“What a curious stone; and how heavy it is!” she remarked, holding it up to view.
Her companions came to inspect it, and Mrs Staunton took it in her hand to make a close examination.
“Stone!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Why, my dear girl, this is gold—a genuine nugget, unless I am greatly mistaken. Mr Thomson, a friend of my husband’s in Sydney, showed us several gold nuggets, and they were exactly like this, only they were none of them nearly so large.”
“Do you really think it is gold?” asked Blanche. “My dear Mrs Staunton, my dear Violet, only fancy what a delightful thing it will be if we have actually discovered a gold mine; why, we shall be able to present our husbands with a magnificent fortune each.”
A charming blush mantled the speaker’s cheek as she said this, notwithstanding the fact that by this time the three women had no secrets from each other.
“I wonder if there are any more,” remarked Mrs Staunton; “surely that cannot be the only one here. I fancy I stepped on something hard just now.”
The three women at once went groping along the sand with their feet, and not in vain. First one, and then another encountered a hard object which proved to be similar in substance to the one found by Blanche; and in a quarter of an hour they had between them collected upwards of a dozen of them, though one only—found by Mrs Staunton—exceeded in size that of the first discovery.
Then, feeling somewhat chilled by their long immersion, they returned to terra firma, and were soon once more wending their way homeward. In passing through the wood they contrived to lose their way; but, as it happened, this proved of but slight consequence, as though they eventually came out at a point nearly a mile distant from the pathway which they had followed in the morning, they were quite as near the settlement as they would have been had they faithfully retraced their original footsteps; and by four o’clock in the afternoon they found themselves once more within the shelter of the walls of Staunton Cottage, greatly fatigued, it is true, by their long ramble, but with an elasticity of spirits and a sense of renewed life to which they had long been strangers.
Meanwhile the party at the shipyard had been thrown into a state of unwonted excitement by an incident which at one moment threatened to have a tragic termination.
A strong gang of men were at work upon the rock—all, indeed, who were left upon the island, excepting some dozen or fourteen, most of whom were employed in providing for the daily wants of the others, such as in baking bread, cleaning out the huts, airing bedding, and so on—and the scene at the mouth of the harbour was therefore a tolerably busy one.
Captain Staunton was in charge of the ship-building operations, with Kit as foreman-in-chief, while Rex and Brook were superintending operations at the battery; the former, with a roll of rough-and-ready drawings in his hand, “setting out” the work, while the latter overlooked the construction of a lime-kiln. Bob was making himself generally useful.
It was while all hands were at their busiest that Lance put in an appearance, leading little May by the hand. She of course at once made a dash at her father, flinging her tiny arms round his neck, kissing and hugging him vigorously, and showing in a hundred childish ways her delight at being with him; and the unwonted sight of the pretty little creature created quite a temporary sensation. A large majority of the men there were steeped to the lips in crime, yet there were very few among them who had not still left in them—hidden far down in the innermost recesses of their nature, and crushed almost out of existence by a load of vice and evil-doing, it may be—some remnant of the better feelings of humanity; and their features brightened and softened visibly as they witnessed the delight of this baby girl at finding herself with her father, and looked at her happy innocent face. Her visit was like a ray of sunshine falling upon them from out the bosom of a murky and storm-laden sky; and as she flitted fearlessly to and fro among them, they felt for the moment as though a part of their load of guilt had been taken from them; that in some subtle way her proximity had exercised a purifying and refining influence upon them, and that they were no longer the utterly vile, God-forsaken wretches they had been. Fierce, crime-scarred faces lighted up with unwonted smiles as she approached them; and hands that had been again and again soaked in human blood were outstretched to warn or remove her from the vicinity of possible danger. For the first few minutes Captain Staunton had been anxious and apprehensive at her unexpected presence among the ruffianly band; but his face cleared, and his knitted brow relaxed as he saw the effect which the sight of her produced, and when Lance joined him he said—
“Let her alone; she is doing more in a few minutes to humanise these men than you or I could achieve in a year.”
The child was naturally interested in everything she saw, and with tireless feet she passed to and fro, pausing now and then to gravely watch the operations of some stalwart fellow hewing out a timber with his adze, driving home a bolt with his heavy maul, or digging into the stubborn rock with his pickaxe, and not infrequently asking questions which the puzzled seamen strove in vain to answer.
At length, having satisfied her curiosity by a thorough inspection of all that was going forward, she wandered down to the spot where the hulk had been broken up. This was a tiny sheltered bay or indentation in the rocks; and a large raft had here been constructed out of the dismembered timbers and planking, which were kept afloat in order that the powerful rays of the sun might not split and rend the wood. Two or three detached planks formed a gangway between the raft and the rocks, and along these planks May passed on to the raft, without attracting the attention of anyone, it happening that just at that moment most of the hands were summoned to tail on to the fall of a tackle which was being used to raise one of the timbers into its place. Gradually she strayed from one end of the raft to the other; and presently her attention was attracted by a curious triangular-shaped object which she saw projecting out of the water and moving slowly along. She wondered what it could possibly be, and, in order the better to see it, ran nimbly out upon the end of a long plank which projected considerably beyond the rest. So eager was she to watch the movements of the strange object that she overshot her mark and with a splash and a cry of alarm fell into the water.
The triangular object immediately disappeared.
Luckily at this instant Bob glanced round, just in time to see the splash caused by May’s involuntary plunge and to note the simultaneous disappearance of a dark object in the water close at hand. Divining in a moment what had happened, he set off with a bound down the sloping rocky way toward the raft, shouting as he went—
“A shark! A shark! And May has fallen overboard.”
For a single instant there was a horror-stricken pause; then tools were flung recklessly aside, the tackle-fall was let go and the timber suffered to fall unheeded to the ground again, and the entire gang with one accord followed in Bob’s wake, hastily snatching up ropes, boat-hooks, poles, oars, anything likely to be useful, as they ran.
Meanwhile Bob, running with the speed of a hunted deer, had passed—as it seemed to the spectators—with a single bound down the rocks and along the entire length of the raft, from the extreme end of which he plunged without pause or hesitation into the sea. A bright momentary flash as he vanished beneath the surface of the water, seemed to indicate that he carried a drawn knife or some such weapon in his hand.
Simultaneously with the disappearance of Bob, May’s golden curls reappeared above the surface; and the child’s aimless struggles and her choking bubbling cries lent wings to the rescuing feet of those who had listened again and again unmoved to the death-screams of their fellow men. Another moment, and there was a tremendous commotion in the water close to the child; first a sort of seething whirl, then a dark object flashed for a moment into view, there was a furious splashing, a darting hither and thither of some creature indistinctly seen amid the snowy foam; and then that foam took on a rosy hue which deepened into crimson; the commotion subsided, and Bob appeared once more on the surface,
breathless and gasping. With a couple of strokes he reached May’s side, and half a dozen more took him alongside the raft in time to deliver her into Captain Staunton’s outstretched arms.
“Unhurt, sir, I believe, thank God!” Bob gasped, as he delivered up his charge; and then, when the little one had been raised out of the water and clasped with inarticulate thanksgivings to her father’s breast, he added—
“Give us a hand, some of you fellows, will you? And heave handsomely, for I believe my leg’s broke.”
“Lay hold, boy;” and a dozen eager hands were outstretched to Bob’s assistance—foremost among them being that of a great black-bearded fellow named Dickinson, who had formerly been boatswain’s mate on board a man-o’-war, but who had deserted in order to escape the consequences of a sudden violent outburst of temper—“Lay hold.”
Bob grasped the proffered hand and was brought gently alongside the raft.
“Now then,” exclaimed Dickinson, assuming the direction of affairs, “kneel down on the edge of the raft, one of you—you, ‘Frenchy,’ you’re pretty handy with your flippers—kneel down and pass your arm under his legs, as high up as you can. Say ‘when.’ Are you ready? Then lift, gently now, and take care you don’t strike him against the edge of the raft. So! That’s well. Now, lift him inboard; that’s your sort. Now, off jackets, some of us, and let’s sling him; he’ll ride easier that way. Are we hurting you, my lad?”
“Not much, thank’ee,” answered Bob cheerfully. “There,” he added, as they once more reached the rocks, “that’ll do, mates; lay me down here in the shade, and tell Mr Evelin I’m hurt—presently, you know; after he’s brought the little girl round.”
In the meantime Lance, almost as much concerned as Captain Staunton, had hurried after the latter, and offered his assistance, which was thankfully accepted. But there was very little that needed doing. So prompt had been Bob in his movements that the poor child had never actually lost consciousness; and after a great deal of coughing up of salt water and a little crying, May was so far herself again as to be able to call up a rather wan smile, and, throwing her arms round her father’s neck, to say—
“Don’t be frightened any more, papa dear; May’s better now.”
Great seemed to be the satisfaction of the crowd of men who had clustered round the group as they heard this welcome assurance; and then in twos and threes they slunk away back to their work, seemingly more than half ashamed that they had been betrayed into the exhibition of so human a feeling as interest in a mere child’s safety.
“If the little un’s all right, mister, you’d better have a look at the chap that pulled her out. His leg’s broke, I think,” remarked Dickinson’s gruff voice at this juncture.
“His leg broken? Good heavens! I never dreamed of this,” exclaimed Captain Staunton. “Poor fellow! poor Robert; let us go at once and see what can be done for him, Evelin.”
“You’ll find him there, under that rock,” remarked the ex-boatswain’s mate in a tone of indifference, indicating Bob’s resting-place by a careless jerk of the thumb over his left shoulder as he walked away.
Captain Staunton and Lance rose to their feet, and, the former carrying his restored darling in his arms, went toward the spot indicated. They had gone but a few paces when they were overtaken by Dickinson, who, with a half-sulky, half-defiant look on his face said—
“I s’pose I can’t be any use, can I? If I can, you know, you’d better say so, and I’ll lend you a hand—and let me see the man that’ll laugh at me. I ain’t quite a brute, though I daresay you think me one. I like pluck when I see it, and the way that boy jumped in on the shark was plucky enough for anything. If it hadn’t been for him, skipper, that little gal of yourn ’d have been a goner and no mistake.”
“You are right, Dickinson, she would indeed. Thank God she is spared to me, though. You can no doubt be of the greatest use to us; and as to thinking you a brute—I do nothing of the kind, nor does Mr Evelin, I am sure. I believe you make yourself out to be a great deal worse than you really are. Well, Robert, what is this, my boy? Is it true that your leg is broken?”
“I am afraid it is, sir,” answered Bob, who looked very pale, and was evidently suffering great pain. “But I don’t care about that, so long as May is all right.”
“She is, Robert, thanks to God and to your courage. But we will all thank you by and by more adequately than we can do now. Let us look at your leg, that is the first thing to be attended to.”
“Will you allow me, Captain Staunton?” interposed Lance. “I have some knowledge of surgery, and I think my hand will be more steady than yours after your late excitement.”
The skipper willingly gave place to Lance; and the latter, kneeling down by Bob’s side, drew out a knife with which he slit up the left leg of the lad’s trousers.
A painful sight at once revealed itself. The leg was broken half-way between the ankle and the knee, and the splintered shin-bone protruded through the lacerated and bleeding flesh. Captain Staunton felt quite sick for a moment as he saw the terrible nature of the injury; and even Lance turned a trifle pale.
“A compound fracture, and a very bad one,” pronounced Evelin. “Now, Dickinson, if you wish to be of use, find Kit, the carpenter, and bring him to me.”
The man vanished with alacrity, and in another minute or two returned with Kit.
Lance explained what he wanted—a few splints of a certain length and shape, and a supply of good stout spun-yarn.
“Do you think Ralli would give us a bandage or two and a little lint from one of his medicine-chests?” asked Lance of Dickinson.
“If he won’t I’ll pound him to a jelly,” was the reckless answer; and without waiting for further instructions the man ran down to the water, jumped into the dingy, and, casting off the painter, began to ply his oars with a strength and energy which sent the small boat darting across the bay with a foaming wave at her bows and a long swirling wake behind her.
In less than half an hour he was back again with the medicine-chest and all its contents; which he had brought away bodily without going through the formality of asking permission.
The splints were by this time ready; and then began the long, tedious, and painful operation of setting and dressing the limb, in the performance of which Dickinson rendered valuable and efficient service. The long agony proved almost too much for Bob; he went ghastly pale and the cold perspiration broke out in great beads all over his forehead; seeing which the boatswain’s mate beckoned with his hand to one of the men standing near, and whispered him to fetch his (Dickinson’s) allowance of grog.
The man went away, and soon returned with not a single allowance but a pannikin-full of rum, the result of a spontaneous contribution among the men as soon as they were informed that it was wanted for Bob. With the aid of an occasional sip from this pannikin the poor lad was able to bear up without fainting until Lance had done all that was possible for him; and then Dickinson and three other men, lifting him upon a strip of tarpaulin lashed to a couple of oars, carried him down to one of the boats, and jumping in, with Lance and Captain Staunton—who could not be persuaded to trust May out of his arms—pushed off and rowed him down to the bottom of the bay.
About a couple of hundred yards from the rocks they passed the body of a great dead shark floating belly upwards upon the surface of the water. The creature appeared to be nearly twenty feet long; and the blood was still slowly oozing from three or four stabs and a couple of long deep gashes near the throat. The mouth was open; and as the boat swept past its occupants had an opportunity to count no less than five rows of formidable teeth still erect in its horrid jaws. Captain Staunton pressed his child convulsively to his breast as he gazed at the hideous sight; and Dickinson, who pulled the stroke-oar, averred with an oath his belief that there was not another man on the island with pluck enough to “tackle” such a monster.
“By the bye, Robert,” said Captain Staunton, “you have not yet told us how you came to break your leg
. Did you strike it against the timber when you jumped overboard, or how was it?”
“No, sir,” said Bob. “It was this way. Just as I reached the end of the plank I caught sight of the brute rushing straight at May. I could see him distinctly against the clean sandy bottom, and he was not above six feet off. So I took a header right for him, whipping out my sheath-knife as I jumped; and luckily he turned upon me sharp enough to give little May a chance, but not sharp enough to prevent my driving my knife into him up to the hilt. Then I got hold of him somewhere—I think it was one of his fins—and dug and slashed at him until I was out of breath, when I was obliged to let go and come to the surface. The shark sheered off, seeming to have had enough of it, but in going he gave me a blow with his tail across the leg and I felt it snap like a pipe-stem.”
“And, instead of making for the raft, you swam at once to May, thinking of her safety rather than of the pain you were suffering,” said the skipper. “Bob, you are a hero, if ever there was one. This is the second time you have saved my child from certain death; and I shall never forget my obligations to you, though God alone knows whether I shall ever have an opportunity to repay them.”
“I say, mister, I wish you wouldn’t have quite so much to say about God; it makes a chap feel uncomfortable,” growled Dickinson.
“Does it?” said Captain Staunton. “How is that? I thought none of you people believed in the existence of such a Being.”
“I can’t answer for others,” sullenly returned Dickinson, “but I know I believe; I wish I didn’t. I’ve tried my hardest to forget all about God, and to persuade myself that there ain’t no such Person, but I can’t manage it. The remembrance of my poor old mother’s teaching sticks to me in spite of all I can do. I’ve tried,” he continued with growing passion, “to drive it all out of my head by sheer deviltry and wickedness; I’ve done worse things than e’er another man on this here island, hain’t I, mates?”—to his fellow-oarsmen.
The Pirate Island Page 23