“Some fellow anxious to keep out of the way I should imagine,” put in Ben Stubbs, who was already busy with a mattock clearing up a space of ground on which to begin operations,—for this conversation took place the morning following the boys’ discovery of the hut and the clearing.
“Or maybe a sailor who was marooned here,” put in Billy Barnes.
“Ah, that’s more like it,” commented Ben. “Now I come to think of it, pirates used to be thick in among these yere islands and depend upon it that this place was put up by one of them poor fellows as they had put ashore for some fancied offence or other.”
As if to confirm this theory it was not much later that Billy, poking about the clearing, found way off in one corner, under a huge cabbage-palm, a board stuck at one end of a low mound, evidently a grave.
Billy’s shout at once brought the others clustering about him, and after Ben’s knife had scraped away the mould and dirt with which the years had coated the head-board they read:
“Jem Bristol,—a sailor of the Walrus. Died May 21, 1775. Berried Here by His Ship matz.”
Underneath in smaller letters was cut the inscription:
“He was maruned here for five years been found by us as he was diing. The krew of the Murmade.”
“Poor fellow,” exclaimed Billy, “marooned here for five years, what a fate!”
“I suppose that the Walrus was some sort of a pirate ship?” asked Harry.