"I suppose it was in some such cliff as that, Ethel," said Morley, looking up at the tall rocky brow which overhung the creek, "that old Marco Polo, who, it seems, wrote about Madagascar in the thirteenth century, says the birds called the roc built their nests."
"Were they like Sindbad's roc?" asked Rose.
"Larger, says old Marco, in form resembling an eagle, and so huge that they would soar into the air with the largest elephant in their talons, and let it fall dead on the earth prior to devouring it; and that their wings, which, when outspread, obscured the sunshine like a flying cloud, measured forty-eight feet apart, each pen-feather being twenty-four feet in length."
"There is nothing like telling a good story when one is about it; but I hope the breed is extinct," said Rose.
"Yes; like the giant wader of Australia, if it ever existed at all."
As the evening closed in, with no thought of local danger or treachery, but enjoying the brief cessation from the constant toil to which they were subjected by the smallness of their number, and thinking only of the termination of their voyage and a happy future, our friends were all grouped under the quarter-deck awning, and Noah was enjoying a quiet pipe at the windlass-bitt, with a can of grog beside him.
Aft, the top of the cabin skylight had been covered with a white cloth and improvised as a table, on which were spread some of the luscious fruits and sliced water-melon bought from the Malay, Puffadder, and a bottle or two of the captain's best wine.
Then, that music might not be wanting, Ethel and Rose, uniting their clear, sweet, happy voices, while Heriot accompanied them on his flute, which he played to perfection, sang one of their favourite duets, waking the echoes of the rocks, and rousing out of the mangroves the stork, the pelican, and the samba, with its plumage red as fire: while the red sunlight died away, and the tropical constellations came out, and while the solemn shadows deepened in that lonely creek, the soft English voices of the two sisters so well attuned together, filled Noah's stern eyes with moisture, and his rough old head with sweet, sad holy thoughts of other times, as he listened, and sat alone, the last occupant of the once crowded and noisy forecastle-bunks.
That lonely creek was fated to present a very different scene about the same hour on the morrow!