“I wish that, instead of taking so much pains about me, you would arrange some better accommodation for yourselves than you seem to think of doing,” she said. “I feel as if I was very selfish, in allowing you to take all this trouble about me.”
“You require to be more carefully attended to than we do,” answered the doctor. “You are more delicately constituted than we are, and though your spirit might sustain you, you would suffer more from exposure than we should.”
The doctor’s arguments quieted Alice’s scruples; so a small hut was formed for her, with a thick roof of palm-leaves tied down with the vines they had before found so useful. The rest of the party formed their sleeping-places of twigs and small boughs, which Walter declared made as good beds as any sailors need require. By the time these arrangements were finished supper was ready, and they sat down to their repast with thoroughly good appetites.
“I am thankful that we came, though I was rather doubtful at first about making the journey,” observed the mate. “It has shown us that we are on a small island; and also that, to a certainty, it is uninhabited, so that we need not be compelled to proceed on our voyage till the favourable season comes round. If we were to go to sea now we should very likely encounter heavy gales, which would sorely try our little craft, even though she might be enlarged and strengthened to the utmost of our power. In the meantime, we shall have enough to do in preparing provisions for the voyage, and we need have no fear of starving while we remain.”
“I thought that we were going to sail as soon as the boat could be got ready,” observed Alice in a tone of disappointment.
“So we will, Miss Alice,” said the mate; “but it will take us many weeks to get her ready, with the limited number of tools and the scanty materials we possess. As we have no saw, we must split the planks; and every plank will have to be brought down to the required thickness with our single axe or our knives; and we shall have to cut out the ribs in the same way. Patience and perseverance can alone enable us to overcome the difficulties before us.”
“Well, I am ready to do my best,” said Walter; “and perhaps our raft may be cast on shore, and that will help us.”
While they were talking, the gloom of night was coming on; but the fire cast a cheerful blaze, lighting up the trunks of the tall trees around them, shedding a glare over the yellow sand, and tingeing the thin white line of foam which rolled over it, now running up some way, now receding with a measured, hissing sound, scarcely amounting to a roar.
Nub, who was sitting nearest the sea, had been looking out across the sand. Suddenly he exclaimed, “I see someting! hist! hist! I know what it is. Come along, Dan; we will catch it.” Saying this, he started up, followed by Dan. “You go on one side, I go on de oder, and den we run as fast as our legs can carry us,” he cried to his companion.
They were soon scampering along over the sand, at some distance apart from each other. Not far from the water they again united, by which time the rest of the party had got up, and were proceeding in the same direction. They could just make them out engaged apparently in a desperate struggle with a dark object; and shortly afterwards they heard Dan’s Irish shouts of “Hurrah! hurrah! Erin go bragh!” and Nub exclaiming, “We got one big turtle. Come, Massa Shobbrok,—come, Massa Lawrie, and drag him up. We get fine food for supper.”