“Ah! you’re about right there, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom; “but somehow I am a bit disappointed.”
“Why?” I asked.
“At not getting ashore. Only think of it, Mas’r Harry! having a gun apiece, and going wandering up the country somewhere, seeing all there is in one of these islands.”
“Have patience, Tom,” I replied; “and I daresay you’ll get as much adventure as you’ll care to have.”
I did not know how true a prophet I was then. In fact, perhaps if I could have foreseen all we should have to go through, I might have shrunk back from my undertaking.
Farther and farther every day now we went on and on, putting in at first one island port and then another, but never having time to do more than just go ashore. A visit up the country was quite out of the question.
“It’s a rum un, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom, on our first landing; and his broad countrified face expanded into a grin as he stopped opposite a stout old negro woman who was selling fruit. No sooner did she see Tom displaying his white teeth than she showed hers—two long rows like ivory—and these two stood smiling one at the other till Tom recovered himself, and invested sixpence in plantains and oranges.
“They’re black enough out here, and no mistake, Mas’r Harry,” said Tom; “and oh, I say, just you taste these—they’re splendid.”
The waving cocoa palms and the beautiful flowers that we saw brought into the bright little market made me feel, like Tom, that I should like to go farther afield; but I comforted myself with the recollection that we should soon be at our destination, and that then there would be plenty to see and do.
Back on board once more, we spent our time basking in the sunshine, drinking it in as it were, for it seemed so delightful in spite of its heat after our dull, cheerless, hazy home in the winter season.