The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables, Page 3

  CHAPTER III. LAND AND SEA IN SANDAG BAY.

  I was early afoot next morning; and as soon as I had a bite to eat, setforth upon a tour of exploration. Something in my heart distinctly toldme that I should find the ship of the Armada; and although I did not giveway entirely to such hopeful thoughts, I was still very light in spiritsand walked upon air. Aros is a very rough islet, its surface strewn withgreat rocks and shaggy with fernland heather; and my way lay almost northand south across the highest knoll; and though the whole distance wasinside of two miles it took more time and exertion than four upon a levelroad. Upon the summit, I paused. Although not very high--not threehundred feet, as I think--it yet outtops all the neighbouring lowlands ofthe Ross, and commands a great view of sea and islands. The sun, whichhad been up some time, was already hot upon my neck; the air was listlessand thundery, although purely clear; away over the north-west, where theisles lie thickliest congregated, some half-a-dozen small and raggedclouds hung together in a covey; and the head of Ben Kyaw wore, notmerely a few streamers, but a solid hood of vapour. There was a threatin the weather. The sea, it is true, was smooth like glass: even theRoost was but a seam on that wide mirror, and the Merry Men no more thancaps of foam; but to my eye and ear, so long familiar with these places,the sea also seemed to lie uneasily; a sound of it, like a long sigh,mounted to me where I stood; and, quiet as it was, the Roost itselfappeared to be revolving mischief. For I ought to say that all wedwellers in these parts attributed, if not prescience, at least a qualityof warning, to that strange and dangerous creature of the tides.

  I hurried on, then, with the greater speed, and had soon descended theslope of Aros to the part that we call Sandag Bay. It is a pretty largepiece of water compared with the size of the isle; well sheltered fromall but the prevailing wind; sandy and shoal and bounded by lowsand-hills to the west, but to the eastward lying several fathoms deepalong a ledge of rocks. It is upon that side that, at a certain timeeach flood, the current mentioned by my uncle sets so strong into thebay; a little later, when the Roost begins to work higher, an undertowruns still more strongly in the reverse direction; and it is the actionof this last, as I suppose, that has scoured that part so deep. Nothingis to be seen out of Sandag Bay, but one small segment of the horizonand, in heavy weather, the breakers flying high over a deep sea reef.

  From half-way down the hill, I had perceived the wreck of February last,a brig of considerable tonnage, lying, with her back broken, high and dryon the east corner of the sands; and I was making directly towards it,and already almost on the margin of the turf, when my eyes were suddenlyarrested by a spot, cleared of fern and heather, and marked by one ofthose long, low, and almost human-looking mounds that we see so commonlyin graveyards. I stopped like a man shot. Nothing had been said to meof any dead man or interment on the island; Rorie, Mary, and my uncle hadall equally held their peace; of her at least, I was certain that shemust be ignorant; and yet here, before my eyes, was proof indubitable ofthe fact. Here was a grave; and I had to ask myself, with a chill, whatmanner of man lay there in his last sleep, awaiting the signal of theLord in that solitary, sea-beat resting-place? My mind supplied noanswer but what I feared to entertain. Shipwrecked, at least, he musthave been; perhaps, like the old Armada mariners, from some far and richland over-sea; or perhaps one of my own race, perishing within eyesightof the smoke of home. I stood awhile uncovered by his side, and I couldhave desired that it had lain in our religion to put up some prayer forthat unhappy stranger, or, in the old classic way, outwardly to honourhis misfortune. I knew, although his bones lay there, a part of Aros,till the trumpet sounded, his imperishable soul was forth and far away,among the raptures of the everlasting Sabbath or the pangs of hell; andyet my mind misgave me even with a fear, that perhaps he was near mewhere I stood, guarding his sepulchre, and lingering on the scene of hisunhappy fate.

  Certainly it was with a spirit somewhat over-shadowed that I turned awayfrom the grave to the hardly less melancholy spectacle of the wreck. Herstem was above the first arc of the flood; she was broken in two a littleabaft the foremast--though indeed she had none, both masts having brokenshort in her disaster; and as the pitch of the beach was very sharp andsudden, and the bows lay many feet below the stern, the fracture gapedwidely open, and you could see right through her poor hull upon thefarther side. Her name was much defaced, and I could not make outclearly whether she was called _Christiania_, after the Norwegian city,or _Christiana_, after the good woman, Christian's wife, in that old bookthe 'Pilgrim's Progress.' By her build she was a foreign ship, but I wasnot certain of her nationality. She had been painted green, but thecolour was faded and weathered, and the paint peeling off in strips. Thewreck of the mainmast lay alongside, half buried in sand. She was aforlorn sight, indeed, and I could not look without emotion at the bitsof rope that still hung about her, so often handled of yore by shoutingseamen; or the little scuttle where they had passed up and down to theiraffairs; or that poor noseless angel of a figure-head that had dippedinto so many running billows.

  I do not know whether it came most from the ship or from the grave, but Ifell into some melancholy scruples, as I stood there, leaning with onehand against the battered timbers. The homelessness of men and even ofinanimate vessels, cast away upon strange shores, came strongly in uponmy mind. To make a profit of such pitiful misadventures seemed anunmanly and a sordid act; and I began to think of my then quest as ofsomething sacrilegious in its nature. But when I remembered Mary, I tookheart again. My uncle would never consent to an imprudent marriage, norwould she, as I was persuaded, wed without his full approval. It behovedme, then, to be up and doing for my wife; and I thought with a laugh howlong it was since that great sea-castle, the _Espirito Santo_, had lefther bones in Sandag Bay, and how weak it would be to consider rights solong extinguished and misfortunes so long forgotten in the process oftime.

  I had my theory of where to seek for her remains. The set of the currentand the soundings both pointed to the east side of the bay under theledge of rocks. If she had been lost in Sandag Bay, and if, after thesecenturies, any portion of her held together, it was there that I shouldfind it. The water deepens, as I have said, with great rapidity, andeven close along-side the rocks several fathoms may be found. As Iwalked upon the edge I could see far and wide over the sandy bottom ofthe bay; the sun shone clear and green and steady in the deeps; the bayseemed rather like a great transparent crystal, as one sees them in alapidary's shop; there was naught to show that it was water but aninternal trembling, a hovering within of sun-glints and netted shadows,and now and then a faint lap and a dying bubble round the edge. Theshadows of the rocks lay out for some distance at their feet, so that myown shadow, moving, pausing, and stooping on the top of that, reachedsometimes half across the bay. It was above all in this belt of shadowsthat I hunted for the _Espirito Santo_; since it was there the undertowran strongest, whether in or out. Cool as the whole water seemed thisbroiling day, it looked, in that part, yet cooler, and had a mysteriousinvitation for the eyes. Peer as I pleased, however, I could see nothingbut a few fishes or a bush of sea-tangle, and here and there a lump ofrock that had fallen from above and now lay separate on the sandy floor.Twice did I pass from one end to the other of the rocks, and in the wholedistance I could see nothing of the wreck, nor any place but one where itwas possible for it to be. This was a large terrace in five fathoms ofwater, raised off the surface of the sand to a considerable height, andlooking from above like a mere outgrowth of the rocks on which I walked.It was one mass of great sea-tangles like a grove, which prevented mejudging of its nature, but in shape and size it bore some likeness to avessel's hull. At least it was my best chance. If the _Espirito Santo_lay not there under the tangles, it lay nowhere at all in Sandag Bay; andI prepared to put the question to the proof, once and for all, and eithergo back to Aros a rich man or cured for ever of my dreams of wealth.

  I stripped to the skin, and stood on the extreme margin with my handsclas
ped, irresolute. The bay at that time was utterly quiet; there wasno sound but from a school of porpoises somewhere out of sight behind thepoint; yet a certain fear withheld me on the threshold of my venture. Sadsea-feelings, scraps of my uncle's superstitions, thoughts of the dead,of the grave, of the old broken ships, drifted through my mind. But thestrong sun upon my shoulders warmed me to the heart, and I stoopedforward and plunged into the sea.

  It was all that I could do to catch a trail of the sea-tangle that grewso thickly on the terrace; but once so far anchored I secured myself bygrasping a whole armful of these thick and slimy stalks, and, planting myfeet against the edge, I looked around me. On all sides the clear sandstretched forth unbroken; it came to the foot of the rocks, scoured intothe likeness of an alley in a garden by the action of the tides; andbefore me, for as far as I could see, nothing was visible but the samemany-folded sand upon the sun-bright bottom of the bay. Yet the terraceto which I was then holding was as thick with strong sea-growths as atuft of heather, and the cliff from which it bulged hung draped below thewater-line with brown lianas. In this complexity of forms, all swayingtogether in the current, things were hard to be distinguished; and I wasstill uncertain whether my feet were pressed upon the natural rock orupon the timbers of the Armada treasure-ship, when the whole tuft oftangle came away in my hand, and in an instant I was on the surface, andthe shores of the bay and the bright water swam before my eyes in a gloryof crimson.

  I clambered back upon the rocks, and threw the plant of tangle at myfeet. Something at the same moment rang sharply, like a falling coin. Istooped, and there, sure enough, crusted with the red rust, there lay aniron shoe-buckle. The sight of this poor human relic thrilled me to theheart, but not with hope nor fear, only with a desolate melancholy. Iheld it in my hand, and the thought of its owner appeared before me likethe presence of an actual man. His weather-beaten face, his sailor'shands, his sea-voice hoarse with singing at the capstan, the very footthat had once worn that buckle and trod so much along the swervingdecks--the whole human fact of him, as a creature like myself, with hairand blood and seeing eyes, haunted me in that sunny, solitary place, notlike a spectre, but like some friend whom I had basely injured. Was thegreat treasure ship indeed below there, with her guns and chain andtreasure, as she had sailed from Spain; her decks a garden for theseaweed, her cabin a breeding place for fish, soundless but for thedredging water, motionless but for the waving of the tangle upon herbattlements--that old, populous, sea-riding castle, now a reef in SandagBay? Or, as I thought it likelier, was this a waif from the disaster ofthe foreign brig--was this shoe-buckle bought but the other day and wornby a man of my own period in the world's history, hearing the same newsfrom day to day, thinking the same thoughts, praying, perhaps, in thesame temple with myself? However it was, I was assailed with drearythoughts; my uncle's words, 'the dead are down there,' echoed in my ears;and though I determined to dive once more, it was with a strongrepugnance that I stepped forward to the margin of the rocks.

  A great change passed at that moment over the appearance of the bay. Itwas no more that clear, visible interior, like a house roofed with glass,where the green, submarine sunshine slept so stilly. A breeze, Isuppose, had flawed the surface, and a sort of trouble and blacknessfilled its bosom, where flashes of light and clouds of shadow tossedconfusedly together. Even the terrace below obscurely rocked andquivered. It seemed a graver thing to venture on this place of ambushes;and when I leaped into the sea the second time it was with a quaking inmy soul.

  I secured myself as at first, and groped among the waving tangle. Allthat met my touch was cold and soft and gluey. The thicket was alivewith crabs and lobsters, trundling to and fro lopsidedly, and I had toharden my heart against the horror of their carrion neighbourhood. Onall sides I could feel the grain and the clefts of hard, living stone; noplanks, no iron, not a sign of any wreck; the _Espirito Santo_ was notthere. I remember I had almost a sense of relief in my disappointment,and I was about ready to leave go, when something happened that sent meto the surface with my heart in my mouth. I had already stayed somewhatlate over my explorations; the current was freshening with the change ofthe tide, and Sandag Bay was no longer a safe place for a single swimmer.Well, just at the last moment there came a sudden flush of current,dredging through the tangles like a wave. I lost one hold, was flungsprawling on my side, and, instinctively grasping for a fresh support, myfingers closed on something hard and cold. I think I knew at that momentwhat it was. At least I instantly left hold of the tangle, leaped forthe surface, and clambered out next moment on the friendly rocks with thebone of a man's leg in my grasp.

  Mankind is a material creature, slow to think and dull to perceiveconnections. The grave, the wreck of the brig, and the rusty shoe-bucklewere surely plain advertisements. A child might have read their dismalstory, and yet it was not until I touched that actual piece of mankindthat the full horror of the charnel ocean burst upon my spirit. I laidthe bone beside the buckle, picked up my clothes, and ran as I was alongthe rocks towards the human shore. I could not be far enough from thespot; no fortune was vast enough to tempt me back again. The bones ofthe drowned dead should henceforth roll undisturbed by me, whether ontangle or minted gold. But as soon as I trod the good earth again, andhad covered my nakedness against the sun, I knelt down over against theruins of the brig, and out of the fulness of my heart prayed long andpassionately for all poor souls upon the sea. A generous prayer is neverpresented in vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner isalways, I believe, rewarded by some gracious visitation. The horror, atleast, was lifted from my mind; I could look with calm of spirit on thatgreat bright creature, God's ocean; and as I set off homeward up therough sides of Aros, nothing remained of my concern beyond a deepdetermination to meddle no more with the spoils of wrecked vessels or thetreasures of the dead.

  I was already some way up the hill before I paused to breathe and lookbehind me. The sight that met my eyes was doubly strange.

  For, first, the storm that I had foreseen was now advancing with almosttropical rapidity. The whole surface of the sea had been dulled from itsconspicuous brightness to an ugly hue of corrugated lead; already in thedistance the white waves, the 'skipper's daughters,' had begun to fleebefore a breeze that was still insensible on Aros; and already along thecurve of Sandag Bay there was a splashing run of sea that I could hearfrom where I stood. The change upon the sky was even more remarkable.There had begun to arise out of the south-west a huge and solid continentof scowling cloud; here and there, through rents in its contexture, thesun still poured a sheaf of spreading rays; and here and there, from allits edges, vast inky streamers lay forth along the yet unclouded sky. Themenace was express and imminent. Even as I gazed, the sun was blottedout. At any moment the tempest might fall upon Aros in its might.

  The suddenness of this change of weather so fixed my eyes on heaven thatit was some seconds before they alighted on the bay, mapped out below myfeet, and robbed a moment later of the sun. The knoll which I had justsurmounted overflanked a little amphitheatre of lower hillocks slopingtowards the sea, and beyond that the yellow arc of beach and the wholeextent of Sandag Bay. It was a scene on which I had often looked down,but where I had never before beheld a human figure. I had but justturned my back upon it and left it empty, and my wonder may be fanciedwhen I saw a boat and several men in that deserted spot. The boat waslying by the rocks. A pair of fellows, bareheaded, with their sleevesrolled up, and one with a boathook, kept her with difficulty to hermoorings for the current was growing brisker every moment. A little wayoff upon the ledge two men in black clothes, whom I judged to be superiorin rank, laid their heads together over some task which at first I didnot understand, but a second after I had made it out--they were takingbearings with the compass; and just then I saw one of them unroll a sheetof paper and lay his finger down, as though identifying features in amap. Meanwhile a third was walking to and fro, polling among the rocksand peering over the ed
ge into the water. While I was still watchingthem with the stupefaction of surprise, my mind hardly yet able to workon what my eyes reported, this third person suddenly stooped and summonedhis companions with a cry so loud that it reached my ears upon the hill.The others ran to him, even dropping the compass in their hurry, and Icould see the bone and the shoe-buckle going from hand to hand, causingthe most unusual gesticulations of surprise and interest. Just then Icould hear the seamen crying from the boat, and saw them point westwardto that cloud continent which was ever the more rapidly unfurling itsblackness over heaven. The others seemed to consult; but the danger wastoo pressing to be braved, and they bundled into the boat carrying myrelies with them, and set forth out of the bay with all speed of oars.

  I made no more ado about the matter, but turned and ran for the house.Whoever these men were, it was fit my uncle should be instantly informed.It was not then altogether too late in the day for a descent of theJacobites; and may be Prince Charlie, whom I knew my uncle to detest, wasone of the three superiors whom I had seen upon the rock. Yet as I ran,leaping from rock to rock, and turned the matter loosely in my mind, thistheory grew ever the longer the less welcome to my reason. The compass,the map, the interest awakened by the buckle, and the conduct of that oneamong the strangers who had looked so often below him in the water, allseemed to point to a different explanation of their presence on thatoutlying, obscure islet of the western sea. The Madrid historian, thesearch instituted by Dr. Robertson, the bearded stranger with the rings,my own fruitless search that very morning in the deep water of SandagBay, ran together, piece by piece, in my memory, and I made sure thatthese strangers must be Spaniards in quest of ancient treasure and thelost ship of the Armada. But the people living in outlying islands, suchas Aros, are answerable for their own security; there is none near by toprotect or even to help them; and the presence in such a spot of a crewof foreign adventurers--poor, greedy, and most likely lawless--filled mewith apprehensions for my uncle's money, and even for the safety of hisdaughter. I was still wondering how we were to get rid of them when Icame, all breathless, to the top of Aros. The whole world was shadowedover; only in the extreme east, on a hill of the mainland, one last gleamof sunshine lingered like a jewel; rain had begun to fall, not heavily,but in great drops; the sea was rising with each moment, and already aband of white encircled Aros and the nearer coasts of Grisapol. The boatwas still pulling seaward, but I now became aware of what had been hiddenfrom me lower down--a large, heavily sparred, handsome schooner, lying toat the south end of Aros. Since I had not seen her in the morning when Ihad looked around so closely at the signs of the weather, and upon theselone waters where a sail was rarely visible, it was clear she must havelain last night behind the uninhabited Eilean Gour, and this provedconclusively that she was manned by strangers to our coast, for thatanchorage, though good enough to look at, is little better than a trapfor ships. With such ignorant sailors upon so wild a coast, the cominggale was not unlikely to bring death upon its wings.