nd in the rainy season
we lay snug under the shelter I had made out of the old canoe, and I used
to tell him lies about my friends at home. And after a storm we would go
round the island together to see if there was any drift. It was a kind of
idyll, you might say. If only I had had some tobacco it would have been
simply just like heaven.

"It was about the end of the second year our little paradise went wrong.
Friday was then about fourteen feet high to the bill of him, with a big,
broad head like the end of a pickaxe, and two huge brown eyes with yellow
rims, set together like a man's--not out of sight of each other like a
hen's. His plumage was fine--none of the half-mourning style of your
ostrich--more like a cassowary as far as colour and texture go. And then
it was he began to cock his comb at me and give himself airs, and show
signs of a nasty temper ...

"At last came a time when my fishing had been rather unlucky, and he began
to hang about me in a queer, meditative way. I thought he might have been
eating sea-cucumbers or something, but it was really just discontent on
his part. I was hungry too, and when at last I landed a fish I wanted it
for myself. Tempers were short that morning on both sides. He pecked at it
and grabbed it, and I gave him a whack on the head to make him leave go.
And at that he went for me. Lord! ...

"He gave me this in the face." The man indicated his scar. "Then he kicked
me. It was like a carthorse. I got up, and seeing he hadn't finished, I
started off full tilt with my arms doubled up over my face. But he ran on
those gawky legs of his faster than a racehorse, and kept landing out at
me with sledgehammer kicks, and bringing his pickaxe down on the back of
my head. I made for the lagoon, and went in up to my neck. He stopped at
the water, for he hated getting his feet wet, and began to make a shindy,
something like a peacock's, only hoarser. He started strutting up and down
the beach. I'll admit I felt small to see this blessed fossil lording it
there. And my head and face were all bleeding, and--well, my body just one
jelly of bruises.

"I decided to swim across the lagoon and leave him alone for a bit, until
the affair blew over. I shinned up the tallest palm-tree, and sat there
thinking of it all. I don't suppose I ever felt so hurt by anything before
or since. It was the brutal ingratitude of the creature. I'd been more
than a brother to him. I'd hatched him, educated him. A