In Strange Company Part 29

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 encompa.s.sed 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 Croesus 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 sh.e.l.l-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 pa.s.sing s.h.i.+ps. 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 antic.i.p.ate 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sure 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 s.h.i.+ps. As usual, none were to be seen.

Having convinced myself of this melancholy fact, I returned to the sh.o.r.e, 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 lat.i.tudes. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.s 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. Rus.h.i.+ng 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 foresh.o.r.e of the island that my eyes alighted, but on the confined s.p.a.ce of a s.h.i.+p's cabin. It contained one bunk, a narrow sort of sofa, somewhat like the contrivance one sees in the first-cla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstance 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.