besaints--and Mr. Peter will have a halo if this goes on long enough!"
Now, Peter Bligh didn't take to that notion at all, and he called out,savagely:
"To blazes with your halos! Is it Christianity to rob an honest man ofhis victuals? Give me a round of top-side and leave me out of thestained-glass window! I'm not taking any, lad--my features isn'tregular, as my poor----"
"Peter, Peter," said I, bringing him to, "so it's top-side to-day?It was duck and green peas yesterday, Peter; but it won't be thatto-night, not by a long way!"
"If we sit on this rock long enough," chimed in Seth Barker, who wasover-patient for his size, "some on us will be done like a rasher. Iwouldn't make any complaint, captain; but I take leave to say it isn'twisdom."
I had meant to say as much myself, but Peter Bligh was in before me,and so I let him speak.
"Fog or no fog," cries he, "I'm for the shore presently, and that'ssure and certain. It ain't no handsome vulture that I'm going to feedanyway! I don't doubt that you'll come with me, captain. Why, you couldplay 'God save the King' on me and hear every note! I'm a toonful drum,that's what I am----"
"Be what you like, but don't ask us to dance to your music," said I,perhaps a little nettled; "as for going down, of course we shall,Peter. Do you suppose I'm the one to die up here like a rat in a trap?Not so, I do assure you. Give me twilight and a clear road, and I'llshow you the way quick enough!"
I could see that they were pleased, and Dolly Venn spoke up for them.
"You won't go alone, sir?" asked he.
"Indeed, and I shall, Dolly, and come back the same way. Don't you fearfor me, my lad," said I; "I've been in a fog before in my life, and outof it, too, though I never loved them overmuch. If there's danger downbelow, one man has eyes enough to see it. It would be a mortal wasteand pity that four should pay what one can give. But I won't forgetthat you are hungry, and if there's roast duck about, Peter Bligh shallhave a wing, I promise him."
Well, they all sat up at this; and Peter Bligh, very solemnly crossinghis fingers after the Italian fashion, swore, as seamen will, that we'dall go together, good luck or bad, the devil or the deep sea. SethBarker was no less determined upon it; and as for Dolly Venn, I believehe'd have cried like a child if he'd been left behind. In the end Igave way to them, and it was agreed that we should all set outtogether, for better or worse, when the right time came.
"Your way, lads, not mine," said I; and pleased, too, at theiraffection. "As you wish it, so shall it be; and that being agreed uponI'll trouble Peter Bligh for his tobacco, for mine's low. We'll dinethis night, fog or no fog. 'Twould want to be something sulphurous, I'mthinking, to put Peter off his grub. Aye, Peter, isn't that so? Whatwould you say now to an Irish stew with a bit of bacon in it, and aglass of whisky to wash it down? Would fogs turn you back?"
"No, nor Saint Patrick himself, with a shillelagh in his hand. I'mmortal empty, captain; and no man's more willing to leave this samebird's nest though he had all the sulphur out of Vesuvius on hisdiagram! We'll go down at sunset, by your leave, and God send us safelyback again!"
The others echoed my "Amen," and for an hour or more we all sat dozingin the heat of the angry day. Once, I think towards seven bells of thewatch, Dolly Venn pointed out the funnels of a steamer on the northernhorizon; but the loom of the smoke was soon lost, and from that timeuntil six o'clock of the afternoon I do not think twenty words were tobe heard on the rock. We were just waiting, waiting, like weary men whohave a big work to do and are anxious to do it; and no sooner had thesun gone down and a fresh breeze of night begun to blow, than we jumpedto our feet and told each other that the time had come.
"Do you, Peter, take the ladder and let Seth Barker steady the end ofit," said I. "The road's tricky enough, and precious little dinneryou'll get at the bottom of a thousand-foot chasm! If there's men onthe island, we shall know that soon enough. They cannot do more thanmurder us, and murder has merits when starvation's set against it. Comeon, my lads," said I, "and keep a weather-eye open."
This I said, and willingly they heard me; no gladder party ever wentdown a hillside than we four, whom hunger drove on and thirst madebrave. Dangerous places, which we should have crossed with wary feet atany other time, now found us reckless and hasty.
We bridged the chasms with the ladder, and slid down it as though ithad been a rope. The bird's nest, where five days ago we'd first foundshelter from the islanders, detained us now no longer than wouldsuffice for thirsty men to bathe their faces and their hands in thebrook which gushed out from the hillside, and to drink a draught whichthey remembered to their dying day. Aye, refreshing it was, more thanwords can tell, and such strength it gave us that, if there had been ahundred men on the mountain path; I do believe our steps would stillhave been set for the bungalow. For we were about to learn the truth.Curiosity is a good wind, even when you're hungry.
Now, there was a place on the headland, three hundred feet above thevalley, perhaps, whereat the hill path turned and, for the first time,the island was plainly to be seen. Here at this place we stopped alltogether and began to spy out the woods through which we had raced forour lives six days ago. The sun had but just set then, and, short asthe twilight is in these parts, there was enough of it for us to make agood observation and to be sure of many things. What I think struck usall at the first was the absence of any fog such as we had heard aboutboth from the Frenchman and Ruth Bellenden's diary. A bluish vapour, itis true, appeared to steam up from the woods and to loom in hazy cloudsabove the lower marshland. But of fog in the proper sense there was nota trace; and although I began to find the air a little heavy tobreathe, and a curious stupidness, for which I could not altogetheraccount, troubled my head, nevertheless I made sure that the story ofsleep-time was, in the main, a piece of nonsense and that we shouldsoon prove it to be so. Nor were the others behind me in this.
"It is no fog I see which would slow me down a knot!" said Peter Bligh,when the island came into view; "to think that a man should go withouthis dinner for yon peat smoke! Surely, captain, they are simple inthese parts and easy at the bogeys. 'Twill be roast duck, afterall--and, may-be, the sage thrown in!"
This was all well said, but Dolly Venn, quicker with his eyes, remarkeda stranger fact.
"There's no one about, sir, that I can see," said he, wisely, "and nolights in the houses either. I wonder where all the people are? It'scurious that we shouldn't see some one."
He put it as a kind of question; but before I could answer him SethBarker chimed in with his deep voice, and pointed towards the distantreef:
"They've lit up the sea, that's what they've done," said he.
"By thunder, they have!" cries Peter Bligh, in his astonishment; "andgenerous about it, too. Saw any one such a thing as that?"
He indicated the distant reef, which seemed, as I bear witness, ablazewith lights. And not only the reef, mark you, but the sea about it, acable's length, it may be, to the north and the south, shone like apool of fire, yellow and golden, and sometimes with a rare andbeautiful green light when the darkness deepened. Such a spectacle Ishall never see again if I sail a thousand ships! That luscious greenof the rolling seas, the spindrift tossed in crystals of light, foamrunning on the rocks, but foam like the water of jewels, a dazzlingradiance--aye, a very carpet of quivering gold. Of this had they madethe northern channel. How it was done, what cleverness worked it, itneeded greater brains than mine to say. I was for all the world like aman struck dumb with the beauty of something which pleases and awes himin the same breath.
"Lights under the sea, and people living there! It's enough to make aman doubt his senses," said I. "And yet the thing's true, lads: we'resane men and waking; it isn't a story-book. You can prove it foryourselves."
"Aye, and men going in and out like landsmen to their houses," criedPeter, almost breathless; "it's a fearsome sight, captain, a fearsomesight, upon my word."
The rest of us said nothing. We were just a little frightened groupthat stared open-mouthed upon a seeming mirac
le. If we regarded thethings we saw with a seaman's reverence, let no one make complaint ofthat. The spectacle was one to awe any man; nor might we forget thatthose who appeared to live below the sea lived there, as Ruth Bellendenhad told us, because the island was a death-trap. We were in the trapand none to show us the road out.
"Peter," said I, suddenly, for I wished to turn their thoughts awayfrom it, "are you forgetting it's dinner-time?"
"I clean forgot, captain, by all that's
The House Under the Sea: A Romance Page 16