On leaving the camp we had kept along the centre of the reef, and, before deciding to return, we had examined both sides to see if by any means we might manage to continue our road along the narrow beach; and in doing so we came upon pools of salt water which were literally alive with fish, and as we could see that the water was draining away through the sands, there could be little doubt that they would soon be left high and dry. As soon as Tom Arbor saw them, he clapped his hands and said that here was a chance of laying in a good stock of provisions, and that it would be better to secure them before they went bad, and even before we thought of our catamaran.
We were puzzled as to how he meant us to proceed; but he said he had been shipmates with a Yarmouth lad on a previous voyage, and he had told him how herrings were prepared by salt and smoking, and that, even if we had no salt, we could smoke a good many, and so provide ourselves with a stock which would last us some time, and which would be a pleasant variety to the cocoanuts, which, so far as he saw, were the only vegetable products fit for food to be found.
We at once set to work at one pool and picked out a lot of fish, which we strung on our ramrods and carried back to camp with us. And after Tom had shown me and Bill how to clean and split them open, he set to work to prepare a number of thin, light rods out of the midribs of the leaves of the palms which had been blown down. On these he slipped the fish as soon as we had completed cleaning them, putting his rods in at one of the gills and out at the mouth of each of the fish; and when a rod was strung with fish about four inches apart, he put it on a couple of uprights planted in the ground, under which he lighted a fire, which he banked down with green leaves and damped cocoanut husks, so as to cause a dense smoke.
“There,” he said—“that will do after a fashion; but at Yarmouth, I’m told, they have houses to keep the smoke in. And now you, Bill, had better make a basket out of some of these leaves, and go and get some more fish, while Sam and I set to work to rig up some sort of a hut for us.”
I said, “Why should we have our hut here? Isn’t the other side of the reef bigger? It looks so.”
“Yes,” he said; “but don’t you see the palms over there waving in the breeze? It’ll soon be down on us. And that must be the trades setting in again; and they’ll blow for months and months without taking off. It’s only when there are storms for a time that they cease.”
“Why’s that, Tom?” I asked.
“I can’t rightly tell the reason, but so it is; and while they’re a-blowing there’ll always be a big surf tumbling on that side. And if ever it happen that we see a ship, and have to get off to her, it’ll be from this side that we shall have to make a start.”
Tom now chose four palm trees which had not been blown down, and telling me to get a couple of axes from among our stores, he and I set to work to cut them off as high up as we could manage by standing on the top of our beakers and the trade-chest.
The four trees stood at the corners of a space about twelve feet long by eight wide, and would, he said, make the main posts of the hut we were to build; and before Bill came back with his load of fish two of them had been cut at a height of six feet from the ground.
When Bill came back, he said,—
“Didn’t you say the Yarmouth folk used salt for their herrings?”
“Yes,” answered Tom. “Why do you ask?”
“Why, because I’ve found some. There’s a bit of rock stands up above the ground about a hundred yards away, and the top of it is fashioned like a basin, and in that there’s a lot of salt, though it’s wet now from last night’s rain.”
“That’s good news, anyway. Do you just go and get some.”
“All right!” answered Bill; and he soon returned with a couple of handkerchiefs filled with coarse, wet salt.
“Now, how do they put the salt into the fish and smoke ’em at the same time?” I asked. “We haven’t a harness-tub to put ’em in.”
“I don’t rightly know,” said Tom; “but I suppose if, when we’ve cleaned a fish out, we put some salt inside, and tie it up again with a strip of palm leaf before hanging it up to smoke, it’ll answer pretty well.”
We all now set to work cleaning the fish Bill had brought, and filled their insides with salt, and then hung them up as we had done the others; and when we had finished we found we had about forty unsalted and sixty salted, averaging over a pound weight each, most of them being a sort of rock cod.
With this Tom said we might be satisfied for the time, and that we should now get on with our hut as fast as we could.
The two remaining trees were soon cut, and just as I was going to jump down off the trade-chest, on which I had been standing (the trade winds had now reached our side of the reef), I saw something black floating in the middle of the lagoon, and looking steadily at it, I soon saw that it was our boat, but that from the way she was floating she must be half full of water.
“Hurrah!” I cried, “hurrah!”
“What’s up, mate?” said both of my companions in a breath.
“Why, there’s our boat a-coming back to us of her own accord,” I answered, pointing her out.
“That’s a providence,” said Tom. “We must keep an eye on her, that she don’t get drifted out through one of the entrances. Now, then, one must keep a watch on her; and as ’twas you, Sam, as first saw her, you do so. But you can keep your hands employed in making sinnet for lashings for the house out of the palm leaves.”
I was soon busy making sinnet, and keeping an eye on the boat, while from the sound of the axes I could hear that Tom and Bill were busy.
The boat drifted pretty rapidly across the lagoon, and seemed to be coming straight towards us until she came to within about two hundred yards of the shore, when she altered her direction and began to move quickly towards the entrance by which we had got into the lagoon.
I had been desirous of securing her without saying a word to my companions, but now I feared that I should be unable to do so, and called to them to come to my assistance. Seaman at once proposed to swim off to her, but Tom Arbor would not allow him, for fear of sharks, and said we had best go to the opening by which we had entered the lagoon, for she would be sure to drift there.
He was not mistaken, for she grounded just at the inner end, and we were able to secure her without any risk, and tow her back to where our camp was.
“Now, lads,” said Tom, “we had better bail her out and haul her up on shore.”
We set to work to bail her out, but soon found that she leaked so much that it was hopeless to attempt it.
“She’s no use as she is,” I said. “We must get her up ashore and see what we can do to her.”
“That’s all very well, but how can we haul her up full of water?” answered both Bill and Tom in a breath.
“Why, where water comes in, it must be able to go out; and every bit we raise her out of the water, she will empty herself.”
“True; but we’re not strong enough to haul her up the weight she is now.”
“I have it!” I cried, after thinking a minute or two. “Let’s put a palm trunk against two of the uprights of the house, and bringing the cable to it, rig a Spanish windlass. And some of those small palms I see you’ve been cutting for ridge-poles and rafters will do for handspikes and rollers.”
My proposal was hailed with delight, and from the small palms, which were not more than three or four inches in diameter, we soon cut some levers and rollers, and essayed to heave the boat up. We found, however, that our utmost efforts would not move the boat when she was once solidly aground, and that, heave as we might, we only buried her bows in the sand.
After wasting our strength for about a quarter of an hour, we stopped to regain our breath, and walking down to the boat, Tom said he would pass the cable round her outside, so as not to bury her; and this being done we gave another heave, but with no better results than before.
“Seems to me,” I said, “these handspikes are too short.”
“That may be,” answered Tom, “but how are we to reach the tops of longer ones?”
“Why not bend the leadline or boat’s sheet on?” said Bill.
“Better still,” I answered. “We have the blocks of the sheet and halyards. We can reeve a jigger, and make it fast to the top of our lever, and the other end we’ll bring down to that palm there.”
This at last answered, and with each shift of our tackle we were able to haul the boat up about six inches, and in little more than an hour we had got her half out of the water, and altogether on rollers, and found that the water that remained in her no longer ran out. So we set to work and bailed her out, and then she was so much lighter that we were able to dispense with our purchase and long levers and use our short ones again, and before another hour was past we had her high and dry on the beach.
We now left her and set to work about our hut again, and lashing small palm trunks to the four corner-posts, we had the frame of our shanty pretty well up before the sinking of the sun warned us that it was time to prepare for the night.
We spread the torn sail over the weather side to protect us from the wind, and Bill went to the nearest pool to get some fresh fish for our supper, for we would not touch those we had put to smoke; and they were soon grilling on the embers, and furnished us with a capital meal, which we washed down with cocoanut milk.
Supper finished, we made our beds of leaves, and laid us down to sleep, thoroughly tired with our day’s work; but first of all Tom proposed that we should have prayers, and return thanks to God for the mercies shown to us; and this good custom once established, we never departed from it.
When we woke in the morning, Tom and Bill said they would thatch our hut, and that I, as the carpenter of the party, should examine the boat and see what I could do to repair her.
At first sight my task seemed nearly hopeless, for many of her planks were split, and her seams were open and gaping over all the fore part of her, and I had neither nails nor planks with which to mend her.