“Have you ever been in the West Indies?” inquired Loftus.
“Never,” said Moriarty, who, once entrapped into this admission, was directly at the colonel's mercy,—and the colonel launched out fearlessly.
“Then, my good sir, you know nothing of heat. I have seen in the West Indies an umbrella burned over a man's head.”
“Wonderful!” cried Loftus' backers.
“'T is strange, sir,” said Moriarty, “that we have never seen that mentioned by any writer.”
“Easily accounted for, sir,” said Loftus. “'T is so common a circumstance, that it ceases to be worthy of observation. An author writing of this country might as well remark that the apple-women are to be seen sitting at the corners of the streets. That's nothing, sir; but there are two things of which I have personal knowledge, rather remarkable. One day of intense heat (even for that climate) I was on a visit at the plantation of a friend of mine, and it was so out-o'-the-way scorching, that our lips were like cinders, and we were obliged to have black slaves pouring sangaree down our throats by gallons—I don't hesitate to say gallons—and we thought we could not have survived through the day; but what could we think of our sufferings, when we heard that several negroes, who had gone to sleep under the shade of some cocoa-nut trees, had been scalded to death?”
“Scalded?” said his friends; “burnt, you mean.”
“No, scalded; and how do you think? The intensity of the heat had cracked the cocoa-nuts, and the boiling milk inside dropped down and produced the fatal result. The same day a remarkable accident occurred at the battery; the French were hovering round the island at the time, and the governor, being a timid man, ordered the guns to be always kept loaded.”
“I never heard of such a thing in a battery in my life, sir,” said Moriarty.
“Nor I either,” said Loftus, “till then.”