Chapter 13 Section Thirteen

For more than 100 years, there has been a legend circulating on Dolphin Island.Originally, Johnny would have heard this legend shortly after he went to the island, but in fact it was Johnny himself who discovered this mysterious historical story. The forest on the island covers 1/3 of the whole island.That day, Johnny took a shortcut through the forest.Although it is a shortcut, the road is not convex.As soon as he left the path, he quickly lost his way.Surrounded by dense pandanus and various tropical trees, shrubs and vines.Johnny staggered through the knee-deep mud of the soft sand beneath his feet, which the fulmar had dug holes in everywhere.

In fact, it was strange to feel lost in the woods only a few hundred feet from where he lived and his friends.For, on the one hand, he felt as though he were in the depths of a great forest, thousands of miles away from the civilized world, and that there was an air of solitude and mystery surrounding him, in which wild beasts of all kinds might lurk; There is no danger from the wild beasts, and he can go in any direction if he wants to, and he can walk out of the forest in five minutes.Of course, he had a purpose in traveling through the forest this time.Kojima was no big deal, so he had nothing to worry about.

Suddenly, Johnny finds something strange about the wooded area he's just stumbled into.The trees here are smaller and less dense than elsewhere.Looking around, he realized that this must have been a glade.But this glade has been out of use for a long time, so it is full of trees and weeds.In a few years, there will be dense trees and grass here, connecting with the surrounding forests. Who lived on the Great Barrier Reef, thought Johnny, before radio and airplanes brought it into contact with the civilized world?Is it a criminal?Pirates?All sorts of romantic thoughts raced through his mind, while he poked around at the roots of the tree, looking for some relic.

Before long, he was disappointed and suspected that he was just thinking wildly.Suddenly, he found a rock blackened by smoke, half covered with leaves and dirt.He thought, this must be a place to warm up, so he dug harder.After a while, he found some pieces of rusted iron, a tea mug without a handle, and a broken spoon. He found nothing else.These discoveries were of little value, and certainly did not make Johnny ecstatic.But it is enough to prove that civilized people have been here a long time ago, not primitive savages.Dolphin Island is far from the mainland, who would come here for a picnic?Those who come must have a purpose.

Johnny picked up the broken key as a souvenir and left the glade. Five minutes later, he was back on the beach.He went to Mick.He found Mick in the classroom giving a math class.The TV screen showed Mick doing the exercises on the third tape of the second level.As soon as Mick finished the practice, he turned off the teaching machine.Johnny showed him the broken key and told him where it was found. To Johnny's surprise, Mick looked uncomfortable. "I hope you didn't pick up the broken key. You'd better put it back where it was!" "Why?" Johnny asked, surprised.

Mick looked embarrassed.He rubbed his big bare feet back and forth across the smooth plastic floor without answering Johnny's question directly. "Of course," he said, "I don't really believe in ghosts, but I would never go there at night by myself." Johnny was a little annoyed, but he knew he had to let Mick get his way and tell the whole story.Mick started taking Johnny to the communications center, hung up on the Brisbane Museum, and spoke a few words with the Assistant Curator of the Queensland History Branch. After a few seconds, something strange appeared on the screen.It was a small iron box, or possibly a water tank, 4 feet square and 2 feet deep, in a glass case.There are also 2 rough paddles beside it.

"What do you see that is?" Mick asked. "Looks like a water tank to me," Johnny said. "Yes," Mick said, "but it's also a boat. This boat set off from this island 130 years ago—with three people in it." "Three people!—Three people in such a small thing?" "Yes, one of them was a baby. Two grown-ups, an Englishwoman named Mary Watson, and her Chinese cook. I forget his name--Ah or something. Mick begins to tell the amazing story, which takes Johnny to a distant time.And yet, that was only 1881—less than a century and a half from now.At that time, there had been telephones and steam engines; Albert and Einstein had also been born.But on the Great Barrier Reef, cannibal tribes still cruise in canoes.

Nevertheless, Watson, a young British officer, built his home on Dolphin Island.He traded in gathering sea cucumbers; ugly creatures that sauntered about in coral pools.The Chinese regard sea cucumbers as treasures and believe they have medicinal value.They buy dried sea cucumbers at a high price. The sea cucumbers around the island were quickly collected, and young officers could only go far away to collect them.Sometimes he would go on a small boat for weeks at a time, with his wife looking after the house.There is also a newborn baby and two Chinese servants in his home. After her husband left the island, barbarians from the primitive tribe came to the island.They killed one Chinese and badly wounded another.In the end, Mary Watson drove off the savages with rifles and revolvers.They were bound to return, she knew--and her husband's ship would not return for a month.

The situation was dire, but Mary Watson was a brave and resourceful woman.She decided to escape from Dolphin Island, and the small iron box was used to cook sea cucumbers.She housed the baby, the Chinese and herself in the tank, hoping to be spotted by the regular boats that pass by the Great Barrier Reef. She filled the tank with food and water and paddled away from the island.The Chinese was too wounded to help her much, and the baby was only four months old and needed constant attention.The only luck is that the sea is as calm as a mirror; otherwise, the water tank would turn over and sink within 10 minutes.

The next day they landed on a nearby coral island and stayed there for two days, hoping to see ships pass by.But not a single ship was seen.They had to go back on the road and finally reached a small island about 42 miles away from Dolphin Island. On this small island, they found a steam ship passing by.Mary Watson flicked her hood wildly, but no one on board noticed her. At this time, the fresh water has been drunk, and there is no fresh water on the island.They barely survived another 4 days on the island, hoping that it will rain or a ship will pass by.But the rain did not fall, the boat did not come, and they finally died of thirst slowly.

Three months later, by chance, a steamboat sailing past the island sent people ashore to look for food.As a result, the food was not found, but the body of the Chinese chef and the iron box hidden in the bushes were found.Mary Watson huddled in an iron box with the baby in her arms.Beside her lay a logbook, which lasted eight days until her last breath. "I saw this logbook in the museum," Mick said solemnly. "There were a dozen sheets of paper, torn from exercise books. Most of the writing was still legible. The last sentence I shall never forget. It read: "No water—dying of thirst . " The two children didn't say a word for a long time.Then Johnny looked at the broken key in his hand.Out of respect for the brave ghost of Mary Watson, he must replace the broken key, however foolish it was.Now, he can fully understand how Mick and the people on the island miss Mary Watson.He didn't know how many times the people on the island had seen Mary Watson paddling out to sea on a moonlit night... Then another thought haunted him, and he turned to Mick, not knowing what to ask.But Mick didn't wait for him to speak, and answered the question that was in Johnny's head. "This has always made me sad," he said. "Although it happened a long, long time ago. I know for a fact that my grandfather's grandfather ate Chinese along with other people."