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CHAPTER IV
RESCUED
Long after Veneda's speech I remained kneeling by his side in earnest prayer, but when his laboured breathing ceased altogether, and I looked up to find his jaw dropped and his great eyes fixed in a horrible stare, I knew that all was over, and prepared to perform the last sad offices.
These accomplished, his expression changed completely. Up to the moment of his death a haggard, weary look had possessed his features, but now his face was like that of a little child for innocence and peace. I stood looking down on him for some minutes, my mind surging with a variety of thoughts. Then, picking up my cap, I strode hastily from the plateau towards the interior of the island, in the hope of diverting my thoughts from the scene I had just witnessed, and from the contemplation of my own awful loneliness.
Swiftly I marched along; the bright sunshine straggled amid the trees and lit up the glades through which I passed, but beyond being aware of these things I had little attention for them. I could not divest myself of the horror of my position. Here was I, I told myself, the sole living being upon this island; my companion a dead and unburied man; my prospect of rescue as remote as ever, and my food supply limited to a few more meals. Indeed, so horrible was my condition that consideration of it inclined me even to wish myself back in prison in Batavia.
In this state I passed out from the woods on to the shore. The tide was far out, and an expanse of sand stretched before me. Thinking brisk exercise might raise my spirits I set off to walk as quickly as I could round the island. But it was only putting off the unpleasant work, for I could not allow day to depart and leave me with the body still unburied.
My prison, I discovered, was not as large as I had thought it, being considerably less than a mile long. My first view had evidently been a deceptive one, and I must have allowed more for the fall of the hill than was justifiable, considering that I had not seen the end of it.
In the hope that I might discover some sort of shell-fish with which to sustain life when my meagre supply of rice should be exhausted, I walked close to the water's edge, but not a trace of anything fit to eat could I find. This knowledge added considerably to my uneasiness.
While engaged in my search, I espied, bobbing up and down in the water not far from the shore, something that looked suspiciously like a bottle with the cork in. My curiosity was instantly aroused. Who knew but that it might contain the last message of a shipwrecked crew, thrown overboard in the hope of carrying to the world information of their unhappy fate. If this were so, into what weak hands had it fallen!
My mind made up to gain possession of it, it was the work of a moment to wade towards it. I found it to be a Bass' beer-bottle, and on holding it up to the light, I could see that it contained a sheet of paper. The mouth was firmly corked, and to render it additionally secure, the latter was not only tied down but carefully sealed. Bearing it ashore, I threw myself on the warm sands and prepared to broach its contents.
I discovered the cork to be fastened with copper wire, while the wax used was of a quality more generally employed by ladies on their billets-doux than by men before the mast. Cracking the bottle with a stone I extracted the paper and spread it carefully out.
It was a full sheet of cream-laid, folded longways into a narrow strip to go through the bottle's neck. Owing to this precaution it was quite dry. The following is an exact transcript of what I read —
S.S. Cambermine,"Three days' steam from Nagasaki.
"To all whom it may concern,
"This is to certify that we, the undersigned, being on our honeymoon, are the two happiest people on the face of this globe, and don't you forget it!
"Reginald and May."
A sillier and, under the circumstances, crueller hoax it would have been impossible to conceive. And yet to my mind there was something terribly pathetic about that tiny message, tossed about by many seas, buffeted by storms, carried hither and thither by various currents, its ultimate fate to fall into the hands of perhaps the most miserable being on the whole face of that world so flippantly referred to by the writers. Shutting my eyes I could conjure up the scene – the promenade deck of the steamer – the happy couple busily engaged upon the preparation of the message – the toss overboard, and finally, the bottle bobbing up and down a mute farewell among the waves. Big man as I was, when I pictured the happiness to which the note referred, and compared it with my own position, the tears rose into my eyes, and surely if it served no other purpose, the message had done one good work in diverting for a time the current of my miserable thoughts.
For some vague reason, I could not tell what, – perhaps that I might have in my possession something which was the outcome of a fellow-creature's happiness, or, maybe, because it was a last feeble link with the outside world, – I resolved not to tear up the paper, but to keep it as a talisman about me. When I had put it carefully away I resumed my walk, and half-an-hour later had completed my circuit of the island, and was back again on the sands opposite the plateau.
By this time my mind was made up, and I had resolved to carry out as expeditiously as possible the horrible task which lay before me. But how I was to dig a grave of sufficient depth, seeing that I had no tools, save my knife and hands, with which to do it, I could not understand. Fearing, however, that if I delayed matters any longer I should never undertake it at all, I chose a suitable spot a little to the right of the plateau, and fell to work.
I found it a longer business than I expected, for though I commenced it early enough, it was nearly dusk before I had completed it. Unfortunately I had only accomplished the least horrible part. What I most dreaded was conveying the body to the grave, and this I had now to do.
Returning to the camp on the plateau, the very remembrance of which had grown indescribably repulsive to me, I approached the spot. A feeling of surprise took possession of me when I saw that the body lay just as I had left it, and perhaps for the same reason I found myself creeping towards it on tip-toe, as if it were wrapped in a slumber which might be easily disturbed.
Stooping down, I placed my arms round it, then lifting it on to my shoulder, hurried back to the grave with all possible speed. Laying it down, I returned for the cloth stretcher on which we had borne Veneda the previous night, and having procured this I wrapped the body in it and laid it in the grave. Then endeavouring to bring my mind to bear on the awful solemnity of what I was doing, I repeated as much as I could remember of the service for the burial of the dead. It was an impressive scene. The dead man in his shallow grave, the evening breeze just stirring the trees, the light and shadow effects of the sunset, the smooth sea, and the awful silence of the island. Such an impression did it make on me, that it seemed if I did not get away from the spot I should go raving mad. So soon therefore as I had committed his body to the ground, "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," I began to fill in the soil with feverish haste. The instant that was finished, I picked up my remaining supply of rice and the cooking-pot, and ran for dear life. Strange shapes peered at me from every tree, and unearthly voices whispered in the faint rustling of the leaves. The truth was my nerves were utterly unstrung, – and was this indeed to be wondered at, considering the nature of my experiences within the last twenty-four hours?
So great was my horror of an Unknown Something – what, I could not explain – that I had run to the end of the island farthest from the grave before I came to myself. Then I threw myself down upon the sands quite exhausted. But I was too hungry to remain inactive long. Lighting a fire with my one remaining match, I set to work to cook some rice, obtaining water from a spring I had discovered in my morning's ramble. By the time I had finished my meal it was quite dark, so I laid myself down, and after a while fell asleep.
With prudence born of the knowledge that if my fire once went out I should have no means of relighting it, I had heaped plenty of fuel on it before I turned in, so that when I woke next morning it was still burning brightly. Having cooked and eaten a small portion of my rice, for I was now compelled to rigidly allowance myself, I replenished my fire, and started off to climb to my usual look-out spot on the top of the hill.
Though I searched in every direction, not a sign of a sail was visible. Only the same expanse of blue water stretching away to the sky-line, the same wheeling gulls, and the same eternal thunder of the surf upon the rearward reef.
Anything more awful than the feeling of desolation that encompassed me I would defy any one to imagine. My sensations were those of a man cut off for ever from his fellow-creatures, a hapless outcast, destined to perish by slow starvation on that barren spot. A few more meals I discovered would find me at the end of my supplies. And what would happen then?
While I was occupied with these miserable reflections, the locket Veneda had given me chafed my skin, and the bitter irony of my position figured before me in a new light. Here was I, I told myself, having about me the key to enormous wealth, unable to procure the commonest necessaries of life. A Crœsus and a beggar! Indeed, at that moment, had it been in my power to do so, I would willingly have exchanged all my chances of obtaining the money for another small bag of rice like the one I was just at the end of. I returned to my fire to spend the remainder of the day tramping up and down the hill watching for the sail that never came.
That night I ate my last mouthful of food. Hence forward I must go without, unless I could find some sort of fruit or shell-fish with which to keep body and soul together. Having this object in view, off I set next morning on another expedition round the island. But I might have spared myself the labour. Trees there were in abundance, but not one having any pretence to fruit. Fish I knew teemed in the bay, but I had neither line nor hooks wherewith to catch them, nor anything of which to manufacture such tackle. Thus when I reviewed my position I began to see the hopelessness of it, and to think it would be better for me to lie down and die without struggling any further against my overwhelming fate.
All that day and the next I was without a morsel of food; my agony was indescribable. How many times I climbed that hill I could not say, but it was always with the same result – no sail – no sail! My one remaining thought was to keep up the fire, for I knew that if that went out I should have no means left of communicating with passing ships. Then a period of abject despair supervened, in which I cared not a rap what became of me. How I spent my time after that I could not tell you. I believe, however, that I must have been delirious, for I have a faint recollection of running along the beach screaming to Veneda that the Albino was pursuing me. Certainly this fit lasted a long time, for the next thing I remember is finding myself lying more dead than alive on the sand beside my burnt-out fire.
My last hope was gone. My chance of attracting attention had been taken away from me. Thereupon I asked myself, Why should I wait for death to release me? why should I not take the direction of affairs into my own hands, and anticipate what could only be a matter of another day, by the very longest calculation?
Strange though it may seem, my troubled brain found something peculiarly soothing in this idea. I brooded over it unceasingly, deriving a melancholy satisfaction from the knowledge that, though my agony was more than human, it was in my power to end it when I pleased. Somehow or other I developed the idea that the evening would be the most fitting time for me to accomplish the awful deed, perhaps just at sundown. Three words, "the evening sacrifice," part of a half-forgotten hymn, faint relic of my boyhood, haunted me continually —
"The sun is sinking fast,
The daylight dies;
Let love awake, and pay
Her evening sacrifice."
Then suddenly a grisly notion seized me, and all the afternoon I occupied myself procuring from a tree a slab of wood, upon which to carve my name and age. With what care I chose the inscription! With what labour I worked upon it! When it was completed to my satisfaction, it read as follows —
THE MORTAL REMAINS
OF
JOHN RAMSAY,
MARINER,
Who, dying by his own hand,
Bluffed Starvation, and became the Victim of Despair!
The sun was now only half a hand above the horizon, staring me in the face, a great globe of mocking fire. I had long since chosen the spot for my death, and thither I proceeded, sticking my tombstone in the ground beside the place where in all probability my corpse would fall.
When all my arrangements were made, I fell to sharpening my knife upon a stone, pausing now and again to watch the sun. His lower edge was hardly an eighth of an inch above the sea-line, and as he sank beneath it, I determined to have done with this weary world, and to endeavour to find in another the peace which was denied me here.
For the second time since my arrival on the island, my whole life passed in review before my eyes; – I saw the dame's school at Plymouth, Sir Benjamin, and the East India Avenue, Maud, and my dear dead mother. The bright side of my life seemed suddenly to end here, and a darker procession commenced to stalk across the stage. My early sea life, my quarrel with Maud, the gold-fields, my illness, Broken Hill, and, lastly, Veneda's death. The beach seemed peopled with phantoms, and it was as if they were all imploring me with outstretched arms to stay my wicked hand. But I would not heed them. The sun was now more than half sunk beneath the sea, and I drew back my arm to point the sacrificial knife.
At that instant a tiny object moving on the beach, fifty yards or so from where I stood, caught my eye. I paused to wonder what it might be, and that little act of curiosity saved my life. In that moment I abandoned the idea of self-destruction, and the next I was staggering towards the thing, whatever it might be.
It was a turtle making for the sea!
Before he could escape me I had turned him on his back, and plunged the knife into his breast; then working it round, in less time almost than it takes to tell, I had portions of the flesh cut out, and was ravenously devouring them. Oh, the delight of that meal!
When I had eaten as much as I wanted, I carried what remained to a place of safety, and afterwards knelt upon the beach to thank God earnestly for sparing my life to me. But for that tiny beast's intervention I should have been a dead man. Then with a heart considerably lighter I rose to my feet, and determined to see if by any chance I could discover another of the animals.
My luck had turned, for on the other side of the island I was fortunate enough to obtain another and even larger one. Carrying him back to my camp, I despatched him at once to make sure, and then hid his flesh. I can assure you that it was with a happier and more contented heart that I fell asleep that night.
Next morning I breakfasted on the turtle, and when I had finished, started up the hill to look for ships. As usual, none were to be seen. Having convinced myself of this melancholy fact, I returned to the shore, and, for something to do, set myself to destroy the head-board I had manufactured the day before, and to begin another to perpetuate Veneda's memory. In this manner I occupied myself all that day. When it was finished, I set off to view the grave for the first time since I had laid him in it.
It had already begun to look unkempt and straggling, so quickly do things grow in these latitudes. When I had tidied it as well as I could, I dug a hole at the head and erected the board. It is not much to look at, but at least it will serve its purpose, so that whosoever visits the spot in the future will be able to read the name of the man who lies beneath it.
This work accomplished, I started back along the shore to my camp for dinner. Turning the point, I happened to look out to sea. I stopped suddenly in my walk. I almost dropped under the shock! A sail was in sight, and heading towards the island!
For a moment I remained rooted where I stood; my excitement chained me hand and foot. Would she see me, or would she pass me by? The latter thought was agony. How could I attract her attention? I had no means to raise a flare, so I must hit upon some other scheme. Rushing swiftly across the sands into the thicket, I cut a long pole, and to this fastened my jacket. Then running with all my speed along the beach towards a piece of elevated ground, I ascended it, and wildly began to wave my signal.
Closer and closer she approached the island, and, as she came, I made out that she was not one of the small trading boats I had at first imagined her, but a steam-yacht, and a large one at that. When she was about two miles distant she ran a flag up to her peak. I could not of course at that distance make out what it was, but I understood that it was an answer to my signal, and waved my flag the more frantically, running down to the water's edge to do so. Then I saw that a boat was being lowered.
As soon as she was clear she started for the shore, and when I saw her coming I fell upon my knees, and sobbed as if my heart would break. After what seemed an eternity they grounded her, and I waded out to meet them. A gentlemanly-looking young fellow sat in the stern-sheets. He stared at me rather hard (and well he might, for I must have cut a strange figure), and said —
"I've been sent to see what's the matter. Can we help you?"
"Take me away," I cried, "take me away. I'm dying!"
I really thought I was. My senses were leaving me. I tottered, clutched at the gunwale of the boat, and remember no more!
CHAPTER V
RAMSAY MEETS OLD FRIENDS
When I came to my senses, my first impression was that I was still upon the island. This notion was perhaps strengthened in my mind by a continuous grinding noise (proceeding from the engine-room, I discovered later), which, I must own, somewhat resembled the distant roar of the surf upon the beach. When, however, I looked about me, it was not upon the timber-clad hill, or the long sandy foreshore of the island that my eyes alighted, but on the confined space of a ship's cabin. It contained one bunk, a narrow sort of sofa, somewhat like the contrivance one sees in the first-class state-rooms of the great mail-boats; a miniature chest of drawers and desk combined, on the top of which, beneath a number of photographs, pipes, and cheap knick-knacks, stood a variety of sombre-looking account-books; a curtained recess for hanging clothes, and a well-contrived washstand.
Then, in a flash, the remembrance of my rescue by the yacht came back to me, and I had just recalled the circumstance of my wading out to her boat, when the door opened and two men entered. The first was a dignified, grey-haired man, possessed of a handsome, aristocratic face; the second was rather smaller, with a bright, rosy little countenance, eyes that bespoke him a humourist, and a general air that said as plainly as words could have done that he was an Irishman. There was still a third behind them, the steward, whose cabin I was then occupying; but he, either from motives of delicacy, or because he imagined the cabin to be already sufficiently crowded, remained in the alley-way. The Irishman opened the conversation.
"Sir Richard," he began, as soon as he saw that I was awake, "you've lost your money, he's himself again. Now, my man, how are you, eh?"
I answered that I felt almost well, but that I would be grateful if he would inform me what boat I was on, and to whom I was indebted for my rescue. Perhaps something in my voice told him that I was not an ordinary foremast hand, for he immediately adopted a different tone, and after feeling my pulse, said —
"You're undoubtedly much stronger than when you were talking nonsense about Albinos, and digging up dead men, yesterday. Where are you? Why, on board the Esmeralda, Sir Richard Tremorden's yacht, to whom you are indebted for the civility of saving your life. Let me introduce you to Sir Richard."
I turned to Sir Richard and tried to thank him, but he would not hear of it.
"Not at all, Mr. – " Here he paused for me to give him my name.
"Ramsay," I said.
"Not at all, Mr. Ramsay. I am very thankful that I was in a position to do so. It was quite by chance that we sighted the island, as our real course lay a good deal to the eastward. Forgive my curiosity, but you must remember you're a mystery, and we're all suffering from an attack of impatience to know how you got there."
I was going to begin my story, but Dr. Sullivan – for such I afterwards discovered the little medico's name to be – would not permit it.
"No, no, Sir Richard, not just now. I must really exercise a doctor's authority, and forbid you to worry him with any questions until he's stronger; besides, ye're doing the ladies, God bless 'em, an injustice, by trespassing on their rights. They'll be wanting to cross-examine Mr. Ramsay for themselves."
"As you please, doctor," Sir Richard said, with a laugh. "You're in command down here, of course. Williams!"
The man in the alley-way answered, "Yes, Sir Richard?"
"Mind you take good care that Mr. Ramsay has everything he wants." Then turning to me, "Now, I must return to the deck to tell the ladies how you are. I hope, when you feel stronger, you'll give us the pleasure of your company."
Shaking me by the hand, he bade me good-bye, and went out, leaving me to the doctor, who thereupon began his medical examination, interspersing it with many good-natured sallies. From him I learnt that Sir Richard Tremorden was returning from a yachting trip to Japan, viâ Borneo and Java, to Singapore. The yacht was full of his friends, and it was only just by chance that he, the doctor, had been able to make one of the party. Furthermore, it was Lady Tremorden who first caught sight of my signal, and it was a strange coincidence that she it was who had proposed leaving their course to take a look at the island.
While we were talking, the steward brought me a large cup of beef-tea, and after he had helped me to sit up to it, the kindly little medico withdrew, having elicited all the information he could, concerning myself and my profession, for the information of the ladies on deck. When I was alone, I found myself face to face with a situation I had not before contemplated. How was I to account for my presence on the island without introducing the subject of our escape from Batavia? I thought and thought, but without telling a downright untruth I could see no way out of it. At last, after a deal of earnest consideration, I determined, if asked, to say that, having nothing to do for a while, I had accompanied a Malay on a sailing-trip. We touched at the island, and while I was ashore he cleared out and left me. This was the only course I could see. I had my own reasons for saying nothing about Veneda.
After lunch, dressed in a white duck suit of Sir Richard's, and having removed from my face the fortnight's beard that covered it, I went on deck, and was presented in proper form to the ladies, who, you may be sure, were all on the qui vive to hear my story. This, as soon as I could, I told them, and I must own that I blushed to hear their vigorous denunciations of the treacherous Malay. Lady Tremorden was particularly gracious, and to her I hastened to express my deep debt of gratitude.
When I look back upon the strange experiences of that year, I always think of that short voyage on board the Esmeralda as one of the few parts of it I should care to undergo again. I said as much to Sir Richard the other day, when I met him in London at a certain club of which we are both members. He laughed and answered —
"You were as good as a tonic to us, we had had no sensation since one of the hands fell overboard in Nagasaki."
Early next morning we reached Singapore, where I was to bid my kind friends "farewell." Before I left the yacht, Sir Richard invited me to his cabin, and in a real spirit of friendliness asked me how I stood with regard to money, offering to become my banker if I should require anything to help me along. But as I still possessed a fair amount of the Albino's loan, this kind offer I was able to decline, though of course I was none the less grateful to the generous thought which prompted it.
By nightfall the yacht had coaled, and proceeded on her way to Saigon, and, nothing else offering, I had signed myself on the Turkish Pacha, to work my way home before the mast.
She was a powerful old Ocean Tramp, homeward bound from Hong Kong. Strangely enough, to show how small the world is, it happened that her second officer was none other than young Belton, who was third mate of the Beretania when I was chief officer. I suppose I must have looked very much the same as the other fo'c'sle hands, for though we were often thrown together, we were off the South Foreland before he recognized me. Then, up to a certain point, and with numberless reservations that quite altered the face of it, I told him my story. I don't suppose he believed it for an instant; doubtless he thought me a wonderful liar, and put it all down as the result of a liking for strong waters. But I must do him the justice to admit, that when we were paid off he proffered me a loan, my non-acceptance of which must have puzzled him considerably.
The time was now coming for me to ascertain what truth there was in the story Veneda had told me of his fortune. But as I had passed my word to him not to open the locket within a month of my arrival in London, I had to look about me for a place to stay in until that time should expire. Having sufficient money to keep me for at least six weeks in comparative comfort, I resolved to put up at a quiet place I knew of, near the East India Docks, until the end of that period, and then to open the locket and try my success.
Somehow or other, though I had been assured by Veneda of its worth, though I wore it round my neck as a tangible proof of its reality, and had been warned of the attempts that would in all probability be made to obtain possession of it, I was not altogether a believer in the likelihood of its doing very much for me. I had been devoid of luck so long that I began to believe no more could ever come my way. So, all things considered, I should not have been overwhelmed with astonishment, had I on opening it discovered the information it contained to be entirely valueless.
I cannot tell you how strange it seemed to me to be back again in London after so long an absence, and how bitterly I felt the loss of the poor old mother's kindly welcome. As to Maud, my gentle Maud, of whom I had been thinking more than was good for me of late, was it any use to think of her? Had I forfeited all right to her regard? So constantly was she in my mind that I remember one night, under cover of darkness, stealing down to Holland Park just to take one glimpse at the old place where she had lived, and where once I had been so happy.
It was a wet, miserable evening; a piercing wind shrieked along the dismal streets and moaned round the corners, chilling to the marrow the bones of one accustomed to the warmth and brightness of those sunny Southern seas. Leaving my omnibus in the Uxbridge Road, I walked up a side street to the house. There it stood, solid and respectable as I remembered it. No changes had been made in its exterior, everything was exactly as when I saw it last, even to the peculiar scrimpiness about the piece of privet hedge beside the gate. A light was burning in an up-stair window, but otherwise the house was dark and silent as the grave. I stood and looked, the tears rising in my eyes as I did so; then, heaving a sigh for the sake of "auld lang syne," and all that might have been, I turned and went sorrowfully away.
And now I am brought to the relation of an incident which was to have a great and awful bearing on my future. One wet morning, I had just alighted from a 'bus in Oxford Street, a little below the Holborn Restaurant, and was half-way across the street, when a hansom whisked past me, so close that the horse's nose brushed my sleeve. The driver called to me to stand clear, and, expecting an accident, the fare threw open the apron and half stepped out. To my amazement he was none other than the Albino. There could be no mistake about it; I knew him in an instant. My astonishment was so great that I stopped in the middle of the road, and once more came near being run over.
On recovering myself my first impulse was to hail a hansom and make after him, but on second thoughts I saw the folly of such a proceeding. My one endeavour must rather be to keep out of his way. Whether he recognized me or not I could not of course tell, but we were so close to one another that it was most unlikely that he could have failed to do so. But then, I told myself, even if he did, what could it matter? He would never suspect me of being the possessor of the locket, for how should he know that I had escaped with Veneda from Batavia? Still, until I knew whether the secret the locket contained was of any value, it would be folly to run the risk of losing it. How well I guarded it the sequel will show.
Having little if any money to spend in what is called "knocking about town," I did not go out very much of an evening. When I did, my chief amusement was the theatre, to which I treated myself on an average about twice a week. After the performance it was my custom on the way home to drop into a small hostelry called the "Rose and Crown" for a night-cap. One evening (I had been to the Lyceum, I think) I went in and called for my usual refreshment. The bar was crowded, and among the visitors was a man who seemed to take a particular interest in myself. He came up to me and invited me to take a glass with him. Upon my offering some excuse he tried by every means in his power to ingratiate himself with me. But I did not like his look, and resolved, if I saw anything more of him there, to transfer my patronage from the "Rose and Crown" elsewhere.
