Chapter Seventeen.
Crusoes on the Island of Flowers—a Threatened Armada.
For weeks and weeks mourned poor Hall for his wife; for weeks and weeks mourned he. He was like Rachel weeping for her children, who would not be comforted “because they were not.”
But the anguish of his grief toned down at last. His sorrow was deep still, but he could listen now to the consolations that Dickson never forgot to give him morn, noon, and night.
“Ah, well,” he said at last, “I shall meet her again in the Bright Beyond, where farewells are never said, where partings are unknown. That thought must be my solace.”
And this thought did console both him and Ilda, his daughter. As for Matty, she was too young to know what grief really was, and romped with Reginald’s dog in the Queen’s beautiful gardens, just as she had done on board the unfortunate yacht—now, alas! a yacht no more.
But busy weeks these had been for the shipwrecked mariners. Yet far from unhappy. They were Crusoes now to all intents and purposes, and acting like Crusoes, having saved all the interior stores, etc, that they could, knowing well that the very next storm would not leave a timber of the poor Wolverine. So at every low tide they laboured at breaking her up. At high tide they worked equally energetically in building a wooden house on a bit of tableland, that was easy of access, and could not be reached by a tide, however high.
The house was very strong, for the very best wood in the ship was used. Moreover, its back was close to the straight and beetling mountain cliff.
The six men of the crew that were saved worked like New Hollanders, as sailors say. The house had sturdy doors, and the vessel’s windows were transhipped. But this wooden house did not actually touch the ground, but was built on two-foot high stone supports. Soot could be strewn around them, and the white ants thus kept at bay. Stone, or rather scoria, steps led up to the dwelling, one end of which was to be not only the sleeping-place of the men, but a kind of recreation-room as well, for Dickson had succeeded in saving even the piano and violins. The other room to the right was not so large, but, being furnished from the saloon of the Wolverine, was almost elegant, and when complete was always decorated and gay with lovely wildflowers. Indeed, all the flowers here were wild.
The Queen had begged that Miss Hall and wee Matty might sleep at the palace. This was agreed to; but to luncheon not only they but the Queen herself came over every fine day, and the days were nearly all fine.