"That's strange!" said the Skipper with ill-concealed scorn; "since you have seen everything else in the whole blessed world——"
"Where are they, Captain?" I inquired, interrupting the controversy.
"Along there, where that girl's standing. You go and get 'em, and I'll fry some more pork."
I took the pail which the Bo's'n had left near the fire and we started across the tree and along the beach in the direction which the Haïtien girl had taken. When she saw Cynthia approaching, she began to run with the fleetness of a deer.
"I guess she's gone for good," I said.
Long before we reached the low mangrove growth we heard a curious snapping, like quick, sharp taps with a hammer. "Click!" "click!" "click!" it sounded, until, as we drew close, the noise was confusing, and we had to raise our voices somewhat in speaking. We came to a little inlet, a sort of marshy place, where thousands of the low mangrove trees grew and pushed their roots and hooplike ends into the salt water.
"Now where are your trees?" asked Cynthia.
"Why, there they are, those mangrove trees."
"Oh, you call those trees, do you? Explosion of story number one."
"Story?"