“Certainly, for the present. Let’s get you sound to begin with, and let the matter rest till you can swing by your arms and climb cocoanut-trees without a twinge.”
“All right! I want to see my father and mother again, and I’d give anything to be able to send them word that we’re safe; and every night when I’ve lain down in my berth it’s just as if my conscience was finding fault with me for not doing something about getting away, for all day long I seem to have been enjoying myself just as if this was a jolly holiday; and you know, doctor, I can’t help feeling that I should like to stay here for ever so long.”
“You can be quite at rest, Carey, my lad,” said the doctor. “Certainly for the present.”
“Then hurrah for a day ashore and some more fishing! How soon shall we start?”
“As soon as Bostock is ready. He’s cooking now.”
“Yes, those two big pigeons. I’ll go and tell him.”
“And I’ll load a dozen cartridges with ball ready for the crocodiles.”
“Are they crocodiles or alligators?”
“Crocodiles, my lad. You may take it for granted that alligators belong exclusively to America.”
Carey hurried forward, led by his nose partly, for there was a pleasant smell of roasting, and he reached the cook’s place—a neatly fitted-up kitchen more than a galley—to find Bostock looking very hot, and in the act of taking the pigeons, brown and sizzling, from the oven.