"Not me," said Alexander, who throughout had done nothing, and done it with his customary efficiency. "I have yet to taste a supper which Ching values at a thousand pounds of our grievously depreciated currency. It must be a supper worth coming twelve thousand miles to eat."
"It is worth swimming twelve thousand miles to eat, if you couldn't get to it any other way," said Ching, for once really eloquent.
The turtle had been killed and hauled aboard at half-past twelve. Half an hour later the motor boat, driven at twenty knots, butted its humped shoulders through the surf, and sped down the bay to Madame's camping ground. A crowd of Willie's brown boys awaited the arrival of the hunters. How they knew that a turtle had been caught I cannot explain. They did know, and wading into the water, they dragged it forth with enthusiasm.
Their knowledge, acquired so mysteriously, had already impelled them to light the fires for the cooking, and the stones had been getting hot long before the motor boat had passed the bar on her rush for home.
"Now watch, Madame," said Ching. "I have seen native turtle cooking in Queensland, and it is worth seeing. It may be Stone Age cookery, but we can't beat it with all our modern appliances. If the Lord Mayor knew what turtle really tasted like when properly cooked, he would let the Mansion House for what it would fetch, and live for ever in the South Seas."
"We want eight hours," pronounced Willie. "No more, and not a minute less. So jump lively. Madame by nine o'clock will be hungry, but she will be glad to have waited."
"I have a healthy appetite at all times," quoth Madame, "and am always eager for my meals. But if turtle is like what you suggest, I will wait for it till midnight."
"Eight hours," again said Willie. "No more, but not a minute less."
While they talked, the boys had cut off the head and the fore flappers of the turtle, and grubbed out its inside with knives. They hollowed out the beast as if it had been a pumpkin. Those inward parts which had been taken out were cleaned carefully, and replaced under the stern inspecting eye of Willatopy. His reputation was at stake, and he had determined that Madame should partake of a supper worthy of the goddess that he still reckoned her to be. Then a hole was dug in the sand, and the turtle levered up till the tail and lower flappers had been buried deeply. The headless beast stood up rigidly, and the hole between carapace and plastron, where its neck had been, yawned capaciously. The boys went to the smaller of the two fires, and clearing away the red-hot ashes revealed a dozen flat stones, about the size of small saucers. These stones glowed red as the ashes amid which they had been heated. They were picked one up by one between sticks, and dropped down through the cavity of the neck into the interior of the waiting turtle. As they fell, they hissed savagely, and a thick oily steam poured forth.
"It smells good," murmured Madame.