Garth appeared to be a seaman of no mean order. With the charts spread out before them he and the skipper promptly became immersed in a maze of technicalities. My ignorance of matters nautical is abysmal; and I listened in some bewilderment to talk of winds and tides and channels, of soundings and of reefs. I can reconstruct the scene now—the prelude to so many strange adventures!—as the three of us pored over the chart; the long, low chart-house with its clean smell of paint, the holland sun-blinds rattling smartly in the breeze which blew in through the open port-holes, Garth in his loose tussore suit, with his eager face and keen eyes, a fragrant cigar thrust in his mouth, Lawless, rather awed by the other and consequently a trifle formal, stubbing the chart with a huge and podgy thumb.
When they pulled down the big orange-coloured volume of "Sailing Directions" for the Eastern Pacific and opened the page at Cock Island, I could better follow them.
"'The island is mountainous,'" Garth read out in his pleasant, deep voice, "'and entirely volcanic, rising to several peaks, of which the highest reaches 2,856 feet. These peaks are probably volcanoes, but the interior is unexplored and almost impenetrable owing to its steep, rugged and often precipitous nature, the many rushing streams and the dense vegetation. There are small areas of comparatively level ground surrounding Sturt and Horseshoe Bays....'"
He turned the page and skipped a mass of detail.
"'There are only two harbours,'" he read, "'Sturt and Horseshoe Bays. Horseshoe Bay is larger than Sturt Bay but is less sheltered, as it opens to the west and so has a heavy swell during the early months of the year. Moreover, the slopes surrounding the bay are much more abrupt and the area of level land in its neighbourhood is much less considerable.'"
Adams, I recollected, had spoken of the man Dutchey and himself coming upon the grave in a clearing in the undergrowth close to the shore. He had mentioned, too, that their ship's boat had had to find a way in through the bar. It looked to me, therefore, as though they had landed in Horseshoe Bay where the upward slopes began closer to the shore than in Sturt Bay.
We read on. The island, it seemed, had never had any permanent population. It was "the resort of buccaneers in the seventeenth century, and later was a watering-place for whalers." It had "little animal life"; but there were wild pigs, descendants of those left by Captain Martin of the frigate Rover in 1774, and rats, introduced by calling ships. Mention had been made, we were told, by various explorers of huge carved images reputed to exist in the interior of the island, similar to those for which Easter Island is famous; but there was no certain knowledge of their existence.
There were a lot of particulars about attempts to colonise the island, of stray parties of mariners who had landed, with the intention of settling there; but in a year or two had gone away in a passing ship or died off. And there was a string of names, British and foreign, of naval men or of explorers who, landing to fill up with water or to kill some fresh meat, had jotted down a few observations about the island and then sailed away again across the boundless Pacific.
"And now, Okewood," said Garth pleasantly, "you and I and all of us, you know, are merely passengers on the high seas of Captain Lawless here, and with your permission I propose that we should tell him who you are and what you have just confided to me. You have no objection, I take it?"
"None whatever," said I.
"Then tell him yourself!" urged Garth, dropping on to the leather settee. So, sitting between the two on the softly padded seat, I unfolded my plan while the yacht gently swayed at her moorings, and the awnings without cracked like a whip in the breeze.
When I had finished, Garth said:
"You'll agree, I'm sure, that we can spare a week!"
"I'm entirely in your hands, Sir Alexander!" returned the captain. "But there is one condition I should like to make, and that is that this matter remains strictly between us three. I have a very decent lot of men as crew, Sir Alexander, hard-working, reliable chaps and every one personally known to me for years. I'd go so far as to say you've got the pick of the Solent in the Naomi. But this isn't a man-o'-war, gentlemen, nor yet even a merchant vessel. In a pleasure yacht like this there isn't rightly speaking the discipline that you'd find in either, and, to be plain-spoken, I don't want the major here to go upsetting the men with his treasure tales. Lay off at Cock Island, go ashore by all means, and have a 'look see' but don't, for God's sake, blab about it or you'll rot the finest crew that ever shipped! Let's keep this thing to ourselves; indeed, I'll go further than that. Leave me out of it! Then the men, should they hear anything, can't say that I'm in it while they are not! And to tell you the truth, gentlemen, I've had a strict upbringing, my people being chapel-goers, and I was taught to believe that no blessing rests on money that we have not earned with the sweat of our brow and the work of our strong right hand. You two gentlemen take your week ashore and I'll look after the ship!"
Garth turned to me.
"I don't want to leave Captain Lawless out," he said, "but I can't help feeling he's right about the crew!"
"And about everybody else on board, Sir Alexander!" Lawless broke in.
"You mean the women?"
"I mean everybody else on board, just as I said, sir!" reiterated the skipper very firmly and with meaning. "What's everybody's secret is nobody's secret! Mum's the word or you'll have trouble! Mum's the word, I say!"
"Well!" said Garth, "so be it! Mum's the word!"
Then came an unlooked-for interruption.
"Why 'mum'? What's the secret?"
A clear young voice rang out from the door. The three of us scrambled hastily to our feet. On the threshold stood the girl of the smoke-room.
"Morning, Marjie!" said Garth.
He wore something of a hang-dog look. So did I, I think, as I did my best to secrete myself behind them. I was wondering what the girl would think of me when she discovered my involuntary deception. Fortunately Lawless's huge frame completely obliterated me.
"What are you two talking secrets about?" she demanded bluntly. "And why 'mum's the word'?"
Garth looked at Lawless and Lawless looked at Garth; but neither answered her question. Then she looked at the skipper. His air reminded me of a pickpocket caught red-handed.
"Good morning, Miss Garth!" he mumbled and made a stiff little bow. That bow was my undoing; for the captain disclosed me behind him.
"Oh!" cried the girl with a little gurgle of amusement, "it's the doctor! Well, did you take my advice?"
"Yes," I answered. Then, taking the plunge, I faltered:
"But I'm not the doctor...."
On that the girl coloured up a little. I knew what she was thinking of and our eyes met. I felt relieved to see the glint of humour creep into them.
Then Garth, who had turned to speak to the captain, broke in.
"I should have introduced you. Major, this is my daughter—Marjie, Major Okewood, who is coming as far as Honolulu with us. Would you see Carstairs about getting a cabin ready for him?"
With a graceful little nod to her father and a smile to me which had its hidden meaning for us two alone, Marjorie Garth went out again on to the sunlit deck. We three men plunged into our deliberations again and when at length the gong sounded for luncheon we had evolved a rough plan of campaign.
I told Garth quite frankly that the message found on the grave at Cock Island was so far unintelligible to me that I had no certainty of ever being able to decipher it. What I proposed to do, was to examine the grave and the island generally to see whether I could find anything on the spot to throw any light on the message. We arranged, therefore, that in reaching Cock Island, Garth and I should take a camping outfit and go ashore for a period not to exceed a week; that if at the end of that time, my investigations had led to no result I should abandon the enterprise and return with him to the yacht.
It was settled that we should sail that night, as soon as ever the spare parts required by Mr. Mackay, the engineer, were aboard; for I informed Garth of Bard's advice to me to make myself scarce without delay. The captain reckoned that, taking things easy, we should make Cock Island on the fifth day out. We finally decided to put ashore at Horseshoe Bay, as both Lawless and Garth agreed with me that this landing tallied best with the beach-comber's description.
As we crossed the deck to go down to the saloon the spare parts were being hoisted into the yacht from a barge. A hard-faced little man with a rasping Scottish accent, whom I took to be Mr. Mackay, the engineer, was in charge of the operation which was accompanied by some fine, full-flavoured swearing in broad Clydebank and a torrent of epileptic Latin American blasphemy from various parties unseen in the lighter. Small boats piled up to their thwarts with poultry, fruit, vegetables and bread, were bobbing about in a wide semi-circle about the yacht and the air rang with the shrill cries of the vendors.
As we passed the engineer the captain said: "You'll let none of this scum aboard, Mr. Mackay!"
"But the steward was wishful...."
"I don't give a hoot for the steward. I'll have none of these Dagoes aboard my ship. Have you got that clear?"
"Verra guid, sir!" replied the Scotsman resignedly.
I appreciated the skipper's motive and looked at him gratefully. I was beginning to have an admiration for Captain Lawless. Besides being a man of character he was plainly a person of quick perception.
It was now very hot. The pitch was soft in the seams of the deck and the broken white line of the port buildings on shore swam in a tremor of heat. It was a relief to escape from the dazzling sunlight into the shaded seclusion of the saloon, where two purring electric fans kept the atmosphere cool and ice tinkled melodiously in crystal jugs of cider cup.
The girl Marjorie was already seated at the table. With her demurely cropped brown hair gleaming golden where the sunshine touched it, her serene beauty and her white dress, she reminded me of some Florentine Madonna, the shining white port-hole like a halo framing her face against a background of deep azure sky.
"'Le Medecin malgré Lui'!" she exclaimed as I came in, "come and sit by me and tell me how you managed to captivate Daddy so completely! And I promise," she added, smiling up at me deliciously, "that I won't ask you for any more medical advice!"
The girl's attractive presence, the pleasant cool of the saloon, the quiet efficient service made it difficult for me to realise that, only a very few hours before, I had stumbled through blood into a dark and perilous adventure. As I looked into Marjorie Garth's friendly grey eyes, I found the present so attractive that it was no effort to me to thrust into the background the enigma of the future.
My adventure, I decided, was opening under the most pleasant auspices.