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Our next care was to provide the oil with which to fill the temple lamps. This we believed we should be able to do without difficulty, for during our fishing excursions to the big lagoon we had already discovered that a certain part of it was swarming with a species of fish so oily as to be scarcely eatable, and it was from this fish that we hoped to obtain our supply. Accordingly on a certain day Oldroyd and I bade farewell to the rest of the party, announcing that we expected to be absent about a fortnight, and taking our bows and arrows and some empty meat tins in which to store the oil, we set out for our original camping ground on the shore of the lagoon. Arrived there, we put in a strenuous twelve days of fishing and oil extracting, and so returned to the tower with our tins full of oil, and a good supply of smoked and fresh fish.

Naturally, we lost no time in testing the value of our oil for illuminating purposes, and were gratified to find that, with wicks formed from the pith of a rush which grew in the neighbourhood of the swamp, it answered very well, affording a fine, clear, brilliant flame, the only drawback to which was that it gave off a disagreeable odour.

Meanwhile, during our absence the excavators had not been idle, and the first news to greet us was that the passage had been cleared, and had been found to terminate in a ruined building on the other side of the stream, distant about half a mile from the tower; this building having undoubtedly been—according to the Doctor—the abode of the priests who had served in the queer but wonderful subterranean temple. This surmise was based not only upon the size of the building but also upon the fact that it contained no less than forty cells or small sleeping apartments built on opposite sides of a long corridor, as well as several other and larger apartments, the biggest of which had the appearance of having been used as a refectory. The discovery of this building was most advantageous to us; for though, as a whole, the structure was a weed-grown ruin, the cellar in which the subterranean passage terminated was intact, as were several of the cells; and these last we at once cleared of dust and rubbish, with the view of inhabiting them during the rainy season, the approach of which we were now anticipating.

One way and another, we found so many modes of occupying our time that seldom had any of us an idle moment, yet, busy though we were, Oldroyd and I somehow found time to clean and carefully trim every one of the lamps not only in the great circular temple itself, but also those in the anteroom, on the grand stairway, and on the landing above; and, this done, we proceeded to light them all, and to treat ourselves and the rest of the party to a full and comprehensive view of the beauties and marvels of the wonderful place. And if those beauties and marvels had excited our admiration when viewed by torchlight, affording such inadequate illumination that they were guessed at rather than seen, what shall be said of them when they were lit by a hundred large lamps?—for that was the exact number which went to the lighting of the landing, the stairway, the anteroom, and the great circular temple itself. The effect upon the painted walls with their innumerable figures was beautiful and wonderful beyond description; and we could but gaze silently and admiringly as we pondered from whence had come the people capable of executing such marvellous work, and, still more, by what fate they had been obliterated.

It was while the temple was illuminated and the first real inspection of it was in progress that a further discovery was made which, while it seemed at the moment to be comparatively unimportant, was destined by a curious chance to exercise a vital influence upon the fortunes of the entire party. The discovery was that of a small chamber behind the recess, or shrine, in which stood the figure of the goddess. There was no furniture in this chamber, save a large chest, or coffer, constructed of some exceedingly hard wood, black with age, elaborately and exquisitely carved on its four sides and its cover, and bound at its angles with great bands of metal which ultimately proved to be bronze, chased all over in a graceful pattern of intricate, flowing curves, as were also its massive bronze hinges. The lid was not locked or fastened in any way, and—perhaps naturally expecting that so handsome a receptacle would be found to contain something especially choice—the coffer was quickly opened, when it was found to contain several very beautiful, richly embroidered and jewelled woman’s garments, which seemed to have been intended to furnish a change of robes for the enshrined figure. Owing to the perfectly dry air of the subterranean chambers, aided possibly by the almost hermetically tight fit of the lid of the chest, the garments—of which there were nine complete sets—were in a state of perfect preservation, and after they had been opened out and duly admired, particularly by the two girls, they were carefully re-folded and returned to the custody of the chest.

It was about a week after this discovery that we had reason to believe the long-expected rainy season was actually at hand. Hitherto, the weather had been perfect, from the moment of our arrival upon the island; that is to say, the trade-wind had blown steadily all day, springing up about eight o’clock in the morning as a gentle breeze, gradually freshening to half a gale about one o’clock in the afternoon, and then as gradually moderating until by about half an hour after sunset it fell to a flat calm, succeeded, about an hour later, by a land breeze which blew with varying intensity until about half an hour after sunrise the next morning; this breeze, by the way, only reaching about a mile and a half into the offing, where it gradually merged into the trade-wind, which blew night and day over the surface of the surrounding ocean. And all this while the rich, brilliant, ultramarine blue of the sky continued to be softly dappled with cotton-wool tufts of trade cloud coming up out of the eastern horizon, sailing solemnly, one after another, across the sky, and settling away below the western horizon, a few of them casting their shadows upon the island as they swept over it, but never a one of them bringing so much as a drop of rain in its skirts. This long continued absence of rain was at first a source of wonder to me, for I could not understand how, under the circumstances, the verdure of the island retained its perennial freshness as it seemed to do; but the explanation came upon the first night when Oldroyd and I camped out in the open, upon the occasion of our exploration of the northern end of the island; for when we awoke in the morning it was to find our clothing saturated with dew, while every bough, every leaf, and every tiny blade of grass was dripping with it.

But now, about the time before mentioned, a change seemed to be coming over the spirit of our dream; for upon turning out on a certain morning to take our usual dip before beginning the labours of the day, the first sensation of which we became aware was that of a strange lethargy, as different as darkness is from light from the feeling of briskness, vigour and abounding vitality with which we were wont to spring from our leafy couches every morning. We were all affected by it in an equal degree, and for a few moments we were all, I believe, subject to the same fear, namely, that this unwonted disinclination to move and bestir ourselves was the forerunner of some malady, peculiar, perhaps, to the island at a certain season of the year. But upon our emergence into the open air—for we had by this time made the cells of the ruined building our night quarters—we perceived that it was due in great measure, if not entirely, to a change of weather which had occurred during the night. The sky was no longer the cloud-flecked clear, transparent blue to which we had grown accustomed, but of an uniform dirty white, streaked here and there with patches of smoky grey, except away to the eastward, where the newly-risen sun appeared as a shapeless blotch of yellow radiance imperfectly showing through the unbroken curtain of vapour which obscured the heavens. And there was no sign of the regularly recurring trade-wind, or indeed of any wind at all, for every twig and leaf hung as motionless in the stagnant, stifling air, as though wrought in metal, while the boom of the surf breaking upon the reefs came to our ears with startling distinctness.

“Ah!” remarked Oldroyd, gaspingly, as he wiped the perspiration from his already streaming visage, “I guess this means that the rainy season is coming at last. Now, it is up to you and me, Massey, to make tracks for the tobacco patch, the first thing after breakfast, and to bring in every leaf that is sufficiently cured to make it worth while; for a downpour of rain will just spoil them all; and we shall need every ounce we can save, if we are not to go short before the ripening of next year’s crop. So, hustle, lad, hustle; get a move on you, and look lively about it.”

Strangely enough, however, no rain came all through the day, but the atmosphere grew hourly more suffocatingly close, until it seemed possible to get enough air for our parched lungs only by taking great gasping gulps of it, as men do when at the point of suffocation. And all the while, the perspiration streamed from us until our scanty clothing was saturated; while, as for work, the mere exertion of moving our limbs seemed almost too much for us. Yet by setting our teeth and keeping grimly at it all day Oldroyd and I contrived to save the remaining portion of our tobacco crop, a task that under ordinary circumstances we could have accomplished easily in a couple of hours!

With the arrival of sunset we were treated to a picture of such gorgeous, sombre magnificence as I, in all my experience of the tropics, had never beheld. The whole of the western sky seemed to be ablaze, while, to add to the wonder of the scene, the blazing heavens were broadly streaked with great bands of dun, smoky cloud intermingled with blotches of blood-red and purple-black. This fiery display lasted for only a few minutes, the vividness of the colours faded even as we gazed at them spellbound, and presently all had become a jumble of dull, smoky, brownish grey that quickly changed to black, and the night, breathless and dark, with an Egyptian darkness that could almost be felt, fell upon us, and we groped our way to the interior of the ruin, and lit the lamps, the added heat of which, trifling though it actually was, made the breathless atmosphere more unbearable than ever.

There was nothing to keep us from our beds, that night, therefore with one accord we sought our couches early, animated by the fervently expressed hope that we might find relief in sleep, for we were all labouring under a feeling of the extreme langour and exhaustion. But although my couch of dry ferns and grass was sufficiently soft and comfortable to lure sleep to my pillow of heaped vegetation in the course of a minute or two upon ordinary occasions, it refused to come to me, that night; the very walls of the cell which formed my sleeping chamber seemed to exude heat, as the walls of an oven, while not a breath of air came in through the great unglazed aperture at the head of my couch, which served as a window, and I missed, and deeply resented the absence of, the usual soothing swish and sough of the wind in the branches and foliage of the trees which surrounded the ruin at no great distance.

At length, however, nature asserted herself, and I was slowly sinking into a condition of restful unconsciousness when I was startled into broad wakefulness again by a flash of light that for the fraction of a second illuminated my cell with a brilliance more intense, it seemed to me, than the radiance of the noontide sun, while my ears were deafened by a crackling crash so violent that I felt the masonry of the stone floor beneath my bed quiver and vibrate with the terrific violence of it. This was almost instantly followed by another flash and thunder-clap, the flash and the clap synchronising so accurately that I knew the storm must be immediately overhead; and then for a few moments the flashes of lightning with their accompanying peals of thunder, followed each other so rapidly that the whole island seemed to be on fire and at the same time in process of being rent to pieces—so paralysingly awful was the sound of the crashing thunder. Then, while the lightning continued to blaze and the thunder to shake the ruin to its foundations with its terrific crackling detonations, the rain splashed down with a roar like that of a cascade, and in an instant the whole surface of the island was covered with rushing streams of water, while the atmosphere became a downpouring deluge through which the darting flashes of lightning showed as through crinkled glass.

What with the roar and rush of the rain through my window, the crash of broken branches and falling trees outside, and the deafening peals of thunder, it seemed impossible for any other sounds to reach my ears, yet now and then methought I could catch fragments, as it were, of sound from the inside of the ruin which suggested that my immediate neighbours on my right and left were in a plight similar to my own; but I could do nothing to help them. I therefore stood, as I had been caught, near the window of my cell, with the wind wildly scuffling all about me and the rain lashing me from head to foot, yet feeling through it all a curious, detached sense of enjoyment, for at last I was once more pleasantly cool and it was no longer an effort to breathe.

The hurricane lasted until dawn; then with the uprising of the sun the clouds suddenly broke to windward and went sweeping in a wild scurry of tattered fragments across the sky until the last shred of them had vanished, the rain ceased, the sky resumed its usual tint of deep, rich, crystalline blue, the wind dropped with startling suddenness, the sun poured down his scorching beams upon the saturated earth, which gave forth its superfluous moisture in the form of great clouds of steam, and within the space of an hour everything was again as it had been upon the island from the moment of our landing, save for the sodden interiors of the cells that happened to be on what was the weather side of the ruin when the storm burst, and for the uprooted trees that met our gaze here and there when we sallied forth, and the innumerable broken twigs and branches that were everywhere to be seen.

Although it scarcely seemed so at the moment, this brief hurricane was the herald of the rainy season on the island, for thereafter, for the space of some three months, scarcely a day passed without rain, more or less; sometimes it amounted to no more than a short, sharp five-minute shower just before sunrise—a sort of “pride of the morning”—while at other times we were treated to a whole day’s steady downpour.

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Chapter Nine: The Beginning of Trouble.

Meanwhile we had all been busy in our several ways, for the most part doing everything in our power to improve our condition and make life as pleasant as might be during our involuntary sojourn upon the island. Doctor Shirley-Winthrop was the only drone in our hive, although I am quite certain that it would have been impossible for anyone to persuade him that such was the case; on the contrary, every word and action of his bore eloquent testimony to the fact that he enjoyed the comfortable assurance that the work upon which he was engaged was the only work which really mattered, or was of any actual value; the labours of us others were merely expended upon the common, humdrum task of keeping the community alive. And what was this important work upon which the worthy Doctor was engaged, it may be asked. On nothing less than an accurate survey of the tower and its subterranean adjuncts, and the careful copying of the paintings on the walls! He was convinced—and no doubt he was so far right—that the tower, the subterranean temple and its approaches, were the relics of a dead and gone highly civilised and cultured people who had existed unknown and unsuspected upon that island, and had vanished in some unaccountable way; and he felt it to be not only his duty but his privilege to discover everything he could about them, and in due time to communicate his discovery to the world. It was a congenial task, which he pursued with enthusiasm, and he was ably seconded in it by Mason when that ingenious individual’s services were not requisitioned for the production of some article, the possession of which our steadily-growing needs demanded. For the rest, the two girls had by this time not only assumed the entire control of the domestic arrangements of the party, but they also employed their spare time in spinning their silk into thread, weaving it into cloth on the loom with which Mason’s ingenuity had provided them, and finally converting the cloth into sorely needed garments. And here it may be mentioned that our lengthened sojourn upon the island, our mutual dependence upon each other, and the natural and primitive style of our lives, was fast working a most important change and improvement upon Miss Anthea Shirley-Winthrop’s character. Her insufferable pride and hauteur were being rapidly toned down. She was treated with precisely the same amount of respect and consideration as was accorded to Lucy Stroud, and no more; her occasional outbreaks of petulant temper were met by silent but none the less unmistakable marks of disapproval, and very soon she was made to realise that if she wished to be treated as a rational person, she must behave as such. There was no room on the island for people of the spoiled-child variety, and, to do her justice, commonsense brought recognition of this fact and a corresponding improvement of character and behaviour. I believe I was one of the first to profit, for at the outset of our intercourse she had regarded me merely as one of the crew of the ship, and consequently in some sort as a person whose services she—or rather her father—had bought and paid for, and who therefore might be treated with that contemptuous indifference which ill-bred people consider a proper attitude toward dependents of every kind. But by the time of which I am now writing all that sort of behaviour was a thing of the past; fate and circumstance had put us upon an equal footing, and we had come to understand each other so far as to have insensibly slipped into the habit of addressing each other by our Christian names. Oldroyd and I were still the chief foragers of the party, although the two girls made it a rule to take an hour’s walking exercise each day, during which it was their custom to gather enough fruit for the daily needs of the party; while, as for the two seamen, they had built a huge stack of timber on the summit of the peak, to serve as a signal bonfire, should a ship heave in sight, and they took it in turns to spend the day on the summit, maintaining a continuous look-out.