As the two young men sat there weak and faint, but with the happy sensation of feeling that they were, if only at the beginning, still on the road back to health and strength, it seemed to them as if the events of the night when they returned from the expedition to the volcano might have been a dream. For the blacks had scared them on that day when they were fishing, and again during the absence of part of the crew. Then they had disappeared as suddenly as they appeared, and possibly they might never come again.
Oliver thought and said so to Mr Rimmer, who, with a double gun resting in the hollow of his left arm, had joined them, for he spent nearly the whole of his time on deck.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said. “I hope it is so. We did give them a terrible peppering. I don’t think anyone was killed, but they took away enough shot to make them remember us by.”
“Poor wretches,” said Oliver. “They don’t understand the powers of civilisation.”
“Poor wretches, indeed!” said Panton, giving a writhe. “I don’t feel much pity for them. Murderous thieves.”
“They are,” said the mate, “some of them, and it’s wonderful what conceit the black beggars have. But we must not be too hopeful, for there’s no trusting savages. They jump into their canoes and they are here, there, and everywhere in a few hours. Let’s hear what report Mr Drew gives us when he comes back.”
“Hang the savages!” said Panton, pettishly.
“Must catch ’em first, sir,” said the mate, laughing.
“They seem to have put a stop to everything,” said Oliver, joining in with a smile. “But we’ll forgive them if they’ll only keep away and let us go on with our work, and,” he added with a sigh, “it is such a lovely place, and there is so much to do.”
“Yes, it’s glorious,” said Panton, as his eyes slowly took in their surroundings. “Now, too, that the volcano’s calming down, everything promises that we shall have had a glorious expedition.”