The Girl Crusoes Part 16

"If we are satisfied with our bread we might come again and gather a good load that will last some time," said Elizabeth.

When they reached home they lost no time in stripping off the thin rind of one of the fruits, and found beneath it a white doughy substance something like new bread. Tommy could not forbear tasting it, in spite of what Mary had said.

"What horrid, nasty stuff!" she exclaimed, making a wry face. "It's like--what is it like? Taste it, Bess."

Elizabeth pinched off a very small piece and ate it.

"It seems to me like sweetened flour with a smack of artichokes," she said. "I hope it is better cooked; sc.r.a.pe it all out, Mary, while I get the oven ready."

When the pulp was sc.r.a.ped out, Mary kneaded it into a flat cake and cut it into three equal portions. Elizabeth put them into the stone oven, and in about twenty minutes took them out, slightly browned, and smelling somewhat of new bread. Allowing them to cool, the girls each nibbled a little.

"Not half bad," said Tommy. "I suppose we'll get used to it, and like it better. I never liked carrots when I was a child, and I do now. If we only had some b.u.t.ter! Why aren't there any cocoanuts here, I wonder? They have milk, haven't they? If we had some we might make some b.u.t.ter out of the cream."

At this the other girls laughed outright.

"I'm afraid we shouldn't get much cream out of cocoanuts," said Elizabeth. "The milk is a sickly kind of juice, isn't it, Mary?"

"Yes; I had some once, long ago, when Father took me to the fair at Exeter. He knocked down the cocoanut at one of the shies. I didn't like the milk at all."

"We must eat our bread without b.u.t.ter," said Elizabeth. "I do hope, though, that we shall find more bananas, for I'm sure I shall soon get tired of the breadfruit. We must try another part of the island another day."

CHAPTER XI

A TROPICAL STORM

Two or three days pa.s.sed without incident. The elder girls in their heart of hearts were becoming convinced that the footprints must have been those of an animal; but Tommy had shown herself so touchy on that point that they never told her what they thought. With the return of their confidence they began to think that they were punishing themselves by neglecting to use the hut, and one night they ventured to sleep in it for the first time, lying on their gra.s.s mats, with pillows of gra.s.s and dried leaves. They found their new quarters so much more easy and comfortable that they decided to use the boat no more as a bedchamber, and thought they had been silly in not deserting it before.

The hut was delightfully cool both by day and night. In the daytime they always lifted the awning facing the sea; at night they let it down at first, getting ventilation by the s.p.a.ce beneath the roof; but as they became accustomed to their bedroom they left the opening uncovered at night also. Before turning in they would sit cross-legged just within the hut, gazing, most often in silence, over the wide expanse of sea, watching the stars as they came into the darkening sky, and thinking of their uncle and the friends at home. Uncle Ben was scarcely ever mentioned among them now. They could not bear to think that the dear old man was at the bottom of the sea, that could show such a smooth and smiling face, and yet behave like a treacherous, cruel monster. They scarcely ever dared to think of the future, for though they seldom missed a visit to the cliffs, from which they could look far over the sea, and though their flag was still flying from the tree, they had almost lost hope of being rescued, and could only live from day to day, killing thought by various little activities.

One day, for instance, Elizabeth suggested that as their hut was built and furnished, and they had little to do except fish and prepare their food, they might make themselves some new hats. The idea was eagerly taken up by the others. Each girl worked in her own way, plaiting lengths of thin gra.s.s, and Mary hit on a brilliant notion of making brims out of the large leaves from a kind of dwarf palm that grew plentifully in the neighbourhood. They fastened these together, and then to the gra.s.s crowns, by threading them in and out with the very fine tendrils of a creeper. When the hats were finished the girls had what Tommy called a mutual admiration meeting, and felt very proud of their Dolly Vardens.

A few days after the discovery of the breadfruit, they made a lengthy excursion along the southern sh.o.r.e. Here the woods were a good deal denser than in other parts, which was one reason why they had hesitated to explore them. But the cliffs were much less lofty than those on the north, and the girls easily climbed them, and penetrated for a short distance into the fringing woods.

They discovered several trees of kinds they had not seen before. There was one in particular that interested them by its fantastic shape; it was so odd-looking that Tommy dubbed it the clown of the forest; the real name, of which they were ignorant, was the panda.n.u.s. But the special reward of this expedition was the discovery of a thick plantation of bananas and oranges, quite equal to those they had seen on the dreaded eastern side of the ridge. They rushed upon the oranges that bestrewed the ground, devoured several, and filled their pockets with them. What with fish--they were expert fishers by this time--the breadfruit, and this fresh storehouse, they felt no more anxiety about food, and if only they could have lost their fear of possible wild neighbours they would have had nothing to trouble the serenity of their healthy life. But none of them was as yet ready to tempt fate again by crossing the ridge, and Elizabeth at any rate knew that while the greater part of the island was shut to them, they could never be quite easy in mind. She felt that the uncertainty was even harder to bear than knowledge would have been.

One day their peaceful existence was rudely disturbed, not by man, but by nature. The island was visited by a storm of quite extraordinary violence. The air had been for some time very oppressive, and the girls, feeling incapable of any exertion, were resting in the hut, when there came a sudden hot blast of wind straight in from the sea. They looked out. Vast lurid clouds were piling up; in a few seconds, it seemed, the sky became black, and huge waves broke over the reef, sending up mountains of spray. The wind tore through the woods, increasing every moment in fury. One terrible blast ripped the slight hut to fragments, and the girls had no sooner extricated themselves from the heap of tattered mats and broken canes that covered them, than a flood of rain poured upon them. They rushed away to the lee-side of a hillock, trying in vain to find shelter from the storm, and cowering in terror as they heard peals of thunder, and then a tremendous crash as the tempest uprooted some great tree and dashed it to the ground.

Mary was always terror-stricken in a thunderstorm, and she clung half-fainting to Elizabeth, who clasped her close in a motherly embrace. Tommy, on the other hand, was perfectly fearless. She gazed at the boiling sea, and watched the lightning with a sort of fascinated admiration. She was almost sorry when the storm blew itself out after two hours of fury, and the sky cleared as rapidly as it had darkened.

"How lovely!" she said, dripping wet as she was. "Poor old Mary!"

Mary, indeed, was quite overcome, and it was some time before she was able to walk away. The tempest had left ruin in its track.

"The boat!" cried Elizabeth, suddenly remembering the little vessel, which, though it had been drawn up higher than when they slept in it, she feared might have been washed away. "We must leave you for a little, Mary. Walk about if you can, and let the sun dry your things."

Then she raced down to the sh.o.r.e with Tommy, and was horrified to discover that the boat had disappeared. The girls scanned the sea, which was still rough, but there was not a sign of it. They ran along the beach northward, hoping that the boat might have been cast up, and were rejoiced to find it about a quarter of a mile away, bottom upwards on a spit of sand. It was some distance from the sea, which, though it had evidently come much higher than usual, had now receded to within a little of high-water mark. The girls managed to right the boat, only to find, of course, that the oars were missing.

"How silly we were not to bring the oars into the hut along with the boat-hook!" cried Elizabeth. "The boat is perfectly useless without the oars, and we can't make new ones."

"Perhaps the tide will wash them up," said Tommy. "Help me up this rock, Bess; I'll see if they are in sight."

Mounted on the rock she scanned the surface, and after a time saw something bobbing up and down about a hundred yards out, and some way to the south of where she stood.

"There it is, I believe," she cried. "The sea is getting calmer now; shall I swim out for it?"

"You mustn't think of it," said Elizabeth. "I dare say the sea is full of sharks. I saw a fin yesterday when we were fishing."

"And you didn't tell me! I should love to see a real live shark."

Elizabeth smiled inwardly at this.

"But we must get the oar somehow, Bess. One would be better than nothing. And quickly, too. See, the tide is running out fast. And if the oar gets into the current that flows past the reef, it is good-bye for ever."

"I don't see how we can. We haven't a paddle of any kind. The boat-hook's no good. Wait, though; I wonder if we could get a branch of a tree. Stay here and keep the oar in sight while I run and look."

She ran up the cliff-side, which was covered with vegetation. The small trees had withstood the storm better than the large ones. Some were cracked and broken, but others had merely bent to the blast, while the ground was strewn with the more ma.s.sive trunks, and with innumerable small branches and twigs. In a little while she came to a tree that had two boughs forming a fork, in shape like a boy's catapult. Catching hold of this, and straining upon it, Elizabeth managed to break it off; it had occurred to her that the fork might form the skeleton of a paddle. But time was too precious for her to attempt to make it by herself alone, so she ran with it to Mary.

"Quick, Mary," she cried. "Pull yourself together. We have found the boat, but the oars are gone, and one is floating out to sea. Help me to make a paddle, so that we can go after it. Get some creepers and some leaves as quickly as you can. I'll show you what I mean."

There was no lack of material close at hand, and they were soon busily at work making a sort of criss-cross lattice-work upon the fork, which they notched at intervals with their knives, to give holding to the tendrils. Having rapidly made their framework, they laid the leaves on it, and bound these on with more creepers. Before they had finished it as Elizabeth would have liked, they heard Tommy's shrill voice calling--

"Quick, Bess, the oar's going out fast."

Elizabeth jumped up, carrying the odd-looking paddle, which Tommy said was like a lacrosse stick. The oar was now out of sight, though Tommy could point to the spot where she saw it last. They launched the boat, and using the paddle as a stern-oar, Tommy employed all the skill she had gained by paddling the dinghy to and from the sh.o.r.e at Southampton.

The paddle was a very poor thing; it bent a good deal, and some of the tendrils became loose, and hung about it like the string of an old cricket bat. But there was no time to stop and repair it, or the oar, which they now saw clearly, would drift past the reef and utterly beyond reach.

Elizabeth began to grow a little anxious in case they should find themselves adrift by and by with nothing better than the makeshift paddle, which would certainly not last more than a very short time.

That would be a calamity indeed, for they might be carried far out to sea, and there was Mary alone on the island. But Tommy was working so energetically that the distance between the boat and the oar was fast lessening, and Elizabeth, raising herself in her seat, suddenly caught sight of the second oar not far beyond the first.

"Let me take your place, Tommy," she said. "You must be tired."

"Not a bit. Besides, we'll lose time if we change, and perhaps upset.

Stay where you are, Bess; I'll get that oar in a minute, and then we'll soon have the other one."

A few more strokes brought the boat within reach of the oar, and Elizabeth, bending over, drew it up. Then Tommy left the stern and both sat on the thwarts, pulling towards the second oar, which they overtook in a few seconds.

"We'll keep the paddle as a memento," said Elizabeth. "But look! What a terrible distance we are from the sh.o.r.e! Mary will be half frantic."

"It's lucky that we are inside the reef," said Tommy. "Already I can feel the current quite strong. We shall have to pull hard to get out of it!"

By this time Tommy was rather tired, but she would not give in. It was a long pull back, and at first it seemed impossible to draw the boat out of the current that was rapidly bearing it northward. But having now two good oars, they succeeded presently in getting back into calmer water. Then, turning the boat's head southward, they rowed more gently along the sh.o.r.e, and at last reached their own little harbour, where Mary was awaiting them.

"I _am_ thankful you have got back safely," she cried. "When I saw you going so far I nearly went mad for fear you couldn't return."

"We must take care it never happens again," said Elizabeth. "We'll drag the boat up much higher this time, and if we tie the painter to a rock, or to a tree if there's one near enough, we needn't be anxious, and we'll certainly keep the oars in the hut."