"There are some large parrots come across from Anegada. You said you wanted some for your supper when next a flock came. See, there are two in the gros-gros down there. Give me the gun," and taking it from his hand, she cocked it and aimed at the two birds in the palm-tree half-way down the cliff.
"What is the use?" he said roughly. "They will fall into the sea below and we can never get them, it is too deep."
But ere he could say more she fired, missing her mark, if, indeed, she had aimed at it. Then she uttered an exclamation and dropped the gun, letting it fall a hundred and fifty feet below into the deep sea.
"You fool!" he said, "you infernal fool!" And he looked as though he were going to strike her for her carelessness. "You fool! it was the only firearm we had in the island, and now you have let it go where we can never get it back. Barbara, a beating would do you good. I have a mind to give you one or fling you over the cliff after it."
"It kicked," she said, "and hurt me. And, after all, it doesn't matter much. It was old and scarcely ever shot straight. I could do nothing with it."
"I could, though," he replied, still scowling at her. "It would shoot what I wanted. That was good enough for me."
And Barbara, as she looked him straight in the eyes, said inwardly to herself--
"I know it would shoot what you wanted. That is why it will never shoot again."
He changed the subject after grumbling at and abusing her for some time longer, and said--
"Where's that fellow now, that admirer of yours? I haven't seen him to-day."