Palm Tree Island

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

  OF OUR ENTRENCHMENTS; OF THE LAUNCHING OF OUR CANOE, AND THE DEADLYPERIL THAT ATTENDED OUR FIRST VOYAGE

  While we were busy making the trench to keep the rain from our hut,another notion came all of a sudden into my mind, which, in a kind ofmerry sport, I at once made known to Billy.

  "We will make a moat about our castle, Billy," said I.

  "What's a moat, and where's our castle?" says he, leaning on his spade,and looking all around.

  "Why, every Englishman's house is his castle, as they say," I answered,"and as to a moat, you must know, Billy, that in the olden times----"

  "The times of Robin Hood or Robinson Crusoe?" says he; "for if it is Idon't believe a word of it."

  "This is quite true, I assure you," I said. "In the olden times, Isay, when every great lord lived in his castle, there was a great ditchor trench all round it, to keep enemies away, for in those times lordoften used to fight lord."

  "Like rats," says Billy. "Go on, master."

  "Well, that ditch was called a moat, and it could only be crossed by adrawbridge," I said, "that is, a bridge that was let down over it fromthe castle gateway; and so, when the bridge was up, and the moat filledwith water, no enemy could get into the castle, and the people insidewere safe."

  "And suppose they were," says Billy, "what's the good unless they'd gotenough victuals inside to last 'em ever so long? If I was the lordoutside I'd stop there till they either starved or came out and had agood fight."

  [Sidenote: Beginning a Moat]

  I answered that no doubt that was what they did, and went on to saythat if we continued our trench and made it wider and deeper, bringingit close against the walls of our castle, we might add very greatly tothe strength of our position if ever the savages came to the island andwe had to defend ourselves against them. As to the matter of food, Isaid that we had in the cavern below the castle as good a storehouse aswe could wish for, and I resolved that we would start at once, or atleast as soon as we had finished our canoe, to convey a great store ofbread-fruit and yams, and salted pork and fish, into the cavern, forwhich purpose we should have to increase the number of our pots andpans. But since this storehouse would be of little use to us if wewere driven out of the castle, Billy consented to help me to dig amoat, though he said it would take us ten years to finish it, if wemade it deep enough and wide enough to be of any avail. And, indeed,we were not long in finding out, when we began the work, that it wouldtake us a very great time, if not ten years; for to be of any defensiveuse the moat must be at least six feet deep and about twice as wide,and we were aghast when, at the end of a day's work with our spades, wesaw the exceeding smallness of what we had achieved. I was minded togive up the attempt, though it always vexed me to leave a thing halfdone, and the partial excavation we had made gave an untidy appearanceto the place which displeased me mightily. Moreover, the rainsceasing, and a season of dry weather ensuing, the ground became so muchharder that we found our progress even slower than before, so that wedid give it up, and went back very cheerfully to our canoe, which wehad neglected all this time.

  We had hollowed out the log sufficiently for our purpose, though when Ilooked at the clumsy product of our toil I had a great doubt whether weshould be able to sail in it. It had none of the nice curves andshapeliness of a boat, and was the same at the one end as at the other,so that to talk of its prow cutting the water, or cleaving the waves,as fine writers say, would always have been ridiculous. However, wehad first to bring it to the water, and that we found a prodigioustask. The log, even hollowed out as it was, was much heavier thanthose we had used in building our hut, and all our pushing and pullingdid not avail to move it an inch. We tried the plan of the rollers,whereby we had brought the trees down the hill-side, and by levering upthe end of the canoe we managed to slip one of our round poles beneathit, and then others, and when we had several in place, we shoved it andmoved it a few feet towards the sea. But the weight of it was so greatthat the poles were driven into the sand, and so far from beingrollers, there they stuck, and we had no means of removing them exceptby digging them out. This was a pretty check at the outset, and I donot think anything could have been more vexatious. Billy and I stoodbeside our ungainly vessel, cudgelling our brains for some means ofmoving it, and Billy said he wished the worst storm that ever was wouldspring up, so that the waves would come dashing up the beach to thecliffs, and so carry back the canoe into its rightful element.

  "What makes water so strong, master?" he said, when he had uttered thisprayer for a storm. "The sea could lift this here ugly thing as easyas if it was a cork; but water ain't got no muscles, and it's muscleswhat does it."

  I could only answer that such was the nature of things, and that mademe think how feeble even the strongest man is, and how a puff of windor a wave of the sea can undo in a moment the labour of weeks andmonths. I might have said something of this to Billy, though he wasalways impatient of such talk, only he broke in upon my musing: "Well,"says he, "I suppose we'll have to go and cut some more poles, and makea regular road of 'em down to the sea, and that'll take us a week ormore."

  "Time doesn't matter to us," I said.

  "Oh, but it does," cried Billy. "Suppose Old Smoker took it into hishead to go a-blazing? Suppose there was an earthquake? If we had thecanoe afloat, we could lie off a bit until Old Smoker's temper wasover."

  "But why suppose such things?" I said. "Here have we been two years ormore upon this island, and nothing has happened to harm us----"

  "Except that ugly monster with the long legs," says Billy, interrupting.

  "True; and----" I began. But he interrupted again.

  "And the shark," says he, "and the pig what tumbled me over, and thedogs what bit me. It's all very well for you to talk, master. Thingsain't fair, that's all I've got to say. You don't get hurt, but I do.Why, even fleas, now. We had a lot of fleas at home, but d'you thinkthey hurt my mother-in-law? Not a bit of it. They plagued me awful,till I could screech; but my mother-in-law never felt 'em at all, andthat wasn't fair, 'cause she was big and I was little--at least, not sobig as her."

  I said it was true that Billy had suffered more mishaps than I, butperhaps my turn would come some day; meanwhile we had as yet discoveredno way of moving the canoe, unless we tried Billy's plan of laying akind of roadway of poles from the cliff to the sea, and we supposed weshould have to do that, arduous as the work would be. We left it forthat day, and for the next, too, being loath to begin a task we did notlike; and then we saw another way of achieving our purpose, which Iwonder we had not thought of before. We had rigged up over the hole inthe floor leading to the cavern a sort of windlass, by means of whichwe lowered provisions into our store-room, and it was when we wereletting down a basketful of yams that the idea came into my head.Could we by any means devise a windlass which would give us asufficient purchase to haul the canoe to the sea?

  "'Course not," said Billy, when I put it to him. I never knew Billy'slike for the seeing of difficulties. "Nothing but oaks would be strongenough."

  [Sidenote: Launching the Canoe]

  But I was by no means satisfied that the plan was impossible, and Iwent down to the shore at low tide to look about me. I ought to saythat the windlass in the house was a very simple machine. We had stucktwo young stout saplings into the ground, one on each side of the hole,having shortened their stems so that the fork where the lowest brancheswere stood about three feet above the earth. Across these forks welaid a short round pole for the drum of the winch, at one end of thiswe lashed two slighter poles for the handle, and about the drum wewound and unwound the rope by which we lowered things. Now it wasquite certain that we could not move our heavy canoe unless we had acontrivance very much stronger than this, and the difficulty was that awindlass for this purpose must be erected on the sand, and belowlow-water mark, or it would not bring the canoe to the water. Therewere certainly no trees of any kind growing in the sand, so that itseemed that any
contrivance of the kind must be made there by our ownhands.

  But as I was walking along the beach, endeavouring to see my waythrough this difficulty, I observed a rock, not above three feet high,which had a deep jagged groove across the top of it, resembling in somedegree the fork of a tree. I looked about for a companion rock near athand, but all that I saw were flatter and much smaller, not one havingany groove to match the other. But why should we not rig up, Ithought, something that should serve as well? After a great deal ofconsideration I hit upon a plan, which Billy and I proceeded at nextlow tide to carry out. We got two stout poles, and drove them into thesand with the pummet, one across the other, so that the tops of themmade a big letter V, the point of which was at the same height as thegroove in the rock. We next laid a stout pole across from the V to thegroove, smearing it at the resting-places very plentifully with fat, sothat it would turn easily: this made a drum. Then we plaited a thickand long rope, and wound one end about the drum and knotted the otherend to the nose of the canoe through a hole we made with our axes.Last of all, we fastened a handle to the drum in the same way as we haddone with the small windlass in the hut.

  When this rough piece of machinery was ready we began to turn thehandle, both of us heaving at it, because the canoe was so heavy thatit needed all our strength. At first, indeed, we could scarcely moveit, and feared that all was again for nought; but when we had greasedthe drum again with pork fat where it fitted into the supports, wemanaged to turn it a very little way, and that giving encouragement, wepersevered, and had the joy of seeing the canoe coming inch by inch,with much creaking and groaning of our machine, nearer to the water.If the canoe had had a keel, I doubt whether we could have moved it,for it would almost certainly have ploughed into the sand and stuck;but being rounded and not pointed, it slid down, though slowly and withmany checks. And so, having drawn it down to a spot where the depth ofwater when the tide came in would be sufficient to float it, we letforth a shout of delight and went home to dinner with cheerful mindsand keen appetites, I do assure you.

  We had left our mooring-rope attaching the canoe to the rock, so thatit should not float away while we were at dinner; and when we hadfinished the meal we went down to the shore again, very impatient totry the vessel's buoyancy. The tide was not yet come near high enoughto float it, and we waited for a good while, watching the ripplescrawling up over the sand, every moment a little higher. At last thewater was washing around the canoe; then it floated, and no sooner didit float than Billy pushed it out with a great shove into deeper waterand leaped aboard, and I laughed heartily at what ensued, for he turneda somerset and went souse into the sea, and the canoe filled and sank.Billy came up spluttering, and the first words he said were, "What'sthe good of the silly thing!" And, indeed, I saw that maybe the matterwas not one for amusement, for if the vessel toppled over, or turnedturtle, as they say at sea, whenever we tried to board her, we shouldhave had all our labour in vain. However, we could but wait until thetide fell again, when she would be left high and dry, and meanwhile wewent back to the house, as well to dry Billy's clothes (what there wasnow left of them) as to consider how we might improve the stability ofthe vessel on which we set such store.

  [Sidenote: The Outrigger]

  I remembered that when we were on the island where we sojourned for atime (how long ago it seemed!) we had seen some strangely-shaped canoeswhich very much moved my curiosity. There were cross-pieces of woodlet into the side of the canoe, and bent over, being fastened at thelower extremity to a pole or plank which floated on the water. Thisodd contrivance I had heard the seamen call an outrigger, and thepurpose of it was to keep the vessel on an even keel, as one may say,though having no keel it would be better to say plainly, to keep itsteady. I was now much more alive to the benefit of this contrivancethan when I had merely seen it as a spectator; things do take on verydifferent aspects according as we are personally interested or not; andwe immediately set to work to fashion an outrigger for our vessel,which took us two or three full working days to make, and another dayto adjust. When it was done, we floated the canoe once more, and gotinto her, and felt exceeding pleased with ourselves for the space ofperhaps a minute, and then our complacency received a wound, for bysome shifting of our position the balance of the vessel was altered,the outrigger rose up and made best part of a circle in the air, andBilly and I were cast into the water. It was plain that the outriggerwas too light, and we made another one, using this time the heavy woodof the cocoa-nut palm, which being very hard, too, gave us a deal oftrouble to fashion to the right shape; but we managed it at last, andwhen we fixed this new outrigger to the canoe, we found that we couldsway from side to side without any danger of capsizing. Billy wasgreatly uplifted at this, and wanted to set off there and then on avoyage; he even said that perhaps we might rig up a sail and voyage toEngland; but I told him that we had not yet proved the vessel, and didnot even know whether she would ride through a sea of any roughness;and as for England, it was impossible to think that we could ever crossthe immense ocean in so clumsy a craft, though the mention of it set mea-longing, and I felt more miserable than I had done for many a day.

  We had not yet made any paddles for propelling our canoe; Billy verysensibly saying that 'twas no good wasting time on them until we hadproved whether our vessel would float. However, now that we wereassured of this, we made some paddles, finding it a pretty hard job,for we had no means of splitting planks from the trees, and we had tocontent ourselves with short poles, with blades made in the followingmanner. To one end of the pole we lashed a thin flexible rod, bent tothe shape of a circle, and we made a kind of basket-work on this bycrossing and re-crossing with threads of cocoa-nut fibre, which we drewas tight as we could. When we had coloured it red with the sap of theredwood tree of which I have spoken before, we had a very serviceablepaddle, and not ill-looking either. We paddled about in shallow waternear the sandy beach, not venturing to go further out as yet, from fearof capsizing where we might be snapped up by a shark. Our vesselbehaved very well, though with no grace of movement, to be sure, and wefound after a little practice that we could sit on the crosspieces ofthe outrigger, which joined the sides of the canoe, and work ourpaddles very well.

  I asked Billy what we should call our vessel.

  "Blackamoor, that's what I say," said he.

  "But she's only black inside," said I; "her outside is fair enough; andnow I come to think of it, we can paint her and make her look betterstill."

  [Sidenote: Naming the Vessel]

  Accordingly we did this, expressing oil from the candle-nuts of which Ihave spoken, and mixing this with sap from the red-wood tree. We madea paintbrush of thin spines, and with this we painted the sides of thevessel, which took us above a fortnight, I should think, for it waswonderful what a prodigious quantity of paint we used, and what aprodigious number of nuts we pressed before we got enough oil for ourpurpose. When the painting was finished, Billy said that we ought tocall the vessel _Painted Sally_, or some such name; but I thought shedeserved a more respectful appellation, and suggested _Esperanza_, aname which I had come upon somewhere in my reading, and which I thoughthad a pleasant sound. However, Billy would not hear of it.

  "It's French, that I warrant you," he said, "and I can't abide 'em.Besides, what's it mean? I suppose it means some rubbish or other."

  "Well, I think it means 'hope'," I said, "and I think it a muchprettier word."

  "I don't," says Billy bluntly; "it's too soft like."

  "And therefore it suits our vessel," I said, "for you know, Billy,ships are always given ladies' names."

  "Yes, and the _Lovey Susan_," says he, "she went to the bottom, and_her_ name was soft enough, and I don't believe any boat with the name_Esperanza_ would ever have the strength to ride through a storm. Ilikes a plain straightforward name, I do, like my own; you won't findany man," says he, "with a better name than Billy Bobbin."

  "Well, shall we call her Billy?" I asked.

  Billy looked
very serious at this, and after considering for a minutehe said he wasn't going to be called a "her" or a "she" for anybody,not even on a boat, and then added, "Call her plain _Hope_ and settleit, master, and never mind about your _Esperanzas_."

  "Fair Hope would suit a lady better than Plain Hope," I said verygravely, and Billy, who was quite unconscious of the verbal point('twas a very small one, I own), agreed that _Fair Hope_ wasn't bad;and so we got some powdered charcoal and mixed it with oil, and printedthe name in black letters on the larboard bow, as Billy called it, andhaving done this, we thought we might now venture to make a shortexpedition up the coast.

  [Sidenote: We go Sailing]

  It was a fair bright morning when we set out on this our first voyage,and we were very much excited, as you may imagine. We had been by myreckoning, which was pure guess-work, above two years on the island,and though we had become pretty reconciled to it, regarding it indeedas our home for the rest of our lives, there were times when our lotseemed to be that of prisoners, and the prospect of getting beyond ourbounds, though ever so short a distance and for ever so short a time,seemed like the loosening of fetters and the removing of prison bars.This made me think what a blessed thing is liberty, and when Iremembered unfortunate people whom I had read about as falling intocaptivity I compared our lot with theirs, and saw how much we had to bethankful for.

  However, to return to our voyage. We had been taught a certain cautionby sundry incidents that had already happened in our life on theisland, so we put some food and two or three pots of fresh water in thebottom of the vessel, and our spears, axes, and bows and arrows aswell. While Billy carried these things down to the vessel, I went upto our watch-tower, to see whether any canoes were in sight, for weshould have been very sorry if we had run among a fleet of savagevessels. However, there was not a speck to be seen, only the low duskyline on the western horizon that we believed to be the coast of someisland. Accordingly we set off in perfect ease of mind, and paddledslowly along, keeping close to the shore, and following itsindentations as well as the rocks and shoals would permit us.

  The seaward aspect of the familiar parts of the island was veryinteresting to us, and we amused ourselves with guessing what places inthe interior were opposite to us when the cliffs hid them from sight.For some distance we passed beneath low cliffs; then the shore took agreat curve inward, making the bay we had called by Billy's name; thehead of this bay we judged to be the point of the shore nearest to ourhut, which was not itself visible from any part of the sea, lying as itdid in a hollow. We paddled out to the nearest of the big rocks thatstood like sentinels guarding this side of the island, and found agreat quantity of clams upon it, some of which Billy insisted on takinginto the boat, to see if they tasted any different from those we foundon our own shore, and in reaching over he pretty nearly upset thevessel. From thence we went on to the second rock, some littledistance out to sea, and Billy wanted to get out and climb the rock,which stood almost perpendicular, but with jagged sides, so thatclimbing was possible; but the base of it was so thickly covered withslimy seaweed that it would have been difficult to maintain a footing,so I persuaded Billy to forego the enterprise. Leaving this rock, wecontinued on our course, and came by and by to the rocky spar that waswhat may be called the land's end of this part of the island. Here thecliffs were very steep, indeed, almost perpendicular, as we haddiscovered before when we had tried to walk round the coast, and foundour way blocked. When we had turned the corner, we found anotherlittle bay, but no beach, except a very small strip of sand at the footof the cliffs. We saw a great quantity of driftwood on this beach, andwhen we paddled up to it, a huge eel darted away from beneath awater-sodden log, on which Billy made a great lamentation because wehad not brought our fishing lines and hooks. Among the driftwood wesaw two or three very old planks, worm-eaten and covered with moss, andwe wondered whether they were planks of the boat of the _Lovey Susan_,which we might have had now if we had been more thoughtful. We tookthem on board, not that they would be of any use to us, but that wemight keep them as mementoes.

  [Sidenote: The Cave]

  Paddling out of this bay, we were coasting along by more high cliffswhen we came all of a sudden to an immense opening, which appeared torun a great way into the shore, though we could not tell how far, forits depths were very black.

  "A cave, master!" cried Billy, full of excitement, and I was excitedtoo, there being I know not what of mystery and fascination about acave. "Let us go in," says he.

  You may think it strange, but I felt a great reluctance to paddle intothat gloomy place; my imagination, more active than Billy's, saw itpeopled by sea-urchins and hobgoblins, and I could fancy I alreadyheard strange noises, the fruit, I suppose, of my reading thatwonderful play of Shakespeare, _The Tempest_. However, I could notshow the white feather before Billy, so we paddled into the entrance,finding a considerable depth of water there, and so for twenty orthirty yards, there being more light in the cave than we had thoughtwhen outside, because it was lofty, and the water threw up reflections.But when we had come some twenty yards into it, it made a sudden bendto the right, and at the same place became very much darker, so thatthough we peered in we could see but a few yards in front of us. Westayed for a little, looking about us, and seeing nothing but whatappeared to be considerable patches of seaweed floating on the water;nor did we hear any noises, but all was as still as death, so that evenBilly was oppressed by the silence, and even more by the hollow echowhen he spoke.

  "I don't much like the look of this place, master," he said.

  I did not tell him that my feeling was the same, but affected to laughat him, though at the same time I dipped my paddle to bring the vesselround with her head pointing to the opening. As I did so, I observed asort of heaving and undulating movement in one of the patches ofseaweed, and marvelled at it, for there was no current on the surface,and the vessel was perfectly steady. But supposing there must be anunder-current of some kind, I paid no more heed to it, but continued topaddle, and we soon brought the vessel out of the cave and among alittle labyrinth of rocks, partly above the surface and partlysubmerged. We had but just got there, however, when we found ourvessel begin to lose way and our paddles to stick in the seaweed, as wesupposed, which was now very thick on the surface, and which was thegreater impediment to us because of the outrigger. We strove as hardas we could to force the vessel through, but it was like tugging at arebellious slip-knot; the harder you tug the more you tie yourself up.We were thinking of backing the vessel, so as to go round about theobstacle, when all of a sudden, as I took notice of how the tendrils ofthe seaweed were clinging about the outrigger and curling up towardsthe side of the canoe, I was seized with the horrid suspicion that wehad not to deal with seaweed at all, but with a monster, or maybeseveral, like to that terrible creature which had almost dragged medown when we were searching for eggs, as I have related. This thoughtmade me shudder with a sickening apprehension, especially when thenotion struck me, as it did at that moment, that this cavern could notbe very far from the steep and rugged cliff by which we had descended.Even before I could whisper my dread thought to Billy, some of thetentacles, as I had now no doubt they were, were creeping over theside, and one of them touched my leg and immediately held fast. For aninstant I was perfectly overcome with horror, as I was on the cliff,and, as it were, paralyzed in my will; but then, making a great effort,I jerked myself free, at the same time calling aloud to Billy andchopping with my axe, which I had seized, at the tentacles that heldthe canoe in their grip and had altogether stopped its motion.

  [Sidenote: A Shoal of Monsters]

  "The monster, is it?" cries Billy, who hated the thing with the sameaversion as I did, but seemed to be quite exempt from its fascination."I'll monster him," says he, and he dropped his paddle and took up hisaxe and began hacking away with all his might at the horrid feelersthat were crawling over the vessel. There were the two of us, then,slashing and chopping with desperate energy, running, or rathercreepin
g as quickly as we could, from end to end of the canoe whenevera tentacle showed itself above the gunwale, with the result that thegrip of the creature (or creatures, for we knew not whether we had todo with one or many)--the grip of it, I say, relaxed, and we thought wecould leave our axes and take to the paddles again. But we had notgone above two yards when the vessel was brought up again, and thistime the paddles themselves were seized, and though I struggled withall my strength, my paddle was drawn out of my hands and I saw it nomore. Billy was more lucky, and kept his, but he had to drop it intothe bottom and take to his axe again, as I did to mine, and so we fellto it again, slashing and chopping at these hideous tentacles that cameup over the side, parts of them falling into the bottom of the vesselas we severed them and writhing there. Once more we beat off the enemythus, and then I seized Billy's paddle in feverish haste, and plied itwith all my might, Billy doing what he could also with two spears heldtogether. And this time we got clear of the rocky labyrinth, to myunutterable relief, though with some scraping of the outrigger, for youmay be sure we were in so great a hurry to get away that we could notstop for nice steering; and we kept on paddling hard for some minutesafter we were a fair distance along the shore, and, indeed, did notcease until we found ourselves in the channel between the island andthe red rock, and then we had another alarm, but of a different kind,for our vessel was caught in the mighty current which rushed throughthe narrow passage, and was swept on as if it had been a cork, wegripping the thwarts and fearing every moment that we should either bedashed against the rocks on one side or the other, or be totallysubmerged in the boiling torrent. However, we came out at the furtherend safe, though very wet and terrified, and were carried on, thoughnot so violently, past the place where the cascade fell from themountain, and so on towards the long spit of land that had the naturalarchway at its end.

  [Sidenote: The End of the Voyage]

  We still had cause for alarm, for as yet we had no mastery of thevessel, and feared we should be carried by the current right out tosea. But by dint of great efforts, Billy with the paddle, which he hadtaken from me, being the more muscular, and I with the spears, wemanaged to take the vessel across the current and towards the land onour right hand, and by and by got into pretty calm water near thearchway. Here, in the steep wall of the cliff, we saw a small cove,where we might have beached the canoe; but after what we had comethrough we had little disposition to linger, and so we paddled throughthe archway and turned the corner, and went along by the lava beachuntil we came at length to the sandy beach whence we had started. Wewere fairly worn out, I assure you, as well with our frights andterrors as with our exertions, and besides, we had eaten nothing sincethe morning, though we had provisions with us, having had too much tothink about otherwise. Never did mariners land with more thankfulnessthan we did. When we had tied up our vessel we went to our house andbuilt a roaring fire, to cheer our spirits as well as to dry ourclothes; and when we had eaten a comforting meal and fell a-talking, wespoke of our satisfaction in the seaworthiness of the Fair Hope, andalso in having circumnavigated the island.

  "I'd like to kill that monster," says Billy, as we talked about thatpart of our adventure; "and I will, too, if he'll come out of that cavewhere we can see him proper."

  "I think we had better leave him in possession undisturbed," I said,with the horror of the creature still upon me. "Perhaps there is ashoal of the monsters there; the rocks we saw would make a very goodhome for them. And I don't think we'll go that way again, Billy; Iseem to see those dreadful tentacles crawling all about me, and theleathery feel of them when I chopped makes me shudder still."

  "Cheer up, master," says Billy. "After all, we did 'em more damagethan they did us, and taught 'em a lesson, I warrant you."