The skipper moved off into the darkness, and all was wonderfully still
once more in the clearing. There was the dense jungle all round, but
not a sound broke the silence, for it was the peculiar period between
the going to rest of the myriad creatures who prey by night, and the
waking up of those expectant of the sun.
Then there was a sound of about the most commonplace, matter-of-fact
character that can be imagined. Fitz, as he lay half upon a heap of dry
leaves and canes, opened his mouth very widely, yawned portentously and
loudly, ending with, "Oh, dear me!" and a quickly-uttered correction of
what seemed to him like bad manners: "I beg your pardon!"
"Ha, ha!" laughed Poole, "I was doing just the same. Here, you are a
pretty sort of fellow," he continued, "to be on the watch, and kick up a
shindy like that! Suppose the enemy had been sneaking in."
He had hardly finished speaking when Fitz caught him by the arm and
sprang up, for there was a faint rustling, and the two lads felt more
than saw that some one was approaching them. Relief came directly, for
instead of a sudden attack, it was the skipper who spoke.
"Silence!" he said softly. "Here, if you two lads are as sleepy as
that, lie down again till sunrise."
"No, no, father," said Poole; "I am all right now. You must be tired
out. Burnett and I will go your rounds now."
"Thanks, my lad; but no, thank you."
"But you may trust me, father, and I will call you at daybreak."
"No, my boy; I couldn't sleep if I tried."
"No more could I now, father. Let me help you, then; and go round to
see that the watch is all right."
"Very well. You go that way, and have a quiet chat with the man on
duty. It will rouse him up. I am going round here."
The skipper moved off directly, and Poole, before starting off in the
indicated direction, whispered to Fitz--
"You can have another snooze till I come back."
"Thank you; but I am going along with you."
Quite willing to accept his companionship, Poole led the way slowly and
cautiously; but at the end of a few yards he stopped short.
"What's the matter?" whispered Fitz.
"Nothing yet; but I was just thinking. Is there any password?"
"I dunno," whispered Fitz.
"I didn't ask father, and it would be rather awkward if we were
challenged and shot at."
"Oh, there's no fear of that. You'd know by the voice which of the men
it was who spoke, and he'd know yours when you answered."
"To be sure. False alarm. Come on." It seemed darker than ever as
they went forward on what seemed to be the track, but proved to be off
it, for all at once as they were going cautiously on, literally feeling
their way, Poole caught his foot against a stump and nearly fell
headlong.
"Bother!" he ejaculated loudly, to add to the noise he made, and
instantly a gruff voice from their right growled out, "Who goes there?"
accompanying the question with a clicking of a rifle-lock. "Friends,"
cried Fitz sharply. "The word."
"_Teal_" cried Poole, as he scrambled up. "Aren't right," growled the
same voice. "That you, Mr Poole?"
"Oh, it's you, Chips!" cried the lad, in a tone full of relief.
"Winks it is," was the reply; "but the skipper said I warn't to let
anybody pass without he said Sponson."
"Sponson," cried Fitz, laughing.
"Ah, you know now," growled the carpenter, "because I telled you; but it
don't seem right somehow. But you aren't enemies, of course."
"Not much," said Poole. "Well, how are you getting on, Chips?"
"Oh, tidy, sir, tidy; only it's raither dull work, and precious damp. A
bit wearisome like with nothing to do but chew. Thought when I heard
you that there was going to be something to warm one up a bit.
Wonderful how chilly it gets before the sun's up. I should just like to
have a bit of timber here, and my saw."
"To let the enemy know exactly where we are?"
"Ah, of course; that wouldn't do. But I always feel when I haven't got
another job on the way that it's a good thing to do to cut up a bit of
timber into boards."
"Why?" asked Fitz, more for the sake of speaking than from any desire to
know.
"Plaisters, my lad."
"Plaisters?"
"Ay; for sore hulls. A bit of thin board's always handy off a coast
where there's rocks, and there's many a time when, if the carpenter had
had plenty of sticking-plaister for a vessel's skin, a good ship could
have been saved from going down. Nice place this. What a spot it would
have been if it had been an island and the schooner had been wrecked!"
"What do you want the schooner wrecked for?" cried Poole.
"Me, sir? I don't want the schooner wrecked. I only said if it had
been, and because you young gents was talking the other day about being
on a desolate island to play Robinson Crusoe for a bit."
"Oh yes, I remember," said Fitz.
"So do I, sir. It set me thinking about that chap a good deal. Some
men do get chances in life. Just think of him! Why, that fellow had
everything a chap could wish for. Aren't talking too loud, are we, Mr
Poole?"
"Oh no. No one could hear us whispering like this."
"That's right. I am glad you young gents come, for it was getting very
unked and queer all alone. Quite cheers a fellow up. Set down, both on
you."
"Thanks, no," said Fitz; "the ground's too wet."
"Nay, I don't mean on the ground. Feel just behind you. There aren't a
arm-chair, but a big bit of timber as has been cut down.--There, that's
better. May as well make one's miserable life happy, and I don't
suppose we shall have anybody sneaking round now.--Ah, yes, that there
Robinson Crusoe did have a fine time of it. Everything his own,
including a ship safely docked ashore full of stores, and nothing to do
but break her up and sort the bits. And there he'd got all the timbers,
keel-knees, planks, tree-nails, ropes, spars and yards, and plenty of
sheet-metal, I'll be bound, for copper bottoming. Why, with plenty of
time on his hands, he might have built anything, from a yawl to a
schooner. But he didn't seem to me to shine much in naval architecter.
Why, at first he hadn't a soul much above a raft."
"It was very useful, though," said Fitz.
"Nay; more trouble, sir, than it was worth. Better have built himself
some kind of a boat at once. Look at his raft! Always a-sinking, or
fouling, or shooting off its cargo, or trying to navigate itself. I
don't believe in rafts. They're no use unless you want to use one to
get washed ashore. For my part--Pst!"
The boys sprang up at the man's whispered signal, Fitz the more actively
from the fact that the carpenter's horny hand had suddenly gripped his
knee so forcibly that he had hard work to restrain a cry of pain.
"Somebody coming," whispered Poole, quite unnecessarily, for a loud
rustling through the bushes was announcing the approach of the expected
enemy.
"Stand by!" roared the carpenter, and his rifle flashed a line of light
through the darkness as he fired in the direction of the sounds. "Now,
my lads," he whispered, "double back into the ship."
As the words passed his lips a voice from out of the darkness shouted in
broken English, and with a very Spanish accent--
"Don't fire! Friends! Friends! Friends!"
The words checked the retreat on the hacienda, but they did not clear
away the watch's doubts.
"Yes," growled the carpenter, "so you says, but it's too dark to see
your faces." Then aloud, "Who are you? Give the word."
"Friends!" was shouted again.
"Well! Where's the word?--He don't say Sponson, Mr Poole," added the
carpenter, in a whisper.
"Captain Reed! Captain Reed!" cried the same voice, from where all was
perfectly still now, for the sounds of the advance had ceased.
"Who wants Captain Reed?" shouted Poole.
"Ah, yes, I know you," came excitedly. "Tell your father Don Ramon is
here with his men."