n another two
days won't be verified--it'll fall calm before noon to-day, and may keep
so for a week. I've known a calm to last for a solid ten days on the
north side of New Britain."

"Perhaps so," he replied; "but then the current about here sets strongly
to the eastward, and somehow I feel certain that, wind or no wind, we'll
see the ships."

"Well, if we do, you ought to give up sailoring, Captain Yorke, and go
into business as a prophet. I for one would always come to you for a
tip. But, joking apart, let us imagine that Guest or the cutter did not
run far to the eastward, but hove-to, and as soon as the hurricane had
blown itself out, headed back for us; in such a case, both vessels may
be within half a day's sail of us at this very moment."

"That is quite possible--it is also possible they may be within twenty
miles of us, becalmed. It would not surprise me if Guest actually drifts
in sight of these islands, and comes to look for us in his boat."

"Now that brings me to the kernel of my imagination. I think it very
likely he may have no boat to send, and----"

He gave me a mighty thump on the back.

"Good boy! I know what you're thinking of--the raft?"

"Exactly, Captain. So don't you think it would be as well for us to turn
to at once, and make a couple of good paddles? though in an emergency
the butt ends of dry coconut branches do very well for paddles."

Then I went on to say that it was quite likely that Guest had lost both
his boats, and the cutter her dingy, before there was time to have them
properly secured; and that the brigantine had lost the whaler, which had
brought us ashore, I was sure of, for she had, as I have mentioned, been
nearly thrown over on her beam ends when struck by the first blast, and
the boat must certainly either have been hopelessly stove when she was
forced below, or torn away from the davits by the weight of water in her
when the ship righted herself.

We set to at once with a good will--Yorke overhauling the cane
fastenings with which the great bamboos were lashed together, whilst I
went along the beach in search of some young _futu_ trees, the wood of
which is soft when green, but dries hard, and could be easily worked,
even by such a tool as a sheath knife.

A quarter of a mile from our camp I found just what I wanted--three or
four young _futu_ saplings lying on the ground, torn up by the roots.
Taking two ot the best, I stripped off the branches, and returned to