First Night on the Island
After they had finished the eggs and the rice pudding and the brown bread and butter and the seed cake and the apples, the mate and the able-seaman did some washing up. The spoons had to be cleaned and the frying-pan scraped, and the mugs and pudding-basin swilled in the lake. The captain and the boy took the telescope, and found a good place on the high ground above the camp at the northern end of the island, where they could lie in a hollow of the rocks and look out between tufts of heather without being seen by anyone. Close behind them was the tall pine tree that they had seen when they looked at the island from the Peak in Darien.
Captain John lay on his back in the heather, and looked up into the tree.
“Properly,” he said, “we ought to have a flagstaff on the top of it.”
“What for?” said Roger.
“So that we could hoist a flag there as a signal. Supposing Susan and Titty were here alone, while you and I had gone fishing …”
“We’ve forgotten our fishing rods,” said Roger.
“We’ll get them tomorrow,” said John. “But supposing we were away fishing, and the natives came back, the ones that made the fireplace, then if we saw the flag hoisted we should know something was the matter, and come back to help. And it would make a fine lighthouse too. If any of us were sailing home after dark, whoever was left on the island could hoist the lantern, and make the tree into a lighthouse, so that we could find the island however dark it was.”