“How do you know?”
“Trees all standing in the other direction, and yes, there are others out that way,” he said, pointing. “It’s plain enough, the wave swept right across this low level. You can see how the trunks lie and how the rocks and the shells have been borne along. Far as I can make out the wave has cleared a track about a dozen miles wide. May be twenty. Why, you gentlemen seemed to be quite pleased.”
“Why not?” cried Oliver. “It’s grand. Look at the work cut out for us. We want all the British Museum staff to help.”
“Better have my crew, then, for there’s nothing for us to do. The brig’s fast settled down on an even keel. I say, Mr Panton, kick me or pinch me, please.”
“What for?”
“Because I must be asleep and all this a dream. No, it’s real enough,” he said, sadly; “wait till I get a glass.”
He went back to the cabin and returned directly with a telescope.
“I’ll go up to the main-top,” he said, “and have a look round.”
The three naturalists were too much taken up by the endless objects of interest spread around them to pay much heed to his words, so that he had mounted to the main-top and then to the topgallant masthead before his words took their attention again, just too, as plainly enough they could make a huge animal of the crocodile kind slowly crawling along the edge of a pool about a quarter of a mile away.
“Here you are, gentlemen,” the mate shouted.