The boatswain’s good eyesight might have been trusted. There actually was a crowd of turtles crawling over the sand.
So while Fritz and James remained on watch on the promontory, John Block and Frank slid down the other side of the rocks, in order to cut off the band of chelones.
These tortoises were small, measuring only twelve or fifteen inches, and long in the tail. They belonged to a species whose principal food consists of insects. There were fifty of them, on march, not towards the sea, but towards the mouth of the stream, where a quantity of sticky laminariæ, left by the ebb tide, were soaking.
On this side the ground was studded with little swellings, like bubbles in the sand, the meaning of which Frank recognised at once.
“There are turtles’ eggs under those!” he exclaimed.
“Well, dig up the eggs, Mr. Frank,” John Block replied. “I’ll belay the fowls! That’s certainly ever so much better than my boiled pebbles, and if little Miss Dolly isn’t satisfied——”
“The eggs will be warmly welcomed, Block, you may be sure,” Frank declared.
“And the turtles, too; they are excellent beasts—excellent for making soup, I mean!”
A moment later the boatswain and Frank had turned a score of them over on to their backs. They were quite helpless in that position. Laden with half a dozen of them, and twice as many eggs, they went back towards the boat.
Captain Gould listened eagerly to John Block’s story. Since he had been spared the shaking of the boat his wound had been paining him less, the fever was beginning to go down, and a week’s rest would certainly put him on his feet again. Wounds in the head, unless they are exceptionally serious, generally heal easily and soon. The bullet had only grazed the surface of the skull, after tearing away part of the cheek; but it had been within an ace of going through the temple. A speedy improvement could now be looked for in the condition of the wounded man, thanks to the rest and care which he could now obtain.