"
"Let us embark in our canoe," cried Jack. "The sea! the sea! Long live
the waves! they are not so hard as the stones."
I was very glad to have the opportunity of conveying my canoe back to
the port of Tent House; our important occupations had prevented me till
now, and everything favoured the plan: the sea was calm, the wind
favourable, and we should arrive at home sooner, and with less fatigue,
than by land. We skirted the great Bay to the Cabbage-palm Wood. I had
moored the canoe so firmly to one of the palms, that I felt secure of it
being there. We arrived at the place, and no canoe was there! The mark
of the cord which fastened it was still to be seen round the tree, but
the canoe had entirely disappeared. Struck with astonishment, we looked
at each other with terror, and without being able to articulate a word.
What was become of it?
"Some animal,--the jackals; a monkey, perhaps,--might have detached it,"
said Jack; "but they could not have eaten the canoe." And we could not
find a trace of it, any more than of the gun Fritz had left in it.
This extraordinary circumstance gave me a great deal of thought.
Savages, surely, had landed on our island, and carried off our canoe. We
could no longer doubt it when we discovered on the sands the print of
naked feet! It is easy to believe how uneasy and agitated I was.
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