“Oh, we have seen no signs of natives!” the mate said impatiently, “and there mayn’t be any within miles and miles of us, probably not nearer than those hills; for I believe it is there that they principally do what cultivation there is—in the first place, because it is cooler, and in the next place because there are, we know, tremendous swamps in the low land of Sumatra, though whether this is Sumatra or not I cannot say.”
The next morning the boat started as soon as a supply of cocoa-nuts, sufficient for the day, had been thrown down, two or three of the sailors adopting the means the mate had taught Joyce, and going up the trees very much more quickly than he had done.
“What do you think of this ’ere business, Master Stephen?” Wilcox said as they watched the boat making its way slowly against the current.
“I don’t know, Wilcox, what to think of it.”
“I calls it a risky affair,” the sailor said after a pause. “Mr. Towel is a good officer, I don’t say as he isn’t, but I would rather see an older head on his shoulders just at present. It is all very well for him to say as there may be no natives within twenty miles; but how is he to know that? There may be a village just round the turn of the river. All these chaps are pirates when they get a chance, every mother’s son of them, and there may be half a dozen war-canoes lying a mile up this river. It would be natural that they should be somewhere near its mouth, ready to start out if a sail is sighted, or news is brought to them that there is a ship anchored off a coast village within a few hours’ row. As to firing a gun, in my opinion it is just madness. As he says himself, meat won’t keep two days, [pg 78]and it is just flying in the face of Providence to risk attracting the attention of the natives, for the sake of a day’s rations of fresh meat.
“It was all very well to bring the boat up here so as to lie out of sight of any canoes that happened to be passing along the shore; but I would much rather have left her where she was, though I allows it would have been risky. I would have just chucked the sail over her and covered that with an inch or so of sand, so that it would not have been noticed by a boat a short way out. But if there is a village up here, why, a boat might come down any moment to do some fishing, and there we should be caught at once; as for getting away with them makeshift paddles, it would not be worth even thinking of. I hope our chaps will come back without having seen a monkey or a village, or as much as a banana, then the mate won’t be hankering to go up again; and I should make free to advise him to get the boat up amongst the trees here till we have decided that the ship won’t come, and agree to make a start.”
“I am with you to some extent, Wilcox, and I do think that it is a risky thing going up the river. If we were to fill up with cocoa-nuts they would last us for a week anyhow, and then when we saw another grove of them we could land and load up again.”
“You can’t take an observation, I suppose, Mr. Stephen, and find out in a rough way whereabouts we are?”
Steve shook his head. “No, Wilcox. If I had had my quadrant I might have got near enough to have made a rough guess, for I have got that watch I bought in my pocket, and I have timed it every day with the chronometers, and find that it does not gain more than half a minute a day, so that at the present moment it is not much more than a minute out by them, and if I had had the quadrant I could have made a [pg 79]pretty close calculation. We were about a degree and a half south at noon before that cyclone struck us, but I don’t see that that would help us now.”
“It is a pity, sir,” the sailor said, “for it would help us wonderful if we could find out our position within fifty miles or so.”