“Dat is fus’rate, sah. Aha! you and I play at Crusoes. Aha! dere is nuffin’ like fun. Is dere, sah? But now look, marster. De sun go down, all red like one big slice ob pomola. You not well yet, sah. S’pose you go to bed?”
And Tom did, and found himself so strong next morning that he was able for a good long stroll.
Ginger Brandy came with him and helped to carry his gun.
What a mysterious looking place it was, and how black and dreary everything a little way inland looked! Those fearsome lizards basking on the dark burned rocks near the sea seemed the evil genii of the place. Tom could not look at them without shuddering.
But bigger and more powerful genii than they have been at work here and all about in ages long since passed away. The genii of volcanic fire and water. The soil was everywhere brown and scorched looking, extinct craters like shafts of founderies stood here and there, and ugly dark boulders lay scattered in the open as if they had been rained from heaven. Among these, snakes of many kinds wriggled hither and thither, or lay coiled up in huge old half-broken shells. The very bushes appeared black and blighted, and at a little distance seemed to have no leaves; while the birds that flew from bough to bough were dusky, and even the moths and beetles were sad in colour. And yet high above, the sky was blue, and the billows out yonder sparkled in his rays as if diamonds were being scattered on them by angels’ hands.
The shrubs and cacti that grew further from the sea had branches so wildly erratic, and shapes so weird, that do what he would Tom could not disabuse his mind of the notion that either he was really on an island of enchantment, or that he was dreaming, and might awake at any moment on board the ’Liza Ann.
The gun so far was useless; there was nothing to shoot except those huge elephantic tortoises, and that would have been cruel. They were as deaf as posts, but wondrous quick in seeing. At a little distance many of them looked like flat or rounded rocks; and it was therefore rather startling to one’s nerves on getting alongside an immense slab of supposed rock to find it had a long neck and awful head, and that it hissed louder than a python, and began to move away.
Tom was not sorry when the walk was over, and he found himself once more reclining on his sea-weed couch reading Shakespeare, while Ginger Brandy busied himself not far off making tortoise stew, with a bit of bacon in it to give it a flavour. The delicious steam went all round Tom’s heart each time Brandy lifted the lid to peep inside.
Tom and Ginger Brandy spent many days at the seaside, dragging the boat down sometimes and going for a sail. In this way they cruised round a considerable portion of the coast. They found no signs of life anywhere, however, and though they landed at several places they found no tortoises.[2]
Inland they could see high hills, but all the coast-line was bordered with black rocks, boulders, and scoriæ. The ugly lizards were everywhere, and swam in the water as well as crawled on the beach.