ied Carey; "we want to have a
long, long look at the things now we have found them. Look, doctor; oh,
do look! there was a fish glided by all of a watch-spring blue, with a
great bar across it like a gold-fish's."

"You are missing those flowers," said the doctor.

"No, I see them," cried the boy, with his face close to the water. "Sea
anemones; clusters of them like those I've seen in Cornwall, only ten
times as handsome. Look there, too, lying on the patch of sand there,
seven or eight, oh! and there's one--a five-pointed one, scarlet,
crimson, and orange-brown; but they don't seem to have any feelers."

"No; those must be star-fish--sea stars."

"Beautiful," cried the boy, who was half-wild with excitement. "Oh,
what a pity we are going so fast! Look at all this lilac coral; why,
there must be miles of it."

"Hunderds o' miles, sir," growled Bostock.

"Yes, it's very pretty to look at, and if you touch it, it feels soft as
jelly outside; but it has a bad way o' ripping holes in the bottoms of
ships. Copper and iron's nothing to it. Goes right through 'em. Ah!
that coral's sent hunderds o' fine vessels to the bottom o' the sea, the
sea. `And she sank to the bottom o' the sea.'"

The old sailor broke into song at the end of his remarks, with a portion
of a stave of "The Mermaid"; but singing was not his strong point, and
he made a noise partaking a good deal of a melodious croak.

"This is a famous region for coral reefs, I suppose, Bostock," said the
doctor.

"Orfle, sir. Why, as soon as you gets round the corner yonder, going to
Brisbane, they call it the Coral Sea, and there you get the Great
Barrier Reef, all made of this here stuff."

"More of those great oysters," said Carey. "I say, Bob, are they good
to eat?"

"Not half bad, sir, as you shall say. They make first-rate soup, and
that aren't a thing to be sneezed at."

"Then we shan't starve," said Carey, laughing.

"Starve, sir? No. I can see plenty of good fish to be had out o' this
lagoon."

"But are these the oysters they gather for the mother-o'-pearl?" asked
the doctor.

"Them's those, sir, and it seems to me here's a fortune to be made
gathering of 'em. Why, they fetches sixty and seventy pound a ton, and
the big uns'll weigh perhaps ten or twelve pound a pair."

"Then we must collect some, Carey, ready to take away with us when we
go."

"And that aren't all, sir," continued the old sailor; "when you come to
open 'em y