OF OUR RETREAT TO THE RED ROCK, AND OF OUR VARIOUS RAIDS UPON OUR PROPERTY
We had one great advantage over the seamen in that we knew every yard of the island, and so could find our food without searching. Billy laughed when he thought of them having to get their own breakfast, and wishing they had not driven us away; but I said that they had not intended to drive us away, but that Hoggett expected to daunt and cow us, and so make us his bond servants. "Well, he must be a fool," says Billy, and chuckled again to think that his old enemy had over-reached himself. Presently we saw that I was right in my surmise, for we heard men shouting in different parts of the island, and guessed they were seeking us; but we kept close all that day, feeling pretty sure that the men would not come up the mountain until they had searched other parts.
We were not idle this day, for we at once set about making a raft to carry us round to the cave, using saplings and creepers for this purpose, fashioning them into a kind of hurdle which we hoped would support us well enough, or at least one of us, for the short voyage. We laughed again to think that when we should have got our canoe again, we might if we pleased sail clean away from the island and seek another home without let or hindrance from the seamen; but we never had any serious thought of this, Palm Tree Island being now our very home. As for what our course of action was to be, we very earnestly considered that while our fingers were busy with the raft. It was plain we could not fight the men, for they had muskets and powder and shot enough to kill us, being only two; and we were without any weapons save our axes, which we always carried in our belts, all the others being either in the hut or in the cellar below it. If we did not fight them, we must nevertheless be either friends or enemies; friends we could not be while Hoggett maintained his present insolency, and as enemies we could but keep out of their way. But I saw we should lead a terrible life if we remained on the island and were harried from place to place, and hunted down, and maybe captured and made slaves of in the end. We might, to be sure, go and live in the cave, where it was little likely that we should be discovered, and if we were we could no doubt make a very good defence; but we did not relish the prospect of skulking, so to speak, in the dim purlieus of the cave and tunnel while our enemies were ranging the island free, and enjoying the full use of what we had laboured so hard for. "I can't a-bear to think of Hoggett drinking out of my mug," says Billy, with a rueful countenance, "and blunting my spears, and wasting my arrows, and eating our pigs, too, master. What if they eat 'em all, as they did in their own island, and don't leave none for breeding? Oh, that Hoggett! Wouldn't I like to drop some fizzy rock in his water and poison him!"
Quandary
This was indeed a thing to be thought of, and we made up our minds at least to secure some of our pigs and devise some secret place where we might keep them. But the first matter to settle was our own habitation, and it was near the close of the day before the notion came into my head that we might choose the Red Rock, which being severed from the island would be quite inaccessible, except by a bridge, and when we had possession of our bows and arrows we could easily prevent them from throwing a bridge across. It would have been quite foreign to Billy's nature and habit if he had fallen in with this plan without demur, and he said at once that Red Rock was quite barren, save for a few stunted bushes which were of no good either for shelter or food. "But," I said to him, "we shall have our canoe, and we can carry stores in this from the cavern to the rock, and we can make shift to put up some sort of shelter against the weather, which isn't very bad."
"That's true," says he, "but when our stores are all used up, what then? We've got enough in our cellar for three or four months, perhaps, and I lay Hoggett would like to get hold of some of our salted pork, as good as bacon any day; but it won't last for ever, and what then?"
"I can't see so far ahead," said I. "We can live very comfortably for three or four months, and perhaps longer, and by that time something may have happened."
"Yes," says he, "Old Smoker may start work again, and if he does I hope he'll go strong, so that they'll be scared out of their wits and drove to make a raft or boat or something to get away."
Having determined on this, therefore, we made great speed with our raft and finished it before dark, but not soon enough to set off that same night, nor indeed did we much wish to do so, because we had not forgot the monsters that used to live in the cave, and though we had seen none since we poisoned them, we were still squeamish about approaching in the dark. Besides, we should need torches to light us up the tunnel to our storehouse, and for these we had to collect some of the candlenuts, and some dry grass for tinder; the flint and what we called the steel Billy always had in his pocket. We made these preparations before we lay down to rest, resolved to start as soon as ever we saw any sign of dawn in the sky. This resolution, as often happens in such cases, caused me to sleep fitfully, and it was in one of these wakeful spaces that a notion jogged in my head of a plan whereby we might get even with the seamen and come into our own again. I thought of it over and over again, and it excited me and tickled my fancy too; but I determined to say nothing about it to Billy until I had pondered it more carefully, so that I should be ready to meet all the objections which I knew he would raise.
It was still dark, but there was a sort of silent stirring in the sky, betokening dawn, when I waked Billy, who was snoring very happily upon his back, and told him we must convey our raft down to the shore, if we would come to the cave before the men were about. He got up at once, and we carried the raft between us across the island, being careful to keep a good distance from the hut, which made the way longer but surer. Being merely a kind of hurdle, the raft was not heavy and gave us no trouble by its weight, though it was troublesome to get it over the steep places we had to pass on our way down to the shore. However, we came there without mishap, at the sandy beach, and launched the raft; but when I stood upon it I saw that it would not support Billy as well, and I proposed to him that I should go to the cave alone and bring back the canoe for him. This he flatly and with great vehemence refused, saying that I might never get there, what with sharks and long-legged monsters, and that he wasn't going to be left behind, but would share everything with me. When I asked him how he would go, the raft not being strong enough for two, he said he would catch hold of it and swim along, and as for sharks, he would kick out very hard and so scare any that came, and we always had our axes. But now I took a firm stand, and said plainly that I would not allow any such thing, nor did I yield to Billy's pleading that I would permit him to make the journey alone; and so I set off, and not to make a long story about a short voyage, I arrived safely at the cave, and found the canoe just as we had left her behind the rocks. Then I went back for Billy, and when we came to the cave again we lit our torch (we had brought only one, having material for plenty more in the cavern), and proceeded up the tunnel until we reached our storehouse, where we first of all had a good breakfast, thinking all the time of the seamen above, perfectly ignorant of what was going on beneath them. We spoke in whispers and moved very quietly, so that the men should not hear us, and get an inkling of our whereabouts; not that there was much danger of this, perhaps, for if they did hear a sound it was like to make them more fearful than inquisitive, and Billy said they would be sure to think it was Old Smoker talking to himself, and they might then leave the hut as a dangerous place. But I thought it best to run no risks that we could avoid, and so we moved very softly, as I have said.