On these occasions Magilvray and Cassia-bud were usually left to keep camp.
More than once, however, the boatmen found themselves benighted, and had to pass the long hours of darkness on some lonesome part of the coast, to the no small anxiety of those they had left behind them.
On one of these expeditions they had a strange and wonderful adventure with the dreaded stingaree, or huge sting ray of Pacific seas. While out boating Fred had several times come across these veritable "sea devils" floating on the surface of the water, and the desire to capture a specimen got possession of him. It would form a desirable change of diet at all events, for the red flesh of this fiend-fish is said to be exceedingly palatable.
These "terrible skate," as Frank termed them, grow to an immense size, some being as much as twelve feet long without the tail, and nearly ten feet in breadth of beam. The strength of a monster like this is truly astonishing. But the stingaree is armed with a dart and spines in his tail that make him the most dreaded of all fish that swim.
Some species have but a single barbed dart at the end of the tail. If a human being is struck with this in the body, there is no chance of life left; for the dart is poisonous, and a painful, nay even agonizing, death is the only result that can be looked for. If the dart has struck the arm or leg it breaks off, and if it be not cut out from the other side the flesh soon mortifies, and the unhappy man dies more lingeringly.
But this creature, at least one species, has also the power to shoot poisoned spines or darts at his foe, and these latter can pierce even a boat, so hard and strong are they. One would have thought that monsters like these were best left alone. Fred was of a different opinion quite.
So all preparations were made to go on the war-path after them.
Quambo was for many evenings busily engaged fashioning the harpoons from a species of very hard wood found in the island, rendered doubly hard by being half burned in the fire. He also made several long spears from the same tree. To one of these he attached a strong double-edged or dagger knife.
Assisted by Cassia-bud, Quambo also made a large number of fathoms of stout rope from fibrous stuff obtained from the cocoanut and pandanus trees.
All being ready the boat was watered and provisioned one evening, and next day at early dawn, and after a still more early breakfast, they put to sea in quest of adventure.