by Louis Tracy
CHAPTER V
IRIS TO THE RESCUE
"Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim death." --_Milton_.
He awoke to find the sun high in the heavens. Iris was preparingbreakfast; a fine fire was crackling cheerfully, and the presidinggoddess had so altered her appearance that the sailor surveyed her withastonishment.
He noiselessly assumed a sitting posture, tucked his feet beneath him,and blinked. The girl's face was not visible from where he sat, and fora few seconds he thought he must surely be dreaming. She was attired ina neat navy-blue dress and smart blouse. Her white canvas shoes werereplaced by strong leather boots. She was quite spick and span, thisisland Hebe.
So soundly had he slept that his senses returned but slowly. At last heguessed what had happened. She had risen with the dawn, and, conqueringher natural feeling of repulsion, selected from the store heaccumulated yesterday some more suitable garments than those in whichshe escaped from the wreck.
He quietly took stock of his own tattered condition, and passed areflective hand over the stubble on his chin. In a few days his facewould resemble a scrubbing-brush. In that mournful moment he would haveexchanged even his pipe and tobacco-box--worth untold gold--for shavingtackle. Who can say why his thoughts took such trend? Twenty-four hourscan effect great changes in the human mind if controlling influencesare active.
Then came a sharp revulsion of feeling. His name was Robert--a menial.He reached for his boots, and Iris heard him.
"Good morning," she cried, smiling sweetly. "I thought you would neverawake. I suppose you were very, very tired. You were lying so stillthat I ventured to peep at you a long time ago."
"Thus might Titania peep at an ogre," he said.
"You didn't look a bit like an ogre. You never do. You only try to talklike one--sometimes."
"I claim a truce until after breakfast. If my rough compliment offendsyou, let me depend upon a more gentle tongue than my own--
"'Her Angel's face As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place.'
"Those lines are surely appropriate. They come from the _FaerieQueene_."
"They are very nice, but please wash quickly. The eggs will be hard."
"Eggs!"
"Yes; I made a collection among the trees. I tasted one of a lot thatlooked good. It was first-rate."
He had not the moral courage to begin the day with a rebuke. She wasirrepressible, but she really must not do these things. He smothered asigh in the improvised basin which was placed ready for him.
Miss Deane had prepared a capital meal. Of course the ham and biscuitsstill bulked large in the bill of fare, but there were boiled eggs,fried bananas and an elderly cocoanut. These things, supplemented byclear cold water, were not so bad for a couple of castaways, hundredsof miles from everywhere.
For the life of him the man could not refrain from displaying theconversational art in which he excelled. Their talk dealt with Italy,Egypt, India. He spoke with the ease of culture and enthusiasm. Once heslipped into anecdote _a propos_ of the helplessness of Britishsoldiers in any matter outside the scope of the King's Regulations.
"I remember," he said, "seeing a cavalry subaltern and the members ofan escort sitting, half starved, on a number of bags piled up in theSuakin desert. And what do you think were in the bags?"
"I don't know," said Iris, keenly alert for deductions.
"Biscuits! They thought the bags contained patent fodder until Ienlightened them."
It was on the tip of her tongue to pounce on him with the comment:"Then you have been an officer in the army." But she forbore. She hadguessed this earlier. Yet the mischievous light in her eyes defiedcontrol. He was warned in time and pulled himself up short.
"You read my face like a book," she cried, with a delightful little_moue_.
"No printed page was ever so--legible."
He was going to say "fascinating," but checked the impulse. He went onwith brisk affectation--
"Now, Miss Deane, we have gossiped too long. I am a laggard thismorning; but before starting work, I have a few serious remarks tomake."
"More digs?" she inquired saucily.
"I repudiate 'digs.' In the first place, you must not make any moreexperiments in the matter of food. The eggs were a wonderful effort,but, flattered by success, you may poison yourself."
"Secondly?"
"You must never pass out of my sight without carrying a revolver, notso much for defence, but as a signal. Did you take one when you wentbird's-nesting?"
"No. Why?"
There was a troubled look in his eyes when he answered--
"It is best to tell you at once that before help reaches us we may bevisited by cruel and blood-thirsty savages. I would not even mentionthis if it were a remote contingency. As matters stand, you ought toknow that such a thing may happen. Let us trust in God's goodness thatassistance may come soon. The island has seemingly been deserted formany months, and therein lies our best chance of escape. But I amobliged to warn you lest you should be taken unawares."
Iris was serious enough now.
"How do you know that such danger threatens us?" she demanded.
He countered readily. "Because I happen to have read a good deal aboutthe China Sea and its frequenters," he said. "I am the last man in theworld to alarm you needlessly. All I mean to convey is that certainprecautions should be taken against a risk that is possible, notprobable. No more."
She could not repress a shudder. The aspect of nature was so beneficentthat evil deeds seemed to be out of place in that fair isle. Birds weresinging around them. The sun was mounting into a cloudless sky. Thegale had passed away into a pleasant breeze, and the sea was nowrippling against the distant reef with peaceful melody.
The sailor wanted to tell her that he would defend her against a hostof savages if he were endowed with many lives, but he was perforcetongue-tied. He even reviled himself for having spoken, but she saw theanguish in his face, and her woman's heart acknowledged him as herprotector, her shield.
"Mr. Jenks," she said simply, "we are in God's hands. I put my trust inHim, and in you. I am hopeful, nay more, confident. I thank you forwhat you have done, for all that you will do. If you cannot preserve mefrom threatening perils no man could, for you are as brave and gallanta gentleman as lives on the earth today."
Now, the strange feature of this extraordinary and unexpected outburstof pent-up emotion was that the girl pronounced his name with theslightly emphasized accentuation of one who knew it to be a meredisguise. The man was so taken aback by her declaration of faith thatthe minor incident, though it did not escape him, was smothered in atumult of feeling.
He could not trust himself to speak. He rose hastily and seized the axeto deliver a murderous assault upon a sago palm that stood close athand.
Iris was the first to recover a degree of self-possession. For a momentshe had bared her soul. With reaction came a sensitive shrinking. HerBritish temperament, no less than her delicate nature, disapprovedthese sentimental displays. She wanted to box her own ears.
With innate tact she took a keen interest in the felling of the tree.
"What do you want it for?" she inquired, when the sturdy trunk creakedand fell.
Jenks felt better now.
"This is a change of diet," he explained. "No; we don't boil the leavesor nibble the bark. When I split this palm open you will find that theinterior is full of pith. I will cut it out for you, and then it willbe your task to knead it with water after well washing it, pick out allthe fiber, and finally permit the water to evaporate. In a couple ofdays the residuum will become a white powder, which, when boiled, issago."
"Good gracious!" said Iris.
"The story sounds unconvincing, but I believe I am correct. It is wortha trial."
"I should have imagined that sago grew on a stalk like rice or wheat."
"Or Topsy!"
She laughed. A difficult situation had passed
without undue effort.Unhappily the man reopened it. Whilst using a crowbar as a wedge heendeavored to put matters on a straightforward footing.
"A little while ago," he said, "you seemed to imply that I had assumedthe name of Jenks."
But Miss Deane's confidential mood had gone. "Nothing of the kind," shesaid, coldly. "I think Jenks is an excellent name."
She regretted the words even as they fell from her lips. The sailorgave a mighty wrench with the bar, splitting the log to its clusteringleaves.
"You are right," he said. "It is distinctive, brief, dogmatic. I clingto it passionately."
Soon afterwards, leaving Iris to the manufacture of sago, he went tothe leeward side of the island, a search for turtles being hisostensible object. When the trees hid him he quickened his pace andturned to the left, in order to explore the cavity marked on the tinwith a skull and cross-bones. To his surprise he hit upon the remnantsof a roadway--that is, a line through the wood where there were nowell-grown trees, where the ground bore traces of humanity in the shapeof a wrinkled and mildewed pair of Chinese boots, a wooden sandal, eventhe decayed remains of a palki, or litter.
At last he reached the edge of the pit, and the sight that met his eyesheld him spellbound.
The labor of many hands had torn a chasm, a quarry, out of the side ofthe hill. Roughly circular in shape, it had a diameter of perhaps ahundred feet, and at its deepest part, towards the cliff, it ran to adepth of forty feet. On the lower side, where the sailor stood, itdescended rapidly for some fifteen feet.
Grasses, shrubs, plants of every variety, grew in profusion down thesteep slopes, wherever seeds could find precarious nurture, until apoint was reached about ten or eleven feet from the bottom. There allvegetation ceased as if forbidden to cross a magic circle.
Below this belt the place was a charnel-house. The bones of men andanimals mingled in weird confusion. Most were mere skeletons. A fewbodies--nine the sailor counted--yet preserved some resemblance ofhumanity. These latter were scattered among the older relics. They worethe clothes of Dyaks. Characteristic hats and weapons denoted theirnationality. The others, the first harvest of this modern Golgotha,might have been Chinese coolies. When the sailor's fascinated visioncould register details he distinguished yokes, baskets, odd-lookingspades and picks strewed amidst the bones. The animals were all of onetype, small, lanky, with long pointed skulls. At last he spied awithered hoof. They were pigs.
Over all lay a thick coating of fine sand, deposited from the eddyingwinds that could never reach the silent depths. The place was gruesome,horribly depressing. Jenks broke out into a clammy perspiration. Heseemed to be looking at the secrets of the grave.
At last his superior intelligence asserted itself. His brain becameclearer, recovered its power of analysis. He began to criticize,reflect, and this is the theory he evolved--
Some one, long ago, had discovered valuable minerals in the volcanicrock. Mining operations were in full blast when the extinct volcanotook its revenge upon the human ants gnawing at its vitals andsmothered them by a deadly outpouring of carbonic acid gas, thebottled-up poison of the ages. A horde of pigs, running wild over theisland--placed there, no doubt, by Chinese fishers--had met the samefate whilst intent on dreadful orgy.
Then there came a European, who knew how the anhydrate gas, beingheavier than the surrounding air, settled like water in that terriblehollow. He, too, had striven to wrest the treasure from the stone bydriving a tunnel into the cliff. He had partly succeeded and had goneaway, perhaps to obtain help, after crudely registering his knowledgeon the lid of a tin canister. This, again, probably fell into the handsof another man, who, curious but unconvinced, caused himself to be setashore on this desolate spot, with a few inadequate stores. Possibly hehad arranged to be taken off within a fixed time.
But a sampan, laden with Dyak pirates, came first, and the intrepidexplorer's bones rested near the well, whilst his head had gone todecorate the hut of some fierce village chief. The murderers, afterburying their own dead--for the white man fought hard, witness theempty cartridges--searched the island. Some of them, ignorantlyinquisitive, descended into the hollow. They remained there. Theothers, superstitious barbarians, fled for their lives, embarking sohastily that they took from the cave neither tools nor oil, though theywould greatly prize these articles.
Such was the tragic web he spun, a compound of fact and fancy. Itexplained all perplexities save one. What did "32 divided by 1" mean?Was there yet another fearsome riddle awaiting solution?
And then his thoughts flew to Iris. Happen what might, her brightpicture was seldom absent from his brain. Suppose, egg-hunting, she hadstumbled across this Valley of Death! How could he hope to keep ithidden from her? Was not the ghastly knowledge better than the horrorof a chance ramble through the wood and the shock of discovery, nay,indeed, the risk of a catastrophe?
He was a man who relieved his surcharged feelings with stronglanguage--a habit of recent acquisition. He indulged in it now and feltbetter. He rushed back through the trees until he caught sight of Irisindustriously kneading the sago pith in one of those most usefuldish-covers.
He called to her, led her wondering to the track, and pointed out thefatal quarry, but in such wise that she could not look inside it.
"You remember that round hole we saw from the summit rock?" he said."Well, it is full of carbonic acid gas, to breathe which meansunconsciousness and death. It gives no warning to the inexperienced. Itis rather pleasant than otherwise. Promise me you will never come nearthis place again."
Now, Iris, too, had been thinking deeply. Robert Jenks bulked large inher day-dreams. Her nerves were not yet quite normal. There was a catchin her throat as she answered--
"I don't want to die. Of course I will keep away. What a horrid islandthis is! Yet it might be a paradise."
She bit her lip to suppress her tears, but, being the Eve in thisgarden, she continued--
"How did you find out? Is there anything--nasty--in there?"
"Yes, the remains of animals, and other things. I would not have toldyou were it not imperative."
"Are you keeping other secrets from me?"
"Oh, quite a number."
He managed to conjure up a smile, and the ruse was effective. Sheapplied the words to his past history.
"I hope they will not be revealed so dramatically," she said.
"You never can tell," he answered. They were in prophetic vein thatmorning. They returned in silence to the cave.
"I wish to go inside, with a lamp. May I?" he asked.
"Certainly. Why not?"
He had an odd trick of blushing, this bronzed man with a gnarled soul.He could not frame a satisfactory reply, but busied himself inrefilling the lamp.
"May I come too?" she demanded.
He flung aside the temptation to answer her in kind, merely assenting,with an explanation of his design. When the lamp was in order he heldit close to the wall and conducted a systematic survey. The geologicalfault which favored the construction of the tunnel seemed to diverge tothe left at the further end. The "face" of the rock exhibited the marksof persistent labor. The stone had been hewn away by main force whenthe dislocation of strata ceased to be helpful.
His knowledge was limited on the subject, yet Jenks believed that thematerial here was a hard limestone rather than the external basalt.Searching each inch with the feeble light, he paused once, with anexclamation.
"What is it?" cried Iris.
"I cannot be certain," he said, doubtfully. "Would you mind holding thelamp whilst I use a crowbar?"
In the stone was visible a thin vein, bluish white in color. He managedto break off a fair-sized lump containing a well-defined specimen ofthe foreign metal.
They hurried into the open air and examined the fragment with curiouseyes. The sailor picked it with his knife, and the substance in thevein came off in laminated layers, small, brittle scales.
"Is it silver?" Iris was almost excited.
"I do not think so. I am no exp
ert, but I have a vague idea--I haveseen----"
He wrinkled his brows and pressed away the furrows with his hand, thatphysical habit of his when perplexed.
"I have it," he cried. "It is antimony."
Miss Deane pursed her lips in disdain. Antimony! What was antimony?
"So much fuss for nothing," she said.
"It is used in alloys and medicines," he explained. "To us it isuseless."
He threw the piece of rock contemptuously among the bushes. But, beingthorough in all that he undertook, he returned to the cave and againconducted an inquisition. The silver-hued vein became more stronglymarked at the point where it disappeared downwards into a collection ofrubble and sand. That was all. Did men give their toil, their lives,for this? So it would appear. Be that as it might, he had a morepressing work. If the cave still held a secret it must remain there.
Iris had gone back to her sago-kneading. Necessity had made the lady abread-maid.
"Fifteen hundred years of philology bridged by circumstance," musedJenks. "How Max Mueller would have reveled in the incident!"
Shouldering the axe he walked to the beach. The tide was low and thecircular sweep of the reef showed up irregularly, its black outlinessticking out of the vividly green water like jagged teeth.
Much debris from the steamer was lying high and dry. It was an easytask for an athletic man to reach the palm tree, yet the sailorhesitated, with almost imperceptible qualms.
"A baited rat-trap," he muttered. Then he quickened his pace. With thefirst active spring from rock to rock his unacknowledged doubtsvanished. He might find stores of priceless utility. The reflectioninspired him. Jumping and climbing like a cat, in two minutes he wasnear the tree.
He could now see the true explanation of its growth in a seeminglyimpossible place. Here the bed of the sea bulged upwards in a smallsand cay, which silted round the base of a limestone rock, so differentin color and formation from the coral reef. Nature, whose engineeringcontrivances can force springs to mountain tops, managed to deliver tothis isolated refuge a sufficient supply of water to nourish the palm,and the roots, firmly lodged in deep crevices, were well protected fromthe waves.
Between the sailor and the tree intervened a small stretch of shallowwater. Landward this submerged saddle shelved steeply into the lagoon.Although the water in the cove was twenty fathoms in depth, its crystalclearness was remarkable. The bottom, composed of marvelously whitesand and broken coral, rendered other objects conspicuous. He could seeplenty of fish, but not a single shark, whilst on the inner slope ofthe reef was plainly visible the destroyed fore part of the_Sirdar_, which had struck beyond the tree, relatively to hispresent standpoint. He had wondered why no boats were cast ashore. Nowhe saw the reason. Three of them were still fastened to the davits andcarried down with the hull.
Seaward the water was not so clear. The waves created patches of foam,and long submarine plants swayed gently in the undercurrent.
To reach Palm-tree Rock--anticipating its subsequent name--he mustcross a space of some thirty feet and wade up to his waist.
He made the passage with ease.
Pitched against the hole of the tree was a long narrow case, veryheavy, iron-clamped; and marked with letters in black triangles and thebroad arrow of the British Government.
"Rifles, by all the gods!" shouted the sailor. They were really by theEnfield Small Arms Manufactory, but his glee at this stroke of luckmight be held to excuse a verbal inaccuracy.
The _Sirdar_ carried a consignment of arms and ammunition fromHong Kong to Singapore. Providence had decreed that a practicallyinexhaustible store of cartridges should be hurled across the lagoon tothe island. And here were Lee-Metfords enough to equip half a company.He would not risk the precious axe in an attempt to open the case. Hemust go back for a crowbar.
What else was there in this storehouse, thrust by Neptune from theocean bed? A chest of tea, seemingly undamaged. Three barrels of flour,utterly ruined. A saloon chair, smashed from its pivot. A batteredchronometer. For the rest, fragments of timber intermingled withpulverized coral and broken crockery.
A little further on, the deep-water entrance to the lagoon curvedbetween sunken rocks. On one of them rested the _Sirdar's_ hugefunnel. The north-west section of the reef was bare. Among the wreckagehe found a coil of stout rope and a pulley. He instantly conceived theidea of constructing an aerial line to ferry the chest of tea acrossthe channel he had forded.
He threaded the pulley with the rope and climbed the tree, adding atouch of artistic completeness to the ruin of his trousers by theoperation. He had fastened the pulley high up the trunk before herealized how much more simple it would be to break open the chest whereit lay and transport its contents in small parcels.
He laughed lightly. "I am becoming addleheaded," he said to himself."Anyhow, now the job is done I may as well make use of it."
Recoiling the rope-ends, he cast them across to the reef. In such smallways do men throw invisible dice with death. With those two lines hewould, within a few fleeting seconds, drag himself back from eternity.
Picking up the axe, he carelessly stepped into the water, not knowingthat Iris, having welded the incipient sago into a flat pancake, hadstrolled to the beach and was watching him.
The water was hardly above his knees when there came a swirling rushfrom the seaweed. A long tentacle shot out like a lasso and gripped hisright leg. Another coiled round his waist.
"My God!" he gurgled, as a horrid sucker closed over his mouth andnose. He was in the grip of a devil-fish.
A deadly sensation of nausea almost overpowered him, but the love oflife came to his aid, and he tore the suffocating feeler from his face.Then the axe whirled, and one of the eight arms of the octopus lostsome of its length. Yet a fourth flung itself around his left ankle. Afew feet away, out of range of the axe, and lifting itself bodily outof the water, was the dread form of the cuttle, apparently all head,with distended gills and monstrous eyes.
The sailor's feet were planted wide apart. With frenzied effort hehacked at the murderous tentacles, but the water hindered him, and hewas forced to lean back, in superhuman strain, to avoid losing hisbalance. If once this terrible assailant got him down he knew he waslost. The very need to keep his feet prevented him from attempting todeal a mortal blow.
The cuttle was anchored by three of its tentacles. Its remaining armdarted with sinuous activity to again clutch the man's face or neck.With the axe he smote madly at the curling feeler, diverting its aimtime and again, but failing to deliver an effective stroke.
With agonized prescience the sailor knew that he was yielding. Were thedevil-fish a giant of its tribe he could not have held out so long. Asit was, the creature could afford to wait, strengthening its grasp,tightening its coils, pulling and pumping at its prey with remorselesscertainty.
He was nearly spent. In a paroxysm of despair he resolved to give way,and with one mad effort seek to bury the axe in the monster's brain.But ere he could execute this fatal project--for the cuttle would haveinstantly swept him into the trailing weeds--five revolver shots rangout in quick succession. Iris had reached the nearest rock.
The third bullet gave the octopus cause to reflect. It squirted forth atorrent of dark-colored fluid. Instantly the water became black,opaque. The tentacle flourishing in air thrashed the surface withimpotent fury; that around Jenks's waist grew taut and rigid. The axeflashed with the inspiration of hope. Another arm was severed; the hugedismembered coil slackened and fell away.
Yet was he anchored immovably. He turned to look at Iris. She neverforgot the fleeting expression of his face. So might Lazarus havelooked from the tomb.
"The rope!" she screamed, dropping the revolver and seizing the looseends lying at her feet.
She drew them tight and leaned back, pulling with all her strength. Thesailor flung the axe to the rocks and grasped the two ropes. He raisedhimself and plunged wildly. He was free. With two convulsive strides hewas at the girl's side.
He stumb
led to a boulder and dropped in complete collapse. After a timehe felt Iris's hand placed timidly on his shoulder. He raised his headand saw her eyes shining.
"Thank you," he said. "We are quits now."
