l save time to-morrow."

"Why should we not go to-night?" Joyce asked. "It is only about nine
o'clock now, and if we get the cocoa-nuts near here, we can make two or
three journeys down to the boat with them, and be off before midnight."

"So we might, Tom. What do you say, Wilcox?"

"The sooner the better, says I," the sailor replied. "As Mr. Joyce says,
we can be off by eight bells easy, and we shall be out of sight of this
village long before daybreak."

"Well, Wilcox, will you and Mr. Joyce get the cocoa-nuts, and while you
are doing it I will creep round this clearing and get bananas. I can see
lots of their broad leaves over there. As I get them I will bring them to
this corner, and by the time you have got a store of nuts, I shall have a
pile of bananas. I think you had better go four or five hundred yards away
before you cut the nuts, for they come down with such a thump that any
native who is awake here might very well hear them."

"We will go a bit away, sir," Wilcox said, "but if we take pains to let
them drop each time just as there is a puff of wind, there is no fear of
their hearing them."

They separated, and Stephen, entering the clearing, soon came upon a
banana tree with long bunches of the fruit. Two of these were as much as
he could carry, and his portion of the work was soon done, and indeed he
had carried them down to the water's edge before his companions had
brought three loads of cocoa-nuts to the point where he had left them. He
helped to take these down, then the canoe was lifted and carried to the
edge of the water, being taken in far enough to float each time the surf
ran up. Then the fruit was placed in it.

"I wish we had poor Mr. Towel with us to take her through the surf,"
Wilcox said.

"I wish we had; but fortunately it is not very heavy."

"No, sir; it is sure not to be," the sailor said. "I have noticed that
they always put their villages at points where the surf is lighter than
usual. I suppose the water is shallower, or deeper, or something. I don't
know what it is, but there is certainly a difference. Besides, there has
been no wind to speak of since we landed, and the waves are nothing to
what they were then. Now, gentlemen, as I am more accustomed to this sort
of thing than you are, I will take the place in the stern, where I can
steer her a bit. The moment she floats as the surf comes in, and I see the
chance is a good one, I will give the word; then we will all paddle