We all laughed at this, and piling fuel on the fire we made ourselves a nest of dry leaves near it, and were soon all sound asleep.
I was awaked the next morning by Tom shaking me by the shoulder, and opening my eyes found it was broad daylight. Bill Seaman was sitting up yawning, and saying he did not think he had been to sleep at all.
“Nonsense,” said Tom; “I’ve been up half an hour and got some breakfast ready. See here,” and he pointed to a tin plate full of turtle steaks, which he had cooked. “Now make haste, both of you, and eat your breakfasts, and then we’ll start off.”
We needed no bidding to make us fall to; but when we came to drinking, I said, “It’s all very well drinking cocoanut milk; but I think we may get tired of that, and the island does not seem big enough for a river.”
“I’ve been looking about,” said Tom, “before I woke you, and close by I found some pools of rain-water; so we can fill our beakers and the trade-chest, for that’s water-tight; and lest the water should dry up or leak away, we had better do so at once.”
This was soon done, and then, having covered up all our belongings with leaves, we each took a musket and some cartridges, a cocoanut shell full of water to drink, and some turtle to eat, and set out on our journey of discovery.
As we left our camp we found that the cocoanut palms had been levelled all along the reef, except where we had been, and on the side of the lagoon opposite; and we soon found that to get round the island by toiling through and across the prostrate trunks, which lay strewn in inextricable confusion, would be more than we could do in one or even two days.
How were we to manage to get round to the other side, was now a question to be solved; and after some consultation we determined to return to our camp and set to work to build some sort of raft or catamaran, in which we might navigate the lagoon enclosed by the reef, a proposition on Bill’s part that we should wade and swim along the shore being decidedly negatived by the appearance of a huge, hungry-looking shark, that looked as if it would have been only too glad to make a meal off us.
CHAPTER V.
FISH-CURING.
On leaving the camp we had kept along the centre of the reef, and, before deciding to return, we had examined both sides to see if by any means we might manage to continue our road along the narrow beach; and in doing so we came upon pools of salt water which were literally alive with fish, and as we could see that the water was draining away through the sands, there could be little doubt that they would soon be left high and dry.