There was a body of water as large as North America and a few vessels skirted its edges, but none penetrated the center. None.
Nothing.
He closed the book.
Stone came up to the bridge. He sat down. He was smoking a cigar. He could scarcely keep his eyes from the emerald wall outdoors.
"I see you've investigated our—isolation."
"I have."
"You find it--"
"Excessive," McCobb answered and smiled ironically.
Stone laughed. "You're right. Quite right." He dropped ashes from his cigar. "A few years ago I took a party around the world. We cut across here--just for fun--just because we were all good sailors. One night I was at the wheel and there was no other watch. The moon was full. Everyone slept. I kept the
Falcon
on her course and suddenly I was shocked--terrified--to catch a shape out of the corner of my eye.
"It was this island. We passed it at a distance of less than a mile. I caught a glimpse of this wide bay through the opening. I saw the rocky hill yonder. And I was on the verge of waking everyone when something made me stop. I realized that no other man on earth had seen this place. I shared a knowledge of it with--the gods. So, instead of calling everyone, I put down the position accurately and I sailed on. I'd lost sight of it, dreaming, before I realized that my approach had been dangerous. There might have been reefs."
McCobb held a match to his pipe.
Stone continued in an enthralled voice. "The thing never left me. Year after year I thought of going back. I imagined myself wrecked there. I even amused myself by making lists of what I would require for a long stay there. Then--"
"Then?"
Stone moved to the steps that led to the deck and looked away from McCobb.
"You're a silent devil. How much do you know about me? I mean--aside from the fact that I own the New York
Morning Record?
That I own a string of banks? That I have a fine yacht? Know the right people? . . . How much?"
"Very little, sir."
"Stone. We'll drop the 'sir'--you and I."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he turned.
"Did you know I was married?"
"I did."
"Did you know my wife's name?"
"Nellie Larsen."
"Yes."
McCobb walked to the windows and stared at the island. He knew that he would find the answer to the mystery of their arrival in the next few moments. He saw that Stone was distressed. He prompted in a slow voice:
"I was sitting at a café in Paris, once, when she passed. Everyone stood and gaped.
'There goes Nellie Larsen,' they said. Her horses stopped to let an old woman cross. She sat there, pale as an angel. Blossoms from the horse-chestnut trees fell on her and stuck in her hair. Then she drove on. I remembered her."
Stone's hands were clenched and white.
"You remembered her. And so shall I. We were so happy, McCobb, that it could not last. Yes--it could. She went away."
McCobb murmured. He did not say words, but Stone was given to understand by the sound that McCobb knew about her going away."
"When I reached my house that day," he said hoarsely, "she was not there. I called up the stairs and I laughed. I thought she was out. Then--her maid--just--hinted. I went everywhere. I ran my horses to foam. I had a revolver. But she'd gone far and fast--with a man whose name shall never pass my lips.
"I was wild. The thought is still intolerable. I sat for a long stretch of alternating dark and light beside our son-ours no longer but only mine. I did not know what to do. I'
could not face my friends. If anyone had said, 'Too bad,' in those days, I would have killed that person.
"Suddenly I remembered this island. I knew, then. And I knew another thing--I knew that my son was going to be brought up to young manhood without the influence of women. Without the knowledge of women which they imbue in men. I knew. So I began to get ready."
Tears had scalded Stone's cheeks. The Scot was watching the green birds which had now come to the ship in numbers.
Stone checked his emotion. "When you signed that contract--you must have expected--something."
McCobb shrugged. "I did it with my eyes open."
"The last step--was beaching the
Falcon
here. We'll be here--a long time."
"A long time."
"You don't think anyone will find us, do you?"
McCobb smoked. "Someone might come tomorrow. No one will come, in all probability, for years. Years. Years."
"So I thought. It's going to be a glorious adventure, McCobb!"
"And arduous. And tedious."
"At any rate--there's no turning back." Stone stood up. "Now--for the island. We'll explore the shore here. It seems to rise a bit almost at once. Perhaps we can build very near."
"Build?"
"Build!" Stone took his engineer's arm. "A fine house with a stockade around it and a big cellar to store the things I have brought. A pen for the goats and one for the chickens. A garden, by and by. A sawmill and a little blacksmith shop. We won't want for the materials. I have everything. This is no inadvertent and makeshift shipwreck. This is a planned arrival, a deliberate colonization. Come!"
Some of Stone's spirit infected McCobb. His square face lighted.
"It may not be so bad," he said slowly.
Jack banged the dinner gong at that instant. The two men went side by side toward the salon.
"What about him?" McCobb asked, as they walked.
Stone gestured with his hands. "Jack? I found Jack in a blind pig in Hampton Roads. He was drunk. He had a chair by the leg. There were two coppers on the floor and three still trying for him. He was laughing and yelling. I never saw such a splendid specimen. He must be pure stock. I said, 'Put that chair down, son.'"
Stone chuckled and led McCobb into the salon ahead of himself.
"He put it down. 'Come on,' I said. He grinned and sobered a bit. 'Yes, boss,' he answered. It cost me two hundred dollars to square' things. I saved him a nice stretch in the pen. But--now---Jack's my slave."
McCobb nodded. The floor of the salon was canted, but not so much that they could not sit down at the table.
Jack came with a tray of food. He served them and then stood still. It was not like him. Both men were aware of his curiosity.
Stone looked at him. "Something on your mind, Jack?"
"No, bass."
"What is it?"
"How long are we going to be here, boss?"
"I don't know. A long time."
"Yes, boss."
"Years, maybe."
Jack chuckled. "That's a real long time. Yes, indeed. That's a right long time."
He departed, holding his tray over his head. When he returned with meat and potatoes he appeared to have reflected further.
"I was thinking this was a bad accident, boss. Mighty bad. Can't clean out the water. Can't push her off. I was thinking--"
It was obvious that the dim resources of Jack's subconscious were grappling with the possibility that the accident might have been deliberate. But he was incapable of realizing the fact of their position. A mere suspicion kept him agitated.
Stone allayed it. "Don't worry about the boat. It's no good now. We're going to build a house on shore and move there. I want you to watch the baby this afternoon. Don't leave the room at all. I'll give you a gun. We won't be far away. But we're going ashore to see what's what."
"Yes, boss."
Chapter Two:
THE ISOLATION
STONE Jumped down on the sand. McCobb followed. They crossed the beach.
At the edge of the forest-jungle they looked back.
The
Falcon
lay in the sand, her decks sloped and her funnel awry. They heard Jack's voice singing to the baby.
McCobb shivered from a combination of sentiments he could not describe. They rounded a screw palm, walked through a clump of ferns, and vanished. The trunks of ebony trees and tall evergreens rose around them. Through the trees ran nets of flowering vines. Moss hung from them and their lofty foliage blotted out the sun and held in a deep quiet.
The silence, however, was more illusion than fact, for it was constantly pervaded by the hum of insects and the chirp and flutter of birds. A broad and brilliant butterfly settled on a waxy orchid.
Then, in their path, a mottled coil moved slowly and the head of a snake was raised. Stone fired at it. The coils threshed.
"That's a big one," McCobb said softly.
They watched it die.
"Not as big as it might be," Stone answered. "It's a boa."
The ground rose to a miniature plateau over which the forest green was spread on mighty boles. On the western slope of the plateau they heard the sound of water and came upon a lusty brook which ran down toward the sea. Its water was clear and in a still pool they saw a swarm of multicolored fish.
Behind the plateau was thick brush. On the eastern side it fell away again to a tangle broken by huge boulders.
They went back to the top of the plateau. It was perhaps twenty acres in extent.
Stone regarded it. "This is in the right place as far as winds are concerned. And it's not far from the
Falcon
--"
McCobb nodded. "So I was thinking. The small stuff by the brook will make a good stockade. We can cut a road to the beach and put corduroy on the sand. Then--
maybe we could get the winch up here and rig a boiler."
"The winch?"
"Sure. We could use it to pull a sort of stone boat over our road. A railway to the ship. See what I mean ?"
"By George!" Stone exclaimed.
"Afterward we could haul rocks from the brook with it. Rocks for a cellar and chimneys. If we can dig here--"
"If dig, we can blast."
"So we can. It will take time."
"But it will be worth it."
Stone stared up at the trees. In the distance a small band of what were presumably monkeys scurried and gibbered through the leaves.
"If we took down about fifty trees--we'd have quite a clearing."
"And a view," the Scot added. In the presence of this prospect of creative work, his mind had become entirely objective. He paced through the shadows. "The cellar here.
The chimneys there and there. You have cement? Good. And if you can saw--why--
there's no limit to what we can do. We can build a private Taj Mahal. I imagine Jack is kind of an engine in himself. It'll give us something to think about--in any event. "
Stone nodded his head in affirmation. His expression, as he regarded McCobb, was one almost of relief. The engineer had admirably withstood the shock of his arrival on the island. Stone had considered other possibilities--the man might have been savagely angry, might even have turned murderous. He might have failed absolutely to comprehend the motives that led to the shipwreck. He might have been swept by despair and proved helpless and useless.
Stone had not expected those things--he understood the men who went to sea and he understood also the temperament of the Scotch--but he was none the less freed of a burden.
They made their way back to the ship, moving warily and with distrust. They thought of the boa with every step. They thought of other things to which they 'later gave voice.
When they came on board, Jack sprang from below decks. He had discarded his gun and in his hand was a sinister knife.
Stone smiled. "Hello, Jack."
"You, boss?"
"See anything?"
"No, sir."
"Hear anything?"
"I hear lots of things in the woods. But I don't see anything."
"Good. You can get dinner, now. We're going to start to work this afternoon over on the island. We'll work two at a time. You and I, or McCobb and I, or you and McCobb."
"Yes, boss."
"Baby asleep?"
"Yes, indeed. That's the sleepinest baby I ever saw. First he sleeps on one side.
Then he wakes up and if you put him on the other he goes to sleep again. He can't seem to do nothing but sleep."
"Good. It's going to be hard work."
Jack showed his teeth. He hesitated and then asked an oblique question:
"I heard a shot--or maybe I didn't hear no shot."
"That was a shot."
"Trying out the guns?"
"Snake," Stone said.
Jack stiffened a little but his smile did not fade. "That's what I thought."
The setting sun had brought a little wind from the sea. McCobb stood on the broken stern and sniffed it. He took out his tobacco and filled his pipe reluctantly. All afternoon he had been plagued by the thought that soon he would cease smoking. He sighed. His mind ran in a medley that was partly irregular because of fatigue and partly stirred by the variety of experiences he had undergone during the day.
He thought about Stone's opinion of women. It must have been due to the fact that Stone had had very little experience with women. There was, McCobb's daydream reminded him, a Malay girl who had worn a flower in her hair, and an Irish trollop in San Pedro, and a girl with devious eyes who had called to him on the street in Buenos Aires.
These women were all bad, but their badness had not affected him the way the flight of one woman had affected Stone.
He was too hard. Too idealistic. Too impetuous. Too much a man of brain and too little a man of honest passions. There was a girl here and a girl there, McCobb's senses whispered.
Now there would be no more girls.
No more.
He might die here. He discarded that thought. He had a certain faith in Stone's brain. That faith had increased during the afternoon when he hade assisted in the unloading of the first, forward hatch. It had contained precisely what they would need to commence their siege for occupation of the island. Precisely. Nothing missing. Stone was a great organizer.
McCobb whispered pipe-smoke into the air and watched it make a personal cloud against the soft indigo of the harbor and the uplifted verdure of the island.
The hills were rank with growth. They had a luster. They were ominous and pregnant. They had been sitting there for thousands and thousands of years generating their own life. Now they were invaded. Now man had come there.
How big was the island? Three or four miles in diameter, perhaps. What lived on it? Insects, birds, monkeys, snakes. What else? Who knew?