"Really, you mustn't eat any more," said Tommy at last. "Now rest against the side of the boat." She placed a shawl behind her sister's head, and covered her feet with her macintosh.

"Any one would think I was an invalid," said Elizabeth, laughing.

"It's nothing to laugh at," said Mary severely. "You may be very ill by and by."

"Meanwhile put the rest of the fish where the flies and insects can't get at it," said Elizabeth. "There's a nice little hollow in that rock over there. Cover it with leaves."

This done, they sat one on each side of Elizabeth, propping their chins on their hands, and gazing at her with mournful interest.

"This is _too_ absurd," said Elizabeth, after a few minutes. "Let us get on with our hut. I can't stand being stared at like this. Come along, girls. We must cut down some more canes to make walls; I'll show you what I mean."

They went up-stream to the clump of canes, and, selecting some of the longest, proceeded to hack them down with their knives--no easy task, for the longest canes were also the thickest. But after a little trouble they got three or four that Elizabeth thought would answer her purpose, and took them to the site chosen for the hut. Here they laid the canes across the projecting branches of the three trees, binding them firmly in place with strong tendrils of a creeping plant. After an hour's work all the canes were in position, forming a kind of framework for the roof.

"Now all we have to do is to cover this with matting, and our roof is finished," said Elizabeth. "We shall have to get some more canes to stretch matting on for the walls, and as we have used up nearly all the gra.s.ses we collected, we had better go at once to get some more ready for to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" cried Mary. "I'd forgotten! Do you feel quite well, Bess?"

"As well as possible."

"How long is it since you ate the fish?" asked Tommy.

"More than two hours--long enough for the poison to act, I'm sure. So we may make up our minds that the fish is perfectly wholesome, and there's baked fish for supper for all of us to-night."

"Hurray!" said Tommy, beginning to dance. "Let's go and get the gra.s.ses; by the time we have got enough to make our mats it will be supper-time. Oh! I am so glad you are not ill, Bess."

They spent an hour or two in gathering gra.s.ses, and returned to their little camp shortly before sunset, in order to cook their supper before dark. Tommy ran to the hole in the rock where the fish had been left.

A cry of dismay startled her sisters.

"What is it?" they cried, turning towards her.

"It's gone, every bit of it; oh, who has stolen it?"

She looked round with alarm in her eyes, and the other girls also glanced about them with consternation and anxiety. Was it possible that some one had been spying on them?

"I _did_ see somebody that day," said Tommy in a whisper.

"But who would want to steal a bit of fish?" said Elizabeth, with practical common-sense. "If there are natives here, they could fish for themselves, I'm sure."

"There aren't any cats in these parts, are there, Mary?" asked Tommy.

"I never read of them. But--good gracious!" she cried suddenly, "there are the bones!"

She had looked a little farther into the hole than Tommy had done, and there lay the skeleton of the fish picked clean of every bit of flesh.

"I know what it is," she said. "It's a land-crab's hole, and the wretch smelt the fish, I suppose, and came out for a feast while we were busy."

"The mean thing!" cried Tommy. "And we shan't have any fish for supper after all. I'll serve him out."

She ran to the boat and brought back the boat-hook, with which she poked vigorously in the hole. In a few minutes a large crab came scuttling out, at the sight of which she picked up her skirt and ran away, not liking the look of his formidable nippers.

They supped as usual on bananas and tea, resolving to choose a safer larder when next they kept fish for a future meal.

CHAPTER IX

THE LITTLE BROWN FACE

"I say, my hair is in a terrible tangle," said Mary next morning, after they had bathed. "I wish we had a comb."

In the haste of their dressing, the last night on the _Elizabeth_, they had done up their hair anyhow, forgetting all about their combs.

"What do the South Sea natives do, Mary?" asked Elizabeth.

"I fancy I've read that they build up their hair into a sort of huge turban, with grease and things."

"Horrid!" said Tommy. "I vote we cut our hair short like a boy's; you've got a pair of scissors in your housewife, Mary. Then it won't bother any of us."

"I don't think that would be wise," said Elizabeth; "we might get sunstroke. As it is we are protected a little. I'm going to let my hair down. Perhaps we might make a comb out of a bit of wood."

"A long fiddling job that will be," said Tommy. "I'm going to catch a fish for breakfast, and if it's like the one I caught yesterday, take out the backbone and use that for a comb."

"That's rather an original idea," said Elizabeth. "Won't our hair smell fishy, though?"

"Not if we wash the bone and then dry it in the sun, I should think.

Anyway, we can try."

The girls went off together to the rocks from which they had fished on the previous day. The first fish they hooked was of a different kind from the one whose wholesomeness they had proved, and Tommy threw it back into the sea, saying that she could not wait while another experiment was being tried. After a time she landed one of the right sort, and this, when baked, made a capital breakfast for them all. No biscuit remained, and Tommy sighed for bread and b.u.t.ter; but they enjoyed the change of fare. They washed the skeleton as Tommy had suggested, and set it to dry in the sun. Then they resumed their weaving. Elizabeth made some rough measurements, and found that a great deal more matting was required than they antic.i.p.ated, so that several days must pa.s.s before they could begin the actual building of the hut.

Mary and Elizabeth had both set their watches by the sun, and so were able to tell with reasonable accuracy the time of day. But they had not kept count of the days as they pa.s.sed, and now Elizabeth suggested that they should each morning cut a notch in one of the trees to serve as a calendar.

That night they tested the comb of fishbone. Mary's hair was the finest, and she managed to comb out its tangles fairly well; but when Elizabeth tried to do the same with her thicker and stronger locks, several of the bones snapped off, and it was clear that a new comb of this sort would be needed every day. She reverted, therefore, to her idea of trying to make a wooden comb; and during the next few days, Mary, who had had some practice in fretwork at home, worked with her knife at a thin fragment of wood.

It was a difficult task. She found herself quite unable to make the teeth equal in size, or equal in distance from each other. But she persevered, and on the third evening after starting the work she showed the comb to her sisters.

"Well, it's half-way between a curry-comb and a garden rake," said Tommy, with a laugh. "But I dare say it's better than fish-bones. Let me have first go on my thatch."

She began to operate upon her hair, a little yell every now and then proclaiming that the teeth had "caught." But all the girls voted that it was better than nothing, and they used it in turn every morning and night.

When there were six notches on the tree, Elizabeth said that she thought there was enough matting to complete the walls of the hut, so they carried their handiwork up to the knoll. Tommy climbed into the trees, and fastened the upper edges of several mats to the overhanging boughs, while the other girls stuck a double row of canes into the ground, one inside and the other outside the matting, to keep it steady. The various strips of matting had to be sewn together, and at these places an extra long cane was introduced, to which the mats were fastened by means of thin flexible tendrils. A day's work sufficed to complete three walls; the fourth side, facing the sea, was left open.

It now only remained to complete the roof. Next day the girls added other canes to those which they had already laid across the branches, until they formed a close lattice-work. This they covered with matting, and then deliberated whether to finish it off with thatch. As children they had often helped the thatchers at the farm, so that they would not find any difficulty in the work; but they guessed that in so warm a climate thatch would harbour insect pests of all kinds, and they did not feel comfortable at the thought of having such house-mates.

"Still, I think we must chance it," said Mary. "There's one thing to be said, and that is, that the whole contrivance is so slight and simple that we can make it all over again if necessary."

"That's all very well," said Tommy, "but we aren't spiders, and I shall be pretty mad if there's all this work to do again. I'd rather do something fresh."

"We haven't found much else to occupy us so far," said Elizabeth.