Two days later, following the arrival at the island of the coal ship—a
small, rusty tramp steamer—the boys set out for the village to meet
their friends, who had swum out to the ship almost daily, despite the
sharks, to see the white youths. As they left the yacht they saw
Thurman, who had been put to work in the crew, laboring with the other
blackened “hands” at getting the fuel on board.
“He doesn’t look as if he liked his job much,” said Jack.
“He ought to be glad he’s alive,” supplemented Billy Raynor. “I wonder
if he has really mended his ways or if it was just the effect of his
scare that made him promise to reform.”
“Impossible to say,” replied Jack, “but time will show, I guess.”
The boys found their friends on the beach with a long, cranky-looking
canoe, paddled with wonderfully carved paddles. In the canoe were
bananas, roast pork and other delicacies; also several empty cocoanut
shells.
“What are those for?” asked Jack, looking at the latter.
“We put um pearl in them if so be we get any,” grinned Anai.
“Do you really think we’ll get any?” asked Billy.
“No can say. Think cave good place. You ready?”
“Whenever you are,” said Jack, taking his place in the canoe, while
Billy followed his example. The two native lads shoved off and sprang on
board with wonderful agility, driving the canoe through the surf and up
onto the summit of a huge wave, where it hung poised for an instant like
a bird. The next moment they had shot with powerful strokes through the
rollers and were out beyond the danger line of the surf.
They passed through a noisy fleet of fishers, all of whom greeted them,
and then the canoe was headed for a green headland some distance down
the coast. The sun glowed fiercely overhead, the surf boomed unceasingly
on the beach and the reef beyond, the water hissed along the sides of
the canoe as the two athletic young natives urged forward amid shouts.
Looking over the side, Jack could see the coral bottom as clearly as if
an inch instead of many feet of water separated it from the frail canoe.
It was almost as if they were floating in the air. Fish of brilliant
colors darted about and once a dark, sinister shade appeared beneath the
canoe. The Kanaka boys shouted and beat the water with their paddles.
The dark shadow melted away.
“Him very bad shark,” said Anai. “White men call him tiger shark. Worst
kind of all shark.”
“I’d hate to bathe around here,” observed Jack.
“Oh, him all right, most generally scare him away, kick, splash, makee
big noise, he go 'way.”
“Yes, but suppose he refused to be scared,” objected Billy.
“Then maybe he takee off leg, arm, maybe swallow you all up.”
The long, curved point soon hid the fishers in front of the village from
view. Rounding it, they found themselves skimming along a coast of
surpassing beauty. Steep, majestic cliffs arose from the clear water and
long green creepers from the forest above trailed over them.
At last the prow of the canoe was turned and the boys saw that the
furious paddlers were heading at top speed for the cliffs.
“Hey, stop that, you’ll smash the canoe!” cried Jack, as, without any
diminution of speed, the canoe was urged with wild shouts from the
paddlers right at the rocky escarpment.
“They’ve gone crazy,” exclaimed Billy, “they——”
He did not conclude what he was going to say. Instead, he set up a cry
of alarm as the prow of the canoe was hurled at the cliff at a spot
where a regular curtain of lianas and other forest trailers depended
from above.
Swish, whoosh, went the canoe, as it shot through the parasites and
creepers. The boys instinctively ducked their heads. Instead of being
dashed to destruction against the cliff, the frail craft had been guided
into this singular cave, one of many along the coast, through the
greenery portal. Both the Kanaka boys set up a shout of laughter at the
expense of Jack and Billy, who looked rather sheepish at their late
alarm.
They were in a dark passage that led into an inner water cave filled
with an eternal sunless twilight that was very refreshing to them after
the heat and glare outside. The canoe shot through the passage and into
the cave itself, the boys uttering a shout of admiration the while.
“Look,” said Anai, pointing upward.
Overhead was a marvelously perfect, natural dome, with a large hole in
the centre through which shafts of sunlight fell into the cave and were
reflected from the water with a greenish light.
“Look,” ordered the Kanaka boy again.
The boys obeyed and gazed over the side of the canoe. Below them,
through several feet of crystal-clear water, they could see bowers of
coral, white and pink, with fish darting in and out of the chinks and
crossing prismatically, while others hung motionless as if suspended,
fanning the water incessantly with their gauzy fins. It was the most
wonderful water picture the boys had ever seen.