The time passed wearily by on board the Vulture, and it wanted barely an hour to sunset when the captain returned. He came hand over hand up the side, smiling, and as soon as he had changed his wet garments he made his report.
“I think,” he told them, “it will be all right for one night at least, whatever may happen another day. I have had a strange experience, for I have captured an outlying savage.”
“Was he asleep?”
“Sound, and I questioned him in his own language, which, as it happens, I know right well. This part of the island, for miles around, is uninhabited. It has a bad name. The blackbirders and the natives, he told me, had a battle here, and their spirits (gooboos) still haunt the woods. This is all in our favour, though gooboos or not gooboos, if they find we are here in the flesh they will attack us.”
“Captain Stransom,” said Fitzroy, “you didn’t murd—— well, kill the poor savage, did you?”
“Not much, though I’ve shot many a prettier bird. No, I have him tied up with withies—sailors’ knots—in the wood here, and we’ll have him on board to-morrow; I expect we can make him useful later on. But to-morrow we must fortify our position here, and prepare ourselves for whatever may happen. Luckily, there is a stream of pure water not far from this, and fruit enough for a line-of-battle ship.”
This was good news, and innocent little Peggy was happy once more, if nobody else was.
“Oh,” she cried; “I should like to go and sing and dance to these poor people.”
“Ah! my Peggy, you would never sing or dance any more after that,” said Fitzroy.
Ralph, who slept with one eye open, was on duty again that night.