“Then that’s just where you are mistaken!” broke in Fred Sanders, with his ringing laugh, “for it so happens that to-day isn’t Thursday, by a long shot!”
“Of course not,” Mr. Storms hastened to say. “I don’t know how many arguments I have had with the captain to prove he was wrong, and that this is Friday–––”
And Fred threw back his head and roared louder than ever.
“It’s a toss up between you. I don’t wonder that you got muddled when you were forced to stay in such an outlandish place as this so long. I think I would have got mixed myself.”
“Pray tell me what day of the week it is.”
“This is Tuesday afternoon, with a half-dozen hours of daylight left to you yet.”
While this brief conversation was going on, the two natives were upon the boat, waiting as if for permission to land. They sat as meekly as children, in a partly crouching position, intently watching, with their glittering black eyes, the three figures before them. They appeared to listen with absorbing attention to the words, as if they understood them––which they did not, excepting so far as they were interpreted by the vigorous gestures.
Inez Hawthorne, as we have stated, had withdrawn to the house, when requested to do so by her teacher, but her curiosity led her to step forth and look upon the parties and listen to the conversation––the distance being so short that she could hear all that was said. The natives saw her, and so did Fred Sanders, who occasionally glanced over the shoulders of the two men with whom he was talking, in a way which they understood. The visitors could not fail to be greatly interested in her, but Fred refrained for a time from referring to the girl.
Mate Storms explained that the craft in which they came to this portion of the world was wrecked, and that three of the crew were lost, and the captain, mate and a single passenger saved. Since then they had looked in vain for the coming of some friendly sail; 182 plenty enough, however, having appeared, only to depart again and leave them in greater depths of gloom than before.