“Hey, stop that, you’ll smash the canoe!” cried Jack, as, without any diminution of speed, the canoe was urged with wild shouts from the paddlers right at the rocky escarpment.
“They’ve gone crazy,” exclaimed Billy, “they——”
He did not conclude what he was going to say. Instead, he set up a cry of alarm as the prow of the canoe was hurled at the cliff at a spot where a regular curtain of lianas and other forest trailers depended from above.
Swish, whoosh, went the canoe, as it shot through the parasites and creepers. The boys instinctively ducked their heads. Instead of being dashed to destruction against the cliff, the frail craft had been guided into this singular cave, one of many along the coast, through the greenery portal. Both the Kanaka boys set up a shout of laughter at the expense of Jack and Billy, who looked rather sheepish at their late alarm.
They were in a dark passage that led into an inner water cave filled with an eternal sunless twilight that was very refreshing to them after the heat and glare outside. The canoe shot through the passage and into the cave itself, the boys uttering a shout of admiration the while.
“Look,” said Anai, pointing upward.
Overhead was a marvelously perfect, natural dome, with a large hole in the centre through which shafts of sunlight fell into the cave and were reflected from the water with a greenish light.
“Look,” ordered the Kanaka boy again.
The boys obeyed and gazed over the side of the canoe. Below them, through several feet of crystal-clear water, they could see bowers of coral, white and pink, with fish darting in and out of the chinks and crossing prismatically, while others hung motionless as if suspended, fanning the water incessantly with their gauzy fins. It was the most wonderful water picture the boys had ever seen.