“Oh, Sing,” she cried, “I do indeed! But unless you had reminded me I
should never have thought to connect him with our visitor of today—they
do look very much alike, don’t they?”
“Lookeelike! Ugh, they all samee one man. Sing know. You lookee out,
Linee,” which was the closest that Sing had ever been able to come to
pronouncing Virginia.
“Why should I look out? He doesn’t want me,” said the girl, laughingly.
“Don’t you bee too damee sure ’bout lat, Linee,” was Sing’s inelegant
but convincing reply, as he turned toward his galley.
The following morning the party, with the exception of three Malays who
were left to guard the Ithaca, set out for the new camp. The journey
was up the bed of the small stream which emptied into the harbor, so
that although fifteen men had passed back and forth through the jungle
from the beach to the camp every day for two weeks, there was no sign
that human foot had ever crossed the narrow strip of sand that lay
between the dense foliage and the harbor.
The gravel bottom of the rivulet made fairly good walking, and as
Virginia was borne in a litter between two powerful lascars it was not
even necessary that she wet her feet in the ascent of the stream to the
camp. The distance was short, the center of the camp being but a mile
from the harbor, and less than half a mile from the opposite shore of
the island which was but two miles at its greatest breadth, and two and
a quarter at its greatest length.
At the camp Virginia found that a neat clearing had been made upon a
little tableland, a palisade built about it, and divided into three
parts; the most northerly of which contained a small house for herself
and her father, another for von Horn, and a common cooking and eating
house over which Sing was to preside.
The enclosure at the far end of the palisade was for the Malay and
lascar crew and there also were quarters for Bududreen and the Malay
second mate. The center enclosure contained Professor Maxon’s workshop.
This compartment of the enclosure Virginia was not invited to inspect,
but as members of the crew carried in the two great chests which the
professor had left upon the Ithaca until the last moment, Virginia
caught a glimpse of the two buildings that had been erected within this
central space—a small, square house which was quite evidently her
father’s laboratory, and a long, low thatched shed divided into several
compartments, each containing a rude bunk. She wondered for whom they
could be intended. Quarters for all the party had already been arranged
for elsewhere, nor, thought she, would her father wish to house any in
such close proximity to his workshop, where he would desire absolute
quiet and freedom from interruption. The discovery perplexed her not a
little, but so changed were her relations with her father that she
would not question him upon this or any other subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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