phen said, as after a good sleep they ate a
cocoa-nut breakfast, "that we need not bother any more about the Malays of
that village. It is quite possible that we passed another last night,
though of course the sand-hills would have prevented our seeing it. The
question is now, what are we to do next?"

"That is what I was thinking all the time that we were walking last
night," Joyce said. "We can't keep on tramping and living on cocoa-nuts
for ever."

"That is quite certain, Tom, but there is no reason why we should do so.
There must be some villages on this coast, and when we start this evening
I vote we keep along here instead of going down to the water. Where there
is a village there must be fishing canoes, and all we have got to do is to
take one, and put to sea. I don't mean to say that we can get in and push
straight away, for we must have some provisions; but when we have found a
village we can hide up near it, and get as many cocoa-nuts as we can
carry. Besides, there are sure to be bananas and other fruit-trees close
by, and after laying our cocoa-nuts down by the edge of the water, we can
go up and cut as many bananas as we like, and then we shall have enough
food to last us ten days or so. There is one comfort, wherever we may land
there cannot be a worse lot of Malays than there are about here."

"That is a capital plan, Master Stephen," Wilcox said. "I have not been
thinking of a village, except as to how to get past it; but, as you say,
there is no reason why we should not make off in a canoe."

The next night they kept along just inside the trees, and had walked but
two hours when they found that these ended abruptly, and that they stood
on the edge of a clearing.

"Here is your village, Stephen."

"Yes; one hardly hoped to find one so soon. Well, the first thing is to go
down and search in the sand-hills for canoes."

Four or five were found lying together in a hollow some twenty yards
beyond high-water mark. They examined them carefully.

"Any of them will do," Wilcox said, "but I think this is the best one. It
is a little larger than the others, and the wood feels newer and sounder.
I expect she is meant for four paddlers, and she will carry us and a fair
cargo well."

"That is settled, then," Stephen said. "I propose that we go back some
little distance from the village, get our cocoa-nuts at once, and bring
them back and hide them in the bushes not far from where the clearing
begins. It wil