"Whatever it is I admire its civility," said Schillie.
"If it is they are quite harmless, though he looks very horrible," said I.
"He does not intend to harm us, it appears, so we will go on," said Schillie, "because I begin to feel very hungry, and we had better look out for a comfortable spot on which to dine."
"I have been hungry more than an hour, but you were so absorbed in your discoveries you would not listen to my hints. I should like to go to that little knoll, in which those four cocoa-nut trees stand, we shall have a little air then, and can see any danger all round, and, perchance find a cocoa-nut."
"Which you may have all to yourself, June, for I think them unwholesome things."
After a dinner and a successful nutting, I proposed a siesta, as it was impossible to move during the sultry noon, which Schillie agreed to provided I went to sleep first, whilst she watched for an hour, then she was to waken me, and I was to watch in my turn.
After a profound sleep of some duration I awoke, and found my guard in a helpless state of somnambulism, which was so very deep I did not like to disturb her; neither could I move, as the better to guard me she was lying half over me, I, therefore, though anxious about the time we had been sleeping, decided to sit still and wait until she showed some signs of waking. She had the watch round her neck, and I could not look at it without disturbing her, so I amused myself with watching the curious and strange things around me. I noticed some black things in the water, which came nearer and nearer, and I gave a start of pleasure when I perceived that they must be turtle; at last one landed and crawled in the most extraordinary manner some way up the sands. After spending what I thought was half an hour in the oddest movements and vagaries for such an unwieldy thing as a turtle to indulge in, it returned to the sea, and was the only one that landed. The sleeper at last moved, and I roused her up. At first she declared she had not been asleep at all, but when time and circumstances made that assertion untenable, she fell back upon the excuse that it was so dull sitting there with no one to talk to, and nothing to do, and, besides, her thoughts were very melancholy.
June.—"Your thoughts melancholy! That's the first time, then, since I have known you."
Schillie.—"I was thinking of my poor little children, and how wrong I was to go and leave them all."
June.—"But you have not yet been away from them half the time, or, indeed, one-third of what was originally intended, when we left England."