may be the opinion of flabby-muscled,
flat individuals, there can be no reasonable doubt that Rokens meant it,
when he added, emphatically, "It's fuss-rate; tip-top; A1 on Lloyd's,
that's a fact!"

Phil Briant, on hearing this, laid down his paddle, also wiped his
forehead with the sleeve of his coat, and exclaimed--"Ditto, says I."

Whereupon Glynn laughed, and Jim Scroggles grunted (this being _his_
method of laughing), and the captain shook his head, and said--

"P'r'aps it is, my lads, a pleasant sort o' thing, but the sooner we're
out of it the better. I've no notion of a country where the natives
murder poor little boys in cold blood, and carry off your goods and
chattels at a moment's notice."

The captain looked at Ailie as he spoke, thereby implying that she was
part of the "goods and chattels" referred to.

"Shure it's a fact; an' without sayin' by yer lave, too," added Briant,
who had a happy facility of changing his opinion on the shortest notice
to accommodate himself to circumstances.

"Oh, the monkey!" screamed Ailie.

Now as Ailie screamed this just as Briant ceased to speak, and,
moreover, pointed, or appeared to point, straight into that individual's
face, it was natural to suppose that the child was becoming somewhat
personal--the more so that Briant's visage, when wrinkled up and tanned
by the glare of a tropical sun, was not unlike to that of a large
baboon. But every one knew that Ailie was a gentle, well-behaved
creature--except, perhaps, when she was seized with one of her gleeful
fits that bordered sometimes upon mischief--so that instead of supposing
that she had made a personal attack on the unoffending Irishman, the
boat's crew instantly directed their eyes close past Briant's face and
into the recesses of the wood beyond, where they saw a sight that filled
them with surprise.

A large-leaved tree of the palm species overhung the banks of the river
and formed a support to a wild vine and several bright-flowering
parasitical plants that drooped in graceful luxuriance from its branches
and swept the stream, which at that place was dark, smooth, and deep.
On the top of this tree, in among the branches, sat a monkey--at least
so Ailie called it; but the term ape or baboon would have been more
appropriate, for the creature was a very large one, and, if the
expression of its countenance indicated in any degree the feelings of
its heart, also a very fierce one--an exceedingly ferocious on