The remainder of the night passed, however, without further incident, and at daybreak the occupants of the tent were once more astir and preparing breakfast. Then, having satisfied their own appetites, they took a good liberal supply of food to the hut and, loosing their prisoner’s bonds sufficiently to allow them the use of their hands, bade them eat and drink freely.
Then, when at length Burton and his companion—whose name, it transpired, was Samuel Cunliffe—sullenly acknowledged that they had eaten and drunk all that they desired, their hands were once more lashed securely behind them, their feet released, and they were bidden to follow Leslie, who went ahead while Nicholls, as rear-guard, walked close behind. And thus they all proceeded until the cave was reached, where the two new arrivals were forced to join their fellow-prisoner, Turnbull. And there, in that gloomy cavern, the exigencies of the situation demanded that, for a time at least, they should be once more subjected to the extreme discomfort of being lashed, hands and feet together, as they had been in the hut on the previous night, in order to avoid all possibility of their getting together and releasing each other.
Having satisfied himself that his prisoners were absolutely secure, and dressed Turnbull’s wound afresh, Leslie, accompanied by Nicholls, next made his way to the cove, where he found the cutter lying at anchor in the centre of the little basin with all her canvas set and gently flapping in the light breeze. And a marvellously pretty picture the little craft presented with her snow-white hull, surmounted by a broad expanse of scarcely less white cotton canvas, sitting daintily and jauntily upon the water, the white of her hull and sails, and the ruddy sheen of her copper sheathing brilliantly reflected upon the smooth, dark surface of the element she rode in such saucy fashion. Dick stood for some minutes feasting his eyes upon the pretty picture she presented against the dark-brown background of scarred and riven rock that formed the sides of the basin, and then he and Nicholls quickly descended the precipitous slope to where the catamaran lay moored, and, jumping on board her, paddled off to the Flora, whose namesake fortunately happened to be on board her at the moment, but was just preparing to go ashore for another ramble.
“I am afraid, dear, you cannot go just now,” said Dick, “unless indeed you would like to walk over to the camp, for we are about to return there at once, preparatory, I hope, to sailing for home to-morrow.”
“Do you think Dick, it would be quite safe for me to take the walk alone? Because, if so, and we are actually going to sail to-morrow, I should so like to do it. It is a lovely walk; and there are associations connected with it that endear it to me,” she said shyly.
“Very well, little girl,” responded Dick. “Then take the walk, by all means, for it is perfectly safe. Only be very careful not to look in at the cave on your way, for I have three prisoners stowed away there, now, and although they are too firmly secured to be able to hurt you, they may say things that would offend your ears.”
Flora promised that she would most carefully avoid the cave, and was set ashore by the catamaran, Dick instructing Nicholls and Simpson to afterwards proceed round to the camp in that craft while he himself undertook to work the cutter round to the same point single-handed. While, therefore, the two seamen were conveying Flora to the landing-place, Leslie busied himself in taking a pull upon the halliards all round and getting up the cutter’s anchor. He was still thus engaged when the catamaran pushed off, under sail, and, passing close under the cutter’s stern, hailed, inquiringly which way she was to steer.
“Keep the land close aboard on your starboard hand all the way, and you cannot go wrong,” answered Leslie, adding: “But I shall be after you in a few minutes, and will give you a lead.”
The catamaran stood out of the cove, and headed away to the eastward on the starboard tack; and a few minutes later Dick followed in the cutter. Within the cove, the breeze that came in over the overlapping headlands was light and baffling, yet the Flora gathered way quickly and glided along at a pace that rejoiced Leslie’s heart. But when she passed outside beyond the shelter of the heads, and felt the full strength of the briskly blowing trade wind, her solitary navigator found that he would have his hands full when it presently came to working her. For Simpson had hoisted the big jack-yard topsail, to give the sail a good stretching, and Dick had been too preoccupied to notice the fact; the little craft therefore made her first essay in the open ocean under precisely the same canvas that she would show to the most gentle of breezes, whereas the trade wind was piping up quite fresh. The breeze struck her with something of the suddenness and violence of a squall, with everything creaking and twanging to the violence of the strain, and the little craft heeled to it until her lee rail was buried and the water was halfway up the deck to her tiny skylight; but with a plunge, like that of a mettlesome horse to the touch of the spur, she darted forward, burying her sharp bows deep in the heart of the first sea that came sweeping down upon her, and in another moment she was thrashing along in the wake of the catamaran like a mad thing, leaping and plunging with long floaty rushes over the sharply running sea that overran the ponderous Pacific swell. Within the first five minutes it became quite clear to Leslie that the catamaran was nowhere compared with this smart and handsome little ship, for to Dick the former craft seemed to sag away to leeward like an empty cask, while the cutter walked up to her as though the other had been at anchor. By the time that the Flora had overtaken the catamaran, the two craft had gained a sufficient offing to enable them to fetch the entrance channel on the next tack, and they accordingly hove about, the cutter whisking round with a celerity that gave Leslie as much as he could do to trim over the head sheets in time to catch a turn with them as she paid off on the other tack. And now the Flora ran away from the catamaran at such a rate that she had reached her anchorage and was just rounding into the wind to bring up when the other craft passed through the channel and entered the lagoon. This little trip round from the cove to the lagoon had not only given the cutter’s sails a nice stretching, but it had also stretched her new rigging to such an extent that Dick saw it would be quite necessary to set it up afresh all round before he started on his voyage, if he did not wish to risk the loss of his spars. This, however, was a matter that would have to wait; he had something of an even more pressing nature that called for his immediate attention.
By the time that the catamaran had arrived alongside the cutter, the latter’s anchor was down and the jib and foresail taken in. The big gaff topsail was next hauled down and carefully stowed away, and finally the mainsail was lowered, stowed, and the coat put over it.