CHAPTER XXI The Castaways

Mostyn was awake instantly. The burly Scillonian was slow to grasp the significance of the peril. Burgoyne stirred him with his foot.

"We're close on a lee shore," warned the Third Officer. "Look alive and 'bout ship."

The two men were almost lost to sight in the darkness as they clambered for'ard over the thwarts.

"Hope to goodness they don't bungle," thought Alwyn, as he remained on the alert, ready to put the helm down. "If she fails to answer this time we're done."

But before Jasper could uncleat the halliard a vicious puff struck the stiffly strained canvas. No doubt the sail was in a bad condition owing to its having been stored so long under a galvanized iron roof exposed to a broiling sun. Without warning the centre cloth split from top to bottom, and the hook securing the tack burst from its cringle. The next instant the torn fragments of the useless sail were streaming from the yard like washing on a line on a windy day.

Instantly the life-boat flew up into the wind under the action of the still close-sheeted mizzen; then, gathering sternway, she began to drift rapidly towards the reef dead to leeward.

The best seamanship in the world could not have saved her. To resort to the oars would have been a hopeless expedient. Even had the oars been double-banked and the boat manned by a full crew of stalwart oarsmen, she would not have been able to make headway in the howling wind and in the grip of the breaking seas.

For some moments the men were dumbfounded. They could only grip the gunwale and await the development of events. Then Burgoyne's voice stirred them to action.

"Come aft!" he shouted, relinquishing the now useless tiller. "Mostyn, you do the best for yourself, and the best of luck. Jasper, we must do our best to save Miss Vivian. Wake her, quickly."

But Hilda was already awake. The loud frapping of the canvas, sounding like a succession of pistol-shots, was enough to rouse the soundest sleeper, even if the erratic motion of the wave-tossed boat failed to do so.

"Come aft," shouted Burgoyne. "For heaven's sake keep clear of that awning. We're in a bit of a hole, but we'll get you out, I hope."

He spoke bravely, but the words belied his thoughts. It seemed as if nothing alive could pass through that cauldron of broken water, thundering upon the cruel coral reefs.

Swept with the velocity of an arrow the boat, travelling on the crest of an enormous wave, was borne towards the reef. Burgoyne, holding on to the mizzen-mast, grasped the girl by one arm while Minalto's huge fist gripped her left shoulder. Then they waited.

They had not long to wait. With a crash of shattering timber the boat struck—struck so violently that Burgoyne had a momentary vision of the iron watertank being thrown right out clear of the side. Then as the battered craft reared itself as if to fall upon and entomb her crew, Burgoyne and Jasper leapt, literally carrying the girl between them.

They rose to the surface in the midst of a smother of foam. The wrecked boat swirled past Alwyn's head, missing it by a couple of feet or less.

Then ensued a terrible struggle. Wave after wave pounded down upon them, driving them, so it seemed, fathoms deep, until their lungs felt on the point of bursting. Once and once only did Burgoyne's feet touch the reef with a jar that seemed to snap his backbone. Then another breaker crashed, whirling the three human beings like leaves in an autumn gale.

Down went Burgoyne, retaining his grip with the energy of despair, and when next he came to the surface he was aware of two hands grasping his shoulder. Minalto had vanished, while Hilda, only just conscious, was instinctively clinging to her now sole support.

After that things became a bit hazy. Alwyn found himself swimming mechanically with one arm, while the other held up his charge. He was dimly aware that the sea was no longer breaking but was a succession of heavy, crestless rollers, the tops feathered with spray flung upward by the howling wind.

"We're over the reef!" he exclaimed to himself. "But what's beyond?"

That was the question. If there were land he knew that he would have to contend with the dreaded undertow, and already well-nigh exhausted the prospect was not inviting. But if there were no land—? He shuddered to think of that possibility, when, drifting farther and farther from the lee of the reef into a boundless waste of tempestuous water, nothing but a slow death by drowning confronted all the crew of the luckless life-boat. He wondered, too, what fate had befallen Mostyn and Jasper. The latter had gone, no doubt dashed against the reef that had let Alwyn and Hilda down so lightly. And Mostyn? He had seen nothing of him. Whether he leapt with the others or was crushed under the wreckage of the life-boat there was no telling.

"'Tany rate," muttered Burgoyne, tightening his grip upon his now senseless burden, "we're going to make a good old fight for it. Now, then!"

Borne just in front of a huge wave that was on the point of breaking, the man and the girl were projected towards the unknown; submerged, twisted about and rolled helplessly in the smother of agitated water. Then Burgoyne's feet touched ground—sand, by the feel of it.

For another twenty yards he felt himself being impelled forward. Then his feet found a grip, but only for a brief instant. The horrible undertow—the back lash from the breaking waves—was commencing.

Planting his heels deeply in the yielding sand and gripping Hilda with both arms he braced himself to withstand the retrograde movement. Slipping slowly and surely he resisted strenuously, but with every remaining effort of his sorely-taxed strength. Like a mill-stream the creamy-white foam receded, until Burgoyne's head and shoulders emerged.

The next instant he saw the rearing crest of another huge wave about to break. There was no avoiding it. He was still too deeply immersed to hope to stagger even a few yards from its impending grip.

Down it crashed. Rolled over and over, with the breath well-nigh dashed out of his body, Burgoyne and his burden were swept onward for yet another fifty yards... back twenty, and then almost by a miracle his disengaged hand clutched and held a piece of rock.

Ten seconds later his prostrate form was uncovered by the receding undertow. With the frenzy of despair he regained his feet, and bending low under the weight of his burden—he was now carrying Hilda across his back like a sack of flour, but how he managed it he had not the slightest idea—he staggered rather than ran up the shelving, yielding sand until he dimly remembered stumbling blindly against the trunk of a tree.

Driven by the instincts of self-preservation and the desperate determination to save his charge, Burgoyne staggered another half a dozen yards inland and collapsed like a wet rag upon the wind and spray-swept ground.

For how long he remained unconscious he was totally unable to gauge. When he opened his eyes he was aware that he felt numbed to the bone, except his right hand, from which the blood was flowing freely. In gripping the sharp rock that had proved his salvation he had gashed his palm in half a dozen places. He tried to move, but his limbs were powerless and incapable of responding to the dictates of his will.

It was still dark. The wind was howling through a clump of coco-palms, bending the supple crests almost to the ground. Spray, too, was hissing with almost clock-like regularity as the breakers dashed themselves against the shore.

Some time elapsed before the events that led to his almost helpless predicament dawned upon him. He recalled the struggle in the darkness, the agony of the grip of the undertow, and the nameless fear that his precious burden would be torn from his grasp. Then the last, almost automatic dash for land... and where was Hilda?

With a supreme effort he moved his benumbed arm, half-dreading that the limb was broken. To his mingled satisfaction and alarm his almost nerveless fingers touched the cold face and dank hair of the object of his search.

Was she dead? he wondered.

For some moments he contented himself by rubbing his own benumbed limbs, slowly at first, then warming to his task as the blood began to circulate through his veins. Then, half-rising, he crawled to Hilda's side. Her heart was still beating, though feebly.

Racking his brains to remember the instructions laid down for the restoration of those apparently drowned, and then puzzled whether to treat the case as that of a half-drowned person or one suffering from cold and exposure, he decided to act upon the latter supposition, and proceeded to chafe the girl's limp hands.

As he did so he became aware that dawn was breaking—breaking with the rapidity usual in tropical climes. In a few minutes it was light, and the ruddy orb of the sun appeared to shoot up in a cloudless sky above the eastern horizon.

How he blessed the rapidly increasing warmth as the sun mounted higher and higher! Warmth meant life. He cast about him for a suitable spot, open to the glorious rays yet sheltered from the still flying spindrift.

He found what he required in a grassy hollow, screened by palms from the worst of the wind yet exposed to the slanting rays of the sun, which were momentarily increasing in brilliance and strength.

How he contrived to carry the seemingly lifeless form of Young Bill from the shore he hardly knew. It was a triumph of sheer determination over utter fatigue.

Again he chafed the nerveless arms, never desisting until the girl's lips moved and her eyes opened with a startled expression, like one waking from a troubled dream.

"Where am I?" she demanded feebly.

"Safe ashore," replied Burgoyne cheerfully enough. He was content for the time being to find Hilda restored to life. "Can you walk?" he continued, although the absurdity of putting such a question to one who had been unconscious but a few moments previously struck him rather forcibly as soon as he had uttered it.

"I'll try," she replied pluckily, greatly to his surprise. "Why? Must we be going anywhere?"

"No," he reassured her. "We're stopping on the island a little while, but if you can you ought to keep moving."

He assisted the girl to rise, and the pair, both excessively weak, walked unsteadily, although the movement was beneficial to both.

Hilda had come through the ordeal comparatively lightly. Beyond a graze on the back of her right hand and a slight cut on her forehead she was unhurt, although she complained of stiffness in her ankles and wrists.

"But I am hungry," she added plaintively.

The words brought before Burgoyne's eyes the vision of that grim spectre starvation. All their provisions had been lost when the boat broke her back on the reef. Unless the natural resources of the island could provide sufficient food to sustain life their predicament was a serious one.

"There are coco-nuts," he said apologetically, as if it were his fault that more substantial fare was not forthcoming. "I'll get you some."

He knew that he was too weak to climb. He had nothing with which to cut down the tough and supple palms, but it was quite likely that some of the trees exposed to the gale might have been uprooted.

As he was walking away Hilda recalled him.

"Where are the others?" she asked. "Mostyn and Jasper?"

"Somewhere about," he replied vaguely. "They may be along presently."

Somehow he could not bring himself to tell the girl the hideous truth: that as far as he knew the two men had been overwhelmed in the breakers on the reef. Yet in his mind he had an idea that Hilda guessed what had befallen their companions, and that she expected confirmation of her fears.

Returning to the beach Burgoyne took stock of his surroundings. The wind, though strong, was moderating rapidly. Not a cloud obscured the sky. It was now close on low-water, the tide having fallen about eight feet, which for that part of the Pacific was exceptional and was undoubtedly caused by the terrific wind.

The reef, which at this part of the island was within one hundred yards of the shore, was showing up about four or five feet above the now placid water of the lagoon—a succession of jagged clumps of coral intersected by narrow channels which were now drying out. On the seaward side the breakers were tumbling heavily, for in the open the waves were still lofty and menacing. Viewing the reef at this state of the tide it seemed impossible that any human being could have been hurled across that formidable barrier without being battered out of recognition.

Away to the south-eastern extremity of the island was another piece of dry land, low-lying and not more than a hundred yards in length. On it were three solitary palms. Round it, and extending far in an easterly direction, were reefs and atolls, terminating in a rock quite two miles from the large island. Had the life-boat crashed upon these reefs—which she would most certainly have done had she held on her course—the fate of all on board would have been sealed. And, even if Burgoyne had succeeded in putting the boat on the starboard tack, she was embayed to such an extent that there would have been no escape. Providentially the castaways had been driven ashore on the larger island and the only one not liable to be completely swept by the breakers.

The eastern part of the island, off which side the boat had suffered disaster, ran in a fairly even direction north and south, terminating in two sandy spits about a mile apart. As far as Burgoyne could see there was no sign of any indentation; the coral strand formed a straight expanse from end to end.

Looking towards his left, or in a northerly direction, Alwyn noticed a dark object lying close on high-water mark and half-buried in sand. It was the after part of the life-boat.

Thinking that by a rare slice of luck some of the provisions might have remained in the after locker, he made his way painfully towards the wreckage, conscious of a burning pain in the heel—the legacy of a violent contact with the reef. His damaged hand, swathed in a strip of his last remaining handkerchief, was throbbing excruciatingly.

As he approached his attention was attracted by the sight of a man's hand and arm projecting beyond some scrub and driftwood within a few yards of the boat. The arm was bare, brown, and muscular, and lavishly embellished with tattoo marks.

"Minalto!" exclaimed the Third Officer, and, forgetting his injuries, hurried to the spot to confirm or dissipate his worst fears.

Jasper was not only alive but conscious. He had been cast ashore in a battered condition, being flung on the crest of a wave right into a clump of undergrowth. Bruised from head to foot he had lain in a torpid state, until the warmth of the sun had roused him from his lethargy but a few minutes before Alwyn's appearance.

"Sure, 'tes a rum world," he remarked. "Didn't think tu see you agen-like, sir. And the young leddy? Where she be tu?"

"Safe," replied Burgoyne. He was going to add "and sound ", but checked himself. "You've seen nothing of Mr. Mostyn?" he added anxiously.

Minalto slowly extricated himself from his bed of scrub and driftwood.

"No, sir," he said slowly. "I aint. Fact is I've just come-tu-like, bein', in a manner o' speakin', fair-flummoxed. Ne'er clapt eyes on 'im arter the boat struck."

The two men searched the fragments of wreckage. In the stern locker they discovered two tins of beef. The rest had vanished. Two of the copper air-tanks were still intact, while wedged in between the stern bench and a broken oar was one of the two buckets.

"Better'n nothin'," observed Jasper philosophically "S'pose we du search round-like. Might find somethin' worth our while."

It was a strain of his wrecker ancestors that prompted this remark, but the suggestion was worth acting upon. With the wind on shore and a heavy sea tumbling in there might be valuable spoil from the ocean.

The search resulted in the discovery of the mizzen mast with the sail still set. The mast had been broken off close to the thwart-clamp. A little farther on they discovered an oar, a length of grass rope, and another copper air-tank, all of which they collected and placed well above high-water mark.

"We'll get along, now," declared Burgoyne. "I came to look for coco-nuts, not wreckage, although I admit the search has not been exactly fruitless."

"One minute, sir," interrupted Minalto. "What be that? We ne'er had no li'l barrel in the boat, did us?"

He pointed to a small cask, half buried in the sand It was encrusted with barnacles, and growing marine whiskers a foot or more in length.

"Heavy 'un be, too," continued Jasper, searching round for a stone to knock out the tightly fixed bung.

"Later on will do for that," declared the Third Officer. "Roll it up under that bush."

Reluctantly Minalto turned away from his find, like a dog ordered by his master to drop a succulent bone. In his present appearance—hatless, with a lavish growth of beard, bare almost to the waist, having lost most of his shirt in the struggle with the waves—he looked more like a seventeenth-century wrecker of the inhospitable Scillies than a steady-going quartermaster of the Mercantile Marine.

Burgoyne's appearance was very little better. He, too, was sporting a bristling beard. He was capless—a fact to which the now powerful rays of the sun was calling pressing attention. His one-time white patrol-jacket was torn, dirty, and had half of one sleeve missing. His trousers ended at the knees, while his shoes, cut by contact with the sharp coral, were little more than a pair of ragged canvas uppers, held together by fragments of once good British leather. Slight gashes on his forehead and cheek, and his bandaged hand, completed his dishevelled and disreputable appearance.

On the return journey Burgoyne discovered an uprooted coco-palm, from which he gathered some green nuts, sufficient to provide liquid refreshment, but of small value from a life-sustaining point of view. But with the tins of beef, even if nothing else of an edible nature were found, they might with luck eke out an existence for days.