Just before dusk the Ceres ran in and dropped her clumsy, wooden-stocked anchor in the crystal-clear water, a few cables' length away from the village. As the natives recognised her a chorus of welcoming shouts and cries pealed from the shore from five hundred dusky-hued throats.
III
A blazing, tropic sun shone in mid-heaven upon the motionless waters of the deep, land-locked bay in which the Ceres lay, with top-mast struck and awnings spread fore and aft. A quarter of a mile away was the beach, girdled with its thick belt of coco-palms whose fronds hung limp and hot in the windless air as if gasping for breath. Here and there, among the long line of white, lime-washed canoes, drawn up on the sand, snowy white and blue cranes stalked to and fro seeking for the small thin-shelled soldier crabs burrowing under the loose débris of leaves and fallen palm-branches to escape the heat.
A few yards back from the level of high-water mark clustered the houses of the native village, built on both sides of the bright, fast-flowing stream which here, as it debouched into the sea, was wide and shallow, showing a bottom composed of rounded black stones alternating with rocky bars. Along the grassless banks, worn smooth by the constant tread of naked feet, grew tall many-hued crotons, planted and carefully tended by their native owners, and shielded from the rays of the sun by the ever-present coco-palms. From either side of the bank, looking westward towards the forest, there was a clear stretch of water half a mile in length, then the river was hidden from view, for in its course from the mountains through the heavily-jungled littoral it took many bends and twists, sometimes running swiftly over rocky, gravelly beds, sometimes flowing noiselessly through deep, muddy-bottomed pools and dank, steamy swamps, the haunt of the silent, dreaded alligator.
At the head of the straight stretch of water of which I have spoken there was on the left-hand bank of the river an open grassy sward, surrounded by clumps of areca and coco-palms, and in the centre stood a large house, built by native hands, but showing by various external signs that it was tenanted by people other than the wild inhabitants of the island. Just in front of the house, and surrounded by a number of canoes, the boat belonging to the Ceres was moored to the bank, and under a long open-sided, palm-thatched shed, were a number of brown-skinned naked savages, some lying sleeping, others squatting on their hams, energetically chewing betel nut.
As they talked and chewed and spat out the scarlet juice through their hideous red lips and coaly black teeth, a canoe, paddled by two natives and steered by Mallet, the mate of the Ceres, came up the river. The instant it was seen a chorus of yells arose from the natives in the long hut, and Mary Corwell came to the open doorway of the house and looked out.
“Wake up, wake up, Jack!” she cried, turning her face inwards over her graceful shoulder, “here is Mallet.”
Her voice awoke her husband, who in an instant sprang from his couch and joined her, just as Mallet—a short, square-built man of fifty—stepped out of the canoe and walked briskly towards them, wiping his broad, honest face with a blue cotton handkerchief.
“Come inside, Mallet. 'Tis a bit cooler in here. I'm sorry I sent you down to the ship on such a day as this.”