"Wait," said Willie. He inserted a stout, clean strip of bamboo in the turtle's stomach, and stirred the stones thoroughly, so that they might make burning contact with all the interior juices.
In the meanwhile the brown boys had gone to the second and much larger fire, which was burning furiously. They cast on dry sticks and churned its heart so that the flames roared to Heaven. When its heat had been judged to be sufficient, they raked away the blazing wood from its bed, and Madame saw that the fire had been built upon stones laid together to make an oval saucer of about the same size and shape as the turtle's carapace. These stones under the fire had also become red hot. Under Willatopy's stern exacting eye the sand about the turtle was scraped away, and the beast, with the hot stones in its belly, eased down carefully so that not a drop of the precious juice was spilled. Then four boys lifted it, carapace downwards, and deposited the body on the hot bed which had been prepared in readiness as its last resting-place. Instantly, so that none of the essential heat might be dissipated, all the boys fell to work piling green leaves upon the turtle, and then sand upon the leaves until a mound, four feet high, rose above the hot stone bed upon which the promised supper lay stewing slowly in its own rich juices. Above and below the carapace glowed the hot stones, and within white flesh and glutin fizzled together in silent preparation. It was, as the Skipper said, Stone Age cookery, yet all the modern appliances of civilisation have not come near to equalling its performances.
"I feel hungry already," wailed Madame, turning sorrowfully away from the sacred mound.
"Eight hours," said Willie sternly. "No more, but not a minute less. The Turtle Will Then Be Cooked."
Madame issued invitations to all the officers and men of her escort, and as night drew on, tripods were put up round the mound, under which the supper was cooking, and ships' lanterns hung upon them. Wood for a fire was also prepared and piled up hard by, for the air, after sunset, rapidly cooled as the heat radiated from the shores of the Island. Mrs. Toppys and her daughters, all of whom loved turtle cooked native fashion, were eager to take part in the feast; and since the turtle was so very large, Madame offered a reversion in the hot corpse to Willie's brown boys who had so cunningly provided the apparatus of cookery.
"They shall eat," said Willie, "but not until we have finished." Willatopy, Lord of Tops Island, did not pretend to any truck with democracy.
I do not often describe meals in my books. They are usually functions of physical necessity rather than of intellectual interest. But I cannot refrain from indicating that turtle, cooked native fashion with hot stones, is a divine repast. A supper which, merely in anticipation, moved the silent Ching to eloquent enthusiasm, cannot be dismissed in a bald sentence. Yet how can one convey in words the supreme satisfaction with which our friends in Tops Island began and ended that memorable supper? European turtle soup, even that of the Mansion House banquets, is a pale, tasteless potage when placed in comparison alongside a carapace filled to the brim with the concentrated essence of turtle perfectly cooked in its own sacred juices.
At half-past nine that evening Willatopy, in tones of becoming gravity, announced that supper might be served. The company gathered about the mound in silence. The occasion was too solemn a one, and feelings were too deep, for smiles or speech. The ship's lanterns had been lighted, and rugs spread conveniently near to the adjacent fire. Willie raised his hand, and two brown boys stepping forward, cleared the sand and leaves from the turtle's shell. Then, with fingers carefully wrapped in wet leaves, they slowly prised off and lifted the plastron. Upon its stone bed lay the bountiful carapace, and within glowed in the light of lanterns a thick deep brown steaming turtle stew. Gallons of it! It is a poor wretched word, stew, but I am dredged empty of adequate terms in which to describe that gorgeous compost. The smell of it rose up like a benediction, and smote all present in the most sensitive nerve centres of their beings. They gasped and remained speechless. Madame alone retained something of her self-possession. She beckoned to her steward, and whispered the one word "SPOONS!"
The man handed them round, and, first, Madame, and then the others, prepared to dip.
But Alexander Ewing, towering, forbidding in his pale emotion, raised a warning hand.