Foul Play Part 33

"Oh, excuse me," said Miss Rolleston, "I will not be sheltered at the expense of my friends."

"Welch, you are a trump," said Hazel, and ran off for the spare canvas.

He brought it and the carpenter's basket of tools. They went to work, and Miss Rolleston insisted on taking part in it. Finding her so disposed, Hazel said that they had better divide their labors, since the time was short. Accordingly he took the ax and chopped off a great many scales of the palm-tree, and lighted a great fire between the trees, while the other two worked on the canvas.

"This is to dry the soil as well as cook our provisions," said he; "and now I must go and find food. Is there anything you fancy?" He turned his head from the fire he was lighting and addressed this question both to Welch and Miss Rolleston.

Miss Rolleston stared at this question, then smiled, and, in the true spirit of a lady, said, "I think I should like a good large cocoanut, if you can find one." She felt sure there was no other eatable thing in the whole island.

"I wants a cabbage," said Welch, in a loud voice.

"Oh, Mr. Welch, we are not at home," said Miss Rolleston, blus.h.i.+ng at the preposterous demand.

"No, miss, in Capericorn. Whereby we shan't have to pay nothing for this here cabbage. I'll tell ye, miss: when a sailor comes ash.o.r.e he always goes in for green vegetables, for why, he has eaten so much junk and biscuit, nature sings out for greens. Me and my s.h.i.+pmates was paid off at Portsmouth last year, and six of us agreed to dine together and each order his dish. Blest if six boiled legs of mutton did not come up smoking hot: three was with cabbage, and three with turmots. Mine was with turmots. But them I don't ask, so nigh the Line. Don't ye go to think, because I'm sick, and the lady and you is so kind to me, and to him that is a waiting outside them there shoals for me, as I'm onreasonable; turmots I wish you both, and plenty of 'em, when some whaler gets driven out of her course and picks you up, and carries you into northern lat.i.tudes where turmots grow; but cabbage is my right, cabbage is my due, being paid off in a manner; for the s.h.i.+p is foundered and I'm ash.o.r.e. Cabbage I ask for, as a seaman that has done his duty, and a man that won't live to eat many more of 'em; and" (losing his temper), "if you are the man I take you for, you'll run and fetch me a cabbage fresh from the tree" (recovering his temper). "I know I didn't ought to ax a parson to s.h.i.+n up a tree for me; but, Lord bless you, there ain't no sarcy little boys a-looking on, and here's a poor fellow mostly dying for it."

Miss Rolleston looked at Mr. Hazel with alarm in every feature; and whispered, "Cabbage from the tree. Is he wandering?"

Hazel smiled. "No," said he. "He has picked up a fable of these seas, that there is a tree which grows cabbages."

Welch heard him and said, with due warmth, "Of course there is a tree on all these islands that grows cabbages; that was known a hundred years before you was born, and s.h.i.+pmates of mine have eaten them."

"Excuse me, what those old admirals and buccaneers, that set the legend afloat, were so absurd as to call a cabbage, and your s.h.i.+pmates may have eaten for one, is nothing on earth but the last year's growth of the palm-tree."

"Palm-tree be ----!" said Welch; and thereupon ensued a hot argument, which Helen's good sense cut short.

"Mr. Hazel," said she, "can you by any possibility get our poor friend the _thing_ he wants?"

"Oh, _that_ is quite within the bounds of possibility," said Hazel dryly.

"Well, then, suppose you begin by getting him the _thing._ Then I will boil the thing; and he will eat the thing; and after all that it will be time to argue about the _name_ we shall give to the _thing."_

The good sense of this struck Mr. Hazel forcibly. He started off at once, armed with the ax, and a net bag Welch had made since he became unfit for heavy labor. He called back to them as he went, to put the pots on.

Welch and Miss Rolleston complied; and then the sailor showed the lady how to sew sailor--wise, driving the large needle with the palm of the hand, guarded by a piece of leather. They had nailed two breadths of canvas to the trees on the north and west sides and run the breadths rapidly together; and the water was boiling and bubbling in the balers, when Miss Rolleston uttered a scream, for Hazel came running over the prostrate palm-tree as if it was a proper bridge, and lighted in the midst of them.

"Lot one," said he cheerfully, and produced from his net some limes, two cocoanuts, and a land-turtle; from this last esculent Miss Rolleston withdrew with undisguised horror, and it was in vain he a.s.sured her it was a great delicacy.

"No matter. It is a reptile. Oh, please send it away."

"The Queen of the Island reprieves you," said he, and put down the terrapin, which went off very leisurely for a reprieved reptile.

Then Hazel produced a fine bream, which he had found struggling in a rock-pool, the tide having turned, and three sea crayfish, bigger than any lobster. He chopped their heads off outside, and threw their tails into the pots; he stuck a piece of pointed wood through the bream, and gave it to Welch to toast; but Welch waved it aside.

"I see no cabbage," said he, grimly.

"Oh, I forgot. But that is soon found," said Hazel. "Here, give me the fish, and you take the saw, and examine the head of the palm-tree, which lies at Miss Rolleston's door. Saw away the succulent part of last year's growth, and bring it here."

Welch got up slowly.

"I'll go with you, Mr. Welch," said Miss Rolleston.

She will not be alone with me for a moment, if she can help it, thought Hazel, and sat moody by the fire. But he shook off his sadness, and forced on a cheerful look the moment they came back. They brought with them a vegetable very like the heart of a cabbage, only longer and whiter.

"There," said Welch, "what d'ye call that?"

"The last year's growth of the palm," said Hazel calmly.

This vegetable was cut in two and put into the pots.

"There, take the toasting-fork again," said Hazel to Welch, and drew out from his net three huge scallop sh.e.l.ls. "Soup-plates," said he, and washed them in the running stream, then put them before the fire to dry.

While the fish and vegetable were cooking, he went and cut off some of the leafy, piunuated branches of the palm-tree, and fastened them horizontally above the strips of canvas. Each palm branch traversed a whole side of the bower. This closed the northern and western sides.

On the southern side, the prostrate palm-tree, on striking the ground, had so crushed its boughs and leaves together as to make a thick wall of foliage.

Then he took to making forks; and primitive ones they were. He selected a bough the size of a thick walking-stick; sawed it off the tree; sawed a piece six inches long off it, peeled that, split it in four, and, with his knife, gave each piece three points, by merely tapering off and serrating one end; and so he made a fork a minute. Then he brought all the rugs and things from the boat, and the ground being now thoroughly dried by the fire, placed them for seats; gave each person a large leaf for a plate, besides a scallop-sh.e.l.l; and served out supper. It was eaten with rare appet.i.te; the palm-tree vegetable in particular was delicious, tasting between a cabbage and a cocoanut.

When they had supped, Hazel removed the plates and went to the boat. He returned, dragging the foremast and foresail, which were small, and called Welch out. They agreed to rig the mainsail tarpaulin-wise and sleep in the boat. Accordingly they made themselves very busy screening the east side of Miss Rolleston's new abode with the foresail, and fastened a loop and drove a nail into the tree, and looped the sail to it, then suddenly bade her good-night in cheerful tones, and were gone in a moment, leaving her to her repose, as they imagined. Hazel, in particular, having used all his ingenuity to secure her personal comfort, was now too bent on showing her the most delicate respect and forbearance to think of anything else. But, justly counting on the delicacy, he had forgotten the timidity of her s.e.x, and her first night in the island was a terribly trying one.

Thrice she opened her mouth to call Welch and Hazel back, but could not.

Yet, when their footsteps were out of hearing, she would have given the world to have them between her and the perils with which she felt herself surrounded.

Tigers; snakes; scorpions; savages! what would become of her during the long night?

She sat and cowered before the hot embers. She listened to what seemed the angry roar of the sea. What with the stillness of the night and her sharpened senses she heard it all round the island: she seemed environed with peril, and yet surrounded by desolation. No one at hand to save her in time from a wild beast. No one anywhere near except a sick sailor and one she would almost rather die than call singly to her aid, for he had once told her he loved her.

"Oh, papa! Oh, Arthur!" she cried, "are you praying for your poor Helen?"

Then she wept and prayed; and half nerved herself to bear the worst.

Finally, her vague fears completely overmastered her. Then she had recourse to a stratagem that belongs to her s.e.x--she hid herself from the danger, and the danger from her; she covered herself face and all, and so lay trembling, and longing for the day.

At the first streak of dawn she fled from her place of torture, and after plunging her face and hands in the river, which did her a world of good, she went off and entered the jungle, and searched it closely, so far as she could penetrate it. Soon she heard "Miss Rolleston" called in anxious tones. But she tossed her little head and revenged herself for her night of agony by not replying.

However, Nature took her in hand; imperious hunger drew her back to her late place of torture; and there she found a fire, and Hazel cooking cray-fish. She ate the crayfish heartily, and drank cocoanut milk out of half a cocoanut, which the ingenious Hazel had already sawn, polished and mounted for her.

After that, Hazel's whole day was occupied in stripping a tree that stood on the high western promontory of the bay, and building up the materials of a bonfire a few yards from it, that, if any whaler should stray that way, they might not be at a loss for means to attract her attention.

Welch was very ill all day, and Miss Rolleston nursed him. He got about toward evening, and Miss Rolleston asked him, rather timidly, if he could put her up a bell-rope.

"Why, yes, miss," said Welch, "that is easy enough; but I don't see no bell." Oh, she did not want a bell--she only wanted a bell-rope.

Hazel came up during this conversation, and she then gave her reason.

"Because, then, if Mr. Welch is ill in the night, and wants me, I could come to him. Or--" finding herself getting near the real reason she stopped short.

"Or what?" inquired Hazel, eagerly.

She replied to Welch. "When tigers and things come to me, I can let you know, Mr. Welch, if you have any curiosity about the result of their visit."

"Tigers!" said Hazel, in answer to this side slap; "there are no tigers here; no large animals of prey exist in the Pacific."