El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-07
| DICK RODNEY;
Or. The Adventures of
An Eton Boy. 3
BY JAMES GRANT.

Or, The Adventures of
An Eton Boy.
ny JAM FEB GRANT.

making an exploration OF 1t, or rather
in walking all around it.
The circumference Of the largest isle
is only four leagues, but its shores are
So steep and rocky in some places that
trayersing them proved a most ardu-
Gus task.
On the eastern side we found great
cascade pouring from a brow Of rock
upon the beach. The latter was COW
cred almost everywhere by a broad
leaved seaweed, the dark and Shiny
tendrils of which were several yards
in length and were termed by Hislop
1.-The gigantic fucus."
So day after day passed, and, amid
our various means of procuring food,
we never failed to keep a keen lookout
to seward for passing sail; but
none came near that lonely islet of the
southern sea.
One morning 1 found there had
drifted ashore near our hut a mass OF
that mysterious substance, the origin
of which has puzzled so many natural
ists-ambergris. 1t must have weigh
ed more than a hundred pounds, and
when we threw some of it into the fire
it melted and diffused around most
agreeable perfume. This marine pro-
duction, which is only to be found in
the seas or on the shores of Africa
and Brazil, is alleged by some to be a
concretion formed in the stomach of
the spermaceti whale
On the fifteenth morning after our
landing a seaman named Henry War
rem, who went to milk our goats,
which had been tethered to a large
tree near the hut, returned in haste
to announce that the ropes which had
secured them were cut, apparently by
sharp instrument-cut clean through
and that the goats, the capture of
which had cost us so much labor, were
gone.
Cut? By whom?" asked every one.
Before we had time to consider this,
Hislop came out of the hut, and stated
that one of our three bread bags had
also been cut open, by slash from
knife, apparently, and that several
pounds of biscuits had been distracted.
The strange alarm, and what was
worse, the doubt of each other, which
these discoveries excited, were painful
and bewi!dering.
We examined the place where the
goats had been tethered, but could dis
cover no traces of feet, and nothing
remained but the ends of the ropes
(the long boat sheets and halliards)
tied to the stem of a tree
Whoever among us had done this
was guilty of wanton malice and trea-
son to the rest of his friends-for
friends we hoped we were, as well as
brothers in misfortune.
We also examined the mutilated
bread bag. In the side thereof was
clean slash a foot in length, made by
some sharp instrument, and by this
aperture the biscuits had been abb
stracted by some one who had inserted
his hands through the fragile wall OF
our hut, which, as 1 have stated, was
composed only of turf and branches.
The theft had been committed in
the night, but by whom?
Was the thief one of ourselves? The
eyes of each seemed to ask the hate
full question of the others, and to repel
their inquiring glances; but soon after
three of our missing biscuits were
discovered by Tom Lambourne, lying
a few yards apart among the long
grass, as if the abstracter had dropped
them during a hasty flight toward the
woods or the Devils Mountain.
I'm addition to ourselves there is
some one else on this island exclalm-
ed Hislop. emphatically; "and this ac-
counts for the loss of the studding-sall
boom; and without delay, this some
one else must be discovered"
We dreaded lest savages might be
concealed in some of the caverns or
woods, and that they might come upon
US in the night and Stay all, or that
they might make off with or destroy
the long boat, our most valuable pos
session.
1t was at once resolved that one of
our number Ito be regularly relieved)
should remain in it day and night,
armed with the Ratchet, our only
Weapon, and that he should be well
logged if he slept or neglected the
7~r-HIa duty OF watching the hut and