t do so till I
tell you."

Godfrey had said these words in such a tone of authority that the
professor, feeling his limbs give way under him, had no difficulty in at
once assuming the required position.

And he did well!

In fact, it was not without reason that Godfrey had spoken as he had.

From the spot which they then occupied, they could see neither the
shore, nor the place where the river entered the sea. A small spur of
hills shut out the view about a hundred yards ahead, but above this near
horizon a dense smoke was rising straight in the air.

Godfrey, stretched at full length in the grass, with his finger on the
trigger of his musket, kept looking towards the coast.

"This smoke," he said, "is it not of the same kind that I have already
seen twice before? Should I conclude that savages have previously landed
on the north and south of the island, and that the smoke came from fires
lighted by them? But no! That is not possible, for I found no cinders,
nor traces of a fireplace, nor embers! Ah! this time I'll know the
reason of it."

And by a clever reptilian movement, which Tartlet imitated as well as he
could, he managed, without showing his head above the grass, to reach
the bend of the river.

Thence he could command, at his ease, every part of the bank through
which the river ran.

An exclamation could not but escape him! His hand touched the
professor's shoulder to prevent any movement of his! Useless to go
further! Godfrey saw what he had come to see!

A large fire of wood was lighted on the beach, among the lower rocks,
and from it a canopy of smoke rose slowly to the sky. Around the fire,
feeding it with fresh armfuls of wood, of which they had made a heap,
went and came the savages who had landed the evening before. Their canoe
was moored to a large stone, and, lifted by the rising tide, oscillated
on the ripples of the shore.

Godfrey could distinguish all that was passing on the sands without
using his glasses. He was not more than two hundred yards from the fire,
and he could even hear it crackling. He immediately perceived that he
need fear no surprise from the rear, for all the blacks he had counted
in the proa were in the group.

Ten out of the twelve were occupied in looking after the fire and
sticking stakes in the ground with the evident intention of rigging up a
spit in the Polynesian manner. An eleventh, who appeared to be the
chief, was walking along the beach, and constantly