The Cruise of the Alerte · Chapter 12 (2/2)

We went still higher up the ravine, until we were close to the place where the stream issues from the ground, a short distance below the foot of the great landslip of black rocks. Here we found an admirable site for our camp. This gully, as I have explained, falls towards the shore at a very steep angle, the rocks, as it were, forming a gigantic flight of steps. We were now on one of these steps, a flat surface, about ten feet across, covered with red sand. The stream fell on to this from the step above, forming a little cascade some twelve feet in height, and, after crossing one side of the flat, fell over another wall of rock on to the step below.

The scene around us was strangely picturesque. Our step was simply a small ledge in this wilderness of broken black rocks; above us and below us were precipices and landslips. It was an excellent situation for an eagle’s nest, but not an over-secure spot for a camp of men. Our narrow bed would not do for a restless sleeper: to slip off the edge of it would insure a broken neck. A coarse grass grew here and there between the rocks by the waterside, but there was no other vegetation on the bleak crags, though of course the mysterious dead trees, as everywhere else on this island, were lying thickly all around. The foul birds and the land-crabs were the sole inhabitants of this solitude.

We now proceeded to make ourselves at home for the night. I collected the branches and trunks of the dead trees and built up a goodly pile of firewood, while the doctor prepared our supper. We had no saucepan with us, so the pannikin had to do duty for one. In this the doctor concocted a stew, the ingredients of which were ch’arki, biscuit, figs, and Trinidad beans. It turned out to be a far more tasty dish than one would have supposed.

After dinner the saucepan was cleaned out and grog was served out in it⁠—the last of our supply of rum. We had just lit our pipes and were settling ourselves down to a comfortable half-hour’s smoke and chat before turning in (to whom is a pipe so sweet as to one camping out under the stars after the day’s work?) when suddenly the doctor cried out, “Hullo, look at our beds!” I looked, and lo! to my dismay, those luxurious couches were under water.

I must explain that we had pulled up a quantity of grass and strewed it over the sand, so as to make a snug soft sleeping-place for the night. While we were enjoying our dinner, the river, unobserved by us, had risen considerably, and was now flowing over that portion of the step whereon we had made up our beds. There had been no rain to account for this, so I suppose that the sun, blazing down on the rocks, causes a great evaporation of water during the day, and that, consequently, the volume of the stream is greater after sunset.

So we had now to put aside our pipes and grog for a few moments and undertake some necessary engineering operations: we cleared away a channel through the natural dam of grass, stones, and sand at the lower edge of the step, and so gave a free passage to the swollen stream. The flood subsided at once, and our beds were above water again. The doctor, then, acting in his medical capacity, suggested that damp mattresses were unhealthy; so we threw a few handfuls of grass on the top of the sodden mass, and our beds were what we were pleased to call dry again.

We lit a fire of the dead wood and kept it alight all night, so that we could occasionally warm ourselves by it; for a wind had sprung up at sunset, which swept up the ravine from the sea, making us feel uncomfortably chilly, thinly clad as we were and having no blankets to cover us.

We soon found that it would be impossible for us both to sleep at the same time, for the land-crabs had smelt us out and swarmed down upon us from all sides. We kept watch and watch; while one slept the other tended the fire and killed the land-crabs, as they approached, with sticks and stones. The other crabs, as usual, fed on the dead. I have, in The Cruise of the Falcon, described the peculiarly uncanny way in which a land-crab eats his food. I saw this night, as I kept watch, at least twenty of them at a time devouring the carcasses of their slain friends. Each stood quite still, looking me straight in the face with his fixed outstarting eyes, and with an expression absolutely diabolical. He pulled the food to pieces with his two front claws, and then, with deliberate motion, brought the fragments of flesh to his mouth with one claw, and chewed them up with a slow automatic action, but still those horrible eyes never moved, but stared steadily into mine.

As we had no means of judging the time, it was difficult to divide the night into watches of even length, so we had to portion it out between us the best way we could.