“Hey, there. Here’s land!”
Chapter 5
A Tree-Top Landing
No storm-tossed mariners, lost in an uncharted sea, ever greeted the cry with more enthusiasm. They might have been at sea for weeks instead of hours, the way they came swarming up the stairs. Even Professor Parker’s face was lit with joy, and with a vast relief.
The upthrust mountain which reared above the ocean was close enough to show the fronds of foliage, the long leaves of palms that were like banana palms.
“Thought you said we were in the temperate zone,” said Phil. “This looks like what my geography said the South Sea Islands looked like.”
The scientist nodded.
“Quite right. I said we were in the new temperate zone. I didn’t say anything about what zone it had been.”
“But,” protested the girl, “how could we have left New York yesterday and been swept down into the tropics?”
The professor grinned.
“That’s the point. We weren’t. The tropics were swept up to us. Take a bowl of water, put a match in it, turn the bowl. The match doesn’t turn. That’s because the water doesn’t turn in the bowl. There isn’t enough friction between the glass and the water to turn the bowl and its contents as a unit.
“To a more limited extent that’s true of the earth, although I’ve had trouble getting my scientific friends to believe it. Simply because the water hasn’t lagged behind in the daily rotation of the globe is no sign that it wouldn’t lag if the motion were changed.
“The earth has been rotating in one way for millions of years, and the water has fallen into step, so to speak. Now look at that island. See how rapidly it’s going past. Looks like we’re moving at a terrific speed, but the earth is evidently swinging true on its new orbit.
“However, I look for the motion of the water to cease shortly. There should be a backwash which will do much to stem the force of the rushing water... Unless I’m mistaken, here it comes. Look there to the south. Isn’t that a wall of water? Sure it is, a massive ground swell. It’s moving rapidly. We must be in a very deep section of the ocean, or it would be breaking on top.
“Let’s get down and close everything tightly.”
“Judas Priest!” groaned Phil. “Have I got to ride some more bucking broncos?”
“Quite probably,” was the dry retort, “you’ll have worse experiences than riding high tidal waves, my young, impatient, and impetuous friend!”
They tumbled back down the companionway again, battened everything down. The wave struck them before they were aware of it. They were swung up, up, up, and then down, then up again on a long swell, then down.
Then there was a roar and a smaller wave, the crest curling with foam, came at them. The roar sounded like a cataract.
“We’ll go over sure,” said Phil, but he spoke with a grin. Fate had handed him so many buffets of late that he was beginning to take it all as a joke.
The wave hit them, but the little craft, angling up the foaming crest, kept on its keel, and the top of the wave went boiling by, leaving them rocking in a backwash.
“Now,” said Professor Parker, “that should mark the beginning of some turbulent water, with, perhaps, a storm. Let’s see where our land is.”
And he thrust a cautious head through the companionway, suddenly ducked down.
“It’s right on us!” he yelled.
Phil jumped up, and was thrown from his feet by a jar that shivered the boat throughout its length. Then there was a scraping sound, and the crash of splintering wood.
The boat listed over at a sharp angle, held for a moment, then dropped abruptly to the tune of more splintering noises. Phil’s feet skidded out from under him. He flung up an arm to protect his head, and came to a stop on the berth where he had spent the night. A moment later Stella Ranson catapulted into him, breaking the force of her fall by his arms, which caught her in a steady firm grip.
“Easy all,” said Phil. “Where’s the professor? This looks like the end of the boat. All that splintering must have meant the timbers are crushed to smithereens!”
He scrambled to his feet, bracing himself, holding the girl against the sharp incline of the deck.
“Great heavens, we’re up a tree,” he said.
The voice of the scientist came from one side of the cabin where his watery eyes were plastered up against a porthole, surveying the countryside.
“We are not only up a tree,” he said, “but we seem to be pretty well lodged there. We rode in on the crest of a wave which deposited us in the branches of this tree. I do not know the species, but it seems to be something like a mahogany tree. Undoubtedly, it is a tropical tree.
“We have sustained injuries to our boat, and the wave is quite likely to be succeeded by other waves. There’s higher ground up the slope of this mountain, and I suggest we make for it without delay.”
Phil grinned at the girl.
“Translated,” he said, “that means we’ve got the only tree-climbing boat in the world, and that we’d better beat it while the beating’s good. Let’s get that rope and put some knots in it. Then we can lower down our blankets and provisions. Personally, I’m a great believer in having all the comforts.”
They fought their way to the outer deck of the boat, found that a jagged branch was stuck through the hull, that the boat would not float without extensive repairs first being made. There followed a period of activity, during which they knotted a rope, lowered down bundles of blankets and provisions.
Finally, they were safe on the ground, the boat marooned high in the tree, more than twenty feet above the ground. The waters had receded and roared a sullen, although diminutive surf, some twenty yards away from the roots of the tree.
“Well,” said Phil, “I always hated to carry camp stuff on my back, but we can’t go hungry, so here’s where I start. This is entirely in my department. I’ll make a couple of trips with the heavier stuff and then we’ll be established in camp.”
The other two protested, but Phil adhered to his statement, refusing to allow them to participate in the work of carrying the camp equipment up the slope. He divided it into two huge bundles, so heavy that neither the scientist nor the woman could lift them from the ground. Yet Phil swung one of the big rolls to his shoulder, and led the way up the slope.
They found a trail which Phil pronounced to be a game trail, although there was no sign of game. They followed this trail through a tangle of thick foliage to a ridge, up the ridge to a little shelf where a tree and an overhanging rock furnished shelter.
Here they made camp, some three hundred feet above the level of the ocean. Phil suggested they go higher, but the scientist, taking observations by holding his small sextant on the sun, insisted that the world had finished its weird toppling. He was inclined to think the poles had changed positions by a long swing of the globe, and that a new equilibrium had been established.
While he could make no accurate calculations in advance of knowledge of where the island was upon which they had effected a landing, he was inclined to think that the site of the new north pole was somewhere in the vicinity of England.
But all was mere conjecture, and Phil Bregg was more interested in matters at hand than in abstract scientific problems.
He made a trip back to the boat, brought up the second bundle of provisions, blankets, tools which he had taken from the yacht, and started making a camp with a dexterity which brought forth little exclamations of admiration from the girl, and approving nods from the scientist.
“Now,” said Phil, “what we need is a little more knowledge of what sort of a place we’re in, and maybe some fresh meat. That means weapons. I’ve got a hand-ax, and I can sharpen up a sort of Indian spear and harden the point in the fire. That might net us a hog, or maybe a rabbit, if they have rabbits.