The Girl Crusoes Part 15

"Don't go out of sight, will you?" said Tommy, as they moved away.

"Of course not, we shan't be long."

"I wish we had a change of things, Bess," said Mary, as they hastened towards their fishing rock. "Never in my life have I worn my underwear so long; it's horrid."

"Why shouldn't we have a washing-day?" said Elizabeth. "It will be a novelty, and give us something to do and think about. Rather fun too, with no soap. How can we manage?"

"I've read somewhere that the women in the East wash their clothes by beating them in a running stream with stones," said Mary. "The stream and the stones are handy; we might try that plan."

"Don't the stones knock holes in them?"

"They use flat, round stones, without sharp edges, I think. It will be rather fun to try, anyway. I hope the savages won't come, Bess."

"Do you know, I'm not at all sure that it wasn't the footprint of a monkey or some other animal. It was so very small. I'm not going to think about it. We'd better go on in our ordinary way without troubling; only for Tommy's sake we won't go far from home, for some days at any rate."

They returned with two excellent fish. Elizabeth at once told Tommy of their idea of a washing-day, and, as she hoped, the young girl was so much amused at the novelty of it, that she forgot her alarms for a time. After breakfast they took off their things and donned their dressing-gowns, as Tommy called their macintoshes; and having gathered each a smooth, round stone, laid their linen in the stream at a place where it ran over level rock, and began merrily to pound away. When they had given the clothes a thorough good drubbing, as Tommy worded it, they laid them on the gra.s.s in the sun, and within an hour they were quite dry.

"My word! don't they look nice?" cried Tommy in delight. "Old Jane--poor old thing--never got them white at home, did she? We must have a weekly wash, girls; it's great fun."

"There's another thing we might try," said Elizabeth. "I haven't got used to eating fish without salt, yet. Couldn't we make some by evaporation?"

"How would you do that?" asked Tommy.

"Put some sea-water in our cups, and let it evaporate. It would soon do so in this heat, and leave the salt at the bottom."

"H'm! it sounds all right," said Tommy, "but I doubt whether we should get enough salt to put on a bird's tail. Let's try."

They half filled their three cups from the sea, and put them in the full glare of the sun. Every now and then Tommy ran to them to see hew they were getting on, every time becoming more sceptical of success.

There was still a good deal of water in the cups at nightfall; but, as Mary said, that didn't matter much, as they had used up all their tea, none of them liking coffee at night; so they left the cups as they were, to evaporate the rest of the water next day. When the cups were at last dry there was no appreciable sediment, and Tommy with great scorn p.r.o.nounced the experiment a failure.

"The cups don't hold enough," said Mary. "What we want is a large shallow pan, and as we haven't got one, I'm afraid you'll have to go without salt, Bess."

But a day or two after, Elizabeth discovered a wide shallow depression in a rock a little distance above high-water mark.

"This will do for a pan," she said. "We'll fill it with sea-water with our cups, and keep on filling it up as the water evaporates. Then we'll see, my dears."

They followed this plan for several days, and at last were able to collect a fair quant.i.ty of salt.

"It isn't table salt, to be sure," said Elizabeth, looking at the dirty-grey powder, "but it is certainly salt enough for anything, and this quant.i.ty will last for a week at least."

"We are getting quite clever," said Mary. "I dare say we shall be able to make quite a lot of things by and by."

During these days they had seen no more signs of inhabitants, and their nervousness partially wore off. They were still careful, however, not to stray far beyond the immediate neighbourhood of their camp, and slept every night in the boat, which they left close to the brink of the sea. They devoted a good deal of time to weaving gra.s.s mats for the floor of their hut, but had not as yet plucked up courage to spend a night in it. With the boat as a refuge they felt a certain sense of security, though they admitted, when they talked about it, that it would not really be of any great service if they were attacked; for they could only escape by embarking, and then to drift on the sea out of reach of food was a terrible fate to look forward to.

One day, when Mary had been out to gather bananas, she came back with the news that she had gathered the very last one, so that they were faced with the immediate necessity of finding another food supply.

"We must take our courage in both hands," said Elizabeth, "and revisit the land of plenty beyond the ridge."

"Don't let's go near the orange-trees," said Tommy anxiously.

"Couldn't we try a little to the left? There will surely be some fruit of some sort in other parts."

"I don't see why not," said Mary. "I don't want to go there again, either, in case you were right."

"Of course I was right," declared Tommy. "You aren't going to make out again that I can't believe my own eyes!"

"We'll try another direction," said Elizabeth, anxious to keep the peace. "Let us go northward along the sh.o.r.e. We have never really explored the coast of our island yet."

Accordingly, after breakfast, they set out. There was a long stretch of beach strewn with boulders which had apparently fallen from the cliffs. These rose higher as they proceeded, and jutted out to within twenty or thirty feet of high-water mark. By and by they reached a point where the huge rocky obstacles made further progress impossible.

Retracing their steps, they clambered with some difficulty up the face of the cliff, and at last gained the high land above.

All this time they moved very cautiously, careful to make no more noise than they could help, and always on the look-out for danger. But the silence was broken only by the chatter of birds, the warbling of a blackbird now and then, and the harsh screaming of the parrots in the woods, that extended almost to the verge of the cliffs.

"I should like to catch and tame one of those beauties," said Tommy.

"Perhaps I might teach him to talk, and that would be a change, wouldn't it?"

"I am sorry we bore you," said Mary. "Wouldn't it be better to find your savage and teach him how to keep up an amiable conversation?"

"Don't be sarcastic; it doesn't suit you," said Tommy cuttingly, and again Elizabeth had to intervene.

"We came out to look for food," she said smoothly, "and I think we had better not think of anything else."

Mary and Tommy separated, and went off at a little distance by themselves, looking among the trees and shrubs for fruits or berries that might seem edible. For a time none of the girls saw anything that appeared promising, but presently Mary called out quite excitedly--

"Here, Bess, I'm sure this is the breadfruit tree. Come and look."

Then, frightened by the sound of her own voice, she suddenly became aware of her indiscretion, and ran fleetly to join Elizabeth.

"You idiot!" said Tommy in a fierce whisper, as she came up with the others.

They stood listening for a while, wondering whether Mary's exclamation had attracted the attention of some inhabitant. But, rea.s.sured by the absence of any sign of danger, they hastened to inspect the trees upon which Mary had lighted. Elizabeth noticed that Tommy, who would have died rather than apologize, had slipped her hand into Mary's in token of regret for her sharp speech.

They found themselves in the midst of a little grove of trees, about the size of small oaks, but with much spa.r.s.er foliage. Peeping out from among the long, indented leaves were several large round fruits with a crinkly rind.

"I know they are breadfruit," said Mary gleefully. "Don't you remember the pictures in that book of Captain Cook's voyages?"

"Let's peel one and see how it tastes," said Tommy.

"You wouldn't like it better than raw dough," said Mary. "It has to be cooked first."

"Bother! You know I don't like cooked fruit. It isn't a fruit at all if you can't eat it raw; it's a vegetable."

Elizabeth smiled at this ingenuous distinction.

"Let us take one each and go and try them," she suggested. "If they are really anything like bread we shall enjoy them, I know."

Laden with the fruits, they returned to their camp.

"Pity the place is so far from home," said Mary. "We must have come more than a mile, I should think."