“Oh, there warn’t no time to feel, Mr Mark, sir. I went down so quickly.”
“Well, what did it seem like?” said Mark.
“Don’t know, sir. I was in such a hurry,” said Billy.
There was a laugh at this, in which Billy joined.
“You can’t give us any description, then?” said the captain smiling.
“No, sir. I only found out one thing—I didn’t seem to be wanted down there, being in the way, as you may say, and likely to stop the pipes. And now, Mr Small, sir, I’d take it kindly if you’d come in the wood there with me and lend a hand while I wring all the wet I can out o’ my things, as’ll make ’em dry more handy.”
The boatswain nodded, and the pair went in among the trees, leaving the others discussing the narrow escapes and sending a stone or two down, and then a great dead dry stump of a tree-fern, all of which were shot up again, the stones after an interval, the fern stump, which was as long as Billy Widgeon and thicker round, coming up again directly.
“Why, major,” said the captain at last, “if you had told me all this some day after dinner back in England, I’m afraid I shouldn’t have believed you.”
“I’m sure I should not have believed you,” said the major laughing. “It sounds like a sea-serpent story, and I don’t think I shall ever venture to tell it unless I can produce the man.”
At that moment Billy came back out of the jungle, looking very ill-tempered, and his first act as the fount played again, was to go close to the edge of the basin and try the temperature of the water.