CHAPTER II.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 532, 2 March 1889, Page 7

CHAPTER 11.

I MONSIETJB PICHOU MORALISES. I And yet, 'beneath, the moo 11 ' s wild reign, I Thy K "oad breast heaves as if in Pain, f Tlw ■. dark and silent sea ! — Mrs He mans. i Cfcinmon instinct drew these men together. J Apftrt, they were units ; together, they were a / whole. Two heads to think with, four eyes to I see; four hands, arms and legs to work with. I Their integral faculties were sharpened by j privation. ' Necessity is the mother of inven- | tion.' f A pig was washed ashore, drowned in his pen. A bag containing sodden biscuit followed it. ; Poor Clinch's binoculars were strapped in their \ case on his person. Theodore Pichou, savant, litterateur and athlete, kindled a fire with punk from the | interior of a hollow log, with the aid of the sun I and one of the lenses. | The poor bodies were buried on a little knoll, -. a cross set up, and a strong, rude fence erected \ about the graves. This took three days' hard \work. Afterwards, with the help of the pig, 'tbiseuit, fresh air and wreckage, a rude hut was fbuiit, and the pair recruited daily from the fshock, exposure, and hardship, and the French - Jiuan in particular from the poignant grief he IsuiTered at the loss of his friends and shipmates, file visited the graves daily, for, poor fellow, ha jhac insisted upon interring the corpses separately. -{He had not been able to bring himself to think of sa common sepulture. His wishes on this subject jhad been more easily accomplished owing to the j!:real%s of that incomprehensible and shifting ipo'.ver tho sea. 1 They had a spade. It was found jammed in a <-T.?i :. r tVjg roe jj Sj -vvitli the wood snapped be.v ::;; ■. ue iron clamps, at the ba?e of the shaft. The blade was a bit twisted, but the ground was soft and sandy, so the work of digging the graves was comparatively easy. They had also found a bottle of Dutch manufacture — a frail, square-sided, black glass bottle, labelled 'Hollands J.D.K.Z., 1 in the same cleft as the spuds —intact. Thus fortified, they worked and watched, and the Capricious sea brought them further supplies daily. All, ocean, ocean, there is evidence of some strange might in your very tone. A mighty iron ship is rent and torn like pope;-, whilst the fragile nautilus is cast high and dry, to be blown unscathed above flood-water mark by the next puff of wind ! Eesist, and you crush us. Follow your power, and we are washed into safety, in some cases. i They found no more bodies. The sea had | kept them as ghastly relics until they were eaten by horrible crawling forms — by the giant spiders of the deep, the ontnpi ; by crabs and lobsters, and starfish. But bales of merchandise and clothing floated ashore from the wreck, and they dried the things and clothed themselves anew. | After the expiration of a week, Triff announced his intention of exploring the interior. Pichou remained in camp. When the Malay reached a rugged hill, three miles distant, he stopped, sat down, and, leisurely drawing two articles from an oilskin parcel, proceeded to examine them minutely, first casting a wary look around. One was a very small, air-tight tin case; the other was a pocket-book, which had evidently been wet through and through, but had dried again. In the tin box was a small, square, folded piece of paper, with some legible characters written on it in ink. The writing was : — ' Aaron Kerr, Fifth Street, New York, U.S.A.' The pocket-book contained some scraps of paper, a card or two, but no money. A small, curiously-fashioned brass key, however, Triff scoured with sand ; placed that and the cards, together with the scraps, in the tin case, covered it all over with oilskin, and placed the parcel in the breast pocket of his coat. Then, with a lens and some punk, he kindled a fire and utterly consumed the pocketbook. It was of no value to him, or to anyone else for that matter. Any information its leaves , might have contained were evidently annotations, but they had been obliterated by the sea water it had been in contact with. The smoke from Triff's fire rose languidly above the tree tops. Combo, an aboriginal, stalking wallabi on a distant range, started, took his 'dilli-bag,' extracted various ochres, and painted his nude body ' skeleton ' with rings of white and red, and made some curious hieroglyphics round his eyes and mouth and nose. Then he outlined each rib in the same ghastly and gruesome fashion with alternate colours. Then he painted rings round his arms and legs, and, finally exclaiming • Boojaree !' he^laced a fillet containing three eagles' plnmes round his head, and stood erect, gazing seawards ! His broad nostrils dilated, his eyes flashed, j and his sinewy frame quivered with excitement. Then, collecting his materials, he placed them in his bag again, took six light barbed spears, his ' womera ' or throwing stick, his ' nullahnullah ' and his tomahawk, after which he ran six miles at a sling trot over hill and through dale, to the fastness of his tribe, on the banks of a box - fringed stream, and created a seneaion. Meanwhile Pichou had been to the graves again, as was his wont. In the bay, on the skirts of the shore, grew a fragrant bush, which perfumed the air like sandalwood. It was his habit to, place wreaths of this shrub, together with the graceful amethystal blossoms of. the trailing sarsaparilla, about the burying-place,

hanging some separate garlands on the rough cross which marked one end of the enclosure. On his way he had to pass the shell-line'of high- water mark— a line where anyone possessing eyes and feeling may read a story, piteous sometimes in the cast-up auguries, gentle and natural at others as it shows forth Ocean's handiwork, and marvellous always. From the delicate curves of the spirea, serpula, or ricinula, to the hues of the haliotis, or the characters and tracery of the cowrie or red and white coral seaweed, what cannot one find unexpectedly in this line of jetsam? It was Pichou's market. On this line, the very day after the wreck, he had found a strong leather case belonging to the ill-fated captain, which contained five diamonds. He had kept this secret. No one had seen him pick it up. Clinch's body was only partly dressed. He had thrown off his overalls and coat at the last moment. The coat and overalls had been washed up on the beach. During a crisis of life and death people do not think much of valuables. I After this Pichou had kept his eyes open, and to-day he stumbled upon a rude, oblong bowl of I hard wood, which had been cast up and covered with drift.' As they were destitute of utensils, he welcomed it gladly. Then the litterati.'iir and savant rose within him, and he said aloud to the honeysuckles and ' sheoaks,' where the gorgeous parrots flashed and chattered, ' Dis is ze work of a savage !' and his hair bristled. Then the necessity for self-preservation came upon him, and excited alertness and suspicion, and his queries ran in this channel :— ' How long has he been here ? Long time. In the pea, washed away by big storms, little while. In the snn long time. Wood hard, like iron. No tree here like that. Grow inland, long way. Tree here eucalyptus, honeysuckle, tea-tree. Tea. tree hard, not big enough to make zis. Savage live in ze interior, come here to fish ; live here tree months ; live here when he like. Catch crayfish, crab, sea- fish off rocks.' And he drew forth from the leathern case belted to his side a breech-loading revolver— the captain's own, taken from the drowned body and carefully cleaned and greased for emergency. He possessed ihirty-six metallic cartridges, which he had found in a waterproof enclosure. Clinch, in the supreme moment of danger, might have had cause to enforce obedience. Hence he was armed. He had made provision for a lengthened term if cast away in boats ; hence the water-proof bans. Clinoh was a man of energy and decision. The revolver was loaded. Pichou, by great good fortune, had secured it. Over the stand of arms in the Mohican's cabin, now cracked and rent, and twisted and torn, the sand had washed in a dune eight feet high. Under another dune, caused by the heavy cargo, beam?, ironwork, and ballast of the schooner, were other revolver.?, weapons, and ammunition, useless enough now. Pichuu's revolver was worth its weight in gold twice over ! Over the others, thft crab? and starfish held high revel in the bright naontide, but thai was all. The crabs crawled sideways, wondering when another corpse would wash their way. They lurked in crannies on the rocks, with protruding claws, half concealed by the washing ]iVu,\ and prepared to lay hold of anything with flesh on it.