The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables by - (world best books to read txt) 📖

the most commonplace character. Who is so inexperienced in the vicissitudes of life as not to know this!

Early in the morning that succeeded their second night on the raft, Robin Wright awoke with a very commonplace, indeed a vulgar, snore; we might almost call it a snort. Such as it was, however, it proved to be a most important link in the chain of events which it is our province to narrate.

To explain: It must be understood that John Shanks, or Stumps, among other eccentricities, practised sprawling in his sleep, spreading himself abroad in inconceivable attitudes, shooting out an arm here, or a leg there, to the alarm or indignation of bedfellows, insomuch that, when known, bedfellows refused to remain with him.

Aware of Stumps’s propensity, Slagg had so arranged that his friend should lie at the stern of the raft with two strands of the binding-cable between him and Robin, who lay next to him. During the first part of the night, Stumps, either overcome by weariness or subdued by his friends’ discourses on the stellar world, behaved pretty well. Only once did he fling out and bestow an unmerited blow on the pork-barrel. But, about daybreak, he began to sprawl, gradually working his way to the extreme edge of the raft, where a piece of wood, nailed there on purpose, prevented him from rolling off altogether. It did not, however, prevent his tossing one of his long legs over the edge, which he accordingly did. The leg and foot were naked. He preferred to sleep so, even when bedless, having been brought up in shoe-and-stockingless society. With his foot dipping lightly in the wave, he prolonged his repose.

They were slipping quietly along at the time under the influence of a steady though gentle breeze, which had sprung up and filled their sail soon after they lay down to rest. An early shark, intent on picking up sea-worms, observed Stumps’s foot, and licked his lips, no doubt. He sank immediately for much the same reason that little boys retire to take a race before a leap. Turning on his back, according to custom, he went at the foot like a submarine thunderbolt.

Now, it was at that precise moment that Robin Wright snored, as aforesaid. The snore awoke Stumps, who had another sprawl, and drew up his leg gently—oh, how gently compared with what he would have done had he known what you know, reader! Nevertheless, the action was in time, else would he have had, for the rest of his life, a better title than heretofore to his nickname. As it was, the nose and lips of the slimy monster struck the youth’s foot and slid up the side of his leg.

Hideous was the yell with which Stumps received the salute. Acrobatic was the tumble with which he rolled over his comrades, and dire was the alarm created in all their hearts as they bounced from under the respective corners of their covering, and stood up, aghast!

“You twopenny turnip,” said Slagg, “why did you screech like—”

He stopped. There was no need to finish the question, for the fin of the disappointed shark, describing angry zig-zags in the water close by, furnished a sufficient answer.

“He has only grazed me,” said Stumps, feeling his leg anxiously.

“Only grazed you! rather say crazed you,” returned Sam, “for a cry like that could only come from a madman. What were you doing?—washing your feet in the sea?”

“No, not exactly,” replied Stumps, somewhat abashed, “but one of my legs got over the end of the raft somehow, and was trailing in the water.”

“Hallo! I say, look there, Sam!” said Robin, with sudden animation, pointing to the horizon straight ahead of them; “is that the big raft or a ship?”

“Neither, Robin,” replied Sam, after a prolonged and earnest gaze; “it must be an island. What do you think, Slagg?”

The incident of the shark was almost totally forgotten in the excitement caused by this new discovery. For some time Slagg and all the others gazed intently without uttering a word. Then Slagg looked round with a deep sigh.

“Yes, it’s a island,” he said; “no doubt about that.”

“What a blessing!” exclaimed Robin, with heartfelt emotion.

“Well, that depends,” said Sam, with a shake of the head. “Islands in the China seas are not always places of refuge—at least for honest people.”

“By no means,” added Slagg; “I’ve heard say that the pirates there are about the wust set o’ cut-throats goin’—though I don’t myself believe there’s much difference atween one set and another.”

The light wind which had carried the raft slowly over the sea, while they were asleep, now freshened into a stiff breeze, and tested the qualities of their craft, severely; but, with a little strengthening—an extra turn of a rope or an additional nail—here and there, it held pretty well together. At breakfast, which was served according to regulation, they discussed their situation.

“You see,” said Sam, “this may turn out to be a small barren island, in which case we shall have to leave it and trust to falling in with some vessel; or it may be inhabited by savages or pirates, in which case we shall have to leave it from prudential motives, if they will allow us to do so. In any case, we won’t begin by being extravagant with the provisions to-day.”

As they drew near to the island, the probability of its being inhabited became greater, because, although solitary, and, according to Sam’s amateur calculations, far remote from other lands, it presented a bold and fertile aspect. It was not, indeed, large in circumference, but it rose to a considerable height, and was covered with rich vegetation, above which waved numerous groups of the cocoa-nut palm. A band of light yellow sand fringed the shore, on which the waves roiled in a still lighter fringe of foam, while two or three indentations seemed to indicate the existence of creeks or openings into the interior.

With eager gaze the castaways watched this island as they slowly approached it—the minuter beauties of rock and dell and leafy copse brightening into view as the sun mounted the clear blue sky.

“What I have thought or dreamed of sometimes, when dear mother used to speak of heaven,” murmured Robin, as if communing with himself.

“Well, I have not thought much of heaven,” said Sam, “but I shouldn’t wonder if it’s something like the paradise from which Adam and Eve were driven.”

“There’s no sign o’ natives as yet,” said Slagg, who, regardless of these remarks, had been gazing at the island with eyes shaded by his hand.

“Yes there is; yonder is one sitting on the rocks,” said Stumps; “don’t you see him move?”

“That’s not a native,” returned Slagg, “it’s too long in the back for a human being. It’s a big monkey—a gorilla, maybe. Did you ever hear tell of gorillas being in them regions?”

“I rather think not,” said Sam; “and to my mind it looks more like a rock than anything else.”

A rock it proved to be, to the discomfiture of Slagg and Stumps; but the rock was not without interest, for it was soon seen that a rope was attached to it, and that the rope, stretching across the entrance to a creek, was lost in the foliage on the side opposite to the rock.

“Why, I do believe,” said Sam, suddenly, in an impressive whisper, “that there is a vessel of some sort at the other end of that rope, behind the point, partly hid by the trees. Don’t you see the top of her masts?”

After long and earnest gazing, and much whispered conversation—though there was no occasion for caution at such a distance from the land—they came to the conclusion that a vessel lay concealed just within the mouth of the creek towards which the wind was driving them, and that, as they apparently had not been discovered by those who owned the vessel, their wisest course would be to land, if possible without attracting attention, somewhat farther along the coast.

“But how is that to be done,” asked Robin, “as we have neither oar nor rudder?”

“Nothing easier,” returned Slagg, seizing the axe and wrenching up the plank that had prevented Stumps from finding a watery grave, “I’ve on’y got to cut a handle at one end, an’ we’ve got an oar at once.”

In a few minutes the handy youth converted the piece of plank into a rude oar, with which he steered the raft, so that it gradually drew to the southward of the creek where the strange vessel lay, and finally took the land in another inlet not far distant.

It was evident, from the silence around, that no one was stirring in the vessel, and that their approach had not been perceived. Congratulating themselves on this piece of good fortune, they lowered their sail, drew the raft under the bushes, which in some parts of the inlet came close down to the sea, and then hurried stealthily through a palm-grove towards the vessel. They reached the margin of the grove in a few minutes, and there discovered that the stranger was apparently a Chinese craft, but whether a trading-vessel, or smuggler, or pirate, they had no means of knowing.

As they lay flat on their faces in the rank grass, peeping through the luxuriant undergrowth, they could see that two men paced the deck with musket on shoulder as if on guard, but no other human beings were visible.

“Shall we go forward and trust them as honest traders?” asked Sam in a whisper.

“I think not,” replied Slagg; “if all’s true that one hears, there is not much honesty afloat in them seas. My advice is to stay where we are and see what turns up.”

“What think you, Robin?”

Robin was of opinion that they should trust the strangers and go forward. Stumps agreed with him, but Sam thought with Slagg. Their indecision, however, was cut short by a most startling occurrence.

While they were yet whispering together, the sound of voices was heard in the distance. Our castaways at once sank flatter into the grass, and became mute.

In a few minutes the voices drew gradually nearer, until they were quite close to the alarmed watchers. Suddenly, from among the bushes on the other side of an open space just in front of them, there issued a band of men, walking in single file. Their appearance might have aroused grave anxiety in the most unsuspecting breast, for, besides possessing faces in which the effects of dissipation and evil passions were plainly stamped, they were armed—as the saying is—to the teeth, with short swords, cavalry pistols, and carbines. They were dressed in varied Eastern costume, and appeared to be of Malay origin, though some bore closer resemblance to the Chinese.

The man who marched in advance—evidently the leader of the band—was unusually tall and powerful, with a remarkably stern, but not altogether forbidding, countenance.

“Pirates!” whispered Slagg.

“Looks like them, but may be smugglers,” replied Sam in the same cautious tone.

Even Robin’s unsuspecting and inexperienced nature would not permit him to believe that they were honest traders. Had any doubts on the subject lingered in their minds, these would have been effectually cleared away by the scenes which immediately followed.

While the pirates were still at some distance from the shore, sudden shouts and yells came from the vessel, which had, up to that time, been lying so peacefully at anchor, and it was at once clear that a furious hand-to-hand fight was taking place upon her deck.

“It must be the poor slaves who have risen,” whispered Sam.

The pirates had drawn their swords and pistols at the first sound of the fight, and rushed to the rescue. They well knew that, while they had been on shore, the unfortunate captives chained in the vessel’s hold had succeeded in freeing themselves, and were endeavouring to overcome the few men left to guard them.

Slaves captured at various times by the scoundrels who infest those seas, are sometimes made to work at the oars—which are much used during calm weather—until they die,