The Wings of the Morning Part 8

At another time Iris would have snapped at him for the retort. Still humbly regretful for her previous att.i.tude she answered meekly--

"Yes, in this manner of cooking them, I mean. But there are other items--methods of lighting fires, finding water, knowing what fruits and other articles may be found on a desert island, such as plantains and cocoanuts, certain sorts of birds--and _beche-de-mer_."

For the life of her she could not tell why she tacked on that weird item to her list.

The sailor inquired, more civilly--"Then you are acquainted with trepang?"

"Who?"

"Trepang--_beche-de-mer_, you know."

Iris made a desperate guess. "Yes," she said, demurely. "It makes beautiful backs for hair brushes. And it looks so nice as a frame for platinotype photographs. I have--"

Jenks swallowed a large piece of ham and became very red. At last he managed to say--"I beg your pardon. You are thinking of tortoise-sh.e.l.l.

_Beche-de-mer_ is a sort of marine slug."

"How odd!" said Iris.

She had discovered at an early age the tactical value of this remark, and the experience of maturer years confirmed the success of juvenile efforts to upset the equanimity of governesses. Even the sailor was silenced.

Talk ceased until the meal was ended. Jenks sprang lightly to his feet.

Rest and food had restored his faculties. The girl thought dreamily, as he stood there in his rough attire, that she had never seen a finer man. He was tall, sinewy, and well formed. In repose his face was pleasant, if masterful. Its somewhat sullen, self-contained expression was occasional and acquired. She wondered how he could be so energetic.

Personally she was consumed with sleepiness.

He produced a revolver.

"Do you mind if I fire a shot to test these cartridges?" he inquired.

"The powder is all right, but the fulminate in the caps may be damaged."

She agreed promptly. He pointed the weapon at a cl.u.s.ter of cocoanuts, and there was a loud report. Two nuts fell to the ground, and the air was filled with shrill screams and the flapping of innumerable wings.

Iris was momentarily dismayed, but her senses confirmed the sailor's explanation--"Sea-birds."

He reloaded the empty chamber, and was about to say something, when a queer sound, exactly resembling the gurgling of water poured from a large bottle, fell upon their ears. It came from the interior of the grove, and the two exchanged a quick look of amazed questioning. Jenks took a hasty step in the direction of the noise, but he stopped and laughed at his own expense. Iris liked the sound of his mirth. It was genuine, not forced.

"I remember now," he explained. "The wou-wou monkey cries in that peculiar warble. The presence of the animal here shows that the island has been inhabited at some time."

"You remember?" repeated the girl. "Then you have been in this part of the world before?"

"No. I mean I have read about it."

Twice in half an hour had he curtly declined to indulge in personal reminiscences.

"Can you use a revolver?" he went on.

"My father taught me. He thinks every woman should know how to defend herself if need be."

"Excellent. Well, Miss Deane, you must try to sleep for a couple of hours. I purpose examining the coast for some distance on each side.

Should you want me, a shot will be the best sort of signal."

"I am very tired," she admitted. "But you?"

"Oh, I am all right. I feel restless; that is, I mean I will not be able to sleep until night comes, and before we climb the hill to survey our domain I want to find better quarters than we now possess."

Perhaps, were she less fatigued, she would have caught the vague anxiety, the note of distrust, in his voice. But the carpet of sand and leaves on which she lay was very seductive. Her eyes closed. She nestled into a comfortable position, and slept.

The man looked at her steadily for a little while. Then he moved the revolver out of harm's way to a spot where she must see it instantly, pulled his sou'wester well over his eyes and walked off quietly.

They were flung ash.o.r.e on the north-west side of the island. Except for the cove formed by the coral reef, with its mysterious palm-tree growing apparently in the midst of the waves, the shape of the coast was roughly that of the concave side of a bow, the two visible extremities being about three-quarters of a mile apart.

He guessed, by the way in which the sea raced past these points, that the land did not extend beyond them. Behind him, it rose steeply to a considerable height, 150 or 200 feet. In the center was the tallest hill, which seemed to end abruptly towards the south-west. On the north-east side it was connected with a rocky promontory by a ridge of easy grade. The sailor turned to the south-west, as offering the most likely direction for rapid survey.

He followed the line of vegetation; there the ground was firm and level. There was no suggestion of the mariner's roll in his steady gait. Alter his clothing, change the heavy boots into spurred Wellingtons, and he would be the _beau ideal_ of a cavalry soldier, the order of Melchisedec in the profession of arms.

He was not surprised to find that the hill terminated in a sheer wall of rock, which stood out, ominous and ma.s.sive, from the wealth of verdure clothing the remainder of the ridge. Facing the precipice, and separated from it by a strip of ground not twenty feet above the sea-level in the highest part, was another rock-built eminence, quite bare of trees, blackened by the weather and scarred in a manner that attested the attacks of lightning.

He whistled softly. "By Jove!" he said. "Volcanic, and highly mineralized."

The intervening belt was spa.r.s.ely dotted with trees, casuarinas, poon, and other woods he did not know, resembling ebony and cedar. A number of stumps showed that the axe had been at work, but not recently. He pa.s.sed into the cleft and climbed a tree that offered easy access. As he expected, after rising a few feet from the ground, his eyes encountered the solemn blue line of the sea, not half a mile distant.

He descended and commenced a systematic search. Men had been here. Was there a house? Would he suddenly encounter some hermit Malay or Chinaman?

At the foot of the main cliff was a cl.u.s.ter of fruit-bearing trees, plantains, areca-nuts, and cocoa-palms. A couple of cinchonas caught his eye. In one spot the undergrowth was rank and vividly green. The ca.s.sava, or tapioca plant, reared its high, pa.s.sion-flower leaves above the gra.s.s, and some sago-palms thrust aloft their thick-stemmed trunks.

"Here is a change of menu, at any rate," he communed.

Breaking a thick branch off a poon tree he whittled away the minor stems. A strong stick was needful to explore that leafy fastness thoroughly.

A few cautious strides and vigorous whacks with the stick laid bare the cause of such prodigality in a soil covered with drifted sand and lumps of black and white speckled coral. The trees and bushes enclosed a well--safe-guarded it, in fact, from being choked with sand during the first gale that blew.

Delighted with this discovery, more precious than diamonds at the moment, for he doubted the advisability of existing on the water supply of the pitcher-plant, he knelt to peer into the excavation. The well had been properly made. Ten feet down he could see the reflection of his face. Expert hands had tapped the secret reservoir of the island.

By stretching to the full extent of his arm, he managed to plunge the stick into the water. Tasting the drops, he found that they were quite sweet. The sand and porous rock provided the best of filter-beds.

He rose, wall pleased, and noted that on the opposite side the appearance of the shrubs and tufts of long gra.s.s indicated the existence of a grown-over path towards the cliff. He followed it, walking carelessly, with eyes seeking the prospect beyond, when something rattled and cracked beneath his feet. Looking down, he was horrified to find he was trampling on a skeleton.

Had a venomous snake coiled its glistening folds around his leg he would not have been more startled. But this man of iron nerve soon recovered. He frowned deeply after the first involuntary heart-throb.

With the stick he cleared away the undergrowth, and revealed the skeleton of a man. The bones were big and strong, but oxidized by the action of the air. Jenks had injured the left tibia by his tread, but three fractured ribs and a smashed shoulder-blade told some terrible unwritten story.

Beneath the mournful relics were fragments of decayed cloth. It was blue serge. Lying about were a few blackened objects--bra.s.s b.u.t.tons marked with an anchor. The dead man's boots were in the best state of preservation, but the leather had shrunk and the nails protruded like fangs.

A rusted pocket-knife lay there, and on the left breast of the skeleton rested a round piece of tin, the top of a canister, which might have reposed in a coat pocket. Jenks picked it up. Some curious marks and figures were punched into its surface. After a hasty glance he put it aside for more leisurely examination.

No weapon was visible. He could form no estimate as to the cause of the death of this poor unknown, nor the time since the tragedy had occurred.

Jenks must have stood many minutes before he perceived that the skeleton was headless. At first he imagined that in rummaging about with the stick he had disturbed the skull. But the most minute search demonstrated that it had gone, had been taken away, in fact, for the plants which so effectually screened the lighter bones would not permit the skull to vanish.

Then the frown on the sailor's face became threatening, thunderous. He recollected the rusty kriss. Indistinct memories of strange tales of the China Sea crowded unbidden to his brain.