Returning to the house, Billy and I snatched a hasty meal, and then we started back for the beach, bearing with us food, two suits of the lightest clothing the slop-chest afforded, two blue-striped shirts, two cloth caps, soap, towels, a comb, and a pair of scissors. The two seamen were too hungry to talk much while discussing their meal, nor did I attempt to question them just then, curbing my curiosity until a more favourable opportunity to satisfy it should present itself; and when the pair had finished eating I marched them off to the river where, handing them the soap and towels, I bade them strip, enter the water, and thoroughly cleanse themselves from the accumulated grime of a year’s neglect. This at length done, I set them to cut each other’s hair and beard and generally render themselves as decent looking and respectable as was possible; after which I handed them their new clothes and bade them burn their old rags. They seemed to consider me quite unreasonably particular, and grumbled a good deal at what they appeared to regard as the wholly unnecessary trouble I was imposing upon them; but I would take no denial; and when at length they realised that I intended to have my way they surlily submitted. In the end I believe that, in despite of themselves, they were rather glad that I had been so insistent; for when they once more stood fully clothed their appearance was improved almost beyond recognition, and they seemed quite pleased with themselves.
They were by no means so pleased, however, when, in response to a remark by one of them, I gave them to clearly understand that I would not house them in the bungalow, and that during the comparatively short period of our further stay on the group they would have to be content with such accommodation as a tent would afford. They argued hotly that, being castaways and survivors from the same shipwreck, we all stood upon a perfectly equal footing and were alike entitled to share equally in everything. To which I replied that the bungalow, the sailing boat, and the cutter were all mine, built with my own hands out of material salved by me from the wreck; that they had not participated or helped in the slightest degree in any of the salving or building operations. Therefore I considered they were not entitled to claim any share in the comforts or advantages arising from those operations; but that, as an act of grace, I was prepared to allow them a reasonable share of those comforts and advantages; while, if they would help me to complete the cutter, make her ready for sea, and assist me on the voyage, they should be welcome to a passage in her. For a heated five minutes I believed I was in for very serious trouble with the two men; but in the midst of the argument—which was chiefly between Van Ryn and myself—Svorenssen intervened, drawing his companion away and saying a few hasty words that seemed to have the effect of wonderfully calming the Dutchman’s excitement; and the dispute ended by their admitting—rather lamely I thought—that since I was evidently master of the situation, they supposed they must make the best of it and accept what I chose to give them. As to helping with the completion of the cutter, they expressed themselves as only too willing to do so, since they had had more than enough of “Robinson Crusoeing” it.
“Now,” said I to them as, their toilet at length completed, we moved away from the stream, “I must again warn you both to keep well clear of the house. I have already told you that the animal which you last night mistook for a dog is a leopard. Now that you have arrived on the island I shall be obliged to keep him tied up; but if you approach the house it will be at your peril; for if Kit sees or scents either of you he will probably break adrift, and you will simply be torn limb from limb. He is a most ferocious creature, and will not tolerate strangers; so bear in mind what I say and give him a wide berth.”
“Bud I vants to see the house,” protested Van Ryn. “How am I to do that?”
“You will have to forgo that pleasure, so that’s all there is about it,” I replied dryly.
“If the brute interveres mit me, I vill kill ’im,” threatened the Dutchman.
“Will you?” said I. “Why, man, you would stand no more chance with that leopard than if you were the merest baby. But—enough of this. You had better pitch your tent on the beach, close to the cutter. Go down there now and choose a spot to suit yourselves, and Billy and I will come down later on with a sail, pole, and what other gear is necessary, and help you to rig it up.”
By mid-afternoon the tent—consisting of the brigantine’s fore-course, which I had salved—was satisfactorily rigged up, a trench dug round it to carry off water in the event of rain, and a sufficiency of rude but efficient furniture stored within it; and, somewhat to my surprise, the pair who were to occupy it expressed themselves as quite satisfied. Then, since it was too late in the day to do much work upon the cutter, I invited the seamen to give me a detailed account of how they had fared since the wreck. It was Svorenssen who undertook to tell the story, and he told it in the coarse, uncouth language of the forecastle, embellishing and emphasising it here and there, after the manner of the shellback, by the introduction of words and phrases comprehensible enough to me but confusing and quite unintelligible to a landsman. I shall therefore take the liberty of translating the narrative into plain, simple English for the benefit of my readers. Thus translated, it ran as follows:
“It must have been about half an hour after Chips came for’ard with the news that you had met with an accident, and had been carried down into your cabin, and the gale was still blowing as heavy as ever, when some of us on the forecastle thought we heard another sound above the shriek of the wind and the hiss of the sea; and, looking ahead, we presently saw, stretching away on both bows, as far as we could see, an unbroken line of wildly leaping breakers and flying spray. We at once hailed the quarterdeck, shouting: ‘Breakers ahead and on both bows!’ but it is exceedingly doubtful whether or not we were heard, and if we had been, it would have made no difference, for before anything could be done the ship was among the breakers, and a second later she struck, not very hard, but just sufficiently so to cant us broadside-on. Then she struck again, and hung until a tremendous sea broke aboard, sweeping her decks and doubtless washing all hands on deck overboard—at all events that sea took me and swept me helplessly over the bows, as also Van Ryn and another man, named Fleming. But I knew nothing about them until the next morning.
“Being a swimmer, I instinctively struck out, and I had not made more than a dozen strokes before my hands struck something that I at once seized and clung to. It proved to be a bit of topgallant bulwark, about six feet long, and it afforded me a most welcome support, especially as the seas were still breaking over me so furiously that it was only with the utmost difficulty I contrived to snatch a breath between whiles. But the breaking seas that came near to smothering me were also sweeping me away fast to leeward, and after a time I found myself in smoother water, the seas no longer broke over me, and, the water being quite warm, I experienced no discomfort, apart from the uncertainty as to what was to eventually happen to me, and I just kept paddling along to leeward, following the run of the seas.