Lost in the Fog Part 26

His path now became a difficult one. It was necessary to keep away from the edge of the cliff, but still not to go out of sight of it. The trees were princ.i.p.ally spruce and fir, but there were also birch and maple. He also noticed mountain ash and willow. Beneath him all the ground was covered with soft moss, in which he sank to his ankles, while on every side were luxuriant ferns and evergreen trailers. Tom recognized all these with great satisfaction, for they showed him the means of furnis.h.i.+ng for himself a soft couch, that might be envied by many a man in better circ.u.mstances. Progress soon grew more difficult, for there were numerous mounds, and dense underbrush, through which he could only force his way by extreme effort. Windfalls also lay around in all directions, and no sooner would he have fairly surmounted one of them, than another would appear. Thus his progress was exceedingly slow and laborious.

After about a half an hour of strenuous exertion, Tom found himself in the midst of an almost impa.s.sable jungle of tangled, stunted fir trees.

He tried to avoid these by making a detour, but found that they extended so far that he could only pa.s.s them by going along close to the edge of the cliff. This last path he chose, and clinging to the branches, he pa.s.sed for more than a hundred yards along the crest of a frightful precipice, where far down there yawned an abyss, at whose bottom was the sea; while abreast of him in the air there floated great flocks of gulls, uttering their hoa.r.s.e yells, and fluttering fiercely about, as though trying to drive back this intruder upon their domains.

Once or twice Tom was compelled to stop, and turn away his face from the abyss, and thrust himself in among the trees; but each time he regained his courage, after a little rest, and went on as before.

At length he pa.s.sed the thick spruce underbrush, and found the woods less dense. He could now work his way among them without being compelled to go so close to the edge of the cliff; and the dizzy height and the shrieks of the gulls no longer disturbed his senses. The trees here were not so high as those at the other end of the island, but were of much smaller size, and seemed stunted. There were no maples or other forest trees, but only scraggy fir, that seemed too exposed to the winds from the sea to have much health or verdure. The underbrush was wanting to a great extent, but moss was here in large quant.i.ties, and thick cl.u.s.ters of alder bushes. Wild shrubs also--such as raspberries and blueberries--were frequently met with; while ledges of weather-beaten rock jutted out from amid thick coverings of moss.

Walking here was not at all difficult, and he went on without any interruption, until, at last, he found any farther progress barred by a precipice. He was at the lower or western end of the island.

He looked down, and found beneath him a great precipice, while rocks jutted out from the sea, and ledges projected beyond. The gulls were present here, as elsewhere, in great flocks, and still kept up their noisy screams.

Tom looked out over the sea, and saw its waters spread far away till it was lost in the horizon. On the line of that horizon he saw a faint gray cloud, that looked like a fog bank. It had, to his eyes, a certain gloomy menace, and seemed to say to him that he had not seen the last of it yet. On the left of the broad sea, the Nova Scotia Coast ran along till it was lost in the distance; and on the right was the long line of the New Brunswick sh.o.r.e, both of which had now that dark hue of olive green which he had noticed on the land opposite before he had started.

Suddenly, while he was looking, his eyes caught sight of something white that glistened brightly from the blue water. It was about midway between the two coasts, and he knew it at once to be some sailing vessel. He could not make out more than one sail, and that showed that the vessel was either coming up the bay or going down; for if it had been crossing, she would, of course, have lain broadside on to his present locality, and would have thus displayed two sails to his view.

The sight of this vessel agitated him exceedingly; and the question about her probable course now entered his mind, and drove away all other thoughts. Whether that vessel were going up or down became of exclusive importance to him now, if she were coming up, she might approach him, and hear his hail, or catch sight of his signals.

Suddenly he reflected that he had no way of attracting attention, and a wild desire of running back and setting up the longest pole or board that he could find came into his mind; but such was the intensity of his curiosity, and the weight of his suspense, that he could not move from the spot where he was until he had satisfied himself as to the vessel's course.

He sat down not far from the edge of the precipice, and, leaning forward with his hands supporting his chin, he strained his eyes over the intervening distance, as he tried to make out in which way the vessel was going. It seemed fully ten miles away, and her hull was not visible. It was only the white of her sails that he saw; and as the sunlight played on these from time to time, or fell off from the angle of reflection, the vessel was alternately more or less visible, and thus seemed by turns to draw nearer and depart farther from his sight.

Thus for a long time he sat, alternately hoping and desponding, at every play of those sails in the sunlight. The calm of the water showed him that, even if the vessel were coming up, he could not expect any very rapid progress. There was now no wind, and the surface of the water was perfectly unruffled. Besides, he knew that the tide was falling rapidly. How, then, could he expect that the vessel could come any nearer, even if she were trying to? Thoughts like these at last made him only anxious to keep the vessel in sight. If her destination lay up the bay, she would probably anchor; if it lay down the bay, she would drift with the tide. He thought, then, that if she only would remain in sight, it would be a sufficient proof of her course.

Thus he sat, watching and waiting, with all his soul intent upon those flas.h.i.+ng sails, and all his thoughts taken up with the question as to the course of that solitary bark. It seemed a long time to him, in his suspense; but suspense always makes time seem long. At last, however, even though he hoped so persistently for the best, his hope began to die within him. Fainter and fainter grew those sails; at intervals rarer and rarer did their flash come to his eyes, until at length the sight of them was lost altogether, and nothing met his eyes but the gloomy gray of the fog cloud on the far horizon.

Even after he had lost hope, and become convinced that she was gone, Tom sat there for a long time, in a fixed att.i.tude, looking at that one spot. He would have sat there longer, but suddenly there came to his ears a peculiar sound, which made him start to his feet in a moment, and filled him with a new excitement.

He listened.

The sound came again.

A flush of joy spread over his face, his heart beat faster and faster, and he listened as though he could scarce believe his senses.

As he listened, the sounds came again, and this time much louder.

There was now no mistake about it. It was a regular boat, which Tom knew well to be the peculiar sound made by the floats of a steamer's paddles. He had often heard it. He had but recently heard it, when the revenue steamer was approaching the Antelope, and again during the foggy night, when the whistle roused them, and the same beat of the paddles came over the midnight waters.

And now, too, he heard it.

He gave a shout of joy, and started off to catch sight of her.

For a few paces only he ran, and then stopped.

He was puzzled. He did not know in which direction it was best to go.

He was at the west end of the island, but could not make out very well the direction of the sounds. He tried to think whether the steamer would pa.s.s the island on the north side or the south. He did not know, but it seemed to him that she would certainly go to the north of it.

There was no time to be lost, and standing there to listen did not seem to be of any use, even if his impatience had allowed him to do so.

Accordingly he hurried back by the way that he had come along the north side of the island.

For some time he ran along through the trees, and at length, in about fifteen or twenty minutes, he reached the place where the dense underbrush was, by the edge of the cliff. From this point a wide view was commanded. On reaching it he looked out, and then up the bay, towards the Straits of Minas. He could see almost up to the straits, but no steamer appeared. For a moment he stood bewildered, and then the thought came to him, that he had mistaken altogether the steamer's course. She could not be coming down on the north side of the island, but on the south side. With a cry of grief he started back again, mourning over his error, and the time that he had lost. On reaching the more open wood, he thought that it would be better to hurry across the island to the south side, and proceeded at once to do so. The way was rough and tedious. Once or twice he had to burst through thickets of alder, and several times he had to climb over windfalls. At length, in his confusion, he lost his way altogether; he had to stop and think.

The shadows of the trees showed him where the south lay, and he resumed his journey. At length, after most exhaustive efforts, he reached a part of the cliff, where a fringe of alders grew so thick, that he was scarce aware that he was at his destination, until the precipice opened beneath him. Here he stood, and, pressing apart the dense branches, he looked out.

There was the steamer, about two miles off, already below where he was standing, and going rapidly down the bay with the falling tide.

Another cry of grief burst from Tom. Where he was standing he could see the vessel, but he himself was completely concealed by the cl.u.s.tering bushes. He now lamented that he had left his first position, and saw that his only chance was to have remained there.

To stay where he was could not be thought of. There was scarce a chance now of doing anything, since the steamer was so far away; but what chance there was certainly depended on his being in some conspicuous position. He started off, therefore, to the west point, where he had watched the schooner for so long a time. He hurried on with undiminished energy, and bounded over windfalls, and burst through thickets, as before. But in spite of his efforts, his progress could not be more rapid than it had formerly been. His route was necessarily circuitous, and before he could find the desired point, many more minutes had elapsed.

But he reached it at last, and there, on the bare rock, springing forward, he waved his hat in the air, and sent forth a piercing cry for help. But the steamer was now as much as four or five miles away--too far altogether for his loudest cry to go. His screams and his gestures did not appear to attract the slightest attention. She moved on her way right under the eyes of the frantic and despairing boy, nor did she change her course in the slightest degree, nor did her paddles cease to revolve, but went rolling round, tossing up the foam, and bearing far, far away that boat on which poor Tom had rested his last hope.

As for Tom, he kept up his screams as long as he could utter a sound.

He tore off his coat, and shook it up and down, and waved it backward and forward. But none of these things were heard or seen. The steamboat pa.s.sed on, until, at length, even Tom became convinced that further efforts were useless.

This last blow was too much. Tom sank under it, and, falling on his face, he burst into a flood of tears.

Struggling up at length from this last affliction, Tom roused himself, and his buoyancy of soul began once more to a.s.sert itself.

"Come now, Thomas, my son," said he, as he dried his eyes, "this sort of thing will never do, you know. You're not a baby, my boy; you've never been given to blubbering, I think. Cheer up, then, like a man, and don't make me feel ashamed of you."

This little address to himself had, as before, the effect of restoring his equanimity, and he thought with calmness upon his recent disappointments.

He saw, by the pa.s.sage of these vessels, what he had for a time lost sight of, namely, that this island, though uninhabited, was still in the middle of a bay which was constantly traversed by sailing vessels and steamboats. The latter ran regularly up to the Basin of Minas from St. John. As to the former, they were constantly pa.s.sing to and fro, from the large s.h.i.+p down to the small fis.h.i.+ng vessel. Inhabited countries surrounded him on every side, between the coasts of which there was a constant communication. If he only kept patient, the time must come, and that, too, before very long, when he would be delivered.

In order to secure this delivery, however, he saw that it would be necessary to arrange some way by which he might attract the notice of pa.s.sing vessels. On this subject he meditated for a long time. It would be necessary, he thought, to have some sort of a signal in some conspicuous place. Among the drift-wood he might, perhaps, be able to find some sort of a pole or staff which he could set up. One might not be enough, but in that case he could put up two, or three, or half a dozen.

The next thing to decide about was the choice of a place. There was the east end, and the west end--which was the better? The west end, where he was standing, was high; but then it was surrounded by trees, and unless he could set up a very tall staff, it could scarcely be noticed. The east end, on the contrary, was lower; but then it was bare, and any kind of a signal which might be set up there could hardly fail to attract attention. He could also pile up a heap of drift-wood, and set fire to it, and, by this means, if a vessel were pa.s.sing by, he could be certain of securing attention. It did not make much difference which end the signals were placed upon, as far as referred to the pa.s.sing of vessels; for all that pa.s.sed by would go along the island, so that both ends would be visible to them.

As to the signals, he felt confident that he could find a staff, or, if one would not be long enough, several could be fastened together. The coil of rope in the boat would enable him to do this. The sail would afford material for a flag.

All these plans came to his mind as he stood there; and the prospect of once more doing something which was to help him to escape from his prison drove away the last vestige of his grief. His courage again arose, hope revived, and he burst forth into a light and joyous song.

Very different was he now from the despairing lad who, but a short time before, had been pouring forth his tears of sorrow; and yet but a few minutes had pa.s.sed since then. The steamer was yet in sight down the bay, but Tom, who had lately been so frantic in his efforts to attract her attention, now cast a glance after her of perfect indifference.

And now it was necessary for him to return to the east end of the island, and look about for the means of putting into execution his plan for making a signal.

He started off on his return without any further delay. The path back was as rough and toilsome as the way down had been; but Tom was now full of hope, and his elastic spirits had revived so thoroughly that he cared but little for the fatigue of the journey. It was traversed at last, and he descended the slope to the place from which he had started.

His exploration of the island had been quite complete. It seemed to him to be about a mile and a half in length, and a half a mile or so in width. The east end, where he had first arrived, was the only place where it was at all desirable to stay.

Immediately on his arrival he examined the boat, and found it secure.

To his surprise it was now about sunset. He had forgotten the lapse of time. He was hungry; so he sat down, ate his biscuit, drank his water, and rested from the toils of the day.

XVI.

A Sign for the outer World.--A Shelter for the Outcast's Head.--Tom's Camp and Camp-bed.--A Search after Something to vary a too monotonous Diet.--Brilliant Success.

Tom sat down after his eventful day, and took his evening meal, as has been said. He rested then for some time. His excessive labors had fatigued him less than the great excitement which he had undergone, and now he felt disinclined to exert himself. But the sun had set, and darkness was coming on rapidly; so he rose, at last, and went over to the drift-wood. Here, after a search of about half an hour, he found something which was very well suited to his purpose. It was a piece of scantling about twenty feet long, and not very thick; and to this he saw that he could fasten the pole that he had made up in the woods.

These two pieces would make, when joined, a very good flag-staff.