第23章

Six months had passed away since the advent of my visitors, when one morning we all marched out from the hut and down to the beach;the two boys fairly yelling with joy, and waving bunches of green corn plucked from my garden.Their mother skipped gaily hither and thither, and I myself was hardly able to control my transports of excitement and exhilaration.Even Gunda beamed upon the preparations for our release.I did not demolish my hut of pearl shells, but left it standing exactly as it had been during the past two and a half years.Nor must I omit to mention that I buried my treasure of pearls deep in the sand at one end of the island, and in all human probability it is there at this moment, for I have never returned for them, as I fondly hoped to be able to do so at some future date.It is, of course, possible that the precious box has been washed away in a storm, but more probably the contrary is the case, and still deeper layers of sand have been silted over this great treasure.I dared not carry anything oversea that was not vitally necessary, and what good were pearls to me on my fearful journey, convoying four other people out into the unknown in a crazy, home-made boat? Even masses of virgin gold were of very little use to me in the years that followed; but of this more anon.My condition, by the way, at this time was one of robust health; indeed, I was getting quite stout owing to the quantity of turtle I had been eating, whilst Yamba's husband was positively corpulent from the same reason.

That glorious morning in the last week of May 1866 will ever be graven in my memory.As I cast off from that saving but cruel shore, I thanked my Maker for having preserved me so long and brought me through such awful perils, as well as for the good health I had always enjoyed.As the boat began to ripple through the inclosed waters of the lagoon, the spirits of the four blacks rose so high that I was afraid they would capsize the little craft in their excitement.

There was a strong, warm breeze blowing in our favour, and soon my island home was receding swiftly from our view.The last thing to remain in sight was the shell hut, but this, too, disappeared before we had covered three miles.It would have been visible from a big ship at a much greater distance, but no one would ever imagine what it really was.Yamba sat near me in the stern, but her husband curled himself up at the opposite end of the boat; and from the time we reached the open sea practically until we gained the main, he did not relax his attitude of reserve and dogged silence.He ate and drank enormously, however.You would have thought we were in a land flowing with milk and honey, instead of an open boat with limited provisions and an unknown journey in front of us.He did exert himself sufficiently on one occasion, however, to dive overboard and capture a turtle.He was sitting moodily in the prow of the boat as usual one afternoon, when suddenly he jumped up, and with a yell took a header overboard, almost capsizing our heavily laden boat.At first I thought he must have gone mad, but on heaving to, I saw him some little distance away in the water struggling with a turtle.He managed to get it on its back after a time, and though I felt annoyed at his recklessness, I could not help laughing at his antics and the comical efforts made by the turtle to escape.The turtle was duly hauled aboard, and we then continued our voyage without delay.Iwas dreadfully afraid of being caught in a storm.Our boat must inevitably have foundered had the seas been at all rough.

Fortunately never once did the wind change, so that we were able to sail on steadily and safely night and day, without deviating in the least from our course.We travelled fully four knots an hour, the wind and current being nearly always in our favour.It was, however, a painfully monotonous and trying experience to sit thus in the boat, cramped up as we were, day after day and night after night.About the fifth day we sighted a small island--probably Barker Island, in the vicinity of Admiralty Gulf--and landed upon it at once solely for the purpose of stretching our aching limbs.

This little island was uninhabited, and covered to the very water's edge with dense tropical vegetation.It was a perfectly exhilarating experience to walk about on real earth once more.We cooked some turtle meat and stayed a few hours on the island, after which we entered the boat and put off on our journey again.Just before leaving I stored a quantity of corn, cobs, seeds, &c., in a little cairn in case we might be compelled to return.I always steered, keeping east by north, but Yamba relieved me for a few hours each evening--generally between six and nine o'clock, when Ienjoyed a brief but sound sleep.Gunda never offered to take a spell, and I did not think it worth while to trouble him.

Thus night and day we sailed steadily on, occasionally sighting sharks and even whales.We passed a great number of islands, some of them wooded and covered with beautiful jungle growths, whilst others were nothing but rock and sand.None of them seemed to be inhabited.The sea was smooth all the time, but occasionally the currents carried us out of our course among the islands, and then we had to land and wait till the tide turned.No matter how the wind was, if the tide was not also in our favour we had to land.

We cruised in and out among the islands for ten days or more, when we rounded Cape Londonderry and then steered S.by E.The current, however, carried us straight for Cambridge Gulf.One little island I sighted between Cambridge Gulf and Queen's Channel had a curious house-like structure built in one of the trees on the coast.The trunk of this tree was very large and tapering, and the platform arrangement was built amongst the branches at the top, after the manner adopted by the natives of New Guinea.