leave the room at all. I'll give you a gun. We won't be far away. But we're going ashore to see what's what."
"Yes, boss."
Chapter Two: THE ISOLATION
STONE Jumped down on the sand. McCobb followed. They crossed the beach.
At the edge of the forest-jungle they looked back.
The Falcon lay in the sand, her decks sloped and her funnel awry. They heard Jack's voice singing to the baby.
McCobb shivered from a combination of sentiments he could not describe. They rounded a screw palm, walked through a clump of ferns, and vanished. The trunks of ebony trees and tall evergreens rose around them. Through the trees ran nets of flowering vines. Moss hung from them and their lofty foliage blotted out the sun and held in a deep quiet.
The silence, however, was more illusion than fact, for it was constantly pervaded by the hum of insects and the chirp and flutter of birds. A broad and brilliant butterfly settled on a waxy orchid.
Then, in their path, a mottled coil moved slowly and the head of a snake was raised. Stone fired at it. The coils threshed.
"That's a big one," McCobb said softly.
They watched it die.
"Not as big as it might be," Stone answered. "It's a boa."
The ground rose to a miniature plateau over which the forest green was spread on mighty boles. On the western slope of the plateau they heard the sound of water and came upon a lusty brook which ran down toward the sea. Its water was clear and in a still pool they saw a swarm of multicolored fish.
Behind the plateau was thick brush. On the eastern side it fell away again to a tangle broken by huge boulders.
They went back to the top of the plateau. It was perhaps twenty acres in extent.
Stone regarded it. "This is in the right place as far as winds are concerned. And it's not far from the Falcon --"
McCobb nodded. "So I was thinking. The small stuff by the brook will make a good stockade. We can cut a road to the beach and put corduroy on the sand. Then--
maybe we could get the winch up here and rig a boiler."
"The winch?"
"Sure. We could use it to pull a sort of stone boat over our road. A railway to the ship. See what I mean ?"
"By George!" Stone exclaimed.
"Afterward we could haul rocks from the brook with it. Rocks for a cellar and chimneys. If we can dig here--"
"If dig, we can blast."
"So we can. It will take time."
"But it will be worth it."
Stone stared up at the trees. In the distance a small band of what were presumably monkeys scurried and gibbered through the leaves.
"If we took down about fifty trees--we'd have quite a clearing."
"And a view," the Scot added. In the presence of this prospect of creative work, his mind had become entirely objective. He paced through the shadows. "The cellar here.
The chimneys there and there. You have cement? Good. And if you can saw--why--
there's no limit to what we can do. We can build a private Taj Mahal. I imagine Jack is kind of an engine in himself. It'll give us something to think about--in any event. "
Stone nodded his head in affirmation. His expression, as he regarded McCobb, was one almost of relief. The engineer had admirably withstood the shock of his arrival on the island. Stone had considered other possibilities--the man might have been savagely angry, might even have turned murderous. He might have failed absolutely to comprehend the motives that led to the shipwreck. He might have been swept by despair and proved helpless and useless.
Stone had not expected those things--he understood the men who went to sea and he understood also the temperament of the Scotch--but he was none the less freed of a burden.
They made their way back to the ship, moving warily and with distrust. They thought of the boa with every step. They thought of other things to which they 'later gave voice.
When they came on board, Jack sprang from below decks. He had discarded his gun and in his hand was a sinister knife.
Stone smiled. "Hello, Jack."
"You, boss?"
"See
Christopher Knight, Alan Butler