s were
lying on the sand; while the captain and the ladies were back, the
former with about a dozen small cockatoos, and the latter with
handkerchiefs full of jungle fruit, a good deal of which promised to be
valuable.

A large fire of drift-wood and old cocoa-nuts and their husks was
burning, making a fierce blaze, before and partly over which the fish
were soon roasting on wooden spits, the sailors being particularly handy
in obeying orders for anything which they could provide by means of
their knives.

The shell-fish soon followed, being ranged round the glowing embers to
cook in their shells, and before long there was an odour rising that was
little short of maddening to the hungry throng, several of whom directed
envious glances at the birds which were hung up in the shade to be
prepared for the next meal.

"Well, not so very badly," said the major about half an hour after the
fish had been declared done. "I missed my cup of coffee and my dry
toast, but I never ate fresher fish; and as to the scalloped gentlemen
in their shells, captain, with one exception I never ate anything more
delicious. Whether they were oysters, clams, cockles, or mussels, I'm
sure I don't know, and what's more, I don't care. I say they were
good."

"What was the exception?" said Mrs O'Halloran, smiling, for that lady
seemed to bear everything with equanimity, and always proved herself a
campaigner's wife.

"The exception, my dear," said the major, "was that spiral gentleman
handed to me all hot by friend Mark, who took it sizzling out of the
fire with a bit of bent stick held like tongs."

"But I meant that for Miss O'Halloran, sir," said Mark, flushing.

"Then, for what reason, sir, did you try to poison my daughter?" cried
the major. "That fish, or mollusc as the naturalists would call it, was
undoubtedly something of the whelk family; and if you can only find some
of them large enough to cut up in slices, we shall have nothing to ear
as to a supply of india-rubber shoe-soles. I've had some experience of
contract beef in the army; but that is calves'-foot jelly compared to
Mark's whelk."

"I thought it would be a delicacy, sir," said Mark, whose ears were
particularly red as he saw Mary laughing.

"And I thought it was a trick," said the major; "so, after wriggling the
monster out with my penknife and trying it fairly, I gave it to Mark's
dog, and he has looked very unwell ever since."

The major's high spirits, and th