"Well, what amusements can they have? Isn't it only civilized people who play games?"
"I don't know. I seem to remember that even savages gamble, if that is amusement; it wouldn't be to me if I lost."
"Then you're no sport, Bess," said Tommy, who had awakened and caught the last few words. "It's the excitement they like, whether they win or lose. I should be a dreadful gambler, I know, if I had the chance."
"Then I hope you will never have it, dear," said Elizabeth. "It is an unhealthy excitement, I am sure. We were talking about your birthday, Tommy. It might be yesterday, to-day, or to-morrow, but you are fourteen. We'll wish you many happy returns now."
"Oh, I wish you hadn't reminded me," cried Tommy. "Think of being fifteen and sixteen, and twenty, and getting old on this island! I don't want to grow old at all, and it would be dreadful here. I'd be a scullery maid, or a beggar girl—anything in England, rather than stay here. Shall we ever get away?"
And Tommy nestled to Elizabeth's side, and as she lay encompassed by her elder sister's arms she prayed with all her heart that God would send help to them soon.
When dawn broke and they got up, it was a dreary world upon which they looked. Sea and earth were covered with a clinging mist. A drizzle was falling. Everything was sodden and forlorn. The fire was out, and there were no dry sticks for re-lighting it. They had to content themselves with a breakfast of cocoanuts, and then they sat inside the hut, too much depressed in spirit to go out, or do anything but watch the rain.
Presently the drizzle became a downpour, which, went on for an hour or two, then suddenly ceased, the sun bursting through the leaden sky. They took advantage of this to gather a quantity of twigs, which they carried into the hut to dry there. Elizabeth had just suggested that Mary and she should start on their expedition to the ridge, when a sharp shower drove them again to shelter. So it went on all day—heavy showers that lasted for a few minutes alternating with brief, bright intervals.
There was no doubt that the rainy season had begun. The girls were practically confined to the hut for many days in succession, only sallying forth to catch fish, which they cooked at a new stove built nearer the hut. The showers were sometimes light, sometimes very heavy, and at last the rain began to drip through the thatched roof, and the girls had to sit in their macintoshes. Though the sun appeared every now and then, it did not shine long enough to dry the ground before another downpour soaked it. They all became very low-spirited, and could not find any occupation to pass away the time, for even weaving was impossible with the sodden grass.
Their troubles came to a climax one day when Mary complained of a racking headache. Feeling her hot brow, Elizabeth feared she had taken a fever, no doubt owing to the exhalation from the damp earth working on a lowered system. She and Tommy felt much concern, which became real alarm when they found Mary rapidly becoming worse. She could not eat, and lay on her mat bed covered with the macintoshes and wraps of the other girls, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright and glassy. Towards evening, when Elizabeth had left the hut to fetch water for the night, and Tommy sat by the invalid, she was startled to hear Mary talking in a very strange way.