nder
t'im was how Dicky held it all."

"Come on," said Mr Button, "an' don't be talkin', or it's the
Cluricaunes will be after us."

"What's cluricaunes?" demanded Dick.

"Little men no bigger than your thumb that make the brogues for the
Good People."

"Who's they?"

"Whisht, and don't be talkin'. Mind your head, Em'leen, or the
branches'll be hittin' you in the face."

They had left the cocoa-nut grove, and entered the chapparel. Here was
a deeper twilight, and all sorts of trees lent their foliage to make
the shade. The artu with its delicately diamonded trunk, the great
bread-fruit tall as a beech, and shadowy as a cave, the aoa, and the
eternal cocoa-nut palm all grew here like brothers. Great ropes of wild
vine twined like the snake of the laocoon from tree to tree, and all
sorts of wonderful flowers, from the orchid shaped like a butterfly to
the scarlet hibiscus, made beautiful the gloom.

Suddenly Mr Button stopped.

"Whisht!" said he.

Through the silence--a silence filled with the hum and the murmur of
wood insects and the faint, far song of the reef--came a tinkling,
rippling sound: it was water. He listened to make sure of the bearing
of the sound, then he made for it.

Next moment they found themselves in a little grass-grown glade. From
the hilly ground above, over a rock black and polished like ebony, fell
a tiny cascade not much broader than one's hand; ferns grew around and
from a tree above a great rope of wild convolvulus flowers blew their
trumpets in the enchanted twilight.

The children cried out at the prettiness of it, and Emmeline ran and
dabbled her hands in the water. Just above the little waterfall sprang
a banana tree laden with fruit; it had immense leaves six feet long and
more, and broad as a dinner-table. One could see the golden glint of
the ripe fruit through the foliage.

In a moment Mr Button had kicked off his shoes and was going up the
rock like a cat, absolutely, for it seemed to give him nothing to climb
by.

"Hurroo!" cried Dick in admiration. "Look at Paddy!"

Emmeline looked, and saw nothing but swaying leaves.

"Stand from under!" he shouted, and next moment down came a huge bunch
of yellow-jacketed bananas. Dick shouted with delight, but Emmeline
showed no excitement: she had discovered something.

CHAPTER XIII

DEATH VEILED WITH LICHEN

"Mr Button," said she, when the latter had descended, "there's a little
barrel"; she pointed to something