'No. The fact is, Meek and I were so much taken up with the wreck that we forgot everything else. But we didn't see any footprints in the sand.'

'There are none about here, except yours. The path is way back a few yards. I caught sight of a narrow fissure in the cliff, what we call a chimney in the Rockies. I pushed through the undergrowth to take a keek at it, and came upon distinct signs of a beaten track, leading straight to the chimney. That's barely wide enough to admit a man; Grinson would stick, I guess; but 'tis surely used as a pa.s.sage. There are notches cut in the cliff at regular intervals.'

'Then we can get away?'

'Sure! All but Grinson, that is. We 'd have to leave him behind.'

'Don't say so, sir,' said Meek. 'Mr. Grinson 's not so fat as he was--not by a long way. I 'm afeard if he stays, I must stay too.'

'Thank 'ee, Ephraim, me lad,' said Grinson warmly. 'But Mr. Hoole is pulling my leg. You take him too serious; he 's a gentleman as will have his joke. He wouldn' go for to desert two poor seamen.'

'I never could understand a joke--never!' said Meek. ''Tis a misfortune, but so I was born.'

Hoole and Trentham, meanwhile, had been examining the relics and discussing the bearing of their discoveries on the situation.

'It's quite clear that the wreck is visited,' said Trentham.

'By natives, of course. Why? How often? It doesn't matter much, except that if we saw them, we might get a notion as to whether we could safely go among them and get their help. You are sure the chimney is climbable?'

'Certain. The notches are deep, and you could set your back against the opposite wall and climb without using your hands.'

'I 'll have a look at it. Then we had better go back to our boat, get some grub, and talk things over. It's too late to go in for further adventures to-day.'

'That's so. Say, I 'd leave the hatch off for a while. The place reeks--it would give us away.'

'Right! We 'll clear out. The men can keep guard above while we 're examining that chimney.'

CHAPTER II

THE DRUMS

An hour later they were seated in the boat, nibbling biscuits and taking turns to sip at the water in their keg.

'Now that we 've proved that Grinson can just squeeze into the chimney,'

said Hoole, 'I guess we had better climb to-morrow and take a look round. But what then? What do you know about this blamed island, Grinson?'

'Not as much as you could stuff into a pipe, in a manner of speaking,'

said Grinson. 'A few years ago I spent a couple of weeks in Moresby and round about--you can bear me out, Ephraim, me lad--and I know no more than what I picked up there. That's on the south-east: we 're on the north, on what's German ground, or was; and by all that's said, the Germans never took much trouble to do more than hoist their flag. They 've got a port somewhere, but whether we 're east of it or west of it, I don't know no more than the dead.'

'So when we climb, we shan't know which way to go,' said Trentham. 'Yet our only chance is to make along the coast till we reach some white settlement, unless we could manage to attract attention on some pa.s.sing ship. You don't know what the natives are like hereabout?'

'No, sir. They do say there 's little chaps about two feet high in the forests, but I never seed 'em. The folks on the coast ain't so little, and down Moresby way they 've learnt to behave decent; but I reckon they 're pretty wild in other parts, and I know some of 'em are 'orrid cannibals, 'cos I was nearly eat myself once. We was lying becalmed off the Dutch coast, away in the west of this 'ere island, and some of us had gone ash.o.r.e for water, and----'

'What's that noise?' exclaimed Hoole, springing up.

A faint purring sound came to their ears.

'It's uncommonly like an aeroplane engine,' said Trentham. 'It would be rather fun to be taken off in an aeroplane.'

'Never in life!' said Meek mournfully. 'It 'ud turn my weak head.'

'Your head will be quite safe, Meek,' said Trentham. 'The only aeroplane that's likely to be in these lat.i.tudes is the one that scouted for the German raider. Our poor captain guessed what was coming when he saw the thing, and three hours afterwards they got us, and he was dead.'

'There it is!' cried Hoole, pointing sea-ward.

They were just able to discern the machine, little more than a speck, flying along from west to east. In a few minutes it had disappeared.

'Flying after other game,' said Trentham. 'You were saying, Grinson?'

'And I got parted from the rest, through chasing a b.u.t.terfly, which I was always a stoodent of nature. I had just nabbed a lovely pink 'un with gold spots, when a crowd of naked savages surrounded me, their faces hidjous with paint, and their spears pointing at me like the spokes of a wheel. Not having my pistol with me, I couldn't shoot 'em all down one after another, so I offered 'em the b.u.t.terfly, then a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton, and one or two other little things I had about me, which any decent n.i.g.g.e.r would 'a been thankful for. But no! Nothing but my gore would satisfy 'em, or rather my fat, for I was in them days twice the size I am now. You can bear me out, Ephraim, me lad?'

'I wouldn't be sure 'twas exactly twice, Mr. Grinson, but not far short--a pound or so under, p'r'aps.'

'I thought my last hour was come, and it came on me sudden that I hadn't made my will----'

'There 's a smudge of smoke far out,' cried Hoole. 'If we get on a rock and wave our shirts, somebody 'll see us.'

They looked eagerly out to sea. A steamer, just distinguishable on the horizon, was proceeding in the same direction as the aeroplane they had noticed a few minutes before. Grinson put up his hands to shade his eyes as he gazed.

'If I had a pair of gla.s.ses, or that there telescope in the wreck! Ah!

I may be wrong, but I believe 'tis that ruffian of a pirate as sunk our craft yesterday. Seems to me we 'd better keep our shirts on our backs, sir.'

'I dare say you 're right,' said Hoole. 'For my part I 'd rather try my luck with cannibals than with those Germans again.'

'Which I agree with you, sir,' said Grinson. 'With luck, or I may say gumption, you can escape from cannibals, like I did.'

'Ah, yes. How did you get out of that ring of spears?'

The boatswain took such pleasure in retailing his yarns that the two young men gave him plenty of rope.

'I was fair upset at not having made my will, thinking of how the lawyers would fight over my remains, in a manner of speaking. So I takes out my pocket-book and my fountain pen, and with a steady hand I begins to write. It shows what comes of a man doing his dooty. Them cannibals was struck all of a heap when they seed black water oozing out of a stick. They lowered the points of their spears, and, instead of being a circle, they formed up three deep behind me, looking over my shoulder.

It come into my head they took me for a medicine-man, and the dawn of a great hope lit up my pearly eyes.'

'Where did you get that, Grinson?' asked Hoole.

'What, sir?'

'That about "pearly eyes" and the rest.'

'Oh, that! It took my fancy in a nice little story called _Lord Lyle's Revenge_ as a kind lady once give me, and I 've never forgot it. Well, as I was saying, I set to droring a portrait of the ugliest mug among 'em--fuzzy hair, nose bones and all--they a-watching me all the time with bated breath; and when I 'd put in the finishing stroke, blest if every man Jack of 'em didn't begin to quarrel about whose photo it was.

Never did you hear such a hullabaloo. Fixing of 'em with my eagle eye, I waved 'em back like as if I was shooing geese, took a pin from my weskit and stuck the portrait on a tree, and told 'em to fight it out who was the ugliest of 'em, 'cos he was the owner. The cannibals made a rush for the tree, every one of 'em trying to prevent the rest from getting the picture, and I lit my pipe and walked away as steady as a bobby on dooty. You can bear me out, Ephraim, me lad?'

'Wonderful steady you was, Mr. Grinson, and the bottle of rum empty too.

I couldn't have walked so steady. The other chaps said as how you 'd been taking a nap, but I never believed 'em.'