Chapter III: When the Worst Comes to the Worst

What a welcome sight those cocoa-nut trees were! They only grow in islands where water abounds, and the young cocoa-nut itself, before the kernel is formed, contains at least a quart of the most delicious fluid in the world. No wine is equal to it.

But never a boat was there left on board the _Vulture_ to take them on shore, when they should dare to make the venture, as dare they must, or die!

Canoes with armed natives came towards them, but kept aloof, making many threatening gestures. It was evidently their intention to board at night, and so the one swivel-gun which the _Vulture_ possessed was loaded to her adamantine lips, and kept in readiness, and so were all the small-arms.

It was long past midnight, however, before anything occurred. The stars were burning very brightly, specially the Southern Cross, when suddenly Ralph gave warning voice. A fleet of dug-outs was approaching, although nothing could be seen distinctly, and the gun was immediately pointed in its direction.

First the savages were warned off: they only came on faster. A rifle fired into their midst had merely the effect of stopping their progress for a moment. In a few minutes they would be swarming up the sides, knives in hand, and murder in their fierce and fearful eyes.

It is hard to have to take the lives of even savages, but needs must now, and so the gun gave voice. It was fired into their very midst, its canister-shot doing dreadful damage, as the yells of the foe fully testified. There were loud shrieks and groans, and speedily all that was left of the dark fleet retreated shorewards. But just as speedily the gun was now loaded, and once more discharged with deadly effect.

The natives had probably never heard a gun fired before, nor ever seen the face of a white man.

Presently, when all was still, a rasping on the ship’s side told that a canoe was rubbing against her, and Johnnie himself ventured down. There was no one in it, and the paddles were gone. But a large calabash of pure water was found. How glorious! God had not forgotten these shipwrecked wanderers after all, and the savages who had come off thirsting for blood had brought life instead.

Ralph kept watch. The others slumbered on deck, with the exception of Peggy, who was hard and fast asleep on the cabin sofa.

Morning revealed another marvel.

The tide had risen and floated the _Vulture_ off the reef and into a creek!

When they awoke, to their astonishment, our heroes found woods all round them, composed of a species of mangrove, and a far taller, more spreading tree laden with beautiful, peach-like fruit. The anchor was at once let go, lest the returning tide might drift the old barque once more out to sea.

* * * * *

A council of war was assembled, and it was agreed that unless they could make peace with these savages or save themselves by stratagem of some sort, in all probability they would be unable to hold out many days, and indeed the tragedy might be but a few hours distant.

The wiles of black men, into whose breasts the civilising influence of religion has never entered, are many. In this case they must be met by the stratagems of whites.

To fight for any length of time was impossible. To fight at all was but to invite death in its ugliest form. If fighting, therefore, must take place, it must be a last resource, and to sell their lives as dearly as they could. It was for Peggy that all feared most, and dreadful though the resolve was, Fitzroy determined that she should not fall alive into the hands of those fearful blacks, to be tortured to death, and probably devoured afterwards. Though he said nothing of this to Johnnie, he spoke his mind quietly to the skipper of the _Vulture_, as well as to Giant Gourmand.

They each pressed his hand. They knew well what he meant. Had they put it in words it would have ran thus: When the worst comes to the worst, the last shot shall be for Peggy McQueen.

* * * * *

Savages are very superstitious, and next morning when they found the _Vulture_ gone--no signs of her anywhere--they must have jumped to the conclusion that the men on board were evil spirits and possessed the power of disappearing whenever they had a mind to. They evidently visited the creek but seldom, or this part of the island was uninhabited, for the whole forenoon passed away without a sign of a savage.

The captain of the _Vulture_ determined, nevertheless, to explore his surroundings. This man had been a blackbirder in his time, and knew all the tricks and the manners of these islanders. The blackbirder is, or was, a man who fitted out a vessel in some Australian harbour, and sailed for these islands, taking the natives off with them, _nolentes volentes_, to be used as black labourers. These poor labourers are terribly treated, and the blackbirder is a meaner, more despicable wretch than even the slaver.

So after the guns were loaded and every preparation made to repel an attack, he slid over the side and swam on shore.

The time passed wearily by on board the _Vulture_, and it wanted barely an hour to sunset when the captain returned. He came hand over hand up the side, smiling, and as soon as he had changed his wet garments he made his report.

“I think,” he told them, “it will be all right for one night at least, whatever may happen another day. I have had a strange experience, for I have captured an outlying savage.”

“Was he asleep?”

“Sound, and I questioned him in his own language, which, as it happens, I know right well. This part of the island, for miles around, is uninhabited. It has a bad name. The blackbirders and the natives, he told me, had a battle here, and their spirits (gooboos) still haunt the woods. This is all in our favour, though gooboos or not gooboos, if they find we are here in the flesh they will attack us.”

“Captain Stransom,” said Fitzroy, “you didn’t murd---- well, kill the poor savage, did you?”

“Not much, though I’ve shot many a prettier bird. No, I have him tied up with withies--sailors’ knots--in the wood here, and we’ll have him on board to-morrow; I expect we can make him useful later on. But to-morrow we must fortify our position here, and prepare ourselves for whatever may happen. Luckily, there is a stream of pure water not far from this, and fruit enough for a line-of-battle ship.”

This was good news, and innocent little Peggy was happy once more, if nobody else was.

“Oh,” she cried; “I should like to go and sing and dance to these poor people.”

“Ah! my Peggy, you would never sing or dance any more after that,” said Fitzroy.

Ralph, who slept with one eye open, was on duty again that night.

About two bells in the morning watch, everyone was suddenly aroused by the hound’s deep baying. All hands rushed to arms at once, prepared to repel boarders. But no attack was made, and no sound was audible to human ear, so the skipper concluded it must have been Tootaker, the savage, trying to make his escape.

“He can’t, though,” he added; “not if he were the devil. Sailors’ knots and plenty of them!”

The only arms these savages possessed were knives and ugly spears, which they could throw with great precision.

The sun rose in another hour’s time, and, after breakfast, wood was got up from below and a barricade was built around the quarter-deck. The saloon was provisioned, and all the other hatches were battened down. They were now in a position to stand a siege, if need were.

Luck was in their favour, for they noticed two canoes beached near by, and Stransom, the skipper, with Johnnie, swam over the creek and took possession of them. There was a shot-hole in the gunwale of each, so no doubt those canoes had formed part of the hostile fleet. The paddles were in both.

“The natives,” said Stransom, “must have jumped overboard and left these.”

First the prisoner was taken on board, and so well was he treated that he told the skipper he never wanted to leave the ship any more, for if he returned his people would cook him alive, then gobble him all up, and lick their lips afterwards. He was a well-formed man, this savage, with a high skull and somewhat full lips, but most intelligent eyes. He wore only one garment, of coarse hair stuff. But Peggy liked him from the first, and it seemed to delight the child to play and sing to him.

Tootaker glared at her with his black eyes and said, “Oo! oo! Yum! yum!” but whether he was enraptured with the music, or was thinking how nice Peggy would be to eat, I cannot say for certain. “Yum! yum!” means so much.

The two canoes came in very handy, and that forenoon the ship’s chief water-tank was filled.

At first the blood-hound was very suspicious of Tootaker, and Tootaker looked upon the dog as some fearful wild beast. But they soon became friends.

This savage, in conversation with Stransom, said his people had taken the ship for a blackbirder, and were determined to slay every man on board. This was not very comforting, and for the present, at all events, the best thing that our heroes could do was to lie _perdu_. “Defence not defiance” must now be their motto. Stratagem might come in afterwards.

* * * * *

To say the least--the position of Fitzroy and his friends was one that could not be envied.

On the one hand they had water and provisions enough to last them for a very long time indeed, but they were literally in a stage of seige. There was no saying what might occur at any moment. Not less than five hundred wild natives lived on this lonesome isle of the Pacific, which was so far out of the usual track of trading vessels that there was little chance of its being visited, unless a ship should happen to be driven out of its course as the _Vulture_ had been.

The island was certainly not a large one, probably only about five miles in any one direction, very irregular and wooded in parts. Although the sea was swarming with sharks, there were no wild beasts in it larger than a species of rock-rabbit, but turtles abounded, and there were thousands of wild-fowl. Bar an accident to their magazine, there was but little danger of their being starved, and the ship was now dry and trustworthy, being no longer strained and buffeted by the waves.

But oh! the lonesomeness of the situation; for they were afraid even to put out a little way to sea in the canoes, lest their position should be discovered.

When a whole fortnight passed away and absolutely nothing occurred, except one tropical storm, which served to break the monotony, all agreed that the life was becoming unbearable. The giant became morose, Willie looked as sad as if he had been heat-struck, and would sit forward in the fo’c’sle for two hours at a time silently gazing into the water. Even Peggy lost heart and seldom touched her mandoline. And Johnnie, who was evidently forcing himself to keep up his spirits, tried in vain to rouse Peggy from her lethargy. Ralph would get up often and stretch himself and yawn, but he had no heart to romp. He would walk over to Peggy, and placing his great head in her lap, look up in her face with his beautiful, beseeching eyes, as much as to say: “Dear little mistress, how long is this going to last? When are we going back to the wild woods, the tent, and the little caravan?” The child believed she knew what he was thinking about, and as she bent down to kiss his noble brow, her eyes were wet with tears.

“And is this to be the end of all my ambition?” thought Fitzroy. “Are we never to reach Australia, the land of all my hopes?”

“I tell you what it is, Stransom,” he said one day to the skipper, “something has got to be done, else I shall go out of my mind.”

As the skipper made no reply--

“I say,” he continued, “couldn’t something be done with the ship herself? Couldn’t we put to sea again and try to make some land, somewhere? She seems trustworthy now.”

“You are no sailor, Mr. Fitzroy. We are shorthanded, and the ship once strained by a heavy sea would certainly sink. No; I myself think something should be done, else we’ll get as cowardly as rats in a hole. I’ll think it over and let you know. Are you ready to follow my advice?” he added.

“Yes!” cried Fitzroy and Johnnie both in one breath. And even Gourmie wakened up out of his lethargy and smiled a ten-inch smile. “I’m on for anything, from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter,” he cried, rubbing his hands; “and if it comes to a fair stand-up fight Gourmie’ll do two men’s share at least.”

The giant rubbed his hands again. The skipper lit his pipe and threw himself down on the deck to think. And Johnnie ran forward to see Willie.

“Willie, Willie; don’t sit and mope there like a baby owl. Something is going to be done. Father and the captain said so. We’re going to get out of this hole by hook or by crook.”

“Wowff--wow--ow--ow!” bayed Ralph, and Willie jumped joyfully up, and five minutes afterwards he and Peggy and Johnnie were having a concert together in the saloon.

Everybody had more appetite for dinner that day, and after it Stransom said, carelessly--

“I’m going on shore to-night with Tootaker. Don’t worry if I don’t come back till sunrise.”

Johnnie liked that speech, and couldn’t help admiring the captain for his coolness.

“I couldn’t have made a better speech myself,” he told Willie, in confidence.

But everyone wondered what was going to happen next.