sss Island

Chapter 1 The Impossible Island "GREAT Caesar's ghost! The people in that canoe are women!" Charters made his characteristic exclamation with an excited roar, passing on the glasses he had used to Halpin, as he did to those of us who had not come on deck provided with binoculars. Before they came to me, the simmer of excitement into which the curiosity, of our group had risen had swollen; and the skipper, lowering the telescope he had himself been using, smiled with a touch of irony. "Didn't I tell you?" he demanded, quizzically. "Yes; but—" It was hard to say who spoke. The existence of sss Island had been doubted by most of us. The appearance of the land itself had been an actual surprise, and what we saw through our glasses was a confirmation for the fanciful story we had been told but did not quite believe. "The skipper has allowed himself to be gulled for once," scoffed Saunders. "This sss Island is impossible." We on the Seaflower were a team of gentlemen adventurers. When, nearly three years before, the smart yacht had appeared in Sydney Harbour and reports of the activities proposed by its captain-owner had received publicity, Captain Darnell had been rushed with applications from eager adventurers anxious to become members of the crew. Those of us who were selected, with a careful discrimination, esteemed ourselves lucky; I was particularly lucky myself, since I would have had no chance but for the assistance of my friend, young Professor Charters, who was one of those chosen early. Captain Darnell's scheme, about which the papers had received merely such information as he desired, was for the exploration and exploitation of waste spaces. It was a search for mineral and other wealth, boring river bottoms, and making, where there were indications to justify it, explorations into the hinterland. An early success came to us in a practically untouched part of New Guinea. There we gathered easily an astonishing quantity of free gold; but it was then that Captain Darnell revealed that, as he had told us, the Seaflower was only one part of his organisation. Concessions were at once secured and work started; a recently wild location commenced to become a hive of industry. We found our-selves shareholders in a Development Company which had sprung into being directly Darnell had supplied the reports of his experts and his specimens to the financial interests with which he was in touch, our reward being, besides shares, a substantial cash consideration. We handed over our work to the Development Company and its engineers; the Seaflower passed to fresh adventure. Sometimes there had been disappointment; death made a slight toll of our members; but the upshot had been wealth for all of us and an exalted confidence in our leaders. We had a pride in our vessel, too. The Seaflower was a schooner-yacht of 350 tons, fitted with powerful auxiliary motors. Intended for a German royalty and on the eve of completion, when the war started, it had been seized for war purposes and specially fitted for that, although the elaboration of the internal details had been allowed to remain. After the war, a curious admixture of floating palace and arsenal, it had become superfluous for ordinary trade, but was an ideal craft for the purposes Captain Darnell had in view when he purchased it. Whenever it: appeared the smart little vessel, which lost nothing of its smartness under the skipper's control, was a subject of admiration, and all ship-lovers envied the men who were fortunate enough to belong to its crew. Darnell in making his selection had seen that the crew was one of experts who could meet any contingency that might arise. Only my reputation for bushcraft had justified my own inclusion in that remarkable combination. We shared the work of the yacht in the ordinary course: a doctor and an artist between them provided the excellent meals that astonished visitors; a metallurgist helped to keep the brass-work in a condition of polish. The small sum that had made each of us a shareholder in the enterprise had brought us, besides interesting adventures, financial results beyond all expectations. But that in itself had produced an element of disaffection in the ship's company. There were those who felt that, having money at their command, they would like to get to the business of spending it without further adventure, for even adventure such as ours, interesting as it was, becomes monotonous. There was a feeling of disappointment, in which I, with a definite reason for desiring to return to Brisbane, shared, when, lying in Port Moresby, we commenced to take in fresh stores. That was an indication that, instead of the return to Australia for which we had hoped, the skipper, as we called Darnell, intended to hold us to the full term of our three years' contract. It was a somewhat rigorous agreement Darnell had made us sign before we were admitted as shareholders, and one of its clauses made Darnell's leadership absolute. He was not one to reveal his plans until they were definite; and there was an under-current of grumbling as we waited at Port Moresby wondering what further employment was in store for us. It was while we were waiting that the missionary came aboard— a spare, weary man, in clothes worn shabby, and with definite signs of malaria upon him. "I'm looking for Captain Darnell," he said, gazing uncertainly about him; and then he saw the skipper, and guessing immediately that he was the man he was seeking strode over to him. "You are the captain, are you not?" he demanded. "My name's Darnell." "I have heard, a lot about you, Captain Darnell," said the missionary. "Your name's a household word, so to speak, in the islands now, with the adventures of the Seaflower. I thought you seemed to be the very man who would be interested in what I have to tell you. It's the story of a poor fellow who died a few weeks ago. Actually he asked me to see you. It's a rather fantastic story." "There are a lot of fantastic stories in the islands," smiled the skipper. "But this is— Can I speak to you privately?" asked the missionary. Darnell led him to his cabin; and although it was a long time before they reappeared we had no idea that the missionary's coming was the start of a new adventure, even when they said farewell at the top of the ship's gangway. But Darnell turned from his farewell to give the crisp, incisive orders to which we had become accustomed. The Seaflower was for the sea again, and, although there was no word of explanation to us, we realised that a plan for a new exploit had formed itself swiftly in the skipper's mind. Whatever lingering hopes had been entertained that the skipper, finding no work to attract him, would make an eleventh-hour resolve to return to Australia was at an end. Yet we sprang to work with an accustomed alacrity. For my own part, in spite of a disappointment rather heavy in my heart, I was intrigued by wonder at the cause for the swift departure. In a very brief space, the Seaflower was rising to the swell of the seas. It was not until those of the company not engaged on the watch were seated at dinner that we obtained any satisfaction for the curiosity that had been simmering amongst us. "What's our destination this time, skipper?" asked Charters suddenly. "sss Island," said the skipper, evenly, intent on his dinner. The brief reply created a silence. The name was new to us. "Sounds good," said Saunders, with a laugh, "Island of women, eh?" "According to accounts, an island where women rule the roost," said the skipper. "That's no different to any other place— island or continent," remarked Halpin. The skipper smiled. "We'll find it a very different place, I think," he said. "Unless I'm mistaken, we are about to enter upon one of the strangest and possibly the most dangerous of our adventures." "But where is the island? Is it on the map?" asked Saunders, who had risen and had been studying a map framed at the end of the saloon. "Maybe not," said the skipper. "There were old dots of land the old explorers failed to name; some perhaps they failed to see; many they never visited. Stranger things have happened to us than finding islands right off the track that vessels take in their normal course." "If the island exists—" The skipper sharply checked Saunders in his sneer. "If the island doesn't exist, a queerer thing will have to be explained. In the very midst of that part of ocean towards which we are making I picked up a castaway. That was the first hint I had of the existence of the island. He said he had come from the island. The finding of that man had become an almost forgotten memory with me until the missionary came aboard this morning at the port. What the missionary said revived my memory and I looked up old notes. "I'll tell you now what I know of the place: I was in charge of the old tramp The Iron Hand, having shipped at San Francisco to fill the place of the first mate who had died, and I was too hard-up just then to worry about the sinister reputation of the old tub. It lived up to it. The captain, who looked as hard as nails and fit to last another fifty years, when I first met him, was dead the second day out of port, from some disease that, since there was no medical mail on board, I don't know the name of yet, that's one of the experiences which makes me like to have a proper doctor on board; and, then, we struck a gale that drove us from hell to Kingdom-Come before it was done. When it was through, we were badly battered and the second mate was gone. I had a mixed crew which was not much to look at and worse to smell. We were well out of our course and having difficulties with ocean currents that were liable to twist me in queer problems on my reckoning— that's one of the reasons why the island may not have been found— when I was brought on deck with the news that a derelict boat had been sighted. Finding an island itself would have been no more surprising than seeing that boat there, chopping about on the small waves like a cork and obviously uncontrolled, with a leg-o'-mutton sail tied to an improvised mast. Just as I got my glass upon it, I saw some one was in the boat; there was a movement in it and something that looked like a human face was lifted for a moment above the gunwale, but dropped back again. "It did not take long to get the poor beggar on board, in spite of the useless swine I had for a crew; a horrible wreck, he looked, with his face cracked and sore with the salt and the sun, and his lips swollen up, and parched and cracking too. He was unconscious when we lifted him on board; but as we laid him in a bunk and moistened his face and lips with water he put a sudden grip on my arm that frightened me, 'Ye're men? Ye're men?' he whispered hoarsely— we could hardly catch the words but the terror forcing out what voice he had was manifest. 'Thank Gawd! Keep me from them hell-cats, mister! Keep me from them hell-cats!' And then he swooned right off again. "It was little of sense you could get from the raving he gave us when his voice came back a bit, as it did, though his strength didn't; but you could get the sense of his raving when you had pieced some of the calmer sense together. It was difficult dragging anything from him in spite of all my anxiety to get the strength of him before he passed out— it was whetted by curiosity roused by the bits of what he said that were understandable. You'd get him talking calmly for a weak word or two, and then he would start calling out in real terror about hell-cats and viragoes, torture and murder. It was like piecing together a picture puzzle; and the piecing may have been wrong in places; but, roughly, it was right. It would have been, roughly in any case, for Jeffries was a crude sailor and didn't know much. That was his name for certain. "What I made of it all was that Jeffries had joined up with some treasure-seeking expedition, easier times than knocking about in the usual trade and the prospect of a special divvy in the event of success, being the attraction. It was no use even trying to get any details of the voyage from Jeffries; he knew no more than the man in the moon— just did his work as a sailorman and didn't worry about anything else. Evidently the expedition reached the spot it was after—the place I call sss Island." "A treasure, too!" jeered Saunders. "Why not Treasure Island?" The interruption irritated the skipper. "We've found a few treasures, I think," he responded shortly. "It's not treasure we're after in any case; I want to find out about—" "Oh, shut up, Saunders!" commanded Charters. "Go ahead, skipper." "Jeffries didn't see much of the island at first; he was left aboard. Seemingly there was no idea of any danger to the ship when the shore parties left; but one night Jeffries was wakened by a hullabaloo and found himself seized and a prisoner. He knew that the predominant inhabitants of the island were women; and it was these women who took and bound him— a task, since Jeffries looked like a big fellow if he was in condition. The island women took him and the rest of the crew ashore— what was left of them, for, apparently, some had been killed in the scuffle. "What Jeffries said about the subsequent happenings was a mass of incoherence; that incoherence mentioned gold and jewels, and women who ruled the roost and people he talked about as 'workers'— slave men, I fancy. Jeffries himself was a close prisoner some time; but no straight tale could be got of what happened to him afterwards. He was flogged certainly; tortured and probably stabbed; the marks were on his body; but he seemed to be in favor with some of the island women, at least for a period. Apparently whole-sale murders occurred, strange deaths, horrors about which he could only rave. Anyway, he and two other men one an officer of the ship whom he was prepared to follow blindly— made up their minds to escape. There was pursuit; the other men were retaken or killed. Jeffries fell among some rocks, evidently thought to be dead; with darkness approaching he revived, but remained still; then when darkness fell, he made his way to the boat they had hidden in preparation, and so escaped. He had some provisions and water, but they were spoilt next day in a storm. His sufferings after that must have been awful; from what I could judge he had half-drifted and half-sailed for ten days when I found him. "Vague as the details are of what happened, a fearsome horror must have prompted such a desperate voyage— the man who planned it would not be the ignorant sailor Jeffries was, and it must have been because there was something worse than death to face in remaining that he decided upon a reckless alternative. And it's difficult for me to express to you the horror and terror of Jeffries's ravings during the four days before he died." "He died?" queried Halpin. "Even if we had skilled medical treatment to give him, he had no chance; when I remember his mangled, festered body on which all the old sores had opened up with malnutrition, I wonder he lived so long— it showed his toughness." "Whatever the ladies of sss Island happen to be," remarked Charters, "they appear to be anything but gentlemen." The skipper looked round grimly. "They are not. I saw Jeffries!" he said grimly. "Gentlemen, a visit to an sss Island may appear to be something of an amorous adventure; but I want to say this: it may be as strenuous an adventure as any we have met. You have all been loyal to our initial agreement that I am leader. Remember, I am leader still."