Basil looked at him with blank astonishment, his mouth a little open at this extraordinary announcement, but he thought it hardly right to discuss the matter with the servant and directly the man had gone went to the door of De Brissac’s room, on which he knocked gently.
As there was no reply he knocked again, then opened the door a crack, to find that the bedroom was unoccupied and the bed had not been slept in. Utterly bewildered by this strange conduct of his friend in Sir Deveril’s house, he shaved, dressed himself and ran downstairs. The young baronet was not about so Basil made further inquiries of the old manservant, upon which he learnt that Sir Deveril had also left instructions that he was not to be called, and the man did not think it likely that his master would put in an appearance until the late afternoon.
‘Is—er—Captain De Brissac—er—in Miss Yonita’s room?’ Basil inquired hesitatingly.
‘Assuredly,’ said the man. ‘Did I not tell you so a moment back?’
‘Perhaps you will show me where it is then,’ Basil said, and the servant promptly led him down a corridor to it.
After repeated knockings Yonita’s voice came sleepily and with a touch of temper from within. ‘What wish you? Did I not say we were not to be roused? Begone!’
Basil then explained who it was and with some diffidence asked if she knew where De Brissac was.
‘La, sir. Most certainly. He’s here,’ she said angrily. ‘Be off with you. Are you not ashamed to disturb people’s slumber in this unmasterly fashion?’
‘I’m awfully sorry,’ Basil shouted through the door, ‘but it’s getting on for one o’clock, and we simply must get back to the ship.’
There was a loud yawn and then De Brissac’s voice. ‘Mon ami! have you no discretion? Leave us in peace, I beg. What does an hour or two matter? Be generous, my friend. We will go this afternoon, but do not bother me till then.’
‘Oh, all right.’ Basil grumbled as he turned away. There seemed nothing else that he could do, so he set himself to possess his soul in patience and wandered out into the grounds.
To occupy the time of waiting he walked down to the hall. It was deserted, with the big doors standing open and the remnants of the previous night’s feast still not cleared away. Not a single house that he could see showed any sign of activity. They all lay drowsing in the sun, and it was quite clear that, like Sir Deveril and Yonita, their occupants had no thought of work on this morning after the big party.
Under the minstrels’ gallery, in the big hall, he found another room which proved to be a library, and for some time he amused himself by going through the extraordinary collection of miscellaneous literature it contained. Evidently the islanders had made it a common depository for all the books which had been saved from the numerous ships that had reached their shores.
Upon one wall was a big chart of the two islands in the weed sea. Evidently the amateur cartographer had only a vague idea about the geography of Satan’s Island; its nearest coastline was charted clearly, but the others were only roughly outlined. In its centre the word ‘forest’ was printed; about three-quarters of the way along it the native village was marked, and beyond that came a thick line cutting off the whole of its southern end against which was written ‘THE GREAT BARRIER’. The other island was etched in with the most detailed care. Its shape was that of a crucifix and they had landed at its foot. The village was in its centre and in a bay under its eastern arm, about two miles from Sir Deveril’s house, Basil noticed that a number of wrecks were charted.
Having made a picnic meal off the abundance of cold foods that were still lying about on the tables and opened himself a fresh bottle of cider, he decided he would make a visit to the bay of wrecks, and set off at a leisurely walk.
When he came to the shore he saw that a long, low promontory forming the left arm of the cross stretched out for over a mile into the weed, and it was this evidently that caught the ships which were carried down the channel in the current. Opposite, about four miles away to the north-east, he could see the low coastline of Satan’s Island and, to its south, much clearer than he had seen it from the Gafelborg, the higher ground like a sheer cliff that rose at the far end of it; evidently ‘the great barrier’ marked on the map. It looked as though a sort of flat mountain occupied the whole of that portion of the island.
For a long time he stared at the numerous wrecks which had brought the colonists to Yonita’s island. There were many more than she or Sir Deveril had mentioned, and he assumed that these were the ones which had arrived with only dead men on board.
As no serious storms ever agitated this tideless sea few of the wrecks had gone to pieces; many of the older ones were no more than hulks a few hundred feet out from the shore and had been entirely overgrown by the bright-green weed. Some of them had masts still standing, but of the majority the masts had been snapped off short by the hurricanes the ships had encountered before being driven into the weed sea.
One old hulk had an outline that, from its great, many-decked poop, suggested a Spanish galleon, and another quite near in to the shore, which for some obscure reason had no weed upon it so that its high, ornamented prow could still be seen, conjured up the almost impossible idea that it was the remains of a Phoenician or Norse galley. Basil did not think that even the stoutest timber could have withstood such aeons of time when partly submerged in water. Little of it remained, except the ribbed timbers of the hull and the great prow, and he was inclined to suppose that it might be the remnants of a ship from early Plantagenet times; a Moorish corsair, perhaps, that had got swept out from the African coast into mid-Atlantic and drifted down to the weed sea, months, or perhaps years, after its crew had died of thirst and starvation.
The more recent ships, including the small German gunboat, the American whaler and a dismasted barque, had not much wood upon them, but beastly patches of whitish mould showed here and there, giving their hulls a blotched, leprous appearance. A number of ships had curious structures above their decks of rotting canvas or broken planking, partially covering them in. Basil guessed these must have been erected to protect their crews from the octopuses, as Yonita had said that sometimes ships drifted for weeks, embedded in the weed, before beaching on the island.
Leaving this strange graveyard of the seas that accounted for so many missing vessels long since written off in the musty ledgers of old shipping companies, many of which were, perhaps, no longer in existence, Basil walked slowly back to Sir Deveril’s house, and was extremely glad to find that its inmates were at last up and dressed.
As he entered the lounge he came upon De Brissac teaching Yonita to foxtrot while Deveril struggled to play on the harpsichord the jazz tune the Frenchman hummed. They were all enjoying themselves to the utmost and, to Basil’s relief, their host appeared not to bear the least resentment at the extraordinary conduct of his amorous guest.
‘Well, what about it?’ Basil asked.
‘You impatient fellow,’ laughed De Brissac, ‘but I will hold you no longer, since you are so desperately anxious to get back to your Unity. After all, I shall only have to postpone Yonita’s dancing lessons until tomorrow.’
‘I hate to drag you away,’ Basil said generously, ‘but you insisted that I should not go on my own, and honestly, I am anxious about our friends.’
‘Right then, we’ll set off immediately we’ve had tea. Sir Deveril has decided to accompany us. He can do so by using Yonita’s balloon and he wishes to welcome the others to his island.’
There was no further delay this time. After a quick meal they set off for the coast accompanied, as before, by quite a number of the islanders. As they topped the rise which hid the centre of the island from its northern shore, De Brissac halted to glance back at the view. The park-land in the valley had a blissful quiet, an ineffable peace, which made him recall Yonita’s words about God having set his sign, even in the midst of these evil seas, as a refuge and protection for poor shipwrecked people; had De Brissac known that he was never to look upon
that fair vista again he might have paused longer.
A quarter of an hour later they had recovered the balloons from the spot where they had cached them and were getting into their harness. De Brissac was a trifle worried as it seemed that they had lost a little gas in the two days since they had been captured from the Negroes; but all three of the white men weighed considerably less than the blacks who had originally owned them and, after trying one out on the foreshore, De Brissac declared himself satisfied that the balloons would support them.
The day was bright and sunny, the time four o’clock, and there was no trace of the nightly mist arising as yet, so it seemed that all was set fair for their journey. After affectionate farewells to Yonita and the rest the three men took off, this time quite easily as they were able to bound down the slope of the cliff and gain plenty of height before reaching the weed.
The going seemed much heavier than before and by the time they were a quarter of an hour out all three of them were acutely anxious. The balloons had lost more gas than they had supposed and were now barely sufficient to support them. With each bound they took their stilts and ski-sticks sank heavily into the dreaded weed and they had to exert all their strength to force themselves up again.
De Brissac was half-inclined to turn back. He would have had it not been for Basil and a little feeling at the back of his own mind that he really ought to have made more effort to hurry matters the day before so that they might have reached the ship the previous evening. If they abandoned their present attempt the balloons would lose still more gas and become completely useless. Then there would be no chance of getting to the ship until it beached upon the island, and none of them knew what might have been going on there. He set his teeth grimly and continued to advance.
They passed the island of the giant crabs, and all three men, now breathless and perspiring with their efforts, looked at it longingly, but they knew its terrible dangers far too well to think for a moment of taking refuge there for the night. Even if they had, once their balloons had further deflated they would have had no means of leaving it or their friends of rescuing them.
Grimly they pressed on, pushing and prodding at the weed, their ski-sticks sinking deeper with every stroke they made; the strain upon their muscles became appalling and the sweat trickled in rivulets down their faces.
Basil’s mind was partially diverted from his danger by a fresh anxiety about the occupants of the Gafelborg. He had naturally supposed that somebody would be on the look-out, eagerly awaiting them. In any case it was strange that no one was to be seen about the ship’s bridge or decks on such a pleasant, sunny afternoon.
De Brissac noticed the absence of a look-out too, and wondered about it. The Gafelborg was still nearer in; for which he thanked all his gods as he ploughed heavily along, rising no more than ten feet above the weed with every hop he took. The vessel lay there in the bright-green weed apparently lifeless and deserted. He began to fear that some new fatality must have overcome its survivors during the previous night, and reproached himself more than ever for having failed to join them the evening before.
Deveril was well in front of the other two. Although he was a tall, well-built young man, he was considerably slimmer than his companions and weighed less so he was making better progress but, even so, he was now acutely anxious. Each time he floated through the air his legs trailed out behind him so that he looked straight down into the weed. The hummocks and tangles of it which showed above the water-line glistened, sparkling wetly in the sun. The weed itself was by no means unpleasant to look on; but here and there he noticed a sudden, sinister disturbance in it and knew that some vile thing must be moving close under the spiky fronds of its countless tendrils. Plunging forward as he floated down the effort to draw his legs to the front and make another jump grew ever greater. His head was dizzy with the effort and he was half blinded by the perspiration that trickled into his eyes.
De Brissac, staggering along behind in a wild series of erratic hops, began to fear that they would never reach the ship, but he had a sudden inspiration now they were comparatively near to it. Luvia might be able to shoot them a lifeline from the rocket-gun if they fell and, if only their luck held, pull them aboard before one of the devil-fish got them. He gave a strangled cry for help.
The same thought came to Basil almost at the moment and he added his shout to De Brissac’s but the Gafelborg remained dead and silent. Not a sign of life showed on board and now, as they leapt forward, they both saw the red of fresh-spilled blood upon her decks by the dark forms of huddled bodies.
With a gasp of relief Deveril reached the ship and flung himself over the rail. Basil was only a moment behind him. De Brissac nearly fell; he could not raise himself sufficiently to reach the deck in his last jump but, slipping, clutched frantically at the ship’s anchor and managed to grab it.
For a moment he hung there suspended by one hand. The movements of the others were restricted by their stilts but Deveril thrust one of his ski-sticks over the side. De Brissac grasped it with his free hand and he was enabled to cling on until the other two could haul him aboard.
From the fo’c’sle head on which they had landed, the foredeck of the Gafelborg presented an appalling spectacle. They had all been almost blinded during the last few hundred yards to the ship by their terrific exertions for their own salvation so they had had little opportunity to take in details before. Now they saw that the Negroes from Satan’s Island must have attacked the Gafelborg again.
The corpses of half a dozen savages lay in grotesquely contorted attitudes below them on the for’ard well-deck. Great splodges of blood stained the planking near each of them. None of them made the faintest sound or movement, and all had that curious limp look which De Brissac, as an old campaigner, knew well to be an indication that no spark of life remained in their bodies. The pools of blood about them were already congealed, which made it obvious that they had been dead for some time.
With a terrible cry of anguish Basil jumped down into the well-deck and raced aft in search of Unity. Half-stunned by the shock and horror of the scene De Brissac and Deveril followed more slowly. The Frenchman glanced at one of the dead Negroes. The man had a round puncture in his naked breast about which a little cluster of flies was buzzing. It was clear that he had been shot through the heart, yet his throat was cut from ear to ear so that his head was half-severed from his body.
They moved forward to the next and saw that he had been shot at close quarters through the face. An eye was missing and half his cheek was blown away. The carrion flies dispersed from the ghastly wound with an angry buzz then, greed overcoming fear, settled again. The second Negro’s throat was also cut.
Moving forward quickly now, in his anxiety to find out what was happening to Luvia and the rest, De Brissac did not pause to examine the twisted bodies on the port side of the fore-deck. Passing another dead Negro on his way aft he saw that this one had had his throat cut too, but showed no other mortal wound, although his knee-cap had been shot away.
At the entrance to the lounge there were two more big savages; their dead eyes open and protruding horribly as they goggled at the sun. One had been shot through the thigh and the other through the stomach; both their throats gaped open at the neck where they had been slit below the Adam’s apple.
The lounge looked as though a tornado had passed through it. Chairs and tables, previously secured to the deck by swivels, had been torn up and broken; smashed glass littered the floor in all directions, and a queer, strong perfume of mixed alcoholic spirits mingled with the smell of blood. Three more Negroes were lying dead among the débris; one had been shot but the other two had jagged scalp wounds, which suggested that their heads had been smashed in with bottles. The sad explanation of this débâcle they found behind the bar—poor, fat, good-natured Hansie; dead from a dozen wounds, but still clasping an unbroken bottle half full of brandy in his right hand. Evidently he had made a last stand behind his bar using the bottles and glasses it containe
d with deadly effect upon at least two of his attackers.
Basil came dashing up the companionway. ‘She isn’t there—she isn’t there,’ he cried, his face contorted with anguish. ‘Unity’s cabin’s been wrecked. Those fiends have dragged her off somewhere else and murdered her.’
He suddenly caught sight of Hansie and groaned. ‘Poor old Hansie too. Such a good chap, and there’s that girl he had a child by. He’ll never be able to get back to her now.’
‘I’m afraid he wouldn’t have in any case,’ De Brissac reminded him, ‘but it’s hard when, in another couple of days, he might have been safe ashore on the island. We’d better search the ship to see if we can find the others.’
Basil’s face was white, his hands shaking. ‘For God’s sake give me a drink first. I’m about all-in.’
De Brissac pushed back the sliding shelves behind Hansie’s bar but they disclosed only empty cupboards. ‘Those swine must have looted all the bottles Hansie didn’t smash before they got him,’ he muttered. ‘But here, have a pull at this.’
He stooped and wriggled the bottle of cognac out of Hansie’s dead hand.
Basil laughed hysterically as he took it. ‘Poor old Hansie, his last service, eh, to provide a chap with a tot.’ He gulped down a couple of mouthfuls of the neat brandy and shuddered. De Brissac and Deveril each had a pull at the bottle too; all three of them then proceeded upon their grim inspection.
The door of Unity’s cabin had been broken in and it was empty as Basil had said. Further down the passage they came upon another slaughter. In the broken doorway of Vicente’s cabin lay three more of the Negroes, and all of them had had their throats cut. A fourth body lay across the bunk. It was that of Vicente Vedras, and his skull had been battered in. The door of Synolda’s cabin hung crookedly from one hinge; that also was empty. Smashed furnishings and garments scattered about showed that a violent struggle had taken place there before she had been dragged out.
Uncharted Seas Page 27