“Did I frighten you?” asked Uncle Dick, as the boys crowded up the ladder. “Your faces say I did. That boat out there is going ashore after some timber for spars, and that shrapnel was a notice to the natives to keep out of the way.”
“Oh!” said the boys, who were all greatly relieved.
They took another look at the boat, ran their eyes along the beach to make sure that there were no natives in sight, and then turned their attention to the rescued men, who were working with the crew. There were five of them—Uncle Dick said the others were not yet able to leave their bunks—and conspicuous among them was the giant whom Frank had picked out as one of the escaped convicts. All the boys opened their eyes as they looked at him. Even Frank was astonished. Now that he could see the whole of him he looked larger than he did while he was lying in his bunk. “What do you think of him, Mr. Baldwin?” asked Eugene, after trying in vain to induce his uncle to express an opinion.
“I think there is only one place in the world that he’s fit for,” was the reply.
Some other conversation followed, and when the boys went below they told one another that Mr. Baldwin fully expected that Waters—that was the name the giant had given—would occasion trouble sooner or later. “And if he once gets started it will take all the men in the vessel to subdue him,” said Eugene, somewhat anxiously.
“Will it?” exclaimed Archie. “I can show you one who will manage him alone.”
“Now let me tell you what’s a fact,” said Perk. “Dick can’t stand up against an avalanche.”
“You’ll see,” said Archie, who had unbounded confidence in his backwoods friend. “You’ll see.”
For a week nothing occurred to relieve the dull monotony of their life. The crew worked early and late, and under the skilful hands of the carpenter and his assistants the masts, spars, and booms that were to take the place of those that had been lost during the gale, began to assume shape, and were finally ready for setting up. The timber of which the most of them were made was brought from the shore, and Frank kept such close watch over the boats, and the crews and workmen who went off in them, that the natives never molested them. If the Malays had kept out of sight on the first day of their arrival, the boys might have believed the island to be uninhabited, for they saw no signs of life there now.