Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/193

 when dear mother used to speak of heaven," murmured Robin, as if communing with himself.

"Well, I have not thought much of heaven," said Sam, "but I shouldn't wonder if it's something like the paradise from which Adam and Eve were driven."

"There 's no sign o' natives as yet," said Slagg, who, regardless of these remarks, had been gazing at the island with eyes shaded by his hand.

"Yes there is; yonder is one sitting on the rocks," said Stumps; "don't you see him move?"

"That 's not a native," returned Slagg, "it 's too long in the back for a human being. It 's a big monkey—a gorilla, maybe. Did you ever hear tell of gorillas being in them regions?"

"I rather think not," said Sam; "and to my mind it looks more like a rock than anything else."

A rock it proved to be, to the discomfiture of Slagg and Stumps; but the rock was not without interest, for it was soon seen that a rope was attached to it, and that the rope stretching across the entrance to a creek was lost in the foliage on the side opposite to the rock.

"Why, I do believe," said Sam, suddenly, in an impressive whisper, "that there is a vessel of some sort at the other end of that rope, behind the point, partly hid by the trees. Don't you see the top of her masts?"