fellow, and
had come to look for him, though he told Miles Soper that he should know
me at once if I were like what I had been when he went to sea. When
Miles told him that Mr Griffiths and Dr Cockle were with me--the
gentlemen father had put on board their ship at the time he had joined
the _Lapwing_--he seemed to have no doubt on the matter, and by degrees,
with Miles speaking soothingly to him, the balance of his mind seemed
gradually to be restored. He still found, however, a great difficulty
in speaking; he had been so long without uttering a word except when he
talked to his poultry. He was almost all to rights when Mr Griffiths
and the doctor and the other men came back. They seemed very much
pleased at seeing Jack, and all shook him warmly by the hand. The
doctor and Mr Griffiths told him that they remembered him well when he
was a young lad, first going to sea, little thinking that from that day
to this he should be knocking about the world far away from home. He
looked very shy and reserved, and seemed inclined to keep close to Miles
Soper and me, but in other respects he was as much in his senses as any
of us. The doctor had found several roots and fruits, which he said
were wholesome, and would serve us as food, and Jack offered to catch as
many birds as we wanted, begging that we wouldn't touch his poultry.
The doctor promised that they should not be molested while we remained
on the island, but said to me--

"You must persuade your brother to let us have them for sea-stock when
we go away; they will afford us sufficient provisions to enable us to
reach the `Pellew' Islands or Manilla, with the help of the birds and
fish we may salt."

When Mr Griffiths was about to go away, Jack asked that Miles Soper and
I might stay to keep him company, promising to go down to the boat the
next morning. To this Mr Griffiths agreed, and Soper and I remained
behind with Jack. When they had gone Jack said--

"I haven't food for all the party, but I can give you a good supper,"
and he showed us his store-room at the back of the hut, in which he had
several cocoanuts, some birds dried in the sun, and a dozen eggs.

He showed us a sort of trap he used for catching the birds without
frightening the rest. He quickly got a fire from a split log in the way
I have before described, and with the help of some fresh water and the
milk of the cocoanuts we had a very good meal. He had a supply of mats
like those on his be