Dave waited patiently at the fence until Tom came back with a huge melon on his shoulder.
“We’ll take it acrost to our island,” he explained. “It ain’t safe to do it in here. You don’t want never when you’re out on a pirate cruise to leave no more evidence be’ind you than you can help.”
“Is it ripe?” queried Dave.
“Ripe!” replied Tom. “You bet it’s ripe. I put my knee on it ’an squoze, and you could ’ear it go kerrack inside.”
The bank opposite the island on that side was steep and high, so Tom went first and Dave lowered the melon down to him, and he put it in the water and showed Dave how it would float.
“You tie my clothes on your back along with yours, an’ I’ll shove her ahead of me,” he explained.
It was a warm tropic night, and they found the short swim across freshening and pleasant; so much so that, when they landed the melon and their clothes, they slid into the water again and stayed a while floating and kicking about. Tom said it was no use trying to work their way through the scrub until daylight, so they found a little clear grassy place after a lot of trouble, and Dave got out his pocket knife.
They dug into the red heart of the melon and ate as much as they could, carefully hurling the rind into the water as it occurred, because, as Tom said, solemnly, “Dead melons tell no tales.”
At last, tired out, they unrolled their tent, spread it on the grass, and lay down with a ragged blanket over them which Dave had “borrowed” from home.
Tom went to sleep at once and snored; but Dave, who was younger and less hardened, lay there thinking.