Page:The Swiss Family Robinson - 1851.djvu/313

292 his gun in the passage: not being willing to resign his bag of curiosities, he had dropped the gun into the abyss.

"You may take the gun I left in the canoe," said Fritz; "but, another time, throw away your stones, and keep your gun&mdash;you will find it a good friend in need."

"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,&mdash;the jackals; a monkey, perhaps,&mdash;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