les from the beach,
and the rocks of which now and then showed themselves above water. On
the rocks were perched crowds of gannets and men-of-war birds, while
others wheeled in the air, every now and then darting down into the blue
sea, and bringing up in their bills a fish out of the shoals which
rippled the water, or bounded clear of it in their gambols. The form of
the coast was that of a horse-shoe bay--two points of land covered with
shrubs extending far out on each side. The line of the horizon, far out
at sea, was clear and unbroken.

Ready remained for some time without speaking; he scanned the horizon
right and left, and then he turned his eyes along the land. At last
William said:

"What are you thinking of, Ready?"

"Why, I am thinking that we must look for water as fast as we can."

"But why are you so anxious?"

"Because I can see no island to leeward of us as I expected, and
therefore there is less chance of getting off this island; and this bay,
although very beautiful, is full of reefs, and I see no inlet, which
makes it awkward for many reasons. But we cannot judge at first sight.
Let us now sit down and take our dinner, and after that we will explore
a little."

Ready cut two wide marks in the stems of the cocoa-nut trees, and then
descended with William to the low ground, where they sat down to eat
their dinner. As soon as their meal was finished they first walked down
to the water's edge, and Ready turned his eyes inland to see if he could
discover any little ravine or hollow which might be likely to contain
fresh water. "There are one or two places there," observed Ready,
pointing to them with his finger, "where the water has run down in the
rainy season: we must examine them carefully, but not now. I want to
find out whether there is any means of getting our little boat through
this reef of rocks, or otherwise we shall have very hard work (if we
change our abode to this spot) to bring all our stores through that
wood; so we will pass the rest of this day in examining the coast, and
to-morrow we will try for fresh water."

"Look at the dogs, Ready, they are drinking the sea-water, poor things!"

"They won't drink much of that, I expect; you see they don't like it
already."

"How beautiful the corals are--look here, they grow like little trees
under the water,--and look here, here is really a flower in bloom
growing on that rock just below the water."

"Put your finger to it, Mas