Some startled creature slipped abruptly into the pool that the tiny harbor formed. This escaped Elaine's attention. A moment later the raft rode scrapingly over a bar that all but locked the inlet, and Grenville stood dripping on the sand. "Welcome to our city," said he, an irrepressible emotion of joyousness and relief possessing him completely at the moment, and, going at once to the near-by growth, where a long stout limb had been broken from a tree, he dragged this severed member forth to the beach and across the estuary's mouth, where it effectually blocked the channel against the raft's escape. Then he folded a couple of large-sized leaves with his hands, secured each with a slender twig, and, giving one to Elaine for a cap, placed the other upon his head. Elaine was no less relieved than he, so elastic and buoyant is youth. "The villages must be on the farther side," she said. "What language do you suppose the natives speak?" "Well--doubtless some Simian, in any case," he answered, having fancied one movement half seen in the trees beyond was made by an ape or a monkey. "I'd suggest you recall your fondness for fruit for breakfast." She comprehended his meaning with amazing promptness. Her face took on its serious expression. "You don't believe we shall find the island inhabited? We shall have only fruit this morning?" "I am sure we shall find some fruit," he said, "and we must certainly look for water." A sense of helplessness and despair attacked Elaine momentarily. She began to wonder, with alarm, how long they might be stranded on the place--and what attitude Grenville might assume. She had thoroughly comprehended the passion of his nature in the outburst she had seen. A sense of distrust she dared not show came creeping to her mind. "We must make the best of it, of course," she said, as calmly as possible. "We can't even light a fire, I suppose." "I certainly have no matches," he answered, cheerfully. "All I had were in my coat. Suppose we explore the island first and leave despair till after breakfast." She met his gaze with fearless eyes that set his heart to pounding. "I shall never despair," she answered, more bravely than she felt,--"at least, I shall try to do my part, till we are taken off." He understood the challenge in her attitude. "I felt that from the first," he answered, easily. "Perhaps we'd better begin by climbing up to the headland." He caught up a short, heavy stick and turned about to force a way up through the rocks and tangled growth between the shore and summit. And what a figure he presented--even to the frightened girl, whose anger still lingered in her veins--stripped, as he was, to his shirtsleeves, a powerful, active being, masterful and unafraid. With a strange, dreadful sense of isolation and the primitive, aye, even primal, conditions in which they had been cast, she followed helplessly at his heels for their first real look at the island. CHAPTER V THE ISLAND