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Clair-de-Lune, the Frenchman, came to the bungalow very early this morning to tell me of certain things which happened on the island last night. It seems that Jasper is still here, and that the storm has driven away his ship. I do not know whether to be sorry or glad. He cannot help me he cannot! and yet a friend is here. I take new courage at that.
But I am dumb; I cannot answer. I shall die on Ken's Island, saying, "God help those who perish here!" May 14th. Three days have passed in the shelter, and Clair-de-Lune, who comes to me every day, brings no good news of Jasper. "He is on the heights," he says; "if food were there he might live through the sleep-time." My husband knows that he is there, but does not speak of it.
I asked her on an impulse; "what part of this queer house does he sling his hammock in?" She changed colour at this, and plainly showed her trouble. "Oh, Mister Begg," says she, "Clair-de-Lune has been punished for helping you on Ken's Island. He is not allowed to leave his room now. Mister Czerny is very angry, and will not see him. How can you think of coming here oh, how can you do it?"
Your sense will tell you that they won't drift long, but will be asking questions and wanting their answers. Aye, Clair-de-Lune, we'll listen with all our ears when that begins!" He had a glass with him and he began to scan the yacht very closely and the ship's boats about it. I had not noticed that there was an unusual stir in the anchorage, but he remarked it now and drew his own conclusions.
They look in need of a friendly hand; indeed, they do." Well, the laugh was turned on Peter; but, as a matter of fact, he spoke sense, and I understood as well as he did the risk of parley with the wreckers, even though they did not seem to have any fight left in them a fact which old Clair-de-Lune was the first to observe. "They not fire gun this morning," says the old man. "All starve hungry.
I saw it as in a flash. This man we had neglected to hunt from the caverns below, striking at us in the supreme moment, had opened trap or window and let the sea pour in the labyrinth below. The water was flooding Czerny's house. "Now!" I cried, "you don't mean that Clair-de-Lune? Then what of the engine-room? How will it fare with Captain Nepeen?"
Clair-de-Lune was there, too, halted and motionless by the sea's brink; Dolly Venn stood at his side; and once I thought that I saw Miss Ruth herself peering across the lapping wavelets and watching us with a woman's anxious eyes. Nor did we go unobserved by those who had so much to gain if mischance should befall us in that last endeavour.
Well, the old man laughed at his manner of putting it, and, without further ado, we all went down to the bird's nest in the hollow, and there we lighted a fire in the shelter of the pit, and old Clair-de-Lune going away in search of rations, he returned presently with victuals enough to feed a missionary, and more than that, as pretty a trio to serve them as any seaman could hope for.
"No one come here," he said, "no one find the way. You sleep, and to-morrow you signal ship to go down where I show. For me and mine, not so. This is my home; I am stranger in my own country. No one remember Clair-de-Lune. Twelve years I live here five times I sleep the dreadful sleep which the island make five times I live where others die. Why go home, messieurs, if you not have any?
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