When Tom awoke, about seven hours later, it was broad daylight and the sun was streaming into the hatchway. He scrambled out in a hurry as Bob’s voice hailed him from the deck.
“Hulloa! Hulloa!” came the voice. “Are you fellows going to sleep all day?”
“Why didn’t you come back and rouse me to take my turn?” asked Tom, reproachfully.
“Well, I wasn’t sleepy,” answered Bob, “and it grew light soon, and I got to watching a mink fishing for his family, and carrying cunners to them along the rocks, and I thought I’d let you sleep. It’s tough to wake up, you know, when one has just dropped off. Come on, we’ll take a swim now. The water is fine.”
Tom bared a muscular young form, and he and Bob dived off the rail of the Spray, making such a splashing and commotion in the water and bellowing so like young sea-lions, that the others gave up trying to turn over for another nap, and came sprawling out of the cabin, diving overboard, one after another, to join them. Then they had a race ashore, which was won by Tom, with Bob and Henry Burns a close second; after which they lay on the beach sunning themselves, and then swam back to the yacht for breakfast.
“There’s not a sail in sight, and the whole bay is as smooth as glass,” Bob had announced on his arrival; and, as not a breath of wind was yet stirring, there was no need of setting watch for the present. So they all sat down to hot coffee and griddle-cakes, and ate like wolves.
After breakfast they went ashore to explore the island, roaming about like young savages, leaving their clothing piled in a heap in the tender. Every now and then, as the humour seized them, they raced down to the shore, wherever they were, ran along on the fine white beaches, and cooled themselves in the clear, still water.
They had it all to themselves, for nobody lived on this small island, the fishermen on the mainland or neighbouring larger islands coming over in the late summer only, to cut the grass and make the hay.
Then they went back to the tender and dressed, and Henry Burns, daunted at nothing, tried to climb one of the giant hemlocks to a fish-hawk’s nest, but gave it up when the birds screamed in his ears and beat at him with their powerful wings.
They had dug some clams at the low tide in the forenoon and put them away, covered with wet seaweed. Now, shortly after their noon luncheon, as the tide flooded, they got out the lines from a locker in the Spray and tried the fishing in Cold Harbour. There were plenty of small harbour fish, flounders out in the middle where the water was muddy, and cunners and small rock-cod in among the ledges. They soon caught a basket of these, cleaned them, and put them away, covered with seaweed, like the clams.