Palm Tree Island Page 12

  CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

  OF MY ENCOUNTER WITH A SEA MONSTER; AND OF THE MEANS WHEREBY WEPROVIDED OURSELVES WITH ARMS

  I think it was on the second day of our week's holiday that we had aterrible fright, which affected us the more because hitherto there hadbeen so little to alarm us. We had eaten our dinner, and were roamingidly along the high ground in the west of the island, when, lookingover the brink, Billy spied some nests among the rocks in the face ofthe cliff. We had never been able to obtain near so many eggs for ourfood as we wished, the hens laying their eggs, as I have said, insecret places which required much searching for, and for that we didnot on our working days care to spend time. But spying these nests,Billy was set on clambering down to them to see if they contained eggs,which would make us a very good supper.

  There was a narrow ledge that ran down the face of the cliff, endingnot far above the sea, which at this spot washed the base, there beingno beach of sand. The descent was so steep, and the ledge so narrow,that I was in some doubt whether the attempt were not too dangerous;but Billy, as I say, was set on it, and when I saw him actually beginto clamber down, I could do naught but accompany him, and soonoutstripped him, because he stopped more often than I did to pry in allthe crevices. The face of the cliff was much scarred, and certainlarge boulders in it seemed to me to be very loosely embedded; indeed,now and again a piece of rock would become detached when I catched holdof it to steady myself, and rolled and rumbled away until it fell intothe sea. You see by this how carefully it behoved us to go, and if theledge had not been a little wider than it appeared from the top, Ithink I should have given up the enterprise. However, we persevered,and in the course of our descent rifled of their eggs such nests ascame within our reach, the rightful owners of the nests, which weresea-birds, wheeling about our heads with a clamour of shrill andplaintive cries. We put the eggs in our pockets, having no other meansof carrying them, and when Billy sighed for a basket I said that wewould try to make one the very same day, there being plenty of materialfor weaving.

  [Sidenote: A Sea Monster]

  Here and there in the face of the cliff there grew trees, not of greatsize; indeed, it was a marvel that any grew, the ground being so hardand rugged. When we came near the sea, we saw a little cluster of akind of pine tree[1] (at least I judged it so by its exceeding pleasantsmell) which jutted out over the sea, one of the tallest of them,covered with great bunches of flowers of a bright yellow colour, verypretty, reaching up to the edge of the narrow path down which we wereclimbing. It was a strange tree, for instead of having a trunk thickerat the bottom, like other trees, it divided into a number of shoots,which entered the ground in the shape of a pyramid. I was justreaching forward