In a moment we were joined by Max and Browne, who had clambered down the face of the bank by the assistance of the shrubs and bushes growing upon it.
“It is useless,” said Browne, “to look here for the trail we have lost. If they descended to the shore, it must have been in some place where Johnny and Eiulo could have got down.”
“The track seemed to lead directly to the sea,” said Morton, “and you must consider that a party of savages would not find much of an obstacle in such a bank as this, and would scarcely be as careful as ourselves of the safety of Johnny and Eiulo. In fact, I suppose they would hand or drop them down such a height, without scruple or ceremony. What I now begin to fear is, that our unfortunate companions have fallen into the hands of a party of savages, landing here for some transient purpose, and have been carried off by them.”
At this moment an exclamation from Max, who had walked a little way along the beach, announced some discovery, and turning round we saw him beckoning to us.
“What is that?” said he, when we had joined him, stooping down, and pointing towards a clump of stunted trees, growing in an angle or indentation, where the bluff fell back for a short distance from the shore, “is it not a canoe drawn up under the trees?”
It was not easy to distinguish the object clearly, on account of the thickness of the foliage. After waiting a moment, and looking carefully about, being satisfied that there was no one in the vicinity, we approached the spot. Max was not mistaken; a large canoe, capable of holding fifteen or twenty persons, was lying among the bushes, where it had evidently been placed for concealment. In the bottom were a number of carved paddles, a mast wound about with a mat-sail, several calabashes containing water, and some cocoa-nuts.
Having hastily noted these particulars, we withdrew to a short distance, behind a rock detached from the bank, and surrounded by a dense growth of tangled shrubbery, to hold a consultation.
From the position in which we found the canoe, with no dwelling near that we could see, and from the circumstance of its containing water and provisions, we inferred that it did not belong to persons inhabiting the island, or this portion of it at any rate. There was at least a probability of its belonging to the party which we had tracked so nearly to the spot, and that they were now somewhere in the neighbourhood.
“This canoe must be destroyed,” said Morton, after a moment of silence, “and we had better set about it at once.”
This proposition seemed a bold and a somewhat strange one. Browne demanded the object of such a proceeding.