“thanks to you, master hampdon,” she began, reassured by my glance, “i am now clothed and shod comfortably and in my right mind.”
“you are always in that, mistress,” said i quickly.
“you did not think so in the cabin of the ship,” she laughed, and giving me no time to answer, for i am not quick at speech on some occasions, as you who read must have noticed, she ran on, pointing to the barrier reef as she spoke, and staring at the breakers smashing against it, “but shoemaking and dressmaking are small things after what you did out there.”
“it was nothing,” said i.
“i watched you. i was not too frightened to do that, and there is not another man on earth who could have brought me over the fearful maelstrom of water to safety here.”
[199]well, that is true, why not admit it? i thought.
“not many white men,” i replied, glad for her praise, “but natives in their canoes aplenty.”
“but a canoe is light and easily managed, not like this heavy boat.”
“no, i admit there is a difference”—as indeed there was—“but now we must think on the future,” i added.
“and what is to be done next?” she asked.
the next thing to be done, i decided, was to overhaul the boat. i pulled the plug out, drained the water from her, hauled her up on the sand above high water mark, my lady helping me as if she had been a man. i remonstrated with her about it, i begged her not to do it, finally i even ventured on a command to which she paid not the least heed.
the precious powder and shot we found dry and safe in the flasks in the air-tight lockers. from the same safe place, we got some hard bread, some cold salt beef, and with water from a brook that gushed out from under the rocky wall and ran across the beach we broke our fast again on this plain rough fare. it was not[200] yet near noon, but we had gone through much since that early breakfast, and were healthily hungry again—and so we made our meal. dry, hard eating to be sure, but we were thankful to god that we had it.
finishing, and feeling much refreshed, we decided that our first duty was to explore the island to see if there was any break in the cliff wall, and if there was any access to the inward parts in which i hoped to find vegetation, trees, and the delicious fruits with which i knew the tropics abounded. my lady was heartily in favor of such a course, and we at once set about carrying it out.
a hasty survey assured me that the cliff was of coral formation, jagged and broken into many a crevice and cranny. if we were hard put to it, i was sure we could find a cave in which to pass the night if it were necessary. after we had made out what we could, i suggested to mistress lucy that we start at once exploring, proposing that we follow the course of the sandy strip and find out what we could of our island refuge. and, so, taking with us some provisions, for we might have to go clear round[201] the island, and our arms, we presently started out. my mistress professed herself well rested and ready for anything. my own endurance was not yet at its limit, and i felt the necessity of discovering the lay of the land at once, in view of the presence of pimball and the ship in those waters.
yet i felt very easy in my mind regarding any present peril from the ship, for i knew that no boat she possessed could run the reef as i had done, and even if she had had another like the dinghy i was confident that there was no man aboard her that had the strength and skill, to say nothing of the courage, to bring her through. indeed, for all my skill and ability we ourselves had only got through by the favor of god. if there were no natives or wild animals to be feared we were at least safe for the time being. i explained this to my companion as we trudged along the hard, white sand, whereat she was greatly relieved and her quick mind being freed of apprehension turned to other things.
“think you, master hampdon,” she said, “this is the island of which my ancestor wrote?”
“i am sure of it,” i replied.
[202]“he referred to it, if i remember right as ‘ye islande of ye staires,’ did he not?”
“yes,” was my answer. “you remember he indicated a stairway about the middle of the island.”
“surely, if we are to get to the top of yonder wall it must be by stairs of some sort.”
“it would not be difficult to climb it,” i assented, “for a man, that is, save for one thing.”
“and what is that?”
“those pinnacles of rock are as sharp as needles. it would be like climbing broken glass. the climber would be cut to pieces before he had gone halfway. see,” we approached the wall closely and i pointed out to her how sharp the edges were. “if it were granite rock these ridges and splinters would be weatherworn and smooth, but this coral formation is of a different quality.”
“then if we find no stairs we are in a bad situation,” she said thoughtfully, examining the towering wall.
“there must be stairs,” i answered, “or there must be some other way. the latitude and longitude agree with your ancestor’s description,[203] and i make no doubt we shall chance upon them.”
“but if there are none?” she persisted.
“doubtless we’ll find some break to let us up or in,” i answered easily, evasively it may be, but hopefully, not being minded to pass our existence on the narrow strip of sand on which we were walking.
so we tramped along, searching the shore and sea and finding nothing. after perhaps an hour’s monotonous going, when we had traversed about a third of the distance of the island, we rounded a projection of the cliff and there before us—rose the stairs!
now i know that you who read will accuse me of fond invention, yet i have not the wit or the imagination of the romancer. i can only relate the facts as they were. what we saw was a gigantic stairway, irregular, but made of huge blocks of roughhewn stone—not coral rock, but harder stone of firmer texture, like granite almost. i was not familiar with the stone either. there was no symmetry about the stairs. some of the stones rose perhaps three feet, and others not more than as many inches, but stairs they[204] certainly were, and they surely had been made by man. the stones were most carefully fitted, being laid up without mortar, the joints so close that i could scarce thrust a knife blade between. the huge blocks were of monstrous size, too; much too great in bulk and weight to be handled by any but mechanical means. i never could conceive how natives or primitive men could have shaped them, moved them, and finally laid them up in the form of stairs. i have since made inquiries of learned men and find that for all their study they, too, are at sea as to who were those mighty builders and how they builded.
nor did the stairs alone awaken our amazement and quicken our curiosity. they ended in the circling belt of sand, here a little wider than elsewhere. at the bottom on either side, two gigantic statues, or busts, of stone had been erected. their bases were buried in the sand and they rose to quite twice my height above, and i am good six feet tall and more. these stones were carved into the rough yet not unreal likenesses of human faces. the carving had been done with marvelous skill considering, and[205] the faces were not of the native type either. they were of our type, only distorted and exaggerated. the carving included the breast; one was a man, the other a woman. they were made of the same hard pinkish rock as the stairs, and the angles and projections upon them apparently had been softened and smoothed by hundreds of years of exposure to the weather. they were not unfamiliar to us either, for they were, making due allowance for size, just like the little image sir philip had brought back. they had the same enormous sightless eyes, the same long protruding jaws, the same hideous fang-like teeth, the same repulsive features. we looked at them both, experiencing a perfectly natural and understandable feeling of horror and disgust. one had lost his crown, but the other was intact as he had left the carver’s hands.
the very size of them intensified our disquiet. they were caricatures of course, but withal they were intensely natural and lifelike and not less wonderful than the stairs, over which for centuries they had been the silent watchers and guardians.
[206]certain i am that you will find it difficult to credit these marvels, and will dismiss them perhaps as a traveler’s idle tale, yet i have given you the latitude and longitude of the island and you may go there and see them for yourself if you desire, and you may perhaps find what treasure we left there, too, for a reward! when you return you can testify that i lie not, but speak the sober truth.
why we had not discovered these stairs from seaward was because they did not come squarely down to the water’s edge at right angles to the wall, but instead lay, as it were, parallel to it in a niche within the wall, so that they were somewhat sheltered from observation from the sea.
as we broke upon them suddenly, therefore, mistress lucy clutched my arm. we naturally drew together at the sight of such gods, or devils, in stone.
“the giant stairway!” she cried in thrilled amazement.
“it is indeed,” i said triumphantly, as i realized what our discovery meant, “just as it was stated in the parchment.”
[207]“and the great stone faces,” she added in a voice in which there was a note of horror.
“they, too, were mentioned, you remember,” i said, striving to speak cheerfully, though i was deeply impressed myself.
“and just like the little one back in the ship.”
“the very same,” was my reply.
“they were very old two hundred years ago,” she commented.
“aye, it appears to me that they must have been old a thousand years ago, or more,” i assented.
“could those stairs have just happened that way? or did someone build them, think you?”
“yes,” i replied, “those are the work of men, skilled men, too, for they are too regularly laid up to be by chance.”
“yes, of course, and the images could never have come there by chance,” she admitted.
“certainly not, but let us go nearer and ascend them,” i said, taking her hand and leading the way, and she was so preoccupied that she did not notice.
i observed, as we approached the stairs that[208] the rock had been worn smooth by the wind and weather, or maybe by the passing of many feet, and the steps were quite practicable for ascent. the angle at which they rose was sharp, too.
“what is on top, think you?”
“i know not.”
“wild men or savage beasts?” she faltered.
“the parchment said naught of animals or permanent inhabitants of this island,” i reassured her.
“no, that it did not,” she assented.
“well, then, let’s chance it.”
i had thrust the pistols in my belt, save for the one she carried, and had the musket in my hand. i looked to the priming of them so that i could depend upon them in case of an emergency, although i confess i did not expect anything to happen. save for the sound of the wind and waves and our own voices the place was pervaded by that sort of deadly stillness which indicated the absence of humanity, or even the larger forms of animal life. except for the birds of gorgeous plumage and the gulls and other sea fliers i believed we were absolutely alone on the island.
[209]then we began the ascent. it was easy enough for me, but hard for her, and several times i made bold to lift her up the higher steps, which she suffered without comment or resistance. she told me long afterward that my manner toward her then and thereafter had been perfect. i had determined in my heart to show her that although i could snatch a kiss on the quarter-deck of a crowded ship, on an island, alone, i could treat her with all the courtesy and consideration of the very finest gentleman of her acquaintance.
when we at last reached the top, before us lay a broad pathway rudely paved with the same hard stone. this road led straight across the top of the wall toward the interior of the island, of which we could see as yet nothing, because the wall hereabouts was covered with dense, luxurious vegetation and seemed of great thickness, perhaps a mile or more, as we found as we traversed the way. progress was difficult even in the pathway. it would have been impossible in some places but for my heavy cutlass with which i cut a path where the place had become overgrown by trees and bushes which had forced[210] their way through the cracks, overturning and breaking the heavy flagstones and blocking up the path, which, it was evident, had not been traversed for generations; perhaps not since the old buccaneer himself had walked along it beneath the spreading trees.
there was naught for it but to continue along the rude paved way, for it was impossible to penetrate the jungle on either side, even if we had desired it, and once more looking to my weapons, one of which i kept in hand, although i was sure now we should not need them, and had indeed nothing to fear, we followed the ancient way. for perhaps a mile we pursued our journey across the top of the wall, winding in and out among the trees, through the jungle, the path evidently seeking the most level direction, for the top of the wall was very much broken and irregular.
at last we came to an open spot on the inner edge overlooking the whole island, and before us lay such a picture as few eyes, at least of our race, had ever looked upon. the wall ended abruptly and fell downward, on the inner or landward side, as precipitously as it rose outwardly[211] and to seaward. before us lay a most entrancing valley, perhaps three or four miles across, and maybe half as long again in the other direction, and which was walled about in every direction. it was sunk beneath this wall crest for perhaps one hundred feet or more. in the center of the valley the land rose a little higher than the island wall, making a very considerable hill, tree crowned on the slopes, but largely bare save for more images, on the crest. through the valley ran a brook which ended in a little lake, which i suspected had some subterranean connection with the ocean. as far as we could see, and the whole circuit of the island was now clearly visible to us, the enclosing wall was unbroken. the valley was filled with clusters of trees and alternating stretches of grassy meadow. why it was not completely overgrown with trees i could not imagine. perhaps the ground was too shallow in places for trees to grow.
we would have been hard put to it to descend the wall to the valley, but for the fact that the same people who built the stairs that gave access to the wall from the sea had also built a similar[212] flight which made the descent to the valley possible, indeed easy. before we essayed the descent of the stairs, we drank our fill of the beauty and mysterious charm of it all. indeed, there was no sound that came to us except the twittering of the birds, of which there were many brilliantly plumaged flitting in the trees. all else was still, lonely, deserted, oppressively so in fact.
i was constrained to think of our situation as we scanned the lonely prospect in silence. a man and a maid cast away upon an absolutely deserted island rising from the most unknown and unfrequented seas on the globe, seemingly with no chance on earth of escape therefrom. the one possibility of getting away, the rose of devon, worse than useless to us because of her evil crew. what were we to do? what could we expect? suppose we found the treasure, of what value would it be to us?
i cursed myself for my weakness in allowing my lady to come upon this voyage of death and disaster. i wished that i had destroyed sir geoffrey’s letter. and yet as my glance fell upon her my thoughts changed. a man and a[213] maid, i have said. distinctions of rank did not exist in the garden of eden. this was the world’s first morning again, and by my side, dependent utterly upon me, stood—eve! my heart beat, my face flamed at the thought. here, if nowhere else, she might—
“what think you of this?” my lady broke the silence, and she broke more than the silence, for her words recalled me to my better sense again.
“i do not know,” i answered, shamed in my soul at my imaginings.
“is it not like the crater of an ancient extinct volcano?” she ventured.
“no,” said i, “these are coral rocks and there is no sign of lava about them, yet it has somewhat of the appearance, especially that flattened hillock in the center.”
i have since talked with many men and studied the writings of the most learned geologists, and from what i have been able to glean from them, and the suggestions i have been able to give, it has been fancied that perhaps the rocky projection in the middle of the valley, where later on we saw the great altar of sacrifice with its attendant idols, was the original island[214] which was once surrounded by a coral reef now become a wall, and that some great upheaval had lifted the whole up out of the water in ages gone by, and that the barrier reef over which we had passed was the second attempt of the busy little insects to surround the island again. and indeed, though i know but little about such things, the theory may well be true, although it gives no solution of stairs or images or altars. it seems easier to explain nature than man, you see. but these things, naturally, did not occur to us then.
“what is to be done now?” asked my little mistress.
“i hardly know,” i answered, staring at the green cup of the island, encircled by the white walls, like a great emerald wreathed in pearls. i should not have thought of that comparison, myself, but it occurred to my lady later, and she told me, so i have put it in to embellish this rather dry narrative of mine. “i see no signs of human life or of animals, except birds,” i continued, “i firmly believe that we are absolutely alone on the island.”
involuntarily, i looked at her as i spoke,[215] whereat she came instantly toward me without hesitation.
“we are alone,” she said, as if divining my thought, “and i am in your power. i am weak and you are strong, but—”
“madam,” said i, with all the formality i could infuse in voice and bearing, “you are as safe with me as if you were in your late father’s arms, and surrounded by all the people you love.”
“i know it and i trust you,” she answered. “indeed, indeed, master hampdon, i am glad to be here, to be away from that awful ship of death and i believe this is the island which we have been seeking. where else in the world is there such a wall and such a flight of stairs? i am sure the treasure will be here and when we search for it we shall find it.”
“very likely,” i answered, “but what is exercising me most now is, first of all, what is going on in that same mutinous ship, and next how we shall finally get away from here.”
“you are impatient,” returned my lady, smiling.
“impatient for you, madam,” i interrupted,[216] checking myself from further self-revealing speech just in time.
“one thing at a time,” she continued. “by the favor of god, we have escaped from the murderers and mutineers and by his providence we have come safe across the reef. we shall not starve upon this island, and i have no doubt that sooner or later you will devise some means for our escape. you have done so well so far that i feel quite confident; in fact, if captain matthews were with us, i should feel almost happy.”
this was rating my power very highly i knew, and i felt that i might not be able to justify her confidence, but if i failed it would not be for lack of trying. it was long past noon by this time. i made sure of it by looking at the sun and confirming it by my watch which i most carefully kept running during all our sojourn on the island, which indicated close on six bells, three o’clock. our talk of the ship recalled me to myself.
“i think,” said i, “that we had better postpone the exploration of the island until another day, and go back to our landing place. if i[217] know the men on that ship they will guess that we have escaped to this island, and they will bring her round to this side, where we may have them under view and they us. and i shall feel safer and more confident and comfortable in my mind about your future if my present doubts as to her whereabouts be settled.”
“think you that they can come at us?” she asked, in sudden alarm.
“i think not,” i answered confidently, “but still, to make sure, i should like to have them under observation.”
well, to make a long story short, we retraced our steps over the broken path until we reached the stairs on the other side. the descent of them was much easier than the ascent, and by four of the clock we stepped on the sand again. there before us in the offing was the ship.
we saw her people quite plainly and i doubt not they caught sight of us immediately also. they were scarcely a third of a mile away from the reef, perilously near, i thought, and we could mark them crowding the rail and staring landward. we could see them brandishing their weapons and we could imagine the yells[218] which must have arisen from the decks when they caught sight of us.
i stared at them indifferently enough, but not so my little mistress. she shrank closer to me, her face paled and i had all i could do to keep from throwing my arm about her shoulders. i blessed god that she was here on the island and that i was by her side, and that neither of us was on the deck of the ship.
