"But that wasn't a dog, Smith, it was a cat."

"What, out here, sir, 'long o' the savages? Think o' their keeping
cats!"

"No, no, you don't understand. There are no savages here."

"Why, a-mussy me, sir, I see one looking over the stones yonder with my
own eyes."

"You saw a big, cat-like creature, with its round, dark head. It must
have been a panther, or leopard, or something of that kind."

The sailor looked at him and scratched his ear.

"Mean it, sir?" he said.

"Of course I do. Come along."

Oliver went on after his two companions, and the sailors followed.

"How about the canniballs, Tommy?" asked Billy Wriggs with a chuckle.

"Here, don't you spoil your figger-head by making them faces," said
Smith, shortly. "I was right enough, so own up like a man."

"You says, says you, that it was canniballs as had got a pot on over a
fire, and that they was cooking one of our mates."

"Loin! how I do hate a man as 'zaggerates! I only said I hoped it
warn't. It's you as put the pot on."

"I didn't!"

"Yes, you did, old lad, and I dessay I was right arter all, 'cept as it
was only one canniball, and he'd got four legs 'stead o' two."

Billy Wriggs chuckled again, and then smelt his hands, looked disgusted,
and scooped up a little moist earth to rub them with.

"Look sharp, they're close up," said Smith, "and I want to see about
what fire there is, and how it come."

"I know; it's one o' they red hot stones as come down and it's set fire
to something."

A minute later they were within fifty yards of the rising vapours, when
Wriggs roared,--"Look out!" and began to run.

For there was a peculiar rushing noise close overhead, followed by a
duet of hoarse cries, and they had a glimpse of a couple of great,
heavily-billed birds, passing close to them in the direction of their
leaders.

Oliver took a quick shot at one and missed, the smoke hiding the second
bird, and they passed on unharmed.

"Hornbills!" he cried, excitedly. "Come, we shall be able to collect
here."

"Hear that, mate?" whispered Smith, "hornbills, and can't they blow 'em
too?"

They stepped in among the stones and found the cat-like creature's lair
just beneath one of them, and plenty of proofs of how it lived, for
close around lay many of the brightly-coloured feathers it had stripped
from different birds.

"Evidently preyed upon these," said Oliver, eagerly, picking up some of
the feathers to examine.

"Hear that, Tomm