“Birds,” said Mark, stretching himself in a comfortable position upon the palm leaves, and gazing at the great stars in the purple sky.
“Ah, yes,” said Billy, “birds! and they’ll be roasting at the fire now, and spittering and sputtering, and smelling as nice as roast birds can smell. I wish we was in camp.”
He sighed and stretched himself on the leaves, grunting a little as he felt the hard rock through.
“Aren’t you very hungry, Mr Mark, sir?”
“No; I feel too fidgety about my father looking for us to want any food.”
“Ah, it’s a bad thing to—Yah!—hah—hah—hah!”
Billy finished his sentence with a tremendous yawn, and then rustled the leaves as he tucked some more of them beneath him.
“Roast birds,” he muttered; “and then there’ll be some o’ them big oyster things all cooked up in their shells!”
Mark did not answer, for though in his mind’s eye he saw the camp fire, he did not see the cooking, but the cooks, and thought of how anxious his mother would be.
“I should have said they was mussels,” said Billy, in a low voice.