Yet, on the whole, the revelation of inner egos brought about by this face-to-face fronting of a desperate extremity was not disappointing. Stripped now of all the maskings of make-believe, we saw one another as we were, and much that had been hidden was found to be heart-mellowing and even inspiring when it was dragged out into the unsparing light of a common disaster.
The courage of the women, in particular, was the finest thing imaginable. There were nine of them starving heroically with us, and they were doing it with a measure of cheer that was beyond all praise. Even Miss Mehitable refused to figure as an exception. "We must be good losers," she said to Conetta and me one evening when we were trying to tempt her with a bit of broiled fish without seasoning. And she did not resent it when Alicia Van Tromp, thrusting a laughing face in at the open tent flap, called her "a dear, dead-game old sport."
For the men there is less to be said; partly because it is a man's job to endure hardness anyway, and partly because three of our nine were not living up to their privileges. Ingerson was doing a little better, to be sure; for one thing, he was no longer thrusting himself upon Madeleine. During the night of the hurricane he had lain out in all the fury of it, and possibly the pouring deluge had washed some of the brute out of him. At all events, he was less obnoxious, holding himself aloof in a half-surly way, and seeming—or so we hoped—to be fighting a morose battle with his appetite. Once, when I spoke of his changed attitude to Conetta, she quoted Scripture at me: "'This kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer.' I doubt if he is praying much, but he is certainly fasting."
Major Terwilliger, on the other hand, grew even more contemptible as the pinch nipped the harder. Ranging the island for edible things, as we all did, he discovered a wild mango in bearing, and though the fruit would have been a grateful boon to all as a change, he kept the discovery to himself for two whole days before Billy Grisdale, who was trailing him, made him give up and share what was left on the tree. Holly Barclay had given up his pretense of illness and was less exacting than before; but he was still utterly useless in any practical way.
During this interval, in which we were maintaining night and day watches and patrolling the beaches, Bonteck was still holding his peace as I had counseled him to, though I could see that his load was growing heavier day by day. As to the events of the hurricane night, it was by agreement that no mention of the Andromeda's visit had been made to the others. This was Bonteck's idea. Since nothing had come of the yacht's return and our adventure with the five men who had so mysteriously disappeared, he argued that no good could result from spreading the news; that the news couldn't well be spread without adding explanations which I, myself, had advised him to withhold.
It was a week, or perhaps a day or so more than that, after the night of alarms that Van Dyck took me aside and showed me a piece of light rope such as is used for signal halliards on board ship; a piece, I said, but I should have said two short pieces tied together in a hard knot.
"Do you recognize it?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"Of course, I couldn't swear to it," he said, "but it looks like a bit of the flag halliards from the yacht. In other words, a bit of the rope with which we tied the five pirates."