‘Well, Miss Sheringham,’ said Tom Haines, ‘how do you like pleasure-cruising?’
They were sitting on a slab of rock. Around them was a tall, encircling palisade of the inevitable bamboo, similar in design to that which, at the same moment, encircled Ben; but the hut it enclosed, and which formed their temporary indoor quarters, was smaller and less imposing. It was, in fact, the island prison.
‘I prefer a cruise that sticks to its programme,’ replied Ruth, after a pause. ‘This wasn’t advertised on the posters, you know.’
‘Yes, you’ve a case against the Company,’ smiled Haines.
‘I’ll ring up my solicitor first thing after breakfast,’ she smiled back.
They were the only two who seemed able to smile. On another rocky slab a little way off, Smith and Miss Noyes were sitting side by side in doleful silence, while Lord Cooling and Ernest Medworth were inside the hut, gloomily examining its dimensions and dirt draughts. A couple of native spearmen, hovering around them with suspicious curiosity, added to the discomfort.
‘And, talking about breakfast,’ added Ruth, ‘do we get any, do you suppose?’
‘Bound to,’ answered Haines, optimistically. ‘If our gaolers forget, Oakley will probably come along and remind them.’
‘Expect so,’ she nodded. ‘The question is less if we’ll get any than if we’ll want any! Do you know, I feel so far from civilisation already that I can hardly believe people are sitting down to coffee and ham and eggs at this very moment!’
‘To Oakley, after three years, they must be entire theories.’
‘What do you think of our Mr Oakley?’
‘I can’t help rather liking him.’
‘Same here—only—is he bats?’
‘I don’t blame him, if he is.’
‘Rather not. If we stay here a week, we’ll all be bats by the end of it.’ She dug her heel into the ground and regarded her bedraggled shoe. Had this disgraceful footwear once tempted her into a shop in Bond Street? ‘But meanwhile, Mr Haines, it won’t add to the comfort of the island if we find that our Mr Oakley’s brain is wonky.’
‘He talked some good sense.’
‘I believe most of them do between their spasms. But in spite of his sense, he seems to me to be mentally—upside down. While he’s talking I get a queer feeling that, if somebody came along and cut him in half, he’d just go on talking and saying it didn’t matter. Ugh!’ She gave a little shiver. ‘I’m glad you’re here, anyway. If you weren’t, I’d—’
She paused, and stared at her shoe harder than ever.
‘Well, I am here, Miss Sheringham—and I’m glad I’m here, too,’ he answered. ‘So that’s that.’
‘I’ve got a suggestion,’ she said after a moment. ‘My first name’s Ruth. Suppose you use it? It won’t mean that we’re going to marry each other and live happily ever after—just that it’ll seem more friendly. I say, am I getting hysterical?’
‘Not a bit!’ he laughed. ‘I think you’re wonderful. And I agree with you. My name’s Tom.’
‘Hallo, Tom!’
‘Hallo, Ruth!’
She giggled. She was on the verge of hysterics. She had been hugging on to herself for hours, and during that grim march through the forest she had nearly collapsed, though nobody had known it … Now, suddenly, she heard herself giggling, and stopped abruptly while she could.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said in response to his anxious glance. ‘I’m all right. Only we mustn’t get sentimental, or you’ll see a strong woman weep. What do you suppose the others are talking about?’
Haines turned his head. Smith and Miss Noyes were not talking about anything. They were still sitting side by side in moody silence. Cooling and Medworth were just issuing from the hut.
‘Shouldn’t we all have a confab or something?’ asked Ruth.
‘Not much good, till Oakley comes along with some news,’ replied Haines.
‘Suppose he doesn’t come along?’
‘He’s promised to. He told me he’d have to go with the major part of the procession when it split. I should think that, at the moment, our little stoker needs his assistance even more than we do.’
She nodded, and her face grew grave.
‘Poor little stoker!’ she murmured. ‘What on earth is going to happen to him?’
‘I’m fairly good at riddles,’ replied Haines, ‘but that one beats me, Ruth.’ She smiled slightly as he pronounced her name. But one thing’s certain. If Oomoo can’t save us, we’ve got to save Oomoo.’
‘Carried unanimously,’ she answered. ‘There’s something about that funny little fellow that—that makes me want to tuck him up in bed and put him to sleep.’
‘I’m not sure, though, that Ardentino isn’t the one we ought to be most anxious about,’ Haines went on frowning. ‘He was an idiot to bolt off like that. He’ll probably get it hot when they catch him.’
‘Perhaps they won’t catch him?’
‘In the long run they’re bound to. This is an island, not a Continent with frontiers!’
He rose as he spoke. The rock on which he had been sitting was at the foot of a little mound. He began to climb.
‘What are you doing?’ exclaimed Ruth sharply.
‘Going to have a squint over the prison wall,’ he answered. ‘I can get a view from the top.’
‘Be careful!’
‘It’s quite safe. Come along, too, if you like. Maybe we’ll see our film star hanging on to the top of a tree!’
She jumped up and joined him. It was an easy climb, but he took her hand in case she slipped. That at any rate was the excuse he gave himself. Below them their companions watched, and Cooling and Medworth approached the mound. The two spearmen consulted, but did not interfere.
‘What’s the idea?’ called Medworth.
‘To improve my knowledge of the geography of the island,’ Haines called back.
‘Well, when you’ve improved it, come down and talk to us,’ said Medworth. ‘We’re going into conference.’
‘Waste of time without Oakley,’ replied Haines as Ruth glanced at him.
‘Opinions differ!’ retorted Medworth, looking at Cooling. ‘Oakley’s going to do what we tell him!’
‘Let us hope,’ Cooling corrected dryly. ‘Meanwhile, kindly give us a geographical report.’
The two climbers reached the top. They were now several feet above the height of the fence, and a considerable portion of the island came into view. They saw the dark forest through which they had been marched, sloping gently towards the sea. The shore was invisible from where they stood, but a great expanse of sea glittered with almost unnatural brilliance to the horizon, and above rose the blue dome of the Pacific sky.
‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ said Haines.
‘I prefer the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park,’ she returned.
‘Perhaps, though that would make our position a bit zoological. I feel rather like a baboon as it is! Well, do you see our friend clinging to a tree?’
They strained their eyes. There was no sign of Ardentino. Then they turned, and gazed in the opposite direction. The gradual rise continued for a distance, then became a stiff climb through more forest country to a high peak. Studying the line of the sea horizon, and following it round to its two visible limits, Haines deduced that unless the island were considerably longer than it was broad the sea could not be far beyond the peak, and that the ground must drop sharply into the ocean.
Near the foot of the stiff ascent could be seen the unprepossessing roofs of the village of skulls. His keen eyes easily identified the gruesome objects on the poles, and he hoped that Ruth’s sight was not quite so good. But his main interest was a point of light that gleamed from the peak. The sun’s rays had caught something there, and was turning it into a little golden eye.
‘What are you staring at?’ cried Medworth. ‘Must you keep it to yourself?’
‘You can come up and stare, too, if you like,’ said Haines. ‘I imagine it’s the Temple of Gold.’
‘By Jove, is it?’ exclaimed Medworth, and made for the mound.
Smith and Miss Noyes advanced, also. They had shaken off their stupor, and had joined the group. But a sudden voice behind them made them turn. A stout native bearing a long, troughlike vessel had entered the compound and was demanding their attention.
‘Wooma!’ he cried, as though he were announcing a distinguished visitor. ‘Wooma! Wooma!’
He placed the trough on the ground and pointed to it.
‘Wooma!’ he repeated solemnly.
Lord Cooling, sighing for his lost monocle, advanced towards him.
‘Do we understand,’ he inquired, with a sarcasm entirely lost on his audience, ‘that this evil-smelling concoction is Wooma?’
‘Wooma,’ said the native again, and thumped his massive chest.
‘I think we may take it, ladies and gentlemen,’ observed Cooling turning to the others, ‘that this is Wooma. Wooma, moreover, that our chef has killed, caught, grown, or stunned himself. You will note that he is beating his chest with a sort of gastronomic vanity. Our next question is—what is Wooma?’
He bent over the trough, held his nose, and examined.
‘I record, with relief,’ he reported, after the examination, ‘that Wooma appears to be one of the very lesser vegetables, happily unknown in the British Isles. This brings us to our final question. Assuming that we eat Wooma—possibly a rash assumption—how do we eat it? It is evidently a communal dish. Do we say, “One, two, three, go!” and then fall upon it with our naked fingers? Or do we descend on all fours, and devour it like puppies? How lost one feels here without Mr Oakley!’
‘Very humorous, his lordship, isn’t he?’ murmured Smith miserably, to Miss Noyes.
‘And very wise,’ Miss Noyes murmured back with equal misery. ‘They say it was our sense of humour that won the war.’
The chef now turned and darted away. A few seconds later they saw him returning with another trough.
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Lord Cooling. ‘Is he bringing us more? Are we going to have one each?’
The suffocating theory was pleasantly dispelled by the contents of the second trough. It was filled with fruit, some of which they almost recognised. Placing it on the ground, the native shouted, ‘Gung!’ and once more thumped his chest, implying this time that he had picked the gung. Then he pointed from the trough to his mouth. Then he seized a piece of fruit, rubbed it rapidly along his teeth, and threw it back. Then he cried, ‘Sweeze!’ and did it all over again. His attitude was quite friendly, and he was clearly doing his best to help.
‘Thung,’ said Lord Cooling.
It was a mistake. The native’s friendliness vanished. He leaped into the air, his eyes rolling. The spearmen shook their spears. Then the native rushed from the compound howling. His howls were echoed by the other natives outside.
‘I hoped it might mean, “Thank you,”’ sighed Cooling. ‘Thung for gung. Evidently, it did not. Well, let us eat. Personally, I shall go direct to the second course.’
Ruth and Haines had descended, and now six hungry mortals ate the strangest breakfast of their lives. Its strangeness was not decreased by the fact that the spearmen joined them.