The Boats of the Glen Carrig (13 page)

Now, conceiving that this was a good point at which to renew my
importunities, I began once again to explain the probabilities of my plan
succeeding, addressing myself more particularly to the bo'sun. I told how
that I had read that the ancients made mighty weapons, some of which
could throw a great stone so heavy as two men, over a distance surpassing
a quarter of a mile; moreover, that they compassed huge catapults which
threw a lance, or great arrow, even further. On this, he expressed much
surprise, never having heard of the like; but doubted greatly that we
should be able to construct such a weapon. Yet, I told him that I was
prepared; for I had the plan of one clearly in my mind, and further I
pointed out to him that we had the wind in our favor, and that we were a
great height up, which would allow the arrow to travel the farther before
it came so low as the weed.

Then I stepped to the edge of the hill, and, bidding him watch, fitted my
arrow to the string, and, having bent the bow, loosed it, whereupon,
being aided by the wind and the height on which I stood, the arrow
plunged into the weed at a distance of near two hundred yards from where
we stood, that being about a quarter of the distance on the road to the
derelict. At that, the bo'sun was won over to my idea; though, as he
remarked, the arrow had fallen nearer had it been drawing a length of
yarn after it, and to this I assented; but pointed out that my bow and
arrow was but a rough affair, and, more, that I was no archer; yet I
promised him, with the bow that I should make, to cast a shaft clean over
the hulk, did he but give me his assistance, and bid the men to help.

Now, as I have come to regard it in the light of greater knowledge, my
promise was exceeding rash; but I had faith in my conception, and was
very eager to put it to the test; the which, after much discussion at
supper, it was decided I should be allowed to do.

The fourth night upon the island was the first to pass without incident.
It is true that a light showed from the hulk out in the weed; but now
that we had made some acquaintance with her inmates, it was no longer a
cause for excitement, so much as contemplation. As for the valley where
the vile things had made an end of Job, it was very silent and desolate
under the moonlight; for I made a point to go and view it during my time
on watch; yet, for all that it lay empty, it was very eerie, and a place
to conjure up uncomfortable thoughts, so that I spent no great time
pondering it.

This was the second night on which we had been free from the terror of
the devil-things, and it seemed to me that the great fire had put them in
fear of us and driven them away; but of the truth or error of this idea,
I was to learn later.

Now it must be admitted that, apart from a short look into the valley,
and occasional starings at the light out in the weed, I gave little
attention to aught but my plans for the great bow, and to such use did I
put my time, that when I was relieved, I had each particular and detail
worked out, so that I knew very well just what to set the men doing so
soon as we should make a start in the morning.

Presently, when the morning had come, and we had made an end of
breakfast, we turned-to upon the great bow, the bo'sun directing the men
under my supervision. Now, the first matter to which I bent attention,
was the raising, to the top of the hill, of the remaining half of that
portion of the topmast which the bo'sun had split in twain to procure the
batten for the boat. To this end, we went down, all of us, to the beach
where lay the wreckage, and, getting about the portion which I intended
to use, carried it to the foot of the hill; then we sent a man to the top
to let down the rope by which we had moored the boat to the sea anchor,
and when we had bent this on securely to the piece of timber, we returned
to the hill-top, and tailed on to the rope, and so, presently, after much
weariful pulling, had it up.

The next thing I desired was that the split face of the timber should be
rubbed straight, and this the bo'sun understood to do, and whilst he was
about it, I went with some of the men to the grove of reeds, and here,
with great care, I made a selection of some of the finest, these being
for the bow, and after that I cut some which were very clean and
straight, intending them for the great arrows. With these we returned
once more to the camp, and there I set-to and trimmed them of their
leaves, keeping these latter, for I had a use for them. Then I took a
dozen reeds and cut them each to a length of twenty-five feet, and
afterwards notched them for the strings. In the meanwhile, I had sent
two men down to the wreckage of the masts to cut away a couple of the
hempen shrouds and bring them to the camp, and they, appearing about
this time, I set to work to unlay the shrouds, so that they might get
out the fine white yarns which lay beneath the outer covering of tar
and blacking. These, when they had come at them, we found to be very
good and sound, and this being so, I bid them make three-yarn sennit;
meaning it for the strings of the bows. Now, it will be observed that I
have said bows, and this I will explain. It had been my original
intention to make one great bow, lashing a dozen of the reeds together
for the purpose; but this, upon pondering it, I conceived to be but a
poor plan; for there would be much life and power lost in the rendering
of each piece through the lashings, when the bow was released. To
obviate this, and further, to compass the bending of the bow, the which
had, at first, been a source of puzzlement to me as to how it was to be
accomplished, I had determined to make twelve separate bows, and these I
intended to fasten at the end of the stock one above the other, so that
they were all in one plane vertically, and because of this conception, I
should be able to bend the bows one at a time, and slip each string over
the catch-notch, and afterwards frap the twelve strings together in the
middle part so that they would be but one string to the butt of the
arrow. All this, I explained to the bo'sun, who, indeed, had been
exercised in his own mind as to how we should be able to bend such a bow
as I intended to make, and he was mightily pleased with my method of
evading this difficulty, and also one other, which, else, had been
greater than the bending, and that was the
stringing
of the bow, which
would have proved a very awkward work.

Presently, the bo'sun called out to me that he had got the surface of the
stock sufficiently smooth and nice; and at that I went over to him; for
now I wished him to burn a slight groove down the center, running from
end to end, and this I desired to be done very exactly; for upon it
depended much of the true flight of the arrow. Then I went back to my own
work; for I had not yet finished notching the bows. Presently, when I
had made an end of this, I called for a length of the sennit, and, with
the aid of another man, contrived to string one of the bows. This, when I
had finished, I found to be very springy, and so stiff to bend that I had
all that I could manage to do so, and at this I felt very satisfied.

Presently, it occurred to me that I should do well to set some of the men
to work upon the line which the arrow was to carry; for I had determined
that this should be made also from the white hemp yarns, and, for the
sake of lightness, I conceived that one thickness of yarn would be
sufficient; but so that it might compass enough of strength, I bid them
split the yarns and lay the two halves up together, and in this manner
they made me a very light and sound line; though it must not be supposed
that it was finished at once; for I needed over half a mile of it, and
thus it was later finished than the bow itself.

Having now gotten all things in train, I set me down to work upon one of
the arrows; for I was anxious to see what sort of a fist I should make of
them, knowing how much would depend upon the balance and truth of the
missile. In the end, I made a very fair one, feathering it with its own
leaves, and truing and smoothing it with my knife; after which I inserted
a small bolt in the forrard end, to act as a head, and, as I conceived,
give it balance; though whether I was right in this latter, I am unable
to say. Yet, before I had finished my arrow, the bo'sun had made the
groove, and called me over to him, that I might admire it, the which I
did; for it was done with a wonderful neatness.

Now I have been so busy with my description of how we made the great bow,
that I have omitted to tell of the flight of time, and how we had eaten
our dinner this long while since, and how that the people in the hulk had
waved to us, and we had returned their signals, and then written upon a
length of the canvas the one word, "WAIT." And, besides all this, some
had gathered our fuel for the coming night.

And so, presently, the evening came upon us; but we ceased not to work;
for the bo'sun bade the men to light a second great fire, beside our
former one, and by the light of this we worked another long spell;
though it seemed short enough, by reason of the interest of the work.
Yet, at last, the bo'sun bade us to stop and make supper, which we did,
and after that, he set the watches, and the rest of us turned in; for we
were very weary.

In spite of my previous weariness, when the man whom I relieved called me
to take my watch, I felt very fresh and wide awake, and spent a great
part of the time, as on the preceding night, in studying over my plans
for completing the great bow, and it was then that I decided finally in
what manner I would secure the bows athwart the end of the stock; for
until then I had been in some little doubt, being divided between several
methods. Now, however, I concluded to make twelve grooves across the sawn
end of the stock, and fit the middles of the bows into these, one above
the other, as I have already mentioned; and then to lash them at each
side to bolts driven into the sides of the stock. And with this idea I
was very well pleased; for it promised to make them secure, and this
without any great amount of work.

Now, though I spent much of my watch in thinking over the details of my
prodigious weapon, yet it must not be supposed that I neglected to
perform my duty as watchman; for I walked continually about the top of
the hill, keeping my cut-and-thrust ready for any sudden emergency. Yet
my time passed off quietly enough; though it is true that I witnessed one
thing which brought me a short spell of disquiet thought. It was in this
wise:—I had come to that part of the hill-top which overhung the valley,
and it came to me, abruptly, to go near to the edge and look over. Thus,
the moon being very bright, and the desolation of the valley reasonably
clear to the eye, it appeared to me, as I looked that I saw a movement
among certain of the fungi which had not burnt, but stood up shriveled
and blackened in the valley. Yet by no means could I be sure that it was
not a sudden fancy, born of the eeriness of that desolate looking vale;
the more so as I was like to be deceived because of the uncertainty which
the light of the moon gives. Yet, to prove my doubts, I went back until I
had found a piece of rock easy to throw, and this, taking a short run, I
cast into the valley, aiming at the spot where it had seemed to me that
there had been a movement. Immediately upon this, I caught a glimpse of
some moving thing, and then, more to my right, something else stirred,
and at this, I looked towards it; but could discover nothing. Then,
looking back at the clump at which I had aimed my missile, I saw that the
slime covered pool, which lay near, was all a-quiver, or so it seemed.
Yet the next instant I was just as full of doubt; for, even as I watched
it, I perceived that it was quite still. And after that, for some time, I
kept a very strict gaze into the valley; yet could nowhere discover aught
to prove my suspicions, and, at last, I ceased from watching it; for I
feared to grow fanciful, and so wandered to that part of the hill which
overlooked the weed.

Presently, when I had been relieved, I returned to sleep, and so till the
morning. Then, when we had made each of us a hasty breakfast—for all
were grown mightily keen to see the great bow completed—we set-to upon
it, each at our appointed task. Thus, the bo'sun and I made it our work
to make the twelve grooves athwart the flat end of the stock, into which
I proposed to fit and lash the bows, and this we accomplished by means of
the iron futtock-shroud, which we heated in its middle part, and then,
each taking an end (protecting our hands with canvas), we went one on
each side and applied the iron until at length we had the grooves burnt
out very nicely and accurately. This work occupied us all the morning;
for the grooves had to be deeply burnt; and in the meantime the men had
completed near enough sennit for the stringing of the bows; yet those who
were at work on the line which the arrow was to carry, had scarce made
more than half, so that I called off one man from the sennit to turn-to,
and give them a hand with the making of the line.

When dinner was ended, the bo'sun and I set-to about fitting the bows
into their places, which we did, and lashed them to twenty-four bolts,
twelve a side, driven into the timber of the stock, about twelve inches
in from the end. After this, we bent and strung the bows, taking very
great care to have each bent exactly as the one below it; for we started
at the bottom. And so, before sunset, we had that part of our work ended.

Now, because the two fires which we had lit on the previous night had
exhausted our fuel, the bo'sun deemed it prudent to cease work, and go
down all of us to bring up a fresh supply of the dry seaweed and some
bundles of the reeds. This we did, making an end of our journeyings just
as the dusk came over the island. Then, having made a second fire, as on
the preceding night, we had first our supper, and after that another
spell of work, all the men turning to upon the line which the arrow was
to carry, whilst the bo'sun and I set-to, each of us, upon the making of
a fresh arrow; for I had realized that we should have to make one or two
flights before we could hope to find our range and make true our aim.