CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
¡¡¡¡'FOOL!' I CRIED ALOUD in my
vexation.
¡¡¡¡I had unloaded the boat and carried its contents high up on the beach, where I had set about making a camp. There was driftwood, though not much, on the beach, and the sight of a coffee-tin I had taken from the Ghost's larder had given me the idea of a fire.
¡¡¡¡'Blithering idiot!' I was continuing.
¡¡¡¡But Maud said, 'Tut! tut!' in gentle reproval, and then asked why I was a blithering idiot.
¡¡¡¡'No matches!' I groaned. 'Not a match did I bring! And now we shall have no hot coffee, soup, tea, nor anything.'
¡¡¡¡'Wasn't it er- Crusoe who rubbed sticks together?' she drawled.
¡¡¡¡'But I have read the personal narratives of a score of shipwrecked men who tried, and tried in vain,' I answered. 'I remember Winters, a newspaper fellow with an Alaskan and Siberian
reputation. Met him at the Bibelot once, and he was telling us how he attempted to make a fire with a couple of sticks. It was most
amusing. He told it inimitably, but it was the story of a failure. I remember his conclusion, his black eyes flashing as he said: "Gentlemen, the South Sea Islander may do it, the Malay may do it, but, take my word, it's beyond the white man."'
¡¡¡¡'Oh, well, we've managed so far without it,' she said
cheerfully; 'and there's no reason why we cannot still manage without it.'
¡¡¡¡'But think of the coffee!' I cried. 'It's good coffee, too. I know; I took it from Larsen's private stores. And look at that good wood.'
¡¡¡¡I confess that I wanted the coffee badly, and I
learned not long afterward that the berry was likewise a little weakness of Maud's. Besides, we had been so long on a cold diet that we were numb inside as well as out. Anything warm would have been most gratifying. But I complained no more, and set about making a tent of the sail for Maud.
¡¡¡¡I had looked upon it as a simple task, what with the oars, mast, boom, and sprit, to say nothing of plenty of lines. But as I was without experience, and as every detail was an experiment and every successful detail an invention, the day was well gone before her shelter was an
accomplished fact. And then that night it rained, and Maud was flooded out and driven back into the boat.
¡¡¡¡The next morning I dug a shallow ditch around the tent, and, an hour later, a sudden gust of wind, whipping over the rocky wall behind us, picked up the tent and smashed it down on the sand thirty yards away.
¡¡¡¡Maud laughed at my crestfallen expression, and I said: 'As soon as the wind abates I intend going in the boat to
explore the island. There must be a station somewhere, and men. And ships must visit the station. Some government must protect all these seals. But I wish to have you comfortable before I start.'
¡¡¡¡'I should like to go with you,' was all she said.
¡¡¡¡'It would be better if you remained. You have had enough of
hardship. It is a miracle that you have survived. And it won't be comfortable in the boat, rowing and sailing in this rainy weather. What you need is rest, and I should like you to remain and get it.'
¡¡¡¡Something suspiciously akin to moistness dimmed her beautiful eyes before she dropped them and partly turned away her head.
¡¡¡¡'I should prefer going with you,' she said in a low voice, in which there was just a hint of
appeal.
¡¡¡¡'I might be able to help you a-' her voice broke- 'a little. And if anything should happen to you, think of me left here alone.'
¡¡¡¡'Oh, I intend being very careful,' I answered. 'And I shall not go so far but what I can get back before night. Yes, all said and done, I think it
vastly better for you to remain and sleep and rest and do nothing.'
¡¡¡¡She turned and looked me in the eyes. Her gaze was soft but unfaltering.
¡¡¡¡'Please, please!' she said very softly.
¡¡¡¡I stiffened myself to refuse, and shook my head. Still she waited and looked at me, I tried to word my
refusal, but wavered. I saw the glad light spring into her eyes, and knew that I had lost. It was impossible to say no after that.
¡¡¡¡The wind died down in the afternoon, and we were prepared to start the following morning. There was no way of penetrating the island from our cove, for the walls rose perpendicularly from the beach, and on each side of the cove rose from the deep water.
¡¡¡¡Morning broke dull and gray, but calm, and I was awake early and had the boat in
readiness.
¡¡¡¡'Fool! Imbecile! Yahoo!' I shouted, when I thought it was meet to arouse Maud; but this time I shouted in
merriment as I danced about the beach, bareheaded, in mock despair.
¡¡¡¡Her head appeared under the flap of the sail.
¡¡¡¡'What now?' she asked
sleepily and,
withal, curiously.
¡¡¡¡'Coffee!' I cried. 'What do you say to a cup of coffee- hot coffee, piping hot?'
¡¡¡¡'My!' she murmured, 'you startled me. And you are cruel. Here I have been composing my soul to do without it, and here you are vexing me with your vain suggestions.'
¡¡¡¡'Watch me,' I said.
¡¡¡¡From under clefts among the rocks I gathered a few dry sticks and chips. These I whittled into
shavings or split into kindling. From my
notebook I tore out a page, and from the ammunition-box took a shotgun shell. Removing the wads from the latter with my knife. I emptied the powder on a flat rock. Next I pried the primer, or cap, from the shell, and laid it on the rock in the midst of the scattered powder. All was ready. Maud still watched from the tent. Holding the paper in my left hand, I smashed down upon the cap with a rock held in my right. There was a puff of white smoke, a burst of flame, and the rough edge of the paper was alight.
¡¡¡¡Maud clapped her hands gleefully. 'Prometheus!' she cried.
¡¡¡¡But I was far too busy to acknowledge her delight. The feeble flame must be cherished
tenderly if it were to gather strength and live. I fed it
shaving by
shaving and sliver by sliver, till at last it was snapping and crackling as it laid hold of the smaller chips and sticks. To be cast away on an island had not entered into my
calculations, so we were without a kettle or cooking-utensils of any sort; but I made shift with the tin used for baling the boat, and later, as we consumed our supply of canned goods, we accumulated quite an
imposing array of cooking-vessels.
¡¡¡¡I boiled the water, but it was Maud who made the coffee. And how good it was! My
contribution was canned beef fried with crumpled sea-biscuit and water. The breakfast was a success, and we sat about the fire much longer than
enterprisingexplorers should have done, sipping the hot black coffee and talking over our situation.
¡¡¡¡I was
confident that we would find a station in some one of the coves, for I knew that the rookeries of Bering Sea were thus guarded; but Maud advanced the theory- to prepare me for disappointment, I do believe, if disappointment were to come- that we had discovered an unknown rookery. She was in very good spirits, however, and made quite merry in accepting our
plight as a grave one.
¡¡¡¡'If you are right,' I said, 'then we must prepare to winter here. Our food will not last, but there are the seals. They go away in the fall, so I must soon begin to lay in a supply of meat. Then there will be huts to build, and driftwood to gather. Also, we shall try out seal fat for
lighting purposes. Altogether, we'll have our hands full if we find the island uninhabited. Which we shall not, I know.'
¡¡¡¡But she was right. We sailed with a beam wind along the shore, searching the coves with our glasses, and
landing occasionally, without
finding a sign of human life. Yet we
learned that we were not the first that had landed on Endeavor Island. High up on the beach of the second cove from ours, we discovered the splintered wreck of a boat- a sealer's boat, for the rowlocks were bound in sennit, a gun-rack was on the starboard side of the bow, and in white letters was
faintly visible Gazelle No. 2. The boat had lain there for a long time, for it was half filled with sand, and the splintered wood had that weather-worn appearance due to long
exposure to the elements. In the stern-sheets I found a rusty ten-gauge shotgun and a sailor's sheath-knife broken short across and so rusted as to be almost unrecognizable.
¡¡¡¡'They got away,' I said
cheerfully; but I felt a sinking at the heart and seemed to divine the presence of bleached bones somewhere on that beach.
¡¡¡¡I did not wish Maud's spirits to be dampened by such a find, so I turned
seaward again with our boat and skirted the
northeastern point of the island. There were no beaches on the southern shore, and by early afternoon we rounded the black promontory and completed the circumnavigation of the island. I estimated its
circumference at twenty-five miles, its width as varying from two to five miles; while my most
conservativecalculation placed on its beaches two hundred thousand seals. The island was highest at its extreme
southwestern point, the headlands and
backbone diminishing
regularly until the
northeastern portion was only a few feet above the sea. With the exception of our little cove, the other beaches sloped gently back for a distance of half a mile or so, into what I might call rocky meadows, with here and there patches of moss and tundra grass. Here the seals hauled out, and the old bulls guarded their harems, while the young bulls hauled out by themselves.
¡¡¡¡This brief description is all that Endeavor Island merits. Damp and soggy where it was not sharp and rocky, buffeted by storm-winds and lashed by the sea, with the air
continually a-tremble with the bellowing of two hundred thousand amphibians, it was a
melancholy and miserable sojourning-place. Maud, who had prepared me for disappointment, and who had been
sprightly and vivacious all day, broke down as we landed in our own little cove. She
strovebravely to hide it from me, but while I was kindling another fire I knew she was stifling her sobs in the blankets under the sail-tent.
¡¡¡¡It was my turn to be cheerful, and I played the part to the best of my ability, and with such success that I brought the laughter back into her dear eyes and song on her lips, for she sang to me before she went to an early bed. It was the first time I had heard her sing, and I lay by the fire, listening and transported; for she was nothing if not an artist in everything she did, and her voice, though not strong, was
wonderfully sweet and
expressive.
¡¡¡¡I still slept in the boat, and I lay awake long that night, gazing up at the first stars I had seen in many nights and pondering the situation. Responsibility of this sort was a new thing to me. Wolf Larsen had been quite right. I had stood on my father's legs. My lawyers and agents had taken care of my money for me. I had had no responsibilities at all. Then, on the Ghost, I had
learned to be responsible for myself. And now, for the first time in my life, I found myself responsible for some one else. And it was required of me that this should be the gravest of responsibilities, for she was the one woman in the world- the one small woman, as I loved to think of her.
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