the fish
was safe in the canoe.

"We're entitled to dinner now, father," said Dan, laughing.

"Not a bit of it, you lazy boys; that fish is only big enough for the
girls. We want something for the men and child'n. Be off again."

With much more readiness the youths, now gratified by their success,
turned to the outlying rocks of a low promontory which jutted from the
inaccessible cliffs at that part. Effecting a landing with some
difficulty, they proceeded to look for crawfish, a species of lobster
which abounds there.

Leaning over a ledge of rock, and peering keenly down into a clear pool
which was sheltered from the surf, Dan suddenly exclaimed, "There's one,
Matt; I see his feelers."

As he spoke he dived into the water and disappeared. Even a pearl diver
might have wondered at the length of time he remained below. Presently
he reappeared, puffing like a grampus, and holding a huge lobster-like
creature in his hands.

"That'll stop the mouths of two or three of us, Matt!" he exclaimed,
looking round.

But Matt Quintal was nowhere to be seen. He, too, had seen a fish, and
gone to beard the lobster in his den. In a few seconds he reappeared
with another crawfish.

Thus, in the course of a short time, these youths captured four fine
fish, and returned to the canoe, swimming on their backs, with one in
each hand.

While things were progressing thus favourably at sea, matters were being
conducted not less admirably, though with less noise, on land.

The canoe containing Mrs Toc and the celebrated baby went direct to the
landing-place at Martin's Cove, which was a mere spot of sand in a
narrow creek, where landing was by no means easy even for these expert
canoemen.

Here the women kindled a fire and heated the culinary stones, while Toc
and some of the others clambered up the cliffs to obtain gulls' eggs and
cocoa-nuts.

Meanwhile Charlie Christian and Otaheitan Sally and the staggerer wended
their way overland to the same rendezvous slowly--remarkably slowly.
They had so much to talk about; not of politics, you may be sure, nor
yet of love, for they were somewhat shy of that, being, so to speak, new
to it.

"I wonder," said Charlie, sitting down for the fiftieth time, on a bank
"whereon time grew" to such an extent that he seemed to take no account
of it whatever; "I wonder if the people in the big world we've heard so
much of from father lead as pleasant lives as we do."

"Some of 'em do, of