The Happy Mariners (15 page)

‘All asleep,' muttered Bill Murder. ‘Very nice indeed. Now where's that young lubber with the daggers?' His roving eye did not notice that Elizabeth, crouching in the shadows, was awake and watching him; he merely nodded in her direction, counting her in with the sleepers: ‘One, two, three, four. All present and correct, sir. And—aha!—here's the young lubber with the daggers.'

Guy was lying asleep quite near the door, well within reach of the villain's hand, and his belt, bristling with the six daggers he had taken from the pirates, lay beside him. This pleased Bill Murder mightily; his eyes flashed triumph and savage glee. With a swift, stealthy movement he snatched up a dagger from the ground, tried its point critically on the ball of his thumb, and then, grinning from ear to ear, he raised it to strike. The next instant Guy would have been stabbed to the heart … but just then something else happened. Two things happened at once. Elizabeth screamed, and Fandy, from his hiding-place in the shadows, jumped. Hissing and spitting and scratching, Fandy jumped right into the face of Bill Murder. He scratched quickly and furiously with all his sharp claws at once.

Bill Murder yelled with pain and fear. ‘Mercy!'
he bellowed. ‘Mercy! Help! Murder! The devil's after me! Help, Nautical, help!'

Then he turned and ran as fast as he could go. Elizabeth heard Nautical Tallboy's refined voice inquiring: ‘Is anything the matter, Mr Murder?' The boys woke, sat up, and all started talking at once, with Fandy in their midst purring louder than ever before.

Next morning Rex was all for continuing his building operations, for he said that until the log-cabin was made safe and shot-proof it would be impossible for Elizabeth to stay at home and mend their clothes, and cook, and all that. But Guy answered: ‘All the same I think I ought to go along and spy out the land a bit. Those beastly pirates will come in force sooner or later, the whole jolly lot of them. Meantime we ought to get a rough idea of where we are. There's that big hill we marked on the map, you remember—Look-out Hill. I shouldn't wonder if I could see all over the island from up there. So what do you say? Shall I go, or will you?' Rex said: ‘Oh, you go if you want to. I'll stay and finish off here. But first we'd better have a bit of firing practice, because you must be armed to the teeth, of course.' So they got out the muskets and practised shooting till Elizabeth and Martin were both thoroughly frightened. Phineas Dyke had shown Rex how to load and fire the old-fashioned weapon, and Rex, who remembered his lesson very well, undertook to instruct Guy. ‘Oh, and I might run across poor old Phineas,' said Guy. ‘You never know.' So Guy, armed to the teeth, and with a spade over his shoulder, set out in search of Look-out Hill. But
as he went he was thinking not about the pirates, not about the log-cabin, not even about the possibility of finding Phineas Dyke, but about Martin's strange tale of his last night's adventures. He, Guy, had been the only one—except Martin himself—who was not inclined to dismiss it all as mere moonshine, mere dreaming. Moonshine it was, perhaps, but that didn't mean, thought Guy, that it hadn't really happened. This island, as he had told the others, was not an ordinary island; it seemed to be a place where things you thought of had a queer trick of coming true when you least expected it. And not only things you thought of, but things you half-thought of, things you had forgotten, and perhaps—who could say?—things that lay buried inside you under all the other thoughts. As he emerged from the belt of trees that surrounded the log-cabin he was telling himself that Martin was a lucky little beast.

Beyond the belt of trees was a clear space that glittered like brass in the strong morning sunlight, and beyond that clear space the forest began again, at first a mere sprinkling of trees whose shadows made a black pattern on the quivering golden ground, but later a dim cavernous place, darkly glowing with green, into which, here and there, great drops of sunlight filtered and fell, bright buds of fire that opened and flowered and scattered their petals of molten gold among the bronze dead leaves of the forest floor. And soon he came to a little grassy glade, upon which,
from a clear blue sky, the sunlight poured steadily as though through a tunnel. The grass was long and luxuriant and sprinkled with scarlet poppies and yellow dandelions. As he came closer, a warm breath of intoxicating scent floated up into his face, and phrases of a distant music stole upon his senses. The leaves of all the trees began to quiver and glow, as though little lamps had been lit inside them; and the whole forest seemed to be singing, murmuring. At any moment something strange and delightful might happen, for near him, within hand's touch, he was aware of another world, a world both inside and outside the forest that he saw, the sea that he remembered, and the home that he had left so long (it seemed) ago; and he felt that some trifling happy chance—a step, a movement, the flicker of an eyelash, or a single word if only it were the right word—might release him into that world.

Something told him that if he wanted to get quickly to Look-out Hill he would do well to hurry on; yet the idea of entering this other, this inner world seemed to tug at his sleeve and coax him to adventure. He remembered, however, that Rex and Martin and Elizabeth were in danger and that it was his self-chosen task to spy out the land for them. He decided that he must not waste time in idle enjoyment or private adventures, but must press on and make the best use he could of his eyes and ears. So he crossed the glade at a run and entered again the dim warm murmuring forest. Even then, with the thought of
pirates again in his mind, he could not quite dispel the fancy that these tall trees, whose branches arched over his head making a fretted green and gold pattern of the shining sky, were talking among themselves of the time, centuries ago, when they had been tiny seeds buried deep in the soil. In his mind's eye he saw them so, pictured them as young green shoots thrusting up like spears through the darkness towards that moment of ecstasy when for the first time they should feel the sun's touch upon their naked bodies.

Meanwhile he was making good speed through the forest; and in about half an hour—if time could be measured at all in a region where everything seemed to stand luminously still—he found himself in open country at the foot of a steep grass-grown hill. He was tired with running, and while he paused to get breath he suddenly remembered the map, and it seemed to him that he must be standing very near the place where the treasure was buried. Perhaps this had been in his mind when in addition to arming himself with pistols and a cutlass he had snatched up a spade on his way out of the log-cabin. For now the temptation came to him to dig for the treasure. He thought how splendid it would be to go back and tell the others about it. So he flung his cutlass down and began digging. The ground was hard, but he did not rest until he had made a hole three feet deep. The hole rapidly filled with water, and this discouraged him, and he began to feel uneasy in his conscience again.
‘I'll have another go at it on my way back,' he said to himself; and, leaving the spade sticking up in the earth, he turned to ascend Look-out Hill.

The climb taxed all his strength, so sharp was the pace he had set himself; but at last, very hot and out of breath, he reached the top, a little flat space upon which not more than five people could have stood with ease or safety. The air at this height was fresh and invigorating; and Guy, his dreaming fancies forgotten, gazed about him with clear eyes, moving round and round until he became a little dizzy and was in danger of falling from his high place. To the east (for he had been careful to bring his pocket compass with him) he saw the forest at his feet, a mass of colour behind which stretched that range of giant mountains which the Robinsons, you will remember, had named after the Crystal Palace. Between forest and mountains, glimpses of a fern-fringed river spangled the distance with silver; and the whole island, he thought as he stared down at it, was like a rich and lovely carpet spread out for him to look at. Better still—for this is what pleased him most—it was like the map itself, thought of by Elizabeth and drawn by Rex with certain features suggested by himself and Martin; it was the map itself come beautifully and marvellously true. Somewhere hidden in the forest, towards the south-east, was the log-cabin to which he must presently return, armed, as he hoped, with information of immense stragetical (or was it
strategical?) importance. To the north, and to the west, and to the south-west, lay the live quivering ocean, reflecting the blue and gold of the sky, washing with a slow lazy rhythm upon the shore far below. Guy listened to this music crashing and echoing round the coast, and stared in delight, forgetful of danger, at the rippling water, which, though near at hand crested with tiny waves, in the distance seemed so smooth and so blue that he could scarcely tell where sea ended and sky began.

His attention at length became drawn to a little black speck on the horizon. With growing curiosity he watched it. He took bearings. The speck, which was already a trifle bigger, was moving towards the island from the north-west. Was it a bird in the sky or a boat in the sea? He soon decided that it was in the sea; and presently he observed that it was not alone. Behind that first speck came others—two, three, four of them. He could not at this distance detect any movement among them, but he noticed that every minute brought them a fraction nearer. They advanced, slowly as it seemed, but steadily, in diamond formation with a tail to the diamond…. A quarter of an hour passed, and now they looked like crawling centipedes, but Guy, with thumping heart, realized that the centipedes' legs were, in fact, oars worked, and worked swiftly, by human hands. Still he waited and watched, for it was desperately important to know whether the strangers intended
to land on the island, and if so at what point. Already he had a shrewd idea of what they were, and very soon his eyes were able to confirm his guess—five long wicked-looking canoes, each manned by a score of black-headed naked savages, whose grinning teeth flashed white in the morning sunlight. They were pulling with a will, and smacking their lips (thought Guy) at the prospect of a day's good hunting on the island, crowned with a cannibal feast. Guy had read a lot about savages and was something of an authority on their habits; he guessed that these hungry hordes were counting on bagging four or five brace of plump missionaries before nightfall. But he was not at all cast down. At the moment, filled as he was with the courage of a glorious morning, there was nothing he relished so much as a good fight against impossible odds. He would have liked to rush upon the savages there and then, swimming out to meet them with a cutlass held pirate-fashion between his teeth, and slay them one by one, the whole exhilarating job occupying perhaps as much as ten minutes (since there were probably a full hundred of them). He felt more than ready for anything. This mood, however, lasted only a moment; for when he remembered Elizabeth and Martin his heart sank, and he had a sudden chilly sensation in the pit of his stomach; for he could not help realizing that he and old Rex would be hard put to it to protect those youngsters—his twin-sister being a youngster by virtue of her sex. He turned to
examine the coastline so far as he could see it. Convinced now that the savages were bent on landing, he was eager to see where they were likely to put in, so that he might race back to the log-cabin and give the alarm. Not many minutes did he lose in speculation, for there to the north-east stretched a big bay which he instantly recognized. ‘Of course,' he said to himself. ‘It's Cannibal Bay! However did I come to forget it!' The savages were now near enough for him to observe them more clearly, and what he did not observe his imagination was quick to supply. Their lithe naked bodies, glistening with oil, were as bright and brown and sleek as ripe conkers fresh from the green sheath. Their faces had been rendered the more ferocious by savage self-mutilation: their noses transfixed by bone-skewers, their cheeks gaudily tattooed, their ears weighed down by barbaric brass ornament. They seemed, nevertheless, uncommonly pleased with themselves; for while they moved to and fro over their oars they grinned and chattered like monkeys, perhaps recalling the savour of their last meal and hoping that the next would prove equally succulent.

But Guy waited to see no more. He ran down the hill as fast as he could go, and through the mile or two of forest; and he did not pause to rest until he was within sight of the log-cabin. Then, being on the point of exhaustion, he slackened his pace. But—what was that! His heart jumped into his mouth. He started running again. There was a distance of
fifty yards between him and the log-cabin, and he knew, by what he had just seen, that the lives of all four of them, to say nothing of Fandy, depended on his speed. He ran like a hare, his heart nearly bursting out of his body.

‘Where's Rex?' he gasped, plunging into the log-cabin.

Elizabeth and Martin looked up, greatly surprised. ‘Hullo, Guy! What's up?'

‘Where's Rex?'

Elizabeth jumped up quickly. ‘He's not far. In the forest, I think. He was here a moment ago.'

‘Call him,' said Guy. ‘Get him in at once. It's life or death.'

They all ran to the door and shouted, Martin loudest of all, and Guy, because he had no breath left, the most feebly: ‘Re-ex! Re-ex! Coo-ee!'

There was a movement in the trees near by, and Rex appeared, running at top speed. When he came near enough he asked: ‘Anything wrong?' He addressed himself to Guy, with a quiet, alert, ready-for-anything, man-to-man air.

‘Inside!' said Guy. ‘All of us inside!' And as the door was shut upon them: ‘A hundred savages landing at Cannibal Bay.'

‘Good man,' said Rex. ‘We'll see about them.'

‘And pirates,' said Guy, impatient of the interruption, ‘not twenty yards away. I saw the glint of their blades through the trees just now, as I came up.'