Samuel Hopkins Adams

“ I looked up. The Nigger's head was thrust forward fairly into the glow from the companionway. The mask of his sullenness had fallen. His eyes fairly rolled in excitement, his thick lips were drawn back to expose his teeth, his powerful figure was gathered with the tensity of a bow. When the door slammed, he turned silently to glide away. At that instant the watch was changed, and in a moment I found myself in my bunk.
Ten seconds later the Nigger, detained by Captain Selover for some trifling duty, burst into the forecastle. He was possessed by the wildest excitement. ”

“ It was marvellously coloured, like all the volcanic rocks of this island. In addition some chemical drip had thrown across its vividness long gauzy streamers of white. We rowed in as far as the faintest daylight lasted us. The occasional reverberating boom of the surges seemed as distant as ever.
This was beyond the seal rookery on the beach. Below it we entered an open cleft of some size to another squarer cave. It was now high tide; the water extended a scant ten fathoms to end on an interior shale beach. The cave was a perfectly straight passage following the line of the cleft. ”

“ We felt the strong suction under our keel, and staggered under the jerk of the ship's cable as she swung toward the beach. The paint was beginning to crackle along the rail. We could see nothing for the scalding white veil that enveloped us; we could hear nothing for the roar of steam, the bombardment of explosions, and the crash of thunder; but our nostrils were assaulted by a most unearthly medley of smells.
"Hell's loose," growled Thrackles.
We were clinging hard as the ship reeled. Huge surges were racing in from seaward, growing larger with each successive billow. ”

“ As if set to a powder train, it ran through the ship. The pale faces of the spectators shone ghastly in its radiance. From someone burst a sudden gasp.
"There is not enough for danger," said Darrow, quietly.
"As a point of interest," grunted Trendon.
Everyone looked at his outstretched hand. A little pocket compass lay in the palm. The needle spun madly, projecting blue, vivid sparklings.
"My God!" cried Slade, and covered his eyes for a moment. ”

“ After the sails were on her we gathered at the starboard rail to watch the shore. There the hills ran into inky blackness, as the horizon sometimes merges into a thunder squall. A dense white steam came from the creek bed within the arroyo. The surges beat on the shore louder than the ordinary, and the foam, even in these day hours, seemed to throw up a faint phosphorescence. Frequent earthquakes oscillated the landscape. We watched, I do not know for what, our eyes straining into the murk of the island. Nobody thought of the chest, which lay on the cabin table aft. ”

“ In the firelight the Nigger's sullen face looked sinister, Pulz's nervous white countenance looked vicious. Thrackles' heavy, bulldog expression was threatening, Perdosa's Mexican cast fit for knife work in the back. And Handy Solomon, stretched out, leaning on his elbow, with his red headgear, his snaky hair, his hook nose, his restless eye and his glittering steel claw--the glow wrote across his aura the names of Kid, Morgan, Blackbeard. They sat smoking, staring into the fire with mesmerised eyes. ”

“ There were the donkey engine and the works we had constructed for wrecking--and there beside them, watching us reflectively, stood Percy Darrow.
For ten minutes we stared at him fascinated, during which time the ship laboured against the staggering winds, gained and lost in its buffeting with the great surges. The breakers hurling themselves in wild abandon against the rocks sent their back-wash of tumbling peaks to our very bilges. The few remains of the Golden Horn, alternately drenched and draining, seemed to picture to us our inevitable end. ”

“ Generally I lay across my bunk smoking my pipe while Handy Solomon held forth, his speech punctuated by surly speculations from the Nigger, with hesitating deep-sea wisdom from the hairy Thrackles, or with voluminous bursts of fractured English from Perdosa. Pulz had nothing to offer, but watched from his pale green eyes. The light shifted and wavered from one to the other as the ship swayed: garments swung; the empty berths yawned cavernous. I could imagine the forecastle filled with the desperate men who had beaten off the Oyama. ”

“ Within half an hour the gig had reached the mouth of the cave. As the coxswain had predicted, the seas ran into the lofty entrance. Elsewhere the surf fell whitely, but through the arch the waves rolled unbroken into a heavy stillness. Only as the boat hovered for a moment at the face of the cliff could the exploring party hear, far within, the hollow boom that told of breakers on a distant, subterranean beach.
"Run her in easy," came the captain's order. "Keep a sharp lookout for hidden rocks." ”

“ All night the officers of the Wolverine slept on the verge of waking, but it was not until dawn that the cry of "Sail-ho!" sent them all hurrying to their clothes. Ordinarily officers of the U.S. Navy do not scuttle on deck like a crowd of curious schoolgirls, but all hands had been keyed to a high pitch over the elusive light, and the bet with Edwards now served as an excuse for the betrayal of unusual eagerness. Hence the quarter-deck was soon alive with men who were wont to be deep in dreams at that hour.
They found Carter, whose watch on deck it was, reprimanding the lookout. ”

“ Now the seamen distributed themselves for more leisurely and accurate marksmanship. Handy Solomon lay flat on his stomach, resting the rifle muzzle across the top of a sand dune. Pulz sat down, an elbow on either knee for the greater steadiness. The Nigger knelt; but Thrackles remained on his feet. No rest could be steadier than the stone-like rigidity of his thick arms.
The firing now became miscellaneous. No one paid any attention to anyone else. Each discovered what I could have told them, that even the human figure at five hundred yards is a small mark for a strange rifle. ”

“ Remember to earn your wages, Mr. Eagen!"
He turned away to the binnacle. In spite of his personal filth, in spite of the lawless, almost piratical, character of the man, in that moment I could not but admire him. If Percy Darrow was ignorant of the purposes of this expedition, how much more so Captain Selover. Yet he accepted his trust blindly, and as far as I could then see, intended to fulfil it faithfully. I liked him none the worse for snubbing me. It indicated a streak in his moral nature akin to and quite as curious as his excessive neatness regarding his immediate surroundings. ”

“ It ceased, and with the growl of a leaping animal a squall furiously beset the ship. Soon the great steel body was plunging and heaving in the billows. It was a gloomy company about the wardroom table. Upon each and all hung an oppression of spirit. Captain Parkinson came from his cabin and went on deck. Constitutionally he was a nervous and pessimistic man with a fixed belief in the conspiracy of events, banded for the undoing of him and his. Blind or dubious conditions racked his soul, but real danger found him not only prepared, but even eager. ”

“ A moment later I caught a glimpse of Handy Solomon bent forward to the labour of dragging a body toward the sea, his steel claw hooked under the angle of the jaw as a man handles a fish. Pulz came and threw off my bonds and gag.
"Come along!" said he.
All kept looking fearfully toward the arroyo. A dense white steam marked its course. The air was now heavy with portent. Successive explosions, some light, some severe, shook the foundations of the island. Great rocks and boulders bounded down the hills. The flashes of lightning had become more frequent. ”

“ Only it seems--"
"There it is," cried Forsythe. "Look. The highest point."
Dull, gray wisps of murk, the afterguard of the gaseous cloud, were twisting and spiraling in a witch-dance across the landscape, and, seen by snatches and glimpses through it, something flapped darkly in the breeze. Suddenly the veil parted and fled. A flag stood forth in the sharp gust, rigid, and appalling. It was black.
"The Jolly Roger, by God! They've come back!" exclaimed Forsythe.
"And set up the sign of their shop," added Barnett.
"If they stuck to their flag--good-bye," observed Trendon grimly. ”

“ So deep was the sense of awe that Handy Solomon unbent enough to whisper to me:
"I don't take any stock in the Nigger's talk ordinarily. He's a hell of a fool nigger. But when his eye looks like that, then you want to listen close. He sees things then. Lots of times he's seen things. Even last year--the Oyama--he told about her three days ahead. That's why we were so ready for her," he chuckled.
Nothing more developed for a long time except a savage fight between Pulz and Perdosa. I hunted sheep, fished, wandered about--always with an escort tired to death before he started. ”

“ Perdosa more snake-like; Pulz more viciously evil; Thrackles more brutal; while Handy Solomon staggering from his seat to the open keg and back again, roaring fragments of a chanty, his red headgear contrasting with his smoky black hair and his swarthy hook-nosed countenance--he needed no further touch. ”

“ After the volcanic gases had driven me to the refuge, I sat near the mouth of the cave looking out into the darkness. That was the night of the 7th, the night you saw the last glow. It was very dark, except for occasional bursts of fire from the crater. Judge of my incredulous amazement when, in an access of this illumination, I saw plainly a schooner hardly a mile off shore, coming in under bare poles."
"Under bare poles?" cried Slade.
"The halliards must have disintegrated from some slow action of the celestium. It could be destructive: terrifically destructive. You shall judge. ”

“ Every once in a while one of us would snatch a glance to leeward at the cruel, white waters, the whirl of eddies where the sea was beaten, only to hurry back to the rock and the point of the cliff whence our message of safety or destruction was to be flung. Once I looked up. Percy Darrow was leaning gracefully against a stanchion, watching. ”

“ Darrow nodded. "Are you the only survivor?" he inquired.
"Except yourself."
"The Nigger? Pulz? Thrackles? The captain? All drowned?"
"Not the captain. They murdered him."
"Ah," said Darrow softly. "And you--I beg your pardon--your--er--friends disposed of the doctor in the same way?"
"Handy Solomon," replied Slade with shaking lips. "Hell's got that fiend, if there's a hell for human fiends. They threw the doctor's body in the surf." ”

“ Thrackles was for a ship and the China trade.
"What you want, Doctor?" they demanded of the silent Nigger.
But the Nigger only rolled his eyes and shook his head. By and by he arose and disappeared in the dusk and was no more seen.
"Dam' fool," muttered Handy Solomon. "Well, here's to crime!"
He drank a deep cup of the raw rum, and staggered back to his seat on the sands.
"'I am not a man-o'-war, nor a privateer,' said he. Blow high, blow low! What care we! 'But I am a jolly pirate and I'm sailing for my fee,' Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e." ”

“ Captain Selover took charge of us when we had reached this period. He and the Nigger and Perdosa had long since finished the installation of the permanent camp. They had built us huts from the wreck, collecting stateroom doors for the sides, and hatches for the roofs, huge and solid, with iron rings in them. The bronze and iron ventilation gratings to the doors gave us glimpses of the coast through fretwork; the rich inlaying of woods surrounded us. We set up on a solid rock the galley stove--with its rails to hold the cooking pots from upsetting, in a sea way. ”

“ To-night I am the last leaf. 'All his lovely companions are faded and gone,' the sprightly Solomon, the psychic Nigger, the amiable Thrackles, the cheerful Perdosa, the genial Pulz, and the high-minded Eagen. Undoubtedly the social atmosphere has cleared; moreover, I am for the first time in my life a landed proprietor. Item: several square miles of grass land; item: several dozen head of sheep; item: a cove full of fish; item: a handsomely decorated cave; item: a sportive though somewhat unruly volcano. At times, it may be, I shall feel the lack of company. ”

“ My name is Percy Darrow."
"I am Captain Parkinson of the United States cruiser Wolverine," said the commander. "This is Mr. Barnett, Mr. Darrow. Dr. Trendon, Mr. Darrow."
They shook hands all around.
"Like some damned silly afternoon tea," Trendon said later, in retailing it to the mess. A pause followed.
"Won't you step in, gentlemen?" said Darrow, "May I offer you the makings of a cigarette?"
"Wouldn't you be robbing yourself?" inquired the captain, with a twinkle. ”