Page:Adrift in the Pacific, Sampson Low, 1889.djvu/155

Rh River, and be getting nearer and nearer to French Den.

Thus the position was getting more serious, although danger was not yet upon them. In the south of the island lay this vast plain, cut up by streams, patched with swamps, dotted with sandhills, where there was not enough game to furnish the party with their daily meals. It was unlikely that Walston, as yet, had ventured to cross it; no report of firearms had been heard, and there was reason to hope that the position of French Den had not yet been discovered.

Nevertheless, means of defence had to be enforced with renewed vigour. If there was any chance of repulsing an attack, it lay in the colonists not being caught by surprise outside the cave.

Three days afterwards a more significant event happened to increase their fears, and show that their safety was more endangered than ever.

On the 24th, about nine o'clock in the morning, Briant and Gordon had gone out across Zealand River, to see if they could throw up a sort of entrenchment across the narrow footpath which ran between the lake and the marsh. Behind this entrenchment it would be easy for Donagan, the best shot of the party, to lie in ambush if Wabton's advance was discovered in time.

They had gone about three hundred yards from the river, when Briant stepped on something which broke under his foot. He took no notice of this, thinking it was one of the thousands of shells rolled up by the spring tides when they covered the plain. But Gordon, who was walking behind him, stopped and exclaimed, —

"Look here, Briant, look here!"

"What's the matter?"

Gordon stooped and picked up what had been broken

"Look!" he said.

"That is not a shell," said Briant. "That is—"

"A pipe!"

Gordon held in his hand a black pipe with the stem broken off at the bowl.