Then Cathie built a small raft, and in due course Aunt Jannet Harvey was seated on it with many startled exclamations, and wafted herself uncouthly out into the lagoon. She was provided with two fishing lines and a supply of bait, and a rope to the shore lest she should disappear entirely from human ken, and she had instructions to catch all the fish she could for the amplification of the larder.
And Blair, when he had made sure of her safety, and turned to go up the valley to cross the hills, could hardly contain himself at sight of her face, in which determination to catch struggled desperately with horror at thought of pulling the hooks out of what she caught.
"This is a change from Kensington, Aunt Jannet, isn't it? You're quite sure you won't tumble overboard?" had been his jovial parting word.
"I'll t—try not, Kenneth. D—do you think it hurts them much to have the hooks pulled out?"
"If you leave them for a few minutes they'll die quite comfortably. Then it won't hurt them. Anyway, you see we need them."
So Aunt Jannet pursed her lips valiantly, and cast in the lines he had baited for her, and watched him and Captain Cathie with one eye, while the other waited on her lines in fear and expectation.
They waved her an adieu at the turn of the valley, and in her attempt to reply to it she frightened away a swarm of eager nibblers and nearly fell overboard herself.
"Yes," she said to herself, "it's a great change from Kensington. But if that child Jean can stand it, I can. And she seems as happy as a lark. That's partly Kenni-Kenni, of course. Oh dear, I've caught something! Whatever am I to do now?"
She looked wildly round for assistance, but the men were climbing the hill, laden with provisions for the brown folk. So she tightened her lips and hauled in her line, and at last drew her first fish on to the raft. And then, after a pitiful look at its changing colours, she turned her head away as far as she could, suppressed a strong inclination to throw her victim back into the water, and waited for the poor thing to die comfortably.
When Jean and Kenni-Kenni came down to inquire how she was getting on, she was quite herself again.