It was broad daylight with brilliant sunshine without, but my prison was windowless, and where I lay was in the shadow, save where here and there a pencil of light shone through the palm-leaf thatch and made a glowing spot upon the floor.
Every moment I expected to see my guard back again, or I might be interrupted, I knew, by the coming of some one with food. I dared not then attempt to read for some time, since it seemed like too great a risk of losing words that were inexpressibly precious.
At last all seemed so still but the buzz and hum of distant voices that I determined to venture, and undoing my hot hand I unfolded the little scrap of paper, upon which, written closely but clearly, were the following words—
“As we are so near a village of the blacks, and you have not returned, I have concluded that you have been made a prisoner. Gyp found your scent and went off, returning after many hours’ absence; so I write these lines to bid you be of good heart, for we shall try by stratagem to get you away.”
Then there was this, evidently written the next day:
“Gyp has been again and brought back the above lines which I tied to his collar. If you get them tie something to the dog’s collar to show you are alive and well. Poor Jimmy went in search of you, but has not returned.”
“Tie something to the dog’s collar to show you are alive and well!” I said to myself over and over again, as I carefully secreted the scrap of paper—a needless task, as, if it had been seen, no one would have paid any heed to it. “And I have tied something to the dog’s collar and they will come, the doctor and Jack Penny, with the blacks, to-night to try and save me, and I shall escape.”
I stopped here, for the words seemed to be wild and foolish. How could they rescue me, and, besides, ought I not to feel glad that I was here among the natives of the island? What better position could I be in for gaining information about my father?
I lay thinking like this for long, and every hour it seemed that my injured head and my cut wrists and ankles were healing. The confused feeling had passed away, leaving nothing but stiffness and soreness, while the message I had received gave me what I wanted worst—hope.
I did not see Jimmy that day, for he was not brought out, neither was I taken to the tree, but I saw that the savage who brought me food had a double quantity, and to prove that some of it was meant for my fellow-prisoner I soon afterwards heard him shout: