Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1899-08-04
CHAPTER XXI.
The Mystery Increases.

An immediate search was resolved
upon. Lots were cast for the one VINO
was to remain behind to guard our
property and the duty fell upon me.
Armed with the boat stretchers, or
with clubs which they had carefully
selected and cut from the trees His
lop departed with all my companions,
and after proceeding over the grassy
plain, they soon disappeared in the
woods that covered all the lower slope
of the great mountain.
I cannot describe the sensations OF
loneliness that came over me on md
ing myself for the first time single,
alone, and left entirely to my own
reflections and resources.
The carpenters Ratchet was my on
1y weapon; and armed with 1t l sat
on a grassy slope midway between the
hut and sea gazing aExiously inland,
listening for any passing sound; but
all remained still, save the chatting OF
the waves on one hand, and the loud
buzz of tropical insect life in the thick
cts or among the long grass on the
other.
What, I asked myself, if savages
were actually lurking in the woods,
and, on seeing that all my companions
were gone, they should come tumultu-
ously down upon the hut and boat?
l would at cnce become their victim.
Or what would be my fate if my
friends fell into an ambush, or per-
ished in detail?
Could any human beings be lurking
in the two adjacent isles? was my next
surmise.
We had never seen anything alive
on them-not even wild goats or boars,
and if there were other inhabitants,
the steepress of the rocks, which rose
sheer from the water, and the fury
of the surf that rolled between, for-
babe any attempt to cross.
So in such painful surmises, and in
keen watching, passed the most OF
the day alone.
In the afternoon. one by one, all my
shipmates returned to our little head
quarters Oh the shore, weary and
jaded-torn by briers and brambles in
the thickets-and all had the same
tale to tell. They had seen and heard
Of nothing save wild boars, wild goats
and sea birds.
His.op now directed that one Of our
number should guard the hut by night,
and a second the boat, with orders to
hail each other in this fashion:
BOAT, ahoy!'
Hut, ahoy!'
This was to insure a watchful look
out; but with all these precautions
wise and necessary though they we're
our feeling of security, and even of
reliance on each other, was gone for
the time.
AS these occurrences excited the i'm
agination of cur companions, some Of
those who watched the hut and boat
by night asserted that when all our
party, save themselves, were safely
lodged and asleep. something like the
figure Of very tall man had appeared
for an instant on the bluffs that over
hung the sea, between them and the
moonlight.
But of this mysterious parsonage, if
such existed anywhere, except in the
overstrained imagination OF a lonely
midnight watcher. we could discover
no trace during the day.
One night, when Francis Probart
and Ned Carlton were on watch, a
sound like the distant report Of pistol
was heard by Them and at the same
instant both saw a flock of petrels
and storm fnches rise up in the moon
light from the face of the bluff, where
they revolved above the breakers, like
a swarm of knats in a sunbeam.
So if Ned and the carpenter were
mistaken in the sound, the birds were
also reused and alarmed.
Mark Hislop ridiculed their story.but
he was considerably bewildered, and
so were we all when two days after
ward seaman named Hugh Chute.
when rambling in the woods, found |
one of our goats. which we knew by /
the fragment Of rope still tied round