"What is the matter with my toe?"
"Is there anything the matter with it!" she drowsily asked.
"O, no, nothing at all," he replied. "I dreamed that a rat was gnawing it off. But it is only a string I tied there myself."
He then turned over, and lay still, pretending to be asleep; but when he heard her breathe hard, he slipped out of bed, put on his clothes, and went softly out of the tent. Sam had agreed to wake him, so that they two might, according to Christmas custom, "catch" the others, by hailing them first; and as Sam could not go into the room where Mary slept, he persuaded Frank to tie a string to one of his toes, and to pass the other end outside of the tent. It was Sam's pulling at this string that gave Frank his dream, and finally waked him. For a minute or two they whispered together in merry mood, and on Sam's saying, "Now, Mas Frank, now!" the roar of two guns, and then the sound of a conch, broke upon the ears of the startled sleepers.
"Good morning, lazy folks!" said Frank, bursting into the tent. "Merry Christmas to you all!"
"Merry Christmas, Mas Robbut!" Sam echoed from behind, "Merry Christmas, Mas Harrol! Merry Christmas, little Missus!"
"Fairly caught!" answered Robert; "and now, I suppose, we must look out some presents for you both."
The company completed their toilet, and came together under the awning, which was still their kitchen. The day star was "flaming" gloriously, and the approach of day was marked by a hazy belt of light above the eastern horizon. They kindled their fire, and prepared for breakfast, with many jests and kind expressions; then sobering themselves to a becoming gravity, they sat around the red blaze, and engaged in their usual morning worship.
While the sun threw his first slanting beams across the island, Harold went to the landing, and returned, saying, "Come all. The tide has been going down for hours, and is now running like a mill-tail!"
Hastening their preparations, they were in a short time seated upon the raft, Sam at the helm, and Robert and Harold by turn at the oars. Borne by the current, and impelled by their own efforts, they were not two hours in reaching the proposed landing place.