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Jack at Sea, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 17. Jack Sees A Volcano Light Up |
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_ CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. JACK SEES A VOLCANO LIGHT UP. "Is there going to be any wind to-night, captain?" said Sir John as they went on deck. For answer the captain pointed away to the west, and Jack saw here and there dark patches of rippled water, but the sails that were left still hung motionless from the yards. "In half-an-hour we shall be bowling along, Mr Jack," said the mate; "and if the wind holds, before morning we shall be lying off the land." "Then I think I shall sit up," said the lad eagerly, for his brain was buzzing with expectation, and as full of exaggerated imaginations as it could possibly be. But with the nightfall, in spite of the inspiriting, cooling breeze which sent them, as the mate had it, "bowling along," there was the familiar sensation of fatigue, and at the usual time, after a long look out into the darkness, Jack went to his cot, to dream that the island was getting farther and farther off, and woke up at last with the sensation that he had only just lain down. For a few minutes he was too sleepy and confused to think, but all at once the recollection of what he expected to see came to him, and he leaped out of his berth and ran to the cabin window, but from thence he could only see the long level plain of water. Hurriedly dressing himself, he ran on deck, to see that the dawn was only just appearing in the east, and as they lay to, rocking gently, with the sails flapping, there rose up before him, dim and dark, one vast pyramid which ran up into the heavy clouds, and filled him with a strange sensation of awe, the greater that there was a heavy booming sound as of thunder right and left and close at hand. He grasped the fact directly after that it was not the low muttering of thunder which he heard, but the booming of the heavy billows which curved over about a couple of miles away and broke upon a reef which extended to right and left as far as the dim light would let him see. Then came a sense of disappointment which was almost painful. Had they sailed by without stopping at any of the lovely islands they had encountered, to come to this awfully gloomy-looking spot in the ocean? The captain must be half mad to speak so highly in its favour, and for a few moments the boy felt disposed to return to his berth and try to forget his disappointment in sleep. He took a few steps, and suddenly came across Edward. "That you, Mr Jack, sir?" said the man. "Can't you see it is?" replied the lad shortly. "Yes, sir, and sorry for you I am." "What do you mean?" "Why, sir, about the island. They've been a-cracking it up to us, and making believe as it was the loveliest place as ever was, and now we've got to it, why it's all gammon." "Then you've seen it, Ned?" "Seen it, sir? I wish I hadn't. It's a trick they've played on us because we're what they call longshore folk. Makes me long for the shore, I can tell you. A jolly shame, sir." "It does look dreary, Ned." "Dreary aren't the word for it, but you can't gammon me. I know what it is; I've read about 'em. It's one of them out-of-the-way stony places where they used to send convicks to. 'Rubbish may be shot here' spots. And a lot of the rubbish used to be shot there if they tried to escape. Oh, it is a dismal horror place. Give me the miserables as soon as I saw it, after spoiling my night's rest for fear I shouldn't wake up at daylight to see what it was like. I've seen it though, and I don't want any more, thankye. Don't want me, I suppose, sir?" "No, Ned. I'm going back to bed." "Are you, sir? Well, that's a good idea, and I don't see why I shouldn't do the same." "Let's have another look at the place first." "No thankye, sir. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not. Once was quite enough. Of course, if you say I am to look, sir, there I am." "Oh no, I don't want you. Go back to bed. It's a miserable place, Ned, but I dare say there will be some good fishing." "Take a lot of good fishing, sir, and they'd have to be very fresh, to make it worth staying for. Good-night, sir." "Good-morning, Ned," said Jack with a faint smile, and the man went below, while, feeling chilly and depressed, and as if it would be wiser to follow the fellow's example, he walked moodily forward, gazing over the side in the direction of the island, and noticing now that there was a low line of thick mist lying just over where the billows broke in foam and produced the deep thunderous roar. Cold, chilling, and repellent as it was, Jack could not repress a shiver, and the feeling of dislike to the voyage, which had been rapidly dying out in the new interests he felt, came back with renewed force. "Why did we come?" he muttered. As his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom, he saw that the low clouds seemed to be in bands above each other, increasing the strangely forbidding aspect. Just then there was a light step on the deck, and the mate came up. "Morning," he said. "Here we are, you see." "See? Yes; but what a place!" "Eh?" cried the mate in surprise; "what, don't you like the look of it?" "No; it is horrible. Just a black and grey mountain rising out of the sea. Are we at anchor?" "No; only lying-to, waiting for the full light, so as to find the opening through the reef. There is no anchorage out here; I dare say the lead would go down a mile." "What, so close to the shore?" "Oh yes. These volcanic mountains rise up suddenly--steeply, I mean, from very great depths, and then the coral insects begin building upon them, and form regular breakwaters of solid stone all round, and these coral reefs rise just to the surface, and keep the waves from washing the sides of the volcano away." "What a pity!" said Jack mockingly. "I don't see any good in preserving a great black-looking heap like that." "Don't you?" said the mate, smiling, and looking back up at the gloomy eminence. "No, I don't," replied Jack, with a touch of early morning ill-humour in his tones. "But isn't that nonsense? The sea could not wash away an island like that." "What! Why, give it time and it will wash away a continent. But an island like this would be nothing to it without the coral insects stopped it. Some volcanoes rise in these seas and never get much above the surface--the waves wash them away as fast as they form. You see they are only made up of loose cinders and ashes which fall over outside as they are thrown up. Others are more solid if liquid lava boils over the edge of the crater and runs down. This gradually hardens into massive rock, and resists the beating of the sea till the coral insects have done their work, building up to the surface of the sea, and then going on at the sides." "I suppose you are right," said Jack with a yawn, "but the sooner we get away from this ugly place the better." "Think so? Well, wait and see it by daylight first. Look!" He pointed to where, nearly a mile above them, a bright golden spot had appeared. "Why, the volcano's burning," cried Jack excitedly. "Look! It's red-hot, and gradually increasing. There's going to be an eruption. How grand! But shall we be safe here?" "Quite," said the mate, smiling, and he stood watching his companion's face, and its changes in the glowing light of the magnificent spectacle, as the golden red-hot aspect of the mountain top rapidly increased, displaying every seam, ravine, and buttress, that seemed to be of burning metal, fiery spot after fiery spot, that the minute before was of a deep violet black. And this went on, with the fire appearing to sink gradually down till the whole of the mountain top was one grand blaze of glory, which went on apparently sinking behind a belt of clouds, till from being of dark and gloomy grey they began to glow and become of a wonderful translucency. "Oh!" panted the lad, "I never saw anything so grand as that. Look how the awful fire is reflected in the sky all round there." "Yes, it's brightening it well up," said the mate, smiling; and then the boy looked in his face, and the truth came to him like a flash from the great orb to enlighten his understanding. "Why, you're laughing at me," he cried. "How stupid! I thought the mountain was burning. You should have told me. How was I to--Yes, I ought to have known that mountain tops first caught the light. Oh, I wish I were not so ignorant." "You are not the first who has been deceived," said the mate quietly. "Well, the mountain does not look so gloomy now, does it?" "Glorious! Up there it is grand. I wish we were on the top." "All in good time. But you know how quickly the full day comes here near the equator. Keep looking." Jack wanted no telling, and for the next few minutes, with a curious sense of awe, wonder, and delight, he stood watching the line of light descending and making the beauties of the volcanic island start out of the gloom. The bands of cloud which hung round the sharp slope became roseate, golden, orange, and purple, and soon after the lad was gazing below the barren, glowing rocks at patches of golden green, then at the beginning of billows and deep valleys running down, the former of wonderful shades of green, the latter of deep dark velvety purple, across which silvery films of vapour were floating. And still the light came down, casting wonderful shadows, setting towering pyramidical trees blazing as it were; and then all at once the boy could have believed that he was gazing where there was a gash of liquid fire pouring down into a dark valley, flashing and coruscating till it disappeared. And still lower and lower, with wonderful rapidity now, as the great glowing disk was seen to rise above the edge of the sea, till the whole island was ablaze in the morning sunshine, and the gloomy, forbidding mass was one glorious picture of tropic beauty. Forests grouped themselves about the lower mountain slopes, lovely park-like stretches could be seen lower still, and beneath lower groves of palm-like trees a band of golden sand. Nearer still, thin lines of cocoa palms edging what appeared to be a lake of the purest blue, edged in turn with a sparkling line of foam, where the billows seemed to be eternally fretting to get over the surrounding reef and plunge themselves into the placid, perfectly calm lagoon. Lastly there was the dark sea, now lit up into a gleaming plain of gently heaving waves; all being shot as it were with purple, where again patches of rippled damascened silver flashed in the opening of a new day. "It is too beautiful," muttered the boy to himself. "It seems almost as if it hurt and made one sad. Oh," he said aloud, "and I never called him up to see." "Eh, what's that?" said Sir John. "Think we were sleeping through all this? Oh no! What a glorious sunrise, my boy." "Glorious," cried the doctor, grasping the boy's arm. "I didn't think Nature could be so grand. Here, I don't feel as if I could wait for breakfast. Oh, Jack, my lad, what times we're going to have out there." "Well, gentlemen," said the captain, coming up with his face shining in the morning light, "will this do for you? What do you say to my island now?" "Thank you," said Sir John, offering his hand. "I don't think we shall want to go any farther, Bradleigh. There will be enough here to last us for life." "Right," cried the doctor, rubbing his hands. "Only to think of our pottering away our existence at home when there were places like this to see. I say, you know, Nature isn't fair. The idea of such grand, clever chaps as we are--or think we are--having to put up with our gloomy, foggy island, and a set of naked savages having such a home as that. I say it's quite unnatural." "I don't suppose they appreciate the beauties of the place," said Sir John. "Will it do?" cried the doctor. "I'm philosopher enough to say that this is just the sort of place where a man can be happy. You don't get me away from here, I can tell you. I mean to stay." "For the present, at all events," said Sir John. "I question though whether Captain Bradleigh here will want to stop very long." "Just as long as you like, gentlemen," said the captain. "I can make myself contented anywhere. That is," he added with a laugh, "if I can find good safe anchorage for the vessel I command. Well then, if you think this place will do for a stay, the first thing to be done is to find the way through the reef into the lagoon. There's an opening somewhere near here." Just about that time Jack cast his eyes aft and saw that Edward was standing by the cabin hatch with one of Sir John's serge jackets in his left and a clothes-brush in his right hand, for though the clothes on ship-board seemed as if they could not by any possibility gather dust-- they did get some flue in the corners of the pockets--Edward gave them all a thorough-going turn every morning before he rubbed over the shoes with paste, the blacking bottle remaining unopened and the brushes unused. Jack went quickly up to him, and Edward began rubbing his head with the back of the clothes-brush; but before the lad could speak the man began. "Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but you didn't happen to see me on deck in the middle of the night, did you?" "No, Ned," said Jack, staring. "Of course you didn't, sir," said the man, speaking as if relieved. "Made me feel as if my head was getting a bit soft." "No wonder, if you keep on tapping it with the clothes-brush." "Oh, that won't hurt it, sir, my head's hard as wood. I'm a bit late this morning--over-slept myself. Had the rummiest dream I ever knowed of." "What did you dream?" "Dreamt as I come up in the middle of the night, just when it was thinking about getting to morning, and we'd sailed to about the horridest place as ever was, and then I looked round and saw you like a black shadow going about the deck without making a sound." "I had no shoes on," said Jack. "Then it wasn't a dream, and it was only that the place looked so dismal drear in the dusk." "Of course it was, Ned." The man gave his head a rap with the clothes-brush. "Then that's a lesson for a man never to be in too much of a hurry. 'Pon my word, Mr Jack, sir, when I came just now and had a look, I felt as if I must have been dreaming, for as soon as I went below I lay down for a snooze, and went off like a top." "The light has made a wonderful change, Ned," said Jack. "Well, what do you think of it now?" "It's beyond thinking, sir, it's wonderful. We've seen some tidy places as we come along, but this beats everything I ever saw. Seems to me that we'd better stop here altogether. They say 'there's no place like home,' but I say there's no place like this." "It really is beautiful, Ned. You should have stopped on deck and seen the wonderful transformation as the sun rose." "Couldn't have been anything like coming upon it sudden, sir, after going below feeling that you'd been cheated. How I should like to send for my poor old mother to see it. But I dunno: she wouldn't come. She's got an idee that Walworth is about the loveliest place in the world. But it ain't, Mr Jack, you may believe me, it really ain't, not even when the sun shines; while when it don't, and it happens to be a bit muddy, or it rains, or there's a fog, it's--well, I don't think there's anything short of a photo to show what it really is like, and one of them wouldn't do it credit. But this isn't Walworth, sir, and the next thing I want to do is to go ashore and see what the place is like." "All in good time, Ned. I suppose we shall soon begin collecting now." "Any time you like, Mr Jack, sir, and please remember that your obedient servant to command, Edward Sims, is aboard, and whether it's sticking pins through flies and beetles like Sir John does, or shooting and skinning birds and beasts like the doctor, I want to be in it. My word, there ought to be some fine things here." "There's no doubt about it." "Then if you'll remember me, sir, as the song says, there isn't anything I won't do, even to being your donkey for you to ride when you're tired, and," added the man with a smile full of triumph, as if defying any one to surpass his offer, "you can't say fairer than that." "I'll try for you to come, Ned," he replied. "Do, sir, if it's only to carry the vittles. Thankye, sir, all the same." _ |
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