Sydney Fowler Wright - The Island of Captain Sparrow

Commencing to carry out this plan, which was not easy for one man only in the unquiet boat, he had to consider the length of free cable which he should allow. If it were much, the boat would not be centrally held; if little, how would it fare when the tide fell? And it could not fall with it, unless the cables broke. He pictured one breaking, while the others held, and the boat tipped up and its precious cargo scattered into the water.

It was true that he could watch, and pay out or shorten the cables as the need changed, but that could scarcely have been the intention of those who provided this means of security. He was led to wonder how deep might be the water beneath him. He sounded with the boat-hook, and struck rock at about four feet from the surface.

Reassured, he continued his work. If the tide, as he rightly supposed, were full, then his fears were groundless. Even while he worked, he knew that this was so, and that the boat was pulling outward on the ropes that held it.

Also, as he worked, he observed another thing with a fresh wonder. In the inner corner a flight of steps rose in the rock. They were very roughly cut, mere holes for the toes to enter. At intervals at either side, staples were fixed for the climber's hands to grip. The ladder—if it could be held worthy of such a name—ended in a black hole in a corner of the rock-roof.

Surely, he thought, if human hands had hollowed that great tunnel, they would have given it a less perilous exit. But the hands might not be the same—or they might not have intended that the ascent should be easy.

He considered whether he should attempt to explore it. He did not know what hostility he might arouse. He knew that the cargo which his boat contained would excite the cupidity of all but the most ignorant savages, and from such as they he might encounter a different danger. He believed that he was off the tracks of sea-traffic, or of charted land, and he knew that the lonelier islands of the vast Pacific were the last homes of cannibalism, and of savagery which appeared to be unable to understand any argument but that of extermination.

He realized that, should he climb those steps, his return could not be rapid, at whatever urgency. He realized also that, as the tide fell and his boat grounded, he would be trapped beyond the possibility of flight, should he continue to occupy the tunnel.

On the other hand, the sea offered a precarious hospitality. The steps that fronted him were the only possible alternative. Though it was true that his boat would become immobile as the water fell, it was equally so that no other boat could enter upon him at such a period.

The fact that there was provision for mooring a boat, and that it was vacant, suggested either that the tunnel was unused, or that those who occupied it were absent upon the sea.

He decided to wait till the tide fell, and, if nothing had then happened, he would climb the steps in the assurance that no one could approach the boat in his absence, or attack him in the rear of his exploration.

Meanwhile he was well armed, and none could come upon him hurriedly by such a descent. If a boat should enter while still the water allowed it, he would be trapped indeed, but that risk must be taken, and already it was almost over. There was a repeating rifle in the boat, and this he found and laid near to his hand while he manipulated the mooring ropes so that the boat was drawn close to the steps, and the hollow to which they led was directly above him. He looked up, but he could see nothing. The hole was square and black.

So he sat there, watching the tossing sunlit water at the cave-mouth, and the black vacancy above him, the rifle across his knee. After a time the boat grounded, gently enough, and the water receded from it. He looked to see the whole passage draining equally, but the waves still swept in. He perceived that the floor, which was now bare around him, sloped downward toward the entrance.

As the water receded, he left the boat, and followed it, not being minded to pursue his first intention until he were satisfied that entrance from seaward would be difficult or impossible. He thought also that, if he could look outward from the tunnel, he could observe whether there was any sign of human life on the waters.

He found leisure as he waited to wonder that the floor of the tunnel was bare and black as the waves left it. He would have thought that such a cave would be a trap for sand and shell, and all the ocean's débris. But he supposed that the smooth slope caused it to be washed clear as the tide receded.

Having no haste, he did not attempt to wade ahead of the tide's retreat. It was fortunate leisure, as he had realized before he stood, at a later hour, looking over an ocean which sparkled to a tropic sun and showed no sail. For the gentle slope had ended abruptly half-way down the passage, leaving only a narrow ledge of rock to follow on the left hand, apart from which the rock fell across the whole width to a depth he could not tell, for when the tide had fallen a dozen feet below, it had not found its limit.

But he was satisfied to see that, by this time, there was no way of gaining access from the empty seas except it were by the climbing of twelve feet of wall-like rock, against which the waves beat continually.

There were not even any steps such as those which he had resolved to attempt. He judged that they who made or used this tunnel, whether it were yesterday or a thousand years ago—and it might be either, for any means he had of deciding—did not intend that it should be entered, except at high tide, and that it was very certain that no one was now likely to attempt it.

He walked back confident that his rear was secure, and resolved to explore the mystery to which the steps led upward.

It was two months or more since Charlton Foyle had booked a passage to Honolulu on a trading schooner. He had been wandering aimlessly in the summer ways of the world, avoiding the death to which a dozen doctors had doomed him, yet not gaining the health without which life is of a doubtful value.

At Honolulu he had asked to continue on the schooner indefinitely. He did not like the two men who appeared to be the joint owners of the vessel, but that was an unimportant consideration, for he was indifferent to those around him. The schooner was well-found. He had lived less luxuriously on liners of fifty times the tonnage. He felt that the voyage had been beneficial beyond his previous experiences, and was anxious to continue it. They had demurred at first. They excused themselves on the plea that they would be visiting a succession of distant islands, at some of which they might be detained, and that the date of their return was uncertain.

When they found that this did not deter him, they named a figure which they probably thought would be prohibitive. But in the end they had agreed, though with obvious reluctance, and after a quarrel between themselves, which he had partly overheard, though he did not understand its meaning. In view of what he knew later, he was surprised that they had consented at all—unless they were each so afraid of the treachery of the other that they welcomed even a stranger, who must be an embarrassment later. Unless, of course, he were—removed.

He did not know, even now, what dark secrets might explain the events that had followed—which do not concern us now—though it is a tale which might be worth the telling. He only knew that, after a load, of whatever nature, had been taken aboard in the night-time from a nameless beach, they had burst into a sudden quarrel, in which knives had been drawn, and from which they had been separated by the efforts of a crew that appeared to consist about equally of the adherents of either.

And then, on a later night, when he had lain on deck, as he sometimes did, unsuspected in the shadows, and they were anchored beside another nameless beach, a boat had been lowered and stealthily loaded by the men who held the watch, one of the partners superintending. And just as it appeared that the work was finished, the other had rushed up, with his party behind him, and the deck had become the scene of sudden violence, oaths, bare knives, and pistol-shots, and the cough of a dying man.