“Hit you!” replied Tom; “I ain’t going to hit you. I wouldn’t be bothered hittin’ you. If you don’t know no better than to act the goat wakin’ your mate up in the middle of the night with a monkey trick like that, I got nothin’ to say.”
“Well,” said Dave, apologetically, “I thought it wuz the best way to. I did hear a nise.”
“There wasn’t no nise,” replied Tom, “an’ if there had a been, you went the right way to put the whole thing away.”
“Gimme some blanket,” remarked Tom, disgustedly, “and lemme go to sleep. I’m sorry I let you come now!”
Tom rolled himself up sulkily, and Dave lay and thought a while longer, and then fell asleep.
The sun was just rising when Tom woke again, rather cold and stiff.
He sat up and dug his elbow into Dave’s ribs.
“It’s daylight,” he said; “we’ll have to get into the scrub before anybody sees us.”
They rolled up the tent and blanket hurriedly, lifted their swags, and made for cover, Tom leading the way, stooping every now and then beneath the brambles, or pausing to disentangle himself from the insidious clutch of the lawyer vines, which reached out their long tentacles armed with strong, curved teeth to stay him.
Very often the boys had to crawl on their hands and knees under the dense, scrubby growths for yards.
At length they reached the centre of the island.
They were almost under the fig-tree when Tom Pagdin stopped suddenly and caught Dave by the arm.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered. “What do you see?”
“Ssh!” hissed Tom. “Look through the clearin’ there to the right!”
“I can’t see nothin’,” began Dave. “Yes I do; it’s a man!”
“Nick into the scrub here!” commanded Tom. “Quick! Lie down.”
The two lads crouched in the tangled growth.
“Ouch!” exclaimed Dave, as a lawyer vine caught him. “Me ear is tore off!”
“Shut up you howlin’ idiot,” murmured Tom, angrily. “You’ll get us found out afore you’re done.”
“What is it?” queried Dave, carefully hitching his lacerated ear from the persistent grip of the lawyer.
“How do I know?” queried Tom _sotto voce_. “I ain’t a clairvoyant; it might be a opposition pirate for all I know.”
“Tom,” asked Dave, after a pause, “do you think there is any pirates now—real pirates, I mean?”
“Of course,” replied Tom, “and if there ain’t there ought to be. We’re going to be pirates, anyhow!”