"I say, my hair is in a terrible tangle," said Mary next morning, after they had bathed. "I wish we had a comb."
In the haste of their dressing, the last night on the Elizabeth, they had done up their hair anyhow, forgetting all about their combs.
"What do the South Sea natives do, Mary?" asked Elizabeth.
"I fancy I've read that they build up their hair into a sort of huge turban, with grease and things."
"Horrid!" said Tommy. "I vote we cut our hair short like a boy's; you've got a pair of scissors in your housewife, Mary. Then it won't bother any of us."
"I don't think that would be wise," said Elizabeth; "we might get sunstroke. As it is we are protected a little. I'm going to let my hair down. Perhaps we might make a comb out of a bit of wood."
"A long fiddling job that will be," said Tommy. "I'm going to catch a fish for breakfast, and if it's like the one I caught yesterday, take out the backbone and use that for a comb."
"That's rather an original idea," said Elizabeth. "Won't our hair smell fishy, though?"
"Not if we wash the bone and then dry it in the sun, I should think. Anyway, we can try."
The girls went off together to the rocks from which they had fished on the previous day. The first fish they hooked was of a different kind from the one whose wholesomeness they had proved, and Tommy threw it back into the sea, saying that she could not wait while another experiment was being tried. After a time she landed one of the right sort, and this, when baked, made a capital breakfast for them all. No biscuit remained, and Tommy sighed for bread and butter; but they enjoyed the change of fare. They washed the skeleton as Tommy had suggested, and set it to dry in the sun. Then they resumed their weaving. Elizabeth made some rough measurements, and found that a great deal more matting was required than they anticipated, so that several days must pass before they could begin the actual building of the hut.
Mary and Elizabeth had both set their watches by the sun, and so were able to tell with reasonable accuracy the time of day. But they had not kept count of the days as they passed, and now Elizabeth suggested that they should each morning cut a notch in one of the trees to serve as a calendar.
That night they tested the comb of fishbone. Mary's hair was the finest, and she managed to comb out its tangles fairly well; but when Elizabeth tried to do the same with her thicker and stronger locks, several of the bones snapped off, and it was clear that a new comb of this sort would be needed every day. She reverted, therefore, to her idea of trying to make a wooden comb; and during the next few days, Mary, who had had some practice in fretwork at home, worked with her knife at a thin fragment of wood.
It was a difficult task. She found herself quite unable to make the teeth equal in size, or equal in distance from each other. But she persevered, and on the third evening after starting the work she showed the comb to her sisters.
"Well, it's half-way between a curry-comb and a garden rake," said Tommy, with a laugh. "But I dare say it's better than fish-bones. Let me have first go on my thatch."
She began to operate upon her hair, a little yell every now and then proclaiming that the teeth had "caught." But all the girls voted that it was better than nothing, and they used it in turn every morning and night.
When there were six notches on the tree, Elizabeth said that she thought there was enough matting to complete the walls of the hut, so they carried their handiwork up to the knoll. Tommy climbed into the trees, and fastened the upper edges of several mats to the overhanging boughs, while the other girls stuck a double row of canes into the ground, one inside and the other outside the matting, to keep it steady. The various strips of matting had to be sewn together, and at these places an extra long cane was introduced, to which the mats were fastened by means of thin flexible tendrils. A day's work sufficed to complete three walls; the fourth side, facing the sea, was left open.
It now only remained to complete the roof. Next day the girls added other canes to those which they had already laid across the branches, until they formed a close lattice-work. This they covered with matting, and then deliberated whether to finish it off with thatch. As children they had often helped the thatchers at the farm, so that they would not find any difficulty in the work; but they guessed that in so warm a climate thatch would harbour insect pests of all kinds, and they did not feel comfortable at the thought of having such house-mates.
"Still, I think we must chance it," said Mary. "There's one thing to be said, and that is, that the whole contrivance is so slight and simple that we can make it all over again if necessary."
"That's all very well," said Tommy, "but we aren't spiders, and I shall be pretty mad if there's all this work to do again. I'd rather do something fresh."
"We haven't found much else to occupy us so far," said Elizabeth. "Anyway, we won't ask you to do the repairs, Tommy, if you don't like it."
"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Tommy at once; "I'll do my fair share, but I know I shall get a bit ratty if a silly old storm knocks our nice hut to pieces."
The thatching occupied two more days, and then the girls looked with a great deal of pleasure on their neat little hut.
"But we haven't done yet," said Elizabeth. "The thatch will protect us from any ordinary rain, but we're still liable to be swamped by water running down the hill behind. We had better scrape out a trench all round, to carry the water down to the shore."
This proved the hardest part of the work. They had no tools except their knives and the boat-hook, and with these to cut a trench deep enough to be effective was very trying to their patience. Such continuous plodding work did not suit Tommy's restless, active temperament at all, and she would constantly jump up and run off to the beach, or to the edge of the wood. At such times Mary was inclined to be impatient and reproachful, but Elizabeth said that they mustn't expect too much from Tommy.
"She's very young, you know, and it's really wonderful how her spirits have kept up so well. She's more nervy than we are, Mary, and I am always afraid she will break down."
So neither she nor Mary said anything to Tommy about her fitfulness, and Tommy herself always came back repentant after these little absences, and worked away hard until the next fit of restlessness overtook her.
To give her a change from scraping away at the trench, Elizabeth suggested that she should make a mat curtain for the open side of the hut.
"We don't want a door," she said, "but a curtain will be useful at night. Leave a little space between it and the roof for ventilation. We can fasten the two lower corners to the canes."
Tommy set about this task willingly, and had the curtain fixed by the time the trench was finished. The hut was now complete so far as its exterior was concerned; it had taken more than a fortnight altogether. What they had now to consider was the internal fittings. Tommy laughed when this was mentioned.
"We can't get a bedroom suite, even on the hire system," she said. "I suppose you'd call it a bed-sitting-room, wouldn't you?"
"Let's call it 'Our Flat,'" suggested Mary.
"The best flat that ever was," said Tommy. "No botherations from unpleasant neighbours—at least, I hope not."
"We certainly shan't have a tiresome piano going next door," said Elizabeth. "I think 'Our Flat' is a very good name. What a pity we haven't a table and pen, ink and paper!—then Mary could write a diary of our doings."
"With moral reflections," added Tommy. "'To-day our youngest sister refused to wash up; how sad to see such a selfish spirit in one so young!' That's the sort of thing, isn't it, Mary?"
"I shouldn't write anything of the sort," said Mary indignantly. "You haven't refused to wash up, and if you did, do you think I should tell it?"
"My dear, you are perfectly killing," said Tommy. "Do you think you'd get your old diary published? No one would read it if you did."
"We're talking nonsense, aren't we?" said Elizabeth. "There's no chance of any of us writing a diary. Let's be practical. The only furniture we can supply ourselves with is—beds."
"More weaving?" cried Tommy. "Oh, I am so sick of it, Bess. Can't we sleep on the ground?"
"I don't think we'd better; we might get rheumatism, though to be sure the ground seems dry enough at present. But I own that weaving mats day after day is rather tiring, so shall we leave it for the present, and still sleep in the boat? What do you say to doing a little more exploration?"
"Yes, why not?" said Tommy eagerly. "We haven't seen a soul—since I saw that figure move along the top of the ridge, at any rate; and I dare say that was an animal of some kind. I don't think there are any people here at all."
"There may be some on the other side of the ridge," said Mary.
"Well, if there are, they must be a very unenterprising lot," said Tommy. "Let's follow up the stream to its source. I've never seen the source of a river, and that'll be geography, won't it? Besides, our bananas will soon be all gone, and we ought to look for some more; we can't live on nothing but fish."
"Very well; we will do as you say," said Elizabeth. "It's very hot to-day, so we'll cover our heads with leaves; it's just as well to take precautions."
Shortly afterwards they set out, carrying the oars and the boat-hook as weapons of defence. Although they had gained confidence from never having seen any human being, as soon as they had walked beyond the limit of their previous excursions they felt something of the old timidity, and spoke only in whispers.
"Our flag is still flying," said Tommy, as they came to a spot whence they could see the tree she had climbed on their first day on the island. "Evidently no one has seen it or thought it worth noticing."
"That's a consolation in one way," said Elizabeth. "These South Sea Islanders have canoes, haven't they, Mary? We haven't seen any, which is a negative proof that our island isn't inhabited; but if any people from another island happened to have come this way, they would almost certainly have noticed our flag, and perhaps come to see what it meant."
They were following the course of the stream. It zigzagged about a good deal, at first through a fairly thick belt of woodland, then through a comparatively clear space of a few hundred yards, then into woodland again, always narrowing. They were still some distance below the crest of the ridge when they came to a small swamp, beyond which there was no stream.
"This must be the source," said Mary.
"How disappointing!" said Tommy. "I wanted to see a nice little spring, with beautiful clear water bubbling up. This swamp is simply horrid."
"There must be a spring somewhere in the swamp," said Elizabeth, smiling. "But it isn't worth while to hunt for it, even if we could find it. The stream is certainly prettier lower down. Let's go on; we are not very far from the top, and we might be able to get a good view from there—see the whole of the island and the sea beyond."
"I feel quite like a discoverer," said Mary. "Can't you imagine how Drake must have felt when he first caught sight of the Pacific?"
"You romantic old dear!" cried Tommy. "I don't care a bit what Drake felt; all I hope is we shan't wish we hadn't come."
They went on quietly, feeling a little nervous. The ground here was bare except for a few shrubs, and they drew their breath more quickly as they mounted the slope. At last they reached the top. One and all gave a sigh of disappointment. Directly in front of them, to the north, was a second ridge higher than the one on which they stood. But on every other side there was a fine view. To the south the land fell away rapidly towards the sea, of which they caught a glimpse over the tree-tops nearly a mile away. To the west, the direction from which they had come, the sea was much farther off. To the east there was a gradual slope downwards into a country for the most part densely wooded, but here and there showing traces of clearings natural or otherwise. The greatest extent of land seemed to be to the north-east, where the sea was much farther remote than it was on the west. None of the girls had any experience in judging distances, but they saw that the island was longer than it was broad, and that the greatest length was from north-west to south-east.
"Shall we go to the farther ridge?" asked Elizabeth.
"Yes, let's," said Tommy. "There isn't a sign of a living creature; the island is just ours."
A thick belt of woodland separated the two ridges at the point where they stood, so they moved somewhat to the right to search for a more open way. All at once they came to a halt. A little in front of them was a pole, carrying what appeared to be the remains of a small flag. About fifty paces beyond it was another exactly similar; and then they saw that there were five or six altogether, extending along the crest of the ridge, all the same distance apart.
"I think we had better go back," said Mary, looking a trifle scared. "There are people after all."
Her sisters were equally disturbed at the sight of poles evidently erected by human agency. There was nobody to be seen, and from the appearance of the poles they were not attended to; the flags on them were the merest rags of coloured cloth. But the girls were not inclined to face any more discoveries. The bare possibility that there were savages on the island made them shiver. They paused for a few moments at the spot where they first caught sight of the poles, and then turned, intending to make their way in the direction of home.
Just then, however, Tommy caught sight of some bananas clustering thick a little way down the slope on the eastern side.
"I'm hungry," she said. "Those look bigger than what we have had. Couldn't we go and fetch a few?"
The clump of trees lay on the slope below the line of poles, a good distance away from them.
"It's rather silly to be scared so easily," said Elizabeth. "There isn't a sign of anybody; I think we might venture. We must find a new supply."
They moved quickly down towards the trees, listening, peering about them, ready to fly at the least alarm. But when they came to the trees they felt that they had the reward of courage, for there, within a short distance of them, was a sight that made them gasp with surprise and delight. Beside the stumpy, long-leaved banana-trees, there were other trees glittering with green and yellow fruit and with white blossom. The laden boughs bent down invitingly, and beneath them the golden globes of fallen fruit glowed amid the grass.
"Oranges, I declare!" exclaimed Mary.
"How lovely!" cried Tommy, forgetting all her fears, and running forward to pick an orange from the ground.
Her sisters followed more leisurely, but before they reached her Tommy suddenly uttered a cry of terror. The orange she had taken fell from her hand. The other girls ran to her side and found her pale with fright.
"There!" she said, pointing towards a clump of hibiscus.
"What is it, dear?" asked Elizabeth.
"In the bushes—a little brown face!" whispered Tommy, with trembling lips.
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, "How could she 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? I did see 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.
"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, we must eat," 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.
"I am thankful 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.