“Collect as we go?” said Drew.
“Oh no, let’s be content with what we have. I shall have enough to do to preserve mine.”
“And I to arrange my little lot,” said Panton. “Here, Smith, carry a few of these.”
“Certeny, sir, but there’s heaps of as good stones close to where the brig lies.”
“Never mind that, I want these.”
“All right, sir,” said the man, cheerily, and with a bag of stones and the ropes, and with Wriggs at his side shouldering the ladder, the little party started back, discussing the results of their expedition, and the fact that though they had not climbed to the crater, they had half explored the great mountain. That, and the fact that there were no savages to be seen, they felt was news enough for the mate, while, as to themselves, they were all three more than satisfied with their finds.
The long tramp in the forest before dinner and the dinner itself made the journey back to the shore of the lagoon where they had left the boat seem doubly long, but they reached it at last, just as the west was one glory of amber and gold, and the globular cloud high up over the crater appeared of a rosy scarlet. The long fringe of cocoa palms, too, seemed as if their great pinnate leaves had been cut out of orange metal, and reflected as they were in the glassy water of the lagoon, a scene of loveliness met the travellers’ eyes that made them soon forget their weariness, and set to with a will to drag the boat over the sand, and then launch it in the mirror-like sea.
“Now for a gentle pull back,” said Oliver. “Shall we do it before dark?”
“No; and there is no moon.”
“Never mind, we can easily run the boat in among the trees, and avoid the coral blocks and the pools as we walk to the brig. Crocs are pretty active of a night, so let’s give them a wide berth.”