CHAPTER XXIII
A TIME OF ANXIETY
Jack’s announcement filled all of those below with keen disappointment. They had hoped from his position in the tall palm that he would discover either that they were on a point of the mainland or that some sort of settlement was not far away.
“Gee, we’re regular Robinson Crusoes!” declared Andy, with a sigh. “What do you know about that!”
“And not a sail in sight!” murmured Fred.
“Yes, and nothing in the way of a boat to get away on,” added Randy.
“I thought it might be that way,” put in the old sailor. “We sure are in a pickle, an’ no mistake. But it’s a mighty good thing you sighted the raft an’ got them stores ashore. That food will last us quite a spell.” And then he added suddenly: “Don’t he see nothin’ of the Coryanda?”
“What about the steam yacht?” called up Fred.
“Nowhere in sight,” was Jack’s answer, after another look around.
“Then she must have gone to the bottom,” came solemnly from the lanky sailor. “I thought she was doomed.”
“Well, there’s one satisfaction,” was Andy’s comment. “If she went down, it’s good-bye to all those savage beasts and those horrible snakes.”
After a careful survey of the surroundings, Jack came down from the tree and told the others the details of what he had seen.
“The island looks to be about a mile long and not quite half a mile wide,” he said. “The western end is mostly rocky and extends out into the ocean for a considerable distance. Looks to me as if it might be of volcanic origin, like we have studied about in school. Over to the eastern end of the island is that little bay, and there the jungle is very dense. There are more rocks at the far eastern end of the island, some quite tall.”
“And you didn’t see anything at all in the way of a settlement or a place where boats might land?” questioned Randy.
“Not a thing! It looks to me as if this island had never been visited.”
“Oh, I reckon these islands are all visited once in a while,” remarked Ira Small. “The natives come in their long boats to see what they can pick up. But we might have to wait a good many months before any one would come here to take us off.”
“And it doesn’t look as if we could build a boat ourselves—not with the material we have,” answered Jack, with a sigh.
“Then it looks as if we might be booked to stay here quite a while,” remarked Randy. “Oh, dear, I wonder what the folks at home will think!” he went on soberly.
“They’ll think we have all been lost at sea,” answered Fred.
“They will unless those aboard the Hildegarde tell how we escaped in the motor boat.”
“Those rascals won’t open their mouths about that,” answered Andy. “And even if they did,” he went on, “they’d most likely think the motor boat was lost in the hurricane.”
“And what do you think became of Ralph, Gif and Spouter?” remarked Randy.
No one cared to reply to this. All wished to hope for the best, yet down in their hearts they were satisfied that their school chums had gone to a watery grave. A sudden spell of melancholy fastened itself upon the four Rover boys. The mind of each traveled back to the loved ones at home, and they could well visualize the agony of mind which their parents and the girls must endure.
“More than likely mother is half crazy, and so are dad and Martha,” mused Jack to himself. “Oh, if only we had a radio sending station, or some carrier pigeons, or some means of communicating with them!”
“I suppose the folks at home will start some sort of a search for us,” said Fred, a little later. “But it will be a good deal like looking for a pin in a haystack.”
“We can only hope for the best, Fred,” said Randy. “Gee, I wish we could do something! I don’t want to stay on this forsaken island for any great length of time!”
“None of us wants to stay here,” declared Andy. “We haven’t any great stock of provisions, and what are we going to do when those are gone? Of course, we can catch fish, and maybe get some oysters, and perhaps bring down a few birds. But who wants to live on that sort of stuff very long?”
“There may be something we can find to eat in the jungle,” said Jack. “Bananas or cocoanuts or mangoes, or some other semi-tropical stuff like that. It isn’t likely there’s very much on a place that’s so rocky.”
During the afternoon the boys explored the island further, penetrating into the jungle for quite a distance. Here, however, they found the thickets so dense that progress was almost impossible.
“We’d have to cut our way along to get to the south side of the island,” declared Jack. “A fellow could never get through unless he found some sort of a trail.”
They did manage to reach the shore of the little bay. Here the water was comparatively quiet, and here they came upon some of the wreckage that had torn itself loose from the improvised raft.
“We can make a little raft of that stuff and sail around the bay on it,” said Jack. “But I don’t see what good it will do.”
Too tired at last to do anything else, the boys returned to their temporary camp and there proceeded to fix an evening meal and prepare themselves for a second night on the island. They had secured a good-sized tarpaulin from the wreckage, and, cutting some poles with a hatchet, they soon had a tent erected. Then all the boys set to work to cut down some small branches, with which they fixed up beds for themselves and for the old sailor.
Fortunately, they had recovered all the firearms left on the improvised raft, and none that had been carried in their pockets had been lost, so that now all were armed as before.
“But we must remember that our supply of ammunition is limited,” said Jack. “So don’t shoot at anything unless you have to.”
“I don’t see what there is to shoot at,” answered Randy, who was frying one of the fish brought back from the pool.
“Well, something may turn up when you least expect it,” answered the young major.
Their clothing was now dry, yet they presented anything but an enviable appearance. Their linen was much soiled and torn and their suits were also torn and very much mussed up.
“We wouldn’t do to go to a party, would we, Jack?” remarked Fred, when they were preparing to retire. “I wonder what Ruth Stevenson would say if she saw you now.”
“Probably she’d be glad to see me and all the rest of you, Fred,” was the prompt answer. “I know I’d be mighty glad to see her and all of the others. Wouldn’t you?”
“Would I! Would a duck swim or a monkey eat peanuts? I’d give all I’m worth to be safe and sound again at home or at Colby Hall. Gosh! it seems as if we had been away for ages.”
Nothing that night disturbed the party, and all were stirring early, each wondering what they might do to get out of their predicament. To stay on the lonely little island indefinitely was unthinkable. Besides, they felt they must let their parents know of their whereabouts at the earliest possible moment.
When Andy was dressing, Jack noticed that Andy was surveying his injured ankle quite seriously. The fun-loving Rover boy had lost much of his light-heartedness.
“Does it still hurt, Andy?” he questioned kindly.
“A little, Jack. But I don’t mind that so much,” was the sober reply. “It’s when I try to walk. It doesn’t seem to act like it used to.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s stiff. I can’t bend it, and it makes me walk sort of flat-footed. Haven’t you noticed it?”
“I thought you limped a little.”
“It’s worse than that. I don’t know what to make of it. But I certainly don’t want to walk with a limp all the rest of my life.”
“Oh, don’t think of such a thing!” exclaimed Jack, in dismay. His cousin had always been so acrobatic that to think of his being lame filled the young major with dismay.
“If I could only see a doctor or get to a hospital, maybe they could do something for it before it got too bad,” went on Andy. “I guess I need attention as much as Small does.”
As the boys did not wish to carry the pile of wood brought in from the breaking up of the improvised raft, they shifted the camp a little closer to where the wood lay, and there put up the tent in more permanent fashion, digging a trench around the back and both sides, so that in case of rain the water would run off into the sand. They also fixed some better bedding, and from some stones built a small fireplace where they might cook their meals to better advantage.
It was about the middle of the afternoon when Randy, who had been walking up the beach in the direction of the high rocks, came running back in great excitement.
“Do you see it? Do you see it?” he called out eagerly.
“Do we see what?” asked several of the others in chorus.
“A ship! There she is! And I believe she’s coming to this island!”
All gazed in the direction to which Randy pointed, and far out at sea they saw what seemed to be a bark with all sails set.
“She’s either coming this way or else she’s going to round the eastern end of the island,” said Fred.
“Let’s do what we can to signal her!” exclaimed Jack.
The boys had already talked over the matter of signals, and now they started up the fire and then heaped upon it some damp brushwood, thereby causing a dense smoke. Then two of them went down the beach, waving a bit of sailcloth while the other two went up the beach and did the same thing.
Would their signals be seen? Anxiously the boys waited to find out.