Fire Island Part 62

"All right," said Oliver. "Now, Drew, another layer of paper, then this lot of skins, and we'll fasten the lid down."

"Why not leave it unfastened till your other lot are dry?"

"Because if I do, the ants will make short work of them. In with the rest, lightly. Now the lid."

This was clapped on, a good solid deal lid made by the ship's carpenter, with holes bored and screws in them, all ready, and as soon as it was on, Oliver, with his sleeves rolled up and the muscles working beneath his clear white skin, attacked the screws, and soon had them all tightly in their places. Then a rope was made fast, the word given to those on deck, and the chest was run up in no time.

Five minutes later Oliver was equipped in light flannel jacket and sun helmet, his gun over his shoulder and all ready fur action.

"Going for a stroll?" said Mr Rimmer, as they stepped down from the deck to where he was superintending the planking of the lugger, whose framework had been slid down on a kind of cradle, where it now stood parallel with the brig, it having been found advisable to get her down from the deck for several reasons, notably her rapidly increasing weight and her being so much in the way.

"But suppose the enemy comes and finds her alongside? They might burn her."

"They'd burn or bake us if we kept her up here," said the mate, shortly, "for we should not have room to move."

So there it was, down alongside, rapidly approaching completion, the men having toiled away with a will, feeling how necessary it was to have a way open for escape, and working so well that most of them soon began to grow into respectable shipyard labourers, one or two, under the guidance of the ship's carpenter, promising to develop soon into builders.

The mate was very busy with a caulking hammer in one hand, a wedge in the other, driving tar-soaked oak.u.m between the planks so as to make a water-tight seam, and as the young men came up he wiped his steamy brow with his arm, and looked at all with good-humoured satisfaction.

"Yes, we're going to inspect a discovery I have made," said Panton, importantly. "Like to join us?"

"Well, I should like," replied the mate, "and I think I--no: resolution for ever. Not a step will I take till I've got the _Little Planet_ finished. She's rough, but I believe she'll go."

"When you get her to the sea."

"Ye-es," said Mr Rimmer, with a comically perplexed look in his bluff English countenance, "when we get her to the sea. You don't think she'll stick fast, do you, Mr Lane?"

"Well, I hope not," said Oliver, "but when I get thinking about how big you are making her, I can't help having doubts."

"Doubts?" said the mate, sadly, as if he had plenty of his own.

"Yes--no," cried Oliver, "I will not have any. We will get her down to the sea somehow. Englishmen have done bigger things than that."

"And will again, eh, sir?" cried the mate. "Come, that's encouraging.

You've done me no end of good, sir, that you have. There, off with you, and get back to dinner in good time. Crowned pigeon for dinner, and fish."

He attacked the side of the lugger with redoubled energy, his strokes following the party for far enough as they trudged on due south to an opening in the forest not yet visited by either Drew or Lane, and the latter, as he saw the abundance of tempting specimens, exclaimed,--

"I say, what have we been about not to visit this spot before?"

"Had too many other good spots to visit, I suppose," said Drew; "but, my word! look at the orchids here."

"Bah! That's nothing to what you will see, eh, Smith?"

"Yes, sir, they'll stare a bit when they gets farder on. Me and Billy's been thinking as we should like to retire from business and build ourselves houses there to live in, speshly Billy."

"Speak the truth, mate, you was the worst," grumbled Wriggs.

"You was just as bad about it, Billy. Didn't you say as it would be grand to have a house to live in, with b'iling water laid on at your front door?"

"Nay, that I didn't, Tommy. How could I when there warn't no front door and no house built?"

"You are so partickler to a word, mate. It was something of that kind."

"Nay, Tommy."

"Why, it was, and you says you'd want a missus, on'y you didn't know as how a white missus'd care to come and live out in a place where there warn't no pumps, and you couldn't abide to have one as was black."

"Well!" exclaimed Wriggs indignantly, "of all the 'orrid yarns! Why, it were him, gents, as said all that. Now, speak the truth, Tommy, warn't it you?"

"Now you comes to talk about it that way, Billy, I begin to think as it were; but it don't matter, let's say it was both on us."

"How much farther is it to the wonder?" asked Oliver.

"About a mile," replied Panton. "There, curb your impetuosity and don't be jealous when you get there."

"Jealous! Rubbish! Look, Drew!" cried Oliver, as a huge moth as big across the wings as a dinner plate flapped gently along the shadowy way beneath the trees, now nearly invisible, now plainly seen threading its way through patches which looked like showers of silver rain. "Who can be jealous of another's luck when he is overwhelmed with luck of his own?"

"Hi! Stop! None of that!" cried Panton, catching Oliver by the arm, as he s.n.a.t.c.hed off his sun helmet and was dashing forward through the forest.

"What's the matter?"

"That's what I want to know. Are you mad to go dashing off, hat in hand, after a b.u.t.terfly here in this dangerous place, as if you were a boy out on a Surrey Common?"

"Bother! It isn't a b.u.t.terfly."

"What is it, then?"

"The grandest Atlas moth I ever saw."

"I don't care, you're not going to make yourself raging hot running after that. I want you to come and see my find."

Oliver stood looking after the shadowy moth as it went on in and out among the trunks of the trees till it reached a tunnel-like opening, full of sunshine. Up this, after pausing for a moment or two, balanced upon its level outstretched wings, it seemed to float on a current of air and was gone.

"You've made me miss a glorious prize," said Oliver sadly.

"Not I. You couldn't have caught it, my boy. Come along."

Oliver resigned himself to his fate, but gazed longingly at several birds dimly seen on high among the leaves, and whose presence would have pa.s.sed unnoticed if it had not been for their piping cries or screams.

But he soon after took a boyish mischievous satisfaction in joining Panton in checking Drew every time he made a point at some botanical treasure.

"No, no," cried Oliver, "if there is to be no animal, I say no vegetable."

"Because it's all mineral. There, be patient," said Panton. "We haven't much farther to go, eh, Smith?"

"No, sir, on'y a little bit now. Either o' you gents think o' bringing a bit o' candle or a lantern?"

"Candle?" cried Panton in dismay. "No."