Jean and Aunt Jannet gave him quiet greeting, as one come back from the dead, and hastened to supply his wants. Blair and Cathie set off again up the valley with tight faces. The havoc there was terrible. The cloud-burst and the great wave together had swept it bare. They went some distance up and stood looking round. It seemed incredible that so short a time could have wrought so woful a change. The plantations were gone to the last stick and leaf. The very hillsides were almost cleared of trees. The smiling valley of yesterday was a stark empty pan, with deeply-scored sides and a sheet of shining mud caking slowly at the bottom. "It will make good growing ground," said Blair. "If we'd anything to grow and any one to grow it for," said Cathie gloomily. "We shall find some of them in the hills, I hope. Let us get on." And presently there was a shout up above on the hillside, and there came down, at a pace that risked their necks, Jim Gregor of the _Jean Arnot_ and young Irvine, who was on the _Torch_ when last they heard of him. They whooped with joy and shook hands a dozen times with Blair and Cathie, and were quite incoherent for many minutes. "We're right glad to see you, boys," said Blair, when they calmed down. "Are there any more up there?" "Three more Torches, sir, and half a dozen Bonitas, and about a dozen islanders, men and women, and a couple of children. Have you got anything to eat?" "Yes. Go on to the water-wheel. You'll find food there. Where are these others?" "Right by yon rock. We'll go back with you. Some of them are badly bashed and can't walk without help." So they all climbed up, and came on the forlorn little company crouching by the rock, and gave them new life by the very sight of them. The sailors plucked up heart at once, but the brown men were very subdued and silent. Their eyes were still wide with terror when at last they sat under the southern ridge and ate the food Jean and Aunt Jannet found for them, supplemented by coco-nuts and bruised fruit from the beach. All the men had strange stories to tell. Gregor and Irvine, and some of the others, asserted that when the waterspout struck the ships they were whirled up out of them and dropped into the lagoon some distance away. Then, before they could swim ashore, the great wave caught them and whirled them up into the valley, bruising them all more or less and breaking some. The brown men were mostly sound of limb. They had fled for the hills at the first sight of the spectral dangers outside. "Have you seen signs of any others?" asked Blair. Yes, they thought they had seen moving forms on the further hills, but too far away to distinguish clearly. On which Cathie set them to collecting driftwood from the shore, and piled it on the fire, with wet brush and tangle on top, till the smoke rose in a dense column.