By dinner time the schooner had been worked quite close to the island, and when they came on deck after the meal they found that not more than a few hundred yards separated her from the shore. While they had been down in the cabin she had slipped in through a passage in a sort of reef that extended from the shore. She now lay in deep, calm water, scarcely moving. As Zeb shouted the command and the anchor rattled and roared to the bottom of the lagoon, several boats put off from the shore and came toward them.
Tom looked toward the rough, precipitous shores with a strange mingling of excitement and apprehension. What lay in front of them on that island? Was it to prove the scene of their indefinite imprisonment in practical slavery to Lake and his crew?
The boy could not but think that the outlook appeared as sombre as the leaden skies, the drab, rocky hills, and the sullen, gray sea outside the reef. But he determined to put a brave face on it, and began to watch, with some interest, the boats pulling toward them.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE ROCKING STONE.
It is not our intention to detail all that happened during the first week of the castaways’ stay on the island. Soon after the schooner anchored they were landed in boats and found themselves in the midst of a strange community indeed. As had appeared from the sea, the collection of huts—roughly built of driftwood and roofed with anything that came handy—ran almost down to the margin of the sea. Behind them were great thickets of thorny, straggly brush, in places higher than a man’s head. This, they learned afterward, was considered to be impenetrable. Rumor about the camp had it, though, that Simon Lake and his mate had managed to traverse it, and had formed paths among the dense growth which were only known to themselves. However that might be, nobody ever appeared to enter it for any purpose.
The camp, or collection of shanties, therefore, was to all intents and purposes, an island within an island. The great shed or barn-like structure which Tom had noted from the sea was, so it now transpired, a sort of detaining shed for the Chinamen until they could be shipped south to the States. It was fitted with numerous bunks and rough cooking places of brick, made from a kind of sun-dried clay. When the party from the schooner came ashore it was occupied by some hundred or more Chinese, who came curiously to the doors and gaped at the newcomers till some of Lake’s men roughly drove them back.
As for Tom, he could not but admire the system which the rough New Englander seemed to have instilled into the working of the affairs of the island. There was, it appeared, a regular division of labor, the men taking it in turns to go south with the Chinese and to stay and guard the island and receive the steamer when it came from the north with a fresh installment of yellow men. In this way Lake had effectually succeeded in silencing all grumbling over unequal division of tasks.
Lake himself was in absolute command of everything and everybody. It could be seen that his rough crew feared as well as admired him. As everywhere where several men are gathered together, some of the islanders were of a better sort than others. With one of these fellows Tom soon struck up an acquaintanceship. He was a man who had been with Lake on sealing cruises and had in this way drifted into his present life. He confided to Tom that he would be glad to get out of it, but that Lake had made them all swear, under threat of terrible penalties, never to desert the band.
We have not referred to our party as prisoners, for in the literal sense of the word they were not. As will have been seen, there was no need to surround them with the constant guard and surveillance that Lake’s gang would have been compelled to exercise elsewhere.
Indeed, every one of them realized bitterly that they were more effectually in captivity than if they had been encompassed by stone walls and iron bars. From the bleak, barren islet there was literally no chance of escape, unless they had sought freedom by utilizing an airship. True, the schooner lay at anchor in the little bay, and they were a numerous enough party to have worked her, for both the Kanakas were expert seamen. But the beach was patroled day and night, and, although there was nobody on board the schooner to repel them, yet she was, to all intents and purposes, as inaccessible as if she had swarmed with men and guns.