Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn by R. M. Ballantyne (freenovel24 .txt) 📗

For a long time father and son stood on the elevated rock gazing in silence on the little spot of earth that was to be their home, it might be, for months, or even years.

The island, as I have said, was a solitary one, and very small—not more than a mile broad, by about three miles long; but it was covered from summit to shore with the richest tropical verdure, and the trees and underwood were so thick that the cliffs could only be seen in places where gaps in the foliage occurred, or where an aspiring peak of rock shot up above the trees. In order to reach the ridge on which they stood, the castaways had passed beneath the shade of mangrove, banana, cocoa-nut, and a variety of other trees and plants. The land on which these grew was undulating and varied in form, presenting in one direction dense foliage, which not only filled the little valleys, but clung in heavy masses to rocks and ridges; while in other places there were meadows of rich grass, with here and there a reedy pond, whose surface was alive with wild ducks and other water-fowl. Only near the top of the island—which might almost be styled a mountain ridge—was there any appearance of uncovered rock. There were two principal peaks, one of which, from its appearance, was a volcano, but whether an active one or not Gaff could not at that time determine. Unlike the most of the South Sea islands, this one was destitute of a surrounding coral reef, so that the great waves caused by the recent storm burst with thunderous roar on the beach.

At one point only was there a projecting point or low promontory, which formed a natural harbour; and it was on the outer rocks of this point that the father and son had been providentially cast. The whole scene was pre-eminently beautiful; and as the wind had gone quite down, it was, with the exception of the solemn, regular, intermittent roar of the breakers on the weather side, quiet and peaceful. As he sat down on a rock, and raised his heart to God in gratitude for his deliverance, Gaff felt the spot to be a sweet haven of rest after the toils and horrors of the storm.

A single glance was sufficient to show that the island was uninhabited.

The silence was first broken by Billy, who, in his wonted sudden and bursting manner, gave vent to a resonant cheer.

“Hallo! ho! hooray!” he shouted, while a blaze of delight lit up his face; “there’s the boat, daddy!”

“Where away, lad?” demanded Gaff, rising and shading his eyes from the sun, as he looked in the direction indicated.

“There, down i’ the cove; bottom up among the rocks; stove in, I daresay. Don’t ’ee see’d, faither?”

“Ay, lad; and mayhap it bean’t stove in; leastwise we’ll go see.”

As the two hastened down to the beach to ascertain this important point, Gaff took a more leisurely survey of things on the island, and Billy commented freely on things in general.

“Now, daddy,” said the Bu’ster, with a face of beaming joy, “this is the very jolliest thing that ever could have happened to us—ain’t it?”

“Well, I’m not so sure o’ that, lad. To be cast away on a lone desert island in the middle o’ the Pacific, with little or no chance o’ gittin’ away for a long bit, ain’t quite the jolliest thing in the world, to my mind.”

“Wot’s a desert island, daddy?”

“One as ain’t peopled or cultivated.”

“Then that’s no objection to it,” said Billy, “because we two are people enough, and we’ll cultivate it up to the mast-head afore long.”

“But what shall we do for victuals, lad?” inquired Gaff, with a smile.

The Bu’ster was posed. He had never thought of food, so his countenance fell.

“And drink?” added Gaff.

The Bu’ster was not posed at this, for he remembered, and reminded his father of, the pond which they had seen from the ridge.

“Aha!” he added, “an’ there was lots o’ ducks on it too. We can eat them, you know, daddy, even though we han’t got green peas or taties to ’em.”

“We can have other things to ’em though,” said Gaff, pointing to a tall palm-tree; “for there are cocoa-nuts; and farther on, to this side o’ the hollow there, I see banana-trees; and here are yams, which are nearly as good as taties.”

“I told ye it would be jolly,” cried Billy, recovering his delight, “an’ no doubt we’ll find lots of other things; and then we’ll have it all to ourselves—you and me. You’ll be king, daddy, or emperor, and I’ll be prince. Won’t that be grand?—Prince of a South Sea island! What would Tottie and mother say? And then the boat, you know—even if it do be stove in, we can patch it up somehow, and go fishin’.”

“Without hooks or lines?” said Gaff.

Billy was posed again, and his father laughed at the perplexed expression on his countenance, as he said, “Never mind, boy, we’ll find somethin’ or other that will do instead o’ hooks an’ lines.”

“To be sure we will,” assented the other encouragingly; “an’ that’ll be one of the jolliest bits of it all, that we’ll spend lots of our time in tryin’ to find out things that’ll do instead o’ other things, won’t we? And then—hallo! was that a grump?”

“It sounded uncommon like one.”

“An’ that’s a squeal,” said Billy.

In another moment both “grump” and “squeal” were repeated in full chorus by a drove of wild pigs that burst suddenly out of a thick bush, and, rushing in mad haste past the intruders on their domain, disappeared, yelling, into a neighbouring thicket.

“Pork for our ducks, daddy!” shouted Billy, when the first burst of his surprise was over; “we’ll have plenty of grub now; but how are we to catch them?”

“Ha! we must find that out,” replied Gaff cheerfully; “it’ll give us summat to think about, d’ye see? Now then, here we are at the beach, an’ as far as I can see we have bright prospects in regard to victuals of another sort, for here be crabs an’ oysters an’ no end o’ cockles. Come, we’ll not be badly off, if we only had a hut o’ some sort to sleep in; but, after all, we can manage to be comfortable enough under a tree. It will be better than the housin’ we’ve had for the last few nights, anyhow.”

To their great delight they found that the boat had been cast ashore on a sandy place, and that it was uninjured. A short way beyond it, too, the oars were found stranded between two rocks.

This was a piece of great good fortune, because it placed within their reach the means of an immediate circumnavigation of their island. But before entering on this voyage of discovery they resolved to explore the woods near the place where they had landed, in search of a cavern, or some suitable place in which to fix their home.

Acting on this resolve they pulled the boat up the beach, placed the oars within it, and returned to the woods. As they went they picked up a few shell-fish, and ate them raw. Thus they breakfasted; but although the meal was a poor one it was unusually pleasant, because of the hunger which had previously oppressed them, and which Billy, in a fit of confidential talk with his father, compared to having his “interior gnawed out by rats!”

Passing through the woods they found a quantity of ripe berries, of various kinds, of which they ate heartily, and then came to a spring of clear cold water. Gaff also climbed a cocoa-nut tree and brought down two nuts, which were clothed in such thick hard shells that they well-nigh broke their hearts before they succeeded in getting at the kernels. However, they got at them in course of time, and feasted sumptuously on them.

It was half an hour, or perhaps three-quarters of an hour, after the gathering of the cocoa-nuts, that they came suddenly on a spring of water above which there was a cloud of vapour resembling steam.

“It’s bilin’,” exclaimed Billy, as he ran forward and eagerly thrust his hand into the water.

Billy had said this in joke, for he had never conceived of such a thing as a spring of hot water, but he found that his jest might have been said in earnest, for the spring was almost “bilin’,” and caused the Bu’ster to pull his hand out again with a roar of surprise and pain.

Just beyond the hot spring they found a small cavern in the face of a cliff, which appeared to them to be quite dry.

“Here’s the very thing we want, daddy,” cried Billy in gleeful surprise.

“Don’t be too sure, lad; p’raps it’s damp.”

“No, it’s dry as bone,” said the boy, running in and placing his hands on the floor; “it’s wide inside too, and the entrance is small, so we can put a door to it; and look there! see—an’t that a hole leadin’ to some other place?”

Billy was right. A small hole, not much larger than was sufficient to admit of a man passing through, conducted them into a larger cave than the first one, and here they found another hole leading into a third, which was so large and dark that they dared not venture to explore it without a light. They saw enough, however, to be convinced that the caverns were well ventilated and free from damp, so they returned to the entrance cave and examined it carefully with a view to making it their home.

Billy’s romantic spirit was filled to overflowing with joy while thus engaged, insomuch that Gaff himself became excited as well as interested in the investigation. They little knew at the time how familiar each rock and crevice of that cave was to become, and how long it was destined to be their island-home!