Harry Collingwood - Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn

When at length the true breeze reached us it came away out from about South-East by South, enabling us still to lay our course, on the starboard tack, with the braces the merest trifle checked. Once fairly set in, the wind rapidly freshened until, when we of the afterguard went down to supper at seven o’clock that evening, a fiery breeze was humming through our tautened rigging, and the hooker was reeling off her seven knots, with the royal stowed, and a rapidly rising sea foaming under her lee bow.

It was a grand evening when, after supper, I went on deck for my usual “constitutional”. The salt, ozone-laden breeze was just cool enough to set one’s blood coursing freely through one’s veins and to fill one with the joy of living; the ship was making good headway; and the sky over our lee quarter was a gorgeous blaze of gold and colour where the sun was sinking in the midst of a galaxy of clouds of the most wonderful forms. It was like a yachting experience.

In those latitudes the glories of the sunset very quickly fade, and with their disappearance night falls upon the scene like the drawing of a curtain. So was it on the evening in question; but I had grown accustomed to those rapid nightfalls, and for a few minutes I, immersed in my own thoughts, was quite unaware of anything unusual in our surroundings. As the darkness deepened around us, however, it suddenly occurred to me that there was something strange in the appearance of the water; instead of its colour deepening under the shadow of night, as usual, it seemed to be becoming lighter, as though it was being diluted with increasing quantities of milk, until, as I stood and watched it, wondering, it became, first of all, snow-white, and then, as the darkness continued to deepen and the stars appeared, the entire ocean, from horizon to horizon, became a sea of luminous, molten silver, the weird, unearthly beauty of which there are no words to describe. Yet, beautiful as it was, the unusual, almost unique character of the phenomenon invested it with an awe-inspiring element that was not very far removed from terror, especially for the men on the forecastle, whose anxious glances aft, and restless, agitated movements sufficiently proclaimed their apprehension.

Presently Chips, who was in charge of the watch and who had been padding fore and aft on the lee side of the after-deck, crossed over and remarked:

“What’s the matter with the water to-night, Mr Blackburn? Boy and man I’ve used the sea a good twenty year and more, and never have I seen a sight like this. Do it signify anything particular, think ye?”

“Nothing beyond a most unusual and exceedingly beautiful state of phosphorescence,” I replied. “I have not used the sea for anything like so long a time as yourself, but I have seen something of the same kind once before, though nothing like so brilliant and beautiful as this. And it was not so very far from this spot that I saw it, while making the run from Cape Town to Melbourne. It is due to the presence, in quite unusual numbers, of the animalculae which produce the appearance of phosphorescence in the water; but while under ordinary circumstances those animalculae are only present in sufficient numbers to cause the usual appearance of stars and luminous clouds in agitated water, they are present here to-night in such incalculable myriads that the light they emit, instead of being more or less detached, is merged into one uniform blaze of the beautiful silvery radiance which we see. It may last for several hours yet, but sooner or later it will become normal again.”

My explanation seemed to afford Chips considerable relief, and he presently sauntered away for’ard, with the evident intention of allaying the apprehensions of the forecastle hands; while my prognostication as to the ending of the phenomenon was verified about an hour later.

There now ensued a full month and more during which we steadily plodded our way across the Indian Ocean, close-hauled day after day, with nothing more eventful than the occasional capture of a shark, or a capful of wind, to break the somewhat wearisome monotony of the voyage, during which I devoted an hour or two every day to the improvement of Master Billy Stenson’s education; also giving a considerable amount of study to the late skipper’s diary, in the endeavour to arrive at some sort of conclusion as to the whereabouts of the spot where Barber’s alleged treasure was to be looked for. Taking Barber’s determination of the latitude of the place, 3 degrees 50 minutes South, as being approximately correct, I ruled a pencil line representing that parallel right across the chart and noted the various islands that it crossed. Then, marking the spot where the man had been turned adrift by the Dutch skipper, I strove to trace the course over which the boat had drifted, taking into consideration the prevailing winds and currents, as set forth in the Sailing Directions; and in this way I ultimately arrived at the conclusion that the spot we were seeking would be found somewhere between the meridians of 125 degrees and 135 degrees east longitude. Still assuming Barber’s story to be true, I reasoned that the fact of the stranded ship having remained so long where she was, apparently unvisited and uninterfered with — until the Englishman’s arrival upon the scene — argued that she was to be found on an island not only uninhabited but also very rarely visited; and reasoning thus I was at length enabled to make a fairly shrewd guess as to the most likely direction in which to look for her; and in that direction I accordingly headed the ship.

It was about a month after our passage through Maurissa Strait that, as we were working to windward against a light and fickle breeze, land was sighted about three points on the weather bow. The time was close upon eight bells in the afternoon watch, and the land sighted was a mere dot of faintest blue showing just clear of the horizon. I had been anticipating its appearance at any moment since I had worked out my sights at noon and pricked off the ship’s position on the chart, for the spot of which we were in search was no unknown, mysterious island. Careful study of Barber’s narrative, as recorded in the late Skipper Stenson’s diary, had convinced me that the island was quite well known and had been more or less thoroughly surveyed; and exhaustive study of the diary and the chart combined had finally led me to the conclusion that if the treasure really existed it would be found not very far from the peak that had just hove in sight. But of that I should perhaps be better able to judge when I could see a little more of it. I therefore took the ship’s telescope out of the beckets where it hung in the companion, and, slinging it over my shoulder, made my way up to the royal yard, where I seated myself comfortably and, steadying the tube of the instrument against the masthead, brought it to bear upon the land to windward. From my elevated position this now showed as a steep cone of moderate height rising from one extremity of a long range of lofty hills running away in a south-easterly direction until they sank below the horizon.

So far, so good; the contours of the distant land, as revealed by the lenses of the telescope, agreed in a general way fairly accurately with a sketch — made from memory by Barber — in the late skipper’s diary, illustrating a passage descriptive of the appearance of the treasure country as it had appeared to the man upon his departure from it. If, as we drew nearer, a certain arrangement of white rocks outcropping on the hill-side immediately below the cone should reveal itself, I should then know, beyond all possibility of doubt, that I had found the spot of which we were in search. But this condition of certainty could not possibly be arrived at before the morrow, at the earliest, for the land was quite fifty miles away, it was dead to windward, and the ship — working up against a light breeze — was approaching it at the rate of less than a knot an hour.