getting up, and every moment made Reuben's situation on the rock more insecure. Even if he could have swum across the channel, the monster Paul had seen would have taken good care that he should never have reached the sh.o.r.e. The knowledge of this, as well as their own safety, made them exert themselves to the utmost. Already more than one sea had dashed over the rock, and Reuben had to grasp it tightly to prevent himself from being washed off. A huge foaming billow was seen rolling in. It must sweep over the reef, and perhaps come thundering down on the raft.

The boys had just lowered their sail, and were paddling in. Reuben saw the roller coming. Making a sign to them to paddle back, he sprang into the water and struck out towards them. On came the billow--roaring, foaming. The rock was hidden from view by a ma.s.s of spray as the wave curled over it.

"Oh, he has gone! he has gone!" cried Paul, as, looking back, he could nowhere see his friend.

It was but for a moment. He had been concealed by the swelling water.

Again he appeared.

"Your hand! your hand!" cried Reuben.

Paul stretched out his hand with terror at heart, for at that moment he saw the dark fin of a shark on the surface of the water. He seized Reuben's hand, and dragged with all his might. The wave rushed on, das.h.i.+ng over the raft, and almost sweeping O'Grady and Paul from off it; but they held on, and it served the purpose of lifting Reuben on to it at the moment that a pair of ravenous jaws appeared opening in an attempt to seize him. The same sea, lifting the raft, drove it rapidly towards the sh.o.r.e--and another following, the boys paddling at the same time, sent it high up on the beach; but even then the receding waters would have carried it off, had not the negro and old Croxton rushed towards them, the former planting his crutches against it, and the latter grasping it tightly. Even thus they could not hold it long, but they gave time to the boys and Reuben to spring on sh.o.r.e, and then it was carried off, and soon shattered to pieces.

The black now made signs to all the party to accompany him to his hut, which, as may be supposed, they gladly did.