For a moment, under the shock of the startling piece of news, Elizabeth was tempted to seize her sisters by the hand and run. Tommy was so practical and unimaginative a young person that she could hardly have been altogether mistaken, and a "little brown face," if face it was, must belong to a native. But Elizabeth thought quickly, and even while her heart was galloping with nervous excitement, she made up her mind that to run away now was not the right course. A show of bravery was much more likely to serve them. If there really was a native in hiding, he would certainly have seen them, and to run or slink away now would merely provoke pursuit, in which the fugitives would be at a great disadvantage. Summoning all her courage, therefore, Elizabeth advanced towards the bush to which Tommy had pointed.
"Don't go, Bess," implored Tommy in an agitated whisper, and Mary, as pale as a sheet, put an arm about the younger girl.
Elizabeth went straight on, looking carefully around.
"Is this it?" she asked quietly, turning towards her sisters, now several yards distant.
Tommy merely nodded; Mary murmured, "Howcouldshe do it?"
Elizabeth peered into the bush. There was no little brown face now, nor, though she went to and fro amongst the trees beyond, could she see any one, brown or white, lurking. She listened as the thought struck her that it might have been a monkey, and she had heard monkeys screaming and chattering in the Zoological Gardens in London; but there was no sound, not even the twitter or squawk of a bird.
Brave as she was in outward mien, Elizabeth, after a few minutes' search, returned with hasty step to her sisters.
"My silly heart!" she said, with a faint smile, placing her hand to her side. "I couldn't see anything. Tommy; don't you think you may have imagined it?"
"Just as you did before," added Mary.
"I didn't!" cried Tommy. "Why won't you believe me? Ididsee a brown face; I am sure I did."
"It is very strange," said Elizabeth. "We were here only a few seconds after you cried out; there wasn't much time for any one to get away."
"You are both horrible," said Tommy, her lips quivering. "Any one would think I was a fool. I'll prove that I was right, whatever happens."
With the courage of indignation she pulled Elizabeth towards the clump of bushes, and began to examine the soft mossy carpet.
"There!" she cried triumphantly, yet fearfully, pointing presently to a mark on the ground. Elizabeth stooped and made out two or three faint impressions of a foot smaller even than Tommy's. And then Tommy's fear returned in full force. With a little cry she dragged Elizabeth from the spot, and since nothing is so catching as fear even Elizabeth's courage gave way, and soon all three girls were running as hard as they could run towards the stream, and did not halt until they came to the boat.
"'THERE!' SHE CRIED TRIUMPHANTLY, YET FEARFULLY.""'THERE!' SHE CRIED TRIUMPHANTLY, YET FEARFULLY."
"'THERE!' SHE CRIED TRIUMPHANTLY, YET FEARFULLY.""'THERE!' SHE CRIED TRIUMPHANTLY, YET FEARFULLY."
"Oh, dear, how ashamed I am!" panted Elizabeth, as they threw themselves down on the sand to rest.
"You were very brave," said Mary. "I couldn't have gone into those bushes for anything."
"Perhaps they were marks of a monkey's feet," said Elizabeth. "How silly I was not to examine them more closely."
"They weren't," said Tommy. "I saw them quite plainly. They were feet just like yours and mine, only tiny, wee things."
"I wonder if the people here are dwarfs," said Mary. "There must be people. That's certain now."
"If they are dwarfs they must be more afraid of us than we are of them," said Elizabeth.
"Impossible!" said Tommy. "I was never in such a fright in my life. Oh!"
"What is it?" asked Elizabeth, with an anxious look around.
"The oranges! we haven't got any, and I shall be afraid to go there again."
"That's a pity," said Elizabeth; "they looked so nice. Perhaps we can find some in another part of the island."
"I won't look for any," said Tommy. "I won't stir from this place—at least not farther than to the bananas, and they're nearly all gone. What if the savages come and attack us?"
"Some of them have poisoned arrows," said Mary, quaking.
"Really, I think we are crying before we are hurt," said Elizabeth. "We haven't been molested so far, and surely that proves that whatever people there are, they are not very terrible."
"I know I shan't sleep a wink to-night," said Tommy.
"Hadn't we better launch the boat and spend the night on the sea?" said Mary. "They might attack us in the darkness."
"We'll drag it down a little nearer the sea," replied Elizabeth, "and we can take turns to keep watch, if you like; but I'm sure we oughtn't to show the white feather. The best thing we can do is to forget all about it."
"It's easy to say, but I know I shan't forget it as long as I live," cried Tommy. "And we were so jolly; it's all spoilt."
"Well, wemusteat," said Elizabeth, afraid of a breakdown. "Let us cook some fish, and be as comfortable as we can."
They spent the rest of that day in a state of nervousness, and although Elizabeth tried to get the others to begin weaving their mat beds for the hut, they had no heart for the work. When darkness fell, they drew the boat down to the very verge of high water, and lay in it, but not to sleep. They had arranged that each should take a turn at keeping watch, but the result was that all were wakeful, and except for a few minutes' uneasy dozing, none of them had any rest.
"This will never do," thought Elizabeth as it drew towards morning. "We shall all be worn out if we don't get our proper sleep. I do hope the natives will come to us to-morrow so that we can make friends with them."
They all looked very weary and washed-out when daylight came. There was no fish left, and Tommy seemed disinclined to try to catch any, or to go to the banana-trees for food.
"Come, girls, this really won't do," said Elizabeth briskly. "Make some tea, Tommy, while Mary and I go and get a fish."
"There's only enough for about a cup each," said Tommy, looking dolefully into the caddy.
"We shan't get any more by wishing for it," said Elizabeth, "so we'll use it all up and then try to make a sort of cider out of bananas. It will be a change."
"There are hardly any bananas left, either," said Tommy.
"Then we'll go prowling in search of more as soon as we really come to the last of them. Come along, Mary."
"Don't go out of sight, will you?" said Tommy, as they moved away.
"Of course not, we shan't be long."
"I wish we had a change of things, Bess," said Mary, as they hastened towards their fishing rock. "Never in my life have I worn my underwear so long; it's horrid."
"Why shouldn't we have a washing-day?" said Elizabeth. "It will be a novelty, and give us something to do and think about. Rather fun too, with no soap. How can we manage?"
"I've read somewhere that the women in the East wash their clothes by beating them in a running stream with stones," said Mary. "The stream and the stones are handy; we might try that plan."
"Don't the stones knock holes in them?"
"They use flat, round stones, without sharp edges, I think. It will be rather fun to try, anyway. I hope the savages won't come, Bess."
"Do you know, I'm not at all sure that it wasn't the footprint of a monkey or some other animal. It was so very small. I'm not going to think about it. We'd better go on in our ordinary way without troubling; only for Tommy's sake we won't go far from home, for some days at any rate."
They returned with two excellent fish. Elizabeth at once told Tommy of their idea of a washing-day, and, as she hoped, the young girl was so much amused at the novelty of it, that she forgot her alarms for a time. After breakfast they took off their things and donned their dressing-gowns, as Tommy called their macintoshes; and having gathered each a smooth, round stone, laid their linen in the stream at a place where it ran over level rock, and began merrily to pound away. When they had given the clothes a thorough good drubbing, as Tommy worded it, they laid them on the grass in the sun, and within an hour they were quite dry.
"My word! don't they look nice?" cried Tommy in delight. "Old Jane—poor old thing—never got them white at home, did she? We must have a weekly wash, girls; it's great fun."
"There's another thing we might try," said Elizabeth. "I haven't got used to eating fish without salt, yet. Couldn't we make some by evaporation?"
"How would you do that?" asked Tommy.
"Put some sea-water in our cups, and let it evaporate. It would soon do so in this heat, and leave the salt at the bottom."
"H'm! it sounds all right," said Tommy, "but I doubt whether we should get enough salt to put on a bird's tail. Let's try."
They half filled their three cups from the sea, and put them in the full glare of the sun. Every now and then Tommy ran to them to see hew they were getting on, every time becoming more sceptical of success. There was still a good deal of water in the cups at nightfall; but, as Mary said, that didn't matter much, as they had used up all their tea, none of them liking coffee at night; so they left the cups as they were, to evaporate the rest of the water next day. When the cups were at last dry there was no appreciable sediment, and Tommy with great scorn pronounced the experiment a failure.
"The cups don't hold enough," said Mary. "What we want is a large shallow pan, and as we haven't got one, I'm afraid you'll have to go without salt, Bess."
But a day or two after, Elizabeth discovered a wide shallow depression in a rock a little distance above high-water mark.
"This will do for a pan," she said. "We'll fill it with sea-water with our cups, and keep on filling it up as the water evaporates. Then we'll see, my dears."
They followed this plan for several days, and at last were able to collect a fair quantity of salt.
"It isn't table salt, to be sure," said Elizabeth, looking at the dirty-grey powder, "but it is certainly salt enough for anything, and this quantity will last for a week at least."
"We are getting quite clever," said Mary. "I dare say we shall be able to make quite a lot of things by and by."
During these days they had seen no more signs of inhabitants, and their nervousness partially wore off. They were still careful, however, not to stray far beyond the immediate neighbourhood of their camp, and slept every night in the boat, which they left close to the brink of the sea. They devoted a good deal of time to weaving grass mats for the floor of their hut, but had not as yet plucked up courage to spend a night in it. With the boat as a refuge they felt a certain sense of security, though they admitted, when they talked about it, that it would not really be of any great service if they were attacked; for they could only escape by embarking, and then to drift on the sea out of reach of food was a terrible fate to look forward to.
One day, when Mary had been out to gather bananas, she came back with the news that she had gathered the very last one, so that they were faced with the immediate necessity of finding another food supply.
"We must take our courage in both hands," said Elizabeth, "and revisit the land of plenty beyond the ridge."
"Don't let's go near the orange-trees," said Tommy anxiously. "Couldn't we try a little to the left? There will surely be some fruit of some sort in other parts."
"I don't see why not," said Mary. "I don't want to go there again, either, in case you were right."
"Of course I was right," declared Tommy. "You aren't going to make out again that I can't believe my own eyes!"
"We'll try another direction," said Elizabeth, anxious to keep the peace. "Let us go northward along the shore. We have never really explored the coast of our island yet."
Accordingly, after breakfast, they set out. There was a long stretch of beach strewn with boulders which had apparently fallen from the cliffs. These rose higher as they proceeded, and jutted out to within twenty or thirty feet of high-water mark. By and by they reached a point where the huge rocky obstacles made further progress impossible. Retracing their steps, they clambered with some difficulty up the face of the cliff, and at last gained the high land above.
All this time they moved very cautiously, careful to make no more noise than they could help, and always on the look-out for danger. But the silence was broken only by the chatter of birds, the warbling of a blackbird now and then, and the harsh screaming of the parrots in the woods, that extended almost to the verge of the cliffs.
"I should like to catch and tame one of those beauties," said Tommy. "Perhaps I might teach him to talk, and that would be a change, wouldn't it?"
"I am sorry we bore you," said Mary. "Wouldn't it be better to find your savage and teach him how to keep up an amiable conversation?"
"Don't be sarcastic; it doesn't suit you," said Tommy cuttingly, and again Elizabeth had to intervene.
"We came out to look for food," she said smoothly, "and I think we had better not think of anything else."
Mary and Tommy separated, and went off at a little distance by themselves, looking among the trees and shrubs for fruits or berries that might seem edible. For a time none of the girls saw anything that appeared promising, but presently Mary called out quite excitedly—
"Here, Bess, I'm sure this is the breadfruit tree. Come and look."
Then, frightened by the sound of her own voice, she suddenly became aware of her indiscretion, and ran fleetly to join Elizabeth.
"You idiot!" said Tommy in a fierce whisper, as she came up with the others.
They stood listening for a while, wondering whether Mary's exclamation had attracted the attention of some inhabitant. But, reassured by the absence of any sign of danger, they hastened to inspect the trees upon which Mary had lighted. Elizabeth noticed that Tommy, who would have died rather than apologize, had slipped her hand into Mary's in token of regret for her sharp speech.
They found themselves in the midst of a little grove of trees, about the size of small oaks, but with much sparser foliage. Peeping out from among the long, indented leaves were several large round fruits with a crinkly rind.
"I know they are breadfruit," said Mary gleefully. "Don't you remember the pictures in that book of Captain Cook's voyages?"
"Let's peel one and see how it tastes," said Tommy.
"You wouldn't like it better than raw dough," said Mary. "It has to be cooked first."
"Bother! You know I don't like cooked fruit. It isn't a fruit at all if you can't eat it raw; it's a vegetable."
Elizabeth smiled at this ingenuous distinction.
"Let us take one each and go and try them," she suggested. "If they are really anything like bread we shall enjoy them, I know."
Laden with the fruits, they returned to their camp.
"Pity the place is so far from home," said Mary. "We must have come more than a mile, I should think."
"If we are satisfied with our bread we might come again and gather a good load that will last some time," said Elizabeth.
When they reached home they lost no time in stripping off the thin rind of one of the fruits, and found beneath it a white doughy substance something like new bread. Tommy could not forbear tasting it, in spite of what Mary had said.
"What horrid, nasty stuff!" she exclaimed, making a wry face. "It's like—what is it like? Taste it, Bess."
Elizabeth pinched off a very small piece and ate it.
"It seems to me like sweetened flour with a smack of artichokes," she said. "I hope it is better cooked; scrape it all out, Mary, while I get the oven ready."
When the pulp was scraped out, Mary kneaded it into a flat cake and cut it into three equal portions. Elizabeth put them into the stone oven, and in about twenty minutes took them out, slightly browned, and smelling somewhat of new bread. Allowing them to cool, the girls each nibbled a little.
"Not half bad," said Tommy. "I suppose we'll get used to it, and like it better. I never liked carrots when I was a child, and I do now. If we only had some butter! Why aren't there any cocoanuts here, I wonder? They have milk, haven't they? If we had some we might make some butter out of the cream."
At this the other girls laughed outright.
"I'm afraid we shouldn't get much cream out of cocoanuts," said Elizabeth. "The milk is a sickly kind of juice, isn't it, Mary?"
"Yes; I had some once, long ago, when Father took me to the fair at Exeter. He knocked down the cocoanut at one of the shies. I didn't like the milk at all."
"We must eat our bread without butter," said Elizabeth. "I do hope, though, that we shall find more bananas, for I'm sure I shall soon get tired of the breadfruit. We must try another part of the island another day."
Two or three days passed without incident. The elder girls in their heart of hearts were becoming convinced that the footprints must have been those of an animal; but Tommy had shown herself so touchy on that point that they never told her what they thought. With the return of their confidence they began to think that they were punishing themselves by neglecting to use the hut, and one night they ventured to sleep in it for the first time, lying on their grass mats, with pillows of grass and dried leaves. They found their new quarters so much more easy and comfortable that they decided to use the boat no more as a bedchamber, and thought they had been silly in not deserting it before.
The hut was delightfully cool both by day and night. In the daytime they always lifted the awning facing the sea; at night they let it down at first, getting ventilation by the space beneath the roof; but as they became accustomed to their bedroom they left the opening uncovered at night also. Before turning in they would sit cross-legged just within the hut, gazing, most often in silence, over the wide expanse of sea, watching the stars as they came into the darkening sky, and thinking of their uncle and the friends at home. Uncle Ben was scarcely ever mentioned among them now. They could not bear to think that the dear old man was at the bottom of the sea, that could show such a smooth and smiling face, and yet behave like a treacherous, cruel monster. They scarcely ever dared to think of the future, for though they seldom missed a visit to the cliffs, from which they could look far over the sea, and though their flag was still flying from the tree, they had almost lost hope of being rescued, and could only live from day to day, killing thought by various little activities.
One day, for instance, Elizabeth suggested that as their hut was built and furnished, and they had little to do except fish and prepare their food, they might make themselves some new hats. The idea was eagerly taken up by the others. Each girl worked in her own way, plaiting lengths of thin grass, and Mary hit on a brilliant notion of making brims out of the large leaves from a kind of dwarf palm that grew plentifully in the neighbourhood. They fastened these together, and then to the grass crowns, by threading them in and out with the very fine tendrils of a creeper. When the hats were finished the girls had what Tommy called a mutual admiration meeting, and felt very proud of their Dolly Vardens.
A few days after the discovery of the breadfruit, they made a lengthy excursion along the southern shore. Here the woods were a good deal denser than in other parts, which was one reason why they had hesitated to explore them. But the cliffs were much less lofty than those on the north, and the girls easily climbed them, and penetrated for a short distance into the fringing woods.
They discovered several trees of kinds they had not seen before. There was one in particular that interested them by its fantastic shape; it was so odd-looking that Tommy dubbed it the clown of the forest; the real name, of which they were ignorant, was the pandanus. But the special reward of this expedition was the discovery of a thick plantation of bananas and oranges, quite equal to those they had seen on the dreaded eastern side of the ridge. They rushed upon the oranges that bestrewed the ground, devoured several, and filled their pockets with them. What with fish—they were expert fishers by this time—the breadfruit, and this fresh storehouse, they felt no more anxiety about food, and if only they could have lost their fear of possible wild neighbours they would have had nothing to trouble the serenity of their healthy life. But none of them was as yet ready to tempt fate again by crossing the ridge, and Elizabeth at any rate knew that while the greater part of the island was shut to them, they could never be quite easy in mind. She felt that the uncertainty was even harder to bear than knowledge would have been.
One day their peaceful existence was rudely disturbed, not by man, but by nature. The island was visited by a storm of quite extraordinary violence. The air had been for some time very oppressive, and the girls, feeling incapable of any exertion, were resting in the hut, when there came a sudden hot blast of wind straight in from the sea. They looked out. Vast lurid clouds were piling up; in a few seconds, it seemed, the sky became black, and huge waves broke over the reef, sending up mountains of spray. The wind tore through the woods, increasing every moment in fury. One terrible blast ripped the slight hut to fragments, and the girls had no sooner extricated themselves from the heap of tattered mats and broken canes that covered them, than a flood of rain poured upon them. They rushed away to the lee-side of a hillock, trying in vain to find shelter from the storm, and cowering in terror as they heard peals of thunder, and then a tremendous crash as the tempest uprooted some great tree and dashed it to the ground.
Mary was always terror-stricken in a thunderstorm, and she clung half-fainting to Elizabeth, who clasped her close in a motherly embrace. Tommy, on the other hand, was perfectly fearless. She gazed at the boiling sea, and watched the lightning with a sort of fascinated admiration. She was almost sorry when the storm blew itself out after two hours of fury, and the sky cleared as rapidly as it had darkened.
"How lovely!" she said, dripping wet as she was. "Poor old Mary!"
Mary, indeed, was quite overcome, and it was some time before she was able to walk away. The tempest had left ruin in its track.
"The boat!" cried Elizabeth, suddenly remembering the little vessel, which, though it had been drawn up higher than when they slept in it, she feared might have been washed away. "We must leave you for a little, Mary. Walk about if you can, and let the sun dry your things."
Then she raced down to the shore with Tommy, and was horrified to discover that the boat had disappeared. The girls scanned the sea, which was still rough, but there was not a sign of it. They ran along the beach northward, hoping that the boat might have been cast up, and were rejoiced to find it about a quarter of a mile away, bottom upwards on a spit of sand. It was some distance from the sea, which, though it had evidently come much higher than usual, had now receded to within a little of high-water mark. The girls managed to right the boat, only to find, of course, that the oars were missing.
"How silly we were not to bring the oars into the hut along with the boat-hook!" cried Elizabeth. "The boat is perfectly useless without the oars, and we can't make new ones."
"Perhaps the tide will wash them up," said Tommy. "Help me up this rock, Bess; I'll see if they are in sight."
Mounted on the rock she scanned the surface, and after a time saw something bobbing up and down about a hundred yards out, and some way to the south of where she stood.
"There it is, I believe," she cried. "The sea is getting calmer now; shall I swim out for it?"
"You mustn't think of it," said Elizabeth. "I dare say the sea is full of sharks. I saw a fin yesterday when we were fishing."
"And you didn't tell me! I should love to see a real live shark."
Elizabeth smiled inwardly at this.
"But we must get the oar somehow, Bess. One would be better than nothing. And quickly, too. See, the tide is running out fast. And if the oar gets into the current that flows past the reef, it is good-bye for ever."
"I don't see how we can. We haven't a paddle of any kind. The boat-hook's no good. Wait, though; I wonder if we could get a branch of a tree. Stay here and keep the oar in sight while I run and look."
She ran up the cliff-side, which was covered with vegetation. The small trees had withstood the storm better than the large ones. Some were cracked and broken, but others had merely bent to the blast, while the ground was strewn with the more massive trunks, and with innumerable small branches and twigs. In a little while she came to a tree that had two boughs forming a fork, in shape like a boy's catapult. Catching hold of this, and straining upon it, Elizabeth managed to break it off; it had occurred to her that the fork might form the skeleton of a paddle. But time was too precious for her to attempt to make it by herself alone, so she ran with it to Mary.
"Quick, Mary," she cried. "Pull yourself together. We have found the boat, but the oars are gone, and one is floating out to sea. Help me to make a paddle, so that we can go after it. Get some creepers and some leaves as quickly as you can. I'll show you what I mean."
There was no lack of material close at hand, and they were soon busily at work making a sort of criss-cross lattice-work upon the fork, which they notched at intervals with their knives, to give holding to the tendrils. Having rapidly made their framework, they laid the leaves on it, and bound these on with more creepers. Before they had finished it as Elizabeth would have liked, they heard Tommy's shrill voice calling—
"Quick, Bess, the oar's going out fast."
Elizabeth jumped up, carrying the odd-looking paddle, which Tommy said was like a lacrosse stick. The oar was now out of sight, though Tommy could point to the spot where she saw it last. They launched the boat, and using the paddle as a stern-oar, Tommy employed all the skill she had gained by paddling the dinghy to and from the shore at Southampton. The paddle was a very poor thing; it bent a good deal, and some of the tendrils became loose, and hung about it like the string of an old cricket bat. But there was no time to stop and repair it, or the oar, which they now saw clearly, would drift past the reef and utterly beyond reach.
Elizabeth began to grow a little anxious in case they should find themselves adrift by and by with nothing better than the makeshift paddle, which would certainly not last more than a very short time. That would be a calamity indeed, for they might be carried far out to sea, and there was Mary alone on the island. But Tommy was working so energetically that the distance between the boat and the oar was fast lessening, and Elizabeth, raising herself in her seat, suddenly caught sight of the second oar not far beyond the first.
"Let me take your place, Tommy," she said. "You must be tired."
"Not a bit. Besides, we'll lose time if we change, and perhaps upset. Stay where you are, Bess; I'll get that oar in a minute, and then we'll soon have the other one."
A few more strokes brought the boat within reach of the oar, and Elizabeth, bending over, drew it up. Then Tommy left the stern and both sat on the thwarts, pulling towards the second oar, which they overtook in a few seconds.
"We'll keep the paddle as a memento," said Elizabeth. "But look! What a terrible distance we are from the shore! Mary will be half frantic."
"It's lucky that we are inside the reef," said Tommy. "Already I can feel the current quite strong. We shall have to pull hard to get out of it!"
By this time Tommy was rather tired, but she would not give in. It was a long pull back, and at first it seemed impossible to draw the boat out of the current that was rapidly bearing it northward. But having now two good oars, they succeeded presently in getting back into calmer water. Then, turning the boat's head southward, they rowed more gently along the shore, and at last reached their own little harbour, where Mary was awaiting them.
"Iamthankful you have got back safely," she cried. "When I saw you going so far I nearly went mad for fear you couldn't return."
"We must take care it never happens again," said Elizabeth. "We'll drag the boat up much higher this time, and if we tie the painter to a rock, or to a tree if there's one near enough, we needn't be anxious, and we'll certainly keep the oars in the hut."
"My dears, we haven't a hut," said Tommy. "We be three poor mariners—vagabonds, homeless, ragged and tanned. Who was that old king who sat himself down in a lonely mood to think, and watched a spider spin its web over and over again, and thought he couldn't let a spider beat him and at last beat all his enemies? Oh, dear, that's made me out of breath. Robert Bruce, wasn't it, Mary?"
"Yes; Mrs. Hemans wrote the poem. 'Bruce and the Spider,' it's called."
"I don't care who wrote it, only we've got to spin our web again. Oh, 'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly. 'Please 'm, where's the parlour?' says the fly. There, I'm a lunatic, but I feel so jolly at having caught those runaway oars. I say, are you dry? I am. That's one advantage of living in a tropical climate; if you get soaked you don't have to shiver while your things are dried at the fire. 'Homeless, ragged and tanned, who so contented as I?'" she sang, and Elizabeth, noticing the high spirits of her wild young sister, hoped that there wouldn't be a reaction, and that Tommy was not going to be ill.
Contemplating the ruins of the hut they had built up with so much care, the girls felt a very natural chagrin. You have seen a child who has erected a fine house of bricks fly into a rage when the structure topples by its own weight, or at least look utterly woebegone, and leave the scattered bricks lying where they fell. Elizabeth Westmacott and her sisters felt very much the same disinclination to begin again. The site was a picture of disorder. Portions of the matting had been blown right away; other portions in shreds and tatters had found resting-places among the foliage of the surrounding trees and shrubs. Some of the canes of the roof dangled from the boughs, others littered the ground amid a tangle of creepers and leafage. No one could have supposed that only a few hours before the same place had been a model of neatness.
"It will take an age to tidy up," grumbled Tommy. "Is it worth while to bother about a hut again?"
"I don't like being without a roof over our heads," replied Elizabeth; "but we won't start yet if you don't feel inclined. Let us go and take a look round."
"We shall want some breadfruit for dinner," said Mary, "so we had better go that way. I dare say we shall find all we need on the ground."
They set off towards the breadfruit-trees. Everywhere there were signs of the violence of the storm, but they were surprised and interested to notice that the worst havoc had been wrought in almost a straight line across the island from south-west to north-east.
It was as though some huge giant had gone steadily forward wielding a monstrous scythe. The tornado had cut a clean path through the forest, leaving scarcely a tree standing over a wide space. Where there had been close, unbroken woodland was now a bare avenue, interrupted by the trunks of trees that had been thrown this way and that. Impressed as the girls had been with the fury of the tornado during the time of their exposure to it, its devastating power was brought home to them now much more strongly. They looked with awe upon its ravages.
"How thankful we ought to be that we were not in its direct path!" said Elizabeth. "A little more to right or left and we should have had trees crashing down upon us; we might have all been killed."
"It is a dreadful place," said Tommy, subdued and thoughtful. "Oh, Bess, shall we never be found and taken away?"
"We must hope on, dear. It will never do to get downhearted. While we are all well and strong we need not mind so very much, and a ship is sure to come this way some time or other."
"But it might pass us," said Mary. "I am sure our flag is blown away. Shall we go and see?"
"Hadn't we better fetch our breadfruit first, now we are in this direction?"
"Of course. We shall have to light another fire, too; ours is sure to be out."
They went on, and on arriving at the breadfruit plantation found, as they had expected, that the ground was littered with fruit, which was already being devoured by land-crabs, insects and birds. They picked up several that were in good condition, and retraced their steps towards the shore.
As they were passing through the fringe of woodland, Tommy stopped suddenly, and went down on her knees.
"Oh, do look!" she cried. "Here's a nest on the ground, and the dearest little white parrot you ever saw. Poor little thing! I think it has lost its mother."
The girls stooped to look at it, and Tommy put her hand into the nest. The tiny bird rustled in alarm, opening its beak to let out a plaintive cry; but it was too young to use its wings, and Tommy took it up and held it gently.
"Its little heart is beating frantically," she said. "Let us take it back with us and try to rear it. You know I wanted one."
"Do you think we can rear it?" said Mary.
"It will starve if we leave it," replied Tommy. "I shall love to try."
The others agreed that there was no harm in trying, so Tommy carried it carefully back with her, now and then stroking the ruffled feathers. When they got to their camp she laid the bird on a bed of grass, peeled one of the breadfruits, and held a few crumbs of the pulp in the palm of her hand just below the parrot's beak. But it was too young, or perhaps too frightened, even to feed itself, and it would have fared ill had not its captor been a country girl and known how to deal with such an emergency. She had seen young birds fed by hand, and she at once cut a thin stick and sharpened its end, upon which she stuck a little bit of breadfruit. Then holding the bird in her left hand, she waited until it opened its beak to cry, and quickly slipped the food in. The little bird swallowed it greedily, much to Tommy's delight, and she went on feeding it until Elizabeth suggested that she would kill it with excess.
"The poor thing was hungry," said Tommy. "It's not nearly so much alarmed now. I shall keep it for a pet."
"You'll have to clip its wings, then," said Mary, "or it is sure to fly away as soon as it is strong enough."
"You do it, Mary. Be very gentle, won't you?"
"There's no need yet, perhaps," suggested Elizabeth. "Do it in a day or two when it has got over its fright. It would be just as well to put it in the boat while we are busy. You must take care not to overfeed it, Tommy."
After dinner they went first to the flag-staff. Not a shred of their scarves was left. As they had no material for making another flag, except their handkerchiefs, which they did not care to part with, and their wraps, which they could not spare, they had to give up for the moment any idea of erecting a signal. Then they hastened in the opposite direction, southward, to fetch bananas and oranges for the other meals of the day. A grave disappointment awaited them. There was plenty of fruit on the ground, but the trees themselves, standing in the direct path of the storm, had all been uprooted or broken off, so that when they had used their present supply they could obtain no more at this spot. It would be necessary to go once more in search of food, for they found the breadfruit too insipid to form their only vegetable diet. They knew the district between their camp and the ruined plantation; nothing edible was to be had there. The only other place where they knew that fruit existed was to the east, beyond the ridge; and even now they could not make up their minds to revisit the scene of their scare.
Next day, however, when Tommy had fed her bird and Mary had clipped its wings, and they had spent an hour or so tidying up the site of the hut preparatory to rebuilding, they set off again in a southerly direction, having resolved to extend their exploration within easy distance of the shore. Crossing the broad path of uprooted trees, flattened grass, and torn undergrowth, they found as they proceeded that the ridge hemmed them in, closer and closer to the sea. This was partly due to the curving of the shore, and partly to the diagonal lie of the rising ground. Little foothills of the ridge extended downwards towards the coast, forming ridges in miniature, cut here and there by streamlets.
On such expeditions Tommy almost always led the way, for her restless and active temperament was impatient of the sedater going of her sisters. But she never went far ahead, and every few minutes, as if alarmed at her own daring, she would run back and keep with the others for a time. She was thus a few yards in advance when, as she mounted a hillock, she came in sight of a number of trees clustering almost at the edge of the sea, and uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.
"Oh, do look here!" she cried. "I believe we have come to some cocoanut palms. You remember we saw some at Valparaiso."
The others ran to join her, and Mary at once declared that she was right. There was no mistaking the tall, smooth stems with their feathery crowns. They all rushed forward eagerly. Thanks to the storm, there were several huge nuts strewing the ground around each of the trees. Tommy, who was first on the scene, picked up one of them and turned it over in her hands in a puzzled way.
"Is it a cocoanut after all?" she said. "It's not a bit like those I have seen in shops."
"It's a cocoanut right enough," replied Mary. "But you've got to strip off the outer husk before you come to the nut itself."
Tommy whipped out her knife and began to cut away the coarse, fibrous covering. It was very tough, and she soon declared that it would never come off unless the others helped her. So they all knelt on the ground with the nut in the middle, and employed their knives energetically, until at last the husk was removed. The shell inside was ivory-white, very different from the old brown nuts they had been used to see in England. Being quite brittle, a small piece was easily cut off the top, and they saw the inside full of a pale, milky liquid.
"You first, Tommy," said Elizabeth. "You saw the trees first."
Tommy took a sip of the liquid.
"Delicious!" she said. "I don't think I ever tasted anything so nice."
She drank more, and, handing the nut to Mary, continued—
"It's sweet, Bess, and sour too, something like lemonade, only not like it. It's like—oh, I don't know what it's like; just itself, I suppose. Don't drink it all, Mary."
Elizabeth, when her turn came, pronounced it a very refreshing drink, and they were all delighted at so welcome an addition to their larder. They collected as many nuts as they could carry, and, returning to their camp, stored them in the boat. In the course of the next few days they went several times to the same place, until they had brought back all the nuts that lay on the ground. It was fortunate that so many had been thrown down, for they did not see how they could have obtained them otherwise. Even Tommy, the climber of the family, confessed that she would have been beaten by the smooth, straight stem of the cocoanut palm. Mary had a dim recollection of reading that the natives had a way of climbing the trees by means of a rope, but she could not remember the details of the method, and in any case, Tommy could hardly have used it successfully without a good deal of practice.
Once more relieved from anxiety about food, the girls devoted themselves industriously to the reconstruction of their hut. Their former practice made their task easier. In a few days the new house was finished, and they were especially glad of its shelter at night, instead of the cramping narrowness of the boat.
Days had lengthened into weeks. The notches on their calendar trunk told them how time was flying—a sad reminder in many ways. With so little to do they felt the hours hang heavily on their hands, though Tommy's parrot gave them a little amusement and interest. The bird had become quite used to its mistress, and had learnt to take its food from her hand. Its voice, not of very charming quality, as all confessed, grew stronger, and it became accustomed to give a quaint little scream whenever Tommy approached. She would set it on her finger and talk to it, using the same word over and over again, in the hope that it would by and by pick up a phrase or two. But although it became perfectly tame, it could never be induced to substitute civilized words for its natural scream and squawk.
"You little silly-billy!" cried Tommy one day, after an hour's patient instruction. "What's the good of you for a pet? There! Perch on my shoulder, and don't make such an idiotic noise, for goodness' sake."
Tommy at last gave up the attempt in despair; but she became very fond of the bird, and declared that when they were rescued she would certainly take it home with her.
It was wonderful how the hope of rescue never died. When each day ended without the sight of the longed-for vessel, they would say, "Never mind, perhaps it will come to-morrow." And when to-morrow had the same disappointment, there was still to-morrow. So they lived from day to day, veering from hope to despondency, and from despondency to hope again.
They had almost forgotten Tommy's fright. Surely, they thought, they must have seen some one by this time if the island was inhabited. Yet there was the same misgiving, the same disinclination to cross the ridge. Elizabeth laughed at herself, and more than once said she really must break through her reluctance. But it ended there. Her heart failed her when it came to the point.
Easy though their life was, it had its discomforts. The breadfruit gave out, and having found no more oranges or bananas, they grew very tired of a diet of fish and cocoanuts. They had seen other fruits, and shrubs bearing berries that looked very enticing, but the fear of poison deterred them from trying anything that they did not know.
The want of a change of clothes, too, was a trouble to them, and their boots had become unwearable. They had often been soaked in sea-water, and then, drying in the sun, had cracked and become worse than useless. They got into the habit of going barefoot, except when they set out for a long walk. In the hut, and when walking on the grass, they were comfortable enough, but on rough ground they suffered a good deal at first. In course of time, however, helped by frequent soaking in sea-water, their feet became hardened, and they felt no inconvenience in going about unshod.
They had more than once noticed some very small bees, hardly larger than houseflies, flitting among the flowers. One day Elizabeth suggested that they should try to find out whether these Polynesian bees made honey, and if so, where it was. Tommy hailed the suggestion, and started at once to track the bees to their nests. For a long time she had no success. Only after many days did she, almost by accident, light upon a bees'-nest in a hole in the trunk of a tree. Informing her sisters of the discovery, she proposed that they should smoke the bees out.
They kindled a small fire at the base of the tree, immediately beneath the hole. When they thought they had allowed plenty of time for the smoke to stupefy the bees, they put on their macintoshes, pulling the hoods well down over their heads, and prepared to rifle the hole. It was so small that a hand could scarcely pass through it, and Mary suggested that they should enlarge it, so that they might see what they were doing. Accordingly they stripped off the bark round the hole, until it was much more capacious. Unluckily, the inrush of fresh air appeared to revive the little inhabitants, which darted out with fierce buzzings, putting the robbers to utter rout. They ran off with their heads down, waving their arms wildly to beat off the furious insects. Tommy got off scot free, but Elizabeth and Mary were stung slightly, and but for the smoking, which had not been wholly ineffectual, the bees would probably have hurt them severely.
"We won't be beaten by a parcel of silly bees," said Tommy, as they went home. "You aren't much hurt, are you?"
"I feel a burning spot in my cheek," said Elizabeth.
"And one of my fingers is swelling," added Mary.
"As we haven't any ointment, or anything, you'll just have to get well by yourselves," remarked Tommy. "You'll have another try, won't you?"
"Oh, yes! We'll give them a larger dose next time," said Elizabeth. "I think we ought to have some reward for our enterprise."
A day or two afterwards they visited the hole again. By means of a larger fire, fed with leaves that gave off a very pungent smoke, they managed to stupefy the bees thoroughly. When they examined the hole they were surprised to find, not large combs, as in an English hive, but a collection of bags of brown wax, about the size of a walnut, united in a regular mass.
"Fancy bees having foreign ways!" said Tommy. "I should have thought that bees were the same all the world over."
"I don't see why bees shouldn't be different, like people," said Mary. "They're very intelligent."
The others laughed at this curious reason for differences of habit. The honey, they found, was more fluid than they were accustomed to in England, and in taste and smell it was slightly scented. They took a good quantity home with them, but it did not go very well with fish, and even with cocoanuts it was a doubtful joy.
"If we only had some breadfruit, or even bananas, we should like it better," said Mary.
"We can only get those by going across the ridge again," said Elizabeth. "Shall we venture?"
"I won't," said Tommy decidedly. "I'm not going to be scared out of my wits for anybody."
"I'll go with you, Bess," said Mary, after a little hesitation. "It really is silly to be afraid of nothing."
But, as it turned out, the first of the three to brave the peril was, after all, Tommy herself.