by Jack London
A vast rumbling crash shook the coral foundations of the atoll. Thehouse quivered to it. The native servants, with bottles of whiskey andabsinthe in their hands, shrank together as if for protection and staredwith fear through the windows at the mighty wash of the wave lapping farup the beach to the corner of a copra-shed.
Parlay looked at the barometer, giggled, and leered around at hisguests. Captain War-field strode across to see.
"29:75," he read. "She's gone down five more. By God! the old devil'sright. She's a-coming, and it's me, for one, for aboard."
"It's growing dark," Isaacs half whispered.
"Jove! it's like a stage," Mulhall said to Grief, looking at his watch."Ten o'clock in the morning, and it's like twilight. Down go the lightsfor the tragedy. Where's the slow music!"
In answer, another rumbling crash shook the atoll and the house. Almostin a panic the company started for the door. In the dim light theirsweaty faces appeared ghastly. Isaacs panted asthmatically in thesuffocating heat.
"What's your haste?" Parlay chuckled and girded at his departing guests."A last drink, brave gentlemen." No one noticed him. As they took theshell-bordered path to the beach he stuck his head out the door andcalled, "Don't forget, gentlemen, at ten to-morrow old Parlay sells hispearls."
III
On the beach a curious scene took place. Whaleboat after whaleboat wasbeing hurriedly manned and shoved off. It had grown still darker. Thestagnant calm continued, and the sand shook under their feet with eachbuffet of the sea on the outer shore. Narii Herring walked leisurelyalong the sand. He grinned at the very evident haste of the captains andbuyers. With him were three of his Kanakas, and also Tai-Hotauri.
"Get into the boat and take an oar," Captain Warfield ordered thelatter.
Tai-Hotauri came over jauntily, while Narii Herring and his threeKanakas paused and looked on from forty feet away.
"I work no more for you, skipper," Tai-Hotauri said insolently andloudly. But his face belied his words, for he was guilty of aprodigious wink. "Fire me, skipper," he huskily whispered, with a secondsignificant wink.
Captain Warfield took the cue and proceeded to do some acting himself.He raised his fist and his voice.
"Get into that boat," he thundered, "or I'll knock seven bells out ofyou!"
The Kanaka drew back truculently, and Grief stepped between to placatehis captain.
"I go to work on the _Nuhiva_," Tai-Hotauri said, rejoining the othergroup.
"Come back here!" the captain threatened.
"He's a free man, skipper," Narii Herring spoke up. "He's sailed with mein the past, and he's sailing again, that's all."
"Come on, we must get on board," Grief urged. "Look how dark it'sgetting."
Captain Warfield gave in, but as the boat shoved off he stood up in thesternsheets and shook his fist ashore.
"I'll settle with you yet, Narii," he cried. "You're the only skipper inthe group that steals other men's sailors," He sat down, and in loweredvoice queried: "Now what's Tai-Hotauri up to? He's on to something, butwhat is it?"
IV
As the boat came alongside the _Malahini_, Hermann's anxious facegreeted them over the rail.
"Bottom out fall from barometer," he announced. "She's goin' to blow. Igot starboard anchor overhaul."
"Overhaul the big one, too," Captain Warfield ordered, taking charge."And here, some of you, hoist in this boat. Lower her down to the deckand lash her bottom up."
Men were busy at work on the decks of all the schooners. There was agreat clanking of chains being overhauled, and now one craft, andnow another, hove in, veered, and dropped a second anchor. Like the_Malahini_, those that had third anchors were preparing to drop themwhen the wind showed what quarter it was to blow from.
The roar of the big surf continually grew though the lagoon lay in themirror-like calm.
There was no sign of life where Parlay's big house perched on the sand.Boat and copra-sheds and the sheds where the shell was stored weredeserted.
"For two cents I'd up anchors and get out," Grief said. "I'd do itanyway if it were open sea. But those chains of atolls to the north andeast have us pocketed. We've a better chance right here. What do youthink, Captain Warfield?"
"I agree with you, though a lagoon is no mill-pond for riding it out.I wonder where she's going to start from? Hello! There goes one ofParlay's copra-sheds."
They could see the grass-thatched shed lift and collapse, while a frothof foam cleared the crest of the sand and ran down to the lagoon.
"Breached across!" Mulhall exclaimed. "That's something for a starter.There she comes again!"
The wreck of the shed was now flung up and left on the sand-crest, Athird wave buffeted it into fragments which washed down the slope towardthe lagoon.
"If she blow I would as be cooler yet," Hermann grunted. "No longer canI breathe. It is damn hot. I am dry like a stove."
He chopped open a drinking cocoanut with his heavy sheath-knife anddrained the contents. The rest of them followed his example, pausingonce to watch one of Parlay's shell sheds go down in ruin. The barometernow registered 29:50.
"Must be pretty close to the centre of the area of low pressure," Griefremarked cheerfully. "I was never through the eye of a hurricane before.It will be an experience for you, too, Mulhall. From the speed thebarometer's dropped, it's going to be a big one."
Captain Warfield groaned, and all eyes drew to him. He was lookingthrough the glasses down the length of the lagoon to the southeast.
"There she comes," he said quietly.
They did not need glasses to see. A flying film, strangely marked,seemed drawing over the surface of the lagoon. Abreast of it, along theatoll, travelling with equal speed, was a stiff bending of the cocoanutpalms and a blur of flying leaves. The front of the wind on the waterwas a solid, sharply defined strip of dark-coloured, wind-vexed water.In advance of this strip, like skirmishers, were flashes of windflaws.Behind this strip, a quarter of a mile in width, was a strip of whatseemed glassy calm. Next came another dark strip of wind, and behindthat the lagoon was all crisping, boiling whiteness.
"What is that calm streak?" Mulhall asked.
"Calm," Warfield answered.
"But it travels as fast as the wind," was the other's objection.
"It has to, or it would be overtaken and it wouldn't be any calm. It'sa double-header, I saw a big squall like that off Savaii once. A regulardouble-header. Smash! it hit us, then it lulled to nothing, and smashedus a second time. Stand by and hold on! Here she is on top of us. Lookat the _Roberta!_"
The Roberta, lying nearest to the wind at slack chains, was swept offbroadside like a straw. Then her chains brought her up, bow on to thewind, with an astonishing jerk. Schooner after schooner, the _Malahini_with them, was now sweeping away with the first gust and fetching upon taut chains. Mulhall and several of the Kanakas were taken off theirfeet when the _Malahini_ jerked to her anchors.
And then there was no wind. The flying calm streak had reachedthem. Grief lighted a match, and the unshielded flame burned withoutflickering in the still air. A very dim twilight prevailed. Thecloud-sky, lowering as it had been for hours, seemed now to havedescended quite down upon the sea.
The Roberta tightened to her chains when the second head of thehurricane hit, as did schooner after schooner in swift succession. Thesea, white with fury, boiled in tiny, spitting wavelets. The deck of the_Malahini_ vibrated under the men's feet. The taut-stretched halyardsbeat a tattoo against the masts, and all the rigging, as if smote bysome mighty hand, set up a wild thrumming. It was impossible to face thewind and breathe. Mulhall, crouching with the others behind the shelterof the cabin, discovered this, and his lungs were filled in an instantwith so great a volume of driven air which he could not expel that henearly strangled ere he could turn his head away.
"It's incredible," he gasped, but no one heard him.
Hermann and several Kanakas were crawling for'ard on hands and knees tolet go the third anchor. Grief touched Captai
n Warfield and pointed tothe _Roberta_. She was dragging down upon them. Warfield put his mouthto Grief's ear and shouted:
"We're dragging, too!"
Grief sprang to the wheel and put it hard over, veering the _Mahhini_to port. The third anchor took hold, and the _Roberta_ went by,stern-first, a dozen yards away. They waved their hands to Peter Geeand Captain Robinson, who, with a number of sailors, were at work on thebow.
"He's knocking out the shackles!" Grief shouted. "Going to chance thepassage! Got to! Anchors skating!"
"We're holding now!" came the answering shout. "There goes the _Cactus_down on the _Misi_. That settles them!"
The _Misi_ had been holding, but the added windage of the _Cactus_was too much, and the entangled schooners slid away across the boilingwhite. Their men could be seen chopping and fighting to get them apart.The _Roberta_, cleared of her anchors, with a patch of tarpaulin setfor'ard, was heading for the passage at the northwestern end of thelagoon. They saw her make it and drive out to sea. But the _Misi_ and_Cactus_, unable to get clear of each other, went ashore on the atollhalf a mile from the passage. The wind merely increased on itself andcontinued to increase. To face the full blast of it required all one'sstrength, and several minutes of crawling on deck against it tired a manto exhaustion. Hermann, with his Kanakas, plodded steadily, lashing andmaking secure, putting ever more gaskets on the sails. The wind rippedand tore their thin undershirts from their backs. They moved slowly, asif their bodies weighed tons, never releasing a hand-hold until anotherhad been secured. Loose ends of rope stood out stiffly horizontal, and,when a whipping gave, the loose end frazzled and blew away.
Mulhall touched one and then another and pointed to the shore. Thegrass-sheds had disappeared, and Parlay's house rocked drunkenly,Because the wind blew lengthwise along the atoll, the house had beensheltered by the miles of cocoanut trees. But the big seas, breakingacross from outside, were undermining it and hammering it to pieces.Already tilted down the slope of sand, its end was imminent. Here andthere in the cocoanut trees people had lashed themselves. The trees didnot sway or thresh about. Bent over rigidly from the wind, they remainedin that position and vibrated monstrously. Underneath, across the sand,surged the white spume of the breakers. A big sea was likewise makingdown the length of the lagoon. It had plenty of room to kick up inthe ten-mile stretch from the windward rim of the atoll, and all theschooners were bucking and plunging into it. The _Malahini_ had begunshoving her bow and fo'c'sle head under the bigger ones, and at timesher waist was filled rail-high with water.
"Now's the time for your engine!" Grief bellowed; and Captain Warfield,crawling over to where the engineer lay, shouted emphatic commands.
Under the engine, going full speed ahead, the _Malahini_ behaved better.While she continued to ship seas over her bow, she was not jerked downso fiercely by her anchors. On the other hand, she was unable to get anyslack in the chains. The best her forty horsepower could do was to easethe strain.
Still the wind increased. The little _Nuhiva_, lying abreast of the_Malahini_ and closer in to the beach, her engine still unrepaired andher captain ashore, was having a bad time of it. She buried herself sofrequently and so deeply that they wondered each time if she could clearherself of the water. At three in the afternoon buried by a second seabefore she could free herself of the preceding one, she did not come up.
Mulhall looked at Grief.
"Burst in her hatches," was the bellowed answer.
Captain Warfield pointed to the _Winifred_, a little schooner plungingand burying outside of them, and shouted in Grief's ear. His voice camein patches of dim words, with intervals of silence when whisked away bythe roaring wind.
"Rotten little tub... Anchors hold... But how she holds together... Oldas the ark----"
An hour later Hermann pointed to her. Her for'ard bitts, foremast, andmost of her bow were gone, having been jerked out of her by her anchors.She swung broadside, rolling in the trough and settling by the head, andin this plight was swept away to leeward.
Five vessels now remained, and of them the _Malahini_ was the only onewith an engine. Fearing either the _Nuhiva's_ or the _Winifdred's_fate, two of them followed the _Roberta's_ example, knocking out thechain-shackles and running for the passage. The _Dolly_ was the first,but her tarpaulin was carried away, and she went to destruction on thelee-rim of the atoll near the _Misi_ and the _Cactus_. Undeterred bythis, the _Moana_ let go and followed with the same result.
"Pretty good engine that, eh?" Captain Warfield yelled to his owner.
Grief put out his hand and shook. "She's paying for herself!" he yelledback. "The wind's shifting around to the southward, and we ought to lieeasier!"
Slowly and steadily, but with ever-increasing velocity, the wind veeredaround to the south and the southwest, till the three schooners thatwere left pointed directly in toward the beach. The wreck of Parlay'shouse was picked up, hurled into the lagoon, and blown out upon them.Passing the _Malahini_, it crashed into the _Papara_, lying a quarter ofa mile astern. There was wild work for'ard on her, and in a quarter ofan hour the house went clear, but it had taken the _Papara's_ foremastand bowsprit with it.
Inshore, on their port bow, lay the _Tahaa_, slim and yacht-like,but excessively oversparred. Her anchors still held, but her captain,finding no abatement in the wind, proceeded to reduce windage bychopping down his masts.
"Pretty good engine that," Grief congratulated his skipper, "It willsave our sticks for us yet."
Captain Warfield shook his head dubiously.
The sea on the lagoon went swiftly down with the change of wind, butthey were beginning to feel the heave and lift of the outer sea breakingacross the atoll. There were not so many trees remaining. Some had beenbroken short off, others uprooted. One tree they saw snap off halfwayup, three persons clinging to it, and whirl away by the wind into thelagoon. Two detached themselves from it and swam to the Tahaa. Notlong after, just before darkness, they saw one jump overboard from thatschooner's stern and strike out strongly for the Malahini through thewhite, spitting wavelets.
"It's Tai-Hotauri," was Grief's judgment. "Now we'll have the news."
The Kanaka caught the bobstay, climbed over the bow, and crawled aft.Time was given him to breathe, and then, behind the part shelter of thecabin, in broken snatches and largely by signs, he told his story.
"Narii... damn robber... He want steal... pearls... Kill Parlay... Oneman kill Parlay... No man know what man... Three Kanakas, Narii, me...Five beans... hat... Narii say one bean black... Nobody know... KillParlay... Narii damn liar... All beans black... Five black... Copra-sheddark... Every man get black bean... Big wind come... No chance...Everybody get up tree... No good luck them pearls... I tell youbefore... No good luck."
"Where's Parlay?" Grief shouted.
"Up tree... Three of his Kanakas same tree. Narii and one Kanaka'nothertree... My tree blow to hell, then I come on board."
"Where's the pearls?"
"Up tree along Parlay. Mebbe Narii get them pearl yet."
In the ear of one after another Grief passed on Tai-Hotauri's story.Captain Warfield was particularly incensed, and they could see himgrinding his teeth.
Hermann went below and returned with a riding light, but the moment itwas lifted above the level of the cabin wall the wind blew it out. Hehad better success with the binnacle lamp, which was lighted only aftermany collective attempts.
"A fine night of wind!" Grief yelled in Mulhall's ear. "And blowingharder all the time."
"How hard?"
"A hundred miles an hour... two hundred... I don't know... Harder thanI've ever seen it."
The lagoon grew more and more troubled by the sea that swept acrossthe atoll. Hundreds of leagues of ocean was being backed up by thehurricane, which more than overcame the lowering effect of the ebb tide.Immediately the tide began to rise the increase in the size of the seaswas noticeable. Moon and wind were heaping the South Pacific on Hikihohoatoll.
Captain Warfield returned from one of h
is periodical trips to the engineroom with the word that the engineer lay in a faint.
"Can't let that engine stop!" he concluded helplessly.
"All right!" Grief said, "Bring him on deck. I'll spell him."
The hatch to the engine room was battened down, access being gainedthrough a narrow passage from the cabin. The heat and gas fumes werestifling. Grief took one hasty, comprehensive examination of the engineand the fittings of the tiny room, then blew out the oil-lamp. Afterthat he worked in darkness, save for the glow from endless cigars whichhe went into the cabin to light. Even-tempered as he was, he soon beganto give evidences of the strain of being pent in with a mechanicalmonster that toiled, and sobbed, and slubbered in the shouting dark.Naked to the waist, covered with grease and oil, bruised and skinnedfrom being knocked about by the plunging, jumping vessel, his headswimming from the mixture of gas and air he was compelled to breathe,he laboured on hour after hour, in turns petting, blessing, nursing, andcursing the engine and all its parts. The ignition began to go bad. Thefeed grew worse. And worst of all, the cylinders began to heat. Ina consultation held in the cabin the half-caste engineer begged andpleaded to stop the engine for half an hour in order to cool it andto attend to the water circulation. Captain Warfield was against anystopping. The half-caste swore that the engine would ruin itself andstop anyway and for good. Grief, with glaring eyes, greasy and battered,yelled and cursed them both down and issued commands. Mulhall,the supercargo, and Hermann were set to work in the cabin atdouble-straining and triple-straining the gasoline. A hole was choppedthrough the engine room floor, and a Kanaka heaved bilge-water over thecylinders, while Grief continued to souse running parts in oil.
