By their side, on an inverted bucket, sits Ernest, clothed neatly in the garments of day and night, but, alas, bare-footed. He is the only cheerful member of this company of four, but his brightness is due less to a manly desire to succour the helpless than to his having been lately in the throes of composition, and to his modest satisfaction with the result. He reads to the ladies, and they listen, each with one scared eye to the things that fall from trees.
ERNEST (who has written on the fly-leaf of the only book saved from the wreck). This is what I have written. ‘Wrecked, wrecked, wrecked! on an island in the Tropics, the following: the Hon. Ernest Woolley, the Rev. John Treherne, the Ladies Mary, Catherine, and Agatha Lasenby, with two servants. We are the sole survivors of Lord Loam’s steam yacht Bluebell, which encountered a fearful gale in these seas, and soon became a total wreck. The crew behaved gallantly, putting us all into the first boat. What became of them I cannot tell, but we, after dreadful sufferings, and insufficiently clad, in whatever garments we could lay hold of in the dark’—
LADY MARY. Please don’t describe our garments.
ERNEST.—‘succeeded in reaching this island, with the loss of only one of our party, namely, Lord Loam, who flung away his life in a gallant attempt to save a servant who had fallen overboard.’ (The ladies have wept long and sore for their father, but there is something in this last utterance that makes them look up.)
AGATHA. But, Ernest, it was Crichton who jumped overboard trying to save father.
ERNEST (with the candour that is one of his most engaging qualities). Well, you know, it was rather silly of uncle to fling away his life by trying to get into the boat first; and as this document may be printed in the English papers, it struck me, an English peer, you know—
LADY MARY (every inch an English peer’s daughter). Ernest, that is very thoughtful of you.
ERNEST (continuing, well pleased).—‘By night the cries of wild cats and the hissing of snakes terrify us extremely’—(this does not satisfy him so well, and he makes a correction)—‘terrify the ladies extremely. Against these we have no weapons except one cutlass and a hatchet. A bucket washed ashore is at present our only comfortable seat’—
LADY MARY (with some spirit). And Ernest is sitting on it.
ERNEST. H’sh! Oh, do be quiet.—‘To add to our horrors, night falls suddenly in these parts, and it is then that savage animals begin to prowl and roar.’