“What do you mean?” said Carey, suspiciously.
“Dinner-time, sir; that’s what’s the matter with you.”
“Absurd. It can’t be dinner-time yet.”
“Can’t it, sir? Doctor’s been gone hours. Just you look up at the sun.”
It was undoubtedly beyond its highest point, and as he gradually grasped the truth of his companion’s words, though feeling no better, Carey’s despondency passed away, and he became cheerful.
Soon after, as the pair sat together in the shade of the cocoanut grove, eating the lunch they had brought with the greatest of enjoyment, the weary symptoms passed rapidly away, and the boy was himself again.
“I say, Bob,” he said, “we must have one of those cocoanuts. Couldn’t you knock one down by throwing the hatchet?”
“P’raps it would be throwing the hatchet, sir, if I said I could,” said the old fellow, with a grim smile. “But I’ll try soon. I say, I wonder how the doctor’s getting on.”
“So do I. I wish he were here to have some lunch.”
Carey had his wish a few minutes later, for there was a loud hail from the open, and Carey replied to it and hurried out from the shade where they were hidden, to find the doctor half-way down to the raft with his gun over his shoulder and a brace of huge crowned pigeons hanging from the barrel by their tied-together legs.