Another good vomit, I thought, Gilbert’s bit of nonsense coming into my mind. It would be a near-run thing if the volcano were seriously sick at the stomach, which it surely seemed to be. The tide was particularly low: the shelf of rocks that protected the bay stood three feet out of the water, which was stained an odd sepia color now, the sun glaring through the cloudy reek of the volcano, which was spewing stones, cinders, and ash as if it were engaged in a battle. Fortunately for us, the discharge was mostly on the windward side, although God knew how long our luck would hold.
I watched one such explosion very near the headland, marveling at the force of the thing, although my attention immediately shifted when the bowsprit and top-hamper of a sloop sailed into view—Billy Stoddard’s sloop that we had last seen disappearing into the fog—pelting along on the freshening wind now, barely avoiding the shower of rock flung from the volcano. I looked out toward the Nancy Dawson, which was apparently moving away from us. “Where on earth are they going?” I asked aloud, with rather more emotion than I intended.
“I believe that Gilbert means to engage the enemy,” St. Ives said, “and is endeavoring to bring the Nordenfelt gun to bear on their flank. Or perhaps he means simply to run them down, although he risks being boarded in the process. He has a great amount to lose at this juncture, and we’re in a suitably empty tract of ocean. He can sink the sloop out of hand and no one the wiser.”
St. Ives and I sat entombed within our bell, mere onlookers as the scow set out to sea. Phibbs, of course, had no idea of allowing the pirates to take us, which would interfere with Gilbert’s designs. There was a hellish, foreboding cast to the air now, and the sea roiled roundabout us, waterweeds and dead fish upwelling from the deeps. I wondered at Gilbert playing monkey games with the sloop when the more fearful enemy was the volcano itself, or so I thought in my ignorance.
The sloop fired the cannon in her bow, a spray of spark and smoke that was a mere popgun against the volcanic turmoil. Where the ball fell I couldn’t see, but it didn’t bother the Nancy Dawson, which was more distant by the moment, maneuvering so as to use her motive power to advantage. The sloop had run clear of the island now and had the sea room to do some maneuvering of her own. It was dead clear that she meant to pass between the scow and the Nancy Dawson. The scow was slow, and the open deck left it utterly vulnerable to the sloop’s guns. Either Gilbert must take the sloop very soon, or the sloop would take the scow with its five hostages and its ball of ambergris…
And then the sloop stopped dead in its flight as if she’d run headlong into an invisible wall. Her masts swayed dangerously, righted themselves, and then for a long moment she simply stood still in the water before careering forward once more. Simultaneously her bow twisted away to port and the foresail was torn away along with a mass of rigging. She jerked to a stop once again, although she wasn’t still by any means, but shuddered and quivered bodily, the sea churning roundabout her. “She’s struck a reef!” I said to St. Ives.
“No, by Heaven!” he said. “Look there, at the foremast. The bane of the Celebes Prince! Pray to God that Gilbert sees it!”
What I saw—and there was no disbelieving it—was a great tentacle rising from the sea, twenty, thirty feet and still rising, followed by a second tentacle, like undulating tree trunks. The spirit of the island, a giant octopus—monstrously large—had been stirred from the its lair in the hidden depths of the sea. The first tentacle wrapped itself around the foremast, the second gripped the bowsprit. There was the sharp sound of rending timbers, and the bowsprit snapped off like a matchstick, followed immediately by the foremast, both of them cast into the sea along with spars and sails and rigging in a tangled mass. The cannon in the bow was swept away in turn, rolling off the shattered foredeck on its carriage, the iron weight of it hauling the floating debris under the surface.
The volcano blasted out another salvo of glowing rock now, and several flaming chunks fell onto the deck in the center of the sloop. The mainmast and its sails simply burst into flame from the intense heat of the molten rock. Men leapt from the deck as the monster hauled itself up the port side of the ship, so that we saw its great, domed mantle rising until its enormous eyes were revealed. I saw Billy Stoddard then—a brave man in his way, although a monster himself—exhorting four crewmen to rally round, to train a cannon on the beast. But the creature that threatened them was inconceivably massive, a living horror, come up out of the depths of Lord Kelvin’s bottomless trench, perhaps disturbed by the erupting volcano, perhaps out of anger at the meddling of human beings within its domain. The cannon were pitiful things, and the fearful pirates abandoned them and leapt over the starboard rail into the midst of flaming wreckage and almost certain death. Alone on the deck, Stoddard was driven toward the bow by the heat, which must at any moment ignite the powder room and destroy the ship.
The octopus swept the deck one last time with a departing tentacle. Debris flew, the burning mast tilted and fell, and the retreating tentacle plucked up Billy Stoddard by the neck where he stood teetering indecisively over the sea, raising him high into the air. A second tentacle gripped Stoddard around the waist, and the monster quite simply tore his head off, a spray of blood flying from the severed neck. With a curl of its tentacle, the octopus tucked the head beneath its mantel, rearing back and grasping it in its terrible beak, and then crushing it and swallowing it before disappearing into the sea carrying Stoddard’s headless corpse.
Very shortly it reappeared, clambering up onto the reef that sheltered the bay and the sea cave, uncomfortably close to our scow. The creature sat watching us. Gravity flattened its great mantle, which looked something like an immense, drooping balaclava now. It clutched the headless Billy Stoddard as if he were a turkey leg, and, with a look of great relish, tucked Stoddard into its open, yard-wide beak, and snipped him in half at the waist, his innards spilling out as the torso disappeared into the creature’s maw.
Horrified, I looked away, just as the sloop exploded in a shower of shattered spars and timbers, the blasted hull quickly sinking as we watched, leaving only floating debris and the tip of the mizzenmast with a ragged scrap of black pennant still attached to the wreckage and marking its grave. The octopus finished its supper, slithered backward off the reef, and disappeared into the sea.
CHAPTER 7
The First Wonder of
the Natural World
WE MOTORED AT full speed toward the Nancy Dawson now. Gilbert had apparently witnessed the destruction of the sloop, and the steamer was lying to, waiting for us. The great crane swung slowly out over the side, making ready to haul us in. Gilbert stood beside it shouting through the decorated speaking trumpet from the chart room and waving us on, unnecessarily exhorting us to make haste. Captain Deane sat at the Nordenfelt gun, swiveling this way and that, on the lookout for the reappearance of the monster.
The death of the sun had cast the world in a perpetual, hellish twilight, which lent the morning a doomful air. My mind was fixed on the wild fear that the octopus would take us next, we having meddled with its ball of ambergris and otherwise disturbed its treasure. It could pluck up the bell with the tip of a tentacle and root us out of the interior like worms from a piece of fruit. Unlike the shark, which seemed to me to be a deeply stupid, vicious creature, the octopus had a distinct gleam of intelligence in its eyes, and perhaps even the semblance of a soul, I thought, given the sentimental business of the thing’s keepsakes.
Phibbs took us in neatly, running in alongside the Nancy Dawson and tying on. Tubby descended the companionway to help Hasbro attach the cables that would allow the shipboard crane to winch us aboard in a package. Air was still blowing into the bell, making a low whistling noise, and there was nothing for St. Ives and I to do but sit with contrived patience. The waiting was short, however, for the sea began to move and shift, and although the view into the depths was occluded by the smoky shadow that hid the sun, we perceived the dark bulk of the octopus rising from below. St. Ives shouted a warning throu
gh the speaking tube, but it was unnecessary, for Gilbert had spotted the thing too, and was very nearly dancing with anticipation on the deck and pointing downward. He appeared positively boyish, as if he welcomed the thing’s appearance.
Hasbro and Tubby looked down into the sea momentarily. Stalwart lads that they were, however, they straightaway continued their work, which was nearly finished—as were we all, I thought.
“It’s a colorful way to die,” St. Ives said, knowing what I was thinking.
“True,” I said, trying to maintain something of the same spirit. “We’ll have uncommonly strange things to chat about in the afterlife.”
The tip of a great tentacle appeared then, seeking and then touching the deck of the scow. Another tentacle followed, the two together latching on with vast great suckers. The octopus meant to clamber aboard, perhaps, which was in some small way preferable to destroying us out of hand as it had destroyed the sloop, although it would quite possibly carry us under with its weight. We tilted to port as the octopus hoisted itself upward, and we kept on tilting until half the deck was awash. Tubby stood stock still several feet from the railing, watching the beast rise, higher and higher, until one of its immense eyes stared straight into Tubby’s face, the creature regarding him brazenly. There arose from the sea another tentacle, moving wonderfully slowly. With an almost stupefying gentleness it lifted the allegedly lucky Bollinger hat from atop Tubby’s head. Thinking of that nest of bric-a-brac in the sea cave, it came to me that the octopus coveted the hat, and I was suddenly fearful that Tubby, who knew no fear, might try to take it back.
“Hold your fire!” Gilbert shouted through the bullhorn, his voice audible even within the bell. Captain Deane had swiveled the Nordenfelt gun around and brought it to bear on the octopus, which had risen high enough out of the sea so that the top of his mantle could be blasted to pieces without endangering Tubby, who made a small bow to the creature, shook his head decidedly, and removed the hat from the tentacle, replacing it atop his own head and tapping it down with the palm of his hand.
The octopus gazed at him a moment, as if pondering whether to take the hat and the head along with it. But now the creature swiveled its great mantle toward Gilbert, fixing him with its awful gaze. Gilbert held his hand up, palm forward, in a ridiculous gesture of goodwill. There was a smile on his face, meant to be welcoming, but even from my vantage point it was stiff—the bluff smile of a man facing a firing squad. Yet another tentacle rose from the sea, wandering upward toward him, the octopus treating him with something like a high regard, just as he had treated Tubby despite Tubby’s intransigence with the hat. All Englishmen, it seemed to me, must look very much alike to an octopus, but Tubby and Gilbert, who reminded one of the Tweedles, no doubt appeared to be the twin embodiment of the generous fat man, an image that was evidently pleasing to the octopus. The tentacle touched Gilbert’s face, and still he didn’t flinch, but was smiling more authentically now, the naturalist in him enthralled by this desperately strange experience. I thought of Miss Bracken, waiting in Kingston, blessedly unaware that she had a rival.
I’ll admit to the strangeness of that notion, but there was something in the evident regard that the creature had for Gilbert that put it into my mind. Once again the tentacle was in motion, as the octopus carefully plucked the speaking trumpet from Gilbert’s hand and held it close to its own vast eye, peering at the thing. Did it recognize the image of the rampant octopus painted on the cone? I prayed that it did, that it would suppose it to be evidence of our high regard for cephalopods, perhaps that we worshipped them as well as dreamt about them.
The speaking trumpet traced lazy circles in the air, held aloft by the waving tentacle as the creature gazed steadfastly at Gilbert, who casually bent forward to unhook a Jacob’s ladder that hung from the railing of the Nancy Dawson. The lowest rung fell to the deck of the scow, as if Gilbert meant for the octopus to make use of it. He reached into his vest now and withdrew his pocket-watch, dangling the shiny object before the octopus, and at the same time taking four deliberate steps backward—not fearful steps, mind you, but evidently purposeful.
He shouted something at Phibbs now and gestured him forward. Phibbs, for his part, threw both his hands in the air as if out of frustration or disbelief. He climbed boldly to the deck of the Nancy Dawson without protest, however, not five feet from the quivering bulk of the monster, and made his way slowly to the big crane where he sat down and was still. It was clear that Gilbert intended to lure the octopus aboard the ship, Heaven alone knew why. It seemed clear that the beast either coveted the pocket-watch or was mesmerized by it, for its attention didn’t stray, not even when Phibbs started the engine of the crane in a cacophony of smoke and noise. The octopus, its gaze fixed on Gilbert, pulled itself upward now, and the steamer listed to starboard. Gilbert traced elaborate gestures with his free hand, pointing back and downward in the direction of the mid-ship hold, which would shortly (I prayed) be covered by the hull of the scow, for we were already lifting into the air, unerringly manipulated by Phibbs’s chugging machine. Gilbert stepped backwards carefully, the watch dangling from its chain, and the octopus crushed the railing as it swarmed bodily onto the open deck, shedding cataracts of seawater. Captain Deane sat stone-faced at his gun, not moving a muscle, although his hands were locked onto the trigger mechanism.
Gilbert moved along the steeply pitched deck now, gesturing at the massive octopus to follow him, which it did, smashing the foredeck cabin, dragging unknown tons of tentacles after it, one of which swept the Nordenfelt gun straight overboard and Captain Deane along with it before the startled man could react. The creature’s tentacles made loud sucking noises against the deck. It advanced with a gliding, graceful manner, however, eyeing the remainder of the crew, who stood in a knot well back toward the stern, watching the dappled creature in fear and wonder.
And then Gilbert disappeared from sight, and I was certain for a brief moment that he had been snatched from his feet by the octopus.
“He’s darted into the hold!” St. Ives said.
“Has he?” I asked. “Why on Earth would a man do that with a giant octopus at his heels?”
But the question was moot. The octopus was even then disappearing below decks, apparently into the mid-ship hold. Like its diminutive cousins, it could slither its great bulk through strangely small apertures, ironing itself out on one side of the opening and then expanding again on the other.
“He means to trap it below,” St. Ives said, his voice revealing a certain amount of awe and astonishment.
“Gilbert has gone mad,” I said.
“I agree with you there, although I believe I can guess out his intentions. Watch the knot of men aft now.”
Those very men were already moving fast toward the hold, where they slammed shut the broad, steel panel doors, effectively sealing Gilbert’s fate.
“Gilbert means to imprison the beast in the hold,” St. Ives said. “He has great faith in his H-beams. I agree that it’s madness. He didn’t achieve his current station in life, however, by being timid. I’ll wager that he’s a shrewd hand at piquet.”
The crewman had cleared away by now, and the scow settled into its depression, adding its weight to the top of the creature’s cage. Very shortly Phibbs raised the bell from the deck and we were released into the reeking air, which smelled of brimstone, and I was reminded that although the octopus was at least temporarily sequestered and Billy Stoddard in its gullet, the volcano still threatened us. Gilbert reappeared from a companionway forward, looking done-in, as did Captain Deane, who had swum round to the Jacob’s ladder and was now dragging himself aboard.
There was an enormous, belching explosion, and once again rock rained down and a great cloud of ash blew skyward, straight into the air until the trade winds caught it and shifted it to the southwest. It took me a moment to realize that it was mid-morning, which I had forgotten, what with the stupendous occurrences and the layer of ash and smoke that hid the sun. Phibbs haste
ned toward the engine room, followed by Captain Deane, and very soon we were moving away from the island, making toward the clean air of the open sea.
Gilbert had outwitted the beast when it followed him into the hold. He had gone straight back out through the open door of an interior bulwark with the octopus close behind, and then had slammed the heavy door shut behind him, shooting the bolts and praying that the monster wouldn’t simply tear the door from its hinges. But no such thing had happened. The octopus was so far responding in a blessedly civilized manner, and the slightly delirious yawing of the ship as our speed increased was simply a matter of the creature’s great weight shifting about as it inspected its dark lair. Gilbert had bet his ship—and our lives—on a throw of the dice. His luck, as he had put it, was in.
AS FOR KINGSTON, Jamaica, Gilbert concluded that he hadn’t the leisure to look in on Miss Bracken. “We’ve all heard the old saw about the woman in every port,” he said to me as we walked into the chart room to dine, “and for some lucky dogs it comes tolerably close to the truth. But a giant octopus is nowhere as easy to find, not by a long sea mile.”
There was perhaps more truth than poetry in what he said, and I was happy enough to acknowledge it, for I was longing for home and had no interest in Jamaica or Gilbert’s capers with Miss Bracken. The great ball of ambergris rested in the middle of the chart room table, sitting securely within a double ring of braided rope, which brought to mind the rock nest in the sea cave.
The Further Adventures of Langdon St. Ives Page 24