“Well then, Peter, I’ll tell you. Jack knew how to make matting just like this, because he learnt the way on board the Harriet, and so did I. He had a knife which, if this isn’t it, is the fellow to it, so you see that I have some reason to think that the man who built this hut, and lives in it, is he. But then again, you know, I may be mistaken.
“Why, if he is Jack, he should run away from us puzzles me. If he couldn’t see our faces he must have known by our dress that we were English or American, and that there was no reason for him to hide himself. There are many men who know how to make this sort of matting, and there are many knives just like this, and that’s the reason why I can’t tell you whether he’s Jack or not. But if Mr Griffiths will let me I’ll go on alone and look for him, and when he sees who I am he’ll come fast enough to me, and you may depend on it, Peter, if it’s he I’ll bring him back with a lighter heart than I’ve had for many a day.”
Chapter Twenty Seven.
The lost one found at last.
I wanted to accompany Soper in his search for the stranger.
“No, no, Peter,” he answered; “if he is Jack he’ll know me; but he won’t know you; and if he’s grown queer by living all alone on an island, as has happened to some poor fellows, he’ll get out of our way if he sees two together.”
The doctor assented to the wisdom of this, and advised me to be contented and remain by while Soper set off himself. The rest of the party were meanwhile examining the hen-roost.
The fowls were mostly of the English breed, which made us suppose that they had been landed from some English vessel. We were confirmed in this belief by discovering an old hen-coop, in which they had probably been washed ashore. There were other pieces of wreckage scattered about, but the hut itself was composed entirely of the products of the island.