第 7 页

“Why so?” demanded the Doctor. “If the island should prove to be uninhabited, the absence of such signs is the most natural thing imaginable, isn’t it?”

“Assuredly,” I assented. “But, the size and general appearance are all against the idea. And if there are inhabitants, why are they keeping out of sight, and why have they taken pains to conceal their presence? To me the matter has a rather sinister appearance—”

“To me it would appear that Mr Massey is afraid to land, now that he has brought us here,” remarked Miss Shirley-Winthrop to the circumambient air.

“You have hit it exactly,” I returned. “I certainly am a bit afraid of what would happen to you and Miss Stroud if, upon landing, our party were to be attacked and overpowered by a strong body of savages and all of us men slain. I am therefore going to take every reasonable precaution before I permit anybody to set foot ashore. I will examine every yard of that beach for sign of savages, if it occupies me until sundown to do it!”

The young lady turned paler when I hinted at the fate which might be hers, should she fall alive into the hands of savages, but she wrinkled her pretty nose into an expression of disdain and forbore to answer me.

“Lay aft here, Wilkinson, and take the tiller,” I ordered. Then, as the man obeyed and seated himself on the thwart which I had vacated, grasping the tiller with his left hand and holding the sheet in his right, I continued—“Luff, and head the boat for the beach at the southern extremity of the bay. I will begin my examination there.”

Leaving the seaman to handle the boat, I stepped over the thwart to where my bag was stored, and extracted from it my telescope, which I had been thoughtful enough to bring with me. Roughly focussing it, I brought it to bear upon the beach, and was gratified to find that, even at our then distance—about a mile and a half—I was able to discern such small objects as cocoanuts which had fallen ripe from the trees or been shaken down by the wind. “Excellent!” thought I. “By the time that we have arrived within a quarter of a mile of that sand there will not be so much as a human footprint upon it that this good telescope will not reveal.”

During the boat’s run to the southern extremity of the lagoon I carefully searched the beach, the shore adjoining it, especially the patches of grass land that occurred here and there between the growth of trees and scrub, and every gully and ravine that opened up during our progress, but never a sign of human presence could I discover; no, not even after, upon running right to the southern end of the lagoon, we hove about and stood to the northward and westward, skirting the beach at a distance of a scant quarter of a mile. At that distance the beach held no secrets from my telescope, there was not so much as a shred of dry weed stirred by the wind that escaped my ken; had there been human or other footprints, I must have detected them—indeed I did detect many footprints of the gulls and other web-footed birds that wheeled and screamed about us and overhead—but none of human origin did I see; nor did my searching gaze find any track of canoes hauled up on or launched from the beach. The only discovery made during my inspection of that ten-mile length of beach was that it overlay a fringing reef of coral about half a mile wide over which the average depth of water was only about seven feet. This reef, by the way, imparted to the water which covered it a light blue tint, as though the water were diluted with milk, which exactly marked the boundary and extent of the reef.

I have forgotten one other important discovery we made, and that was that, about two miles from the north-western end of the lagoon we saw a little brook winding its way down the hillside to the beach; and after I had completed my inspection, we returned to this spot, landed, and, finding everything favourable, decided to camp there, at least for the night.

The day was by this time so far advanced that the sun was within a span of the western horizon when at length the boat gently grounded on the beach and all but the Doctor sprang out to help the women-folk ashore. As usual, Miss Anthea showed her contempt for the rest of us by choosing Dartnell, the ordinary seaman, to carry her the yard or two required to save her feet from getting wet, but the stewardess chose the first who came to hand, which happened to be myself. There was not much to be done; a few minutes sufficed for the transfer of our belongings from the boat to the spot selected for our camp, after which we hauled the boat as high up on the beach as we could induce her to go, secured her by her painter to an oar thrust deep into the sand; and then, while Wilkinson, Dartnell and I went to work to rig up a tent for the two girls, Oldroyd and Mason went off collecting fallen cocoanuts, the stewardess meanwhile collecting dry brushwood and making a fire.

By the time that the tent was rigged up to my satisfaction, tea was ready, and we all sat down round the fire—which, the night having fallen, was our only source of light—and thoroughly enjoyed the first hot meal since the abandonment of the Andromeda. We had tea—made in an empty biscuit tin—hot soup, tinned beef, biscuits, of course, and finished up with cocoanuts, of which an abundant supply had been found close at hand. At the conclusion of the meal, the two girls retired to their tent for the night, while those of us who were smokers indulged in a few carefully husbanded whiffs during our discussion of plans for the immediate future. The discussion, however, was not very animated, for the welcome change from our cramped quarters in the boat to the spaciousness and luxurious softness of the greensward upon which we had pitched our camp, and the fact that for nine nights our rest had been much broken united to woo us to rest. Therefore, after unanimously deciding that the first thing to be done was to explore the island and settle the vexed question of inhabitants or no inhabitants, and arranging the order in which the night watches were to be kept, we men curled up in the long grass and surrendered ourselves to the oblivion of sleep.

It had been decided by the others that since I had been the chief sufferer from broken rest, mine should be the final watch, from four o’clock to six in the morning—the Doctor being absolved from duty of that kind upon the ground of ill-health, the boat voyage having told upon him pretty severely—and accordingly I slept soundly until I was called by Dartnell, who stood the watch preceding mine.

As, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I rose to my feet, in obedience to the seaman’s call, I shivered, for the air was at that moment comparatively cool, while the fire had been permitted to burn itself out hours before. Taking the loaded rifle with which the watchers had been armed, and which had been transferred from one to the other with the change of watches, and receiving Dartnell’s report that nothing of a disquieting character had occurred during his watch, I left the little group of sleepers and proceeded to the spot which had been chosen overnight as the most suitable post for a sentinel, taking my stand close to the trunk and in the deep shadow of a wide-spreading tree. It was very dark there, but in the course of a few minutes my eyes became accustomed to the obscurity and I was then able to see that the open spaces were flooded with the soft radiance of the star-studded sky, affording light enough for a keen-sighted person to detect at a considerable distance the presence of any moving thing of sufficient stature to show above the surface of the long grass. The only movement visible, however, was that of the wind ripples sweeping in orderly procession over the open grassy glades and the swaying of the foliage in the gentle breeze, while the only sounds were the soft whispering rustle of that same foliage, the tinkling murmur of the wavelets on the margin of the beach, and the low, continuous thunder, subdued by distance, of the breakers upon the barrier reef. Sight and sounds alike seemed but to emphasise the stillness and apparent security of the hour, and to tend toward a soothing and somnolent state of mind and body which I might have found irresistible but for the conviction which obsessed me that this lovely island must almost of necessity harbour other inhabitants than ourselves—inhabitants, maybe, as crafty and ferociously savage as those known to occupy certain of the islands at no very great distance from us. The minutes passed: no sight or sound occurred to stir one to greater alertnesss; and at length a faint pallor of the sky spreading rapidly upward above the undulating outline of the tree-clad ridges to the eastward, apprised me that another day, with its comparative immunity from danger, was dawning. My watch was over and, shouldering the rifle, I emerged from the shadow of the tree where I had spent the last two hours, and made my way through the long, dew-sodden grass to the spot where our camp was pitched.

As I did so I saw the two seamen, Wilkinson and Dartnell, rise and stretch their arms above their heads, yawn portentously, and scramble to their feet, staring about them as though scarcely realising as yet their whereabouts, their example being almost immediately followed by the Americans, Oldroyd and Mason. Then, as I joined the party, exchanging “Good mornings” with them and handing over the rifle to its owner, Miss Stroud, the stewardess, emerged from the tent, looking fresh and bright as the morning itself, and smilingly greeted us. In answer to our enquiries she informed us that she had enjoyed the most delicious night’s rest within her experience, and that Miss Shirley-Winthrop was still fast asleep. By this time the Doctor, awakened by our voices, was also on his feet, and my announcement that I intended to indulge in a swim in the lagoon was greeted with acclamation and the statement that all the males of the party would join me. Dartnell was the only man who at all hung fire; he was a little dubious, suggesting the possible presence of sharks in the lagoon; but upon my reminding him of the narrowness of the passage through the reef, the swirling turmoil of waters that perpetually raged there, and the known aversion of sharks to pass such a barrier, his hesitation vanished and he briefly announced that he would accompany us “and chance it.”

We thoroughly enjoyed our swim, diving and sporting in the tepid waters for a good half-hour with all the abandon of schoolboys, finally scrubbing our bodies with the fine white sand, in lieu of soap, and rinsing them off with another plunge. Then I declared my intention to try for a few fish for breakfast, the jollyboat being fitted with a locker in which I had previously found four fishing lines with hooks and sinkers complete, the hooks, moreover, furnished with shreds of dry, shrivelled bait. Accordingly we launched the boat, and, Wilkinson and Dartnell accompanying me, went out to the edge of the fringing reef, which I thought a rather promising spot for sport, while the Doctor and his two fellow-countrymen plunged into the woods, intent upon finding fruit. Both expeditions were successful, half an hour’s fishing resulting in the acquisition of four large rock cod and seventeen smaller fish, several of which bore a striking resemblance to red mullet, while a brace of them were gorgeously coloured with all the tints of the rainbow. As for the Doctor and his party, they had discovered bread fruit, loquats, custard apples, and several other varieties of fruit, some of which while exceedingly tempting in appearance were unknown to any of us and were consequently regarded with suspicion and therefore let alone. But, apart from these last, the “red mullet”—as we agreed to call them—the bread fruit, roasted in the ashes of the fire, and the custard apples, with tea, furnished forth such a luxurious feast that all fears of possible starvation vanished, while the humble cocoanut at once became a drug on the market, useful enough perhaps as a thirst-quencher but otherwise of little value.

“You look different men already,” announced Miss Stroud, as we drew toward the conclusion of our meal. “Probably your bath this morning has had a good deal to do with the improvement in your appearance. I envied you all as I watched you sporting in the distance. I love swimming, but the beach is so open that there is no sense of privacy. However, if you men are all going off exploring to-day, as your conversation seems to suggest, perhaps Miss Shirley-Winthrop and I may muster up courage enough to indulge in a swim when you are all gone.”

“But we are not all going,” I returned. “Do you suppose we should for a moment dream of going away and leaving you two girls—to say nothing of the camp—entirely unprotected? Certainly not!”

“Oh, what a disappointment!” exclaimed Miss Anthea. “The stewardess—Miss Stroud, I mean—and I have been talking about it, and I had set my heart upon a swim.”

“Then you shall certainly have it, if the matter can be compassed satisfactorily to yourselves,” I said. “While we were fishing I noticed what I thought might prove to be a small cove at the northern end of the lagoon, suitable perhaps as a good hiding place for our boat—which I have no fancy for leaving on the open beach exposed to the possible gaze of enemies. It may also prove to be an excellent bathing-place for you ladies, affording you complete privacy. It is only about a mile from here. I will go at once, look at the place, and report upon it when I return.”

“May I go with you?” asked Miss Stroud. “I have nothing else to do, and I am longing for a good walk.”

“Assuredly,” I said. And, borrowing one of the rifles, we set off without more ado. I thought Miss Anthea regarded us rather wistfully as we started, but she said nothing; and she had been so consistently insolent to me from the first that I did not feel like inviting her to accompany us, and so perchance affording her an opening for further rudeness.

I enjoyed that walk amazingly, and was almost sorry when, in about twenty minutes, we reached the spot for which I was aiming. It was situated at the extreme northern end of the lagoon and, as I had more than suspected, was a small, rocky cove, nearly circular in shape, about one hundred fathoms across, with deep, clear, transparent water everywhere right up to the rocks. There was a level, rocky shelf, about six inches above the water’s surface, and about ten yards long, which would afford a splendid diving platform; and the whole place was so artfully concealed by Nature that it would afford an admirable harbour for the boat, while as a perfectly private and secluded bathing-place it was ideal.

“Here is your salt-water bath, ready-made for you by beneficent Nature; and I doubt very much whether human ingenuity could improve it,” I said. “What do you think of it?”

“It is simply perfect,” was the answer. “I am sure Miss Shirley-Winthrop will be delighted with it. But it is rather a long way from the camp, isn’t it? Do you think it will be safe for us to come so far, unprotected?”

“It will be, of course, provided there are no savages on the island,” I replied. “But until that question is settled, I am afraid you will have to put up with a protector. It will be a nice little easy job for the Doctor. But don’t stay in too long and get chilled. This cove is so situated that the sun only looks down into it for a short time each day and the water is cool.”