The men first made out soon disappeared but, later on, Harry could see that there were many of them inside the line of forest.
"It is a nuisance," the captain said, when he told him the result of his examination of the shore. "I suppose, in a day or two, we shall have hundreds of them down here. I don't think they will try to interfere with us, as long as we are at work; but they will certainly oppose us, if we attempt to enter the forest, and will effectually prevent our wandering about in search of water. We could only go in a strong body and, even then, might lose a good many lives from their arrows.
"Of course, we should be able to beat them off; but I should be sorry to have to kill a lot of the poor little beggars. One can hardly blame them for their hostility. Naturally, they want to have the place to themselves, and are just as averse to our landing as our forefathers were to Julius Caesar and his Romans.
"Of course they would be, if they only knew it, very much better off by being civil. We have numbers of things that would be invaluable to them. For instance, I would willingly give them a dozen cooking pots, and as many frying pans, if they would let us obtain water peaceably. I suppose that, at some time or other, Malays landed here, and carried off a number of heads; or they may have been shot down by some reckless ruffians of traders, and have so come to view all strangers as deadly enemies. However, so far as I have heard, there is no chance of their being friendly; and native traders say that, of vessels that have been wrecked on the coast, none of the crew ever escaped.
"By the way, I believe that fish are extremely plentiful here. We have a good supply of fishing lines on board, for we generally fish when we are at anchor."
"If you will let me have them, tomorrow," Harry said, "Abdool and I will look after that. I hate having nothing to do and, certainly, fish would be a very agreeable change, after such a long spell of salt meat."
"You shall have them, the first thing in the morning."
Accordingly, the next day the lines were got out; and the Malay interpreter, who knew a great deal more of fishing than did Harry or Abdool, took the matter in hand. The hooks were baited with pieces of meat, or shreds of white or scarlet bunting. The fish bit eagerly, and all three were kept actively employed in drawing them up, and rebaiting the hooks. They were of all sizes, from a quarter of a pound to four or five pounds and, by dinner time, there were enough to furnish an ample meal for all on board.
"I will keep three or four of the men at work, this afternoon," Fairclough said, "and we will have night lines down. We can salt down those we do not eat and, at any rate, we shall not be drawing much on our stores."
By evening the new fore-top mast was in its place. As the heaviest part of the work was now done, orders were given for a boat's crew to start, in the morning, to cruise along the coast and see if any stream ran into it. Mr. Eden was to be in command. The crew were to be well armed, but were not to attempt to effect a landing.