"What shall I do with them?" she asked helplessly.
"Cook 'em, of course," he replied, with a grin. "You get them ready while I go and fetch some water."
She listened in consternation, not liking to tell him she did not know how to cook. His women, of course, could work and do everything to help themselves. They could sew and make their own dresses. She felt ashamed of her own uselessness and was about to make confession when he hurried away. As he ran he turned and called out:
"You'd better take a shell and see if you can scrape off some of that rust inside the pot."
He disappeared, leaving her looking in dismay, first at the iron pot and then at the crabs, already striving to regain their liberty. She had not the slightest idea what to do. Her only knowledge of crabs was when their tender, white, flakelike meat was served in chafing-dish with delicious sherry sauce. How to accomplish the operation of transforming those crawling, dangerous-looking things into a toothsome dish she had not the slightest notion. Even if she did know, how could she touch the nasty things when they were raising their nippers so menacingly and already trying to scud away in the direction of their native habitat, the sea. The most she could do was to run after each wriggling deserter and with her foot turn him over on his back. As to the other order she had received—that was easy. She could scrape the pot with a shell. That was easy enough. Yet if she were busy on the pot the crabs would profit by it to slip away, and then they would have no supper at all. It was certainly a problem worthy of the Sphinx.
She was still trying to solve it when Armitage reappeared. In one hand he carried a gigantic cocoanut filled to the brim with sparkling, fresh water; with the other he was dragging along the sand a huge plant of unfamiliar aspect.
"Are you all ready?" he called out.
"No—I'm afraid not," she stammered confusedly.
Quick to guess the reason, he merely smiled.
"All right," he said pleasantly. "I'll fix it."