Masterman Ready; Or, The Wreck of the Pacific

by Frederick Marryat

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

  The fishpond was commenced the next morning. Ready, Mr Seagrave, andWilliam went down together to the beach, and, after much examination,chose a spot about one hundred yards from the turtle-pond as mosteligible for the purpose; the water being shallow, so that at the partfarthest from the shore there would not be more than three feet.

  "Now, sir," said Ready, "this is a very simple job; all we have to do isto collect small rocks and stones, pile them up wall-fashion inside, andwith a slope outside, so as to break the force of the waves when thewater is a little rough; of course, the water will find its way throughthe stones, and will be constantly changed. It's very true, that we canat most times catch fish when we want them, but it is not always that wecan spare the time, so it's just as well to have always a certainquantity at hand, to take out at a moment's warning; and we can, ofcourse, catch them and put them in here when we have nothing else to do.Juno will be able to come down and take them out with a spear, when weare away and she wants something for dinner."

  "But there are few stones about here, Ready; we shall have to fetch thema long way," said William.

  "Well, then, William, let us get the wheels down here, and then we cancarry a quantity at a time."

  "But how shall we carry them, Ready?"

  "We will sling a tub on the axle; I will go up and get that ready andbring it down; in the meantime, you and Mr Seagrave can collect all thestones which are near at hand."

  Ready soon returned with the wheels, and the tub slung with rope on theaxle, and by that means they found that they could collect the stonesvery fast; Mr Seagrave and William bringing them, and Ready in thewater, building up the wall.

  "We have quite forgot another job which we must put in hand, sir,"observed Ready; "but the fish-pond reminds me of it."

  "What is that, Ready?"

  "A bathing-place for the children, and indeed for us all; we shall wantit when the hot weather comes on, but we will put it off till then. Ican tell you, sir, that although I don't mind building this wall in theshallow water, I shall be very careful when the water is up to my knees,for you don't know how bold the sharks are in these latitudes. When Iwas at St. Helena, not very long ago, we had a melancholy proof of it."

  "Tell us the story, Ready."

  "Well, two soldiers were standing on the rocks at St. Helena; the rockswere out of the water, but the swell just broke over them. Two sharksswam up to them, and one of them, with a blow of his tail, turning roundthe same way, tripped one of them into the water, which was very deep.His comrade was very much frightened, and ran to the barracks to tellthe story. About a week afterwards, a schooner was in Sandy Bay, on theother side of the island, and the people seeing a very large shark underthe stern, put out a hook with a piece of pork, and caught him; theyopened him, and found inside of him, to their horror, the whole of thebody of the soldier, except the legs below the knees: the monster hadswallowed him whole, with the exception of his legs, which it had nippedoff when it closed its jaws."

  "I really had no idea that they were so bold, Ready."

  "It is a fact, I assure you; and therefore we cannot be too careful howwe go into the water: you saw how soon the poor pig was despatched."

  "I wonder how the pigs get on, Ready," said William.

  "I dare say they have littered by this time, sir; they have no want offood."

  "But can they eat the cocoa-nuts?"

  "Not the old ones, but they can the young ones, which are constantlydropping from the trees, and then there's plenty of roots for them. Ifwe stay long here we shall soon have good sport hunting them; but wemust be very careful; for although they were tame pigs when we broughtthem on shore, they will be wild and very savage in a very short time."

  "How must we hunt them?" said Mr Seagrave.

  "Why, sir, with the dogs, and then shoot them. I am glad that Vixenwill have pups soon; we shall want more dogs."

  "Shall we not have more mouths than we can find food for?"

  "Never fear that, sir, as long as we have the sea to fish in. Dogs livevery well upon fish, even if it is raw."

  "We shall have some lambs soon, Ready, shall we not?"

  "Yes, sir, I expect very soon. I wish we had more food for the animals:they are put rather hard to it just now; but next year, if we find morefood on the island, we must keep the grass near home, to make hay andstack it for the winter time--or the rainy season rather, for there isno winter in these latitudes. I'm pretty sure we shall find some clearland on the south of the island, for the cocoa-nut grove does not extendso close to the water on that side as it does on the north."

  "I do so long to go on our exploring party," said William.

  "We must wait a little," replied Ready; "but I don't know whether youwill go; we must not all three go at once, and leave Mrs Seagravealone."

  "No," replied Mr Seagrave, "that would not be fair; either you or Imust remain, William."

  William made no reply, but it was evident that he was annoyed at theidea of not being of the party. They worked very hard that day, and thewalls rose fast out of the water.

  After supper, Ready continued his narrative. "We remained concealeduntil it was dark, and then Hastings and Romer, each with a musket onhis shoulders and a ham at his back; and I, being the smallest, with therifle and the great loaf of bread, set off on our journey. Ourintention was to travel north, as we knew that was the road leading fromthe colony; but Hastings had decided that we should first go to theeastward, so as to make what we sailors call a circumbendibus, whichwould keep us out of the general track. We passed through the deepsands of False Bay, and after that gradually ascended, getting amongbrushwood and young trees; but we saw no signs of cultivation, nor didwe pass one house after we had left False Bay astern of us. Abouttwelve o'clock we were very much fatigued, and longed for a drink ofwater, but we did not find any, although the moon shone as bright asday. We distinctly heard, however, what we did not much like, thehowling and cries of the wild beasts which increased as we went on;still we did not see any, and that was our comfort. At last we were sotired that we all sat down on the ledge of a rock. We dared not go tosleep, so we remained there till daylight, listening to the howling ofthe animals. We none of us spoke, and I presume that Hastings' andRomer's thoughts were the same as my own, which were, that I would havegiven a great deal to find myself safe and sound again within the prisonwalls. However, daylight came at last; the wild beasts did not prowlany more; we walked on till we found a stream of water, where we satdown and took our breakfast, after which our courage revived, and wetalked and laughed as we walked on, just as we had done before. We nowbegan to ascend the mountains, which Hastings said must be the BlackMountains that the soldiers had talked to us about. They were verydesolate; and when night came on we collected brushwood, and cut downbranches with our knives, that we might make a fire, not only to warmourselves, but to scare away the wild beasts, whose howling had alreadycommenced. We lighted our fire and ate our supper; the loaf was halfgone, and the hams had been well cut into--we knew, therefore, that verysoon we should have to trust to our guns for procuring food. As soon aswe had finished our meal, we lay down by the fire, with our musketsloaded close to us, and our ammunition placed out of danger. We were sotired that we were soon fast asleep. It had been agreed that Romershould keep the first watch, and Hastings the middle, and I the morning;but Romer fell asleep, and the consequence was, that the fire was notkept up. It was about midnight that I was awakened by somethingbreathing hard in my face, and just as I could recall my senses and openmy eyes, I found myself lifted up by my waistband, and the teeth of someanimal pinching my flesh. I tried to catch at my musket, but I put outmy wrong hand, and laid hold of a still lighted brand out of the fire,which I darted into the animal's face; it let me drop directly, and ranaway."

  "What a providential escape!" said Mrs Seagrave.

  "Yes, it was, ma'am; the animal was a hyena. Fortunately they are avery cowardly sort of beast; sti
ll, had it not been for the lightedstick, it would have carried me off, for I was very small then, and itlifted me up as if I was a feather in its mouth. The shout I gave wokeHastings, who seized his musket and fired. I was very much frightened,as you may suppose. As for Romer, he never woke till we pushed himhard, he was so completely knocked up. This affair, of course, made usmore cautious, and afterwards we lighted two fires, and slept betweenthem, one always remaining on the watch. For a week we travelled on,and as soon as we were over the mountains, we turned our heads to thenorthward. Our provisions were all gone, and we were one day withoutany; but we killed an antelope called a spring-bock, which gave usprovisions for three or four days: there was no want of game after wehad descended into the plain. I forgot to mention, however, a narrowescape we had, just before we had left an extensive forest on the sideof the mountain. We had walked till past noon, and were very muchtired; we decided upon taking our dinner under a large tree, and wethrew ourselves down in the shade. Hastings was lying on his back, withhis eyes looking upwards, when he perceived on the lower branch of thetree a panther, which lay along it, his green eyes fixed upon us, andready to spring; he seized his musket, and fired it without taking aim,for there was no time; but the ball entered the stomach of the animal,and, as it appeared, divided its back-bone. Down came the beast, withinthree or four feet of where we lay, with a loud roar, and immediatelycrouched to spring upon Romer; but it could not, for the back-bone beingbroken, it had not any power in its hinder quarters, so it raised up itsfore quarters, and then dropped down again. I never saw such rage andfury in an animal in my life. At first we were too much frightened tofire; but, perceiving that the beast could not spring, Hastings snatchedthe musket from Romer and shot it through the head.

  "We were now obliged to hunt for our livelihood, and we became bolderthan ever. Our clothes were all in rags; but we had plenty of powderand ammunition; there were hundreds and hundreds of antelopes and gnusin the plain--indeed, sometimes it was impossible to count them. Butthis plentiful supply of game was the cause of our being in greaterdanger, for now, for the first time, we heard the roar of the lionsevery night. We made large fires to keep them off, but they often madeus tremble when they came near to us."

  "Did you ever meet with one in the day-time?" said William.

  "Yes, sir; we often saw them, but they never attacked us, and we weretoo much afraid to fire at them. Once we met one face to face. We hadkilled an antelope called a hartebeest, and, with our muskets on ourshoulders, were running to secure it. Just as we came up to the spot,we heard a roar, and found ourselves not ten yards from a lion, who waslying on the top of the beast we had killed, his eyes flashing fire atus, and half raising himself, as if ready for a spring. We all took toour heels as fast as we could. I never looked back till I was out ofbreath: but the lion was content with our running away, and did not takethe trouble to follow us. Well, sir, we had been travelling, we reallyhardly knew where, but certainly in a northerly direction, for threeweeks, and were quite worn out: we now all agreed that we had done avery foolish thing, and would gladly have gone back again. For my part,I declare that I was willing to lie down and die, if I could have sodone, and I became quite indifferent to the roaring of the lions, andfelt as if I should be glad if one would have made a meal of me. Atlength, one morning, we fell in with a party of natives. They were ofthe Karroo tribe, as they told us by pointing to themselves, and saying,`Karroos', and then they pointed to us, and said `Dutch'. We shot game,and gave it to them, which pleased them very much, and they remainedwith us for five or six days. We tried by signs to inquire of them, ifthere were any Dutch settlement about there; and they understood us, andsaid that there was, in a direction which they pointed out to us, to thenorth-east. We offered them a present if they would show us the way.Two of the men agreed to go with us; the rest of the tribe, with thewomen and children, went southward. The next day we arrived at a Dutchsettlement of three or four farmhouses, called Graaff Reinet; but I mustleave off now, for it is past bed-time."