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twg_000000036700 | grace and deliberation long feathery sea growths. In a moment the bottom abruptly shallowed. The motion of the boat toward the beach permitted us to catch a hasty glimpse of little fish darting, of big fish turning, of yellow sand and some vivid colour. Then came the grate of gravel and the scraping of the boat's bottom on the beach. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036701 | We jumped ashore eagerly. I left the men, very reluctant, and ascended a natural trail to a high sloping down over which blew the great Trades. Grass sprung knee-high. A low hill rose at the back. From below the fall of the cliff came the pounding of surf. I walked to the edge. Various ledges, sloping toward me, ran down | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036702 | to the sea. Against one of them was a wreck, not so very old, head on, her afterworks gone. I recognised the name _Golden Horn_, and was vastly astonished to find her here against this unknown island. Far up the coast I could see--with the surges dashing up like the explosion of shells, and the cliffs, and the rampart of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036703 | hills grown with grass and cactus. A bold promontory terminated the coast view to the north, and behind it I could glimpse a more fertile and wooded country. The sky was partly overcast by the volcanic murk. It fled before the Trades, and the red sun alternately blazed and clouded through it. As there was nothing more to be seen | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036704 | here, I turned above the hollow of our cove, skirted the base of the hill, and so down to the beach. It occupied a wide semicircle where the hills drew back. The flat was dry and grown with thick, coarse grass. A stream emerged from a sort of canon on its landward side. I tasted it, found it sulphurous, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036705 | a trifle worse than lukewarm. A little nearer the cliff, however, was a clear, cold spring from the rock, and of this I had a satisfying drink. When I arose from my knees, I made out an animal on the hill crest looking at me, but before I could distinguish its characteristics it had disappeared. I returned along the tide | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036706 | sands. The surf dashed and roared, lifting seaweeds of a blood red, so that in places the water looked pink. Seals innumerable watched me from just outside the breakers. As the waves lifted to a semi-transparence, I could make out others playing, darting back and forth, up and down like disturbed tadpoles, clinging to the wave until the very instant | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036707 | of its fall, then disappearing as though blotted out. The salt smell of seaweed was in my nostrils: I found the place pleasant-- With these few and scattered impressions we returned to the ship. It had been warped to a secure anchorage, and snugged down. Dr. Schermerhorn and Darrow were on deck waiting to go ashore. I made my report. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036708 | The two passengers disappeared. They carried lunch and would not be back until night-fall. We had orders to pitch a large tent at a suitable spot and to lighten ship of the doctor's personal and scientific effects. By the time this was accomplished, the two had returned. "It's all right," Darrow volunteered to Captain Selover, as he came over the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036709 | side. "We've found what we want." Their clothes were picked by brush and their boots muddy. Next morning Captain Selover detailed me to especial work. "You'll take two of the men and go ashore under Darrow's orders," said he. Darrow told us to take clothes for a week, an axe apiece, and a block and tackle. We made up our | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036710 | ditty bags, stepped into one of the surf boats, and were rowed ashore. There Darrow at once took the lead. Our way proceeded across the grass flat, through the opening of the narrow caon, and so on back into the interior by way of the bed through which flowed the sulphur stream. The country was badly eroded. Most of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036711 | time we marched between perpendicular clay banks about forty feet high. These were occasionally broken by smaller tributary arroyos of the same sort. It would have been impossible to reach the level of the upper country. The bed of the main arroyo was flat, and grown with grasses and herbage of an extraordinary vividness, due, I supposed, to the sulphur | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036712 | water. The stream itself meandered aimlessly through the broader bed. It steadily grew warmer and the sulphur smell more noticeable. Above us we could see the sky and the sharp clay edge of the arroyo. I noticed the tracks of Darrow and Dr. Schermerhorn made the day before. After a mile of this, the bottom ran up nearly to the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036713 | level of the sides, and we stepped out on the floor of a little valley almost surrounded by more hills. It was an extraordinary place, and since much happened there, I must give you an idea of it. It was round and nearly encircled by naked painted hills. From its floor came steam and a roaring sound. The steam blew | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036714 | here and there among the pines on the floor; rose to eddy about the naked painted hills. At one end we saw intermittently a broad ascending caon--deep red and blue-black--ending in the cone of a smoking volcano. The other seemed quite closed by the sheer hills; in fact the only exit was the route by which we had come. For | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036715 | the hills were utterly precipitous. I suppose a man might have made his way up the various knobs, ledges, and inequalities, but it would have required long study and a careful head. I, myself, later worked my way a short distance, merely to examine the texture of their marvellous colour. This was at once varied and of great body--not at | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036716 | all like the smooth, glossed colour of most rock, but soft and rich. You've seen painters' palettes--it was just like that, pasty and _fat_. There were reds of all shades, from a veritable scarlet to a red umber; greens, from sea-green to emerald; several kinds of blue, and an indeterminate purple-mauve. The whole effect was splendid and barbaric. We stopped | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036717 | and gasped as it hit our eyes. Darrow alone was unmoved. He led the way forward and in an instant had disappeared behind the veil of steam. Thrackles and Perdosa hung back murmuring, but at a sharp word from me gathered their courage in their two hands and proceeded. We found that the first veil of steam, and a fearful | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036718 | stench of gases, proceeded from a miniature crater whose edge was heavily encrusted with a white salt. Beyond, close under the rise of the hill, was another. Between the two Percy Darrow had stopped and was waiting. He eyed us with his lazy, half-quizzical glance as we approached. "Think the place is going to blow up?" he inquired, with a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036719 | tinge of irony. "Well, it isn't." He turned to me. "Here's where we shall stay for a while. You and the men are to cut a number of these pine trees for a house. Better pick out the little ones, about three or four inches through: they're easier handled. I'll be back by noon." We set to work then in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036720 | the roaring, steaming valley with the vapour swirling about us, sometimes concealing us, sometimes half revealing us gigantic, again in the utterness of exposure showing us dwindled pigmies against the magnitudes about us. The labour was not difficult. By the time Darrow returned we had a pile of the saplings ready for his next direction. He was accompanied by the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036721 | Nigger, very much terrified, very much burdened with food and cooking utensils. The assistant was lazily relating tales of voodoos, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. VII CAPTAIN SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE I lived in the place for three weeks. We were afoot shortly after daybreak, under way by sun-up, and at work before the heats began. Three of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036722 | us worked on the buildings, and the rest formed a pack train carrying all sorts of things from the shore to the valley. The men grumbled fiercely at this, but Captain Selover drove them with slight regard for their opinions or feelings. "You're getting double pay," was his only word, "earn it!" They certainly earned it during those three weeks. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036723 | The things they brought up were astounding. Besides a lot of scientific apparatus and chests of chemical supplies, everything that could possibly be required, had been provided by that omniscient young man. After we had built a long, low structure, windows were forthcoming, shelves, tables, sinks, faucets, forges, burners, all cut out, fitted and ready to put together, each with | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036724 | its proper screws, nails, clamps, or pipes ready to our hands. When we had finished, we had constructed as complete a laboratory on a small scale as you could find on a college campus, even to the stone pillar down to bed-rock for delicate microscopic experiments, and hot and cold water led from the springs. And we were utterly unskilled. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036725 | It was all Percy Darrow. I was toward the last engaged in screwing on a fixture for the generation of acetelyne gas. "Darrow," said I, "there's one thing you've overlooked; you forgot to bring a cupola and a gilt weather-cock for this concern." After the laboratory was completed, we put up sleeping quarters for the two men, with wide porches | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036726 | well screened, and a square, heavy storeroom. By the end of the third week we had quite finished. Dr. Schermerhorn had turned with enthusiasm to the unpacking of his chemical apparatus. Almost immediately at the close of the freight-carrying, he had appeared, lugging his precious chest, this time suffering the assistance of Darrow, and had camped on the spot. We | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036727 | could not induce him to leave, so we put up a tent for him. Darrow remained with him by way of safety against the men, whose measure, I believe, he had taken. Now that all the work was finished, the doctor put in a sudden appearance. "Percy," said he, "now we will have the defence built." He dragged us with | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036728 | him to the narrow part of the arroyo, just before it rose to the level of the valley. "Here we will build the stockade-defence," he announced. Darrow and I stared at each other blankly. "What for, sir?" inquired the assistant. "I haf come to be undisturbed," announced the doctor, with owl-like, Teutonic gravity, "and I will not be disturbed." Darrow | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036729 | nodded to me and drew his principal aside. They conversed earnestly for several minutes. Then the assistant returned to me. "No use," he shrugged in complete return to his indifferent manner. "Stockade it is. Better make it of fourteen foot logs, slanted out. Dig a trench across, plant your logs three or four feet, bind them at the top. That's | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036730 | his specification for it. Go at it." "But," I expostulated, "what's the _use_ of it? Even if the men were dangerous, that would just make them think you _did_ have something to guard." "I know that. Orders," replied Percy Darrow. We built the stockade in a day. When it was finished we marched to the beach, and never, save in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036731 | the three instances of which I shall later tell you, did I see the valley again. The next day we washed our clothes, and moved ashore with all our belongings. "I'm not going to have this crew aboard," stated Captain Selover positively, "I'm going to clean her." He himself stayed, however. We rowed in, constructed a hasty fireplace of stones, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036732 | spread our blankets, and built an unnecessary fire near the beach. "Clean her!" grumbled Thrackles, "my eye!" "I'd rather round the Cape," growled Pulz hopelessly. "Come, now, it can't be as bad as all that," I tried to cheer them. "It can't be more than a week or ten days' job, even if we careen her." "You don't know what | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036733 | you're talking about," said Thrackles. "It's worse than the yellow jack. It's six weeks at least. Mind when we last 'cleaned her'?" he inquired of Handy Solomon. "You can kiss the Book on it," replied he. "Down by the line in that little swab of a sand island. My eye, but _don't_ I remember! I sweated my liver white." They | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036734 | smoked in silence. "That's a main queer contrivance of the Perfessor's--that stockade-like," ventured Solomon, after a little. "He doesn't want any intrusion," I said. "These scientific experiments are very delicate." "Quite like," he commented non-committally. We slept on the ground that night, and next morning, under Captain Selover's directions, we commenced the task of lightening the ship. He detailed the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036735 | Nigger and Perdosa for special duty. "I'll just see to your shore quarters," he squeaked. "You empty her." All day long we rowed back and forth from the ship to the cove, landing the contents of the hold. These, by good fortune, we did not have to carry over the neck of land, for just above the gravel beach was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036736 | a wide ledge on which we could pile the stores. We ate aboard, and so had no opportunity of seeing what Captain Selover and his men were about, until evening. Then we discovered that they had collected and lowered to the beach a quantity of stateroom doors from the wreck, and had trundled the galley stove to the edge where | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036737 | it awaited our assistance. We hitched a cable to it, and let it down gently. The Nigger was immensely pleased. After some experiment he got it to draw, and so cooked us our supper on it. After supper, Captain Selover rowed himself back to the ship. "Eagen," he had said, drawing me aside, "I'm going to leave you with them. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036738 | It's better that one of us--I think as owner I ought to be aboard----" "Of course, sir," said I, "it's the only proper place for you." "I'm glad you think so," he rejoined, apparently relieved. "And anyway," he cried, with a burst of feeling, "I hate the gritty feeling of it under my feet! Solid oak's the only walking for | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036739 | a man." He left me hastily, as though a trifle ashamed. I thought he seemed depressed, even a little furtive, and yet on analysis I could discover nothing definite on which to base such a conclusion. It was rather a feeling of difference from the man I had known. In my fatigue it seemed hardly worth thinking about. The men | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036740 | had rolled themselves in their blankets, tired with the long day. Next morning Captain Selover was ashore early. He had quite recovered his spirits, and offered me a dram of French brandy, which I refused. We worked hard again; again the master returned at night to his vessel, this time without a word to any of us; again the men, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036741 | drugged by toil, turned in early and slept like the dead. We became entangled in a mesh of days like these, during which things were accomplished, but in which was no space for anything but the tasks imposed upon us. The men for the most part had little to say. "Por Dios, eet is too mooch work!" sighed Perdosa once. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036742 | "Why don't you kick to the Old Man, then?" sneered Thrackles. The silence that followed, and the sullenness with which Perdosa readdressed himself to his work, was significant enough of Captain Selover's past relations with the men. And how we did clean her! We stripped her of every stitch and sliver until she floated high, an empty hull, even her | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036743 | spars and running rigging ashore. I understood now the crew's grumbling. We literally went at her with a nail brush. Captain Selover took charge of us when we had reached this period. He and the Nigger and Perdosa had long since finished the installation of the permanent camp. They had built us huts from the wreck, collecting stateroom doors for | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036744 | the sides, and hatches for the roofs, huge and solid, with iron rings in them. The bronze and iron ventilation gratings to the doors gave us glimpses of the coast through fretwork; the rich inlaying of woods surrounded us. We set up on a solid rock the galley stove--with its rails to hold the cooking pots from upsetting, in a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036745 | sea way. In it we burned the dbris of the wreck, all sorts of wood, some sweet and aromatic and spicy as an incensed cathedral. I have seen the Nigger boiling beans over a blaze of sandal wood fragrant as an Eastern shop. First we scrubbed the _Laughing Lass_, then we painted her, and resized and tarred her standing rigging, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036746 | resized and rove her running gear, slushed her masts, finally careened her and scraped and painted her below. When we had quite finished, we had the anchor chain dealt out to us in fathoms, and scraped, pounded and polished that. These were indeed days full of labour. Being busy from morning until night we knew but little of what was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036747 | about us. We saw the open sea and the waves tumbling over the reef outside. We saw the headlands, and the bow of the bay and the surf with its watching seals and the curve of yellow sands. We saw the sweep of coast and the downs and the strange huts we had built out of departed magnificence. And that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036748 | was all; that constituted our world. In the evening sometimes we lit a big bonfire, sailor fashion, just at the edge of the beach. There we sat at ease and smoked our pipes in silence, too tired to talk. Even Handy Solomon's song was still. Outside the circle of light were mysterious things--strange wavings of white hands, bendings of figures, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036749 | callings of voices, rustling of feet. We knew them for the surf and the wind in the grasses: but they were not the less mysterious for that. Logically Captain Selover and I should have passed most of our evenings together. As a matter of fact we so spent very few. Early in the dusk the captain invariably rowed himself out | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036750 | to his beloved schooner. What he did there I do not know. We could see his light now in one part of her, now in the other. The men claimed he was scrubbing her teeth. "Old Scrubs" they called him to his back: never Captain Selover. "He has to clean up after his own feet, he's so dirty," sagely proffered | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036751 | Handy Solomon. And this was true. The seaman's prophecy held good. Seven weeks held us at that infernal job--seven weeks of solid, grinding work. The worst of it was, that we were kept at it so breathlessly, as though our very existence were to depend on the headlong rush of our labour. And then we had fully half the stores | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036752 | to put away again, and the other half to transport painfully over the neck of land from the cove to the beach. So accustomed had I become to the routine in which we were involved, so habituated to anticipating the coming day as exactly like the day that had gone, that the completion of our job caught me quite by | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036753 | surprise. I had thrown myself down by the fire prepared for the some old half hour of drowsy nicotine, to be followed by the accustomed heavy sleep, and the usual early rising to toil. The evening was warm; I half closed my eyes. Handy Solomon was coming in last. Instead of dropping to his place, he straddled the fire, stretching | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036754 | his arms over his head. He let them fall with a sharp exhalation. "'Lay aloft, lay aloft,' the jolly bos'n cried. _Blow high, blow low, what care we!_ 'Look ahead, look astern, look a-windward, look a-lee.' _Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e._" The effect was electrical. We all sprang to our feet and fell to talking at once. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036755 | "By God, we're _through_!" cried Pulz. "I'd clean forgot it!" The Nigger piled on more wood. We drew closer about the fire. All the interests in life, so long held in the background, leaped forward, eager for recognition. We spoke of trivialities almost for the first time since our landing, fused into a temporary but complete good fellowship by the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036756 | relief. "Wonder how the old doctor is getting on?" ventured Thrackles, after a while. "The devil's a preacher! I wonder?" cried Handy Solomon. "Let's make 'em a call," suggested Pulz. "Don't believe they'd appreciate the compliment," I laughed. "Better let them make first call: they're the longer established." This was lost on them, of course. But we all felt kindly | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036757 | to one another that evening. I carried the glow of it with me over until next morning, and was therefore somewhat dashed to meet Captain Selover, with clouded brows and an uncertain manner. He quite ignored my greeting. "By God, Eagen," he squeaked, "can you think of anything more to be done?" I straightened my back and laughed. "Haven't you | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036758 | worked us hard enough?" I inquired. "Unless you gild the cabins, I don't see what else there can be to do." Captain Selover stared me over. "And you a naval man!" he marvelled. "Don't you see that the only thing that keeps this crew from gettin' restless is keeping them busy? I've sweat a damn sight more with my brain | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036759 | than you have with your back thinking up things to do. I can't see anything ahead, and then we'll have hell to pay. Oh, they're a sweet lot!" I whistled and my crest fell. Here was a new point of view; and also a new Captain Ezra. Where was the confidence in the might of his two hands? He seemed | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036760 | to read my thoughts, and went on. "I don't feel _sure_ here on this cussed land. It ain't like a deck where a man has some show. They can scatter. They can hide. It ain't right to put a man ashore alone with such a crew. I'm doing my best, but it ain't goin' to be good enough. I wisht | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036761 | we were safe in 'Frisco harbour----" He would have maundered on, but I seized his arm and led him out of possible hearing of the men. "Here, buck up!" I said to him sternly. "There's nothing to be scared of. If it comes to a row, there's three of us and we've got guns. We could even sail the schooner | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036762 | at a pinch, and leave them here. You've stood them off before." "Not ashore," protested Captain Selover weakly. "Well, they don't know that. For God's sake don't let them see you've lost your nerve this way." He did not even wince at the accusation. "Put up a front." He shook his head. The sand had completely run out of him. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036763 | Yet I am convinced that if he could have felt the heave and roll of the deck beneath him, he would have faced three times the difficulties he now feared. However, I could see readily enough the wisdom of keeping the men at work. "You can wreck the _Golden Horn_," I suggested. "I don't know whether there's anything left worth | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036764 | salvage; but it'll be something to do." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Good!" he cried, "I never thought of it." "Another thing," said I, "you better give them a day off a week. That can't hurt them and it'll waste just that much more time." "All right," agreed Captain Selover. "Another thing yet. You know I'm not lazy, so | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036765 | it ain't that I'm trying to dodge work. But you'd better lay me off. It'll be so much more for the others." "That's true," said he. I could not recognise the man for what I knew him to be. He groped, as one in the dark, or as a sea animal taken out of its element and placed on the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036766 | sands. Courage had given place to fear; decision to wavering; and singleness of purpose to a divided counsel. He who had so thoroughly dominated the entire ship, eagerly accepted advice of me--a man without experience. That evening I sat apart considerably disturbed. I felt that the ground had dropped away beneath my feet. To be sure, everything was tranquil at | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036767 | present; but now I understood the source of that tranquillity and how soon it must fail. With opportunity would come more scheming, more speculation, more cupidity. How was I to meet it, with none to back me but a scared man, an absorbed man, and an indifferent man? VIII WRECKING OF THE GOLDEN HORN Percy Darrow, unexpected, made his first | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036768 | visit to us the very next evening. He sauntered in with a Mexican corn-husk cigarette between his lips, carrying a lantern; blew the light out, and sat down with a careless greeting, as though he had seen us only the day before. "Hullo, boys," said he, "been busy?" "How are ye, sir?" replied Handy Solomon. "Good Lord, mates, look at | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036769 | that!" Our eyes followed the direction of his forefinger. Against the dark blue of the evening sky to northward glowed a faint phosphorescence, arch-shaped, from which shot, with pulsating regularity, long shafts of light. They beat almost to the zenith, and back again, a half dozen times, then the whole illumination disappeared with the suddenness of gas turned out. "Now | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036770 | I wonder what that might be!" marvelled Thrackles. "Northern lights," hazarded Pulz. "I've seen them almost like that in the Behring Seas." "Northern lights your eye!" sneered Handy Solomon. "You may have seen them in the Behring Seas, but never this far south, and in August, and you can, kiss the Book on that." "What do you think, sir?" Thrackles | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036771 | inquired of the assistant. "Devil's fire," replied Percy Darrow briefly. "The island's a little queer. I've noticed it before." "Debbil fire," repeated the Nigger. Darrow turned directly to him. "Yes, devil's fire; and devils, too, for all I know; and certainly vampires. Did you ever hear of vampires, Doctor?" "No," growled the Nigger. "Well, they are women, wonderful, beautiful women. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036772 | A man on a long voyage would just smack his lips to see them. They have shiny grey eyes, and lips red as raspberries. When you meet them they will talk with you and go home with you. And then when you're asleep they tear a little hole in your neck with their sharp claws, and they suck the blood | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036773 | with their red lips. When they aren't women, they take the shape of big bats like birds." He turned to me with so beautifully casual an air that I wanted to clap him on the back with the joy of it. "By the way, Eagen, have you noticed those big bats the last few evenings, over by the cliff? _I_ | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036774 | can't make out in the dusk whether they are vampires or just plain bats." He directed his remarks again to the Nigger. "Next time you see any of those big bats, Doctor, just you notice close. If they have just plain, black eyes, they're all right; but if they have grey eyes, with red rims around 'em, they're vampires. I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036775 | wish you'd let me know, if you do find out. It's interesting." "Don' get me near no bats," growled the Nigger. "Where's Selover?" inquired Darrow. "He stays aboard," I hastened to say. "Wants to keep an eye on the ship." "That's laudable. What have you been doing?" "We've been cleaning ship. Just finished yesterday evening." "What next?" "We were thinking | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036776 | of wrecking the _Golden Horn_." "Quite right. Well, if you want any help with your engines or anything of the sort, call on me." He arose and began to light his lantern. "I hope as how you're getting on well there above, sir?" ventured Handy Solomon insinuatingly. "Very well, I thank you, my man," replied Percy Darrow drily. "Remember those | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036777 | vampires, Doctor." He swung the lantern and departed without further speech. We followed the spark of it until it disappeared in the arroyo. Behind us bellowed the sea; over against us in the sky was the dull threatening glow of the volcano; about us were mysterious noises of crying birds, barking seals, rustling or rushing winds. I felt the thronging | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036778 | ghosts of all the old world's superstition swirling madly behind us in the eddies that twisted the smoke of our fire. We wrecked the _Golden Horn_. Forward was a rusted-out donkey engine, which we took to pieces and put together again. It was no mean job, for all the running parts had to be cleaned smooth, and with the exception | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036779 | of a rudimentary knowledge on the part of Pulz and Perdosa, we were ignorant. In fact we should not have succeeded at all had it not been for Percy Darrow and his lantern. The first evening we took him over to the cliff's edge he laughed aloud. "Jove, boys, how could you guess it _all_ wrong," he wondered. With a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036780 | few brief words he set us right, Pulz, Perdosa, and I listening intently; the others indifferent in the hopelessness of being able to comprehend. Of course, we went wrong again in our next day's experiments; but Darrow was down two or three times a week, and gradually we edged toward a practical result. His explanations consumed but a few moments. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036781 | After they were finished, we adjourned to the fire. Thus we came gradually to a better acquaintance with the doctor's assistant. In many respects he remained always a puzzle, to me. Certainly the men never knew how to take him. He was evidently not only unafraid of them, but genuinely indifferent to them. Yet he displayed a certain interest in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036782 | their needs and affairs. His practical knowledge was enormous. I think I have told you of the completeness of his arrangements--everything had been foreseen from grindstones to gas nippers. The same quality of concrete speculation showed him what we lacked in our own lives. There was, as you remember, the matter of Handy Solomon's steel claw. He showed Thrackles a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036783 | kind of lanyard knot that deep-sea person had never used. He taught Captain Selover how to make soft soap out of one species of seaweed. Me, he initiated in the art of fishing with a white bone lure. Our camp itself he reconstructed on scientific lines so that we enjoyed less aromatic smoke and more palatable dinner. And all of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036784 | it he did amusedly, as though his ideas were almost too obvious to need communication. We became in a manner intimate with him. He guyed the men in his indolent fashion, playing on their credulity, their good nature, even their forbearance. They alternately grinned and scowled. He left always a confused impression, so that no one really knew whether he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036785 | cherished rancour against Percy Darrow or kindly feeling. The Nigger was Darrow's especial prey. The assistant had early discovered that the cook was given to signs, omens, and superstitions. From a curious scholar's lore he drew fantastics with which to torment his victim. We heard of all the witches, warlocks, incubi, succibi, harpies, devils, imps, and haunters of Avitchi, from | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036786 | all the teachings of history, sacred and profane, Hindu, Egyptian, Greek, mediaeval, Swedenborg, Rosicrucian, theosophy, theology, with every last ounce of horror, mystery, shivers, and creeps squeezed out of them. They were gorgeous ghost stories, for they were told by a man fully informed as to all the legendary and gruesome details. At first I used to think he might | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036787 | have communicated it more effectively. Then I saw that the cool, drawling manner, the level voice, were in reality the highest art. He told his stories in a half-amused, detached manner which imposed confidence more readily than any amount of earnest asseveration. The mere fact of his own belief in what he said came to matter little. He was the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036788 | vehicle by which was brought accurate knowledge. He had read all these things, and now reported them as he had read: each man could decide for himself as to their credibility. At last the donkey engine was cleared and reinstalled, atop the cliff. The Nigger built under her a fire of black walnut; Captain Selover handed out grog all around; | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036789 | and we started her up with a cheer, just to see the wheels revolve. Next we half buried some long hatches, end up, to serve as bitts for the lines, hitched our cables to them, and joyfully commenced the task of pulling the _Golden Horn_ piece by piece up the side of the cliff. The stores were badly damaged by | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036790 | the wet, and there was no liquor, for which I was sincerely grateful. We broke into the boxes, and arrayed ourselves in various garments--which speedily fell to pieces--and appropriated gim-cracks of all sorts. There were some arms, but the ammunition had gone bad. Perdosa, out of forty or fifty mis-fires, got one feeble sputter, and a tremendous _bang_ which blew | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036791 | up his piece, leaving only the stock in his hand. A few tinned goods were edible; but all the rest was destroyed. A lot of hard woods, a thousand feet of chain cable, and a fairly good anchor might be considered as prizes. As for the rest, it was foolishness, but we hauled it up just the same until nothing | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036792 | at all remained. Then we shut off the donkey engine, and put on dry clothes. We had been quite happy for the eight months. It was now well along toward spring. The winter had been like summer, and with the exception of a few rains of a week or so, we had enjoyed beautiful skies. The seals had thinned out | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036793 | considerably, but were now returning in vast numbers ready for their annual domestic arrangements. Our Sundays we had mostly spent in resting, or in fishing. There were many deep sea fish to be had, of great palatability, but small gameness; they came like so many leaden weights. A few of us had climbed some of the hills in a half-hearted | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036794 | curiosity, but from their summits saw nothing to tempt weariness. Practically we knew nothing beyond the mile or so of beach on which we lived. Captain Selover had made a habit of coming ashore at least once during the day. He had contented himself with standing aloof, but I took pains to seem to confer with him, so that the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036795 | men might suppose that I, as mate, was engaged in carrying out his directions. The dread of him was my most potent influence over them. During the last few days of our wrecking, Captain Selover had omitted his daily visit. The fact made me uneasy, so that at my first opportunity I sculled myself out to the schooner. I found | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036796 | him, moist-eyed as usual, leaning against the mainmast doing nothing. "We've finished, sir," said I. He looked at me. "Will you come ashore and have a look, sir?" I inquired. "I ain't going ashore again," he muttered thickly. "What!" I cried. "I ain't going ashore again," he repeated obstinately, "and that's all there is to it. It's too much of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036797 | a strain on any man. Suit yourself. You run them. I shipped as captain of a vessel. I'm no dock walloper. I won't _do_ it--for no man!" I gasped with dismay at the man's complete moral collapse. It seemed incredible. I caught myself wondering whether he would recover tone were he again to put to sea. "My God, man, but | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036798 | you _must_!" I cried at last. "I won't, and that's flat," said he, and turned deliberately on his heel and disappeared in the cabin. I went ashore thoughtful and a little scared. But on reflection I regained a great part of my ease of mind. You see, I had been with these men now eight months, during which they had | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000036799 | been as orderly as so many primary schoolboys. They had worked hard, without grumbling, and had even approached a sort of friendliness about the camp fire. My first impression was overlaid. As I looked back on the voyage, with what I took to be a clearer vision, I could not but admit that the incidents were in themselves trivial enough--a | 60 | gutenberg |
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