 Book 1, chapters 1 and 2 of The Blue Lagoon. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Adrian Predzealous. The Blue Lagoon by H. Devere Stackpool. Book 1, chapter 1, where the slush lamp burns. Mr Button was seated on a sea-chest with a fiddle under his left ear. He was playing the chan van voe, and accompanying the tune, punctuating it with blows of his left heel on the folksal deck. Older friendship in the bay says the chan van voe. He was dressed in dungaree trousers, a striped shirt and a jacket, blaze-green in parts from the influence of sign and salt. A typical old shell-back, round-shouldered, hooked-of-finger, a figure with strong hints of a crab about it. His face was like a moon, seen red through tropical mists. And as he played, it wore an expression of strained attention, as though the fiddle were telling him tales much more marvellous than the old, bald statement about Bantry Bay. Left-handed pat was his folksal name, not because he was left-handed, but simply because everything he did, he did wrong, or nearly so. Reefing or furling or handling a slush-tub, if a mistake was to be made, he made it. He was a kelp, and all the salt seas that had flowed between him and Conor these forty years and more had not washed the kelp-tick element from his blood, nor the belief in fairies from his soul. The kelp-tick nature is a fast dye, and Mr. Button's nature was such that, though he had been shanghaid by Larry Maher in Frisco, though he had got drunk in most parts of the world, though he had sailed with Yankee captains and been manhandled by Yankee mates, he still carried his fairies about with him. They had a very large stock of original innocence. Nearly over the musician's head swung a hammock from which hung a leg. Other hammocks hanging in the semi-gloom called up suggestions of lemurs and arboreal bats. The swinging kerosene lamp cast its light forward past the heel of the bowsprit to the night-heads, lighting here a naked foot hanging over the side of a bunk, here a face from which protruded a pipe, here a breast covered with dark mossy hair, here an arm tattooed. It was in the days before double-topsel yards had reduced ships' crews, and the folksle of the Northumberland had a full company, a crowd of packet-ratches such as often to be found in a Cape Horner, Dutchmen, Americans, men who were farm labourers, and tending pigs in Ohio three months back, old-seasoned sailors like Paddy Button, a mixture of the best and the worst of the earth, such as you find nowhere else in so smaller space as in a ship's folksle. The Northumberland had experienced a terrible rounding of the horn. Bound from New Orleans to Frisco, she had spent thirty days battling with headwinds and storms, down there where the seas are so vast that three waves may cover with their amplitude more than a mile of sea space, thirty days she had passed off Cape Stiff, and just now, at the moment of this story, she was locked in a calm south of the line. Mr. Button finished his tune with a sweep of the bow and drew his right coat sleeve across his forehead. Then he took out a sooty pipe, filled it with tobacco, and lit it. Patrick drawled a voice from the hammock above, from which depended the leg. What was that yarn you was beginning to spin tonight? Boudda, lit me dawn. A witch me dawn? asked Mr. Button, cocking his eye up at the bottom of the hammock while he held the match to his pipe. It was about a green thing. Came a sleepy Dutch voice from a bunk. Oh, a leprechaun you mean. Sure, me mother's sister had one down in Connaught. But was it like? asked the dreamy Dutch voice, a voice seemingly possessed by the calm that had made the sea like a mirror for the last three days, reducing the whole ship's company meanwhile to the level of wasters. Like? Sure, it was like a leprechaun. What else would it be like? What like was that? persisted the voice. It was like a little man, no bigger than a big forked radish, and as green as a cabbage. Me aunt had one in her house down in Connaught in the old days. Ah, musher, musher, the old days, the old days. Now you may believe me or believe me not, but you could have put him in your pocket, and the grass-green head of him wouldn't more than have stuck out. She kept him in a cupboard, and out of the cupboard he'd pop if it was a crack open, and into the milk-pans he'd be or under the beds, or pulling the stool from under you, or at some other diversion. He'd chase the pig, the creature, till it'd be all ribs like an old umbrella with the fruit, and as thin as the greyhound with the running by the morning. He'd addle the eggs so the cocks and hens wouldn't know what they was after, with the chickens coming out with two heads on them, and twenty-seven legs for an aft. And he'd start to chase him, and then it'd be mainsail hauling away he'd go, you behind him, till you landed tail over snout in a ditch, and he'd be back in the cupboard. He was a troll, murmured the Dutch voice. I'm telling you he was a leprechaun, and there's no knowing the devilments he'd be up to. He'd pull the cabbage, maybe, out of the pot, boiling on the fire, furniture oyes, and baste you into face with it, and then, maybe, you'd hold out your fist to him, and he'd put a golden sovereign in it. Wished he was here, murmured a voice from a bunk near the night-heads. Patrick, drooled the voice from the hammock above. What'd you do first if you found yourself with twenty pound in your pocket? What's the use of asking me? replied Mr. Button. What's the use of twenty pounds to a say minute's say, with a grog's all water, and the beef's all hoarse? Give it a shore, and you'd see what I'd do with it. I guess the nearest grog's shopkeeper wouldn't see you coming for dust, said the voice from Ohio. He would not, said Mr. Button, nor you after me. He'd dam to the grog, and them'd it sells it. It's all darn easy to talk, said Ohio. You cursed the grog at sea when you can't get it. Said you a shore, and you're bong full. I like me drunk, said Mr. Button. I'm free to admit, and I'm the divil when it's in me, and it'll be the end of me yet. Oh, me old mother was a lawyer. Pat, she says, first time I came home from sea, rolling. Storms you may escape, and women you may escape, but the patine'll have ya. Forty year ago, forty year ago. Well, said Ohio, it hasn't had you yet. No, replied Mr. Button. But it will. End of chapter one. Chapter two. Under the stars. It was a wonderful night up on deck, filled with all the majesty and beauty of starlight and the tropical calm. The Pacific slept. A vast, vague swell, flowing from far away down south under the night, lifted the Northumberland on its undulations, to the rattling sound of the reef points, and the occasional creak of the rudder, whilst overhead, near the fiery arch of the Milky Way, hung the southern cross like a broken kite. Stars in the sky, stars in the sea, stars by the million and the million. So many lamps ablaze that the firmament filled the mind with the idea of a vast and populous city, yet from all that living and flashing splendour, not a sound. Down in the cabin, or saloon, as it was called by courtesy, were seated the three passengers of the ship. One reading at the table, two playing on the floor. The man at the table, Arthur Lestrange, was seated with his large, deep sunken eyes fixed on a book. He was most evidently in consumption, very near indeed to reaping the last of that last and most desperate remedy along sea voyage. Emeline Lestrange, his little niece, eight years of age, a mysterious might, small for her age, with thoughts of her own. Wide pupiled eyes that seemed the doors for visions, and a face that seemed just to have peaked into this world for a moment, ere it was, as suddenly withdrawn, sat in a corner, nursing something in her arms, and rocking herself to the tune of her own thoughts. Dick, Lestrange's little son, eight and a bit, was somewhere under the table. They were Bostonians bound for San Francisco, or rather for the sun and splendour of Los Angeles, where Lestrange had bought a small estate, hoping there to enjoy the life whose lease would be renewed by the long sea voyage. As he sat reading, the cabin door opened, and appeared an angular female form. This was Mrs. Stannard, the stewardess, and Mrs. Stannard meant bedtime. Dicky, said Mr. Lestrange, closing his book and raising the tablecloth a few inches, bedtime. Oh, not yet, Daddy! came a sleep-frightened voice from under the table. I ain't ready, I don't want to go to bed, I, hiya! Stannard, who knew her work, had stooped under the table, seized him by the foot, and hauled him out, kicking and fighting and blubbering all at the same time. As for Emeline, she, having glanced up and recognised the inevitable, rose to her feet, and holding the hideous rag doll that she had been nursing, head down and dangling on one hand, she stood, waiting till Dicky, after a few last perfunctory bellows, suddenly dried his eyes and held up a tear-wet face for his father to kiss. Then she presented her brow solemnly to her uncle, received a kiss, and vanished, led by the hand into a cabin on the port side of the saloon. Mr. Lestrange returned to his book, but he had not read for long when the cabin door was opened, and Emeline, in her night-dress, reappeared, holding a brown paper parcel in her hand, a parcel of about the same size as the book you are reading. My box, said she, and as she spoke holding it up as if to prove its safety, the little plain face altered to the face of an angel. She had smiled. When Emeline Lestrange smiled, it was absolutely as if the light of paradise had suddenly flashed upon her face. The happiest form of childish beauty suddenly appeared before your eyes, dazzled them, and was gone. Then she vanished with her box, and Mr. Lestrange resumed his book. This box of Emeline's, I may say in parenthesis, had given more trouble aboard ship than all the rest of the passengers' luggage put together. It had been presented to her on her departure from Boston by a lady friend, and what it contained was a dark secret to all on board, save its owner and her uncle. She was a woman, or at least the beginning of a woman, yet she kept this secret to herself, a fact which you will please note. The trouble of the thing was that it was frequently being lost. Suspecting herself may be as an unpractical dreamer in a world filled with robbers, she would cart it about with her for safety, sit down behind a coil of rope, and fall into a fit of abstraction. Be recalled to life by the evolutions of the crew, reefing or furling or what not, rise to superintend the operations, and then suddenly find she had lost her box. Then she would absolutely haunt the ship. Wide-eyed and distressed of face, she would wander hither and thither, peeping into the galley, peeping down the forescuttle, never uttering a word or a wail, searching like an uneasy ghost, but dumb. She seemed ashamed to tell of her loss, ashamed to let anyone know of it, but everyone knew of it directly they saw her, to use Mr. Button's expression, on the wander, and everyone hunted for it. Strangely enough it was Paddy Button who usually found it, he, who was always doing the wrong thing in the eyes of men, generally did the right thing in the eyes of children. Children, in fact, when they could get at Mr. Button, went for him Con-Namore. He was attractive to them as a punch-and-duty show or a German band, almost. Mr. Lestrange, after a while, closed the book he was reading, looked around him and sighed. The cabin of the Northumberland was a cheerful enough place, pierced by the polished shaft of the mizzen mask, carpeted with an ax-minster carpet, and garnished with mirrors, let into the white pine panelling. Lestrange was staring at the reflection of his own face in one of these mirrors, fixed just opposite to where he sat. His emaciation was terrible, and it was just perhaps at this moment that he first recognised the fact that he must not only die, but die soon. He turned from the mirror and sat for a while with his chin resting upon his hand, and his eyes fixed upon an ink spot upon the tablecloth. Then he arose, and crossing the cabin climbed laboriously up the companion-way to the deck. As he leaned against the bullwag rail to recover his breath, the splendour and beauty of the southern night struck him to the heart with a cruel pang. He took his seat on a deck chair and gazed up at the milky way. That great triumphal arch built of suns at the dawn would sweep away like a dream. In the milky way near the southern cross occurs a terrible circular abyss, the coalsack. So sharply defined is it, so suggestive of a void and bottomless cavern, that the contemplation of it afflicts the imaginative mind with vertigo. To the naked eye it is as black and as dismal as death, but the small telescope reveals it beautiful and populous with stars. Lestrange's eyes travelled from this mystery to the burning cross and the nameless and numberless stars reaching to the sea-line, where they paled and vanished in the light of the rising moon. Then he became aware of a figure promenading on the quarter-deck. It was the old man. A sea-captain is always the old man, be his age whatever it may. Captain Lafarge's age might have been forty-five. He was a sailor of the Jean-Bart type, a French descent, but a naturalised American. I don't know where the wind's gone, said the captain as he drew near the man in the deck chair. I guess it's blown a hole in the firmament and escaped somewhere as to the back of beyond. It's been a long voyage, said Lestrange, and I'm thinking, Captain, it will be a very long voyage for me. My port's not Frisco. I feel it. Don't you be thinking that sort of thing, said the other, taking his seat in a chair close by. There is no manner of use forecast in the weather a month ahead. Now we're in warm latitudes, your glass will rise steadily, and you'll be as right and spry as any of us, for we fetch the golden gates. I'm thinking about the children, said Lestrange, seeming not to hear the captain's words. Should anything happen to me before we reach port, I should like you to do something for me. It's only this. Dispose of my body without, without the children knowing. It has been in my mind to ask you this for some days. Captain, those children know nothing of death. Lafarge moved uneasily in his chair. Little Emeline's mother died when she was two. Her father, my brother, died before she was born. Dickie never knew her mother. She died giving him birth. My God, Captain, death has laid a heavy hand on my family. Can you wonder that I have hid his very name from those two creatures that I love? I, I, said Lafarge. It's sad. It's sad. When I was quite a child, went on Lestrange. A child no older than Dickie. My nurse used to terrify me with tales about dead people. I was told I'd go to hell when I died if I wasn't a good child. I cannot tell you how much that has poisoned my life. For the thoughts we think in childhood, Captain, are the fathers of the thoughts we think when we are grown up. And can a disease to father have healthy children? I guess not. So I just said when these two tiny creatures came into my care, that I would do all in my power to protect them from the terrors of life. Or rather, I should say, from the terror of death. I don't know whether I have done right, but I have done it for the best. They had a cat, and one day Dickie came to me and said, Father, Pussy's in the garden asleep, and I can't wake her. So I just took him out for a walk. There was a circus in town, and I took him to it. It so filled his mind that he quite forgot the cat. Next day he asked for her. I did not tell him she was buried in the garden. I just said she must have run away. In a week he had forgotten all about her. Children soon forget. Aye, that's true, said the sea-captain, but, pierce to me, they must learn some time that they've got to die. Should I pay the penalty before we reach land, and be cast into that great vast sea, I would not wish the children's dreams to be haunted by the thought. Just tell them I've gone board another ship. You will take them back to Boston. I have here in a letter the name of a lady who will care for them. Dickie will be well off, as far as worldly goods are concerned, and so will Emma Lyne. Just tell them I've gone on board another ship. Children soon forget. I'll do what you ask, said the seaman. The moon was over the horizon now, and the Northumberland lay adrift in a river of silver. Every spar was distinct. Every reef-point on the great sails and the deck lay like spaces of frost cut by shadows, black as ebony. As the two men sat without speaking, thinking their own thoughts, a little white figure emerged from the saloon hatch. It was Emma Lyne. She was a professed sleep-walker, a past mistress of the art. Lestrange put his finger to his lips, took off his shoes, and silently followed her. She searched behind a coil of rope. She tried to open the galley door. Hither and thither she wandered, wide-eyed and troubled of face, till at last, in the shadow of the hen-coop, she found her visionary treasure. Then, back she came, holding up her little night-dress with one hand, so as not to trip, and vanished down the saloon companion, very hurriedly, as if anxious to get back to bed. Her uncle, close behind, with one hand outstretched, so as to catch her, in case she stumbled. CHAPTER III It was the fourth day of the long calm. An awning had been rigged up on the poop for the passengers, and under it sat Lestrange, trying to read, and the children trying to play. The heat and monotony had reduced even Dickie to just a surly mass, languid in movement as a grub. As for Emmeline, she seemed dazed. The rag-doll lay a yard away from her on the poop-deck, unnerced. Even the wretched box and its whereabouts she seemed to have quite forgotten. Daddy, suddenly cried Dick, who had clambered up and was looking over the after-rail. What? Fish! Lestrange rose to his feet, came aft and looked over the rail. Down in the vague green of the water, something moved, something pale and long, a ghastly form. It vanished, and yet another came near the surface and displayed itself more fully. Lestrange saw its eyes. He saw the dark fin and the whole hideous length of the creature. A shudder ran through him as he clasped a Dickie. Ain't he fine? said the child. I guess, Daddy, I'd pull him aboard if I had a hook. Why haven't I a hook, Daddy? Why haven't I a hook, Daddy? Ow! You're squeezing me! Something plucked at Lestrange's coat. It was Emmeline. She also wanted to look. He lifted her up in his arms. Her little pale face peeped over the rail, but there was nothing to see. The forms of terror had vanished, leaving the green depths untroubled and unstained. What's they called, Daddy? persisted Dick, as his father took him down from the rail and led him back to the chair. Sharks! said Lestrange, whose face was covered with perspiration. He picked up the book that he had been reading. It was a volume of Tennyson, and he sat down with it on his knees, staring at the white sunlit main deck, barred with the white shadows of the standing rigging. The sea had disclosed to him a vision, poetry, philosophy, beauty, art, the love and joy of life. Was it possible that these should exist in the same world as those? He glanced at the book upon his knees and contrasted the beautiful things in it which he remembered with the terrible things he had just seen, the things that were waiting for their food under the keel of the ship. It was just three bells, half past three in the afternoon, and the ship's bell had just rung out. The stewardess appeared to take the children below, and as they vanished down the saloon companionway, Captain LeFarge came aft onto the poop and stood for a moment looking over the sea on the port side where a bank of fog had suddenly appeared like a spectre of a country. The sun has dimmed a bit, said he, I can almost look at it. Glass, steady enough, there's a fog coming up. Ever seen a Pacific fog? No, never. Well, you won't want to see another, replied the mariner, shading his eyes and fixing them upon the sea-line. The sea-line, a way to starboard, had lost somewhat its distinctness, and over the day an almost imperceptible shade had crept. The captain suddenly turned from his contemplation of the sea and sky, raised his head and sniffed. Something is burning somewhere. Smell it. Seems to me like an old mat or a summit. It's that swab of a steward, maybe. If he isn't breaking glass, he's upset in lamps and burning holes in the carpet. Bless my soul, I soon have a dozen marians and their dustpans round the place than one tom-full steward like Jenkins. He went to the saloon hatch. Below there. Hi, sir. What are you burning? I ain't burning nothing, sir. I tell you I smell it. There's nothing burning here, sir. Neither is there. It's all on deck. Something in the galley, maybe. Rags, most likely. They've thrown on the fire. Captain, saidle a strange. Aye-aye. Come here, please. Lafarge climbed onto the poop. I don't know whether it's my weakness that's affecting my eyes, but there seems to me something strange about the main mast. The main mast near where it entered the deck and for some distance up seemed in motion, a corkscrew movement most strange to watch from the shelter of the awning. This apparent movement was caused by a spiral haze of smoke, so vague that one could only tell of its existence from the mirage-like tremor of the mast round which it curled. My God! cried Lafarge as he sprang from the poop and rushed forward. The strange followed him slowly, stopping every moment to clutch the bull-rail and pant for breath. He heard the shrill, bird-like notes of the boson's pipe. He saw the hands emerging from the folksal like bees out of a hive. He watched them surrounding the main hatch. He watched the tarpaulin and locking bars removed. He saw the hatch opened and a burst of smoke, black, villainous smoke, ascend to the sky, solid as a plume in the windless air. The strange was a man of a highly nervous temperament and it is just this sort of a man who keeps his head in an emergency whilst your level-headed, phlegmatic individual loses his balance. His first thought was of the children, his second of the boats. In the battering of Cape Horn, the Northumberland lost several of her boats. They were left the long boat, a quarter boat, and the dinghy. He heard Lafarge's voice ordering the hatch to be closed and the pump's manned so as to flood the hold and knowing that he could do nothing on deck, he made swiftly as he could for the saloon companion way. Mrs. Stannard was just coming out of the children's cabin. Are the children lying down, Mrs. Stannard? Asked the strange, almost breathless from the excitement and exertion of the last few minutes. The woman glanced at him with frightened eyes. He looked like the very herald of disaster. For if they are, and you have undressed them, then you must put their clothes on again. The ship is on fire, Mrs. Stannard. Good God, sir! Listen, said the strange. From a distance thin and dreary as the crying of seagulls on a desolate beach came the clanking of the pumps. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 And Like a Dream Dissolved Before the woman had time to speak, a thunderous step was heard on the companion's stairs and Lefarge broke into the saloon. The man's face was injected with blood, his eyes were fixed and glassy like the eyes of a drunkard, and the veins stood in his temples like twisted cords. Get those children ready, he shouted, as he rushed into his own cabin. Get you all ready, bolts are being swung out and victualed. Oh, where are those papers? They heard him furiously searching and collecting things in his cabin. The ship's papers, accounts, things the master mariner clings to as he clings to his life, and as he searched and found and packed, he kept bellowing orders for the children to be got on deck. Half mad, he seemed, and half mad he was with the knowledge of the terrible thing that was stowed amidst the cargo. Up on deck the crew, under the direction of the first mate, were working in an orderly manner and with a will, utterly unconscious of there being anything beneath their feet but an ordinary cargo on fire. The covers had been stripped from the boats, kegs of water and bags of biscuit placed in them. The dinghy, smallest of the boats and most easily got away, was hanging at the port quarter-boat Davitz, flushed with the bulwarks, and Paddy Button was in the act of stowing a keg of water in her when Lafarge broke onto the deck, followed by the stewardess, carrying Emmeline and Mr. Strange leading Dick. The dinghy was rather a larger boat than the ordinary ship's dinghy and possessed a small mast and long sail. Two sailors stood ready to man the falls, and Paddy Button was just turning to trundle forward again when the captain seized him. Into the dinghy with you, he cried, and roll those children and the passengers out a mile from the ship, two miles, three miles, make an offing. Sure, Captain, dear, who'd left me fiddle in there? Lafarge dropped the bundle of things he was holding under his left arm, seized the old sailor, and rushed him against the bulwarks as if he meant to fling him into the sea through the bulwarks. Next moment Mr. Button was in the boat. Emmeline was handed to him, pale of face and wide-eyed and clasping something wrapped in a little shawl. Then Dick and then Mr. Strange was helped over. No room for more, cried Lafarge. Your place will be in the longboat, Mrs. Danard, if we have to leave the ship. Lower away, lower away. The boat sank towards the smooth blue sea, kissed it, and was afloat. Now Mr. Button, before joining the ship at Boston, had spent a good while lingering by the quay, having no money wherewith to enjoy himself in a tavern. He had seen something of the lading of the Northumberland and had heard more from a stevedore. No sooner had he cast off the falls and seized the oars than his knowledge awoke in his mind, living and lurid. He gave a whoop that brought the two sailors leaning over the side. Bollies! Oi-oi! Run for your lives! I've just remembered. There's two barrels of blasting powder in the hold. Then he bent to his oars as no man ever bent before. The strange, sitting in the stern sheets, clasping Emmeline and Dick, saw nothing for a moment after hearing these words. The children who knew nothing of blasting powder or its effects, though half-frightened by all the bustle and excitement, were still amused and pleased at finding themselves in the little boat so close to the blue pretty sea. Dick put his finger over the side so that it made a ripple in the water. The most delightful experience of childhood. Emmeline, with one hand clasped in her uncles, watched Mr. Button with a grave sort of half-pleasure. He certainly was a sight worth watching. His soul was filled with tragedy and terror. His kelting imagination heard the ship blowing up, saw himself and the little dinghy blown to pieces. Ney saw himself in hell being toasted by devils. But tragedy and terror could find no room for expression on his fortunate or unfortunate face. He puffed and he blew, bulging his cheeks out at the sky as he tugged at the oars, making a hundred and one grimaces, all the outcome of agony of mind, but none expressing it. Behind lay the ship. A picture not without its lighter side. The longboat and the quarterboat, lowered with a rush and sea-born by the mercy of Providence, were floating by the side of the Northumberland. From the ship men were casting themselves overboard like water-rats, swimming in the water like ducks, scrambling on board the boats anyhow. From the half-opened main hatch the black smoke mixed now with sparks rose steadily and swiftly and spitefully, as if driven through the half-closed teeth of a dragon. A mile away beyond the Northumberland stood the fog-bank. It looked solid, like a vast country that had suddenly and strangely built itself on the sea. A country where no birds sang and no trees grew. A country of white precipitous cliffs, solid to look at as the cliffs of Dover. I'm spent, suddenly gasped the oarsmen, resting the oar-handles under the crook of his knees and bending down as if he was prepared to butt at the passengers in the stern-sheets. Blow up or blow down, I'm spent. Don't ask me, I'm spent. Mr. Lestrange, white as a ghost, but recovered somewhat from his first horror, gave the spent one time to recover himself and turned to look at the ship. She seemed a great distance off, and the boats, well away from her, were making at a furious pace towards the dinghy. Dick was still playing with the water, but Emeline's eyes were entirely occupied with paddy-button. New things were always of vast interest to her contemplative mind, and these evolutions of her old friend were eminently new. She had seen him swilling the decks, she had seen him dancing a jig, she had seen him going round the main deck on all fours with Dick on his back, but she had never seen him going on like this before. She perceived now that he was exhausted and in trouble about something, and putting her hand in the pocket of her dress, she searched for something that she knew was there. She produced a tangerine orange, and leaning forward, she touched the spent one's head with it. Mr. Button raised his head, stared vacantly for a second, saw the prophet orange, and at the sight of it, the thoughts of the children and their innocence, himself and the blasting powder, cleared his dazzled wits, and he took to the skulls again. Daddy, said Dick, who'd been looking astern, there's clouds near the ship. In an incredibly short space of time, the solid cliffs of fog had broken. The faint wind that had banked it had now pierced it, and was now making pictures and devices of it most wonderful and weird to see. Horsemen of the mist rose on the water and were dissolved. Billows rolled on the sea, yet were not of the sea. Blankets and spirals of vapour ascended to high heaven, and all with a terrible languor of movement, vast and lazy and sinister, yet steadfast of purpose as fate or death, the fog advanced, taking the world for its own. Against this gray and indescribably somber background stood the smoldering ship, with the breeze already shivering in her sails, and the smoke from her main hatch blowing and beckoning as if to the retreating boats. Why's the ship smoking like that? asked Dick. And look at those boats coming. When are we going back, Daddy? Uncle, said Emeline, putting her hand in his as she gazed towards the ship and beyond it. I'm afraid. What frightened you, Emmy? he asked, drawing her to him. Shapes, replied Emeline, nestling up to his side. Oh, glory be to God! gasped the old sailor, suddenly resting on his oars. Will he is look at the fog that's coming. I think we had better wait here for the boats, said Mr. Lestrange. We are far enough now to be safe, if anything happens. Aye, aye, replied the oarsman, whose wits had returned. Blow up or blow down, she won't hit us from here. Daddy, said Dick, when are we going back? I want my tea. We aren't going back, my child, replied his father. The ship's on fire. We are waiting for another ship. Where's the other ship? asked the child, looking round at the horizon that was clear. We can't see it yet, replied the unhappy man. But it will come. The long boat and the quarter boat were slowly approaching. They looked like beetles crawling over the water, and after them across the glittering surface came a dullness that took the sparkle from the sea, a dullness that swept and spread like an eclipse shadow. Now the wind struck the dinghy. It was like a wind from fairyland, almost imperceptible, chill and dimming the sun, a wind from Lilliput. As it struck the dinghy, the fog took the distant ship. It was a most extraordinary sight. For in less than thirty seconds the ship of wood became a ship of gores, a tracery flickered, and was gone forever from the sight of man. End of chapter four. Book one, chapters five and six of The Blue Lagoon. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Adrian Pretzelis, The Blue Lagoon by H. Devere Stackpool. Chapter five, voices heard in the mist. The sun became fainter still and vanished. Though the air round the dinghy seemed quite clear, the oncoming boats were hazy and dim, and that part of the horizon that had been fairly clear was now blotted out. The long boat was leading by a good way. When she was within hailing distance, the captain's voice came, Dinghy ahoy, ahoy, fetch alongside here. The long boat ceased rowing to wait for the quarterboat that was slowly creeping up. She was a heavy boat to pull at all times, and now she was overloaded. The wrath of Captain LaFage with Paddy Button for the way he had stampeded the crew was profound, but he had not time to give vent to it. Here, get aboard us, Mr. Lestrange, said he when the dinghy was alongside. We have room for one. Mrs. Stennerd is in the quarterboat, and it's overcrowded. She's better aboard the dinghy, for she can look after the kids. Come, hurry up, the smother is coming down on us fast. Ahoy to the quarterboat. Hurry up, hurry up! The quarterboat had suddenly vanished. Mr. Lestrange climbed into the longboat. Paddy pushed the dinghy a few yards away with the tip of a skull, and then lay on his oars, waiting. Ahoy, ahoy! cried LaFage. Ahoy! came from the fog bank. Next moment the longboat and the dinghy vanished from each other's sight. The great fog bank had taken them. Now a couple of strokes of the port's skull were the brought Mr. Button alongside the longboat, so close was he. But the quarterboat was in his mind, or rather imagination, so what must he do but take three powerful strokes in the direction in which he fancied the quarterboat to be? The rest was voices. Dinghy ahoy! Ahoy! Ahoy! Don't be shortened together, or I'll not know which way to pull. Quarterboat ahoy! Where is he as? Port your helm. Aye-aye! Putting his helm, so to speak, to starboard. I'd be wedges in one minute. Two or three minutes hard pulling. Ahoy! Much more faint. What do you mean rowing away from me? A dozen strokes. Ahoy! Fainter still. Mr. Button rested on his oars. Dear Village Mandem, I believed that was the longboat showton. He took to his oars again and pulled vigorously. Paddy came Dick's small voice, apparently from nowhere. Where are we now? Sure, we're in a fog. Where else would we be? Don't you be afeard? I ain't afeard, but M's shivering. Give her me coat," said the oarsman, resting on his oars and taking it off. Wrap it round her, and when it's round her, we'll all let one big halloe together. There's an old shawl somewhere in the boat, but I can't be looking after for it now. He held out the coat, and an almost invisible hand took it. At the same moment a tremulous report shook the sea and sky. There she goes, said Mr. Button, and the old fiddle and all. Don't be frightened, children. It's only a gun they're firing for diversion. Now, we're all halloe together. Are you ready? Aye-aye, said Dick, who was a picker-up of sea terms. Halloo! yelled Pat. Halloo! Halloo! piped Dick and Emmeline. A faint reply came, but from where it was difficult to say. The old man rode a few strokes and then paused on his oars. So still was the surface of the sea that the chuckling of the water on the boat's bow as he drove forward under the impetus of the last powerful stroke could be heard distinctly. It died out as she lost way, and silence closed round them like a ring. The light from above, a light that seemed to come through a vast scuttle of deeply muffed glass, faint as it was almost to extinction, still varied as the little boat floated through the strata of the mist. A great sea fog is not homogeneous. Its density varies. It is honeycombed with streets. It has its caves of clear air, its cliffs of solid vapour, all shifting and changing place with the subtlety of ledgermen. It has also this wizard peculiarity, that it grows with the sinking of the sun and the approach of darkness. The sun, could they have seen it, was now leaving the horizon. They called again. Then they waited, but there was no response. There is no use balling like bulls to chaps this deaf as adders," said the old sailor, shipping his oars. Immediately upon which declaration he gave another shout, with the same result as far as elisting a reply. "'Mr. Button,' came Emma Lyne's voice. "'What is it, honey?' "'I'm afraid.' "'You wait one minute till they find the shawl. Here it is, by the same token, and I'll wrap you up at it.' He crept cautiously off to the stern-sheets, and took Emma Lyne in his arms. "'Don't want the shawl?' said Emma Lyne. "'I'm not so much afraid in your coat.' The rough tobacco-smelling old coat gave her courage somehow. "'Well, then, keep it on. Dickey, are you cold?' "'I've got into Daddy's great coat. He left it behind him. "'Well, then, I'll put the shawl round me own shoulders, for it's cold I am. Are you hungry, children?' "'No,' said Dic. "'But I'm dreadful. Hire!' "'Sleepy is it. Well, don't you get in the bottom of the boat. "'Now here's the shawl for a pillar. I'll be rowing again in a minute to keep myself warm.' He buttoned the top button of the coat. "'I'm all right,' murmured Emma Lyne in a dreamy voice. "'Shut your eyes tight,' replied Mr. Button, "'or Billy Winker will be dredging sand in them.' "'Shaw-in, shaw-in, shaw-in, "'no, no, no, no, no-in, "'shaw-in, shaw-in, shaw-in, "'hush by the bobby.' It was a tag of the old nursery folk-song they sing in the hovels of the Acle coast, fixed in his memory, along with the rain, the wind, and the smell of the burning turf, and the grunting of the pig, and the nickety-knock of a rocking cradle. "'She's off,' murmured Mr. Button to himself, as the form in his arms relaxed. Then he laid her gently down beside Dick. He shifted forward, moving like a crab. Then he put his hand to his pocket for his pipe and tobacco and tinder-box. They were in his coat-pocket, but Emeline was in his coat. To search for them would be to awaken her. The darkness of night was now adding itself to the blindness of the fog. The osman could not see even the thole-pins. He sat adrift, mind and body. He was, to use his own expression, mothered, haunted by the mist, tormented by shapes. It was just in a fog like this that the merrows could be heard desporting in Dunbeg Bay and off the Acle coast, sporting and laughing and hallowing through the mist to lead unfortunate fishermen astray. Those are not altogether evil, but they have green hair and teeth, fishes' tails and fins for arms, and to hear them walloping in the water around you like salmon, and you alone in a small boat, with the dread of one coming floundering on board, is enough to turn a man's hair gray. For a moment he thought of awakening the children to keep him company, but he was ashamed. Then he took to the skulls again and rode by the feel of the water. The creak of the oars was like a companion's voice. The exercise lulled his fears. Now and again, forgetful of the sleeping children, he gave a halloo, and paused to listen. But no answer came. Then he continued rowing, long, steady, laborious strokes, each taking him further and further from the boats that he was never destined to sight again. CHAPTER VI DAWN ON A WIDE WIDE SEA Is it a sleep, I've been, said Mr. Button, suddenly awakening with a start. He had shipped his oars for just a minute's rest. He must have slept for hours. For now, behold, a warm, gentle wind was blowing. The moon was shining, and the fog was gone. Is it dreaming, I've been, continued the awakened one. Where am I at all, at all, ah, musher, sure, here I am, ah, whirra whirra. I dreamt I had gone to sleep on the main hatch, and the ship was blown up with powder. And it all come true. Mr. Button came a small voice from the stern sheets, Emma Lynes. What is it, honey? Where are we now? Sure, we're a float on the sea, Akushla. Where else would we be? Where's Uncle? He's been there in the longboat. He'll be after us in a minute. I want a drink. He filled a tin panicon that was by the beaker of water, and gave her a drink. Then he took his pipe and tobacco from his coat pocket. She almost immediately fell asleep again beside Dick, who had not stirred or moved, and the old sailor, standing up and steadying himself, cast his eyes round the horizon. What a sign of sail or boat was there on all the moonlit sea. From the low elevation of an open boat one has a very small horizon, and in the vague world of moonlight, somewhere round about, it was possible that the boats might be near enough to show up at daybreak. But open boats, a few miles apart, may be separated by long leagues in the course of a few hours. Drifting is more mysterious than the currents of the sea. The sea is an ocean of rivers, some swiftly flowing, some slow, and a league from where you are drifting, at the rate of a mile an hour, another boat may be drifting too. A slight warm breeze was frosting the water, blending moonshine and star shimmer. The ocean lay like a lake, yet the nearest mainland was perhaps a thousand miles away. The thoughts of youth may be long, long thoughts, but not longer than the thoughts of this old sailor-man smoking his pipe under the stars. Thoughts as long as the world is round, blazing barrooms in calau, harbours over whose oily surfaces the sandpans slipped like water-beetles. The lights of Macau, the docks of London, scarcely ever a sea-picture, pure and simple, for why should an old seaman care to think about the sea, where life is all into the folksal and out again, where one voyage blends and jumbles with another, where after forty-five years of reefing topsals you can't well remember off which ship it was that Jack Rafferty fell overboard, or who it was killed who in the folksal of what, though you can still see, as in a mirror darkly, the fight and the bloody face over which a man is holding a kerosene lamp. I doubt if Paddy Button could have told you the name of the first ship he ever sailed in. If you had asked him he would probably have replied, I disremember. It was to the Baltic, and cruel cold weather, and I was seasick till I near brought me boats up, and it was, oh, for old Ireland, and I was crying all the time, and the captain drawing me back with a rope's end to the tune of it. But the name of the hooker, I disremember, bad luck to her, whoever she was. So he sat, smoking his pipe, whilst the candles of heaven burned above him, and calling to mind roaring drunken scenes, and palm-shadowed harbours, and the men and the women he had known, such men and such women, the derelicts of the earth and the ocean. And he nodded off to sleep again, and when he awoke, the moon had gone. Now in the eastern sky might have been seen a pale fan of light, vague as the wing of an ephemera. It vanished, and changed back to darkness. Presently, and almost at a stroke, a pencil of fire ruled a line along the eastern horizon, and the eastern sky became more beautiful than a rose leaf plucked in May. The line of fire contracted into one increasing spot, the rim of the rising sun. As the light increased, the sky above became of a blue impossible to imagine and less seen. A one blue, yet living and sparkling, as if born of the impalpable dust of sapphires. Then the whole sea flashed like the harp of Apollo, touched by the fingers of the god. The light was music to the soul. It was day. Daddy! Suddenly cried Dick, sitting up in the sunlight and rubbing his eyes with his open palms. Where are we? All right, Dicky, my son! cried the old sailor, who had been standing up, casting his eyes round in a vain endeavour to sight the boats. Your dad is as safe as if he was in heaven. He'll be with us in a minute, and bring another ship along with him. So you're awake, are you, Emilyne? Emilyne, sitting in the old pilot coat, nodded in reply, without speaking. Another child might have supplemented Dick's inquiries as to her uncle by questions of her own, but she did not. Did she guess that there was some subterfuge in Mr. Button's answer, and that things were different from what he was making them out to be? Who can tell? She was wearing an old cap of Dick's which Mrs. Stannard in the hurry in confusion had popped on her head. It was pushed to one side, and she made a quaint enough little figure as she sat up in the early morning brightness, dressed in the old salt-stained coat beside Dick, whose straw hat was somewhere in the bottom of the boat, and whose urban locks were blowing in the faint breeze. Haroo! cried Dick, looking around at the blue and sparkling water, and banging with a stretcher on the bottom of the boat. I'm going to be a sailor, aren't I, Paddy? You'll let me sail the boat, won't you, Paddy, and show me how to row? Easy does it, said Paddy, taking hold of the child. I haven't a sponge or a towel, but I'll just wash your face in cold water and leave you to dry the sun. He filled the bailing-tin with sea water. I don't want to wash, shouted Dick. Stick your face into the water and the tin, commanded Paddy. You wouldn't be going about the place with your face like a such-bag, would you? Stick yours in, commanded the other. Mr. Button did so, and made a hub-bubbling noise in the water. Then he lifted a wet and streaming face, and flung the contents of the bailing-tin overboard. No, you've lost your chance, said this arch-nursery strategist. Oh, the water's gone! There's more in the sea! There's no more to wash with, not till to-morrow. The fish is dull to low it. I want to wash, grumbled Dick. I want to stick my face in the tin, same as you did. Sides, M hasn't washed. I don't mind, murmured Emmeline. Well, then, said Mr. Button, as if making a sudden resolve, well asked the sharks. He leaned over the boat's side, his face close to the surface of the water. Hello there! he shouted, and then bent his head sideways to listen. The children also looked over the side, deeply interested. Hello there! Are you asleep? Oh, there you are! Here's a spell-peen with a dirty face, and a wish-and-filter wash it. May I take a bailing-tin of— Ah! Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you, Your Honor. Good day to you, and my respects. What did the sharks say, Mr. Button? Asked Emmeline. He said, Take a balfoy, and welcome, Mr. Button. And it's wishful I am I had a drop of the creature to offer you this fine morning. Then he popped his head under his fin, and went to sleep again. Least wise I heard him snore. Emmeline nearly always Mr. Button'd her friend. Sometimes she called him Mr. Paddy. As for Dick, it was always Paddy, pure and simple. Children have etiquettes of their own. It must often strike landsmen and landswomen that the most terrible experience when cast away at sea in an open boat is the total absence of privacy. It seems an outrage on decency on the part of Providence to herd people together so. But whoever has gone through the experience will bear me out that in great moments of life like this the human mind enlarges, and things that would shock us ashore are as nothing out there, face to face with eternity. If so, with grown-up people, how much more so with this old shellback and his two charges? And indeed Mr. Button was a person who called a spade a spade had no more conventions than a walrus, and looked after his two charges just as a nursemaid might look after her charges, or a walrus after its young. There was a large bag of biscuits in the boat, and some tin stuff, mostly sardines. I have known a sailor to open a box of sardines with a tin tack. He was in prison. The sardines had been smuggled into him, and he had no can opener, only his genius, and a tin tack. Paddy had a jackknife, however, and in a marvellously short time a box of sardines was opened and placed in the stern-sheets beside some biscuits. These with some water and Emmeline's tangerine orange, which she produced and added to the common store, formed the feast, and they fell too. When they had finished the remains were put carefully away, and they proceeded to step the tiny mast. The sailor, when the mast was in its place, stood for a moment resting his hand on it, and gazing round him over the vast and voiceless blue. The Pacific has three blues, the blue of morning, the blue of midday, and the blue of evening. But the blue of morning is the happiest. The happiest thing in colour, sparkling, vague, newborn, the blue of heaven and youth. What are you looking for, Paddy? asked Dick. Seagulls replied the provaricator, then to himself, not a sign or sound of him, musher, musher, which way will I steer, north, south, east or west? It's all one, for if I steer to the east they may be in the west, and if I steer to the west they may be in the east. And I can't steer to the west, for I'd be steering right into the wind's eye. East it is, and I'll make a soldier's wind of it, and thrust a chance. He set the sail and came aft with the sheet. When he shifted the rudder, lit a pipe, leaned luxuriously back, and gave the belling sail to the gentle breeze. It was part of his profession, part of his nature, that, steering maybe straight towards death by starvation and thirst, he was unconcerned as if he was taking the children for a summer's sail. His imagination dealt little with the future, almost entirely influenced by his immediate surroundings. It could conjure up no fears from the scene now before it. The children were the same. Never was there a happier starting, more joy in a little boat. During breakfast the seaman had given his charges to understand that if Dick did not meet his father and Emmeline her uncle in a while or two, it was because he had gone on board a ship, and he'd be along presently. The terror of their position was as deeply veiled from them as eternity is veiled from you or me. The Pacific was still bound by one of those glacial calms that can only occur when the sea has been free from storms for a vast extent of its surface. For a hurricane, down by the horn, will send its swell and disturbance beyond the marcasas. Du Bois, in his Table of Amplitudes, points out that more than half the sea disturbances at any given space are caused not by the wind but by storms at a great distance. But the sleep of the Pacific is only apparent. This placid lake over which the dinghy was pursuing the running ripple was heaving to an imperceptible swell and breaking on the shores of the low archipelago and the marcasas in foam and thunder. Emmeline's rag doll was a shocking affair from a hygienic or artistic standpoint. Its face was just inked on. It had no features, no arms, yet not for all the dolls in the world would she have exchanged this filthy and nearly formless thing. It was a fetish. She sat nursing it on one side of the helmsman while Stick, on the other side, hung his nose over the water on the lookout for fish. Why do you smoke, Mr. Button? asked Emmeline, who had been watching her friend for some time in silence. To ease me troubles, replied Paddy. He was leaning back with one eye-sharp and the other fixed on the luff of the sail. He was in his element. Nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. A landsman would have been half demented in his condition. Many a sailor would have been taciturn and surly on the lookout for sails and alternately damning his soul and praying to his god. Paddy smoked. Woo! cried Dick. Look, Paddy! An albacore, a few cables length to port, had taken a flying leap from the flashing sea, turned a complete somersault, and vanished. It's an albacore, taken a buck leap. Hundreds have seen before this. He's been chased. What's chasing him, Paddy? What's chasing him? Why, what else but the ghibli gobliums? Before Dick could inquire as to the personal appearance and habits of the latter, a shoal of silver arrowheads passed the boat, and flitted into the water with a hissing sound. Dems, flowing fish! What are you saying? Fish can't fly! Where is the oise in your head? Are the ghibliums chasing them, too? asked Emeline, fearfully. No! Tis the billy-beloos that's after them. Don't be asking me any more questions now, or I'll be telling you lois in a minute. Emeline, it will be remembered, had brought a small parcel with her done up in a little shawl. It was under the boat-seat, and every now and then she would stoop down to see if it was safe. End of chapter 6 Book 1, chapters 7 and 8 of the Blue Lagoon. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Directed by Adrian Pretzelis. The Blue Lagoon by H. DeVere Stackpool. Chapter 7 The Story of the Pig and the Billy-Goat. Every hour or so Mr. Button would shake his lethargy off and rise and look round for seagulls. But the prospect was sail-less as the prehistoric sea, wingless, voiceless. When Dick would fret now and then, the old sailor would always devise some means of amusing him. He made him fishing-tackle out of a bent pin and some small twine that happened to be in the boat, and told him to fish for pinkeens, and Dick, with the pathetic faith of childhood, fished. Then he told them things. He had spent a year at deal long ago, where a cousin of his was married to a boatman. Mr. Button had put in a year as a longshoreman at deal, and he had got a great deal to tell of his cousin and her husband, and more especially of one, Hannah. Hannah was his cousin's baby, a most marvellous child who was born with its buck-teeth fully developed, and whose first unnatural act on entering the world was to make a snap at the doctor. Go on to his fist like a bulldog, and him ball and murder. Mrs. James, said Emmeline, referring to a Boston acquaintance, had a little baby, and it was pink. I, I, said Paddy, dare mostly pink to start with, but they fade when they're washed. It had no teeth, said Emmeline, for I put my finger in to see. The doctor brought it in in a bag, put in Dick, who was still steadily fishing, dug it out of a cabbage patch, and I got a trowel and dug all our cabbage patch up, but there weren't any babies, but there were no end of worms. I wish I had a baby, said Emmeline, and I wouldn't send it back to the cabbage patch. The doctor, explained Dick, took it back and planted it again, and Mrs. James cried when I asked her, and Daddy said it was put back to grow and turn into an angel. Angels have wings, said Emmeline, dreamily, and pursued Dick. I told Cook, and she said to Jane that Daddy was always stuffing children up with something or another, and I asked Daddy to let me see him stuffing up a child, and Daddy said Cook would have to go away for saying that, and she went away next day. She had three big trunks and a box for her bonnet, said Emmeline, with a faraway look, as she recalled the incident. And the cabman asked her, hadn't she any more trunks to put on his cab, and hadn't she forgot the parrot cage, said Dick. I wish I had a parrot in a cage, murmured Emmeline, moving slightly so as to get more in the shadow of the sail. And what in the world would you be doing with a parrot in a cage? asked Mr. Button. I'd let it out, replied Emmeline. Speaking about letting parrots out of cages, I remember me grandfather had an old pig, said Paddy. They were all talking seriously together, like equals. I was a spalpeen no bigger than the height of me knee, and I'd go down to the stoy-dar, and he'd come to the door and grunt and blow with his nose under it, and I'd grunt back to vex him and hammer with me fists on it, and shout, Hello there, hello there! And hello to you, he'd say, speaking to Pig's language. Get me out, he'd say, and I'd give you a silver shillin'. Pass it under the door, I'd answer him, then he'd stick the snout of him under the door, and I'd hit it a clip with a stick, and he'd yell Mother Irish, and me mother had come and based me, and well I deserved it. Well, one day I opened the stoy-dar, and out he bolted in a way and beyond over the hill and hollow he goes, till he gets to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea, and there he meets a billy-goat, and he and the billy-goat has a division of opinion. Away with just, says the billy-goat, away with yourself, says he. Who's you talkin' to, says Tother? Yourself, says he. Who stole the eggs, says the billy-goat, Ack's your old grandmother, says the pig, Ack's me old witch-mother, says the billy-goat? Oh, Ack's me, and before he could complete the sentence, ram, blam, the old billy-goat butts him in the chest, and away goes to both of them, whirling into the sea below. Then, me old grandfather comes out, and callers me by the scruff, and into the stoy with you, says he, and into the stoy I went, and there they kept me for a fortnight, on bran-mash, and skim milk, and well I deserved it. They dined somewhere about eleven o'clock, and at noon Paddy unstept the mast, and made a sort of little tent, or awning, with the sail in the bow of the boat, to protect the children from the rays of the vertical sun. Then he took his place in the bottom of the boat, in the stern, stuck Dick's straw hat over his face to preserve it from the sun, kicked about a bit to get in a comfortable position, and fell asleep. End of chapter seven. Chapter eight, S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H, Shenandoah. He had slept an hour or more when he was brought to his senses by a thin and prolonged shriek. It was ember-line in a nightmare, or more properly a day-mare, brought on by a meal of sardines and the haunting memory of the Ghibli goblums. When she was shaken, it always took a considerable time to bring her to from these seizures, and comforted the mast was restept. As Mr. Button stood with his hand on the spar looking round him before going aft with the sheet, an object struck his eye some three miles ahead. Objects, rather, for they were the masts and spars of a small ship rising from the water. Not a vestige of a sail, just the naked spars. It might have been a couple of old skeleton trees jutting out of the water, for all a landsman could have told. He stared at this sight for twenty or thirty seconds without speaking. His head projected like the head of a tortoise. Then he gave a wild, Harroo! What is it, Paddy? asked Dick. Harroo! replied Button. Shippahoi, shippahoi! Loi too, till I be after boardin' ya. Sure they are lyin' too, diva-la rag of canvas on her. A day asleep or dreamin'? Here, Dick, let me get aft with the sheet. The wind'll take us up to her quicker than we'll row. He crawled aft and took the tiller. The breeze took the sail, and the boat forged ahead. Is it Daddy's ship? asked Dick, who was almost as excited as his friend. I don't know. We'll see when we fetch her. Shall we go on her, Mr. Button? asked Emmeline. Aye, we will, honey. Emmeline bent down, and fetching her parcel from under the seat held it on her lap. As they drew nearer the outlines of the ship became more apparent. She was a small brig with stumped top-masts. From the spas a few rags of canvas fluttered. It was apparent soon to the old sailor's eye what was amiss with her. She's derelict, bad-sester, he muttered, derelict and done for. Just me look. I can't see any people on the ship, cried Dick, who had crept forward to the bow. Daddy's not there. The old sailor let the boat off a point or two so as to get a view of the brig more fully. When they were within twenty cables' length or so he unstepped the mast and took to the skulls. The little brig floated very low on the water and presented a mournful enough appearance. By running, rigging or slack, treads of canvas flapping at the yards and no boats hanging at the davits. It was easy enough to see that she was a timbership and that she had started a put, flooded herself and been abandoned. Paddy lay on his oars within a few strokes of her. She was floating as placidly as though she were in the harbour of San Francisco. The green water showed in her shadow and in the green water waved the tropic weeds that were growing from her copper. Her paint was blistered and burnt absolutely as though a hot iron had been passed over it and over her taff rail hung a large rope whose end was lost to sight in the water. A few strokes brought them under the stern. The name of the ship was there in faded letters, also the port to which she belonged. Shenandoah, Martha's Vineyard. There's letters on her, said Mr. Button, but I can't make them out of no learning. I can read, said Dick. So can I, murmured Emma Lyne. S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H, spelt Dick. What's that, inquired Paddy? I don't know, replied Dick rather downcastedly. And there you are, cried the oarsman in a disgusted manner pulling the boat round to the starboard side of the brig. They pretend to teach letters to children in schools, picking their eyes out with book-reading. And here's letters as big as me face, and they can't make hide-no-tail of them, be dashed to book-reading. The brig had old-fashioned wide channels, regular platforms, and she floated so low in the water that they were scarcely afoot above the level of the dinghy. Mr. Button secured the boat by passing the painter through a channel-plate, then with Emma Lyne and her parcel in his arms, or rather in one arm, he clambered over the channel and passed her over the rail onto the deck. Then it was Dick's turn, and the children stood, waiting, whilst the old sailor brought the beaker of water, the biscuit, and the tin-stuff on board. It was a place to delight the heart of a boy, the deck of the Shenandoah. Forad, right from the main hatchway, it was laden with timber. Running rigging lay loose on the deck in coils, and nearly the whole of the quarter-deck was occupied by a deck-house. The place had a delightful smell of sea-beach, decaying wood, tar, and mystery. Butts of bunk-line and other ropes were dangling from above, only waiting to be swung from. A bell was hung just forad of the fore-mast. In half a moment Dick was forad, hammering at the bell with a belaying pin he had picked up from the deck. Mr. Button shouted to him to desist. The sound of the bell jarred on his nerves. It sounded like a summons, and a summons on that deserted craft was quite out of place. Who knew what might not answer it in the way of the supernatural? Dick dropped the belaying pin and ran forward. He took the disengaged hand, and the three of them went aft to the door of the deck-house. The door was open, and they peeped in. The place had three windows on the starboard side, and through the windows the sun was shining in a mournful manner. There was a table in the middle of the place. A seat was pushed away from the table as if someone had risen in a hurry. On the table lay the remains of a meal, a teapot, two teacups, two plates, and one of the plates rested a fork with a bit of putrefying bacon upon it that someone had evidently been conveying to his mouth when something had happened. Near the teapot stood a tin of condensed milk, haggled open. Some old soul had been in the act of putting milk in his tea when the mysterious something had occurred. Never did a lot of dead things speak so eloquently as these things spoke. One could conjure it all up. The skipper, most likely, had finished his tea, and the mate was hard at work with his when a leak had been discovered, or some derelict had been run into or whatever it was had happened, happened. One thing was evident, that since the abandonment of the brig she'd experienced fine weather, else the things would not have been left standing so trimly on the table. Mr. Button and Dick entered the place to prosecute inquiries, but Emmeline remained at the door. The charm of the old brig appealed to her almost as much as to Dick, but she had a feeling about it quite unknown to him. A ship where no one was had about it suggestions of other things. She was afraid to enter the gloomy deck-house and afraid to remain alone outside. She compromised matters by sitting down on the deck. Then she placed the small bundle beside her and hurriedly took the rag-door from her pocket into which it was stuffed head down, pulled its calico skirt from over its head, propped it up against the combing of the door, and told it not to be afraid. There was not much to be found in the deck-house, but after it were two small cabins like rabbit-hutches once inhabited by the skipper and his mate. There there were great findings in the way of rubbish-old clothes, old boots, an old top hat of that extraordinary pattern you may see in the streets of Pernambuco, immensely tall and narrowing toward the brim, a telescope without a lens, a volume of hoit, a nautical almanac, a great bolt of striped flannel-shirting, a box of fish-hooks, and in one corner, glorious find, a coil of what seemed to be ten yards or so of black rope. Bucky, big-arra! shouted Pat, seizing upon his treasure, it was pigtail. You may see coils of it in the debaconist windows of seaport towns. A pipe full of it would make a hippopotamus vomit, yet old sailors chew it and smoke it and revel in it. We'll bring all the lot of the things out on deck, and see what's worth keeping and what's worth leaving, said Mr. Button, taking an immense armful of the old truck, whilst Dick, carrying the top hat upon which he had instantly seized as his own special booty, led the way. Am! shouted Dick as he emerged from the doorway. See what I've got! He popped the awful-looking structure over his head. It went right down to his shoulders. Emmeline gave a shriek. It smells funny, said Dick, taking it off and applying his nose to the inside of it. Smells like an old hair-brush here. You try it on. Emmeline scrambled away as far as she could till she reached the starboard bulwarks, where she sat in the scupper, breathless and speechless and wide-eyed. She was always dumb when frightened, unless it were a nightmare or a very sudden shock, and this hat, suddenly seen half-covering Dick, frightened her out of her wits. Besides, it was a black thing, and she hated black things, black cats, black horses, worst of all, black dogs. She had once seen a hearse in the streets of Boston, an old-time hearse with black plumes, trappings, and all complete. The sight had nearly given her a fit, though she did not know in the least the meaning of it. Meanwhile Mr. Button was conveying armful after armful of stuff on deck. When the heap was complete, he sat down beside it in the glorious afternoon sunshine and lit his pipe. He had searched neither for food or water as yet, content with the treasure God had given him. For the moment the material things of life were forgotten, and indeed, if he had searched, he would have found only half a sack of potatoes in the caboose. For the lazarette was a wash, and the water in the scuttle-butt was stinking. Emmeline, seeing what was in progress, crept up, Dick promising not to put the hat on her, and they all sat round the pile. "'Then pair of brogues,' said the old man, holding a pair of old boots up for inspection like an auctioneer, would fetch half a dollar any day in the week in any seaport and the world. Put them beside your dick, and lay hold of this pair of britches by the ends of them. Stretch them.' The trousers were stretched out, examined, and approved of, and laid beside the boots. "'Here's a telescope with one eye shut,' said Mr. Button, examining the broken telescope, and putting it in and out like a concertina. "'Stick it beside the brogues. It may come in handy for something. "'Here's a book,' tossing the nautical almanac to the boy, telling me what it says. Dick examined the pages of figures hopelessly. "'I can't read him,' said Dick, its numbers. "'Buzz it overboard,' said Mr. Button. Dick did what he was told joyfully, and the proceedings resumed. He tried on the tall hat, and the children laughed. On her old friend's head the thing ceased to have terror for Emmeline. She had two methods of laughing. The angelic smile before mentioned a rare thing, and almost as rare a laugh in which she showed her little white teeth while she pressed her hands together the left one tight shut and the right clasped over it. He put the hat on one side and continued the sorting, searching all the pockets of the clothes and finding nothing. When he had arranged what to keep, they flung the rest overboard, and the valuables were conveyed to the captain's cabin there to remain till wanted. Then the idea that food might turn up useful as well as old clothes in their present condition struck the imaginative mind of Mr. Button, and he proceeded to search. The lazarette was simply a system full of seawater. What else it might contain, and not being a diver, he could not say. In the copper of the caboose lay a great lump of putrefying pork, or meat of some sort. The harness cast contained nothing except huge crystals of salt. All meat had been taken away. Still the provisions and water brought on board from the dinghy would be sufficient to last them some ten days or so, and in the course of ten days a lot of things might happen. Mr. Button leaned over the side. The dinghy was nestling beside the brig, like a duckling beside a duck. The broad channel might have been likened to the duck's wing half extended. He got on the channel to see if the painter was safely attached. Having made all secure, he climbed slowly up the main yard arm, and looked round upon the sea. End of chapter 8 Book 1, chapters 9 and 10 of The Blue Lagoon. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Adrian Prezzellis. The Blue Lagoon by H. Devere Stackpool. Chapter 9 Shadows in the Moonlight Daddy's a long time coming, said Dick all of a sudden. They were seated on the bulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of the caboose, an ideal perch. The sun was setting over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble, as if troubled by fervent heat. I, he is, said Mr. Button, but it's better late than never. No, don't be thinking of him, for that won't bring him. Look at the sun going into the water, and don't be speaking a word now, but listen, and you'll hear it hiss. The children gazed and listened, paddy also. All three were mute, as the great blazing shield that touched the water that leapt to meet it. You could hear the water hiss, if you had imagination enough. Once having touched the water, the sun went down behind it as swiftly as a man in a hurry going down a ladder. As he vanished, a ghostly and golden twilight spread over the sea, a light exquisite, but immensely forlorn. When the sea became a violet shadow, the west darkened as if to a closing door, and the stars rushed over the sky. Mr. Button, said Emmeline, nodding towards the sun as he vanished, what's over there? The west, replied he, staring at the sunset. Choney, an ingy, and odd the way beyond. Where's the sun gone to now, paddy? asked Dick. He's gone chasing the moon, and she skedaddling with her dress brailed up for all she's worth. She'll be along up in a minute. He's always after her, but he's never caught her yet. What would he do to her if he caught her? asked Emmeline. Faith, and maybe he'd fetch her a scalp, and well, she deserved it. Why'd she deserve it? asked Dick, who was in one of his questioning moods. Because she's always delothering people, and leading them astray. Girls are men, she'll moither them, till once she gets to come with her on them. Same as she did Buck McCann. Who's he? Buck McCann? Faith, he was the village idiot, where I used to live in the old days. How's that? Hold you wished, and don't be asking questions. He was always once in the moon, though he was twenty and six feet four. He'd a gob on him that hung open like a rat-trap with a broken spring, and he was as thin as a bob as pole. You could have tied a reef knot in the middle of him, and when the moon was full there was no holding him. Mr. Button gazed at the reflection of the sunset on the water for a moment, as if recalling some from the past, and then proceeded. He'd sit in the grass, staring at her, and then he'd start to chase her over the hills, and they'd find him at last, maybe a day or two later, last in the mountains, grazing on berries, and green as a cabbage from to hunger and to cold. Till it got so bad at long last, they had to hobble him. I've seen a donkey hobbled, cried Dick. Then you've seen the twin brother of Buck McCann. Well, one night me elder brother Tim was sitting over the fire, smoking his dundee, and thinking of his sins, when in comes Buck with the hobbles on him. Tim says he, I've got her at last. Got who, says Tim. The moon, says he. Got her where, says Tim. In a bucket by the pond, says the other, safe and sound, and not a scratch on her. You come and look, says he. So Tim follows him, he hobbling, and they go to the pond's side, and there, sure enough, sit a tin bucket full of water, and on the water, the reflection of the moon. I dredged her out of the pond, whispers Buck. Easy know, says he, and I'll dribble the water out gently, says he, and will catch her alive at the bottom of it, like a trout. So he drains the water out, gently, of the bucket, till it was near all gone, and then he looks in the bucket, expecting to find the moon, floundering at the bottom of it, like a flat fish. She's gone, bad ses to her, says he. Try again, says me, brother, and Buck fills the bucket again, and there was the moon, sure enough, when the water came to stand still. Go on, says me, brother, to rain out the water, but go gentle, or she'll give you the slip again. One minute, says Buck, I've got an idea, says he, she won't give me the slip this time, says he. You wait for me, says he, and off he hobbles to his old mother's cabin, a stone's throw away, and back he comes with a sieve. You hold the sieve, says Buck, and I'll drain the water into it. If she escapes from the bucket, we'll have her in the sieve. And he pours the water out of the bucket, as gentle as if it were cream out of a jug. When all the water was out, he turns the bucket bottom up, and shook it. Ran down the ting, he cries. She's gone again, and with that he flings the bucket into the pond, and a sieve after the bucket, when up comes his old mother, hobbling on her stick. Where's my bucket, says she, in the pond, says Buck, and me sieve, says she, gone after the bucket. I'll give you the bucket, says she, and she up with the stick, and landed him a skilp, and driv him, roaring, and hobbling before her, and locked him up in the cabin, and kept him on bread and water for a week, to get the moon out of his head. In fact, she might have saved the trouble. For that day-month it was again, there she comes. The moon, argent and splendid, was breaking from the water. She was full, and her light was powerful almost as the light of day. The shadows of the children and the queer shadow of Mr. Button were cast on the wall of the caboose, hard and black as silhouettes. Our shadows, cried Dick, taking off his broad-brimmed straw hat and waving it. Emeline held up her doll to see its shadow, and Mr. Button held up his pipe. Come now, said he, putting the pipe back in his mouth and making to rise, and shunned her off to bed. It is time you were asleep to both of you. Dick began to yowl. I don't want to go to bed. I ain't tired, Paddy. Let's stay a little longer. Not a minute, said the other, with all the decision of a nurse. Not a minute after me pipes out. Fill it again, said Dick. Mr. Button made no reply. The pipe gurgled as he puffed at it. A kind of death-rattle, speaking of almost immediate extinction. Mr. Button, said Emeline. She was holding her nose in the air and sniffing. Seated to windward of the smoker and out of the pig-tailed poisoned air, her delicate sense of smell perceived something lost to the others. What is it, a kushla? I smell something. What do you say, yes, mal? Something nice. What's it like? asked Dick, sniffing hard. I don't smell anything. Emeline sniffed again to make sure. Flowers, said she. The breeze, which had shifted several points since midday, was bearing with it a faint, faint odour. A perfume of vanilla and spice, so faint as to be imperceptible to all but the most acute olfactory scents. Flowers, said the old sailor, tapping the ashes cut of his pipe against the heel of his boot. And where'd you get flowers in the middle of the sea? It's dreaming you are. Come now to bed-widges. Fill it again, while Dick, referring to the pipe. It's a spankin' I'll give ya! replied his guardian, lifting him down from the timber-bulks and then assisting Emeline. In toe-ticks, if you don't behave! Come along, Emeline. He started aft, a small hand in each of his, Dick bellowing. As they passed the ship's bell, Dick stretched towards the belaying pin that was still lying in the deck, seized it, and hit the bell a mighty bang. It was the last pleasure to be snatched before sleep, and he snatched it. Paddy had made up beds for himself and his charges in the deck-house. He had cleared the stuff off the table, broke open the windows to get the musty smell away, and placed the mattresses from the captain and mate's cabins on the floor. When the children were in bed and asleep, he went to the starboard rail and, leaning on it, looked over the moonlit sea. He was thinking of ships as his wandering eye roved over the sea-spaces, little dreaming of the message that the perfumed breeze was bearing him, the message that had been received and dimly understood by Emeline. Then he leaned with his back to the rail and his hands in his pockets. He was not thinking now. He was ruminating. The basis of the Irish character as exemplified by Paddy Button is a profound laziness mixed with a profound melancholy. Yet Paddy, in his left-handed way, was as hard a worker as any man on board ship, and as for melancholy he was the life and soul of the folksle. Yet there they were, the laziness and the melancholy only waiting to be tapped. As he stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, long-shore fashion, counting the dowels in the planking of the deck by the moonlight, he was reviewing the old days. The tale of Buck McCann had recalled them, and across all the salt seas he could see the moonlight on the Connemara Mountains and hear the seagulls crying on the thunderous beach, each wave has behind it three thousand miles of sea. Suddenly Mr. Button came back from the mountains of Connemara to find himself on the deck of the Shenandoah, and he instantly became possessed by fears. Beyond the white deserted deck, barred by the shadows of the standing rigging, he could see the door of the caboose. Suppose he should suddenly see a head pop out, or worse, a shadowy form go in. He turned to the deck-house where the children were sound asleep, and where, in a few minutes, he too was sound asleep beside them. Whilst all night long the brig rocked to the gentle swell of the Pacific, and the breeze blew, bringing with it the perfume of flowers. CHAPTER X THE TRAGEDY OF THE BOATS When the fog lifted after midnight the people in the longboat saw the quarterboat half a mile to starboard of them. Can you see the dinghy? asked the strange of the captain, who was standing up, searching the horizon. Not a speck, answered LaFage. Damn that Irishman! But for him I'd have got the boats away properly victualed and all. As it is, I don't know what we've got aboard. You, Jenkins, what have you got fired there? Two bags of bread and a beaker of water, answered the steward. A beaker of water be sugared, came another voice. A beaker half full, you mean. Then the steward's voice. So it is, there's not more than a couple of gallons in her. My God! said LaFage. Damn that Irishman! There's not more than all giv' us two half-panicons apiece all round, said the steward. Maybe, said LaFage, the quarter-boat's better stocked. Pull for her. She's pulling for us, said the stroke-or. Captain, asked the strange, are you sure there's no sight of the dinghy? None, replied LaFage. The unfortunate man's head sank on his breast. He had little time to brood over his troubles, however, for a tragedy was beginning to unfold around him. The most shocking, perhaps, in the annals of the sea. A tragedy to be hinted at, rather than spoken of. When the boats were within hailing distance, a man in the bow of the longboat rose up. Quarter-boat, ahoy! Ahoy! How much water have you? None! The word came floating over the placid, moonlit water. At it, the fellows in the longboat ceased rowing, and you could see the water drop stripping off their oars like diamonds in the moonlight. Quarter-boat, ahoy! shouted the fellow in the bow. Lay on your oars. Here, you, Scowbanker! cried LaFage. Who are you to be given orders? Scowbanker, yourself! replied the fellow. Bullies, put her about! The starboard oars backed water, and the boat came round. By chance, the worst lots of the Northumberland's crew were in the longboat. Veritable Scowbankers, scum! And how scum clings to life you will never know until you have been amongst it in an open boat at sea. LaFage had no more command over this lot than you have who are reading this book. Heave, too! came from the quarter-boat as she laboured behind. Lay on your oars, bullies! cried the ruffian at the bow, who was still standing up like an evil genius who had taken momentary command over events. Lay on your oars, bullies! they'd better have it now. The quarter-boat in her turn ceased rowing and lay a cable's length away. How much water have you? came the mate's voice. Not enough to go round. LaFage made to rise, and the stroke-or struck at him, catching him in the wind, and doubling him up in the bottom of the boat. Give us some, for God's sake! came the mate's voice. We're parched with rowing, and there's a woman on board. The fellow in the bow of the longboat, as if someone had suddenly struck him, broke into a tornado of blasphemy. Give us some, came the mate's voice, or by God we'll lay you aboard. Before the words were well spoken, the men in the quarter-boat carried the threat into action. The conflict was brief. The quarter-boat was too crowded for fighting. The starboard men in the longboat fought with their oars, whilst the fellows to port steadied the boat. The fight did not last long, and presently the quarter-boat sheered off, half of the men in her cut about the head and bleeding. Two of them senseless. It was sundown on the following day, when the longboat lay adrift. The last drop of water had been served out eight hours before. The quarter-boat, like a horrible phantom, had been haunting and pursuing her all day, begging for water when there was none. It was like the prayers one might expect to hear in hell. The men in the longboat, gloomy and morose, weighed down with a sense of crime, led by thirst and tormented by the voices imploring for water, lay on their oars when the other boat tried to approach. Now and then, suddenly, and as if moved by a common impulse, they would all shout out together, We have none! But the quarter-boat would not believe. It was in vain to hold the beaker with the bung out to prove the dryness. The half-delirious creatures had it fixed in their minds that their comrades were withholding from them the water that was not. Just as the sun touched the sea, the strange, rousing himself from a tupper into which he had sunk, raised himself and looked over the gunnel. He saw the quarter-boat drifting a cable's length away, lit by the full light of sunset, and the spectres in it, seeing him, held out in mute appeal their blackened tongues. Of the night that followed, it is almost impossible to speak. Thirst was nothing to what the scowbankers suffered from the torture of the whimpering appeal for water that came to them at intervals during the night. When at last the Arago, a French whale ship, cited them, the crew of the longboat were still alive, but three of them were raving madmen. Of the crew of the quarter-boat was saved, not one.