Chapter Seventeen.
Is Trouble Brewing?
“Exactly,” I concurred. “Here you are. But how did you know where Billy and I had located ourselves? and how did you contrive to make your way here from the southern end of West Island?”
“West Island—is that the name of the place? Oh, we managed pretty well,” returned Svorenssen. “From the ridge of the hill where the forest was all burned away we were able to get a very fair idea of the geography of the group in general. We counted six islands in addition to the one we were already on, and we observed that the one to the eastward of us was, like our own, fire-swept; also that at one point it was separated from our island by a channel only about half a mile wide. To the northward of that island we saw another, with small groups of trees dotted about here and there upon it, while the remainder of its surface appeared to be covered with corn-fields or something similar; so it is not to be wondered at if we jumped to the conclusion that we should find you established there. So we made a start by heading for the narrowest part of the channel between our own island and the next one, carrying with us as much fruit as we could handle, for we knew not when or where we should find more.
“Upon reaching the channel the question that confronted us was: How were we going to get across? We could see but one way, and that was to swim it. But what about sharks? We had already lost one of our number through them, and we had no desire that a similar fate should befall either of us. Therefore we camped alongside that channel two days, and while one of us foraged for food, the other just sat and intently watched the water. And when the evening of the second day arrived without disclosing any sign of sharks in the channel, we agreed to risk the passage; so we stripped off our clothes—or what remained of them—made them into a bundle, secured them upon our heads, and waded in.
“We got across safely, and were lucky enough to land just where a little stream of fresh water came down from the hill that rose in the middle of the island. We camped alongside the stream that night, and made our supper of melons and ground-nuts that had grown since the passage of the fire over the land. On the following day we proceeded inland, following the course of the stream and heading toward the top of the hill, from which we hoped to obtain a little further knowledge of the geography of the group and also, it might be, some more definite information as to your own whereabouts. And we were successful in both particulars, for while we were on the top of that hill we saw your sailing boat coming round the eastern end of the island across the channel northward of us. Watching you, we saw you land on that island, stay there a while, and then sail away again in a north-easterly direction. Upon seeing this, Dirk and I came to the conclusion that the proper thing for us to do would be to descend to the beach, and there await your next appearance, when we would signal you. We had already detected a little stream flowing down the hill-side and discharging into the channel, quite near the spot where we decided to await your reappearance, so we followed it down to the water’s edge, where we camped. Then that same evening your boat again hove in sight, and we saw you land a party of niggers just opposite where we were watching; having done which you again made sail to the northward and eastward; which led us to the conclusion that after all you had not settled upon that cultivated island—as we had at first supposed—but somewhere else. Of course we showed ourselves upon the beach, and hailed; but the channel was too wide for our voices to carry across, and probably you never looked in our direction, so we failed to attract your attention. But we knew now that you were still on the group, and that we were on your track; so we did not trouble overmuch.
“Then, before your boat had passed out of sight, and while we were still watching, we saw a nigger paddling across the channel from the island you had touched at to the one that we were upon. He was heading to land at a spot rather more than a mile to the eastward of where we were, so we got back into the young growth that had sprung up after the fire, and pushed along toward the spot for which he was making. We arrived a few minutes before he did and, crouching down, we saw him haul up his tub of a canoe on the beach, and make his way inland. We allowed him to get well away from the beach, and then we crept down to the canoe, launched her, and proceeded to paddle in the track of your boat.
“It fell dark almost before we had got fairly under way, but there was a fine moon, so it did not greatly matter. We paddled down the channel and across it to the point round which you had recently vanished—a good eight miles we reckoned it to be—and hot work it was for two men who had been on short commons for more than a month; but we forgot all about that when, upon rounding the point, we saw, at a distance of not more than five or six miles, a light; and we knew that now you could not be very far away, while we were in possession of the means to reach you. But it was a tough job to get that little tub of the nigger’s along when once we had rounded the point, for at once we felt the full strength of the easterly breeze, and it and the popple it raised were together just as much as we could barely stem. It must have taken us hours to get across that five or six miles of water; and long before we landed you had put all lights out, and turned in; but there was the house, plain enough to be seen in the bright moonlight, so we headed straight for it, and landed at last on the beach just below.”