“Right,” I assented, “and see, the wind is falling steadily, and there's not much of a swell inside the lagoon now. Why not let us try and take the raft away with us at once, instead of coming for her in the morning?”
We cut down a couple of young saplings for poles, carried the raft to the water, and launched it. It was big enough to support five or six people, but floated like a feather, and, to our delight, we found that we could pole it along in shallow water with the greatest of ease. By four o'clock we reached the island, and carried our craft up from the inner beach into a clump of trees. This spot, we thought, would make a good camp, as from it we commanded not only a good view of the lagoon, but of the sea to the south and west, and we felt certain that if Guest turned up all right, he would look for us at this end of the atoll—even if he made it from the northward, and had to run the coast down.
By supper time we had fixed ourselves up comfortably for the night. The rain now only fell at long intervals, the wind had fallen to a strong, steady breeze, and we made up a fire, and cooked some more fish, of which there were still numbers to be had on the beach merely for the trouble of picking them up. Then we ate our supper, smoked a pipeful of our precious tobacco between us, and discussed our plans for the morrow, Yorke listening to my suggestions as if they were put forward by a man of his own age and experience, instead of by one who was as yet but a young seaman, and a poor navigator.
“I am quite sure,” he said in his slow, quiet way, as he passed me the pipe, “that you and I will get along here all right for weeks, months—years even, if it has pleased the Almighty to take our shipmates, and we have to live here till we are taken off by some ship, or can build a boat. Your knowledge of ways and means of getting food, and living in such a place as this, is of more value than my seamanship and knowledge of navigation. Come, let us get out to the beach and take a look at the weather.”
He placed his hand on my shoulder in such a kindly manner, as his bright blue eyes looked into mine, that, with the impulsiveness of youth, together with my intense admiration for the character of the man himself, I could not help saying:
“Captain Yorke! Please don't think I was boasting of what I could do in the way of getting food for us—and all that. You see, I have been in the South Seas ever since I was a kid—and by nature I'm half a Kanaka. I've lived among natives so long, and——”
He held up his hand, smiling the while: “I'm glad to have such a good comrade as you, Drake. You have the makings of a good sailorman in you, but you're too quick and excitable, and want an old wooden-headed, stolid buffer like me to steady you. Now let us start.”
We walked across the narrow strip of land to the weather side, and sat down upon a creeper-covered boulder of coral rock. Before us the ocean still heaved tumultuously, and the long, white-crested breakers thundered heavily on the short, fringing reef; but overhead was a wondrous sky of myriad stars, set in a vault of cloudless blue.
“The gale is blowing itself out,” said my companion. “We shall see a fine day in the morning. And, Drake, we shall see the brigantine back in three days.”
“I hope so,” I said, laughingly, “but I'm afraid we won't. Both the brigantine and cutter must have had to heave to, or else run, and if they have run, they may be two hundred miles away from here by now. And I think that Guest would run to the westward for open water, instead of heaving-to among such an infernal lot of reefs and shoals.”