tend a thunderstorm.

Now that they had come to a halt, the leaders mutually confessed to a
feeling of great fatigue, while the listless manner in which the Indians
were going about their duties showed that they, too, were longing for an
opportunity to rest their weary limbs. Earle flung himself down upon
the short moss-like turf bordering the strip of beach and gazed
longingly at the rippling waters of the lagoon as they sparkled in the
slanting rays of the declining sun. Unlike the turbid, black and almost
stagnant water in the canals which they had been passing during the
day's march, the tiny wavelets which rippled in upon the adjacent beach
were crystal clear, and gave off the fresh, wholesome smell of pure
water; and when, a little later, Earle rose languidly to his feet, and
advancing a few paces to the water's edge, scooped up a handful of the
liquid and tasted it, he expressed the opinion that it was quite
wholesome enough for drinking purposes.

"And it is deliciously cool, too," he remarked to Dick. "For two pins I
would strip and have a swim."

"Not if I know it, my friend," retorted Dick. "I grant you that the
water looks almost irresistibly tempting, and I have no doubt that a
swim would be amazingly refreshing--if we could only be sure of going in
and coming out again unharmed. But who knows what dangers may be
lurking beneath that sparkling surface? The place may be swarming with
alligators, for aught that we know, and--"

"Why, you surely don't mean to say that you are afraid, Dick?"

"No, I don't," returned Dick, "and if there were any real necessity to
do so, I would not hesitate a moment to plunge in and swim across to the
other side. But when one knows that there is a possibility of being
seized and pulled down by an alligator, I contend that it would be folly
to risk one's life merely for the pleasure of a swim. I once saw a man
seized by a shark. We were becalmed in the Indian Ocean, and the fellow
determined to avail himself of the opportunity to go overboard and
indulge in the luxury of a salt-water bath; so he got a chum to go up
into the foretopmast crosstrees and have a look round. The chum
signalled all clear, and the would-be bather slipped surreptitiously
over the bows, passed along the martingale stays, dropped quietly into
the water, and struck out. And before he had swum three strokes a shark
darted from under the ship's bottom and--that was the end of him. No,
sir--loo