The Pirate Island

THE PIRATE ISLAND
A STORY OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

A STORY OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE WRECK ON THE "GUNFLEET."

It was emphatically "a dirty night." The barometer had been slowly but
persistently falling during the two previous days; the dawn had been red
and threatening, with a strong breeze from S.E.; and as the short dreary
November day waxed and waned this strong breeze had steadily increased
in strength until by nightfall it had become a regular "November gale,"
with frequent squalls of arrowy rain and sleet, which, impelled by the
furious gusts, smote and stung like hail, and cleared the streets almost
as effectually as a volley of musketry would have done.

It was not fit for a dog to be out of doors. So said Ned Anger as he
entered the snug bar-parlour of the "Anchor" at Brightlingsea, and
drawing a chair close up to the blazing fire of wreck-wood which roared
up the ample chimney, flung himself heavily down thereon to await the
arrival of the "pint" which he had ordered as he passed the bar.

"And yet there's a many poor souls as _has_ to be out in it, and as _is_
out in it," returned the buxom hostess, entering at the moment with the
aforesaid pint upon a small tray. "It's to be hoped as none of 'em
won't meet their deaths out there among the sands this fearful night,"
she added, as Ned took the glass from her, and deposited his "tuppence"
in the tray in payment therefor.

A sympathetic murmur of concurrence went round the room in response to
this philanthropic wish, accompanied in some instances by doubtful
shakes of the head.

"Ay, ay, we all hope that," remarked Dick Bird--"Dicky Bird" was the
name which had been playfully bestowed upon him by his chums, and by
which he was generally known--"we all hopes that; but I, for one, feels
uncommon duberous about it. There's hardly a capful of wind as blows
but what some poor unfort'nate craft leaves her bones out there,"--with
a jerk of the thumb over his shoulder to seaward,--"and mostly with
every wreck there's _some_ lives lost. I say, mates, I s'pose there's
somebody on the look-out?"

"Ay, ay," responded old Bill Maskell from his favourite corner under the
tall old-fashioned clock-case, "Bob's gone across the creek and up to
the tower, as usual. The boy _will_ go; always says as how it's his
_duty_ to go up there and keep a look-out in bad weather; so, as his
eyes is as sharp as needles, and since one is as good as a hundred for
that sort of work, I thought I'd just look in here for a hour or two,
so's to be on the spot if in case any of us should be wanted."

"I've often wondered how it is that it _always_ falls to Bob's lot to go
upon the look-out in bad weather. How is it?" asked an individual in
semi-nautical costume at the far end of the room, whose bearing and
manner conveyed the impression that he regarded himself, as indeed he
was, somewhat of an intruder. He was a ship-chandler's shopman, with an
ambition to be mistaken for a genuine "salt," and had not been many
months in the place.

"Well, you see, mister, the way of it is just this," explained old
Maskell, who considered the question as addressed more especially to
him: "Bob was took off a wrack on the Maplin when he was a mere babby,
the only one saved; found him wrapped up warm and snug in one of the
bunks on the weather side of the cabin with the water surging up to
within three inches of him; so ever since he's been old enough to
understand he've always insisted as it was his duty, by way of returning
thanks, like, to take the look-out when a wrack may be expected. And,
don't you make no mistake, there ain't an eye so sharp as his for a
signal-rocket in the whole place, see's 'em almost afore they be fired--
he do."

"And did you ever try to find his relatives?" asked the shopman.

"Well, no; I can't say as we did, exactly," answered old Bill, "'cause
you see we didn't rightly know how to set to work at the job. The ship
as he was took off of was a passenger-ship, the _Lightning_ of London,
and, as I said afore, he was the only one saved. There were nobody else
as we could axe any questions of, and, the ship hailing from London,
there was no telling _where_ his friends might have come from. There
was R.L. marked on his little clothes, and that was all. So we was
obliged to content ourselves with having that fact tacked on to the yarn
of the wrack in all the papers, in the hope that some of his friends or
relations might get to see it.