Far out on the Pacific coast there are two small islands,perhaps a hundred miles distant from one another.The first of these is uninhabited.On the other is a little colony of English-speaking people,half-breed descendants of native women and the survivors of a crew from a British vessel cast away there in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
On the first of these islands,the smaller one,the Sea Mist had been wrecked.Driven out of her course by a typhoon,she staggered through day after day and night after night of terrific wind and storm until,at last,there was promise of fair weather.Captain Nat,nearly worn out from anxiety,care,and the loss of sleep,had gone to his stateroom and the first mate was in charge.It was three o'clock,the wind still blowing and the darkness pitchy,when the forward lookout shrieked a warning,Breakers under the lee!Almost the next instant the ship was on a coral reef,full of water,and the seas breaking over her from stem to stern.
Morning came and showed a little patch of land,with palm trees and tropical vegetation waving in the gusts and green in the sunshine.
Captain Nat ordered the boats to be lowered.Much as he hated the thought,he saw that the Sea Mist had made her last voyage and must be abandoned.He went to the cabin,collected papers and charts and prepared to leave.The ship's money,over ten thousand dollars in gold belonging to the owner and to be used in trade and speculation among the East Indies,he took with him.Then the difficult and dangerous passage through the opening in the reef was begun.
Only the captain's boat reached the shore.The mate's was caught by a huge breaker,dashed against the reef and sunk.Captain Nat,his second mate and five of his men were all that was left of the Sea Mist's company.And on that island they remained for nearly two weeks.Provisions they had brought ashore with them.Water they found by digging.Nat hid the gold at night,burying it on the beach below high-water mark.
Then,having made sure of his location by consulting the chart,he determined to attempt a voyage to the second island,where he knew the English colony to be.Provisions were getting short,and to remain longer where they were was to risk starvation and all its horrors.So,in the longboat,which was provided with a sail,they started.Charts and papers and the gold the skipper took with them.None of the crew knew of the existence of the money;it was a secret which the captain kept to himself.
A hundred miles they sailed in the longboat and,at last,the second island was sighted.They landed and found,to their consternation and surprise,that it,too,was uninhabited.The former residents had grown tired of their isolation and,a trading vessel having touched there,had seized the opportunity to depart for Tahiti.Their houses were empty,their cattle,sheep,goats,and fowl roamed wild in the woods,and the fruit was rotting on the trees.In its way the little island was an Eyeless Eden,flowing with milk and honey;but to Captain Nat,a conscientious skipper with responsibilities to his owners,it was a prison from which he determined to escape.Then,as if to make escape impossible,a sudden gale came up and the longboat was smashed by the surf.
I guess that settles it,ruefully observed the second mate,another Cape Codder,from Hyannis.Cal'late we'll stay here for a spell now,hey,Cap'n.For a spell,yes,replied Nat.We'll stay here until we get another craft to set sail in,and no longer.Another craft?ANOTHER one?Where in time you goin'to get her?Build her,said Captain Nat cheerfully.Then,pointing to the row of empty houses and the little deserted church,he added,There's timber and nails--yes,and cloth,such as 'tis.If Ican't build a boat out of them I'll agree to eat the whole settlement.He did not have to eat it,for the boat was built.It took them six months to build her,and she was a curious-looking vessel when done,but,as the skipper said,She may not be a clipper,but she'll sail anywhere,if you give her time enough.He had been the guiding spirit of the whole enterprise,planning it,laying the keel,burning buildings,to obtain nails and iron,hewing trees for the largest beams,showing them how to spin ropes from cocoa-nut fiber,improvising sails from the longboat's canvas pieced out with blankets and odd bits of cloth from the abandoned houses.Even a strip of carpet from the church floor went into the making of those sails.
At last she was done,but Nat was not satisfied.
I never commanded a ship where I couldn't h'ist Yankee colors,he said,and,by the everlastin'!I won't now.We've got to have a flag.So,from an old pair of blue overalls,a white cotton shirt,and the red hangings of the church pulpit,he made a flag and hoisted it to the truck of his queer command.They provisioned her,gave her a liberal supply of fresh water,and,one morning,she passed through the opening of the lagoon out to the deep blue of the Pacific.And,hidden in her captain's stateroom under the head of his bunk,was the ten thousand dollars in gold.For Nat had sworn to himself,by the everlastingand other oaths,to deliver that money to his New York owners safe and,necessary expenses deducted of course,untouched.
For seven weeks the crazy nonde slopped across the ocean.
Fair winds helped her and,at last,she entered the harbor of Nukahiva,over twelve hundred miles away.And there--Hammond's luck,the sailors called it--was a United States man-of-war lying at anchor,the first American vessel to touch at that little French settlement for five years.The boat they built was abandoned and the survivors of the Sea Mist were taken on board the man-of-war and carried to Tahiti.
From Tahiti Captain Nat took passage on a French bark for Honolulu.
