“O, yes!—it’s in Cancer, right enough. It’s better than the Equator: they are obliged to lie still there all day long; and it’s all swamps and steaming moisture and fevers and malaria.”
“Much nicer here.”
“O! Much nicer.”
“How lucky! This island is put just right.”
“The very spot!”
“There ought to be a ditch outside the palisade,” said Mark. “Like they have outside tents to run the water away when it rains. I’ve seen them round tents.”
“So there ought. We’ll dig it.”
They fetched the spades and shovelled away half an hour, but it was very warm, and they sat down presently inside the fence, which began to cast a shadow.
“We ought to have some blacks to do this sort of work,” said Mark.
“White people can’t slave in the tropics,” said Bevis. “Let’s do nothing now for a while.”