We calculated, Billy and I, that there was enough food left on the island to last the men for about a month, or perhaps longer with careful husbanding; but from what Mr. Bodger had told me of their ways on their island, and from what I knew of them myself, I did not suppose they would practise any stint until they felt the pinch of want. I own I hoped they would not, and if that seems a hard saying, you must remember that I had a deep purpose, namely to recover possession of our own, which was itself laudable, and also to teach the men a lesson whereby they and all of us would profit. It was necessary to the success of my plan that they should come to the verge of famishment before the bread-fruit season, for if they endured until the fruit was ripe, they would have plenty of food for three or four months thereafter, and I could not view with patience the prospect of remaining sequestered on the Red Rock for so long. Having done all we could, it would have been simple foolhardiness to risk complete failure by making useless visits to the island, and we endured what was a kind of imprisonment on the Red Rock as patiently as we could, leaving it only once to bring more stores from the cavern. We were, I assure you, mighty weary of our life before the day came when our whereabouts was discovered. I know not how long it was, but I guess five or six weeks. Having nothing better to do, we often went to the edge of the Red Rock, where we could overlook a part of the island from behind the vantage of a boulder, and we sometimes saw the men moving from place to place, taking care ourselves to keep out of their sight, at least I took care, Billy being less prudent, so that more than once I had to drag him down when he began to climb the boulder to have a better view. Of course we could have been seen any day if the men had climbed the mountain, but they never did this. I learnt afterwards that they had scoured every accessible part of the island for us, and after a time suspected that we were on the Red Rock, and kept a watch on it, but saw never a sign of us until the day of which I am now to tell. [Sidenote: Discovery]