“We are, my lad. This is just the time when steam is useful; it helps me to run back gently to our old moorings; and as soon as Sir John comes up, I’m going to propose that we take a run right round the island from outside the reef, so as to make sure that the blacks have no village here.”
Directly after that the yacht hooked up the tub which buoyed the cable, and they swung in their old moorings.
“Now then,” said the captain, “I’m going to have a look at that canoe; will you come with me?”
“Of course,” cried Jack.
“Get your gun and cartridges then. It will not do to go unarmed anywhere now we have found that there is an enemy.”
Jack fetched his double gun, wondering whether he would ever have occasion to use it, and on returning to the deck he found the captain examining the stem of the cutter, now hanging from the davits.
“Look here, Squire Meadows,” he said, “this is a specimen of the value of good things. Now if this had been a common, cheaply-made boat her planks would have been started, and a lot of carpenter’s work wanted before she would have been any use. As it is, she will want a bit of varnish there, and a few taps of the hammer where the copper covers the front of the keel. You came a pretty good crash into that canoe, I suppose?”
“I was not in the boat; but they seemed to.”
“I suppose so. Well, come and jump in.”
He led the way to where Lenny was seated in the dinghy, and they stepped down, and were rowed by the man toward the submerged canoe.