"Thank you," said Fitz dryly; "I'll take my choice."

"Ah, I expect you won't believe it, sir. But this 'ere's what it's for.

He leaves his front-door wide open like that, and there's a little bird with a long beak as has been waiting comes along, hippity-hop, and settles on the top of Mr Croc's head, and looks at first one eye and then at the other to see if he's really asleep, and that there is no gammon. He aren't a-going to run no risks, knowing as he does that a croc's about one of the artfullest beggars as ever lived. I suppose that's why they calls 'em amphibious. Oh, they're rum 'uns, they are!

They can sham being dead, and make theirselves look like logs of wood with the rough bark on, and play at being in great trouble and cry, so as to get people to come nigh them to help, and then snip, snap, they has 'em by the leg, takes them under water to drown, and then goes and puts 'em away in the cupboard under the bank."

"What for?" said Poole.

"What for, sir? Why, to keep till they gets tender. Them there Errubs of the desert gets so sun-tanned that they are as tough as string; so hard, you know, that they wouldn't even agree with a croc. Yo-hoy!

Haul oh, and here she comes!" added the man, in a low musical ba.s.s voice to himself, as he kept on dragging at the soft Manilla rope.

"I say, Burnett," said Poole seriously, "don't you think we'd better get pencil and paper and put all this down--Natural History Notes by Peter Winks, Head Carpenter of the Schooner _Teal_?"

"Nay, nay, sir, don't you do that. Stick to fact. That's what I don't like in people as writes books about travel. They do paint it up so, and lay it on so thick that the stuff cracks, comes off, and don't look nat'ral."

"Then you wouldn't put down about that little bird that comes hippity-hop and looks at the crocodile's eyes?"

"What, sir! Why, that's the best part of it. That's the crumb of the whole business."

"Oh, I see," said Fitz. "Then that's a fact?"

"To be sure, sir. He's larnt it from old experience. I dare say he's seen lots go down through the croc turning them big jaws of his into a bird-trap and shutting them up sudden, when of course there aren't no more bird. But that's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years, and the birds know better now, and wait till it's quite safe before they begin."

"Begin what?" said Fitz sharply.

"Well, sir," said the carpenter, as he hauled away, "that's what I want to tell you, only you keep on interrupting me so."

Fitz closed his teeth with a snap.

"Go on, Chips," he said. "I'll be mute as a fish."

"Well, sir, as I said afore, you young gents can believe it or you can let it alone: that there little bird, or them little birds, for there's thousands of them, just the same as there is crocodiles, and they are all friendly together, I suppose because crocs is like birds in one thing--they makes nests and lays eggs, and the birds, as I'm telling of you, does this as reg'lar as clockwork. When the croc's had his dinner and gone to sleep with his front-door wide open, the little chap comes hopping and peeping along close round the edge, and then gets his own living by picking the crocodile's teeth."

"Ha-ha!" laughed Fitz. "'Pon my word, Poole, I should like to put this down."

"Oh, it don't want no putting down, sir; it's a fact; a cracker turns mouldy and drops off."

"Well, won't this go bad?" cried Fitz, laughing.

"Not it, sir. You don't believe it, I see, but it's all natur'. It's a-using up of the good food as the croc don't want, and which would all be wasted, for he ain't a clean-feeding sort of beast. He takes his food in chops and chunks, and swallows it indecent-like all in lumps. A croc ain't like a cow as sits down with her eyes half shut and chews and chews away, sentimental-like, turning herself into a dairy and making a good supply of beautiful milk such as we poor sailors never hardly gets a taste on in our tea. A croc is as bad as a shark, a nasty sort of feeder, and if I was you young gents I'd have a study when I got ash.o.r.e again, and look in some of your big books, and you'd find what I says is all there."

"Did you find what you've been telling us all there?" said Poole.

"Nay, my lad; I heard best part of it from my officer that I used to go with. Restless sort of chap he was--plenty of money, and he liked spending it in what he called exhibitions--No, that aren't right-- expeditions--that's it; and he used to take me. What he wanted to find was what he called the Nile Sauce; but he never found it, and we never wanted it. My word, the annymiles as he used to shoot when we was hungry, and that was always. My word, the fires I used to make, and the way I used to cook! Why, I could have given the Camel fifty out of a hundred and beat him. We didn't want any sauce. Did either of you gents ever taste heland steak? No, I suppose not. Fresh cut, frizzled brown, sprinkled with salt, made hotter with a dash of pepper, and then talk about juice and gravy! Lovely! Wish we'd got some now. Why, in some of our journeys up there in what you may call the land of nowhere and n.o.body, we was weeks sometimes without seeing a soul, only annymiles--ah, and miles and miles of them. I never see such droves and never shall again. They tell me that no end of them has got shot.-- Beautiful creatures they were too! Such coats; and such long thin legs and arms, and the way they'd go over the sandy ground was wonderful.

They never seemed to get tired. I've seen a drove of them go along like a hurricane, and when they have pulled up short to stare at us, and you'd think that they hadn't got a bit of breath left in their bodies, they set-to larking, hip, snip, jumping over one another's backs like a lot of school-boys at leap-frog, only ten times as high."

"Did you ever see any lions?" said Fitz, growing more serious as he began to realise that there was very little fiction and a great deal of fact in the sailor's yarn.

"Lots, sir. There have been times when you could hear them roaring all round our camp. Here, I want to speak the truth. My governor used to call it camp, but it was only a wagging, and we used to sleep on the sand among the wheels. Why, I've lain there with my hand making my gun rusty, it got so hot and wet with listening to them pretty p.u.s.s.y-cats come creeping round us, and one of them every now and then putting up his head and roaring till you could almost feel the ground shake. Ah, you may chuckle, Mr Poole, but that's a fact too; I've felt it, and I know. And do you know why they roared?"

"Because they were hungry?"

"Partly, sir; but most of it's artfulness. It's because they know that it will make the bullocks break away--stampede, as they calls it--and rush off from where there's people to take care of them with rifles, and then they can pick off just what they like. But they don't care much about big bullock. They've got tasty ideas of their own, same as crocs have. What they likes is horse, and the horses knows it too, poor beggars! It's been hard work to hold them sometimes--my governor's horse, you know, as he hunted on; and I've heard them sigh and groan as if with satisfaction when the governor's fired with his big double breech-loader and sent the lions off with their tails trailing behind and leaving a channel among their footprints in the sand. I've seen it, Mr Burnett, next morning, and I know."

"All right, Chips," cried Poole. "We won't laugh at you and your yarns.

But now look here; there must be no more chaff. This is serious work."

"All right, sir," said the man good-humouredly, as he wiped his dripping face. "No one can't say as I aren't working--not even old b.u.t.ters."

"No, no," said Poole hastily. "You are working well."

"And no one can't say, sir, as I've got my grumbling stop out, which I do have sometimes," he added, with a broad grin, "and lets go a bit."

"You do, Chips; but I want you to understand that this is a very serious bit of business we are on."

"O!"

A very large, round, thoughtful _O_, and the man hauled steadily away, nodding his head the while.

"Serous, eh? Then you aren't going fishing?"

"Fishing, no!"

"Then it's something to do with the gunboat?"

"Don't ask questions," cried Poole. "Be satisfied that we are going on a very serious expedition, and we want you to help us all you can."

"Of course, my lads. Shall I want my tools?"

"No."

The man was silent for a few moments, looking keenly from one to the other, and then at the rope, before giving his leg a sharp slap, and whispering with his face full of animation--

"Why, you're going to steal aboard the gunboat in the dark, and make fast one end of this 'ere rope to that there big pocket-pistol, so as we can haul her overboard. But no, lads, it can't be done. But even if it could it would only stick fast among them coral rocks that lie off yonder."

"And what would that matter, so long as we got it overboard?"

"Ah, I never thought of that. But no, my lad; you may give that up. It couldn't be done."

"Well, it isn't going to be done," said Fitz sharply; "and now let's have no more talk. But mind this--Mr Poole and I don't want you to say anything to the other men. It's a serious business, and we want you to wait."

"That's right, sir. I'll wait and help you all I can; and I'll make half-a-davy, as the lawyers calls it, that I won't tell the other lads anything. 'Cause why--I don't know."

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

VERY WRONG.

Very little more was said, and the preparations were soon finished, with the rest of the crew looking on in silence. It seemed to be an understood thing, after a few words had pa.s.sed with the selected men, that there was to be no palaver, as they termed it.