“That's grand,” he said, as he laid down the rifles. “I was wondering if your matches were dry. Mine are spoilt, as I had them loose in my pocket. How is your tobacco?”
“Quite dry, too. Here you are, fill your pipe.”
The man's thoughtfulness showed at once. “No, thank you—not just yet. I'll improve this newly-erected mansion of ours by getting coconut branches up from the beach. We might as well make our roof as watertight as we can before dark. Then I want something to eat, and there are plenty of coconuts lying about everywhere.”
“We won't starve,” I said; “there are any amount of robber crabs in this scrub, and to-night we can get as many as we want, if we can make a bright fire.”
By dark we had succeeded in carrying up thirty or forty coconut branches, and covering our sleeping place over in a more satisfactory manner, though we were every now and then chilled to the bone by the stinging rain. Our rifles, matches, tobacco, and a few biscuits, we placed in a dry spot, and then built up a small but hot fire of roots under the shelter, and, after eating a meal of coconut and biscuit, we filled our pipes, piled on more roots, and sat by the fire drying our clothes, and listening to the wild uproar of wind and sea, congratulating ourselves upon being in a spot where we were at least safe from the wind, for our camp was at least eight or ten feet below the general level of the island, both on its windward and leeward sides.
All that night the wind blew with terrific violence, and the noise of the surf thrashing upon the coral barriers of the island was something indescribable. At about midnight, just after a lull succeeded by a heavy fall of rain, the wind hauled round two or three points to the southward, and, if possible, blew with still greater violence. The crashing of trees mingling with the demoniacal shriek of the hurricane, was enough to disturb the mind of the bravest; but my companion lay quietly beside the fire, smoking his pipe and talking to me as he would had we been seated at the supper table on board the Fray Bentos. Yet that he was deeply anxious about our ship-mates I well knew, when, bidding me good-night, he laid his great frame upon the sand and went to sleep.
Chapter V
By dawn on the following morning, the hurricane had lost its strength and settled down into a hard gale from the north-east. When we crawled out from our shelter, a fearful scene of desolation met our eyes; not more than a hundred coco-palms were left standing on the weather side of the island, and enormous boulders of coral rock, torn off the reef by the violence of the sea, were piled up in wild confusion along the shore, while, at the north end, the surf had made a clean breach over the land, with devastating effect. On the inner beach of the lagoon, the destructive results of the wind and sea had not been so great, although vast numbers of fish were lying dead on the sand, or among the soaked and flattened undergrowth above high water mark. We at once collected a few, lit a fire, roasted them over the coals, and made a good breakfast, finishing up with some young drinking coconuts, hundreds of which were lying about us.
We knew that, until the weather moderated, there was little likelihood of our seeing the brigantine and cutter—if we ever saw either again. The ocean for many hundreds of miles around us was full of dangers, for it was unsurveyed, and risky even to a ship in good weather. Many of the islands, shoals and reefs marked on the charts had no existence, but still more were placed in wrong positions, and we both felt that it would be something marvellous if the two vessels escaped disaster. All we could do was to hope for the best, and wait patiently.