“Not I, Mas’ Don, lad.”
“You do, Jem. Such a chance may never occur again; and I shall never be happy till I have told my mother what is the real truth about our going away.”
“But you did write it to her, Mas’ Don.”
“Write! What is writing to speaking? I thought you meant to stand by me.”
“So I do, Mas’ Don, when a good chance comes. It hasn’t come yet.”
“Ahoy!”
A hail came out of the dense growth some fifty yards away.
“There,” said Jem, “you see we couldn’t get off; some one coming back.”
“Ahoy!” came again; “boat ahoy!”
“Ahoy! Ahoy!” shouted back Jem, and the two boat-keepers watched the moving ferns in front of them, expecting to see the straw hat of a messmate directly; but instead there appeared the black white-tipped feathers, and then the hideously tattooed bluish face of a savage, followed directly after by another, and two stalwart men came out on to the sands, and began to walk slowly down toward the boat.