Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables
Chapter Nineteen.
An Exploration and an Accident
For the first few days of their stay on what they styled Pirate Island, our castaways were too much taken up with the wondrous and varied contents of the robbers’ cave, and the information Meerta and Letta had to give, to pay much regard to the island itself, or the prospect they had of quitting it. But when their interest and curiosity began to abate, and the excitement to decrease, they naturally bethought them of the nature and resources of their now home.
Of course they did not for a moment regard it in the light of home. It was merely a resting-place,—a refuge, where, after their escape from the sea, they should spend a few weeks, perhaps months, until a passing vessel should take them off. They did not know, at that time, that the islet was far removed from the usual track of ships, and that, like the Pitcairn Islanders, they might be doomed to spend many years, perchance a lifetime, on it. Indeed, a considerable time elapsed before they would admit to themselves that there was a possibility of such a fate, although they knew, both from Meerta and Letta, that no ship of any kind, save that of the pirates, had been seen for the last eighteen months, and the few sails that did chance to appear, were merely seen for a few hours like sea-gulls on the horizon, from which they arose and into which they vanished.
Having then, as we have said, bethought them of examining the resources and nature of the island, they one morning organised an expedition. By that time the sailor, although by no means fit for it, insisted that he was sufficiently restored to accompany them. Letta, who was active and strong like a small gazelle, besides being acquainted with the whole region, agreed to act as guide. Stumps, having sprained his ankle slightly, remained at the cave, for the purpose, as he said, of helping Meerta with the garden, but Jim Slagg gave him credit for laziness.
“You see,” said Sam Shipton, as Letta led them down the rugged mountain-side, “we may as well make ourselves comfortable while we remain here, and I’m inclined to think that a hut, however rough, down in one of these charming valleys, will be more agreeable than the gloomy cavern on the mountain-top.”
“Not so sure o’ that, doctor,” said Johnson; “the cave is at all events dry, and a good stronghold in case of a visit from pirates.”
“But pirates what have bin blow’d to atoms,” said Slagg, “ain’t likely to turn up again, are they?”
“That’s so, lad; but some of their friends might pay us a visit, you know.”
“I think not,” rejoined Sam; “there is honour among thieves here, no doubt, as elsewhere. I daresay it is well-known among the fraternity that the island belongs to a certain set, and the rest will therefore let it alone. What think you, Robin?”
“I’m inclined to agree with you, Sam, but perhaps Letta is the best authority on that point. Did you ever see any other set of pirates land here, little one, except your—your own set?”
“Only once,” answered the child, “another set came, but they only stayed one day. They looked at everything, looked at me an’ Meerta an’ laughed very much. An’ they ate and drank a good deal, and fought a little; but they took nothing away, and never came back.”
“I thought so,” rejoined Sam; “now, all we’ve got to do is to hoist a flag on the highest peak of the mountain, and when a vessel comes to take us off, load her with as much of the booty as she can carry—and then, hurrah for old England!”
“Hooray!” echoed Jim Slagg, “them’s exactly my sentiments.”
“But the booty is not ours to take,” objected Robin.
“Whose is it, then?” asked Sam; “the rightful owners we don’t know, and the wrongful owners are defunct.”
“I tell ’ee what it is, mates,” said Johnson, “the whole o’ the booty is mine, ’cause why? it was me as blowed up the owners, so I’m entitled to it by conquest, an’ you needn’t go to fightin’ over it. If you behave yourselves, I’ll divide it equally among us, share an’ share alike.”
“It seems to me, Johnson,” said Robin, “that in strict justice the booty belongs to Letta, Meerta, and blind Bungo, as the natural heirs o’ the pirates.”
“But they’re not the heirs, they are part of the booty,” said the seaman, “and, as sitch, falls to be divided among us.”
“If that’s so,” said Slagg, “then I claim Letta for my share, and you, Johnson, can have your pick of Meerta and blind Bungo.”
“Nay, Letta is mine, because I was the first to discover her,” said Robin. “Whom will you go with, Letta?”
“With you, of course,” replied the child quite earnestly. “Haven’t you promised to take me back to mamma?”
“Indeed I have, little one, and if I ever get the chance, assuredly I will,” said Robin, with equal earnestness.
“I say, doctor,” said Johnson to Sam, sitting down on a mossy bank, “I’ll stop here and wait for you. That rib ain’t all square yet.”
“Wilful man,” said Sam, “didn’t I advise you not to come? There, lie down and take it easy. We’ll bring you some fruit on our return.”
By this time the party had reached the valley in which the lakelet lay, and beautiful indeed was the scene which presented itself as they passed under the grateful shade of the palm-trees. Everywhere, rich tropical vegetation met their gaze, through the openings in which the sunshine poured like streams of fire. On the little lake numerous flocks of ducks and other fowl were seen swimming in sportive mood, while an occasional splash told of fish of some sort below the surface.
Leaving the sailor in a position whence he could observe them for a long distance, the rest of the party pushed on. During their rambles they found the valley to be much richer in vegetation, and more beautiful, than the distant view from the mountain-top had led them to expect. Small though the valley was, it contained, among other trees, the cocoa-nut palm, the bread-fruit, banana, and sandal-wood. There were also pine-apples, wild rice, and custard-apples, some of which latter delicious fruit, being ripe, was gathered and carried back to Johnson, whom they found sound asleep and much refreshed on their return.
The expedition proved that, barren though the island appeared from the sea, it contained quite enough of the good things of this life to render it a desirable abode for man.
On the coast, too, where the raft had been cast ashore, were discovered a variety of shell-fish, some of which, especially the oysters, were found to be excellent food. And some of the sea-fowl turned out to be very good eating, though a little fishy, while their eggs were as good as those of the domestic fowl.
“It seems to me,” said Robin to Letta one day when they were out on a ramble together, “that this is quite a little paradise.”
“I don’t know what paradise is like,” said the child.
“Well, no more do I,” returned Robin, with a laugh, “but of course everybody understands that it is the place where everything is perfect, and where happiness is complete.”
“It cannot be like paradise without mamma,” said Letta, shaking her pretty head sadly. “I would not go to heaven unless mamma was there.”
Robin was silent for some time, as he thought of his own mother and the talks he used to have with her on this same subject.
“Letta,” he said at length, earnestly, “Jesus will be in heaven. It was His Spirit who taught you to love mamma—as you do, so you are sure to meet her there with Him.”
“Nobody taught me to love mamma,” returned the child quietly; “I couldn’t help it.”
“True, little one, but it was God who made you to—‘couldn’t help it.’”
Letta was puzzled by this reply. She raised her bright eyes inquiringly into Robin’s honest face, and said, “But you’ve promised to take me to her, you know.”
“Yes, dear little one, but you must not misunderstand me,” replied the youth somewhat sadly. “I promise that, God helping me, I will do the best I can to find out where your mother is; but you must remember that I have very little to go on. I don’t even know your mother’s name, or the place where you were taken from. By the way, an idea has just occurred to me. Have you any clothes at the cave?”
“Of course I have,” answered Letta, with a merry laugh.
“Yes; but I mean the clothes that you had on when you first came here.”
“I don’t know; Meerta knows. Why?”
“Because your name may be marked on them. Come, let us go back at once and see. Besides, we are wasting time, for you know I was sent out to shoot some ducks for dinner.”
Rising as he spoke, Robin shouldered the shotgun which had been supplied from the robbers’ armoury, and, descending with his little companion towards the lake, soon began to stalk the birds as carefully as if he had been trained to the work by a Red Indian. Stooping low, he glided swiftly through the bushes, until he came within a hundred yards of the margin of the lakelet, where a group of some thirty or forty fat ducks were feeding. Letta had fallen behind, and sat down to watch.
The distance being too great for a shot, and the bushes beyond the spot which he had reached being too thin to conceal him, Robin lay flat down, and began to advance through the long grass after the fashion of a snake, pushing his gun before him. It was a slow and tedious process, but Robin’s spirit was patient and persevering. He screwed himself, as it were, to within sixty yards of the flock, and then fired both barrels almost simultaneously. Seven dead birds remained behind when the affrighted flock took wing.
“It is not very scientific shooting,” said Robin, apologetically, to his fair companion, as she assisted him to tie their legs together; “but our object just now is food, not sport.”
On the way back to the cavern they had to pass over a narrow ledge, on one side of which a precipice descended towards the valley, while the other side rose upwards like a wall. It was not necessarily a dangerous place. They had passed it often before in safety, none of the party being troubled with giddiness; but at this time Robin had unfortunately hung his bundle of ducks on the side which had to brush past the rocky wall. As he passed, the bunch struck a projection and threw him off his balance. In the effort to recover himself he dislodged a piece of rock under his left foot, and, without even a cry, went headlong over the precipice!
Poor Letta stood rooted to the spot, too horrified to scream. She saw her friend, on whom all her hopes were built, go crashing through the foliage immediately below the precipice edge, and disappear. It was the first terrible shock she had ever received. With a convulsive shudder she ran by a dangerously steep route towards the foot of the precipice.
But Robin had not yet met his doom, although he had descended full sixty feet. His fall was broken by several leafy trees, through which he went like an avalanche; and a thick solid bush receiving him at the foot, checked his descent entirely, and slid him quietly off its boughs on to the grass, where he lay, stunned, indeed, but otherwise uninjured.
Poor Letta of course was horrified, on reaching the spot, to find that Robin could not speak, and was to all appearance dead. In an agony of terror she shrieked, and shook him and called him by name—to awaken him, as she afterwards said; but Robin’s sleep was too deep at that moment to be dispelled by such measures. Letta therefore sprang up and ran as fast as she could to the cavern to tell the terrible news and fetch assistance.
Robin, however, was not left entirely alone in his extremity. It so chanced that a remarkably small monkey was seated among the boughs of a neighbouring tree, eating a morsel of fruit, when Letta’s first scream sounded through the grove. Cocking up one ear, it arrested its little hand on the way to its lesser mouth, and listened. Its little black face was corrugated with the wrinkles of care—it might be of fun, we cannot tell. The only large features of the creature were its eyes, and these seemed to blaze, while the brows rose high, as if in surprise.
On hearing the second scream the small monkey laid hold of a bough with its tail, swung itself off, and caught another with its feet, sprang twenty feet, more or less, to the ground, which it reached on its hands, tumbled a somersault inadvertently, and went skipping over the ground at a great rate in the direction of the cries.
When it reached the spot, however, Letta had fled, but Robin still lay motionless on his back. It was evident that the small monkey looked on the prostrate youth with alarm and suspicion, yet with an intense curiosity that no sense of danger could restrain. It walked slowly and inquiringly round him several times, each time drawing closer, while its crouched back and trailing tail betokened abject humility. Then it ventured to put out a small black hand and touch him, drawing it back again as if it had got an electric shock. Then it ventured to touch him again, with less alarm. After that it went close up, and gazed in his face.
Familiarity, says the proverb, breeds contempt. The truth of proverbs can be verified by monkeys as well as men. Seeing that nothing came of its advances, that small monkey finally leaped on Robin’s chest, sat down thereon, and stared into his open mouth. Still the youth moved not, whereupon the monkey advanced a little and laid its paw upon his nose! Either the touch was more effective than Letta’s shaking, or time was bringing Robin round, for he felt his nose tickled, and gave way to a tremendous sneeze. It blew the monkey clean off its legs, and sent it shrieking into a neighbouring tree. As Robin still lay quiet, the monkey soon recovered, and returned to its former position, where, regardless of consequences, it again laid hold of the nose.
This time consciousness returned. Robin opened his eyes with a stare of dreamy astonishment. The monkey replied with a stare of indignant surprise. Robin’s eyebrows rose still higher. So did those of the monkey as it leaped back a foot, and formed its mouth into a little O of remonstrance. Robin’s mouth expanded; he burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and the monkey was again on the eve of flight, when voices were heard approaching, and, next instant, Letta came running forward, followed at some distance by Sam and the others.
“Oh! my dear, sweet, exquisite darling!” exclaimed Letta.
It did much for the poor youth’s recovery, the hearing himself addressed in such endearing terms, but he experienced a relapse when the monkey, responding to the endearments, ran with obvious joy into the child’s bosom, and submitted to a warm embrace.
“Oh, you darling!” repeated Letta; “where have you been? why did you go away? I thought you were dead. Naughty thing!”
Recollecting Robin with a shock of self-reproach, she dropped the monkey and ran to him.
“It is an old friend, I see,” he said with a languid smile, as she came up.
“Yes, yes; an old pet. I had lost him for a long time. But you’re not killed? Oh! I’m so glad.”
“Killed!” repeated Sam, who was down on his knees carefully examining the patient; “I should think not. He’s not even bruised—only stunned a little. Where did you fall from, Robin—the tree top?”
“No; from the edge of the precipice.”
“What! from the ledge sixty or seventy feet up there? Impossible! You would certainly have been killed if you had fallen from that.”
“So I certainly should,” returned Robin, “if God had not in his mercy grown trees and shrubs there, expressly, among other purposes, to save me.”
In this reply Robin’s mind was running on previous conversations which he had had with his friend on predestination.
The idea of shrubs and trees having been expressly grown on an island of the Southern Seas to save an English boy, seemed doubtful to Sam. He did not, however, express his doubts at the time, but reserved the subject for a future “theological discussion.”
Meanwhile, Slagg, Stumps, and Johnson, having spread some palm branches on a couple of stout poles, laid our hero thereon, and bore him in safety to the pirates’ cave, where, for several days, he lay on one of the luxurious couches, tenderly nursed by Letta and the old woman, who, although she still pathetically maintained that the “roberts an pyrits wasn’t all so bad as each oder,” was quite willing to admit that her present visitors were preferable, and that, upon the whole, she was rather fond of them.
Chapter Twenty.
Various Subjects treated of, and a Great Fight detailed
It was the habit of Robin and his friends at this time, the weather being extremely fine and cool, to sit at the mouth of their cavern of an evening, chatting about the events of the day, or the prospects of the future, or the experiences of the past, while old Meerta busied herself preparing supper over a fire kindled on the ground.
No subject was avoided on these occasions, because the friends were harmoniously minded, in addition to which the sweet influences of mingled star-light and fire-light, soft air, and lovely prospect of land and sea—to say nothing of the prospect of supper—all tended to induce a peaceful and forbearing spirit.
“Well, now,” said Robin, continuing a subject which often engaged their intellectual powers, “it seems to me simple enough.”
“Simple!” exclaimed Johnson, with a half-sarcastic laugh, “w’y, now, you an’ the doctor ’ave tried to worrit that electricity into my brain for many months, off an’ on, and I do believe as I’m more muddled about it to-night than I was at the beginnin’.”
“P’r’aps it’s because you hain’t got no brains to work upon,” suggested Slagg.
“P’r’aps it is,” humbly admitted the seaman. “But look here, now, doctor,” he added, turning to Sam with his brow knotted up into an agony of mental endeavour, and the forefinger of one hand thrust into the palm of the other,—“look here. You tells me that electricity ain’t a substance at all.”
“Yes, that’s so,” assented Sam with a nod.
“Wery good. Now, then, if it ain’t a substance at all, it’s nothin’. An’ if it’s nothin’, how can you go an’ talk of it as somethin’ an’ give it a name, an’ tell me it works the telegraph, an’ does all manner of wonderful things?”
“But it does not follow that a thing must be nothing because it isn’t a substance. Don’t you see, man, that an idea is something, yet it is not a substance. Thought, which is so potent a factor in this world, is not a substance, yet it cannot be called nothing. It is a condition—it is the result of brain-atoms in action. Electricity is sometimes described as an ‘invisible imponderable fluid,’ but that is not quite correct, because a fluid is a substance. It is a better definition to say that electricity is a manifestation of energy—a result of substance in action.”
“There, I’m muddled again!” said Johnson, with a look of hopeless incapacity.
“Small blame to you, Johnson,” murmured Slagg who had done his best to understand, while Stumps sat gazing at the speakers with an expression of blank complacency.
“Look here, Johnson,” said Sam, “you’ve often seen men shaking a carpet, haven’t you?”
“In coorse I have.”
“Well, have you not observed the waves of the carpet that roll along it when shaken!”
“Yes, I have.”
“What are these waves?”
“Well, sir, I should say they was the carpet,” replied Johnson.
“No, the waves are not the carpet. When the waves reach the end of the carpet they disappear. If the waves were the carpet, the carpet would disappear. The same waves in a whip, soft and undulating though they be, result in a loud crack, as you know.”
“Muddled again,” said Johnson.
“Ditto,” said Slagg.
“Why, I’m not muddled a bit!” suddenly exclaimed Stumps, with a half-contemptuous laugh.
“Of coorse you’re not,” retorted Slagg. “Brainless things never git into that state. You never heard of a turnip bein’ muddled, did you?”
Stumps became vacant, and Sam went on.
“Well, you see, the waves are not substance. They are a condition—a result of atoms in motion. Now, when the atoms of a substance are disturbed by friction, or by chemical action, they get into a state of violent commotion, and try wildly to fly from, or to, each other. This effort to fly about is energy. When the atoms get into a very intense state of commotion they have a tendency to induce explosion, unless a way of escape is found—escape for the energy, not for the atoms. Now, when you cause chemical disturbance in an electric battery, the energy thus evolved is called electricity, and we provide a conductor of escape for it in the shape of a copper or other metal wire, which we may carry to any distance we please, and the energy runs along it, as the wave runs along the carpet, as long as you keep up the commotion in the battery among the excited atoms of copper and zinc.”
“Mud—no, not quite. I have got a glimmer o’ su’thin’,” said Johnson.
“Ditto,” said Slagg.
“Supper,” said old Meerta.
“Ha! that’s the battery for me,” cried Stumps, jumping up.
“Not a bad one either,” said Robin, as they entered the cave; “alternate plates of beef and greens, steeped in some such acid as lemonade, cause a wonderful commotion in the atoms of the human body.”
“True, Robin, and the energy thereby evolved,” said Sam, “sometimes bursts forth in brilliant sparks of wit—to say nothing of flashes of absurdity.”
“An’ thunderin’ stoopidity,” added Slagg.
Further converse on the subject was checked at that time by what Sam termed the charging of the human batteries. The evening meal went on in silence and very pleasantly for some time, but before its close it was interrupted in an alarming manner by the sudden entrance of Letta with wild excitement in her eyes.
“Oh!” she cried, pointing back to the entrance of the cave, “a ship!—pirate-ship coming!”
A bombshell could scarcely have produced greater effect. Each individual leaped up and darted out, flushing deep red or turning pale, according to temperament. They were not long in verifying the statement. A ledge of rocks concealed the entrance to the cavern from the sea. Over its edge could be seen the harbour in which they had found the vessel whose total destruction has been described; and there, sure enough, they beheld a similar vessel, though considerably smaller, in the act of furling her sails and dropping anchor. There could be no doubt as to her character, for although too distant to admit of her crew being distinguished by star-light, her rig and general appearance betrayed her.
“Not a moment to be lost, Robin,” said Sam Shipton hurriedly, as he led the way back to the tavern, where old Meerta and blind Bungo, aided by Letta, had already cleared away all evidence of the late feast, leaving only three tin cups and three pewter plates on the table, with viands appropriate thereto.
“Ha! you’re a knowing old lady,” exclaimed Sam, “you understand how to help us, I see.”
“Me tink so!” replied Meerta, with an intelligent nod. “On’y us t’ree here. All de pyrits gone away. Dem sinners on’y come here for a feed—p’r’aps for leetil poodre. Soon go away.”
“Just so,” said Sam, “meanwhile we will hide, and return after they are gone, or, better still, if you, Letta, and Bungo will come and hide with us, I’ll engage to lay a train of powder from the barrels inside to somewhere outside, and blow the reptiles and the whole mountain into the sea! There’s powder enough to do it.”
“You tink me one divl?” demanded the old woman indignantly. “No, some o’ dem pyrits not so bad as each oder. You let ’em alone; me let you alone.”
This gentle intimation that Meerta had their lives in her hand, induced Sam to ask modestly what she would have him do.
“Go,” she replied promptly, “take rifles, swords, an’ poodre. Hide till pyrits go ’way. If de finds you—fight. Better fight dan be skin alive!”
“Unquestionably,” said Sam, with a mingled laugh and shudder, in which his companions joined—as regards the shudder at least, if not the laugh.
Acting promptly on the suggestion, Sam armed himself and his comrades each with a good breech-loading rifle, as much ammunition as he could conveniently carry, and an English sword. Then, descending the mountain on the side opposite to the harbour they disappeared in the dark and tangled underwood of the palm-grove. Letta went a short distance with them.
“They won’t kill Meerta or blind Bungo,” she said, on the way down. “They’re too useful, though they often treat them badly. Meerta sent me away to hide here the last time the strange bad men came. She thinks I go hide to-night, but I won’t; so, good-night.”
“But surely you don’t mean to put yourself in the power of the pirates?” said Robin.
“No, never fear,” returned the child with a laugh. “I know how to see them without they see me.”
Before further remonstrance could be made, the active child had bounded up the pathway and disappeared.
Not long after Sam and his comrades had taken their departure, the pirates came up to the cavern in a body—about forty of them—well armed and ready to fight if need be. They were as rascally a set of cut-throats as one could desire to see—or, rather, not to see—of various nationality, with ugly countenances and powerful frames, which were clothed in more or less fantastic Eastern garb. Their language, like themselves, was mixed, and, we need scarcely add, unrefined. The little that was interchanged between them and Meerta we must, however, translate.
“What! alive still!” cried the ruffian, who appeared to be the leader of the band, flinging himself down on a couch with the air of a man who knew the place well, while his men made themselves at home.
Meerta merely smiled to the salutation; that in to say, she grinned.
“Where are they?” demanded the pirate-chief, referring of course to those who, the reader is aware, were blown up.
“Gone away,” answered Meerta.
“Far away?” asked the pirate.
“Yes, very far away.”
“Goin’ to be long away?”
“Ho! yes, very long.”
“Where’s the little girl they took from Sarawak?”
“Gone away.”
“Where away?”
“Don’t know.”
“Now, look here, you old hag,” said the pirate, drawing a pistol from his belt and levelling it, “tell the truth about that girl, else I’ll scatter your brains on the floor. Where has she gone to?”
“Don’t know,” repeated Meerta, with a look of calm indifference, as she took up a tankard and wiped it out with a cloth.
The man steadied the pistol and pressed the trigger.
“You better wait till she has given us our grub,” quietly suggested one of the men.
The leader replaced the weapon in the shawl which formed his girdle, and said, “Get it ready quick—the best you have, and bring us some wine to begin with.”
Soon after that our friends, while conversing in low tones in the grove, heard the unmistakeable sounds of revelry issue from the cave.
“What think you, boys,” said Sam suddenly, “shall we go round to the harbour, surprise and kill the guard, seize the pirate-ship, up anchor and leave these villains to enjoy themselves as best they may?”
“What! and leave Letta, not to mention Meerta and Bungo, behind us? Never!”
“I forgot them for the moment,” said Sam. “No, we can’t do that.”
As he spoke the noise of revelry became louder and degenerated into sounds of angry disputation. Then several shots were heard, followed by the clashing of steel and loud yells.
“Surely that was a female voice,” said Robin, rising and rushing up the steep path that led to the cavern, closely followed by his comrades.
They had not gone a hundred yards when they were arrested by hearing a rustling in the bushes and the sound of hasty footsteps. Next instant Letta was seen running towards them, with glaring eyes and streaming hair. She sprang into Robin’s arms with a convulsive sob, and hid her white face on his breast.
“Speak, Letta, dear child! Are you hurt?”
“No, O no; but Meerta, darling Meerta, she is dead! They have shot her and Bungo.”
She burst again into convulsive sobbing.
“Dead! But are you sure—quite sure?” said Sam.
“Quite. I saw their brains scattered on the wall.—Oh, Meerta!—”
She ended in a low wail, as though her heart were broken.
“Now, boys,” said Johnson, who had hitherto maintained silence, “we must go to work an’ try to cut out the pirate-ship. It’s a good chance, and it’s our only one.”
“Yes, there’s nothing to prevent us trying it now,” said Robin, sadly, “and the sooner the better.”
“Lucky that we made up the parcels last night, warn’t it?” said Jim Slagg as they made hasty arrangements for carrying out their plan.
Jim referred to parcels of rare and costly jewels which each of them had selected from the pirate store, put into separate bags and hid away in the woods, to be ready in case of any sudden occasion arising—such as had now actually arisen—to quit the island. Going to the place where these bags were concealed, they slung them over their shoulders and set off at a steady run, or trot, for the harbour, each taking his turn in carrying Letta, for the poor child was not fit to walk, much less to run.
Stealthy though their movements were, however, they did not altogether escape detection. Two bright eyes had been watching Letta during all her wanderings that night, and two nimble feet had followed her when she ran affrighted from the pirates’ stronghold. The party was overtaken before half the distance to the harbour had been gained, and at length, with a cry of satisfaction.
Letta’s favourite—the small monkey—sprang upon her shoulder. In this position, refusing to move, he was carried to the coast.
As had been anticipated, the pirate vessel was found lying in the pool where the former ship had anchored. Being considerably smaller, however, it had been drawn close to the rocks, so that a landing had been effected by means of a broad plank or gangway instead of a boat. Fortunately for our friends, this plank had not been removed after the pirates had left, probably because they deemed themselves in a place of absolute security. As far as they could see, only one sentinel paced the deck.
“I shouldn’t wonder if the guard is a very small one,” whispered Sam to Robin, as they crept to the edge of the shrubs which lined the harbour, and surveyed their intended prize. “No doubt they expected to meet only with friends here—or with nobody at all, as it has turned out,—and have left just enough to guard their poor slaves.”
