The Rescue (7 page)

"Why, they've lowered a boat!" exclaimed Carter, falling back in his
seat. He remembered that he had seen only a few hours ago three native
praus lurking amongst those very islands. For a moment he had the idea
of casting off to go in chase of that boat, so as to find out. . . .
Find out what? He gave up his idea at once. What could he do?

The conviction that the yacht, and everything belonging to her, were in
some indefinite but very real danger, took afresh a strong hold of him,
and the persuasion that the master of the brig was going there to
help did not by any means assuage his alarm. The fact only served to
complicate his uneasiness with a sense of mystery.

The white man who spoke as if that sea was all his own, or as if people
intruded upon his privacy by taking the liberty of getting wrecked on a
coast where he and his friends did some queer business, seemed to him an
undesirable helper. That the boat had been lowered to communicate with
the praus seen and avoided by him in the evening he had no doubt. The
thought had flashed on him at once. It had an ugly look. Yet the best
thing to do after all was to hang on and get back to the yacht and warn
them. . . . Warn them against whom? The man had been perfectly open with
him. Warn them against what? It struck him that he hadn't the slightest
conception of what would happen, of what was even likely to happen. That
strange rescuer himself was bringing the news of danger. Danger from the
natives of course. And yet he was in communication with those natives.
That was evident. That boat going off in the night. . . . Carter swore
heartily to himself. His perplexity became positive bodily pain as he
sat, wet, uncomfortable, and still, one hand on the tiller, thrown up
and down in headlong swings of his boat. And before his eyes, towering
high, the black hull of the brig also rose and fell, setting her stern
down in the sea, now and again, with a tremendous and foaming splash.
Not a sound from her reached Carter's ears. She seemed an abandoned
craft but for the outline of a man's head and body still visible in a
watchful attitude above the taffrail.

Carter told his bowman to haul up closer and hailed:

"Brig ahoy. Anything wrong?"

He waited, listening. The shadowy man still watched. After some time a
curt "No" came back in answer.

"Are you going to keep hove-to long?" shouted Carter.

"Don't know. Not long. Drop your boat clear of the ship. Drop clear. Do
damage if you don't."

"Slack away, John!" said Carter in a resigned tone to the elderly seaman
in the bow. "Slack away and let us ride easy to the full scope. They
don't seem very talkative on board there."

Even while he was speaking the line ran out and the regular undulations
of the passing seas drove the boat away from the brig. Carter turned
a little in his seat to look at the land. It loomed up dead to leeward
like a lofty and irregular cone only a mile or a mile and a half
distant. The noise of the surf beating upon its base was heard against
the wind in measured detonations. The fatigue of many days spent in the
boat asserted itself above the restlessness of Carter's thoughts and,
gradually, he lost the notion of the passing time without altogether
losing the consciousness of his situation.

In the intervals of that benumbed stupor—rather than sleep—he was
aware that the interrupted noise of the surf had grown into a continuous
great rumble, swelling periodically into a loud roar; that the high
islet appeared now bigger, and that a white fringe of foam was visible
at its feet. Still there was no stir or movement of any kind on board
the brig. He noticed that the wind was moderating and the sea going down
with it, and then dozed off again for a minute. When next he opened his
eyes with a start, it was just in time to see with surprise a new star
soar noiselessly straight up from behind the land, take up its position
in a brilliant constellation—and go out suddenly. Two more followed,
ascending together, and after reaching about the same elevation, expired
side by side.

"Them's rockets, sir—ain't they?" said one of the men in a muffled
voice.

"Aye, rockets," grunted Carter. "And now, what's the next move?" he
muttered to himself dismally.

He got his answer in the fierce swishing whirr of a slender ray of
fire that, shooting violently upward from the sombre hull of the brig,
dissolved at once into a dull red shower of falling sparks. Only one,
white and brilliant, remained alone poised high overhead, and after
glowing vividly for a second, exploded with a feeble report. Almost at
the same time he saw the brig's head fall off the wind, made out the
yards swinging round to fill the main topsail, and heard distinctly the
thud of the first wave thrown off by the advancing bows. The next minute
the tow-line got the strain and his boat started hurriedly after the
brig with a sudden jerk.

Leaning forward, wide awake and attentive, Carter steered. His men
sat one behind another with shoulders up, and arched backs, dozing,
uncomfortable but patient, upon the thwarts. The care requisite to steer
the boat properly in the track of the seething and disturbed water left
by the brig in her rapid course prevented him from reflecting much upon
the incertitude of the future and upon his own unusual situation.

Now he was only exceedingly anxious to see the yacht again, and it was
with a feeling of very real satisfaction that he saw all plain sail
being made on the brig. Through the remaining hours of the night he sat
grasping the tiller and keeping his eyes on the shadowy and high pyramid
of canvas gliding steadily ahead of his boat with a slight balancing
movement from side to side.

It was noon before the brig, piloted by Lingard through the deep
channels between the outer coral reefs, rounded within pistol-shot a low
hummock of sand which marked the end of a long stretch of stony ledges
that, being mostly awash, showed a black head only, here and there
amongst the hissing brown froth of the yellow sea. As the brig drew
clear of the sandy patch there appeared, dead to windward and beyond a
maze of broken water, sandspits, and clusters of rocks, the black hull
of the yacht heeling over, high and motionless upon the great expanse of
glittering shallows. Her long, naked spars were inclined slightly as
if she had been sailing with a good breeze. There was to the lookers-on
aboard the brig something sad and disappointing in the yacht's aspect
as she lay perfectly still in an attitude that in a seaman's mind is
associated with the idea of rapid motion.

"Here she is!" said Shaw, who, clad in a spotless white suit, came just
then from forward where he had been busy with the anchors. "She is well
on, sir—isn't she? Looks like a mudflat to me from here."

"Yes. It is a mudflat," said Lingard, slowly, raising the long glass to
his eye. "Haul the mainsail up, Mr. Shaw," he went on while he took a
steady look at the yacht. "We will have to work in short tacks here."

He put the glass down and moved away from the rail. For the next hour
he handled his little vessel in the intricate and narrow channel with
careless certitude, as if every stone, every grain of sand upon the
treacherous bottom had been plainly disclosed to his sight. He handled
her in the fitful and unsteady breeze with a matter-of-fact audacity
that made Shaw, forward at his station, gasp in sheer alarm. When
heading toward the inshore shoals the brig was never put round till the
quick, loud cries of the leadsmen announced that there were no more than
three feet of water under her keel; and when standing toward the steep
inner edge of the long reef, where the lead was of no use, the helm
would be put down only when the cutwater touched the faint line of the
bordering foam. Lingard's love for his brig was a man's love, and was
so great that it could never be appeased unless he called on her to put
forth all her qualities and her power, to repay his exacting affection
by a faithfulness tried to the very utmost limit of endurance. Every
flutter of the sails flew down from aloft along the taut leeches, to
enter his heart in a sense of acute delight; and the gentle murmur of
water alongside, which, continuous and soft, showed that in all her
windings his incomparable craft had never, even for an instant, ceased
to carry her way, was to him more precious and inspiring than the soft
whisper of tender words would have been to another man. It was in such
moments that he lived intensely, in a flush of strong feeling that made
him long to press his little vessel to his breast. She was his perfect
world full of trustful joy.

The people on board the yacht, who watched eagerly the first sail they
had seen since they had been ashore on that deserted part of the coast,
soon made her out, with some disappointment, to be a small merchant brig
beating up tack for tack along the inner edge of the reef—probably with
the intention to communicate and offer assistance. The general opinion
among the seafaring portion of her crew was that little effective
assistance could be expected from a vessel of that description. Only
the sailing-master of the yacht remarked to the boatswain (who had the
advantage of being his first cousin): "This man is well acquainted here;
you can see that by the way he handles his brig. I shan't be sorry to
have somebody to stand by us. Can't tell when we will get off this mud,
George."

A long board, sailed very close, enabled the brig to fetch the southern
limit of discoloured water over the bank on which the yacht had
stranded. On the very edge of the muddy patch she was put in stays for
the last time. As soon as she had paid off on the other tack, sail was
shortened smartly, and the brig commenced the stretch that was to bring
her to her anchorage, under her topsails, lower staysails and jib. There
was then less than a quarter of a mile of shallow water between her and
the yacht; but while that vessel had gone ashore with her head to the
eastward the brig was moving slowly in a west-northwest direction, and
consequently, sailed—so to speak—past the whole length of the yacht.
Lingard saw every soul in the schooner on deck, watching his advent in
a silence which was as unbroken and perfect as that on board his own
vessel.

A little man with a red face framed in white whiskers waved a gold-laced
cap above the rail in the waist of the yacht. Lingard raised his arm in
return. Further aft, under the white awnings, he could see two men and
a woman. One of the men and the lady were in blue. The other man,
who seemed very tall and stood with his arm entwined round an awning
stanchion above his head, was clad in white. Lingard saw them plainly.
They looked at the brig through binoculars, turned their faces to
one another, moved their lips, seemed surprised. A large dog put his
forepaws on the rail, and, lifting up his big, black head, sent out
three loud and plaintive barks, then dropped down out of sight. A sudden
stir and an appearance of excitement amongst all hands on board the
yacht was caused by their perceiving that the boat towing astern of the
stranger was their own second gig.

Arms were outstretched with pointing fingers. Someone shouted out a
long sentence of which not a word could be made out; and then the brig,
having reached the western limit of the bank, began to move diagonally
away, increasing her distance from the yacht but bringing her stern
gradually into view. The people aft, Lingard noticed, left their places
and walked over to the taffrail so as to keep him longer in sight.

When about a mile off the bank and nearly in line with the stern of the
yacht the brig's topsails fluttered and the yards came down slowly
on the caps; the fore and aft canvas ran down; and for some time she
floated quietly with folded wings upon the transparent sheet of water,
under the radiant silence of the sky. Then her anchor went to the bottom
with a rumbling noise resembling the roll of distant thunder. In a
moment her head tended to the last puffs of the northerly airs and the
ensign at the peak stirred, unfurled itself slowly, collapsed, flew out
again, and finally hung down straight and still, as if weighted with
lead.

"Dead calm, sir," said Shaw to Lingard. "Dead calm again. We got into
this funny place in the nick of time, sir."

They stood for a while side by side, looking round upon the coast and
the sea. The brig had been brought up in the middle of a broad belt of
clear water. To the north rocky ledges showed in black and white lines
upon the slight swell setting in from there. A small island stood out
from the broken water like the square tower of some submerged building.
It was about two miles distant from the brig. To the eastward the coast
was low; a coast of green forests fringed with dark mangroves. There was
in its sombre dullness a clearly defined opening, as if a small piece
had been cut out with a sharp knife. The water in it shone like a patch
of polished silver. Lingard pointed it out to Shaw.

"This is the entrance to the place where we are going," he said.

Shaw stared, round-eyed.

"I thought you came here on account of this here yacht," he stammered,
surprised.

"Ah. The yacht," said Lingard, musingly, keeping his eyes on the break
in the coast. "The yacht—" He stamped his foot suddenly. "I would give
all I am worth and throw in a few days of life into the bargain if I
could get her off and away before to-night."

He calmed down, and again stood gazing at the land. A little within the
entrance from behind the wall of forests an invisible fire belched out
steadily the black and heavy convolutions of thick smoke, which stood
out high, like a twisted and shivering pillar against the clear blue of
the sky.

"We must stop that game, Mr. Shaw," said Lingard, abruptly.

"Yes, sir. What game?" asked Shaw, looking round in wonder.

"This smoke," said Lingard, impatiently. "It's a signal."