glorious ride, and they had not gone twenty yards before there
was a rush along the sands and then a plunge as Bruff came swimming
after them; while Jack, chattering loudly, came cantering down toward
the edge of the water, and then ran along the sands.

"We may as well take him in," said the captain; and giving orders for
the men to cease pulling, they waited till Bruff came alongside, Billy
Widgeon receiving orders to help him in at the bows, where he was
allowed to have his customary shake and go off like a water firework as
the drops flew in all directions, glittering in the sun.

"Now, men, give way again," said the captain.

The men obeyed rather unwillingly, and Jack, who was being left, ran
along by the edge of the water shrieking and chattering to be taken with
them, Bruff answering with a burst of barks.

"He'll soon go back," said Gregory.

Billy Widgeon looked appealingly at Mark.

"Let's have him with us, father; he'll be quiet enough."

"But I want to get on, my lad."

"Begging your pardon, sir," said Billy Widgeon respectfully; "me and my
mate here's willing, and he won't weigh heavy in the boat."

"Run in and take him," said the captain shortly; when one man backed,
the other pulled, the bows of the gig were run in to the sand; and Jack
leaped on board, chattering in duet with the dog's excited fit of
barking; after which, as they continued their way, Bruff seemed disposed
for a gambol; but Jack was decidedly stand-offish, from the fact that he
was comfortably dry, while the dog was most unpleasantly wet.

They soon settled down, however, and the journey continued, with the
shore presenting a succession of lovely pictures which could be enjoyed
from the boat far more than while trudging over the sand. Groves of
cocoa-nut trees, and beyond them the dense green of the jungle, with, as
they progressed, piled-up rocks, black, dark-brown, and glorious with
parasitical and creeping growths.

Then every here and there, through some opening where the trees were a
little lower, glimpses of the conical mountain appeared, always with the
film of vapour hanging about its point, and inviting an ascent to see
what wonders it had to show.

When weary of gazing at the shore there was a submarine forest to
inspect beneath them where the sea-weed waved and the corals and other
sea-growths stood up in the tiny valleys and gorges which the rock
displayed. Sea-anemones waved their tentacles as they looked lik