they stepped off in a line
over the soft sand, and the latter turned for a moment, looking serious.

"One word to you two," he said,--"medical adviser's word. This is a new
country, and you are new to it. Just mind this: with quiet steady going
you can do a great deal; but there must be no over-exertion so as to get
too much heated. Chills are easily taken in these tropic lands, and
they mean fever and weakness, so let there be no false delicacy or
shame, and fighting to keep up with men better fit for the work than we
are. If either of you feels tired, stop at once and rest."

"That's all meant for me," said Jack, smiling.

"No, it isn't," cried the doctor sharply. "It's meant as much for your
father, who has a deal more weight to carry than you have, and if I am
not much mistaken, Jack Meadows, Esquire, he is a good deal older. Now
you understand. No over-exertion, no drinking cold water while you're
hot. As I told you before, I don't want patients till I get back home.
I've come out to enjoy my trip, so have a little mercy, if you please."

They tramped on under the blazing sunshine, and where they could under
the shade of trees, starting crabs running in all directions, fish which
had been basking on the wet sand by the water's edge wriggling and
flopping back into the lagoon, and birds of brilliant colours from the
trees they passed; all of which excited a desire in Jack to begin trying
his skill with his double gun; but it was an understood thing that
shooting was not to commence that day, but every hour be devoted to
exploring.

Everything looked superlatively beautiful. Metallic-armoured lizards
darted over the dry sand to hide amongst the scattered blocks of
sun-baked coral, lovely butterflies and other insects flitted amongst
low growth, in company with tiny sun-birds which seemed clothed in
brilliant burnished mail, and at every few steps larger birds, perfectly
new to the visitors, took flight or hurried thrush-like to take refuge
beneath the bushes.

On their left the wondrously blue lagoon glittered through the tall
stems of the cocoa-nut trees which fringed the shore; on their right
they had the open park-like stretches of land, dotted with bush and
stately tree; and every here and there, through an opening, they had
glimpses of the forest, which rose upward covering the flanks of the
mountain.

At the end of an hour, long after--through the curving of the shore--the
yacht had disappeared