The Boats of the Glen Carrig (16 page)

For a little after this, I had a short breathing space, the brutes
seeming to have taken fright; yet I was full of trembling, and I glanced
hither and thither, not knowing when some one or more of them would come
upon me. And ever I glanced towards the moon, and prayed the Almighty
that the clouds would pass quickly, else should we be all dead men; and
then, as I prayed, there rose a sudden very terrible scream from one of
the men, and in the same moment there came something over the edge of the
cliff fronting me; but I cleft it or ever it could rise higher, and in my
ears there echoed still the sudden scream which had come from that part
of the hill which lay to the left of me: yet I dared not to leave my
station; for to have done so would have been to have risked all, and so I
stayed, tortured by the strain of ignorance, and my own terror.

Again, I had a little spell in which I was free from molestation; nothing
coming into sight so far as I could see to right or left of me; though
others were less fortunate, as the curses and sounds of blows told to me,
and then, abruptly, there came another cry of pain, and I looked up again
to the moon, and prayed aloud that it might come out to show some light
before we were all destroyed; but it remained hid. Then a sudden thought
came into my brain, and I shouted at the top of my voice to the bo'sun to
set the great cross-bow upon the central fire; for thus we should have a
big blaze—the wood being very nice and dry. Twice I shouted to him,
saying:—"Burn the bow! Burn the bow!" And immediately he replied,
shouting to all the men to run to him and carry it to the fire; and this
we did and bore it to the center fire, and then ran back with all speed
to our places. Thus in a minute we had some light, and the light grew as
the fire took hold of the great log, the wind fanning it to a blaze. And
so I faced outwards, looking to see if any vile face showed above the
edge before me, or to my right or left. Yet, I saw nothing, save, as it
seemed to me, once a fluttering tentacle came up, a little to my right;
but nothing else for a space.

Perhaps it was near five minutes later, that there came another attack,
and, in this, I came near to losing my life, through my folly in
venturing too near to the edge of the cliff; for, suddenly, there shot up
out from the darkness below, a clump of tentacles, and caught me about
the left ankle, and immediately I was pulled to a sitting posture, so
that both my feet were over the edge of the precipice, and it was only by
the mercy of God that I had not plunged head foremost into the valley.
Yet, as it was, I suffered a mighty peril; for the brute that had my
foot, put a vast strain upon it, trying to pull me down; but I resisted,
using my hands and seat to sustain me, and so, discovering that it could
not compass my end in this wise, it slacked somewhat of the stress, and
bit at my boot, shearing through the hard leather, and nigh destroying my
small toe; but now, being no longer compelled to use both hands to retain
my position, I slashed down with great fury, being maddened by the pain
and the mortal fear which the creature had put upon me; yet I was not
immediately free of the brute; for it caught my sword blade; but I
snatched it away before it could take a proper hold, mayhaps cutting its
feelers somewhat thereby; though of this I cannot be sure, for they
seemed not to grip around a thing, but to
suck
to it; then, in a
moment, by a lucky blow, I maimed it, so that it loosed me, and I was
able to get back into some condition of security.

And from this onwards, we were free from molestation; though we had no
knowledge but that the quietness of the weed men did but portend a
fresh attack, and so, at last, it came to the dawn; and in all this
time the moon came not to our help, being quite hid by the clouds which
now covered the whole arc of the sky, making the dawn of a very
desolate aspect.

And so soon as there was a sufficiency of light, we examined the valley;
but there were nowhere any of the weed men, no! nor even any of their
dead for it seemed that they had carried off all such and their wounded,
and so we had no opportunity to make an examination of the monsters by
daylight. Yet, though we could not come upon their dead, all about the
edges of the cliffs was blood and slime, and from the latter there came
ever the hideous stench which marked the brutes; but from this we
suffered little, the wind carrying it far away to leeward, and filling
our lungs with sweet and wholesome air.

Presently, seeing that the danger was past, the bo'sun called us to the
center fire, on which burnt still the remnants of the great bow, and here
we discovered for the first time that one of the men was gone from us. At
that, we made search about the hilltop, and afterwards in the valley and
about the island; but found him not.

Now of the search which we made through the valley for the body of
Tompkins, that being the name of the lost man, I have some doleful
memories. But first, before we left the camp, the bo'sun gave us all a
very sound tot of the rum, and also a biscuit apiece, and thereafter we
hasted down, each man holding his weapon readily. Presently, when we were
come to the beach which ended the valley upon the seaward side, the
bo'sun led us along to the bottom of the hill, where the precipices came
down into the softer stuff which covered the valley, and here we made a
careful search, perchance he had fallen over, and lay dead or wounded
near to our hands. But it was not so, and after that, we went down to the
mouth of the great pit, and here we discovered the mud all about it to be
covered with multitudes of tracks, and in addition to these and the
slime, we found many traces of blood; but nowhere any signs of Tompkins.
And so, having searched all the valley, we came out upon the weed which
strewed the shore nearer to the great weed-continent; but discovered
nothing until we had made up towards the foot of the hill, where it came
down sheer into the sea. Here, I climbed on to a ledge—the same from
which the men had caught their fish—, thinking that, if Tompkins had
fallen from above, he might lie in the water at the foot of the cliff,
which was here, maybe, some ten to twenty feet deep; but, for a little
space, I saw nothing. Then, suddenly, I discovered that there was
something white, down in the sea away to my left, and, at that, I climbed
farther out along the ledge.

In this wise I perceived that the thing which had attracted my notice was
the dead body of one of the weed men. I could see it but dimly, catching
odd glimpses of it as the surface of the water smoothed at whiles. It
appeared to me to be lying curled up, and somewhat upon its right side,
and in proof that it was dead, I saw a mighty wound that had come near to
shearing away the head; and so, after a further glance, I came in, and
told what I had seen. At that, being convinced by this time that Tompkins
was indeed done to death, we ceased our search; but first, before we left
the spot, the bo'sun climbed out to get a sight of the dead weed man and
after him the rest of the men, for they were greatly curious to see
clearly what manner of creature it was that had attacked us in the night.
Presently, having seen so much of the brute as the water would allow,
they came in again to the beach, and afterwards were returned to the
opposite side of the island, and so, being there, we crossed over to the
boat, to see whether it had been harmed; but found it to be untouched.
Yet, that the creatures had been all about it, we could perceive by the
marks of slime upon the sand, and also by the strange trail which they
had left in the soft surface. Then one of the men called out that there
had been something at Job's grave, which, as will be remembered, had been
made in the sand some little distance from the place of our first camp.
At that, we looked all of us, and it was easy to see that it had been
disturbed, and so we ran hastily to it, knowing not what to fear; thus
we found it to be empty; for the monsters had digged down to the poor
lad's body, and of it we could discover no sign. Upon this, we came to a
greater horror of the weed men than ever; for we knew them now to be foul
ghouls who could not let even the dead body rest in the grave.

Now after this, the bo'sun led us all back to the hill-top, and there he
looked to our hurts; for one man had lost two fingers in the night's
fray; another had been bitten savagely in the left arm; whilst a third
had all the skin of his face raised in wheals where one of the brutes had
fixed its tentacles. And all of these had received but scant attention,
because of the stress of the fight, and, after that, through the
discovery that Tompkins was missing. Now, however, the bo'sun set-to upon
them, washing and binding them up, and for dressings he made use of some
of the oakum which we had with us, binding this on with strips torn from
the roll of spare duck, which had been in the locker of the boat.

For my part, seizing this chance to make some examination of my
wounded toe, the which, indeed, was causing me to limp, I found that I
had endured less harm than seemed to me; for the bone of the toe was
untouched, though showing bare; yet when it was cleansed, I had not
overmuch pain with it; though I could not suffer to have the boot on,
and so bound some canvas about my foot, until such time as it should
be healed.

Presently, when our wounds were all attended to, the which had taken
time, for there was none of us altogether untouched, the bo'sun bade the
man whose fingers were damaged, to lie down in the tent, and the same
order he gave also to him that was bitten in the arm. Then, the rest of
us he directed to go down with him and carry up fuel; for that the night
had shown him how our very lives depended upon a sufficiency of this;
and so all that morning we brought fuel to the hill-top, both weed and
reeds, resting not until midday, when he gave us a further tot of the
rum, and after that set one of the men upon the dinner. Then he bade the
man, Jessop by name, who had proposed to fly a kite over the vessel in
the weed, to say whether he had any craft in the making of such a
matter. At that, the fellow laughed, and told the bo'sun that he would
make him a kite that would fly very steadily and strongly, and this
without the aid of a tail. And so the bo'sun bade him set-to without
delay, for that we should do well to deliver the people in the hulk, and
afterwards make all haste from the island, which was no better than a
nesting place of ghouls.

Now hearing the man say that his kite would fly without a tail, I was
mightily curious to see what manner of thing he would make; for I had
never seen the like, nor heard that such was possible. Yet he spoke of no
more than he could accomplish; for he took two of the reeds and cut them
to a length of about six feet; then he bound them together in the middle
so that they formed a Saint Andrew's cross, and after that he made two
more such crosses, and when these were completed, he took four reeds
maybe a dozen feet long, and bade us stand them upright in the shape of a
square, so that they formed the four corners, and after that he took one
of the crosses, and laid it in the square so that its four ends touched
the four uprights, and in this position he lashed it. Then he took the
second cross and lashed it midway between the top and bottom of the
uprights, and after that he lashed the third at the top, so that the
three of them acted as spreaders to keep the four longer reeds in their
places as though they were for the uprights of a little square tower.
Now, when he had gotten so far as that, the bo'sun called out to us to
make our dinners, and this we did, and afterwards had a short time in
which to smoke, and whilst we were thus at our ease the sun came out,
the which it had not done all the day, and at that we felt vastly
brighter; for the day had been very gloomy with clouds until that time,
and what with the loss of Tompkins, and our own fears and hurts, we had
been exceeding doleful, but now, as I have said, we became more cheerful,
and went very alertly to the finishing of the kite.

At this point it came suddenly to the bo'sun that we had made no
provision of cord for the flying of the kite, and he called out to the
man to know what strength the kite would require, at which Jessop
answered him that maybe ten-yarn sennit would do, and this being so,
the bo'sun led three of us down to the wrecked mast upon the further
beach, and from this we stripped all that was left of the shrouds, and
carried them to the top of the hill, and so, presently, having unlaid
them, we set-to upon the sennit, using ten yarns; but plaiting two as
one, by which means we progressed with more speed than if we had taken
them singly.

Now, as we worked, I glanced occasionally towards Jessop, and saw that he
stitched a band of the light duck around each end of the framework which
he had made, and these bands I judged to be about four feet wide, in this
wise leaving an open space between the two, so that now the thing looked
something like to a Punchinello show, only that the opening was in the
wrong place, and there was too much of it. After that he bent on a bridle
to two of the uprights, making this of a piece of good hemp rope which he
found in the tent, and then he called out to the bo'sun that the kite was
finished. At that, the bo'sun went over to examine it, the which did all
of us; for none of us had seen the like of such a thing, and, if I
misdoubt not, few of us had much faith that it would fly; for it seemed
so big and unwieldy. Now, I think that Jessop gathered something of our
thoughts; for, calling to one of us to hold the kite, lest it should
blow away, he went into the tent, and brought out the remainder of the
hemp line, the same from which he had cut the bridle. This, he bent on to
it, and, giving the end into our hands, bade us go back with it until all
the slack was taken up, he, in the meanwhile, steadying the kite. Then,
when we had gone back to the extent of the line, he shouted to us to take
a very particular hold upon it, and then, stooping, caught the kite by
the bottom, and threw it into the air, whereupon, to our amazement,
having swooped somewhat to one side, it steadied and mounted upwards into
the sky like a very bird.