In the Eastern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

I told him that all his things had been uninjured, and that one case only of Mr Hooker’s had suffered, besides the nautilus.

“Nautilus, did you say? Has that been destroyed? Oh, those atrocious villains! That prize on which I set such value! Well, Walter, you must try and catch me another; you cannot render me a greater service. Alas! alas! that I should have lost that one, and all for the sake of the arrack in which it was preserved!”

I assured him that I would do my best to try and catch another, as I was certain would also our companions.

“If poor Macco had been with us, I should have had more hope,” I said. “I never met a more expert fisherman, and I am sure he would have devised some means, though we might fail.”

He seemed to take much less to heart the information that the English ship had passed by; indeed, I suspect he was very unwilling to leave the island till he had re-collected more of the specimens which had been left in the house and destroyed. As yet we could not tell whether the pirates had discovered our store of timber for building the vessel, as we had not had time to visit the bay; nor, indeed, whether the boat had escaped their sharp eyes. That had been hidden among the rocks at some distance from the place where we usually landed, and might possibly, we hoped, not have been seen.

Late in the evening the rest of the party returned. They had given up all hopes of again seeing the vessel, and they came to ask Mr Sedgwick whether he would like to be carried down to the sea-shore.

“Certainly, certainly,” he answered; “though I think I can walk. The lad here—Oliver—must be carried; and if I fail, I will get you to help me. But the sooner we commence building a house the better. I suppose some time must pass before the vessel can be got afloat, and we can be comfortable in the meantime Tanda here, who helped me to put up the other house, will be of great assistance; and with so many hands, we can soon get it ready.”

I forgot to mention the creatures which had accompanied us into the fort: we had to pull down some of our stockade to let them out. And now, much in the order in which we had arrived, we returned to the site of the house; near which we found our friends had put up very comfortable huts for the reception of Mr Sedgwick and Oliver, and the ladies.

It was night by the time we arrived. Our two-footed and four-footed friends seemed delighted to get back to their old location, and began feeding away eagerly, there being an abundance of provender suited to their tastes scattered about.

“Up, lads, up!” I heard my uncle shouting out next morning. The sound made me open my eyes. “Up, lads, up! We have work to do: a house to put up, and a vessel to build; provisions to collect, and stores to prepare.”