e must once more put to sea. Ali also clearly
understood this. We quickly got a light with pieces of bamboo, and
cooked our eggs, and having loaded ourselves with as many cocoa-nuts as
we could carry, set off to return to the boat. As we went along, the
fear seized me that we had not hauled her up sufficiently, and that
perhaps she had been washed away. I could scarcely refrain from setting
off running, so eager was I to ascertain the truth. I soon, however,
found that my strength was not sufficiently restored for active
movement. On we went, till we had reached the beach where I thought we
had left the boat. She was nowhere to be seen. I looked about
anxiously. I was giving way to despair, when, casting my eyes along the
sand, I observed that it had been undisturbed. There were no traces of
our feet. I knew therefore that we could not have been at the spot.
Ali pointed along the beach, and we proceeded some way, when at length I
caught sight of a dark object in the distance. Yes, it was our boat;
but already the water had reached her stern, and in another minute she
would have floated away. We drew her up still further, and secured her
by her painter to a stone high up the beach.

My suspicions about Ali had not been altogether removed, but still, the
way he had treated me in bringing the cocoa-nuts when he might have left
me to die, showed me that he could not have any sinister intentions. I
therefore proposed that we should sleep on shore that night, and proceed
to sea early the following morning. We accordingly built a hut high up
on the dry sand, and made ourselves comfortable beds with leaves, on
which we could stretch our limbs and rest at ease during the night. We
first, however, lighted a large fire, though there was not much fear of
any creatures disturbing us on that small island.

Next morning we made a further search for turtles' eggs, and having
found a good supply, we placed them and our cocoa-nuts on board the
boat, and then launching her, once more put to sea, steering as before
to the northward, where we hoped to find land with food and water on it.
Our stock of sago-cake was getting low, but that mattered little, I
thought, as without water I found it very difficult to masticate. On,
on we sailed. I had miscalculated distances, for though, looking at the
chart, as I frequently had done on board the _Dugong_, the sea did not
appear of great width, yet when sailing across it in a small