CHAPTER XXII Making the Best of It

"Mornin', young leddy!" exclaimed Jasper, decorously attempting to make good the obvious deficiencies of his wardrobe. "Hope this finds you like as it leaves me at present."

Hilda smiled encouragingly. She had made good progress towards recovery during Burgoyne's absence. A warm colour was suffusing her sun-burnt cheeks, her hands had lost the clammy coldness following a prolonged immersion. Her short locks had dried, and, thanks to the genial rays of the sun and to the fact that she had persistently kept moving, her clothes were once more in normal condition. She was bare-headed, her straw hat having vanished during the struggle to gain the shore. Her greatcoat—Captain Davis's parting gift—was thrown over a bush to complete the drying process.

"I'm awfully glad to see you, Jasper," said the girl. She never took kindly to the Scillonian's surname.

"An' so be I," rejoined Minalto.

"We've brought a few coco-nuts," announced Alwyn. "Just enough to carry on with. You're looking better already, Miss Vivian."

"I am," declared Hilda. "But where's Mr. Mostyn?"

"That's what I'd like tu know, Miss," said Minalto promptly, before Alwyn could frame an evasive reply. "'Tes too much tu ax o' Providence that all four o' we should come through las' night. A nice lad e' wur, but nothin' to speak of far's strength goes, 'specially seein' as 'ow he wur that knocked about when they pirates blowed the wireless cabin ower th' side. 'E'll come ashore sure now, young leddy, feet first-like, and then us can bury 'im proper-like."

"Shut up, Jasper!" exclaimed the Third Officer sharply. "You don't know what you're talking about. We've got to work, not cackle. There's plenty to be done before night, and the sooner we get on with it the better."

"How long do you think we shall have to stay here, Mr. Burgoyne?" asked the girl. "I mean, does it depend upon whether we can get away on our own account or have we to wait until a vessel takes us off?"

"We will possibly be here for some time, Miss Vivian," replied Alwyn. "We've found part of the life-boat, but even with her air-tanks intact it would be a tough proposition to construct anything sufficiently seaworthy to make another start. You see, we have no tools and precious little material. And, of course, the chance of a ship picking us up is a very slight one. We are out of the recognized routes, and unless a trading schooner comes along—if she knows the dangerous reefs of the island she won't—we may be here for weeks and months."

"Proper Crusoes!" exclaimed Hilda enthusiastically. "It sounds too exciting to be true."

"Strange things happen at sea," observed Burgoyne oracularly. He was far from feeling enthusiastic. The problem of warding off starvation had yet to be solved. "However, we'll set to work. There's a shelter to be rigged up for you, Miss Vivian, some sort of caboose for Jasper and me, fresh water to be found, and some sort of provisions laid in. We've two tins of bully beef—that's all."

"An' the li'l ole keg," interposed Minalto. "Might be spirits. Come in handy-like—not that I wants 'en, bein' teetotal-like come twelve or fifteen year—almost."

The al-fresco meal consisted of taro (eaten raw in default of a fire), and bully beef with coco-nut milk. It served its purpose in quelling the pangs of hunger, but the opening of the tin of beef caused Burgoyne some qualms. Its contents were far more than sufficient for three persons. It ought to last them a week, but the difficulty was how to keep the meat when once exposed to the air. To leave it in the battered tin would result in the beef's turning bad very quickly. At Hilda's suggestion they wrapped the remnants in palm leaves and placed them in the shade, hoping that the heat would not spoil their scanty stock.

"We're just off along the beach," announced Alwyn, who, having recovered from his exhausting experience, was now full of energy.

"May I come too?" asked Hilda.

"Certainly, Miss Vivian," was the reply. "That is, if you feel equal to it."

"I am quite all right, thank you, Mr. Burgoyne," declared Hilda. "Provided you don't want me to climb trees or swim off to the reef, I think you won't find me an encumbrance."

"Right-o," assented Alwyn cheerfully. "Let's make a move. I don't suppose this island is so very big. We may as well explore it and find out how we stand, before we decide upon the site for our camp. A lot depends upon where we find fresh water."

"Will there be any?" asked the girl.

"I should think so," replied Burgoyne, pointing to a hill about a hundred feet in height. "That rising ground points to it, and the fairly dense vegetation is another hopeful sign. I suggest we try to walk right round the island—it can't be so very far—before we start exploring the interior."

They gained the beach, and instead of turning northward—Burgoyne had already examined the beach for about two hundred yards that way—they walked in the opposite direction. Before they had gone more than fifty paces Minalto, whose eyes incessantly scanned the shore, stooped and dragged from the water's edge a canvas sack containing the life-boat's stock of biscuit, utterly spoilt by the salt water.

"Things be a-comin' ashore-like," he remarked. "When flood-tide makes then te's time to look."

"I wonder if we soaked the biscuits in fresh water and thoroughly got rid of the salt we could bake them again?" asked Hilda. "I'll try it. How do we make a fire?"

Burgoyne shook his head. He had already tried his hand at rubbing together two sticks on the chance of obtaining a flame, but without success.

"I'll have another shot at it," he continued, when he had related his failure. "Perhaps the wood wasn't perfectly dry. Savages obtain fire that way, but I've never watched them do it. Wish I had."

Suddenly Hilda laid her hand on Burgoyne's arm and pointed.

"Look!" she exclaimed. "There's smoke!"

"Sure enough!" ejaculated Alwyn. "No, steady; we don't want to rush into a native kitchen before we find out who the gentlemen are. Stay here, Minalto, with Miss Vivian, while I do a little observation work."

The smoke, rising in the now hot and almost motionless air, was ascending beyond a clump of palms about a quarter of a mile away. It was not a forest fire; the column of vapour was too small for that. The logical conclusion was that it had been started by human agency.

Keeping close to the brushwood that skirted the beach above high-water mark, Alwyn approached the scene of his intended investigations. But after he had gone almost two-thirds of the distance, farther progress was barred by an inlet invisible from the spot whence the three castaways had set out on their tour of exploration. The entrance to the creek was narrow and shallow, being at that state of the tide barely three feet deep. Farther inland it opened out into a fairly wide basin, about eighty yards in width and almost entirely surrounded by dense vegetation, except for two converging glades at the head of the natural harbour.

High and dry just above the reach of the water was a dark object, which Alwyn recognized as the bow portion of the life-boat, while the otherwise smooth sand all around it bore traces of several footprints of a person or persons going and returning.

"Natives, perhaps," thought Burgoyne. "They've found the wreckage and stripped it of everything of value, unless—— But I may as well make sure."

Working his way inland and cautiously forcing his passage through the scrub, Burgoyne drew nearer and nearer the fire. He could hear the crackling of the burning wood; a savoury smell assailed his nostrils. Save for the spluttering of the fire, the utmost silence prevailed.

As he carefully parted the brushwood he came in full view of the fire. He stopped dead in sheer astonishment, hardly able to credit his senses.

The fire was burning in an open space. Close to it two pieces of cane had been set up derrick-fashion, while a longer and heavier piece, with one end pegged to the ground, projected beyond the fork with its end immediately over the flames. From the extremity hung an iron bucket emitting steam and a delicious odour of stewing fowl.

Three or four paces from the fire and with his back turned towards Burgoyne was a man, naked from the waist upwards and bare below the knees. He was busily engaged in setting up a pointed bamboo, one end of which he had charred in the fire, while close to him was a roll of canvas. It was Peter Mostyn.

"Hello!" shouted Alwyn.

Mostyn turned sharply.

"Hello," he replied, and recognizing the voice continued; "you're just in time for some grub, old bird."

"Hope there's enough for three more, anyway," rejoined Burgoyne.

That was the greeting between two men each of whom had thought the other dead. Typically British, they concealed their emotions under two cheerful grins, afraid lest they should make asses of themselves by betraying what they termed "sloppiness".

"Miss Vivian is safe, then?" asked Mostyn eagerly. He could ask that question without reserve.

"Rather! She's over there. Better get your things on."

Mostyn seized his ragged garments and proceeded to dress.

"It was so jolly hot," he explained. "I just had to strip. Felt a bit like a savage... where have you been? I looked along the beach several times."

"You didn't look far enough, my festive," said Burgoyne. "How did you get ashore?"

"Just hung on to the boat," replied Peter. "Or rather, what was left of her. Had quite a soft passage. Nothing much to complain about. The wreckage drove into this cove, and I waded ashore with hardly any trouble. Then I walked up and down the beach for nearly half the night, I should imagine, trying to find you. Never saw a sign, so I came to the conclusion—well, I was wrong."

"You're in luck," remarked the Third Officer, nodding in the direction of the fire and the savoury contents of the bucket.

"Yes, rather," admitted the Wireless Officer. "I knocked over a fowl with a chunk of coral. There are hundreds of them up there—fowls, I mean. Wasn't certain altogether how to clean the brute, but I've done it after a fashion. Fire? Easy, when you know how. One of the things we used to practise when I was a Scout."

"It was beyond me," declared Alwyn.

"I'll show you later on," promised Mostyn, struggling into his ragged coat. "Now I'm ready. Where are the others? 'Spose the jolly old pot won't boil over?"

Ten minutes later a light-hearted, reunited party gathered round the steaming pot. Water, copious and wholesome, was to be found near at hand. There were hundreds of fowls in the woods, and, Mostyn had good reason for believing, pigs. Yams, taro roots, and coco-nuts grew in profusion, so for the present all fears of a lingering death by thirst and starvation vanished.

"I boiled the brute because it was less trouble," explained Mostyn apologetically as he severed a portion of the steaming fowl by means of a strip of dried coconut shell. "You may find a few feathers, but I singed most of 'em off. Next time I'll try roasting a bird in clay."

It was a most appetizing meal, in spite of the fact that Peter's companions had only recently eaten bully beef and drunk coco-nut milk.

"One of the buckets came ashore with the boat," continued the Wireless Officer. "It'll have to serve for both cooking and fetching water, I'm afraid——"

"We've a bucket and a baler," interrupted Burgoyne, not to be outdone.

"An' a li'l cask o' spirits," chimed in Jasper. "Not that I'm fond o' a drop, like, but it may be mighty handy——"

"Sun's well over the foreyard," announced Alwyn, stifling a yawn. "A jolly good caulk will be the thing."

"Cork—what for?" inquired Hilda.

"Caulk—sea term for a nap," explained the Third Officer. "We can't do much in the hot sun, and we all want to make up arrears of sleep, I take it."

Spreading out the canvas in the shade of the palms, the four castaways—comrades in peril and sharers of the limited supplies of the world's goods provided in present condition—were soon slumbering soundly, their cares, troubles, bruises, and other ailments of body and mind relegated to the Back of Beyond as if they had never existed.

Peter Mostyn was the first to awake. In spite of his physical shortcomings he was active and wiry, and of the four had had the least strenuous struggle with the elements following the capsizing of the boat. Acting upon previous instructions, he roused Burgoyne and Jasper. Hilda still slumbered peacefully.

The first task was to construct shelters sufficiently strong to withstand the force of the wind. Leaving Mostyn to carry on with his interrupted work of rigging up a tent, Alwyn and Minalto walked along the beach to the wreckage of the stern part of the lifeboat. This they dug out of the sand, and, attaching some of the halliards to it, dragged it sleigh-fashion over the smooth sand, stopping on the way to pick up the gear they had discovered that morning. The latter included, to Minalto's evident satisfaction, the "li'l cask", which upon examination was found to contain Jamaica rum.

Burgoyne had already decided to form a camp on the site Mostyn had chosen. For one thing it was sheltered, while fresh water was obtainable close at hand.

In about an hour the two ends of the boat were set up about eight feet apart and connected by the mizzen yard and one of the oars. Over the ridge-poles was thrown a large square of canvas, its ends being sunk in the sand and weighted with stones. On one side a flap was left in order to allow admittance to the timber-and-canvas dwelling, which was to be devoted to the use of Miss Vivian.

The structure was barely completed when Hilda awoke.

"Why, what is this?" she inquired.

"Your quarters, Miss Vivian," replied Alwyn.

"Mine? How quaint!" she exclaimed rapturously. "It reminds me of Peggotty's Hut, made out of an old boat."

"Do we keep the fire up all night?" asked Mostyn.

"Better not," replied Burgoyne. "We'll have to be careful in case Strogoff sends a boat after us."

"How will he know?" said Peter. "He thinks that Minalto and you were drowned on the Donibristle, and the pirates probably fired on us while under the impression that a strange craft had approached the island."

"H'm," replied Alwyn dubiously. "I wish I could agree with you on that point. Strogoff will find that you are missing, my festive, and probably Young Bill as well. Also, if he takes the trouble to look—as quite probably he may do—he'll find that the life-boat's no longer pinned down by the ship. He'll be in a tear, not because he has any regard for us, but because he knows that Ramon Porfirio will have the wind up when he returns. Why? He'll know that if we do reach a civilized port we'll spoil his little game. So if a craft shows up here we'll have to make sure of her character before we start hoisting distress signals."

Well before sundown the camp was in a fair state of completion, considering the limited resources at the disposal of the castaways.

Not only had a fairly commodious tent been erected—the boat's sail and spare canvas being pressed into service—but Minalto had built a fire-place of rocks, over which he placed three iron bars obtained from the broken keel-band of the boat. The air-tanks, since they could be put to no better use, served as seats, while the boat's back-board, supported on Minalto's li'l ole cask, formed a table.

Then Jasper vanished for about an hour, returning with five flat-fish, which he had speared in the clear water by means of a nail jammed into a broken oar, and a number of oysters found in a rocky pool towards the southern extremity of the island. Meanwhile Hilda, with the experience gained while in the "galley" at the Secret Base, had baked a loaf of taro, which everyone pronounced to be excellent and "top-hole".

They spent quite a delightful evening.