CHAPTER XXII
Making the Best of It
"Mornin', young leddy!" exclaimed Jasper, decorously attempting tomake good the obvious deficiencies of his wardrobe. "Hope this findsyou like as it leaves me at present."
Hilda smiled encouragingly. She had made good progress towardsrecovery during Burgoyne's absence. A warm colour was suffusing hersun-burnt cheeks, her hands had lost the clammy coldness following aprolonged immersion. Her short locks had dried, and, thanks to thegenial rays of the sun and to the fact that she had persistently keptmoving, her clothes were once more in normal condition. She wasbare-headed, her straw hat having vanished during the struggle togain the shore. Her greatcoat--Captain Davis's parting gift--wasthrown over a bush to complete the drying process.
"I'm awfully glad to see you, Jasper," said the girl. She never tookkindly to the Scillonian's surname.
"An' so be I," rejoined Minalto.
"We've brought a few coco-nuts," announced Alwyn. "Just enough tocarry on with. You're looking better already, Miss Vivian."
"I am," declared Hilda. "But where's Mr. Mostyn?"
"That's what I'd like tu know, Miss," said Minalto promptly, beforeAlwyn could frame an evasive reply. "'Tes too much tu ax o'Providence that all four o' we should come through las' night. A nicelad e' wur, but nothin' to speak of far's strength goes, 'speciallyseein' as 'ow he wur that knocked about when they pirates blowed thewireless cabin ower th' side. 'E'll come ashore sure now, youngleddy, feet first-like, and then us can bury 'im proper-like."
"Shut up, Jasper!" exclaimed the Third Officer sharply. "You don'tknow what you're talking about. We've got to work, not cackle.There's plenty to be done before night, and the sooner we get on withit the better."
"How long do you think we shall have to stay here, Mr. Burgoyne?"asked the girl. "I mean, does it depend upon whether we can get awayon our own account or have we to wait until a vessel takes us off?"
"We will possibly be here for some time, Miss Vivian," replied Alwyn."We've found part of the life-boat, but even with her air-tanksintact it would be a tough proposition to construct anythingsufficiently seaworthy to make another start. You see, we have notools and precious little material. And, of course, the chance of aship picking us up is a very slight one. We are out of the recognizedroutes, and unless a trading schooner comes along--if she knows thedangerous reefs of the island she won't--we may be here for weeks andmonths."
"Proper Crusoes!" exclaimed Hilda enthusiastically. "It sounds tooexciting to be true."
"Strange things happen at sea," observed Burgoyne oracularly. He wasfar from feeling enthusiastic. The problem of warding off starvationhad yet to be solved. "However, we'll set to work. There's a shelterto be rigged up for you, Miss Vivian, some sort of caboose for Jasperand me, fresh water to be found, and some sort of provisions laid in.We've two tins of bully beef--that's all."
"An' the li'l ole keg," interposed Minalto. "Might be spirits. Comein handy-like--not that I wants 'en, bein' teetotal-like come twelveor fifteen year--almost."
The al-fresco meal consisted of taro (eaten raw in default of afire), and bully beef with coco-nut milk. It served its purpose inquelling the pangs of hunger, but the opening of the tin of beefcaused Burgoyne some qualms. Its contents were far more thansufficient for three persons. It ought to last them a week, but thedifficulty was how to keep the meat when once exposed to the air. Toleave it in the battered tin would result in the beef's turning badvery quickly. At Hilda's suggestion they wrapped the remnants in palmleaves and placed them in the shade, hoping that the heat would notspoil their scanty stock.
"We're just off along the beach," announced Alwyn, who, havingrecovered from his exhausting experience, was now full of energy.
"May I come too?" asked Hilda.
"Certainly, Miss Vivian," was the reply. "That is, if you feel equalto it."
"I am quite all right, thank you, Mr. Burgoyne," declared Hilda."Provided you don't want me to climb trees or swim off to the reef, Ithink you won't find me an encumbrance."
"Right-o," assented Alwyn cheerfully. "Let's make a move. I don'tsuppose this island is so very big. We may as well explore it andfind out how we stand, before we decide upon the site for our camp. Alot depends upon where we find fresh water."
"Will there be any?" asked the girl.
"I should think so," replied Burgoyne, pointing to a hill about ahundred feet in height. "That rising ground points to it, and thefairly dense vegetation is another hopeful sign. I suggest we try towalk right round the island--it can't be so very far--before we startexploring the interior."
They gained the beach, and instead of turning northward--Burgoyne hadalready examined the beach for about two hundred yards that way--theywalked in the opposite direction. Before they had gone more thanfifty paces Minalto, whose eyes incessantly scanned the shore,stooped and dragged from the water's edge a canvas sack containingthe life-boat's stock of biscuit, utterly spoilt by the salt water.
"Things be a-comin' ashore-like," he remarked. "When flood-tide makesthen te's time to look."
"I wonder if we soaked the biscuits in fresh water and thoroughly gotrid of the salt we could bake them again?" asked Hilda. "I'll try it.How do we make a fire?"
Burgoyne shook his head. He had already tried his hand at rubbingtogether two sticks on the chance of obtaining a flame, but withoutsuccess.
"I'll have another shot at it," he continued, when he had related hisfailure. "Perhaps the wood wasn't perfectly dry. Savages obtain firethat way, but I've never watched them do it. Wish I had."
Suddenly Hilda laid her hand on Burgoyne's arm and pointed.
"Look!" she exclaimed. "There's smoke!"
"Sure enough!" ejaculated Alwyn. "No, steady; we don't want to rushinto a native kitchen before we find out who the gentlemen are. Stayhere, Minalto, with Miss Vivian, while I do a little observationwork."
The smoke, rising in the now hot and almost motionless air, wasascending beyond a clump of palms about a quarter of a mile away. Itwas not a forest fire; the column of vapour was too small for that.The logical conclusion was that it had been started by human agency.
Keeping close to the brushwood that skirted the beach abovehigh-water mark, Alwyn approached the scene of his intendedinvestigations. But after he had gone almost two-thirds of thedistance, farther progress was barred by an inlet invisible from thespot whence the three castaways had set out on their tour ofexploration. The entrance to the creek was narrow and shallow, beingat that state of the tide barely three feet deep. Farther inland itopened out into a fairly wide basin, about eighty yards in width andalmost entirely surrounded by dense vegetation, except for twoconverging glades at the head of the natural harbour.
High and dry just above the reach of the water was a dark object,which Alwyn recognized as the bow portion of the life-boat, while theotherwise smooth sand all around it bore traces of several footprintsof a person or persons going and returning.
"Natives, perhaps," thought Burgoyne. "They've found the wreckage andstripped it of everything of value, unless---- But I may as well makesure."
Working his way inland and cautiously forcing his passage through thescrub, Burgoyne drew nearer and nearer the fire. He could hear thecrackling of the burning wood; a savoury smell assailed his nostrils.Save for the spluttering of the fire, the utmost silence prevailed.
As he carefully parted the brushwood he came in full view of thefire. He stopped dead in sheer astonishment, hardly able to credithis senses.
The fire was burning in an open space. Close to it two pieces of canehad been set up derrick-fashion, while a longer and heavier piece,with one end pegged to the ground, projected beyond the fork with itsend immediately over the flames. From the extremity hung an ironbucket emitting steam and a delicious odour of stewing fowl.
Three or four paces from the fire and with his back turned towardsBurgoyne was a man, naked from the waist upwards and bare below theknees. He was busily engaged in setting up a pointed bamboo, one
endof which he had charred in the fire, while close to him was a roll ofcanvas. It was Peter Mostyn.
"Hello!" shouted Alwyn.
Mostyn turned sharply.
"Hello," he replied, and recognizing the voice continued; "you'rejust in time for some grub, old bird."
"Hope there's enough for three more, anyway," rejoined Burgoyne.
That was the greeting between two men each of whom had thought theother dead. Typically British, they concealed their emotions undertwo cheerful grins, afraid lest they should make asses of themselvesby betraying what they termed "sloppiness".
"Miss Vivian is safe, then?" asked Mostyn eagerly. He could ask_that_ question without reserve.
"Rather! She's over there. Better get your things on."
Mostyn seized his ragged garments and proceeded to dress.
"It was so jolly hot," he explained. "I just had to strip. Felt a bitlike a savage... where have you been? I looked along the beachseveral times."
"You didn't look far enough, my festive," said Burgoyne. "How did youget ashore?"
"Just hung on to the boat," replied Peter. "Or rather, what was leftof her. Had quite a soft passage. Nothing much to complain about. Thewreckage drove into this cove, and I waded ashore with hardly anytrouble. Then I walked up and down the beach for nearly half thenight, I should imagine, trying to find you. Never saw a sign, so Icame to the conclusion--well, I was wrong."
"You're in luck," remarked the Third Officer, nodding in thedirection of the fire and the savoury contents of the bucket.
"Yes, rather," admitted the Wireless Officer. "I knocked over a fowlwith a chunk of coral. There are hundreds of them up there--fowls, Imean. Wasn't certain altogether how to clean the brute, but I've doneit after a fashion. Fire? Easy, when you know how. One of the thingswe used to practise when I was a Scout."
"It was beyond me," declared Alwyn.
"I'll show you later on," promised Mostyn, struggling into his raggedcoat. "Now I'm ready. Where are the others? 'Spose the jolly old potwon't boil over?"
Ten minutes later a light-hearted, reunited party gathered round thesteaming pot. Water, copious and wholesome, was to be found near athand. There were hundreds of fowls in the woods, and, Mostyn had goodreason for believing, pigs. Yams, taro roots, and coco-nuts grew inprofusion, so for the present all fears of a lingering death bythirst and starvation vanished.
"I boiled the brute because it was less trouble," explained Mostynapologetically as he severed a portion of the steaming fowl by meansof a strip of dried coconut shell. "You may find a few feathers, butI singed most of 'em off. Next time I'll try roasting a bird inclay."
It was a most appetizing meal, in spite of the fact that Peter'scompanions had only recently eaten bully beef and drunk coco-nutmilk.
"One of the buckets came ashore with the boat," continued theWireless Officer. "It'll have to serve for both cooking and fetchingwater, I'm afraid----"
"We've a bucket and a baler," interrupted Burgoyne, not to beoutdone.
"An' a li'l cask o' spirits," chimed in Jasper. "Not that I'm fond o'a drop, like, but it may be mighty handy----"
"Sun's well over the foreyard," announced Alwyn, stifling a yawn. "Ajolly good caulk will be the thing."
"Cork--what for?" inquired Hilda.
"Caulk--sea term for a nap," explained the Third Officer. "We can'tdo much in the hot sun, and we all want to make up arrears of sleep,I take it."
Spreading out the canvas in the shade of the palms, the fourcastaways--comrades in peril and sharers of the limited supplies ofthe world's goods provided in present condition--were soon slumberingsoundly, their cares, troubles, bruises, and other ailments of bodyand mind relegated to the Back of Beyond as if they had neverexisted.
Peter Mostyn was the first to awake. In spite of his physicalshortcomings he was active and wiry, and of the four had had theleast strenuous struggle with the elements following the capsizing ofthe boat. Acting upon previous instructions, he roused Burgoyne andJasper. Hilda still slumbered peacefully.
The first task was to construct shelters sufficiently strong towithstand the force of the wind. Leaving Mostyn to carry on with hisinterrupted work of rigging up a tent, Alwyn and Minalto walked alongthe beach to the wreckage of the stern part of the lifeboat. Thisthey dug out of the sand, and, attaching some of the halliards to it,dragged it sleigh-fashion over the smooth sand, stopping on the wayto pick up the gear they had discovered that morning. The latterincluded, to Minalto's evident satisfaction, the "li'l cask", whichupon examination was found to contain Jamaica rum.
Burgoyne had already decided to form a camp on the site Mostyn hadchosen. For one thing it was sheltered, while fresh water wasobtainable close at hand.
In about an hour the two ends of the boat were set up about eightfeet apart and connected by the mizzen yard and one of the oars. Overthe ridge-poles was thrown a large square of canvas, its ends beingsunk in the sand and weighted with stones. On one side a flap wasleft in order to allow admittance to the timber-and-canvas dwelling,which was to be devoted to the use of Miss Vivian.
The structure was barely completed when Hilda awoke.
"Why, what is this?" she inquired.
"Your quarters, Miss Vivian," replied Alwyn.
"Mine? How quaint!" she exclaimed rapturously. "It reminds me ofPeggotty's Hut, made out of an old boat."
"Do we keep the fire up all night?" asked Mostyn.
"Better not," replied Burgoyne. "We'll have to be careful in caseStrogoff sends a boat after us."
"How will he know?" said Peter. "He thinks that Minalto and you weredrowned on the _Donibristle_, and the pirates probably fired on uswhile under the impression that a strange craft had approached theisland."
"H'm," replied Alwyn dubiously. "I wish I could agree with you onthat point. Strogoff will find that you are missing, my festive, andprobably Young Bill as well. Also, if he takes the trouble tolook--as quite probably he may do--he'll find that the life-boat's nolonger pinned down by the ship. He'll be in a tear, not because hehas any regard for us, but because he knows that Ramon Porfirio willhave the wind up when he returns. Why? He'll know that if we do reacha civilized port we'll spoil his little game. So if a craft shows uphere we'll have to make sure of her character before we starthoisting distress signals."
Well before sundown the camp was in a fair state of completion,considering the limited resources at the disposal of the castaways.
Not only had a fairly commodious tent been erected--the boat's sailand spare canvas being pressed into service--but Minalto had built afire-place of rocks, over which he placed three iron bars obtainedfrom the broken keel-band of the boat. The air-tanks, since theycould be put to no better use, served as seats, while the boat'sback-board, supported on Minalto's li'l ole cask, formed a table.
Then Jasper vanished for about an hour, returning with fiveflat-fish, which he had speared in the clear water by means of a nailjammed into a broken oar, and a number of oysters found in a rockypool towards the southern extremity of the island. Meanwhile Hilda,with the experience gained while in the "galley" at the Secret Base,had baked a loaf of taro, which everyone pronounced to be excellentand "top-hole".
They spent quite a delightful evening.