CHAPTER TWELVE.
OUR ISLAND HOME.
THE ILLUSION OF THE GOLDEN HAZE--THE WALL OF BREAKERS--A STRUGGLE FORLIFE--THE ISLET OF PALMS.
"Keel never ploughed that lonely sea, That isle no human eye hath viewed; Around it still in tumult rude, The surges everlastingly, Burst on the coral-girded shore With mighty bound and ceaseless roar; A fresh unsullied work of God, By human footstep yet untrod."
The native lad now seemed to be quite overwhelmed with grief. He hadmade no manifestations of it while we were endeavouring to discover sometrace of his companions, but when at length we relinquished the attempt,and it became certain that they had all perished, he uttered a low,wailing cry, full of distress and anguish, and laying his head upon hishands, sobbed bitterly.
The Frenchman had told us that the island lay to the northward; and wenow put the head of the boat in that direction, steering by the sun,which was just setting.
When the first violence of the boy's grief had somewhat abated, Arthurspoke to him gently, in the dialect of the Society Islands. He listenedattentively, turning his large eyes upon Arthur's face with anexpression of mingled timidity and interest and replied in a low,musical voice. They seemed to understand one another, and talkedtogether for some time. The language spoken by the boy, differed solittle, as Arthur told us, from that of the Tahitians, that he easilygathered the meaning of what he said. Upon being questioned as to thedistance of the island, and the course which we must steer in order toreach it, he pointed to a bright star, just beginning to be visible inthe north-east.
It is customary with the South-sea Islanders, before setting out ontheir long voyages, in which it is necessary to venture out of sight ofland, to select some star by which to regulate their course in thenight-time; this they call the "aveia," or guiding star of the voyage.They are thus enabled to sail from island to island, and from group togroup, between which all intercourse would otherwise be impossiblewithout a compass. The star now pointed out to us, had been fixed uponby the companions of the little islander, at the commencement of theirill-fated voyage, as marking the direction of the home which they weredestined never to regain. Among other things, we learned from the boy,that his native island, which we were now endeavouring to reach, was thelargest of a group of three, over all of which his father's authority,as chief or king, extended: that there were six whites living amongthem, who had arrived there many years before, with the one who had justperished, and had come from an uninhabited island to the southward, uponwhich they had been wrecked.
During the night the wind continued fair, and animated by the hopes towhich the statements of the little native had given rise, we renewed ourwatch, which had lately been discontinued, and sailed steadilynorthward, cherishing a strong confidence that we should reach landbefore morning.
The second watch--from a little after midnight to dawn--fell to me. Asit began to grow light I almost feared to look northward, dreading theshock of a fresh disappointment, that must consign us again to thebenumbing apathy from which we had yesterday rallied.
There seemed to me to be something unusual in the atmosphere, thatimpeded, or rather confused and bewildered the sight; and when the sunrose, I had not made out anything like land. It was not mist or fog,for the air was dry, and there were already indications of a fiercelyhot day, though it was yet fresh and cool. The sky above us, too, wasperfectly clear, all the clouds seemed to have slid down to the horizon,along which a white army of them was marshalled, in rounded fleecymasses, like Alpine peaks towering one above another, or shiningicebergs, pale and cold as those that drift in Arctic seas.
One by one my companions awoke to learn the failure, thus far, of allthe sanguine expectations of the preceding evening. The native boycould suggest no reason why we had not reached the island, and whenquestioned on the subject, and told that we had steered all through thenight by the "aveia," he merely shook his head with a bewildered andhopeless look. Max, on perceiving that we were still out of sight ofland, threw himself down again in the bottom of the boat withoutspeaking a word, where he remained with his eyes closed as if sleeping.
Arthur, after some further conversation with the little islander, cameto the conclusion that in steering due north, we had not made sufficientallowance for the strong current setting westward; and he proposed thatwe should now sail directly east, to which no objection was made, mostof us having at last come to feel that it could matter little whatcourse we thenceforth steered. He accordingly took the direction ofthings into his own hands: the wind, which had moderated, was still fromthe west, and he put the boat before it, and lashed the helm. Thepeculiar appearance of the atmosphere still continued. During themorning a number of tropic birds flew by us, the first that we had seensince our separation from the ship. About noon, two noddies alighted onthe gaff, and the little native climbed the mast after them; but thoughthey are generally so tame, or so stupid, as to permit themselves to beapproached and taken with the hand, these flew away before he couldseize them. We hailed the appearance of these birds as a favourableomen, neither species being often seen at any considerable distance fromland. It was, I suppose, about an hour after this, that happening tolook back, I saw what appeared to be a high island, covered with tallgroves of palms, some two miles distant. The elevated shores, and thegreen tops of the trees, were plainly visible; but just at the pointwhere land and water met, there was a kind of hazy indistinctness in theview. We were sailing directly from it, and I could not understand howwe had passed as near as we must have done, without observing it.Browne, catching sight of it almost at the same time with myself,uttered an exclamation that quickly aroused the attention of the rest,and we all stood for a moment gazing, half incredulously, upon the landwhich seemed to have started up so suddenly out of the sea, in the verytrack which we had just passed over.
Arthur alone, appeared to be but little moved; he looked long andintently, without uttering a word.
"This is singular--very singular!" said Morton. "It seems as though wemust have sailed over the _very_ spot where it lies."
"Unless I am mistaken," said Arthur, "we have been going backward forsome time past: we must be in a very powerful current, which is carryingus in a direction contrary to that in which we are heading: the wind isso light that this is not impossible."
"I believe you are right," said Morton, "I can account for it in noother way."
"We had better then pull down the sail, and take the benefit of the fullforce of the current," resumed Arthur: this was accordingly done, andthe mast unstepped.
A short time passed, during which we appeared to be steadily drawingnearer to the land. The shore itself where it emerged from the ocean,we could not see with perfect distinctness: a fine, golden haze, like avisible atmosphere, waved and quivered before it, half veiling it fromsight, and imparting to it an uncertain, though bright and dazzlingaspect: but this appearance was confined to the lower part of the land;the bold shores and high groves were clearly defined.
"I trust we are not the subjects of some fearful illusion," said Browne,breaking a long silence, during which all eyes had been rivetted uponthe island; "but there is something very strange about all this--it hasan unearthly look."
As he spoke, the bright haze which floated over the sea near thesurface, began to extend itself upward, and to grow denser and moreimpervious to the sight: the wooded shores became indistinct and dim,and seemed gradually receding in the distance, until the whole island,with its bold heights and waving groves, dissolved and melted away likea beautiful vision.
"What is this?" exclaimed Browne, in a voice of horror. "I shouldthink, if I believed such things permitted, that evil spirits had powerhere on the lonely sea, and were sporting with our misery."
"It is a mirage," said Arthur quietly, "as I suspected from the first.But courage! though what we have seen was an optical illusion, theremust be a real island in the distance beyond, of which this was theelevated and refracted image. It cannot, I think, be more
than thirtyor forty miles off, and the current is sweeping us steadily towards it."
"I suppose then," said Morton, "that we can do nothing better, than totrust ourselves entirely to this current which must in fact be a prettypowerful one--at least as rapid as the Gulf Stream."
"We can do nothing better until the wind changes," replied Arthur,cheerfully; "at present I am disposed to think we are doing very well,and fast approaching land."
But there was no change of the wind, and we continued hour after hour,apparently making no progress, but in reality, as we believed, driftingsteadily westward. All through the day we maintained a vigilant watch,lest by any possibility we should miss sight of the island which Arthurwas so confident we were approaching. Late in the afternoon we saw aflock of gannets, and some sooty tern; the gannets passing so near thatwe could hear the motion of their long twisted wings. Later still, anumber of small reef-birds passed over head; all were flying westward.This confirmed Arthur in his belief of the proximity of land. "See,"said he, "these little reef-birds are bound in the same direction withthe others, and with ourselves; you may depend upon it, that thesea-fowl we have seen, are hastening homeward to their nests, on somenot far distant shore."
So fully did I share this confidence, that I commenced a calculation asto the time at which we might expect to reach land. Assuming it to havebeen thirty miles distant at the time when we had seen its spectrum, bymeans of the refraction, arising from a peculiar state of theatmosphere; and estimating the rate of the current at three miles anhour, I came to the conclusion that we could not even come in sight ofit until late at night; and it was therefore without any strong feelingof disappointment, that I saw the day fast drawing to a close, andnothing but sky and ocean yet visible.
The sun had already set, but the long tract of crimson andflame-coloured clouds that glowed in the horizon where he haddisappeared, still reflected light enough to render it easy todistinguish objects in that quarter, when I was startled by a cry ofjoyful surprise from the native boy, who, shading his eyes with hishands, was looking intently westward. After a long and earnest gaze, hespoke eagerly to Arthur, who told us that the boy thought he saw hisnative island. Looking in the same direction, I could make out nothing.Arthur and Browne spoke of a brilliantly white line, narrow, butwell-defined against the horizon, as being all that they could see.Morton, who was very keen-sighted, thought that he distinguished somedark object beyond the low white band seen by the others. As the lightgradually failed, we lost sight of this appearance. It was some hoursbefore the rising of the moon, which we awaited with anxiety. She wasnow at her full, and when at length she came up out of the sea, herdisc, broad and red like a beamless sun, seemed to rest, dilated topreternatural size, upon the edge of the last wave that swelled againstthe horizon. As she ascended the sky, she shed over the ocean a floodof silvery light, less glaring, but almost as bright as that of day.The wonderful brilliancy of the moon and stars within the tropics, isone of the first things noted by the voyager. It may be owing to thegreat clearness and transparency of the atmosphere: but whatever thecause, their light is much more powerful than in higher latitudes, andthey seem actually nearer, and of greater magnitude.
We now looked eagerly westward again; the snow-white line, of which theothers had spoken, was by this time distinctly visible to me also, andbeyond it, too plainly relieved against the clear blue of the sky, toadmit of doubt or illusion, were the high outlines of a tropical island,clothed with verdure to its summit.
Again the little islander shouted joyously, and clasped his hands, whilethe tears streamed down his olive cheeks.
He recognised his native island, the smallest and most easterly of thethree, of which his father was the chief. We should soon come in sightof the remaining two, he said, which were lower, and lay to the northand south of it; he explained that the appearance, like a low white linerunning along the base of the island, was caused by the surf, burstingupon a coral reef about a mile from the shore.
Here then, at last, was the land which we had at one time despaired ofever beholding again, and now we were well assured that it was no airyphantasm; yet strange as it may seem, our feelings were not those ofunmingled joy.
A thousand vague apprehensions and surmises of evil, began to suggestthemselves, as we approached this unknown shore, inhabited by savages,and under the dominion of a savage. We doubted not that we might dependupon the good-will, and friendly offices of the little native, but wefelt at the same time, that the influence of one so young, might proveinsufficient for our protection.
We were in some measure acquainted with the savage customs, the dark andcruel rites, that prevailed among the Polynesian races generally, andhad often listened with horror, to the recital of what Arthur and hisuncle had themselves seen, of their bloody superstitions, and abominablepractices. As I looked into the faces of my companions, it was easy toperceive that they were possessed by anxious and gloomy thoughts.
Meanwhile, the current continued to sweep us steadily onward toward theshore, the outlines of which became every moment more distinct.Occasionally a cloud drifted athwart the moon, and cast a soft shadeupon the sea, obscuring the view for a time; but when it had passed, theland seemed to have drawn perceptibly nearer during the interval. Atlength, when the night was far advanced, and the island was right beforeus, at the distance of scarcely a mile, the native lad, who had beengazing wistfully toward it for the last half-hour, uttered a plaintivecry of disappointment. He had looked long and anxiously, for theappearance of the two remaining islands of his father's group, but invain; and now he yielded reluctantly to the conviction, that he had beendeceived by the white line of surf, similar to that which bounded on oneside his native island, and that he had never before seen the one whichwe were approaching. This discovery was a relief to me, and removed aweight of apprehension from my mind. The thought of being cast upon adesert and uninhabited shore, seemed less dreadful, than that of fallinginto the power of a tribe of savage islanders, even under circumstanceswhich would probably secure us a friendly reception.
But now a strange and unforeseen difficulty presented itself. Betweenus and the island, stretched a barrier reef, running north and south,and curving westward; and appearing, as far as we could see, completelyto surround it. Along the whole line of this reef the sea was breakingwith such violence as to render all approach dangerous; neither could weespy any break or opening in it, through which to reach the shore.Towards this foaming barrier the current was rapidly bearing us, and wewere too feeble to struggle long against its force. To permit ourselvesto be carried upon the reef would be certain destruction, and our onlyhope of safety seemed to lie in discovering some inlet through it. Ourtrue situation flashed upon me all at once; I had not before thought ofthe impossibility of receding. Glancing at Arthur, I caught his eye,and saw that he comprehended the full extent of the danger. "We arenear enough to see any break in the reef," said he, "let us now take tothe oars, and coast along it in search of one."
This was accordingly done. But it was not until we had pulled along theshore for some time, and found that in spite of our endeavours topreserve our distance from it, we were steadily forced nearer, that therest seemed aware of the imminence of the danger.
"The current is carrying us among the breakers," exclaimed Morton, atlength, "though we are heading rather away from the shore, we aregetting closer every moment." This appalling fact was now apparent toall.
"The wind seems to have died away," said Browne, "at any rate there isnot enough of it to help us: we must put about and pull out of the reachof this surf, or we are lost."
"How long do you suppose we can continue that?" said Arthur. "No, ouronly hope is in finding an entrance through the reef, and thatspeedily."
We now steered a little farther away, and strained at the oars, as thosewho struggle for life. Occasionally, when lifted on the crest of awave, we caught a transient glimpse of a smooth expanse of water beyondthe foaming line of surf, and extending f
rom the inner edge of the reef,to the shore of the island. The tall tops of the palms bordering thebeach, seemed scarcely a stone's throw distant and you could fancy that,but for the roar of the breakers, you might hear the rustling of theirlong, drooping leaves; but it only added to the horror of our situation,to see that safe and peaceful haven, so near, yet so inaccessible.
In some places the reef rose quite out of the water; in others, it was,in nautical phrase, "all awash;" but nowhere could we attempt a landingwith safety. All the while, too, it was evident that in spite of ourdesperate exertions, we were being driven nearer and nearer thebreakers. This kind of work had continued almost an hour, when ourstrength began to fail.
"There appears to be no use in this, comrades," said Browne, at last;"had we not better just let her go upon the reef, and take our chance ofbeing able to get to the shore?"
"O, no!" exclaimed Arthur, earnestly, "that is too desperate."
"We shall be so completely exhausted that we shan't be able to make aneffort for our lives, when at last we are carried into the surf,"answered Browne, "and we must come to that sooner or later."
"I hope not--there is reason to hope not," rejoined Arthur, "but if so,we may as well be exhausted, as fresh; no strength will be of any avail;we shall be crushed and mangled upon the rocks; or if by any possibilitysome of us should reach the shore, what is to become of our poor, sickJohnny?"
"I will look after him," said Browne, "I will pledge myself that heshan't be lost, unless I am too."
"Let us hold out a few moments yet," implored Arthur; "I will take youroar; you are the only one who has not been relieved."
"No," said Browne, "you had better keep the helm; I can stand it a whilelonger, and I will pull until we are swept upon the reef; if you allthink that the best plan."
It was barely possible that if we should now act as Browne proposed, wemight be carried clear off the reef into the lagoon beyond, for we wereopposite a sunken patch, upon which there was more water than at otherplaces. Failing of this, the boat would inevitably be dashed to pieces;but still, if not bruised and disabled among the rocks, or carried backby the return waves, we might be able to reach the smooth water insidethe reef, when it would be easy to swim ashore.
But to most of us, the attempt seemed too desperate to be thought of,except as a last resort; and we preferred to toil at the oars as long asour strength should last in the hope of discovering an inlet. Arthur,on whose skill and judgment we all relied, steered still farther out,and for a while we seemed to make head against the swell and thecurrent.
For full half an hour longer, we kept up this severe struggle, thatadmitted not of an instant's pause or respite. But then our progressbecame almost imperceptible, and every stroke was made more feebly andlaboriously than the last. I could hardly hold the oar in my stiffenedfingers. Still no break was to be seen in the long line of surf whichseemed to hem in the island, extending like a white wall, of uniformheight, far as the eye could reach, on either hand. I had read ofislands, like that of Eimeo, completely encircled by coral reefs, withbut a single gateway by which they were accessible. What if this weresuch an one, and the only entrance, miles from the spot where we weretoiling for our lives! The conviction that we must risk the chance ofsuccess in an attempt to land upon some ledge of the reef, was forcingitself upon all our minds, when Max, trembling with eagerness, pointedto what appeared to be an opening through the surf, nearly opposite us;there was a narrow space where the long waves, as they rolled towardsthe shore, did not seem to encounter the obstacle over which they brokewith such violence on both sides of it, and the swell of the ocean metthe placid waters of the lagoon, without any intervening barrier.Through this gap, the shore of the island could be seen, down to thewater's edge.
Arthur hastily made a bundle of the mast and gaff, and placing it withinJohnny's reach, told him to cling to it, in case of accident. Then,calling upon us to pull steadily, he steered directly for the inlet. Aswe neared it the noise of the surf became almost deafening: the hugerollers, as they thundered against the perpendicular wall of coral,rising abruptly from the depths of the sea, sent up a column of foam andspray, twelve or fifteen feet into the air. When just within theentrance, the spectacle was grand and appalling. But the danger, realor apparent, was soon over: with a firm hand, and steady eye, Arthurguided the boat along the centre of the narrow pass, and in a moment wehad glided from the scene of fierce commotion without the reef, into oneof perfect tranquillity and repose. A dozen strokes seemed to haveplaced us in a new world. Involuntarily we rested on our oars, andgazed around us in silence.
From the inner edge of the reef, to the broad white beach of the island,a space of perhaps half a mile, spread the clear expanse of the lagoon,smooth and unruffled as the surface of an inland lake. Half-way betweenthe reef and the shore, were two fairy islets, the one scarcely a footabove the water, and covered with a green mantle of low shrubs; theother, larger and higher, and adorned by a group of graceful youngcocoa-nuts.
The island itself was higher, and bolder in its outlines than is usualwith those of coral formation, which are generally very low, and withoutany diversity of surface. Dense groves clothed that portion of itopposite to us, nearly to the beach, giving it at that hour, a somewhatgloomy and forbidding aspect.
As we surveyed this lovely, but silent and desolate landscape, thedoubts and apprehensions which we had before experienced began once moreto suggest themselves; but they were dissipated by the cheerful voice ofArthur, calling upon us to pull for the shore. He steered for thelarger of the two islets, and when, as the boat grated upon the coraltops beside it, we threw down the oars, the strength which had hithertosustained us, seemed suddenly to fail, and we could scarcely crawlashore. The last scene of effort and danger, had taxed our powers tothe uttermost, and now they gave way. I was so feeble, that I couldhardly avoid sinking helplessly upon the sand. With one impulse wekneeled down and returned thanks to Him Who had preserved us through allthe strange vicissitudes of the last few days. We next began to lookround in search of such means of refreshment as the spot might afford.
The cocoa-palms upon the islet, though far from having attained theirfull growth, (few of them exceeding twelve feet in height), boreabundantly, and we easily procured as much of the fruit as we needed.Tearing off the outer husk, and punching a hole through the shell, whichin the young nut is so soft that this can be done with the finger, wedrank off the refreshing liquor with which it is filled; then breakingit open, the half-formed, jelly-like kernel, furnished a species of foodmost nutritious and agreeable, and probably the best adapted to ourhalf-famished condition.
Hunger and thirst being appeased, our next care was to make somearrangement for passing the night more comfortably than could be done inthe boat. Selecting a clear space in the centre of the group of youngcocoa-nuts, we proceeded to make a rude tent, by fixing two of the oarsupright in the ground,--tying the mast across their tops and throwingthe sail over it, the ends being then fastened to the ground at aconvenient distance on each side.
Finding that the bare ground would make a rather hard couch, though farless so than we had lately been accustomed to, Morton proposed that weshould bring a load of leaves from the neighbouring shore to spread uponit. He and I accordingly rowed over to the mainland, and collected inthe grove near the beech, a boatload of the clean dry foliage of thepandanus and hibiscus, which made excellent elastic beds. Johnnywatched our departure as though he considered this an exceedingly rashand adventurous enterprise, and he seemed greatly relieved at our safereturn. It was now past midnight, and after hauling the boat well up onthe shore, we laid down side by side and were very soon asleep.
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