The Pirate Island

The Pirate Island
A Story of the South Pacific
By Harry Collingwood
CHAPTER ONE.
THE WRECK ON THE "GUNFLEET."
It was emphatically "a dirty night." The barometer had been slowly but
persistently falling during the two previous days; the dawn had been
red and threatening, with a strong breeze from S.E.; and as the short
dreary November day waxed and waned this strong breeze had steadily
increased in strength until by nightfall it had become a regular
"November gale," with frequent squalls of arrowy rain and sleet, which,
impelled by the furious gusts, smote and stung like hail, and cleared the
streets almost as effectually as a volley of musketry would have done.
It was not fit for a dog to be out of doors. So said Ned Anger as he
entered the snug bar-parlour of the "Anchor" at Brightlingsea, and
drawing a chair close up to the blazing fire of wreck-wood which
roared up the ample chimney, flung himself heavily down thereon to
await the arrival of the "pint" which he had ordered as he passed the
bar.
"And yet there's a many poor souls as has to be out in it, and as is out in
it," returned the buxom hostess, entering at the moment with the
aforesaid pint upon a small tray. "It's to be hoped as none of 'em won't
meet their deaths out there among the sands this fearful night," she
added, as Ned took the glass from her, and deposited his "tuppence" in
the tray in payment therefor.
A sympathetic murmur of concurrence went round the room in
response to this philanthropic wish, accompanied in some instances by

doubtful shakes of the head.
"Ay, ay, we all hope that," remarked Dick Bird--"Dicky Bird" was the
name which had been playfully bestowed upon him by his chums, and
by which he was generally known--"we all hopes that; but I, for one,
feels uncommon duberous about it. There's hardly a capful of wind as
blows but what some poor unfort'nate craft leaves her bones out
there,"--with a jerk of the thumb over his shoulder to seaward,--"and
mostly with every wreck there's some lives lost. I say, mates, I s'pose
there's somebody on the look-out?"
"Ay, ay," responded old Bill Maskell from his favourite corner under
the tall old-fashioned clock-case, "Bob's gone across the creek and up
to the tower, as usual. The boy will go; always says as how it's his duty
to go up there and keep a look-out in bad weather; so, as his eyes is as
sharp as needles, and since one is as good as a hundred for that sort of
work, I thought I'd just look in here for a hour or two, so's to be on the
spot if in case any of us should be wanted."
"I've often wondered how it is that it always falls to Bob's lot to go
upon the look-out in bad weather. How is it?" asked an individual in
semi-nautical costume at the far end of the room, whose bearing and
manner conveyed the impression that he regarded himself, as indeed he
was, somewhat of an intruder. He was a ship-chandler's shopman, with
an ambition to be mistaken for a genuine "salt," and had not been many
months in the place.
"Well, you see, mister, the way of it is just this," explained old Maskell,
who considered the question as addressed more especially to him: "Bob
was took off a wrack on the Maplin when he was a mere babby, the
only one saved; found him wrapped up warm and snug in one of the
bunks on the weather side of the cabin with the water surging up to
within three inches of him; so ever since he's been old enough to
understand he've always insisted as it was his duty, by way of returning
thanks, like, to take the look-out when a wrack may be expected. And,
don't you make no mistake, there ain't an eye so sharp as his for a
signal-rocket in the whole place, see's 'em almost afore they be fired--
he do."

"And did you ever try to find his relatives?" asked the shopman.
"Well, no; I can't say as we did, exactly," answered old Bill, "'cause
you see we didn't rightly know how to set to work at the job. The ship
as he was took off of was a passenger-ship, the Lightning of London,
and, as I said afore, he was the only one saved. There were nobody else
as we could axe any questions of, and, the ship hailing from London,
there was no telling where his friends might have come from. There
was R.L. marked on his little clothes, and that was all. So we was
obliged to content ourselves with having that fact tacked on to