longer where they were was to risk starvation and all its horrors. So,
in the longboat, which was provided with a sail, they started. Charts
and papers and the gold the skipper took with them. None of the crew
knew of the existence of the money; it was a secret which the captain
kept to himself.

A hundred miles they sailed in the longboat and, at last, the second
island was sighted. They landed and found, to their consternation and
surprise, that it, too, was uninhabited. The former residents had grown
tired of their isolation and, a trading vessel having touched there, had
seized the opportunity to depart for Tahiti. Their houses were empty,
their cattle, sheep, goats, and fowl roamed wild in the woods, and the
fruit was rotting on the trees. In its way the little island was
an Eyeless Eden, flowing with milk and honey; but to Captain Nat, a
conscientious skipper with responsibilities to his owners, it was a
prison from which he determined to escape. Then, as if to make escape
impossible, a sudden gale came up and the longboat was smashed by the
surf.

"I guess that settles it," ruefully observed the second mate, "another
Cape Codder, from Hyannis. Cal'late we'll stay here for a spell now,
hey, Cap'n."

"For a spell, yes," replied Nat. "We'll stay here until we get another
craft to set sail in, and no longer."

"Another craft? ANOTHER one? Where in time you goin' to get her?"

"Build her," said Captain Nat cheerfully. Then, pointing to the row of
empty houses and the little deserted church, he added, "There's timber
and nails--yes, and cloth, such as 'tis. If I can't build a boat out of
them I'll agree to eat the whole settlement."

He did not have to eat it, for the boat was built. It took them six
months to build her, and she was a curious-looking vessel when done,
but, as the skipper said, "She may not be a clipper, but she'll sail
anywhere, if you give her time enough." He had been the guiding
spirit of the whole enterprise, planning it, laying the keel, burning
buildings, to obtain nails and iron, hewing trees for the largest beams,
showing them how to spin ropes from cocoa-nut fiber, improvising sails
from the longboat's canvas pieced out with blankets and odd bits of
cloth from the abandoned houses. Even a strip of carpet from the church
floor went into the making of those sails.

At last she was done, but Nat was not satisfied.

"I never commanded a ship where I couldn't h'ist Yankee colors," he
said