Then down the two brothers threw themselves in the cool, green shade to talk and build castles in the air till dinner was ready.
CHAPTER XXII.
A TERRIBLE APPARITION.
They spent the afternoon dreamily wandering about in the woods or on the beach; for Fred and Frank, not being used to real hard manual labour, had hardly yet got over the fatigues of the day before. But Quambo and Magilvray were not so idle. They were busy cutting down the dead branches in the jungle, and bearing them to the beach to serve as firewood. They soon had an immense pile handy.
So all the evening, from half-past six, when it fell dark, till everybody turned in for the night, the camp fire was kept alight. Not that heat was needed by any means, but simply because, as Fred phrased it, "it looked cosy."
* * * * * *
And now, although these marooned mariners determined to take life easy, and make themselves as happy and comfortable as circumstances would permit, they took means, nevertheless, by which it was possible that the attention of some passing ship might be arrested, and so perchance their deliverance effected. This consisted in erecting a beacon on the hill-top, and on the very next morning they set about the work.
For once in a way little Cassia-bud was left, in company with Hurricane Bob, to mind the camp, while the others betook themselves to the mountain. Under the circumstances the task of preparing and hoisting the beacon was by no means a very simple one. It was easy to find a tree long and straight and tall enough, but having no other tools but their jackknives, it took a very long time indeed to cut it down, to trim, and hoist it.
At first it was proposed by Frank, and seconded by Magilvray, to turn the beacon into a kind of flagstaff, the flag itself being a large piece of spare canvas that happened to be in the boat.
"There is this objection to your plan," said Fred, laughing, "canvas doesn't make much of a show as a flag; it doesn't dry easy after a shower; and if it once gets wound round the pole it will cling like death to a dead nigger. No, I say let it be a beacon; and I've heard Daddy Pop remark, in days of old, Frank, that there is no beacon so effective as a broom."