fellow, and I
think would have induced people much older than himself to choose him for
their leader, especially if they required to be led on a bold enterprise.

Now, as we hastened along the white beach, which shone so brightly in the
rays of the setting sun that our eyes were quite dazzled by its glare, it
suddenly came into Peterkin's head that we had nothing to eat except the
wild berries which grew in profusion at our feet.

"What shall we do, Jack?" said he, with a rueful look; "perhaps they may
be poisonous!"

"No fear," replied Jack, confidently; "I have observed that a few of them
are not unlike some of the berries that grow wild on our own native
hills. Besides, I saw one or two strange birds eating them just a few
minutes ago, and what won't kill the birds won't kill us. But look up
there, Peterkin," continued Jack, pointing to the branched head of a
cocoa-nut palm. "There are nuts for us in all stages."

"So there are!" cried Peterkin, who being of a very unobservant nature
had been too much taken up with other things to notice anything so high
above his head as the fruit of a palm tree. But, whatever faults my
young comrade had, he could not be blamed for want of activity or animal
spirits. Indeed, the nuts had scarcely been pointed out to him when he
bounded up the tall stem of the tree like a squirrel, and, in a few
minutes, returned with three nuts, each as large as a man's fist.

"You had better keep them till we return," raid Jack. "Let us finish our
work before eating."

"So be it, captain, go ahead," cried Peterkin, thrusting the nuts into
his trousers pocket. "In fact I don't want to eat just now, but I would
give a good deal for a drink. Oh that I could find a spring! but I don't
see the smallest sign of one hereabouts. I say, Jack, how does it happen
that you seem to be up to everything? You have told us the names of half-
a-dozen trees already, and yet you say that you were never in the South
Seas before."

"I'm not up to _everything_, Peterkin, as you'll find out ere long,"
replied Jack, with a smile; "but I have been a great reader of books of
travel and adventure all my life, and that has put me up to a good many
things that you are, perhaps, not acquainted with."

"Oh, Jack, that's all humbug. If you begin to lay everything to the
credit of books, I'll quite lose my opinion of you," cried Peterkin, with
a look of contempt. "I've seen a lot o' fellows that were _always_