“Well, just have a look, will you? But I expects I has my walking ticket anyways.”
Tom took the dressings off the wound; but it was now so painful that Bristol Bob refused to allow him to probe it properly or handle it, so he put fresh dressings on.
Bristol Bob now said,—
“I don’t suppose I have long to live, and I had best spin my yarn to you afore I go. You have come from an island away to windward, where you landed after being left adrift in your boat. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” said Tom; “and people had been there before, and one man’s skeleton we buried. Some of the others had been buried, and the rest had evidently gone away long before.”
“Well,” said Bristol Bob, “I’ve been here at Aneitou now a matter of seven year, and have traded a bit. But those people who were on that island ran their boat ashore on Paraka before ever I came here, and all of them were eaten up; and only because I have been useful to these people by making trade for them have I escaped being eaten. Now, listen. There’s a tidy boat of mine on the island here, and aboard of her you may go ’most anywheres; and if you leaves here and steers WSW. by compass—there’s a compass in my sea-chest—you will, after about ten days, get to an island called Leviji, where there are missionaries. You must mind and not land anywhere before, unless you make out white men ashore; and even then it’s best not, for many a beach-comber is as bad as any savage among them. You will know the missionaries’ island by its having a mountain with two separate peaks rising up to the same height in the middle.”
“Well, well,” said Tom, “don’t you trouble about that now. We shall manage for ourselves. But what can we do for you now?”
“Nothing, lad, except give me a drink of water. My mouth and throat is that parched I can scarce speak.”
Tom held a gourd to the sick man’s lips, who drank eagerly, and then said,—
“Thanks, lad. I was even once like you; but my life has been a sad and bitter one, and now it’s ending, there’s no hope for me.”