“Not likely!—a mere scrap of rag that some greasy native——” Jack began, eyeing the said scrap of rag contemptuously. But suddenly his tone changed, and he gasped out: “By Jove, old fellow, it's not the handkerchief, is it?”
“The very same!” replied-Don, rising and hurrying aft to where the captain stood at the tiller. “I say, captain, you remember my telling you how I tied a handkerchief round that bag of pearls? Well, here's the identical 'wipe.' with my initials on it as large as life. Just fished it out of the water.”
For full a minute the old sailor stared at him open-mouthed. Then: “Flush my scuppers,” roared he, “if this 'ere ain't the tidiest piece o' luck as ever I run agin. We've got the warmint safe in the maintop, so to say, where he can't run away—shiver my main-brace if we ain't!”
“Thanks to your clear head, captain,” said Don. “It certainly does look as if he had come straight to the island here.”
“We'll purty soon know for sartin; we're a-makin' port hand over fist,” rejoined the captain, bringing the cutter's head round, and running under the lee of the island.
This side, unlike the wind-swept seaward face, was thickly clad in jungle, above which at intervals towered a solitary palm like a sentinel on duty. No traces of human habitation were to be seen; for a rocky backbone or ridge, running lengthwise of the island, isolated its frequented portion from this jungly half. Midway between the extremities of this ridge rose two hills: one a symmetrical, cone-shaped elevation, clad in a mantle of jungle green; the other a vast mass of naked rock, towering hundreds of feet in air, and in its general-outline somewhat resembling a colossal kneeling elephant. As if to heighten the resemblance, there was perched upon the lofty back a native temple, which looked for all the world like a gigantic howdah.
“D'ye see them elewations, lads?” cried the captain, heading the cutter straight for what-appeared to be an unbroken line of jungle. “A. brace o' twins, says you. Wery good; atween 'em lies as purty a leetle cove as wessel ever cast anchor in—slip my cable if it ain't!”
“Are you sure you're not out of your reckoning, captain?” said Jack, scanning the shore-line with dubious eye. “It's no thoroughfare, so far as I can see.”
“Avast there! What d'ye say to that, now?” chuckled the captain, as the cutter, in obedience to a movement of the tiller, swept round a tiny eyot indistinguishable in its mantle of green from, the shore itself, and entered a narrow, land-locked creek, whose precipitous sides were completely covered from summit to water-line with a rank growth of vegetation. “Out with the oars, lads! a steam-whistle couldn't coax a wind into the likes o' this place, says you.”
The oars run out, they pulled for some distance through this remarkable rift in the hills, the cutter's mast in places sweeping the overhanging jungle; until at last a spot was reached where a side ravine cleft the cliff upon their left, terminating at the water's edge in a strip of sandy beach, thickly shaded with cocoa-nut palms.