We satisfied the eager wishers, by promising to help to make huts for all who liked it, and, for the next week, as soon as school hours were over, every minute was employed in this new business. Madame alone preferred the tent, and soon had it to herself. From the sand the little colony of huts looked quite picturesque, perched upon little green knolls or terraces, and great improvements were made, so that ours looked quite a little vulgar affair in comparison to the ornamented mansions which soon appeared. The little ones had now good use for their shells, and the tasteful Sybil and Serena ornamented theirs with fresh flowers every day, and transplanted creepers and other things to train all over their abode.
We found amongst our stores a packet of garden seeds, I having desired the gardener before we left home to put some up, for I had heard that we could grow mustard and cress, endive and parsley, and even lettuces on board, and that it would be a very good thing for the children. Not having specified what I really wanted, on opening the packet we found every species of seed that a kitchen garden would require, and though we laughed at the parcels of beans and peas, and other things impossible to be grown on board, also carrots and turnips, yet they were most opportune in amusing the young ones, for every one must have a garden round their abode, and it was quite surprising to see how quickly the seeds sprang up. In fact, we had so much to amuse us, that a month passed ere we thought one week had gone, and the life we were leading seemed to agree with us all, especially the children. Oscar's fine open countenance bloomed with health, and he grew so manly and tall that we treated him with great respect as the King of the Island, while the small little delicate features of Felix were getting embrowned, fast losing their delicacy; his beautiful starlike eyes were radiant with health, and through the long dark eyelashes, so peculiar to that species of deep grey eye, the pretty pink colour seemed to be fixing its residence there at last.
CHAPTER XVI.
The girls being very much absorbed in their gardens, Schillie and I took a scramble one day round the point she had wished to go when we commenced building our hut. We privately told the servants if we were not at home to dinner, to explain the cause, and not to expect us until tea-time.
It was very hard work, but when we had accomplished it, we came to another bay, not so pretty as ours, but much more extensive. There were scarcely any cliffs, but the great trees came bending down to the water's edge in many places. Here Schillie gave full scope to her enquiring mind, and we progressed at the rate of twenty yards every half hour, while she exhausted herself in vain conjectures without end. Going over the rocks, among the caverns and crevices we found a curious creeping plant, the stems trailing two or three feet long, the leaves were rather oval, of a bright green, and the flowers large beautiful white ones, each composed of four petals tinged with red. At last from the unopened buds being so like capers, we tasted them, and they were so sharp and as acid as we could wish. So we decided they were, or rather it was the caper plant, and while Schillie felicitated herself upon having settled that matter satisfactorily, she groaned over the notion of our having no boiled mutton.
The next thing we discovered was a bright green shrub, apparently an evergreen, with bunches of white flowers, which were sweet scented. There being no seeds formed, we were sometime in making it out to be the coffee tree, but Schillie remembered once seeing a coffee plant at Chatsworth. So she was in high spirits until we came to another shrub with purple and white flowers. Some of the green leaves were exceedingly light, and some nearly black, and they almost seemed to be turning colour, as we looked at them.
We wasted a whole hour over this shrub and a tree close by rather small with foliage like a birch. It had fruit somewhat like a hop, only very much larger.
We now came to an immense Banana tree, out of which flew a cloud of blueish pigeons. The leaves of this Banana looked six or seven feet long and about one wide; the fruit was hanging in every direction, looking like large misshapen cucumbers. Benjie had taught us not to cut it crossways, but from end to end, as it tasted better when cut wrong. But it was curious when cut wrong what an exact cross was pictured in the middle. Twined in the Banana tree was an immense gourd plant. At this minute I shuddered with horror. We had been so secure, so careless, so utterly unmindful of any danger that I was quite unnerved at seeing a huge thing three or four feet long drop from the Banana, close between us. "Keep back, keep back," said Schillie, "I have got my hatchet." But she never could bear to kill anything, so we looked on the creature, and it on us. It was very ugly and formidable to look at, but it had a quiet eye, and after a little while it crawled gently away, and commenced trying to get up the tree again. "I think it must be an iguana," said I at last.