Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

Well was it for them at that moment that the wave which bore them on its crest swept them through a gap in the reef, else had they been inevitably dashed to pieces. As it was, they were nearly torn asunder, and Gaff’s shoulder just grazed a rock as he was whirled past it; but in a few seconds they found themselves in comparatively still water, and felt assured that they had been swept through an opening in the reef. Presently Gaff touched a rock and grasped it.

“Hold on, Billy my lad!” he exclaimed breathlessly, “we’ll be safe ashore, please God, in a short bit.”

“All right, daddy,” gasped the boy; for to say truth, the whirling in the foam had well-nigh exhausted him.

Soon the two were out of the reach of the waves, clinging to what appeared to be the face of a precipice. Here, although safe from the actual billows, they were constantly drenched by spray, and exposed to the full fury of the gale. At first they attempted to scale the cliff, supposing that if once at the top they should find shelter; but this proved to be impossible. Equally impossible was it to get round the promontory on which they had been cast. They were therefore compelled to shelter themselves as they best might, in the crevices of the exposed point, and cling to each other for warmth.

It was a long long night to those castaways. Minutes appeared to pass like hours, and it seemed to them as if night had finally and for ever settled down on the dreary world. The wind too, although not very cold, was sufficiently so to chill them, and long before day began to break they were so much benumbed as to be scarcely able to maintain their position.

During all this time they were harassed by uncertainty as to the nature of the rock on which they were cast. It might be a mere barren islet, perhaps one which the sea covered at high-water, in which case there was the possibility of their being swept away before morning.

When morning came, however, it revealed to them the fact that they were upon a small promontory, which was connected by a narrow neck of sand with the land.

As soon as the light rendered this apparent, Gaff put his hand on Billy’s head and spoke softly to him—

“Now then, lad, look up—ye an’t sleepin’, sure, are ye?”

“No, daddy, only dozin’ and dreamin’,” said Billy, rousing himself.

“Well, we must stop dreamin’, and git ashore as fast as we can. I think there’s dry land all the way to the beach; if not, it’ll only be a short swim. Whether it’s an island or what, I don’t know; but let’s be thankful, boy, that it looks big enough to hold us. Come, cheer up!”

To this Billy replied that he was quite jolly, and ready for anything; and, by way of proving his fitness for exertion, began to crawl over the rocks like a snail!

“That’ll never do,” said Gaff with a short laugh; “come, wrestle with me, youngster.”

The Bu’ster accepted the challenge at once by throwing his arms round his father’s waist, and endeavouring to throw him. Gaff resisted, and the result was that, in ten minutes or so, they were comparatively warm, and capable of active exertion.

Then they clambered over the rocks, traversed the neck of sand, and quickly gained the shore.

Ascending the cliffs with eager haste, they reached the summit just as the sun rose and tinged the topmost pinnacles with a golden hue. Pushing on towards an elevated ridge of rock, they climbed to the top of a mound, from which they could obtain a view of the surrounding country, and then they discovered that their place of refuge was a small solitary island, in the midst of the boundless sea.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Island-Home Examined

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.