“‘Let her go,’ I replied; ‘I’d just as soon spend a night in the lantern as in that infernal hooker soaked in sour oil and jammed full of bedbugs. I don’t know but what I’d rather like the change.’
“‘Like it or not, here we are, so we might as well take a look around before dark.’
“We hadn’t gone more than half a mile through the gigantic tussac-grass when I felt a peculiar sensation at my heart. The next moment I was lying flat on my back and Jackson was doing all he could to bring me to. I had the falling sickness, and I realized what the governor meant by the order that no person should be allowed to travel alone on the Falklands.
“In a little while I grew better, and with Jackson’s help managed to get back to the light, faint and weak.
“That old long-haired fellow was there waiting for us, and he expressed about as much surprise and feeling at my mishap as if I had been an old penguin come ashore to die. However, after I had a glass of spirits and eaten some of the truck he had cooked for supper, I felt better. Then the old fellow went into the lantern and lit up for the night. He then came back and joined us in the house, where we sat talking.
“‘It’s the first quarter o’ the moon an’ third day,’ said he, coming in and sitting down at the table and lighting his pipe from the sperm-oil lamp.
“‘I never made any remarks to the contrary,’ said Jackson.
“‘It’s this night, sure, and the Strait will be crowded before morning; then he’ll be here.’
“‘Who?’ I asked.
“Old man Jackson laughed. ‘That’s his friend the bird,’ he said, looking towards me. ‘He has a visitor every now and then, you see, so it isn’t so blooming lonesome here after all.’