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"Thad, do you think this island could be inhabited?" It was Davy who asked this question, but Bumpus must have been thinking along the same lines, for he nodded his head violently and smiled, as though he awaited Thad's answer with interest. "Of course I couldn't say," the scout-master observed. "It's only a small rocky island, you know, and people wouldn't live here the year' through."
The girls could have made more money as operatives, but strangely enough in the Bumpus family social hopes were not yet extinct. Sharply, rudely, the cold stillness of the winter mornings was broken by agitating waves of sound, penetrating the souls of sleepers.
The rest of the scouts gathered at the water's edge to see them embark on the exploring expedition; and all sorts of chaffing was indulged in between Davy and some of his camp mates. Bumpus in particular was so pleased over not having been drafted to go in the cranky canoe that he seemed to be just bubbling over with exuberant spirits.
"Oh! my, and if they didn't stumble right on the beast!" exclaimed Bumpus, who, not wanting to be left by himself in the tent, had crawled out, after taking a cautious look first. "What a rich joke on Brose and his crowd. I can just see 'em scooting for home for all they're worth. Never catch any of that bunch around our camp again on this trip, that's sure, boys."
At last the door of the inner office opened, and Ditmar came out and stood by the rail. His voice was queer, scarcely recognizable. "Miss Bumpus would you mind coming into my room a moment, before you leave?" he said. She rose instantly and followed him, closing the door behind her, but standing at bay against it, her hand on the knob. "I'm not going to touch you you needn't be afraid," he said.
The natives had been so much accustomed to put confidence in the wisdom of the white men since their conversion to Christianity, that they felt unable to cope with them on this occasion, so that Bumpus, after being condemned, was led away to his prison, and left alone to his own reflections. It chanced that there was one friend left, unintentionally, in the cell with the condemned man.
"Not there, then?" asked Giraffe, in a disappointed tone. "No, but I saw the print of his shoe on the seat of the boat, which shows Bumpus did climb down here; but it was heading outward, so it seems he came up again. Now to look a little further, and find out if he went on toward the spot where we came to land." They started off, leaving the vicinity of the fish poachers' hidden boat.
"I have thought of that," said Mr Mason, with a perplexed look, "and intended to speak to you on the subject, but events have crowded so fast upon each other of late that it has been driven out of my mind. No doubt, if the Foam and the Avenger are one and the same vessel, as seems too evident to leave much room for doubt, then Bumpus is a pirate, for he does not deny that he was one of the crew.
It was on the morning of his execution that Bumpus sat on the edge of his hard pallet, gazed at his manacled wrists, and gave vent to the sentiments set down at the beginning of this chapter. Toozle sat down at his feet, looking up in his face sympathetically. "No, I don't believe it's possible," said Bumpus, for at least the hundredth time that morning. "It's a joke; that's wot it is.
Presently Jimmy broke the quiet by remarking, "Don't you all feel sorry for old Miss Pollie Bumpus? She live all by herself, and she 'bout a million years old, and Doctor Sanford ain't never brung her no chillens 'cause she ain't got 'er no husban' to be their papa, and she got a octopus in her head, and she poor as a post and deaf as job's old turkey-hen."
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