midday
The threads were rather coarse , but we believed that they might be worked up into a kind of sheeting which , while perhaps rather stiff and uncomfortable when fashioned into garments , would make a very good sail ; and I devoted every moment of my spare time to the gathering and preparation of the stuff , my idea being that after I had made a suit of sails for the boat , if the others still refused to undertake a second boat voyage , they might agree to my going away alone in search of help . But about a month later , when the four women were busily and laboriously engaged upon the tedious task of weaving by hand our stock of thread into a coarse , tough cloth , a dramatic interruption of our labours occurred which , but for the mercy of God , might have had a most tragic ending . I had by this time accumulated upon the top of the Peak a sufficient quantity of material to make a blaze and smoke that might be seen in clear weather at least thirty miles away , and I had therefore ceased to devote my whole time to adding to the pile , employing myself instead in industriously collecting the thread-like bark out of which we were making our cloth . Nevertheless it was a habit of mine to wend my way to the summit every morning immediately after breakfast , in order to take a good look round on the chance of a sail being in sight ; and I repeated the excursion daily after our midday meal , collecting a load of combustibles on my way and carrying them up with me , in order that in any case my journey might not be quite useless . It was during my afternoon journey on the day in question that , having reached the summit of the Peak and sent a long , searching , but fruitless look round the horizon , I turned to descend by a short cut which my frequent passages down had beaten in the loose , friable soil , when I was arrested in the very act of plunging down the slope , and my blood turned to ice , by the sight of a great war canoe crowded with natives , just emerging from under the cover of the western cliffs and heading southward , as though bound for our little harbour . As I still stood gaping at her , scarcely able to credit the evidence of my eyes , another , and another , and another followed , making four in all , each manned by some forty or fifty natives . They had been creeping along so close inshore that at first they had been invisible to me , hidden by the high cliffs ; but a curve of the shore line had caused them to head out a little farther to the westward , and so brought them within my range of vision .