e than
enough of "Robinson Crusoeing" it.

"Now," said I to them as, their toilet at length completed, we moved
away from the stream, "I must again warn you both to keep well clear of
the house. I have already told you that the animal which you last night
mistook for a dog is a leopard. Now that you have arrived on the island
I shall be obliged to keep him tied up; but if you approach the house it
will be at your peril; for if Kit sees or scents either of you he will
probably break adrift, and you will simply be torn limb from limb. He
is a most ferocious creature, and will not tolerate strangers; so bear
in mind what I say and give him a wide berth."

"Bud I vants to see the house," protested Van Ryn. "How am I to do
that?"

"You will have to forgo that pleasure, so that's all there is about it,"
I replied dryly.

"If the brute interveres mit me, I vill kill 'im," threatened the
Dutchman.

"Will you?" said I. "Why, man, you would stand no more chance with that
leopard than if you were the merest baby. But--enough of this. You had
better pitch your tent on the beach, close to the cutter. Go down there
now and choose a spot to suit yourselves, and Billy and I will come down
later on with a sail, pole, and what other gear is necessary, and help
you to rig it up."

By mid-afternoon the tent--consisting of the brigantine's fore-course,
which I had salved--was satisfactorily rigged up, a trench dug round it
to carry off water in the event of rain, and a sufficiency of rude but
efficient furniture stored within it; and, somewhat to my surprise, the
pair who were to occupy it expressed themselves as quite satisfied.
Then, since it was too late in the day to do much work upon the cutter,
I invited the seamen to give me a detailed account of how they had fared
since the wreck. It was Svorenssen who undertook to tell the story, and
he told it in the coarse, uncouth language of the forecastle,
embellishing and emphasising it here and there, after the manner of the
shellback, by the introduction of words and phrases comprehensible
enough to me but confusing and quite unintelligible to a landsman. I
shall therefore take the liberty of translating the narrative into
plain, simple English for the benefit of my readers. Thus translated,
it ran as follows:

"It must have been about half an hour after Chips came for'ard with the
news that you had met with an accident, and had been carried down into
your cabin, and th