representation of idleness, there's just the model I should select.
They are a lazy lot."

"Yes, uncle, and twice over to-day I saw them talking together, and I
feel sure that they were laughing at our men because they worked."

No communication whatever took place between the strangers and the first
occupants of the anchorage till after dark, when, as Rodd was leaning
over the taffrail talking to Joe Cross, who said he was cooling himself
down after a hot day's work, the Spaniard's boat was dimly seen putting
off from the big schooner, and was rowed across, to come close alongside
as Joe hailed her.

The Spanish skipper looked up, cigarette in mouth, and nodded to Rodd.

"You tell your ship-master," he said, "that I have been thinking about
the birds and the spotted leopards and the big monkeys. I know a place
where they swarm. Good-night!" And at a word his boat was thrust off
again and rowed back towards the gangway from which they came.

"Well, let 'em swarm," said Joe Cross, as if talking to himself. "I
don't mind. This 'ere's a savage country, and 'tis their nature to. He
seems a rum sort of a buffer, Mr Rodd, sir. What does he mean by that?
Was it Spanish chaff?"

"Oh no, Joe. My uncle was asking him about what curiosities there are
in the country. That's why he said he had been thinking about them."

"Oh, I see. But how rum things is, and how easy a man can make
mistakes! Now, if I had been asked my opinion I should have said that
that there was a chap as couldn't think even in Spanish; sort of a
fellow as could eat, sleep and smoke, and then begin again, day after
day and year after year. This is a rum sort of a world, Mr Rodd, sir,
and there's all sorts of people in it. Now look at that there skipper.
He fancies hisself, he does, pretty creature! White trousers, clean
shirt every morning, and a red scarf round his waist. 'Andsome he calls
hisself, I suppose. He don't know that even a respectable dog as went
to drink in a river and saw hisself, like that there other dog in the
fable, would go and drown hisself on the spot if he found he'd a great
set of brown teeth like his!"

"Ah, Joe, Spaniards are not like Englishmen."

"Oh, but I don't call him a Spaniard, sir. I've seen Spaniards--regular
grand Dons, officers and gentlemen, with nothing the matter with them at
all, only what they couldn't help, and that's being Spaniards instead of
Englishmen. These are sort of mongrels. Some