But at the same time I was provided with an
annoying, because unanswerable, question which had lodged at the
back of my mind like a crumb in the throat:
By what strange chance had the copra gatherer gone away and left
Crusoe on the island?
Since the discovery of Crusoe the former inhabitant of the cabin in
the clearing had been much in my thoughts. I had been dissatisfied
with him from the beginning, first, because he was not a pirate,
and also because he had left behind no relic more fitting than a
washtub. Not a locket, not a journal, not his own wasted form
stretched upon a pallet--
I had expressed these sentiments to Cuthbert Vane, who replied that
in view of the washtub it was certain that the hermit of the island
had not been a pirate, as he understood they never washed. I said
neither did any orthodox hermit, to which Mr. Vane rejoined that he
probably was not orthodox but a Dissenter. He said Dissenters were
so apt to be peculiar, don't you know?
One morning, instead of starting directly after breakfast for the
cave, Mr. Shaw busied himself in front of the supply tent with
certain explosives which were to be used in the digging operations
later. The neighborhood of these explosives was a great trial to
Aunt Jane, who was constantly expecting them to go off. I rather
expected it too, and used to shudder at the thought that if we all
went soaring heavenward together we might come down inextricably
mixed.
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