Such was Bob’s story, and such the end of the adventure, for though we remained at the island nearly seven weeks, we never saw any further signs of savages.
In about a month from the date of the adventure I had so far recovered as to be able to hobble about a little, a few yards only at a time; and then I began to regain strength rapidly. By the end of the following week I was able, with the assistance of Bob’s strong arm, to get as far as the cascade every morning, and take a bath; and this, too, helped me on wonderfully towards entire convalescence. My wounds had closed, and were by this time so far scarred over that I was able to dispense with all dressing and bandages, and we began to talk about making another start, finally arranging to do so as soon as the new moon attained her first quarter, which would be in another fortnight.
It was, I believe, on the Sunday following this arrangement that Bob set off the first thing after breakfast to attempt an ascent of the mountain, he having discovered, as he believed, a spot at which an active man with good nerves might surmount the natural impediments which existed near the base.
I cautioned him to be very careful for our sakes as well as his own, for I was still too weak to afford him any very effectual assistance in the event of a mishap and a broken limb halfway up the mountain-side would have been death to him just at that time.
Ella and I were, of course, society for each other, and we wandered about the lawn-like ravine and reposed at frequent intervals beneath the grateful shade of the trees, in blissful oblivion of the passage of time, waiting quite contentedly until Master Bob chose to rejoin us, which he faithfully promised he would in time for dinner.
At length, however, the position of the sun in the western heavens warned us that the hour named was long past, and I proposed a walk as far as the head of the ravine, hoping to meet the truant returning. We walked slowly, my strength not yet being sufficient to permit of very active exertion, and by the time that we reached the point aimed at, the entire landscape was flooded in the lovely pinky-purplish haze which immediately precedes sunset. Still no Bob made his appearance, and I began to grow seriously alarmed. We waited another half-hour, and then, just as the sun was about to disappear in the purple western wave, and we had made up our minds to return to the cutter, thinking he might possibly have passed down the ravine on its opposite side, he made his appearance.
To my surprise, he seemed singularly uncommunicative, and we could get but little out of him beyond the fact that he had, with very great difficulty, reached the summit, and found my conjecture as to its being an extinct crater correct. He thawed a little during dinner, and volunteered the information that he had seen land far away on the southern board—nearly or quite a hundred miles distant, he supposed—and had seen the loom of land to the westward, or about west-north-west, and also to the northward. He was of opinion, he said, that our late enemies had come from the land seen to the southward and were bound north, touching at our island on their way, on some marauding excursion, as he had been able completely to sweep the island in every direction from the commanding elevation of the mountain-top, and had detected no sign whatever of “niggers” in any direction. With this he dropped the subject and adverted to my condition, questioning me solicitously—unusually so, I fancied—as to how I felt, the extent of my strength, where we had been, and what we had seen. He was particularly curious on this latter point, and asked the same question so repeatedly that Ella made some laughing remark, I forget what, upon it, and he carefully avoided any further repetition of it for the remainder of the evening, at least as long as Ella was with us.
When at length she retired to her own tent for the night, however, he became more communicative. I was already undressed and in my hammock, and he was sitting smoking beside me, and after a silence of some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, during which he seemed to be ruminating deeply, he began.
“I’ve something to tell ye, lad,” said he, knocking the ashes contemplatively out of his pipe as he spoke, “but dash my ugly old wig if I’m at all sartain that I ought to say anything about it to-night, seeing as it can’t do much good, and might only be upsetting of ye for the night; but your head’s better nor mine in matters of this sort, and I confess I should like to have your idees upon the subject afore I sleep. Maybe they’ll in a way mark out a course upon which my idees can travel a good bit of a way betwixt this and morning, and even that much’ll be an advantage gained. The fact is that I’ve see’d something as I didn’t expect to see whilst I was away up aloft there—” pointing with the stem of his pipe backwards over his shoulder toward the mountain—“and the sight has disturbed me a little and set me thinkin’ a good deal.”
“Indeed,” said I, “what have you seen, Bob? You must perforce tell me all about it now, for you have excited both my curiosity and my apprehensions.”