in the afternoon we had caught more fish than we
could well carry home, five miles away; and after stringing the mullet
and bream through the gills with a strip of supple-jack cane, we went up
the beach to our camp for the billy can and basket.

And then we saw a sight that struck terror into our guilty souls--a
_Danse Macabre_ of three writhing black and yellow, long-tailed
"goanners," twisting, turning and lashing their sinuous and scaly tails
in agony as they sought to free their widely-opened jaws from the cruel
hooks. One had two hooks in his mouth. He was the quietest of the lot,
as he had less purchase than the other two upon the ground, and with one
hook in his lower and one in his upper jaw, glared upwards at us in his
torture and smote his sides with his long, thin tail.

"Oh, you wicked, wicked boy!" said my partner in guilt--at once shifting
the responsibility of the whole affair upon me--"you ought to be ashamed
of yourself for doing such a thing! You know well enough that we should
never hurt a poor, harmless iguana. Oh, _do_ take those horrible hooks
out of the poor things' mouths and let them go, you wicked, cruel boy!"

With my heart in my mouth I crept round through the scrub, knife in
hand.

"Go on, you horrible, horrible, coward!" screamed my sister; "one would
think that the poor things were alligators or sharks. Oh, my goodness,
if you're so frightened, I'll come and do it myself." With that she
clambered up into the branches of a pandanus-tree and looked at me
excitedly, mingled with considerable contempt and much fear.

Being quite wise enough not to attempt to take the hooks out of the
"goanners'" mouths, I cut the two ends of the line to which they hung.
They instantly sought refuge on the tree trunks around them; but as each
"goanner" selected his individual tree, and as they were still connected
to each other by the line and the hooks in their jaws, their attempts to
reach a higher plane was a failure. So they fell to upon one another
savagely.

"Come away, you wicked, thoughtless boy," said my sister, weepingly. "I
shall never come out with you again; you cruel thing."

Then, overcoming my fear, I valiantly advanced, and gingerly extending
my arm, cut the tangled-up fishing line in a dozen places; and with my
bamboo fishing-rod disintegrated the combatants. They stood for a few
seconds, panting and open-mouthed, and then, with the hooks still fast
in their jaws, scurried away into th