Uninviting, however, as was the aspect of the island, it became markedly more so when we were presently favoured with a glimpse of some of its inhabitants, of which, thus far, we had seen nothing. We had just rounded the headland that was the most northerly point of the group visible from the deck of the Yorkshire Lass, and had hauled up close to the wind to fetch another point, some four miles distant to the north-eastward, when, scrutinising the shore through the telescope, I saw two creatures suddenly burst through the dense scrub that seemed to be the only form of vegetation growing thereabout, and begin—or, possibly, it might have been, continue—what had all the appearance of a desperate fight, on the open beach.

We were at that moment not more than a quarter of a mile from the shore and but little farther than that from the spot where the fight was taking place. The creatures were therefore within plain view of us, while the telescope clearly revealed every detail of what was happening, and of the creatures themselves, but so incredibly agile were they in their movements that several minutes elapsed before I was able to do more than just form a rough estimate of their size; but presently the boat drew up fairly abreast of them, and then I directed Billy, who was steering, to haul the fore-sheet to windward to deaden the boat's way, for I was curious to see what would be the outcome of the struggle.

The combatants were well matched as to size and activity, there appearing to be not a pin to choose between them in those respects. I set them down to be about the same size as an ordinary donkey, but they did not in the least resemble donkeys as to shape; indeed at first sight they seemed to be more like gigantic frogs. That, however, was merely a first impression, for there presently occurred a momentary pause in the fight—presumably to enable them to get their second wind—and then I was enabled to note details accurately. Their hind legs were, proportionately, as long as those of frogs, but much more muscular, while their fore legs appeared to be not more than a foot long, all four extremities being armed with exceedingly stout and formidable claws. Unlike frogs, however, they boasted powerful tails that seemed to serve very much the same purpose as that of the kangaroo, both as a weapon and a propellant. At the base it was the same thickness as the body, tapering away to a point, and it appeared to be about the same length as the body. The head was, however, the most remarkable feature of the animal. When seen in profile it was not unlike those of the apes we had encountered, but it was evidently even more formidable, for projecting from its nose was a stout, sharp horn, similar to that of a rhinoceros, while a pair of long tusks projected from its upper jaw. In colour the animal was a greyish brown, dark on the upper part of the body, fading to a dirty white on the lower. A serrated ridge of what might be loose skin ran along its back from the nape of the neck to the extremity of the tail, and the body appeared to be thickly dotted with wart-like excrescences. Altogether it had very much more the appearance of a reptile than of any other class of the animal kingdom. These details I was able to observe during the short pause in the fight to which I have already alluded, but in less than a minute the struggle was resumed with apparently greater ferocity than ever. Their method of fighting was as remarkable as their general appearance. Facing his opponent and crouching low, at a distance of some three or four yards apart, one of them would suddenly spring high in the air and land upon the body of his adversary, striking furiously with claws, tusks, and tail, while the other, throwing himself on his back, would lash out as vigorously with his own weapons. Then the two would grip, rolling over and over each other, and for a few minutes it would be impossible to see what was happening, so quick were their movements and dense the cloud of dust that they raised. Then would occur a brief pause, to be followed by a further renewal of the fight. But after about a quarter of an hour it became evident that the struggle was nearly over. The end came with dramatic suddenness: the one which happened to be lying upon his back made a lucky upward stroke with his hind claws, disembowelling his antagonist as the latter descended upon him, and a moment later he was tearing great morsels of flesh from the still writhing body of his late adversary.

"Let draw the fore-sheet, Billy," I exclaimed. "We'll get away from here as quickly as the wind will take us." For the sight was a horrible and disgusting one.

An hour later we arrived off a gap about a mile wide between two headlands, this gap forming the entrance of a noble bay some eight miles long by five miles wide at its widest part. And, curiously enough, immediately opposite that gap there occurred a corresponding gap or break, about two miles wide, in the barrier reef, so that, had the place been known to mariners, a ship in distress might have passed through this break in the reef and sailed straight into the bay, even in the hardest gale that ever blew.

Naturally, I at once headed the boat into the bay, and we sailed to its farther extremity, hugging the western shore all the way, and still maintaining a close watch upon the country generally through the telescope. It was very rugged and broken until we reached the bottom of the bay, where the hills, from a height of some eight hundred feet, sank into the plain. The hill-sides, inside as outside the bay, nourished a fairly dense growth of low, coarse scrub, that I searched with the glass, in vain, for any sign of life. But I noticed, very early after our passage between the two headlands, that, for some reason which I was quite unable to guess at, the waters of the bay were swarming with sharks—the first that we had seen since the occurrence of the wreck— wherefore I at once christened the great sheet of water "Shark Bay", while to the island itself I gave the name of "North Island."

The headlands that guarded the entrance to Shark Bay were a pair of lofty promontories rising to a height of some four or five hundred feet, forming part of the range of hills that engirdled the bay on either hand; but while the range on the western side sloped down to the water's edge, sinking into a plain at a distance of about ten miles from the entrance, the range on the eastern side, some sixteen miles long, gradually receded from the shore line as it swept southwards, the space between its foot and the beach being occupied by a swamp lying so low that it was difficult to judge, in places, the precise line of demarcation between land and water. The southern half of the island consisted entirely of low, flat ground, sparsely covered with coarse grass and isolated clumps of scrub, across which, at a distance of some eight miles, the high, precipitous cliffs of the island where we encountered the apes could be distinctly seen.

By the time that we arrived at the inner, or southern extremity of the bay the sun had declined to within a finger's width of the ridge of the western range of hills. It was clear, therefore, that there could be no further exploration for us until the morrow, and I began to look about in search of a suitable spot whereon to pitch our camp for the night. And to choose seemed difficult. The western shore of the bay, with its broken ground and scrubby vegetation looked uninviting to say the least of it, in addition to which it was on the other side of those same hills, at a spot only a few miles distant, that we had, that afternoon, witnessed the terrific fight between those two horrible, unknown creatures; and I had no inclination to place ourselves where we might perchance make closer acquaintance with other creatures of a similar or perhaps even more ferocious kind. The eastern shore of the bay was a swamp, and consequently out of the question. I therefore turned my attention to the plain that formed the southern part of the island, when, looking in that direction, I saw an animal of some sort squatting on its hind-quarters on the beach, staring at us. It was only about a quarter of a mile distant and, bringing the telescope to bear upon it, I at once identified it as either the victorious fighter of the afternoon or a creature similar in every respect. It was hardly likely to be the same beast, however, for I thought it doubtful whether the long arm of coincidence would bring the same creature within our ken again so soon; moreover the animal at that moment focused by the lenses of the telescope showed no wounds or other signs of recent battle.

"I'll have a shot at the beggar if he will only remain as he is half a minute longer," I exclaimed. "Take the telescope, Billy, and watch. I'll aim for his heart, and you will be able to see whether or not I score a hit." And, thrusting the telescope into Billy's hands, I snatched up a rifle.

"Four hundred and fifty yards should be about right," I muttered as I adjusted the back sight of the weapon to that range; then, raising the rifle to my shoulder and bringing the sights into line on that part of the still motionless beast's body where I supposed its heart to be, I pressed the trigger.

The "plop" of the bullet upon the creature's hide distinctly reached my ear a second or two after the crack of the rifle; but instead of toppling over, dead, as I fully expected, the beast simply wheeled about and, in a sequence of enormous bounds, quickly vanished in the distance.

"By Jove!" I exclaimed, in amazement, "what an extraordinary thing. I'll swear I hit him. I had him as neatly covered as possible; my hands were as steady as rocks; and there is not enough wind to deflect the bullet; furthermore, I heard it strike."

"Yes; so did I," agreed Billy. "I am certain that you hit the brute, Mr Blackburn. I can't say for certain that I actually saw the bullet hit, but I believe that a second or two after you fired, and an instant before the beast turned and bounded away, I saw a tiny dark spot on the dirty white skin of its breast."

"I wonder whether you really did, or whether it was merely imagination," said I. "Anyway, the beggar must be a tough one to kill; for while I feel as certain as you do that I hit him, the fact remains that he was very far from being dead when we last saw him; furthermore, that yonder plain harbours such creatures is a strong argument against our camping there to-night; the only thing, therefore, that I can see for it is to stand off-shore for a mile or two, anchor the boat, and rough it aboard her for the night."

Which we did. And ample reason had we to congratulate ourselves upon our decision, for shortly after nightfall and all through the hours of darkness our ears were assailed by an almost continuous succession of such hair-raising shrieks and howls, roars and bellowings, as thoroughly convinced me that North Island was no sort of dwelling-place for human beings with a penchant for peace and quietness. Furthermore, there was a moon, that night, well advanced in her second quarter, and at frequent intervals during a particularly restless night I caught glimpses of shadowy forms moving restlessly hither and thither ashore.

With the arrival of dawn next morning we were astir; and after an early breakfast the anchor was hove up and we got under way to resume our voyage of exploration. On the previous afternoon we pretty closely skirted the western shore of the bay; now, on our way out, we as closely hugged the eastern shore, which I kept under continuous scrutiny with the help of the telescope. But nothing worthy of record was seen; and that day's voyage might be dismissed with the mere mention of it, but for the fact that when we were about half-way down the bay we reached a spot where the water and the swamp were so intermingled that we actually ran right into a vast bed of rushes without grounding. There was, perhaps, nothing very remarkable about that, but there was a peculiarity about those rushes that Billy was the first to observe and remark upon, namely, their absolutely perfect straightness. This inspired me with an idea: our stock of ammunition was limited, and when it should become exhausted, what were we to do? So long as we remained upon the group we must have weapons of some sort, and the only substitute for the rifle and revolver that I could think of was the bow and arrow. I cut one of the rushes and found it to consist of an exceedingly hard outer casing filled with soft pith; it was remarkably light; and it instantly occurred to me that the smaller, thinner rushes—they ranged from about an eighth of an inch up to quite two inches in diameter—would make ideal arrows. We therefore set to work, there and then, and cut about two hundred reeds of suitable diameter, each of them being long enough to make at least two arrows. When, toward sunset that evening, we again reached the little islet that I had resolved to make our home—and which I named Eden because it was so like a garden—the first thing we did was to spread our reeds out on the grass to dry; next we rigged the tent— for we intended to spend the night on the island—and then Billy and I took a walk up as far as the shoulder of the hill, from which was to be obtained a view of the sea, upon the off-chance of there being a sail of some sort in sight. But, as I more than half expected, the ocean was bare. We met with no adventures, unpleasant or otherwise, that night, but enjoyed several hours of sound, dreamless sleep, and awoke refreshed the next morning to pursue our voyage of exploration.

Nor did we meet with any adventures worth recording on the third day of our voyage. We sailed past the eastern end of the island inhabited by the natives, leaving it about two miles on our starboard hand as we steered south; then we sailed past another and much bigger island, which I estimated to measure some sixteen miles long by about fourteen miles wide. It was in the form of a double-coned hill sloping on all sides down to the water's edge, the higher of the two cones being about nine hundred feet high, and the other perhaps two hundred feet less. It was thickly wooded from beach to summit, and I had no doubt that many of the trees we saw bore edible fruits; but we did not land to test the matter. Rather late in the afternoon we arrived abreast another and much smaller island that proved to be the southernmost of the group. This we named "South Island"; and about sunset we ran into a tiny bay close to its western extremity and, anchoring the boat, passed the night in her, this time without disturbance of any kind.

Continuing our circumnavigation of the group, we reached the wreck again about an hour before sunset on the fourth day of our travels, keeping within the lagoon all the time and thus confirming my theory that the reef completely encircled the whole group. I estimated that in the course of those four days we sailed a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles, but it was well worth it, for I now had considerable knowledge of the general characteristics of the entire group, to which I could add when I set out to traverse the intersecting channels.

The matter about which I was now most anxious was the erection of our projected house on our little islet of Eden; and to the cutting and shaping of the timber that was to be employed in its construction Billy and I at once devoted ourselves energetically, making remorseless inroads upon the wreck for the required materials, but maintaining the cabins and after part of the ship intact, that we might not deprive ourselves of the one dwelling-place until the other was ready to receive us. And I was all the more anxious to get this important piece of work completed without loss of time because I had a suspicion that in those latitudes there is what is known as a "hurricane season", during which extremely violent gales are prevalent, and I knew that the very first of these—when it came—might destroy the wreck and so turn us out of house and home.

No sooner had we begun our work than I recognised the wisdom that had prompted me to prepare a carefully drawn detailed plan of our future house beforehand, for now I was able to determine, by reference to my plan, the exact dimensions and shape of every piece of timber required, thus saving a vast amount of time and labour that must otherwise have been spent in consideration, and in the tentative fitting together of the several pieces.

There is no need to tax the patience of the reader by describing in detail our daily progress. Let it suffice to say that we worked all day and every day from dawn to sunset, until at length, after five weeks of strenuous but uneventful labour, punctuated at intervals by thunderstorms of terrific violence, accompanied by torrential downpours of rain—which we thankfully utilised for the replenishment of our fresh-water supply—the carpenter work of our projected house was finished, and then came the still more formidable task of erection.

We began by loading our boat with as much as she would carry of the building materials and the requisites for a few days' stay upon the islet; and then we left the wreck, arriving at our destination rather late the same evening, taking the short cut through those parts of the intersecting channels that we had already traversed upon the occasion of our discovery of the islet. The choice of a site for the house, and the unloading and conveyance of the tools and building materials to that site occupied the whole of another day, for the site chosen was on the eastern slope of the hill, about a mile distant from the cove where the boat lay, involving the carrying of several heavy loads of timber all that distance up-hill; but it was well worth the labour, for the situation afforded a magnificent and uninterrupted view of the open sea to the eastward, while toward the west and south-west we had a view of a considerable portion of the island with the remarkable precipitous cliffs, and a broad stretch of lagoon to the south of it.

Spending the night of that very fatiguing day on Eden, we returned to the wreck on the day following, a fair wind the whole way enabling us to accomplish the trip in time to load up the boat that same evening in readiness for an early start next day. This mode of procedure was followed for nearly a month; by the end of which period we had transported from the wreck to our islet the whole of the material for our house, the chests of treasure, the ship's medicine-chest, all the tools of every description that were to be found in the ship, all the arms and ammunition, the chronometer and other navigating instruments, the charts, and a considerable quantity of the most valuable contents of the lazarette; after which we were practically independent of the wreck; for as soon as we had built our house we should be in possession of everything absolutely necessary to the maintenance of life and health.

The house, however, still remained to be built, and this task kept Billy and me busy for another six weeks; but when it was finished we found ourselves, relatively speaking, in clover, for our house consisted of a strongly-built, weather-proof bungalow containing living-room, store- room, two bedrooms, kitchen, scullery, fuel house, and other outbuildings, with a stoep and veranda extending all round it; and it was roofed with deck planking, caulked, thoroughly well tarred, and then coated with sand. The furniture was of course a bit rough, but it served its purpose, and it was eked out by the addition of a couple of comfortable arm-chairs and six deck-chairs from the wreck, with, of course, beds and bedding, table linen, crockery, cutlery, and all the cooking gear.

This great task accomplished, my next business was to run the boat, single-handed, to and fro between the islet and the wreck, removing from the latter everything that might by any chance be of the slightest value to us, while Billy, having developed an ambition to lay out a considerable expanse of the slope in front of the house as a garden, put in his time in the realisation of that ambition. After a time I was able to lend a hand at this job; and I finished up by setting on end, in front of the house, the brigantine's spare main topmast, which made a fine flagstaff, upon which I proposed to hoist the ship's ensign, union- down, if ever a ship should heave in sight.



CHAPTER TEN.

A SPIDER'S WEB!

My next task was one which I felt I had already neglected too long, namely, the provision of weapons to supplement our firearms, and so save our ammunition for cases of extreme emergency. This I proposed to do by the manufacture of bows and arrows, if I could find materials suitable for the purpose. So far as the arrows were concerned, I had already found perfect material for the shafts in the bundle of rushes I had cut in the Shark Bay swamp, and which had by this time dried and hardened in the air until they had become all that I could wish for. But I still required wood from which to make bows, and I spent a whole day unsuccessfully searching the woods of Eden for suitable trees. But it did not follow that because there were no suitable trees on our own islet, there were none on any of the other islands of the group; therefore on a certain evening I announced my intention of starting next morning upon a further voyage of exploration and discovery.

In pursuance of this intention, immediately after breakfast on the following morning, I put two rifles in the boat, with an ample supply of cartridges, while we each carried a brace of revolvers in a belt strapped round our waists; in addition to which I took along with me a ship's cutlass to serve instead of an axe with which to cut any suitable boughs we might chance to find.

For prospecting purposes I chose the western island of the group, not only because it was the largest and most densely wooded but also because I seemed to remember vaguely having seen, when sailing past it on my way to and from the wreck, certain trees resembling yews, than which, of course, nothing could be better for my purpose. We got under way with a fine fair wind, and headed for East Channel, entering which we ran close in under the precipitous cliffs that formed the northern coast-line of the island inhabited by the natives. Thence we passed into North Island Channel, with the mysterious North Island on our starboard hand; and as the boat buzzed merrily along I kept the telescope focused upon the wide, flat plain that formed the southerly half of the island, upon the off-chance of catching another glimpse of some of its weird inhabitants. But we saw nothing. Then, rounding the southern extremity of North Island, we entered the North-west Channel and, with West Island close aboard on our port hand, hauled up to the northward, keeping a sharp look-out for the trees of which I was in search.

It was about noon when I spotted a clump of those trees growing all together at no great distance from the shore, and we at once headed for them and grounded the boat upon the beach. Looking well to our weapons, to ensure that they were in working order, Billy and I each shouldered a rifle and made our way toward the clump of trees. The grass was waist- high and very matted, rendering the going rather difficult, but the distance was a mere trifle, and in about ten minutes we were at the trees.

I looked well at them, and came to the conclusion that if they were not actually yews they were of very similar character, sufficiently so at least to justify me in testing their quality. I accordingly climbed into one of them and, with some care, selected about a dozen suitable branches, which I hacked off with my cutlass and threw to the ground, where Billy retrieved them from the long grass. This done, we decided that the next thing in order was to pipe to lunch, which meal we discussed in comfort and at leisure aboard the boat.

Luncheon over, we agreed that a little fruit would be acceptable and, leaving the boat, we set out to hunt for some. The vegetation on this eastern side of the island was not nearly so dense and impenetrable as we had found it on the west side, where we landed upon the occasion of our first boat excursion, the undergrowth here being almost entirely absent; consequently, apart from the trouble of forcing a passage through the long matted grass, we experienced little difficulty in penetrating the woods. But where the timber grew thickly it was, comparatively speaking, very dark, and the sudden transition from brilliant sunlight in the open spaces to the deep shadow of the thickly wooded parts was distinctly trying to our eyes.

We went warily, halting at frequent intervals and listening for any sounds that might warn us of approaching danger—for we were now upon the biggest island of the group and we knew not what dangerous forms of life might be lurking within the recesses of the forest—when, as we were looking about us for fruit-bearing trees of some kind, quite suddenly the woodland silence was broken by a rapid succession of piercing cries that somehow suggested to us the idea of a cat in a state of acute terror and physical distress.

"Hark! what is that?" exclaimed Billy, laying his hand upon my arm. "It sounds as though there was a cat somewhere quite near, in the grip of an enemy. Let's look for and rescue the poor thing, if we can, Mr Blackburn. A cat is just the one thing needed to complete the homelike look of our bungalow. The poor thing is over there, somewhere, and I'm sure it is in terrible distress."

We hurried in the direction indicated by Billy's pointing hand, and, a few seconds later, saw, at a distance of a yard or two ahead of us, a commotion in the long grass, as though some creature or creatures buried in it were engaged in a violent struggle. The spot happened to be in deep shadow, and the thought came to me that, hidden in the thick masses of that tangled grass, some small animal might be fighting for its life, possibly in the embrace of a snake that, as likely as not, might be of a deadly venomous species. Therefore I put forth a restraining hand and said sharply to Billy:

"Stay here, and do not come until I call you. I will go alone and see what all the trouble is about."

With a couple of strides I reached the scene of the commotion, the cries meanwhile pealing out as piercingly as ever, and as I stooped to investigate, my cap came into contact with something that yielded slightly to the touch, and was snatched off my head. Surprised and a little startled by the unexpectedness of the happening, I straightened up, to see my cap apparently suspended in mid air! Still more surprised, I stretched forth my hand and seized the cap to replace it upon my head, when I found that it strongly resisted my efforts, and, looking closely to discover the reason, I saw that it had become entangled in a spider's web! Yes, a spider's web! but such a web as I venture to say very few men save myself have ever seen. It hung suspended from a branch quite ten feet above the ground, it was tightly strained between the trunks of two trees at least eight feet apart, and it reached right down to the ground, where it was strongly interwoven with the long grass. But that web was not spun to catch flies; the meshes were from two to four inches wide; and although the thread was so fine as to be invisible in the subdued light, until closely looked for, it was enormously strong; so strong indeed that it required quite a powerful tug on my part to disengage my cap. My efforts to do so caused the web to vibrate strongly, and that, I suppose, irritated the owner, for while I was still tugging, the brute suddenly appeared from nowhere in particular, running swiftly over the web in the direction of the still entangled cap. And that spider was in perfect keeping with the web that he had spun. There are home-staying people who, in their wonderful wisdom, will doubtless shake their heads and smile incredulously at what I am about to say, but possibly there may be among my more widely travelled readers one or two who will know, from experience, that I am not exaggerating when I say that the body of the creature—of a deep ruby colour—was as big as the head of an average- sized man! Its head was about the size of an orange; it had a pair of wicked-looking eyes that fairly blazed with fury as, catching sight of me, it suddenly halted, glaring at me, emitting a low, angry, hissing sound, and clashing its formidable jaws together in what looked like an access of perfectly demoniac ferocity. Struck motionless for the moment, in sheer amazement, I quickly recovered myself and, believing that the thing was about to spring at my face and inflict a possibly fatal bite, I raised my cutlass and, with a slashing blow, clove the creature through.

Leaving the severed parts of the body still clinging tenaciously to the web, I next turned my attention to the screaming, frantically struggling creature at my feet. A single glance sufficed to show that it was obviously feline, about as big as a full-grown cat; and it had somehow become entangled in the bottom meshes of the web. It was fighting desperately but ineffectually to free itself; indeed its struggles seemed to have but the more hopelessly involved it, for although it had torn a hole several feet long in the bottom of the web it was still held fast by a dozen or more of the threads, while its body was completely enveloped in layer upon layer of the tough, tenaciously glutinous web. The unfortunate animal was evidently near to the point of exhaustion from its violent efforts to break loose, and when I bent over it the poor thing looked up at me and whined piteously, as though appealing for help. It was an appeal that I could by no means resist; therefore, taking the creature in my hands, I tore it free by main force, parting thread after thread until all were severed.

Whether it was that the poor little beggar was too completely exhausted to struggle further, or whether it instinctively understood that I meant well by it, I cannot say, but the fact remains that from the moment it felt itself in my grasp it ceased to struggle and, when it was completely freed from the web, lay quite passively in my arms. I carried it to where Billy still stood awaiting my return and, showing it to him, said:

"Here is your 'cat', Billy; but you mustn't touch it yet, for it is in a filthy state, having been tangled up in the most amazing spider's web I ever saw."

Of course the boy immediately fired a whole broadside of questions at me relative to my recent adventure, also he must needs be taken to see the web, and the defunct spider, after which, forgetting all about the fruit which we had started to seek, we re-entered the boat and set out upon our return to Eden, which we reached shortly before sunset. As we worked our way back through the winding channels Billy beguiled the time by taking our newest acquisition upon his lap and endeavouring to free it from the clinging tangle of web in which it had enveloped itself, and so agreeable did the operation appear to be to the animal that it lay quite passive, permitting itself to be handled freely; and eventually, to Billy's great delight, it started to purr.

For my own part, however, reflection caused me to question whether I had been wise in introducing this new member to our family circle. Had it been a dog I should have had no doubts; a dog would have been a delightful companion for both of us, but this creature—what was it? As I have already said, it was about the size of a full-grown cat, and it undoubtedly belonged to the cat tribe; but despite its size I judged it to be a mere kitten, and quite a young one at that. Its legs were much thicker and more muscular and its fur was shorter and not so fine as that of the domestic cat; and although I had seen a good many domestic cats I had never seen one marked like this creature, a rich, ruddy brown on the head, shoulders, and fore-quarters, shading off to a light tawny colour at the hind-quarters and the tail, with just a suggestion of darker spots here and there; white on the throat, breast, belly, and the inside of the legs. It occurred to me that if my suspicions were correct we might eventually find that we had introduced a decidedly awkward member into our domestic circle. But, meanwhile, I kept my suspicions to myself.

Billy displayed the utmost interest in his new pet; apparently he was unable, for the moment, to think of anything else. He was particularly anxious that the little beast should settle down in the house and become thoroughly domesticated, and with that object in view he at once proceeded to liberally smear its fore paws with part of our slender remaining stock of butter, having heard that cats so treated never deserted the house in which they had received such hospitality. Next, he set to work to make a kennel out of odds and ends of material left over from the construction of our house. As for me, I considered that I was far more usefully employed in stripping the bark from the branches which I had gathered, and converting them into bows.

Our respective enterprises progressed as satisfactorily as could be desired. Billy's protege—which in a moment of inspiration he had given the highly original name of "Kit"—fed to repletion upon broth and fish, was apparently quite content to bask in the sun all day on the floor of the veranda, to be petted and played with by us when we could spare the time, and to take up his quarters at night in Billy's kennel, upon a luxurious bed of sweet-scented hay; while the bows, upon which I expended some pains, promised to be everything that I could desire. Billy and I made another voyage to the swamp in North Island and collected reeds enough to make some hundreds of arrows, which we headed with hard, sharp thorns, embedded in about three inches of clay at the head to impart steadiness of flight to the missile, an arrangement which I found to answer admirably. Then, when our bows were completed, we set up a target in front of the house and practised assiduously, until within a fortnight we became sufficiently expert to hit a six-inch bull's-eye, at two hundred yards, every time. Having attained to this degree of skill, we could get as many birds as we needed for food without the further expenditure of any ammunition; we accordingly hoarded the remainder of our powder and shot against the possible moment when we should be in dire need of it.

Striving for perfection, I made twelve bows before I was quite satisfied with the result of my efforts. Thus, allowing one bow for each of us, and a second as a stand-by, I had eight bows for which I had no particular use. They did not quite come up to my standard, yet I did not care to destroy them; after some consideration, therefore, I decided that they might be used as a medium for the establishment of friendly relations between ourselves and our neighbours, the natives on Cliff Island. Accordingly, on a certain day, placing the superfluous bows and a number of arrows in the boat, and taking our rifles and revolvers with us, Billy and I started to pay our visit.

Heading south, a run of five miles brought us, in the course of an hour, to the western extremity of Cliff Island, rounding which we presently saw that the natives appeared to be all at work in their fields of maize and sugar, or tending their fruit-trees. The sight of our sails, gliding along within a short distance of the beach, caused them to drop whatever work they might be engaged upon, to watch our progress, although the boat must by that time have become quite a familiar object to them, so often had we passed the island on our way to and from the wreck. Arrived at the spot where we had encountered the apes, I hauled the boat to the wind, ran her in upon the beach, and stepped ashore. This was the first time that I had landed upon the island since that memorable occasion, and consequently I was not surprised to observe that my action created something of a commotion among the inhabitants. The alarm trumpets were sounded, and there was again a stampede on the part of the women and children toward the curious caves in the cliff-face, while the men came running together and rallying round an individual who appeared to be their leader, or chief. Meanwhile I walked slowly up the narrow beach to the level ground beyond, and there stood with both hands upraised in token of amity.

The man whom I assumed to be the chief stood intently regarding me for several minutes, as though endeavouring to gather from my actions what my motive for landing on the island might be; whereupon I beckoned, and then again raised my hands above my head. By way of response the chief raised his hands for a moment, and then proceeded to discuss—as I surmised—the situation with certain others who were probably minor chiefs. Finally, after I had several times repeated my beckonings, about a dozen of them, including the man whom I supposed to be the chief, came slowly toward me, with their hands raised. Their approach was marked by a very considerable amount of hesitation, halts being frequent, and progress resumed only in response to vigorous beckonings on my part, so that fully twenty minutes were consumed in traversing the distance of some five hundred yards that originally separated us; but at length the party arrived within about a dozen yards of me, and there finally halted.

The moment had evidently arrived for me to declare my intentions. I therefore drew from my pocket a necklace of big turquoise-blue beads that formed part of the "truck" provided by the late skipper Stenson for purposes of trade, and, holding it aloft, advanced with a friendly smile toward the chief, who seemed more than half inclined to turn tail and run. As I purposely moved very slowly and deliberately, however, he stood his ground; and when I halted before him and placed the necklace round my own neck, a low murmur of admiration escaped the party. Then, removing the beads from my own neck, I stepped slowly forward again and lightly dropped them round the neck of the chief, who, I thought, seemed to find some difficulty in deciding whether he was the more frightened or delighted. But I continued smiling upon him in friendly fashion, and offered my right hand, in token of amity, a sign which he seemed to understand, for after a moment of hesitation he placed his hand in mine and gave a friendly squeeze, which I instantly returned.

I now turned toward the boat and, saying: "Come with me; I have something to show you," beckoned the party to follow me. Of course they did not understand my words, but they must have correctly interpreted the tones of my voice, for they followed me without hesitation, halting at the top of the bank, however, to take a good look at the boat and exchange excited remarks concerning her—as I easily conjectured from their animated gestures.

Meanwhile, advancing to the boat, I took from Billy a small wooden target that I had prepared, together with a bow and sheaf of arrows. The target I fixed up on the beach and, stationing myself at about a hundred yards from it, directed the attention of my little audience, first to the bow, then to an arrow which I drew from the quiver, and finally to the target. Then, fitting the arrow to the string, I drew the bow to its full extent, and the next moment the arrow was quivering in the bull's-eye, to the amazement and audible admiration of my new friends. This feat I performed a second and a third time, and then led the party to the target, that they might see for themselves how firmly were the arrows embedded in it; and this evidently provoked in them further admiration, for they at once plunged into an animated discussion of the matter, some at least of them already appreciating the value of the bow as a lethal weapon, for one of the party, admirably mimicking the action of an ape coming up the beach, then drew an imaginary bow, and, instantly clapping his hand over his heart, fell back in an imitation of the death-agony.

I patted him approvingly on the shoulder, nodded, and said: "Yes, that is the idea, old chap; that is precisely what I want you fellows to understand," and again they seemed to comprehend me, for they all nodded vigorously. Then, wrenching the arrows from the target, I conducted the party back to the hundred-yard mark, and placing the bow and an arrow in the hands of the chief, signed to him to try his hand.

Of course he made a terrible bungle of it to start with. First, he failed to put enough strength into the pull, and the arrow flew only a few yards; by dint of patient coaching on my part, however, he gradually improved, and when, after practising diligently for about an hour, he succeeded in sending an arrow as far as the target—although several yards wide—his delight and pride knew no bounds. I then showed him that it was possible to hit the target at double the distance; after which I took him to the boat and presented to him the remaining seven bows, with their sheaves of arrows, which filled the simple fellow's cup of joy to the brim. He insisted on conducting Billy and me through the plantations of maize and sugar-cane, directed our attention to the orchards of fruit-trees, and finally led us to the cliffs, which I now saw were honeycombed with rock-dwellings, and introduced us to his own particular mansion, which was a cave of some twelve feet wide by twenty feet deep, very stuffy and malodorous. Here we were entertained to a luncheon of boiled green maize cobs, and several varieties of delicious fruits. His household consisted of an elderly woman whom I conjectured to be his mother, two young men who, I understood, were his sons, and five girls who might be either his wives or his daughters. When at length we were able to effect our escape from his rather pressing hospitality, and returned to the boat, I found that during our absence somebody—presumably my recent host—had sent down several baskets containing green heads of indian corn, sugar-cane, and fruit, which we took back with us to Eden; I for my part feeling well satisfied with the result of my visit.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A RAID BY THE APES.

Having thus successfully established friendly relations with the natives I determined to maintain them, and, with this object, made frequent calls upon the chief, who was most anxious to display the increasing skill of himself and his subordinates in the use of the bow. And indeed the progress made was exceedingly creditable, and quite sufficient to enable them to put up a good defence against the apes which, I with some difficulty gathered, were prone to swim across the channel, from time to time, for the purpose of plundering the natives' fields and orchards. But, if I understood my new friends aright, these raids, though not perhaps very frequent, were occasionally of a far more formidable and disastrous character than I had thus far imagined, not infrequently resulting in a quite serious loss of life on the part of those natives who were courageous enough to defend their possessions. I accordingly decided to make and present to the plucky blacks twelve more bows, with a sufficient supply of arrows to enable them to resist successfully the incursions of their formidable enemies.

The work of procuring the materials necessary for the manufacture of those weapons, and the making of them, together with the performance of sundry odd jobs in the garden, kept me busy for nearly a month, during which I was afforded ample opportunity to note the progress which Billy was making in the domestication of his cat. The beast was growing fast, and it was also developing certain markings which tended to confirm my original suspicion that it was some species of leopard, or panther, a circumstance that not only occasioned me considerable uneasiness but also led me to impart my fears to Billy, and even to hint tentatively at the advisability of shooting the creature before the full development of its natural proclivities should render it actually dangerous. But Billy indignantly scouted the suggestion that his pet could possibly develop dangerous tendencies, directing my attention to the affection which it displayed for both of us; and I was compelled to admit that, so far, his contention was sound, for the beast followed us about like a dog. It could scarcely endure to be separated from either of us for any great length of time, and it seemed never so happy as when lying at full length on the floor of the veranda, before my chair, with my feet lightly resting upon its body, as upon a footstool. And upon the now comparatively rare occasions when we took a trip in the boat, Kit was invariably to be found on the beach, waiting and watching for our return; and it was amusing to observe the delighted gambols in which he indulged as we stepped ashore.

The new bows and arrows being at length ready, Billy and I started for Cliff Island on a certain morning, for the purpose of presenting the weapons to their prospective owners. Upon our arrival we were received by the natives with their accustomed cordiality, and I at once handed over our gift to Bowata, the chief, who was profuse in his expressions of gratitude. I had by this time acquired a sufficient grasp of their very simple language to enable me to make a pretty shrewd guess at their meaning when they spoke to me, and also to make myself fairly well understood by them, and I gathered from Bowata that the gift was singularly opportune, inasmuch as that the apes had of late, for some inexplicable reason, been unusually pertinacious in their raids upon the island; but that, thanks to my original gift, their attacks had been successfully withstood without loss of life on the part of the natives, the invading apes having all been slain before it was possible for them to effect a landing. The little fellow was immensely proud of those achievements—as indeed he might well be, considering that before the bow-and-arrow era every raid by the apes had resulted in the death of one or two natives and the more or less serious maiming of others; and so proud was he of the skill which he and his people had developed that he must needs set up a target, there and then, that I might witness a display of that skill. It now became apparent that Bowata was by no means devoid of shrewdness, for not only had he personally practised assiduously at the target, but he had insisted that the petty chiefs who had been entrusted with bows should do the same; and, not content with that, he had chosen some two dozen other men, all of whom he had personally trained; so that when I turned up with my gift he had already about thirty men, every one of them a quite fairly expert bowman. I could not forbear a smile at this intelligence, imparted with the most perfect naivete, for it almost appeared as though the man had divined my intention to make this second gift.

And now occurred a rather remarkable coincidence; for while the display of native skill was in full swing the trumpets were sounded, giving warning of another approaching raid. The apes, it appeared, were heading for a point about half a mile to the westward of the spot where we were assembled, and toward that spot the archers, twenty in number, including those who had been entrusted with the new bows, set off at top speed, followed by their unarmed comrades, who merely delayed long enough to collect such blocks of coral and rock of suitable size as happened to be in their way. As for me, I announced my intention to attack the brutes from the boat, if I should be in time to intercept them; but Bowata delayed his departure long enough to beg me to allow him and his men to deal, unaided, with the enemy, as every victory gained by his people increased their confidence in themselves. But, he added, if any of the apes should escape and attempt to swim back to their own island, I should be rendering good service by destroying them on the way. The sound common sense of both these contentions I instantly recognised.

Keeping well off-shore, that we might be safely out of range of stray arrows, Billy and I arrived, in the boat, off the scene of the impending struggle, while the leading ape was still a good three hundred yards from the beach, and I was glad to see that the blacks were keeping cool and withholding their fire, instead of wasting their arrows by discharging them prematurely. The apes were swimming easily, and keeping so well together that it was only with difficulty I was able to count them. Billy and I were agreed that they totalled sixteen, which, if I had understood Bowata aright, was far and away the most formidable number that had ever been encountered; and I looked to our rifles and edged the boat in a little nearer the shore, to be ready for possible eventualities; then, as the first arrow was discharged, I brought the boat to the wind and hove her to.

That first shot was a miss; but the second shot scored, for I saw the leading ape shake his head angrily, and go through the motion of plucking an arrow from his neck; he swam a few yards farther, however; then he suddenly flung up his arms and rolled over in the water, motionless.

I was glad to see that the natives had assimilated the advice I had endeavoured, somewhat laboriously, to impart to them, to shoot singly at a selected mark, thus economising arrows, and promoting good shooting. They were adopting those tactics now, and the soundness of them was demonstrated by the fact that no less than five of the apes were put hors de combat before the feet of any of them touched bottom and they started to wade ashore. Then, indeed, as some half-dozen of the huge creatures upreared themselves simultaneously, revealing the whole of their bodies above the hips, the blacks betrayed signs of panic, a whole flight of arrows greeting the brutes. But if that indiscriminate discharge was indeed the result of panic it was nevertheless thoroughly effective, for every one of the monsters went down, either dead or too desperately wounded to be capable of further effort. The fate of their comrades, however, seemed in no wise to dismay or act as a deterrent to the survivors, who, five in number, pressed resolutely on and, finding bottom, rose in quick succession to their feet and proceeded to scramble ashore, actually passing between the bodies of their dead and dying companions, and noticing them only to thrust them roughly aside in their eagerness to get to grips with their enemies. But the latter were quite ready for them. The success of Bowata and his fellow archers, thus far, had inspired them with such confidence in themselves and their weapons that I believe not a man of them would have turned tail so long as a single arrow remained to them, and as the surviving apes advanced they were met by such a withering flight of arrows that not one of them lived actually to emerge from the water; and then, with yells of triumph, the victors rushed into the water and gave the coup de grace to such of the apes as betrayed any signs of lingering life.

"Let draw the fore-sheet, Billy," said I. "We must go ashore and congratulate our friends upon their victory."

As the boat grounded on the beach I saw that several of the natives were still in the water, busily engaged in retrieving arrows from the bodies of their victims; but I had a shrewd suspicion that many of the arrows shot had been hopelessly lost; and the suspicion suggested an idea upon which I acted later on. But for the moment my attention was fully occupied by Bowata and his people, who crowded round us, all talking at once, some of them excitedly relating particular incidents of the adventure, while others were striving to express their gratitude to me for putting into their hands the means to defend themselves successfully against the most formidable raid that had ever been attempted by the apes.

On our way back to Eden I gave some consideration to the idea referred to above. It was this. Long as we had been on the group without sighting so much as the most distant glimpse of a sail, the hope was ever present that the day would eventually dawn when we should be rescued from our imprisonment, mild and even agreeable as it was in some respects; and when that day should arrive, what would happen to Bowata and his people? Who would continue to supply them with weapons of defence against their ferocious enemies? It was obvious that, from the moment of our departure from the group, they would be left entirely to their own resources; and to me it seemed that it would be only humane, if not my actual duty, to supply the means whereby it might be possible for them to replenish for themselves their supply of bows and arrows.

Now, how was this to be done? I could see nothing for it but to provide them with something in the nature of a boat wherein to navigate the channels, then to show Bowata where the wood for the bows and the shafts for the arrows could be obtained, and finally teach him and his people how to make bows and arrows for themselves. I fully realised that to present the savages with a boat might be a proceeding not altogether devoid of danger; for savages—even such apparently harmless savages as our neighbours—were apt to develop treacherous tendencies, and, once provided with a boat, it would be difficult to prevent them visiting our own particular island of Eden, when, if any of our possessions should chance to excite their cupidity, who could say what might happen? There was, of course, a way whereby this danger might be reduced to a minimum, and that was by so reducing the dimensions of the boat that she should be incapable of carrying more than two men at a time; and this I determined to do. As to material, there was plenty of such as I required to be obtained from the wreck, for I meant the boat to be of the simplest construction, being, in fact, nothing more than a miniature flat-bottomed Thames punt, to be propelled by a pair of paddles.

Having settled this matter to my satisfaction, I explained my intention to Billy that evening, as we sat together under the veranda discussing the events of the day by the light of a glorious full moon, with Kit sprawling as usual at my feet. My intention was to start next day with Billy for a trip to the wreck, where I proposed to remain until I had constructed the punt, which, I believed, could be done in something less than a week.

Starting immediately after breakfast, taking with us the carpenter's tool-chest, an ample supply of fruit and food, and of course Kit—who could not possibly be permitted to roam Eden at large and be deprived of our company for a whole week—the voyage was accomplished without incident, and we arrived at the wreck early in the afternoon. We found the old craft in every respect just as we had left her, excepting that her cabins, having been securely closed during our absence, were distinctly stuffy. This was soon remedied, however, by throwing back the companion slide and opening the skylight and all the scuttles, after which we filled in the remainder of the afternoon in making up the beds in the state-rooms and preparing generally for our week's sojourn. When all was done an hour or two of daylight still remained, which I utilised by preparing a sketch of my proposed punt. She was to be five feet long on her bottom, with a rising floor two feet long at each end, making her nine feet long over all, with a beam of four feet, and sufficient freeboard to enable her to carry two men safely in the tranquil waters of the inner channels. Being flat-bottomed, flat-sided, and square- ended, she was an easy model to build; there were no planks to be bent, and as the wreck afforded abundant material, and as we did not aim at such refinement of finish as was included in a coat of paint, we completed our task during the afternoon of the fifth day, even to putting her over the side into the water to "take up."

Leaving the wreck immediately after breakfast the next morning, with the punt in tow, we arrived at our anchorage in Eden Cove about half an hour before sunset, almost the whole of the passage being a beat to windward, while the towage of the punt further retarded our progress. We, however, found everything just as we had left it; and, although I think we enjoyed the little change involved in living on the wreck, we were glad to find ourselves once more "at home", particularly Kit, whose rambles had been restricted to the deck of the ship, and who displayed his delight at returning to the wider spaces of Eden by starting off at full gallop the moment his pads touched the sand, rushing out of sight and appearing no more until we reached the house, where we discovered the beggar squatted on the top steps of the veranda awaiting our arrival.

On the following morning, after breakfast, Billy and I got the boat under way and, with the punt in tow, sailed for Cliff Island. Running the boat in on the beach, we were quickly joined by Bowata, who informed us that four days earlier the apes, to the number of nine, had attempted another raid which, he proudly added, had been successfully repulsed, but at the expense of many lost arrows; and he hinted pretty broadly that a further gift of those very useful missiles would be highly appreciated. Whereupon I informed him that I intended to do even better than continue to furnish him and his people with bows and arrows—I was going to present them with means whereby they might procure the materials wherewith to make for themselves as many of those weapons as they pleased; and therewith I led him down to the beach and directed his attention to the punt.

Bowata looked at the craft and grunted his approval of her; but it was evident that he had not the remotest notion of how she was to be the means of providing him with bows and arrows; so, casting off her painter, Billy and I stepped into her and, paddling along close to the beach, showed the savage in a very practical manner how to handle her. Next, landing Billy and taking Bowata into the punt with me, I handed him a paddle, and, first directing his attention to the manner in which I manipulated my own, invited him to try his hand. He proved an apt pupil, and within the hour was able to manoeuvre the punt single-handed. Then, beaching the punt and securing her to a stake firmly driven into the beach, I invited Bowata and his son to enter the sailing boat, informing them that, having given them the means to navigate the channels, I now proposed to show them where to obtain the wherewithal from which to make as many bows and arrows as they desired.

The pair entered the boat with a distinct suggestion of trepidation; they could understand the punt, apparently, but they had evidently not yet grasped the fact that it was the wind that endowed the boat with mobility, and they seemed to regard her with distrust, as a magical craft that might as likely as not fly away with them, never to return. They were under the impression, it presently appeared, that we intended to turn them adrift to shift for themselves as best they could, but when I explained that Billy and I intended to go with them their fears vanished, and they seated themselves contentedly enough in the bottom of the boat in the places which I indicated. It was perfectly clear that not only they but also their fellow-savages regarded the expedition upon which we were embarking as a quite notable adventure, for they assembled in force to witness our departure, admiration and apprehension in about equal proportions being the dominant expressions upon the countenances of those we left behind us as the boat glided smoothly and rapidly away from the shore.

I took our guests, first of all, to West Island, upon which grew the trees from which I had obtained the wood found to be suitable for the making of bows; and, having directed Bowata's attention to the characteristic peculiarities of the trees, as distinguishing them from others, I shinned aloft into one of them, carrying with me a small hatchet that had come from the wreck, and proceeded to lop off about a dozen suitable branches which, with an ample supply of thorns to form arrow-heads, were duly placed aboard the boat. Then, shoving off again, we proceeded by way of the North-west Channel round to Shark Bay, in North Island, where, running the boat into the swamp, we cut a goodly stock of reeds from which to make shafts for the arrows. These two tasks, including the time occupied in sailing from place to place and returning, occupied the entire day, so that it was already dusk when, having landed Bowata and his son, and our cargo of branches and reeds, we arrived back at our own island of Eden.

The next day Billy and I again sailed for Cliff Island, where, with an old sheath knife as a tool, I showed Bowata how to make bows and arrows, at the same time presenting him with the hatchet, the knife, and a quantity of cord from which to make bow-strings. We spent three days with the natives, supervising their work of making bows and arrows; and by the time that they had used up all the material with which I had supplied them, they had attained to a degree of proficiency that I felt would justify me in leaving them henceforth to their own devices.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

ISLANDS OF FIRE!

We had by this time been on the group eight months; and although, with brief intervals spent in visits to the wreck, a sharp look-out for the appearance of a sail in the offing had been maintained, nothing had been sighted; and the disconcerting possibility now began to impress itself upon me that if I continued to trust only to such an occurrence for our deliverance we might spend years waiting for that event. Most fortunately, we had both thus far been blessed with perfect health; but it seemed too much to expect that this immunity from sickness or accident should continue indefinitely; and if both of us should chance to fall sick at the same time, what would be the result? Something very like panic seized me at the thought of such a possibility; I felt that I had been culpably foolish in relying so implicitly, and for so long a time, upon extraneous help; and the conviction forced itself upon me that I must at once take steps to effect our own deliverance.

Yet what could I do? The first idea that had suggested itself to me after the wreck of the brigantine was to build some sort of a craft in which we could effect our escape to civilisation; but after considering the matter I had come to the conclusion that such an undertaking would be altogether beyond my powers, with only Billy to assist me. No doubt I was helped to this conclusion by the conviction I then felt that something would certainly heave in sight within the next month or two to take us off. But with the lapse of time my confidence had insensibly waned, and I had accordingly set to work to make our stay upon the group as comfortable as might be. Now, however, I felt constrained to reconsider my original conclusion; and as a preliminary I took pencil and paper, drawing-instruments and scale, and proceeded to make tentative sketches of such a craft as I considered essential to enable us to make the voyage in safety and with a reasonable amount of comfort.

To insure these requirements I decided that the boat, whatever her dimensions, must be fully decked, and that she must be powerful enough to face and successfully battle with a whole gale of wind; also she must be capable of being handled by Billy and myself. Taking these requirements as a basis, I set to work upon my sketches.

The relative dimensions of the boat would be governed to a considerable extent by her rig. A cutter-rigged craft is more powerful than any other, but it is open to the objection that the mainsail—the cutter's most important sail—is an awkward sail to handle in a sudden emergency, if the craft happens to be short-handed, as we should be. I believed, however, that this difficulty might be overcome by watchfulness and the taking of timely precautions; therefore, after weighing the matter carefully, I decided in favour of the cutter rig. Bearing all the above requirements in mind, I set to work, and ultimately evolved a design for a craft thirty feet long on the water-line by ten feet beam, and six feet draught of water aft. To build a boat of these dimensions, with only Billy to help me, was a sufficiently ambitious project; but I had learned a good deal while building our existing boat; and, after all, I felt sure that if I should need more manpower, Bowata would willingly lend me some of his people. Also, realising that henceforth Billy and I would be fully occupied in building the new boat, the thought occurred to me that it was high time to secure such domestic help as would enable us to give our whole time and thought to our work without troubling about such matters as cooking, house-cleaning, and so on. Such help could only be obtained through Bowata. I therefore decided to seize an early opportunity to interview him upon the whole matter.

Meanwhile, however, now that I had at last determined to attempt the building of a sea-going boat, I was all impatience to make a beginning; and as I, further, came to the conclusion that the beginning—so far as the framing of the keel, stem, and sternpost was concerned—must be made aboard the wreck, where all the materials were at hand, we lost no time in again removing ourselves, with all necessary goods and chattels, to what remained of the Yorkshire Lass. Here I made a start by laying out, full-size, in chalk, upon the after-deck, an accurate outline of the keel, stem, and sternpost, which greatly facilitated my work. My chief difficulty, I discovered, was to find bolts at once of the required length and the necessary strength, since I could not possibly make them; and this difficulty absorbed so much time that we spent nearly a month on the wreck before the keel, stem, and sternpost were framed together in readiness to be set up on the beach at Eden, where I intended to do the remainder of the work.

The framework was much too big and heavy to be conveyed to Eden otherwise than by towing; and as the whole trip was more or less a beat to windward, the transport of it cost us two days, our arrival "home" occurring so late in the afternoon that there was no time to attempt anything further that day. But on the day following I sailed over to Bowata's island and explained to him my requirements, finding him more than eager to do anything and everything he could to oblige me. The domestic question was very easily arranged, Bowata suggesting that I should employ a man whom he could especially recommend, and who, with his two wives, would be able to do everything required in that particular direction; while as for labour for the building of the cutter, he assured me I might have as many men as I wished, for as long a time as I needed them. Nothing could be more satisfactory than this, the only point I felt doubtful about being the domestic part of the arrangement; but Billy settled this by undertaking to supervise the work until the man and his wives should be trained to efficiency; and the plan, when put into operation, worked excellently. The keel of the new boat being now ready, the next thing was to set it up, accurately plumb, longitudinally and transversely, upon the building blocks; and to do this I obtained the loan of twenty natives for a day, for the keel, with stem and sternpost attached, was much too heavy a mass of timber for Billy and me to manipulate without assistance; and with their help the work was most satisfactorily accomplished, they doing the manual work under Billy's guidance while I supervised and directed the adjustments that were frequently necessary. I next set up five stout moulds, one at the midship section of the boat, with two aft and two forward of it, giving the exact shape of the boat at those points, and to the moulds I firmly attached several temporary wales and stringers, thus obtaining a kind of skeleton giving an accurate idea of the form of the finished boat. And when I had got thus far with my work and inspected the result from various view-points, I was as much amazed at my own audacity in attempting so ambitious an undertaking as I was gratified at the appearance which it presented; for I saw before me the outline of a very shapely, yacht-like little ship that, if I knew anything of such matters, promised to be fast, weatherly, and a very fine sea-boat, quite capable of taking care of herself when hove-to, even in a heavy gale of wind. It was my intention to plank her upon the diagonal principle, using three thicknesses of comparatively thin plank, for I had no means by which to steam a single layer of planking of the necessary thickness and so render it pliable enough to bend to the correct shape; while I believed that by using thin plank I could bend it to shape unsteamed. I am getting somewhat ahead of my yarn, however; for the progress outlined above represented nearly three months' hard work, an appreciable proportion of which had to be done a second time, owing to my inexperience.

With the accession of our black helpers our domestic arrangements flourished exceedingly, the only difficulty we experienced in connection with them occurring during the first fortnight or three weeks after their arrival, the trouble arising with Kit, who violently resented their intrusion and had to be kept strictly tied up until he had learned to understand that he must in nowise interfere with them. But even after reaching this stage the natives had to be exceedingly careful how they conducted themselves in his presence, for he never advanced farther than the merest toleration of them, while when any of the other blacks were on Eden, assisting me to build the cutter, it was absolutely necessary to keep the beast closely confined to the house until they had left.

I very soon made the discovery that had I been obliged to depend solely upon the efforts of Billy and myself, I should have been compelled to abandon the idea of building the cutter at a very early stage of the operations. It was not so much that we found the work beyond our strength—although in that respect we were often glad enough to have a little additional help—but it was often necessary to have a plank or a waling, or some such matter, held firmly in position at half a dozen points or more at the same moment, while I fixed it; and it was on such occasions that I welcomed the assistance of the natives. And as such occasions occurred pretty frequently, it happened that I was kept au courant with everything of importance—and with a great deal that was exceedingly unimportant—that occurred on Cliff Island. Thus I came to know that, contrary to hope and expectation, the arming of the natives with bows and arrows, with the resulting destruction of the raiding apes, had been absolutely ineffective in checking the raids, which were now occurring more frequently and in greater force than ever. It appeared almost as though the brutes were possessed of sufficient intelligence to understand that something had happened rendering it no longer possible for attacks by small numbers to be successful, and that they were strengthening their attacking forces accordingly, with the evident determination to succeed ultimately at whatever cost. I was greatly vexed to hear this, for it was evident that the existence of such formidable beasts in the group constituted a growing menace to the human life in it; and I was wondering how this menace was to be fought, when Bowata and his people, without consulting me, made an attempt to solve the problem, which, for a short time at least, seemed to be crowned with success.

It was the height of summer, and there had been a spell of some six weeks of very hot, dry weather, when on a certain morning, as Billy and I, with some natives, were at work upon the cutter, the lad directed my attention to a thin cloud of light brownish-blue smoke rising in the air beyond Cliff Island. There was a gentle easterly breeze blowing at the time, sweeping the smoke away in the direction of West Island, and, as we watched, the cloud rapidly increased in density, its colour darkened, and, somewhat to my astonishment, it seemed to spread in an easterly direction, or against the wind. It soon became clear that it was the forest on Apes' Island that had caught fire; and it was equally evident that, thanks to the long dry spell, and to the fanning of the easterly breeze, the fire was spreading with great rapidity; for within twenty minutes of the appearance of the first light film of smoke we were able to see, over the eastern extremity of Cliff Island, the flames speeding up the hill-side, toward the conical summit of the island, preceded by so vast a volume of smoke that it completely veiled the hills of West Island from our sight. While Billy and I stood watching the rapid march of the flames, one of the natives, noticing our interest in the spectacle, approached and informed us that Bowata and one of his sons, determined to drive the apes off Apes' Island, had that morning crossed Apes' Channel in the punt which I had given them, with the avowed intention of setting the entire island on fire, beginning at its northern extremity—in order to drive the apes away from that part of the island from whence they were wont to start to swim the channel—and thence working round the shore to the eastern extremity of the island, hoping thus to drive the anthropoids in a westerly and southerly direction, right away from Cliff Island. As Apes' Island was everywhere densely covered with forest and undergrowth it was exceedingly probable that, unless something unforeseen occurred to extinguish the fire, every living thing upon it would be destroyed, except such creatures as might essay to swim the Middle Channel and take refuge upon West Island.

But as the day progressed, and the fire advanced, spreading ever more rapidly as great volumes of sparks were borne by the wind on ahead of the main body of flame, kindling subsidiary fires in advance, I began to doubt whether West Island would escape, remembering as I did that there was a stretch of the Middle Channel which was little more than half a mile wide, across which such a tremendous volume of sparks as now filled the air might easily be wafted. Toward evening my anticipation in this respect was verified, for upon ascending to the summit of our own peak on Eden, at the conclusion of our day's work, we saw that not only was the surface of Apes' Island an unbroken expanse of black, smoking ashes and charred tree-stumps, but that the fire had leaped Middle Channel, and practically the whole eastern side of West Island was a mass of flame. The destruction of life would of course be enormous; but such glimpses as had thus far been afforded us of the animal life upon the group seemed to indicate that it was inimical to mankind; and if its destruction involved that of the apes, it was not to be greatly regretted.

I waited three days to allow the ashes to cool, and then, taking Billy with me, sailed for the Middle Channel, running the boat ashore on Apes' Island at a spot where a stream of fresh water discharged into the narrowest part of the channel. Here we landed, and started to walk eastward over and through ashes that were ankle-deep and in places still unpleasantly hot. I was quite prepared to find evidences that the destruction of animal life had been tremendous; but even so I was amazed at the innumerable scorched and shrivelled carcasses of creatures that had made their way to the water's edge and had there perished, probably suffocated by the smoke because they had feared to take to the water. They lay thick upon the ground, huddled together, as far as the eye could reach to the right and left of the spot where we landed, and the odour of burnt flesh was almost overpowering, while flies and birds swarmed about them in legions. The remains were mostly so far consumed as to be impossible of identification, but here and there we came upon what, judging from the skull and teeth, had once been a creature of the cat tribe, probably a leopard; while the skeletons of snakes—some of them, from their dimensions, evidently pythons—were numerous. We also came upon several carcasses of what I thought might have been boars; but, if they were, the creatures must have been huge specimens of their kind. There were also a few calcined skeletons of animals that must have been as big as or bigger than a British dray-horse, but of very different build. They did not suggest any animal with which I was acquainted, and I was quite unable to put a name to them. We walked two miles or more inland before turning back, but nowhere did I see anything suggesting the destruction of so much as a solitary ape, at which I was in nowise surprised, for I felt sure that the apes at least would be able to keep well ahead of the fire, and make good their escape to West Island. But West Island was, like Apes' Island, a fire-blackened ruin as far as the eye could see, toward both the north and the south; and if the fire had swept clean across the island to its western shore, it would mean another holocaust, in which the apes also would be involved, for there was no retreat, no sanctuary beyond West Island. It was too late to push our investigations farther that day, but I resolved that on the morrow I would see what the western side of West Island looked like. Accordingly, eight o'clock in the morning of the following day found Billy and me emerging from the North-west Channel into the lagoon, and hauling round to the southward to skirt the western shore of West Island.

We needed not to travel so far as this, however, to discover that at least part of West Island had escaped the ravages of fire, for upon our arrival off the south-western extremity of Cliff Island we saw that, owing to the greatly increased width of the Middle Channel at that point, the direction of the wind, and the peculiar configuration of the island itself, an area which I roughly estimated at about a hundred square miles, at its northern extremity, had been untouched by the flames; and this area of forest, although probably little more than a quarter of that of the whole island, would still afford cover for a good many animals, had they the sense—or the instinct—to escape to it.

It was not until we had rounded the northern extremity of West Island and had followed the west coast southward for a distance of about eleven miles that we again came upon the ruin wrought by the flames, which, we found, had swept right across the island, leaving the area above referred to untouched, while to the southward, as far as the eye could see, all was black ruin and desolation. At this point, too, signs of the devastation wrought upon the animal life of the island began to reveal themselves in the shape first of isolated carcasses, and then of groups of the same, rapidly becoming more numerous and more crowded as the boat glided along southward within a stone's throw of the beach.

As I was exceedingly anxious to discover whether or not the apes had escaped the destruction that had overtaken the other creatures inhabiting the two fire-stricken islands, we landed at various points along the beach, and made short investigating excursions inland, coming upon the remains of animals and reptiles of several different kinds—the variety indeed was astonishing—including, I regretted to see, two or three varieties of deer; and at length we found the half-consumed carcasses of three apes, close together; but we found no more that day. It was by this time drawing on toward sunset; accordingly we made sail for the wreck of the brigantine, and took up our quarters aboard her for the night.

Early on the following morning we resumed our inspection of West Island, starting at the point where we had left off on the previous evening, and on this day we came upon the remains of two more apes, several miles apart. But although those five carcasses of apes were all that we found, it was of course quite possible that there might have been many more, for our excursions inland were necessarily of very limited extent. To have made anything approaching a complete examination of the burnt area would have been the work of weeks, rather than of days, and I was indisposed to devote very much time to such an undertaking. Moreover, the effluvium arising from so many rapidly decomposing carcasses was, of itself, a sufficient deterrent.

But slight and limited as was our examination, it sufficed to prove that the island must have literally swarmed with animal life, several species of which were, as in the case of those found on Apes' Island, quite new to me; and late in the day, having extended our walk to the crest of a hill, we discovered that there was, a little south of the middle of the island, a triangular-shaped lake, about six miles long by about five miles broad at its western end, that had served to protect and preserve a clump of forest about two miles long; and the sounds that proceeded from it indicated that many animals had found sanctuary there. By the time that we had completed our survey it was too late to think of returning to Eden that day, so we again bore up for the wreck, spending that night aboard her and returning to our own island on the day following.

On our way back I touched at Cliff Island and had a chat with Bowata, relating to him the result of our trip of inspection. I told him that we had seen very few dead apes, and hazarded the conjecture that the brutes, retreating before the flames on their own island, had swum the Middle Channel to West Island, on the northern and unburnt portion of which they might have established themselves. But when he suggested that this portion also of the island should be set on fire, to make assurance doubly sure, I very strongly demurred, pointing out that, even if my conjecture should be correct, the unburned forest would doubtless be swarming with animal life other than that of the apes, and that it would be a very great pity to destroy it all in order to effect the extermination of the apes, unless such a drastic measure should prove to be imperatively necessary.

After the little break following upon the firing of Apes' Island I returned with enthusiasm to work upon the cutter, and in the course of a month used up all the available material which I had thus far accumulated, necessitating another visit to the wreck to obtain more. I collected as large a quantity as I believed I could conveniently handle, and, forming it into a raft, took it in tow for transport to Eden. The passage, that under ordinary conditions could easily be accomplished in a single day, occupied five days, and was, I think, the toughest job I had ever undertaken in my life, the raft being so deadly sluggish in movement that it was impossible to tow it to windward; and finally I found myself compelled to kedge it more than half the way. But I was glad when I had at length brought it safely into the cove and anchored it there, for I now had enough material to carry on with for at least four months. I estimated that another raft of equal size would suffice to complete the cutter, and, notwithstanding the difficulties that I had just encountered, I felt strongly inclined to return forthwith to the wreck and procure a sufficiency for all future needs; but I was very tired after my labours, and I finally persuaded myself to postpone the task for a while—to my subsequent intense regret.

The anniversary of the wreck of the Yorkshire Lass arrived and passed. We had been a whole year on the group, and, so far as we knew, not a solitary sail of any description had come within sight of the islands during the whole of those twelve months. It was an astounding, incomprehensible fact; I had never really anticipated such a possibility. With the passage of each day, each week, each month, I had said to myself—with gradually waning assurance certainly—"It cannot be long now before a craft of some sort comes along to take us off," until the moment when it suddenly dawned upon me that if we were ever to escape, it must be through our own efforts—my own especially. This conviction now came upon me with overwhelming force; my hopes of deliverance by means of some extraneous agency suddenly sank to zero, and I began to work with such febrile energy that it presently drew from Billy a steadily growing flood of remonstrance.

I had by this time expended so much of my material that I was in the very act of preparing for another visit to the wreck to obtain more when poor Billy fell sick of some sort of a fever. Within three hours of his seizure he became delirious and was so extremely violent that—he being by this time a strong sturdy boy—I was obliged to at once drop everything else to look after him and see that he did not injure himself during the more severe paroxysms. Of course I had long ago taken the precaution to secure possession of the ship's medicine-chest, with its accompanying book of instructions; but the latter afforded me little help, for I could find in it no case the symptoms of which quite corresponded with those of my patient, and I was therefore compelled to rely very much upon my own judgment, and upon the instructions for the treatment of fevers in general. A liberal administration of quinine seemed to constitute the most hopeful form of treatment, and luckily we possessed an ample supply of the drug. I accordingly dosed Billy with it for close upon sixty hours, when the delirium ceased and the poor boy sank into a semi-stupor of exhaustion, which enabled one of the native women to relieve me by watching at the patient's bedside. I had by this time been without sleep for two nights and more than three days, and I was therefore glad enough to be free to retire to my own room to rest for an hour or two. Arrived there, I removed my boots and then, without troubling to remove further clothing, flung myself upon my bed and instantly sank into complete oblivion.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

WE EXTERMINATE THE APES.

I was aroused to consciousness by the flash of a dazzling light upon my closed eyelids, accompanied by the crash of a terrific clap of thunder. Opening my eyes I discovered that the room was in opaque darkness— showing that I must have been allowed to sleep at least eight hours; but even as I swung my feet to the floor and started to grope for my boots, while the reverberations of the thunder-clap still rumbled and echoed in the distance, there came another blinding flash of lightning, instantly followed by a deafening crash of thunder; and, getting my bearings by the illumination of the lightning, I started to my feet and, forgetting my boots, rushed to Billy's bedside, apprehensive of what might be the effect of the storm upon him.