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spun about and asked,  Is it so comical?
 Aye! Hee, hee, hee! Aye, surely comical. How do they say, risible?
I watched you and had a thought: if we should meet with natives on
this island, we would appear the more like savages. Why, look at us,
all naked and smeared with blood and you prancing about with a club!
If we danced about a fire, we would be the very picture of heathens.
We might frighten a company of dragoons or Turks with our beards
and wild hair.
Thomas stared at the carpenter s bare and bloodied body and at
the long stick he was holding. It is ridiculous, he said to himself and
then snickered aloud,  Yes, you are right. Without a stitch of clothes
and your roger swinging in the breeze, you are a cruel sight. We look
more dreadful than the fiercest of them, but it can t be helped for now.
We were in luck to reach the shore in any condition.
 I agree with you there, Harrison said,  but I doubt these weapons
are needed. They will only serve to reassure the captain and mate.
 We can t suppose there are no cannibals here simply because we
see no canoes on the beach. There is much more of the bay to see.
What of the other parts of the island? They may be up there hiding
in the trees above us.
 Why should they hide? They could not have missed seeing the
Dove entering the bay and would have watched for us to land. This
morning there was no boat ashore and no vessel. So what would the
savages think?
MOTOO EETEE 77
 That we had left in the night.
 Thus, no need for them to keep to the bushes. Doesn t that
follow?
The younger sailor nodded. He could find no fault with the car-
penter s reasoning. He took another stick and began shaping it; when
it was sharp enough to suit him, he touched the point with a fore-
finger.  Hardening them in a fire may help, he suggested.  Later, we
might fix a point of iron on them from the Dove.
Harrison looked up from his work and asked,  For what purpose?
To spear fish?
The carpenter finished working on his stick and stood viewing the
shore to the west where it to curved out to become the spit. A wind-
smoothed field of dark dunes filled that junction behind the
near-perfect arc of the beach. It extended as far as could be seen, pos-
sibly to the west coast. Along the spit there were angular spires of dark
rock. Closer to the island they were forty or fifty feet in height, but
farther out they grew shorter until, at the end, they were barely visi-
ble above the white froth of the breaking waves.
 There, Harrison said,  the coast is beyond those dunes, and I ll
lay there s a high surf there always. He faced about and pointed to
the beach to the east and added,  If any of our mates got ashore, it
would be there. None could have got out this far.
To the south, on the bluff, the tops of trees showed through a mov-
ing mist, and the island, they saw, was like the slopes around Dusky,
wooded with densely leaved trees. Except for the subdued green of
the trees and bushes nearby, the scene was a monochrome shading
from the white surf to the expanse of gray sea to black rocks. There
was a much higher part of the island, the dark form that they had
seen from the deck of the barque, but they were too close under the
foot of the bluff to be able to see any of it.
Harrison touched the lad s shoulder and pointed down the beach.
Mr. Morgen was hurrying toward them in a low crouch.
The crewmen gathered up their sharpened sticks and started back
toward the mate. Mr. Morgen waved a hand landward, indicating he
78 MOTOO EETEE
wanted them to stay close to the boulders and bushes.
 Could they have seen any of our mates? Thomas asked as they
trotted along the beach.
 Aye, Harrison responded,  a man or two. I don t think we can
hope for more. It was a long swim from the Dove.
The mate stopped and waited for the crewmen to approach.
 What have you found? Some of the others? the carpenter asked
when he came close to the officer.
Mr. Morgen shook his head and answered,  None as yet. Hurry
along, the captain wants to start looking for them. Give me two of
those. The captain wishes to see if they will serve. The mate took the
two sticks Harrison was carrying and started back.
 Ha, he will see if they will serve! Thomas mocked the mate.
 He had no idea of what he wanted. Now he will say they are not
useable.
 Oh, let him act his part. It will do no harm, the carpenter said
with a wave of his arm.  We can suffer him to play the officer. What
can it matter to us?
 He looked quite the captain when he marched about the deck.
Now, without his clothes, we can see what a clown he is and, worse
yet, what he is not. Those bandy legs look as if they will give way any
minute.
Harrison smiled, then sobered his look and added,  Yes, his under-
pinning does look weak.
 Why, they look like sticks propped under a sack of flour, the lad
snickered,  and if the Boston girls saw his little worm, they d giggle
for a week.
The gray sky was taking on a bluish shade, and the sun hinted
where it would rise over a part of the island still mist-covered. Indi-
vidual trees on the top of the bluff revealed their details. Some were
so tall their trunks stood out against shadows and the dark foliage
of the lesser ones. It was obvious that, ages ago, the great boulders
had tumbled from higher up and had landed on the beach. Since that
time dense bushes had grown up between them forming the nearly
MOTOO EETEE 79
impenetrable wall he had faced in the night. Farther along that shore, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]