The Crater, James Fenimore Cooper [good book club books TXT] 📗

one side, the solitary man found himself restored to the delights of social life, in the persons of those on earth whom he most loved and, on the other hand, the numberless apprehensions of those who looked for him, and his place of retirement, had all their anxiety rewarded by complete success. Little was done that day but to ask and answer questions. Mark had to recount all that had happened since Bob was taken from him, and not trifling was the trepidation created among his female listeners, when he related the history of the earthquake. Their fears, however, were somewhat appeased by his assurances of security; the circumstance that a volcano was in activity near by, being almost a pledge that no very extensive convulsions could follow.

The colonists remained a week at Rancocus Island, being actually too happy to give themselves the disturbance of a removal. At the end of that time, however, Anne was so far recovered that they began to talk of a voyage, Bridget, in particular, dying to see the place where Mark had passed so many solitary hours; and, as he had assured her more than once, where her image had scarcely ever been absent from his thoughts an hour at a time. As it would be impossible to embark all the effects at once, in the Neshamony, some method was to be observed in the removal. The transportation of the cows and horses was the most serious part of the undertaking, the pinnace not being constructed to receive such animals. Room, nevertheless, could be made for one at a time, and still leave sufficient space in the stern-sheets for the accommodation of five or six persons. It was very desirable to get the females away first, lest the rumour of the mountain, hitherto unknown, should spread among the islands, and bring them visitors who might prove to be troublesome, if not dangerous. Parties existed in Betto's group, as we believe they exist everywhere else; and Bob knew very well that nothing but the ascendancy of his friend, the chief, Ooroony, had been the means of his escaping as well as he did, in the land-fall among them that he had made. The smallest reverse of fortune might put Betto down, and some bitter foe up, and then there was the certainty that war canoes might come off in quest of the mountain, at any time, without asking the leave of the friendly chief, even while he remained in power. On the whole, therefore, it was determined to freight the pinnace with the most valuable of the effects, put all the females on board, and send her off under the care of Mark, Heaton, and Socrates, leaving Bob and Bigelow to look after the stock and the rest of the property. It was supposed the boat might be absent a week. This was done accordingly, Bob, on taking leave of Friend Martha, particularly recommending to her attention the Vulcan's Peak reed-birds, throwing in a hint that he should be glad to find a string of them in the pinnace, on her return.

The voyage to windward was a much more serious business than the run to leeward. By Bob's advice Mark reefed his mainsail, and took the bonnet off the jib. Following the same instructions, he stood away to the southward, letting the boat go through the water freely, intending to tack when he came near the volcano, and not before. This was what Bob himself had done, and that which had turned out so well with him, he fancied might succeed with his friend. The Neshamony left Rancocus Island just at sunset. Next morning Mark saw the smoke of the Volcano, and stood for it. After making two stretches he came up within a league of this spot, when he tacked and stood to the northward and eastward, Vulcan's Peak having been in plain view the entire day. As respects the volcano, it was in a comparatively quiet state, though rumbling sounds were heard, and stones were cast into the air in considerable quantities, while the boat was nearest in. One thing, moreover, Mark ascertained, which greatly increased his confidence in the permanency of the changes that had lately occurred in the physical formation of all that region. He found himself in comparatively shoal water, when fully a league from this new crater. Shoal in a seaman's sense, though not in shallow water; the soundings being from fifteen to twenty fathoms, with a rocky bottom.

Between the volcano and Vulcan's Peak it blew quite fresh, and Mark had a good occasion to ascertain the qualities of the pinnace. A long, heavy swell came rolling through the passage, which was near sixty miles in width, seemingly with a sweep that extended to the Southern Ocean. Notwithstanding all this, the little craft did wonders, struggling along in a way one would hardly have expected from so small a vessel. She made fully two knots' headway in the worst of it, and in general her rate of sailing, close on a wind and under pretty short canvas, was about three. The night was very dark, and there was nothing to steer by but the wind, which gave some little embarrassment; but finding himself in much smoothe water than he had been all the previous day, about midnight, our young man felt satisfied that he was under the lee of the island, and at no great distance from it. He made short tacks until daylight, when the huge mass hove up out of the departing darkness, within a mile of the boat. It only remained to run along the land for two or three miles, and to enter the haven of Snug Cove. Mark had been telling his companions what a secret place this haven was to conceal a vessel in, when he had a practical confirmation of the truth of his statement that caused him to be well laughed at. For ten minutes he could not discover the entrance himself, having neglected to take the proper land-marks, that he might have no difficulty in running for his port. After a time, however, he caught sight of an object that he remembered, and found his way into the cove. Here lay the little namesake of his pretty wife, just as he had left her, the true Bridget smiling and blushing as the young husband pointed out the poor substitute he had been compelled to receive for herself, only ten days earlier.

Mark, and Socrates, and Dido, and Teresa, Bigelow's wife, all carried up heavy loads; while Heaton had as much as he could do to help Anne and the child up the sharp acclivity. Bridget, with her light active step, and great eagerness to behold a scene that Mark had described with so much eloquence, was the first, by a quarter of an hour, on the plain. When the others reached the top, they saw the charming young thing running about in the nearest grove, that in which her husband had dined, collecting fruit, and apparently as enchanted as a child. Mark paused as he gained the height, to gaze on this sight, so agreeable in his eyes, and which rendered the place so very different from what it had been so recently, while he was in possession of its glorious beauties, a solitary man. Then, he had several times likened himself to Adam in the garden of Eden, before woman was given to him for a companion. Now, now he could feast his eyes on an Eve, who would have been highly attractive in any part of the world.

The articles brought up on the plain, at this first trip, comprised all that was necessary to prepare and to partake of a breakfast in comfort. A fire was soon blazing, the kettle on, and the bread-fruit baking. It was almost painful to destroy the reed-birds, or becca fichi so numerous were they, and so confiding. One discharge from each barrel of the fowling-piece had enabled Heaton to bring in enough for the whole party, and these were soon roasting. Mark had brought with him from the Reef a basket of fresh eggs, and they had been Bridget's load, in ascending the mountain. He had promised her an American breakfast, and these eggs, boiled, did serve to remind everybody of a distant home, that was still remembered with melancholy pleasure. A heartier, or a happier meal, notwithstanding, was never made than was that breakfast. The mountain air, invigorating though bland, the exercise, the absence of care, the excellence of the food, which comprised fresh figs, a tree or two of tolerable sweetness having been found, the milk of the cocoa-nut, the birds, the eggs, the bread-fruit, &c., all contributed their share to render the meal memorable.

The men, and the three labouring women, were employed two days in getting the cargo of the Neshamony up on the plain; or to Eden, as Bridget named the spot, unconscious how often she herself had been likened to a lovely Eve, in the mind of her young husband. Two of the marquees had been brought, and were properly erected, having board floors, and everything comfortably arranged within and without them. A roof, however, was scarcely necessary in that delicious climate, where one could get into the shade of a grove; and a thatched shed was easily prepared for a dwelling for the others. By the end of the third day the whole party in Eden was comfortably established, and Mark took a short leave of his bride, to sail for Rancocus again, Bridget shed fears at this separation short as it was intended to be; and numberless were the injunctions to be wary of the natives, should the latter have visited Betts, in the time intervening between the departure of the Neshamony and her return.

The voyage between the two islands lost something of its gravity each time it was made. Mark learned a little every trip, of the courses to be steered, the peculiarities of the currents, and the height of the seas. He ran down to Rancocus, on this occasion, in three hours less time than he had done it before, sailing at dusk, and reaching port next day at noon. Nothing had occurred, and to work the men went at once, to load the pinnace. Room was left for one of the cows and its calf: and Bob being seriously impressed with the importance of improving every moment, the little sloop put to sea again, the evening of the very day on which it had arrived.

Bridget was standing on a rock, by the side of the limpid water of the cove, when the Neshamony shot through its entrance into the little haven, and her hand was in Mark's the instant he landed. Tears gushed into the eyes of the young man as he recalled his year of solitude, and felt how different was such a welcome from his many melancholy arrivals and departures, previously to the recent events.

It was rather a troublesome matter to get the cow and calf up the mountain. The first did not see enough that was attractive in naked rocks, to induce her to mount in the best of humours. She drank freely, however, at the brook, appearing to relish its waters particularly well. At length the plan was adopted of carrying the calf up a good distance, the cries of the little thing inducing its mother immediately to follow. In this way both were got up into Eden, in the course of an hour. And well did the poor cow vindicate the name, when she got a look at the broad glades of the sweetest grasses, that were stretched before her. So strongly was her imagination struck with the view--for we suppose that some cows have even more imagination than many men--that she actually kicked up her heels, and