At the first streak of dawn she fled from her place of torture, and after
plunging her face and hands in the river, which did her a world of good,
she went off and entered the jungle, and searched it closely, so far as
she could penetrate it. Soon she heard "Miss Rolleston" called in anxious
tones. But she tossed her little head and revenged herself for her night
of agony by not replying.
However, Nature took her in hand; imperious hunger drew her back to her
late place of torture; and there she found a fire, and Hazel cooking
cray-fish. She ate the crayfish heartily, and drank cocoanut milk out of
half a cocoanut, which the ingenious Hazel had already sawn, polished and
mounted for her.
After that, Hazel's whole day was occupied in stripping a tree that stood
on the high western promontory of the bay, and building up the materials
of a bonfire a few yards from it, that, if any whaler should stray that
way, they might not be at a loss for means to attract her attention.
Welch was very ill all day, and Miss Rolleston nursed him. He got about
toward evening, and Miss Rolleston asked him, rather timidly, if he could
put her up a bell-rope.
"Why, yes, miss," said Welch, "that is easy enough; but I don't see no
bell." Oh, she did not want a bell--she only wanted a bell-rope.
Hazel came up during this conversation, and she then gave her reason.
"Because, then, if Mr. Welch is ill in the night, and wants me, I could
come to him. Or--" finding herself getting near the real reason she
stopped short.
"Or what?" inquired Hazel, eagerly.
She replied to Welch. "When tigers and things come to me, I can let you
know, Mr. Welch, if you have any curiosity about the result of their
visit."
"Tigers!" said Hazel, in answer to this side slap; "there are no tigers
here; no large animals of prey exist in the Pacific."
"What makes you think that?"
"It is notorious. Naturalists are agreed."
"But I am not. I heard noises all night. And little I expected that
anything of me would be left this morning, except, perhaps, my back hair.
Mr. Welch, you are clever at rigging things--that is what you call
it--and so please rig me a bell-rope, then I shall not be eaten alive
without creating some _little_ disturbance."
"I'll do it, miss," said Welch, "this very night."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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