Chapter XIX: A Fairy Isle--The Lost Boat

Not a breath of wind, not a sigh came over the sea. Never a cloud as big even as a man's hand in all the bright steel-blue of heaven's great dome, only the slightest pearly haze lying low on the horizon wherever one might look, and all between the glittering sun-kissed ocean.

It was no dead ocean this, however, on which our heroes, leaning over the bulwarks and talking almost in whispers, were gazing. No, the great sea was not dead, but sleeping. Note the gentle heaving of its placid bosom, rising and falling as if 'twere imbued with the breath of life. The white-winged sea-gulls that float on the water seem to have been lulled to sleep, too, by that swelling motion. Even the ship herself nods drowsily to and fro, and the useless sails half fill and flap to every dip of the masts.

Yes, the surface of the sea is all a-glitter in the sun's rays; but it is not the sheen that sailors love, the reflection is like that from polished pewter, and forebodes either a long dead calm, or a sudden storm coming in a direction no man can even guess at.

There is languor in the tropical air to-day. Even some frigate birds appear to feel it, for they have alighted with their long, drooping wings on the top-most yards, and hardly care to fly again. The gulls sail slowly but silently round the ship, as if too indolent even to scream; yonder nautilus, or Portuguese man-o'-war, that looks as if it had borrowed its cerulean colours from the azure of the sky itself, can scarcely move along. There is not wind enough to fill even its dainty sails, and see, what is that lying over yonder dark and curious? Fred Arundel lazily lifts the glass, and gazes in that direction.

"It is a shark," he says with half a shudder, "asleep, I think, in the morning sunshine, and with sea birds perching on its fins."

Frank answers not. His eyes are riveted on some far-off green-fringed mountains. It is an island, but it does not seem to lie in the sea. No, it is up in the sky, and floating there like a veritable fairyland.

Now Frank yawns and stretches himself, and next moment a hand is laid on his shoulder, and he looks up to see Señor Sarpinto standing smiling beside him. He is in dressing-gown and slippers, with the never-failing cigarette between his lips.

"My young friend is tired."

"Si, señor," says Frank, "I am tired--tired doing nothing. I'd fain be yonder."

He points to the distant island.

Señor takes the telescope, and looks long and earnestly at it.

"Ah!" he says, or rather sighs, "what a land of delight it is! And all the islands around here, how rich and varied! Young Frank, the day will come when each will bear its own happy population of prosperous white men. There are not even savages on yonder isle. It waits but for a Christian population. And there is wealth yonder too, wealth untold!"

Fred looks at the Spaniard in some little surprise. He had never heard the man talk thus enthusiastically before. Then a happy idea appears to strike Frank all at once.

"Señor," he says, "you have influence with the captain. Ask him for a boat, that we may visit yonder isle."

"I will not go there to-day," replies the señor, shrugging his shoulders.

Frank's face falls.

"There is not a banana nor a cocoanut in the ship," he says with a faint smile.

Señor looks at him quizzingly.

"Ha!" he answers, "it is not the banana, it is not the cocoanut my young friend wants, but the wild adventure. Well, he shall not be disappointed."

Away below hurries the Spaniard; but he soon returns laughing.

"You are to take the gig, your friend Fred, Quambo for your porter, little Cassia-bud for your coxswain and to climb the cocoanut-trees, the dog for companion, and one man besides.

"But I have promised you will return as soon as the flag is hoisted at the peak."

"Hurrah!" cry Frank and Fred both in one breath, and in five minutes more down rushes the boat, and all are in and off.

The young men wave their caps to the señor, who kisses his hand. Then they seize the oars, and off they push.

"Nay, but," cries Fred, "the occasion demands a song, and Quambo here is capable of a capital bass."

And for twenty minutes at least those on board the ship could hear the music from the distant boat come quavering over the waves, and for some time could even distinguish the words--

"Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast;
The rapids are near, and the daylight is past."

At long last Señor Sarpinto sees the green of the distant island swallow them up, as the boat appears to have climbed the very sky itself into that floating fairyland.

* * * * * *

Hours and hours went by, the sun had mounted higher and higher, and for a time blazed almost perpendicularly down on the broiling deck, then gradually begun to decline.

"I think," said Captain Cawdor, "the lads must have had enough of it now. Hoist the recall, Mr. Nelson." This to the mate.

The mate did as he was told, and the flag hung from the peak like a red rope, for there was no wind to lift its heavy folds.

Two minutes after the mate shouted, "Stand by there forward, lads; there is a puff of wind coming."

And sure enough patches of wrinkles began to appear here and there on the gloss of the sea's surface, as if handfuls of sand had been thrown on it. Soon these catspaws gather force and come together. The frigate-birds wake up and throw themselves from the yards, the seagulls are screaming now, the sails catch the breeze and bellow out.

Luckily the wind comes from the right direction, so she is kept away, and steered for the distant island.

Distant island? Yes, yonder green island that appears to float in the sky. The fairy-isle, as the lads called it, while they went singing and rowing towards it.

The señor had gone forward to the bow, where around the weather bulwarks was a group of men with a puzzled half-frightened expression on their faces. No one speaks; but a dozen hands are pointed in the direction of the green island.

It has strangely altered in appearance. The hills are lower. It has lengthened out along the horizon. It is receding as the ship advances.

Señor beckons to the captain, who comes hurrying forward, and speedily turns his glass towards the island. Just then some clouds that had come up out of the sea with the wind abaft obscure the sun, and lo! the fairy isle disappears, as if suddenly engulphed in the ocean.

Hardly knowing what he is doing, the captain keeps bewilderedly sweeping the sea for a time with the glass; but never a sign of land is to be seen, only the clearly defined line 'twixt ocean and sky, for the haze has lifted or melted away.

A strange wave of superstitious dread rushes over the hearts of the men standing there near the winch, and one or two of them are deadly pale.

A sailor, more bold than the rest, clutches the captain's arm.

"Tell us, sir," he gasps, "What does it all mean?"

"Alas! lads, it means a mirage."

"Pardon me, sir, but I take leave to doubt it."

"You do?"

"I do, sir. That island lasted too long and clearly for a mirage."

"And you think?"

"I think, sir, that the isle we saw was as solid as the ship we stand upon, and that it has sunk."

"Such things have happened," said the captain. "At least they tell me so; but----. No, no; the island was a mirage. Yet, none the less, the boat is lost."

* * * * * *

The wind that had been blowing steadily from the east now began to fall, and in a very few minutes it was once more a dead and strangely impressive calm.

But clouds were now banking up in every direction. A curious blackness had overspread the sky to the nor'ard; a blackness that appeared to be steadily advancing, blotting out the sea as it came, and accompanied by dancing, quivering lightning, that appeared to run along the surface of the water. Ominous thunders too began to roll, and before sufficient sail was taken in the storm had burst all round them.

For a time there was only mist and blackness, but shortly the rain came down in sheets, the thunder-claps were deafening, and the sea looked like sheets of fire. Anon the wind came, and such a wind. Little sail had been left on her, but the squall appeared to lift the great barque almost out of the water. For a moment she plunged bows first into it, quivering all over from stem to stern like a stricken deer; then, as if fear lent her fleetness, she dashed forward and tore through the wind-chafed ocean, with a speed that the oldest sailor on board had never seen equalled.

All that day the wind blew with hurricane force, and all the next night, then once again the weather cleared. But a gloom that could not be dispelled had settled over the ship, and when four days afterwards, after searching fruitlessly for the lost boat, the _San Salvador_ bore up once more on her course, all the life and soul seemed clean gone out of every man on board.

Perhaps the most unhappy man of all was Señor Sarpinto.

"Oh," he said over and over again to Captain Cawdor, "I'd rather have lost all my fortune than that this terrible affliction should have befallen us."

"My dear sir," said the captain, "we must not repine. We are all in the hands of a merciful Father, who knows what is best for His children here below."

"Oh," cried Sarpinto, "you are good, Captain Cawdor, you are good. But do not try to cheer me up, I must and shall repine. It is my comfort to repine, for, captain, was not the fault all mine, and now I have lost the only being I seem ever to have loved on earth--save one. All my good fortune appears to have deserted me, and my life is closing in darkness and gloom."

What words of consolation could Captain Cawdor find to assuage grief like this? He stretched out his hand and grasped that of the señor.

"I too am in grief," he said quietly.

"Oh, yes, yes!" cried Sarpinto. "I had forgotten. Forgive me, my poor friend. I am selfish. But now for your sake I will try to be brighter, happier."