ceful felicity, which seemed to
permeate Nigel's frame right inward to the spinal marrow, and would have
kept him entranced there at his work for several hours longer if the
cravings of a healthy appetite had not warned him to desist.

"Now, Kathleen," he said, rising and stretching himself as one is apt to
do after sitting long in a constrained position, "it seems to me about
time to--by the way, we've forgotten to bring something to eat!"

His expression as he said this made his companion look up and laugh.

"Plenty cocoa-nuts," she said, pointing with her pencil to the
overarching trees.

"True, but I doubt my ability to climb these long straight stems;
besides, I have got only a small clasp-knife, which would be but a poor
weapon with which to attack the thick outer husk of the nuts."

"But I have got a few without the husks in the boat," said the girl,
rising and running to the place where the cockleshell had been left.

She returned immediately with several nuts divested of their thick outer
covering, and in the condition with which we are familiar in England.
Some of them were already broken, so that they had nothing to do but sit
down to lunch.

"Here is one," said Kathy, handing a nut to Nigel, "that has got no meat
yet in it--only milk. Bore a hole in it and drink, but see you bore in
the right hole."

"The right hole?" echoed the youth, "are some of them wrong ones?"

"Oh yes, only one of the three will do. One of our crawbs knows that
and has claws that can bore through the husk and shell. We calls him
coconut crawb."

"Indeed! That is strange; I never heard before of a crab that fed on
cocoa-nuts."

"This one do. He is very big, and also climbs trees. It goes about
most at night. Perhaps you see one before you go away."

The crab to which Kathy referred is indeed a somewhat eccentric
crustacean, besides being unusually large. It makes deep tunnels in the
ground larger than rabbit burrows, which it lines with cocoa-nut fibre.
One of its claws is developed into an organ of extraordinary power with
which it can break a cocoa-nut shell, and even, it is said, a man's
limb! It never takes all the husk off a cocoa-nut--that would be an
unnecessary trouble--but only enough off the end where the three eyelets
are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye
with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large
enough to admit the point of its great claw