“Ever been on any of 'em?” he asked. I hadn't and Kamelillo didn't know, but looked as if he might have swallowed one without remembering it.
“Nor I,” says Craney, “but I know there's likely to be natives when the islands are sizable.”
“These might be only coral circles,” I says.
“Well, I guess we'll go and look at 'Lua,' anyway,” he says. “A man don't put 'Lua' on a map without he's got some idea.”
It was nearly two months from the day we left the coast of the States when we came to the edge of the letter “L,” as according to Craney's chart, and we sailed along the bottom of it and around the curve of “U,” and up the inside on the right, where the ship's chart had an island, but we missed it, if it was there. Then we came to the top of the right leg of “U,” where there might be an island on Craney's chart, except that it looked more like part of the letter. Craney says:
“Try 'A.'”
We cut across into “A.” It was in the curve of the twist at the end of the “A” that we sighted land at last. The ship's chart had an island in the neighbourhood, but somewhat to the north. Likely Craney's notion of coasting the edge of the letters was as good as any. I never claimed the ship's chart was a good one, for it wasn't. I only told him I'd rather sail by the advertisements in a newspaper than by his.
There was a reef at the north end of the island, and we ran south down the coast some miles to where it fell away to the southwest, and dropped anchor at night in a bay with a white beach and a long row of huts back from it under the trees. A bunch of natives ran down and stood looking at us. Some of them swam out a little, or paddled on a log, and then went back. There was a splashing and calling all night, and fires shining on the beach. Kamelillo thought he'd been there before, but he didn't remember when; but if he had, it stuck in his mind, there was some trouble connected with it, and with one he called a “bad-lot chief”; but I told Craney that Kamelillo had seen too many islands and too much strong drink in his career, and he might be thinking of something that happened in New Zealand.
In the morning Craney took Kamelillo and went ashore. I saw the natives gathered around him. They all went up the beach and disappeared, and the boat came back with word from Craney that he and Kamelillo were going inland and wouldn't be back before night. I didn't think he ought to go off careless like that; but they came back safely about seven o'clock, only Craney seemed to be thoughtful and not talkative. He said there was a business opening there, and he guessed he'd speculate; and he sat on deck in his red plush chair till past twelve, smoking fat cigars and staring at the shore. The next day he had up three or four cases from the hold. There was a crowd waiting for him on the beach, and I saw him tying the boxes on poles, and some of the barbarians shouldered the poles, and they all went off in procession. I didn't ask him when he'd come back, and he didn't come for near a week. Only every day there would be a native come down and dance around in the shallow to attract attention, or maybe swim out to the ship with a bit of paper in his mouth. And the paper would read: “O. K. Business progressing. Yours, J. R.” or; “I'm permeating. Yours, Julius R.” So I judged it was a peaceful island, and likely Craney had found something worth trading for. We went ashore every day, but not inland. We were satisfied to stay on the beach, and to watch the naked little children dive in the surf, and to play tag with the population.
But one day I followed a path a mile inland, and climbed a hill and saw an open valley to the south with several hundred palm-leaf huts, and farther up was more open country and some hills beyond thickly wooded. I judged the island was twenty miles north and south, but couldn't see how far it went westward, and coming back, found a note for me: “O. K. I never see folks so open to conviction. Yours, J. R.”