Palm Tree Island

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

  OF OUR RETREAT TO THE RED ROCK, AND OF OUR VARIOUS RAIDS UPON OURPROPERTY

  We had one great advantage over the seamen in that we knew every yardof the island, and so could find our food without searching. Billylaughed when he thought of them having to get their own breakfast, andwishing they had not driven us away; but I said that they had notintended to drive us away, but that Hoggett expected to daunt and cowus, and so make us his bond servants. "Well, he _must_ be a fool,"says Billy, and chuckled again to think that his old enemy hadover-reached himself. Presently we saw that I was right in my surmise,for we heard men shouting in different parts of the island, and guessedthey were seeking us; but we kept close all that day, feeling prettysure that the men would not come up the mountain until they hadsearched other parts.

  We were not idle this day, for we at once set about making a raft tocarry us round to the cave, using saplings and creepers for thispurpose, fashioning them into a kind of hurdle which we hoped wouldsupport us well enough, or at least one of us, for the short voyage.We laughed again to think that when we should have got our canoe again,we might if we pleased sail clean away from the island and seek anotherhome without let or hindrance from the seamen; but we never had anyserious thought of this, Palm Tree Island being now our very home. Asfor what our course of action was to be, we very earnestly consideredthat while our fingers were busy with the raft. It was plain we couldnot fight the men, for they had muskets and powder and shot enough tokill us, being only two; and we were without any weapons save our axes,which we always carried in our belts, all the others being either inthe hut or in the cellar below it. If we did not fight them, we mustnevertheless be either friends or enemies; friends we could not bewhile Hoggett maintained his present insolency, and as enemies we couldbut keep out of their way. But I saw we should lead a terrible life ifwe remained on the island and were harried from place to place, andhunted down, and maybe captured and made slaves of in the end. Wemight, to be sure, go and live in the cave, where it was little likelythat we should be discovered, and if we were we could no doubt make avery good defence; but we did not relish the prospect of skulking, soto speak, in the dim purlieus of the cave and tunnel while our enemieswere ranging the island free, and enjoying the full use of what we hadlaboured so hard for. "I can't a-bear to think of Hoggett drinking outof _my_ mug," says Billy, with a rueful countenance, "and blunting _my_spears, and wasting _my_ arrows, and eating our pigs, too, master.What if they eat 'em all, as they did in their own island, and don'tleave none for breeding? Oh, that Hoggett! Wouldn't I like to dropsome fizzy rock in his water and poison him!"

  [Sidenote: Quandary]

  This was indeed a thing to be thought of, and we made up our minds atleast to secure some of our pigs and devise some secret place where wemight keep them. But the first matter to settle was our ownhabitation, and it was near the close of the day before the notion cameinto my head that we might choose the Red Rock, which being severedfrom the island would be quite inaccessible, except by a bridge, andwhen we had possession of our bows and arrows we could easily preventthem from throwing a bridge across. It would have been quite foreignto Billy's nature and habit if he had fallen in with this plan withoutdemur, and he said at once that Red Rock was quite barren, save for afew stunted bushes which were of no good either for shelter or food."But," I said to him, "we shall have our canoe, and we can carry storesin this from the cavern to the rock, and we can make shift to put upsome sort of shelter against the weather, which isn't very bad."

  "That's true," says he, "but when our stores are all used up, whatthen? We've got enough in our cellar for three or four months,perhaps, and I lay Hoggett would like to get hold of some of our saltedpork, as good as bacon any day; but it won't last for ever, and whatthen?"

  "I can't see so far ahead," said I. "We can live very comfortably forthree or four months, and perhaps longer, and by that time somethingmay have happened."

  "Yes," says he, "Old Smoker may start work again, and if he does I hopehe'll go strong, so that they'll be scared out of their wits and droveto make a raft or boat or something to get away."

  Having determined on this, therefore, we made great speed with our raftand finished it before dark, but not soon enough to set off that samenight, nor indeed did we much wish to do so, because we had not forgotthe monsters that used to live in the cave, and though we had seen nonesince we poisoned them, we were still squeamish about approaching inthe dark. Besides, we should need torches to light us up the tunnel toour storehouse, and for these we had to collect some of the candlenuts,and some dry grass for tinder; the flint and what we called the steelBilly always had in his pocket. We made these preparations before welay down to rest, resolved to start as soon as ever we saw any sign ofdawn in the sky. This resolution, as often happens in such cases,caused me to sleep fitfully, and it was in one of these wakeful spacesthat a notion jogged in my head of a plan whereby we might get evenwith the seamen and come into our own again. I thought of it over andover again, and it excited me and tickled my fancy too; but Idetermined to say nothing about it to Billy until I had pondered itmore carefully, so that I should be ready to meet all the objectionswhich I knew he would raise.

  It was still dark, but there was a sort of silent stirring in the sky,betokening dawn, when I waked Billy, who was snoring very happily uponhis back, and told him we must convey our raft down to the shore, if wewould come to the cave before the men were about. He got up at once,and we carried the raft between us across the island, being careful tokeep a good distance from the hut, which made the way longer but surer.Being merely a kind of hurdle, the raft was not heavy and gave us notrouble by its weight, though it was troublesome to get it over thesteep places we had to pass on our way down to the shore. However, wecame there without mishap, at the sandy beach, and launched the raft;but when I stood upon it I saw that it would not support Billy as well,and I proposed to him that I should go to the cave alone and bring backthe canoe for him. This he flatly and with great vehemence refused,saying that I might never get there, what with sharks and long-leggedmonsters, and that he wasn't going to be left behind, but would shareeverything with me. When I asked him how he would go, the raft notbeing strong enough for two, he said he would catch hold of it and swimalong, and as for sharks, he would kick out very hard and so scare anythat came, and we always had our axes. But now I took a firm stand,and said plainly that I would not allow any such thing, nor did I yieldto Billy's pleading that I would permit him to make the journey alone;and so I set off, and not to make a long story about a short voyage, Iarrived safely at the cave, and found the canoe just as we had left herbehind the rocks. Then I went back for Billy, and when we came to thecave again we lit our torch (we had brought only one, having materialfor plenty more in the cavern), and proceeded up the tunnel until wereached our storehouse, where we first of all had a good breakfast,thinking all the time of the seamen above, perfectly ignorant of whatwas going on beneath them. We spoke in whispers and moved veryquietly, so that the men should not hear us, and get an inkling of ourwhereabouts; not that there was much danger of this, perhaps, for ifthey did hear a sound it was like to make them more fearful thaninquisitive, and Billy said they would be sure to think it was OldSmoker talking to himself, and they might then leave the hut as adangerous place. But I thought it best to run no risks that we couldavoid, and so we moved very softly, as I have said.

  We spent the whole of that day in conveying stores down to our canoe,finding it a very laborious and tedious business, because thenarrowness of the first part of the tunnel, and the roughness of theway, did not allow us to bear such heavy loads as we might have done inthe open. We felt an itching curiosity to know what the men weredoing, and how they took our disappearance, and Billy said it would begreat fun to sail round the island and show ourselves to them, for wecould run back to the cave at any time, and they would never know wherewe had gone, the cave not being visible from above, and the cliffuns
calable. But our posture was too serious for mere fun, especiallyas I did not wish the men even to know we were still alive, because ofthat notion which had come into my head; and it was for the same reasonthat I had resolved not to attempt to transport our stores to the RedRock until the dusk of evening, when the men would have given overtheir roaming and returned to the hut. When we rested from our work,and ate our meals, we paddled the canoe out to the mouth of the cave,where we could be in the sunshine and fresh air, and away from theexceeding noisome stench made by our torches; and it was really apleasant enough day, the seamen not being able to molest us.

  [Sidenote: Retreat to Red Rock]

  Accordingly, as soon as it was dusk, with a promise of a full, clearmoon, we set off, and paddled our well-laden canoe to the north side ofthe Red Rock, where, as I have said, was the only landing-place.Having moored our vessel securely to a peak of rock, we set to work tocarry our cargo up the steep path, and found this the hardest task wehad ever undertaken, so that though we toiled pretty nearly all nightwe had not above half emptied the canoe by the morning. It was verystupid of us to work so hard, as we saw when we had tired ourselves outto dropping, for being on the side of the rock furthest from the islandwe could not be seen from thence, and might have taken three or fourdays over the work if we pleased. The manner of our carrying thestores up was to load baskets and strap them to our backs; but one partof the ascent was too steep for us to climb thus laden, and we thentied the baskets in turn to the end of a rope, and one climbed up firstand hauled the baskets after him, with much bumping against the ruggedside, which made me fear lest we should lose a good deal. However,nothing was lost save two or three cocoa-nuts and the lid of one of mypots, which was full of bread-fruit paste, so that I was glad it wasonly the lid and not the pot itself. The danger thus narrowly escapedtaught us a lesson, and when it came to our largest pots, instead oftrying to carry them up full, we emptied their contents into thebaskets, and so made several light loads instead of one heavy one, thusavoiding a particular mishap.

  When morning came, as I say, we had carried up but half our cargo, andhaving by that time perceived that there was no need for haste, werefreshed ourselves with one or two cocoa-nuts we had, not lighting afire to cook anything else, in case its smoke should be seen by theseamen. This consideration somewhat damped our liking for our newabode, for we had been so long accustomed to good and well-cooked mealsthat the prospect of living on nothing but cocoa-nuts, as on our firstcoming to the island, was mighty displeasing; and, moreover, we hadonly a very few cocoa-nuts, not having stored many of these because wecould get them from the trees all the year round. However, I toldBilly that I thought we could light a fire at night, for it was scarcelikely that the men would be abroad in the darkness at one of the highparts of the island, from which alone the top of the Red Rock could beseen, and he was comforted at this, saying that he didn't mind coldbreakfast and dinner if he had hot supper. After our frugal breakfastwe laid ourselves down to sleep, under the shadow of an overhung rock,and did not waken until the sun was very high. Being then exceedingthirsty I remembered the water we had found at the bottom of a cleftwhen we first came to the rock, and we let down a pitcher by a ropeinto one of the clefts, and when we drew it up we found it full ofdelicious cold water with scarcely any taste to it; and though,remembering the water of Brimstone Lake, we drank sparingly at first,we found that it did us no hurt, and indulged ourselves with morecopious draughts than we had ever taken since we had lived on theisland. We waited until the heat of the day was past before we resumedour unlading, and we did not finish it until next day, sleeping prettynear all through the night. When we had got everythingup--bread-fruit, yams, salted flesh and fish, ropes, spears, bows andarrows, strips of hide and bark cloth, and sundry other things which wethought we might find useful--we packed them as snugly as we couldunder ledges and in hollows, and covered over the perishables withcloth to keep off dew and rain, and then we thought about ourselves,and how we could make the barren rock a habitable place. It would beeasy enough to build a cabin or lean-to against the rocky wall if weonly had the materials; but there was nothing serviceable to be foundon the spot, and to get them we must venture back to the island. Thiswe could only do in the hours of darkness, or immediately after dawn,but the idea of this rather pleased us with its venturesomeness, andbeing now equipped with our weapons we were bold enough. In the earlyhours of the morning, therefore, we paddled round through the archwayuntil we reached the rock by the lava beach, where Billy had perched onour first day, and leaving Billy and Little John to guard the canoe, Iwent into the woods with my axe, carrying also my bow and arrows, tocut some saplings and rushes, and some creepers to bind thingstogether. I promised Billy I would come back after a while and let himtake his turn, but I had not been working above half-an-hour, I shouldthink, when he joined me, saying he was sure the canoe would be safe,because it was hidden behind the rock, and there was nothing to bringthe men to that part of the island, because he would take his davy theynever bathed, of which indeed I myself had had good evidence; andbesides, he said, he had left Little John to guard it. I was glad ofBilly's help, for between us we cut a good deal of material in a veryshort time; but I did not like leaving the canoe to the sole charge ofthe dog, and resolved not to come again in the morning, but only in theevening, there being much less danger of meeting the men then.Accordingly I did not wait until we had got enough material for ourpurpose, but said we would finish the job another time; and we carriedthe stuff to the canoe, making two journeys to do it, and so got backto the Red Rock safely.

  We spent the rest of that day in making, with the things we hadbrought, a kind of trellis-work to serve as the front and side walls ofour lean-to, for the back wall was the rock itself. We had not nearenough to finish the job, but enough to keep us employed all that day;and a little before dusk we set off again to paddle to the island tofetch more. And this time, as soon as we had got enough saplings andreeds and things, we went on to the smaller cocoa-nut grove, therebeing a very good moon, purposing to carry away a few ripe cocoa-nutsfor our own consumption; but when we were gathering them from the treesit came into my head that we might as well begin upon that notion Ihave before mentioned, which was nothing less than to starve the seameninto repentance and humbleness of spirit. I had not as yet told it toBilly, but I had pondered it myself, and thought I saw my way to it,and so I now began suggesting to Billy that we should strip the treesof all the ripe fruit. "What's the good, master?" says he at once, asI knew he would: "it will take us a long time to carry 'em all to thecanoe, and we don't want 'em, not really."

  "No," said I, "but Hoggett does want 'em," and then I told him mydrift. I was afraid he would spoil it all with shouting, for he openedhis mouth wide to let it forth, but remembered himself in time, and soshut his mouth on a sort of hoarse croak, which might have seemed toany one that heard it the croak of some strange animal or bird.

  "My eye!" says he, "that's prime, master. However did you think of it?But we'll have to come pretty often, because these here cocoa-nuts getripe so fast. 'Tis lucky the bread-fruit ain't in season yet, and theyams is nearly all gone; but there's the pigs and fowls, drat it, andif they use all them up too we'll never get no more."

  [Sidenote: Stealing no Robbery]

  "That's true," I said, "but we shall maybe be able to get some of themby and by. At any rate, let us get the cocoa-nuts now, and we need nottrouble to take them all to the canoe. We will take just what we need,and hide the rest in the undergrowth."

  Accordingly we stripped the ripe fruit from all the trees at this spot;there were only about half-a-dozen; and having concealed all the nutsbut two or three that we wanted for our own refreshment, we carriedthese to the canoe, and paddled back to the Red Rock, where we broiledsome fish steaks for second supper, our work having made us hungry, andso to sleep.

  Next day we finished our lean-to, making walls and roof of thetrellis-work I have mentioned, and being very tired we went to sleepwi
thout paying another visit to the island. I thought we were doingvery well, and the only thing that gave me any concern was our canoe,for we had no very safe harbourage for it on the rock, and if a stormcame I was afraid the sea might wash it from the ledge on which it lay,and then we should be in a lamentable fix. However, as we usually hadsome warning of bad weather, in the low flying of seabirds and othersigns we had become used to observe, we determined at the first warningto take the canoe into the cave and lie up there until the storm waspast. Of course we could not do this if the storm broke upon ussuddenly in the night, but in that matter we must simply trust toProvidence.

  All necessary work on the Red Rock being done, we began to find timehang somewhat heavy on our hands. Our asylum (as I may call it) was nomore than some two hundred feet square; at least, the habitable part ofit was no more: and having explored every get-at-able corner of it, andfinding nothing to reward us except a few seabirds' eggs, we hadnothing to do; and to lie about looking at each other was vastlyuninteresting. We clambered to the highest point, and there, undercover of a craggy rock that overhung the island, we looked over thedomain from which we had been expelled, and I scarce think Adam himselfwas more grieved at the loss of Eden than we were now. We could notsee our hut, but a great part of the island between it and the sea, tothe westward and southward, was open to our view, and of course themountain, and the long slope that ran downwards from the crater to thearchway. Once or twice we caught glimpses of the seamen as they roamedthe island, and then Billy's wrath and indignation knew no bounds, andhe pleaded with me to land and post ourselves behind trees, and shootthe men with our arrows, but this of course I would not consent to,having besides in my mind a better way of dealing with them. And Ibade Billy remember that they must be very uneasy at not lighting onany traces of us, to which he replied scornfully, "Suppose they are,what's the odds? They'll soon believe as how we are drownded, and thenthey'll be jolly enough, using our things and all."

  "Maybe they'll be afraid of seeing our ghosts," I said.

  "That would frighten 'em, wouldn't it?" says he. "Fancy old Wabberley,now, seeing a thing all white come creeping along, making gashlysounds, and all that; wouldn't he holla and cry for mercy! I wish wecould turn into ghosts for once, only I suppose we can't till we'redead, and I don't want to be dead, do you, master?"

  The next night chanced to be stormy, with a high wind, and we heardthat strange howling I have before mentioned, and of which we had neverdiscovered the cause, for it was clear no dogs made it, there beingnone now on the island. But on sailing our canoe to the cave, forsafety's sake, we learnt at last what made the noise, which was nothingless than the wind blowing across the mouth of the cave. Billy saidthe sound would frighten the men as well as any ghost could do it, andI think he was himself pleased to know that the explanation was sosimple and natural.

  The weather cleared next day, and we returned to the Red Rock. Beingdetermined to set off for the island that very night, and begin to putinto practice the scheme I had been forming in my mind, we had a goodsleep in the afternoon, and embarked in the canoe just after sunset.The moon was up, but we did not suppose the seamen would wander fromthe hut at night-time, and the moonlight would help us. When welanded, we went up to the cocoa-nut grove, and began to strip the treesof all the nuts, ripe and unripe, starting with those that werefurthest from the hut, and so were the least likely to be known as yetby the men. We conveyed the nuts, in the baskets we had brought on ourbacks, to the canoe; and then, Billy being still mighty concerned aboutthe pigs, lest they should all be killed and eaten, we determined to govery stealthily towards the hut, to see if we might anyways get a pigfrom the sty, and also to learn what the men had done about oursettlement. Spying down upon the place, we saw that the door of thehut was open, and that the drawbridge was not laid across the moat, sothat we supposed all the men were sleeping within. But as we drewnearer, and came close to the fowl-house, we were surprised by greatsnores proceeding from it, by which we knew that some of the men hadmade it their lodging, though we could not guess what they had donewith the fowls which they had turned out. They had let them loose, aswe afterwards discovered, never supposing that they would have anydifficulty in catching them when they wanted them for food; and we werevery much amused when we learnt of their anger and amazement at findingthat the fowls had betaken themselves to inaccessible places, so thatthey never had but two or three all the time they were on the island.

  I thought there would be too great a risk in trying to purloin one ofour pigs, the sty being not above a dozen yards from the fowl-house,but Billy would do it, and assured me he would get one of the youngones as easy as anything. Accordingly I let him go, and sure enough hecame back in no long time carrying one of the piglets close in hisarms, and I had not heard above one feeble squeal, the reason I heardno more being that Billy slipped into the little pig's mouth a bit ofcocoa-nut he happened to have in his pocket. But Billy himself was ina furious temper, telling me, when we had gotten ourselves safe away,that he had seen his best axe, and his own wooden spade, on which hehad carved the initial letter of his name, lying close by the pig-sty,and he was perfectly overcome with anger at the thought that his veryown tools were being used by these sacrilegious hands. Nothing wouldsatisfy him but that he must go back and bring them away, which he did,and we took them and the pig down to our canoe, and paddled back to theRed Rock, very well satisfied with our night's work.

  The next night we paid another visit to the island, and this time wewent to the plantation of yams, finding, as we half expected, that themen had already made some depredations on it. Having brought spades aswell as baskets, we dug up a good many of the yams that remained, andcarried them to the canoe in two or three trips. We continued theseexpeditions night after night, finding a certain fascination in them,and being tickled with the thought that while the men were lapped inslumber we were gradually depriving them of their means of subsistence."'Tis just like housebreakers, ain't it, master?" said Billy gleefullyonce; "only there ain't no watchman to cop us. And what's more, itain't wrong neither, for a man ain't doing no wrong if he takes what'shis very own." Night by night we drew nearer to the hut, and hadworked so often without the least alarm that we flattered ourselvesthere would soon be no more fruit to gather, and then, as Billy said,Hoggett would begin to starve.

  One night, the seventh or eighth, I should think, since we began, wehad brought our canoe to the strip of sand beside the lava beach, andhad gone up to a small clump of trees which we had not been able tostrip completely the night before. Billy had gone aloft, being nimblerin climbing than me, and I was about to follow him, when all of asudden he called out, quite loud, his surprise making him to be off hisguard, that there wasn't a single cocoa-nut left. Immediatelyafterwards I heard him say, not so loud, "Oh geminy, now I've been anddone it!" and began to slide down very rapidly; but in a moment I hearda loud crackling of twigs close by, and then a shout, "Here's thedevils!" and I knew that the men were upon us; it was plain they hadobserved how the fruits were disappearing night by night, and had beenon the watch for us. Billy came down the tree more quickly than anymonkey could have done, with great damage to his hands and still moreto his breeches, as we afterwards discovered, the bark-cloth with whichwe had patched them being clean torn away, so that "the rent was madeworse," as the Bible says. His feet were no sooner on the ground thanwe set off a-running with all our might towards the canoe, and we hadnot got above fifty yards when some of the men broke from cover and ranafter us, shouting the most terrible curses. We had to go about twohundred yards before we came to the edge of the cliff, but being muchmore nimble on our feet than the seamen we did not lose ground, butrather gained; and arriving at the edge, we immediately began todescend towards the sea, in such haste that I am sure no two men evercame so near to breaking their necks. The cliff, as I have saidbefore, was exceeding steep and rough, and the descent was all the moreperilous because it was night, though moonlit; and to this day I marvelthat we
came safe to the bottom. There was nothing that could becalled a path; we could only scramble down as best we might, trustingto luck, or rather to Providence; and though we escaped with our lives,and our limbs sound, yet our feet and legs were pretty badly cut by thesharp edges of rock. The seamen, when they came to the brink, did notdare to follow us, but caught up stones and hurled them down upon us,and if they had been able to take good aim we must certainly have beenkilled. However, we came safe to the beach and to our canoe, intowhich we leapt and paddled away as quickly as we could, and the menspying us set up a great howl of rage, and I was vexed they had seenour vessel, but it could not be helped. They ran along the top of thecliff watching us, the moon being up, as I said; but we disappearedfrom their view so soon as we had come beneath the cliffs, and then, sothat they should not know of our refuge on the Red Rock, we lay for agood while in the entrance to Dismal Cave, not proceeding further untilwe thought the men would have returned to their quarters.

  Billy was exceeding vexed to think that his careless outcry had had sountoward an issue. "I could knock my head off, master," he criedpassionately, and when I asked him what good that would be he said,"Well, I couldn't stick it on again, could I? Only I have got a sillytongue." I told him that he need not reproach himself, for I was surethe men had been on the watch for us, having no doubt observed thenightly disappearance of the fruits. "Yes," says Billy, "but if theyhadn't spied us they might ha' thought they was taken by goblins orsuch," to which I replied that I did not think goblins fed on suchsubstantial fare, and so by degrees I brought him to a more tranquilframe of mind. I thought it very likely that the men would now guesswhat our purpose was, and gather in all the foodstuffs that were left,so that there would be none for us to venture for; wherefore we mustleave the further working out of our plan to time. Accordingly, wewent no more from the Red Rock to the island, except once, and that wasto get another pig as mate to the one we had already captured. Wedelayed to do this for several days, until we thought the men would notbe so carefully on guard as they would be immediately after theirdiscovery of us; but when we did venture to land and creep near to thepig-sty, we feared our errand was impossible, because the men had litan open fire near the hut and we saw two of them on watch. However,Billy said he was not going to be beat, and he asked me to go into thewoods and make a terrible noise, which he thought would draw the menaway, and so give him an opportunity of seizing the pig. I would notconsent to this at first, for it seemed like leaving the dangerous partof the work to Billy; but he insisted that he could get the pig moreeasily than I could, which was true, and so I agreed at last, butthought of another way instead of making a noise, and that was to gointo a clump of trees on the other side of the hut from the pig-sty,and there strike a light, which I doubted not would be seen by the men.Knowing the country as I did, it would be easy to escape down to thecanoe, which we had left this time in the little cove on the east ofthe island, guessing that the men would make for the sandy beach ifthey suspected our presence. There was a risk, of course, that not allthe men would be drawn towards the light, but we had to chance that,and so I departed, bidding Billy have a very great care.

  The plan answered perfectly to his expectation, only it took somewhatlonger than he thought, for I was not so used to striking fire asBilly, and I failed so many times that I feared I should never do it.But at last I got a light, and set some dry grass on fire, and therewas a mighty blaze, and Billy told me afterwards that the moment theysaw it the men who were on watch jumped to their feet and ran towardsthe hut, not being able to reach it because the drawbridge was takenaway. I myself heard their shout, and having thrown some more grass onthe fire, I sped away towards the east, and waited for Billy at theedge of the wood on the cliffs, wondering how he would come, whetheracross the lava tract or the very much longer way round the mountain.I heard the shouting continue for some time, but it seemed to be goingaway from me, at which I was very glad; and after what seemed a verylong time, I heard a little noise close at hand, and holding myself onmy guard I saw Billy staggering along under his burden, and when hecame near, he said he was sweating horrible, the pig being uncommonobstinate. To deaden the sound of its squealing he had stripped offhis shirt and smothered the pig's head in it, and he had come rightacross the lava tract, having seen that the men had all gone in theother direction, towards the sandy beach. We carried the pig betweenus down to the canoe, and lay there all night, not daring to paddleaway until just before dawn, for we could not return to the Red Rock bythe west side of the island while the men were astir, for they wouldhave seen us, nor could we go the other way because of the current.But we guessed that not having spied the canoe where it had beenbefore, the men would imagine we had some lurking place on the island,and after a time would not keep watch on the shore. Besides, the moonwould go down before morning; and so, when it was still very dark, weleft our hiding-place and paddled quietly round the island, and came tothe Red Rock without having been observed.