we sat up as one man, filled and deserted wooden huts, set with a strange and grim feeling in the midst of a garden of of coming disaster. Those who sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and have been through a midnight brinjals, all straggling wild. air raid will realise the exact Among them were a few pawsensation. paw trees, their tops surrounded by an accommodating supply of yellow and green fruit, ripening under a crest of leaves and flowers. Close beside them was a well of moderately good water. The boding sound dwelt dwelt heavily with me all the following day-indeed, I have never forgotten it; and old Huxley, the leading stoker of the steam-boat, spoke of it to me later on in the light of the events that followed, and of the general consternation it had caused the boat's crew, at first unacknowledged but then confessed. The next morning's daylight revealed to us, from the Darien summit of our bivouac, a wonderful scene. In the distance the blue line of the outer ocean; in the middle distance, the foaming Barrier; nearer still, the enclosed scattering of brown reefs and of a myriad tiny islets; while immediately below us was the wide semicircle of the reef upon which our islet stood, with a calm pale-green anchorage embraced in its arms. I decided at once to take the boats round to that side; and, gathering together the gear hastily landed the evening before, we steamed round, anchored the big boat at a suitable position, and landed anew in the skiff. We had, of course, brought with us tents for our camp; but, to my surprise, I found, just within the shore fringe of scrubby trees, and concealed by them, a clearing in which stood a collection of ramshackle a On first sighting these traces of humanity I imagined them to represent the sad legacy of some enterprising person pearl-fisher, perhaps who had attempted to establish himself on this islet, and failed to make good; but presently I picked up a piece of notepaper covered with faded writing, which was lying in the garden, and, having read it, the romantic truth dawned on me. This was a barracoon-a cage for "blackbirds." In those days, in spite of the best efforts of the Queensland Government to prevent it, there was still going on what was known as Blackbirding "-namely, the illicit recruiting of native labour for the Queensland sugar plantations from the Pacific Islands. This was carried on by means of sailing brigs, which, dodging the men-of-war that policed the Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, and other Melanesian islands, collected "labour" by specious promises, and by the more solid bait of tobacco, bush-knives, and calico (which represent the currency of the Islands, and are known com pendiously as "Trade"). As feet granite ridge, had shot soon as the hold of the brig over it, and had explored it was full, and, if possible, overfull of humanity, male and female, she sailed for the nearest practicable entrance in the Great Barrier Reef, and, having passed through it, deposited her wretched black cargo on such an islet as this one on which we had accidentally dropped. From these depots the "labourers " were got away by driblets in boats to unwatched parts of the mainland coast twenty miles distant, and thence were taken up to the sugar plantations, for sale to unscrupulous managers who wouldn't ask questions. 66 con As to the return voyage, eastward to their island homes at the conclusion of the tract," there was seldom much difficulty. Cruelty, disease, and almost above all, home-sickness -a real illness among exiled islanders-had already taken most of them "west" long before any question of an eastward journey could arise. I may digress for a moment from my tale of this particular island to say that my guess as to its evil character became fairly substantiated a month or so later. Lizard Island, our headquarters, was ten miles northward of this islet of ours; and a few miles to the northward again of Lizard Island was "Cook's Passage," a safe and excellent passage through the Barrier to the open sea. (as we thought) everywhere, and bathed from every one of its beaches, but never had beheld mankind nor any sign of his occupation. But one night, while the Dart lay there at anchor, a large beacon fire blazed up on an ocean-facing point, and on the next night there were two fires. The following morning we saw in the offing a labour brig. There was no mistaking her. She had come in by Cook's Passage, but instead of standing on with full canvas, as she might have done, for our Barracoon Islet, as soon as she sighted the Dart's mastheads lying off Lizard Island, she hauled to the wind and stood out again. She had evidently grasped suddenly the full meaning of the warning beacon fires she must have seen the night before, and connected them with the unexpected apparition of a man-ofwar in that lonely waste of reefs and dangers, and made to sea again with every stitch of canvas that would stand. We never discovered the habitat of the mysterious watchman on Lizard Island who gave the beacon-fire warning, but he was evidently a permanent resident in some hidden part of it. The island is a large one covered with bush, and we had plenty of other things to occupy us rather than searching for him. To return again to our islet. Having established ourselves On many Sundays we had landed on Lizard Island, had climbed all over its fine 1200- in the least dilapidated part It was the job of the campkeeper to prepare this repast, and to have it steamingly ready for us when we returned at sundown. It was his further duty, as soon as we were anchored, to come off at once in the skiff, and convey us ashore to where the enamel plates and mugs and whitemetal spoons were laid out ready for the meal that eager hearts expect after a long and arduous day's work. of the empty barracoon, and did not as a rule consider landed our stores and coal and this point. However, comwater supply for the steam- bined with sweet potatoes from boat for the week of our our garden, with tomatoes and sojourn, my self-instruction in with green pawpaws in the the art of boat-sounding began. pot, not to speak of preserved I arranged that the men of mutton from our own stores, the boat's crew should take it the resulting pot-mess vanished in turn, one by one, to stay all too soon when laid each behind on the island for the evening before the hungry day while the boat was away toilers of the deep. at work. This was partly for a much-needed rest from the heavy work of incessantly heaving a 14 lb. lead during a day of sounding, and partly to look after the camp in our absence. After breakfast each morning the camp-keeper for the day paddled us off in the skiff to the steam-boat to where she was lying at her anchor in the deeper water off the beach. Having seen us off, he returned, hauled the skiff up on the shore above high water line, tidied up the camp, and spent a pleasant and highly esteemed day off." I left with him a gun and cartridges, for it was often possible to shoot something for "the pot." Groups of large black-and-white pigeons, in bands of ten or twelve birds, usually came flighting over from the mainland in the afternoons, and paused for a breather on our trees. If they did, it was a last breath for one or more of their number. They were a bit tough, and it was a pity they did not choose a rather earlier hour for their visit each day, so that they might have got themselves a bit more tender through a longer stewing; but, most selfishly, they 66 On the last day of my week of sounding, it fell to the turn of Chapman, the coxswain of the boat, to have the day on shore in camp. One's coxswain is generally too valuable a person to spare for a "day off" from sounding work; nor does he really need one physically in the same way as the other men of the crew, as he takes no turn at heaving the lead, but works the tiller only. As steersman, if the job be skilfully and sympathetically attended to, he becomes the officer's right hand and his left eye, while the said officer's left hand and right eye are battling with the tangent screw and the telescope respectively of the sounding sextant. Be sides this, the officer has somehow, subconsciously, to be paying attention to the soundings, and to enter them, as they are called by the man at the lead, as well as his angles, in the "field book." And he has to plot his position as he goes along his line of sounding as well. It is busy work. It is the coxswain's job, while all this is going on, to keep the boat on a straight line; and a very important job it is too. You give him two points to keep in line, such as a rock on the beach and some conspicuous tree a little way behind: "points to march on," which, if he keeps the boat truly on them, in spite of the inevitable efforts of wind and tide to take him off them, all is well. On the other hand, if he forgets what his two "transit" points on shore are, or puts his helm the wrong way, or sends his wits wandering, all is unwell-it is, indeed, damnable and nothing less. Chapman, never very bright, had been more than usually sulky and "fed up" during the first four days of the week. More and more gloomy had he become as the days went by, and more and more exasperating in his carelessness in allowing the boat to get off the given line, so that all the soundings when plotted appeared in crooked rows instead of straight ones, and not evenly spaced as they should be. When Friday came I decided to land him for the day, and to steer the boat myself. Though it added considerably to my labours, it was a blessed relief to the mind; and I was so busy all day, and so successful with my self-steered lines of soundings, that I thought no more about Chapman, except at intervals to rejoice at his absence. This day's work at least should show the Skipper that I was beginning to learn how to do boat-sounding, even though the lines of soundings on the other days were "all anyhow" (as indeed they were, though this was hardly my fault). When at the end of the long, hot, windy day we rounded the point of the reef into the shelter and calm of our island home, we were all surprised to no signs of life in the see camp; nor was the campkeeper there waiting in the skiff, as ordered, to land the weary and hungry workers. The little steam-whistle was blown long and shrilly to attract Chapman's attention. We shouted; we cat-called; but there was no reply. Then we noticed that the skiff had disappeared. She was not lying hauled up on the beach. She had gone altogether. Just as I had made this painful and mystifying discovery, there was a sudden chorus from the men forward in the boat. "'Ullo, look at ole Chapman ! There 'e is, sir, layin' down over there, asleep!" And still more vehement cat-calls went forth, reinforced by further blasts on remember them when they came the whistle. By this time the steam-boat had reached the usual anchorage place at about 200 yards from the beach; but what had happened to the barracoon huts, which ought to have been visible from this point through a certain gap in the bushes that fringed the beach? Nothing was left of them but their blackened ruins, from which a few wisps of thin blue smoke could be seen ascending into the evening air. On the beach in front of them, lying on top of a sort of table-topped framework of cut boughs, which we had rigged up to be a place of deposit for our gear, clear of sand and wet, there, wrapped in a blanket, was Chapman fast asleep. We could get no stir out of him by shouting, and there was nothing for it but to anchor the steam-boat and to swim ashore. We all jumped in together, for there is safety in numbers if sharks should be about; and presently we were all standing, dripping, around the couch of the sleeping malefactor. When at last he was aroused he seemed to be more sullen than ever, and quite unable to answer any questions as to the skiff, the fire, or (worst of all) our supper. Then suddenly he burst into tears, crying like a baby, declaring that every hand was against him, and began to babble about two large birds which, he said, had been whooping over him and whispering to him all day; and didn't we over the hill the first night we landed? "There they are; look," he sobbed, pointing skyward with a look of terror, cowering his head under his other arm. But there was nothing in sight there but the quiet stars, now beginning to fall into their places, bright and early-the brightest earliest for their night watch. We all looked at one another with uplifted eyebrows. Evidently poor Chapman had gone off his chump. It was, in truth, a pretty fix to be in, there on that wild reef islet; but fortunately the poor wretch was only melancholy, and showed no symptoms of violence. Leaving Huxley, the Leading Stoker, to look after him, I set off with the other hands to search for the skiff. By the greatest luck we found her near the extreme point of the bay, just about to drift away quietly from the island on the newly starting ebb-tide, having been lifted by the recent high-water off the beach, where she had been hauled up in the morning. After an agitating swim together, we caught her, and, scrambling in over the stern, paddled back to the blackened site of our once comfortable camp, wet and most miserable. There was nothing to eat; there was not even tea to drink, for the whole of our remaining provisions had been burnt up in the general conflagration, and SO had our blankets, as well as our still |
