Fire Island Part 4

_Scree-auh_!

A long-drawn, piercing, and harsh cry from a distance.

"What's that?" cried Drew.

"Fish," said the mate, drily. "Found there's no more water, and it's going to die."

"Mr Rimmer," cried Lane, "what nonsense!"

"Nonsense? Why, I've many a time heard fish sing out when they've been dragged on board."

"That was a bird," said Lane, as he shaded his eyes to try and pierce the gloom around them. "There it goes again."

For the cry was repeated, and then answered from behind them, and followed directly after by a piping whistle and a chirp.

"We're ash.o.r.e with birds all about us," said Oliver Lane decisively. We were carried right in by that earthquake wave, and the water has retired and left us stranded.

"Have it your own way, gentlemen," said the mate. "It's all the same to me whether my s.h.i.+p's left stranded at the bottom of a dry sea or right away on land. She's no use now--that's plain enough."

Just then the darkness closed in again, and save for the murmur of voices in the obscurity, the stillness was terrible. So utterly dark did it become that anything a yard away was quite invisible, and once more, suffering one and all from a sensation of dread against which it was impossible to fight, the occupants of the deck stood waiting to encounter whatever was next to come.

Oliver Lane was at the age when a youth begins to feel that he is about to step into a fresh arena--that of manhood, but with a good deal that is boyish to hold him back. And in those moments, oppressed and overcome as he was by the long-continued darkness, he felt a strong disposition to search out a hand so as to cling to whoever was nearest, but he mastered the desire, and then uttered a sigh of satisfaction, for Drew, his companion, suddenly thrust a hand beneath his arm and pressed towards him.

"Company's good," he whispered, "even if you're going to be hanged, they say; let's keep together, Lane, for I'm not ashamed to say I'm in a regular stew."

"So's everybody," said the mate frankly. "I've been through a good deal at sea, gentlemen, but this is about the most awful thing I ever did encounter. I wouldn't care if we were only able to see what was to happen next."

A cheer broke out from the crew at that moment, for right overhead the blackness opened, and a clear, bright ray of light shot down upon the deck, quivered, faded, shot out again, and then rapidly grew broader and broader.

"Blue sky!" yelled one of the sailors frantically as a patch appeared; and in his intense excitement he dashed off into the rapid steps of a hornpipe.

"Bravo, my lads!" cried the mate, who was as excited as the men. "Cheer again. Three cheers for the bit of blue!"

The men shouted till they were hoa.r.s.e, paused, and then cheered again, while Panton turned now to where his friends were standing with the mate, and with the tears welling in his eyes, began to shake hands with first one and then another, all reciprocating and beginning in their hysterical delight to repeat the performance double-handed now, as the light grew broader and clearer. A soft, warm mellow glow, which grew and grew till the huge dense steam clouds were seen to be rolling slowly away in three directions, in the fourth--the north evidently, from the direction of the golden rays of light--there was one vast bank of vapour, at first black, then purple, and by degrees growing brighter, till the men burst forth cheering wildly again at the ma.s.s of splendour before them. For far as eye could reach all was purple, orange, gold and crimson of the most dazzling sheen, then darkness once more; for the sun, of which they had a momentary glimpse, was blotted out by the rolling ma.s.ses of cloud which were floating away.

But it was the darkness of an evening in the tropics. The light had been, and sent hope and rest into their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, giving them the knowledge of their position as they lay stranded upon an open plain with the terrible convulsion of nature apparently at an end.

CHAPTER THREE.

"JUST NOWHERE!"

"One must eat and one must sleep," said Oliver Lane, "even if a fellow has been knocked on the head and nearly killed."

Every one was of the same opinion; but though there were a few attempts at jocularity, the mirth was forced, and all knew that they were trying to hide the deep feelings of thankfulness in their hearts for their safety, after pa.s.sing through as terrible an ordeal as could fall to the lot of man.

There was another reason, too, for the solemnity which soon prevailed; the captain lay dead in the cabin--the man who not many hours before was in full possession of health, and now sleeping calmly there, beyond sharing the hopes and fears of those whom he had left behind.

Consequently, men went to and fro as if afraid of their steps being heard, and for the most part conversed in whispers for some time, till the question arose about keeping watch.

"There's only one thing to keep a watch for to-night," said the mate to Oliver,--"savages."

"If there are savages here, would they not have been drowned, Mr Rimmer?"

"Perhaps--or burned to death. Then there's nothing to watch for."

"Not for the wave that may come and carry us back to sea?"

"No; that would be too long a watch, sir. Such an eruption as we have encountered only comes once in a man's lifetime. I'm in command now, and I shall let every poor fellow have ten or a dozen hours' good sleep, and I am so utterly done up that I shall take the same amount myself."

The consequence was that all through that natural darkness of night dead silence reigned.

But not for ten or a dozen hours. Before eight of them were pa.s.sed, Oliver Lane was awake and on deck, eager and excited with all a naturalist's love of the wild world, to see what their novel surroundings would be like.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning brilliantly; low down in the east the sky was golden, and as he raised his head above the hatchway, it was to gaze over the bulwarks at a glorious vista of green waving trees, on many of which were ma.s.ses of scarlet and yellow blossom; birds were flying in flocks, screaming and shrieking; while from the trees came melodious pipings, and the trills of finches, mingled with deep-toned, organ-like notes, and the listener felt his heart swell with thankfulness, and a mist came before his eyes, as he felt how gloriously beautiful the world seemed, after the black darkness and horrors through which he had pa.s.sed.

Then everything was matter-of-fact and ordinary again, for a voice said,--"Hullo! you up? Thought I was first."

"You, Drew? I say, look here." Sylvester Drew, botanist of the little expedition, shaded his eyes from the horizontal sunbeams, and looked round over the hatchway as he stood beside his companion, and kept on uttering disconnected words,--"Beautiful--grand--Paradise--thank G.o.d!"

By one impulse they stepped on deck and went to the bulwarks, to stand there and look around, astounded at the change.

From where they had obtained their first glimpse of their surroundings they only saw the higher ground; now they were looking upon the level--a scene of devastation.

For they were both gazing upon the track of the earthquake wave, and all around them trees were lying torn-up by the roots, battered and stripped of their leaf.a.ge, some piled in inextricable confusion, others half buried in mud. Some again had soft white coral sand heaped over them.

Here, the surface had been swept bare to the dark rock which formed the base of the island or continent upon which they had been cast; there, mud lay in slimy waves, some of which were being disturbed at the surface by something living writhing its way through the liquid soil.

"Might have given a fellow a call," said a voice, and Panton came up to them. "You fellows are as bad as schoolboys; must have first turn."

"Never thought of calling you," said Drew.

"Not surprised at you," said Panton to Oliver Lane, "you are only a schoolboy yet; but you might have called me, Drew."

"Don't take any notice, Oliver, lad," said Drew. "Panton always goes badly till he has been oiled by his breakfast."

"My word!" cried Panton, as he grasped the scene around them. "Look here, Drew! Look at the earth bared to its very bones. Volcanic. Look at the tufa. That's basalt there, and look where the great blocks of coral are lying. Why, they must have been swept in by the wave."

"Don't bother," said Drew. "I want to make out what those trees are in blossom. They must be--"

"Oh, bother your trees and flowers! Here, Oliver, lad, look at the great pieces of scoria and pumice. Why, that piece is smoking still.

These must be some of the fragments we saw falling yesterday."

"Can't look," said Oliver, "I want to know what those birds are, and there's a great fish in that muddy pool yonder, and, if I'm not greatly mistaken, that's a snake. Here, quick! Look amongst those trees.

There's a man--no, a boy--no. I see now; it's alive, and--yes--it's some kind of ape."

"Well, we can't go on fighting against each other, with every man for his own particular subject," said Drew, "we must take our turns. We've been cast on a perfect naturalist's paradise, with the world turned upside down, as if for our special advantage."

"Yes," said Panton; "we could not possibly have hit upon a place more full of tempting objects."

"But what about our exploration in New Guinea?" said Oliver.