Shipwrecked Six Pack (Illustrated)

Chapter IX-1

Chapter IXThe winds at length were lulled, the sun shot his brilliant rays through the riven clouds, the rain ceased to fall—spring had come. No prisoners set at liberty could have felt more joy than we did as we stepped forth from our winter abode, refreshed our eyes with the pleasant verdure around us, and our ears with the merry songs of a thousand happy birds, and drank in the pure, balmy air of spring.

Our plantations were thriving vigorously. The seed we had sown was shooting through the moist earth. All nature was refreshed.

Our nest was our first care; filled with leaves and broken and torn by the wind, it looked indeed dilapidated. We worked hard, and in a few days it was again inhabitable. My wife begged that I would now start her with the flax, and as early as possible I built a drying-oven, and then prepared it for her use; I also, after some trouble, manufactured a beetle-reel and spinning-wheel, and she and Franz were soon hard at work, the little boy reeling off the thread his mother spun.

I was anxious to visit Tentholm, for I feared that much of our precious stores might have suffered. Fritz and I made an excursion thither. The damage done to Falconhurst was as nothing compared to the scene that awaited us. The tent was blown to the ground, the canvas torn to rags, the provisions soaked, and two casks of powder utterly destroyed. We immediately spread such things as we hoped yet to preserve in the sun to dry. The pinnace was safe, but our faithful tub-boat was dashed in pieces, and the irreparable damage we had sustained made me resolve to contrive some safer and more stable winter-quarters before the arrival of the next rainy season. Fritz proposed that we should hollow out a cave in the rock, and though the difficulties such an undertaking would present appeared almost insurmountable, I yet determined to make the attempt; we might not, I thought, hew out a cavern of sufficient size to serve as a room, but we might at least make a cellar for the more valuable and perishable of our stores.

Some days afterward we left Falconhurst with the cart laden with a cargo of spades, hammers, chisels, pickaxes, and crowbars, and began our undertaking. On the smooth face of the perpendicular rock I drew out in chalk the size of the proposed entrance, and then, with minds bent on success, we battered away. Six days of hard and incessant toil made but little impression; I do not think that the hole would have been a satisfactory shelter for even Master Knips; but we still did not despair, and were presently rewarded by coming to softer and more yielding substance; our work progressed, and our minds were relieved.

On the tenth day, as our persevering blows were falling heavily, Jack, who was working diligently with a hammer and crowbar, shouted:

"Gone, father! Fritz, my bar has gone through the mountain!"

"Run around and get it," laughed Fritz; "perhaps it has dropped into Europe—you must not lose a good crowbar."

"But, really, it is through; it went right through the rock; I heard it crash down inside. Oh, do come and see!" he shouted excitedly.

We sprang to his side, and I thrust the handle of my hammer into the hole he spoke of; it met with no opposition, I could turn it in any direction I chose. Fritz handed me a long pole; I tried the depth with that. Nothing could I feel. A thin wall, then, was all that intervened between us and a great cavern.

With a shout of joy, the boys battered vigorously at the rock; piece by piece fell, and soon the hole was large enough for us to enter. I stepped near the aperture, and was about to make a further examination, when a sudden rush of poisonous air turned me giddy, and shouting to my sons to stand off, I leaned against the rock.

When I came to myself I explained to them the danger of approaching any cavern or other place where the air has for a long time been stagnant. "Unless air is incessantly renewed it becomes vitiated," I said, "and fatal to those who breathe it. The safest way of restoring it to its original state is to subject it to the action of fire, a few handfuls of blazing hay thrown into this hole may, if the place is small, sufficiently purify the air within to allow us to enter without danger." We tried the experiment. The flame was extinguished the instant it entered. Though bundles of blazing grass were thrown in, no difference was made.

I saw that we must apply some more efficacious remedy, and sent the boys for a chest of signal rockets we had brought from the wreck. We let fly some dozens of these fiery serpents, which went whizzing in, and disappeared at apparently a vast distance from us. Some flew like radiant meteors round, lighted up the mighty circumference and displayed, as by a magician's wand, a sparkling, glittering roof. They looked like avenging dragons driving a foul, malignant fiend out of a beauteous palace.

We waited for a little while after these experiments, and I then again threw in lighted hay. It burned clearly; the air was purified.

Fritz and I enlarged the opening, while Jack, springing on his buffalo, thundered away to Falconhurst to bear the great and astonishing news to his mother.

Great must have been the effect of Jack's eloquence on those at home, for the timbers of the bridge were soon again resounding under the swift but heavy tramp of his steed; and he was quickly followed by the rest of our party in the cart.

All were in the highest state of excitement. Jack had stowed in the cart all the candles he could find, and we now, lighting these, shouldered our arms and entered. I led the way, sounding the ground as I advanced with a long pole, that we might not fall unexpectedly into any great hole or chasm. Silently we marched—the mother, the boys, and even the dogs seeming overawed with the grandeur and beauty of the scene. We were in a grotto of diamonds—a vast cave of glittering crystal: the candles reflected on the walls a golden light, bright as the stars of heaven, while great crystal pillars rose from the floor like mighty trees, mingling their branches high above us and drooping in hundreds of stalactites, which sparkled and glittered with all the colors of the rainbow.

The floor of this magnificent palace was formed of hard, dry sand, so dry that I saw at once that we might safely take up our abode therein, without the slightest fear of danger from damp.

From the appearance of the brilliant crystals round about us I suspected their nature.

I tasted a piece. This was a cavern of rock salt. There was no doubt about it—here was an unlimited supply of the best and purest salt! But one thing detracted from my entire satisfaction and delight—large crystals lay scattered here and there, which, detached from the roof, had fallen to the ground; this, if apt to recur, would keep us in constant peril. I examined some of the masses and discovered that they had been all recently separated, and therefore concluded that the concussion of the air occasioned by the rockets had caused their fall. To satisfy ourselves, however, that there were no more pieces tottering above us, we discharged our guns from the entrance, and watched the effect. Nothing more fell—our magnificent abode was safe.

We returned to Falconhurst with minds full of wonder at our new discovery, and plans for turning it to the best possible advantage.

Nothing was now talked of but the new house, how it should be arranged, how it should be fitted up. The safety and comfort of Falconhurst, which had at first seemed so great, now dwindled away in our opinion to nothing; it should be kept up, we decided, merely as a summer residence, while our cave should be formed into a winter house and impregnable castle. Our attention was now fully occupied with this new house. Light and air were to be admitted, so we hewed a row of windows in the rock, where we fitted the window cases we had brought from the officers' cabins. We brought the door, too, from Falconhurst, and fitted it in the aperture we had made. The opening in the trunk of the tree I determined to conceal with bark, as less likely to attract the notice of wild beasts or savages should they approach during our absence. The cave itself we divided into four parts: in front, a large compartment into which the door opened, subdivided into our sitting, eating, and sleeping apartments; the right-hand division containing our kitchen and workshop, and the left our stables; behind all this, in the dark recesses of the cave, was our storehouse and powder-magazine. Having already undergone one rainy season, we knew well its discomforts, and thought of many useful arrangements in the laying out of our dwelling. We did not intend to be again smoke-dried; we therefore contrived a properly built fire place and chimney; our stable arrangements, too, were better, and plenty of space was left in our workshop that we should not be hampered in even the most extensive operations.

Our frequent residence at Tentholm revealed to us several important advantages which we had not foreseen. Numbers of splendid turtles often came ashore to deposit their eggs in the sand, and their delicious flesh afforded us many a sumptuous meal. When more than one of these creatures appeared at a time, we used to cut off their retreat to the sea, and, turning them on their backs, fasten them to a stake driven in close by the water's edge, by a cord passed through a hole in their shell. We thus had fresh turtle continually within our reach; for the animals throve well thus secured, and appeared in as good condition, after having been kept thus for several weeks, as others when freshly caught. Lobsters, crabs, and mussels also abounded on the shore. But this was not all; an additional surprise awaited us.

As we were one morning approaching Tentholm, we were attracted by a most curious phenomenon. The waters out at sea appeared agitated by some unseen movement, and as they heaved and boiled, their surface, struck by the beams of the morning sun, seemed illuminated by flashes of fire. Over the water where this disturbance was taking place hovered hundreds of birds, screaming loudly, which ever and anon would dart downward, some plunging beneath the water, some skimming the surface. Then again they would rise and resume their harsh cries. The shining, sparkling mass then rolled onward, and approached in a direct line our bay, followed by the feathered flock above. We hurried down to the shore to further examine this strange sight.

I was convinced as we approached that it was a shoal or bank of herrings.

No sooner did I give utterance to my conjecture than I was assailed by a host of questions concerning this herring-bank, what it was, and what occasioned it.

"A herring-bank," I said, "is composed of an immense number of herrings swimming together. I can scarcely express to you the huge size of this living bank, which extends over a great area many fathoms deep. It is followed by numbers of great ravenous fish, who devour quantities of the herrings, while above hover birds, as you have just seen, ready to pounce down on stragglers near the top. To escape these enemies, the shoal makes for the nearest shore, and seeks safety in those shallows where the large fish cannot follow. But here it meets with a third great enemy. It may escape from the fish, and elude the vigilance of sharp-sighted birds, but from the ingenuity of man it can find no escape. In one year millions of these fish are caught, and yet the roes of only a small number would be sufficient to supply as many fish again."

Soon our fishery was in operation. Jack and Fritz stood in the water with baskets, and baled out the fish, as one bales water with a bucket, throwing them to us on the shore. As quickly as possible we cleaned them, and placed them in casks with salt, first a layer of salt, and then a layer of herrings, and so on, until we had ready many casks of pickled fish.